It is quite odd reading my continuous and discontinuous life stories together. The continuous story sounds like I'm interviewing for a job, attempting to be the perfect, cleanest applicant. The discontinuous story is more like I'm talking to my best friends or my therapist about how I can't make up my mind on what I want to do and how I want to use my education. They represent the same story because they start and end in similar places, the discontinuous just has details that are sometimes too much information for a regular acquaintance. Depending on the day, my internal monologue switches between the flow of a discontinuous story and recognizing the leaps of faith I've taken to explore career options, but when I'm stressed I sometimes force myself to think about a continuous path where I ignore some of the stumbles I've had. The discontinuous is the more genuine, healthier reflective style in my opinion to truly reflect on my journey at HPU.

What is interesting to me, is that when I was writing a personal statement for a Fulbright graduate award this fall, it falls a little more in line with the discontinuous. My advisors and I really wanted to paint a picture of the growth and self discovery that I've done in the last 4 years that has lead me to pursue a graduate degree in changing education, and how all of the twisty turns and odd jobs have built the skills and perspective necessary to succeed in the program. My discontinuous story also elaborates on my moral dilemma of working in really cool conservation education programs that are not accessible to all kids alongside my struggle to return to public education under the conditions that the COVID-19 pandemic has trapped teachers in, which is why I would like to pursue a degree that would qualify me to advocate for changes in the education system. When thinking about how I would like to present myself to various audiences, perhaps the discontinuous shows my true heart and motivations for my academic endeavors. I, now, look forward to showing the diversity of experience that I've gained in my discontinuous story within my e-portfolio rather than a single toned continuous story.

Reading other classmates continuous/discontinuous stories was an odd experience. I didn't know a lot of my classmates very well when entering this class, and being online for this course I only read their ideas rather than hear their full comments with inflection and emotion. The continuous stories seemed like cover letters, similar to mine, and the discontinuous seemed like I was reading their diaries, and gave me more information on their true heart and intentions, which I feel helped me view them as humans rather than robots. There are many coworkers that I've been with for 4 months that I don't know their full stories as well as I do with classmates I've never met in person. Reading both stories, I often preferred reading the discontinuous because it gave me hope that I'm not the only person working through some tough decisions in my last semesters of college.