My Journey from a Waiter to a Lecturer: An Autoethnography

Abstract

This study appraised my momentarily missing twelve years of formal education life (1990-2002) and thoughtful higher education life (2002 to onward). One of the main aims was to ascertain; what are the turning points of my education/working life struggles. In that context, I appraised how I became success to improve my family livelihood by working as a waiter, achieve higher educational status and started my academic career as a lecturer since my engagement with in/formal education. I applied autoethnography as methodology and narrative imagination and writing as inquiry as methods and meditation, self-reflexivity and self-interviewing as major sources of narrative information. While exploring my past, I found, I was ambitious/reflective actor, and rejected the reproduction of my occupational and educational status. I could not become astronaut but I was emotionally committed to perform and produce something unique in my life. Being there, by supporting my family livelihood, I was planning to pledge against stratified socio-economic and cultural structures. I applied vocational rehabilitation therapy and resiliency against my frustration and engaged in working life. My involvement in livelihood not only improved family livelihood but also encouraged me to embark in higher educational voyage. Ultimately, my higher education status and critical thinking ability helped me to transform my life from an anger driven behavior and feelings into happy oriented actions/interactions with self and others. Being here, after becoming a lecturer, I am seeing myself as a new potential organic intellectual as an outcome of my thoughtful education/working life struggles.