Here and Now

It’s been a little over a year since I’ve started my Master’s at the University of Alberta. My graduate supervisor gives me detailed feedback on my work and we’re comfortable working together. One of my favourite graduate professors just sent me an email this evening saying I’d done an excellent job on an assignment. My thesis literature review is underway and I am becoming more and more excited.

In my first year of my Master’s, I spent a lot of my school time missing my undergrad institution. I sometimes felt sad that the professors did not know me as well as those at the place I went to for four years. I was involved in active research with both my graduate and undergraduate supervisor, my mind kind of caught between the two places.

This year, I am finally learning to love my university I am at now. I’m hoping to start a research paper with one of my professors this term that isn’t related to my initial undergraduate project. My undergraduate supervisor remains one of the best friends I have, and ever will have, but is no longer involved in my academics. We are just friends who enjoy a conversation or an email when a free moment comes, people that share things about research with each other, but not working on the same project.

As an individual with Asperger's transitions and letting go of things has always been hard for me, as is adapting to new places. I had a terrible time with the move from Nova Scotia to Edmonton when I was sixteen. It resulted in me ending up on homebound instruction for the year. However, now I could not imagine being back in Nova Scotia. Edmonton is home to me.

I have spent a lot of my life either looking to the past or to the future--either wishing I was back in undergrad as I did last year, or jumping years ahead in my mind to when I’m one of the professors someday. I’m slowly learning to cherish what is now, while holding onto the important things of the past and future.