Inspiration

Well, it's been a great week! I've had a successful week and a half eating raw, and I feel ready to keep going! I've only had a couple cravings, but they were mostly out of boredom... which I realized, so I just told myself that the reason I wanted to have something cooked was because I was bored, not because it would help my health in any way. That helped me avoid "cheating" and maintain my raw lifestyle.

I have had an enormous amount of inspiration lately. Inspiration to stay raw, inspiration to read a lot of books this summer, inspiration to go outside and go for walks..... but mainly, due to a couple factors (one of which is definitely my raw foods life!), inspiration to do something with my degree. The past few months, I have felt that perhaps I didn't really want to be a teacher. I thought that I might go to graduate school or find a job editing, or just find some health food store to work in for a few years. I have been feeling lethargic and unoptimistic about my future, mostly because I haven't been inspired to feel anything else.

This weekend was the final preparatory stage in my student teaching process. I am going to be student teaching on the Navajo Reservation in the spring, and I've been preparing for it for two semesters! Our final workshop was great because we found out our placements and our placement partners. I have a great partner, and I found out I'm going to be placed in Piñon, AZ, at the high school of the same name (Go Eagles!). Piñon is known as the city where the pavement ends and the West begins, and is about halfway between the most remote and the most cosmopolitan areas of the Reservation. The experiences I've had in preparing for this adventure, especially the workshop, have really changed my outlook on life (and I suspect that actually student teaching will do the same!).



I've discovered that I do want to teach... I want to teach in developing countries. I might stay on the Rez for a year or two after (hopefully!) getting a job there, then I want to maybe join the Peace Corps or find another non-profit organization that specializes in education... then I can go to India and Africa and teach English... that's my dream!

It's wonderful to move from a place of boredom into a place of serious optimism and excitement. I have no doubt that raw foods have helped me reach this place, even in the short amount of time I've eaten them. I haven't felt this good in a long time... it's nice to feel like myself again.