What are you afraid of? Snakes? Spiders? Speaking in public? I'm not afraid of any of those. I am afraid of failure. I am heart-racing, palm-sweating, shaking in my boots afraid of failure. I am afraid that I will not measure up, that I will be found to not be good enough, that someone will think I am dumb...Yesterday, I was in tears over it.
I made a bad grade in one of my doctorate classes. I would normally offer excuses here. However, I have recently finished an article about how when successful people fail they make excuses and thus, do not learn from their mistakes. So, no excuses. I made a bad grade because I did not read all my materials. It was completely my fault. I based my paper off the question asked and did not go to the supplemental material where the details required to answer the question were all spelled out. I have submitted four assignments like this which means I have three more bad grades coming. I cried.
I went to my sister's house to cry on her shoulder and she told me to get a tutor. I don't think doctorate students are supposed to need tutors, I said... She told me to take a break for a few days. I don't have a few days; I have so much work to do... Maybe this is not my path... I continued to cry. My brother-in-law came in from work, looked at me in tears, and asked what was wrong. I told him I made a bad grade, that I didn't think I could do this. He is a man of few words. He doesn't wax poetically and go on and on about things. He simply said "Yeah. You can. You're the smartest person I know." With that, he left the room. That was all it took. I felt better because one person said the magical words. He didn't hem and haw and try to think of a gazillion things to say. He simply said that I could do this with such certainty that I believed him. He had the exact words I needed to hear. Sometimes that is all we need.
Showing posts with label Doctorate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Doctorate. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
I May Be Sad, BUT I Will Be Educated...
There is no denying that I will be sad when Taylor leaves for basics. I am trying to come to terms with the change, and I know that I will obsess about what he is doing, his safety, his happiness, and all those motherly things we begin worrying about as soon as the nurse hands us our child for the first time. I will drive myself insance worrying unless I give myself other things to focus on. With that in mind, I registered for my first Doctorate classes today. Just call me Doctor Todd.
Teachers love school. It's one of the reasons that we teach. We get to explore our favorite subjects every single day while learning new information constantly. What better way to occupy the mind of an educator than to educate her? There are issues with this plan, of course. One, I am already in a state of exhaustion most days just from my teaching duties, so to add hours of research and classwork on top of that may be a bit much. I want to be tired enough to sleep and not lie in bed awake at nights worrying about bumps in the night. I do not want to be so tired that I cry at the drop of the hat or am so ill that I am hateful to my students. Two, educators normally get paid more the more educated they are. The state superintendant of education wants to put into place a plan that would end this practice. Teachers would be based on the performance of their students with no relation to their education level. (The whole debate about paying teachers based on student performance is a whole other discussion, but just compare it to paying dentists based on the number of cavities their patients have...) Zais' proposal means that I am going to go into debt for a degree that probably will not benefit me financially in my current job. Luckily, the point of the degree is the knowledge gained and the distraction from worry. Plus, it will be extremely cool to be Dr. Todd. I believe that is worth a little exhaustion.
A plan is slowly forming here though this blog... I am going to go to school, write Taylor daily, Skype when I can, go out with friends, stay active in my church, and pray more than I ever thought possible. It is all going to be okay.
Teachers love school. It's one of the reasons that we teach. We get to explore our favorite subjects every single day while learning new information constantly. What better way to occupy the mind of an educator than to educate her? There are issues with this plan, of course. One, I am already in a state of exhaustion most days just from my teaching duties, so to add hours of research and classwork on top of that may be a bit much. I want to be tired enough to sleep and not lie in bed awake at nights worrying about bumps in the night. I do not want to be so tired that I cry at the drop of the hat or am so ill that I am hateful to my students. Two, educators normally get paid more the more educated they are. The state superintendant of education wants to put into place a plan that would end this practice. Teachers would be based on the performance of their students with no relation to their education level. (The whole debate about paying teachers based on student performance is a whole other discussion, but just compare it to paying dentists based on the number of cavities their patients have...) Zais' proposal means that I am going to go into debt for a degree that probably will not benefit me financially in my current job. Luckily, the point of the degree is the knowledge gained and the distraction from worry. Plus, it will be extremely cool to be Dr. Todd. I believe that is worth a little exhaustion.
A plan is slowly forming here though this blog... I am going to go to school, write Taylor daily, Skype when I can, go out with friends, stay active in my church, and pray more than I ever thought possible. It is all going to be okay.
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