RussellSue
Not Active
Tomorrow, I have an online orientation for a volunteer position where I will be teaching digital literacy to refugees. I have already completed all of this organization's other requirements including an earlier online orientation. Yesterday, I rearranged my resume and applied to 3 online academic writing tutoring jobs, and created a profile on a very large online tutoring marketplace website. Today, I passed the necessary tests to teach the subjects I said that I could teach, and my profile ought to be active on that site in a few days.
I have not reached my goal of being employed/working independently, yet, but I am feeling very good about my chances of getting there in a reasonable amount of time. I do have tutoring experience and plenty of education in the subjects I want to teach, plus tutoring seems to be doing pretty well right now.
The thing that was in my way was my insane fear of being on camera. As a facially-deformed grown-up with a serious history of child abuse and bullying, I have spent all of my life trying to keep people from looking at my face. The idea of willfully being in the center of video focus with random strangers the world-over did not thrill me at all. In fact, while I was accepted to a good writing teaching program a few years ago, my anxiety led me in another direction for fear of the cameras I knew I would have to face.
Today, many, many hours of motivational videos and EMDR later, I have gotten past my debilitating anxiety and I am making forward progress with a camera in my face. Don't get me wrong -- I still have plenty of anxiety surrounding this. However, it is not enough anxiety to keep me paralyzed and I feel confident that I am headed toward bigger and better things, perhaps even the teaching of college as @Friday recently mentioned and I quickly dismissed due to the struggles I was still having in full-force only a couple of months ago.
I am excited and optimistic (which is completely out of character).
Thanks for reading.
I have not reached my goal of being employed/working independently, yet, but I am feeling very good about my chances of getting there in a reasonable amount of time. I do have tutoring experience and plenty of education in the subjects I want to teach, plus tutoring seems to be doing pretty well right now.
The thing that was in my way was my insane fear of being on camera. As a facially-deformed grown-up with a serious history of child abuse and bullying, I have spent all of my life trying to keep people from looking at my face. The idea of willfully being in the center of video focus with random strangers the world-over did not thrill me at all. In fact, while I was accepted to a good writing teaching program a few years ago, my anxiety led me in another direction for fear of the cameras I knew I would have to face.
Today, many, many hours of motivational videos and EMDR later, I have gotten past my debilitating anxiety and I am making forward progress with a camera in my face. Don't get me wrong -- I still have plenty of anxiety surrounding this. However, it is not enough anxiety to keep me paralyzed and I feel confident that I am headed toward bigger and better things, perhaps even the teaching of college as @Friday recently mentioned and I quickly dismissed due to the struggles I was still having in full-force only a couple of months ago.
I am excited and optimistic (which is completely out of character).
Thanks for reading.
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