In Medias Res #13-Always want to be the Greatest

Oh dear reader. After Monday’s manic post, you most likely are expecting something more calm and reserved, yes? That seems to be my mode, at least having spent a while today reading my own archives (huzzah narcissism). I write something wild and frustrated, and then I return to a simpler more quotidian entry. I’m sure if I had more time and energy I could trace most of the posts to emotional highs and lows. I was certainly reenergized after my time home for the holiday. I don’t have the inclination, though. So you’ll just have to trust my hypothesis.
That said, I do hope you’ll forgive me if I get a little bit energized again. Maybe I haven’t burnt up all of that leftover turkey. Cause something’s bothering me this week, dear reader, and for once it’s not you and our love hate paso-doble. For once, it really is me and not you. (Don’t worry we’re not breaking up. Yet.)
See there’s a weekly meeting that I am expected to be at, and I make it there five minutes early every week. I come prepared, and I share my thoughts and opinions. Here’s the problem though: when I get in that meeting I become so eager to please. I want to impress and amuse people. I’m like a needy puppy. Of course, as is always the way with these things I end up saying stupid things in my effort to sound smart, and I must appear annoying in my efforts to seem charming.
Now, I am well aware that I do this. For some reason, though, I can’t stop myself. Where is that naked desire for approval and recognition coming from? (Oh, I hear you scoffing dear reader, as you remember last week’s bitter pleas for validation, but always remember, my love, that my remonstrations to you are in jest). Last week, during our one on one, after I did my updates my supervisor moved on to their ‘suggestions’. This is always the part of our time that makes me nervous. If there’s going to be criticism or negativity it will be in this portion of the meeting. Generally we talk about some minor nuisance. Very rarely does he have bad things to say. But I spend my morning before the meeting a nervous wreck.
Honestly, what’s going on here? Almost all of the feedback I’ve gotten thus far has been positive, and even when I am annoying or cloying in one of these meetings people generally seem to brush it off. I end up spending too much of the day fretting over bad performance in a meeting, or focusing on a bit of irritating (albeit true) feedback.
I expect and hope that as I become more confident in my position and skills that this neediness will subside. I think also, the next time I sit down with my supervisor I will just ask how they feel about my performance. My end of the semester performance review is coming up anyway, but I figure getting feedback a little bit sooner might allay some of this anxiety (anxiety issues? Oh f*&k I’ve become my father).

In Medias Res #12- We're Co-writing the book of love, and you dear reader are a shitty ghost writer

Oh dear reader,
I didn’t mean to leave you hanging last week. But let’s be honest this is a cold and heartless relationship we are in. I give and give, and you never reciprocate. Not a single comment since we’ve started In Medias Res 2: Attack of the Employed Student Affairs Professional. I didn’t mean to jilt you, but perhaps on some subconscious level I did? You are by far the most dysfunctional relationship in my life, and as such I passionately love/hate you.
That’s not really what this post is about though, dear reader. Sure I needed a week off from your passive aggressive style of cyber love making. In reality, though, I was home for the holiday and I was too busy and wrapped up in the minutiae of being with my family to want to blog. Had I been back at work? I most certainly would have been nursing at the teat of your quiet unknowable approval.
So what did I do with myself over break, you might be wondering? (Are you? Are you truly, dear reader?) Surprisingly not the stuff I used to do on vacation. When I would come home from grad school all I wanted to do was relax. I parked myself next to a pool and read my way through whatever I could get my hands on at the library. There were breaks, of course, for meals and movies, but generally when I headed to my parent’s house for any length of time it was to crash.
I attribute this largely to the stress of graduate school. This time, while home, I did much of the same. I read a lot (in particular Daniel Mendelsohn’s excellent memoir The Lost, the new collection of Best American Non-Required Reading, and Nancy Horan’s Loving Frank which I found sort of disappointing). I saw some movies (in particular No Country for Old Men and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, both were exceptional). This time around though, I just had more energy. Obviously I’m less stressed, and so I find myself less in need of an emotional cleansing. Also the warm weather and sunshine energized me in a way it hadn’t before-maybe I’ve been living in the North for too long.
Whatever the case I got more done this time around. What it was I actually ‘got done’ I could not tell you, but I at least felt more productive. I went places. I saw people. I did stuff. I ran into a number of people from high school who had returned home after a couple of years away. Quite a few of the people that I work with now took jobs at our institution because they were from the area. One of my colleagues moved back here after ten years away. I thought a lot about what it would be like to move back. There are some things I miss about home; foremost among them being how rarely I get to see my family. The weather is pretty much unbeatable, as well, although in reality the place I grew up no longer exists. My hometown was smallish, with lots of farms. As I grew these farms gave way to housing developments, and by the time I was in high school the population had boomed. What was a tiny suburb has become a small city, and so were I even to move back I wouldn’t be moving to the same place. Case in point: I used to ride my bike past the same cow pasture every day for years on my way to elementary school. Now the cows are replaced by a Target. Admittedly? The Target smells better.
When I was job searching I didn’t look seriously at most of the institutions in the area because the institutions didn’t really match my needs. There are two small public universities, both of which are largely commuter schools (which makes the potential for a Residence Life position pretty much nil). Further south is a prestigious private institution, but the only positions open on their HR site were in admissions, and that’s quite honestly an area I am in no way suited for. Further north is a pretty awesome honors college that is part of the state university system, but it is by far the most isolated institution in the state and one of my goals was to get out of a college town.
By the end of the week I was more than ready to get back to my big city life and my big city job (as a friend half jokingly referred to it). I do miss things about being home, but most of the things that I really miss aren’t even at home anyways. I miss the freedom from responsibility that being home engenders. I miss the ability to drop off the grid and be taken care of. I imagine even if I had taken that admissions job I would still miss those things. I would though be a hell of a lot fatter as a byproduct of Sunday dinners with my grandmother. So solely for the sake of my health, I’m probably best off where I am.
Next week, dear reader? You will have your damn post on time. I would never cross you twice. I love/hate you too much.

Res. Life and the City #9- Giving Thanks

Samantha: These fast food apple pies are surprisingly delicious!

Carrie: I know! Why would anybody go to the trouble of making one when you can buy one that is so perfect and individually sized?

So I spent my very first major holiday away from home (I'm not counting the 4th of July, Roald Dahl's birthday, or National Talk Like a Pirate Day) and survived quite nicely. Thanksgiving has never been a big holiday with my family since both my mom and dad come from fairly small families. There just isn't a ton of hype when the holiday boils down to a moderately larger meal than what you are used to. Therefore, with flight prices skyrocketing and only having a four-day weekend, I decided to stay in my new city and see what Thanksgiving would look like for a young, single, professional.

I was planning on doing something super sexy and fabulous like getting all dolled up and going out on the town, but tradition stopped me in my tracks. I was one of a few staff members who stayed on campus due to the aforementioned reasons. We begrudgingly decided that we should properly celebrate this holiday which is based solely around oppression of other's cultures by stuffing our face with starchy goodness. One of the other HD's decided that he would be in charge of the meal and we would have it picnic style at one of the major attractions of my new city. However, he is a major MBTI "P" and as I've stated before in multiple posts, I am the epitome of a "J." Therefore, when last Wednesday came around and I still didn't have any concrete plans, I jumped into action.

I started a group e-mail that went to everyone who would be joining us and tried to coordinate who would be bringing what and when we would meet and who would drive and all of the other details that are involved when you try to plan an event for people who are used to planning their own events as a profession. Eventually, the original planner of the event got a little testy and said that I was "hijacking his holiday" which I'm sure was said with equal parts of humor and truth. I wanted to see what his idea of a Thanksgiving meal would be for young, fabulous, and metropolitan people and he said "Turkey sandwiches and those apple pies from McDonald's." I simply could not take this. I told him that if we were going to have Thanksgiving, then we needed to give the holiday a little respect. I told him that I would take care of the food and he could just show up and look pretty.

So Thursday came and I was all set with the food. We carpooled to the local attraction, set out our blanket, and had ourselves a good old-fashioned feast. We were enjoying each other's company and the scenery and the great food and the my co-worker brought up how I had hijacked the holiday, but this time it was all in good fun. We then went into a 15-minute discussion where I asserted that turkey sandwiches and processed apple pies did not constitute a Thanksgiving meal while he contended that it was an "avant-garde" approach to the meal. I told him that he was watching too much Project Runway and that if I wanted to have a meaningless fight about food that had the potential for emotional scars, I would have just gone home and spent the holiday with my family!

With a laugh and a hug, we decided to never fight again. It seems as though no matter how far I am away from my family and the craziness that seems to rear it's head during the holiday, the ridiculousness follows to my new family. My new family is from every part of the nation and continent and I absolutely love working with each and every one of them. So to keep with my family's tradition of going around the table and saying what we are thankful for, I am thankful for my co-workers at my new school. They are my friends, colleagues, confidants, and most importantly, my new family, ridiculous fights and all.

What are you thankful for?

Res. Life and the City #8- Growing Up

"When you're a teenager, all you want to do is buy beer. But once you hit 30 all you want to do is to get carded." ~Carrie Bradshaw


The last few months in my new exsistence, I've started to realize something. I'm not getting mistaken for a student anymore. Yes, I realize that this doesn't mean that the world is coming to an end and that I should be aging gracefully, but damn if I want to get older! I don't know if it has something to do with what a typical student looks like at my new school (i.e. they just stepped out of a magazine) and what typical students looked like at my old school (i.e. they just stepped out of a corn field), but I am treated much more as a professional and I think I am seen as such on campus, which was not the case when I was in grad school.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that we aren't allowed to wear flip-flops at my new school. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I was often seen with a backpack and iPod earbuds while walking to and from class, study sessions, or paper-writing in the library last year. No matter the reason, I can't tell you the last time I was treated like a student, asked to see my ID, or not given the respect I deserve as a professional from the start of a conversation. While it makes me happy that I am seen and treated as a professional, there's a small piece of me that holds onto the hope that someone will ask me what year I am or what my major is at the start of a conversation.

This lack of mistaken identity led to an interesting conversation with one of my colleagues last night. We were making a joke about "RD's Gone Crazy" type of behavior and he said "Well, we aren't in college anymore" and I countered with "But we ARE in college! We're in a college setting right now!" The dichotomy of being surrounded by people who are overwhelmingly younger than you while not succumbing to behavior made me think about how student affairs professionals are constantly surrounded by immaturity and always expected to rise above it. When I think about my college education, the stress was always put on the "world after college," but what happens when your own personal "world after college" is actually a world within a new and different, but somehow hauntingly familiar setting?

I think student affairs professionals can often find themselves in a Catch-22. To be honest, we don't know what it's like to be "in the real world." While I can't speak for other functional areas, I think this is especially true for people who pursue Residence Life careers. We have no concept of rent, or utility payments, and often don't have to pay for meals or groceries. We don't have to face a daily commute or road rage. Additionally, what real-world community do you know of that brings in poets, artists, politicians, activists, dignitaries, sporting events, social justice events, musical performances, or theatrical opportunities for minimal to no cost and is located within a 5 minute walk of your house?

While we seem to have the best of both worlds, I have found myself dealing with my very "real-life" issues within this collegiate bubble. I have seen too many students dealing with real-world pain and issues the past few months to think that we are living in a drama-free zone. The last time I was on duty, I assisted with a student who intentionally overdosed on prescription pills and there was a major car accident on campus last night that one of my collegues had to respond to as the main Housing official on duty. Although I like to think of myself as still being college-aged from time to time, the moments of sobering reality when helping and assisting students through difficult times always make me come back to Earth. I've decided that the ultimate goal for me this year is to balance the crazy college girl that's deep within me that just wants to have fun and the beginning professional who has to deal with crazy college girls within her own community.


"In the end I decided I was definitely 34 going on 35, but in a city like New York, with its pace and its pressures, sometimes it's important to have a 13-year-old moment. To remember a simpler time when the best thing in life was just hanging out, listening to records and having fun with your friends. In your very own apartment." ~Carrie Bradshaw

In Medias Res #11-Moving on Up

As I type this entry I am still wearing the safety goggles I was given on the construction site this morning. We went on a tour of our new campus union, which G-d and weather willing, will be opening this summer. The frame of the building is up and the spaces for our offices are blocked off, although who will actually be in which office has yet to be decided. During my first week of orientation here there was quite a bit of fuss made over how we don’t have hierarchies. That notion gets dispelled really quickly, though, when people are vying for office space.
Now, I’m realistic and I’m also not particularly greedy. I am the last hired (although by this summer that may not be true anymore) and I have the least experience. More importantly I like having a smaller space. It forces me to get out of my office and move around campus. I meet students over in the residence halls or at one of the cafes on campus, and it allows our conversations to be a great deal more casual. Even if I had a bigger office with a conference table I don’t know how much it would get used. Or, if it were getting used how much that level of formality would change my relationship with my students.
I am looking forward to getting into the new space, whichever office I do end up with. First of all, the building is amazing. It is brand new, with awesome amenities and yet it is very focused on creating spaces for students to get involved and engaged. It is far from those monstrosities you read about in The Chronicle where 90% of the square footage has been dedicated to retail spaces. There is no Mystic Tan on the premises. There is, however, going to be a great resource room for student organizations, and a really neat room designed by a committee of students for holding retreats and workshops.
Equally exciting, though, is the foot traffic. This building is going to be high density and high use! It is situated smack dab in the middle of the campus, and will effectively serve as the transitional building between the residential campus and the academic campus. This means that lots of students will be passing through it on their way to class. Hopefully students will also be hanging out there between classes. My potential office looks out onto the primary courtyard which means students can see if I’m available and come by and say hello.
Right now, although I’m in the student activities suite (and I should note I don’t work for student activities so they’ve been very nice to house me) I’m tucked away in the back. Students have to make an effort to seek me out, and generally the students I see on a regular basis are my student leaders who come by for signatures or students who find themselves in serious trouble. This new geography will hopefully encourage more casual visitors and allow me to develop new relationships with a greater spectrum of students.
At the same time, my students are currently redecorating their lounge (yes some of the larger student organizations on our campus have their own lounges as much as an administrative nightmare that presents). This is an amazing resource that they seriously underutilize. When I first got here it was effectively being treated like a storage room. I put an end to that quickly, but last week a huge chunk of plaster fell off a wall and almost hit a student. To their credit they used to the incident to convince facilities that it was time to redecorate. So everyone has new furniture fever. On Monday I met with them and the University Interior Decorator (seriously! We have a university interior decorator?) and they picked out lots of cool stuff. Now if only I could get that old lock that refuses to open for me fixed, we’d be set!
I’ve promised them starting in the spring once the new furniture is here and the space is cleaned I will do office hours in the lounge. I don’t know if this will continue next year when I am in my Snazzy New Office™. The idea is to get students comfortable and used to the Lounge as an opne alternative space on campus. I'm all for that, but what I'm hoping for out of the Faustian bargain is more student foot traffic. In theory that shouldn't be a problem next year. For me anyways. Oh well! T-minus 8 and a half months!

Res. Life and the City #7- Support

There's the kind of support that you ask for and the kind of support you don't ask for. And then there's the kind that just shows up. ~Carrie Bradshaw


So I'm still in somewhat of a Debbie Downer mood. I know I was in a funk when I wrote my last entry and to be honest, I was waiting to be a better mood to write another post. However, seeing as that isn't happening, I guess I'll just write about what's been going on with me anyway. I have to remember to not guilt-trip myself about not having a happy and cheery blog since this is all about my first year as a professional, for better or for worse, right?

I've been having a really rough couple of weeks for a few reasons. The first is the whole spirituality thing that I wrote about last time. I feel a little better because I'm reading more, researching more, and having conversations with people who know what they are talking about so at least I'm not being stagnant. The other reason I've been having a rough go at it is because of some events that have taken place while I've been on duty. Our department does duty a week at a time so we are only on for two weeks the whole semester instead of random days and weekends throughout the entire year. I didn't know if I was going to like the structure, but I have been pleasantly surprised. When you aren't on duty, you really don't have to make crisis management a piece of your everyday life. I went three whole months with never holding the phone, so it was working out great for me!

However, this all changed a few weeks ago when I held the phone for the first time. I was surprised to be just as, if not more nervous the first night I was on duty when I was a grad. However, I kept telling myself that my duty experience at my current institution couldn't be as bad as the first time I was on duty since the first incident I dealt with ended with a student being LifeFlight-ed, another student being arrested, and the whole incident making international headlines, including CNN. (That's a story for another time).

Although there were some major incidences over the weekend, and one set a truly annoying roommates, I thought I was handling everything quite well. Then Tuesday morning happened. Around 10am I got a call from our Director (which was very atypical) who told me that an on-campus student had been killed in a car accident. What made the situation even more difficult was that the car was been driven by another on-campus student. My one and only fear working in Residence Life has been a student death. I feel like I can handle pretty much anything, but I was not prepared to handle this. My Director asked me to walk over to the student's room to see if the student's roommate was there and if the roommate was there, I was charged with telling him that his roommate and best friend had passed away.

As I began my walk over, I kept thinking to myself "How do I tell someone that their best friend is dead?" How do I do this? I've never been someone who can keep their emotions to themselves either, so I wasn't even sure I would be able to keep it together long enough to eek out the words without dissolving into a puddle of tears and mumbles. I finally arrived at the door, took a deep breath, and knocked. The door was opened by a red-faced student who invited me in and I soon realized that the news had already reached the majority of people in the student's community.

The six or so students invited me to sit down and I had the privilege to be with them while they processed the death of their best friend. I tried not to say too much, but just let the students go through the process of letting the situation sink it. They were all dealing with it in very different ways. A few women were bawling their eyes out, one guy was playing video games and wouldn't say a word, the girlfriend of the student who died was running the show and calling everyone they have ever known, while another student suggested that we watch "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" because it was the deceased student's favorite movie.

I will be forever grateful for another student who took it upon himself to lighten the mood whenever possible. When all of us got very quiet and weren't talking, he went to his room, grabbed CatchPhrase and made all of us play for over an hour. When he realized that all of the women were crying and none of the men were, he commented with the thought "Damn societal expectations of masculinity that forces us to be tough and not show emotion." This of course, broke some major tension and also let the three men in the room release some tears in the process.

After a few hours of just being together, the students decided that they were going to get some lunch and then go to the chapel together. I gave them all my contact information and asked them to call me if they had any updates on the other students in the car who were injured, or if they just needed to talk to someone outside of their immediate world. I went back to work, processed the incident with my supervisor, and tried to get back to a productive frame of mind. Just as I was getting back to work, the duty phone rang and it was the roommate of the student who passed away. I asked if he was okay or if anything had changed. He said that everything was fine, but that he wanted to thank me. I, of course, was stunned so I asked why on Earth I needed to be thanked. He said "I just wanted to thank you for showing up. You didn't need to stay and you didn't need to allow us to be with each other without butting in, but you did and that's what we needed from the University, so thank you." It was at that moment, that I realized I really was in the right profession and what I was doing or saying, or even not saying, made a difference to these students in this difficult time in their collegiate careers.

Res. Life and the City #7- Support

There's the kind of support that you ask for and the kind of support you don't ask for. And then there's the kind that just shows up. ~Carrie Bradshaw


So I'm still in somewhat of a Debbie Downer mood. I know I was in a funk when I wrote my last entry and to be honest, I was waiting to be a better mood to write another post. However, seeing as that isn't happening, I guess I'll just write about what's been going on with me anyway. I have to remember to not guilt-trip myself about not having a happy and cheery blog since this is all about my first year as a professional, for better or for worse, right?

I've been having a really rough couple of weeks for a few reasons. The first is the whole spirituality thing that I wrote about last time. I feel a little better because I'm reading more, researching more, and having conversations with people who know what they are talking about so at least I'm not being stagnant. The other reason I've been having a rough go at it is because of some events that have taken place while I've been on duty. Our department does duty a week at a time so we are only on for two weeks the whole semester instead of random days and weekends throughout the entire year. I didn't know if I was going to like the structure, but I have been pleasantly surprised. When you aren't on duty, you really don't have to make crisis management a piece of your everyday life. I went three whole months with never holding the phone, so it was working out great for me!

However, this all changed a few weeks ago when I held the phone for the first time. I was surprised to be just as, if not more nervous the first night I was on duty than when I was on duty the first time when I was a grad. However, I kept telling myself that my duty experience at my current institution couldn't be as bad as the first time I was on duty when I was a grad since the first incident I dealt with ended with a student being LifeFlight-ed, another student being arrested, and the whole incident making international headlines, including CNN. (That's a story for another time).

Although there were some major incidences over the weekend, and one set a truly annoying roommates, I thought I was handling everything quite well. Then Tuesday morning happened. Around 10am I got a call from our Director (which was very atypical) who told me that an on-campus student had been killed in a car accident. What made the situation even more difficult was that the car was been driven by another on-campus student. My one and only fear working in Residence Life has been a student death. I feel like I can handle pretty much anything, but I was not prepared to handle this. My Director asked me to walk over to the student's room to see if the student's roommate was there and if the roommate was there, I was charged with telling him that his roommate and best friend had passed away.

As I began my walk over, I kept thinking to myself "How do I tell someone that their best friend is dead?" How do I do this? I've never been someone who can keep their emotions to themselves either, so I wasn't even sure I would be able to keep it together long enough to eek out the words without dissolving into a puddle of tears and mumbles. I finally arrived at the door, took a deep breath, and knocked. The door was opened by a red-faced student who invited me in and I soon realized that the news had already reached the majority of people in the student's community.

The six or so students invited me to sit down and I had the privilege to be with them while they processed the death of their best friend. I tried not to say too much, but just let the students go through the process of letting the situation sink it. They were all dealing with it in very different ways. A few women were balling their eyes out, one guy was playing video games and wouldn't say a word, the girlfriend of the student who died was running the show and calling everyone they have ever known, while another student suggested that we watch "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" because it was the deceased student's favorite movie.

I will be forever grateful for another student who took it upon himself to lighten the mood whenever possible. When all of us got very quiet and weren't talking, he went to his room, grabbed CatchPhrase and made all of us play for over an hour. When he realized that all of the women were crying and none of the men were, he commented with the thought "Damn societal expectations of masculinity that forces us to be tough and not show emotion." This of course, broke some major tension and also let the three men in the room release some tears in the process.

After a few hours of just being together, the students decided that they were going to get some lunch and then go to the chapel together. I gave them all my contact information and asked them to call me if they had any updates on the other students in the car who were injured, or if they just needed to talk to someone outside of their immediate world. I went back to work, processed the incident with my supervisor, and tried to get back to a productive frame of mind. Just as I was getting back to work, the duty phone rang and it was the roommate of the student who passed away. I asked if he was okay or if anything had changed. He said that everything was fine, but that he wanted to thank me. I, of course, was stunned so I asked why on Earth I needed to be thanked. He said "I just wanted to thank you for showing up. You didn't need to stay and you didn't need to allow us to be with each other without butting in, but you did and that's what we needed from the University, so thank you." It was at that moment, that I realized I really was in the right profession and what I was doing or saying, or even not saying, made a difference to these students in this difficult time in their collegiate careers.