By Belynda, May 19th, 2009 in Other | No Comments
Tags: achievement, awards, GPA envy, hard work, school, talents, Writing
“Your talents are God’s gift to you. What you do with those talents is your gift back to God.” - Benton’s Mom (ER)
Just got back from the MCC Awards Ceremony, which was a lot of fun and ended at a restaurant with a particularly good glass of wine. The ceremony itself was an eye-opener.
I do very well in school, considering I procrastinate my ass off and do everything slapdash. It always seems to work out. I have a near-photographic memory for facts, I’m not too humble to say my writing skills are top-notch. On top of that, I genuinely enjoy being in school. When I found out I’d won the English Department award at my college, I was sort of cracking up over it, because I basically felt like I’d always done the bare minimum to scrape by (even if scraping by for me is A’s). I’m forever burning the midnight oil, or writing a paper on a book I only barely paid attention to, waiting until the last minute. I’m a pressure-cooker student I guess; I fare best when the clock is ticking. I’m not saying it to be an ass, I know that my academic successes are a blessing. But I didn’t have a full appreciation of the benefits hard work can reap, because I’d become so accustomed to just breezing by in school.
I got to the ceremony, and listened to some of the stories of other award recipients, and I was truly humbled. One kid, a commencement speaker, came over on a fishing boat from Viet Nam at age five. He has a 4.0 and is going on to a business program. He’s involved in half a dozen clubs, went on a fellowship program to China, and helps his uncle run a business. Another woman had a 3.95, which she maintained while raising three school-aged boys, running the books for her husband’s small business, and also involving herself in school programs in whatever time she could otherwise be using for sleep. There were many other stories of people who completely worked their ass off while struggling through strokes, disabilities, language barriers, family problems. Every single person on that stage deserved to be there, and I found myself feeling like “What the hell did *I* do, take a few extra lit courses? It didn’t even feel like work.” But I guess that’s the thing. If you’re doing what you love, and you’re doing what you’re talented in, then it’s not going to feel like work. To the rest of the world, it’s a sacrifice, but to the individual, it’s just the way of things. I hear people tell me “Yes, but you work full-time and still keep your grades up, and find time to write!” Let me be the first to say that this so-called “achievement” is total dogshit compared to some of the things I heard tonight.
I came away from the ceremony with a renewed sense of wanting to apply myself, really apply myself, to school, to my writing, to my talents. I want to work towards that 4.0 in my new pursuits at NEU. I want to finish the re-writes on the book and take courses that will get my writing to the next level. I want to stay away from my television (which I’ve done a bang-up job at in the past 9 months), stick with my artwork, sing more, read more, and re-commit myself to better things.
Going to the ceremony wasn’t just good in feeling like I’d accomplished something, although the recognition was nice. Better, it put hard work into perspective for me, and made me want to rededicate myself to the worthy things in my life.
It was a good night.
By Belynda, May 18th, 2009 in Other | No Comments
Tags: awards, disappearing canapes, graduation, hard work, lost, love, school, vacation time, work-life balance
A co-worker looked at me today and said “So.. when is your semester over?”. I laughed and replied “Two years.”
I was kidding, but it made me realize that I really am opting for the mule’s path to academic success. I’ve decided I want to be done with the rest of my BS and also my MA in two years, which seems completely ridiculous, but is actually doable as long as I don’t take any breaks. I’ve got something like 17.75 classes left for my BS (a mathematical phenomenon I will never understand), which works out to about 8 semesters of accelerated classes, AKA 4 regular semesters (since Northeastern Uni is cool enough to offer accelerated online courses.) So far, so good. Then it’s on to my MA, which should be in Education, but that remains to be seen. Marion and I have been plotting GRE’s, which makes the whole finishing my undergrad seem much more real, and very close!
Even despite the grueling pace, I realized recently that I’m not unhappy with my classes or the time that I’m putting into them, not even a shred. Sure, I have some nights that only see 4 hours of sleep, and I’ve torched more than my share of midnight oil in pursuit of that mirage we call “a social life”, but at the end of the day, I’m still really happy I’m doing this, and I still feel as though I’m working towards something that is going to change my life - something that will help me change the lives of others. Ed jokes that he’s going to need a hard-hat if I take on any more classes, but for the most part I think I manage to not be completely hideous. I don’t watch much television any more, but I’m coping. It’s not like ‘Lost’ ever made much sense to begin with, so catching bits and pieces really doesn’t put me at any more of a disadvantage than watching intently while following along with LostPedia on my laptop.
I recently found out I’m even getting a little atta-girl for the work I’ve done thus far. I got a letter in the mail the other day from MCC, saying that I’d won the English Award for Outstanding Achievement. Finally, my beefy GPA pays off! I’m really quite pleased with the award. I’ve even got a spot at the honors awards banquet tomorrow night! I just hope they make some extra munchies, because I’m going to be blazing through the canapes like there was no tomorrow.
The part that keeps amusing me though, is that I wasn’t even going to attend commencement for my AA, because I didn’t want to take the vacation time away from my job to go to the weekday ceremony. But was I going to pass up getting an award after doing all the work? Hell no! Well, here’s the funny part: Now, because of the award, not only do I have to be at the Commencement, but also at the rehearsal - because they’re going to make me sit on stage like a monkey in a board and robe for a few hours apparently?
So, my day off just became a day-and-a-half. So much for conservation of vacation time! I catch myself protesting this in my head, saying “I don’t have time for this! I have a family reunion to go to this year! I have a friend coming in from the UK! I can’t use 12 hours of vacation! C’mon guys! You’re killin’ me!”
But even though I’m crabbing about the stretched-thin time, it hit me that I’m still loving what I do, and I’m still pluggin’. I realize how much of a blessing that is, and how good it feels to have someone pat you on the back for it every so often. There’s something really important to be said for loving a hard life for the sake of itself. So, whatever it is that is worth the sacrifice for us, worth the late nights and tired brains and aching bodies, that is what we should commit ourselves to do, because there is a singular achievement to be found in nursing those sore muscles and foggy brains. I’m just glad I’ve found what it is for me.
