A few days ago, a friend of mine posted on her blog about transitions. In her post, she made a point about transitions that I hadn’t thought of before: namely, that life isn’t full of finite beginnings and ends; rather, it is full of transitions that continually (though not always gracefully) move you from one to another, but not entirely leaving where you were before. There is a change but there is also continuity.

Today marks the T-minus 30-day piont before starting my new adventures as a PhD student. Last week, I made the announcement at work that I would be resigning on September 20. It has been bittersweet. While I’m looking forward to my transition from government employee to full time student, everything is full of unknowns. What will classes be like? How will I interact with new faculty members and peers? How will I handle the renewed pressured associated with the life of a researcher?

While I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, I do know that this is just one more of life’s exciting transitions, where I can take the experiences and people that make up my life with me, combining them with something new and probably awesome.