Who am I bringing to class?

Dear Dr. Brannon,

          It has been some time since I've written a letter to a professor. Well, probably not as long ago as I might like to think. Reflection letters were a common practice during my college career as an English major. But let me back up a bit. In order to tell you exactly who I'm bringing to class, I think I should tell you more about my history than a college experience can tell.

          I was born in Durham, NC (that's right, I'm going back that far). But I can't tell you much. My early years are lost on me. Faded photographs of two-year old me sitting in my dad's lap are the best I can manage. These photographs are all lying in a box in my apartment, along with just about every artifact from every memorable experience of my life. I'm not a pack rat. I'm sentimental. Very sentimental. It's funny though, last week my parents came to Charlotte to visit me, and we started going through the box together. My mother kept pulling picture after picture from the box with a baffled expression. She turned to my dad, who was almost asleep on the couch with his eyes nearly closed, and said, "She's taken everything, Ronnie. We're not even dead yet." The corners of my dad's mouth turned up slightly before he dozed off. Mom just smiled and shook her head while I shrugged my shoulders.

         Okay, so I'm overly sentimental.

          I have all the family artifacts that are supposed to be handed down over time. I just got a little impatient. My family history is valuable to me, mostly because I know very little about it. Like a 1,000 piece puzzle with missing pieces, I'm trying to put it together to create a picture, hoping it can tell me something. I'll let you know if the pieces start fitting together during our time together this summer.

          Twenty-three years have passed and I'm still an only child, so I think it's safe to say that I will remain so. I am the daughter of a high school dropout and a welder, who lived in the same place since she was five so I feel a little out of my time. After spending eighteen years on the same road with tobacco on my right, sweet potatoes on my left, and a pasture of cows across the street, (I'm not exaggerating) I knew I did not want to become another community college, firm believing Baptist, who married before she was twenty-five. (I swear, if I have one more sweet little o'l lady shake my hand and tell me that I need a man, I may do something I regret). I wanted something different. Something I couldn't quite name.

          I graduated high school from a small private, Christian school in Zebulon, NC. And when I say small, I mean small. I was Salutatorian...of a class of seven. But if history is an example, then I guess you could say my class was "large" because at least I wasn't in the class of three that graduated at least two years prior. When senior year came around applying to colleges felt like a standing joke among me and my classmates. We all knew our education was a flop. Even with a class our size, you'd be amazed at how we could yank teachers around. I've seen test answers stolen, teachers in tears, and  I've had enough free periods that I think it qualifies as truancy. It's like we knew (we just wouldn't say) that only one or two of us would actually "make it". Sure we'd all get out. But we'd go about it different ways. Marriage. Military. I knew the way I wanted to go. It had to be education. And I guess it was kind of expected of me. I was the "good student". Although, if "good" qualified as sitting in the back of the classroom, taking notes, and making sure everyone had their homework then yeah, I guess I was the good student. "Hannah, do we have a test today?" "Hannah, can I see your notes?" or "Hannah, what's the answer to number 7?" Okay, I did draw the line there. I felt like the mother of six.

          In 2009 I was admitted and enrolled at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, NC. I think it goes without saying that I was terribly self-conscious about my education. Within my first year, I had issues with self-doubt. I put myself in a constant comparison game with my peers. And when you're constantly measuring yourself against everyone around you, it takes your focus off of your own growth. But I was fortunate. I met someone who jarred my views on education and eventually writing.

          Sitting in English 101, Freshman Composition, I was reading my professor's first response on my work. And it made me feel good about my writing. It wasn't at all what I expected, which was a few markings and a grade at the top. Instead it was a letter from Dr. Shana Hartman, who at the time was Dr. Woodward. Over the term, I started to see my writing as less of a product and more of a conversation between myself and my reader. My time under Dr. Hartman was when I started to take my writing seriously. And when I started sharing it with others.

          I did a lot of growing up in college. But then, I think college does that to you. Whether it be a theory coined from a scholar you've never heard of or a 2 a.m. conversation you never forget, a lot of learning takes place. So naturally a lot of events shaped me and I can't lend the changes to a single influence. So to save time, I think I'll just list them.

          I left the country for the first time.

          In fact, I flew for the first time and spent two weeks in Ireland. I actually like flying. Weird for someone terribly afraid of heights.

          I started working in my university's writing center and stayed there for three years. I formed a lot of relationships with peers as a consultant and tutor.

          My mother's kidney transplant of thirty years nearly went into failure. I turned my car left out of our driveway and headed back to school after fall break. Ten minutes earlier, my parents had turned the car right towards the hospital.

          My mother went to the ER.

          Then to a hospital room.

          Then on dialysis for the next three months. Merry Christmas!

          Her kidney bounced back, and even made it to her 31st anniversary that we celebrated last week. Do you believe in miracles?

          I left the country again and spent spring break in Italy.

          I came back and started on my thesis.

          I lost said, thirty-five page thesis, a week before it was due.

          I sobbed intensely with my writing group.

          I found my thesis (via USB) on the floorboard of my friends car. (note to self: save your work in multiple places!) Now do you believe in miracles?

          I celebrated with my writing group... and later confessed what happened to my advisor.

          I completed my exit interview and graduated college.

          What I've left out from this list is my decision to attend graduate school. But I think the reason I've left it out is because I can't pin point an exact event or moment in which I decided. Not that I made the decision lightly or in passing, but rather, the decision to go to graduate school snuck up behind me. It practically mugged me. In my mind, it wasn't a possibility. Sure, I'd grown as writer. I adored my time in the writing center. I worked well with other students. Talking about writing, writing with other people, writing for people made me happy. But graduate school was for other people, smarter people.

          "It's about how much you want it." Those are the works JJB, director of Gardner-Webb's writing center, told me. I was sitting in her office, telling her what I've just told you now. All the educational baggage that I thought I'd checked in when starting college was suddenly coming off the belt and moving closer towards me. But JJB had faith in me, and I trusted her to be honest. I respected her opinion. If she could tell me that higher education was a matter of work ethic as well as intelligence, then I was in luck. I was confident that I had at least one of those ingredients. If I wanted to continue to work with people and study writing, then a graduate degree was the next brick to be laid on my path.

          So who am I bringing to class?

          Well, not the girl you heard about in the first few paragraphs of this piece. Instead, you're meeting a young woman who has been out from under her parents roof for almost a year. Still adjusting to a new city. Still single. Someone who finally lost the excess educational baggage but kept the boarding pass. That is, my early educational experiences are not completely lost on me. They've influenced the respect I have for higher education and the attention I pay to its accessibility. In some small way, I'd like to believe I've experienced a form of agency. Whether that's true or not, I suppose this class will help me answer. I'm excited about the possibilities of thought that this class holds. I almost anticipate my views being changed, challenged, influenced. And I welcome that change. I think I'm more comfortable in being unsure of exactly who I am bringing to class. She isn't the same person who walked into a classroom five years ago, and she will most certainly be a different person when she walks out of this one.

Sincerely,

Hannah Mayfield