Briefest of brief updates!

Well, better late than never, friends! I am at my folk's house in Phx and writing this update from my own, very new laptop! hooray! I am so grateful for this gift which will accomplish a number of purposes.... one) I will not have to hide out in my cave at my desktop computer to write my papers all the time - this is a particularly special gift; two) it includes a webcam, and my parents bought themselves one also, so that we can talk to each other and SEE each other. We all agree that 8 months is too long to go without sight of each other. Finally, this laptop will make my spring travel much easier and will also save me some $$ on library fees from when I inevitably forget to renew my rented laptop! One final awesome blessing... it will enable me to work even away from home AND the library - Starbucks... here I come! :)

Merry Christmas to all of you! I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to write sooner, but my mom has been working at the computer and its hard to get online next to her, and they don't have wireless, so I haven't really been able to access the world wide web on the laptop until today (when I stole the internet cable from the desktop next to mom).

I had a wonderful Christmas celebration with my family including my brother, parents and grandparents, and special guests: Derek Robinson (former Greenville College football player), Judy Heddens (his moms) and Derek's friend, Pamela. We had a really nice time together and I enjoyed it a ton. Not only was Christmas day fun, but I also have had a really nice vacation thus far. I got to hear dad sing the Messiah (complete works) with the Pheonix Symphony Chorus and the Phoenix Symphony - awesome! It was the first time I'd heard Handel's entire work and it was really, really moving and beautiful. I also attended the Bach choir in Phoenix with my parents, and am looking forward to hearing my dad sing two solos in church this upcoming Sunday.

Tonight my parents, brother, and I are headed to a fancy dinner as part of our annual tradition to get dressed up together and do something adult-y. Last year my parents and I dressed up and went out for dinner, and my brother couldn't make it. This year we'll all get to go and I'm looking forward to it.

I have also been working on my application to Washington State University. My dad is proofing my essay as we speak. And, last but not least... We have been playing a LOT of Settlers of Catan. Look out Joel Schwartz.... I'm really improving!

I will try to post again later today when I can connect up to the internet again. But for now, its time for a game and I have to get the other computer back to normal so that my brother doesn't know I've been messing with his desktop. :)

Miss you - and wishing you the happiest of Christmasses!

Losing focus

Well, its the end of the semester. I made it. Today is my last day of work, I turned in my last two final papers on Monday, finished my baby shower gifts on Tuesday and went to Ruthie's mexican restaurant in Lorena with some girl friends, took a friend to the airport in crazy weather then made the "sweet potato cheesecake" I mentioned before, on Wednesday, Thursday was our office party and gift exchange, and last night (thursday night) went over to the Schwartz's and played games with them, Matt, and Angela.

On a side note, games was really fun (though we missed Sarah). We played regular Settlers of Catan and Jessica won (!) - Angela and I tied for second place, the guys tied for 4th. Then we played Up and Down the River (or Muffins) and Angela won. Jessica got 2nd and I got 3rd. It was the best game night for the girls since the day that we played three games of Settlers in a row and Jessica, Sarah and I each won one and blanked Joel!! :) This was the first time I'd had a chance to play games with Matt and Angela - or really even spend a good amount of time with them. It was really fun and I look forward to some more adventures in the spring.

Because I have been working so hard all during the semester, it has been hard for me to do the few things I know that I need to do for my WSU (washington state university) application (hence the title of this article). I have to edit a writing sample today - but I think I'll do it at home this afternoon, since I leave here in 30 minutes and am not working on it at all yet.

Two of my three recommendations are turned in for WSU (thank you RCC and Frank!!) and one is supposed to be happening this week. I hope so... I really don't want to have to call his assistant again next week to follow up. I think I also have to edit the statement of purpose from the UCLA app to be appropriate for WSU. AND, I'm going to try not to do it while I'm at the Fergasons.

I'm excited to be at the Fergason's for a few days with no homework. I'm also excited to visit my folks next week after not having seen them for so long - I think my folks, Ben and I are going to play Settlers almost non-stop, so that is great fun. ALSO, Derek Robinson (D-Rob), his mom, and his girlfriend are all coming over for Christmas dinner - HOORAY! There is also a chance that dad and I are going to take a quick trip to Tucson and LA for quick college visits and that I might get to see both Erin O'Hara and Gretchen Musgrave - sweet!

Thats it for now. I have some pics to post of the burp rags and of a cool wall hanging I got in Kenya. I'll work on that later.

In the meantime, sorry for the randomness of this post - see, focus issues.

:) Tiff

quick update!

Well friends.... it is so close. So close to being done with assignments for Fall 2007. So close to getting to visit my family. So close to getting my house cleaned, mopped, scrubbed. So close to making my first "sweet potato cheesecake" (this is for the southerners at my office christmas potluck) So close to getting to sleep as late as I want for one or two days.

I am three days or less away from turning in my two final assignments. At this point, Matt, Candice and I simply need to pump up the references and we'll be done with our spirituality final project. I'm about 1/2 way done with my cultural final.... so close.

Here are some pics of this week's events (christmas parties galore) to keep you busy, while I finish my homework! Blessings to you!

Sarah and I at Red Robin in Round Rock -
on our winter field trip with our fun neighbors Joel and Jessica!

At the Christmas Party for our program, hosted by Dub Oliver, the Vice President for Student Life (L-R: Katie, Heather, me, Candice)

Lyndsy (far left) and I being "tree huggers" when our friends showed up for the 08 Cohort Christmas party dressed as Christmas trees. (trees L-R: Brittany, Kathryn, Katie).

Kathryn and I posing in our adorable outfits. I borrowed my amazing sweater from Julia Greenlee. The poinsetta was a hit, and only hurt a little when people hugged me. Kathryn is my Amazing Race partner, so I'm kind of sad we already sent in our photo because this would have been a good one (the one we sent was good, too - 80's style).

My friend Kristen and I - you can get a better look at my sweater from this photo...
Merry Christmas to all!

Let's Say Thanks

Sometimes I think about the Vietnam war, and the parallels to the Iraq war.

The Vietnam war became increasingly unpopular as it was evident we were not going to "win," in particular against the geurilla style warfare of a people determined to keep fighting. Eventually the soldiers became unpopular as well, characterized as "baby killers," etc.

The Iraq was is increasingly unpopular as it becomes more evident that we are not reaching our goals, and as the American people become jaded with regard to the goals and purpose of the conflict to begin with. Knowing what happened to the soldiers who served in Vietnam (it seems like a higher percentage struggle with PTSD, and they are certainly more bitter and angry than those who served in previous conflagrations), and grieving over it, I fear the same may happen to our soldiers who are in Iraq.

Let's try to agressively avoid that result. These men and women are dads, moms, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and friends. They are boyfriends and girlfriends, teachers, managers, baristas and students.

Let's say thanks for the sacrifice we are making. I know I am particularly grateful - I have never felt called to military service (having wanted to be a fashion designer most of my life). I appreciate that someone is taking my place in a Humvee in Bagdad, basically.

Here is one way you can do it, and it takes about 90 seconds.

1) Go to this webpage: http://www.letssaythanks.com/Home1024.html (its a page sponsored by Xerox)
2) Pick out a drawing from a child
3) Select a prewritten message of gratitude, or select "other" and write your own
4) Click "send"
* your drawing and message will be printed by Xerox and sent overseas into the hands of a serviceman or woman.

Hooray! Lets say thanks this holiday season!

Greenville Photos!!

Check it out.... Photos from my time in Greenville!!

Photo link for now! (greenville photos)

Hey friends,

For now, here is a link to some of the photos from my trip to Greenville! Woo hoo!!!

http://baylor.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2008304&l=a35f0&id=152400460

Love, Tiff

Greenville trip, part 2

here is the rest of the update on my trip to Gville, while my nail polish dries on my fingers. :)

I stayed both nights in Greenville with Heather in the little Locust Ave apt. #B at the Jewitts. I was grateful to stay with her and enjoyed our times of talking as we fell asleep and lounging together on Sunday!!

Saturday morning, I went over to Liz's and we visited some more before the pre-game tailgate. The tailgate was fantastic and fun. Heather and I hung out with the parents, and enjoyed Louisiana Gumbo and some other delightlful foods. It was neat to be there with the Sr. parents and think back to my first year with all of them (it was my second year at GC FB)... our first tailgate was pretty small, but neat. Since then, EPAPP has built a gigantic smoker/bbq and dontated it to the program, and huge tent that shelters the players in hot sun and cold rain (during pre-game and at the half), and a big cowbell decorated with "EMAP" and our panther logo.

I loved being with the parents as we prayed and cheered the team onto the field for the pregame senior ceremony.

This part was pretty moving for me. All seventeen of the seniors paraded through a tunnel of the other players and met their parents or another representative at the end. At one point I sat down next to Kess on the bleacher at the sideline and got a little teary. It was pretty neat to be there with Scotty and think back to his vision for Greenville Football at the time these guys were recruited. Seventeen is a huge graduating class, and it was pretty neat. I missed Dave and Kyle at that point. They would have loved to see it!

The game was fun - Derek Robinson surprised us and showed up in town. I spent the second half on the sideline, talking to Lash and DRob. I love those guys. We didn't win the game, but in the fourth quarter, down by three touchdowns, the team rallied and ended up scoring twice before the buzzer sounded. I was proud to be with them.

Eric moved the post-game locker room time into the Briner building ("The Shop") and the Seniors got up to share.... three hours later it was done. I only got to stay for about two hours, but the two hours I was there was amazing. I was proud to hear them share, to listen to the way they've become men of character and gratitude and to cry with them in joy! :)

I left early to go to dinner with the Filby's and that was a great time. I loved hearing about their lives and really just enjoying their company. I wish I could have spent more time with them!!!

I returned to Liz and Eric's for just a short time and then headed to Jo's to hear Katie Kapteyn play a show. She was great as expected and I really enjoyed it.

Sunday morning, I was tired but trying to fit it all in! I had early breakfast with Scotty and Kyle Krober who were both in town. Super good to go back over our memories, and get caught up on our present. Then I met with Norm to hear a little bit about what's happening in Greenville Student Life and Residence Life. Finally, I got to be in my old Sunday school class (it was awesome!!) and then go to church with my old friends at Greenville FMC. If you get to Greenville, check it out!!

After church, Heather, DRob, TJ, Jared and I all went to Rancho Nuevo, where we had a great time laughing and enjoying each other and just being totally redic. Then followed a brief wal-mart stop and a trip home to relax before Heather took me to the airport that evening.

I had a good trip home (delayed flight, but it was OK), got home around 1am and started back to school and work.

So it was quick and full..... but it was great!

Thanks to my pals in Greenville (etc) for a WONDERFUL (if brief) vacation.

Nearing the end.

Hi Friends,

Forgive me for the (repeated) delay in posting.

I'm actually trying to head home for the day, but the voice of my friends Alexis and Sarah are ringing in my ears that I'd better get posting because they have been very faithful posters lately...

The last time I posted, I wrote about my trip to Greenville.

What I didn't have time or energy to write about was that that week I had been helping some students grieve the loss of their friend. She was in a car accident the Friday prior, and was in a coma until Wednesday when she succumbed to her injuries. Her name was Kate and she sounded like a marvelous woman.

Grief counseling is difficult. (how's that for an understatement?) As a helper, and one who didn't know Kate, I had forgotten that I would end up with emotions and pain and stuff coming up that I needed to deal with. The Lord is good to all who hope in him, though and I was able to (slowly) go through the grieving process myself as I helped with these women. Friday we will have a campus memorial service that I was blessed to help plan. May the Lord be glorified and his people made to be at peace through it.

That same week I had a big paper that was supposed to be due, but (in the Lord's grace) was postponed until Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I also had slating interviews for Alpha Delta Pi all day on Sunday and Baylor Youth Day for half the day on Saturday. AND on Saturday morning we filmed our Amazing Race application video.

Wow, this is the most disjointed post ever.

Anyway, the AR video turned out great. Soon we will post it here, but we aren't sure if we're allowed to post it on our website... we certainly don't want to be disqualified! (I think its OK, but we just want to be sure)

The ADPi slating and elections went fine, too, though it was a lot of hours in the chapter room! I am very proud of the chapter for the work they are doing to continuously improve.

Then on Tuesday (having turned in my paper at 1am on Monday night), I drove to San Antonio for a week with the Fergasons (pics soon). It was a great time. I got some homework done, played and read to kiddos, toured the Center for the Intrepid at Brooke Army Medical Center, watched a bunch of movies (Ratatouille, Amazing Grace, We are Marshall, The Nativity Story, to name a few!), and relaxed. It was wonderful.

That's it for now. More soon. Its getting dark and I'll have to bike home!

What a week!

I went to Greenville last weekend. I don't think I've even had time to post about that experience, but it was GREAT.
* I flew into St. Louis on Friday morning around 9:30 (that meant I had to leave Waco around 5 in the morning - yikes! it was a good drive, but a little scary - dark and a lot of fog!). I got to the airport about 45 minutes before my flight was to depart, but made it to the gate without injury and thankfully caught my flight.
* Sue Groves picked me up and we spent a few glorious hours together chatting and getting caught up. I am always encouraged by her.
* I spent the early afternoon in Jo's Java on campus. I chatted with some friends and worked on some homework in between people (ok, mostly I chatted...)
* Maura came up from Edwardsville around 2:30 and we enjoyed an hour-long stroll around Greenville, really getting a good visit in and talking about graduate school, loving our neighbor and creating environments which honor all people. She is such a mature young woman and I was glad we had time to visit!
* Maura dropped me off at Liz's house and Liz and I visited until it was time to head to the Sr. dinner. Matthew woke up while I was there and he is a HOOT!
* The Senior Football dinner was a surprise for the players. They arrived at Durley camp and all of their families were there, the coaches and their families, and Kess and I, too! It was so wonderful to see the parents again! These parents are the ones who started the Parent's Booster Club - which quickly became "EPAPP: Every Parent a Panther Parent." It was a vision of mine and Scotty's to see this group form and begin to support the program in an organized way, and these parents, with the help of a few others whose sons were upperclassmen at the time, jumped right in and did it better than I ever could have imagined. At the same time, they were like parents away from home for me. And when I think of hugs from Doug Dahnke, and the happiness on his face when he sees me, I still get emotional. I'm grateful for all those parents and the love they have for the players and staff!
* I'll post a pic of me and the seniors (minus one, who had to leave for a short time) later. It was especially neat for me to see these men - who were Sophomores when I left Greenville and who I only saw one day last year - as Seniors. They are so grown up in their appearance and in their character.
* Scotty and I both shared our thoughts at the Sr. Dinner and it was a treat to be able to do so. I only hope I blessed them enough. Eric spoke, too and both Scotty and Eric recounted the ways that the program has turned around. It was an emotional festival and it was great!
* Later I traveled to "Pokey" (the Powhatan in Pocohantas) with Heather, Amber, Erin O'Hara and Julie Murphy and we just enjoyed each other's company for a couple hours over various foods - dessert and otherwise. They are great women and I was glad to see how the Lord is working in their lives! I am blessed to have been a part of their lives for a short time!

~~~ That is all I have time for. I am leaving to go do a presentation on unity and spirtual development. I will post more about last weekend and this week, soon!
Love, Tiffani

Tag - I'm it.

OK, to honor my friend Liz, I'm going to tell you seven things about myself that you may (or may not know). Hers were pretty good. I fear mine will not match up, but I'm going to step out in faith anyway.

1) I can cross my pinky toe over the toe next to it.

2) My family is well known for creating what we call "Rube Goldberg inventions" after the famous cartoonist (see link here). My favorite one is the hook that we invented to string Christmas lights on tall Cacti - it is a pool pole, with a hanger bent into a hook at one end, duct-taped within an inch of its life to the pole. Then one person holds the lights on a little spool while the other uses the pole to navigate the cactus arms. It is a hilarious enterprise and probably pretty amusing to the neighbors, too.

3) I like rock climbing a lot. But I feel constrained by indoor rock walls because I have to follow a prescribed path. I'd rather just find holds and get to the top however I can.

4) I go to cemetaries when I'm sad or just want to sit or walk quietly alone. Wherever I live, I find a nice cemetary to wander around. (right now its Oakwood Cemetary on 5th and LaSalle)

5) My mom and I often will say the exact same thing, at the exact same time, with the same inflection. Most often in response to a question of my dad's, and sometimes hollering it from opposite ends of the house. its rediculous.

6) I am currently applying to be a participant on the Amazing Race.

7) I was an art major growing up. I still love to do art, but my school schedule constrains me from doing any sort of crafts, let alone painting, etc.

Tag... you are now it:
Sarah M.
Alexis C.
Missy D.
Jenn C.

Love you!

multitasking and trying to be productive

Well, its Tuesday. The first Tuesday in many many weeks that I don't have any appointments scheduled, so I have decided to work from home almost the entire day. I have a ton of work due next week: a presentation for that Wed.'s class, a theoretical orientation for that Thur.'s class, a presentation to student organization leaders for that Friday and a weekend full of activities that weekend. It would maybe be less of a big deal, if I wasn't going to be out of town this weekend.
Don't get me wrong... I'm VERY excited to be headed to Greenville this weekend. I get to see my fun friends who I miss, I get to see my men play football (some of them for the last time, as I'm headed there to attend the Sr. day football game), and I get to go to church at the FM, which I love. So its tough to be in this pressure cooker, but hopefully I will survive.

Today I am at home and working on the following: 1) PhD program "Statement of Purpose", 2) Reading "God on the Quad", 3) Theoretical Orientation paper, 4) (and also, OK, this blog).

Its nice and cold here today, so that is great for staying alert and working. Its fun that it is a little cooler right now, and I have hopes of a cooler winter! I'm also hoping to go to Rosa's for dinner as a study break later (and/or maybe on a walk). :)

See you soon!

33 and wondering...

"what am I going to do with my life?"

Its ironic that I help student discern their calling. I could use some of that right now. Well, that is not totally true - I believe my calling places me in collegiate environments, working with college students. The question today is how does that look in preparation for graduating in 200 days?

I am currently in the process of applying for PhD programs. I am applying at a number of schools, including UCLA and USC.

I'm applying at UCLA for two reasons: 1) it is in California, and I think I'd like to be there (kind of between-ish Wa and Az), and 2) its the highest-ranked program on the West Coast (#3 nationwide). The other top two are Penn State and Univ. of Michigan.

But the more I look at UCLA, I wonder if its the program for me. I also wonder if I should go back to the earlier plan, before the reconsideration, which was to work for a couple of years before I start PhD work.

Here's the deal: I love learning. But I also love being a part of college student formation and development. Will doing PhD work make it easier or harder to transform college students? I don't know.

What are my goals once I have a PhD? I don't know.

ARGH! And now I have people helping me through this process that are totally gung ho about it... and I am unsure. Some days I am really excited about the opportunity to apply and continue in school. Other days I want to abandon it all and go back to my earlier plan of getting a job at Pepperdine and living out my days in Malibu.

And then I think - is a PhD in Education the right choice? Maybe I should be going to Seminary and getting a degree in Spiritual Formation. Maybe I should be getting a degree in Counseling Psychology.

So here I am. Confused, a little bit frustrated at myself, and not wanting to let anyone down. I think i just realized that I may have some "people pleasing" issues.

That is it for today. t-minus 35 days until applications are due at UCLA and USC. For now I'm going forward until I have more direction.

Pray for me.

New Haircut~

I forgot to mention that about a week ago I got a new haircut! I'm posting some pics here for all y'all to see. :)

Tiff

Its about time!

Well, its only been just over a week since my last post, but it feels like forever. This one may be brief as I'm trying to get ahead of my homework in preparation for "Fall Parties" this weekend.

I may have mentioned this last year, but for those of you who are new... Baylor has delayed sorority recruitment. This means that formal recruitment doesn't happen until the week before Spring semester (rather than fall semester). Its good for freshman because they are able to get familiar with the campus and make friends prior to going through formal recruitment. But to get the recruitment season started we have "Fall Parties" - two days of a sort of preview to recruitment. Every potential new member visits every "house" (which in this case is a sorority chapter room) - hears songs, meets women, and tries to see which will be the best fit. Then they go back and rank the chapters in order from 1-9. In the spring, each woman will return to 7 chapters at most.

So that is happening this weekend. 4pm on Friday until late.. and 6am on Saturday until mid-day. I'm trying to get ahead on homework this week, so that I don't suffer so much later this week!

Yesterday, while doing homework I watched the first two Lord of the Rings movies: "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "The Two Towers." Today, as I type up my answers to counseling reflection questions, I am watching "The Return of the King." I have to admit that I love these movies. After seeing the second one a number of times, I read the trilogy and it was pretty amazing (I cried at the end). But there is something about the movies that I love.

I love the heroism of Samwise Gamgee - his honest and true heart. I feel like he is the kind of Christian we are supposed to be - he is naive like a child, not understanding what he is headed toward, but suspicious of evil, he is gentle but aware. Now sometimes, he's not very nice and calls Gollum names, true, but he is as faithful a friend to Frodo as anyone could hope to have.

And I love when the Elf king, Eldred says to Aragorn, "Put aside the Ranger... become who you were born to be!" There is this point in our lives when we all have to put off who we were pretending to be when we were hiding from our true calling, and become the person we were created to be.

There is so much more than this, but perhaps the reason I need to watch these movies right now is that I'm traveling through my own journey (again) of discovery. I'm traversing dangerous paths to figure out who I am and who God is calling me to be. And frankly, sometimes I'm a little scared. I fear that I will choose wrongly. I fear that if I choose to work for a couple years that I will lose my passion to go back and get a PhD. I fear that I am choosing the wrong area for PhD study, or that I should be getting a master's in counseling at a seminary first. I fear that if I go ahead and get my PhD that I will not be able to get a job because I'll be overqualified.

Crazy isn't it? And the Lord says, "Do not fear, for I am with you." (among other things)

So I am trying to remember my passions and courage. Trying to regain my footing on this slippery and dimly lit path. And trying to let the light of Christ shine through me and others to help me as I traverse this way.

Well, that is it for my philosophical ramblings... here is what's going on this week:

Tonight - ADPi chapter meeting, and hopefully "Heroes"!

Tuesday - I'm one of three graduate students speaking at a luncheon for the division of student life. the theme is "applying theory to practice"

Thursday - After class a few of us get together to watch the Office and Gray's Anatomy. I'm looking forward to Thursday. :)

Friday and Saturday - Fall Parties

Sunday - dinner with the Weathersbees!

Goals for the week: spend at least one hour working on grad school applications. work out 4 mornings, eat more vegetables.

Blessings to you!


"The beacons are lit!" "Gondor calls for aid." "And Rohan will answer."

explaining my recent absence

Hi Friends,

Its been a rough week. Thanks to those of you who told me that the Lord has been putting me on your hearts. I was mightily encouraged.

On Tuesday of this week, my computer - which I've been having trouble with, as you know, I think - inexplicably erased the BACKED-UP files as I was transfering them to my hard drive (which had been reformatted and thus had no data). Yes, you read that correctly... the only copies of files like music and pictures were erased. (please understand that I had a backup... it was this backup which was erased)

I was mightily discouraged but trying to trust the Lord that there might be a way (because I called the IT office and they said they might be able to recover some of it). The next morning as I was reading scripture I felt like Matthew 6:8 was especially appropriate for me. "for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." That was good, because I was so discouraged. I decided to just be optimistic in my trust for the data recovery, and deeper, to trust that God knew what I needed more than me -and maybe that data had become an idol for me.

Yesterday, the IT desk called and said that they had recovered the data. My phone was dead and I didn't get the message until after my night class, so I don't know the details yet, but I'm guardedly hopeful at this point.

Between this computer issue and a take-home mid-term that caused me to cancel a planned trip to San Antonio, not to mention my need for extra time to get stuff together to apply for doctoral programs, and time to continue to seek God about that course of action, I have felt alternately discouraged, disappointed,crushed, overwhelmed and angry. In the meantime, I still see God being faithful to me through all this, which humbles me and brings me deep joy.

Be blessed today!

My life in 10 minute blurbs.

Today I'm working on completing an annotated bibliography for my counseling class. For those of you don't know what that means - have no fear. I just recently learned and will 'splain.

An Annotated Bib (as we've come to call it) is a document that has a reference for an article and then a brief summary of the article's contents (between 100 words and a page-ish - no longer than a page). The purpose is for research, as an individual is doing research on a topic and reading articles, they put the reference and summary down so that they can easily find articles they are looking for later when writing a dissertation, literature review, article, etc.

Mine is on depression and I've found some really interesting articles about counseling and psychotherapy and depression! Nerdy, but true.

So all that to say that we have to have 10 articles annotated and turned in by class tonight. And also the reading reflection questions (due at noon). My reading reflection is done, I just need to look it over one more time and make sure its coherent (no guarantee!). But I am still four articles away from being done with the Bib. I have to read them and then write the summary.

After I read and summarize one article, then I get to have a 10 minute break (woo hoo!), during which I will update this blog, and when that's done, read through my questions.

I'm going to change color every time I have had to go away and come back!

What is up with me, you ask?

1) School is crazy right now. I'm liking my classes, but there is just a lot of work for them. A lot. I'm surviving barely, but Sarah and I are doing homework seemingly non-stop (with a couple breaks I will share about here).

2) Last week, in a huge bad-decision moment, I decided to put Windows Vista on my computer. My computer is 4 years old, and not really Vista compatible it turns out. I thought I was putting on Vista "home basic" - but turns out I was putting on "ultimate" - yeah, really not capable of running that kind of technology. Its still working, but a little slower than normal. However, some of the stuff I normally use was not working and then it shut down my computer, and I ended up having to take it into the shop at school. They told me they would try to fix it and it would cost $43.
I didn't have a computer for the entire weekend - the one week when I had three different written projects due. nice.
Thankfully, Sarah had a work laptop I was able to use and the library checks out laptops for four hours, too. We were at the library for a long time. I lost track of time and turned my computer in 13 minutes late. $10 fee. suck!
The shop called on Monday saying my computer's recovery partition (we were just going to run that and reload Windows XP) was corrupt and I could call HP and get recovery disks for $20-30. (you can imagine my glee, since at this point I was ringing up appx $100 in stuff to fix this mistake!)
I asked if instead I could just buy XP at the bookstore and reinstall it. He said yes, and I called the bookstore. I was able to get a copy of XP for $5 (saving $25 vs. the other HP plan) and when I picked up my computer... they hadn't charged me, because they couldn't do anything! woohoo!
* Price tag back down to $15 (plus emotional grief...)
So I hooked up my computer when I should have been doing homework, and tried to load XP. But the bookstore sold me XP professional, which is a 64-bit software and my computer is an x86 (which is somehow different, I don't really get it but I get it enough to understand it won't work).
So sad news... I had to go to the HP website and order the recovery disks.
* Price tag at $45.
Meanwhile, when I installed Vista it made me uninstall my antivirus software... and so then I had to re-order antivirus software.
* Price tag at $70 (total).
And now, I have the recovery disks, but I'm forcing myself to wait until tomorrow night (friday night?...nerdy!) or sometime this weekend to put the disks through and reformat my computer. The downside? I may have to wipe my entire computer clean in the process... it looks like there is a way to load it with out doing that, but I'm not feeling super positive at this point. Thankfully, before I put on Vista I bought an external hard drive and backed up my entire computer, so if I do have to wipe it, I think I have all my files....
* Price tag $170.
That doesn't even include the actual COST of Vista. Price tag $185. What was I thinking!?

But really, I needed the backup drive anyway, my computer is getting old and its for the best that I have a backup, so lets just call it $85 and be done with it. Unless I can't get it to work and have to take it back to the shop. But for now, I'll be positive and say, "I'm sure it will all be OK."

On the bright side, my car insurance went down $10 a month, so I have an extra $120 this year, which just about covers my computer mania.

3) I am going to be speaking at our next Student Life staff development lunch. Two of my fellow students and I are going to speak about putting theory that we are learning in our program into practice. We have about 10 minutes each. I'm excited, but nervous. I also wonder how I can make this a good practice experience for my PhD interviews. I think I have a lot of ways that my theory has informed what I do for my work at Baylor (and in the future) but we'll see how it goes! Its a great honor, though, and I'm really blessed to have been asked!

4) I just spent part of my 10 minute break surfing facebook. I'm sorry. I'll be right back. :)

I am only one article away from being able to take shower. amazing.
OK, life update continued!

5) I think I mentioned that I am in a debate with myself right now about my future. Am I going to work full-time after graduation? Am I going to start a PhD program full-time? yikes. I have to make these decisions relatively soon, because the PhD deadlines are in early december and I have some work to do to get ready (re-proofing papers, etc). I really like the idea of going straight into school again, just to get it done. I like the idea of working toward a doctorate - its kind of crazy, but I feel like there are a lot of areas in which I could do research and be really excited about it. But there is some debate amongst the people I've spoken to about how my experience will help me get a job. Some say I have enough experience and get the degree. Others say that perhaps I should work FT for a year and then start PhD work part-time, so that I can bulk up my resume.

In the meantime, I just don't know. I'm praying, and seeking wisdom from God, and also from man. My last meeting with Baylor people about this is on Friday, after that, I'm going to have to really seek to hear God speak and direct me in a path!

I'm not done updating, probably, but this is long and so I'll say Goodbye for now. And next week I'll have more updating. :)

Blessings on you!!!

Dear faithful friends/readers.

Some of you know that I am a co-facilitator of Sunday School class this semester at my church: UBC (university baptist church). I help lead "The Other Side" - which is essentially a gathering of 20-40 year old men and women - we say that we are "post-college age, without being too old." There are a bunch of grad students, but also a number of working professionals and a professor or two.

Recently, we have been studying and discussing the Core Values of UBC with the class. Each week we take one of the core values posted on our website (www.ubcwaco.org), read the description, read the supporting scriptures and then break it down together to see what that means for our lives, for our church and for the world.

After Sunday we post a continuing discussion on our message board and try to keep dialouging about it through the week. While I can't give you the password to chat about it there, I can post my comments here and invite you to participate with me in the discussion. (I may not do this every week, but this seemed like a good discussion to start this week).

I think the sermons are available on line, but I'm not sure when yesterday's (9/23) will be posted... well, BAM! I just looked online and its there already. So click here and listen to Don's sermon so you have more context for the note below.... and then lets talk.

I have to go do homework now.... :( Boo. Make it a great day!
~~~~~~~~~~
Hi Friends,
Its Monday morning at 7:30. I'm drinking coffee and putting off finishing my reading for class. So I decided to go ahead and post some continuing thoughts about this week's class.

Was it just me or (first of all) was class really good on Sunday? You all are so smart and
thoughtful and I'm so glad to hear your thoughts every week as we break down UBC's core values and how they integrate into our lives. Secondly, was it just me or did Don's message seem to dovetail perfectly to our discussion?

As a reminder, the scripture we looked at this week in Sunday school were: John 14:6, John 8:31-32 and 2 Tim 2:15.

As Don was talking about the American zeitgeist that those things he mentioned (consumerism, fast food, money, hummers, celebs, google, etc) all are thing our culture is trying to tell us are TRUE values; that those are the values we should not only aspire to, but also advocate for. And I can admit that I frequently get caught up in it. I love being able to communicate quickly with my family and friends who are scattered literally to all the corners of the nation, I love being able to look up the phone number and address to a restaurant by text messaging google or even getting driving directions to that location - at any time. (Recently, we texted google during a BU football game, to get the number of Pizza Hut, so we could find out if they still do that percent off deal after the game... they don't)

Its this weird dichotomy, I think, that we can be more fully present with our friends in town because we have a blog that updates people without us having to call them... and yet we can be totally not present because we are text messaging, listening to i-pods, watching TV, sending emails, all while people are trying to talk to us face to face. Its not just a weird dichotomy, I guess, its a painful one for me to think about - because I know I don't always give my full attention to either the people that are in front of me, or to those who are far away.
As we continue this discussion, how does Jesus enter into it? Don says that Jesus comes in and presents an alternative to the zeitgeist (not a similar but "christian perspective" but a real alternative) - that He turns the culture upside down.

I love that Don said (my paraphrase): "The goal of the church {universal} should not be to be relevant but to empty herself and be an alternative, presenting new ways of being, new ways of living and new ways of seeking God" He added that we should be LEADING art and culture - because we have TRUTH as our banner and at our center, if we have Jesus as those things.
How does that look for us this week? What are your thoughts about how we as individuals, and how the Christian church at large, can empty and simply represent Jesus? Should we shun modern technology? Should we literally sell everything and give it to the people around us? Lets discuss! What are your thoughts?

Weekly Update (9/23/07)

Its the middle of two long (full) weeks for me. Last week, I presented Adlerian Theory with my friends Matt and Candice and then went to Freshman Retreat for Friday night and Saturday. This week I am attending the Crowder Band album release party on Monday, meeting with Chaplains on Tuesday, attending the Student Organization Summit on Wednesday.

All of this while I'm going to class and trying to get homework done... not to mention transcribe an interview that took me two hours to perform (and thus will take two hours to type...). I have to have a 2-3 page summary done on Wednesday morning.... yikes.

So, in order...
Adlerian Theory - Matt agreed to the "an interview with Alfred" plan - which seemed like amazing grace by the Lord, because we didn't think that there was any chance he would agree. But it was awesome! We made a fake TV show called, "Rise and Shine! with Candice and Tiffani" and Matt dressed up in a corduroy jacket, pipe and hat. We took a few days to script out the info, worked on a powerpoint presentation and some group discussion questions and were ready to go. The final perfect part was to add an "encouragement" piece - since the central piece of Dr. Adler's theory is encouragement. The professor gave us great feedback and I think the class really enjoyed learning. I know that we enjoyed teaching it a ton!

Freshman Retreat - for the first year (it hasn't been offered in a number of years), it went really well, and I think the students enjoyed their time, and hopefully they learned a lot, too. My favorite part was the "worship experience" on Friday night. Taylor Dodgen played music for an hour, and we had a few men and women read scriptures periodically. There were 10 prayer stations ranging from intercessory prayer to pray for the earth to drawing picture of yourself in Christ, etc. We grabbed the lamps from our hotel-style rooms (the staff all slept in the camp's motel) and put them out around the stations so that we could have the overhead lights off. It was perfect and I loved being able to pray for students as I worshiped around the room. I taught a breakout session on Saturday about Going Greek and I think it went OK. There were a lot of crickets in the room, if you know what I mean... (and what I mean is that I would ask questions of the group and there were no answers.........). Hopefully it was really OK. I'm excited to assess this year's experience so that next year's can be great.

That's probably it for now, except that a friend of mine (sarah gail) wanted my book list for my spiritual and moral development course, so I'm posting it here because there are some great books we're reading this Fall!

* Chickering, et. al.: Encouraging Authenticity and Spirituality in Higher Education
* Colby, et. al.: Educating Citizens: Preparing America's Undergraduates for Lives of Moral and Civic Responsibility
* Fowler, J.W.: Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development...
* Fowler, J.W.: Faith Changes: The Personal and Public Challenges of Postmodern Life
* Hoppe, S.L.: Spirituality in Higher Education, New Directions in Teaching
* Jablonski, M.A.: The Implications of Student Spirituality for Student Affairs Practice
* Lewis, C.S.: Mere Christianity
* Newman, L.L.: College Student Affairs Journal
* Parks, S.D.: Big Questions, Worthy Dreams
* Riley, N.S.: God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges.....

Enjoy... and happy reading!

You thought....

... I would go back to my old habit of not writing, didn't you?

Well, you weren't far off. I kept wanting to write and then I've just been swamped at work and in school. But I have a few minutes right now before class to post a brief update. :)

First of all, congratulations to my friends Anne and Shawn Brown who welcomed their first daughter into the world last Tuesday, Sept. 11. Sophie Magdalene ("Pearl of Wisdom") weighed in at almost 8 lbs and is just a little precious bundle of girl!

In other news, Freshman Retreat is this weekend. As of right now we have about 110 students signed up and are expecting 10-20 more. I am really excited to be a part of this project, which I think will really be impactful for the students. My role has been to select and train student leaders, and to present a breakout session on Greek Life and faith. Its called, "Its all Greek to me!" - because that is a pun I use a lot around here. :) I'm going to lead a discussion on the common fears of sorority and fraternity involvement, and also address how to stay faithful to your Christian beliefs while participating. I came to faith in large part due to my involvement in ADPi, so its nice to have the opportunity to share that with students.

Also this week, Matt and Candice and I are presenting an 80-minute long teaching session on Arthur Adler, and his counseling (psychology) theories. I really like Adler's stuff - he's all about empowerment and encouragement and confronting the "myths" that we've believed during our life based on our early experiences. Very interesting.

This week on my mind is the decision to pursue at PhD or EdD. Before I came to Baylor I didn't think that was where I was headed, but I am more and more convinced of it. That being said, I am currently debating about, asking about, and praying for wisdom and direction about, whether or not I should pursue doctoral work right after finishing here at Baylor. At this point, while I'm doing those things I am going to start getting my application materials together, so that I'll be ready by the deadline - just in case.

I don't know what this means for my future. I'm still planning to move to CA, so I'm looking at programs in that state - UCLA, Pepperdine, Azusa Pacific, USC, are my main options right now. I'll update you more on this later.

That's it for now. I'm headed to class.

Blessings!!!!!

one more thing (again)

Sometimes I like to read the blogs of my friends, and pretend like they are a letter from that person to me especially. I like that. It makes me feel like I'm home.

Cultural Issues class - reading response

I am in a class which looks at cultural issues (essentially in higher ed, but it ends up about being in the world). This class is a GREAT class. We are going to be forced to look at ourselves and our world with new eyes and I love that.

Each week we have to write a reading response. I may not post my response regularly, but this week seemed like it would cause us all to think about what messaging we are producing and seeing.

My entry is intentionally "unfinished" - we don't have space in our reflection writing to really finish any of this work, but its just to get us thinking and help our prof know where our head is. I hope to continue thinking about this issue this week.

Blessings, Tiffani


Here follows an edited version of my response:

I came to my desk to write about stereotypes and prejudices. When I was reading yesterday, I thought I would be writing about ethics. I may still try to write about both those things… but my first order of business is the new Baylor homepage (www.baylor.edu). I don’t remember ever looking in depth at the photos on the old BU homepage (and I haven’t even done this work yet on my own department’s page). However, as I was reading about assumptions and stereotypes (i.e. “Whites are smarter than African-Americans.”), I happened to load up the internet. This wasn’t the first time I saw the new BU homepage, but I guess my reading just happened to make me look at it with more critical eyes.
I first saw a white male, with the words, “Be Strong and Courageous.” I decided to see what other messages we were sending. There was a white woman graduating (with “be transformed…”), white people in a computer lab (“give me wisdom and knowledge”), an African American male in his Baylor Line jersey – clearly running onto the football field with “live by the spirit” – he is surrounded by white women, and this is followed by a picture of the rock wall with two white males on it. The next photo is of an African American woman (with “give me in your truth…”), and the last photo is of white males and says, “nothing will be impossible.”
I have thought about this issue before. I have tried to imagine that I was a student seeking to find a college where I would fit and I look at websites to see if I’m represented there. What Baylor’s new site tells me is that BU is primarily a place for white people, and maybe some African Americans would feel Ok about attending, too. But if I were an Asian or a Pacific Islander, or a Latina woman (just to name a few), I appear to not be represented here.
Today, I was struck by the subliminal content of the messages next to the pictures. I feel like our new homepage reinforces the stereotypes that African American males are only interested in sports, not school. I see stereotypes that the worship we have here is only for white people (the first picture is one of students worshipping and only includes white students). I know that this is not intentional – in fact, I’m sure that if I mentioned this to the office that controls the webpage they would be surprised by this messaging. They might even disagree.
This makes me think about the ethical concern of “Do no harm.” I appreciated the perspective of Pope when she mentioned that even ethics can contain cultural bias. That the intent to do no harm isn’t good enough, as professionals we have to consider if someone received harm from our actions (even if it was unintended). I don’t know that I had really thought of that before – but thinking about it, especially in light of what I know is white privilege in my case, I wonder how many times I’ve had to apologize because I’ve hurt someone’s feelings or been insensitive to a cultural difference even though it wasn’t my intent. Incidentally… a lot of times.

Photos!

Here you go, friends. Enjoy.

one more thing

And it was labor day weekend...

I spent Friday and Sat in Waco - delightful. We layed out by the pool and read and then Candice, Collin, Kathryn and I went to Red Lobster- what a treat! After, I joined Myles and Sarah at Pirates 3 (at the cheaps).

Sunday after church, Sarah and I loaded up and headed to San Antonio to see the Fergasons.

It was a great visit! We stayed until early Tuesday morning.

Weekly Update (9/6/07)

Ok, there, I said it... "Weekly Update"

Yes, friends, its fall again, and hopefully I will be able to keep this up all semester. I'm excited to feel like I could have time to spend 20 minutes a week updating!

The last couple weeks have been really fun!!!

My friend, Kristen, had a birthday and we dressed up in 80's clothes, surprised her at the Starbucks (and 80'ed her up) and then traveled to "Skate World" where we skated the evening away to the sounds of current music (mostly hip hop) and some 80's requests that they threw in for us. Our last dance was to Thriller which was especially fun, since we had created a dance to Thriller during line camp. We all skated to the center circle and did the dance - so fun!
(p.s. to see the thriller dance at line camp, click this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pmIKw_u0HY)

Pictures of 80's night to follow.

Last week, My pal, John Hickam, was in Dallas for a few days with his work (Boeing). It was great fun to be able to drive up to Dallas mid-week to visit him - especially since I didn't get to see him when I was in Seattle last month. He flew in on Wed and I arrived just before his flight. We got all dressed up and headed to Chamberlain's - which is a fancy steakhouse on the West side of town (I think). It was delicious, but even better was the company and getting to talk and make each other laugh. I always have a great time dining with John. After dinner we went to "Pete's Dueling Piano Bar" because John had thought it would be nice to go to a jazz lounge or something like it. Well, not knowing Dallas, there was no way of knowing that this would be nothing like a jazz lounge... but more like a bar that happened to have live music. That notwithstanding, it was a SUPER time. The pianists were incredible - they also played drums and the harmonica - and it was fun to sit and sing and watch people be ridiculous.

The next morning we had breakfast at La Madeleine (I think I like lunch there better, though it was good) and then we went to see where President Kennedy was shot. That was a fascinating experience. We saw the sixth floor window where they believe Lee Harvey Oswald was standing when he shot the president. We also saw the place on the grassy knoll where some people believe the shooter actually was. We met a man who was there when he was 13. Interesting experience.

Pictures again, to follow.

I drove back to Waco just in time for a baby shower for my friends Ryan and Kristen Richardson - they are having a baby boy named, Syler James and I'm really excited about it for them.

Finally, school has been overwhelming - at least in theory. There seems to be a lot of work ahead, but aside from reading I've mostly been working at work and not doing any of those aforementioned assignments. Hopefully I'll get on track and get ahead this weekend.

Our sunday school class is going well - I'm helping lead "The Other Side" - a class for post-college age indivs and I am enjoying it. I was hoping to join BSF, but it looks like at least for this month that I will not be able to. I'm still praying about how I can use my Monday nights as a ministry to me (aside from Heroes, which I'm excited about starting soon!).

That's all for now. Pics to follow. Thanks for being patient with me!

Love and Peace, Tiff

After a two-week absence

Sometimes I wonder if you've all given up checking my blog. I realize that I haven't been very regular about posting. And the people that aren't regular eventually get taken off my own "check" list, so I can understand if you've stopped. But I figure there are a few of you who continue to check in... so I'm going to continue posting.

So I'm here at home today - its Sunday, and I have an ADPi meeting at 2pm, so I will try to make a quick update before I have to get ready to go. School starts tomorrow and I feel like I'm ready... or at least as ready as I can be. I have my books, and my schedule (though I don't think I know where my class is tomorrow).

Tomorrow I am going to be at both chapel services. The first reason is that I'm sitting at the freshman retreat table after both services to sign people up to attend. The second reason is that in the absence of the Crowder Band (they are on vacation and so unable to open the chapel semester) we are introducting the entire university ministries staff. At least I think its because the Crowder band can't make it... it might have been part of the plan all along. But anyway, I have to introduce myself and I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to say yet... hopefully in a few hours I'll have thought of something. Sarah is going to help me pick out my outfit, which makes me laugh, but I need the encouragement that something looks cute enough to be on the chapel stage. I kind of want to wear a black dress, but that seems too dressy.

So that's chapel, and school, and that rounds up my Monday, except for the Baptist Student Ministry BBQ that evening - which should be a fun time.

Now, for the last two weeks....
School ended on a friday and I drove up that evening to Dallas with some friends so that I could fly out the next morning. I landed at Sea-Tac around 11, and immediately enjoyed some lovely lunch and catching up with Erin. That afternoon, Bethany picked me up and we enjoyed dinner with Scotty and some former GC football players (so fun!) then hung out with new boyfriend after church. Church at New Song was great and I was refreshed by their enthusiasm and passion, and was as always reminded of my enthusiasm and passion for Jesus.
Sunday I drove to Kirkland and spend the day with my aunts, Gloria and Donna. It was the company picnic for Gloria's office and the day was amazing - very fun (music, BBQ, bingo, etc) and beautiful weather (sunny, no clouds, seafair weekend, 85 degrees). We enjoyed a good dinner of leftover BBQ and then went to see the Bourne Ultimatum (great!). Monday morning I met Kristen, Amy Jo and Verla for breakfast. It was delightful to catch up with all of them, and was food for my soul. Kristen, and I then picked up Janae and Jean and headed north.
We met Larina and Paul Wang in Bellingham and enjoyed lunch together then caravanned (?) to Vancouver (or Richmond, actually) and spent the evening with them in their country of Canada. It was great fun to be all together, talking, laughing, watching movies and getting caught up. I miss those women!!!
We headed back to Seattle on Tuesday and I met up with Gloria and Donna and we had a great dinner together ( I love hanging with them!) and then watched some TV together. We got up early and they took me to the airport... and my trip was over.
So short, so fast and intense, but a great visit over all!!!

Sarah picked me up at the airport and we had a great time on the way home shopping at the outlet mall and getting caught up after my vacation. She's a great roommate. We only had a few days together before she left for Michigan for a week - she gets back today.

I attended the willow creek leadership summit ( baylor was a sattelite campus), after my return. It was incredible this year - Marcus Buckingham, Richard Curtis, Colin Powell, Jimmy Carter, all gave presentations, among a number of other amazing speakers. I was really challenged and hopefully learned a lot about leadership to supplement my class from the summer.

The summit ended and there were a few days where I just worked on getting ready for the school year at work, and then students moved in on Wed and Thursday. Its been welcome week since then, with a variety of activities, and also me at work getting ready for new grad assistants and to start my year with chaplains, etc.

I am so excited for this school year. There is a lot on my plate, but I'm looking forward to all of it!

I'm still working with fraternity and sorority chaplains, but am making a more concerted effort to reach other chaplains as well.
I'm going to be training the small group leaders for freshman retreat - which I'm super excited about - and then I'll be at freshman retreat giving a presentation on keeping your faith while being in a fraternity and sorority.
I'm going to help train a youth ministry team leader
I'm going to coordinate operation christmas child (again)
I'm co-leading a sunday school class at my church (UBC)
and I'm going to have a sale of Amani Ya Juu products in early september.

And while i do those things, I'm also going to be working on my classes, reading a TON (we have 13 books this semester) and writing, and trying to have a life.

And for myself I'm going to be attending BSF on Monday nights. :)

I can't wait!

Blessings to you, and especially those of you who are starting new things this year or at this time.

Leadership Journal - Week IV (and final)

Wow. Writing a journal every week sure speeds up the time. I think that probably also had to do with participating in Line Camps for the last three weeks - I know that last week went by at the speed of light.

I have almost finished reading The Leadership Challenge, by Kouzes and Posner. This week we read about Enabling Others to Act and Encouraging the Heart.

As I process through these chapters, there are a number of points that the authors make that directly apply to a situation that I was talking with a friend about last week. We are going to call my friend Jim, so that if someone googles his name this story won't come up and hurt his office.

Jim is the manager of a staff of 5. He is a clinician and supervises two other clinicians at his same level (essentially, though Jim is the preeminent clinician in his field and is the most senior of his staff). He also supervises three technical support roles. Jim works in the military - he is a civilian, and his staff are civilians, but they serve soldiers. The problem with this is that due to the heirarchical nature of the military, Jim didn't have any "real" power over his staff - in the sense of firing and other disciplinary actions. Unfortunately for Jim, his office was having some "real" problems - and he needed to solve them in a positive way.

Jim, his wife, and I were talking about this earlier this summer. The problems in his clinic were:

* communication difficulties between the clinicians and the techs

* poor quality work as a result of the poor communication

* finger pointing and a lack of ownership of projects and product

* possessive nature of different areas of the office

* lack of a "team" atmosphere due to new members and new office situation that reduced casual interactions between team members

* one specific tech/clincian relationship which was in great tension and disarray

I told Jim about some teambuilding and communication that our cohort had done earlier this year. In one class our professor took us through an excercise where we each had a chance to speak about the things in our group that were a problem, and then we each had a chance to speak about the things that were good. And then we set some expectations for behavior to address some of the issues. I also mentioned some other ways that team building could be done - i.e. manufacturing interaction time in the form of staff lunches and regular meetings to get everyone on the same page, staff "fun" activities as well.

Jim's response was admirable. One of the things I learned about leadership from him in this conversation we had was that a good leader is a learner as much as a teacher. Jim was really interested in solving these problems, because his office was suffering and so was his sanity, but more importantly he realized that to solve the problems he was going to have to humble himself and ask for suggestions from others. I think sometimes leaders think that they need to have all the solutions when if we humbled ourselves and asked around we wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel.

As the conversation progressed, Jim caught the vision for what we were all talking about and decided to implement some changes in his office immediately. Some things can't be changed - for example, he can't change the location of the clinic and the tech's offices. The design was too expensive and "state of the art" to make any changes to proximity of individuals. Additionally, his preference was not to fire anyone if possible - for a number of reasons (stability and workload of remaining staff, belief that the individuals in the office are capable of doing great work, etc).

Prior to this discussion, Jim had arranged the Techs and Clinicians into pairs or teams - each one working with another on a regular basis. Jim's wife suggested that rather than always having the same two work together, the techs took on rotating tasks, for a month each. That way they were always working on their skills on a variety of areas, they were not getting bored with one type of skill or task, and they encountered all the clinicians (and all the clinicians encountered all the techs). That way if there was a problem with one individual it would be more noticeable because it would affect either all three clinicians or all three techs - and would not look like just one clinician complaining about one tech's behavior (or vice versa). This initial suggestion was pretty revolutionary in the field, and so we talked about innovation and the idea of creating something that was bigger than just this particular clinic.

I really like process improvement. I love thinking the best way in the world something can be done (I'm a developer and arranger) and then implementing it (I'm also an activator) and seeing if it will work. I love the idea that the solution may be unique and may help other people improve their processes as well. I think we were all pretty jazzed about thinking outside the box regarding how the office was set up to run. This led us to discuss Jim himself stepping out of a clinician role into more of a coach/consultant role (and replacing himself with a less senior clinician who could be trained up and sent out) - then Jim could consult and work with difficult cases and step in when people were over their heads, but could also be better equipped to handle the administration of the office.

To continue... Jim went to work the next day and called a team meeting for the following day. He told them to clear their afternoon for that day and he ordered in lunch for the staff. At the meeting he discussed the fact that he was aware there were complaints on either side of the office. He took responsibility for this situation, because his expectations had not been presented clearly. And then he asked them to talk about what they did not like about working in the office, what problems they had, and asked them all to listen to the others. He wrote these complaints and issues up on a big note pad at the front of the room. And added any issues that he had heard before but which didn't come up in the conversation. He later told me that they went around the table 6 times completely before the group was spent of complaints. Then he had them go around and talk about what they liked about working there.

After this, he presented his expectations for the office. He had prepared a number of them in advance, and in large part they addressed the issues that were brought up with some new processes for paperwork and documentation which held different members of the teams accountable for giving the correct information to their teammates. To this the team contributed other expectations, giving them some buy in into the process and the solutions.

When I was reading The Leadership Challenge this week, K and P discussed fostering accountablity in the organizationn and modeling the behaviors to you hope to see. I think setting expectations for Jim's office was a great way to begin to foster accountability. By incorporating solutions to current goads as expectations for behavior, there is a now a way to give appropriate positive and negative feedback as needed.

This process has helped Jim's staff to work together. And it had another benefit. It has also helped to identify individuals who are either unable (due to lack of skills) or unwilling to conform to the group's expectations and behaviors. This has created another issue that would be discussed in later journals - any maybe they will be, but not today.

However, there was a follow up conversation as Jim reported the results to me. He, his wife and I discussed the value of recognizing contributions to the team. Kim, his wife, mentioned how valuable it could be to identify the positive contributions individuals are making and try to insert a reward system. She even mentioned that if they had to they could find a way out of their own money (if he didn't have any funds at the clinic) to make some meaningful rewards.

K and P discussed that two in the "Encourage the Heart" section. They talked about the importance of recognizing contributions to the team. The first its important to start with clear standards (check) and then give positive feedback. One suggestion I really liked was an example of a "brag board" where the supervisor posts notes of acclaim or praise about specific individuals on a bulletin board that everyone can see - I thought that might be a great place to post pictures of service men with their prostheses and their techs and clinicians, and/or letters that were written by servicemen or their families, so that the reward of working with people is always at the forefront of the minds of the staff.

The last few things to mention were things I heard at church and read in Parker Palmer's book (Let Your Life Speak):

* Parker says, "A leader is someone with the power to project either shadow or light onto some part of the world and onto the lives of the people who dwell there.... A good leader is intensely aware of the interplay of inner shadow and light, lest the act of leadership do more harm than good." (p.78)

* and... "I now know myself to be a person of weakness and strength, liability and giftedness, darkness and light. I now know that to be whole means to reject none of it, but to embrace all of it." (p.70)

The last note I have for today is: Sometimes to be a leader you have to sacrifice and give even when you are at your most tired, or when you think you have nothing left to give.

That is what I learned last week at Line Camp. :)

Leadership Journal Week III

Its Monday night, and I will confess that I'm later than normal in getting this journal written. I was out of town this weekend and though I took a few notes, I was not around earlier today to synthesize them. And then there was Hairspray. We saw it tonight and I can barely focus on leadership with the soundtrack running through my head (ok, and on my computer...).

Despite the toe-tapping, I do have a few things I'm thinking about this week:
* How much does a good leader communicate? Is there a point where there is too much? (I think we all agree there are plenty of leaders who don't communicate enough)
* When is it appropriate to step out of a situation, trust others to take care of it and leave, so that you can get rested up for the work you have the next day?
* How to "squash crickets gently"?
and maybe a few other things as they come to mind.

First - how much does a good leader communicate.
Last week I mentioned Scotty Kessler, one of the leaders I would (and did) move across the country to work with. He was an "over-communicator." Let's just call it like it was. He communicated everything, from his rationale for decisions to the concerns he had no his mind about a myriad of issues, to his thoughts or feelings about players and how to help them. The problem, I think, came when he overcommunicated his fears and worries to the staff. There are times when a leader needs to be confident toward his or her staff, even when he or she doesn't feel so sure about the future. Scotty would occaisionally reconsider his decision to stay on staff - and he would verbalize this to the group. My impression of this was a dad on a camping trip, who was lost, and then told his boy scout troop that he was lost - instead of just confidently walking to the left for a while until he figured out his plan, or even just making a camp out where they were until he came up with a plan.
This is a classic leadership mistake, I think. I think that once we get liberated into communication (and we do need this liberation, because mostly in America we undercommunicate, and the leaders of the world seem to be the best at keeping things close to the vest) we often hang our banner on communicating everything, so that we don't fall back into under communication. However... I think that most people want to know about the here and now, and they want to know the vision and values of an organization, but they don't want to know that someone doesn't believe in the vision, the values, in them; they don't want to know if their supervisor is afraid. As leaders, somehow we need to learn to be honest and still positive in situations that cause us anxiety or worry. At least, until the inevitable comes and then we need to communicate that information as positively as possible.
Here's my real life example before I move on: When I was at Eddie Bauer, we went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy (or Ch.7 - OK, I'm not sure...). We knew there was going to be lay offs, and then one day there was a big meeting and they announced that they were going to be laying off people that day. Yuk. I was middle management, with two direct reports. I was pretty confident that they were not going to lay off anyone working for me, though I thought my job was in jeopardy (in the Lord's goodness, however, I already had a job waiting for me and was one week from giving my two week's notice!). One of my analysts, Matt, was very concerned about his job. He had just gotten married and was one of the newest analysts on the team. I assured him that it was going to be OK, and his job was safe. Later that morning, I was laid off, along with all the other store planners. It was sad and hard for all of us, but it was OK. Until I realized that they were laying off the most recently hired analysts (they hadn't told us if any of our staff would be laid off) - including my Matt. At that point, I immediately went to him and told him that I was concerned about his job. I don't know it I did it exactly right - I don't know if I should not have assured him at the beginning or told him before the end. But I think that had I told him I was worried about his job earlier (if I had been), he would have been very concerned, unproductive and unconsolable. Instead, he was OK until our conversation and then prepared when they called him into the office to speak with him. (epilogue: he was immediately rehired by EB, after going through an interview process, and though I have lost touch with him, I know he has a big future ahead of him)

Second: delegation.
I think knowing when to delegate is difficult. I think also that when you like to be in the middle of the fun (this is one of my burdens), its doubly difficult to leave before everyone else has left - at least when you are one of the responsible people. I've been proud of Matt and Keane that there have been a few late night events where they are not present (i.e. the coffee house) until midnight. However, I wonder if they are at home sleeping or just in the office working on preparation for the next day. And I wonder how much work could be differently distributed to allow them, and Candice, and Carrie, etc to sleep.
I know that I have a threshold for tiredness, when I just want to go home and go to bed, and where I need to. But I think back to football camp and in-season and I remember the nights when I felt like I needed to be there until the bitter end. I am really grateful in hindsight that I was part of a staff of servant hearts, who were all willing to do the work together so that we could all go home a bit earlier rather than later. I'm also grateful that the Lord gave Scotty a heart of trust in me (and thus let me do things while he slept so he could be the face of our team), and that I had a heart of trust for Dave and Jared and some of the others - without whom I would have been miserable and trying to take care of little details all the time. And not getting any sleep. I need to remember to look for opportunities to delegate tasks, and to let others run the show, so that I can help them develop their skills, feel trusted, and rest up in order to lead. I also need to remember to look for opportunities to let others rest and work late or early so someone else can be in the spotlight!

Third: gentleness
The bible says we should be gentle. Paul talks about it constantly - its a fruit of the spirit (Ephesians 5), we should be clothed in it (Colossians 3) and our "gentleness should be evident to all" (Philippians 4:5). And at the same time, John says that both Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ - so I know that we are supposed to speak truth - but gently.
This week we talked a lot about how to speak truth without crushing people's spirits, how to get them to agree to actions which they may not like without coercing them. On Friday night - about 12 hours before the students would leave - we found another student with a cell phone. I thought Matt did a great job of being firm but gentle when we spoke to the student outside. The discussion centered on not being an exception to the rule, on the idea that breaking rules now (even ones as small as a cell phone) leads to breaking rules when you are at Baylor, and how this is an opportunity to define who you are going to be. It was a dicey situation, to be sure. Our ideal was that he would turn over his phone voluntarily, and enjoy the rest of his stay. The worst case.. he keep it and leave camp. yuk.
But, I was blessed by Matt, who really consciously thought about how to gently talk with the student, who asked me and a baylor bound leader to accompany him to help fill in gentleness and truth gaps as needed (I think), and who listened well to the explanation the student had, but didn't give in to the reasons of the student. He listened, and demonstrated his caring, but then told the student how he could handle that situation in the future. The result was the student voluntarily gave up his phone and the next morning was still at camp and had navigated the 12 hours successfully.
I want to be grace to people all the time - its easier, mostly, and its happier, and it involves less confrontation. But there are times when I know I need to be truth and its OK. Jesus brought both grace and truth, and as an effective leader, I need to find a way to do the same.

That is probably all my thoughts on singleness for now. For you regular readers, I will try to post more on my life soon, in the meantime. Lead well and love well, too. Blessings.

Last week in Photos

Sadly, I didn't get any pics of our visit from Dave Banks when he stopped by last week on his way to a new post in California. But I did take a lot of pictures at Line Camp, where I led a small group and helped out all week.

Here are a few for your review. :) Love, Tiff

my small group from week 1 - they were fantastic!This team went CRAZY when they found out they won the "Bear Food" challenge during "Bearing the Elements" on Thursday night.
During "All-Line Camp Sing 2007" - hysterical.

See... even the guys get into it!

As do the girls...!

Journal on Leadership, week 2

I enjoyed this process last week and am excited to be writing again about leadership and my reflections on it. This week Dub asked us to reflect on the questions "So what?" and "Now what?" as they relate to the study we've been doing of different leadership theories. I also want to discuss characteristics of the most impactful leaders I've worked with and some reflection on servant leadership.


First... Characteristics of the Leaders I would move across country to work with:
a) Marc Adams - Marc was my district director when I first worked for JCPenney - he taught me a lot about working, retail and integrity. Later, we worked together again at Eddie Bauer (randomly).
The characteristics that I remember admiring about Marc, and which would make me willing to move across the country to work with him are: honest, caring, fun, knowledgable, humble, respected, fair but tough.


b) Julie Harris-Cheney - Julie was my director at Eddie Bauer and later in my time there I reported to her directly. It was a blast to work for Julie and we also had great opportunity to talk about spiritual matters (she is Jewish). I appreciated her willingness to listen and share and ask honest questions, in addition to these other characteristics: tough, expects excellence, loves people, respects others, fun, knowledgable, open, stubborn, smart


c) Scott Kessler - Scotty is the former head football coach at Greenville College... I actually DID move across country to work with him. He was a tough boss and a hard worker, but I learned so much from partnering with him in ministry and working with him in the football program. Characteristics of Scotty are: honest, visionary, Godly, wise, risk-taker, caring, respectful, interested.


When I think about leaders I want to follow (and thus, who I want to be), I think of these three people (among a few others) and their characteristics. I think about honesty and openness, respectful-ness of other's views, wise and knowledgable individuals, intelligent but also fun. I also know that while I love working for Christians, I think a person could be a good leader without being one - my mom always says that Christian principles work for everyone, so if a person led using Christian characteristics, I know that I would follow them. Granted, of course, I would prefer to follow someone who I believe is seeking God for the direction of our endeavor, and relying on God's gifts for their abilities - but frankly... I know some who call themselves Christians who may not reflect those things so....


OK, second, servant leadership. Working with Line Camp this week has offered me great opportunity to observe leadership first hand - in the person of its main full-time leaders and in the student leaders.
At check in we realized there was an error on the website, telling students the correct name of the check-in location... but not the right building number on the map. When it was pointed out, Matt tried to correct it on the web, but the server was down. So he decided to go out to the street and flag people down. I asked him why not send a Baylor Bound leader so that he could be at the Heritage House in case other stuff came up (he seemed like a pretty important dude to the process). He said that he would go, and I was left to ponder Servant Leadership. In situations like these, what is the best thing to do? I appreciated Matt's trust of all of us that we could handle it, and I think symbolically it said a lot that he left us there to handle it, and that he went and did this very hot job on his own. I think that I would have sent someone to go do it (or had them rotate) - not because I wouldn't have wanted to - I don't think I would have minded had I been in Matt's place - but because I like to be in the hub in case people have questions or need direction. I was grateful for Matt's example of trust and empowerment in this case, as it gave me a lot to think about. He certainly didn't abandon his post - he came back periodically to check on people and give us encouragement, but then he was gone again - and everything went smoothly.
Later in the week, Matt was very intentional about giving positive feedback to the small group leaders for the work they had done. He was sincere and grateful and I think it made an impact on the group. I've appreciated his enthusiasm, his passion for Line Camp and his ability to convey gratitude.


Third, So what... Now what....?
This is the hardest part of the journal for me this week. In my written journal I wrote: What will I do with all this info I have learned?

I wrote two answers so far:
a) I want to make informed decisions about how I currently lead and what kind of leader I want to be - are they the same?

What kind of leader do I aspire to be?:
thoughtful, honest, visionary, servant, humble, wise, Godly, knowledgable, interested, respectful, listening, sharing openly, prayerful, fun and passionate (probably among other things).

What kind of leader am I?:
sometimes controlling, not always adaptable, respectful, listening, hopefully Godly, hopefully interested, fun most of the time, passionate, generally thoughtful though sometimes too quick to act.

Perhaps if I keep my "aspirations" in front of me, that combined with my philosophy of ministry will keep me headed in the right direction.


b) I guess I need to think about how I would rank on some of those scales and see if they are where I want to be. Most of the scales we looked at would place "good" management at places that are both task and people oriented (somehow). But good management varies depending on the situation ( I think I talked about this last week - sometimes people need an authoritarian, for example).

More importantly than figuring out where I fit on those scales, though, is figuring out if my leadership style fits in the places I want to work. I don't think I could work in a place where they have only authoritarian leaders and that type of leadership is appropriate. But I also know that I like to get tasks done, and so working somewhere where it was all play and fun would be difficult, too. Thinking of these things makes me think that part of what I could use the recent learning of our class for is to identify questions I would ask of future colleges as I look for employment.

Q's:
a) Describe your leadership style in 3 sentences.
b) What types of leaders succeed in your college or university?
c) How will I be challenged to grow in my leadership skills?
d) How do YOU view success in your organization - is it task-related or people-related?


I also need to answer these questions for myself in a different way:
a) Describe MY leadership style in 3 sentences (right now I have a two page philosophy of ministry... I need something shorter!).
b)What type of leader am I and am I a fit for this organization?
c) Am I committed to constantly changing and improving myself and if so, how am I hoping to improve my leadership skills?
d) How do I view success - my own and those of people who I support or work with?


I don't have answers yet, but its good to be thinking of this and mulling over it as I prepare for class tomorrow.

Finally, and as a bonus... I don't have a definition of leadership yet, but here is Dub's favorite, and some other quotes about what leadership is (from this site linked here):
** Dub's Fave ** Leadership is... "a subtle process of mutual influence that fuses thought, feeling, and action to produce cooperative effort in the service of the purpose and values of both leader and followers." (Bolman and Deal, 1997)
** "My definition of a leader . . . is a man who can persuade people to do what they don't want to do, or do what they're too lazy to do, and like it." Harry S. Truman
** "The superior leader gets things done with very little motion. He imparts instruction not through many words but through a few deeds. He keeps informed about everything but interferes hardly at all. He is a catalyst, and though things would not get done well if he weren't’t there, when they succeed he takes no credit. And because he takes no credit, credit never leaves him." Lao Tse
** "Leadership is the art to of influencing and directing people in such a way that will win their obedience, confidence, respect and loyal cooperation in achieving common objectives." US Air Force
(The next two are from the website linked here)
** "Leadership is a process of giving purpose (meaningful direction) to collective effort, and causing willing effort to be expended to achieve purpose." Jacobs and Jacques, 1990
I like this definition a lot.
** "Leadership is about articulating visions, embodying values, and creating the environment within which things can be accomplished." Richards & Engle, 1986
This definition makes me think of the book we are reading, "The Leadership Challenge," and so I will stop here. I like this definition a lot, too.

Make it a great week. Practice leadership and service. :)