Twenty-three days 'til Thirty...7 questions...

This post makes the one week mark.  I'm not gonna lie, it's been challenging to come up with topics that I think people will find vaguely interesting.  And I know that I'm supposed to be blogging for myself, but it doesn't help that when I open up the blog, it gives me the stats.  I've been averaging around 115 unique viewers per post...what the what?  So please, feel free to leave suggestions for future topics...what do you want me to talk about?

I was given today's topic by my best friend Ashlee.  She happened upon an article titled "The 7 Questions That Tell You Who You Are" so I'm going to give these 7 questions a go:

1. What would you do with your life if you didn’t have to pay the bills?

This question is fairly easy for me to answer.  If I didn't have to worry about paying down my heinous student loan debt amongst other bills, I would be a full-time musician.  Much like my friend Jill in DC and my friend Nate in NYC.  Both of these people are amazing musicians, pianists, song writers, and entertainers...not to mention wildely more talented than I am.  But although I do love my job, if I could drop it all tomorrow and focus soley on music I would.

I'm sure I will write a post solely on music and its role in my life, but anybody who knows me knows that it is much more than a hobby.  I play the piano pretty much every day of the week and sing in public (either karaoke or open mic nights) 2 - 4 times a week.  I've sung at two weddings now (soon to be 3) and have played the piano at probably 35 plus weddings since I was 16.  It's a passion and I love it.  At the weddings I've sung at, I've rearranged the music and recorded myself and all of the singing on my YouTube channel is me playing the backing tracks as well.  To be able to do that every day, all day...that would be amazing.  Here is a cover I did.  I'm both proud of it and embarassed by it, but I've never posted it publicly beyond just my YouTube channel.  I was pretty raw emotionally at the moment, so the vocals aren't the best, but that's also kinda why I like it.  I've been resisting the urge to re-do it:

2. What cuts you the deepest?

Abrupt loss of relationships.  And I don't only mean romantic ones.  The unexpected loss of any relationship, be that through a break-up, a fight, death...those always leave me with a profound sense of sadness and have many times lead to depression if I'm going to be completely honest.  And it really is the significant romantic relationship losses have probably cut the very deepest.  I'm not going to get too far into that in this little blurb, but each loss of a friend, boyfriend, or family member has left its indeliable mark upon me.  Just for some levity, here is one of my favorite YouTube comedians speaking directly to me about sadness...and she doesn't even know me: (Skip immediately to 3:24 so you don't get bored and stop at 3:50):

3. If you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do today?

Sheesh.  There's so many things I would want to do.  First of all, I would want all my friends and family to come to me.  I'm dying afterall, so it's the least you could do.  I would want to have cocktails and be surrounded by music and singing.  For hours and hours.  But don't sing during my solos...it's annoying.  But seriously, that's exactly what I would want to do, and strangely enough, it's pretty much what I do for every birthday.  There's something philosophical in there...find it for me.

4. Who do you love and why do you love them?

It sounds so generic, but my friends and family.  I have the best family in existence and as I've spoken about previously, I have assembled the Justice League of Awesome Friends.  There are definitely some core besties and core family members that have been there and supported me and added SOOOO much to my life and being around them does nothing but lift my spirits and make me happy.  You know who you are ;-)

5. What do you quote?

Titanic.

But also every other movie or TV shown I've ever seen.  Looking for some great philisophical quote that will change your perspective on life?  Not gonna find that here.  I have two quotes that I actually can remember when someone asks "What's your favorite quote?" and one is from Dumbledore...sooo here goes:

"Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it" -This quote is attributed to many people and sometimes as just from anonymous

"Music, A magic beyond all we do here!" -Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore

6. In those rare but life-changing moments, how do you act?

It really depends.  95% of the time, I'm pretty unflappable and can go with the flow pretty easily.  My job has really enabled me to take a huge crisis situation in stride with a very clear and level head and I am almost always a pretty positive person.  But there's that 5% of the time that I can utterly crumble and fall apart.  Luckily, the number of people whom have seen that 5% have been extremely few and far between.

7. What do you think about most?

I honestly think about the past a little too much.  I can be one of those people who looks back on a situation and thinks of how I could have done better or how I would change this or that about a situation.  It's not necessarily regret, just processing and analyzing.  It is definitely good to reflect (hence this blog) but I know that I am often times guilty about getting caught up in some of the past.  Usually on Sunday evenings...I'm not even kidding.  Reflection is a very important and very powerful tool, and as long as you don't get so hung up on the past that you're not moving forward, whatever pace is right for you, then it's OK.  It's when you allow your past to create barriers for your future that there is a problem, and I know that it's something I have been very prone to once or twice in my life.


So that's that for tonight's post.  Not super thrilling or deep I know, but it's the best I can do for today.  I could probably write a separate post on each topic, and I would venture to guess that the topics above will come up again.  Please feel free to leave topic ideas in the comments or via e-mail or text...what have you.  I'm all for suggestions!

BYEEEEE!

Twenty-four days 'til Thirty...The one about religion...

I was actually going to write this post two days ago, but then life got in the way and I had to write a couple of quick posts (it's only week one and I'm already struggling).  This is one post that I really wanted to make sure I had some time to sit and craft properly as it may be one of the more polarizing posts that I write.

I grew up in the south as you saw from last Friday's post.  If you read that post, you saw that the island I grew up on encompasses about 33 square miles.  On that 33 square miles, there are about 15 churches.  Do the math on that one...that's a lot of churches (of course mostly protestant and all christian).  Simply put...the church and religion were a big part of my upbringing.

To be clear, I think there is a big difference between religion and faith.  I think they get clumped together a lot in people's minds, but for me, even though they are symbiotic, they are two separate animals.  I would never begrudge anyone their beliefs as long as they don't hurt anybody else nor oppress anyone in any way.

I guess I'll start with my own definition of faith vs. religion.  For me, Faith is your beliefs in your creator, higher being(s), deity(ies), fate, collective soul (not the band), karma, etc... It is something that is very personal, ethereal, and hard to explain.  It is something that nobody can dictate for you.  You have to discover it on your own and cultivate it...or choose not to.  Religion is the institutionalized rules, practices, decorum, and traditions that surround a similar faith.  It is man made.  Therein lies the problem for me.

Growing up, my parents never forced a religion on my sister and I.  As I've grown up and cultivated my own beliefs, it is one of the things that I appreciate most about the way they raised us.  My father was brought up United Methodist and my mother Catholic.  Our family church was Little Grove United Methodist Church:

When I say Family Church, I really mean it.  The land was given to the church by my great-grandfather, my great-grandmother was the pianist, her daughter, my grandmother, was the organist, and in high school, I was the full-time organist for almost 4 years.

Like I said, my parents never forced my sister and I to adopt their religious beliefs, and once we were old enough to stay at home by ourselves, they didn't force us to go to church either.  From middle-school on, I was a very involved, very willing member of my church.  I got baptized and confirmed in my early teens, went to youth group, bible study, and church camp.  I went to church each Sunday at 7:45 AM to start playing the organ or piano for the service.  I organized the Christmas Eve candlelight service each year (sometimes directing a group of singers or musicians for that extra special touch).  Here is a clip from an actual video tape of one such service:

Although I know it was a gradual process, my redefining and questioning my religious beliefs, I do remember one defining moment that was kind of the catalyst that started that questioning process.  It was some youth group trip we were about to go on and the leaders of the youth group decided that we were not allowed to bring any secular music on the trip with us.  An iPod was not a thing, but we weren't even allowed to bring our own CDs for our discman, unless it was religious.  If I could roll my eyes via this keyboard, I would.

I know that's a small thing, but telling me to limit my music in the name of God was a bit too much for me.  During that same time period, we had a preacher at my church that I really didn't like either.  By the time I was 19, I wasn't going to church at all.  So, contrary to popular belief, my coming out had little to nothing to do with my exodus..ha...from the church (in the beginning).

I was still filled to the brim with christian ideals and stories that I had learned from the bible. I thought I had it all figured out for myself. I didn't need to go to church to have a relationship with God...I had a personal relationship and understanding with God and didn't need to go to church to prove that.

That still remains true, I just don't have the same idea of "God" that most people do.  I'm an out-and-proud Agnostic.  Our friends over at Merriam-Webster define an agnostic as:

1: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god

This is pretty accurate for me.  I would stay that I still have faith, in that I'm spiritual.  I still pray...I just don't have a clear definition of to what or whom I am praying to.  To me...that's faith.  I just don't think that it is possible for man to define what God is or what God wants.  It is a concept that is so beyond our intellect and understanding that trying to put rules on how to worship or how to live or how much of your income to give to the church in order to be in God's good graces is ridiculous to me.

So what of the afterlife? Heaven and Hell are things I think of often. I don't believe that there is such a place as Hell. I don't believe that any God would send its creations to torture for all eternity no matter what their crime. For that reason I don't believe in Satan. We don't need a scapegoat for the bad decisions we make...we make them quite well on our own without some red guy with horns and a pitch fork trying to tempt us...Satan is just an excuse for people who want to say "It weren't me, the Devil made me do it!" (I hope you read that in a thick country accent, because that's how I typed it).  I also think that sometimes bad things just happen.  It's not an evil being leading your life astray.  Is that any less ridiculous than the ancient Greeks thinking that the sun rising was because Apollo was riding his flaming chariot across the sky?  That being said, I don't necessarily believe in Heaven the way it is conceptualized in most of our brains. I don't think we get rewarded for "good behavior" by our souls being transported to a paradise in the sky. However, I can't believe that people just die and that's that either. Perhaps that's my version of Hell. When you die, you're just dead. But I feel like those good and decent people...their consciousness (or soul as it were) must still exist after the body is dead. There's just too much life in us all for death to be the end of the road...too much love, thoughts, and memories to just disappear. But then again, I also believe that all living things have a consciousness that doesn't just disappear.  I mean...I'll admit it...I believe in ghosts, so I have to believe in some form of afterlife.

Blerg...complicated brain think hurt head.

Before I start rambling too much (or is it too late for that?), the basic premise of this post is that I am not an atheist.  Nor am I a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Wicca or whatever that Tom Cruise religion is.  I just don't believe in man-made religions.  And if your religion says that I am going to be eternally roasted or not be admitted into a fluffy country club because of that...then I rest my case.  If you think less of me or pity me because our beliefs are different and don't align...I rest my case further.

I believe everyone should live their lives with the premise of "Do No Harm".  Help each other out, be kind to one another, and put much more positive energy out there than negative and all will be well.  Again, I don't begrudge anyone their religion or beliefs...so don't begrudge mine.  And don't try to convince me that your religion is the right one either.  Being agnostic is not being undecided or wavering in faith.  In fact, I've never felt so comfortable and solid in my "faith" as I do at this point in my life.

That's enough of that for now.  What say you Michael Stipe?:

BYEEE!

Twenty-five days 'til Thirty...Friends...

So today is going to be a really quick post because I'm at a cookout celebrating a friend's birthday and I'm blogging from my phone.

Sitting here listening to stories and reminiscing about how we've met and what we've been through together makes me so happy and I think it's good to stop and consciously think about how wonderful the people you surround yourself really are.

I used to always bring various friends from all different periods of my life home to meet my parents, and I remember my mom telling me one time "You have really good taste in friends." I don't know if she remembers saying that to me, but it's something that she's said that has really stuck with me over the years. It's really true.

Since moving to DC, I have met some of the most amazing people. And I keep in contact with some of the most amazing people throughout my past as well (see yesterday's post).

Last night, as a matter of fact, I was interacting, via the FaceSpace, with some of my favorites from college...and it was like we were talking yesterday.

The simple point of this very brief blog is that my friends have seen me through some of the worst and lowest moments of my life as well as some of the best. I have had friends come and go and come back again. If it wasn't for all of you, I don't know where I would be...mostly mentally.

Sappy post complete. Sorry it's so short, but now some of the so-called friends are making fun of me for blogging at a cookout.......

BYEEEEEE!

Twenty-six days 'til Thirty...Island living...

You may or may not know that I grew up on an Island.  Specifically, Hatteras Island off the coast of North Carolina (sometimes referred to as the Outer Banks):

The Picture to the left is a satellite view of our little island.

 




The picture to the right is of "The Point", one of our popular beach spots where you could drive right up to the ocean.







Hatteras Island is about 50 miles from the northern most point to the southern most point and only a few thousand feet wide.  On average, according to the National Park Service, Hatteras is 1500 ft. wide, but there are some portions of the island that are much skinnier and some parts that are much wider.  The island encompasses about 33 square-miles and has a (permanent) population of around 4,000 residents.

There is A LOT of history on and around Hatteras including Blackbeard the pirate, The first ever british colony in 1584, as well as the tallest working brick lighthouse in the United States:

While it may seem like such an idyllic place to grow up, I've always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with my hometown.  I think a lot of people do when it comes to where they grew up.  I love that I was surrounded by beaches...literally.  I could hear the waves crashing from my bedroom.  And I was almost always tan.  I may miss that the most. 

With that, living on a barrier island also had its natural hazzards, if you will.  I often forget when I'm talking with most people about an impending storm or "weather event" that the majority of the population in the US didn't spend almost the entirity of their lives dealing with and preparing for hurricanes or noreasters.  In fact, just growing up with the constant threat of hurricanes afforded me with a knowledge of tropical weather that a lot of people don't have or need to have for that matter.  I couldn't even tell you how many hurricanes I've been through.  I've slept through them, driven through them, and ocassionally (for a couple super scary ones) evacuated from them.  I've watched flood waters rise and fall sometimes with just gusty weather.  Here are some shots of Hatteras (and a lot of the coastal US) getting the business from Hurricane Isabel (note: I had moved away by the time this storm hit):

 

 

This lovely storm had the audacity to cut a new inlet across the only road we have.  This cut off a large portion of the residents from the northern part of the island...the only means to get off of the island: 



On the negative side...these storms almost always cause damage to my little hometown.  Even when the rest of the country is complaining that the reports were exaggerated and putting things up on their facebooks like "That was a hurricane?  It barely drizzled!"  Remember that Hatteras is a tiny sliver of land.  One with over 4,000 human beings on it.  While you may be complaining that the storm was "nothing" there are thousands of people without clean water or electricity for days, some of whom may have lost their homes or worse.  Perspective.

But I digress...

Living on Hatteras was a mixed bag.  My school (and when I say school, I mean kindergarten through 12th grade public school...just the one) was tiny.  I think by the time I graduated, there was a little over 500 students K-12.  My graduating class was 43.  One the one hand, it was great knowing everyone and growing up with familiar faces through my entire primary and secondary educational career.  On the other hand...I knew everyone and grew up with the same people my entire primary and secondary educational career.  Everybody knew everybody's business.  And what people didn't know, they made up.  I kidd you not, my parents could be stuck in a traffic jam on HWY 12 because of an accident and by the time they got home, I had already heard who was in the accident, what their injuries were, and where they were transported (off the island because the nearest hospital was an hour away). 

I have analyzed a lot over the years why I have an underlying resentment towards where I grew up, because I had a great childhood.  A very nuclear family and plenty of friends.  I wasn't the most popular kid in school nor was I an outcast.  I simply coasted through being the "nice guy" who was friends with at least one person in every clique.  I was a straight A student whom was very involved, in many clubs, poster-child for music and band...I really think my problem with Hatteras has very little to do with the small-town gripes that everybody who grew up in a small town has nor the people so much as I was NEVER myself while I lived there.  I really didn't become myself until college.  And once I went to college, I never looked back...barely coming home for holidays (my Alma Mater was a good 8 hour drive from home).  Even when I visit today, although none of my immediate family lives there anymore, I just feel anxious and like I'm acting like a person that I'm not.  I'm sure I can analyze this forever and throw in some identity development theories to boot and some internalized homophobia, but when I go back home, I feel like that introverted, homebody, closeted kid who can't wait to get away again.  At the same time, I have so many fond memories of that place and I love the nostalgia of being back there...oi.  Like I said...a love-hate relationship.

Overall, I think the positives FAR outway the negatives and I just need to get out of my own head and leave that sad, scared, self-conscious little boy in the past.  That's what I plan to do when I go down to visit some of my best friends in the world this summer. 

With that, I'll leave you with some pictures of my three oldest and bestest friends...all from Hatteras:

Cassie (since 1988), Me, Keturi (since 1992), and Emilie (Since 1997)

Don't be jealous of our awesomeness

Keturi's trip to DC!

Prom 2000

Prom 2001



I honestly don't know...but that's the brides garter on my head that I caught.

BYEEEE!

 

Twenty-seven days 'til Thirty...baby crazy...

I was originally going to write today's blog on a a much heavier topic, but ultimately decided on writing a sappier entry and saving the heavier topic until later.  Mainly because I only have 45 minutes to get this blog published in time and the heavier topic will require more time =)

As some of you may or may not have noticed in the past few years, I've been pretty baby crazy.  Meaning I love kids and want some of my own.

Growing up, I've always said that I wanted kids one day.  It was never something I thought about not being an option for me.  As I've gotten older, a LARGE portion of my nearest and dearest friends started having kids...plural.  This only fanned the flames of my biological clock ticking:

Specifically watch 0:53 - 1:06

I also have two ADORABLE god-children (purely a ceremonial title) which have given me some doses of baby over the years and I recently got to meet my best-friend Emilie's new baby:

 As I said, I've always wanted to have children and the possibility of not being able to have them never entered my mind.  Then I came out.  Now I know that being gay in and of itself is not its own barrier to having children.  It does, however, complicate things a whole hell of a lot.  Although I really want to have biological children, I have not counted out adoption as an option either; both options coming with their own plethora of legal and financial complications.

When I say I want kids one day, it's not just a statement I'm making off-hand.  I have actually researched both surrogacy and adoption laws as well as the procedures and cost in my area.  I have even researched what the laws are for the home-grown variety of baby-growing for LGBT people.  It's unfortunate that no matter what for me, at least the way things stand now, I will ALWAYS have to have a lawyer involved if I want children.  And so many people take it for granted.  All of that being said...it is still a possibility for me to have my own children.

Don't get me wrong, I am not in the place at this very moment to have a child.  I'm not even talking about not having a husband or partner to raise a child with because, as I seem unable to keep a man around for more than two consecutive years, that's really not the biggest concern for me.  I'm not afraid to do it on my own.  I'm just not in a place at this very moment where seriously exploring my options with intent to proceed immediately is feasible.  I have, however, for the first time started to worry about my age in regards to starting a family.  Now calm down all of you...I'm not saying that 30 is even close to too old to start a family and have kids, I'm just saying that time is running out, and as you all know, the older you get, it is almost unreal how time goes by exponentially faster.

But I really can't wait to have my own son or daughter.  I really think I would be such a good dad and I know my mother especially can't wait to spoil a grandchild. (No seriously...she's ready to be a grandmother.  Like really ready).  The thought of it makes me really happy.  Whether that child be mine biologically or adopted...I can't wait until it's mine =)

I don't know if a lot of people knew how badly I want to have kids one day.  So there you go.

I will leave you with a funny quote from Will & Grace:

Vince:  "Will. I'm an old-fashioned homosexual. Okay? To me, family is two guys, some mid-century furniture, and a baby that doesn't look like either one of us."

Until tomorrow...BYEEEEE!

Twenty-eight Days 'til thirty...The YouTubes...

So if you have interacted with me at all in person for an extended period of time and there was an internet signal handy...you have probably been pulled down a rabbit hole of YouTube video madness.  Have you seen this one?  How about this one?  Oh, you'll love this one!  Each video reminding me of another video creating an invisible queue in my head...sometimes I won't even let you finish the one you're watching before we move onto the next.  It has even rubbed off on some of my friends...some of us get together exclusively for YouTube night where we each share videos that we like whilst eating snacks and perhaps a cocktail or two.

So how did this...let's call it...connoisseurism, start?  I honestly can't remember exactly how it started, but I know it was around 5 years ago when I started regularly checking YouTube as often as Facebook or any other social media site.

But most people don't realize that there is an entire other side to YouTube.  It's not just cat videos and people falling down.  I think there are three main types of people that frequent the site.

1. Content Creators - These are the users on YouTube whom create their own content.  Comedy, News, Musicians, Artists, Gurus, Vloggers.
2. Content Consumers - These are the users on YouTube whom log in purely for viewing pleasure.  Most of the people whom you see comment on videos would fall squarely in this area. 
3. Content Copycats - These are the users whom share (many times illegally), movie clips, commercials, music videos.  Basically unoriginal material.

Now the above areas are a HUGE generalization.  There are varying levels of each of these types of users.  For example, I'm a content creator, but on a very very small scale.  I fall somewhere in between numbers 1 & 2.  However, there are some content creators whom make a living off of their YouTube channels (Grace Helbig, Alex Day, Hannah Hart to name a few).

There is a whole community-side to YouTube that most people don't know exists.  You can subscribe to your favorite content creators and each time they upload a video, it's there on your homepage waiting for you.  There have been a lot of people whom connected creatively through the site and gone on to do huge projects together.  There are several conferences across the globe dedicated specifically to YouTubers (VidCon, Playlist Live) and some of these conferences were started by probably the most famous Vloggers (Like a blogger but with videos) on YouTube, Hank and John Green...the Vlog Brothers.  It really has developed into its own subculture.

I'm pretty sure I started nosing around YouTube out of boredom one day five years ago and stumbled onto my first vlogger.  From there, it was the fast track to watching my YouTube subscriptions more regularly than I watch any TV show.  I don't know...maybe it's because it's perfect for a limited attention span.  Entertain me in less than 5 minutes then onto the next!

With that being said, I could probably talk and talk about the YouTube culture, it's benefits, it's downfalls, the community aspect, etc for pages and pages, but I'm not going to bore you with that.  Instead...onto the clips!  These are a few (emphasis on few) of my favorite clips:

The first vlog I watched.  Ground zero, this is where it started kids:

This one with many YouTubers talking about one of their amazing annual projects:

This is one of my favorite comedy vloggers:

These are two of my favorite musician YouTubers:

And yes, here is one from my own channel that Ashlee and I put together:

I'm going to stop there, and be glad that I'm not sitting there whilst you watch these clips, because I would have another 50 on deck for you to watch as well.

Through YouTube I have been able to discover so many talented composers/musicians, comedians, writers, and just all around awesome people talking about what they do from day to day.  If you ever want some video recommendations, never hesitate to ask.

BYEEEEEEE!

Twenty-nine days 'til Thirty..."Why are you still here?"...

So I was wracking my brain today in order to come up with some reflective topic to cover in my blog, and then work got in the way, hence the late post...which ironically led me to my topic:

To give a little bit of background information without going into painful detail, I am a Resident Director at the University of Maryland.  In July of this year, I will have completed my sixth year in this position, my first out of graduate school.  Before this position, I was a graduate Residence Director at Appalachian State University for two years.  These are both what we call "live-on" positions, meaning as part of my compensation, I have an apartment in the hall in which I am in charge.  If you do the math on that, combined with my undergraduate years, that is very nearly 12 years living on campus....yeah.

But I digress.  For those of you whom may not be in the Higher Education field, typically, an RD has a shelf-life of somewhere around 3 years before they move on to their next position.  That means that I am...gasp...an anomaly!  Somewhere in around my third year, I started getting asked A LOT "What is your next step", "Will you be here next year?", "Are you job searching?", basically, all variations on the question: "Why are you still here?"

Now I am by no means suggesting that this is an offensive or even unusual question to ask someone who remains in a position like mine for as long as I have.  However, there are a lot of different tones to this question.   From my students, it usually means: "Please don't leave yet." Flattering.  From some co-workers, it really can just be out of curiosity.  But from a lot of people within higher ed, the question is tinged with judgement and comes off sounding more like: "I can't believe you're still an RD!"  (I say this with a disclaimer that not everyone means it that way.)

It's pretty common-place in my field to be surrounded by amazing professionals.  People with a lot of motivation and forward trajectory.  One of the great things about this field is that there is so much room for movement, both positionally and geographically.  It's one of the things that attracted me to the field in the first place.  But from the outside looking in, I really wasn't attracted to the perception that I had that after three, four, five years, people moved-on to the next thing.  I remember a conversation I had during my internship in graduate school with the Director of the Res Life department at Eastern Illinois University.  He had been at EIU for many many years, working his way through the department and really setting down some real roots at EIU.  It was the first time in my then brand new adventure into student development that I had met a high-ranking professional whom was perfectly content at not moving around every few years (if I remember correctly, he had been an RD for quite some time when he started out).  Now, I have since met plenty of other people (especially at UMD) that feel the same way.

It's an unspoken judgement, or perhaps a "behind-the-back" judgement (c'mon, people in student affairs know how gossipy we are about each other) that someone who has been in my position for as long as I have are unmotivated, unchallenged, have no direction, or are just too scared to move forward.  I think that's a really unfair assessment.  And sure, some of this could be internalized judgement, but let's not get all developmental ;-)

From the time we are in kindergarten, we are told that we can do whatever we want, as long as it makes us happy, no matter how much we are paid...as long as we're happy.  The simple fact of the matter is, I love my job.  I'm good at my job.  I like going to work (almost) everyday.  The interactions I have with my students and the tangible ways I can see that I have improved their lives and the countless ways they have added to mine are invaluable and pretty unique to the RD position.  No two days are exactly the same, they constantly keep me on my toes, and my building, as well as my staffs keep getting better and better.  How many people can say that they TRULY love their jobs and that they found the perfect fit for themselves in their first job out of grad school?  Not a whole lot. 

Now I am a realistic person.  I know that I will not and should not be an RD forever.  I have looked at open positions around the country and have come extremely close to applying for more than one of them.  Ultimately, it will take a very special job for me to leave what I am doing and the right timing.  Perfect...no.  But UMD and the department I work for have set the bar pretty high for me as far as future employers go.  And my work here is not yet done...

I will leave you now with a picture of my most current staff.  How could you not love going to work with this motley crew every day?

Thirty days 'til Thirty...Why do I do these things to myself?

Oh, Hello.  I didn't see you there.  Welcome to "Thirty days 'til Thirty", my latest blogging adventure.

I would love to be able to say that I thought of doing this project on my own, but alas, I got the inspiration from my good friend Joey DeSanto-Jones.  In 2010, Joey embarked on his self-reflective blogging adventure, chronicling the last 30 days of his twenties.  After reading his first post, I decided I wanted to do the same thing when I turned 30.  And believe me, no one is more surprised than me that I actually remembered to do it (Check out Joey's blog here).

Joey's blog was insightful, introspective, educated, and very entertaining to read.  This will be nothing like that.  I kidd...but seriously...lower your expectations.

So why the blog?  Simply put, I love to write.  I have had several blogs over the past 10 years or so, some more successful, some complete flops.  In true Gemini fashion, I tend to get really excited about a project until I'm half-way through it, then something else grabs my attention and I forget why I started the original project the first place.  In that way, this blog is a bit of a personal challenge.  Committing to write a new and theoretically "interesting" post for 30 days in a row is a pretty big undertaking, especially considering that the 30 days before my 30th birthday collectively are some of my busiest days at work.  Oi...I'm talking myself out of it already!

No!  I shall prevail.  Full steam ahead, lighting all the boilers just like the Titanic...wait.

I will admit that I have already created an outline of topics to talk about, just in case I can't think of anything or nothing particualarly inspiring happens that day, but I'm not married to the list.  Can you imagine?  Marrying a list?  What's next - people marrying goats? (see what I did there?)

What to expect from these posts:

• Reflections on my life
• Severe nerdiness
• Movie references / quotes
• YouTube Videos...like, probably a lot
• Melancholy, Sappiness, Happiness...basically all of the feels
• Philosophical Ramblings
• My opinions on stuff / rants
• Posts that don't make a lot of sense to anybody but me
• Really short posts for the days I forget
• Gay stuff
• More nerdiness

What NOT to expect from these posts:

• Korect Spelleng
• Good Grammar
• Fully formed thoughts
• Profound or life altering statements
• And some other stuff I've forgotten...

In all seriousness, I am excited about this little project and, as you can see, have put some time into constructing the page.  It's been an interesting 30 years thus far, and I think it's important for us to take pause and reflect on our past and think about how we got where we are and why we are who we are today.  So put that in your fortune cookie and eat it.


Please feel free to comment on the posts and, by all means, leave suggestions for future posts!

BYEEEEE!