Pick a tea pot. Any tea pot you want. There are big ones, small ones, colored ones, plain ones, you can pick any of them. This was the very question I was faced with this summer. Yes, it seems trivial, but it was just the beginning of the many life decisions I was going to be making during my senior year of college. I knew it is just a basic tea pot, but for me a tea pot has many different functions. As a ranch girl my tea pot has provided steam to shaped numerous cowboy hats, it has brewed countless cups of hot cocoa, and has even heated water to fill a bottle with milk replacer for a bum calf. My teapot was important, and the decision was hard.
After choosing a small round silver teapot I went off to finish my senior year at UW. During this semester I have come to realize there are a lot of decisions no one tells you you’re going to have to be able to make while going through your senior year. This is the year you actually have to decide what you want to be when you grow up. This is the year you actually grow up. Looking back I see that the tea pot decision was simply a metaphor for what my year would be like. During school I have been filled with information from my classes, connections to people from countless areas, and skills that you can only learn at college. With only three weeks left of actual classes before heading to student teach this spring, my tea pot whistle is blowing.
I am nearly done with my sixteen years of education that I have always thought of, dreamed of, and worked towards. I am done with homework, with taking tests, and with sitting in class. I am growing up and I have to decide what I want to be. Luckily the skills I have learned while here at college and the people I now call friends make this complicated decision seem even easier then picking a tea pot. I will finish student teaching, graduate, and move to northeast Wyoming to manage a ranch. My tea pot will be back to shaping hats and heating water and I will be forever thankful for my time here at UW.