Flashback

            Let’s rewind for a few minutes and think back to January.  It was a cold Tuesday, snow had cancelled my scheduled Monday classes. As such my very first classroom experience in over twenty years brought me to EN100, English Composition.  My teacher was friendly, warm even.  I was surprised to spot a familiar face, a girl from my church. When roll was called I heard a name of a young lady that graduated from my son’s class the year before.  Whew, not the black hole of terror I had anticipated so far. 

            As we jumped headlong into the class, my initial nervousness faded away quickly.  I started thinking I could probably do ok at this.  Maybe even enjoy it.  I even wrote in my blog after the first few classes that when I was in my English class, life just faded away.  It was like a comfortable little cocoon where I just rested and relaxed.

            Then came our first big essay.  It seemed easy enough, a reflection essay.  My topic came to me quickly enough, jumping off a bridge as a kid.  I sat down to write it and it was almost like it wrote itself.  I figured it was pretty good, my family liked it and my husband even said to send it in to Reader’s Digest.  Silly man, obviously he was biased. 

            But my teacher, she liked it. The grade was good.  She even asked for a copy to keep as a student example. Then on down the road she asked if she could send it in to a writing contest. (Spoiler alert, it did not win!  Second choice is nothing to sneeze at though!) 

            Throughout the semester I started to see that maybe not only did this writing stuff come fairly easy to me, but maybe I was a little bit good at it as well!  I always knew I enjoyed words, reading them, writing them, and just learning words and their meanings in general. 

            I cannot ever convey how good this semester was for my own personal self-esteem. I did not just pass my math, I rocked it.  I also got an A in the stupid UI100 class that I hated.  And, barring a terrible grade on my final, will have carried an A in English as well.  The math taught me I can literally overcome anything if I put my mind to it. It helped we had a crazy random teacher who made me think of math in bigger different ways, and made class fun.  UI100 taught me to persevere even when it seems pointless, and to focus on the bigger picture.  But English taught me that I can shine.  Maybe I always did and I just couldn’t see it.  And for that I will always be thankful for the one holding the mirror up to show me, Mrs. Lukens.

            Parting is such sweet sorrow! 

            This is not goodbye college, but see you later alligator!

to be continued……………