Sparks

This past week was a lot. But it was a good a lot. (Hey, my intro lines can't all be winners OK)

As I mentioned last week, I was in Louisville for the ACPA conference, which was amazing. Besides seeing some very interesting, powerful, enlightening, and thought-provoking presentations, I also attended several social events (read networking opportunities) and really hope to get more involved over the course of the next year. And not just for job potential, but because I genuinely enjoyed attending things like the West Coast Social or the Multiracial Network events. I think this is a sign I'm in the right field.

Our opening speaker, Van Jones, captured my career in a poignant image: In this life, it is our job to climb the ladder, it is everyone else's job to make sure there's a ladder to climb, and people in student affairs are holding the ladder steady. That's what we do in our field, or at least attempt to do.

While there are plenty of notes and thoughts and lessons I took from the conference, I still need to process it a bit in my head, send emails and followups and generally speaking figure out how everything I learn can be applied. Sometimes I think I'm a better student at a conference than in school. An amusing anecdote, we grad students were so nerdy that we would whisper to each other things like "Is that Baxter-Magolda?" "I think that's Kristen Renn" "Oh man should we go introduce ourselves" "Maybe we should get her autograph" etc. Do you know who those people are? Yea. Didn't think so. (Unless of course you're in my field).

Shifting subjects, I went to a TedX conference at OSU this weekend and saw some very powerful, inspiring talks. If you don't know what Ted Talks are, here's a link. http://www.ted.com/talks. A TedX conference is an offshoot of this speaker series, with the theme of grabbing and holding onto those everyday sparks. We had inspiring talks from entrepreneurs and talks from nonprofit workers, honing in on taking advantage of your great ideas, imagination, and that great idea that you can either pursue or let pass you by. My favorite was a humorous professor who maximized his time with a consistent sleep schedule and less TV, which allowed him to follow his passion: creating art with Legos (among his many masterpieces were a 7 foot by 7 foot St. Louis Arch). We also had very powerful talks from people who suffered some huge setback, one woman who had lost her hands after H1N1 and her struggles with morphine addiction and another man who lost his legs to the flesh eating virus and how through humor, friendship, and family he was able to stay positive and appreciate life as something "you get to do, not have to do". All of these things led me to think about the very sparks in my life that I let pass me by. Story ideas I never wrote, trips I never felt I could afford, jobs and careers I could have pursued, even everyday chores and activities I put off and then rushed through. It made me think about how I spend my time, where my priorities are, and what I'm doing with my life.

With the context from ACPA, I think I am going into a career that will leave me fulfilled and uplifted, so it's not like these TedTalks are making me rethink my life. I also don't usually dwell on what I could have done, but rather what can I do differently. So I see this as how is my daily routine fulfilling these bigger goals. And where do I get my spark. The answer, to me, is simple, but I still spent time think about it this past Sunday in Church. It was Palm Sunday, which is the Mass where we remember Jesus' entrance to Jerusalem, hailed like a king, and then turnaround and in the same Mass hear how Jesus was arrested and crucified. Talk about a rapid change in fortunes... But the reason this story is so crucial to my faith is that Jesus knew what he was getting into, he knew the bigger picture that he was dying to forgive the breaking of the Covenant with God and thus forgive the sins of turning away from God. That is where I get my sparks. From seeing this ultimate act of love. From knowing I believe in a God that will literally stoop down to being human, then let us kill him, all for self sacrificing himself to say, you are forgiven. So I get my spark because God has given me a life worth living, a life worth devoting to him, and to making that sacrifice worthwhile. And with that knowledge, I should pursue the various sparks of imagination, inspiration and innovation that can make my life that much fuller.

As we continue Passion Week, I plan to attend all three services (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday) as I will not be able to come home and celebrate with my family for the first time. It will be very strange, but at least I can fill the void with God, which is part of my Lenten goal and, I truly believe, one of the reasons I had to move to Ohio. So best wishes to all of you traveling this weekend and I'll see you on the blog on Sunday.

-JTY

Listening to: At the time I wrote most of this, I was listening to the Angels-Dodgers baseball game and lauding the fact that baseball season has officially started! I also heard on the radio an interview with Jim Abbott, the famous, stellar, one handed pitcher who was talking about his new book and how he followed his baseball dreams despite the physical and social obstacles he faced. A fitting theme for this blog.

Reading: Wise Man's Fear, Patrick Rothfuss the beautiful sequel to The Name of the Wind which combines fantasy with a fun spin on science and results in a very well written novel. I can't put it down, but its also really long. I gotta finish before I need to pay to close attention in school.

Playing: The Old Republic almost exclusively with Drew Jules York (and last night we added Dungeon Daddy) I enjoy the game a lot and it plays through much faster with two people. It give Drew and I some good bonding time as we make cruel or kind in-game choices and laugh as the random things we say while playing.