I remember when ASid was in Grade 7 and I was gathering all the
information for specialized high school programs. There were exactly 3 I was
interested in and ASid narrowed it down to 2 for me. So 2 it was. After all,
ASid was the one who was going to do the applications and entrance tests, and
pursue one of the programs for 4 years of his life. As I was communicating and
working with my own child, I also started sharing information with other
parents of children in Grade 7. When ASid found out that some of the parents
wanted their children to pursue the same 2 programs as him, he was very upset
with me. He wanted to know why I would sabotage his chances of getting in?!
I was surprised at his outburst. But I firmly let him know that there
are hundreds of kids who are competing for the same programs as him and a few
more won't make any difference. He must learn to compete with himself and
ignore the rest.
As of now, I am one week into
my online course. Initially, I was a little overwhelmed by the recent graduates
who are doing the course. I think I spoke with G the day I started as well as a
couple of days later. I think my exact words to G were that I could be their mother! But if I simply
looked at it from an age perspective, I am totally not giving myself the credit
I deserve. I may not be twenty-something anymore, but I was there once. I have
that and about 20 more years to bring to the table. I believe I ended the
conversation with G saying that we, he and I, are in a good place. I am not sure if he needed that reassurance,
but I sure did!
I am fiercely competitive
myself and it was almost like I was throwing in the towel before even the match
began! It is not like I am afraid of the recent grads. It is just that they
have been working on assignments and submitting them for the last few months
and I have not done that in a long while! I had to get over that nonsense
quickly enough. I am glad I spoke with G of all the people I could speak with.
He just has this general "toot your own horn" attitude; it took me a
while to get used to such outspokenness. G has a serious business background
and I can barely relate to that world. However,
there is nothing wrong in giving oneself credit for one's own accomplishments -
big or small!
On that note, I set forth
with my online course.
As of now, I have completed 4
out of 12 assignments for my first Learning Block which is 2 weeks long. I
believe I am doing quite well and keeping up with the young ones. In fact, I
used content from a couple of blog posts for a couple of assignments. I went
back in time to ASid's questioning of his Canadian identity as well as
revisited the recent incident with the Grade 5 boy.
Do I want to go back to when I was twenty-something?! Nope. Been there
and done that.
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