So much has happened since I last checked in here. For one, my goal of graduating finally came to fruition! I have officially finished my phd program in Educational Leadership & Policy Studies and can now put the letters "D" and "r" next to my name. I still can't believe it. I remember how far away this goal always seemed. How unrealistic and impossible it appeared to be at one point, and now here I am, 'finished!'
Surprisingly, I feel a bit melancholic about the whole thing. Knowing that I won't be attending campus anymore as a student. Knowing that when I introduce myself I can no longer say I'm a student. I suppose that I've existed in this identity for so long that it seems so incredibly strange to now instantly separate myself from it and know that there is nothing else left to do, I finished my journey, I thought.
For a long time, I just prayed for the strength and perseverance to make it to the finish line, I never once spent too much energy on what would happen post graduation, I never made any plans about what would be next or about employment. I suppose this is a privilege I've had. But also, I have felt that I just wanted to graduate for the sake of getting my diploma, of making my parents and my husband proud, with the aspiration of somehow continuing my life as it had existed before. I didn't want to do what everyone else was doing, searching for jobs, having to move out of Arizona, etc. Subsequently, I never worried too much about not having any teaching experience. I figured life would work itself out. I've always been strange that way, not much of a plan ahead type of person, mostly I enjoy doing the things I'm passionate about and not much else.
Luckily, things have gone exactly the way most of my life has gone. They've just happened. I've been blessed with the opportunity to teach as an associate faculty at ASU. I was so excited about it and then suddenly felt the same weird empty feeling in my belly, nerves, and anxiety when I realized I was going to do this. I was going to teach.
Rrrrrrrrrewind............Suddenly, I wanted to hit the rewind button and return to the days when I would grab a coffee at the nearest shop and slowly make my way into a classroom, as a student. I started missing the idea of having to read and write papers, having a notepad and pen in hand ready, and be the listener, the observer, the learner, the one that was going to 'gain' something from the experience of taking a class. But now, it was different. I now have to be the talker, the one there to offer something of value to what in my mind appeared to be a sea of students. and though in reality there were only 20, my brain reacted as if there were 200. i was so frightened. and then my husband interjected--u just have to get thru it, it's going to be okay. And it was. It has been.
Still it has been such an adventure and challenge, I realize now that I'm the one that is getting so much out of this experience. I realize now that my journey is far from over. I guess in the end, I'm still a student. I still get to observe, to listen, to learn. I guess not much has changed, only difference is that I have to work harder it seems. I can't afford to be late, or to skip reading, It's so weird, but somehow beginning to realize that the moment when I was little that I once imagined, that one portrait of a woman wearing knee high boots and a black coat (the image of what a grown up version of me would look like) is finally here. I've grown up. I'm a mom, I work, and now I'm even older, I see the light and energy of my students, and in strange way I get to relive my days in college, I get to experience vicariously the experience of learning and in the midst of this realization...i feel blessed. I have grown up into what I wanted to be--minus the knee high boots.
