I've decided to be a science teacher. Specifically, I'll be teaching physics at secondary school - that's high school for most English speakers outside of England and Wales, with kids between around 11 and 18. The nature of science teaching in Britain being what it is, I need to be prepared to teach chemistry and biology up to the age of 16, too, but since we're suffering a chronic national shortage of physics teachers (at least, ones who've actually studied physics) I may be mostly focusing on my specialty subject.
I don't mind either way, really. I've always loved physics - I delight in its deceptive simplicity, its amazing generality, the way it underlies and feeds into all other science. I'm endlessly fascinated by the workings of the world all over, though; it would be quicker to list the things I'm not particularly interested in than the things I am (sports and shopping come to mind - but even then, bring in enough science and you'll hook me). So while it hasn't stopped me writing about them, I've always been a bit sorry I didn't get more of a chance to study chemistry and biology, and it's nice to have a good reason to do it now - filling in the gaps in my fundamental knowledge, where years of New Scientist and dozens of different science podcast have only piled on details.
Anyway, I got on a PGCE course at Goldsmiths, University of London - a college known for its political ferment and its creative alumni. I'm loving the course so far - I'm learning and thinking more intensively than I have in years, and the general educational philosophy of the place is impressively sound, inclusive and questioning. I'm in the middle of the second week; in another two and a half weeks, I'll start my first school placement. Nine months from now, I'll be finished - with any luck, I'll be a fully qualified teacher. They don't waste a lot of time with teacher training in the UK!
Also, I've fallen in love. She's an artist and a naturalist, and she's been one of my favourite people for several years. So that's nice too.
Incidentally, although I really don't have very much free time at all right now, I'm also working on the next E2 Podcast, a Halloween special alongside 13 O'Clock: The 2013 Halloween Horrorquest. You should read something scary and email it to me! It'll be fun!