Learning to Fly -- Season 3

Summer's coming to an end

2008-06-26T17:57:00.000-07:00

While for some people, summer hasn't even started yet (my parents, for example, who are both teachers in Austria, still have one more week to work before starting their summer vacation), I feel like summer's definitely coming to an end for me. I just got back from a 5-day vacation in Spain with my sister (lots of sun, ocean but not that great food...at least not a lot of Vegetarian food at the hotel we were staying at, especially since I also don't eat fish) and now it's one more week, then one week of vacation with my parents and my sister in Italy and then back to the US and very soon, back to training. Okay, not that soon...training starts on July 21st for us (yeah, we start very early) so that's not "that soon" but it's less than a month....

I'm having a bit of a harder time not thinking about work anymore. There's a book I should really read, a residential curriculum that needs to be revised, lesson plans for my Group Leadership course designed (at least the details...we get the drafts from the coordinator of the course and I've already taught it last year, so I have some more experience this time around) and and and. I'm beginning to dread it a little...and I wish I had started earlier. It feels like I'll be pretty busy with work for the next few weeks and I'm not looking forward to that - I had hoped to enjoy the last few weeks of my vacation relaxing at the lake and hanging out with friends. Well, I may be doing both this weekend. My three best friends are coming and staying for two nights. We haven't made any definite plans yet but going down to the lake will probably be part of that. Then, next week - while my parents are at work - I'll have to force myself to sit down and look at some of those books and documents that I've been avoiding all summer.

It's weird...during the year I'm such a workaholic but once I stop, I really stop and then I have a terribly hard time getting back into the swing of things. During the year, I stay up late and work on things - I have more fun revising a lesson plan for work than hanging out with colleagues sometimes - but then I'm on vacation and I just want to do nothing...or at least nothing that relates to work. I've been re-reading Harry Potter. ;) My family makes fun of me...they say I should know by now how the books end. But they're just so fabulous. I still start to cry when some of my favorite characters get hurt. Fabulous writing!!!!

Okay, I'm off to read some more Harry Potter and then it's time for bed because tomorrow starts my fun weekend with my friends. :) And soon after that I'll hopefully have some news on how preparations for work are coming along.

Being on vacation

2008-06-18T16:23:00.000-07:00

We all know I'm a workaholic but if you'd been hanging out with me in the last few weeks, you wouldn't recognize me. I started the vacation with lots of good intention in terms of getting ahead with work, reading some books for work that I should have read a long time ago...but now I've been in Austria for almost a month and I've barely done anything. Maybe it's being so far away from work, maybe I just needed a break, or maybe there are just too many distractions. I haven't even been that busy though - there's been plenty of times when I was sitting around wondering what I could do and even being bored - but work still didn't come to my mind.
So for all you workaholics out there: take some time off, get far far away from work and just don't do anything. It's possible, even for someone like us!!!

I'll probably regret not having done anything when I get back but I'd rather not think about that right now. Instead I'll tell you about the fun things that have been keeping me busy lately:

1) My three best friends and I spent some time together. The four of us met in Innsbruck for a couple days, where we celebrated birthdays and one of the girl's boyfriend getting his doctorate degree. Then, I went to visit one of them in Munich.

2) Family: I visited my grandparents, who live on the other side of Austria. I'm definitely done with riding the train...yeah, it may sound like fun for Americans who haven't taken the train very often, but let me tell you: It's NOT! The seats aren't all that comfortable. And on the ride back I got stuck with a group of middle school students, who were returning from a field trip...and they were just rude and obnoxious and annoying. I'm usually not that impatient but there was something about those kids and being stuck in a train for so many hours...
Anyway, unfortunately my parents and my sister are working, but whenever my parents have some time off (and if the weather's nice), we've been trying to do something. Today, my mom and I went hiking; tomorrow afternoon my dad and I will probably do something.

3) Sports: I've never been a huge fan of sports but I do go running occasionally and have tortured myself with the random "work-out DVD" in an attempt to lose some weight and get in shape. I'm trying to keep that up while I'm here and it's been working out pretty well. I've been doing at least "something" every day since I've gotten home.

4) Obsessions: There are a few things I'm obsessed with and during the school year I never have enough time to truly live out my obsessions. So I'm using this time as much as I can....
and here's a list of some of those obsessions:
a) Uwe Kröger: Okay, so most of you may not know him and I'm sorry...because that's really a huge loss. :) Uwe is a fabulous singer and has played the leads in a variety of musicals from Starlight Express to Les Miserables to Beauty and the Beast, Phantom of the Opera and famous Austrian shows such as "Elisabeth" and "Rebecca." I had my dad tape a show with him, "Musical Showstar 2008" and some evenings (like tonight) I just watch one YouTube video of him after the other. He was voted Germany's best musical star seven or eight times. Check him out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYhvA-BmSCU&feature=related.
b) Harry Potter: I tried to read a couple other books (for example, Barack Obama's Dreams from my Father, which was great and then a few German books...some good, some not so fabulous) but in the end, I just had to get back to Harry Potter. I can't help it; I've read the books ten or more times but they're just so wonderful.

Okay, now you know my two darkest secrets...my Uwe and my Harry obsessions.

I hope you're all having a fabulous summer!

On life-altering moments

2008-06-06T14:53:00.000-07:00

People often ask me why I "choose" to move to the US. That's a tough question. I'm not sure if I ever truly "choose" to move there. It just kind of happened.

I guess it all started with going on vacation to the US. My family travels a lot; my parents are both teachers so we used the summer vacations to explore different countries. We used to have an RV, but after we sold that (after ten years and lots of car trouble in the last few years), we decided to fly and that's when we ended up in the US...twice! I also wasn't all that happy in my high school; I really couldn't see myself making it through junior and senior year at that school. So it was either try to skip a year and graduate early (which I didn't want to do because I didn't want to leave my friends in my class), switch schools (again, not an option because I didn't want to leave my friends), or study abroad (which, granted, meant leaving my friends for a year but I knew I'd be back in the same class with them my senior year.
Studying abroad led to going to undergrad in the US; I quickly got sucked into ResLife (being an RA for three years and an Orientation Leader for one summer; active in RHA and NRHH), suddenly realized you could do that for a career, applied for grad school and you know the rest.

But did I really ever "choose" to move to the US? It's not like I sat down and said, "Yes, I will spend the rest of my life in the US." It was more a series of events, or "life-altering moments" that led to the move. Not that I realized, at the time, that those were "life-altering moments." It was more seemingly unimportant little decisions: picking a spot for our family vacation, trying to get a job at college to pay for room and board, needing something to do for the summer, etc.

Now I can't imagine moving back to Austria; my life, my carreer - everything is in the US. I still miss my family and friends (I have the three most amazing friends from high school) but I wouldn't know what to do here. I catch myself not "fitting" into the culture here, not knowing how to do things (e.g. not bringing a shopping bag to the store...here, if you don't bring your own bag, you have to buy one...a nice way of forcing people not to waste plastic bags but to re-use them...great idea but it sucks when you stand at the counter and realize you don't have a bag with you and have to cram all the chocolate you just bought into the pockets of your jacket). I'm sure I could get used to the life over here again pretty quickly, but would I be happy? Am I happy in the US though?
Tough questions. I'm not sure I know the answers. Sometimes I feel like I'm just drifting along in my life: after high school, I went to college because that was the next step (granted, I went to a different country which was a little out of the ordinary but it was still college), then I went to graduate school because it was the next step, I applied for a job in my field of studies because it was the next step. But now, what's the next step now? Apply for another job? Try to move higher in my career? Try to find a partner and start a family? But is that really what I want or is it just "the next step?"
And what are those "seemingly unimportant decisions" that will later turn out to be "life-altering moments." It'd be nice to know because then I could spend just a little more time thinking about them as I make them.

School's out...

2008-05-31T05:47:00.000-07:00

I'm in Austria, visiting my family. This is the first time in seven years that I haven't worked in the summer. Crazy! It's weird to not be working. It's even weirder since summer housing is in my building this year; so I know there's people in my building right now. There's another staff member running summer housing. I know she'll do great, but I'm glad I'm not there to see what's going on. Somehow it's still "my" building!
I'm a little jealous of everyone who's working Orientation this summer. I know several of the Orientation leaders pretty well and would have loved working with them. And I always had a weak spot for Orientation. But I figured, how many more years will I have a 10-month contract and the option to take the summer off...I should take advantage of that.

Being at home is weird. Do you ever feel like you turn into your 16-year-old self whenever you enter the house of your parents? I still feel like that misunderstood, stubborn teenager from back then. I'm still expected to go to bed early, to eat all meals with the and to tell my parents when I go somewhere. My friend and I wanted to drive to Switzerland to watch "Sex and the City" in English - they only show it in German in our hometown - and the movie theatre in Switzerland is only an hour and a half away...okay, maybe a little crazy but the German translation of the Sex and the City shows was bad enough...we didn't want to watch the movie in the translated version. Anyway, of course my parents thought that was crazy and we would only be "allowed" to do so if we're using my friend's car. Thank god she has a car! I hate not having a car. I feel trapped. I barely ever use my car at school, but it's just nice to know that you can get away whenever you want. Here I have a bike...oh joy! Every chance of getting the hell away is connected to physical labor....

I have to admit that I brougt some work home with me; I haven't touched it yet but really should. I got this assessment grant last year to do some studies (a pre- and post-test for my living learning community and a few focus groups...we got money for pizza and prices) and I need to write a summary of the project. It's due in 15 days and I haven't even started yet. I really need to do that....
I also brought some books to read, the binder with all the materials for the course I'm teaching next semester and the textbooks, and my laptop with me. The goal is to be as prepared for next year as possible. Maybe I can make my next year (which will probably also be my last year at my current institution...unless my students convince me to stay for another year which some of them are definitely trying to do)...anyway, hopefully I can make my next year a little less stressful. We'll see.

Okay, our neighbours should be coming over any minute for a little birthday celebration for my mom. Which really just means me having to answer tons of stupid questions and having to listen to why everything American is stupid and I should have stayed in Austria...

Wish me luck!

We've got spirit, yes, we do...

2008-05-16T22:53:00.000-07:00

It's been a while...

I'm at the NACURH (National Association of College and University Residence Halls) Conference at Oklahoma State University right now (for you non-ResLifers: RHAs, Residence Hall Associations, send delegations to this conference). I just said goodnight to my students - who are still up playing volleyball - and went back to my room. The first thing I did, of course, was to check my work e-mail to see if I had missed anything. I just can't get rid of some of those workaholic tendencies...haha.

NACURH has been a blast so far. One of my best friends from Undergrad is here, also as an advisor with a delegation. One of my Orientation students, two students who were RAs at my undergrad at the same time I was an RA, one of my former supervisors...it's like a big reunion. :)
One of my students said earlier today, "Stop being so popular." Haha! Student Affairs is a small world. He'll have to get used to it (I'm recruiting him for our profession...it shouldn't be too hard).

I closed my building last week. Of course my students couldn't just leave on a happy note...
The night before the last day of finals, someone pulled a fire alarm at 3:30 am. I felt terribly for all those students, who had been studying like crazy all week and were just trying to get some well-deserved sleep to be rested and ready for their last finals the next day.
And then, closing day, someone left a bag with pop tabs (from beer cans) outside my door and a note that said, "Haha, you didn't catch us, bitch." One of my students also stopped by my office during the last week of classes to tell me that I was the worst hall director ever - simply because I wouldn't move him to another room (newsflash: when he asked, I didn't have any rooms open in my building; a single opened up later on and Housing gave it to him...at our institution only the Housing office can assign singles while we can move students to open spaces in doubles; so I couldn't have moved him to that single).

I guess I don't have to explain that I was very happy when we had checked out the last residents, did our last walk-through of the building and closed the doors for this year. I'm taking the summer off (I have a ten-month position; we have the opportunity to work over the summer but I chose not to do that this year) and am actually going to Austria to visit my family. It'll be good to get away from everything and come back re-energized and ready for another year.

There were also some really good times though and it was tough to say goodbye to some of my students. I will miss this year's staff terribly. One of my graduate assistants graduated (why do they have to do that???); she was amazing and right now I can't imagine running the building without her. I know it'll be okay and my new grad will be fabulous...but saying goodbye was definitely tough. My other grad still has one more year but she was moved to another building. :(
Three of my RAs are returning to my staff (yay!), three will be in different buildings, three are not returning to the RA position next year and one is studying abroad in the Fall. I'll miss them terribly; we've had a fun year and accomplished a lot. We didn't always agree on everything, but overall we came together as a staff and a team and developed close relationships with each other. At least none of them are graduating, so they'll still be around next year (and we will have reunion dinners and such...) and several of them are in NRHH, so I'll definitely get to see them at those meetings.

I also had some very special students this year. There was my "fanclub" which was actually a intramural sports team but they used my name and had t-shirts with my face on it...a little creepy, I know, but also really sweet! Then there were several of my students who really embraced our theme and the idea of being active members of their community; many of them have taken on formal leadership positions for next year with student government or as RAs. It'll be exciting to watch them to continue to grow and become influential leaders in our community.
Three students and I did a "positive art project" two weeks before closing; we had an incident on campus this year of a very offensive art project being displayed. We talked about it in my leadership course and one of the students asked me after that conversation if we could do a "positive art project" to show that many of our students actually value diversity. So we made a big banner with different color handprints, painted the words "Celebrate Diversity" on it and hung it outside our building during finals week. I just really loved that one of my students took the initiative to make this happen.

And then there's my NRHH crew!!! I love them; I really do. One of my RAs will be president next year and I know she'll just be amazing. Our NRHH delegate, who is here at NACURH with me, cracks me up - he's an outstanding student leader and we can have conversations about the most serious topics, but we can also just fool around and have a good time. I like to have a good time.
I know some of my colleagues would say that I'm "too close" with my students and that I should hang out with my students and more with other advisors. But around 10:30 pm the majority of advisors (at least the ones I know) were going to bed while my students were hanging out at the live karaoke and dancing. And if you know me, you know that I will never pass up the opportunity to dance. :)

Okay, I've finished some work-related tasks (we just received our committee chair information the day before we left for NACURH...basically if you want to chair a committee next year, you have to submit a letter by Friday saying what committee you are interested in and why; well, I'm at NACURH and then I'm going home to Austria and will leave right away to spend the weekend in Italy...so really, this interest letter just had to happen tonight...not sure how good it is...we'll see); I've listened to my favorite band, which has become a nightly ritual (Shout-out to "We The Living"...check them out at http://wetheliving.com/); I've checked my personal e-mail and decided to respond to those messages tomorrow; and I've gotten my stuff ready for tomorrow. So now it's time for bed.

For those of you who are still closing your buildings/finishing up last tasks before the end of the school year: good luck with everything. For those of you who're already done, enjoy the summer!
Shout-out to everyone who's here at NACURH right now!!!

When it rains, it pours.

2008-04-30T23:24:00.000-07:00

I haven't been feeling well for the past few days. I have the flu, I think, and absolutely no time to spend all day in bed and relax. But if I'm up for more than few hours, I feel like I'm burning out, I'm short of breath and I start feeling dizzy.

I don't like being sick. When you're sick, you realize how alone you are. I was stretched out on my couch last night, really not feeling all that great, and terribly thirsty. But there was nobody to go to the fridge and get iced tea for me. And even though it's just in the next room, it cost me a lot of energy to get it myself. :( Those are the moments when you truly miss your mom, who used to spoil you when you were sick. Where are the days when you could just call for your mom and she'd bring you tea and soup or anything you asked for? Being sick wasn't so bad when you got out of school and were getting spoiled at home. Now, when you still have to work and have to get everything yourself, being sick really isn't fun.

Anyway, as if this wasn't enough: I was watching TV and had started dozing off, when I heard two male voices and a lot of movement outside my door. I knew something was wrong, but nothing prepared me for that...
As I opened my door, I saw a trash can that had been dragged in from outside and dumped out right outside my apartment door. On the floor was some weird brown fluid/mess and I saw a guy running down the hallway pulling up his pants (use your own imagination to figure out what happened). His friend was rushing out the other door. Half asleep and only seeing the back of them, I really couldn't tell who they were. I didn't have my keys on me or shoes on or was in the right physical condition to chase after them. So there was nothing left to do but call the police and file a report. Then, I tried to call emergency maintenance because I was NOT going to clean up that mess myself. And it started to smell, so there was no chance of me going to bed with that smell right outside my apartment. Of course, our Emergency Maintenance service didn't pick up the phone. So much for "emergency" maintenance...I guess you're only allowed to have emergencies during work hours. Finally, a police officer came over to help me clean up.
And of course, one of my residents had been sitting in the Lobby and must have seen something (or at least the guy running away) but was insisting that she hadn't seen anything. As if!!!

I e-mailed my supervisor before I went to sleep to let him know what happened. So the next morning, I expected there to be an e-mail or a voicemail checking in with me and making sure I was okay. I mean, that isn't too much to ask for, right? But nothing. A few hours later, I got an e-mail from my supervisor about a stupid meeting we were having that day; still no comment on the whole incident. Finally, that afternoon after the meeting, which was regarding something completely different, he asked what had happened last night. But to be honest, at this point, it was too late...because I was already frustrated. I mean, we talk so much about ensuring our students' safety, but has anyone ever thought about the staff's safety?
I guess the mature thing would have been to say something to my supervisor at this time; to express that I wasn't feeling supported or that I had hoped for a different and faster reaction. But what's the point in telling people that you want them to care about you and your well-being? Even if they express their concern then, it won't feel genuine because you had to ask them to do it first; and you'll still feel as alone and will still question if anyone cares.

It's like this Fall, when a mother made assumptions about my sexual orientation and told me that "nobody should have to live with a person like me." When I told my supervisors about this incident, they said that I did the right thing by telling this woman that we didn't move anyone based on their sexual orientation and backed me up on that decision; but nobody ever checked in with me to make sure I was okay or that I was feeling safe.

I guess I should have known when I went into this profession that things like this would happen. And I can handle it. It'd just be nice to get a phone call after an incident like that and have your supervisor say something like, "I'm sorry this happened to you. Are you okay?" It'd just make me feel like people in this department actually care about me and how I'm doing.

On feeling "old" and being lonely

2008-04-25T22:05:00.000-07:00

One of my graduate assistants is graduating in two weeks and is job searching. Today, in our evaluation meeting, she talked about how she can't believe that she is really done with school and will have a "real job" next year. And I thought that I can't believe that I've had a "real job" for two years already.

It's like mood swings...some days I can't believe that I'm a "grown-up" and have a "real job;" other days I just feel old and I am "afraid that I met the [person] of my dreams at a dry cleaner or something and I was just too busy to notice." (quote from movie "Fools Rush In")
When I was little, I thought I would be married at 26; I thought I'd have at least one if not two kids by now. Instead, I'm single, living in a residence hall, working 24/7, spending my Friday nights watching a romantic comedy and eating ice cream. What a life, right? And sadly enough, I don't really see this changing any time soon. I mean, living in a small town and always being busy with work, I really don't meet many people, who are not students or colleagues. And we all know that there aren't that many heterosexual, single men in Student Affairs.

I guess it's just one of those nights when I feel lonely and old.

On the job front, there isn't much new. Our annual reports are due on Monday. I actually turned mine in already. These reports are supposed to cover everthing that we did this year and give a new, incoming staff member all the resources they may need to manage our building and run the living learning community. That's a lot of information to cover, don't you think?
I know I'm a lengthy writer and maybe I put in some things that aren't necessary. But I don't expect a new staff member to read every single sentence. I try to organize the report, so they can glance through the table of contents, pick the section that relates to what they're trying to do, and then go through those resources. I also believe in including attachments and other documents that this person, if he/she wants to could utilize (with minor alterations). Again, if he/she decided to redo everthing, that's fine. But if he/she doesn't want to reinvent the wheel, everything should be there, right?

Okay, so I finished my report and the actual report is about 50 pages plus about 100 pages of attachments and other documents. I know that's a lot longer than what everyone else has. But do people really have to make fun of me for it? If it's too long, maybe my supervisor should tell me that and work with me to see what sections could be cut. But why make jokes and laught at me? It just gets frustrating and annoying. No wonder I live in the "CHANGE" (the name of my LLC) bubble and try to venture out as little as possible. Within my bubble, I'm safe.

I guess I'm just feeling lonely tonight. I've been more homesick these past two years working here than I ever was when I first came to the US for college. But back then, I had friends. Now, I have staff members, who I love hanging out with but can't be with 24/7 because after all they are students and I'm their supervisor; I have colleagues, who - for whatever reason - don't care about me and don't understand me; and I have three amazing friends, who live a 10-hour flight away.

Okay, enough feeling bad for myself. It's time for bed because I have a lot of work to do tomorrow (yes, on a Saturday).

On national conventions and getting older

2008-04-12T17:04:00.000-07:00

Last week, I went to ACPA. I have to say, these national conventions get better every year - maybe not the actual convention but my experiences attending them. It's probably just that each year, I get to know more people, I become more involved, and suddenly I get more out of attending conventions.

I remember my first convention. I felt completely lost. I knew maybe two or three people who were there. I went to sessions - some of which were great, some of which were decent, and some where I didn't feel like I learned much - I barely talked to anyone. I felt like a little fish in a big sea.

Now, four years later, I have become involved in a commission, I presented a program, I met up with friends from grad school, I knew colleagues from various institutions, I learned a lot and I had a good time.

So for those of you who may feel lost at national conventions, here's my advice: get involved. Find a standing committee or commission (or a knowledge community for NASPA) and get involved. Suddenly you will know people, you will have things to do at the convention to the point where you're busy and really have to work out your schedule to be able to attend a few valuable sessions.

On a very different note: My birthday is on Tuesday. I'm not really looking forward to it. Birthdays have all these high expectations attached to them - like it is supposed to be a special day just because you're getting older. And when you are an ocean away from your family and your three best friends and hundreds of miles from any other friends, you know your expectations will just be disappointed. I don't even have any plans this year.
My sister's birthday present for me was a dinner or movie with a friend and I can't think of anyone I want to go with. There's one colleague I could ask. I'm not sure.

I like my job; it's a great entry-level position and a fabulous learning experience. But I know that for my next job search, I will have to change my priorities and make sure that I'm moving to an area where I have friends or where there are things to do for me - places I can go and ways I can meet people.

On the ups and downs of Spring Break Service Trips

2008-03-26T20:43:00.000-07:00

Spring Break is over and the countdown toward the end of the year and the closing of the residence hall has started. As much as I love my job and my students, I have to admit, I love closing. By that time of the year, I'm just ready to finish it - ready to get everyone out of the building - ready to have a little bit more of a social life again - ready to be done, take a break and then get a fresh start with a new staff and a new group of residents.

But before I start dreaming about the future, let's take a look back to the past week - Spring Break. In September, I had this "awesome" idea to go on a service trip with my residents. It sounded great! What better way to put our theme - "CHANGE - Emerging Community Leaders" - into action and help our residents achieve some of those learning outcomes we have.

It all sounded great until maybe two weeks prior to the trip. I didn't really have the time earlier to get things ready for the trip, so suddenly I was hit with all these last minute preparations. From communicating with the Habitat for Humanity (HFH) host affilitate and figuring details about our accommodations and other arrangements with them to preparing some team builders and service learning activities to buying supplies for the group (work gloves, coolers, etc.) and myself (e.g. steel toed shoes).
I was running around like crazy and while I didn't want to admit it to myself, I really wished that I had never come up with the idea for this trip and would just get to spend spring break staying at home, relaxing, maybe reading a book or watching TV, or even using a day or two to catch up and maybe even get ahead with work...sleeping in late...oh, it all sounded so tempting!

Looking back: the trip was worth it. I had a good time. The students gained a lot from it. The HFH affiliate really appreciated our help. And we had tons of fun - at our days off when we went to Philadelphia and Washington D.C. as well as at the construction site when we learned how to "flush" "4-by-2's" and build a wall.

Part of me still wishes that I would have had that week off. This week back - it's only been three days but it feels like a lifetime again - has been superbusy. With ACPA coming up in addition to all the building-related and committee-related tasks I need to accomplish, I've been putting in lots of late hours.

Some of my RAs and I talked about whether or not we'd want to do a trip like that again. And the RAs strongly felt like we should do it again next year. I agree with them - but I'm also hesitant to give up my spring break again. It's tough. I want to do this for my students - as well as for myself - but is all the stress really worth it?

I know it is - at least I believe it is - but the self-ish part of me wishes I could just sleep in for a couple days. :)

On students' stupidity, professional development and the goodness of my heart

2008-03-13T17:05:00.000-07:00

What a day!

I broke up a party. No, that's not right. I walked in on the aftermath of a party. I was walking through the hall - knowing that a lot of partying and drinking would be going on today. On my first round, a few rooms stood out to me as rooms we should keep an eye on. I decided to walk through one of my male corridors again (their RA was out of town, so I figured the corridor may need a little more attention). That time, as I'm walking through, a student exits the room. He barely open the door, squeezed through and was clearly trying to block me from being able to look into the room. It couldn't have been any more obvious. He also reeked off alcohol.
After that, I just went into "ResLife routine" - asking him to open the door, getting the students' IDs, having them take out (and recycle!) the empty cans and bottles (there was over 50), asking them to dump out the rest of the alcohol (another 20 cans/bottles).
But here's the thing: for one of the students, this may be his third alcohol violation. We have a policy here that states that if you're found responsible for your third violation, you will be, at minimum, suspended for one semester.
I've worked in ResLife long enough to realize that I did what I had to do and that it was the student, who put himself into this situation. But that's what I just don't get. After you were found responsible for two violations and knowing what the policy is, WHY would you put yourself in that situation??? Especially on a weekend where you know more staff is around because there are traditionally more alcohol incidents. I mean, I realize that for some students alcohol is part of the college experience, but is it really worth risking your chance to continue going to college??? I mean, seriously, don't be stupid!!!

Another interesting aspect of my day was a conversation I had with a central staff member about professional development. I've been struggling with figuring out how I could continue working on my professional development. I am going to conferences regularly; I'm involved in some committees at my institution as well as through national organizations. But it feels like there's something missing. I don't feel like I'm doing enough to challenge myself, to continue learning. I've asked my supervisor for feedback, but didn't get much concrete suggestions on what I can work on. Everyone tells me I'm doing a good job. But there has to be more, right?
Maybe I just need to commit more time to reading articles and books on my own. I don't know. But there has to be something else that I can do.

Last but not least, let me tell you a story of what happens when you have these "great" ideas and decide to do things out of the "goodness of your heart." Last Fall, my staff and I talked about how "cool" it would be if we organized a service trip for residents in our building over Spring Break. Well, I'm the type of person, who - once we've come up with an idea - follows through and makes it happen. So I did. And now, in two days, I'm leaving on our trip.
I'm not ready. I haven't had time to think about things I need to buy and bring, packing, figuring out directions and other details, organizing evening events, and and and. And part of me wishes I could just spend the break sleeping in, reading, relaxing and doing nothing.
I know I'll have fun once we're on the road, but right now, I'm not all that thrilled about going and about all the things I still have to organize.

Talking about that, I should get going. Wish me luck!

On Technology

2008-03-08T22:07:00.000-08:00

Last week, my laptop stopped working; well, it just won't charge anymore. At first, it still worked if I pushed the cord in far enough and wiggled it around a bit, but then it completely stopped working. Resigned, I decided to go to BestBuy and see what could be done to fix it.

Now I've only had my laptop for a year. Officially I got one, so I could use it for conferences. In reality, I wanted a laptop, so I could sit on my couch and watch TV while getting some work done or maybe talking to friends online. In the past year, my laptop has become more and more important in my daily routine. Initially, I would bring it out on weekends; then I started using it occasionally during the week. Soon I would turn on my laptop the second I left the office in the evening and spend the rest of the day checking e-mail, chatting online, surfing the internet and playing sudoku.

I was obviously aware that I used my laptop a lot, but I didn't realize how "addicted" I was until I didn't have it anymore. This past week hasn't been easy. It started last weekend: I had to do evaluations for the graduate students we interviewed. The evaluations were due Monday at 8 am. Faced with the choice to either sit in my office for hours and write evals or sit on my couch, watching TV while doing it, I picked the second option. But without a laptop that meant writing all the evaluations by hand. Now I'm not anti-writing by hand, but when I write fast, I don't have the nicest handwriting. Would everyone be able to read it? Probably not. So I spent some painful hours trying to write very nicely. And because I had procrastinated all weekend, I found myself staying up almost all of Sunday night in a desperate attempt to get all the evals done by the deadline.
The rest of the week wasn't any easier. When I left work at night, I couldn't do much without my laptop - I really had to leave work. "Good for you," you may say. "Stop being such a workaholic!" Well, yes, maybe that was a good thing. But I also didn't get much done this week. Toward the end of the week I realized that I'd fallen behind in several aspects of my job and decided to spend some extra hours in the office. I also haven't e-mailed any of my friends in a while and I just now (at 1:30 am on a Saturday night/Sunday morning) updating this blog.

How did I survive without a laptop before???

On a real conversation and a life outside work

2008-02-27T21:33:00.000-08:00

Last week, we had a band playing in my building. This new band had contacted me because they were doing a national college tour to promote their music and wanted to perform in my building. I like music and I've always had a thing for new artists...I just like supporting them and helping them as they're starting off. So of course I couldn't say no to this new band, especially after I listened to their music and really liked it.
Anyway, so this band came to my building. We had a pretty bad snowstorm that day and they were a little delayed. I thought, "Yay, everyone will be in the building and they'll love to come to our concert." Not so much. Sometimes I just don't understand my residents. Who says no to a free concert? But many of them did, so the crowd in the basement was pretty thin. I felt bad for the band, but I soon forgot all about that because I was just absolutely enjoying myself. I loved their music. And they were really nice, fun guys.
Three of my RAs and I invited them to come to one of our dining halls with us after the concert. We went, had food and just sat there and laughed and joked. It was AMAZING!

So since that concert, I've been obsessed with this new band - much to the amusement of my colleagues and friends.

But here's the thing: The music was great; the guys were really nice. But you also have to think about what's been going on in my life. I haven't had an entire weekend off since the beginning of the semester. I hung out with some colleagues occassionally, obviously spent lots of time to with my RAs and my students, but I hadn't hung out with anyone, who doesn't have anything to do with our university or Student Affairs, since winter break. And it was SO NICE! Just talking about non-work related things; having a normal conversation with guys, who have no idea what I do day in and day out. I didn't realize how much I missed it until I suddenly had this unexpected opportunity for a real conversation. It almost felt like I had a life outside work again. Hmmm, maybe I should try to do things like this more often....

A job or a leadership position?

2008-02-08T12:59:00.000-08:00

It's been an interesting week with lots of follow-up conversations with RAs and my grads. Overall, I think many of those 1-on-1 conversations have been helpful. Some have been eye-opening, not necessarily in a positive sense. For example, one RA wanted to argue with me over why we charged lock-out fees. He felt that he should be able to make that determination himself whether or not he wants to charge someone. You know, I'm not a fan of this lock-out policy either (I don't have any better suggestions either though), but if it's a policy and we as a staff agree to do it, then we also have to follow-through. Otherwise some RAs are the "mean" ones who charge residents and the other ones become the "cool" RAs, and that's just not fair!

After lots of reflection, I feel like it comes down to the big question: Is the RA position a job or a leadership position?

If you ask me, I'd say it's both. You have to treat it like a job: complete assignments on tasks, follow instructions, be on time, enforce policies that you personally may not always agree with, etc. Then, there's the leadership position aspect of having developmental conversations with your supervisor, pushing yourself to take it to the next level, making connections with residents, learning yourself and so on.
Looking through the position through just one lens (the job or the leadership position) just doesn't work.
But unfortunately, I feel like that's what a lot of my staff members have been doing lately. They use the "I was talking to a resident" line as an excuse for not getting administrative tasks done on time. Don't get me wrong: I love that they want to connect with residents and get to know them, but there's some other basic things that just need to happen. And in general, I feel like I'm much too lenient with those things anyway, giving second and third chances when things are turned in late, discussing with students how they can work on their time management and and and. What else do they want me to do?

But I think my staff and I are getting back on the right track. My grads and I came up with an activity for our meeting on Sunday. We will continue to discuss issues in 1-on-1's.
Please keep your fingers crossed for me that the meeting on Sunday goes over well. :)

What just happened?

2008-02-05T23:46:00.000-08:00

My staff and I participated in this "Improv Training" study. Basically, it was all about using the ideas behind improv (attitude of acceptance, no negativing, for the good of the group) to improv how we work together as a team. The training was long (3 hrs.) but the staff, in spite of not having been excited about going to it at first, actually enjoyed it and said they got something out of it.

The following staff meeting, I decided to talk about staff expectations. I felt that, as a staff, we had hit the "spring slump" where overall everything's still going okay but little things are starting to slide and staff members are losing motivation and drive. I had also heard some concerns from staff members about other staff members not following through on some tasks (e.g. collecting lock-out money, doing rounds when on duty).

The discussion started off pretty good. My grads and I challenged the staff to dig deeper into what their expectations were. For example, we didn't want them to just say that they wanted "respect," we wanted them to elaborate on what it means to show respect, what would be some actions that would show one staff member that another staff member is respecting them.
We started and I was happy with people's comments and how they were questioning and challenging each other. Of course, there were a few who said things like "why don't we just say 'open-minded'...it's all the same anyway" but I didn't feel like that was the overall attitude.
One of the staff members brough up the issue of "tolerance" vs. "acceptance" in an attempt to challenge us to move more toward acceptance. Some were having a hard time understanding the difference. There were some very obvious non-verbal cues showing that people didn't care or weren't paying attention anymore. The staff (and I was so proud of her for that!) pointed this out and from there on, it all went downhill.
Two days later, I still can't really explain what happened.
One staff member questioned why we were even talking about this. How would staff expectations affect our residents?
I tried to explain that some of us not living up to the expectations of the staff did have a negative affect on residents. I gave some examples - and maybe, in the heat of the moment, didn't pick the most significant examples. But we've been having problems with collecting lock-out money. Some staff members have been slacking, which is why we spent the past two weeks hunting down lock-out money (it costs $7.00 here if you lock yourself out) from September and October. Residents were frustrated with us; I spent hours trying to figure out what was even going on with the lock-out money. Granted, I could have paid more attention to it as well. But I guess what really frustrated me was that after I had asked them to start knocking on people's doors (which had been an expectations all along but had not happened), many of them just didn't do it. And they didn't even feel bad about it.
Well, from there everything got out of control. Staff members got defensive. They said things like, "if we are making an impact on someone's life and changing their life, why are we being evaluated on administrative tasks"...I tried to point out that watching football with a group of male residents isn't changing their life. Obviously I appreciate them having positive relationships with their residents, but in the end, we are here to be educators and to teach our residents something...and I know that's not always happening. Some of the RAs have done an amazing job incorporating our learning outcomes into their educational programs and following the curriculum, others have done the bare minimum (e.g. if the task was to organize a team builder with a reflection aspect, some played capture the flag without any follow-up conversation or debriefing).
I know what I just wrote may sound pretty harsh. I don't think I worded at as strongly during the meeting. I know, for a fact, I even said that I was proud of them and what we had accomplished so far and that we could have those conversations of how we could bring it to the next level - but that I wanted to bring it to the next level. That I didn't want to get complacent.
Oooo, that didn't sit well with them. Several staff members said it "hurt their feelings" that I suggested if they were just doing what they'd been doing all along was being complacent.
It was like they thought they were the best RAs on the face of the earth. The ironic part, of course, was that the RAs who thought that were the ones who were the ones slacking off and not taking things seriously.
I guess I got more frustrated than I should have. I probably should have stopped the conversation earlier and continued it in 1-on-1 conversation.
But I still don't understand how they could get offended at me saying that I wanted to take it to the next level?

I think we have accomplished a lot this year. And I'm much more satisfied with how we incorporated the living learning community into daily interactions, events and initiatives. But I think we still have a LONG way to go. I don't think corridor meetings are as effective as they could be - I think they are solely a way of information dissemination and when I tried to include experiential learning activities, not all of the RAs did them with their corridors (some having the dumbest excuses ever...like, 'oh i lost the handout you gave us and forgot that we were supposed to do that....hmmm, and that after we had talked about it for like 10 minutes at a staff meeting).

Anyway, I'm just getting more frustrated again. I think the challenge is how you get that feedback across to RAs, who think they're perfect. There are some, whom I give feedback, and they just shrug it off and I know they're not even going to consider it.
We have invented this "job jar"...if you're late or you miss a deadline, we will ask you to pick up some administrative task. Nobody loves having to pick a task from the job jar, but most of them do it. One of my RAs even, when she forgot something, came running into my office and was like, "okay, where the job jar? Let me pick something," before I could even say something to her. Others have very different reactions, ranging from annoyence to getting defensive when I remind them to pick up a job jar task.

I guess what it comes down to is just their attitude about the position. They've done a pretty good job all year and I just didn't expect several of them to "just not care" and I didn't expect them to be so full of themselves. Maybe I should have seen it coming...already during training, other staffs looked at us and said, "Oh, that staff thinks they're better than everyone else." I just saw the excitement my staff brought to the position and loved it. Somehow, that excitement and passion turned into arrogance.

On a positive note though, at least some of the staff members understood where I was coming from and agreed with my perspectives. Interestingly enough, those were the staff members who had been doing an outstanding job all year.

Okay, enough rambling. I will have to continue to do some damage-control over the next few days and I should probably get some sleep so I'm ready for it.

Being a returner

2008-01-31T22:01:00.000-08:00

Mood: blah

About a week ago, we had to submit our letters of intent. Tomorrow, we should be finding out where we're placed for next year. It's a big deal here because of our living learning communities. One community is just so different from another; your placement can make or break your experience.

I'm pretty confident that I will get to stay in my current living learning community. I haven't heard about anyone else being interested in it. I think I've done a decent job this year. And I just really don't think I could work anywhere else.

But enough about that: I've been thinking about what it's been like to be a "returner" this year (after all, I need to plan the returner meeting for April, where we'll talk about what it means to be a returner).
It's been nice to know the job. I wasn't nervous or anxious about new tasks (even though I would have never admitted that I was nervous last year). I was able to make some changes in my community. I could try out some new things with my staff.
In terms of my relationships with new staff? Well, during training and at the beginning of the semester, I always felt like I should be doing more, reaching out to them more, giving more advice. But when I tried, I often felt like they didn't necessarily want that advice, so I cut back and only answered when asked or when there was a bigger issue. I tried to be positive around them as not to taint their opinion of our institution and department from the very begining. But I also didn't want to lie. And when we were asked for feedback in team meetings, I was honest and mentioned the things that were frustrating me. That was tough at times because I felt like I was the only one on our team, who'd ever bring up a problem...well, it was me and my grad (also a returner). There was one more returner on the team, but he hardly ever says anything. I'm still struggling with this - knowing when to give feedback or how often. Sometimes it feels like it's a waste of time because nothing will change anything - then sometimes things change but I'm not sure if others like the change or if they dislike me for it (for example when I suggested that we actually do something during team meeting - professional development stuf for example - instead of just having check-ins and getting some basic info from our coordinator).
It'd be really interesting to hear what the other staff members think about me. Was I a "good" returner? Had I been helpful? Were there other things that I could have done?
I have no idea.

Well it's 1:30 a.m....so I should probably try and get some sleep.
Wish me luck for tomorrow (if the letters even come out on time...which, knowing our department, i doubt).

The Trip - Part 2

2008-01-20T16:23:00.000-08:00

Hello,

How's it going?

So the rest of the trip is kind of a blurr. Skiing with my family, parties with my friends, visiting grandparents, seeing "Rebecca" (this new musical with Uwe Kroeger and Wietske Van Tongeren) in Vienna, more hanging out with friends, etc. Family life isn't always easy - like so many families, we have our issues and problems - but they're family, you know.
And it was just really nice not being at work or anywhere near work.

It already seems like ages ago.

But here's a few things I learned during this vacation:

1) If we think it's hard to explain to Americans what we, as Student Affairs professionals do, it's nothing compared to explaining it to Austrians. And I think partially it's due to the wealth of different tasks that are part of our job. You may be able to explain one, but it'd take you forever to explain everything...and nobody wants to listen for that long.

2) Things change but they're not different.
Okay, that probably makes no sense. But here's what I mean: If you've gone from a place for four years, you think that everything will be different. But when you get there, some things may have changed - there's new buildings, people have moved - but in the end, it still feels the same.

3) True friends will always be true friends.
There's people we meet and we think they'll be your friends for life. A few years later, they're gone, no matter how hard you tried to stay in touch. Then there's those people, where - yes, you still have to put some work into staying in touch - but you're not the only one "working." And then you can put oceans between each other, but you'll always be there for each other - and when you get back together, things may have changed, but they're not different. :)

The Trip - Part 1

2008-01-12T23:34:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

I apologize for not having blogged in so long. I actually went back home to Austria to visit my family - for the first time in FOUR years. And then, less than a week ago (even though it feels like an eternity already) I returned to the US and have been swamped with work.

But let's start from the beginning.
When I went to Austria, I had to apply for a new visa since my old one had expired. In case you are not as familiar with immigration laws (which I definitely wouldn't be if I wasn't in this situation myself): You just need to have a valid work permit (in my case my H1B) to live and work in the US. However, to enter the country, you need a visa. If it expires while you're in the country, it doesn't matter...as long as that work permit is still valid. But if you leave the country and want to re-enter it, you need a new visa. Does that make sense?
To make a long story short, my visa had expired. I needed to get a new one (which you can only do in your country of citizenship).

I was definitely a little nervous about the whole process - even though I tried to deny those feelings in a hope of not making it worse. Not that there is really a reason why my visa application could have been denied, but you never know. And if I hadn't gotten the visa, I would suddenly have been unemployed, homeless and back in a country where Student Affairs doesn't even exist.

I flew to Munich, Germany, one of the closest airports to my hometown Bregenz in Austria. But instead of going home, I took the train to Vienna. The next morning was my appointment at the Consulate.

I tried to patiently wait in line. Ahead of me was a woman, who worked at some company in Boston, a man who was teaching at MIT, an older couple, and a young student. One after the other, we were called up to hand in our documents. Then, we were called - again one by one - for a brief interview. All the others ahead of me were just asked a few questions and were then told that their visa was approved and would be sent to them within the next few days.
I was starting to feel a bit more confident.
But then, when it was finally my turn, I was called over to a little more private interview area. Already not a good sign, I thought. Now I was just trying not to let myself freak out. The employee from the Consulate asked me how long I had been in the U.S. Then, he asked if I had applied for immigration status - or if anyone else had applied for me. I felt like he didn't believe me when I said that I had not applied (because I don't qualify for it...but I didn't tell him that). He asked a couple more questions about what I do; then he asked for my fingerprints. At this point, I was so nervous that when he said he needed my right hand, I put the left hand on the machine. Finally - after what seemed like an eternity - he said, "Well, we will have to check your records and look further into that. If we have any further questions, we will contact you and asked you to come in again."

My heart must have stopped for a second. I don't know how I managed to smile, say thank you, and walk out the door. I spent the next few hours trying to calm myself down and telling myself that everything would be okay. Hey, at least I had a lot of time to calm myself down since I was - once again - sitting in train and would be for 9 hours to get home.

Surprisingly enough, just a few days later, my passport with my new visa arrived in the mail. I didn't even know what to say when I got it.

Picture Perfect

2007-12-02T21:23:00.000-08:00

Mood: annoyed

Campus Events I attended this weekend: RHA Formal, Coffee Shop (Talent Show), Acapella Concert, NRHH Inductions

I was sitting in my office on Friday, when my Housing Manager stopped by. The Housekeeping staff had found a digital camera. Nice as they are, they decided to look at the pictures to try and figure out whose camera it was. And as they did, they noticed that the majority of the pictures depicted residents drinking in this building (a first-year hall and also a dry building).

I called our judicial office and asked them what to do. They suggested that I hold on to the camera for right now, meet with the students and then decide whether or not I wanted to file a complaint. I'm going to be honest; I didn't really love that answer. I wish they had just told me to document the situation. I mean, maybe I'm looking at it too much in black and white, but if I am aware of a policy violation, I feel that it is my responsibility to report it. I'd still have that conversation with the students, hoping they'll learn something from it, but I also think they'll learn a lot from having to deal with the consequences given to them by judicial.
I was walking back to my apartment and was in a rush - I think it was Saturday or maybe later on Friday (wow, it's scary that its only Sunday and I can't remember if this happened yesterday or the day before) - and one of the students stopped me. He asked if I had his camera. I told him it depended on what his camera looked like. After he identified his camera, I explained that the Housekeeping staff had found it and had looked at the picture in an attempt to identify whose camera it was and found pictures that showed illegal activity on the camera. I asked him what he thought about this. He denied having broken any policies, didn't seem to understand why I thought there was a problem with him drinking underage in a dry building, and just wanted his camera back. I explained that he could have the camera back as soon as the judicial case had been closed, but that I needed to hold on to it while I was writing the report and then I needed to check with our judicial office to see whether or not they needed it as evidence or if they could release it to him. But I emphasized that he'd get his camera back as soon as we could give it back to him.

Well, after that brief and pointless conversation, I decided that I definitely wanted to document the situation. In addition, the roommate of this student had stopped by my office earlier to tell me that he wanted a room change because his roommate was engaging in illegal activities. The roommate also hinted that drugs were involved and that he was afraid that just from being in the room and inhaling second-hand smoke he may not pass a drug test right now. Of course, the roommate didn't feel comfortable pressing charges or even calling a staff member next time this happened. He just wanted to move.
Earlier that week, one of my RAs had also told me that he was concerned about a couple of rooms on his corridor (this one included) because shady activities had been going on, but he had been unable to catch those students.

I'm not all about "getting students in trouble," but I am about abiding by the law and if I know that illegal activities are going on and I finally find a way to prove it, I will do something about it.

I e-mailed all the students in the pictures and told them that I wanted to meet with them on Monday. Then, I didn't think more about the incident - after all we had another documentation last night and all these events going on. But today, I get a phone call from our police department. Apparently the student had called and said that I had taken his camera and was refusing to give it back. I explained the situation to the police. They kept questioning why I was "witholding personal property" until I explained that the judicial office had asked me to hold on to it for right now. Then, they accepted that I could hold on to the camera for right now, but still questioned if I was doing the right thing by documenting someone based on something that I had seen in pictures.

I know that's a tough question. Institutions are struggling with what to do with Facebook and all these other online sites. I've spent some time thinking about all this myself. And here's what I think: I don't think we should go looking for it, but if we find something, we have a responsibility to do something about it. If I walk past a room and I hear noise and the clinking of bottles, I don't ignore it either, do I?
I really think institutions need to come up with some guidelines and policies, so that staff have something to base those "judgment calls" off.

But back to my story: I went to our NRHH Induction. And then, just after I had returned, I got another phone call, again from our police department, again asking me why I hadn't given the student his camera back. And once again I explained the situation, and once again my decisions were questioned over and over again.

And this isn't the first time I'm having issues with our police department. Early in the semester, we asked them to come to an alcohol awareness event and instead of explaining the consequences of bad choices, as we asked them to do, the officers kept going on about how they used to get trashed and one even told the students how she passed out in a ditch once. And then they talked about how, if students are really drunk, they'll just take them home and there won't be any consequences (our ResLife department does not have such a rule, so whenever that happens, the police will drop off these highly intoxicated students and we will then end up documenting them for intoxication and look like the bad guys).
Just a few weeks later, one of my residents was caught smoking pot - he had paraphenalia and a significant amount of pot on him, and the police just gave him a warning. I had my staff document the situation, so at least he had to go through our judicial system, but once again we looked like the bad guys.
Then, I find out the same student as well as several others were caught by a police officer smoking pot outside and the officer just gave them a warning. Since we didn't find out about it until much later, there was nothing I could do. I wonder how many warnings they give...will they realize after 100 warnings that the student doesn't get the message or will 99 do it?
Oh and let's not forget about the police officer keying into my apartment the friday morning of Thanksgiving Break at 4 AM because my window was open and they wanted to secure it and didn't realize I was there (even though they know that advisory staff stay around over break).
Oh and did I mention that all day today, they would call my office phone - which I don't pick up on weekends - then my home phone and then my personal cell phone. My personal cell phone is FOR EMERGENCY USE only!!! An emergency is a student death, something HUGE...not some student complaining because he doesn't want to face the consequences of his actions. It's the weekend!!! I already had a million events to go to...at least allow me during those few hours I have without work!

So much for the police being your friend and helper....

Well, I guess I should go to bed. Especially now that I get to wake up extra early to turn in this incident report and the camera to our judicial office before my first meeting. Oh joy!

Let me do my job...

2007-11-22T20:34:00.000-08:00

Mood: content

Book I'm currently reading: First Daughter

It's Thankgiving (at least for another half hour). Unlike most of my American readers, I did not spend the day with family, eating too much food and celebrating. Instead, I woke up relatively early but decided to stay in bed and read (Girl at Sea). I took a break from reading to watch some Saved by the Bell, then took a nap, then read some more. In between I had a late breakfast (actually it was more like a late lunch...but I had waffles, so that counts as breakfast, righ?), then read some more. I watched Ugly Betty and Grey's, while eating dinner (vegetable lasagna and ice cream cake). I talked to one person all day - one of my RAs who called to check up on me...how cute! ;)
Now I'm back to reading. I've finished Girl at Sea and moved on to First Daughter, both from the "Young Adult" section in the local library. I rarely read adult novels - maybe the occassional classic here and there - but usually I like to stick to teen or young adult books. They're just more entertaining.

I'm definitely enjoying the few days away from work. Even though I didn't leave over break, it's nice not having to get up at a set hour, spending hours in the office, walking around the building, talking to students, etc. Originally, I was supposed to cover Thanksgiving Break duty since the breakhousing we offer to students is in my building (two rooms with tons of bunkbeds and absolutely no privacy), but I managed to get someone else to cover for me. It just wasn't worth it for me - yeah, so maybe I would have gotten an extra $200 for covering those four days, but I don't need money - what I need is a break.

Work has been "interesting" lately, to say the least. I had a very strange conversation with my two supervisors at our last 2-on-1, a conversation that left me not wanting to work here for another day. It had started with a conversation prior to that meeting, during which one of them had asked me if I was planning on coming back for another year and I explained that I was, mostly because of immigration laws and all this visa application hassle. I mean, my current H1B visa allows me to work here, at this institution in this specific job. I just got this H1B a few months ago. If I were to look for another job, I'd have to go through the whole visa application process again - with very little chance of actually getting a new work permit in time to start a new job for the new school year (since it takes several months and most ResLife departments don't make hiring decisions until April or May and training usually starts in July or August...it could work but would be tight) and espeically with not being able to leave the country while my application was pending, which would mean goodbye to my summer plans (I want to go home and spend some time with family and friends, since I haven't been able to do that in years). I'm just not willing to give up those summer plans right now. And besides, while I don't love the department I'm working for, I really enjoy the time I get to spend with my RAs and my students and I truly believe in my living learning community theme and feel like there is still a lot left for me to accomplish. So granted, I always feel like a black cloud descends upon me when I enter the central office, but hey, at least I only have to go to the office three or four times a week.

But back to the conversation with my supervisors: Basically they encouraged me to think about whether or not I was happy here and if I wasn't, I should look for other jobs. I tried to explain the whole visa situation and they said that this shouldnt' stop by and it could easily be worked out. It just showed such ignorance about the whole situation. I'm sorry; maybe they thought they were being supportive; but it didn't come off that way. It sounded like they were trying to get rid of me, to push me out. And it was obvious that they had no clue about the realities of my immigration status.
And then they said the most hurtful thing of all...they suggested that I better leave here if I'm not happy anymore, instead of staying too long and then not being able to get any positive references. What was that suppoed to mean? Did that mean that they wouldn't give me a good reference if I asked them?
I have worked my a** off these past year and a half. I have developed a whole new curriculum for my building that's taken my living learning community to a whole new level. There is actually learning occuring in my building! My staff has done a fabulous job, my students overall are enjoying their experience here. We've addressed issues in the building in an appropriate and timely manner. I've put a lot of time and effort into the committee I'm chairing. I go to all NRHH meetings and events unlike one of my co-advisors, who happens to be "sick" every other week. I'm not perfect, but I try... and I think I can say, without sounding conceited, that I have done a pretty good job so far.

Here's what bothers me: It feels like my personal life is being evaluated. At the beginning of the year, I kept hearing, "You are so reserved; you don't share things;" then I tried to share a few things and now they are being held against me. I was better off when I lied and said I was perfectly fine.
For example, the whole conversation about "balance:" If I don't have balance in my life because I have decided to give my all to my job for the next couple of years, then that is my choice. As long as my lack of balance doesn't affect my ability to do my job well - and it doesn't, on the contrary, it has allowed me to be a lot more successful because I am more visible in the building and spend more time planning and organizing things for my community - then this is none of my supervisors' business.

Don't go assuming that you know anything about me! You don't know what goes on in my head. Even for a workaholic like me, it's not always about work - sometimes I may look down or be distracted because of personal stuff, things that I do not have to and do not feel comfortable sharing with you. I don't need fake sweetness and care when I know that everything I say will just be used against me later. So just leave me alone and let me do my job!

Too much to do, too little time

2007-11-08T18:40:00.000-08:00

Mood: drained, exhausted

Currently watching: Grey's Anatomy

Sorry for being MIA for so long. It's been crazy to say the least. Even now, I have an endless to-do list. But Grey's is the one show I allow myself to watch and I feel like I have a fever (I'd rather not check because it's not like I can miss work tomorrow anyway), so I figured I deserve a little break.

I've been struggling with fitting in everything: academic advising (this week was registration for first-year students, so I've been bombarded with last minute questions), the usual ResLife stuff (Staff Meetings, 1:1's), a huge load of judicials (at least compared to other colleagues), NRHH, chairing the Adviser Training Committee, teaching a Leadership course and trying to give this whole Living Learning Community thing some structure for next semester. I usually start work at 9 AM. I'm in the office or in meetings all day. In the evenings, I either have staff meeting or corridor meetings (we've had to address some alcohol and safety concerns) or programs (we've also had lots of those). I usually get stuck talking to some residents (answering more advising questions or just helping with other random things) and then it's about 9 or 10 by the time I get back to my apartment. I'm usually pretty tired and drained by that time, but work isn't over yet. I hardly ever get any time to work on projects and other tasks during the day, so that's what I do at night. Personal time hasn't existed for the past month. Sleeping mostly happens on the weekends.

I'm not trying to complain. I know I do some of it to myself by being an overachiever and not being able to deal with things not being perfect. But part of it is just this job.

I feel like, as long as everything goes as planned, I'm able to handle it. But when something goes wrong, everything falls apart.

But complaining and whining won't help, so let's talk about something else.

Hmmm, how about my LLC: The first semester in CHANGE and of my Residential Curriculum has gone over pretty well. My staff likes the structure and direction the curriculum provides. I like knowing that there are some educational components that we're getting across to residents. Yes, there are definitely some things I need to revise. For example, we had students from our Leadership class do corridor workshops - having all of those over a very brief period of time was a bad idea. There was just an overload of programming going on in the building. Also, having all the corridor do their community service project the same month provided some challenges.
Once all this craziness slows down - who knows when that'll be but it has to happen some time - I will revise the curriculum from this semester for next year. But first, I need to come up with a curriculum for second semester.
We're planning a Spring Break Service Trip. It's all getting a little stressful because I should have booked it a long time ago - but Habitat for Humanities makes you pay for the trip if you have to cancel it or don't have enough participants - so I don't want to do so unless I really know who is all going. I'm also trying to get funding from various sources, which has worked out pretty well so far, but it's just been a lot of work. Hopefully in a week or so I'll have this whole trip figured out.

Okay, now I really need to get some rest. I'll write more soon. :)

Dumbledore rocks my world

2007-10-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

So, this entry won't have much to do with Student Affairs and my job - except that anything can be related to Student Affairs because we love to talk about diversity, right?

Okay, so I was doing a round in the building and I ran into one of my RAs who told me that she just heard that Dumbledore (from Harry Potter) was gay. She had to tell me because she knew I'd be very excited. And oh, I was! I had to immediately check Mugglenet.com to see if it was true. And then, I made the big mistake of reading some of the reader's comments. Granted, many were positive - some were at least trying to be positive - and others were just disgusting. Someone said that they didn't like the serious anymore and would never be able to look at Harry Potter the same way.
The one comment that really got me thinking was one by a mother saying that as a mother, she would have expected JKR to dodge the question because she didn't want her children to hear that. Because sexual orientation brings up sex and kids shouldn't know about that. Now, I'm not about to explain the details of sex to five-year olds. But kids also see that there's a mommy and daddy...so why not tell them that some families have two daddies or two mommies. You don't need to talk about sex to explain that. You can just explain to your kids that Dumbledore, if he got married, would marry a guy. No big deal.
I think that would give you a great opportunity to talk to your children about how there are different kinds of couples and families.

Was it necessary to release Dumbledore's sexual orientation? Hmmm, maybe not. But why did we all assume that he was straight? JKR never said that either. Would it be such a big deal if she told us that Dumbledore liked vanilla ice cream? That's just as irrelevant to the story as that he was gay, but as fans we would have all been excited about learning more details about our favorite characters. And that's all JKR did...give us another detail about a character.

I know I will definitely have my children read Harry Potter - and they will know for sure that Dumbeldore is gay and what it means to be gay.

The Perfect Staff

2007-10-14T01:34:00.000-07:00

Mood: exhausted but content

Last movie I watched: The Perfect Man (Do you think there is a perfect man out there for me? My romantic me says yes; the realistic me questions it.)

This week could have been pretty bad. Let's be honest; it was pretty bad. I didn't get everything done that I needed to do last weekend - so I was up late Sunday night trying to get ready for the week - which of course meant that I started Monday exhausted, tired and stressed. That night, my staff and I talked about staff development - we had set aside Saturday, the 13th for staff development - and it turned out that several of them had made different plans and in the end we decided to just have breakfast together at 9 AM on a Saturday. I was NOT excited! How could they make plans when we had said at the beginning of the semester that we'd set that date aside for staff development?

The week continued; it was stressful. I didn't get all my advising notes done. I stayed up late almost every night working on different things. There was just not enough time! My apartment became more and more of a mess (it still is now) and it's made me feel more and more unsettled and annoyed and frustrated.

Then, Thursday night, my Community Council was decorating for the Homecoming Decorating Contest. They had made this beautiful banner with our mascot on it. Serioulsy, I'd never seen such a beautiful banner. It was AMAZING! They put it up around 9 PM. Later that night, I was in my apartment when my grad called me - "the banner was gone." The string had been cut and there was no trace of the banner. We were so upset. I felt awful for my Community Council. I also felt like it was an attack against us - our hall had just won this competition between all the residence halls and I've heard lots of "talk" about my building and the craziness of our staff and residents...what people don't get is that it's a very positive craziness...yes, they're loud and sometimes a bit obnoxious but they're also engaged and excited and just fun.
I decided to make a new banner for them. Obviously it wouldn't look nearly as good as the one they had made; but it'd be better than nothing. Between that banner though and having to finish up some work, I was up almost all night (2 hours of sleep to be exact). So yeah, obviously Friday was a rough day.

But then, my staff made it all better. Two of them called me that evening - very mysteriously - and insisted that I came back to the building (I was at dinner with a couple other FYAs). When I got back, they had gotten all dressed up and had flowers and it was just so cute!!!

Last night and tonight I hung out with them for a bit - just chatting and playing around and having fun. It just reminded me of what I like about my job.
The breakfast this morning was also fun. I wasn't excited about being up that early on a Saturday - but they made pancakes and we hung out and talked and it was just nice. I get lonely sometimes - with my family being so far away and now having moved away from my friends from undergrad and grad schools and not really having made that many new friends yet. But when I get to hang out with my staff, it's like I have a family again, a group of people that actually cares about me. I often feel like I don't fit in with the professional staff members - but with my RAs, I can be myself and I know they'll still love me. :-) What would I do without them???

I don't know if there's a "perfect man" out there for me, but I know there is a perfect staff - not perfect in the sense that they do everything right and are always on top of their work...we struggle at times and disagree...but they're perfect in that they make me love my job and know how to put a smile back on my face when I've had a rough day.

Parents and Ethics

2007-10-02T18:46:00.000-07:00

Mood: drained

Chocolate or Vanilla: in regards to ice cream or pudding, definitely vanilla...but I love Austrian chocolate :)

I think we should send parents through a mandatory ethics course when their children come to college. Seriously, sometimes I just can't believe the things these parents say. It does explain their children's behaviors though.

In the past few weeks, I've had some "interesting" parent phone call. First there was one from a mom, who wanted me to move out her son's roommate because her son thinks that the roommate is gay. Besides the fact that this student has not come out to anyone and there is absolutely no reason to assume that he is gay, this is clearly discrimination. So I explained to mother in a very nice and patient way that at our institution we do not move students based on sexual orientation because that would be discrimination. The mother continued to insist that nobody should have to live with someone who identifies as gay and even hinted that I may not be "typical."
Way to go, mom...let's all teach our children how to discriminate! I mean, I'm not saying I'm perfect...I have my own issues and may not be as open-minded toward every single social group...but if someone clearly explains to me that something I'm suggesting is discrimination, I would at least hesitate for a second and re-evaluate my request.
But not this lovely mom. I even suggested that if there were certain behaviors that made the student uncomfortable, we could address these behaviors (while on the inside, I was boiling and would have loved nothing more than to hang up), but oh no, that wasn't enough.

And then today...another fabulous parent phone call. This mother was complaining that her student was documented for an incident and now had to attend a substance abuse course and pay for that course. The mother seemed to be under the impression that her son had been drinking outside of the residence hall and then just came back intoxicated (which in itself is a violation...he's not 21!!!). In reality (which of course I couldn't say), the student had been caught smoking marihuana in the building and had also been found with paraphenalia.
So I explained to the mom how our judicial process works. At my institution, I actually don't deal with alcohol or drug violations, but those are taken care off through our Judicial Office. So all my staff and I did was document the incident. And between us, the student was lucky that he didn't get arrested! Because he should have been but the police decided to turn the case over to the RAs (which they definitely shouldn't have...but that's a whole other story).
So here were the mom's "ethical" suggestions:
1) Since my staff only "catches" those studens who violate policies before 2 am (my staff stops doing rounds at 2 am), we shouldn't document those students because the really "bad kids" don't come back until 3:30 or 4 am.
2) And after I explained that my staff and I don't assign charges or decide sanctions in these cases, she suggested we should have just not turned in the documentations.
How's that for ethical???

Seriously, what are you teaching your children???

A Weekend in the Life of...

2007-09-22T16:02:00.000-07:00

Mood: excited

To Do List: shower, ironing, grading papers, getting some sleep

It's Sunday evening, or actually Monday morning already, and as always, I'm asking myself, "Where did the weekend go?"

It was a quite eventful weekend, but not a very productive one. Well, after last weekend where we had Community Council Training on Saturday and a Leadership Conference on Sunday, I deserved a little time to relax and do nothing. So Friday, after a long day of meetings and advising, I went to a broomball game (broomball is this weird sport played on ice in special broomball shoes and with these little stick-broom things...similar to ice hockey...i'm not sure how to explain it). A couple of my residents have an intramural team (well, there's actually several teams in my building) and named it after me, so I figured I should show my support. I have to admit, it was kind of flattering to have a broomball team named after me...haha.
Well, I met one of the other staff members there and we hung out watching the students play broomball for a while. Then, we went to the Student Union and watched a movie there. I got back and hung out with my RAs who were on duty. We just talked. I'd been so busy that past week that I hadn't really seen them in a while, so it was really nice just to catch up.

On Saturday, I slept in late...after all it was the first time in weeks when I had a chance to sleep in. Then, I hung around the apartment for a while, watching TV, not really doing anything. At night, we went out to one of the state parks in the area and hung out at a friend's house (he works at the state park) and celebrated a couple of birthdays from that past week. It was pretty nice. I have to admit though, sometimes I have more fun hanging out with my RAs than with colleagues. I just feel like certain colleagues judge me for the fact that I don't drink alcohol. You would think that in Student Affairs - a field where we all try to educate our residents about safe and responsible drinking and making smart choices - we would be supportive of staff members who choose not to drink. Yeah, not so much. Half the time, I don't even get invited. And when I do, it's just kinda awkward because people tend to make a big deal out of me not drinking. Last night was actually much better than it had previously been. I think people here are slowly getting used to the fact that I don't drink. And maybe I'm the one making it awkward sometimes...but after dealing with drunk and stupid students I just don't have much patience for colleagues who get trashed. I mean, haven't we grown out of that phase yet? It's not like we're still 18 years old! But then again, think of the social activities at our regional and national conferences and some of the behavior you can witness there.... Enough said!
I know sometimes I'm also very quiet at those events. It's just that I'm usually thinking about a million things. And I just haven't found that "soulmate" here yet that I can just talk to and vent and be totally honest with. And until you have that kind of relationship, it's just hard to talk sometimes, you know.
But no, Saturdaynight was definitely fun.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell you about the most thing that happened Saturday. I bought my plane tickets to go to Austria over winter break. $700! But it'll be worth it just to get out of here and to see my friends and family again. I haven't been at home in four years. How crazy is that??? So it's definitely exciting that I'm going to get home. It's also a little scary. My family and I sometimes fight and that's never good...I never mean to, it just somehow happens. And I really don't want to fight...not when we only see each other every few years. But how can you stop that?
Anyway, I'm not trying to think about that...I'm just trying to be excited. :)
I e-mailed my friends to give them the dates of when I'll be home and we've already started talking about what we wanted to do together and when we could hang out. I can't wait!!!

Oh yeah, I guess since I'm writing about my "weekend," I should also mention SUNDAY. I guess that's part of the weekend for normal people, huh? Not so much here. I had six advising appointments today. In between, I talked to a couple of my RAs...just really catching up on things and trying to get a heads start for the week. And now it's late at night/early in the morning and I feel like I still have all these things that I should have been doing. Is it Fall Break yet? Or even better...WINTER BREAK IN AUSTRIA!!! :)

Frustrations

2007-09-15T17:23:00.000-07:00

Mood: Content

If your life was made into a Hollywood, who would you want to play you and why: Alicia Silverstone because she is an animal rights activitist and overall a pretty good role model for a Hollywood star (e.g. she refused to lose weight even though people were criticizing her weight...when really she looked just fine). OR if it was a musical, it'd have to Hilary Duff just because I like her and she can sing.

I'm sitting on my couch, watching TV (A Cinderella Story with Hilary Duff), working on a bulletin board, downloading music (legally, of course) and updating this blog. Oh and I'm also making dinner (vegan nuggets and fries). If that isn't multi-tasking, I don't know what is. :)

Here's one of my goals for this semester: Learn how to better manage frustration. I have a tendency to let frustration get to me...and then I'm all mad and annoyed and it just drags me down. And in the long run, all this being mad and worrying doesn't help. So I want to learn how to accept the frustrations of life, try to fix them but not let them bother me.

I'm not doing so well...but somehow, I've been upset and frustrated all week...but somehow today I've managed to just kind of put all those negative thoughts aside and I'm feeling pretty content.

But let me tell you all about my frustrations:
First there were the Community Council elections. My two graduate assistants (one advises the Community Council in our building, the other one has taken on the council in another building) had to deal with all that drama but as their supervisor, I felt their frustration. So this Central Staff member offered to help with putting the elections online...they were just supposed to send him the info the day before elections. They did and then the day of election comes and there's no online elections, no e-mail sent out to residents, no information for us on what's going on. Residents are knocking on all of our doors asking what's going on. Remember, I am in the CHANGE - Emerging Community Leaders - Living Learning Community...so at least some of my residents are taking these council elections really serious.
Well, the grads and I decided we'd just figure out this online election thing ourselves. So the grads set up those elections, e-mail our residents and extend the deadline for one day. That day, Thursday (one day after elections were supposed to happen) at 4:30 PM (our elections ended at 5 PM) a second e-mail comes out with a link to vote in elections and a new deadline (Friday) AND it looks like the e-mail is coming from my grad's e-mail address. Turns out, our central staff member did finally get around to setting up those elections and just sent them out without checking in with us...a day and a half late.
You can imagine the confusion amongst residents. Both of my grads sent out clarification e-mails in an attempt to save the situation. It worked alright for our building. It didn't work so well in the other building and there had to be a re-count and lots more e-mails. My poor grad (she's a first-year and new to ResLife) had her first Academic Advising Workshop (workshops we do for each corridor, explaining some of the basics about academic advising to them) and one of the residents says, "Oh, you're the person who's been sending us those 120 e-mails." What a great way to start the semester and her career in ResLife for her! (*sarcasm*)

And there was nothing I could do...other than listen to them vent and trying to help them save the situation from turning worse. But of course they were worried about looking like incompetent fools in front of the residents and there really wasn't much we could do to change that. Argh!!!
I mean, I appreciate the offer of the Central Staff member to help with online elections. But if you won't have time to do them, then don't volunteer! Or if something comes up and you can't get them done, at least send us an e-mail saying, "Hey, sorry, they'll be up tomorrow." And do NOT send e-mails from our e-mail address (I still don't know how he managed to do that).

Still trying to get over that frustration, I'm sitting in my office on Friday afternoon, when I get an e-mail around 4:30 PM about Senator Training (one of the positions on our councils). And guess what the e-mail stated? Senator Training is TODAY at 5 PM or there's a section session tomorrow. Wow, we get a whole 30 minute notice...wasn't that nice. So there we go again...my grad's trying to hunt down the student praying that he'll be free at 5. Fortunately he was. But how professional does that make us look when we tell him about training half an hour before it starts?

Of course everyone else was to blame. And I'm not saying it's the RHA's Advisor's fault. But it's one of those things you can predict as an advisor (apparently they knew the date, just not the specific time and location...and supposedly that information was in the packets handed out by RHA members to students at Info sessions - info sessions nobody attended by the way since we all had our own info sessions because we weren't told until last minute when the RHA one's would be....but this vital information wasn't in the Elections Packets e-mailed to advisors, which were the ones we, of course, used). I know that when you work with student organization, you have to find a balance between stepping in and "saving" them and letting them fail and learn from those experiences. But when all of your advisory staff and the success of 36 student organizations depend on something getting done on time, you need to be a little more hands-on as an advisor. Otherwise, you're just setting us all up for failure. And it's not like it'll be RHA's fault when Community Councils aren't working out. No, it'll be the fault of the advisors.

WHAT A MESS!!!

And what makes this even more frustrating for me is that I worked with RHA last year. I went through that whole process. And my co-advisor and I came up with all these things we wanted to make sure happened this summer and mistakes from the past that we wanted to avoid. And what happened to all that work? Nothing. It's like we're repeating all the mistakes from the past. Okay, maybe it's not that bad...there's some things the students have improved on their own. But there's just a lot more that the advisors could have been doing to support them and make this a truly successful year. And once they're off to the right start, they could step back and let them figure out things on their own.
I'm not advocating for doing their work for them. But maybe guiding them to set earlier deadlines, so when things don't get done, you can still work with them to fix it.

Okay, I'm gonna be really really honest here...part of this frustration is that I'm torn. Half of me wants RHA to succeed this year (because I love those students...I know how much they want this and how much RHA means to them...and they're fabulous...they just need a little guidance and support) and then the other half wants them to fail miserable. Because it would serve the department right for not giving RHA to me.

*Shrug* Like I said, I need to learn to better manage my frustrations. So let's not think about RHA right now but get back to work on this exciting Saturday night (yeah, so much for balance...I worked today and I have to work tomorrow...and not by choice or any slacking/procrastinating on my part). *Deep breath*
It'll be alright!