Why this time might be different.

Anyone who knows me well is familiar with the intensity of my organizational habits. Which is a polite way of saying that I'm fairy sure, if I bothered to be diagnosed, I'm functioning with a considerable degree of OCD. It works for me though. I don't know anything else and I've maintained this intensity since I was a toddler; long before it was a conscious decision. With that information in hand, one might assume I live for new year's resolutions, for progress charts and gold stars. I don't. Not in my personal life anyway. My career is intense and I tend to like a chill atmosphere at home (yes, mom, I am aware that my chill is still a frequency most couldn't reach if they tried on their most manic day). 

Yet, here I was, rounding the corner into 2013 on my laptop generating 21 Evernotes related to The Happiness Project. Before I left for Europe I created a Facebook event inviting 20 or so friends to my condo for monthly brunches and conversations about happiness. Before creating the event I was in Hawaii reading Gretchen Rubin's book poolside. Before diving into her text, something was gnawing at me that prompted me to buy the book sight unseen from the airport bookshop in the first place. So, somewhere between Point A and Point B, I realized something has to give. 

OCD, meet The Happiness Project.

The genius of Rubin's thesis is that happiness is exactly no more and no less than you define it to be. If you decide you would be happier going to bed an hour earlier, do it. Happy. Done. She has no grand delusions of nirvana. I appreciate that. Neither do I. I may have a dormant romantic streak, but at the end of the day I'm pretty practical about it all. That practicality exploded into Evernote and snowballed through a series of reflections, mind maps, photographs, songs, and finally...The List. 

If I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it right. And by "right" I mean intensely. At first I thought I would create a theme for each month, as Rubin did. But the more I got into it, the more my list reflected goals that I wanted to accomplish daily, weekly, monthly, and long-term. For the first 4 months of this year I laid out a schedule of sorts (re-learn the guitar for one hour per week, send six Postcrossing cards per month, one photowalk adventure per month, etc). It's nothing earth shattering, but it led me to admit a truth I'd only vaguely acknowledged until now. 

My college textbook. I'm old.

I'm still living with a grad school hangover. Furthermore, what's extra lame, I'm only living with that hangover because I'm choosing to. It's been 18 months. Snap out of it already. But 'it' was the devil I know and...its own version of comfortable. In grad school I consciously shut down life, even breaking up with my hopelessly-devoted and apparently-distracting boyfriend just before classes started. Healthy or not, I focused only on career, school, travel. To be fair, working full-time as a new administrator, taking a full-time load of graduate classes, and traveling all over the country for work every 3 weeks was plenty to deal with. What this meant however, is that the stuff I love doing, the stuff that I wake up on an unplanned Saturday and choose to do, has been dormant for over three years now. Not entirely dormant, that's not accurate, but dormant to a degree that I acutely feel a deficit in my life. No more. 

I know myself, though. I know myself all too well. Since I'm not keen on resolutions, I've invited 20 friends over for brunch to ask me if I'm still playing the guitar. It's not entirely selfish. I'm genuinely excited to hear about everyone's version of a Happiness Project. I'm also genuinely excited about the creative space and the progressive energy this will generate. I live for that. I just forgot for a while. 

This one time, in graduate school...

[originally posted 07/31/2011 to now-defunct iWeb blog]

I’ve had a thought floating around my head for a while now. Say, for over a year, give or take. The thought? Graduate school is violent. Rephrase: Graduate school was a violent experience for me. And it was partially my fault.

Violent? Violent.

As in, destructive. Forceful. Maddening. Severe. Harsh. Tumultuous. Distressing. Overwhelming. Disturbing. Struggle. Marked by extreme and sudden intense activity.

As in, not gentle, peaceful, moderate, still, or controlled.

Thanks, Thesaurus.com and Merriam-Webster, for providing articulate inspiration. I know, it’s all those astute research skills I learned in graduate school.

Of course there were amazing experiences. Of course there were amazing people that have since become true friends. Of course there were amazing texts and lectures and ah-ha moments. Of course. But guess what? I don’t want to talk about those today. Nope. I just don’t. Today I want to get this whole violence train of thought out of my head and move on.

To clarify, grad school did not exist in a vacuum. I was appointed Interim Director of my organization on the same day I started classes. After months of interviews and search committee machinations, I was offered the full Director position. Suddenly, at age 28, I went from program manager to The Boss with seven professional staff and a 1/2 million dollar budget. I was still consulting for a national/federal organization in D.C. and traveling all over the country every few weeks. Then I decided to buy a condo and become a first time homeowner. I had nothing else going on, after all.

So when I say “violent” I mean the entire experience writ large, as in, the last two years of my life in general. So when I say “destructive. Forceful. Maddening. Severe. Harsh. Tumultuous. Distressing. Overwhelming. Disturbing. Struggle. Marked by extreme and sudden intense activity...” I mean exactly that.

My health - mental, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual - suffered and declined greatly over the past two years. That’s part of the violence I’m referring to. It was a violent time in my life marked by extreme and sudden intense activity...activity that was unbalanced and unhealthy. The word “violence” also works because I genuinely feel that I have to heal from the experience. I regret the way I handled it, but I also didn’t know how else to do it. With everything that I had going on, I retreated into survival mode and powered through with my blinders on. There were plenty of savvier, more well-balanced people in my cohort who may read this and wonder what I’m rambling on about. They may have had an entirely different experience and wonder why I was so incapable of balancing life. That’s okay. I’m not dwelling on it and making comparisons to anyone else; I’m simply naming it, acknowledging how I handled it, and moving on.

Beyond all my book learnin’ and such, the take-away from this meta-analysis of grad school is one of a refiner’s fire. Grad school sucked everything out of my life except for grad school. I was able to boil down over the past two years the bits I’d really like to take back. Everyone who knows me knows that I’m hyper-engaged in...anything and everything I do. I’m a busy person and I fill my life with stuff I love doing, seeing, tasting, experiencing... What grad school did was refine my list of what really really matters. When I finally got a break, what did I want to do? When I decided to blow off my research on Saturday afternoon, who did I want to spend time with? When I’m done and it’s all behind me now, what made it to the top of the list of things that matter most to me?

Enter: Next Post.

Coming up for air

Grad School.

One MBA class down. Got a solid A grade and flattering kudos from the professor. I've been knocking out A grades on all my MA Community Leadership course assignments. My new MBA course is going well and I rocked an A on the first assignment. All is well. It's hard. I love it. It takes every single spare moment of my time. It's worth it.

Work.

The director of my department left the college in September. I was appointed Interim Director. This is in addition to everything else I do for my already more-than-full-time job and the new federal grant I'm managing. It's a great opportunity and I'm in the right place at the right time, but it's wearing me out. I now manage 7 staff members and a $400,000 budget. In addition...in addition... *sigh*

That's that.

I have a light homework weekend. This hasn't happened since...well, since I started grad school. I took this time to clean my apartment. No. That's a lie. I took this time to surf the web and watch hours of hulu. I'm about to dump a lot of neat interweb finds on this blog.

Ready. Set. Go.

The Little Things

The ubiquitous "little things" have always been important to me; but during this particular phase of acute stress, the little things aren't simply important to me, they've become absolutely essential. With reference to concurrently tackling a career and full-time grad school, I go through waves of panic, contentment, overwhelming stress, confidence, on and on, blahbity blah. The list of things that need to get done on both fronts is literally endless. I could easily do nothing but work, class, study, work, class, study, rinse, repeat...and many days I do just that. For the sake of sanity, however, the reality of that cycle means I have to make more of an effort, be more intentional, to find pleasure in the little things.

Enter: Yoga. I've been practicing yoga for a decade now, but in those 10 years I've only a few times hit the stride of consistency I'd like. I feel the same way about massage. I need both weekly, if not multiple times each week, but you can guess how often I do either.

Well, I hit a wall today. I hit a wall after drafting an MBA team effectiveness analysis paper. That wall was called: Enough Already. That wall was also called: Business Writing is Soulless and I Can't Take it Anymore. I shut down the computer, gave myself permission to take a break, and went to a 90-minute relax & release class. I cried for a good 20 minutes in the middle there.

Yup. Cried. Don't know why. Apparently as I let myself relax, it wasn't only my muscles that needed to be released. I'm lying on my back in frog pose, looking like I'm either giving birth, having totally rockin' sex, or enduring a pap smear, when I started to cry. The water works continued as I rolled up and over into full child's pose. It wasn't a distracting sob, in fact I doubt anyone even noticed, but as I centered my breath, I couldn't stop the tears.

There's something beautiful about that, but there's also something really disturbing about it. I'm tense to the point that a simple yoga pose tips me off my rocker? Not cool. What this teaches me (again) is that I can't let life get to the point that I hit That Wall before I pay attention to taking care of myself. If I took time for myself more consistently, rather than saving it all up for one enormously cathartic yoga class, maybe the sensation of relaxation wouldn't be so novel.

Work on that.

Dude.

So my graduate program? Not. Messing. Around. It's a small cohort. It's challenging. It's an incredible amount of work.

And I love it.

And I'm overwhelmed by it.

And I know I made the right decision.

And everything I'm learning is IMMEDIATELY applicable to my life, my passions, and my career.

And my classmates are awesome.

And I have absolutely no social life.

None.

And my professors are pushing us and asking that we grow and keep up.

And I love that.

And I'm so @#$%&!* exhausted.

The End.

Westminster & Sugarhouse

I have really mixed feelings about this. I went to Westminster for my BA, lived on campus at the time, and have lived in Sugarhouse ever since. As a ten year resident of this community, and as an alumni that has strong feelings for/about Westminster, this development is a mixed bag.

(I apologize you have to watch Fox News on this blog)

A Community of Engaged Scholars

This past week I had my first session of my first MA Community Leadership class: Exploring Communities. I sort of got a sense of the program's cohort at orientation, but not really. This was, essentially, the first time we were all meeting and had any substantial introduction to each other. As we went around the room describing our "passion issues" and goals for using our degree, I had a fleeting moment of intimidation. These are some seriously sharp, compassionate, inspiring people. We have careers in everything from homeless outreach to public healthcare, from advocates of women's rights to programers of youth arts initiatives. We plan to pursue everything from wilderness camps for adults with disabilities to refugee resettlement, from working abroad with environmental resource groups to starting community gardens in our own neighborhoods of SLC.

I say my intimidation was fleeting because I realized, more and more and we moved around the circle, that I'd come home. I don't mean "come home" only in the sense that once upon a time I earned my BA from Westminster College, although that's part of it. I mean "come home" in the sense that I've been thrust into a community of like-minded people. There's no reason at all for me to be intimidated; these are My People. I love my MBA class, don't get my wrong, it's difficult and it's pushing me and I'm learning a lot; but the contrast between that experience and my MACL course cannot be more stark.

The first thing the MACL students did, before the professors even made it to the classroom, was arrange the tables/chairs into a conversation circle. The professors showed up with hummus, pita, and apples from the downtown farmer's market for our halftime break. The room we meet in is full of different colored chairs, funky modern furniture, and soft lighting. The sterilized mock board room of the MBA class makes perfect sense, but it would never fly for this course. We hadn't been in class an hour before the huge post-its and markers came out and we were told to "draw Utah and it's historical, contemporary, and future social issues." Some people were literal, some people scribbled away with a mess of abstract blobs and colors, then we all engaged in hours of conversation about our world, our politics, our thoughts on Loeb's "Soul of a Citizen"

The MACL class is no less intense than the MBA class, in fact the readings and assignments are just about on par, but it has a completely different feel. And that feeling is home.

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).

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...

Master of Arts in Community Leadership

It has been over seven years since I graduated with my BA in English from Westminster College. I've missed the brick, ivy, and small classes from the moment I left. I've built a great career in higher-ed in the meantime - and life has been non-stop work momentum since I graduated - but I've always wanted to go back to school. Westminster didn't have a graduate program that was right for my field however and so I've flirted off and on with a number of grad school options over the years. I found a few potential programs, but was never able to take a breather from work long enough to give it any real thought.

Well, this spring a number of factors came together to form the perfect storm. 1) My consulting gig (ie: the cause of my constant travel) just wrapped in July; and 2) Westminster announced the creation of a new grad program that just so happens to be the perfect fit for my field: Master of Arts in Community Leadership (MACL). Long story short: I went through the motions of debating it (because I knew it was perfect for me and it was all but a done deal), I went for it, was accepted, enrolled, signed my student loan papers with my sweet red blood, and I begin the next chapter of my life on 24 August.

The genius concept behind the MACL program is that it is entirely interdisciplinary. In addition to taking Community Leadership courses, I'll also take MBA courses, as well as courses in the MA Professional Communication program. I could take courses in the MA Public Health program if I felt so inclined, but it's not my focus.

I would love to do nothing with my life but focus on school, but alas, that was a rare privilege known exclusively to my residential undergrad life. I'll still have my full-time job...I'll just replace my consulting travel with full-time enrollment in grad school. If all goes as planned I'll be done Spring 2011.

So in reference to my previous post, I hope to wrap up posts about my January - June travels soon because I have a feeling that what little spare time I have now will soon be a distant memory. It's a welcome, long overdue change, however. Just think, now I have an excuse to shop to for new office supplies and tech goodies! Say hel-lo to a new MacBook Pro...!