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The Dumbest Thing I Ever Did
A response to Susan Wheelock’s question
There is no way on God’s green earth that I can possibly point out the dumbest thing I ever did. I have done so many dumb things in my life that the best I could do would be to list them alphabetically or chronologically or categorically. I have made some whoppingly big bloopers in my life.
EDUCATION
I wanted to be an English teacher. I was advised that English teachers are a dime a dozen, I’d never get a job, and since I seemed to do well in foreign languages, I should major in French and Spanish. I did. By the time I was in my senior year of college, I realized that I was not nor would I become fluent in either language, and I couldn’t teach what I didn’t know. Oh, I’d know more than my high school students, and my pronunciation was good, but I could easily make a mistake and not even know it.
But, after taking time off to have a couple of husbands and a couple of kids, I went back to college part time, changed my major to English, got my masters degree, and managed to piecemeal several part-time jobs into a career. While I never made as much money as I would have with a full-time job, I was spared the stupid, petty politics of English departments and could concentrate on teaching. After 34 years of teaching, my pension might not be as big, but I…
