I Am Signing Off, Thank You!

      As I hope you gathered from the title, this will be my last post as a contributing editor to the Law School Academic Support Blog.  In one of my earlier posts, I suggested that it was helpful to “meet students where they are” by learning a new task and carefully considering the steps and the emotions you feel throughout the process.  It is always good to challenge yourself.  In another post, I also suggested that adopting a “grateful posture/attitude” can reframe how one might approach challenging situations.  I am taking all of my advice and thought this would be an ideal time to transition to other things and attempt new challenges.  I am excited about anticipated future opportunities but equally sad to leave this blog. 

      This blog has been a constant in my life for almost two years and I am very grateful for the weekly reflective opportunity it has afforded me. I hope to continue to reflect and keep things in perspective even if it is in a different form. Writing was a great way to explore student concerns and challenges at various points of their law school career and to explore, in more depth, various aspects of what I do as an academic support and bar educator. As academic support professionals, we talk about reflection and capturing things in writing but what does that mean for us? I believe I wrote a post about this as well. Where, when, and how do we replenish our energy and what do we do to stay sane? How do we manage the endless to-do lists? I hope that you were able to relate to the various entries and that your students were able to beneficially step away with something tangible.

• I am thankful for all of the students who inspired various posts. You make me awesome.

• I am thankful for all of my academic support colleagues who sent me positive notes, particularly when I addressed semi-controversial topics and diversity issues. You affirmed me!

• I am thankful for all of my students and other students who read and continue to read various posts that apply to them. I am glad you used all of your resources.

• I am thankful for “Texas Bar Today” for selecting and including a few of my posts on their Top Ten list.

• I am thankful for my colleagues who posted a few of my posts on websites and blogs they use to support students in law school and as they prepared for the bar exam.

• I am thankful for all of the critics for making me think and for providing me with additional information to reference.

• I am thankful for the editor of the Law School Academic Support Blog for the opportunity.

• I am thankful for the contributing editors for their positive words and “shout-outs”. Your posts challenged me to be creative and taught me a lot.

     I look forward to becoming a reader again. In the future, I hope that you will see an occasional guest post from me. Have a wonderful academic year and bye for now. (Goldie Pritchard)