With the end of this last semester I am now between one last semester and the rest of my life. This fall semester went by fast, and when I think about it that fear at the back of your mind about that brings about uncertainty is creeping out and rearing its ugly head. Looking back on my grades throughout my collegiate career I see the reflection of where my time went. Seeing how my grades are shaping up right now, it brings me down knowing that this is the same kind of success I could have enjoyed back then. But then I realize the lessons that I have learned both painfully and gracefully (sometimes not so much) I realize that the paths we walk carry so much lessons when our eyes open up just a little more.
I want to go into higher education, its what I tell my family and with this past week I have been given something that shows them my seriousness and dedication toward that goal. To understand this story I have to go back and start from the beginning.
I was walking out of the Arts and Letters building at SDSU when I perchance looked at the community posting wall. This wall has always garnered my attention and I’ve always taken a few seconds and minutes to look at what had been posted. That day I saw a posting for a call for papers for the Society for the Investigation of Social Imagery. The topic of the papers was “The Image of the Hero” and if there wasn’t anything like date I was writing a paper on the portrayals of Asian and Asian American characters in American mainstream comics. So I turned in the abstract and now I have my first ever academic paper that has been accepted into an academic conference. Now all that remains is to plan how I’m going to get there and where I’m going to stay.
Getting this paper accepted meant a lot of things. First that I am headed in the right direction because as an academic you have to get your work out there and getting published especially for a topic I am dedicated, honored and humbled to have worked on especially when its for the benefit of one’s community. Second this solidifies the writing piece I will be submitting to San Francisco State when I apply to Grad School. So that’s another thing off my list of things to do. Third, I think I’ve proven to myself and others (Filipino family blah) that I am capable of accomplishing college and advancing myself into even higher education.
This last semester I don’t know what lies ahead for me. I plan on taking classes to get my grades up in my last stand to improve my GPA. I’ve done it this past Fall semester by achieving my first A’s in purely academic classes ever in my collegiate career. 2010 is here. Time to seize the day. The time to play for keeps is now.
