Ten Years Later

Almost ten years ago, I opened an envelope in the mail from my top choice undergraduate college: I got in! I remember feeling almost euphoric, pacing around the basement of my childhood home. On an academic level, I yearned to dive deep into English and Psychology, subjects I felt an affinity for in high school. More personally, I couldn’t wait to escape my abusive mother – I had studied and planned for years to get away from her, and now I could see the end of our relationship in sight.

In terms of academics, my idealized vision of college pretty much came true. I faced some challenges in that realm, though for the most part I flourished without challenge: I took cool classes, worked two-part time jobs where I met my current bffs, and did a bunch of meaningful research and extracurriculars. On a personal level, though, a ton of unexpected shit happened during my first two years – a dramatic roommate breakup that triggered past trauma, wild conflict with my high school friend group, and the burgeoning of my PTSD. I cried in bathroom stalls and wrote sometimes-hyperbolic and angsty blog posts and Facebook statuses. I was a whole mess!

The people at my undergrad made such a difference though. Of course, I met my therapist L, who sat with me as I processed the terrors of my childhood and how those terrors played out in our own therapeutic relationship. I also encountered professors who checked in on me and supported me. Even though I didn’t tell any of these professors about my specific mental health issues, the baseline kindness they showed me helped so much: an interest in me as a three-dimensional person, a warm and non-passive-aggressive direct communication style, and a consistency and availability that felt safe. All of these interpersonal attributes aided in my recovery from PTSD. While I faced my past in the therapy room, I still lived my present outside of it, and the people who cared contributed to my healing.

All of this is to say, earlier this week I accepted an offer to join a college in the Philadelphia area as a tenure track professor of Psychology! The process honestly felt kinda horrible, like the nonstop virtual screening interviews, flying to in-person interviews, and still fulfilling residency responsibilities on top of all of that – you can see why I wasn’t blogging for the past month and a half. However, now that the process has wrapped up, I feel excited to teach classes, mentor students on research about mental health and social justice, and provide therapy in that area once I move mid-summer 2023.

On a deeper level, I’m reminding myself that it’s not the title of professor, the publications, or the awards that matter. I’ll do my best to be kind, consistent, and self-reflective. To be unabashedly myself as a queer Asian American. I have so many people to thank, like my grandmother, the feminist writers who’ve inspired me, the mentors in my professional life, my friends, and my online community. I feel grateful for the opportunity to pass the compassion they’ve given me forward.

A picture of flying above the clouds from Boston to Philly! So glad I won’t have to step foot onto an airplane for several more weeks until I visit one of my bffs -_-

Some fancy mac n cheese I ordered through room service that the college paid for! Featuring the iPod Touch I got in middle school that I literally only use as my alarm every morning.

Where were you ten years ago and how have you changed or not? General reactions to this post? Whew I’m so glad to be back blogging and investing in other areas of my life outside of the job search thank GOODNESS. I already have my next post pretty much written and will most likely publish it in a week or so. And NewJeans has a new song coming out in two days yayyyy (I’m still obsessed with “Hype Boy.”) Would love to hear how folks have been and until next post!