Friday, September 28, 2012

Cause Essay (Revised)



I come from a very large Italian family who love to get together and basically just talk and eat, eat and talk. Because of this I think I have been asked about 100 times "What made you go back to school?" At first I was taken aback and didn't even know how to answer. It took me a while to ponder and formulate, but once I knew, it all made sense.This is the story of the why's.Why I decided to go back to college after 8 years, a husband and three kids later.  I remember the day vividly. The day that I decided I was going to go back to school. I knew this was something I had to do, and I've known it for a long time.

 My husband and I had actually been toying with the idea for a few years, but somehow me getting a part time job always won instead. We are a family of 5 and it has always been tough living off of my husbands one income. I would always find a odd job where I would only work from 9 am to 2 pm in order to work around the kids school drop off and pick up schedule. I would always have to put our youngest daughter in daycare though.  Finally it was like I was hit on the head and a light bulb popped on because I realized that working those short hours didn't mean anything when you consider the price I was paying for our one daughters daycare, plus the price of gas for the commute, and eating my lunches out. This was the first reason I decided to go back to college, because something else besides me working a measly part time job needed to be done in order to provide more financial stability for our family.

Regret is something I fear with all my soul. I never want to regret anything I have done in my life. Of course I know that no one is perfect, not even close, including myself. But I do want to try and make choices that will both make me happy in the present but also most importantly tie into my "life plan". I knew in my heart that if I never went to college, not necessarily to get my degree and "become" something, I am happy to just study and learn, that I would regret it later in life. Initiative  is a big part of "doing". It's really easy to make decisions and to think of what you want to do, but without initiative it just might never get accomplished. I had put off going to college for long enough and once I decided this there was just no stopping me. The thought of possible regret was my initiative. This is my second reason for why I decided to go back to college, I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't grow old(er) and regret not taking the chance.


I love all the little Nike slogans, you know the ones you see on their t-shirts and commercials. Actually I have always been a sucker for personal affirmations and those Nike slogans are not far off from that. Something about feeling inspired, strong, beautiful, great, or basically anything glass half full, even when your not is amazing. I have always been honest enough with myself and even others to admit that I never really follow things through. I always start with great ideas and then they end up either as half finished craft projects or me backing out of being Girl Scout troop leader in the middle of the school year. It's horrible, I am ashamed and well aware enough to know that it needed to change. This realization kind of coincided with my decision to return to school. I dedicated myself to being a student and will not let anything get in my way of following through with this dream of mine. This is the third and most concerning reason of why I decided to go back to college. I wanted my children to be able to know that once you put your mind to something you can always achieve greatness.

 So here I sit, one month into my first semester back in college, well aware of the fact that I am a "non-traditional" student. I have gotten plenty of opinions from everyone who doesn't really matter in my life, it seems that they know me better than I know myself. In a way I feel like I have been set up for failure, but I will not accept that. I have always and will always put my children and husband first but what's so wrong with wanting to do it all? I pride myself on the fact that I have kept up on all the laundry, provided a home cooked meal every night, continued my impulsive house cleaning schedule all while maintaining really good grades in all my classes. Not to mention all the boo boo's, night time book readings, early morning soccer games and everything else that comes with the job title of mom.

3 comments:

  1. Almost yes, but graf 3 does not work--not sure how Arizona and Maine winters tie in to personal fulfillment or, really, how personal fulfillment is that different from the material in graf 4.

    So, think about ways to make graf 3 work in a rewrite. Everything else is fine.

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  2. I revised it and I hope it's better. I think I am the only one that has had to revise so many things, I am starting to get pretty down about it...

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  3. Okay, no regrets with graf 3. I'll take it and I'll take the essay at full credit.

    Cheer up! "Writing is Rewriting" is the 101 motto!

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