CONSIDERING MY FUTURE PLANS

Essay by Marina Kolarik

I still have one more year of a master’s degree studying to do. From then on, my plans are like
seeing the mountains on a foggy day. You know they’re there. You have an idea of what they
might look like, but you can’t describe them precisely.

When I think about it more carefully, I’m not even sure how this year will end. First of all, I’d
like to pass all of my final exams. Then, in September, I’d also like to start working part time
job in Montessori kindergarten. Preferably, it would be a full-time job. But it seems very
unrealistic, because of school. I’ll explain what I mean by that… I tried to finish as much
master degree seminars, classes and lessons in this year as I could. But unfortunately, it was
impossible to finish them all. One reason was, that my schedule didn’t allow it. It was packed
already. The other reason is, that if I had any more lessons in this semester, I’d collapse
psychically. These past three weeks, I haven’t had a night of uninterrupted sleep. I think that
is a very good indicator, that my body and my nerves are quite strained… So, to finish my
thought, I had to leave some seminars for a second master’s degree year, and because of that,
I don’t have the very needed time to work full-time in a kindergarten. Since most of the
seminars are in the morning, which is also the time I would have to be in the kindergarten.

After I finish my master’s degree, honestly, who knows where life will lead me. If I stay in
Slovakia, I’d like to start working full-time in a Montessori kindergarten. But working in the
Narnia primary school sounds just as amazing and just as appealing to me. For now, I’m
leaning more towards kindergarten, because I have experience working with children that age.
When it comes to teaching children in primary school, I have zero experience, and that makes
me more cautious and maybe even a little bit afraid of the unknown.

Now, there is one more possibility that might happen, and it would change my plans and life
course completely. The thing is, I might end up living in Germany. If it is God’s willing, I
would like to end up living in Germany. If that were to happen, I’m not so certain, that I
would end up working in pedagogy fields. The primary reason for that is, that my German is
not so great. I’m currently working on learning it, but it is a huge struggle for me. Especially
the pronunciation. The German ‘r’ is giving me a sore throat, and the sound sounds nothing
like how the Germans would pronounce it. So, I’m thinking, that no German school would
want a teacher in their midst, who doesn’t know German that well. Also, I know that German
standard of who can teach in schools generally, are incomparable to Slovakian ones. The
requirements for teachers are very high. The only chance I would have, is to teach in English
kindergarten. But again, from personal experience, no matter how good your English is, they
always prefer a native speaker.

So, here I am. Trying to finish school that might end up to be completely useless for me. It’s
not a very motivating thought.

If I’m completely honest, what I would want to be in the future, is a wife, and a mother.
That’s how I see God meant it to be. Instead of me teaching and taking care of other children,
and someone doing the same thing for my children, I would teach and take care of my own
children.

As you can see, I don’t really know what will happen in the future. I might even go back to
Serbia. Since that’s where I was born, where I spent my childhood and adolescent years. If
that were to happen, at least my college education wouldn’t be useless. I would very much
enjoy working in the kindergarten, that left me with so many beautiful memories from my
own childhood. There is kind of a sweet nostalgic when I think about it. The beautiful Slovak
village of Padina, in the middle of Serbia. With a white church, many children’s parks, big
Slovak primary school and most of all, full of curious, but well meaning people.

To sum it up, I put my future in God’s hands. He took care of me so far and I don’t doubt that
His plans are better than anything I could imagine. Even though I’m very uncertain of what’s
going to happen after I finish my studies, there is a peace in my soul, because I have
a wonderful reason not to worry about it.