I ended up earning a degree in science, (A double major, no less--"Microbiology and Immunology" and "Cellular & Molecular Biology"). I'm not sure how all of it fit on my dploma. :-) However, enough of the required courses overlapped that I was able to graduate in four years. Then I started the grad school route, only to crash and burn. (A note to the wise--make sure you're ready to make the committment to grad school before starting. It's neither a picnic nor a party. It's worth it--but you have to dedicate yourself to working hard and focusing (a serious comittment)...both things that I was not ready to do at my tender age of 20). I left the program at the end of my first year. I ended up using my biology expertise working in a lab as a Research Assistant, and later on decided to go back to school and earn a M.B.A. I left the lab, joined industry, and started in tech support, then worked in product development, marketing, and later as an outside sales rep.
Fast forward to how I ended up as a Chinese teacher. Well, while working in a lab, I got married. Then later on, (almost 12 years, in fact) we had a baby. Husband's job got transferred to Florida. Sales job didn't continue even though I offered to help the company develop the sales territory in Florida. Decided to focus on being a "full-time Mom" or an "at-home Mom." (By the way, I think both phrases are unfortunately misleading. All Moms are full-time Moms whether or not they also have a job outside the home. Also, as an "at-home-Mom" I was actually at home very little, between taking the children to playgroups, gymnastics, dance, birthday parties, preschool...you get the idea).
Anyhow, when my oldest daughter was about 3-1/2, she began attending Chinese School. While the children were in class, the parents sat outside and waited for the children--and we took that oppoortunity to display some of our Chinese books that we had in inventory. (We ran a very small home-based bookselling business. We still do, actually). :-) The principal of the school was interested in the books we had, and actually ended up ordering some books from us for other classes at the school. At the beginning of the following year, I was delivering some books to the Chinese School principal, and she was remarking on how popular the Pre-K Chinese classes were, and that she had to split them into two classes. She had teachers for both, but thought that she might actually need to open up a third class with all the enrollments coming in! I half-jokingly told her that she could consider me a candidate if she needed a teacher for a third class. Little did I know, that she would take my words to heart when, a week after school began, the teacher in my oldest daughter's class quit. All of a sudden, they were in desperate need for a teacher for the older Pre-K class! The principal called me and asked me to teach the class. After some serious consideration and prayer, I decided to take on the challenge. That was my first step onto the path of teaching--and I ultimately ended up teaching at Chinese School for 4 years.
Fast forward another year to when I was filling orders for our books listed on our store on the Amazon Marketplace. I noticed that one of the books ordered was by someone living in the same town. I decided that, instead of mailing it, I would hand deliver the book and save on postage. It turned out that the book ordered was from the "Practical Chinese" series by Wendy Lin. In the years that we've sold books on the Amazon Marketplace, I've hand delivered books to only a handful of people. Of that handful, there was only one time where I actually met the person who ordered the book. It was in this instance. She answered the door, and I gave her the book. That could have been the end of the story, but in fact, it was not. We started talking about other books for learning Chinese that I had in inventory, and that she was beginning a new job to teach Chinese at a local private school. I told her about my experiences teaching at Chinese School and offered to share some of the resources that I had developed with her. We exchanged e-mails and phone numbers, and later got together so she could look at my other resources. We became friends that day. During that year, she needed additional resources for her classes, and the school where she taught ended up becoming one of my best customers that year as well!
Just over a year after that, I receive a call from that same friend, and she told me that she was leaving her post at that school to start a new Chinese language program at the public schools in our county. Then she told me that she wanted ME to apply for the position she was leaving. I did apply, interviewed a couple days later, and was offered the position a day after that. And, as they say...the rest is history. I'm starting my third year of teaching Mandarin Chinese full time, and new opportunities to learn and interact with other Chinese teachers keep increasing. I feel like this is where I should be...where i should be right now. When I look back, I see that the path I started on was not even close to the path I am on now. However, there were many special events that were put into place (some people might say "coincidences," I say it's a "God thing") in order for me to be where I am now.
There's another part to this story that I have to mention as well...a few months before I started teaching, I took a tour of the school where I teach now. I was there to help a friend who was applying for a job as a music teacher. (I was watching her young son while she talked to the folks at the school and turned in her resume). After she was finished, on a whim, I stayed and asked to take a tour of the school. On that tour, I fell in love with the school and its programs. I knew that it would be a great place for my two daughters to thrive and grow. However, when I went home with the information on the school, my husband brought my lofty thoughts crashing down into reality: "This is all wonderful...but what bank are we going to rob to afford the tuition for this?" :-) Now fast forward to the job offer that I received from this school. Even though we had to make many major adjustments to our schedules, I realized that it would be worth it, because I knew that this story was not just about me. It was also about giving my girls the opportunity to go to a great school--one that I had wanted them to go to, but would not have been able to afford to send them...and then God opened up that door by allowing me to teach there.
Coincidence? Nah. I don't believe in coincidences. God Thing? Absolutely.