Snooze button

It was this time last year that I had my "come to Jesus moment" and decided I couldn't go to New Zealand. It's hard to believe that a year has gone by, but the same day I decided that I couldn't leave Seattle is the day that my funding came through and I was accepted to the university here. It's funny how life seems to work that way. I've spent some rainy nights lately wondering what would have happened if I had gone ahead and canceled, if those letters had come another day. The hard thing is knowing that either way I have a head full of dreamy "what if"s and those, frankly, are pretty useless.

Teaching a third year senior level class really sheds a different light on choices, though, because suddenly there are students asking me for advice. It's weird because it all seems so straight forward when I'm talking to them. And in a way that grounds it all out, it centers all the worries because talking through it maybe this whole thing does make some kind of sense.

There are a ton of jokes describing grad school as the snooze button for life, but it doesn't have to be. I feel like I'm morphing from an aimless student into something resembling a professional teacher and researcher, in some ways in spite of myself. It was really hard until I was here to think about anything but coming here (usually with a lot of trepidation). After I got here I spent a lot of time looking back (and often I still do), but there are moments when I'm complete in the now. And it feels good to be awake.