Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!
When this publishes on the blog, I’ll actually be training for my new job! Let’s hope that future Liz is enjoying herself, getting to know this unfamiliar realm of life, finally feeling accomplished about working towards something!
Speaking working towards something, I need to go on a rant.
This has been bothering me for quite some time ever since I graduated grad school actually, and as time passes and the process prolongs, I’m becoming more and more impatient with people’s expectations for me and what I’m doing with it at the moment.
I’m simply going to start saying this from now on: you’re either going to support me through the long process or don’t support me at all.
Lemme explain.
If there’s one thing that’s been constantly on my mind for the last couple of months, it’s the fact that I was ready to finally have a damn job. I want money, I want to work towards something, I just want to feel productive throughout the week. My days for the last year have pretty much been the same, and I’ve been really tired of this routine that I created for myself after I graduated. Yeah, I needed the rest maybe a couple of months after I graduated, but it’s now a year later, and I’m ready to live my best life.
Of course, that comes with a cost. You see, I don’t have prior work experience; I got 2 degrees in 6 years because I focused all my attention on getting them; working wasn’t in the picture, especially not while I was in grad school. So yeah, while I have the credentials of my education to back me up, I don’t have work experience to do the same. I have to start from somewhere, right? Well, that’s when I became a TA for Ro a year ago for her graduate course. I believe putting that on my resume is definitely helping me get interviews within positions in education environments, so even though it was more like a little internship, it allowed me some access into the field I would ultimately like to be a part of.
With that being said, I am going to say this once and only once: I am doing things my way, and if it takes longer than expected, then that’s on me, and nobody else.
Instead of allowing myself to feel like the process I’m on is the wrong one, I am telling myself that any victory, even if it’s landing a position like I did, is a step moving forward. I also have to keep in mind that I’ve only been on 8 job interviews in my entire life, and by going to them and getting the opportunity to practice them is allowing me to learn more about to process and the experience, and even about myself.
Just because it takes longer for the process to turn into a product, it doesn’t mean that there is no progress being made, and I hope those around me understand that.
So please, you have one of two choices: you support me and my decisions and the process that I’m taking, or you don’t. There’s no in-between.
So, here’s to more opportunities, more chances of growth, and hopefully getting to the product when it comes.
Letters From Liz. 