Self Relection on a Difficult Semester

I'm not going to lie, this semester was a rough one for me. I had a lot of struggles dealing with personal issues, and I was faced with two daunting independent projects that I had little idea how to prepare for, as well as the most rigorous and difficult, if rewarding, academic courses of my educational career. Apart from a stretch in November, where personal difficulties causing me to, and subsequently stemming from, taking antidepressants practically sidelined me. There were times were I literally felt like a living zombie. Of course, as soon as I started truly feeling better mentally I got struck with the porcine death (Novel H1N1, to be specific) that knocked me out for a week and still threatens to send me bedridden again. I like to think, however, that I learned great deal about myself. What I am capable of, what I'm not capable of, and what I need to finally convince myself I'm capable of. I wrote the first draft of my thesis play, my so-called defining work, as well as over seventy pages (I'm not exaggerating either) of writing reflecting on the nature of activism and advocacy and the role I play within it. I got my first taste of campus politics, and while essentially fruitless power struggles threatened my sanity, I find myself having an aptitude for it. So there has been a lot of bad this semester, true, but we learn the most from struggles. We find ourselves... or we find ourselves lacking. In my estimation, by the end of this semester I have definitely performed the former. I now know who I truly am, as an artist, as an advocate, as a mentor, and as a leader. And it doesn't matter that this will all change in three or five years. All that matters is I know who I am, right now, in this moment. It's a good feeling.