My personal, academic, and career goals are about as intertwined as it gets. As my profile states, I am looking "forward to completing this [current] stage of my journey, and moving on to the next, putting me closer to my ultimate goal: sharing my passion for ancient wisdom, mysticism, and contextual insights with the next generation of scholars." This relates specifically to my aim to teach Religious Studies, my current major. It also speak broadly to the scope of my last twenty years in academia. My taste for teaching, and love of that wide-eyed expression when a student has a moment of realization, has been with me since adolescence. However, the depth of possibility in teaching, and my own deeper understanding of scholarship, I have gleaned from my instructors and mentors. I found a great sense of connection, and intellectual freedom in my first post-secondary institution. I've shared myriad ideas, and diverse conversations, with some of the most incredible human beings I would ever be lucky enough to call 'teacher.' Having attended a community college, I was also experiencing this amongst a diverse student body, one that was not there by the grace of their trusts, but the skin of their teeth. I was with them in that struggle to balance life, adult obligation, and scholastic endeavors. This, is where I believe I can do the most good. So, my goals are fundamentally interconnected. My personal goals are aspirations of scholarship, my academic goals are rooted in my passion of pedagogy, and my career goals... those are to embrace the former, and the latter, and share them with eager minds at a community college. I have the drive to see this to fruition, I just have to fund it.

No good knowledge comes from expedience, or by force. For this reason, patience remains immensely important to me. It is through diligence, perseverance, and of course patience, that I have achieved my academic goals. Nothing has been easy in my post-secondary education, aside from some of the course work, especially in the current socio-econo-political-academic climate. Homework, tutoring, financial aid, student loans, relocation, application & acceptance... all of these aspects of the academic atmosphere are fraught with setbacks, anxiety, rejections, and even global catastrophe. If I were not patient, I certainly would have cut my losses long before 2020, or at least with greater anticipation during lock-down. Instead, I reinvested myself. It is the same willingness to wait for a positive outcome that saw me through the circumstances of last year, that have aided me in arriving at my current institution. Hard work and attention to detail were hugely important. Setting goals, budgeting my money and my time, and a willingness to forgive myself my shortcomings – also helped. But these are only parts of the equation, of my academic success; patience is the final variable. The greatest knowledge I have attained from being steadfast in my work, and kind to myself, is that everything will pay off – If I’m willing to be patient.

To be completely honest, I do not know what makes me truly happy. In my academic endeavors, as well as my daily musings on such things, I remain agnostic - ready to be wowed, though never too close to the edge of my seat as to fall off. My earliest, strongest memory of 'happy': a cold night, sitting the middle bow watch, on a small ship passing through San Francisco Bay. Drenched, chilled, alone in the darkness; no sounds but the wind, and the wash hitting my ears. There was a sense that the quietude, in my mind, was what made the smile on my face grow. Though I have yet to experience it again, that is where my baseline for happy is derived. I was sixteen at the time, and it was my duty to ensure nothing lay in our way, lest we sink. I have attempted to find this peace, often. Cold bluffs over the Pacific near my childhood home; chilly mornings, black coffee, and a good book; even rainy redwood forests with the sun just gracing the morning – pushing the fog to ground. Not yet. It is this attempt to find that, quietude, that has led to my years in academia, and my pursuit of resolving those other agnostic musings. Remaining in school, seeking truth in text and teaching, and a goal to share it with another generation: this is what I do, and these are my ‘little things.’