Conferencing!

So next week I am heading to a regional conference (NASPAWestern Regional Conference) in Portland, OR.

I am super excited! I loved NASPA Western Reg in Long Beach in 2008, so I am thinking this is going to be great! Plus I need a break! Just over the midterm hurdle (although I didn't have any!) and looking to something refreshing!

I just checked the weather and it is going to rain the whole time! Shocking for Portland, I know!

So I have been researching what to wear and how to pack it all! Thank goodness for the ladies at academichic (http://www.academichic.com/)! They have so many great posts and two espeicallly about conference wear!
http://www.academichic.com/2009/03/19/academichic-travels-a-conference-with-e/
http://www.academichic.com/2009/04/02/the-spread/

Enjoy and pack light!

Stress is a state of mind...

My eye was twitching for 3 weeks straight. Probably due to all the things I have been trying to juggle at the same time. Fortunately some of the most stressful things have been working themselves out. We just finished a big event for one of my class projects. It was great to help the community and work with my cohort but I am glad that the day is over and now all we have to do is write about it.
I have found that stress and grad school seem to go hand in hand. Which is exciting (insert sarcasm)! So now I stress about work, school, papers, family, friends, group work, money, coworkers, pretty much anything! To say I am a worry wort is an understatement! I feel it is in my bones to worry! After all I am an older sister who at a young age developed a concern for others as well as an fear that I missed out on something!
So in the spirit of missing things I am have recently been feeling super nostalgic and missing the undergrad experience. Maybe it is because I felt like that was a challenging time but in reflection it was an exciting time. Grad school is exciting and challenging. I am having a great time getting to know my class mates.

So now I resolve to enjoy grad school.
To be over involved. To not get bothered by the stress. To be in the moment, enjoying it.
Because you are only in grad school once!

Not from a cookie cutter

Today I helped a some fellow Student Affairs graduate students by letting them interview me about leadership. I remembered being in their shoes last year... I can't believe it has only been a year since I started grad school. It seems like a lifetime ago and yesterday all at once. I had so many reflections all at once.
They asked about my philosophy of higher education, which is that no one should feel education is not an option and no one route is right. My path to where I am, I feel, was predestined. Every experience feels purposeful and has led me to where I am.
They also asked what do I hope to see in higher education in the next 5 years. I said that I hope the system as a whole will be more inclusive and embracing of diversity. I hope it is a broader converstaion then ethnicity. I hope we can talk about and support all types of students because these are the ones we serve. Students are publicly and silently coming from so many experiences. Dealing with issues like race, culture, gender, sexual orientation, religion, mental health, veteran status, undocumented status, alternative education, special needs students, on top of what is already being faced in the field of higher education can be over whelming and leave students feeling unheard and unsupported. I feel like people see me and think they know all they need to know, but like any other person there is so much more then meets the eye. I am not from a cookie cutter and I shouldn't expect students to always be from a cookie cutter.

Am I destined to always be one step behind?

In my morning blog reading, I read a post by Tavi (@StyleRookie), a fabulous teen blogger who I wished I was half as funny as! Tavi was talking about her joy to be "one of them" with her iTouch and then low and behold the new latest thing is out! I can relate to this. I constantly feel like I am one step (or in some cases one mile) behind the latest and greatest. Every time I get a phone, iPod, computer, flash drive, or car then next best thing is announced in a manner of 2 weeks.
For example: My first cell phone was this hurky nextel all black thing that was about 2 inches thick and no color screen. I was soo happy to have a cell phone but then I looked around. It was like I had a Zack Morris cell phone. Everyone had their Razrs and could slide them in their pockets. I wanted to slide my phone in my pocket, but the stupid rubber grip would get caught and then the phone fell to the floor and bounced bringing even more attention to my huge cell phone! Then I noticed that they could take pictures and send them to friends... What? When did phones do that? After some time I got a new phone the Razr but then it wasn't cool anymore. Then my mom gave me her Blackberry Pearl. Finally I was cool! Then it stopped working and I had to go back to the Razr! NOOOO!!!!! It was the sadest day ever. Within a matter of days I was at the store buying a new Blackberry and I realized why I never have the latest and greatest. It cost too much and the first gen products tend to have so many issues.
I am still using my first gen Blackberry Pearl Flip but it is having problems now too. I am sure I will be getting a new phone soon and I am still undecided about what to get. I am sure that it will be fun and most likely not the coolest thing ever!

Fieldwork is...

A great opportunity
Exciting
Nerve racking when already working a 40 hr week
A chance to see another career
Did I mention exciting?

I have to complete 200 hours by winter break... That's 16 weeks! So the math comes to 12.5 hours a week.
So with 40 hours a week working.
Class on Wednesday nights 4-10.
that leaves me fieldworking from 5:30-8:30pm 4 days a week! Plus random 1 hour lunch meetings throughout the semester!
So now that I have put it like that it seems doable .... ish....

Okay I did 1.5 hours today
and I will being doing a 1 hour tour tomorrow!
so that is 2.5 hours done and 197.5 left to go!

Happy Fall all!

Cabbages and Kings

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

The Walrus and The Carpenter, from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872
By Lewis Carroll

Currently I am working on creating a compiled listing of events, organizations, resources, and trainings for Student Affairs professionals for HELO. I have been searching for some resources to pull from and via the Student Affairs Collaborative, I found this listing of blogs in every SA field. I was so excited to see so many SA bloggers. I think SA bloggers need to have a more viable face in SA community.

I remember starting in my grad program. I was looking for some places where people where talking about what I was learning in an applicable sort of way. The first blog that I found was Eric Stoller's. I immediately added it to my Google reader! Since then I have added several others and now participate in #SAChat on Twitter. Being able to incorporate current events into my perspective of Student Affairs has helped me think more critically and bridge connections outside of my work in grad school.

Summer 'down time'

On the down spin of a 4 week break in my graduate program. With one year under my belt, I feel amazing. My program is great (yippee for Challenge and Support, go Sanford go!), my cohort is AMAZING, the classes and faculty consistently exceed my expectations, SA and Higher Ed events are inspiring and motivating. I know I am in the right profession and at the right time, in history and in my life. I have some professional experiences leading into the program and have had time to reflect on my undergrad experiences.
I guess I am feeling that all this Challenge and Support is draining! I am SO mentally tired, but I want more. :) Learning never stops.
I am grateful for the break, but feel that I need to keep expanding my knowledge base. So rather then pull out a text to reread, I have started tweeting. Yep twitter is my new addiction. I have had an account for a year or more. I faze in and out using it. From Ed Cabellon, I found the SA Blog/Collaborative and #sachat on twitter. It is great to get involved in conversations and watch other SAPs talk about daily life! In my first day following the discussion everyone was talking about major retailers promoting underage drinking through end-cap displays! Exciting to be apart of the future of SAPs and HE and to see it all happening online! :)
Back to my obsession...
Tweeted about my MS program having us take an abbreviated MBTI and also the StrengthsFinder!

It's about time

So I created this blog a long time ago. I thought that I would be able and motivated to blog my grad school and developmental experiences. It wasn't until I became the IT coordinator for the Higher Education Leadership Organization (HELO), this is a student organization for the students in the Master's in Higher Education program as CSU Fullerton, that I saw the need for me to blog.
In the last year I have, out of necessity learned to use lots of web 2.0-3.0 technology. I started being a power Google user (multiple Gmail accounts, Google Reader, Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Scholar, Google Books, iGoogle, Google Talk, Google Mobile, Blogger, Google Calendar, to name a few). I have 3 blogger blogs, personal (GlueGirl), school (This one), and an Eportfolio (For school). I have 3 Tumblr accounts (Jaimeiscrafty, HEInspire, and JMedesigns). I tweet @jaimeiscrafty & @helo_csuf. I manage the HELO website. I love Flickr. This is just a little bit of my love of tech. I had to turn the web off on my BB pearl flip because I was WAY too distracted by it.
SOOO All of that rambling and linking over with, I just saw a tweet about the lack of women in student affairs who blog or tweet about technology. Kristen is getting together with others to create a group of Women in SA on Tech. I say great idea! Let's get talking or typing!