And just like that.....

Grace : /ɡrās/ : noun : courteous goodwill. : verb : do honor or credit to (someone or something) by one's presence. I am a professional at extending grace to others. Simply because everyone makes mistakes, learns, and grows. Since that is a fact of life, people will do things that will hurt your feelings and make you upset and if you never extend grace to others for those mistakes then you will forever be kicking people out of your life. Personally, that sounds exhausting. I'm also a professional at shouldering pain. I experienced trauma early on in life and in working with my therapist, I have learned that this early trauma has led me to accept more pain than I deserve. I have an uncanny ability to figure out how I deserved the unfair treatment I've received or how I needed to understand the experiences of others. No matter how others treated me, I always worked to gain insight into what experiences could have encouraged their behavior. I am still actively working ...

When I started my PhD journey, I was under the impression that I was some Golden Child chosen by my advisor to be her one true protege. That she had waited years upon years for me, and that once we communicated in was written in stone that I would be her student. That her and I were going to be handing out proverbial academic cuss outs to the sport management world about how they were systematically leaving Black women out. That's not exactly what happened, during the week of orientation, I found out that my advisor had brought on another student. I...was hurt. I felt like I wasn't enough. I...felt inadequate.  Inadequate : in·ad·e·quate /inˈadikwət/ adj : not adequate : insufficient : lacking the quality or quantity required; insufficient for a purpose. That feeling of inadequacy, those thoughts, they stayed with me throughout the entire program; exacerbating feelings of inadequacy that were already there.  Why was I not enough?  Why did she need someone e...

Remember when I said that this blog was going to be a space where I discussed and highlighted my PhD journey? Now, remember when that didn't happen? Getting a doctorate is HARD, y'all. And, you may being saying, "duh, girl! We know!" but this journey was one of the most difficult journeys I have ever been on and because of that fact, I didn't have or make the time to update this blog. It simply wasn't a priority and I was trying to stay afloat for the past four years. So, let's recap a few things. I proposed my dissertation on October 5, 2019, started collecting data in January, defended my dissertation on April 19, 2019, and graduated on May 2, 2019!! So, now that all of the milestones have been mentioned, and I have more time to dedicate to other types of writing, I'm going to highlight my journey retrospectively. Sit back and get ready to hear all of the academic tea!