Do You Fear Failure?

MFA Mondays

MFA rightI remember one of the last conversations I had with my mom. I was rushing from one job to another, having only thirty minutes to get from point A to point B in Houston traffic, and also needing to somehow prepare myself to teach the group of expectant adult beginners that would be waiting for me at my destination. The phone rang, and my mom, in a weepy and distressed state was on the other end. I rushed her off the phone, explaining that I had a limited amount of time to ground myself for the task ahead. I told her that I would call her back after class, and when I did, she didn’t answer. We never addressed what she had originally called about. She died less than a month later, and there is not a day that goes by that I don’t wish I had simply taken the time to listen to her, but I was too busy living the dream.

            I remember that nearing the end of my grad school journey, one of my mentors told me that I should treat the next few years like a PhD in Dance and life.

It was good advice. I made mistakes, I learned from them, and I constantly altered my choices to adjust to whatever new normal I faced. But there were some lessons that I just did not see coming. There was no way for me to prepare for the death of my mom. There was no way for me to prepare for not having her here in case I get lost again. Now, the advice and encouragement that I felt was just biased, motherly beliefs, invaluable to me.

I now hold a full time position as the program coordinator of the dance program at San Jacinto College.

photo by Lynn Lane
photo by Lynn Lane

What started out as a single class is now forty plus hours a week with an office and health insurance. I am still actively performing with independent artists in the area, and I am regularly creating and submitting work. I am at a new level of success, in my book, and I honestly cannot tell you how I got here or how I’m doing it, but I can tell you what has changed.

 

  • There is a new normal – this new normal exists as a result of loss; a loss so great that it changes the very core of my identity. I am being redefined by this new normal, and it is inevitable.
  • I do not fear failure – while it is true that I have a whole new abundance of fears, a fear of failure is not one of them. And, while I believe that fear is generally stifling and destructive, I now fear things like not accomplishing all that I want to in life. This fear acts as a protagonist calling me to take risks that I otherwise might not.
  • I am more patient with myself – life is full of all kinds of hardships for which we cannot possible prepare ourselves. These hardships are capable of changing our reality. They linger and they sting making it difficult to face each day in the way that we did before. It will take time to adjust to this new normal, and patience is required.
  • I am more compassionate and understanding – I have come to recognize this quality, especially with my students. Do I want my students to make their education and career in dance a priority in their lives? Yes, of course. Do I want them to make it their top priority above all other things? No, of course not. As I told one of my students who approached me with the news that her mother had just been diagnosed with cancer, “It’s just dance… it will be here for you when you get back.”
  • Surrender is essential – giving into the moment is vital; whether it means surrendering to humor and allowing laughter to overtake the moment, or surrendering to a new idea in dance class that will eventually mold itself into a great learning experience. Sometimes giving in is more effective than activating.
  • I’ve decided that humanity is professional – on several occasions I have been overcome with emotion in the middle of a rehearsal or class. We use phrases like “I lost it” or “I fell apart” to describe allowing our emotions to be seen and felt. This gives these moments a negative connotation; like the release of emotion is something to be ashamed of and to only be practiced in private. Well, no more of this. I am a human above all other things that I am, and I am not ashamed or afraid of allowing my emotions to be felt by others.
  • I accept that I am exactly where I need to be – I heard it in class every Wednesday and Friday for three years. I didn’t always believe it, but now I accept it.

I am grateful for the time I had in grad school. It taught me quite a bit while I was there, but I think I learned even more from the absence of grad school. Grief is a process, and the process of grieving the loss of grad school has prepared me for much more in life. I am also grateful for the time I had with my mom while she was here on earth, and I think, I am currently learning who I am without her here. There is still a lot to learn, and I am constantly evolving. Hopefully, one day, I will look back on this chapter of my life and discover more than I thought was there.


Do you have a grad school story you’d like to share? Have questions or advice that you gleaned from grad school? Was it all that you dreamed of?  Or maybe not?  Contact us, we’d love to hear from you.

Jamie Zahradnik is from Wharton, Texas.  She attained her BFA in Dance from SHSU graduating Summa Cum Laude in May 2008, and her MFA in Dance in 2011.  She is also a certified Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analyst.  Jamie has performed with Rednerrus Feil Dance Company, and Psophonia Dance Company, and has most recently performed for local independent artists Laura Gutierrez, Brittany Theford-Deveau, and Rebekah Chappell. Jamie currently serves as a dance professor and the dance program coordinator for San Jacinto College. She loves sharing herself with others through performing, teaching, and creating.

Circus Act: The Art of Job Juggling

MFA Mondays

MFA rightEntering the workforce in Houston in 2011 was a daunting task, but I was gung-ho and determined to make a living that made use of my major. I had friends who had graduated and had ended up working in retail or waitressing. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with these professions, but they were not what I had in mind for a dream job after earning my MFA. I wanted to be a vital artist and educator in the Houston community. My first goal in getting involved in the Houston dance scene was to get into class, so my first “job” was actually an unpaid internship that provided me with free dance classes. Secondly, I wanted to perform, so, through auditioning and networking, I found myself dancing with two small modern dance companies my first year out. Thirdly, I wanted to teach dance at the college level, so I applied at all the colleges and universities in the surrounding area, and was hired as an adjunct instructor to teach a single class at San Jacinto College.

So can we just take a moment to talk about the adjunct hustle for a little bit?

Being an adjunct instructor truly sucks for several reasons. First of all, there is a limit to how many classes you are allowed to teach per semester at any given college. In 201Reahearsal 2 - credit Lynn Lane1, I was only allowed to teach three classes, or nine credit hours per semester, not that I was offered that many. Now, it’s even less than that for most adjuncts. Three classes equals nine hours a week at about $38 per hour. This comes out to about $1,300 a month before taxes, which might cover rent and electricity. For those of us needing to be truly independent, this just doesn’t cut it, and additional jobs are necessary. Secondly, health insurance is not included in the whole adjunct deal. Unfortunately, I turned 26 very shortly after I graduated from college, so the new health insurance legislation didn’t help me at all. So, there’s another expense to add to the list. Thirdly, job security is nonexistent. In order for college classes to “make” and actually occur, there have to be enough students signed up for the courses prior to the first day of classes. The magic number seems to be ten; if ten students are not signed up for the course by the first class day, the class will likely be cancelled, and guess what? That means you don’t have a job. Add to all this that your entire paycheck practically goes to gas for you to commute to all your different jobs, and we find that it’s a ridiculous way to make a living. I am wondering why we are allowing this nonsense to continue.

Back to my story

By 2013, I felt pretty grounded in the sense that I had acquired enough jobs to financially support myself without fully sacrificing a career in dance. Most of my conversations upon meeting new people went something like this: Continue reading

MFA Monday: Jamie Zahradnik

MFA Mondays
photo by Lynn Lane
photo by Lynn Lane

Identity Crisis

There is something about curling up with a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning that is such a relief at the end of a long week. Before anyone wakes, in the stillness and the sunshine, I like to sit and ponder the effects of my week. Occasionally, I like to journal, jotting down my thoughts on conversations that never happened, dreams and imagery, and my thoughts on “grieving the loss of grad school”… wait… did I really write that? That’s a little dramatic; I mean grief? How about trauma? Nope, that’s even more intense… On this particular Sunday morning I decided to reflect on some old journal entries from my first year out of grad school, and sure enough, I had described my first year as bereavement.

It’s been four years since I have been a student of the SHSU dance program, and I am in my twenty-eighth year as a student in the school of life. I’m currently in the process of experiencing some real life grief with the recent death of my mother. So upon rediscovering this part of my life occurring directly after graduation, which, by the way, seems miniscule now, I decided not to judge myself too quickly, and to take some time to investigate the meaning of the words I had written.

I discovered that

  • Bereavement can mean “suffering deprivation or loss by force.”
  • Grief can be defined as “keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss.”
  • Trauma can be described as “a powerful shock that can have long lasting effects on body and mind.”

This last definition rang truer to me than any of the other words. Trauma is something I can definitely relate to. I have certainly suffered mental and physical trauma with the numbing news that my mother no longer exists here on earth. It has been an event that has permanently changed my immediate environment, or kinesphere, if you will. It looks different to me, and I also don’t react to people and circumstances within in it the way that I did before. In this way, it has changed not only how I perceive my circumstances, but also who I am in relation to those circumstances, which inevitably has led to a growing loss of identity.

Continue reading