{"id":33624,"date":"2020-09-21T11:17:55","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T15:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/?p=30103"},"modified":"2026-03-26T09:58:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T13:58:30","slug":"jaclyns-blog-welcome-back-to-the-struggle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/2020\/jaclyns-blog-welcome-back-to-the-struggle\/","title":{"rendered":"Jaclyn's Blog – \t“Welcome Back to the Struggle”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\"JaclynHere\u2019s the thing \u2013 do I even have the right to say \u201cwelcome back\u201d to a place where we are not?\nAh, but academia is not so much a place<\/em> as it is the opportunity to store precious knowledge into that squishy pink information processor inside our skulls, and we\u2019re still doing that, right? So I can still say \u201cWelcome back\u201d\u2026to education.\nIf your summer was anything like mine, I may be welcoming you back to the screen you do your work on: a laptop or desktop screen, as opposed to the screen of your phone or TV. (If your summer was even more like mine, you are probably migrating back from your Animal Crossing Device \u2013 I mean, your Nintendo Switch.)\nAnd who is welcoming you back, you may ask? It is I, Jaclyn, your English Department student blogger<\/a> for one more year! I\u2019m entering my fourth (well, fifth, with Co-op, but who\u2019s counting? Me, definitely me) and final year, and it is even more bitter and more sweet than I imagined.\nIt was always going to be bittersweet. Bitter because I love being a student as opposed to an adult, and sweet because I get to flee from the two energy vampires that take up residence in my throat: Essays and Exams. The extra bitter taste comes from missing out on the things I never thought I\u2019d have to miss for longer than a summer: the library, the quad, in-person lectures, classrooms with students who share my interests (even if that interest is just a passing grade), bonding time with the friends I\u2019ve made on campus, and office hours. Who knew one could miss office hours? At the same time, I get the extra sweetness of no hour-long bus rides in the morning or at rush hour, no two-hour bus rides during the hectic winter months, and more time with my puppy.\nAnd yet, more bitter things. I will most likely not have a graduation ceremony, or wear a cap and gown. I will not have serendipitous breaks between classes with the friends I have made these past few years. I will not get to give my professors a proper thank you and goodbye\u2026which is only half-true \u2013 I plan to be a very active alumna once campus opens up again. They haven\u2019t seen the last of me! I suspect I will want some closure, and I intend to get it. But hey, like I said, graduating was always going to be bittersweet.\nWhile I will be missing campus very much, I\u2019m still excited to be \u201cback.\u201d I am a student who, every September, gets pre-emptively proud of how much better I\u2019m going to be this semester, how ahead of the readings I will get, how many extracurriculars I will do\u2026and as you can imagine, every November I am begging simultaneously for more time and for all of it to be over. So, as I write this, I am at my most optimistic. I know how it goes, year after year, and I still can\u2019t wait to be a part of it.\nAfter all, we all have to pick our struggles. And I pick essays; I pick mornings so early the sun is still asleep; I pick Roosters breakfasts all week; I pick throwing my money at Starbucks and Booster Juice; I pick raising my hand (turning on my mic?) in front of a group of students I fear are smarter than me and know it; I pick formulating messy thoughts into coherent sentences with lots of \u201clikes\u201d and \u201cums\u201d; I pick trudging into office hours (Big Blue Button rooms and one-on-one Zoom calls?) with professors I respect and trying to say anything except \u201cplease help me, please.\u201d If you\u2019re reading this, you have picked this struggle, too.\nSo welcome back to the struggle.\nPsychotherapist and author Esther Perel once said, in regards to relationships: \u201cEvery couple is either going to see the cracks in their relationship or the light that shines through the cracks.\u201d I\u2019m going to suggest that we all have a relationship with education, each of us with a unique history of cyclical hardships. Your cracks may be the procrastination you just can\u2019t shake, the morning classes you just can\u2019t make it to, the essays you just can\u2019t submit without needing an extension.\nThe cracks are inevitable. I mean, look around. Some days in this world, this era, \u201cthese difficult times,\u201d it feels like the cracks are everywhere: across the world, in grocery stores, on empty streets, beneath our feet. The cracks come to meet us. The light, we have to find.\nI won\u2019t pretend I\u2019m great at finding the light. But as we enter a strange new semester, I invite you to grab a flashlight and join me in considering what we still have, despite all that we don\u2019t. I\u2019ll get us started:\n