so, grad school eh?

for those of you who don't know i'm currently in my first semester as an ASU graduate student. after a rough year off not knowing what to do with myself and a few different options not going as planned i finally decided to go back to school and get my masters in secondary education. a jr. high math teacher to be exact. and before anyone oohs and ahhs at this, keep in mind that i'm probably in the easiest program possible. (i didn't even need to take the GRE to apply which basically made it number one on my list). but it is a masters nonetheless.

when i was younger and a bit more naive i always said that i would be getting AT LEAST my masters and then decide if i wanted anything else after that. well, enter my freshman year at BYU and all of that naiveness was wiped away. college was hard and i was lucky to just make it through that first year. i somehow graduated with my bachelors in only 4 years (which included a semester abroad and only one summer of classes) but was pretty determined to never go back to school. well, when you major in "home and family living" (which by the way i'm not knocking, i absolutely loved it!) you kinda need a little more than a few sewing and family relations classes to support yourself. enter teaching.

so here i am at school again and will be graduated with my teacher's certificate come december 2010. that means i graduated high school in '04, bachelors in '08, and a masters in '10. the numbers work out nicely and if you haven't noticed form my horrible grammar and written word, numbers happen to be my thing, especially when they work out so beautifully.

i've thought a lot about this lately though because when i see some of my friends they always say "wow! i can't believe you're graduated already, it's going to take me forever!" and i always follow up with "yeah, but you're married with a two year old." it's as if we focus on the others' accomplishments without taking credit for our very own. we both think the other is amazing because they have something we don't have ourselves yet. the truth is though that we can both take pride in what we have accomplished thus far. an education and motherhood. who's to say one is better than the other?

by the way, i just turned twenty four last week. i may not be where i thought i would be at this age but i've done a lot and have a lot to show for my meager 24 years, so i feel good about the way things turned out.