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After reading the Singh et al and Carmichael articles this week, I began to think about my own position as a teacher who has returned to school and how I manage to balance it all (if you can even say that I manage; most days suggest otherwise). The DA program has offered me the "flexibility, ability to work at [my] own time and pace, engaging learning experience, self-directed learning, cost effectiveness, and the ability to produce in-depth discussions" (Singh et al 143). Unlike my past college experiences, everything about my current schooling experience occurs within the walls of my own home, which presents far more challenges than I ever anticipated upon embarking on this doctoral journey. As Carmichael points out, "...space and place do not cease to exist when we teach and learn online. In fact, when students learn online, the physical and virtual spaces they simultaneously inhabit become even more impactful toward their writing experiences" (39). Therefore, I have chosen to use this journaling opportunity to explore how my virtual learning exists simultaneously with my physical space. As I went around the house taking pictures of my most used spaces, I realized that I live in a tension of opposites--digitally and physically, in comfort and distress, in resting working, in contentment and profound sadness. No wonder my virtual experience proves vastly different from my Masters or Bachelors coursework!

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Home--Where Leisure and Learning Take Place

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Home--Where Leisure and Learning Take Place

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My home--When my husband and I bought this home years ago, we dreamed of filling it with children and upgrades enviable even by HGTV. We've succeeded on the, former but obviously fell lacking on the latter. Still, I take great pride in my living space. Sure, it desperately needs landscaping and a new paint job, and that crack in the sidewalk--well, there's a story there, but for another time. I know most people think I may not give this 104-year-old beauty the care and attention it deserves, but upon closer inspection, my home reveals a family who lives debt-free--not even a mortgage--with a work ethic that would make a mule feel lazy. We'll get to the paint and the cracks and the yard whenever I get around to finishing this degree. Until then, my house looks as messy as I feel on the inside!

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The Kitchen--or is it Grand Central Station?

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The Kitchen--or is it Grand Central Station?

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What can I say? My tastes borders somewhere on whimsy chic and straight-up PeeWee's Playhouse. Yes, I hand painted those polka dots, and yes, I painted those cabinets orange (and I had to do it myself since no professional in his right mind would paint orange cabinets and live to see his next job). I suffer from clinical depression, though I think it's more apt to say that I've endured some personal trauma that has exacerbated the part of my brain that controls "realist" thoughts. The bright colors and patterns put a smile on my face when I struggle to turn those mouth muscles upward. When I painted those cabinets, I had just finished a graduate course in the Spring and waited to start my next one. My husband was working, and my kids were still in school. I needed something to do because I had stayed so busy for so long. Sometimes, I sit at the counter to do my school work, but oftentimes, I get interrupted and cannot concentrate. That's the thing about personal spaces. They feel like a warm hug when you need to recharge, but at the same time, they betray you when you need to work!

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My success as a grad student, teacher, mother, wife, and all around decent human being could not happen without this coffee corner. Coffee brings me to life, and my husband and I have a rule that we will never run out of coffee, hence the overflowing basket of Community Coffee.

Now, look between the coffee basket and my Don Quixote figurine and notice a small black Mary figurine beside a handwritten note. My best virtual friend, Leah-Marie Haeber sent those to me from Costa Rica. I keep her handwritten postcard where I know I will see it every day (because I won't go a day without coffee!) to remind me that these folks I do this program with are more than just faces on a Zoom screen. We share a common goal and similar stresses, so I pray for them as much as I pray for myself!

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When I first started this program, I would Zoom from the comfort of this bed. That did not work out well at all. I kept nodding off, daydreaming, etc. I had to move to the living room and sit on the uncomfortable hardwood floor because just like feminine beauty, doctoral study is pain.  Just like Leah-Marie inhabits my coffee space, another dear friend (not in this program) made this quilt for me after I had delivered my stillborn daughter. My friend also made a matching baby quilt that we buried with the baby.  Mary Veronica, my daughter, is the entire reason I got gutsy and applied to this program. I got so sick of feeling sad all the time, and even worse, the well-meaning sympathy stares and gestures from others had me questioning if I would be reduced to a puddle of pathetic for the rest of my life. I took my grief and made something productive out of it by joining this program. I won't say it's been healing because...well...it's a doctorate, so suffering's inevitable, but any time I feel like I can't continue, I always remind myself that I've been through much worse. 

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I tried to do class here before, but no...

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I tried to do class here before, but no...

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When there's not a Christmas tree up, there's a Zoom class...

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When there's not a Christmas tree up, there's a Zoom class...

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Here is where I Zoom every Tuesday night--the formal living room. That coffee table stays a mess now, full of books, papers, my laptop, etc. Most of the time, I sit on a pillow on the floor in order to sit up straight and pay attention. If I sit or lay on the couch to the left, I'll go to sleep! After all, Tuesdays mean I wake up at 5 a.m. and don't stop moving until the professor ends the class meeting around 9:00--but I'm never opposed to an earlier dismissal!

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This pic pretty much sums up my life as a virtual learner experiencing college from a place that should be her sanctuary. After all, "This negotiation within and between both human and nonhuman is what [I] consider, primarily because [I] might not be accustomed to thinking of the complexities of online learning--including how their bodies and the places they inhabit shape the work they (can) do" (Carmichael 43). Before this program came along, I couldn't fathom pursuing a doctorate and chalked it up to a dream deferred. Now, I lack 445 days until I earn the coveted "Dr." in front of my name. I may have had to sacrifices the comforts of my home to do it, but at the end of the day, I still have a place to call home--even if I call the same space my classroom!