After meeting with housing on Friday, it looks as though Amanda and I will be able to move into the same apartment, apartment 516. The woman in charge e-mailed one girl who is living there currently (who had expressed an interest earlier in moving) to see if she was still interested in moving. She heard a response back that she did still want to move, so it looks like that space will be available. Unfortunately we can't move until everything is official and the other girl has officially "confirmed" it and selected a new room to live in. She could change her mind after seeing the room choices available, in which case Amanda and I would be split up into different apartments. But, I don't think this will be the case.
Still, this SUCKS, to put it mildly. Just when we had gotten settled in, we have to uproot again and shift down the hall. That means repacking, re-painting the walls, painting the NEW walls, and unpacking. It'll be a long process that all has to be completed this week on top of working for the EMC, homework, and Blockbuster. Though, I know I will feel a huge relief once this entire ordeal is over and I can move on with things.
I know I probably shouldn't feel like this, but I can't help feeling betrayed slightly by Champlain College. 2 years ago, I looked to this college as my doorway to freedom. I was at Lyndon State before, and I felt there was nothing there for me. There were no opportunities, no room for growth. I saw myself sitting stagnant for the rest of my college career, and knew I would leave feeling unfulfilled. It wasn't something I wanted. But, when I found Champlain, their motto stuck with me "boundless opportunities." It's even reiterated by the college Philosophy:
"The primary mission of Champlain College is to prepare students for successful careers by creating a physical and intellectual environment in which they have freedom to grow and are challenged to realize their full potential. While special emphasis is placed on the development of professional competence, the following are also seen as essential components of the College’s responsibility to its students: to inform and stimulate the mind; to develop character, personality and ethical conduct; and to provide creative outlets through supervised extracurricular activities.
Therefore, the College is dedicated to providing Champlain students with a variety of educational experiences that will encourage them to develop as individuals, to foster understanding and appreciation of all people, and to gain career skills that will allow them to contribute to the professional and personal environments in which they live." (http://www.champlain.edu/about/philosophy.php)
It's even stated in the first sentence that they create an environment "in which [students] have freedom to grow and are challenged to realize their full potential."
But how can a student be offered the full freedom to grow and realize their full potential if they're stifled by a college unwilling to compromise or work with a student who wants to take advantage of every opportunity available? This college wants to produce successful, involved, passionate and educated students; yet they're unwilling to help the students who have those qualities.
I considered myself to be one of those students. I'm a double major with a 3.88 GPA, and not only am I involved with a variety of on campus activities and organizations, but I've taken steps to create my own when the college lacked such resources. But most of all, I had a deep passion for this college and for what it stood for. I wanted nothing more than to give back and become a part of Champlain more than I already was.
So, it goes without saying that I was completely estatic when this United Nations project came along. I considered it a double whammy for the college, not only being able to give back to other students through the resident assistant job, but to also work on this amazing project and develop some amazing and positive PR for Champlain.
And then I ran into this whole mess. But what surprised me the most was the amount of resistance the college put up. In no way were they willing to work with me to develop a solution or a compromise when both of these opportunities conflicted. And, after everything I had done to be a part of this campus, none of it mattered. Even when I pointed out the discrepancies for the training for fall versus spring RAs, it meant nothing. Nobody said, " let's try and work this out." People said, "yes, you have a point," but nothing was done. And, I don't think anything will change.
And to make matters worse, this housing issue was more struggle, more hassle. Others could be consolidated and moved at housing selection, this girl in the other apartment could be asked to move and transfer students could be shuffled around, but there was no way to allow us to stay in our apartment? It was a "philosophical" decision of the department. So, the two students that aren't here yet will remain residents in the apartment while the two that are here (and have been for four months), completely moved in, decorated, and have mail sent to this apartment now need to completely uproot and shuffle down the hall in a few days. And, the college will also have to arrange and pay to have the apartment cleaned again before the new RAs arrive to take our place.
Sometimes, I just don't understand it. I really don't. Here are students that are looking to grow, looking to achieve success in every sense of the word; students who have reached out to the student body and to the community, who have spent their free time trying to make their residence hall and college a better place. Here are students willing to put forth as much effort needed to perform every job.duty, and role to the best of their abilities, and they're met with nothing but resistance from a place that supposedly strives to foster an environment for growth and for students to "realize their full potential".
With that said, I'm still thankful for the wonderful education and the opportunities that have been presented to me, and I'm still very dedicated. If I wasn't, I wouldn't be involved at all. But I can't help but feel a twinge of resentment for this entire predicament and it's discouraged me from being as involved as I initially wanted to be. Instead, it says to me "be involved, but don't try and put yourself out there too much. If you do, you'll have nothing but problems." Be involved just enough to feel fulfilled, but don't grow any further unless you want stress and disappointment.
So, as this whole ordeal comes to a close, I just hope the college will realize how much stress and disappointment this has caused for not only Amanda and I, but for others around us. It's changed the views on the college for many people, and not in a good way. I only hope that this will cause the college to go back and reevaluate procedures, rethink the way it handles situations like these. I hope they especially make changes to the RA training procedures. If all of the 2 week training in the fall is vital for all the RAs to be properly trained, than there is no way that 2 days of training in the spring can possibly turn out properly trained RAs. And, if those RAs are not properly trained, you are now endangering the lives of all the students they're supervising should a crisis occur. If you were worried about us being under trained by missing a few days of training, then this scenario shouldn't cause you any less concern. If the same training could have been received, then what does it boil down to? that we're missing move in weekend? So, because we wouldn't be there to greet the students and facilitate a meeting, there were no alternatives to make that up? Because we'd be missing a weekend, its reason to take away at least a semester's worth of RA duties? I think there's some thinking that needs to be done.
Either way, things are over and done with. There's no going back. And personally, for me, there's no going forward on that road again. Instead, I'm going to take different paths to reach the same destination. I'm going to focus my efforts on the project, and then I'm going to examine other leadership positions such as orientation leader or peer advisor. While I'm sad I'm losing this leadership position and disappointing all those that looked for me to be in that position, I know there are other ways to be a leader on this campus and in this community and I'll seek those out.
So, this will be the last time I blog about this topic. I'm finished, moving on. No need to drag out the negatives when I have such great positives sitting here to be blogged about. I just wanted to sum up my final thoughts on the subject now that some of the initial emotion has died out. It's a sad loss either way, but I'm willing to move on and not dwell in the past. I thank all those that have offered their support and advice through this whole thing, and to those who really understood the tremendous amount of stress this has caused me. Now, I look forward to moving forward with the United Nations project and putting this all behind me.
Oh, and one last tidbit before I sign off that I've been repeatedly forgetting to mention in here: How cool is it that three Windsor High School grads are working on this? Umm, pretty cool in my book! And, on top of that, we all have blogs! You can follow myself, Amanda Jones, and Bryan Hare on this project.
This post has become much, much longer than I intended, and I can only help but quote my friend Shakespeare (Bryan will appreciate the humor in this) from Hamlet, where his character Polonious says, "Brevity is the soul of wit...so I'll be brief."
Haha, theater nerd joke. Love it. Good night!
Showing posts with label Residential Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Residential Life. Show all posts
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Project Update
It's been a few days since my last post, so I figured it was time for an update.
First, a quick update on the RA position/UN project:
Housing: We have to move apartments. I'm not even going to get into the argument. I don't agree with their reasoning (there seems to be a trend here) but its not even worth it at this point. We're hoping for 2 spaces to be available in Spinner, but if not Amanda and I will have to move into separate apartments. Meeting with housing again tomorrow morning to figure things out more. I just want everything over with so I can focus on my online classes, the project, and my life, basically. This whole ordeal has consumed it for the past two weeks or so. It's been a long battle, and I'm just done fighting it. If anything, it's just made me lose any desire to work for them in the future.
But, on to more positive? note: the UN Project
Research is coming along, slowly but surely. We've struggled the first few days, I believe in part because we didn't really have a direction. We were dropped into this without knowing what to do, and it took us a few days to "Get accustomed" to everything I guess. The only analogy I can come up with is in Castaway, where Tom Hanks first washes up on the island. He just sits there, unsure of what to do. He mentally takes in his surroundings, and simply sits there and thinks. Finally he gets some direction and begins to take steps to survive.
Today was especially good, we all felt extremely productive and felt like we made some strides towards making a plan for the next few weeks. It's been great working together as a team for most of the time, we really utilize each other- talk things through out loud, bounce ideas around, and find new things or topics to research through each other's research.
We've also spent a good amount of time discussing the marketing around this project. We know that we want to make others aware of it, as it's a big project for Champlain College. Not only should others in the college know about it, but the community as well. But, here lies the problem--how do we do that? How to we make others aware of it? Especially in the next few weeks, as we want others to be able to follow us while we're in Africa. So far, we've turned to one marketing method we know and trust-Facebook. We created a group in order for everyone to join- group members, friends, family, etc... Here, we'll use this as a way to update our research findings, marketing strategies, etc... to keep everyone updated. Also, we've listed some student blogs and encouraged others to do it as well. This way they are all in one convenient place and others can access various student blogs in one place. On the flip side, once we gather a great deal of students, it will be easy to reach them all if we need to by simply sending a message to all the members in the group. In addition, we're hoping the more people we reach out to, the more will come back with information links, contact names, etc... that they know of. Yay for social networking!
Another issue we've come across in our our discussions is a lack of a "brand" I guess you could call it? We want to give the project a name and a logo, something that will not only unite everyone working on the project (there seems to be some division lines between groups) but will also give something for others to connect to, not just the "EMC UN Project". As marketing majors, we all got excited about this topic and have developed a few ideas for names, t-shirt and logo ideas, as well as empowering quotes and slogans. Of course, this isn't all up to us, so we're excited to bring this to the group meeting and get feedback from the two design teams as well. But, some of the questions I've been wrestling with--is this something that the students and community will be excited about? Is this a cause they'll deem worthy of supporting? If not, is there a way we can change that? And, do they believe the project has as much magnitude as we do? I guess these are just questions we'll have to work on finding the answers to over the next few months.
Either way, we want to not only make a change to the communities in South Africa, but we think its equally as important to reach out to the community around us, even if only to educate them on the severity of this issue. We have to be careful though, and not focus too much on this issue just yet. I think sometimes its easier to work on marketing for this because it's familiar, its the world that we live in. But, with only a few short weeks before the trip, we need to really focus our attention on gathering the right research and preparing for the research we need to collect while over there. Not only is this research going to be vital towards the project, but we only have one shot (10 days) at everything. There is no room for error, really.
So, our goals for the next few weeks are going to be to really figure out the target market and narrow it down as much as possible. The more specific the target market, the better results we'll have, hopefully. We also need to create surveys, determine the areas that we want to visit to observe behavior and have focus groups, along with which we'll need good, quality interview questions. On top of that, we need to collect as much general research as we can to be able to develop a detailed profile of the target market before we go so that we can have something together for others to read on the plane.
We have a lot of work ahead of us and sometimes we feel a little in over our heads, but I'm confident we have a great team and great advisers such as Meg Frenzen and Elaine Young that are helping to steer us in the right directions.
Overall, with each day that goes by and the more information I learn, I feel more committed and passionate about this project. I only hope we'll be able to inspire others in the same way.
I leave you with a quote that I found earlier, and I thought it was relevant to the project and a great possible slogan for our group. It was said by Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress:
"Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world."
First, a quick update on the RA position/UN project:
Housing: We have to move apartments. I'm not even going to get into the argument. I don't agree with their reasoning (there seems to be a trend here) but its not even worth it at this point. We're hoping for 2 spaces to be available in Spinner, but if not Amanda and I will have to move into separate apartments. Meeting with housing again tomorrow morning to figure things out more. I just want everything over with so I can focus on my online classes, the project, and my life, basically. This whole ordeal has consumed it for the past two weeks or so. It's been a long battle, and I'm just done fighting it. If anything, it's just made me lose any desire to work for them in the future.
But, on to more positive? note: the UN Project
Research is coming along, slowly but surely. We've struggled the first few days, I believe in part because we didn't really have a direction. We were dropped into this without knowing what to do, and it took us a few days to "Get accustomed" to everything I guess. The only analogy I can come up with is in Castaway, where Tom Hanks first washes up on the island. He just sits there, unsure of what to do. He mentally takes in his surroundings, and simply sits there and thinks. Finally he gets some direction and begins to take steps to survive.
Today was especially good, we all felt extremely productive and felt like we made some strides towards making a plan for the next few weeks. It's been great working together as a team for most of the time, we really utilize each other- talk things through out loud, bounce ideas around, and find new things or topics to research through each other's research.
We've also spent a good amount of time discussing the marketing around this project. We know that we want to make others aware of it, as it's a big project for Champlain College. Not only should others in the college know about it, but the community as well. But, here lies the problem--how do we do that? How to we make others aware of it? Especially in the next few weeks, as we want others to be able to follow us while we're in Africa. So far, we've turned to one marketing method we know and trust-Facebook. We created a group in order for everyone to join- group members, friends, family, etc... Here, we'll use this as a way to update our research findings, marketing strategies, etc... to keep everyone updated. Also, we've listed some student blogs and encouraged others to do it as well. This way they are all in one convenient place and others can access various student blogs in one place. On the flip side, once we gather a great deal of students, it will be easy to reach them all if we need to by simply sending a message to all the members in the group. In addition, we're hoping the more people we reach out to, the more will come back with information links, contact names, etc... that they know of. Yay for social networking!
Another issue we've come across in our our discussions is a lack of a "brand" I guess you could call it? We want to give the project a name and a logo, something that will not only unite everyone working on the project (there seems to be some division lines between groups) but will also give something for others to connect to, not just the "EMC UN Project". As marketing majors, we all got excited about this topic and have developed a few ideas for names, t-shirt and logo ideas, as well as empowering quotes and slogans. Of course, this isn't all up to us, so we're excited to bring this to the group meeting and get feedback from the two design teams as well. But, some of the questions I've been wrestling with--is this something that the students and community will be excited about? Is this a cause they'll deem worthy of supporting? If not, is there a way we can change that? And, do they believe the project has as much magnitude as we do? I guess these are just questions we'll have to work on finding the answers to over the next few months.
Either way, we want to not only make a change to the communities in South Africa, but we think its equally as important to reach out to the community around us, even if only to educate them on the severity of this issue. We have to be careful though, and not focus too much on this issue just yet. I think sometimes its easier to work on marketing for this because it's familiar, its the world that we live in. But, with only a few short weeks before the trip, we need to really focus our attention on gathering the right research and preparing for the research we need to collect while over there. Not only is this research going to be vital towards the project, but we only have one shot (10 days) at everything. There is no room for error, really.
So, our goals for the next few weeks are going to be to really figure out the target market and narrow it down as much as possible. The more specific the target market, the better results we'll have, hopefully. We also need to create surveys, determine the areas that we want to visit to observe behavior and have focus groups, along with which we'll need good, quality interview questions. On top of that, we need to collect as much general research as we can to be able to develop a detailed profile of the target market before we go so that we can have something together for others to read on the plane.
We have a lot of work ahead of us and sometimes we feel a little in over our heads, but I'm confident we have a great team and great advisers such as Meg Frenzen and Elaine Young that are helping to steer us in the right directions.
Overall, with each day that goes by and the more information I learn, I feel more committed and passionate about this project. I only hope we'll be able to inspire others in the same way.
I leave you with a quote that I found earlier, and I thought it was relevant to the project and a great possible slogan for our group. It was said by Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress:
"Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world."
Monday, July 28, 2008
Tom Tom couldn't get me out of this crossroads...
So, the RA position/ UN project has come to a crossroads. For the last week, we've fought and fought with every person possible to retain our position as RAs and continue with the United Nations Project, but unfortunately had no success. We even talked to the president to see what he could do, as we knew he understood the importance of this project to Champlain college. But today, unfortunately, we heard word back--a decision has to be made.
For the past week, I've agonized over this. There were nights I laid in bed for hours, working out every possible situation in my head, trying to weigh the pros and cons, work out financials, and look at the situation both short term and long term. I think what's been most beneficial though, is not only all the support I've received from friends, advisors, co workers, and family, but also being able to talk things through with everyone. I can't thank those enough that helped me work through the situation and offered suggestions, pros, cons, factors I never considered, etc... Also, a big shout out to Wes for his suggestion in talking to the president and arranging the meeting with him for us because we were so strapped for time. Being able to have this support and help there has been instrumental in not only my mental sanity, but also in making this tough decision.
After getting all the advice that I could, I worked it out to be the following:
This United Nations project is a once in a lifetime deal. Not many college students can say that they worked on a project for the United Nations and received an all expense paid trip to Africa to conduct research there. I know this project is going to big, especially based on all the PR ideas we were throwing out in this morning's meeting. It's not only going to look good on a resume, but I can only imagine what a fullfilling experience this is going to be. Even in the little bit of time that we've worked on it, there's a perpetual warm feeling that fills me, because in my heart I know we're helping the greater good.
But, I also had to look at what I would have to sacrifice for this position. For a while it looked like I wouldn't even be able to be guaranteed housing, let alone live with my roommate, Amanda. Not knowing about housing scared me. Terrified me, actually. There's no way I'd be able to afford an apartment for the year. And, if I had to move back to campus, I'd also have to get the meal plan. That's an additional 12,000 I'd have to find money for. Every year my financial aid is tight, so being able to find that amount would have been tough. Luckily, Res Life has finally guaranteed us housing in Spinner, and they're fairly certain we can room together. That relieves me a little. On top of everything else, I'd give up the bi-weekly RA paycheck and worst of all, the position itself. I'd already started planning activities for the year,and residents I didn't even know (and ones I knew) were already contacting me with questions and concerns , looking to their RA for guidance. There were tons of people, RAs and residents, who were counting on me to be in this position. By turning down this position, I felt like I was letting them down. I think that weighed more heavily on me than anything else.
I guess, when it all came down to it, I had to determine if this project was worth losing that student trust, that money, and the financial break on housing.
And after a great, great, great deal of consideration and thinking, I believe it is. It truly is. It's worth it for the cause, for the experience, for the opportunity. Bottom line.
So, I'm doing the UN Project and turning down the RA position.
Yes, we may not change the world. But, I refer back to the quote that I heard from Schindler's List "He who saves a life saves a world entire." Even if we're only able to save one life, save one woman from violence, then we've saved an entire world. Is this behavioral change even possible with what we're doing? I honestly don't know. But all we can do is try. And that, that makes it all worth it.
Last week during one of my sleepless nights, I thought back to the last big decision in my life, and I tracked it back to seven years ago when my parents were getting divorced. I had the choice of living with my mother and brother, or moving out and living with my dad. I wanted to live with my dad because my mother and I did not ( and still don't) have anything that resembles a relationship. But, my brother and I have a very tight, special bond. It broke my heart to have to choose, but there was no way around it. He wasn't old enough to choose, and my mother wasn't giving him up. I agonized over this, cried and cried and cried and prayed and cried and prayed for an answer. I've never felt my heart break more than when I watched my brother from the side view mirror as my dad and I drove away. Even seven years later, it's still an image that haunts me. But as we drove along and I fought back tears, I wondered if I made the right decision. I knew it was going to be mentally, emotionally and physically better for me. And, even though I hated leaving my brother, I knew he was going to be okay, we were going to survive. Even then, there was still a small part of me that whispered "things will be okay."
And now, seven years later...they are. It not only strengthened our bond and our relationship, but a year later he moved in with us, and we've never looked back. Things were okay. I can't even imagine myself making any other choice when I look at it now.
This was similar. I looked at all the pros and cons, and deep in my heart I feel this is right for me. It hurts to leave this RA position because I knew not only would I be good at the job, but it'd also be fulfilling. But, I feel that this UN project will be the best. It tore me apart, but I have to listen to my heart, it's never steered me wrong. And I can hear that faint whisper again that "things will be okay." My friends and family support me, and in my heart, this feels right.
When I moved out, things were okay. And inside, I know this will be, too.
I'm comforted by a quote I found by Abraham Maslow, a psychologist who created Maslow's "hierarchy of needs."
He said, "You will either step forward into growth or step back into safety."
The RA job would be safe. I know what to expect, I know what to do. But would I grow from it? I don't know. Maybe a little. This project is a complete unknown. None of us know how we're going to tackle this, or what we're doing. That's why we're here and why we took it on-- it's a challenge. It excites me and fuels me inside when we discuss it, firing out ideas and dissecting problems and solutions. On top of that, I'll not only be really traveling abroad for the first time, but also to a place I know nothing about. The whole thing scares me, but equally excites me. But I'm taking a leap of faith. I'm stepping forward into growth.
One things for sure: this is going to be an incredible journey.
Thanks to all those that helped me, guided me and supported me. It's been a tough decision and an equally tough fight. I stood up for what I believed in until the very end, until I couldn't fight any more. I didn't take this all lying down, but I know when I ultimately need to concede. And I've thought this decision through very carefully. It's been a a long, stressful, and draining process, but I'm glad it's finally over. Now the only thing to do is look forward to the future. And, as Dr. Phill says " Sometimes you make the right decision, and sometimes you make a decision right."
Either way, this is going to be the right decision. So, goodbye Residential Life. Hello Africa!
For the past week, I've agonized over this. There were nights I laid in bed for hours, working out every possible situation in my head, trying to weigh the pros and cons, work out financials, and look at the situation both short term and long term. I think what's been most beneficial though, is not only all the support I've received from friends, advisors, co workers, and family, but also being able to talk things through with everyone. I can't thank those enough that helped me work through the situation and offered suggestions, pros, cons, factors I never considered, etc... Also, a big shout out to Wes for his suggestion in talking to the president and arranging the meeting with him for us because we were so strapped for time. Being able to have this support and help there has been instrumental in not only my mental sanity, but also in making this tough decision.
After getting all the advice that I could, I worked it out to be the following:
This United Nations project is a once in a lifetime deal. Not many college students can say that they worked on a project for the United Nations and received an all expense paid trip to Africa to conduct research there. I know this project is going to big, especially based on all the PR ideas we were throwing out in this morning's meeting. It's not only going to look good on a resume, but I can only imagine what a fullfilling experience this is going to be. Even in the little bit of time that we've worked on it, there's a perpetual warm feeling that fills me, because in my heart I know we're helping the greater good.
But, I also had to look at what I would have to sacrifice for this position. For a while it looked like I wouldn't even be able to be guaranteed housing, let alone live with my roommate, Amanda. Not knowing about housing scared me. Terrified me, actually. There's no way I'd be able to afford an apartment for the year. And, if I had to move back to campus, I'd also have to get the meal plan. That's an additional 12,000 I'd have to find money for. Every year my financial aid is tight, so being able to find that amount would have been tough. Luckily, Res Life has finally guaranteed us housing in Spinner, and they're fairly certain we can room together. That relieves me a little. On top of everything else, I'd give up the bi-weekly RA paycheck and worst of all, the position itself. I'd already started planning activities for the year,and residents I didn't even know (and ones I knew) were already contacting me with questions and concerns , looking to their RA for guidance. There were tons of people, RAs and residents, who were counting on me to be in this position. By turning down this position, I felt like I was letting them down. I think that weighed more heavily on me than anything else.
I guess, when it all came down to it, I had to determine if this project was worth losing that student trust, that money, and the financial break on housing.
And after a great, great, great deal of consideration and thinking, I believe it is. It truly is. It's worth it for the cause, for the experience, for the opportunity. Bottom line.
So, I'm doing the UN Project and turning down the RA position.
Yes, we may not change the world. But, I refer back to the quote that I heard from Schindler's List "He who saves a life saves a world entire." Even if we're only able to save one life, save one woman from violence, then we've saved an entire world. Is this behavioral change even possible with what we're doing? I honestly don't know. But all we can do is try. And that, that makes it all worth it.
Last week during one of my sleepless nights, I thought back to the last big decision in my life, and I tracked it back to seven years ago when my parents were getting divorced. I had the choice of living with my mother and brother, or moving out and living with my dad. I wanted to live with my dad because my mother and I did not ( and still don't) have anything that resembles a relationship. But, my brother and I have a very tight, special bond. It broke my heart to have to choose, but there was no way around it. He wasn't old enough to choose, and my mother wasn't giving him up. I agonized over this, cried and cried and cried and prayed and cried and prayed for an answer. I've never felt my heart break more than when I watched my brother from the side view mirror as my dad and I drove away. Even seven years later, it's still an image that haunts me. But as we drove along and I fought back tears, I wondered if I made the right decision. I knew it was going to be mentally, emotionally and physically better for me. And, even though I hated leaving my brother, I knew he was going to be okay, we were going to survive. Even then, there was still a small part of me that whispered "things will be okay."
And now, seven years later...they are. It not only strengthened our bond and our relationship, but a year later he moved in with us, and we've never looked back. Things were okay. I can't even imagine myself making any other choice when I look at it now.
This was similar. I looked at all the pros and cons, and deep in my heart I feel this is right for me. It hurts to leave this RA position because I knew not only would I be good at the job, but it'd also be fulfilling. But, I feel that this UN project will be the best. It tore me apart, but I have to listen to my heart, it's never steered me wrong. And I can hear that faint whisper again that "things will be okay." My friends and family support me, and in my heart, this feels right.
When I moved out, things were okay. And inside, I know this will be, too.
I'm comforted by a quote I found by Abraham Maslow, a psychologist who created Maslow's "hierarchy of needs."
He said, "You will either step forward into growth or step back into safety."
The RA job would be safe. I know what to expect, I know what to do. But would I grow from it? I don't know. Maybe a little. This project is a complete unknown. None of us know how we're going to tackle this, or what we're doing. That's why we're here and why we took it on-- it's a challenge. It excites me and fuels me inside when we discuss it, firing out ideas and dissecting problems and solutions. On top of that, I'll not only be really traveling abroad for the first time, but also to a place I know nothing about. The whole thing scares me, but equally excites me. But I'm taking a leap of faith. I'm stepping forward into growth.
One things for sure: this is going to be an incredible journey.
Thanks to all those that helped me, guided me and supported me. It's been a tough decision and an equally tough fight. I stood up for what I believed in until the very end, until I couldn't fight any more. I didn't take this all lying down, but I know when I ultimately need to concede. And I've thought this decision through very carefully. It's been a a long, stressful, and draining process, but I'm glad it's finally over. Now the only thing to do is look forward to the future. And, as Dr. Phill says " Sometimes you make the right decision, and sometimes you make a decision right."
Either way, this is going to be the right decision. So, goodbye Residential Life. Hello Africa!
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