Final Statement Feminist and Critical PedagogyI returned to graduate school last semester at the ripe old age of 31, unsure of what I wanted to get out of it. About six years earlier I had spent a year of graduate studies in English at the University of Maine, but I left because I wasn't ready to commit to an academic life. In the six years since I left Maine, my life had been anything but academic. For the first year or so, I "attempted" conferences and trade shows, auditioned, and performed at regional theaters. Then a friend of mine introduced me to her acting teacher and I was involved in a two-year intensive acting program that forced me to look at myself and my life in depth (and luckily landed me in therapy)! During that time I started a temporary job at a small executive search firm where some actor friends also worked. The job became permanent and lasted more than three years while I finished my acting program and began auditions. Looking back now, I guess the problem was that once the class was over, I was no longer the same person who originally went to the auditions. I found myself reading books about writing (never about acting) on ​​lunch breaks from stifling office secretarial work. But people who have asked me about my life have heard about my auditions and singing lessons and wish they were on Broadway. I had never considered the fact that that desire was a very old, childish desire, which had slowly stopped giving me what it had had for a long time: something to dream about, to aspire to. Something, I admit now, that made me interesting. The decision to leave it behind was painful (no one outside of the "business" could understand why I would want to leave behind such a glorious and exciting dream. Interestingly, all of my friends who were at various levels of... half the paper... at least now I know I have to teach - in some format, somewhere, and I have to apply what I have learned I have learned and I continue to learn and question my learning I can no longer decide whether to undertake a PhD is really what I want. I've always thought it would be the sign of success school enough but that they decided to come back and give it another try, to see if they would find something different. I want to offer something different. I know I want to continue teaching and talking about teaching. I know that I want to hold out hope that teaching writing is valuable and opens up possibilities for students who perhaps thought they didn't have any. Is he too naive? Perhaps. But it seems like it's worth a try.