I wrote this letter last year and Professor Martin replied within two days, which is a new record for him, I believe! He just doesn't know how heartfelt my gratitude is for his answer. I would have gone crazy trying to push myself into a teaching career I didn't want. I am posting this up here to remind me that my path is not wrong, just different from all the others I know of. I'll make it somehow, I'll become a process and not a static being.
"Hi Prof Martin,
I'm in London, safe and sound.
The reason why I am writing to you is that I received a phone call from York's Faculty of Education on Friday telling me that a spot in the consecutive programme has opened up and they are considering me for it. I have till Monday to reply.
The thing is, I was quite contented NOT to have been accepted into the programme because I do not feel that teaching is a profession I would really enjoy. At least, not at this phase in my life: straight out of uni, extremely "green"about life and the world and not really having had a chance to live my life the way I wanted.
Nevertheless, this "opportunity" presents itself and of course, my family are all gently persuading me to accept. The tunnel vision for my family is to see me settled in Toronto, which is not a bad dream. But it really isn't mine.
I, however, am not quite sure whether my own dreams are feasible or sensible. I wanted this year off to "find myself" (as naive as it might sound). I really do not want to rush into something and waste the university's resources and a whole year of my life for something I am not passionate about. I really don't want to tie myself to an entire lifetime of teaching small children at primary level.
I wanted to get into something like Amnesty International or Oxfam. Or something as non-traditional and bohemian (from my family's point of view) as I could get that would really motivate me.
I know we really haven't developed a mentor-student relationship as you have with some of your other students. However, I can only think of you to give me some impartial, perhaps enlightening, advice.
I'm hoping I am not being to presumptuous in asking you for advice :) I am beginning to doubt myself: should I follow my dreams, as ill-conceived as they might be, or should I follow the safe and traditional path and end up resenting and wishing for what might have been? I'm not really sure if I can defer the place, neither am I sure that I will be able to be admitted if I re-apply after a year or two.
Thanks for your time,
Sincerely,
Sukaina"
"Hi Sukaina
Actually, I am delighted and honoured that you chose to confide in me, and what you have before you is a choice. I think that your gut-feeling is what you should go with. A year - or more - to find yourself would be a wonderful gift that your richly deserve after your B.A. Your idea of volunteering for Amnesty or Oxfam will give you a great deal more satisfaction than becoming a cog in someone else's system. I am sure that you are ready for a chunk of non-institutionalized time - you will thank yourself hundreds of times over... and if you ever decide to eventually become a teacher - how much better a teacher you will be having had life experience. I was just thinking about one of the more insidious characteristics of our culture - the ever-increasing desire of parents to control and coddle their children, There was a study in Britain which traced the ever-shrinking "roam-zone" of children over the last three generations. People who are now grandparents were allowed to roam over a very wide radius around their home - blocks and blocks - now the kids are hardly allowed into back yards without supervision. Kids are becoming dumber and dumber and (actually - because) more and more risk-adverse. So-why not authorize yourself, with joy and confidence, to have a really large roam-zone - both physically and intellectually. Squeezing yourself into a highly institutionalized profession would be tantamount to your agreeing to be restricted to a back-yard.
Hope this helps!
ian"
Bless him a million times over. But where do I go from here? He didn't know that I was 'ill' and that this whole idea of me volunteering at Amnesty or at Oxfam was a load of croc on my part. Well, at least, at that time, it seemed feasible. Remember, this was the weekend after I had reached London, and the 'illness' was just beginning to settle in.
My aunt is so funny, she thinks that anyone who reads psychology "will be able to read what's in people's minds" and my mum thinks by reading it "you know how to interact with people".
What a loads of sheesh bollocks! We really don't know nothing about why we do things half the time, or where we get our constructs and prejudices from. Our fears. Yes, that's a good one. How am I to unlearn the fears I have amassed in my 24 years? Thanks to mum and dad and anyone else who wanted to 'protect and correct' me, I have become a shadow. Going out to the shops is one major ordeal sometimes, and I can never seem to raise my voice loud enough to get someone to hear me. I am afraid of being heard, of being seen, of being judged the way I judge myself.
I want to live life out loud, the way almost all the people I know of are. They are self-assured, rooted into their own being.
I mean, am I going to start praying my salaat because Atif Aslam does, or am I going to pray because it's an indirect debt to myself? Am I going to envy everyone for doing whatever they were born to do? Or will I finally figure out myself?
All I have going right now is a shrink who is trying to see which of the happy pills are going to make me 'pop' and 'get right'. I am completely socially isolated, well slightly less than in London, I grant you, but for me, it's easy to isolate myself wherever I am. I am unhappy within myself.
I don't see me making the required effort to get out of this.
I've been having these amazing dreams that would work well as sci-fi novels for kids, but the trouble is that I can't seem to remember all the important plot details, since I always wake up in the middle. If I could just get a Frankenstein like Mary Shelley did, I'd at least have a shot at achieving something. But knowing the scale of my industriousness, I doubt that dreaming up something even like The English Patient or I Capture the Castle would push me to make a difference for myself.
I like living on the fringe of things, safe in inactivity.
Fuck.
"Hi Prof Martin,
I'm in London, safe and sound.
The reason why I am writing to you is that I received a phone call from York's Faculty of Education on Friday telling me that a spot in the consecutive programme has opened up and they are considering me for it. I have till Monday to reply.
The thing is, I was quite contented NOT to have been accepted into the programme because I do not feel that teaching is a profession I would really enjoy. At least, not at this phase in my life: straight out of uni, extremely "green"about life and the world and not really having had a chance to live my life the way I wanted.
Nevertheless, this "opportunity" presents itself and of course, my family are all gently persuading me to accept. The tunnel vision for my family is to see me settled in Toronto, which is not a bad dream. But it really isn't mine.
I, however, am not quite sure whether my own dreams are feasible or sensible. I wanted this year off to "find myself" (as naive as it might sound). I really do not want to rush into something and waste the university's resources and a whole year of my life for something I am not passionate about. I really don't want to tie myself to an entire lifetime of teaching small children at primary level.
I wanted to get into something like Amnesty International or Oxfam. Or something as non-traditional and bohemian (from my family's point of view) as I could get that would really motivate me.
I know we really haven't developed a mentor-student relationship as you have with some of your other students. However, I can only think of you to give me some impartial, perhaps enlightening, advice.
I'm hoping I am not being to presumptuous in asking you for advice :) I am beginning to doubt myself: should I follow my dreams, as ill-conceived as they might be, or should I follow the safe and traditional path and end up resenting and wishing for what might have been? I'm not really sure if I can defer the place, neither am I sure that I will be able to be admitted if I re-apply after a year or two.
Thanks for your time,
Sincerely,
Sukaina"
"Hi Sukaina
Actually, I am delighted and honoured that you chose to confide in me, and what you have before you is a choice. I think that your gut-feeling is what you should go with. A year - or more - to find yourself would be a wonderful gift that your richly deserve after your B.A. Your idea of volunteering for Amnesty or Oxfam will give you a great deal more satisfaction than becoming a cog in someone else's system. I am sure that you are ready for a chunk of non-institutionalized time - you will thank yourself hundreds of times over... and if you ever decide to eventually become a teacher - how much better a teacher you will be having had life experience. I was just thinking about one of the more insidious characteristics of our culture - the ever-increasing desire of parents to control and coddle their children, There was a study in Britain which traced the ever-shrinking "roam-zone" of children over the last three generations. People who are now grandparents were allowed to roam over a very wide radius around their home - blocks and blocks - now the kids are hardly allowed into back yards without supervision. Kids are becoming dumber and dumber and (actually - because) more and more risk-adverse. So-why not authorize yourself, with joy and confidence, to have a really large roam-zone - both physically and intellectually. Squeezing yourself into a highly institutionalized profession would be tantamount to your agreeing to be restricted to a back-yard.
Hope this helps!
ian"
Bless him a million times over. But where do I go from here? He didn't know that I was 'ill' and that this whole idea of me volunteering at Amnesty or at Oxfam was a load of croc on my part. Well, at least, at that time, it seemed feasible. Remember, this was the weekend after I had reached London, and the 'illness' was just beginning to settle in.
My aunt is so funny, she thinks that anyone who reads psychology "will be able to read what's in people's minds" and my mum thinks by reading it "you know how to interact with people".
What a loads of sheesh bollocks! We really don't know nothing about why we do things half the time, or where we get our constructs and prejudices from. Our fears. Yes, that's a good one. How am I to unlearn the fears I have amassed in my 24 years? Thanks to mum and dad and anyone else who wanted to 'protect and correct' me, I have become a shadow. Going out to the shops is one major ordeal sometimes, and I can never seem to raise my voice loud enough to get someone to hear me. I am afraid of being heard, of being seen, of being judged the way I judge myself.
I want to live life out loud, the way almost all the people I know of are. They are self-assured, rooted into their own being.
I mean, am I going to start praying my salaat because Atif Aslam does, or am I going to pray because it's an indirect debt to myself? Am I going to envy everyone for doing whatever they were born to do? Or will I finally figure out myself?
All I have going right now is a shrink who is trying to see which of the happy pills are going to make me 'pop' and 'get right'. I am completely socially isolated, well slightly less than in London, I grant you, but for me, it's easy to isolate myself wherever I am. I am unhappy within myself.
I don't see me making the required effort to get out of this.
I've been having these amazing dreams that would work well as sci-fi novels for kids, but the trouble is that I can't seem to remember all the important plot details, since I always wake up in the middle. If I could just get a Frankenstein like Mary Shelley did, I'd at least have a shot at achieving something. But knowing the scale of my industriousness, I doubt that dreaming up something even like The English Patient or I Capture the Castle would push me to make a difference for myself.
I like living on the fringe of things, safe in inactivity.
Fuck.
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