Life is a spiral --- student life once more

My life has been defined in relation to others: a daughter and grand-daughter, friend, girlfriend but also in iterations of my identity mainly as a student and a runner.

The position of my self with-in the cultural world of the academic institutions feels like home... it was all I had known until I graduated college. 21 of the 27 years of my life (13 years until graduating high-school + 4 years undergrad + 3 years grad + 1/2 yr. part time + 1 summer of Thai language) "being" a student.

I have not been a student since last December 9th, 2010. I also had 1 1/2 years of graduate school as a student giving 100% effort erased, "withdrawn".

As I begin in public health once again as a part time student this fall, I feel like I have gone in a circle - or - more of a spiral with broadening boundaries and perspective. Yet, while the distance from the center may have widened, I stand in relation to the same space that I have inhabited before as a new student.

The b-line, straight line to a PhD, like most things in life has taken an unexpected detour(s). I never thought I would be a "new student" again. I believed I would start graduate school and continue until completing my terminal degree. Instead it has been revolutions of a wheel that I am riding, inching forward semester by semester.

Not only anything but a linear trajectory, I have actually gone backwards or rather, time passed for which I was a full-time student that "doesn't count" ..... does that mean that the time - a year and a half of my life did not exist? Obviously it did.

It is just strange to stand here in the present which is a point along the PhD line that I should have passed years ago. I stand here as a student starting the fall semester of the 2nd year of my master's program as if the year spent in anthropology and in the PhD program never occurred.... (maybe a detour rather than a circle or a spiral then?). The students that I started my master's program with have since graduated and been working for over a year.

Where would I be - location? job? if I had not transferred into the PhD program early? What other possibly life courses might I have taken if different paths were taken at the major crossroads thus far?.

I cannot help but to feel like my identity has been lost in time and I am left to ponder where exactly my two feet are standing as I pause before walking into the Health Policy and Management building.

Will this be the last time I am a new student? Will it all come crashing down, again? Defer. Wait to heal. Withdrawl. Repeat.

I so want to embody the life of a student... perhaps for my whole life. I can see myself graduating and never leaving the university system switching from student to teacher/professor. All the time I am learning surrounded by a culture of learning. This is where I feel at home.

Ready. Set. Go.
Patricia K. Brewer- part-time post-baccalaureate student-HPM 710: Health Law.
Here's hoping for synchronicity between absolute time and time as a student.

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**Note: I firmly believe that wherever you are, you are and that that is ok and alright. This feeling does not keep my mind from churning around with its chattering of thoughts.