Oh modesty... you awkward gal

I have always known that I am a strong, determined, and competitive and dare I say it...stubborn woman. Just ask my mom, she will tell you. I grew up playing sports with the boys and dancing both in a studio and on dance team, competing not only against others, but myself. I feel fairly certain that playing sports greatly helped me to grow into the confident woman that I now am.

Much of my adolescence was spent in the outgoing shadows of my closest friends and I was happy for it simply because I was a part of it. Did I wish that I could have been as outgoing as my friends back then? Of course. It would have been great not to be the shy one, however, being shy was the person I was meant to be at that time, I realize that now at 35 years old. Who knows the person that I would have become had I been the outgoing one in high school. Being outgoing and learning to be confident not only as a woman, but with myself was something that I had to do in my own time.
It was not until somewhere during college and the years that followed that I decided I did not really care so much what others thought about me. I had a sudden desire to be bold...to be brave...to be loud. I wanted to be someone that spent a majority of my time smiling, laughing, and most importantly, someone who was confident in my own skin.

Living and teaching abroad in Thailand was just the catalyst I needed to further my growth as a strong, independent woman. I had already traveled with two close friends, backpacking all around Costa Rica earlier in the summer and was searching for a way to experience life in a new way. I had developed a new found love of traveling and no longer felt happy simply living my life day to day the way I always had. It was a need that emerged inside me. As a newly graduated teacher, I knew that if I took a full time teaching job in the town I grew up in that was it for me. I would grow comfortable and complacent and my life would be decided. Instead, I set my sights on where else I could go to teach. The Peace Corp seemed logical, but two years was daunting as this would only be my second time out of the country on my own. Then I found it...teachers wanted for a private school in a city three hours North of Bangkok, Thailand. I already was planning to travel to Thailand...why not spend a year teaching and traveling at the same time? I applied, interviewed and was offered a job teaching Thai children ages 2-4 English.

Being a natural fan of performing, once I decided I was no longer shy Rachael I had many avenues open for expression, one of my favorites being karaoke. Once I could get to a place where I wasn't constantly thinking of what others would think or say about me, my choices or my attitudes it seemed so much easier to be me. It is a truly wonderful feeling to be so free of the judgments of others, for the most part anyways; I'm still human after all.