Stressful Season

My stressful season has begun, that crazy time in each semester designed to test my stress relief skills, time management ability and caffeine consumption. Within the next three or so weeks I have a lot of projects due, and just to make things more complicated, I have a new Daisy Girl Scout troop I'm leading. Plus in a week and a day there is a major adult leader training here and I am presenting one session, however it won't be until Monday that I know how many people are coming and can really adequately prepare. But God will get me through it, just need focus and motivation for schoolwork.

Hoops

Life was much better and simpler when the only hoops I needed to jump through was the one in the hula hoop that I chose to jump through while using as a jump rope.

Years later, nothing is simple. To move one must get a new place, pack up, leave or sell the old place, then reestablish their life in a new location with friends, church community, volunteer opportunities, etc...

Right now my grad school is adding new hoops to jump through just to have a simple question answered. They said one can request to take a class rather than do an experiential learning opportunity if one has had professional experience. So I asked...now I'm on my third hoop they are looking for me to jump through, just to get an answer which will determine all the rest of my semesters. The kicker is, I have to jump through the prior hoop to even learn that there is another one or what it is.

This all leaves me wondering.

Really, is it hard to present everything someone needs to do up front with this process? What lesson is this teaching me about how to be a professional? Then the questions turn on my actions, what hoops do I make students jump through without realizing it? my friends? family? potential boyfriends? If I do this, how do I eliminate the hoops?

Oh, how poignant

My TV just died. After getting it for freshman year of undergrad, it died during my first year of grad school having survived many trips to college, a move to PA, NC, and back to PA.

It can get worse

As my last job I was the judicial officer for a while and heard some of the more serious judicial cases that students were involved with. Yet somehow that and previous experiences of students arguing that their actions were not citation worthy, probably hours of my life if I add it all up, has not prepared me enough for working here. I can listen to a teenager argue policies and why they shouldn't be cited, that's easy, they need someone to rebel against and something to question. But listening to a drunk person argue that what they choose to do is not a big deal grates on me, especially when they do not make sense and talk in circles. I may never like these conversations, however I'm sure there are going to be more, and perhaps even an angry parent phone call tomorrow.

My Community- Defined as Where I live

Today, for the first time in a while I was reminded that the community I live in is very unlike me. A couple students and I talked for a whilr about how this is too urban for them and how rural it was for me. Being that I'm only thirty minutes from Pittsburgh, it's not bad, but some things are challenging me if I only remain in town.
This community challenges me to be enthusiastic about a 6 point deer that a student shot and stay away from the stores on the first day of deer hunting season as it's an official school holiday & everyone is holiday shopping. The public library follows the school district schedule and was closed today when I tried to hang out and get books out, forcing me to be creative with my free time. Within walking distance, there is only a bar, which I avoid as students spend a lot of time there, nothing around here helps us think outside the box with programming options. My car is getting quite the workout from the hills and I'm learning to stop when it snows because of steep snowy/icy roads are not fun.

Back to the grind

After a great 21 days away, I'm back and resettled into school and work. As much as I like having a routine, some of my feeling about being here have come right back again. It only took one day of classes to be rolling my eyes at what we are doing and be very thankful I brought back my youth ministry books.

The line up this semester is:
Research- aka: what youth worker blog, twitter, resource or online community can I find the information I need in

Assessment and Evaluation- aka: assessing what is going on (um, surveys when you first start a position anyone?), and evaluation is making changes based on the information you assessed.

The professor asked us what our experience has been with this, let's see, I walked into my job and had to assess the status of the ministry, the students spiritual maturity and the church culture, listen to God and go forward with changes via instituting a programming model & budget request. That was in the first month.

One of the new things I can learn is the formal surveys that all colleges use- I already know about one and was working with it at NCSA- Oh! And I was doing so without any classroom time...lookie at that~

Student Development- Learning about some more theorists, reading the book again that I bought and read last year, writing some more papers similar to the ones I wrote in undergrad child psych. We are going to spend a lot of time on a model of how to make changes, yea, I think I've made a lot of changes to ministries, policies and procedures in my time, not plagiarizing myself will be the biggest challenge.

So I'll say it again, grad school is a way God got me here and I need to do the work to remain here but it's not why I'm here. Maybe more so it's to be Christ's light in the program. Yesterday I had a long conversation about another students break and some family challenges she encountered. I'm in some ways shocked because I barely talked with her last term mainly because of scheduling and she was that open with me. That's not the first conversation I've had of great life substance, most likely not the last.

May you all

have a blessed Christmas!

17 months to go!

I'd be lying if I said I didn't learn anything this entire semester throughout my first semester of grad school, as much as I don't want to acknowledge it. With seventeen months to go, here's some of the lessons of this past semester.

-I know more about the history of this new profession than I ever desired to know or probably need to know, but it was definitely all new information.
-I finally understand 'in loco parentis' now that I do not live it out on a daily business.
-I've learned what is too many hours of work and taken action to reduce those hours.
-You can make good friends in a new city within five months of moving there, cue "make new friends".
-I am very different from my classmates on so many levels.
-I know some new ways to make cool publicity.
-I never want to be a micromanaging bitchy boss.
-You can definitely learn about giving up control to God by going to school, taking tests and submitting papers. When it's done, it's done and the grade is up to God working through the teacher.
-GPS is wise investment.
-I miss working with teens! Often I wonder if I should be working with teens rather than college students which stinks because I'm earning a degree to work with college students.
-I know what effort is required to get grades that are good enough to keep me off probation and pass in my program. I am learning not to take professors comments personally, because simply, I got a good enough grade and didn't have to sacrifice more of how my life should be framed while living into God's plan for me.
-I can do this! Only 17 months to go!

In My Travels

Oh, the grandeur of having a week off from school and the apartment building to reconnect with friends and recharge. My journey began early Saturday morning with a drive over to the Philly suburbs to say with good friends and play with their son. I last saw him about a month after he was born and by now, at almost eight months, he can do so much more, including spit up on me a lot. :)
Sunday was filled with a worship gathering, followed by hanging out with a good youth ministry friend at a local Holiday parade. I forgot how good it is to do very normal things like watch too many firetrucks go by in parades, heckle the marching band and recognize people in the crowd. The youth group, which she used to direct, was doing a fundraiser and some couples I met through the years of doing joint ministry were there. Then it was off to have Starbucks with a good friend before the massive 13 person Friendly's dinner (yum) and the regular hours of hanging out at someones apartment.
Monday was reserved for the gathering of moms with the exception of me. I got the chance to hang out with a wonderful group of Godly woman whom I have known for years as we met back when we were all single. Each of them me them met their husbands at church and now have children with more on the way. Amongst the four of us women we had the almost 8 month old, twin 10 month old and a 15 month old to play with and chase around the house as we got caught up. I miss them so much! While it's good to have play dates here and there, its not the same as living life together like we used to;
For dinner I dashed off to have dinner with some old coworkers before making the journey to LI for family time. Long Island was filled with family time, Thanksgiving, reading for class, Thanksgiving worship service, seeing church family and a quick trip to Starbucks with a friend. Then the craziness ensued Friday and Saturday. Late night bowling with friends who happen to be teenagers and act like it means that things will not be boring. Plus when my sis and I have a gathering with friends who used to be our neighbors nothing will be too calm and I have pic/video to prove it.
But break has to end so after the worship service and coffeehour on Sunday I packed up the car to begin the journey back. After a too short visit with Billy between services at his church I arrived back to reality at 11:30 p.m. to begin the final week of classes, apartment work and studying/writing for finals.

Some Reaccuring Themes, Thoughts and Actions

One of my papers is on greeks and lately where I've been hanging out doing homework includes people interviewing each other as part of the pledging process.

The more I interact with my classmates, the more I realize I have different expectations of the program I am in and professors. This especially comes up in the realm that I am in graduate school and therefore don't expect them to hold my hand through everything. Aka: I am a grownup.

I'm right where I need to be, for right now. All the reasons aren't clear but during class today (we were talking about career development) the professor asked if any of you know that you are where you are supposed to be right now and my hand shot up before I could think about it. I'm putting that more of as God's answer than mine because if I had a choice I wouldn't be writing a 20 page paper right now.

I do have friends here. Within about four months I am more connected than I thought I would be, now I just need time to hang out with people and respond back to emails & facebook communication.

Next Two Weeks

A one page paper contrasting two sides of an issue (still need to find opposing articles, the ones I got are both on the con side)

20 page research paper- current word count=0

45 minute presentation

Quiz- More complicated than that sounds

I can't wait for Thanksgiving break!!!

You know theya re cool people when...

their webpage doesn't load but instead of getting a html message you get:
'Oops. Something is busted. We'll be back soon.''

I <3 youth workers.

I was there, but I didn't do it!

It's super cool to have God taking care of your grades. All the decent and great grades I've gotten so far this semester- I don't deserve. I did the work but didn't put in the full effort I'd like to just the best I could. Last night I handed in a paper which was terrific cause I could then have a conversation with a classmate & try to encourage her to make it through the program instead of writing it at the absolute last minute. My presentation went alot better than I expected it to and people listened. :) I got a good grade on my midterm that again, I wasn't prepared for.

Today, I'm just really thankful that I have a great group of friends away from here, a close friend nearby, a church community that includes people I could call to hang out, a commute to school I don't mind and that God has sustained me this far. And, that in two days I get to reconnect with friends at NYWC and focus on God.

The Progression of Life

Saturday was my last day of work at part 1 of the assistantship, a long time coming. The journey of almost two months of being overwhelmed, needing more time for schoolwork and simply needing balance has taken it's toll though- I'm sick, my grades aren't ideal and I'm sitting here with a look of what's next- how is my life reordered in a way that's faithful to God. I don't really know yet, but I do know it's 10:20 a.m. I have a presentation & a paper due tomorrow and they both need to be worked on. But first breakfast.