Dear Graduate Students of the world,

It Get’s Better.

I hope you forgive me for stealing a phrase, but I feel like it fits pretty well here.  As a recovering graduate student I feel like I have a few words to impart whether they’re worth their merit.  Forgive me, an advanced degree gives me an inflated ego.  Truly, life will be different now, you will continually ask the question when someone tells you a fact, that you want to see the facts or research on that.  Often you will dismiss it if unless it’s a primary source.

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It’s likely going to be difficult to transition back to normal life outside of academia.  You might even find yourself working in academia because it just feel more comfortable.  I know I did.  It’s like a half-way house for us recovering graduate students.  Some will find their way out, but recidivism rates are higher than ever and most people find their way back one way or another. It will be difficult, but understand one thing:

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It gets better.

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In the real world there isn’t professors to please, or late night papers to finish.  There’s just you, your life and your job (hopefully, this job market is just horrendous).  Citations aren’t commonplace and your future supervisors likely won’t expect you to grade any papers.  I’m not quite the perfect example, but I think that life has gotten better.  I now don’t have to ward off questions about a thesis or ask people how the outside world feels.

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People talk fondly about their time in college, grad students talk fondly about what they’re going to do once grad school is over.  Don’t fret, don’t worry friends, colleagues and future professionals…

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It gets better.

However, if it doesn’t get better there’s always a PhD or another degree.

-A Recovering Grad Student

April 2012

Birthday Month? (Yes, apparently I’m a sorority girl)

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The month of my birthday is always a busy one.  I don’t usually get much time to much of anything other than focus on school or other activities that seem to be filling up my time.  That has been true most of my life, but now that I’m out of grad school and for the most part an adult.

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I’m not sure I’ll ever feel like an adult, even if I keep calling myself an old man.  Seeing my nieces grow up so quickly doesn’t make me feel any younger.  However I enjoy every minute with them.  A funny experience that happened this month was when I was home to help my brother in law and sister move we spent a little family time because it was the Easter season.

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My sister had found this ingenious way of having my nieces color eggs in a way that wasn’t going to make a mess.  With toddlers that is a feat if anything resembling any activity doesn’t involve making a mess.  They did enjoy finding my phone and running off with it.  However this little activity with my nieces coloring the eggs was simple, dip the egg and be amazed at how cool it was.

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I remember being young and simply coloring an egg was exciting.  Being able to see the world through their eyes can really make one appreciate the simple and things that we might think as normal and mundane.  Just as we continued with the eggs my nieces began to bite into the hard boiled eggs and find the delicious part they were looking for.

They liked coloring eggs, but they liked eating them even more.  Sometimes you’ve got to break a few eggs to really get what you want.

(or make an omelette)

My nieces understood that.  Sure two year olds will break anything, but they knew what they wanted and they took it.

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Sometimes that’s what you have to do. Break a few eggs, not necessarily to get what you want, but to the good part, the eggy center.  Otherwise you’ll never really know what it holds inside.

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You never know what life holds until you break a few eggs, and take a few chances.

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Album of the Month

Do you love the Swell Season?  Of course you do.  Well, Marketa Irglova made a solo album.  Just amazing.  Came out a while back, but worth mentioning in this off month for albums.

 Marketa Irglova ~ Anar

I’m now 25

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It’s not scary, not that it should be, but it’s a milestone nonetheless. Our brains prefer order and creating milestones out of arbitrary dates and lengths of time that pass. In this instance, it’s a birthday, and is often considered a “big one”.

I don’t feel old, but sometimes people think I am older than that. The old man clothing, pipe and preference of whole grain cereals with copious amounts of fiber; make people wonder sometimes.

I’m not a huge fan of birthdays (mine, not others), maybe that makes me a bit cynical, but as I hit this milestone I will be looked at differently when people ask how old I am. Age isn’t really a determining factor in how I see the world, I know 80-year-olds with more vim and vigor than 20 year olds, and well other young people who constantly look like death will warm them over soon.

I feel that: .

My soul is old, my body is young.

My memories are many, my mind is sharp.

My past is storied, my future is bright.

This, is my quarter-life crisis.

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Since I’m not going to go buy a sports car or do whatever the cliche is for men to do in when they’re in crisis, I’ve got this plan. It is slightly stolen from other people, but the best ideas usually are. The problem I run into with lists is the same thing I run into with when I play “I have never”. I’m usually the first one out and have trouble finding something I haven’t done. Here’s a list, of not necessarily things I haven’t done, but things I want to do. Follow this page for updates.

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26 things to do before I’m 26 (in no particular order)

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1. Go Camping for a full week (yes, really)
2. Go Back to China
3. Have an insect dinner with friends
4. Go on a road trip somewhere far away
5. Eat something brand new that I have never eaten before
6. Random Acts of Kindness to Strangers
7. Float/Canoe/Kayak in a river
8. Take a Technology/Social Media Fast
9. Write a song.
10. Ride my Bike to Work more.
11. Re-read the Hobbit.. again.
12. Start learning French
13. Get new Boots
14. Finish that book I started
15. Get a Tattoo (unless I don’t)
16. Vote in local/national elections
17. Try something I didn’t like, again.
18. Go on a Blind Date (She can be blind as well, or deaf. I’m not particular)
19. Learn the names and locations of 95% of the countries in the world
20. Get photos taken of me for my mother to get her to stop badgering me.
21. Walk to Work for a week.
22. Go Without Coffee for a Month
23. Go Vegetarian for one month (see how it fits)
24. Go Out Dancing.
25. Create something new
26. Enjoy the heck out of life

March 2012

Spring, Sprang, Sprung.

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Enjoyed the first day of Spring, watched another panda leave the zoo, drank green libations, cursed Benjamin Franklin, and started fires in someones backyard. These are all things that happened this past March. Things that are probably worth talking about, and likely would have a great punchline, but this March one evening sums it up pretty well.

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I worked the entire week of Spring Break, because I’m no longer in grad school and that’s truly the grown-up thing to do, but working at a college during spring break is torture or at least a new form of it.  The Monday night after spring break I decided to go on a night-cation up to the tiny town to the North of Paragould to see one of the things the South does better than anyone else: Bluegrass.

I don’t know what it is about bluegrass but it’s one of the few types of music that makes my heart beat two ticks faster. I walked into this little Collins Theater not really knowing what to expect since this was not only first time to that theatre, but my first time in the city of Paragould. It was going to be one of those nights where I was the youngest person in the room. That tends to happen more than I’d like to admit. Ex. Prairie Home Companion Concert.

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I meandered to a good seat close to the front, but with good eyesight of an exit because you can never be too careful.  As I waited for the show to start I noticed the crowd a little closer and how this little town would likely fit well with my own hometown.  I’m basing this assumption purely on the amount of old men wearing suspenders and grandmas that likely make a “mean” pie.  I’m sure their biscuits aren’t too bad either.

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The band was finished up the second half of their show, with the typical encore of a song that everyone in the audience knew.  It ended with a rousing round of applause and whistles and hoops and hollers, something I would expect at every bluegrass concert.

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The band walked off the stage and even though they had already ‘encored’ I was left wanting more.

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March has felt like that.  A month full of great and wonderful things, some that I’m sure are just the tip of icebergs that have much more underneath what I’m able to see so far.  Weddings, late evenings, conversations, and the-like just leave me always wanting more.  More time, more songs I can dance like a crazy person, more chances for deep conversations with people who may not know how much their words mean.

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I wouldn’t call this being un-content, but rather always thirsty.

However, you know it’s been a good month if you’re left wanting a few days more.

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Album of the Month

If you know me, you know I’ve been excited about this album for a while. It’s not bluegrass, and even though it’s been five years since the last Shins album this new album was worth the wait. All I’m waiting for now is that dream band of Colin Meloy, James Mercer and Corin Tucker. But alas, that will likely never happen.

Port of Morrow ~ The Shins

I’ll be brief. (unlikely)

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You never realize how much stuff you “own” till you move somewhere, or decide to reorganize your life.  Just in one room in your house you may be surprised how much you actually “own” and how much of that really is stuff you could live without.

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In a book I read a while back, Serve God Save the World, the Author J. Matthew Sleeth discusses a very important part of the book. Ownership is illusion. Ownership of what? The Earth. There’s a lot in the book I could talk about, but I’ll stick to this idea, because telling a world that set on claiming land for their own or having ownership of territories due to religious rites is what this world seems to have been built on.

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Much of this idea reminds me of some of the monks at the seminary my friend Kelly is at. (He’s becoming a priest). The monks are Benedictine.  If you aren’t familiar with Benedictine Monks, I’ll give you a quick run down of why this is relevant. Within the Regula Benedicti it states that that the private possession of anything is forbidden.  Of course there are many things that the Benedictines use that are all owned by the abbey and although they are not possessed by one man, they are used by all.

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I want you to wonder for a moment, what all do you “own”?  Go ahead, make a quick list of everything within a 5 foot radius of you.  A lot more than you think.  You may rent your apartment, but I doubt you rent a lot of what is around you.  I think the Benedictines have the idea right, although not all of us may be called to be monks (or nuns), I think the idea is clear to me:

Ownership is Illusion.

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How much do you own?  The answer is nothing.  Your ownership is an illusion.

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I’m sure you may be thinking, “well, that’s funny my name is on the deed to my car, I have to own this puppy!”

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First off, thank you for calling your car a “puppy”, but that’s not the type of ownership I’m talking about.  Ownership is where we claim private power, control and authority over something.  You have no authority, control or power over anything that is not given to you by a higher power.  (Hint: The higher power isn’t the U.S. Supreme Court.)

 “For we are God’s fellow workers; you ARE God’s field, God’s building”

                                                                                                                           1 Corinthians 3:9

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Ownership belongs to our LORD.  He has given us stewardship and blessed us all individually.  Not only is the entire earth HIS, but so are we.  Our body is not only a temple, but it’s HIS temple.  When you lose all ownership and come to the realization it’s all God’s, the more weight and levity your actions in this world seem to take.

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This isn’t a call for people to get rid of all their posessions, but I’m sure you could really clean out that closet or movie collection of yours. Also this isn’t relevant to ownership of actions, we all must take responsibility for those, but when we speak about ownership we should be careful who’s the real owner of our lives and the world we live in.

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How are you serving the LORD as a steward of you life and this world?  These are the only questions I pose. We may want to think about the true owner of our fortunes and misfortunes, and how we are working to give praise to HIM.

Things, stuff,  DongXi, guff, etc… tend to get in the way of our real realationship to God and our praise for HIM.  Ownership of everything is illusion, it all belongs to him.  It ALL belongs to HIM.

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I know many of you that read this may not have the same beliefs as I, but I think the idea can still have value.  Our earth, your body and the livelihood of the world is dependent on our understanding that we are incredibly lucky to share this world, and live.

We shouldn’t take those blessings away from future peoples and inhabitors of a world that we share stewardship for such a short time.

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Give Heavily, Thank Graciously and  Share Unending.

The rest will take care of itself.

This is where I live, for now.

Those of you not familiar with this small, Southern town let me indulge you. Jonesboro, AR is in the North Eastern corner of the-little-southern-state-that-could of Arkansas (pronounced Arkansaw). The postal code is AR even though I see people all the time use the code of AK. That’s Alaska folks. Don’t get me started on Alaska.

Most places aren’t place you’d visit because they are places, but rather the things or people that reside there. Yellowstone, and a few others are exceptions to this rule. Jonesboro tends to follow this rule, but then again most of the world does. In my short amount of time in Joneboro I’ve only been able to explore a few things, but I’m working on it.

It has it’s own charm, and it’s own identity.

Parts of it remind me of places I’ve been and other remind me of places I’d rather not go back to, but to say Jonesboro is ‘JonesBORING’ like I hear many college students call it reminds me that only boring people get bored. I haven’t been bored yet, there’s still a lot to discover for me as well.

One ‘townie’ put it this way, Jonesboro grows on you, begins to eat away at you and then you give in to it’s charm and let it take over. I hope I don’t get eaten by some mutant charm that apparently demands submission, but in my short time of being here I’ve begun to understand this little town a little more each day.

There are obviously parts of the town I still don’t understand, like how there are virtually no good Mexican food restaurants (but that’s my ‘Texanity‘ coming out), or the placement of stop signs that really should be stop lights. I’ll still never understand the almost carnal love of Chick-fil-a in the South. Jonesboro still keeps me on my toes.

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So many people are on there way out of town, or on their way in; very few are present and content with living in one place, one moment.

Because really it isn’t the places we live that make them special, it’s the people we meet there the community we create and the memories we make. Even though I continually feel like my heart is in one place while my body is in another, I know that I can make my life wherever I am as long as there is community.

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For now, I am in Jonesboro, where I can enjoy the friends I make and experience the town where I pay taxes and call home.

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(Unless Anthony Bourdain calls me up soon for an apprenticeship, Jonesboro is where I am and where I’ll be for the immediate time-being.)

Pandas are great.

This past weekend a good friend of mine got married to a good man. I have no doubt about their happiness and truly I am happy for both of them.

Me and my friend Liz had a joke that we had been “banding-about” since our years in college about pandas leaving the zoo. If you’ve spent much time with me, you’ve likely heard the joke, or at least had the chance to hear me explain it.

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Essentially it is that when one of our friends would get engaged, we would say, “there goes another Panda leaving the zoo…”.

The logic behind this being that there aren’t many Pandas and if there’s a another suitable mate at another zoo that panda would leave the zoo to be with them. Really it was our own way of pouring out a “cold one” for our fallen single friend.

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Well, another Panda has left the zoo.

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Back then we were creating a larger significance to our friends getting engaged and now I see the Panda leaving the zoo a little bit differently.

It’s not like the scene at the end of the Lord of the Rings movie where the hobbits are crying about Frodo leaving because they’ll never see him again but if instead much less drastic than that.  However when you’re single it surely can feel like you’re the last hobbit in hobbiton.

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Either way, I’m glad to see all my friends that are able to find the right ‘panda’ for them. Sure I like to joke and call people who get engaged “quitters”, but life is far too treacherous a journey that I would wish anyone to pave their way alone.

I wish that everyone could be that couple on the dance floor who was married for 55 years and still had enough spunk to give a little advice to my newlywed friends.  When I see such happy couples young and old all I can do is smile.   Everyone from my friends, to family they found their panda.

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For all you’ve that have found your Panda, congrats! For all of you haven’t, keep fighting the good fight, because there’s a panda out there, just waiting at another zoo.

February 2012

It’s award season.

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I follow pop culture, but no where near the level of some people. I couldn’t tell you what color of dress anyone wore, or what crazy thing Kanye West said at the Grammy’s this year. However, February seems like a good time for me to give my own awards.

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Best Meal:

Super Bowl Gain Day. The game was honestly lackluster and Eli Manning has never been my favorite player. But the Superb Owl is a time when there is food aplenty and regret the next morning with all of the food you know you shouldn’t have eaten. What’s a Super Bowl without a little regret, really it’s just a playoff game.

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Least Productive Weekend:

February 18-19. Sure I did all my laundry, mopped my floor and made a smoothie; but I left my apartment once. Partner not feeling wonderful with some inane desire to stay at home and watch episodes of Party Down, Downton Abbey and Up!. (Because not everything has to be “Down”). It was nice to have a little down-time.

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Wildest Hair (Hare?):

Being Cupid. I’ve been known to do off the wall things in my time, but this Valentines Day I dressed up as Cupid and handed out goodies to people at my job at ASU. I don’t know who would pass on some fool prancing around campus handing out fruit to anyone. My favorite part about those type of activities is seeing the varied reactions, some people think I’m crazy, other’s loved it.

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Biggest Irritation:

Allergies. Oy Allergies. Let’s just think that I don’t have enough Kleenex for as many sneezes as I had this past month, I only expect it to get worse. Apparently I was born to be an astronaut and didn’t realize, because I’m veritably allergic to all plant life on earth. No seriously.

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A little recognition for the small things in life. A few rememberings from the month gone by. February is the shortest month, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be full of new experiences and good times. A good month to remember the founders of the U.S. as well as a time to remember those who helped make it a better place.

I like February, it’s a month for everyone and every four years we get one extra day to work at our salaried jobs for free.

So there are many people to thank, but the music is playing and Billy Crystal is pushing me off the stage. I still have no idea what War Horse was about, and what the difference between best album and record is.

See you next month.

album of the month

I love bands that sound old, but are not. Dr. Dog is a good example of this (another is Old Crow Medicine Show). This is Dr. Dog’s third album and they still are turning out great tunes from start to finish. Check it out if you like good music. If you don’t, then what’s wrong with you?

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Dr. Dog ~ Be the Void

Social media has made me less social at times.

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There was a movie I watched recently called Someone Like You.  I’m a sap for movies with Hugh Jackman in them, minus Real Steel.  It came out in 2001 which currently was 11 years ago.  There’s a point in the movie when the girl in the movie (Ashley Judd) is waiting around her house waiting for someone to call her house phone.

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That sounds ridiculously foreign now with people texting more than calling and people like my parents completely removing a land line in their home because they never use it anymore.  Their first phone line was a “party-line”. (If you don’t know what that is then click the word.)

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Times have indeed changed.

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I sometimes long for the simpler days of media, when it was less social and phones weren’t attached to our hips.  So what am I doing about it?  Well I’m simplifying how social my media is through my newly instituted analog nights and cutting things down to socially interacting in a few place online because really It’s getting tiring to talk to my friends on so many different platforms.

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How often do you use the social platforms that you surround yourself with?  Do I really need to sign up for a membership to every web-site out there?  No.  I do not, nor do you.

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My best suggestion is to take what social media you use the most and well use it, but for all the others forget it.  Will you use Google plus?  If not, then don’t sign up.  My parents asked me recently whether they should get a Twitter, I told them probably not.  Not because I make decisions for my parents, but rather… do they need it?

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There’s a quote that runs around in my head when I think about the multiplicity of social media:

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Everything is permissible, but not everything is necessary.

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So do we really need any of this new media?  NO!

But is it helpful?  Yes, and no.

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Do I need an app on my phone that lets me paint cats into pictures?  Possibly.

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So do as I’ve done, pick the social media/ new media that floats your boat.  Not everyone needs a Pinterest account, including me.

So if you feel like being social with me, check me out where I live on the internet at the links out to the side, but honestly don’t be too social.

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Let’s leave the real talk for real life, and leave the cell phones in the pocket.  You can tweet about it later.

Check out my recent post and book review on The Other Classroom.

In President Obama’s most recent State of the Union address I was a little concerned about something he said when speaking about higher education, tuition and financial aid.

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