My sons,
You probably wonder why I am choosing to go to school when you, who are required to go, would rather not. You probably shake your heads in bewilderment when I scramble to finish assignments and worry over grades, knowing that I have chosen this stress called Higher Education, that I don’t have to do it, so why do I? Why do I take away attention that used to belong totally to the two of you, and put it on things like History, Psychology, and English? Why do I have to spend so much time with my nose in books while I used to spend it building Lego mansions or creating crayon masterpieces or snuggling with you? Why now, since I seem to have been fine without college for all of your lives, do I choose to return to school now?
When I was about your age, Nathan – around back when I was ten – my mother went to college. She had been waiting tables at a dinner theater, bringing drinks to people there to be entertained and to get drunk. On a providentially pivotal night, she discovered that the most important mentor of her youth – her high school band director – was seated at one of her tables. He was as surprised to see her as she was to see him! He said to her, “Lee, what are you doing here?” It wasn’t a query of pleasant surprise, although he was happy to see her. Rather, it was an expression of disappointment, for she had been one of his most promising students, the first chair flautist in one of Texas’ best high school bands. He was basically asking her, “Why are you settling for this when you could have everything you’ve always wanted in life?”
The question struck her in her center, and she began asking herself, “What am I doing here?” The next semester, she was studying music at Eastfield Community College in Dallas.
Your Nana Lee worked most of my childhood. She sold real estate and she worked as a secretary, but she mostly worked as a cocktail waitress, because the money was better. Neither she nor my dad finished college. They were passionate about me and your aunt, and about music, but because they had to work most of the time to support our family, they couldn’t spend much time with any of us. It’s easy to get stuck in that pattern – do something you don’t love to make money for the kids you do love, which takes time away from the kids, but you don’t have enough education to make money doing what you love, so you keep on doing something you don’t love…
It wasn’t easy, but finishing college changed her life completely; Nana Lee no longer settles for something less than what she wants. She earned her degree shortly after I had already left my college education hanging high and dry. Sure, I started – studying music no less! But life’s road can be full of twists and turns that are easy to miss if you’re not careful. I let a few of those turns throw me off for about 15 years.
I don’t regret any decision I made, because around all the turns I found you. I met Daddy and came into the strongest love I have ever known: one that grows stronger steadily by the day, and one that produced two amazing boys. When Daddy and I met, we were both in university limbo. After a wild 14-year ride of courtship and marriage, we are both just now getting back to our educations. Unfortunately, you two seem to bear the biggest brunt of our procrastination. Because our time is filled with more than just you and your care, you have to share the load of household chores. I can only imagine that’s not as bad as sharing your parents with the university.
Why am I doing this now? I refuse to settle for anything less than best. I realized shortly after you were born that Nana Lee wasn’t just settling for second-best for her life, but also for my sister’s and mine; that was what she endeavored to correct by going back to school. You two deserve the best, and your children will deserve the best. If I can give you anything (besides my good teeth and charming disposition) I pray I can give you this wisdom: Never settle! Finish your education before you set off on your own road in life, so that the trip will be smoother, so that your families will not have to settle for less of you in their lives. Learn to do what you love for a living so that you won’t be picked dry by a boring job. That is the best way to ensure that there will be more of you to share with them.
Live well, my sons! I love you both.
- written in the fall of 2005 -
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Go-Time
Last night I heard myself say words I've never said before:
"Tomorrow is just go-over-the-syllabus day; I don't really have to go to class."
Wes looked a bit like a puppy dog who cocks his head in confusion, trying to decide exactly what it was he just heard. His eyes changed almost imperceptibly, just enough for me to get the message -- which was you're kidding, right?
"I'm kidding!" I say backpedaling fast (I wasn't.) "Of course I'm going!"
When I finally got out of the house this morning, about 15 minutes late (grumble), I had to resist the urge to drive by Nathan's bus stop on the way to Luke's neighborhood school, just to make sure they were where they were supposed to be. Nathan has been up early every day this week, pulled from the comfort of his bed by the anticipation of his new middle school status. He's decided to revamp his image, telling his teachers to call him "Nate" and using hair products. *sigh* He seems to be embracing preteenhood and life in junior high. But it's more than the social life of the prepubescent that's making him seize the day. I told Luke this morning, "I think Nathan is actually excited about the work of 6th grade!" To which Luke rolled his eyes, looking horror struck, muttering, "He is! It's so weird!"
Luke is the opposite, at least to hear him tell it. He started telling us how much he was looking forward to next summer break before this summer break was over. He complains about learning new things ("I already know everything" -- he told us when he was four years old -- "I'm a genus!" Yes, as in, genus-phylum-species), about being bored, about getting up in the morning ("I'm way too tired for school this morning!"), and on and on... But he has come home happy and full of stories the last two days. On the first day of school last year, I came downstairs to find him sitting at the table totally dressed, including his backpack and bicycle helmet, eating his Rice Krispies. I saw him pedaling up the alley on his morning commute today, faster than he's ever ridden. Does that sound like a kid that r-e-a-l-l-y hates school? I didn't think so, either.
At any rate, I knew the boys were fine. They know the school-morning drill, and they execute it well. I also knew my compulsion to check on them was nothing more than a thinly-guised stall tactic.
In the truck on the highway, I asked myself in frustration, loud enough to be heard over the morning news on NPR, "What's my deal? I'm never late on the first day!"
I didn't have an answer.
Texas State University is in a little-big town called San Marcos, about 20 minutes down IH-35 from my little-little town, which is about 30 minutes south of Austin. This campus rocks -- sprawling across several miles of hills, it's an aesthetically-pleasing blend of old and new, with a river running through it. San Marcos' population explodes every new semester with the incoming class moving in for the first time or back for another round. Yet San Marcos stubbornly holds on to its redneck spirit, its old-timey small-town feel, refusing progress. That includes bridges.
There are no bridges going over the railroad that goes right through the center of town. And the tracks are used many times a day by trains. Long, s-l-o-w trains. Inevitably I find myself waiting on a train while en route to class at least once per semester, reading the graffiti on the boxcars that serve as sort of travel stickers, letting you know in which cities the train has rested overnight. But I've never waited for the train on the first day of classes; I'm usually early enough to miss it.
Not today. (I hate trains.)
Since I already own my own home and I don't think Wes would like dorm life, I commute. Commuters park on the outer rim of TSU campus, known as "the perimeter." There is a bus system that shuttles commuters from their parking lots in outer Mongolia to the heart of the campus, but to call them reliable would be like calling Genghis Khan a teddy bear. I usually walk in. If possible I return to my truck to change out books between classes, which means I walk in (read: climb The Hill) several times a day. I gained a couple of pounds this summer with the cut in activity; after today's walking I'm surprised it wasn't more! Anyway. It's about a 15-minute walk at a comfortable pace, or an eight-minute walk when I'm late, like this morning. Despite the speed, the panting and sucking of wind, the pounding heart, and the sweat pouring down my back and face, I sunk down into a chair in my 8:00 calculus class -- late.
I've had two lectures thus far today -- Calculus II and Organic Chemistry I -- neither of which was just go-over-the-syllabus day. In fact, the syllabus was abandoned within the first ten minutes of both classes as we dove right into the material. By the time I was done with calculus, I had my answer to why I was late: I'm afraid I'm not ready for this semester. I've scheduled 15 hours of intense courses. Add that to Nathan's new school, Luke's old reticence to do school at all (don't even get me started on homework -- uggh!), Wes' demanding work schedule, involvement in ministry at our church, the responsibilities of home ownership, and the unyielding guilt of never spending enough quality time with the kids -- well, it can be pretty overwhelming. The last time I did a semester like this, I swore it was the last time ever. Yet here I am again.
Why, you ask?
I'll tell you why.
I keep thinking, if I can't hack a heavy semester in undergraduate school, what will I do in medical school: Curl up under my bed in the fetal position and suck my thumb? And then, what will I do during the gruelling hours of internship and residency: throw down my clipboard and stethoscope while telecasting my crazy desperate wordless scream around the ER? No, that's not acceptable. This is my proving ground, this is go-time, (this is insane!) this is necessary to build my foundation, my character, my study habits.
Besides that, if I don't pick up the pace I won't leave TSU until 2015! I'll get the "Most Semesters Matriculated" award handed to me with my degree. That's not acceptable either.
This is doable. This may be my life for the next several months, but it's doable.
Okay, now I'm ready
"Tomorrow is just go-over-the-syllabus day; I don't really have to go to class."
Wes looked a bit like a puppy dog who cocks his head in confusion, trying to decide exactly what it was he just heard. His eyes changed almost imperceptibly, just enough for me to get the message -- which was you're kidding, right?
"I'm kidding!" I say backpedaling fast (I wasn't.) "Of course I'm going!"
When I finally got out of the house this morning, about 15 minutes late (grumble), I had to resist the urge to drive by Nathan's bus stop on the way to Luke's neighborhood school, just to make sure they were where they were supposed to be. Nathan has been up early every day this week, pulled from the comfort of his bed by the anticipation of his new middle school status. He's decided to revamp his image, telling his teachers to call him "Nate" and using hair products. *sigh* He seems to be embracing preteenhood and life in junior high. But it's more than the social life of the prepubescent that's making him seize the day. I told Luke this morning, "I think Nathan is actually excited about the work of 6th grade!" To which Luke rolled his eyes, looking horror struck, muttering, "He is! It's so weird!"
Luke is the opposite, at least to hear him tell it. He started telling us how much he was looking forward to next summer break before this summer break was over. He complains about learning new things ("I already know everything" -- he told us when he was four years old -- "I'm a genus!" Yes, as in, genus-phylum-species), about being bored, about getting up in the morning ("I'm way too tired for school this morning!"), and on and on... But he has come home happy and full of stories the last two days. On the first day of school last year, I came downstairs to find him sitting at the table totally dressed, including his backpack and bicycle helmet, eating his Rice Krispies. I saw him pedaling up the alley on his morning commute today, faster than he's ever ridden. Does that sound like a kid that r-e-a-l-l-y hates school? I didn't think so, either.
At any rate, I knew the boys were fine. They know the school-morning drill, and they execute it well. I also knew my compulsion to check on them was nothing more than a thinly-guised stall tactic.
In the truck on the highway, I asked myself in frustration, loud enough to be heard over the morning news on NPR, "What's my deal? I'm never late on the first day!"
I didn't have an answer.
Texas State University is in a little-big town called San Marcos, about 20 minutes down IH-35 from my little-little town, which is about 30 minutes south of Austin. This campus rocks -- sprawling across several miles of hills, it's an aesthetically-pleasing blend of old and new, with a river running through it. San Marcos' population explodes every new semester with the incoming class moving in for the first time or back for another round. Yet San Marcos stubbornly holds on to its redneck spirit, its old-timey small-town feel, refusing progress. That includes bridges.
There are no bridges going over the railroad that goes right through the center of town. And the tracks are used many times a day by trains. Long, s-l-o-w trains. Inevitably I find myself waiting on a train while en route to class at least once per semester, reading the graffiti on the boxcars that serve as sort of travel stickers, letting you know in which cities the train has rested overnight. But I've never waited for the train on the first day of classes; I'm usually early enough to miss it.
Not today. (I hate trains.)
Since I already own my own home and I don't think Wes would like dorm life, I commute. Commuters park on the outer rim of TSU campus, known as "the perimeter." There is a bus system that shuttles commuters from their parking lots in outer Mongolia to the heart of the campus, but to call them reliable would be like calling Genghis Khan a teddy bear. I usually walk in. If possible I return to my truck to change out books between classes, which means I walk in (read: climb The Hill) several times a day. I gained a couple of pounds this summer with the cut in activity; after today's walking I'm surprised it wasn't more! Anyway. It's about a 15-minute walk at a comfortable pace, or an eight-minute walk when I'm late, like this morning. Despite the speed, the panting and sucking of wind, the pounding heart, and the sweat pouring down my back and face, I sunk down into a chair in my 8:00 calculus class -- late.
I've had two lectures thus far today -- Calculus II and Organic Chemistry I -- neither of which was just go-over-the-syllabus day. In fact, the syllabus was abandoned within the first ten minutes of both classes as we dove right into the material. By the time I was done with calculus, I had my answer to why I was late: I'm afraid I'm not ready for this semester. I've scheduled 15 hours of intense courses. Add that to Nathan's new school, Luke's old reticence to do school at all (don't even get me started on homework -- uggh!), Wes' demanding work schedule, involvement in ministry at our church, the responsibilities of home ownership, and the unyielding guilt of never spending enough quality time with the kids -- well, it can be pretty overwhelming. The last time I did a semester like this, I swore it was the last time ever. Yet here I am again.
Why, you ask?
I'll tell you why.
I keep thinking, if I can't hack a heavy semester in undergraduate school, what will I do in medical school: Curl up under my bed in the fetal position and suck my thumb? And then, what will I do during the gruelling hours of internship and residency: throw down my clipboard and stethoscope while telecasting my crazy desperate wordless scream around the ER? No, that's not acceptable. This is my proving ground, this is go-time, (this is insane!) this is necessary to build my foundation, my character, my study habits.
Besides that, if I don't pick up the pace I won't leave TSU until 2015! I'll get the "Most Semesters Matriculated" award handed to me with my degree. That's not acceptable either.
This is doable. This may be my life for the next several months, but it's doable.
Okay, now I'm ready
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Tickling the edges of my...
(heh, made you look!)
I am on summer break between university semesters for 21 hours and 54 minutes longer. In the previous months of summer I've engaged in various activities to entertain, embarrass, madden, frustrate, and then completely bore my husband, two children, and Copper the dog. But in between activities I managed time to read. For mind-drugging pleasure, not for my education (aah, sweet bliss!)
The three most recent reads have been memoirs of one sort or another, the first of which was Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen. Julie Powell happened into a dream career with a desperate attempt to assign meaning to her life with a deranged project (cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child) and a blog to chronicle it. Shortly after that hilarious romp-through-the-pages, I dived into Atul Gawande's Complications. While not a memoir per se, Complications is narrative nonfiction, especially on the state of medicine today, at its best. I was mesmerized by his prose, and paused throughout not only to marvel over his words but also to put myself in his position (and to pray over my own future in medicine.) Gawande got his literary start writing for online publications, such as Slate, while he was a resident. The final book in my personal summer reading club was totally dee-licious brain candy -- Such a Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster -- which is (you guessed it) accompanied by her own amazingly popular blog, jennsylvania.com.
As I was devouring this literary buffet, I could feel something growling underneath the surface, a temptation of a thought tickling the edges of my conscious mind:
Start a blog.
Why, you say?
I'm glad you asked.
Among the other exhilerating events of my summer, I turned 37 in July (moan!) I have two bouncy not-so-baby boys -- Nathan, 11, and Luke, 9 -- a wonderfully goofy, geeky, and altogether good husband -- Wes, also 37 -- a mortgage, and a dog in the backyard. I also had -- until a few years ago -- an identity crisis. I started my college career in music education, and took a break from it 18 years ago; when I realized I was still on break, I was in a graphics design career, surburbia, and motherhood. I had sowed the seeds of my youth into my family and a string of jobs that were taking me further away from where I thought my life would go. It's quite exhausting, looking for yourself while chasing a toddler and changing a baby's diaper before going to work. Somehow, the search for who you are gets subordinated to everyone else's needs: your husband's, your childrens', your boss's. Exhaustion and self-neglect inevitably led me to burn-out.
When Luke started kindergarten I finally stopped the hamster wheel and got off. Where to go now? Exploring! When Luke started first grade, I became a(n unsuccessful) personal trainer. When Luke started second grade, I went back to school.
I love music. I am passionate about the arts. My fitness fetish led to a fascination with human health and anatomy. And I've discovered another obsession -- medicine.
Nathan started junior high school (gulp!) and Luke started fourth grade yesterday, and I start my sixth semester at Texas State University as a premed student studying biology...tomorrow.
I consider myself many things. I am a mom of two very active boys. I am a fulltime student. I am a manic wife to a mid-level manager who, while not a workoholic, is a self-confessed adrenaline-junkie who is not satisfied unless challenged and is an oh-by-the-way-premed student, also. In his spare time (you can stop laughing now.) I consider myself creative. I consider myself fun. I think I'm reasonably funny (although others may not get the punchline.) And most of the time I can at least appear to have my sh*t together. But one thing I don't consider myself to be is original. I'm betting there are others that might enjoy reading about my journey because they're on a similar one, or want to be.
A casual survey of cars in my subdivision has turned up many university parking permits. Some of these cars hold carseats, toys, week-old french fries, and sour sippy cups that have rolled under the seat. I realized that many in my generation -- maybe not a majority, but many -- have opened their eyes recently to find that their break from college took them a decade or so down their life's path, and they have found themselves, two houses, a career or two, and babies later -- still on that break. Many have found that their original degree and career was not all that and a bag of chips, and have decided to change their lives by going back to school, kids in tow. The small population I've studied (or, at least, their cars) here in smalltown Texas is proof of that.
So I'm not the only one. Huh.
I am on summer break between university semesters for 21 hours and 54 minutes longer. In the previous months of summer I've engaged in various activities to entertain, embarrass, madden, frustrate, and then completely bore my husband, two children, and Copper the dog. But in between activities I managed time to read. For mind-drugging pleasure, not for my education (aah, sweet bliss!)
The three most recent reads have been memoirs of one sort or another, the first of which was Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen. Julie Powell happened into a dream career with a desperate attempt to assign meaning to her life with a deranged project (cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child) and a blog to chronicle it. Shortly after that hilarious romp-through-the-pages, I dived into Atul Gawande's Complications. While not a memoir per se, Complications is narrative nonfiction, especially on the state of medicine today, at its best. I was mesmerized by his prose, and paused throughout not only to marvel over his words but also to put myself in his position (and to pray over my own future in medicine.) Gawande got his literary start writing for online publications, such as Slate, while he was a resident. The final book in my personal summer reading club was totally dee-licious brain candy -- Such a Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster -- which is (you guessed it) accompanied by her own amazingly popular blog, jennsylvania.com.
As I was devouring this literary buffet, I could feel something growling underneath the surface, a temptation of a thought tickling the edges of my conscious mind:
Start a blog.
Why, you say?
I'm glad you asked.
Among the other exhilerating events of my summer, I turned 37 in July (moan!) I have two bouncy not-so-baby boys -- Nathan, 11, and Luke, 9 -- a wonderfully goofy, geeky, and altogether good husband -- Wes, also 37 -- a mortgage, and a dog in the backyard. I also had -- until a few years ago -- an identity crisis. I started my college career in music education, and took a break from it 18 years ago; when I realized I was still on break, I was in a graphics design career, surburbia, and motherhood. I had sowed the seeds of my youth into my family and a string of jobs that were taking me further away from where I thought my life would go. It's quite exhausting, looking for yourself while chasing a toddler and changing a baby's diaper before going to work. Somehow, the search for who you are gets subordinated to everyone else's needs: your husband's, your childrens', your boss's. Exhaustion and self-neglect inevitably led me to burn-out.
When Luke started kindergarten I finally stopped the hamster wheel and got off. Where to go now? Exploring! When Luke started first grade, I became a(n unsuccessful) personal trainer. When Luke started second grade, I went back to school.
I love music. I am passionate about the arts. My fitness fetish led to a fascination with human health and anatomy. And I've discovered another obsession -- medicine.
Nathan started junior high school (gulp!) and Luke started fourth grade yesterday, and I start my sixth semester at Texas State University as a premed student studying biology...tomorrow.
I consider myself many things. I am a mom of two very active boys. I am a fulltime student. I am a manic wife to a mid-level manager who, while not a workoholic, is a self-confessed adrenaline-junkie who is not satisfied unless challenged and is an oh-by-the-way-premed student, also. In his spare time (you can stop laughing now.) I consider myself creative. I consider myself fun. I think I'm reasonably funny (although others may not get the punchline.) And most of the time I can at least appear to have my sh*t together. But one thing I don't consider myself to be is original. I'm betting there are others that might enjoy reading about my journey because they're on a similar one, or want to be.
A casual survey of cars in my subdivision has turned up many university parking permits. Some of these cars hold carseats, toys, week-old french fries, and sour sippy cups that have rolled under the seat. I realized that many in my generation -- maybe not a majority, but many -- have opened their eyes recently to find that their break from college took them a decade or so down their life's path, and they have found themselves, two houses, a career or two, and babies later -- still on that break. Many have found that their original degree and career was not all that and a bag of chips, and have decided to change their lives by going back to school, kids in tow. The small population I've studied (or, at least, their cars) here in smalltown Texas is proof of that.
So I'm not the only one. Huh.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
