In honor of Ted Kennedy

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on,
the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Senator Ted Kennedy (22 February 1932 – 25 August 2009)

A statement in the eulogy delivered by President Obama:

"What we can do is to live out our lives as best we can with purpose, with love, and with joy. We can use each day to show those who are closest to us how much we care about them, and treat others with the kindness and respect that we wish for ourselves. We can learn from our mistakes and grow from our failures. And we can strive at all costs to make a better world, so that someday, if we are blessed with the chance to look back on our time here, we know that we spent it well; that we made a difference; that our fleeting presence had a lasting impact on the lives of others. This is how Ted Kennedy lived. This is his legacy."

When Death Comes

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

(Mary Oliver, When Death Comes)

Thomas Moore wrote that the soul "is not a thing, but a quality or a dimension of experiencing life and ourselves. It has to do with depth, value, relatedness, heart, and personal substance."

What personal substance do you bring to your interactions with people? What depth and value to do contribute to this world, such that you are not simply a visitor? I hope we never tire of reflecting on these questions. I also hope I never settle on one solid answer.

Soul Food

I absolutely chose the right graduate program. I'm so at home and so in the zone right now. I haven't even been to my first MA Community Leadership class yet and I can tell you it's going to rock my world.

Paul Rogat Loeb is something of an academic celebrity in the service-learning world. I've had his "Soul of a Citizen" on my shelf for nearly a decade. It's a seminal work in the field and to be taken seriously in any degree, you have to have at least a working understanding of this text. However, I had never sat down and read it cover to cover. Until now. It's one of the texts in my Exploring Communities class. The fact that I can read Loeb in an academic context, get credit for it, write papers on it, discuss it with others, makes me so happy I could scream.

It's a very interesting contrast to be reading Loeb and an endless stack of MBA texts at the same time. I love my MBA class - the theories and perspectives are dense and interesting and challenging - but when I read Loeb, I've come home.

From page 24: "Sadly, and ironically, in a country born of a democratic political revolution, the be American today is to be apolitical. Civic withdrawal has become our norm. To challenge this requires courage. It also requires creating a renewed definition of ourselves as citizens - something closer to the nation of active stakeholders that leaders like Thomas Jefferson had in mind." Um, I'm sorry. Is that Loeb or my blog speaking? Honestly. Reading this book is like hanging out with an old friend.

Speaking of, I need to get back to it. I'll leave you with this thought:

"In regard to cruelties committed in the name of a free society, some are guilty, while all are responsible." (Rabbi Abraham Heschel)

It's kind of like being pregnant

Only not really. But you know what I mean. When you're pregnant you can ride that excuse for a good 9 months, 12 if you play your cards right. Well, I'm going to ride grad school all the way to the finish line as far as excuses are concerned. For instance, WiFi.

I have been perfectly content to have a WiFi/cable/telephone free house. I made a work-life balance decision years ago. For me that meant no internet and no temptation to bring work home and pull 18 hour days. My blackberry was sufficient and though it was inconvenient at times to not be able to surf at home, whatever. Well...with mounds and mounds of coursework online, I have no choice at this point. I finally caved. Welcome to the 21st century, Self. I hooked me up some WiFi tonight. Word.


...and I immediately proceeded to waste my night away with hours of hulu. My WiFi did not lead me to check my course discussion boards. I did not log-on to my school email account. All I researched tonight was Dating in the Dark, More to Love, The Office, and Dr. Horrible (for the 1,382 time). I watched more 'television' tonight than I've watched all year. Oy.

The novelty of this crazy thing y'all call the internets better wear off soon; I gots major studyin to do.

Certainly seems easier...

Yes. I'm THAT nerd.

I went to my first graduate class last night, MBA 605 Executive Development. In a roundabout way I've expressed my [mild] reservations about the whole interdisciplinary factor of my program; essentially my reservations about MBA culture and what I can expect from my course work and interactions with classmates. It's a foreign world to me - and not because I don't know anything about it, but rather, because I do. The foreign-to-me factor is entirely by choice.

I'm completely willing to approach it with an open mind, and to be honest, I'm most excited about the MBA piece of my program. I'm most excited because I have reservations. Having reservations means it's a challenge. I typically excel under pressure and why would I pay buckets of money to learn stuff I already know?

Well, I can now report that I love it. I so love it. I'm not dry cleaning my power suits just yet, but there's a certain latent acumen that is thanking me for finally doing this. I wasn't horribly creeped out by anyone in my class. I wasn't intimidated by the course material (though I was caught flat footed by the timeline of assignments for the first night of class*). I just loved every minute of it. The class is intense. The discussions are challenging. I love it.

In case you're wondering what I'm doing in class on a Wednesday night, when I've told you that night has been set aside for SYTYCD and GLEE: oopsie. Long story short there was a miscommunication with my schedule and up until my Monday night orientation, I thought I was in the Monday night section of the Executive Development course. Surprise! I started school sooner than I thought, but it's all good. That's what hulu is for, right? Anyone know how to get full SYTYCD episodes online? I don't have the patience to piece together YouTube clips.

* MACL students were not given our online log-in information (ANGEL) until orientation Monday night. Professors had been posting syllabi and assignments since mid-August. They expect you to come to class the first night fully prepared with, in the case of my MBA course, 100-ish pages of reading completed and three short essays posted to the online discussion board. So here I am Monday night logging onto ANGEL, my stomach dropping to my knees as I realize what I have to pull off in a day's time. I was at a Jackson Browne concert Tuesday night and Wednesday was the first day of classes at my institution as well. Needless to say, my office was hopping...and I was reading fast and furious. I'm proud to say that I read all 100+ pages and posted all three essays by 3:30pm Wednesday. From now on, I'm going to be done with Wednesday's homework by Sunday night. What a rough way to kick off the experience. It's all a cakewalk from here (famous last words).

Hello, baby.

...and speaking of all that time I'm going to be spending on the computer...

I'm now the proud mama of a new 15" MacBook Pro. I'm working on the Leopard OS, with Snow Leopard coming in a week or so. She purrs along with a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB of memory. I can finally store my photos and music on the same machine (novel concept) with an enormous 500 GB hard drive.

Also, I'm most excited about the gorgeous NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics card. I've outgrown iPhoto and I'm currently playing around in Aperture 2. I want to freak out with glee every time I see my photos displayed on this computer. Dude. Seriously.

It's a professional system, Aperture is, so I'm just trying to get my bearings. I know I'm going to love it! This is just a quick sample of something I played with last night. I took this photo @ Thanksgiving Point Gardens.

this post sponsored by nelnet, the lender of my graduate student loans...

loans which made this sexy new set-up possible.

Today.

Today is the day. The orientation for my MA Community Leadership program is tonight. Classes start next week. Here goes nothing...

I feel relatively prepared. With me it's all about decreasing the intensity of the unknown. It's amazing how calming it is for me to put pen to paper and highlight a routine...and then highlight it again and again via two paper planners, iCal on my MacBook, then syncing it all to my blackberry. (Yes, I know there are medications for that. No, I'm not interested). I'm going to be outrageously busy, but at least it's consistent. I figure if I can survive three years of non-stop travel, I can survive a complete absence of leisure time and loads of interesting homework. Yes, I said interesting. I'm sincerely excited about my courses and I can't wait to dig into the curriculum.

This first semester includes three courses. Exploring Communities is my first MACL cohort course. For the first time ever I'll be on the other side of the service-learning equation. Now I get to be the student who stresses about negotiating an additional volunteer commitment on top of a full-time job, full-time school, and life in general. Ah yes, it all comes full circle. I'm also taking two MBA courses: Executive Development, and The Nonprofit Organization. I'm intrigued to see how I handle MBA courses. I'm not worried about the courses being difficult, necessarily, just different. Completely out of my comfort zone. I have a degree in English and Philosophy, and have been working with social justice issues in public higher-ed for the past seven years. In other words: I've spent my entire adult life avoiding all-things MBA. Or I should say, avoiding all things I assign to my biased stereotype of MBA culture. Should be interesting. I hope I'm proven wrong.

With reference to my schedule, I'm being very intentional about planning for balance. I know my limits. I know how I burn out. I know what makes me happy and what centers me. I'm doing my best to take all of that into account. For instance, color-coded in green I've blocked out Wednesday night for the gym, So You Think You Can Dance, and GLEE. I plan to be as loyal to that silly television schedule as I will be to my coursework. I am booking all sorts of gym time, alone, with friends, and with a trainer (all yellow, in case you're curious). I'm keeping my volunteer commitment with Tabesha's ESL lessons, though only every other week now (blue, because I know you care). I've planned a vacation to white sand beaches in October and I'm going to enjoy it guilt-free (purple, just move on). The blogger/picasa photo issue completely derailed my plans to blog about my travel, but I plan to forge ahead regardless. It may take me months and months to pull it off, but I will document my travel. In the meantime, however, I plan to blog in realtime. What a novel concept. Who knew it was possible? I need the outlet and I know I'll be spending more than enough time on the computer studying, I might as well balance that out with something creative.

So that's that. If you made it this far in reading this post, you deserve a medal. This was definitely one of those posts that was for my benefit, because I needed to hear myself say it (er...watch myself type it). As I keep myself in check over the next four months, I'm sure I'll read and re-read my well laid plans...

Note to Self

Dear Self...

No, scratch that.

Dear Future Self...

Go ahead. Your turn.

With every lesson learned...

As I'm sorting through emails this morning, I opened a message from National Geographic. They are announcing their 2009 International Photography Contest and this photo was their lead image:

I immediately fell in love with her. What an incredible image. I also starting singing:

"With every lesson learned, a line upon your beautiful face. We'll amuse ourselves one day with these memories we'll trace..." (Indigo Girls, Get Out the Map)

In Memory of Dr. King

"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines

of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."

One of my favorite outings in Atlanta was to the grave of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He is buried (along with Coretta) next to his beloved Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Nearby there is a national park memorial that highlights Dr. King's work toward social justice and his focus on non-violent civil disobedience. This is by far one of the most interactive, interesting exhibits I've ever seen. My favorite feature was a life-sized replica of a civil rights march: Freedom Road. You are encouraged to walk amongst the statues, up a paved hill made to look like a city street, toward the sound of protest songs.

Yeah, I teared up.

"...when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!""

Coffee Shop Collective

Seriously, how adorable is this place? It was a surprise find we stumbled upon in Atlanta. It's a coffee shop, bakery, printing press, all sorts of little artist's boutiques sharing the same space. The only delineation between artists/vendors was the wall color and sometimes the rugs on the floor. The central space was a communal spot to hang out...and by far the most comfortable set up I've ever seen. I've spent more than my fair share of time in coffee shops across this great nation and this hodgepodge of old, comfy living room furniture takes the cake!

Knock on wood

I don't want to jinx my good luck...but I just posted "Highlight at The High" with three photos! I've been having major issues with blogger lately, namely dealing with the photo upload function.

I'm going to try another post and see if it was just a fluke. Cross your fingers.

Hopefully...I'm back in the game!

Highlight at The High

I fell completely in love with this piece at The High. Can't you just feel the texture? I really wanted to lick it. But I didn't.

you HAVE to be kidding me...

(identical post on madeleines written with light)

So yeah. Remember that goal I set? I was going to blog the past six months of travel before Labor Day. Um, about that.

At least this time it's not my fault. I set aside the time, even went out of my way to create time in my schedule to knock this project out. I prepped massive amounts of photos. I was ready to rock n' roll.

Then blogger freaked out.

I haven't been able to post photos for weeks now. Weeks. In Blog Time, that's like 17 years. I get the same annoying error message each time and I've tried absolutely everything I can to work around it. No luck. I finally gave up and visited the blogger help site. As it turns out, not so helpful. It's a cool concept, but no dice. It's a community site, with users answering each other's questions and the occasional blogger staffer jumping in. I was basically shouting into the void.

Along came twitter.

I tweeted my frustration into what I thought was another void, but at least I could direct my comments @blogger #help #likenow. A helpful woman named Siobhan chimed in with all sorts of suggestions (many I had already tried, but she obviously knew her stuff so I went with it). I found out later she's actually a blogger staffer who tweets and she picked up on the @blogger I threw out into the tweetsphere. She took it as far as she could then passed me off to a rock star named Brett. Brett and I tweaked and troubleshooted and are now tweaking some more. With no luck.

The Picasa team has been called in.

Honestly. I'm such a small fish in the blogging universe. I just wanna post a few photos. The epicness of the situation is getting old. I know Brett is working on the issue from his end and I hope there are some crafty Picasa techs attacking it as well. At any rate, epic or not, I sincerely appreciate the help. I'm so grateful to be off the community help site and in the capable hands of actual geeks.

And so we wait.