Pieces coming together

My college days are quickly approaching their end. It is almost March and I graduate May 1st, so I have just about 2 months of college left. That is crazy! The time is right. I am ready to graduate.

So, for a long time when people would ask me what I was going to do when I graduated I could only tell them that I wanted to work towards returning to Tanzania. this is still true, but I now have definite plans that will help me work towards that.

Those definite plans include moving to Jackson, Mississippi in August to do an internship with Entergy. I will be working with the Nuclear Operations department.

I go back and forth with how I feel about my job/internship right now. I still think the company seems like a great company to work for and almost everyone likes working there, but I just do not look forward to going to work and do not particularly enjoy what I do. I think sometimes it’s just the specific position I am in is not what suits me best, but other times I think it is more related to thinking that my job does not have greater significance in the world or community or people’s lives, but really I don’t know. I think it will be good for me to try another internship with a different company, although both companies deal with energy and utilities. And then there is the part of me that thinks maybe I am meant to do something that is more directly connected to benefiting individual people or a job that I just really believe is making a positive impact on the world – making the world a better place.

I think about teaching. I wonder if I will be a math or science teacher someday. I find my time working with students for the class I TA to be very satisfying. I really enjoy helping a student “get it” – when they do not understand something and then through working with them eventually they understand. To see that change from really not understanding to getting it or even just beginning to grasp the concepts. It is truly satisfying to be apart of that process. I hope that when I go back to Tanzania I will be able to directly work on some education projects with the orphanage. That might mean developing and organizing an after school program for the younger kids or teaching science at the secondary school or starting a reading or writing program. There are so many possibilities and these possibilities excite me.

Well…lots for me to think about and still many things to be determined about the next year of my life, but I am glad to have at least one more thing decided. Mississippi for 4 months and a source of income that will help me make it back to Tanzania.