Walker Hayes wrote a song called “What You Don’t Wish For”
The chorus says,
All the kids with guitars Lookin’ up at the stars Dream as far as your heart can dream Write a song, make some noise Danger’s real but fear’s a choice They say, “Careful what you wish” but I say be more Careful what you don’t wish for
Walker Hayes- What you Don’t Wish For
I think it is crazy that two years ago I wasn’t a kid with a guitar.
I had an amazon gift card that I got for Christmas and asked my husband if I could get a cheap acoustic guitar. He laughed and said I could get whatever I wanted with my money and since then I have been a kid with a guitar.
I didn’t know a thing about a guitar, I watched a lot of YouTube videos and kept practicing and practicing. (Not that I’ve reached Guitar Hero status yet or anything, but I am better than I was two years ago.
Just a few days ago, I got my first electric guitar.
One wish I always had was to play guitar, and now that wish is a reality.
2023 is coming sooner than I ever though was possible. . .if there is something that you’ve always wanted to do, make 2023 your year to do it.
A line from that Walker Hayes song that sticks out to me is “Danger is real, but fear is a choice.” Don’t let fear stop you from doing something you’ve always wanted to do.
This is a story of how I started my music journey.
When I was about 4 or 5 ish, I started piano lessons. . .I never was very good by music standards, I could not read music. Literally no matter how hard I tried, I could not read music. I became pretty good at pretending though. I learned to play by ear, what the song should sound like. It was not hard for me to sit down and play a song. I even managed to trick my piano teacher at one point.
As I got older I could not pretend to read music anymore and this frustrated me. I could not read music or play piano and this frustrated me.
So I decided that I was going to teach myself to play. I knew that reading music was not my thing. My guess is because I’m not good at math (and music has a LOT of math) I am not good at reading music. I decided that I was going to learn to play by ear, which was a hundred times easier for me.
My husband got me the little keyboard in the picture one year for Christmas and I started practicing.
Shortly after I decided that I wanted to learn to play guitar.
I had an Amazon gift card, so I bought this cheap acoustic. It was a cheap nylon guitar, but it was the guitar I first learned to play on.
I started during Covid. It was a bit of a quarentine hobby. Now I have been playing for about 2 years, and I’m far from an expert, but I have a lot of fun.
Surprise surprise, I can not read sheet music with my guitar either (I can read guitar tabs though obviously) It was a matter of finding a method that worked for me and a lot of practice.
When people say they can play by ear, more than likely they got that way because of a lot of practice. Music is not easy no matter how you do it, but I keep practicing and improving every day.
Master’s of Arts in Integrated Language Arts Education November 2022
So I graduated. . . I’ve shared before the crazy story of how God brought me to grad school and helped me every step of the way. Today, I’m going to update that story a bit. At the time I had no idea how I was going to get through and graduate, and here I am today. This is the post that I previously wrote.
I graduated with an undergraduate degree in English and I always felt that I was supposed to get my master’s and become a teacher.
Undergraduate Graduation 2019
I mentioned this to one of my undergraduate professors, and she told me that my GPA was too low for me to get into graduate school and that I would only be hurting my students if I became a teacher.
So I believed that. . .
After college, I got a job working at a Christian school. Those kids there made me laugh every day, and made me want to become a teacher even more, but I still did not think I could get into graduate school.
I looked into several different schools, and eventually found one with a good program. . .but again I did not think I could get in.
I reached out to one of the advisors of the school to see if it was even worth applying, and she told me that several students get in who have low undergraduate GPA’s and she encouraged me to apply.
So on Christmas eve of 2019, I applied just to see if I would get in.
Sure enough, I got in. I still don’t even know how. . .there was only one problem. . .
I was a few credits short of being accepted into the program. I had to take several classes to catch up.
I was a few days late to meet the deadline to sign up for these classes, but my advisor worked with me to help me get in. I started these classes in September 2020. I had one goal. . .I had to somehow get enough credits to be accepted into the program by February.
I worked really really hard on these classes and got a 4.0 GPA, but then there was another problem. Even though I worked really hard, I was still a few credits short of being able to be accepted into the program.
I emailed my advisor and explained the situation and expected them to tell me to wait a year. . .however they told me that they could see that I was working really hard, and they let me into the program even though I was missing those credits.
There have been so many times in this program that God has helped me. I don’t have any explanation for any of that other than, God brought me here.
I have no doubt in my mind that God has called me into this graduate program. I do not think so many doors would have opened if it was not God.
That definitely does not mean it was easy, but God has always been there.
So now as I am facing these educator exams, I am wondering to myself, what will God do next? Will I be able to add this to the crazy story of grad school?
That was the post that I wrote previously as I was facing educator exams. Sure enough, I can add it to my crazy story of how God helped me through grad school. At that point I had no idea how I was going to pass, or how student teaching was going to work out. God came through and helped me every step of the way.
I started studying for educator exams about a year ago. I had so much anxiety leading up to this exam, I couldn’t sleep well for several weeks. I’ve never been the best tester, so I knew that this was something that I couldn’t do on my own. God helped me to pass this exam with a high score.
I started studying for the next exam. Again I had so much anxiety for this exam that I could not sleep. . .unfortunately I did not pass this test the first time. What was worse was I knew all the material, and could pass practice exams at home, but I did not pass the test when I had to take in at the testing center.
I did not know what I had to do next other than pray. I knew that there was no way I could pass this without God. Sure enough God worked it out so I could retake the test, this time at home on my own computer. That definitely causes less anxiety, but it also caused other anxiety. What if the internet cuts out? What if someone randomly comes over? But God worked everything out. I took the test at home. I was definitely still anxious, but a lot less anxious than I would have been at the testing center. I passed my last educator exam only by God.
Then came student teaching. Since I worked as a substitute teacher the previous year, I have been in almost every school in the county. I knew which schools I wanted to be in for student teaching (and which schools I wanted to avoid.) I requested my favorite school for student teaching, only to get rejected. They did not have a placement available at this school.
I was upset about it, but God told me I would get paid for student teaching. I was confused what that meant. Student teaching is a class, why would I get paid to take a class?
There was a school in the area looking for a long-term English substitute teacher. This happened to be my field, and I had substitute teaching experience and a substitute teaching license so it worked out. I got paid for about 1/2 of my student teaching experience.
I couldn’t have asked for a better placement or a better cooperating teacher and I got paid, which is definitely something that only God could work out.
There is so much more to that story that I can’t really share on the internet just because I don’t want to give out details about the situation, but God knew that I needed to be at this school.
After student teaching there’s the question of what’s next?
Literally every school needs substitute teachers right now, so finding a job isn’t the problem. . .the thing is I hate being a general substitute.
I hate going to a different class every day and teaching a different subjects to students I have never met before and I definitely did not enjoy working at elementary schools. (God did not make me an elementary teacher, shout out to all elementary teachers though. I think you are amazing. I couldn’t do it everyday.)
I was hoping to find another long-term substitute position, hopefully teaching the same content to help me get more experience.
Yesterday I had an interview for another long-term English teaching substitute position starting next semester. I’m anxiously waiting to hear back, but I know that either way God has this all figured out as he has every step on the way.
Then of course that leaves the question what am I going to do next year? My husband and I are planning on moving really wherever I can find a teaching job (and there are several teaching jobs available now) but all I can do right now, is pray and trust God with that.
I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but God got me this far. I don’t think he’s going to stop now.
So it’s been a minute since I have posted. I’ve been insanely busy. . .I’m trying to survive grad school and work and study for educator exams, and try not to go crazy in the process, (some of my students might think I’m already crazy haha).
10 out of 10 do NOT recommend grad school. It is completely exhausting, probably worth it at the end, but right now it’s completely exhausting.
I saw this TikTok trend that I wanted to try except on my blog not on TikTok (I’m not exactly the most savvy TikToker haha)
A while back there was this trend with people reflecting on their lives and where they ended up, so I wanted to take a minute to reflect on my blog.
6-year-old me would be proud that I am working as a teacher (even if it’s a substitute).
12-year-old me would be happy I found a boy I love.
14-year-old me would be surprised I don’t have kids yet.
16-year-old me would be sad to know that I still suffer from depression and anxiety.
18-year-old me would be surprised I’m not a published author.
20-year-old me would be surprised I completed my undergrad and shocked to know I am working on my master’s degree (and shocked that I have a 4.0 GPA).
22-year-old me would be happy to know that I am figuring out who God is and breaking free of my past.
23-year-old me would be happy to know I play guitar.
25-year-old me finally understands God loves me and is open to whatever God calls me to in the future.
I like to think that in a few years I will look back and say something like “26-year-old me would be proud that I finished grad school and have a job as an English teacher.” Of course I have no idea what the future will hold, but I could not have imagined God bringing me on this journey to get me to where I am today.
Whatever you choose to do, make your younger self proud.
Happy New Year! 2021 was an interesting year. I felt like it flew by, and yet lasted forever.
I remember waiting until the ball dropped on TV for the start of 2021. I remember thinking “great 2020 is finally over” (That will be a year for the history books)
I remember looking around what is normally a busy Times Square to see empty streets because of the pandemic.
This year we have been able to get back to a more normal life (will life ever be normal again?) but this year the streets were once again filled with people.
I think that 2021 was a pretty great year. A lot of things happened that helped me to grow as a person.
In January of 2021, I started playing an acoustic guitar that I bought with a gift card I had gotten at Christmas.
I didn’t realize that then, but I would grow to love playing guitar.
At the beginning of February, I started graduate school. That was a whole adventure, I was a few credits short of getting in the program, but they made an exception and here I am today.
Then a few months after that, I left my job. I knew that God was calling me to do something else this school year, but that did not make leaving any easier.
In July my husband and I finally had our wedding (since we didn’t get to have one in the craziness of 2020). It was perfect.
In August, we went to a friend’s wedding out of state. It was so much fun to get to be a part of their wedding and see them start their life together.
September I started my new job as a substitute teacher. I currently have a love/hate relationship with this job. I love how convenient it is. I can work any day I want, and am able to take a day off a week and study, but I hate not being able to build relationships with the kids (since I am in a different school every day). This is definitely something that I love having for sake of convenience during grad school, but would not want to do it forever.
Also in September, I started my first field experience. This was a great experience to work with another teacher in my field and see how to run a classroom.
October, November, and December all feel like a blur in my mind. It feels like just yesterday I carved pumpkins with my husband, but I guess at this point that was months ago.
In December we finally had a family Christmas for the first time since 2019. It was great to see everyone.
Then over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I got very sick. (I tested negative for Covid though). It was not much fun being sick over Christmas and having to miss out on half of the plans that we had.
Then I took all of the gift cards I got this year, and some money I saved up and bought a really nice guitar. I think it is interesting that a year ago I bought a small acoustic knowing nothing about guitars, and here I am today waiting for this guitar to arrive. (It’s supposed to get her tomorrow).
New Year’s Eve came which is my husband’s birthday, and the anniversary of the day he proposed. We celebrated together and went out to eat, and just like that the year was over.
Here it is already Janurary. . .I have a lot to do this month. Everything from going back to work, to finishing a lengthy paper, to taking my educator exams to be one step closer to my teaching certificate. All that is just this month!
I can’t even imagine how crazy the rest of the year is going to be.
I do know one thing though. . .The only reason I got this far is because I have a pretty amazing God. I don’t think he’s going to leave me in 2022.
Yesterday I sat at work as I got an email. . .an email that would completely stress me out. It was from my advisor. She mentioned how I had to study for and take educator exams in the next month.
These are not just regular tests. . .they are the tests that determine whether or not I am allowed to continue getting my master’s in education, and ultimately whether or not I get my official teaching license.
At first, I was incredibly overwhelmed. I just finished a class. I thought my life might slow down for a bit, but I was wrong.
Not going to lie, I still am incredibly overwhelmed. . . and then I remember how I even got here. . .
This is a crazy wild story.
I graduated with an undergraduate degree in English and I always felt that I was supposed to get my master’s and become a teacher.
I mentioned this to one of my undergraduate professors, and she told me that my GPA was too low for me to get into graduate school and that I would only be hurting my students if I became a teacher.
So I believed that. . .
After college, I got a job working at a Christian school. Those kids there made me laugh every day, and made me want to become a teacher even more, but I still did not think I could get into graduate school.
I looked into several different schools, and eventually found one with a good program. . .but again I did not think I could get in.
I reached out to one of the advisors of the school to see if it was even worth applying, and she told me that several students get in who have low undergraduate GPA’s and she encouraged me to apply.
So on Christmas eve of 2019, I applied just to see if I would get in.
Sure enough, I got in. I still don’t even know how. . .there was only one problem. . .
I was a few credits short of being accepted into the program. I had to take several classes to catch up.
I was a few days late to meet the deadline to sign up for these classes, but my advisor worked with me to help me get in. I started these classes in September 2020. I had one goal. . .I had to somehow get enough credits to be accepted into the program by February.
I worked really really hard on these classes and got a 4.0 GPA, but then there was another problem. Even though I worked really hard, I was still a few credits short of being able to be accepted into the program.
I emailed my advisor and explained the situation and expected them to tell me to wait a year. . .however they told me that they could see that I was working really hard, and they let me into the program even though I was missing those credits.
There have been so many times in this program that God has helped me. I don’t have any explanation for any of that other than, God brought me here.
I have no doubt in my mind that God has called me into this graduate program. I do not think so many doors would have opened if it was not God.
That definitely does not mean it was easy, but God has always been there.
So now as I am facing these educator exams, I am wondering to myself, what will God do next? Will I be able to add this to the crazy story of grad school?
This post might be a little bit late, but I love Halloween and fall and getting to celebrate with my husband.
Last year was the first time I ever carved a pumpkin.
My husband made fun of me a little bit as I struggled to dig the knife into it.
But I think for the first pumpkin I ever carved it was not bad.
Why was last year the first time I carved a pumpkin?
Well growing up I was not allowed to participate in anything related to Halloween.
To be honest, now I do not understand why.
I never got to go trick or treating, (I asked my husband to take me and he said I was too old haha).
I was so separated from Halloween that I did not even realize that it was a holiday a lot of people celebrated.
The past two years, I have been “allowed” to celebrate this holiday, and it is so weird to me.
I feel like I missed out on a whole season.
My whole life I was told that if you went trick or treating, or carved a pumpkin, you were participating in sin.
Now I don’t think of myself as less of a Christian because I carved a pumpkin.
There were a lot of things that I was taught that I now question. I can’t find a passage in scripture that supports it, they are merely man-made standards.
Standards that leave you feeling not good enough for God, (because I will never meet all man-made standards). (Though there is nothing wrong with following these standards if you believe God called you to, and it brings you closer to God.)
My whole reality of God is almost completely based on man-made standards, which leaves me wondering who God is.
I spent two summers working at a Christian summer camp. Every Saturday night the camp staff would get together and sing worship songs to God. We definitely did not have to, especially after a crazy camp week when we all were tired, but we all wanted to.
Then on Sunday mornings, we would all gather in the chapel for church. Some of the staff I worked with were a part of the worship band. This band would lead worship for church on Sundays.
One of my coworkers I worked with at the time (the cool worship leader with a guitar) kept trying to get me to be a part of this worship team. I would jokingly tell him “that’s not my spiritual gift.”
He kind of laughed at that, but some reason he was convinced that I should be a part of this worship band.
At this point in my life, I could not play any instruments and I think that everyone probably could agree that they do not want to hear me sing. . .
My coworker started teaching me a few guitar chords. You know, the four you have to know to play any song on guitar. (G, C, EM, and D). By the end of summer I was not good at all, but I did think it was fun.
I told myself, that if I ever had the time, I would find a guitar and learn how to play it.
So over the next year something happened that gave me an insane amount of time. . .you guessed it, quarantine. . .
I guess that probably everyone picked up a new hobby around the time of quarantine, but guitar became one of mine.
I found a cheap acoustic guitar on Amazon, and I figured if I never learned to play, I didn’t really waste any money.
I was quarantined last March and I learned how to play my first song on guitar. The song I learned to play was Waymaker.
Literally you can play it with the 4 chords I mentioned it’s not a hard song. . .
All of this because one of my coworkers was convinced that I belonged in the camp worship band and took the time to teach me 4 chords.
I definitely still don’t feel like guitar is my “spiritual gift,” and I really don’t want to be in a worship band anytime soon, but I definitely have a lot of fun.
So I thought that it would be about time to update my about me page. I have changed a lot since college and want to keep my blog page up to date. This is what my about page says, feel free to let me know what you think. 🙂
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” ― C.S. Lewis
Hi, I’m Megan. I am a writer, teacher, grad student, photographer, musician and Christian.
I started writing in high school. I would often write “fanfiction” of my life. I would take people who were in my life and write about us doing crazy things, like finding the door that leads to Narnia. I feel like I have written something everyday since even if it just was a journal entry.
I am also a teacher getting a master’s in education. Talk about a crazy journey, I graduated college in 2019 and knew that I wanted to get a master’s degree and become a teacher. Somehow today (only through God) I am a teacher. I love interacting with the kids and showing them God’s love. I learn more from my students than I think they could learn from me.
I also am a photographer and artist. I had to take a photography class in college, and I had to buy a camera. I still have this camera today. I love having excuses to take pictures. Today I edit pictures to create art, or even draw pictures.
I play guitar and piano. I have played piano off and on since I was little. To be honest, I can play a lot better by ear than I can when I read music. It just makes so much more sense to me. I also play guitar. I bought a cheap guitar on Amazon thinking that if I did not continue playing I really wouldn’t have wasted any money. I started playing guitar when I was quarantined. I had time I needed to learn a few chords and learn how to strum. (Not an easy task at first) Now I can play both piano and guitar pretty well, though I am not an expert, it is a lot of fun.
Last but definitely not least, I am a Christian.
I remember praying a prayer when I was young and asking God into my life, but since I was so young, I did not understand what it meant.
It was not until I was older, and after God brought me through challenging situations, that I fully understood the amazing gift of salvation that He gave us.
I’m definitely not perfect, or someone who pretends to be perfect, but I am forgiven. God changed my life and I want to share what he did in my life with others.
Join me on this journey as I have many adventures. I’d love to hear about you. What are somethings you like to do? and also, how can I pray for you? Be sure to let me know, I love and pray for each and every one of my followers even though I do not know most of them personally.
So many times people forget to take time to do what makes them happy.
I started this blog in 2016 because I love to write. But now as I am a graduate student, I have almost no time to write. (Other than very long papers for my classes).
The other day I saw a video that said “What was the one thing you used to do that made you happy? The one thing you did in your spare time that you really enjoyed?”
For me, that was not laundry, or napping, haha but writing.
In high school I would write over 1000 words a day sometimes even 5000 words or more. I felt like I had to write, there were so many adventures I could go on that I couldn’t without my paper and a pencil.
When college started I got crazy crazy crazy busy. They say one thing suffers in college, sleep, social life or grades. For me I definitely think it was social life. I tried my hardest to get out of social events anytime I could, but another thing that suffered in college was my writing life.
I had less and less time to write, to do the one thing that made me really happy.
Now it is well almost October. . .and anyone who is a writer should know what that means. . .
Preptober. . .prep before NaNoWriMo. . .
Holy Cow.
The one time I did NaNoWriMo I said I would never do it again. It was too crazy trying to write 50,000 words in a month. . .But I did. I succeeded.
Now I am in grad school, I am working, I am an adult who has to do laundry. There’s no way I have time to write 50,000 words this November. . .So why am I considering it again?
I ask myself that question, but I definitely already know the answer. . .because writing makes me happy.
So here’s to Preptober and NaNoWriMo. . .I don’t know that I can actually commit to writing 50,000 words a month right now, but I definitely want to try writing again.
It Seemed Like A Good Idea At Three Am 