All who wander are not lost

I've decided to change this blog from it's original purpose for a graduate course to my own personal use, especially to relay my travels for the summer and all that jazz. I also wrote this post about three weeks ago and just never posted it.... oops :)



With that being said, it brings me to the name of my blog and more specifically, this post. Many have heard the expression that all who wander are not lost. I think that expression decidedly fits my personality. To wander: 1.) to travel about, on, or through 2.) to ramble without a definite purpose or objective. I love to travel, and lately I have been very lucky to have had the means to do so. When I travel I really do hate to have an itinerary. Some sort of a game plan, sure. A mental list of some of the highlights I want to see, ok. But a detailed, laid out plan of every single thing to do, timed out? No thank you. I love to take opportunities, try things out, take things as they come, which is incorporated into my traveling and seeing the world. I want to see the world, but I want to see it on my own time and in my own way. If I go to Rome, of course I want to see the pantheon, colliseum, st. peter's in the vatican, but I also want to take in the atmosphere. Get a vespa, find a local cafe, chill by a piazza, walk under the street lamps, party with some natives. That being said, I've traveled some recently with strict itineraries and some a little lax. Savannah, Orlando, Boise, Washington D.C. , Outer Banks and my million trips back and forth from little Fayette County, Pennsylvania to Raleigh. In my structured trips, Conferences in Orlando and D.C., I found myself looking forward to the "free time" that I would have to try to do something different. I think because of my "wanderings" I am not lost, in fact I think it has made me find myself even more. Every time I see something new, something different, it just makes me reaffirmed in my beliefs, values, morals.



I wander, and wonder, alot. There is a song that this woman sings every Christmas Eve service in my hometown entitled "I Wonder as I Wander." So, from now on, I'll be wondering as I wander. Stopping to take in all the good things. After the fact of an event, I always kick myself for not taking pictures. Then, I realized that it's because I would rather live in the moment, take it all in, instead of worrying about stopping to take pictures. So, from now on, I won't worry about whether I get the picture or not, I am going to take it all in, and live for that exact moment in time.

Leadership

The end of this semester is just jam-packed with a lot of stuff. I finally, finally, finished a paper to take to a conference and am just crossing my fingers that it gets accepted (eek!). My friends and family just don't get what I have spent the last month of my life working on non-stop and to be honest it's just really hard to explain.

When it is all said and done, I have a 14 page paper, including references, to show for my mountain of research. And, when talking to other, non-graduate students about this paper, I don't think they realize that it's not just a 12 page research paper that I b.s.'d my way through. This is 12 pages of my sweat and tears, literally. This paper is my quality research, a study that I performed, and just because it wasn't performed in a lab, doesn't mean it's not important, or credible.

The research I performed, was in the form of interviews, of a specific population to realize their perceptions and how that can be utilized. The paper then utilized previous research, methodology, results, and conclusions and implications to produce the final result. All in all this paper has consumed my life but I know it will be worth it. Hopefully, this paper will be accepted into conference and then hopefully, (fingers crossed), published in a journal. Then, maybe my friends and family will realize the dedication I made to this project.

The End is Near

So the end of the semester is drawing near, and I have been filling out applications for jobs like no other for the summer. As part of one of the applications I had to explain my experiences with multi-tasking. Ummmm.... I literally laughed out loud. I thought about simply writing "graduate student" to accurately answer the question. How do you explain to someone that by simply being a student, you have learned to master the art of multi-tasking? Just this afternoon, I sit on my couch, taking a quiz for an online class, tv on, cell phone beside me, facebook chat open, and simultaneously reading an article from an online journal. I think that technology has forced a new generation into being great at multi-tasking. Stimuli are needed at all times and because of that, we (Generation X) do multitask. Now the argument can be made at whether this is truly PRODUCTIVE multitasking, but at some level it is. By mixing personal and professional lives, one can accomplish a great deal. And how, pretell, do I, personally keep everything straight? It's not some fancy online schedule, no palm-pilot type planner.

A list.
Yes, that's right. Nothing is more refreshing than taking out a blank piece of paper and writing down my goals. It can be as narrow or broad as I want it to be. Sometimes they are lists for the day, week. Currently mine is everything to do before the end of the semester (yay!). Through all this technology, I know of one thing that will never fail me, and that is my list of accomplishments. Something about that sense of fulfillment when you get to cross something off that you've completed. Call me old-fashioned. But I don't care. A list has done me good so far, and I think the lists will stay.

Wordle- A great invention

I am hooked, on what you may say? Besides my love affair with coffee and mashed potatoes, not together of course, I am in love, with wordle. Yes, the world of technology has sucked me in this once. Not that I'm resistant to technology, but I use what I have to and that's about it. However, this neat little gadget has won me over, falling head over heels in love.So here's what you have to do:

1. Go to Wordle.net

2. Enter in any body of text or insert a URL to pull text from. This can be anything really, I used the 4-H pledge and welcome off of the program book for National 4-H Conference for the link below and the USDA mission statement for the one above. Have fun with this!

3. Watch your cluster of words be created into something truly spectacular. All it takes is once.

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1873001/4-h_