I feel so happy: a PSA

2003-12-16 at 11:22 p.m.

Whew.

WHAHOOOO!

The notification is official. Mom, if you're reading this--I'm going to call you! and let you know in person! I swear, you're the second person I'm telling!

I'm officially invited to join the spring cohort of teachers-in-training at Portland State University.

Seriously. I'm so happy. I'm almost awe-struck at how happy I am. I had been striking an odd uncomfortable balance between, "I've done really well on the tests, I'm smart, and I would admit me, so I'm sure I'll get it" and "Holy shit, they only admit 20% of applicants! And sometimes 10%--and that means only a few math teachers! Seriously, like, three!!!" Admittedly, I'm a nerd, and a personable female nerd, which would to many make me, as a math teacher applicant, a rather forgone conclusion. But you can never treat a decision not in your hands as a forgone conclusion, can you?

So, the upshot then, is that knowing what I'll be doing in April is an immense and happy relief. Just knowing that I have acheived what I set out to do last spring ("Get accepted into a teaching program") feels strangely and wholly satisfying.

But can I just tell you? The appropriate response when I tell you, with no small amount of excitement and happiness, that I got in? Is not: "I told you so!" but rather, "I'm so happy for you! That's great!"

"I told you so." So, what, my happiness isn't warranted? My nervousness and occasional angst was due to--what? Stupidity? Unearned humility?

I understand when I expressed some nerves, some uncertainty, that friends and family wanted put my mind at ease, and so would say, "I'm sure you'll get in." And I appreciated that. I understood your good intentions. But if I had approached the coming decision as if it were a forgone conclusion, not only would the sheer hubris of it have taken everyone's breath away, but I am sure the ultimate smackdown Hammer of Ironic Justice would have seen fit to set me straight anyway.

When you say, "I told you so!" all you do is negate my unadulterated enjoyment of a milestone acheived. Or if not negate it, at least reduce the actual achievement and make me feel trivial for revelling, for a moment, in what I've done.

Let me just wallow in the fact that I accomplished this goal with some hard work, some good planning, and some skill. I passed the tests, I took the classes, I wrote the essays, I volunteered the time. People, I retaught myself math from algebra and trigonometry to integrals, differentiation, and statistics. In about two months. It's not like I fell off a log and into a teaching program. And that's in addition to volunteering in both a junior high classroom and in a GED math classroom--basically by walking in and finding a math teacher who'd work with me. Seriously, I feel like I've taking risks and done things to get in that I wouldn't have done otherwise and that have made me much much stronger.

So I feel like this application has been me stepping out on a limb in more ways than one. Please. Celebrate this with me.

I'm telling you this now as a public service. When someone says happily that they acheived something, "I told you so" makes it seem like less of an accomplishment. "That's great! You must feel so happy!" just shows that you share in my joy.

0 people had something to say