When I was younger, I thought that being the secretary seemed like a really good idea. It seemed like such a nice job, not knowing anything about jobs. So when I graduated, I thought out jobs as an administrative assistant. My sister had recently died and so I chose the healthcare field in which to search. (What I actually wanted was to be a secretary for a publishing house and have them be like gosh we’re all out of good books do you have any, but that seemed like a fairly unlikely scenario so I went with the healthcare.)

Years later, I was working as an administrative coordinator for a women’s health facility. Formerly incarcerated or formerly homeless or both, the women were allowed to live in the house rent-free for as long as it took them to get a job and a home. It was by no means a perfect system and we had a lot of challenges and admittedly failures, but the successes were so enriching for my soul. My director was leaving to work for a different part of the company, and when I applied for the job, they told me that the only reason they wouldn’t hire me is because I didn’t have a Masters. Thus my quest began.

And then I moved to Salt Lake City, and forgot about my goals, and just trying to get a job was so disheartening that when I finally did, I stuck with it for about a year and a half before going back to school. In the interim I did my prerequisites for the Masters program, at the community college, which took about a year. Last August I started my masters program, and I will be done with the first year of classes on April 26, my birthday.

I will be working at the Facility, about 10 minutes away from my home, for my practicum next year. Obviously I’m not going to say exactly where I am going to work, I never do, but it is a very exciting practicum because it might lead into a job at the same location. And even if this location is not hiring, this organization works in every state of the union, so if we have to move for an amazing job it wouldn’t really be that terrible.

Writing is exhausting, but so worth it. Goodnight loyal reader.