My Final Year of College/Update/Thank-you

Dear family, friends, teachers, professors, and the others most important to me,

As I sit down to write this story every year, it becomes increasingly more difficult to sum up the year’s events in just a short letter. I finished my last letter with hopes of moving home to work at a flower shop in Houston. Due to various circumstances, I was needed at the flower shop I currently worked at so I decided to spend the summer in Marshall. I spent about half of the summer housesitting and the other half living with friends. It was a summer that hinted at what it would be like to live alone and work 40+ hours a week. I began a relationship that would teach me more life lessons than I could have every anticipated.


As the fall semester began, I started my final year of college. Three years had flown by and I was now wrapping up the loose ends of my time at East Texas Baptist University. I also got engaged in the fall. It was a busy time of taking a full course load, working three jobs, and planning a wedding. Any of you who saw me knows how crazy my days were and how little time I had to sit and relax. It was this fall that I realized God called us to take a Sabbath. He was trying to tell me to rest in Him and trust that He would lead me to accomplish the things I was called to do. I finished the fall semester in school and started working at an amazing restaurant, THE blue frog GRILL. I had no clue the impact this job and the people at this place would make on my life.


Christmas break was an incredible and heartbreaking time. Joey and I called off our engagement. Looking back on this moment, I don’t understand why I was so embarrassed to call friends and family to break the news. It felt like we were failing and every person who said we were “too young” or got engaged “too soon,” were all right. I now realize that by beginning this conversation, Joey was being brave and responsible. It was the hardest experience I have ever gone through and to go through it with a man who I had hoped to spend my life was excruciating. We were friends for years before and the dynamic of our relationship was forever changed. I spent the rest of Christmas break starting to repair my life and move in a positive direction. This consisted of a weekend at a friend’s ranch, time on my sister’s couch, long talks at Starbucks, and lots of being alone, listening to my iPod and journaling my thoughts and prayers.


Coming back to ETBU for my final semester was the most difficult adjustment I have had to make since beginning college three years ago. I had to start breaking to news to people on campus and learning how to reshape and plan the future that was quickly approaching after graduation. Kayla and Sarah spent many evenings reassuring me that God had a plan, regardless of how crazy everything else felt. My classes this semester were strategically planned out to allow me time to work at both Rainbow Floral and THE blue frog GRILL. Though working so much has been stressful at times, the support I have found by co-workers and bosses has helped me continue to grow and learn through the semester.


Graduation is in twenty-six days away and I don’t have it all figured out…but I am content with that reality. I have found a beautiful, old studio apartment just a few blocks from downtown Marshall. I will continue to work full-time at THE blue frog GRILL and two days a week at Rainbow Floral. For the next year, I will be continuing education on my own by completing the “The One-Year, Self-Directed, Alternative Graduate School Experience .” Read more about it here: http://ramblingsofagirlchasinggod.blogspot.com/2011/04/one-year-self-directed-alternative.html.


As usual, I close with thanks. I am increasingly thankful for those in my life that constantly influence my growth, both through my time in college and before. I will continue writing these letters to all of you, because this is not my story alone. This story holds a piece of each of you. The love, time, advice and support you have given to me has been deeply woven into the story of who I am and who I am daily becoming. I thank God for each of your presence in my life. I hope each of you sees the part God has given you as my time in college has unfurled. And I hope I have been able to bless and serve you in one way or another.


Love and more blessings than I can count,

Jackie

The One-Year, Self-Directed, Alternative Graduate School Experience

(All credit to Chris Guillebeau, creator of the online manifesto “A Brief Guide to World Domination”. http://chrisguillebeau.com/3×5/)

The One-Year, Self-Directed, Alternative Graduate School

Experience Subscribe to the Economist and read every issue religiously. Cost: $97 + 60 minutes each week.

Memorize the names of every country, world capital, and current president or prime minister in the world. Cost: $0 + 3-4 hours once.

Buy a round-the-world plane ticket or use frequent flyer miles to travel to several major world regions, including somewhere in Africa and somewhere in Asia. Cost: variable, but plan on $4,000.

Read the basic texts of the major world religions: the Torah, the New Testament, the Koran, and the teachings of Buddha. Visit a church, a mosque, a synagogue, and a temple. Cost: materials can be obtained free online or in the mail (or for less than $50) + 20 hours.

Subscribe to a language-learning podcast and listen to each 20-minute episode, five times a week, for the entire year. Attend a local language club once a week to practice. Cost: $0 + 87 hours.

Loan money to an entrepreneur through Kiva.org and arrange to visit him or her while you’re abroad on your big trip. Cost: likely $0 in the end, since 98% of loans are repaid.

Acquire at least three new skills during your year. Suggestion: photgraphy, skydiving, computer programming, martial arts. The key is not to become an expert in any of them, but to become funcionally proficient. Cost: variable, but each skill is probably less than three credits of tuition would be a university.

Read at least 30 nonfiction books and 20 classic novels. Cost: approximately $750 (can be reduced or eliminated by using the library).

Join a gym or health club to keep fit during your rigorous independent studies. Cost: $25-$75 a month.

Become comfortable with basic presentation and public speaking skills. Join your local Toastmasters club to get constructive, structured help that is beginner-friendly. Cost: $25 once + 2 hours a wek for 10 weeks.

Start a blog, create a basic posting schedule, and stick with it fo the entire year. You can get a free blog at WordPress.org. One tip: don’t try to write every day. Set a weekly or biweekly schedule for a while, and if you’re still enjoying it after three months, pick up the pace. Cost: $0.

Set your home page to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Randompage. Over the next year, every time you open your browser, you’ll see a different, random Wikipedia page. Read it. Cost: $0.

Learn to write by listening to the Grammar Girl podcast on iTunes and buying Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Cost: $0 for Grammar Girl, $14 for Anne Lamott.

Instead of reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, read The Know-It-All by A. J. Jacobs, a good summary. Cost: $15.

I will be making my own changes to the above as I decide which parts of the study are most important to me. I will slowly figure out the exact specifications of the things I will study.