After a frustrating return to school that involved me withdrawing from a graduate program, wrangling help from a Dean to get admitted into a course at another school, serious lack of confidence issues, classmates who were openly contemptuous of my writing and opinions (I felt like I was back in junior high), a broken collar bone, surgery, 2 hospitalizations, family strife, ongoing headaches with my home care nurses, missed deadlines, begged extensions, a hostile prof, and now weather so cold it is literally making me want to cry, I managed to finish my class!
I emailed in my last assignment (6 weeks late) just a few minutes ago. My work was very sub par and not what I am capable of and I fear my grade is going to reflect that and be very low. But at this point, that is really not something to worry about. I honestly didn't think I was going to get everything done. I almost withdrew several times; I had an easy out due to medical reasons. But I finished. And while the course as a whole was pretty much a flop (I realized that my learning style is really not at all suited for online courses); I did learn a lot about what I need to do to go back to school and be successful. This course was not really successful, I have to admit. But I can take a lot from it in terms of things I need to do better next time.
And next time will be a few short weeks since I found out the other day I have been given admission to another graduate program--one that I think will be much a better fit for me than the one I was enrolled in briefly this summer. At this point, unfortunately my collar bone has not healed enough to allow me to return to campus based courses as I hoped to in January. So it will be online courses for at least one more semester. But my new goal is to take a course on campus for the spring semester, which starts in May.
It is such a big relief to get this course done without needing to resort to a withdrawal. And even if I fail, the other program has offered me a definite acceptance based on my previous grades. So while my ego will probably be bruised, an expected bad grade in the course I just finished will not be the end of the world. I didn't tell anybody about the other acceptance because my confidence was so low and my interest in school waning that even until yesterday I wasn't sure I would accept the spot. December is not the best month for big decisions because, even though I have tried to push it out of my mind, the specter of the anniversary of my injury looming ahead feels like a black cloud overhead I can't shake. (Anniversary never seems the right word, but what other one do you use?) I don't really get why I should be so fixated on it, but unfortunately I am. However I have been able to lift some of that depression in the past week. Still have a long way to go though.
So despite my doubts, I sent in an email at 3 am this morning (I was up writing my last assignment) saying I wanted to accept the admission offer.
It has been a very rough return to school for me. It was much harder than I expected in terms of how I emotionally dealt with how my spinal cord injury meant I needed to modify things from the last time I was a student. That was a much bigger undertaking than I expected it to be and I needed a lot more assistance than I thought I would, even for one online course. I often needed to ask for somebody to type for me or to go out to the library very not convienant times. That has been a bitter pill to swallow, realizing that I couldn't even do this without a certain degree of dependency. But my family was great and very supportive and I wouldn't have been able to do this without them. I am very lucky they are willing to do what they can to help me get my life back on track.
It feels a little like I might finally going to be able moving forward again with my life after what felt like many false starts.
