"In my heart..."

...there's no doubt of who I want to be."

A few blogs posts ago I talked about my feelings on finally going to UCR. What I failed to articulate was how different this was for me so I will try and rectify that with this entry.

The school system I went through was set up like this:

K-5 is elementary
6-8 is middle school/junior high
9-12 is high school

For me, 6th grade and 9th grade were pivotal years. What I mean is that these were years when I had to do a lot of adjusting as a child and teenager. I repeated the same pattern by not doing my course work and not getting the grades I should have been getting. I was capable, but something made me stray. That same thing made me f'up my first year in community college. This is why I know I could not have handled uni right away (among other things...I am so grateful to community college and my wonderful professors).

But when I transferred to UCR, even under a major that was not my first pick, it was my choice. I did this. I wanted this. I earned this. And guess what? My first quarter I got a 3.67 GPA and made honor roll. I am so enthusiastic about graduating and grad school and teaching that now it is part of who I am more so than anything else has been (at least in public).

Life may not be what I imagined it would at this age, but life rarely works out the way you plan. You learn to adjust, and you take things as they come. It makes you who you are. I mostly like who I am with the occasional discouraging reminder of what I am not happy about at that moment, but I am getting there through the rough spots. And I am learning along the way.