That Dream

It was like a whirlwind! One moment, I was writing my first essay in my Graduate Research Methods course in my program at the Humanities Department, Tiffin, University. The next moment, I was submitting my capstone for the degree of Master of Arts in the Humanities/English – all within a year and three months! If it wasn’t the hand of the Lord, I wouldn’t know what that was.

Dr. Robert A. Schuller writes this interesting acronym D-R-E-A-M which stands for:

D – Dare to dream, dreams big enough for God to fit in!

R – Reach for the stars, and you will grow in the process!

E – Expect obstacles, but climb over them, or turn them into gold mines!

A – Assemble the best team!

M – Mission Possible! (43)

I was a sophomore high school student at Colegio de las Hijas de Jesus in Iloilo City, Philippines when I first dreamed of going into literature for my field of study. In our literature class under the beautiful Mother Dolores, we were made to write an analytical essay about Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado.” I didn’t know what she saw in my paper but she had me read it before the class. From that moment on, I became fixated with the idea of majoring in literature when I went to college. And that’s exactly what I did: I chose Comparative Literature for my baccalaurete major at the University of the Philippines.

Fast forward to the present, I just had a full circle moment when we were asked to write a term paper in American Literature. Guess which author I chose to work on: Poe, of course! I gave his “The Tell-Tale Heart” an indepth literary criticism based on the repressed unconscious theories of Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis, and Carl Jung, of the collective unconscious. And for my capstone, I wrote a collection of original poems with Philippine themes, like William Butler Yeats did when he left Ireland to live in France; he wrote all about Ireland, particularly, about Dublin (Damrosch and Dettmar 2215). I may be living in America now but my memories always return to the Philippines, specifically, to Iloilo City, my hometown.

Returning to school after decades of being away from the academic world was a monumental move for me, as was immigrating to the United States in 1994. It was a big dream – to continue where I left off upon leaving UP. My goal was mastery of literature – which was not offered in Iloilo back then – the reason why I settled for Linguistics for my master’s (at West Visayas State University). But I often heard Christian preachers here say that our dreams may be big, but our God is a big God, and that nothing was impossible with him. So I started searching online schools that offered a master’s degree in literature. I tried to apply in other schools, too, and was accepted at two other universities, but for some reason, schooling did not materialize for me. Familial responsibilities had to be done first; work was foremost. America is a workaholic nation; I was a workaholic (still am, as evidenced by my recent master’s). As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Be self-reliant.” Moreover, if it’s not God’s timing, it will not happen. When I applied to Tiffin University, on the other hand, it happened so fast. God’s timing is always perfect.

America is also a land of opportunity. This is why many Filipinos have been migrating here since the 17th century (Stanford University). They saw in the work-conducive climate of the country a chance to build their dreams and lay down the foundation for their children’s dreams. As of 2019, there are over 4.2 million Filipino Americans here in the United States (Mendiola). We are also among the largest groups of money remitters to the Philippines, with remittances rising to $38 billion as of 2022 (Davis and Batalova) which, in turn, also boosts the Philippine economy. There is even more opportunity here today than before, as the law prohibits discrimination against race, age, religion, or what have you; it’s called the Equal Employment Opportunity law (US Department of Labor). Through my journey at Tiffin, I “aimed for the stars,” because I have a family to take care of and only by preparing myself for the twenty-first century will I be able to fulfill that assignment. Likewise, I wanted to give back to the community, especially because I was a university and grants-in-aid scholar at UP, where I didn’t have to pay for my tuition. When I left the University of San Agustin where I taught for fourteen years (after a year of teaching at UPV), I was not tech-savvy; I wish I had taken advantage of the free computer lessons for the faculty then. I learned how to do computing work here in the US by taking courses here and there – but it wasn’t enough to prepare me for graduate school in today’s Moodle platform. I had to do triple work to cope with the assignments – watching YouTube videos on how to do this or that, googling many how to’s, including copying and pasting, because every device has its own system and every platform has its own navigation tools. In World Literature, for instance, we were asked to create our own blogs on Blogger. It took me several videos before I could figure out how to put my content on the page. My first blog was nowhere to be seen! My professor said, “There is nothing here.” I don’t know what I did but now I realize after trial and error, one can learn if they put their mind to it. I finally found the right video tutorial on how to use the platform. It’s by Ana Maria Gach, “Embedding Google Docs into Blogger” available at YouTube.com. I discovered that I first had to convert my Word document into a Google Docs file before I could embed it to Blogger. This master’s program has taught me a lot of things, including the use of technology, which can be valuable tools for one’s work or career.

As in any endeavor, working one’s way through graduate school has its obstacles. Aside from the tech part, I was constantly anxious, week after week, if I would be able to cope with all my assignments and submit them on time. My program was Humanities English, covering British, World, and American Literature, with Creative Screenwriting and Poetry Writing as electives, among others. I never knew I could write a whole screenplay and compose poems of various forms till I took those courses. It was an exhaustive program but I enjoyed it, especially the creative part. It became fun for me to write poems; it didn’t feel like work. I was amazed at the number of prosodic forms there were! All I knew before were sonnets, elegies, and odes; I knew about quatrains and stanzas and rhymes, too, but this course taught me much more: from vilanelles to sestinas to the Persian rubai, from the Italian terza rima to the French triolet to the comic limerick, etc. I also learned about the Filipino tanaga, the counterpart of Japan’s haiku, and other exotic forms. Writing screenplays was fun, too. Working through the weekly assignments showed me that I was worried for nothing. I looked at the verse in Philippians 4.13 all the time – I had it on an art work in front of me to encourage me when my energy or belief in myself would start to wane off. That scripture always helped; it says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Power for Life Bible) I knew the Lord was helping me every step of the way. I love the Lord! Each week, I got very satisfactory grades (our work was graded each week; that helped motivate us). The program at Tiffin was structured in such a way as to ensure our success, as long as we were willing to work hard. And I worked very hard! Overcoming the obstacles, I realized that there was a solution to every problem, and that there was help when you needed some. We had a 24-hour Tech Support plus my classmates were helpful, too, offering suggestions when I got stuck. The key was to admit that I needed help. Humility paid off in this case. Throughout our capstone, we were held accountable by signing in each week to let the professors know where we were; we were instructed to be honest. Otherwise, the professors would not know how to help us. Graduate school is about responsibility and integrity – we learned about plagiarism and how to avoid it.

I did not have to assemble the best team – the University did that for us by assigning brilliant professors to teach the various courses under our programs. The professors were very accommodating; I emailed them with questions on aspects of the assignments that were not clear to me, and they always responded promptly. I also took the time to thank them each week for their guidance and the nice grades and comments. I highly recommend Tiffin University; its programs, both on campus and online, are excellent. The University has been adjudged that best online school this year. It had a library that we could access any time and a vast array of resources and links to different academic sites that we could use either for tutorials or secondary sources.

Finishing my degree shows me that it is possible to achieve a worthwhile goal – mastery of literature, in my case – in fact, in record time, thanks be to God. Indeed, there is nothing impossible with God. I have climbed a gigantic mountain with his help; and the view from the top is beautiful. Now, I can’t wait to see where the Lord takes me next.

My key takeaways from this experience were the values of hard work, perseverance, patience, and resourcefulness. Focus and discipline are also crucial. Suze Orman once said that the single thing she saw made for sucess was focusing on one goal at a time. That ‘s what I did: laser-focused on one assignment at a time, I bit off the big elephant that’s my master’s degree until I arrived at the finished line. In The Enemy Called Average, John Mason said, “Don’t worry about the goal. Just take the first steps that take you past the starting point.” Indeed, he is right. Don’t jump to the top of the ladder at once lest you fall; take a step from the bottom – one after the other – until you arrive at the top. Patience is a virtue worth cultivating; it can take you to surprising places. Furthermore, be kind to yourself. Know that you are not perfect – and that’s okay. The world will not crumble if your work is not to par according to unrealistic standards of perfection. Imperfections are what make us human. Finally, give it to God, and you will be working from a place of peace. He tells us in 1 Peter 5.7 to cast our cares on him because he cares for us (Power for Life Bible).

Works Cited

Damrosch, David, and Kevin Dettmar. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 4th ed., vol. 2C, Pearson, 2010.

Davis, Caitlin , and Jeanne Batalova. “Filipino Immigrants in the United States.” Migration Policy. 8 August 2023. http://www.migrationpolicy.org.

Mendiola, Ritchel. “Pew Research: Over 4.2M Filipino Americans in The US.” Asian Journal. 5 May 2021. http://www.asianjournal.com.

New International Version Power for Life Bible. “Philippians 4.13.” edited by Robert A. Schuller et al., Faith Works, 2008.

—. “1 Peter 5.7.” edited by Robert A. Schulelr et al., Faith Works, 2008.

Schuller, Robert A. et al., editor. “The Power of a Dream.” Power for Life Bible. Faith Works. 2008.

Stanford University. “Immigration History.” Stanford University Medicine Geriatrics, 2023, http://www.geriatrics.stanford.edu.

US Department of Labor. “Equal Employment Opportunity.” US Department of Labor, http://www.doi.gov.