My wants list

My lovely ladies here at the APH always have some of the most interesting and entertaining conversations. I usually just sit in the background and giggle about how goofy and wonderful they all are. A recent convo they had while hanging out in the hall office was their non-negotiable qualities when it comes to guys and dating. (Yes, some stereotypes we reinforce willingly. We really do make lists of what we want our guys to be like.) As always, they want me to join in the process, but for this conversation I politely declined due to employer - employee boundaries, even though the real reason was that I wasn't sure what my non-negotiable qualities were.

But that conversation stuck with me, as most do. It got me to think about a few of the things I want out of relationships. So I made my own list. And by no means do these items only pertain to a dating relationship, but these are things I want present with any form of relationship I develop. So here goes.

I want to be a risk taker and someone to take a risk on

I want to surround myself with people who want to see me become a better person no matter what trials arise and know that they'll stand by me through it all

I want to be able to say out loud what I think and what I feel without the fear that I'm saying or feeling too much 

I want to know that the people I back up, defend, support, encourage and cheer for won’t hesitate to do the same for me

I want my ability to love unconditionally be the thing that people love the most about me

So there ya have it. My "I want's" list. Nothing too extensive. The most encouraging part about these things that I want is knowing that in some relationships I have these things. The people I have this type of relationship with are the people that are nearest and dearest to my heart. I am continually thankful for their unconditional love and for being such a blessing to me! 

So maybe it is okay to make lists of non-negotiable qualities you want in relationships. I think many of us get scared of knowing what we want and being okay with holding tightly to those things. However, if those things make you a better person, I think they are worth having!

Blogging Hiatus

Realized it had been a while since I had last written. SLACKER! Please note that the hiatus is not a direct reflection of my life and should not be understood as a lack of activity, new adventures, thoughts, or random nothings. I've just been lazy and uninspired. Nothing more. Nothing less. However, it is my hope that in the near future to inform my 5 readers of my life's happenings since the beginning of July. It is sure to be riveting!

To appease your unknown desire to enter into my thought process, I will share one new personal discovery that just occurred yesterday. It is a new pet peeve. Whenever the question is asked "What is one of your pet peeves?",  I know I have multiple answers, but they all seem so general and overused. This one, I believe, is brand new. However, I feel that once I reveal said pet peeve, others will agree with such an annoyance! So here it is. What has now be proven to make my blood boil is when people, especially people in positions above me, send me an e-mail with "..." all over to replace or express emotion. The emotion is usually frustration and the sender is trying to be snarky. But to me it seen as bad form and really unprofessional. I'm sorry, if you are trying to get your point across and help me understand something, please do not lose all sense of proper sentence structure and punctuation by putting "..." after every 5 words. It's called a period. Pretty common things. USE THEM!

5 readers should also note that I triple checked this blog to make sure no "..." were used unintentionally. Welcome back to my life readers! Talk to you soon.

Much Needed Space

These past few days I have been in Baltimore for the American College Personnel Association (ACPA) conference. While I now find myself at home and exhausted, there are many things that I walk away with greatly appreciating from my time spent in Baltimore. I think what I most appreciate was the space that was created for many influential things to take place. Things that may have never taken place, had I not been in Baltimore for this period of time.

I am most thankful for the space and opportunity to enter into what I hope to be a great friendship with my cohort member Courtney. Up until this time, I had only really gotten to know Courtney through the context of our classroom. But now after 5 days spent in Baltimore, venting to each other about the outrageous amount of money we spent on a very disappointing hotel, studying for finals, processing the sessions we attending, creating documentaries on the ACPA experience, tequila shots, and an abundance of laughs, I consider her to not only be an absolutely incredible human being, but someone I intend to have a life long friendship with.

Sticking with the friendship theme, I am very thankful for the space provided for me to get to know some other cohort members in a better way and to really appreciate their personalities and who they are as people. Additionally, I am so thankful for some much needed space to work on redeeming friendships that had gone way off track and nearly derailed. While still a work in progress, the difference in our friendship from Friday to Wednesday is very recognizable.

Going to ACPA also provided me the space to:  think, to discuss, to vent, to dream, to plan, to improve, to believe.  All in a way that I hadn't yet before. I feel as though the conversations I had, the sessions I sat in on, the ideas that were created have given me enough things to reflect on to last me to the end of the semester. This conference only solidified my recently determined passion within the field of Student Affairs. I also feel that this conference instilled in me a confidence in my ability to hold my ground in this profession that I apparently had been lacking before. It is because of the space so adequately provided that I am thankful for everything that took place these past few days. However...

The only space that was not created from this trip involves my waistline and the now clear lack of space. I guess 5 days of eating out for every meal catches up with one quickly. Must find a way to immediately recreate that space!

Service: Redefined

If I were to reflect on the things that are important to me and the things I want to be about, I would typically believe that the term service would show up on multiple different occasions. My go-to leadership model is through servant leadership. I worked for a non-profit organization that developed service trips all across the United States that nearly 40,000 people attended each year. I participate in several different service opportunities each year. Service this. Service that. Service. Service. Service. This is something I think people should get involved in and make a priority in their lives.

However, this term service has been causing some sort of internal dilemma within me lately. I just got back from an Alternative Spring Break trip that gave students here at ASU an opportunity to get outside of their comfort zone of Boone and be a part of the ongoing work taking place in gulf cities such as Pascagoula, Mississippi. While the students worked hard all week with the various tasks given them, I felt that there was this lingering question about the level of service work they were doing. I think sometimes we think that we have to be working with children and having a lot of human interaction to gratify our needs for doing service and to quantify what has been done as such. On top of the recent ASB trip, I also attended a workshop on Globalizing Service Learning that discussed what service learning should and shouldn't be.

It is from that workshop and my previous trip that I am developing this skewed view of the word service. I feel that service has become this sort of self proclaiming- pat myself on the back- add it to the resume- look at how good I am - sort of thing people seek just to make them feel better about themselves. I think a lot of people have lost the real meaning and purpose of service as they enter into service opportunities with this appalling god complex. It's like I can hear them walk into those situations proclaiming "HERE I AM TO SAVE THE DAYYYYY!!!!" And that....DISGUSTS ME! If that is what people believe service is and how it should be approached, I want nothing to do with their kind of service.

Another contributing factor to this sudden dissonance in my comprehension of service came from an upcoming program to be held in my building. With the recent disaster taking place in Japan, my staff and I decided to host a fundraiser to help out a local organization Samaritan's Purse. However, it isn't just a "come bring down your pennies to help out a global cause", it is "we will feed you if you can please just spare a penny or two!" Now, I understand that I am catering to an audience of college students and if food is available at any function, they will magically appear. It's like in Field of Dreams when they say "If you build it, he will come" except it's more like "If you feed them, they will come." I digress. My sudden objection to this is that I feel like through these types of programming I am only enabling people to continue with this type of service where there has to be some sort of reward for people to participate. I feel like too many people ask "What's in it for me?" before even considering getting involved in a service opportunity. I'm sorry but if you are only getting involved and helping out because you get a free meal or to boost your ego then you are not doing service. Service in its purest form there is no evidence of selfishness or motivation for personal gain.

(deep breath)

So with all this I come to this conclusion that we need to redefine service. We have to reclaim it for what it is really suppose to be about. It is imperative that we check our motivations for becoming involved in service ensuring that our motives are pure and just. And with that, I step off my soap box.

The Plan

Within the first couple months of grad school, our professors and other student affairs professionals would come to class and have us share what we hope to do with our careers after we are done at ASU. My thoughts would then result in the following: "Sunshine, please. Let's slow down for just one second. I just got here and am in no place to have my future figured out." The thought of having to know who we we're going to be within the profession caused a lot of unnecessary stress and I was certain that it was going to take an exponential amount of time to figure "the plan" out.

Well, with a semester of grad school completed, each day I become more and more confident that I am in the right profession for me. And to my surprise, I believe that I have actually figured out the answer to the question I was asked by my professors 5 months ago. So here it is. I'm going to put it in writing here to either, serve as a form of accountability or maybe 5 years down the road when I am doing something completely different it will show me just how far I have come since today. The plan is...(drum roll please) to be a Director within the Office of International Education and Development. If that just sounded like a foreign language to you, it means I really want to work within study abroad programs at a University. I believe I am so drawn to this area of my field because my two months spent in Europe and Africa during my undergraduate years changed my life! The memories I have from that time and the lessons I learned there are so precious to me. I am constantly telling the students I know that they should really pursue studying abroad and I want to keep being an advocate for the benefits such an experience can have on an individual. I am even doing my research project on issues related to study abroad!

So that's the plan. I'm not certain when I'll get there, but I know someday I will. This summer I am hoping to work within ASU's Office of International Education and Development (OIED) to start getting my foot in the door and to become more familiar with what that functional area is like. Some other parts of the plan include becoming fluent in two languages. I am hoping to pick up Spanish again and then I believe I will then pick up French. I would also like to work in England for a period of time. And probably, (oh gosh am I really about to say this?!) will pursue getting my PhD. Yikes! I have a lot of work a head of me. But even with all the work needing to get done and things I need to check off my list, it feels really good to have an idea of what I want to do, who I want to be and what I am working towards.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 

Jeremiah 29:11

Deep Thought Tuesday

Today a large portion of my day was spent deep in thought. Most of which Al Smith, a fellow RD, is to thank for. Don't know why it is, but whenever Al and I hang out we always end up in these conversations that cause us to reflect on all sorts of things, whether it's our current state of development, the trials and tribulations experienced throughout one's life, the amount of responsibility we assume within our profession as student affairs professionals, or lessons learned through the outdoors. Whatever the topic, I always walk away with so much more to think about.

Something that stuck out today from our conversation was how we receive mental release. And by that I mean finding an outlet that allows us to free our minds from the burdens we constantly are bombarded with in our day-to-day lives. I feel like for the past few months I have been carrying around mental burdens that are no longer necessary for me to bear. And normally, I would partake in certain activities to help alleviate such burdens but today I finally recognized that those things have been missing in my life. Therefore, the mental burdens are still an ever present thing.

I say it's about time that changed. My goal for this semester is to allow myself the space and time to resume activities that I know help me relax, process and reestablish a healthier mental outlook. Specifically, I am hoping to play some more piano. My supervisor conveniently had a keyboard in her apartment that now resides in my bedroom. Since it has been 8 years since I have read sheet music, Chop Sticks will probably be the extent of my musical ability. But nonetheless, I am playing piano once again. I hope to start running some more as well. The following quote is something I really believe to be true in regards to the benefits of a good workout.

"I said it not long before that work and weakness are comforters. But sweat is the kindest creature of the three - for better than philosophy- as a cure for ill thoughts." C.S. Lewis

Therefore; running is added to the list of things to do this semester. Add in some time to journal and do some extra curricular reading and I think I just may make it out of my first year as a grad student relatively sane. So to Al, thanks again for being a catalyst to a day spent in thought. I look forward to our next reflective conversation!

Anything? Nope, nothing.

It's been a few days since I last blogged. Even longer since I blogged about something of any real importance. It isn't for lack of trying or lack of thought, I just haven't had much to say. I have searched for a muse through music, reading, movies and the like but nothing has really come to mind that is fueling any form of literary passion within me. So I'm just sort of stalling.

(stare blankly at computer screen for 5 minutes)

As I said, stalling. Yet, still hoping that soon enough I will have something of importance to share. Something worth writing, something worth reading.

(more staring at the computer screen)

But for now, I got nothing.

A Little Bit of Poetry

Sometimes I forget how much I love poetry. 

Yet, upon entering my office and seeing the complete works of Shakespeare and feeling like it's Christmas all over again, I remember an unwavering fondness that was established so long ago. I don't often take the time to read poetry, but when I do, it speaks to a deeper part of my soul that usually remains untouched. Recently, I watched one of my favorite movies, "Patch Adams" and heard a poem that has captivated my heart on so many different occasions. Since the inner workings of my mind have revolved around all the many curses and blessings of being in love, here is a little verse for you to enjoy!

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz 

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:

I love you as certain dark things are loved,

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries

hidden within itself the light of those flowers,

and thanks to your love, darkly in my body

lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,

I love you simply, without problems or pride:

I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you

so intimate that your hand upon my chest is your hand

so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close

Pablo Neruda

What I Want...

I want to wish you well.

I want in 10 days, 10 weeks, 10 months or 10 years from now, to hear how you are doing and truly be happy for you. I want you to be with the love of your life. I want your dreams to come true. I want you to get all you ever wanted out of life and more. I want you to find yourself constantly surrounded by people who love you and cherish your friendship. I want you to find joy in each and every day. I want you to experience life to its fullest. I want you to be the best person you can possibly be. I want you to be happy.

I want to wish you well.

And what I really want, is for you to want the same things for me.

Days gone by...

Tonight I went back to my high school to watch my former gymnastics team compete. Let me tell you...it was very strange. During my high school days, I used to live in that building. I spent so many years staying at school from at least 7am to 7pm with college classes, jazz band, or one of my four sports I participated in. So tonight, as I wandered down the halls, I tried to remember as best as I could where my old lockers were, which classrooms I had class in, and which teachers were still there.

I walked towards the gym to find one of my teachers who was at the basketball game and it even smelt the same as it did seven years ago. Believe me, I know. I spent far too much time in the gym and locker room in high school. While I was sitting in the gym watching the game, I had flashbacks from when I had to do boards for volleyball (taking a foot long 2 x4 that is covered with carpet and pushing it from base line to base line with your hands and feet over and over and over again...nasty things, great for your butt) high school dances, band concerts, pep rallies,  prom proms (confession...I went to prom 5 times). Even though I graduated seven years ago, (wow, I now feel old, thank you very much) it all came rushing back. Sometimes it's hard to believe that such a small place had such a large impact on who I am today. I loved high school. No way in hell I would ever want to go back! But my time there was great. So here is some residual school spirit....GO IRISH!

Going "Home"

I don't know what I think of when I talk about "home" anymore. Technically, I guess you could say that I'm "home" now being back in MN. I'm at the house I grew up in. I see all the marks on my bedroom door when I tried to figure out how tall I was when I was growing up. Under my bed there are three plastic storage bins filled with pictures, old homework assignments, all the articles from my hometown newspaper where I happened to be mentioned. I still know how to walk up the wooden stairs that lead up to my bedroom so that they won't make any noise and wake my parents up. Everything is just the same. But it feels so different. And I can't help but feel a little bit like a guest.

(when did the place I grew up in and considered home become just "my parent's place"?)

For the last four months, I have been calling Boone my home. Even though when I first moved down there I was dead set on just being in Boone long enough for school and when I was finished, I was headed back to MN to stay for good. At that time, MN was "home" and there wasn't anywhere else that could take that title. But now, something else has. And I am okay with that. Also, I know that a year and a half from now, I will be leaving the place I now call "home" and will be finding a new "home". With confidence I can say, I won't be coming back to MN. (hey with all the snow and freezing cold we have now, who would blame me?)The world is at my fingertips, I might as well go explore it. Here I come world! (said with a triumphantly raised fist) And...if my next home is half as great as my current home, well, then I am in for a treat! Don't get me wrong, I LOVE MN. Minnesota is absolutely amazing during the summer. And if you happen to be obsessed with bodies of water like myself, MN is right up your alley.

But what I am finally realizing is that "home" isn't a specific place. Now...I'll stop myself from saying the whole "home is where the heart is" bit because I have never been too fond of throwing up in my mouth. However, I see the truth behind it.

The moments I feel most as home is when I am with the people I love the most. The people who challenge me to become a better person. The people who love me and my goofy self. The people who continually to reaffirm that I have some of the best friends in the world and that I am one truly blessed individual. People I love = home.

Which is probably why I have felt most at home in South Africa, Chicago and now Boone. (don't worry...MN makes the list, too!)

So in reality, home is where YOU are!

Artwork by: Valentina Ramos

I'm There Too

The song "I'm there too" by Michelle Featherstone has been something of an anthem to me for the last few weeks. It's one of those songs that as soon as it comes on, it makes you catch your breath and it gives you chills. I have been thinking a lot about the lyrics and what it means to be there for someone. In my life I have so many people who have come alongside me and have gone through life with me. And in return, they let me do life with them, which to me, is a huge honor. It's something of a comfort to know that you can turn to them on your worst day and in your worst moments and they'll be there, but that they can also come to you on their worst days and worst moments. But what I have found to be difficult is to have people in your life that you so desperately want to do life with. You want to be there in every single good time as well as the bad. But for some reason, they don't want to share life with you. Even worse, they don't want to share life with anyone. And that breaks my heart. And I guess I understand the mentality behind it all because I've tried to do life all on my own. But I couldn't do it.

There is something that happens when you become vulnerable and you let someone else in. And yes, it's scary as heck to have someone there seeing all your deepest darkest secrets and seeing the "you" you have been so afraid to show. And then they stay there with you and love you through all of it. And that's when you realize that you no longer want to do life on your own. And that having someone there who will stick by you through the good and the bad is the most special gift you could ever receive.

So to everyone who lets me live life with them and lives life with me...thank you.

Lyrics to "I'm There Too"

I see myself in you
In everything you do
And when you’re all alone at night
You know I am by your side
Cuz I’m there too

I see me in your eyes
And I’m the tears you cry
And when you fall apart
And are dying from a broken heart
I’m there too

I see your footsteps in the sand
As you journey on across this land
But if you should fall on your way
Then I will carry you that day
Cuz I’m there
I’m there too
Yeah I’m there too

I see your face in mine
And I know there’ll come a time
When you will take my hand
And I will understand
That you’re there too
When you will take my hand
And I will understand
That you’re there
You’re there too