nau.

i've been thinking a lot about nau. there are so many reasons why i should go back and so few reasons why i shouldn't. everyone keeps telling me i should do whatever takes to go to the school i want to go to. i love nau, and i want to be there. i want my four year degree. i guess i don't really know what i want it in yet, whether it be photography or something else, but i want to at least be able to say that i have it and to say that i've had the FULL college experience, not just my freshmen year.

i don't know if i can make this work. there are so many different aspects that go into college. the biggest, but not actually quite so big: paying for tuition. i would pay $5292 for 12 credit hours. i'm pretty sure i could get a loan for that much. the next biggest thing would be finding a place to live. finding it alone will be hard, but once i did i'm hoping it would be around 300-500 a month. then textbooks and food and gas and fun.

it's so much to think about.

i think if i do go back to nau, it won't be as a photography major. i can probably get my certificate elsewhere (like mcc). maybe over the summer or online. i'm really in no rush for that. i can take a photography class at nau to see how i like it.

maggie told me a few months ago that she looked at every possible major nau has to offer, then thought about what she could see herself doing. before she did this she was a photojournalism major. then she switched to earth science education. she loved the switch.

i wrote down a few things i can see myself having as a career:
photographer
photography teacher
elementary school teacher
psychologist

if i were to major in photographer and minor in art education, i could probably find a job as a photography teacher. i love kids, so that would be like, so ideal for me. but, i think probably the youngest i would ever teach based on when they start offering photography classes is high school or possibly middle school. i was thinking maybe like, an art teacher for elementary school, but i know we always just had parents come in and teach us, no one that was actually qualified.

elementary school teacher is something i just actually thought of in the past few hours. i love kids and actually socialize better with them than i do with most adults. that's kind of sad... haha, but would make for a good elementary school teacher, right? egnjknhjkrtn i'm not really sure. but i added it to my list of possibilities.

psychologist. hmmm... i'm actually not quite sure if i can see myself as an actual psychologist. like, i love psychology, i can see myself liking the major too, but i don't know what i would really do with it after i graduated.

so yeah. i guess i can still explore my options and take some other classes and see if anything sparks an interest into what i want to do with my life.

what i do know is this:

i want to go back to nau.

i have a life in chandler. but i also have a life in flagstaff. so it's hard to choose. the main thing that makes me want to choose flagstaff though: i like it better. i feel more at home there than i do here. so yes, it'll be hard to leave my life here. but i need to do this for me.

let's see if i can pull this together...