You Always Know Where You’re Going Until You Don’t (And That’s When Things Get Exciting!)

By Kathleen Ballangan

My school photos from Kindergarten (left) and Grade 1 (right). I was already thinking "teacher".

According to my mom, by the time I was 5 years old, I had already decided that I wanted to become a school teacher. The specifics tended to change depending on my interests at the time. By age 10 I wanted to teach Visual Arts. At age 13 I wanted to teach English. At age 15 it became Dance, and by the time I turned 18 I had made the decision to pursue the profession as a Drama teacher after finding a love and passion for theatre throughout high school.  

And so, I threw myself onto this career path by applying to university for both a Drama and an Education degree. I spent my first three years of post-secondary focused on Drama and Theatre, and quickly found out that I have a skill and love for acting specifically. Covid hit, school went online for a while, and in my fourth year of post-secondary, in the midst of the pandemic, I started my teacher-training. I quickly realized I had a knack for it- the skills I learned in my acting classes bled into my ability to teach a room full of tweens and teens.

Teaching Drama to young people was fulfilling for me. It was tiring, but fulfilling, and luckily, I was pretty good at it too. 

During that time, I also landed my first ever paid gig as an actor. And as the school year continued, and as I went further and further through my final two semesters of my acting course, my love, passion, and drive for acting only grew. I had a sudden realization that I could actually be an actor- make it my career. After more work over the summer, and another gig at the beginning of my fifth year of university, the possibility became more and more real. 

I was still continuing to train as a teacher, though. There were only 8 months left of my time at post-secondary, and I was perfectly on track to graduate with a BFA in Drama, a BEd in Secondary Education with a specialization in Drama, and certification to officially teach in the Alberta school system. My plan, as it had been for the 5 whole years previous, was to start teaching after university and find ways to continue acting on the side.   

I was set. 

And then, in November of 2021, halfway through my second-to-last practicum as a student teacher, I had a panic attack during lunch hour at the school I was teaching at, and everything felt like it collapsed from there. 

The attack came from no identifiable trigger, and the next week of continuing to teach my classes while simultaneously dealing with the sudden feeling of dreading going into school to teach every morning was exhausting, confusing, and extremely unsustainable. 

Several talks with my partner teacher, my supervisor, different counselors, as well as my mom, my partner, and my friends eventually led me to make the decision to take a temporary leave of absence from school. I had initially intended to return the next year to finish my degree from where I left off, but after a lot of thinking and tossing and turning and introspection and journalling, and after more talks with other people, and after conferring again with my partner and friends, and after my mom caught me crying in my bedroom one morning; I decided to shelve my Education degree as a whole until further notice. I would graduate in spring of 2022 with just a BFA in Drama instead. 

It was an odd feeling, living so many years of my life knowing exactly where I was going and exactly when I was going to get to my destination, and then having all of that certainty thrown out the window in what seemed like the blink of an eye. What was next now? What would I do after I graduated? Was this the right decision? It was frightening, really, being so unsure of myself.  

But there was also something else- a relief to have the weight of the decision off of my shoulders, and a sparkle of excitement to be able to really pursue the path of being an actor. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the best decision I could have ever made. 

Taking the rest of 2021 off, 2022 started with rehearsals for a mainstage show at the university. After feeling like I had been distanced from my love for acting while I was pursuing my Education degree, being in this show was like a breath of fresh air and a very necessary change of pace for myself. The rest of the semester whizzed by, and I ended off my time at post-secondary with my final show as a student before quickly finding myself thrown into the new experiences of an emerging actor. I landed another paid acting gig with Lunchbox Theatre, and another with Alberta Theatre Projects. I submitted for my first auditions, went in to audition for several of them, and was quickly encompassed into my first professional production in the summer with Theatre Calgary’s Shakespeare by the Bow program. During the middle of the run, I received the news that I was also cast for The Importance of Being Earnest, to be performed at Theatre Calgary that fall. I was in conversations for my internship with Quest Theatre (which I am currently doing right now!), I wrote my first grants, and I very quickly began to realize that I was now on a new path: 

Dressing room selfie, The Importance of Being Earnest

Backstage during Shakespeare by the Bow

First day interning at Quest!

The path of an actor! 

Many big life changes happened for me in the span of a year- I landed my first jobs as a professional actor out of school, I moved out for the first time, I started a long-distance relationship with my partner, and I dropped the career path that I had been planning on pursuing for 16 years.  

To this day, I am still not sure what caused such a huge shift in my feelings towards becoming a teacher. At the time, it could have been any number of things- high stress, unmet expectations of what teaching would actually be like, a subconscious wish to pursue acting and theatre as a performer. Retroactively, I’ve come to realize that while I did and still do enjoy teaching Drama, teaching it as a school teacher within the school system is not how or where I want to do it. My internship with Quest Theatre has afforded me the opportunity to exercise the skills I developed while pursuing my Education degree, with the group of young people that I desire to work with, while doing it all in a Drama-focused environment. It’s delightful, and it’s possible that if I had decided to stay on that same path and finish my Education degree, I would not have made that realization or been able to explore it at all.  

I have also realized how much I love performing. I am impossibly grateful for all the opportunities I have had to do the work I love to do in front of an audience, and each opportunity only further cements how much I love to do this work. Would I still have had these experiences if I had decided to finish my Education degree? Maybe, I can’t say for sure. But I think I made the right decision either way.  

Of course, pursuing a career as an artist isn’t exactly the most lucrative choice of profession. My mom would agree with the mindset that I should go back and finish my degree for the sake of having a “backup plan”, which I don’t fault her for. It is probably the safer way to go, in terms of securing financial stability. But when I think about doing that at this moment in my life, I only see all the potential opportunities as an artist that I’d have to give up in order to do so. My education degree will always be something I can go back to, but the opportunities that come as an actor flash by in the blink of an eye. I would rather take those opportunities as they come and do what I want to do now, than regret not doing it later. 

Where I am now in life is so different from where I thought I would be 1, 2, 5, 10, 15 years ago. It’s a little scary, and very nerve-wracking, but it is also so, so exciting.  

My 5 year old self would be amazed that I am an actor. My 10 year old self would be sad I didn’t go into Visual Arts. My 13 year old self would say I should try teaching English instead. My 15 year old self would be surprised that I decided to go into the theatre industry. My 18 year old self would be confused as to why I decided against becoming a teacher after wanting to do it for so long. My 22 year old self would be aghast at the fact that I spent so much time and money on an unfinished Education degree. My 23 year old self would be relieved to see I’m doing just fine. 

I turn 24 in April. I’m excited to see what she thinks.  
 

Kathleen (age 2) and her mom.

Kathleen (age 23) and her mom.