Challenge and Support

I’m a big fan of Happy Hour, not because I like beer (I do) and not because I enjoy half-price appetizers (I do), but because of the chance it gives me to mingle and meet some new people.  We have 3 bars within walking distance from campus.  It’s a pain in the butt during the school year because I have to worry about finding my underage students drinking there.  However, if we show up early enough, or, as it is now, if we wait until Summer to roll around, the students aren’t out yet.  They don’t like to go out before the sun goes down, and we don’t like to be out after.  It’s a nice unwritten agreement that we have.

Back to my original point: I like happy hour.

We have, at my school, an unofficial “new professionals” group that is growing in size and has reached upwards of 120 members.  We plan all sorts of different events, and occasionally take off to the random happy hour.  The catch here is that while our group has 120 members, I don’t know all of them.  They are from various offices across campus, and many of them don’t come out to any of our events.  But sometimes, when the stars are aligned just right, and there’s a good strong east wind, we’ll get a new person or two to come along to the occasional event.  A couple weeks ago we had half the IT department show up to a happy hour.

Granted, they spent half the time sending dirty pictures to one another on their cell phones.

But that’s not the point!  The point here is that they came!  I met new people.  I made connections from across campus.  I now know who I need to get in touch with to get my name on the early adopter list for our Google Apps transition.  Last week I got to know a campus minister who is the main contact for any and all service trips that happen on campus.  That will come in handy when I’m trying to plan trips for my students in the fall.

Last night I didn’t meet anyone new, but I did strengthen some blossoming friendships and heard some good stories.

And, of course, I was home before the sun went down.

Vacation is a fun time. You get to go away for a few days, maybe even a week, and sit in the sun, hang out with old friends or see family.

Vacation stresses me out, though. I leave to visit family in a few hours, and all I can think of is, “What is going to go wrong while I’m away?” I think I’ve covered every angle, but I just know that something is going to go screwy and I’m going to get a phone call right in the middle of dinner with my family and I’m going to spend the rest of the night trying to solve problems from 400 miles away.

On the up-side, this is one of the few times that when I go on vacation, I can come back and not have to make up 4 days of work. There is no actual work that I’m missing out on that I’ll have to go double-time to catch up on. Oh, sure, there’s going to be a few things I’ll have to do as a result of missing a couple days, but it’s not the disaster that taking 3 days off in the middle of the school year brings.

Have a fantastic Memorial Day weekend, everyone. I’m going to try to relax.

I had a rush of energy and motivation to be productive on Thursday night. I was working in one office, getting all kinds of stuff done, and when I finished that, I went back to my main office and worked until 3:00 in the morning. I was a madman. I processed receipts, organized billing for the spring semester, cleaned up my desktop (computer and actual desk), and cleaned out my drawers. I feel so organized, it hurts.

The problem?

Everything since then just pales in comparison. I think I was too productive.

Oh, everything I did needed to be done, and it needed to be done quickly. But now it’s done. There’s no rush on anything anymore. I feel like a drug addict. I just can’t get that high again. I’ve tried being crazy productive again the past couple days, but there just isn’t enough to do to make it happen!

Daddy needs his fix!

I’m going to start hand-sharpening pencils with my fingernails if I don’t find something substantial to do.
Anybody out there have any big projects that need to be completed?

Dear Readers, this is my first post, I hope you find it interesting or at least it gives you a few minutes rest from your busy day. For those of you who don’t know, it is very easy to gain weight when you have an unlimited meal plan from campus dining and for those of us who have lived in residence halls for the better part of a decade, the pounds and inches are easy to gain. With this in mind, I’ve come to the conclusion that my life of leisure where work and life are one and the same isn’t doing me any good. The solution to this problem…get off my a$$ and workout. I have a wealth of resources when it comes to workout equipment and expertise, my building has 2 weight rooms and about two-thirds of my students are athletes. So I asked one of my superstars to help me get on track with this workout thing.

Two days ago I took the plunge and went down to start working out, I told my superstar that I hadn’t lifted weights in a decade (no kidding) and that we should go a little easy. My superstar had me sweating and cursing for an hour and a half; muscle failure he said was the goal. Well yesterday I hurt so bad that I couldn’t get out of bed to save my life. So I took my first professional sick day…res lifers will know that a sick day really doesn’t mean you’re not going to work and needless to say, I still made it into the office and returned emails. My superstar was knocking at my door and his excitement left me wanting to do more. So I worked on the lower half of my body…not as long or a stressful as the day before, but enough to make my whole body shake and quake. Today I could barely make it to the office or up and down the stairs to eat

Not being able to walk normally is a very humbling experience, something I really don’t care to experience again, but today I realized that I’m not as invincible as I once thought. However, the effort, sweat, and pain will pay off, even if in the end I’m still not superman. I think the tall buildings we leap or the crimes we stop are more life size: losing a few pounds or walking that extra bit helps us in the end. Our being healthy sets an example for our students to follow (that’s why we have these cool jobs), so lets do it, if not for ourselves, for our students. They need their supermen and wonderwomen too.

The title of this post is the title of the NCAA tournament bracket my grad cohort was in last year. It’s rather nice to not have to worry about that this year, though. Now, March Madness is nothing more than a basketball tournament. But, to all my friends going through the search, good luck!

…a basketball tournament that is giving me a heart attack. Stanford. Duke. Texas. You guys are killing me. Well, with the exception of Duke. You saved my bracket with that loss to WVU.

As I type this, Tennessee is making me nervous. I kinda need them to win if my Final Four lineup is going to work out.