Let the Sunshine In!

(I watched the movie The 40 Year Old Virgin on Saturday, so this song has been stuck in my head . . .)

I took this week off from work, trying to decompress after my final exam. It turns out I ended up with an A- in the class, which I consider a miracle. I was not unhappy with the way the final went, which is always a good sign, and I think I figured out what the professor wanted for the final paper. For my previous paper, I gave too much background and explanation for his taste, which upon further thought made sense, but at the time greatly upset me because I tend to be a very bare bones kind of writer. I’m used to writing and thinking in Economics terms and not in Psychology terms – and they are definitely two different ways of thinking. Which is rather funny, because the whole field of Behavioral Economics is reinventing the wheel in terms of studying how people act and react to specific situations, while Social Psychology already has studied a lot of these same topics? I guess the Econ people don’t want anything to do with the Psych people, which makes *no* sense at all to me . . .

Anyway, this was my week off. The goal was to give my brain a rest. Of course, it has poured down rain the entire week, except for today. We had a leak in our bathroom ceiling, so we had to be home for the roofers to investigate. I checked my work e-mail each morning, just to make sure nothing funky happened that might have fallen under my purview. We had trouble with our car, which was another irritant. I could not wind down properly until . . . well, today. I feel like the whole week was just a warm up to an actual vacation, but one that won’t happen. I’m rested enough to get some rest, if you know what I mean. I have stacks of books to read, but have had no sense of concentration until now.

I go back to work on Monday and dread it terribly. So much to do: much of it I’ve done before. Things happen in cycles and sometimes dealing with the same cycles over and over again gets tiring.

I hope to get new running shoes soon so I can get back into running. I feel like I’ve gained 10 pounds over the course of the winter. My clothes still fit, but I definitely could look better in them. Besides, I need to work off some of this stress that’s been building and I also need to stop making myself feel better with bags of chip-like substances.

Summer is a time to think positively. I probably won’t be able to go on vacation, but hopefully there will be a few day trips in the future. My Army sister is now firmly settled in the Boston area and I look forward to visiting her at some point. (LOVE Boston!)

I haven’t been to any plays lately and I’m getting antsy. There are a couple of contemporary playwrights being showcased this summer, so maybe I can see one of those. The Fringe Festival is coming up in July and that is usually the highlight of my year. I need to start making plans for the Fall and determine what my next steps are.

So much going on! So little time!

To end, I should probably share a little bit of what I’ve been reading lately. I’ve been horrible at keeping up with everyone’s blogs, but I have attempting to read blogs and websites that relate to my studies in some way, to keep up on what’s going on in the world and in my chosen field.

Baseline Scenario (http://baselinescenario.com/) – If you want to follow the financial crisis, this is the one blog you should be reading. Simon Johnson has been *everywhere* - even on The Daily Show – and he is one of the most straightforward, knowledgeable and personable economic communicators I’ve ever seen. My dream is to do what he does, albeit on a smaller scale. I’m totally a groupie for him!

Understanding Society (http://understandingsociety.blogspot.com/) – This is an amazing blog on the social sciences, and I must admit I don’t keep up with it as much as I should because each post has leaves one with so much to think about . . . it’s not something you can scan quickly. Very worth the time.

The Fluent Self (http://www.fluentself.com/blog/) – I love this blog. It makes me realize that I need to be gentler to myself, and what that actually means day-to-day. It is helping me work through a lot of my “stuck” issues, although I have a long way to go.

That’s me for today. I am cheerfully waving to you all!

Rumors of My Demise are Greatly Exaggerated

Hi, all! Yes, it's been a while, but in the interim the hard drive died on my laptop right after Inauguration Day, thus my fabulous post on freezing the the cold with 2 million other people evaporated into the ether.

Also, my social psychology class is is full swing and, while it doesn't have as much reading as my Money and Banking Econ class, I still have a lot to keep up with since it is not very intuitive to me. Or rather, the subject matter is a little TOO intuitive and I need to work on differentiating between similar types of definitions and explanations. I'm both excited by the class and befuddled by it at the same time.

My ESOL class has started up again and this semester we are using a more useful new textbook and accompanying workbook with our students. I love the new format, but it does take some getting used to. I also have fewer students in my class this semester (8 instead of 17), so we're are able to do a lot more discussion exercises and dialogue work without it taking up most of the class time.

Work at the Random Non-Profit continues to be a source of stress, as we lose more people and our financial situation becomes more precarious. Recently they instituted salary freezes at Mr. Random's Random Publication, which is worrisome, but given the state of a lot of other publications, we'll be happy with that for now.

I've also been continuing to have medical issues, which takes up a lot of karmic energy trying to get things sorted out. I've had a few meltdowns recently, due to the extra stress of not feeling well on top of all the stuff I'm trying to do. I am developing a hatred for doctors and for tests and am losing the energy to keep seeking answers, although I know there must be some.

On the plus side, I have been able to fit in a few more plays with my friend J, who continues to be quite a help in keeping my spirits up. We saw The Winter's Tale and The Cherry Orchard - branching out from the pure Shakespeare and going into other writers. The Winter's Tale was especially interesting because we sat next to the lovely wife of one of the actors in the play, whose comments and explanations added another dimension to the performance.

Also on the plus side, I've been to the Campus Career Center and started to do some work to figure out what I really want to do and how I want to go about doing it. It is a slow process, but I am trying to stick with my plans and not to get too discouraged. I am getting a bit frustrated at the pace - taking one class a semester is driving me bats - but it's the best I can do for now, since having and keeping a decent paying job is kind of key these days . . .

So that's what I've been up to since January! I hope you all are doing well?

Waving hello to you all . . .

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2009, everyone! I know we are all thankful that 2008 is finally over and are looking forward to all of the opportunities that this new year will bring to us. I know that I certainly am . . .

I wasn’t going to have any resolutions for this year and just try to see how things unfold, but when I think about it further there are a few goals that I have for this year:

• Continue to see plays
• Continue to be adventurous
• Use my passport at least once – whether it is for a quick weekend in a Canadian city or to finally make it to London
• Continue to have a sense of humor about what life throws at me
• Continue taking college classes
• Continue to spend time with people I care about
• Find ways to best use my talents and gifts to help others

In other words, I’d like to continue on the path I’ve started and see where it leads. Even though I’ve been super busy this year, there are many experiences that I can point to that I am very proud to have had. I do want to try to write more on the blog this year, and I will do my best, but I’m hoping that will become a natural function of things that are already going on in my life.

Notice that I didn’t say “lose weight” or “find a new job” or anything that specific. I’m just hoping that finding my own groove will make me improve in other areas.

I’m wishing that everyone finds their own “groove” this year! I’m looking forward to hearing more about your experiences and thoughts and also sharing my own with you all. Happy 2009!

My Trip to the Fed, or Ben and Me

A few weeks ago, my Economics class took a field trip to the Federal Reserve. The trip was both awesome and a bit discouraging to me. Here goes . . .

We went to the big marble building on Constitution. Of course, we had to have our IDs checked and go through the x-ray machines and get frisked first. We all got big yellow name badges, which we sadly had to return when the tour was over. Once everyone had gone through security and assembled, we were led down a hall to an elevator which took us to the second floor. There we entered in the middle of a huge, marble columned atrium - a bit reminiscent of the Capitol and some of the Congressional office buildings. We were led around the railings to an anteroom where we could hang up our coats and then we were led across the marble floors, across the big gold seal of the Federal Reserve, to the Fed Board of Governors Board Room.

It was breathtaking. The room is huge and looks like what you would image the White House meeting rooms might look like. Huge oval table in the middle, with large, comfortable leather/cloth/wood fancy office chairs - you know, the kind executives get, not the crappy ones us worker bees usually have. The chairs that the Board Governors sit in have a brass plate engraved with the Board’s last names at the top. Mr. Bernanke (as his name was on his chair) sits not at the head of the table but in the middle of the side. Our professor said that when she worked there, Mr. Greenspan would definitely sit at the head of the table, which was much more intimidating. We were allowed to sit in any of the chairs at the main table that we wanted before the presentation started, which is how I got to sit in the Chairman's chair. Woo! Very cool!

Along the walls are frames with samples of the original Federal Reserve Notes ($1, $2, $100 bills, etc.) from various years (1917, 1922, etc.) Also, interestingly, the Board room was the site of some major diplomatic talks during WWII and there were several plaques in the room marking those occasions when FDR and Churchill met in the room, and also when FDR and the Joint Chiefs of Staff met. We weren't allowed to take pictures, otherwise I would have. (Remember this . . .)

We were not the only Random University class scheduled for this presentation - besides our Money and Banking class, there was also a class from the “Semester in the City” program. Their professor had actually scheduled the presentation first and our professor arranged it so our class was able to piggy-back onto theirs. The Fed is getting away from giving presentations to school groups since with all of the work going on with the current economic crisis; many Fed folks don't have time to take people around, so we were lucky that they didn't cancel our session. Like I said, my professor used to work there, so that helped a bit.

All of the students from my class were there on time – in fact, we made sure to arrive early for the aforementioned frisking and to get settled in. Beforehand, my professor told us not to bring cameras and she warned us that since this presentation would be "Fed 101" our class would already know a great deal about what was being discussed. On this day, we were lucky to have a Senior Advisor at the Fed briefing us, who had a very "money" name that almost would have come straight out of a Dickens novel. However, since we weren't the class that made the arrangements, we weren't allowed to sit at the big table during the presentation - the other class had dibs. Of course, the other class dribbled in 5 minutes late, after Mr. Moneyed-name had started speaking.

The presentation WAS a lot of the information that we had learned earlier in the semester, but Mr. Moneyed-name was able to add a bit of color to the Fed's rationale for its decisions. When he was finished (after an hour), we only had 15 minutes to ask questions. The first question was from the Semester in the City professor who asked about what the Fed could do about outrageous credit card rates. Now, as students of the Fed know (like me!), the Fed has no authority or oversight over credit card companies . . . and that pretty much was the answer. The Fed can suggest things, but it really isn't its place. Then someone from my class asked why the Fed doesn't do more coordinated efforts with the EU Central Bank and the Bank of England. This lent itself to a longer more thoughtful answer about how each country, thinking that the crisis really wasn't going to be that bad, preferred to do its own thing, but now we might see more coordination as the seriousness of the crisis becomes more and more evident. Then the other class asked a question, which I can't remember at this point, but I do remember it was kind of pointless so I didn't listen very hard. Some other people in our class wanted to ask questions, but by then our time was up and we had to leave.

As we were getting up to go and filing out of the room, the Semester in the City folks started taking pictures in the room. Our class was noticing this and getting really uncomfortable, but we didn't say anything because their professor (who was much older and bald with a bad comb-over) was *helping them* take pictures. But then the guard lady came in and yelled at them to stop, and we all were rushed out of the room. I hope they didn't ruin the experience for future classes . . .

Being in the room and listening to the Fed person was such a wonderful, exciting experience for me - I'm really glad I took the morning off and went. In a way, the experience was also a bit of a downer because to work at the Fed you either need (a) a Ph.D in Economics or (b) you can be a Research Assistant, but those jobs are mostly for kids straight out of college who want to spend 2 years figuring out if they want to grad school or law school. Either way, it didn't sound like I would have much of a chance . . .

Also, on the way to the Fed and on the way back, the professor took 6 of us in her large van. During the trip, the other students were talking with her about their studies abroad and their grad school plans - one woman had studied in Ghana for a year, one woman is from Nicaragua and is deciding whether to go to the University of Chicago for Econ grad school, another is leading a spring break study trip abroad to study poverty in Mexico, one person is interning at the Grameen Bank, one is interning at the IMF - and I just felt so . . . small and stupid. I just felt really bad and I really don't have any comparable experiences to talk about, so I just sat quietly in the back. I know that I shouldn't feel bad – that I have a ton of experience - but in the world I want to get into someday . . . I don't think I'll be able to, with so much competition who've actually been places and worked on these major things. I don't know what I should be aiming for anymore . . . I just want to do good in the world, and try to help people, and I don't know what that means or if I'll ever be able to do it on the scale I want to. I have a lot more thinking to do . . .

So on that downer note, I'll just say that being at the Fed made me want to really study Econ more, while at the same time I feel like I have these huge limitations on me that everyone else in my class doesn't have . . . and it kind of hurts . . . I have to be creative and figure out more non-conventional ways of making an impact in whatever I end up doing.

So that’s one thing I’ve been busy with during the past month – how about you?

Random End of October Update

Mommanator has been wondering where the heck I’ve been, and I’ve been wondering that myself. I haven’t been keeping up with the blogging, but Random Kath’s world has been chugging along at full speed and I only have a few moments to catch my breath . . .

Here’s what’s up:

School: I am still taking my Econ Money and Banking class. Lots of reading and writing. Constantly need to monitor current events since the economic news seems to change every hour on the news of layoffs, or mergers, or bank failures, falling stock markets or or financial calamity. Like I said before, it’s an exciting time to be studying this stuff, but for all of the wrong reasons . . .

Teaching: I have a class of 17 this semester in my Tuesday night ESL class, which is a very overwhelming number to me. I am very happy that they keep coming back each week, but it is much harder to gauge how everyone is doing, and a lot of the learning tasks take longer since so many people need time to finish. My challenge this semester is to figure out fun group projects for people to do so that (a) they can practice speaking English to each other and monitor each other more effectively and (b) I don’t have to be standing up front most of the time and let them take more ownership of their learning.

Church: I’m on the search committee to find a new Pastor. Because I have nothing else to do. No, just kidding – I’m actually very interested in this process and I’m looking forward to helping the church figure out what it wants to be. I am a bit annoyed with some of the folks already because someone scheduled the first meeting without asking anyone about their schedules and of course it is on the night I teach class. I have made it very clear that I am willing and available ANY NIGHT EXCEPT TUESDAYS – so of course, let’s have the meetings on Tuesdays. Arrgggh! In my irritation, I said that I really wanted to be a part of the process, but if they are going to schedule the meetings like that then find someone else. So we’ll see what happens.

Job: I am formulating an exit strategy after a scare I had a month ago. I’m not going to be laid off or anything yet, but I do need to get on the ball and start doing proactive, positive things. I’ve started setting up lunches with friends of mine who I’ve worked with in the past, to get a sense of what’s out there. Once I started doing that, I started feeling better about myself and am not quite so depressed and despondent. Yay! I’m not a loser! I also need to take better advantage of the College’s career center – I may be a special case as an older student, but they should be able to point me in some sort of direction.

Grandma: She’s still plugging along at age 90! Mr. Random and I still go down to visit her every other Sunday. She’s getting a bit slower, but is still in pretty good health. My mom and dad are talking about trying to arrange a daily visitor for her, someone to look in on her and make sure she’s eating a least one good meal a day and taking her medications properly. This would be a great load off of my mind if it happens, but I won’t hold my breath. I am becoming more comfortable with the fact that I can only do what I can do and that my grandma appreciates seeing me as often as she does. If anything happens, I will know that I did my best and not beat myself up for not doing more – especially since she has 5 children and umpteen other grandchildren who aren’t coming to see her. I still have issues with my whole family over this though . . . and I’ll have to work through that as best I can.

Mr. Random: He’s doing well. He completed his *sixth* Marine Corps Marathon on Sunday, which is always awesome. He’s super sore and walking funny these days, as can be expected. The Random Publication he works for has been super busy, what with the elections coming up and all of the congressional trials. He’s going to be working all through Election night, so I won’t see him until the next morning. It will be so strange to spend such a historic evening without him but I’ll try to find something else to occupy myself with that night.

His grandmom had a fall and was hurt for a while and decided on her own to move to a group home. Mr. Random’s mom is going back and forth to help sell the house and make sure her belongings are accounted for. It is a pretty rough time, but his grandmom is happy with her new surroundings. It helps that it was HER decision . . . I just hope my own grandma will willingly make that decision at some point – she’s still being very stubborn about wanting to live independently.

My Army Sister: My sister has decided to stay in the military, which was a shock to me, but she’s going to try to work in one of the research facilities. If she does that, she won’t get deployed, which *whew!* There aren’t that many research facilities, which means there’s a good chance she could be posted somewhere in the DC area, which would make me SO happy. She also had been having trouble with her legs since she's been back from overseas, but it turns out nothing is seriously wrong, which is also a blessing – we were worried it might be MS or arthritis or something.

Culture: Goodness, I haven’t been good about keeping you apprised of what I’ve been seeing! I saw two versions of Romeo and Juliet – one all male version, one all female version. Both versions were excellently done and both had very standout performances. I also went to the Phillips Collection a couple of weeks ago and saw all 40 panels of the Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series exhibit. You might remember seeing some his paintings on The Cosby Show. I am so glad I was able to see the full exhibit before it closed this Sunday.

What else? My friend J and I took a trip to New York City this past Saturday to celebrate my birthday. I will post a few pictures later this evening. It was one of the most fun trips I’ve taken in a very long time! We were only there for the day – took the train up very early Saturday morning and came home around 1 AM Sunday. Lots of walking around and looking like tourists. Seeing lots of sights that one usually only has seen in pictures or on TV. I loved the energy and the vibe and wish I could go back more frequently. The trip out of town was very much needed, if only for a day. I was exhausted when I got home, but in a good way.

I also took a lovely day trip to Harper’s Ferry a few weeks ago. I took a few pictures there too. It wasn’t for sightseeing but more to just drive and see the pretty landscape. The leaves hadn’t turned yet, which was a little bummer, but it was still quite gorgeous where the rivers came together.

Oh, that's right . . . Sunday was my birthday! I'm now another year older, and while there are some things I need to work on in my life, I'm pretty happy with the way I am at this stage of the game. This year, I'm going to not dwell on what I haven't accomplished yet but try to focus on what I *have* accomplished and what I'm doing now. Easier said than done, but you know, it's a goal . . .

Now it is back to the grind of work-school-teaching-church. I’m still having a bit of a struggle trying to balance everything, but so long as some fun is thrown in there once a week, I can keep an even keel . . .

So that’s what I’ve been up to! I’ve missed you all – I haven’t been blog visiting, but I’m going to try to catch up and say hi. Thanks so much for being patient and for being here and reading!

Warmly,

Your Random Kath :-)