Lessons from Food Poisoning

I recently spent a full week suffering from food poisoning. Here is what I learned:

• Don't eat raw cookie dough.
• Gatorade really can keep you hydrated.
• Always buy 2-ply toilet paper.

A Year of Blessing

One year and three days ago, I made a decision that changed my life. I decided to apply for a job that would take me away from the classroom.

As someone who cherishes anniversaries as occasions to reflect and ruminate, I've naturally been spending time in my mind with all that has passed in my professional life since I made this choice. Interestingly, the changes have been ones that have been so natural that it's hard to start to articulate what those changes have been and how different my work life is now.

What I find myself thinking about the most is the actual process of making the decision. I loved teaching. At times I was a weak teacher, frustrated by the piles of papers or overwhelmed by other pieces of my life. But when I was "on," I was a great teacher. I loved composition studies. I loved coming up with assignment ideas and learning activities and thinking of how all the pieces of the class would work together in accomplishing the course goals. I loved my colleagues. I loved my campus. At times, I am still stunned that I found the courage to leave and that it ever even occurred to me that leaving was a possibility. Why would someone leave a job and people she loves?

I am reminded, frequently, of why I went into education in the first place. It was never about the academics for me. Not ever, even though  I loved that, too. Rather, it was about making a difference. I remember very distinctly sitting in the relatively new student lounge at Highland Community College in Freeport, Illinois. That year, I had found that a lot of new college students would approach me as an older sister, asking for advice about things from relationships to coursework to picking a major. I remember that the sunlight was streaming in through the windows, casting an orange glow over the lounge, and I thought, "This. This is what I want to do. I want to make a difference in people's lives."

The only skill I thought I had was writing; therefore, writing--and the teaching of writing--was the tool I would use to accomplish my purpose in life. It was the instrument of my future.

So I went to college, preparing to be a middle school English teacher and then shifting toward teaching college composition. Yet I always felt different from my colleagues. I was interested in student development and understanding how their learning of college writing strategies intersected with the other aspects of their development. I sometimes would hear my colleagues say things like, "That's the job of student services," or "Why would I worry about that when we have counselors?" or "But what about the purity of the discipline itself? Instead of worrying about why students are struggling, let's blame them for being bad students." (Okay, no one actually said that last one in my presence. Exactly.) I always felt like I was in a parallel job, that my professional life was completely different from that of my colleagues--even in cases where on the surface, things looked the same.

When I sent my application in one year ago, I thought I would just be getting a spruce-up of my life with some re-energizing. I had no idea that I was about to enter the world where I finally get to do what I really, really wanted to do when I grew up: make a difference. I have never been one to make friends easily, yet I did so where I am. I am surrounded by women, with all the nurturing and mood swings and emotional nuances that inhabit every cell in my soul. I am part of midwifing other women from wherever they were to the women they are meant to be next. I have cried at work and held others while they've cried. I hug every single day--sometimes those I barely know and sometimes those I care about deeply.

The school's mission is to transform the world my educating women. To my great joy and blessing, it has transformed me as well.