The Journey

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." -Lao Tzu

Three days into funemployment and ironically, three days until reemployment, here I am, lying in bed and typing away on my iPad at 5 AM. With less than a week until grad school, I decided to revive and revamp this blog to document my journey as a grad student. Naturally, this seemed like the more civil and sophistiqué option, as opposed to selfies with ramen and captions of #gradlife or #fml.

Looking at the big picture, it's difficult to pinpoint when exactly my journey began. In grade school, I had this precious and grandiose dream of becoming a ballerina. That quickly dissipated in my early years, as I had never taken ballet lessons or even donned a frilly tutu. From high school to college, I had my eyes set on becoming a teacher, educator, and mentor. I was inspired by Mrs. Mohler, who was more of an authoritarian figure than third grade teacher, but I was somehow drawn to her teaching style. There was also Judy and Craig, my sophomore English and History teachers, respectively, who also became my mentors, peers, and friends. But by the time college graduation rolled around, the educational system was not at its best per sé, and I quickly realized it was more of an idealization than a probable reality. From there, Speech Language Pathology found me. Well, that is the more romanticized version of the story...more like, I found Speech Language Pathology by reading US News and World Report. Either way, I began this journey with that single step.

The past four years have been a conglomeration of researching Speech Language Pathology, taking leveling courses in Communicative Sciences and Disorders, and applying to, getting rejected by and re-applying to graduate schools. Sometimes, I wish I had taken "the easy way" - whatever that means. Not going down this path, or choosing this path earlier on? I don't know. I've realized that it's not only the first and single step that matters when embarking down  any path, but more so the  treacherous journey that teaches us life's intended and at times hard-to-swallow lessons. My hope is for this blog to be a safe haven for me to comprehend, digest, and vent about graduate school, whatever that may entail. Beyond myself, I hope that my words and experiences can inspire, educate, and inform others who are going down the same path, pursuing parallel fields in education and/or healthcare, or simply looking for leisurely reading. In a not-so-glorious nutshell, this is what keeps me up at night and why I am here. I am gradually learning that where I am is exactly where I am supposed to be and also where God wants me to be. At this junction of diverging crossroads brimming with (un)certainty, as "way leads onto way," I hope you will join me on my journey!