AthenaErdmann
Silver Member
It just dawned on me that I am starting to really relax around this forum. I feel good about the communication, about the feedback (also when it is more sharp-sighted that would be just-warm-n-fuzzy-comfortable). I don't feel like running away and I don't feel like a fake. Here, I seem to have nothing to hide, and I feel accepted.
This is such a huge change from how unwelcome or misfitting I have felt in some other forums and other virtual discussion areas. The worst of them - emotionally - have been in connection to a couple of compulsory courses, where a barely-out-of-his-teens first time head teaching assistant with zero people skills flexes his puny little power to max. I realize now that on some level I have been expecting such an attitude here, too: "well I'm your gate through this inescapable ordeal, so you will just put up nicely with any confusion, abusive language, delays, put-downs, and direct incompetence that I happen to throw at you - you have nowhere else to go, na-na-na-na-naa-naa!"
Just as I needed those courses (I cannot graduate without them), just as I needed my parents' care (to survive), on an emotional level I need this forum and the kind, supportive people here. And just now, suddenly, that need in me does not scare me to death anymore.
Oh I do hope this feeling is still with me when I wake up in the morning!
Athena
This is such a huge change from how unwelcome or misfitting I have felt in some other forums and other virtual discussion areas. The worst of them - emotionally - have been in connection to a couple of compulsory courses, where a barely-out-of-his-teens first time head teaching assistant with zero people skills flexes his puny little power to max. I realize now that on some level I have been expecting such an attitude here, too: "well I'm your gate through this inescapable ordeal, so you will just put up nicely with any confusion, abusive language, delays, put-downs, and direct incompetence that I happen to throw at you - you have nowhere else to go, na-na-na-na-naa-naa!"
Just as I needed those courses (I cannot graduate without them), just as I needed my parents' care (to survive), on an emotional level I need this forum and the kind, supportive people here. And just now, suddenly, that need in me does not scare me to death anymore.
Oh I do hope this feeling is still with me when I wake up in the morning!
Athena