Beginnings

The months of January-May 2010 make up what I lovingly refer to as my “magical semester.” This was the spring semester of my sophomore year, the 19th year of my life, and it was a time of great awakening, inspiration, and fulfillment. I switched my concentration to Literature. All of my classes were related to my majors. I took a class called Literary Theory that challenged every belief, idea, and understanding of the world that I possessed. Ideologically, I was shaken to the core. I formed a couple friendships that remain some of the most important relationships in my life. For the very first time, I held leadership positions in different activism roles. I also officially decided that my dream was to go to graduate school and get my PhD.

Since that afternoon in March when I sat with my academic advisor and declared, “This is what I want,” I have worked effortlessly to make sure I get into graduate school. After two years of writing, studying, and applying, I was finally accepted into three schools and chose one with the best financial package. Now my reality is that in exactly one week, I will move to a new city all by myself, start a job as a head graduate assistant, and begin work on my MA degree in English.

I mention my “magical semester” because I believe that’s where this journey was birthed. If my academic journey were a narrative, I would say that my “magical semester” was the chronological beginning. Like the most classical beginnings in a narrative, its role is to a set story into motion; it is a catalyst; it is, as the Oxford Dictionary would define, a moment or series of moments that brings something “into being.” While I would argue that life is made up of a constant stream of endless beginnings (many we don’t even realize), my “magical” semester was a markedly conscious beginning that set this new journey of mine into movement.

This upcoming journey is the reason why I felt that I needed a new blog. My older site was full of entries that reflect some of the most meaningful happenings in my life, but I feel that they are a collection of moments that ultimately compose a very different part of my life. A different chapter in my story. I felt that a new job, a new degree, a new city, and a new stage of life called for a different writing “space.” I am dwelling in a new place physically—in an apartment, a city, and different academic community. My writing needs a figurative space in which it can explore, grapple with, and process these new physical spaces.

I wish that I could end this first entry will something incredibly profound or meaningful, but the truth is I can’t. I have many feelings as I enter this stage of life—more conflicting feelings than I have ever had about any transition—and all I can do is feel each emotion as it comes. I have no idea what to expect, and because of that, I’ve decided not to expect much at all. The very most I can say is that I am immensely thankful to have been given this opportunity to pursue my dream, to study what I love, and to be privileged enough to embark on a journey that is fully about my own aspirations. May I take these next few years and live them well.