fenmei的部落格

Age is just a number!

Fang-Mei Law

        Sometimes people use the saying “too old to handle things” as an excuse to stop pursuing self-growth. However, one of my nontraditional students, Monica, would never think that way.

       Monica has never been a numbers person.  As a child, she required more time to complete her math homework than most other students.  Although her father tried to help her, the problem-solving strategies he taught her just confused her even more. Monica’s constant struggle with math made her confidence drop whenever she saw numbers, which also her affected her grades in other math-related subjects.  After high school, she enrolled in a community college to major in accounting, but her struggles with math continued and to avoid working with numbers, she procrastinated rather than study.  As a result, her grades fell so low that she was eventually expelled as a result.

         Soon after her expulsion, Monica broke her engagement with her fiancé.  To deal with such major changes in her life, Monica decided to join the Navy, believing that life in the ocean would help her to escape from reality.  As it turned out, the strict training provided by the Navy set her life in a positive direction.  She became more organized and disciplined.  She was even able to commit to a relationship that eventually led to a marriage and a daughter.  Unfortunately, even with these positive changes, Monica still suffered from low self-esteem, especially when it came to handling criticism.  When her boss was dissatisfied with her work or when her husband disagreed with her way of parenting, Monica would turn to food for comfort. Overeating led to obesity, which led to her discharge from the Navy. To make matters worse, her marriage ended in divorce.

          Through it all, it was her 3-year-old daughter gave Monica the motivation to move on with her life.  She decided to go back to community college to build up her professional abilities, which meant that facing her fear of numbers would be her first priority.  After four years of hard work, Monica earned an associate degree in probation administration and a certification in data analysis.  On top of that, she met and married a man who loved her very much and promised to raise her daughter with her.  Thinking of these blessings, she became deeply thankful and realized that God’s giving is like a proverbial phrase “When God closes a door, He opens a window.”   

          With her new professional capacities, she spent the next 12 years working several jobs to lay a good foundation for her career goals. One of these jobs involved working with juvenile delinquents.  Through talking with these juvenile delinquents, Monica learned that many had actually been victim themselves and that the resentment from being victimized caused turn them to criminal acts.  From these observations, Monica realized the importance of victim treatment and decided to one day establish a victim rehabilitation center. 

          At the age of 46, Monica decided to return to college full-time.  The turning point for this decision came when her job application for a secretary position was rejected, despite the fact that she had 22 years of experience in the field.  Comments in the rejection letter stating that she was unqualified for the position reminded her that it was time to enrich herself through further education.  At first, Monica’s then 21 year-old daughter questioned her mother’s decision.  She reminded Monica that by the time Monica would graduate from college, age could be a major obstacle in her job search pursue. Other relatives also worried that pursuing a higher education could negatively impact Monica’s marriage.

           Nevertheless, with full support from her husband and with her goal of working in the victim rehabilitation field in mind, she determinately began her college education.  In response to her daughter’s concern about her age, Monica replied that she truly believed that her additional years of life experience would be her medium of exchange for job competition.