My college life wasn’t that easy for me either – I really struggled a lot just to get a passing grade in my subjects.  And, my life as a professional — being a teacher, in particular — is not that simple too! I have lessons to write, reports to submit, deadlines to beat and other goals to achieve.  But, who doesn’t?  It’s not that I’m complaining or droning about this path I chose . . . but it’s just so unthinkable that someone would pick a complicated life… 

If only I wasn’t required to do it…  If only I wasn’t forced by my superior … If only it wasn’t required of my profession… if I can only get a promotion without getting a masters degree! – these are just some of the many ifs that I have been contemplating before I actually decided to enroll!  True to what I have dreaded to experience, life as a graduate school student is not a walk in a rosy park.  I have to attend classes after conducting my own classes, need to beat the rush hours just to be in school on time and by some means “forced” to absorb a three-hour marathon of lectures and discussions (after conducting an 8-hour jaw dropping lectures myself…ironic?) Why can’t I just do what some of my students are doing? – skip classes! When my mind is too tired to think and my body, ready for sleep – not even a super woman can still soak up every bit of information from either my professors or my classmates.  Sometimes the muscles which control my eyes became ill-mannered – they just shut out lights and bring my eye lashes down without my permission…

I’m tired, real tired! That’s what I complain everytime I get home in the evening and yet can’t go to sleep – not yet!  I still need to prepare for the next day’s work — check students’ paper, plan the next day’s lesson, etc – and finish other things that need to be completed.  All these things that I experience seem too much to bear! But as time go by, my grumblings subsides… 

I soon realized that graduate school wasn’t all about projects, reports and paper works.  I came to understand that it’s a means of rediscovering one’s self, strengthening the guts, and adding dimensions in major areas of my character that have been left idle in my many years of teaching – aside from the “feel young” effect of being “one of the students” again.  It provides a diversion to release work-related stress and pressures (think of having to endure a day lecture and some “not-soo-behave” students). Graduate school for me has become a venue where we could be ourselves again, stripped with all the corporate masks that we wear everyday. 

In graduate school, there is no boss and no subordinates, everybody are equal and can express his or her mind without reproof, as long as it stays within the bounds of the natural and moral laws, of course.  When it comes to group activities and group assignments, one feels the spirit of teamwork and cooperation which is required to achieve a common goal and accomplish tasks with greater efficiency.

Graduate school does not curtail our social lives but extends it further because it allows us to meet new friends and build new relationships.  It has become a place to get to know people of different backgrounds and status but no matter the differences, one keeps on thriving on building network of unknown individuals into known and sometimes even loved beings.

In it, knowledge gained in every session is more appreciated because of its immediate application in the actual lives of the learners.  Unlike when we were in college where we (sometime I’m the only one asking) always ask where these equations and concepts be applied?  What’s the use of knowing how to simplify equations and finding the value of x?  The field of actual application of the knowledge attained in the class is vast enough that even the most creative mind cannot fill up.  But, the sessions in the graduate school program helps fill the void and it allows us to share to our students and colleagues something more!

Ultimately, one might have to go through a lot of troubles and hardships in all facets of life.  Being in the graduate school program is no exception.  Without these somewhat wearisome experiences – outside the school or inside – living would be lame.  Just as pure gold which came out of purifying fire, life in the graduate school is priceless – provided that you go through the process!

Well, this is it. Happy blogging to me and I hope that my future readers will have something worthwhile to read from this.