It is hard being the “new kid.” I had forgotten what it was like to fear sharing my thoughts with other and this has led me to re-learning a lesson about being myself.

For the last 4 years, I had been apart of graduate school cohort. All the members of this cohort started the program at the same time. We had the opportunity to grow and develop together. We quickly relied on each other as a way to survive in our graduate program. In this cohort, I was able to speak my mind and have very little fear of offending someone or feeling like my opinion was not valued.

Starting at GCC this last semester was exciting and nerve-racking since I would be the “new kid” in the department. Upon joining the department, I found that everyone was nice and willing to assist me if I had a problem with students or needed help with resources. I automatically felt relaxed and welcomed. But I still did not feel comfortable sharing my thoughts with others for fear of being ostracized. The problem with being the “new kid” is wanting to fit in.

I wanted to feel like a member of this new department. However, I started to feel disconnected and moody since I had been keeping my thoughts to myself.  I had to tell myself that I am still allowed to have an opinion even if the rest of my department does not agree.

So for the last three weeks, I have been sharing my thoughts and opinions with others in my department. I do not believe that I have offended anyone and I am feeling more like a contributing member of my new community.

This first year at GCC has reminded me that I like who I am and my thoughts matter. Regardless of wanting to fit in, I need to share my thoughts in order to be a valuable member in my department.

Last week, I dreamt of getting ahead on my grading. I dreamt of Spring Break coming. I dreamt of sleeping a little extra on the weekend. I dreamt of the conference I am going to next week and did a bunch of mental organizing to begin to get ready. And then what I didn’t imagine happening happened:

What happened instead is I got sick. I came down with a sinus infection that left me feeling like an anvil had replaced my brain. The last sinus infection I had had a few years ago felt, instead, like an athlete wearing cleats was standing on my face. Because I didn’t immediately recognize the anvil symptom, having remembered only cleats in my face, it took me five days to realize I needed medicine. I thought I only had a cold. Needless to say, recovery has been slow. Instead of catching up on my grading, I’m falling behind. Instead of sleeping, I’m coughing and caught in that weird place you go when you try to sleep but you’re sick and on meds — that place of anxiety and strangeness that isn’t everyday life but also isn’t really a dream world.

I didn’t just fall behind in grading. I fell behind in my blogging. I fell behind in my house-cleaning. I simply fell behind. I’m still behind.

What I have mostly found myself doing this unexpected time, and it’s been over a year since I’ve not felt well, is letting myself just be sick. I’ve made two pots of homemade soup. I bought extra tissues. I canceled classes. And when I let myself feel guilty and tried to go back early this past Tuesday, I regressed and missed two more work days here at the end of the week. So then I went back to letting myself not feel well.

During this time of going through life with an anvil in my head, oddly enough, I have mostly been thinking about the imagination. How powerful it is! Time and again, it saves us. It helps us understand. It helps us to be understood. When the Tele-doctor asks over the phone, “What are your symptoms?” I can say, “There’s an anvil in my head.” And we both understand what I mean, and he knows I need antibiotics. I have been thinking about how imagination allows a sick person to imagine feeling better. To imagine sun on a cloudy day. To imagine a less insane world. To recall the woods and a peaceful retreat I had over winter break while right now living only yards off of busy Bell Road. This type of imagining, at least for me, gives way to hope. When I hope, I can feel better. When I hope, I can heal. When I hope, I can dream again and again fantasize about getting ahead on my grading.

This time of not feeling well has unexpectedly given me the gift of reflection. It slowed me down smack dab in the middle of a galloping semester so I could have some moments of quiet and gratitude. Rather than concentrating on how behind I am, I am, instead, dwelling in gratitude. It’s seems a strange place to be with an anvil in my head, but here I am.

This is how I deal with difficult situations…

Just kidding!

I actually have a very simple approach for dealing with difficult situations; I ask myself “If this is the worst thing that happens to me today, how bad is my day going to be?”  Essentially I am putting the ‘difficult situation’ into perspective of the grand-scheme of things…things being life.

The approach works well for simple-difficult situations such as being late to a meeting, and for more complex-difficult situations like disagreeing with a colleague.   When I realize that a situation is not as difficult as I might have originally thought, I am more open to new ideas for problem solving, and I have a more positive attitude as well.

I teach a slightly modified version of this approach to students when I teach the Health and Stress chapter in Psychology 101.  I encourage students to rank their difficult situations/stressors on a scale of 1-10: one being ‘no big deal’ and ten being the ‘absolute worst thing that could ever happen in the world.’  Many students have testified that learning to evaluate and to put difficult situations/stressors into perspective is one of the most valuable lessons they learned during the semester.

Trust me, I know everyday in life is not going to be full of baby bunnies, butterflies and rainbows; life throws curve-balls.  However by keeping life events in perspective of the overall impact that event has on the quality of life keeps many difficult situations from being difficult at all.

Every once in awhile I still have the old nightmare–the one where I wake up and realize that I am late for the final…in a class I forgot about all semester. Up until a few semesters ago, I thought that could only be a nightmare, and then a student e-mailed me the last week of class and told me he totally forgot about the class. He was hoping he could get caught up.

I know that students can have some really terrible circumstances in their lives. They have unexpected illnesses (one semester a student got a cancer diagnosis), children get sick (another student had a child hospitalized at PCH), family members die.  I’ve had students kicked out of their homes, in the middle of horrid divorces, etc.

And yet many of these students persevere through it all. Some even earn As and Bs in my class. What makes them different from the students who have a hard week at work and simply throw in the towel, never to be heard from again?

I can’t speak for all of my amazing students, but I can speak for myself. The second semester of my sophomore year at NAU was probably one of my most difficult. I got married the Saturday after the Fall semester ended. At the beginning of the Spring semester, I went to the ER for severe pain that continued off and on for months. Right before Spring Break, my dad had a massive heart attack at 49 and passed away.  After another visit to the ER in April, the doctors finally diagnosed a kidney stone, and I was rushed into surgery. In the meantime, my husband and I were supposed to be moving out of our apartment, so my family had to step in and help get us moved. And yet…and yet. I earned all As that semester (I was taking 18 or 21 hours–don’t remember which)–except for one B in the second semester of Organic Chemistry.  How did I do that? I was focused on my goals. I did what I had to do.

I like to tell my students this story at the beginning of the semester to help them stay focused: Imagine that you are at the top of a highrise building. There is a 2×4 balanced between the building you are on and another one across the street. A ice storm is swirling around you. You can feel the building swaying in the wind and icy snow falls in sheets. Would you cross that icy 2×4 for $1,000? $10,000? $1,000,000? Now…imagine that your two year old is clinging for dear life to that board just outside that other building.

There will always be hard things. If we don’t have a strong enough reason for being where we are, those hard things will stop us. But if our reason is big enough, we can conquer anything.  For many students, having a clear vision for the future can help them keep going when the going gets tough.

Karen

I didn’t select a line from “Field of Dreams” just because this week suggests we write about our dreams. I mean, how obvious.

But I’ve been pondering lately over how I can best support our faculty and their professional development. For a long time, the model with Centers for Teaching and Learning is to provide workshops and training so that faculty can learn new technologies and new teaching skills and apply these in their teaching practice. We tend to hope that if we build it (a new workshop), they (faculty and staff) will come.

But all the Maricopa CTLs are feeling the diminishing attendance, whether in person or online. Our event attendance looks like Kevin Costner wearing disgruntled face,  standing in an empty cornfield.

I don’t have much of a dream for improving the situation, mostly because the things I can do are limited by time and budget constraints. Sometimes it’s hard to balance supporting the smaller, more immediate needs for help with a big picture approach. I wonder how I’m going to find my way to a fresh path, one where I can help you grow rather than just helping you out of a pinch.

I’m not sure I’m making a lot of sense. But I’m glad you’re hanging with me through the discomfort of my own incoherence. If you are still reading. 😉

I’m a maker. I make things. Hopefully, engaging things. I’m getting ready to try something new, though I’m not sure what it will be yet.

But I need you.  My dream for today is that one person might read this and then talk to me about something that frustrates you, or something you need. One person might want to collaborate and try a new thing or make a new thing. That would help me build a thing I know you’ll like.

And if I build it, will you come?