Why did I go to grad school?

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a follow up from - Why did I become a teacher?

Most of my life has been about plans and list making (I blame my mother). I made this list when I was 16:

-Go to college (Check)
-Find Husband in college (Check)
-Get Married (Check)
-Become successful engineer/archaeologist living in Africa (this is where it starts to get fuzzy - as well as way to influenced by my love of Indiana Jones)

So when I made the decision to become a teacher (see previous post) I made this list (and it is sequential)
-Graduate (Check)
-Get Married (Check)
-Teach school (Check)
-Have kids before 30 (Ummm...)
-Stay at home with kids (gulp)
-Go to grad school before reentering the workforce (Ummm...gulp..)

So as you can see my "list" did not exactly pan out. Now I have thrown out my timeline lists and discovered that life just kind of works itself out. I intended to make teaching high school my career (unless George Lucas called asking for my input on a script) I intended to have kids and stay-at-home. I intended to have the house with the white picket fence. Yet, deep down I knew that I would never be happy with a cookie cutter life (and luckily I married someone of the same mind). So when life changed - I change and I enjoyed the ride.

OK, so back to my current timeline....

When we moved back to NC from Maryland - I really wanted to get back into education and find the perfect job. When the position at NC State came up and I got it - grad school was not on my mind. But suddenly I was emersed in the world of academia and I needed to be in grad school just to catch up (hell I just needed to understand what they were saying!) I waffled between Tech Ed, Training & Development, & what I finally settled on, Instructional technology.

I love my college, I love my program, but I also began to love the learning process of graduate school. The dialog, the discussions (Which is probably why I like blogging) and in all honesty it was harder, but better than undergrad. It took everything I had to finish my coursework while I was pregnant (2 semesters of 2 course while working full time) and then 2 courses last semester when I returned from work from maternity leave.

Yet, I found myself stuck. The proposal I had written for my research no longer inspired me. It was antiquated in my mind (the subject was PowerPoint and How much was too much info to put on a slide) and no longer thrilled me. So what did I do - I ignored it. Like all good procrastinators I let it slide and then fester in the back of my mind. So what do you do? Stick with what is already there? and uninspiring? or start from scratch? and do something passionate?

I hope to be passionate and start in a new direction. We'll see how it works out....