I just saw on our graduate school group page that my classmate is about to have her final dissertation defense. I will not deny the sana all moment as I read the poster. I am indeed happy for her; at the same time, I feel disappointed in myself. All I can think of are the wasted money, time, and resources.
As I reminisce about the two semesters wasted, I have many excuses. I gave birth via CS last year but was determined to enroll because I planned to use my maternity leave to incorporate the corrections in my proposal. I planned to recuperate for a month from the soreness of my body. However, my baby was only a month old when I learned that the program where I was assigned in my workplace would be visited for its Level III Phase I accreditation, so I had no choice but to sacrifice my leaves and join the team. Let me clear this up, I was not forced to report immediately, but the messages from the local task force regarding some documents and some information flooded my messenger. Further, I could not be at ease while they were doing their best to save the program.
It was fine for me as I had a month before reporting to duty, yet I was again assigned as the chair of another program’s accreditation. Since they had helped the program I was in, I also had to do my best for their program. As I was doing this the whole day, I had sleepless nights attending to my baby’s needs as I am a full breastfeeding mom.
Three months passed swiftly, and now, I reported back to school. Workloads awaited me. Eventually, since the school where I had enrolled started earlier than my workplace, the semester ended without me finishing what I was supposed to.
This did not stop me to re-enroll for the second semester; however, I was caught off guard. Additional responsibility was given to me in my workplace. My husband just received a message to teach in our town, so he has to leave us. The nanny whom we talked to never arrived. So yes, I had to refocus myself. I had to prepare my kids early before going to school. I try to finish my work in school. I do household chores and attend to my baby every night. I did not even reply to my adviser, who tried her best to reach out to me. I am ashamed to reach out to her. Yes, I have wasted time, effort, money, and resources. I did not even move a bit to at least start the paper. From all these reasons for the unsuccessful revision of my proposal, I hope I did not waste those money, time, and resources “wasted” but for good reasons.
Yet, when I saw the announcement, the longing in my heart woke up. I know in my heart that excuses will not stop. I am not the only one with this kind of situation, and yes, the others have excuses too but they made it. They were able to do it! With this, I am propelling myself to take another risk to re-enroll for the third time this coming first semester. The question is, “Will I risk again after being informed that the Level III Phase II accreditation of the program I belong to will be in November?
October 2, 2023
