Powerless Over Being Powerless...

As I entered into week TWO of school, I'm attempting to find that "new normal," figure out what exactly my schedule is supposed to be and achieve that perfect work/school/life balance. Well, I know one thing... this week was far from normal.

Monday was good, I'd say it was the closest to normal I had all week. I had a busier than usual morning, all but one of my enrollments showed up and I struggled to stay caught up with my "to do" list. I was fairly successful and I'm fairly confident that I ended the day on a pretty positive note. For the life of me, I can't even remember what I did after work other than come home and work on school stuff. That evening, I was in my own little world working on school and doing whatever the hell else I was doing and Mom and Nick were out in the living room in their own little British TV show world as well. We were all oblivious to the monster storm that was about to roll through the metro. When it arrived, it rocked and rolled but wasn't anything to be super concerned about. Heavy rains, straight-line winds, a few pop-up tornadoes here and there. However, Damon Lane and the Channel 5 news team were quite worried. They needed to consult a thesaurus to figure out new verbiage for the word "bad," because they used it... a lot.

It sure slammed the north side, up by Penn Square Mall and by my work. As it rolled south, it went just to the east of us. We were hit, but not bad. The storm was in and out within the course of a couple of hours. I was texting back and forth with a few coworkers and knew that the Northside was pretty bad, and that SOS was without power. Little did we know that this storm was going to put SOS out of commission for the REST OF THE FRIGGIN WEEK. I went back to work Tuesday morning, and each morning after that, thinking that "surely OG&E has gotten their act together and has put us back online." Nope. Nothing. I'd get on Facebook and see that all sorts of business and homes that were in the vicinity of SOS were getting their power back, only to seem like they had completely skipped by us and left us in the literal dark.

There is the part of me that was like "whee! I'm off from work!" I basically got to come back home, get into my comfy clothes, and alternate between naps and homework. Sounds pretty good to me! But then, there was the adult part of me that was like "uhhh... I would prefer to not use my PTO on something lame-ass like this." Not only was I using ALL of my PTO, I technically didn't have enough  and I wouldn't be getting paid for like 10 hours of it. Then, looking down the road, knowing the fact that I had THREE months to go and no PTO to cover myself with if something else were to occur. So the mind begins to race and wander. I begin to think things like, "well, it's okay now while I live at home... but if this were to happen NEXT year, I'd be f**ked." That then evolves into anger towards other people, places and things. I start making plans for big hefty changes and all of these things that I was going to say/do/change.

So I get stuck in this whirlwind of planning for these things that might NEVER happen (and they probably won't)... or they will... what does it matter? This falls smack dab under the category of "grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change." It never fails that, fairly frequently, I need to reel myself back in and tell myself STOP. LIVE FOR TODAY. FOCUS ON RIGHT NOW. You have homework, and plans tomorrow, movies to see, Megans to hang out with, Poke-waffles to make, etc.

I find it kind of ironic that, as I typed out this blog, I received a text message at 8:38PM from the director of the agency saying that power had been restored to SOS.

A MASTERful Week...

Week one is complete, my first grades are hitting the books and I'm starting to think to myself, "hey!  Maybe I can do this!" I had my fair share of doubts and insecurities, but it didn't take long for me to put those to rest. As I watched the introductory video to the program and to my class "Introduction to Professional Social Work," I immediately felt that sense of belonging... that this was the perfect program for me. Professor Franklin mentioned a "love for helping people, being passionate about issues that effect social economic justice, oppressing others or causing others to suffer." Being the suit-and-tie kinda guy that makes a lot of money and plays golf didn't really suit me (no pun intended), I feel much more comfortable down in the trenches with those who are having a rougher go at life.

My first class, like I previously mentioned is Introduction to Professional Social Work and is taught by Dr. Lori Franklin, who just also happens to be the director of the program. The course will span the entire 16-weeks of this first semester and is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It covers the history of social work, the different types of licensure, dealing with ethics issues, etc. Although the course itself doesn't seem to have a whole lot of "heart," Dr. Franklin seems to be the type that approaches social work from the emotional/heart/"this is why we do it" perspective. I like that, because that is the main reason that draws me to this field.

The second class is Human Diversity and Societal Oppression and is taught by Dr. Anthony Natale. It's an eight week course, but with 16 weeks worth of stuff crammed into it. Even with the pretty serious and potentially negative/downer subject matter, I'm super excited about this course. Dr. Natale seems to be pretty intimidating (at least to me), he seems to be the type that is VERY collegiate and uses a very educated vocabulary... that challenges even a word-nerd like myself. I'm up to the challenge, though. I've already made a 100% on my first paper for his class. He even said that I "rose to the challenge of the assignment." Yeah! Bring it!

I know it's only the beginning and there are PLENTY of weeks left, but I'm already excited and ready for what's next!

A Slight Change of Plans...

When I was a wee lad, I knew that I wanted to be a writer "when I grow up." Some kids wanted all the coolest toys for Christmas (heck, I did too), but I was tickled pink just getting a big box of (dot matrix printer) paper. The pages were perfectly lined, so my chubby little hands could write out all my thoughts and dreams out on paper. My imagination frequently ran wild and I thought it would be so cool to get to share my stories with the world. Not only would I get to share those stories, I'd get paid for it. I'd be like Oklahoma's own Dr. Seuss, minus all the weird rhyme-y shit. People would be buying up boxes of John Cloud's novels left and right, and I'd be making bazillions of dollars. I'd probably even have enough money for my very own Kraft Mac & Cheese fountain.

As I began to mature (at least a little) and I realized that the best way for my world to get used to my writing would be through journalism. In the ninth grade, I decided to join the school newspaper staff. As an up-and-coming writer for "The Paw Print," I was responsible for covering such hot topics as "cool locker decorating trends" and "the dangers of walking down Penn to the McDonald's after school." Ya know, the important stuff. I was absolutely hooked from the start. It was a great outlet for my writing, the teacher was super supportive and helped me grow in my writing and it was a great outlet for me to get out there and meet people. My newfound career continued into High School, when I joined the "Jag Wire" staff at Westmoore High School. I won over the notoriously strict teacher and convinced her to love me. Of course, by the time I was a senior, I became the editor-in-chief. I'm still not quite sure how that happened...

When I started thinking about colleges, I set my sights on the big time... I wanted to go to Columbia University, which was VERY well known for it's college of journalism. I'd settle on Oklahoma, which also had a pretty good journalism program. I started out tiny, though, and started with Oklahoma City Community College. I had a few professors who were actual journalists on local news outlets. My first impression of "real" journalism was less than flattering. For whatever reason, the work became ten times as hard and I was given some not-so-positive advice on how to "make it" in the field. While my love for writing still existed, my deep love for journalism quickly faded. With stuff like "you have to work twice as hard if you're doing an honest job" or "if it bleeds it leads," it just wasn't my thing. I finished that semester at OCCC and decided I would make the job to OU.

It didn't seem so devastating back then, but when I look back on it now, I really felt like a ship without a rudder. I didn't know what I was going to do or who I was. I was very fortunate that I found the Liberal Studies program at OU, which was pretty much a "general education" degree. It was something I could build off of when I decided what I wanted to be "when I grow up."

My time as an undergraduate at OU was definitely rocky. The alcoholism, of course, played a huge part in that. But I've been thinking here lately, that not having any clear goals or big dreams to work towards probably played some part in the lack of drive to keep going. It is REALLY difficult to put that one foot in front of the other, when you have no idea what you're walking towards or what the end game is supposed to be. There was some sort of blind faith at work there, because I had to keep telling myself to keep at it, that SOMETHING would happen. I'd see that light bulb or have that burning bush moment at some point. I was REALLY starting to doubt it at the end, but luckily it happened just in time.

So, while my exact dreams of being THAT type of writer might not be exactly what's happened, I still have plenty of opportunities to write in my future. Maybe I'll write some sort of groundbreaking book on social work or something like that. Until then, this little bloggy blog... my own little corner of the world will have to do.