When it rains, it pours...

February 16, 2020

When it rains, it pours...

It's so hard to get up again — although of course the harder it is the more satisfaction you have when you do get up, haven't you?”

-Anne of Green Gables

When it rains, it pours. This week has been the hardest week here in Oxford, as well as one of the hardest weeks I’ve ever experienced.

My week started out with my character and integrity being questioned and ended with me finding out my grandpa went home to be with Jesus.

On Wednesday, I had my tutorial with my secondary professor, who when I walked into her office, informed me that I had “failed my last assignment.” She told me that she only read 3 pages of the 10 page essay I had submitted, and that I plagiarized. This shocked me, in about 10 minutes I had my character questioned, my goals in life completely shift, and my first academic failure. She continued on with my lesson, and told me she would see me in 2 weeks and also would be getting an email from my program regarding my plagiarism. That was possibly the oddest hour I’ve ever experienced. I immediately texted my program coordinator (I’m in a sub program under the larger Oxford one, and thus I’m actually directly under the sub program authority) and informed him of what transpired. He replied that he would like to meet the next day. And I had a very hard rest of the day and not much sleep.

Thursday morning came, and for about 5 hours I met with him, and I found out I “technically plagiarized”. I didn’t full out plagiarize because I cited my sources in-text and footnotes, and when running my essay through a plagiarism detection program, nothing comes up. However, how I “technically” plagiarized is that I didn’t paraphrase enough from certain authors...so for someone who knows the information well, it could sound a little too close to a book written about the subject. The good news- I didn’t get expelled (which was on the table). “Bad news”, lots of stress and he is going to help me with my next essay so that can’t be accused of that again. Thursday afternoon I had my next tutorial with Dr. Kershaw, and that went good! Because of dealing with fallout, I was about a page short on my essay, which he was disappointed about, but he said otherwise my essay was good. Then Thursday night hit, my flatmates and I had planned to celebrate Galentine’s Day (we even bought heart shaped balloons), and while I was making the pot roast, I got a call from my dad...they were at my grandpa’s nursing home, and it wasn’t looking good:/

Friday morning I got the text on the bus to my World View class, that my grandpa had just passed away. He said it was very peaceful, and in an instant he was whisked into the presence of Jesus. No more night! Hard for us- wonderful for grandpa.

There were several other hard things this week, we had 2 big storms hit the island, cornonavirus scares in Oxford, my grandma on the other side broke her wrist….but the hardest part of all is the fact that I can’t go home for my grandpa’s funeral. I really considered just quitting this week. I looked at tickets home, tried to figure out how hard it would be to cancel reservations for things later in the term, etc. However, I was reminded by my mom:

“When things seem so over the top that generally is the Lord. Continue to seek him on this and not what “man “ has to say. In other words only listen to godly words about this.”

That has been really hard. I’ve cried out to God so many times this week. I’m so tired of fighting, but on Friday morning my bible app verse of the day reminded me of Jeremiah 17:7

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.”

In situations that seem so bizarre trusting the Lord is all you can do I think. I didn’t have very many happy moments this week, but I’m choosing to trust the Lord for the rest of my time here.