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Here is the draft of a post from early Novermber 2013 that never got published:

Shark Fishing after "work"

Well I've been doing this full-time, "big girl" job thing for a month and --oh who am I kidding? This isn't a real job! There's no way! I wake up in a cottage under palm trees, eat all my meals in an open air kitchen, and live on an island. Because this is off-season, I rarely work from 9am to 5pm...it's more like 9am until whenever-something-more-fun-comes-along. Last week I was lucky enough to be on the water for a couple hours Thursday-Sunday! Yesterday I skipped out of work at 2:30 to go diving!
Whatever my next gig is, there's no way this kind of behavior is going to fly. I'm getting spoiled.
Since the Epic Mother-Daughter Road Trip of 2013, I have been busy! Between all that fun stuff, I've re-designed the website and most of our flyers/brochures, went to a science teacher conference, and worked with prospective parents and teachers to get more groups to the island. I've also been helping with the hiring process for the 2014 interns. It's weird to be looking at applicants for my old job! Especially when most of these people are my age...or older. How am I supposed to be their boss?
Upcoming projects include (but are not limited to) designing new programs, updating the programs we already have with facts from 2013, and expanding our curriculum cater to younger/older groups. These tasks seem a little daunting right now, so I'm putting them off...

and that's it. I honestly don't remember why I never got around to finishing the post, or publishing it for that matter, but I'm assuming that "daunting list of tasks" probably had something to do with it.
Sploiler Alert: off season work continued to be mostly fun and games, the intern search went differently than I had planned (in both 2014 and 2015), and the website update still wasn't complete when I left my position with Pigeon Key in early 2015. The project was completed by my successor and friend, Jason, and you can see his beautiful results here!

Anyway, although island life was all hunky dory on the surface, behind the scenes it has been a rough couple of years. Even though my title was "Education Director" I rarely participated in any educating. I was a secretary, office manager, intern coordinator, social media executive, and many other roles, but none of them felt fulfilling. This lack of fulfillment was compounded by the fact that I did not enjoy or agree with the people whom I worked for on Pigeon Key, and it got really lonely living out on that tiny island. Many days it felt like my life was on pause--my friends back home were getting engaged and buying homes, and I was sharing a shack with geckos and enduring conversations about making sure we only hired "hot" interns. In early 2015 I was offered an Assistant Manager position at a new Aquarium in the Florida Keys, so I quickly jumped at the chance to get in to town and hopefully press play on my life.
For the first few months things went really well! Being a part of the managerial team of a new business meant

Feeding Spotty the Spotted Eagle Ray - not technically
part of my job...but super awesome!

that I could really expand the position in to whatever I wanted. I worked on developing field trip programming, internship opportunities, and beefing out the aquarium's social media presence. I was able to institute some much-needed staff morale boosting initiatives, and enjoyed the convenience of not having to take a golf cart two mile into town to accomplish a simple task like grocery shopping. I became an active volunteer at the local animal shelter, and even fell in love!
However, after the initial excitement wore off I found myself in the same career-slump as before. The most rewarding parts of my day were when I actually wasn't doing my job, but when I got stopped by a guest's questions on my way back to the office and was able to interact with and educate people about the wonders of the marine world. These "teachable moments" were few and far between, but they were the highlights of my day!

Since graduation, several of my friends have spent their time working for philanthropic organizations like Americorps and the Fullbright Program, and it was through hearing their stories that I was inspired to apply for Teach for America. After a very long application process, I learned recently that I've been accepted as a 2016 Teach for America Corps member in Kansas City, MO. I'll most likely be teaching high school biology in the fall, and I can't wait to get started! For now, I'm crashing in Jim and Joan's basement while I wait for training to begin in the spring. I can't wait to see what this next chapter of the EmVenture brings!