The rhythm of the academic year has an interesting set of thoughts and emotions which accompany it. I'll most likely continue experiencing this rhythm for many many years to come with my teacher husband and potential future (hopefully quite a way into the future) children, even after I finish my own formal schooling. But the grad school experience adds something new to the familiar feelings. In a strange and largely inexplicable way, I simultaneously feel too old and too young to be doing what I'm doing. [Maybe I'll explore this more if my thoughts/feelings become more explicable.]
{Speaking of which, learning the bus system was quite the adventure today for this little old Greenville-ite. I'm way too old to not know how to ride the bus yet.}
Regardless of the crazy mix of emotions and exhausting pace of orientation, from which I've not yet fully recovered, I'm thrilled to be starting this program and so grateful for the opportunities set before me here. Not least of which includes learning from Lauren Winner this semester, and so many other wonderful human beings here at Duke.
I'm looking forward to Convocation Chapel tomorrow with Dean Hays and a chance to re-center, breathe, and be refreshed as this wonderful and full school year gets under way.
For those who face new beginnings, because as my grandpa reminds me, all beginnings are hard,
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
