you may now call me master

i'm done.

two years of hard work and giving up so many things that i love to do in order to focus on school ... weekends spent indoors studying, missed parties, a sabbatical from my mens group, lost connections with friends, savings account drain ... and on. and on.

people ask me how i feel about it and if i'm having some kind of graduation party. i haven't set up any kind of celebration. i feel proud of myself for staying with the program and creating the discipline i needed to finish at the top of my class. but i haven't looked at it as something to create a huge hubbub about.

there is one thing that i will reserve the right to brag about here in my blog ... my grades. in many ways, grades don't really matter so much in grad school ... you either get a degree or you don't. there's a part of me that wants to be modest about that, and i will be in my day to day life, but here in the semi-private forum, i'll toot my own horn for a second and share that i am graduating with a 4.0 gpa. if i hadn't worked my ass off for that grade, i wouldn't care so much ... but i did. and that feels good.

it's important to me b/c i wanted to know that i could apply myself and achieve something that i wasn't sure i could. my undergrad grades are decent, but i was very distracted in undergrad with more time spent in bands and the theater than on school.

so there's a lot of other stuff going on .. new projects and commitments, dating, looking for a dream job ... but that will all have to wait. i'm still catching up with the ever-constant list of "things that have to get done." i'm going camping this weekend and will use that as a re-charge time. i'm going to write some vision statements around some various projects i'm working on and spend some time meditating and getting clear on how i want to use my time and energy.

for now ... you can call me master.

[the stupid thing is that, when i was a kid, the cards that came in the mail were always addressed to: Master "jblog". I'm not sure when I lost that title, but it sure was a hell of a lot of work to get it back again.

And don't worry, even though I'm not a "doctor", I'm good at pretending. "oh nurse!"

new life

there's a new callahan in the world and that's a good thing. my friends K&K had a son over the weekend. their second child. i am so happy for them and bummed that we don't live closer to each other that i can go over there and meet this brand new adorable person face to face.

sounds like they are all doing very well and i am very happy for them!

results

i got the results of my comprehensive exams on friday. good news. i passed 4 of the 5 exams and have to go in to defend the last one. it's what i expected. i knew that the last hour of the 8 hour exam process wasn't my best and that the final exam didn't reflect my knowledge on the topic. turns out the same is true for the others as well ... everyone has to defend their answers on the final essay or two.

i think asking people to write 5 consecutive exams over the course of 8 hours - with only 30 minutes break for lunch - is a little unreasonable. i mean, it's probably nothing in comparison to ph.d exams or like, the bar, or something ... but still.

anyway, i'm happy. i know i'm going to pass now and that, in less than two weeks, i'll have my masters degree in hand and then i can go get drunk and figure out what the hell i want to do with my life! or at least that next weekend. i'm going camping for sure - gettin' the hell outta dodge - because ... i ... can!

in short:
fuck yeah!

wind rattles the windows

the wind rattles the windows as the severed cord outside my window taps against the glass. what happens in the absence of distraction? i have become a master of it. something calls me to unplug, settle, be ... and i am drawn back in to a web of uselessness and disguise. putting time, energy, focus on the banal. tuning in and then tuning out. time better spent would be ... what?

i spent time at the ocean today. the ever-present movement, sound, breeze, allows me to be more still. there are two paths: discovery or complacency. i walk both. one foot in each track. resigned and fighting it all the way. all i need now are flip-flops to complete the picture. do you want the red pill or the blue?








i seek truth. i seek my unobstructed path, but the nature of life is that it is obstructed. that is truth.

someone said recently that life is just a series of well-managed mistakes. in one sense i agree, in another sense i think it's ridiculous. the word mistake assumes that there was a right way. that's exactly the duality that i attempt to unlearn ... right/wrong, black/white, good/bad. i often see life as choosing one thing or another ... not both. so why not both?

i think the greatest struggle is how we try to bring union to the physical and the metaphysical. in the greater reality, they are one and the same. yet, our minds are limited and cannot truly comprehend that which is outside ourselves. experiencing it is one thing, making sense of it is a fun, but ultimately futile endeavor.

so as i sit pondering the task i have at hand for LIT - to choose a project that, over the next 6 months, will unleash my leadership, serve my values, and manifest some shift in possibility - i wonder which game to play and how i can play both. game one is simply to put all energy into depth, understanding, silence, stillness, connection, peace, harmony, balance, truth, god. game two is to be here now and play, forget understanding, have fun, do things, engage, bounce around, ricochet, act and react.

am i being obtuse? probably. why not?

i see two avenues that really are one, but feel like two. i want to engage in both. i want to live in the parameters of daily life as it is decreed by experience and never let go of knowing that there is so much more outside my linear existance.

aw, fuck it. i'm even confusing myself. i know what i mean, and words are just getting in the way of that.

to sum it all up: i need a haircut.

sunny skies

there is a direct correlation between my blogging and depression.
less depression = less blogging

i'm actually in favor of shifting that trend a bit because, like my journals, i'd hate to think that the written record of my life that is left behind when i go is nothing but tales of sorrow and woe. maybe some tales of "whoh!", but not woe.

so, yeah, been feeling better these past couple of weeks. lots of factors involved i'm sure. i can point to the fact that the sun has been out rather consistently, it's been warmer and the rain has ended, things between ami and i seem really good and i can really feel the love and connection that i was missing so terribly, the comprehensive exams are over, i just got a very short-term-but-well-paying contract job, i've been meeting new people and having good connections, i've been getting to the gym more often and am liking the results ...

there's still part of me that wants to tell you about the things that i feel are missing from my life and the things that i feel i want badly ... and, yes, there's still some of that sorrow ... but it is oh-so-just a piece of it all again and not that which is ruling my every waking moment.

one thing that is a bummer is the sleep issue. i'm going to see if i can get some prescription stuff tomorrow to give myself a couple solid 8 hour nights of sleep and see if that resets my system. it really feels like i've just developed a sleep habit that i can't break. we'll see how that goes ... my energy level seems to be okay on 5 hours a night for now.

LIT is pretty confronting right now. our homework this week is to create a very specific list of all the things in our lives that we have wanted and either not attempted to get or started to and then quit. yowza! not exactly sure where this is going, but i have a pretty good idea and i'll fill y'all in about it later.

and hey ... feel free to leave comments once and awhile ... i know i get about 15-20 hits a day, but not too many of you leave comments. i'm curious, from time to time, what you think.

alright .. getting back to the sunshine now.

congratulations: pending

i can't remember the last week of my life.

well, i can, but there isn't much to remember besides me and a stack of papers, books and binders.

i've gotten a few questions from friends about what it is i've been studying, so i'll elaborate here a little bit. the exam was 5 consecutive essays on 6 topic areas. we had about 1.5 hrs for each essay, but it was really a matter of how we chose to use the time. in a nutshell, all of the essays were situational tests where we had to describe the exisiting theories, issues, problems, as well as come up with a plan and recommendations for the implementation and evaluation of that plan. the topic areas were:

1. Selection
2. Performance Appraisal
3. Leadership and Decision Making
4. Organizational Culture, Climate and Justice
5. Training
6. Research Methods (this was integrated into the 5 essays)

i can't say it was fun. i was surprised at how fast time moves when you are concentrating. by the end of the day, however, my brain was fried. i'm not sure how i did on the last two exams ... we'll see. of course, i am so much more interested in the leadership and culture/justice work than any of the HR-related topics (yuk!), so i also think i probably performed better on those exams.

There are now three possibilities:
1. I pass and am done forever!
2. I fail and have to do a thesis to get my degree
3. I pass contingently and they have me come back and defend my answers and add any information they feel was missing.

I am hoping for the first possibility, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is more that i have to do on the last 2 exams. i really don't know though. I am confident i didn't outright fail anything, i was too prepared for that.

anyway, the experience has killed my desire to write, so that's all for today. in another three weeks grad school will be over for good and then i'll ... well, i'll figure out what's next!

i'm excited and at the same time it hasn't sunk in at all yet.