"Looking forward through the rearview mirror."-Dr. Jim Hoffman

I had the privilege of being in Dr. Hoffman's reading cohort at the University of Texas at Austin for a year and a half during my professional development of my education centered degree. We called him Jim and he would often say the title quote to us over and over. We would sit there, the 19 of us, and try to understand how we look forward through the rearview mirror. Many of us would counter that we would then be looking backwards. It was not until a group of us were in a car going to get burritos that it hit us. Maybe even transformed us. Here is what I learned.

We must always know where we came from to gauge how far we have come. When we drive through this life of ours, we can get on auto pilot and miss so much. It is when we glance at what is behind us that we gain perspective of our surroundings. If we truly reflected with these small glances back we would have a far greater perspective than our tunnel vision forward.

I started this blog as an assignment for a class and I saw my first trimester of pregnancy, an almost 5 year old boy, a husband who has been hit hard this summer by the heat and his Multiple Sclerosis, 3 portfolio level grad school classes in 26 days and just put my foot to the metal. So much of the moth of July has been me at my desk looking at my backyard tree and working. 

It is the moment now as I type where I remember to look in that rearview mirror and breath. I see my first year as a librarian ahead and I am excited and freaking out! I know I still have hours this fall and spring in my grad school program at Sam Houston State University with a baby on the way and agin, my first year as a librarian. I worry about how are we going to do this and then I stop and look back and think, if I could do ALL that I have and I have- I got this. 

EVERY technology post has been my first with the exception of screencasting. Dr. Perry pushed me further than she will ever know but I have my rearview mirror and will always know that I am better for her classes. I know that if I can challenge my creativity and push the way I do then I will be okay in my first year as a librarian. I am going to be okay. We all are.

This really is a journey and it is only beginning.  As the saying goes, we are only guarantied one thing, change. Shine on friends!