Summer

I am procrastinating from packing. I just moved a bunch of stuff down to the storage room in the basement, so i figured I'd deserve a little break, right?

My apartment is starting to look empty, so at least I'm making some progress. I have to be out of here Monday. My supervisor - or I guess, former supervisor now - is coming over at 8 am to check me out. Argh, so much for sleeping in on my last day here. Oh well, more time to travel, right? ;)

I've packed up all my Student Affairs book. Usually, I try to read some thing for work on vacation, but I decided that this year I'll really really be on vacation and for once not think about work. I can't really prepare for next year anyway, since I'm moving to a new institution.

It feels strange though. At this time of the summer, I would usually be pouring over Student Affairs literature, trying to revise my curriculum for the year, developing new initiatives. Instead I'm re-reading Harry Potter and getting ready for a quite adventurous vacation with camping, concerts and visiting friends.

I have been thinking a little about next year. I mean, last semester I organized this huge Invisible Children Challenge. So what should my next project be? I could do Invisible Children again. I'm not sure how much my new students would get into that. I could also try to pick another organization and figure out something new. I'm just not sure. But I know I'd like to do something again....

Okay, I think I'll have some ice cream and then it's back to packing. The goal is to get the majority packed tonight, do laundry and finish up a few more things tomorrow, and then just relax and do nothing on Sunday. Sounds like a plan, right?


Oh, I apologize in advance if I don't update this in a while. I'm going camping/hiking and don't know when I'll have access to internet. I'm sure I'll stop by a Panera Break occasionally though and will update all of you then.

Life on the Road - Part 1

Ten month contracts are great! I'm going to miss having the opportunity to have the summer off. But hey, at least I'll have vacation days now, so if I really really really need to go somewhere (like an Invisible Children event or a concert), I'd be able to do that. ;)

On May 31st (the latest...maybe a few days before), I'll be checking out of my apartment. I'm not sure yet when I'll be moving into my new apartment at my new institution, but it probably won't be until much later in June or even July 1 or so (I start work on July 6). What will I be doing in between? Yeah, that is a good question. LoL.

I'm definitely going to visit some friends. I've also thought about going camping - I would have to buy a tent though - you know, just drive to some National Park, set up my tent and then go hiking on a different trail every day. I like hiking. And I'll be in Washington D.C. for Invisible Children's Lobby Days June 22nd and the 23rd. Other than that, who knows.

This week has been a good preparation for life on the road. I got in my car Tuesday morning, drove five hours, hung out with friends, crashed on a friend's couch. I stayed there for a few days. Then back on the road. Saw a concert, drove until I was too tired so I got a hotel room. The next day, I "explored" the area, then stayed at another hotel. And tomorrow, I'll be heading back - I almost wrote "heading back home" but then, is it really home? I mean, I'll only be living there for a few more days, the majority of my apartment is already packed up and mentally I've definitely said goodbye already.

So here are a few things I've learned about life on the road:
- I love singing along to CDs. Roadtrips on your own are a great time to learn lyrics to new songs...LoL.
- Hotwire is awesome. If you book a hotel room the day before, you can find something really cheap in awesome locations.
- Stop at Panera Bread. Free Wi-Fi and relatively healthy food. ;) (No, I do not get paid for promoting businesses or bands...haha.)
- And if you start feeling lonely, get out your phone, call a friend and tell them funny stories from the road.

Well, I should get back to work. I got roped into doing a training session about the summer reading program for our Orientation Staff. I've been off contract for over a week and I still get sucked into doing things - argh! I know, I know, I could have just said no but you know me, "no" isn't really in my vocabulary. ;)

The Adventure begins...

I love not having any work to do!!!

As I'm sure anyone who follows this blog knows, I am a workaholic. When I'm working, I work all the time - and when I'm not working, I think about work.

But I also LOVE vacations. Like with everything else in my life, I don't just have time off or go on vacation - I go all out. So if I'm "relaxing at home," I may not get out of bed all day and just sleep and read and sleep and read (usually a Harry Potter book). And when I decide to leave and go somewhere, I don't just go somewhere on some boring grown-up vacation; oh no, it has to be an adventure.

After a few boring days of packing, I decided it was time to GO SOMEWHERE. I haven't stopped thinking about going to that concert 11 1/2 hours away - and after some phone calls, it didn't seem like such a crazy idea anymore - well, maybe a little crazy but in a good way, right? I mean, I don't have to do the drive in one day - I have NOTHING TO DO RIGHT NOW!!! Haha. I'm really excited about that in case you haven't noticed.

So I got up early this morning, packed a bag, got in the car and drove five hours to see one of my former RAs. I've missed her!!! We hung out, chatted, laughed - it was so nice just to catch up - and yes, I realize it's only been a little more than a week since we last saw each other. And it's nice not being the supervisor anymore. ;) Not that it was ever a challenge supervising her - she was one of my superstar RAs, but it's nice just being the mentor/older friend.

In the late afternoon, we drove another two hours to a concert - haha, big surprise there!
The concert was at a church - a youth group thing. Yes, the same band I saw Saturday. I could seriously watch them every day - they're simply AMAZING! Their lead singer - let's call him Jeremy, Jasper or whatever (sorry, inside joke) - just gets so into it and it's obvious that he just LOVES what he does and is having the time of his life. I love watching people that are passionate about what they're doing. I mean, that's what I love about Student Affairs - the fact that I have the opportunity to help students figure out what they are passionate about and then support them in achieving their dreams. And here's someone who is living his dream. It's so inspiring to see that and get to be a tiny part of it.

Now, I'm sure you're wondering what the name of this mystery band is? Because I KNOW you are all itching to go to their MySpace page and listen to their music...so here you go:
See The World
http://seetheworldmusic.com/
http://myspace.com/seetheworldmusic

Check them out and get inspired!

Summer Residents and Packing

My building is being used as the summer residence hall; any students living here over the summer are staying here. I'm not the staff member responsible for it - hey, my contracted ended two days ago - so I have absolutely nothing to do with all this, but oh man, it's ANNOYING! I enjoyed having the building to myself. The quiet, the peacefulness. Being able to walk out your door and not run into any students. Being able to blast your music whenever you feel like it. Running down the hall in your pajamas taking out the trash. There's so many things I could do and now....

I just took a quick nap and woke up to loud - no, VERY loud talking in the hallway. They better cut that out in the evenings when I'm trying to go to bed.

It's just weird. It doesn't feel like the building is "mine" anymore. One of my colleagues has taken over my office. She's great and she's been trying to stay out of my way and keep others away from me as much as possible. But it's still strange to hear someone in the office - especially since it's attached to my apartment. I always walked in through that door; now I have to go around.

I'm more and more ready to get out of here. If these things would just pack themselves. Why do I have so much stuff???? I've been pretty good about throwing things away - well, relatively good. There's a few things I just can't part with: a copy of every newspaper from my days as editor at the student newspaper at my undergrad, the beautifully organized articles and notes from graduate school (I haven't looked at them once since I graduated...okay, not true, I did use one article once and I just looked through all of them again now, but still... worth it? I don't know), tons of pictures, stuffed animals, my collection of books (mostly series so there's always at least five or more), all my art supplies and and and. I tried to pack in a way that would make "sense" - to make unpacking easier but also to ensure that none of the boxes were too heavy (why did I get such big boxes?). It's not really working. Now I'm down to the odds and ends in most of the rooms; things that I just don't know what to do with or that are no fun sorting through/organizing. So I'm procrastinating.

But I got some new motivation this weekend: I went to a concert of a friend's band - and he joked about how I should come to another concert next Saturday. The concert is - wait for it - 11 1/2 hours away. And yes, I'm seriously considering going. I thought about stopping by a friend's place that's half-way, maybe catch one or two concerts on the way (I mean, the band's kinda going in the same direction I would...just with a few detours). But I'd probably have to leave on Tuesday.

I don't have to check out of my apartment until May 31st, but if I leave for a week or so, I'd probably want to have the majority packed, so I can come back, spend a few nights, get some good rest and take a few long showers, and then hit the road. So this is now my motivation to continue packing....

It's going to be legen - wait for it - dary

You know how you watch a new TV show or hang out with a new group of people and they have a catch phrase they say over and over and over again - and at first you think it's funny and adorable - or maybe you think it's annoying and weird - but eventually you stop noticing it UNTIL one of your friends points out that you've started using that phrase.

At the end of April/beginning of May, when I was completely sucked into the Invisible Children world, I started saying "epic." A couple of the staff members said it at the Rescue events I was at. Then, Marcus and Cameron used it on the live feed. And soon I found myself thinking and saying it. Next year would be epic. My summer of adventures would be epic. The next WE THE LIVING concert would be epic. Seeing See The World (another one of my favorite bands) in concert would be epic. Epic, epic, epic.

Well, I recently got hooked on the TV show "How I Met Your Mother." And the two words that are now stuck in my head are "legendary" and "awesome."

I'm not new to "overusing" a word or phrase. Last year, I used "fabulous" all the time. Apparently, at a staff meeting, some of my RAs started counting how often I would say it. After someone pointed it out, I tried to vary my vocabulary a little more.

Anyway, this wasn't what I meant to blog about. I just wanted to tell you about something that is going to be EPIC, legen - wait for it - dary, awesome and fabulous. :)

Remember when I was telling you all about my interview and how I got to go to the construction of the new building and how absolutely amazing it was...

Well, here's the exciting news: I'm going to be one of the area coordinators of this new building. AND to make it even better: a graduate student from here, that I'm friends with, is going to be the other area coordinator. How awesome is that?

Never doubt that a small group of citizens can make a difference....

There are so many organizations out there that fight for good causes. I've always struggled at choosing one or two of them; there are just so many things that I care about. I care about the environment; I love animals; I am against war; I believe in fighting inequality and and and.
But even I had to realize that we can't do everything. So I've tried to figure out ways to help the causes that mean the most to me without spreading myself to thin.

I'm a vegatarian because I don't like the way animals are treated. I don't believe that eating meat in itself is wrong - even though I'm not sure I could ever make myself eat meat again - but I believe that the way animals are treated in mass production of meat is wrong and I will not support the torture of innocent animals.

I recycle; I try to walk as often as possible instead of driving; I turn the lights in my apartment (and the rest of my building) off whenever I leave a room.

And I've become an active supporter of Invisible Children. I don't believe in war. But it always seemed to hard to do anything to stop the wars that are going on around the world. I mean, what was I, one person, supposed to do? Invisible Children has given me an opportunity to do something to try to end a war. And the fewer wars the better. War is NEVER the answer.

So on June 22-23, I'll be attending Invisible Children's Lobby Days because it is time to end Africa's longest running war and to rescue Joseph Kony's child soldiers and bring them home. It won't be easy - and it won't happen fast - but at least there's something I can do to act in accordance with my beliefs.

If you want to find out more about Lobby Days, go to howitends.tv.

And Invisible Children isn't the thing for you, I encourage you to find something that you are passionate about and then find a way to do something about it. It is time we all stand up for what we belive in and try to make this a better world!

Not just the end of another year...

I closed my building on Friday. It was one of the smoothest closing I've ever had. No, of course everything didn't go over perfectly. There was the student who refused to clean his room. There were the two or three students who just left and didn't check out. There was the student, who at 7 pm, when the building was supposed to be closed, just started packing and said, "Oh, I didn't realize we had to be out by 7." Really? Like it hasn't been in every newsletter for the past month and a half, on a toilet talk posted in every toilet stall and on every bulletin board in the hall.
But the staff what they were supposed to do - check rooms, make sure refrigerators were clean, asking students to go back and clean more if necessary. Yeah, there was the one time I came to the Lobby and they were all playing video games and not really paying attention and nobody would get up when a student said she needed to be checked out; but after I asked them to pay better attention, they did and soon even turned off the video games.

There are so many reasons I need to get out of here, but my staff is definitely one of them. I couldn't have asked for a better staff for my last year here. They weren't perfect but they tried. I didn't have to worry about most of them; they did their job. Sometimes I felt like they could have run the building without me. They put their residents' needs first; they built relationships and helped their students with their transition to college. And after some pushing, most of them really embraced the idea of challenging our students to think about more serious topic and to initiate meaningful conversations.

I've also never had that hard of a time saying goodbye to a staff. I've become very close with many of them. In the past I've had RAs move on to other staff or not return as an RA - but they were always at the institution for at least another year and we knew we'd see each other occasionally. So we had that time to grow apart when we weren't living and working in the same building anymore and when they graduated, it was easier to say goodbye. This year, for the first time, I had RAs from my staff graduate and with me leaving, I had to say goodbye to all of them. I'm not good at saying goodbye. I just try to avoid it, not think about it, and then deal with it later. One of my RAs started crying when we said goodbye...that's never happened to me before. I felt like crying myself but was trying to be strong. I'm going to miss them....

Closing

Friday was the last day of classes. In less than a week, we'll be closing the building.

I just spent the past hour putting together our Closing Binder. Closing is one of those things that should be simple and straight-forward but it never is. RAs forget to do something when checking out a resident. Residents say they are ready to check out but half their belongings are still in the room. Keys disappear. Trash rooms get - well, trashed.

I'm trying to be as organized as possible. RAs are assigned to specific jobs and I've stressed several times how important it will be to pay attention to every detail. I also made checklists that they can take with them when checking a room. My grads and I will also be double-checking every room before turning it over to Housekeeping.

Everything will be a little more stressful because we are housing parents of graduates for Commencement in my building. That means the Housekeeping staff needs to clean all of our rooms and common areas between Friday night and Saturday at noon. My staff and I will have to be even more on top of our work to make sure that we can turn rooms over as early as possible to the Housekeeping staff.

I'm not really nervous about Closing. I've closed buildings for several years now. But I'm also not really looking forward to it. Every year, I've run into some problems with RAs. Last year, for example, some of them forgot to check if residents had cleaned out the refrigerators - so I had to send them back to the room to clean those fridges before turning the rooms over to Housekeeping (after all, it wouldn't be fair to make Housekeeping pay for our mistakes). Then two keys were missing - we found them in the end but there was a few very uncomfortable conversations and a very upset and defensive RA. I'd really love to end with the staff on a positive note; so let's all keep our fingers crossed that we won't have any of these issues this year.

In the name of love, Oprah come and rescue us...

On April 25th, thousands of people in 100 cities around the world abducted themselves to raise awareness to the plight of child soldiers in Uganda. The goal of The Rescue, an event organized by Invisible Children (www.invisiblechildren.com), is to end Africa's longest running war and to free Joseph Kony's child soldiers.

If you haven't watched Invisible Children - The Rough Cut yet, go to http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3166797753930210643 and watch the 55 minute documentary that started it all. Then, go to http://therescue.invisiblechildren.com and check out the 30 minute documentary about The Rescue.

So on April 25th, one of my friends and I grabbed our sleeping bags and drove to one of the cities participating in The Rescue. We met up with several hundred volunteers at the Abduction spot. After some waiting, we split up into groups of 20; each group had a long rope that participants held on to; and then we started marching to our LRA Camp. We sat up camp, wrote letters to senators and other people of cultural or political influence, listened to music, hung out an waited...

What were we waiting for? To be rescued!
To be rescued, we had to be covered by a major media outlet and a person of cultural or political significance had to come and read The Rescue anthem.

Our city was rescued Saturday evening. We had planned on spending the night; and a large group of people still stuck around, spent the night and then marched past the media outlets in the morning to get some more coverage - but my friend decided that she had too much work to do, so we headed back home.

I woke up Sunday and checked the Invisible Children Web site to see how other cities had been doing. There was still a significant number that hadn't been rescued. There was also a live feed from the headquarter in San Diego where we could watch and find out about what was going on around the world. I started watching....and soon I was hooked.

And then I heard the story of Chicago. Chicago had started out strong; 3,000 participants. But a few minutes into the march, torrential downpours. The number dropped to 100. The participants were standing under a bridge, then spent the night in a Tunnel. The number went back up to 400. They stayed at a student center, then moved to a church. And no rescuer in sight!
I was watching the continuous call on the live feed for volunteers to drive up to Chicago and for all of us to contact potential rescuers. I had planned on going to a concert that night but what was more important? I'm not necessarily close to Chicago, but it's a doable driving distance. I thought about it a little more and then, I just went. I got in my car and several hours later, I was in Chicago - in time to crash on the floor next to hundreds of other volunteers. The next morning, we moved out to Federal Plaza. We were writing more letters while the organizers were trying to figure out a new way to reach potential rescuer. Almost all cities had been rescued by now. We were waiting on a few. Rescue riders were leaving the rescued cities and driving to the ones that were still waiting.

I had to leave a few hours later; I had to get back to work. But I was thinking, I didn't really have much going on this week - at least not after Monday. Monday night was a program I couldn't miss, which is why I decided to head back to work. But Tuesday, I only had a 1:1 with my supervisor; Wednesday a team meeting and that was it for the week. It's the week before finals and my staff and students are all busy preparing for finals. My annual report was done. I really couldn't see a reason why I couldn't head back to Chicago after Monday night.

Well, my supervisor saw it differently. She didn't really say no - but she said it was a really bad time for me to leave the building right now (As If? Last weekend was bad because it was the last weekend before Finals, so everyone was out partying and we had a transport to the hospital and another documentation...but now it's really quiet) and that she would let me make that decision but she thinks I'm a good enough professional to make the right decision.
Seriously!?! If she didn't want me to go, just say no. Then I'll be frustrated but I'll get over it. Don't play these stupid mind games with me. I know she didn't want me to go.

Well, I didn't go and I've regretted it ever since. But I'm going off on a tangent; this post was supposed to be about Invisible Children.

Here's what I love about Invisible Children: it's what my living learning community is all about; it's about making change, finding something you're passionate about and standing up for it. The three filmmakers went to Uganda in search of a story and found a passion and a cause that they've been working for ever since! That's exactly what I want my students to learn/experience (well, maybe not to that extent but you know what I mean).
And the guys have developed a movement that allows students in high school and college to get involved and make a difference. I've never seen so many students become so passionate about an issue. Raising money, sleeping outside, talking to policy makers, ....

Seven days later, the group in Chicago was still going strong this morning. They headed up to Oprah's studios early in the morning (they did a song/dance in front of Oprah's studios yesterday...it was amazing...you should check it out the video from one of the practices: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MC0hBf6wtI); today they built a line all around Oprah's studios. Oprah saw them as she came in and was curious what was going on. In spite of all of our efforts, she herself hadn't heard about The Rescue yet. All of our communication hadn't gone past her PR staff.

A few minutes later, the three filmmakers found themselves in a meeting with Oprah; Oprah changed around her show and Invisible Children Chicago - the last city - was RESCUED!

AHHHH, Oprah is on right now. I gotta watch this!!!!

The interview - Part 3

I know, I know, I've kept you waiting for quite some time. But this week blogging just wasn't the first thing on my mind - Invisible Children's The Rescue has been. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to www.invisiblechildren.com right NOW...and if you read this before Friday, May 1st at 4 pm, make sure to watch Oprah!!! As we like to say at Invisible Children, "It's going to be EPIC."

But more about that in my next entry....

So back to the interview. I got the offer! Right then and there - at the end of my interview day. They asked me to step out for a few minutes while they were looking at the forms. Then, they asked me to come back in for a few follow-up questions and THEN I got the offer! :)

And yes, I accept. I liked this school, I liked the position, I love the area it's in...so why wouldn't I? I have a friend who works there; I know someone else who will start working there in the Fall.

This was the easiest job search process I've been through - well, I've only been through two...LoL. But seriously, I only had one on-campus interview and it worked out; how awesome is that?

So now I just have a few weeks here, then my month and a half vacation and then it's off to a new job and a new school. :)