The junior class had an assembly this morning, which meant missing Russian, but it was worth it. It was to tell us about Senior Seminars and Mentorship, which is a class every senior has to take. You pick one or the other. Mentorship is where you pick a person or a business or something in a field you'd like to go into and spend 125 hours that year working under them. At the end of the year you do this big project and present it to the school. Senior Seminar is a class of 8 to 12 people on a specific topic like forensic science or law or historiography. I went into the assembly thinking I wanted to take a mentorship, but I was definitely won over by the Russian seminar.

It's called "Crossing Over: Emigrating from the Former Soviet Union and Assimilating to Life in Central Virginia." The course would include a lot of interaction with Russian immigrants in Richmond, which sounds terrific, and field trips to Slavic areas of DC and New York. Over the course of the Russian teacher's speech I realized: I could go into this. The question of what I want to major in, what I want to do as far as a profession, has been in the corner of my mind for a long time. Last winter I realized that my favorite classes were French and Spanish, so why not make language my pitch to colleges? So I planned it out so I'll graduate with nine language credits, as opposed to the six required at our school and the three required at most. And since we started looking at colleges I've been wondering what I'll do with all these languages once I'm in college, or out of it for that matter. I knew I didn't want to teach language and I didn't think I wanted to work in translation, but the answer jumped up in front of me during the presentation.

I could work with immigrants and refugees. My fist volunteering job was with Refugee and Immigration Services, which didn't work out in the end but I'm really glad I did it. And I've always been intrigued by immigration and how people deal with it - maybe it was because Bridget came over from Scotland when she was six and when we became friends she was still very obviously British. I love languages and I love people. Here is a job that would combine both - I don't know specifically what I would be doing, but I know that such jobs exist from the people who set up my work with RIS. I know I'd love helping people get settled in, learn English, learn American culture, find jobs, find houses. And Mom pointed out today that I could find that kind of work wherever I went. One of the problems with other jobs I had considered was that many of them would mean living in or near a big city because of the nature of the work. But Mom says they often try to settle refugees in rural areas, which is good because that's where I want to live. For years I've been trying to find a job that I would love but that would be very useful to other people. I'd found a lot that fulfilled one goal but not the other, but this one finally covers both. It's combining almost everything I'm good at. I'm not sure how much money I could make, but I really don't care about that.

So that's my big news for the day. I'm worn out but very happy. I've got to get into that seminar. I hope there are enough people who want to take it, since it's just a proposal so far. I'll probably be able to find seven other juniors who'd want to take it.

September 19
October 8