a few years ago I reconnected with the
father of a high school friend whom I
hadn’t seen in almost two decades
partway through the conversation he
stopped I’m so disappointed in you
he said when you were in high school we
all thought that you were gonna grow up
and do amazing things with your life how
is it that you ended up being just a
teacher just when I was in high school I
shared a profile that had much in common
with many of our high achieving students
here today I was in all AP and honors
classes I my friends and I competed in
standardized testing for fun and I was
beyond over committed in my non-school
hours between dance and theater and
bands and choir and a whole mess of
clubs and history day and an internship
in the state Senate I’m not really sure
where I found time to sleep when I was
in elementary school someone once asked
me what I wanted to be when I grew up
and I said I wanted to be a teenager but
by the time I was in high school my
sights had shifted my new goal was to be
nothing less than the Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court I look back now and I
find that humorous but at the time no
one really said anything to dissuade me
from the idea that this was something
that I could achieve we did have one
family friend who was a distinguished
professor in care of history at a
university and he told me at one point
my senior year that
aukey I would make a good teacher or
professor
he told me you know don’t hae to bloom
where you’re planted sometimes the
things that are most special are those
that are seemingly ordinary I smiled and
thanked him but 17 year old me on the
inside and laughed it all felt a little
– there’s no place like home for me and
I have the semi-rural suburbs with cows
behind our high school son a little too
much like Kansas
I had my sights set on a school in
Washington DC if I was gonna bloom it
wasn’t gonna be in some ordinary way the
people around me expected I was going to
write my own story it was going to be an
epic worthy of a history book and I was
gonna bloom it was gonna be far
harrowing from home the reality of
actually paying for my dream school
shifted my sights a little bit and as I
looked at my options I decided that the
best place to plant myself was at UC
Davis it was only 40 minutes from home
and there were still so many cows and
yet it was the perfect fit for me while
I was there I shifted my focus from
constitutional law to international
relations and I made friends with some
amazing people like we had in high
school we still sat around watching a
gnat Animaniacs and pinky in the brain
and many of my friends were concocting
schemes for how they were going to take
over the world but my schemes are a
little bit different I wanted to figure
out how it was that I could change the
world and make it a better place but how
when I was young my father told me that
one day he thought I was going to do
great things just like President Kennedy
it can be incredibly exhilarating and
yet so much pressure to have the people
you love expect such greatness from you
I looked around at world leaders that I
admired and I found that one thing that
many of them had in common was that they
had dedicated their lives to service to
others and President Kennedy once said
ask not what your country can do for you
but what you can do for your country
the great thing about that storyline is
you don’t have to set out to be great
you set out to make the world great for
someone else I thought I had found my
path I was going to go out and join the
Peace Corps I was going to have them
send me to some remote corner of the
world and I was going to work on youth
development because youth after all our
future I got my application already and
there was one thing I hadn’t quite
considered on this path I’m asthmatic
and the government is truly not
interested in sending an asthmatic
halfway around the world to rural West
Africa where there are no hospitals
sometimes reality is really good at
raining on your parade that’s okay
because it takes rain to make flowers
grow they shifted my focus I was still
convinced that my story was going to be
epic and I was going to replant myself
far far away from livestock it turns out
a horse had a slightly different plan
for me I was riding my senior year and I
was thrown hard I nearly broke my neck
I suffered a moderate to severe
concussion
and things that had once been easy for
me we’re now incredibly difficult I had
to relearn much of the normal pieces of
life that I already knew and as I was
looking at graduate school programs I
decided that maybe it was a better idea
to plan a little closer to home again I
did manage to change the smell of cows
Flores tea breeze though I prided myself
to the Monterey Institute for
International Studies and I decided to
focus on post-colonial development if
the peace forum wasn’t going to send me
halfway around the world I was gonna
find a way to send myself why would I
was that miss I had the opportunity
works too under some absolutely amazing
professors people who were not only
teaching and researching but out in the
world making it a better and safer place
for all of us and I found them inspiring
one of my favorite professors was from
my seminar on ethics and the use of
force and while I was in his class I had
the opportunity to travel to Britain for
a conference but also to conduct some
research I was able to get access to the
British Library then to the archives in
the city of Coventry when I came back I
presented my paper with my original
research and he pulled me aside
afterwards
faith I’m not sure that you’re meant for
the world of public policy but she would
be absolutely amazing in my job there it
was teaching again but this time my
reaction had changed instead of laughing
I was flattered to be a teacher and a
researcher and a game changer like my
mentor that sounded pretty amazing to me
and I started researching doctoral
programs during this whole time I was
also working as a graduate research
assistant
at the center for nonproliferation
studies on chemical and biological
weapons terrorism and during that time I
learned more than I truly ever wanted to
know about people’s capacity to create
things for the sole purpose of killing
destroying and terrorizing other human
beings for a girl who was focused on
changing the world it seemed like a
pretty good place to start so I added a
secondary focus to my master’s degree on
non-proliferation it was the secondary
focus even whilst I was conducting my
independent study research for my thesis
on post apartheid South Africa that led
me to my first job outside of graduate
school I was offered a position as a
Chemical Weapons Convention analyst for
the SAIC working on US compliance I was
finally going to move across the country
I decided that my PhD could wait I
packed everything that I could fit into
my little Toyota Celica and I drove all
the way across the country to Abington
Maryland it was like it wasn’t quite
Washington DC there were actually a lot
of horses and cows and hay but it still
felt like I was on my way my position
included reporting on u.s. compliance
with the Iran Chemical Weapons
Convention to the organization for the
prohibition of chemical weapons or OPCW
a lot of my work was clerical in nature
but I did get to travel around the
country helping to fulfill our mission
at one point I was sharing a
presentation that I was ghostwriting
for one of my superiors we were all set
to go to a conference on this arm
in the hey and we were gonna serve in
support roles I hit partway through the
presentation and he stops me why don’t
you just do it for me wait what you do
it better than I do
can you just do it for me me I’m 24 and
a girl and you want me to go present my
newest compliance with the Chemical
Weapons Convention in The Hague okay
bloom where you’re planted how about a
little more you plant yourself it felt
like one of those mountaintop
experiences and that I had finally
arrived we flew to The Hague and it was
magical my presentation was on the first
night and it went exactly the way I had
planned everyone applauded my team
congratulated me and we go into the
reception that first night and I am
flying high I am just represented our
country on the proud stage of 24
therefore several people who talked to
me wanted to talk policy and it felt
like an amazing turning point in my
story and it was just not the way I had
anticipated later that night like so
many women in public policy I found
myself the subject of an experience that
was embarrassing and humiliating
degrading and ultimately devastating the
subject of my own me to a moment the
rest of the conference passed in a blur
me trying to regain my roots and figure
out what was going on we flew home and I
struggled with finding a new purpose in
my work people around me assured me well
this is just how things happen don’t you
know that
girl’s elevated so high so young that
everyone assumes that they got there by
just one like its how many power work
questions circulated in my head just
because it’s always worked that way why
farmers changed the soil to make flowers
grow
what can’t people change society are we
actually the authors of our own story or
are we just pawns acting on a stage with
a play that was written centuries ago I
had a choice to make
I could stay silent and stay where I was
I can work from within the organization
for change or I can find some other way
to bury create a society that was more
equal and equitable for all but in
reality the status quo was never an
option for me as I was trying to figure
out what was going on life intervened
while I was working I’d gotten married
for the first time and my husband and
wife took me out of that position and
across the ocean
finally to Morocco I was finally free of
cows but it still made me smile to see
donkeys pulling carts in the street and
goats climbing trees while I was in
Morocco I shifted my focus and I started
teaching English one of the first
positions I had was teaching the staff
at the ambassador’s residence I was
teaching the cook and the maids and
there
their fourth language they already spoke
Arabic and French a few of them spoke
Spanish and some of them spoke Berber
and as we were working I found that one
of the women I was working with could
neither read nor write in any of those
languages so I changed my position a
little bit
I didn’t just teach her her fourth
language I taught her how to read and
something amazing happened
one of the gardener’s felt encouraged
and inspired and he taught her how to
read in her first language Arabic and
then I saw it happy tears can help
flowers bloom too I was offered a
full-time position at the American
schools and it took me out of my other
positions but it was an absolute joy to
teach the children in the international
community they were the children of
ambassadors and other diplomats of
foreign service workers of
non-governmental organizations some of
them were wealthy wealthy Moroccans a
few were royalty and there was one who
was the grandchild of an exiled African
dictator but whoever I was teaching I
found that in so many ways I was
fulfilling that dream that I had of
joining the Peace Corps and working on
youth development when we returned to
the United States I decided not to
reenter the world of public policy I did
what that high school friend had
recommended I can’t wait teaching
credentials I started teaching history
it turns out you don’t have to travel
halfway around the world to be of
service to others you can be of service
to others right in your own backyard I
think maybe my high school English
teacher had it right well very different
from mine he found an indirect path to
the classroom his story is not mine to
share but there’s one piece that has
always sat with me
he told us that words teaching was not
his original dream at some point reality
dictated and required that he changed
his focus to changing the world right in
front of him and for each of us that
meant that he met us where we were even
when he disagreed with our stances and
encouraged us to always be better and
then he sent us out to write our own
stories my friend’s dad he had it wrong
I will never be just a teacher like so
many of my distinguished colleagues I do
teach history but I also teach so much
more I give students the tools that they
need to propel them on their journey I
teach students to challenge the world
around them I challenge my students to
work for a world that is more equal what
equitable and equal and to treat others
with respect and dignity I challenge
them to stand up for themselves and for
others who have been wronged I challenge
them to write their own story not the
story that someone else would write for
them
so where did my dreams leave me exactly
where I planned
even if my dreams took a little bit
different path I might still go get that
PhD someday but even if I don’t be a
game-changer right here baby glenda the
goodwitch
was right after all for me there’s no
place like home and sometimes it’s ok to
bloom where you plant it I may not
change the world for everyone but by
being of service to others I can change
the world for those in front of me and
that could create a ripple effect that
changes the world I may never live to
see it but it’s not gonna stop me from
trying so go out find your own path and
write your own story I can’t tell you
how that story will end because it’s
yours to write not mine
find what makes you passionate and
remember that the things that we love
sometimes reappear in different forms
plant some roots
remember that cows and rain help flowers
grow
and then bloom where you’re planted but
change the soil grow your garden and
write your story you never know you just might end up changing the world
father of a high school friend whom I
hadn’t seen in almost two decades
partway through the conversation he
stopped I’m so disappointed in you
he said when you were in high school we
all thought that you were gonna grow up
and do amazing things with your life how
is it that you ended up being just a
teacher just when I was in high school I
shared a profile that had much in common
with many of our high achieving students
here today I was in all AP and honors
classes I my friends and I competed in
standardized testing for fun and I was
beyond over committed in my non-school
hours between dance and theater and
bands and choir and a whole mess of
clubs and history day and an internship
in the state Senate I’m not really sure
where I found time to sleep when I was
in elementary school someone once asked
me what I wanted to be when I grew up
and I said I wanted to be a teenager but
by the time I was in high school my
sights had shifted my new goal was to be
nothing less than the Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court I look back now and I
find that humorous but at the time no
one really said anything to dissuade me
from the idea that this was something
that I could achieve we did have one
family friend who was a distinguished
professor in care of history at a
university and he told me at one point
my senior year that
aukey I would make a good teacher or
professor
he told me you know don’t hae to bloom
where you’re planted sometimes the
things that are most special are those
that are seemingly ordinary I smiled and
thanked him but 17 year old me on the
inside and laughed it all felt a little
– there’s no place like home for me and
I have the semi-rural suburbs with cows
behind our high school son a little too
much like Kansas
I had my sights set on a school in
Washington DC if I was gonna bloom it
wasn’t gonna be in some ordinary way the
people around me expected I was going to
write my own story it was going to be an
epic worthy of a history book and I was
gonna bloom it was gonna be far
harrowing from home the reality of
actually paying for my dream school
shifted my sights a little bit and as I
looked at my options I decided that the
best place to plant myself was at UC
Davis it was only 40 minutes from home
and there were still so many cows and
yet it was the perfect fit for me while
I was there I shifted my focus from
constitutional law to international
relations and I made friends with some
amazing people like we had in high
school we still sat around watching a
gnat Animaniacs and pinky in the brain
and many of my friends were concocting
schemes for how they were going to take
over the world but my schemes are a
little bit different I wanted to figure
out how it was that I could change the
world and make it a better place but how
when I was young my father told me that
one day he thought I was going to do
great things just like President Kennedy
it can be incredibly exhilarating and
yet so much pressure to have the people
you love expect such greatness from you
I looked around at world leaders that I
admired and I found that one thing that
many of them had in common was that they
had dedicated their lives to service to
others and President Kennedy once said
ask not what your country can do for you
but what you can do for your country
the great thing about that storyline is
you don’t have to set out to be great
you set out to make the world great for
someone else I thought I had found my
path I was going to go out and join the
Peace Corps I was going to have them
send me to some remote corner of the
world and I was going to work on youth
development because youth after all our
future I got my application already and
there was one thing I hadn’t quite
considered on this path I’m asthmatic
and the government is truly not
interested in sending an asthmatic
halfway around the world to rural West
Africa where there are no hospitals
sometimes reality is really good at
raining on your parade that’s okay
because it takes rain to make flowers
grow they shifted my focus I was still
convinced that my story was going to be
epic and I was going to replant myself
far far away from livestock it turns out
a horse had a slightly different plan
for me I was riding my senior year and I
was thrown hard I nearly broke my neck
I suffered a moderate to severe
concussion
and things that had once been easy for
me we’re now incredibly difficult I had
to relearn much of the normal pieces of
life that I already knew and as I was
looking at graduate school programs I
decided that maybe it was a better idea
to plan a little closer to home again I
did manage to change the smell of cows
Flores tea breeze though I prided myself
to the Monterey Institute for
International Studies and I decided to
focus on post-colonial development if
the peace forum wasn’t going to send me
halfway around the world I was gonna
find a way to send myself why would I
was that miss I had the opportunity
works too under some absolutely amazing
professors people who were not only
teaching and researching but out in the
world making it a better and safer place
for all of us and I found them inspiring
one of my favorite professors was from
my seminar on ethics and the use of
force and while I was in his class I had
the opportunity to travel to Britain for
a conference but also to conduct some
research I was able to get access to the
British Library then to the archives in
the city of Coventry when I came back I
presented my paper with my original
research and he pulled me aside
afterwards
faith I’m not sure that you’re meant for
the world of public policy but she would
be absolutely amazing in my job there it
was teaching again but this time my
reaction had changed instead of laughing
I was flattered to be a teacher and a
researcher and a game changer like my
mentor that sounded pretty amazing to me
and I started researching doctoral
programs during this whole time I was
also working as a graduate research
assistant
at the center for nonproliferation
studies on chemical and biological
weapons terrorism and during that time I
learned more than I truly ever wanted to
know about people’s capacity to create
things for the sole purpose of killing
destroying and terrorizing other human
beings for a girl who was focused on
changing the world it seemed like a
pretty good place to start so I added a
secondary focus to my master’s degree on
non-proliferation it was the secondary
focus even whilst I was conducting my
independent study research for my thesis
on post apartheid South Africa that led
me to my first job outside of graduate
school I was offered a position as a
Chemical Weapons Convention analyst for
the SAIC working on US compliance I was
finally going to move across the country
I decided that my PhD could wait I
packed everything that I could fit into
my little Toyota Celica and I drove all
the way across the country to Abington
Maryland it was like it wasn’t quite
Washington DC there were actually a lot
of horses and cows and hay but it still
felt like I was on my way my position
included reporting on u.s. compliance
with the Iran Chemical Weapons
Convention to the organization for the
prohibition of chemical weapons or OPCW
a lot of my work was clerical in nature
but I did get to travel around the
country helping to fulfill our mission
at one point I was sharing a
presentation that I was ghostwriting
for one of my superiors we were all set
to go to a conference on this arm
in the hey and we were gonna serve in
support roles I hit partway through the
presentation and he stops me why don’t
you just do it for me wait what you do
it better than I do
can you just do it for me me I’m 24 and
a girl and you want me to go present my
newest compliance with the Chemical
Weapons Convention in The Hague okay
bloom where you’re planted how about a
little more you plant yourself it felt
like one of those mountaintop
experiences and that I had finally
arrived we flew to The Hague and it was
magical my presentation was on the first
night and it went exactly the way I had
planned everyone applauded my team
congratulated me and we go into the
reception that first night and I am
flying high I am just represented our
country on the proud stage of 24
therefore several people who talked to
me wanted to talk policy and it felt
like an amazing turning point in my
story and it was just not the way I had
anticipated later that night like so
many women in public policy I found
myself the subject of an experience that
was embarrassing and humiliating
degrading and ultimately devastating the
subject of my own me to a moment the
rest of the conference passed in a blur
me trying to regain my roots and figure
out what was going on we flew home and I
struggled with finding a new purpose in
my work people around me assured me well
this is just how things happen don’t you
know that
girl’s elevated so high so young that
everyone assumes that they got there by
just one like its how many power work
questions circulated in my head just
because it’s always worked that way why
farmers changed the soil to make flowers
grow
what can’t people change society are we
actually the authors of our own story or
are we just pawns acting on a stage with
a play that was written centuries ago I
had a choice to make
I could stay silent and stay where I was
I can work from within the organization
for change or I can find some other way
to bury create a society that was more
equal and equitable for all but in
reality the status quo was never an
option for me as I was trying to figure
out what was going on life intervened
while I was working I’d gotten married
for the first time and my husband and
wife took me out of that position and
across the ocean
finally to Morocco I was finally free of
cows but it still made me smile to see
donkeys pulling carts in the street and
goats climbing trees while I was in
Morocco I shifted my focus and I started
teaching English one of the first
positions I had was teaching the staff
at the ambassador’s residence I was
teaching the cook and the maids and
there
their fourth language they already spoke
Arabic and French a few of them spoke
Spanish and some of them spoke Berber
and as we were working I found that one
of the women I was working with could
neither read nor write in any of those
languages so I changed my position a
little bit
I didn’t just teach her her fourth
language I taught her how to read and
something amazing happened
one of the gardener’s felt encouraged
and inspired and he taught her how to
read in her first language Arabic and
then I saw it happy tears can help
flowers bloom too I was offered a
full-time position at the American
schools and it took me out of my other
positions but it was an absolute joy to
teach the children in the international
community they were the children of
ambassadors and other diplomats of
foreign service workers of
non-governmental organizations some of
them were wealthy wealthy Moroccans a
few were royalty and there was one who
was the grandchild of an exiled African
dictator but whoever I was teaching I
found that in so many ways I was
fulfilling that dream that I had of
joining the Peace Corps and working on
youth development when we returned to
the United States I decided not to
reenter the world of public policy I did
what that high school friend had
recommended I can’t wait teaching
credentials I started teaching history
it turns out you don’t have to travel
halfway around the world to be of
service to others you can be of service
to others right in your own backyard I
think maybe my high school English
teacher had it right well very different
from mine he found an indirect path to
the classroom his story is not mine to
share but there’s one piece that has
always sat with me
he told us that words teaching was not
his original dream at some point reality
dictated and required that he changed
his focus to changing the world right in
front of him and for each of us that
meant that he met us where we were even
when he disagreed with our stances and
encouraged us to always be better and
then he sent us out to write our own
stories my friend’s dad he had it wrong
I will never be just a teacher like so
many of my distinguished colleagues I do
teach history but I also teach so much
more I give students the tools that they
need to propel them on their journey I
teach students to challenge the world
around them I challenge my students to
work for a world that is more equal what
equitable and equal and to treat others
with respect and dignity I challenge
them to stand up for themselves and for
others who have been wronged I challenge
them to write their own story not the
story that someone else would write for
them
so where did my dreams leave me exactly
where I planned
even if my dreams took a little bit
different path I might still go get that
PhD someday but even if I don’t be a
game-changer right here baby glenda the
goodwitch
was right after all for me there’s no
place like home and sometimes it’s ok to
bloom where you plant it I may not
change the world for everyone but by
being of service to others I can change
the world for those in front of me and
that could create a ripple effect that
changes the world I may never live to
see it but it’s not gonna stop me from
trying so go out find your own path and
write your own story I can’t tell you
how that story will end because it’s
yours to write not mine
find what makes you passionate and
remember that the things that we love
sometimes reappear in different forms
plant some roots
remember that cows and rain help flowers
grow
and then bloom where you’re planted but
change the soil grow your garden and
write your story you never know you just might end up changing the world
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