More on my first week of grad school later, but here's a little visual to whet the appetite...

Posted at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I always want to find something pithy to say about politics, especially in an election season as charged as this one. But as usual, people who are far better writers than I have already beaten me to it. Michael Chabon's call to hope (and a vote for Obama) says everything I could hope to about why I cast my vote (absentee rocks!) the way I did:

To support Obama, we must permit ourselves to feel hope, to acknowledge the possibility that we can aspire as a nation to be more than merely secure or predominant. We must allow ourselves to believe in Obama, not blindly or unquestioningly as we might believe in some demagogue or figurehead but as we believe in the comfort we take in our families, in the pleasure of good company, in the blessings of peace and liberty, in any thing that requires us to put our trust in the best part of ourselves and others. That kind of belief is a revolutionary act. It holds the power, in time, to overturn and repair all the damage that our fear has driven us to inflict on ourselves and the world.

Link: Chabon's Washington Post commentary

Posted at 05:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The new year has come and gone, and this blog has been dormant (as usual) for quite a while. The good news is that the situation's about to change. Partly, I suspect I'll have a lot to talk about, and partly, it will be because writing on the blog is going to be part of my homework. After a 15-year absence from the world of academia, I'm about to start grad school. Events and finances have finally transpired in my favor, and the perfect program for me, which didn't exist until a few years ago, has been created.

Which degree, you may ask: film school, MBA (hah!), MFA in creative writing? All have been contenders for the crown in the past, but the true winner emerged a few years back, unbeknownst to me until last spring. That would be this here degree, and it made itself present through another great experience, which since I didn't bother to write about it at the time, I'll attempt to describe now.

Last winter, still in a funk about my mother's death, I decided I needed to go on a retreat of some kind. Since I'm a human potential-inclined hippie by nature, and had a great experience there previously, I got online to see what Esalen had going on for the springtime. Back in 2000, before this blog was even a glimmer in my eye, I took a week-long drumming workshop there under the master, Babatunde Olatunji. I fell in love with Esalen then, and always wanted to go back for another week. So I went through the catalog, and found a workshop that I had looked at several times previously: the Mythological Toolbox. It's run every year at Esalen during Joseph Campbell's birthday week, and after reading the description, I knew it was exactly what I needed.

So I went. It will take another whole entry or two to describe in detail everything that happened that week, and I'll do that another time. The three most important things that came out of that week were first, a feeling of energy and forward movement, a desire to enjoy being alive, that had all but disappeared in a fog of grief. The second was a strong engagement with the mythological material that was presented during the course of the week. The entire week is a ritual, designed to help the participants understand that their life transitions are part of a story that has been played out throughout human history, and that there are guides, signs, and friends who can help us along the way. And the third was the beginning of a personal connection to the folks who run the workshop and the Joseph Campbell Foundation, for whom I'm now a volunteer webmaster. That connection has given me a sense of purpose that's a wonderful supplement to the enjoyment I already have at work and in my personal life.

I came back from Big Sur invigorated and wanting to learn more about Campbell and his work. (Sidenote: if you haven't seen Power of Myth, you really should...it's a great introduction to his work, very accessible, and very inspiring.) I had a vague memory that his personal library had been donated to a university, so I went a-Googling, and found it at Pacifica Graduate Institute. With grad school still in mind, I decided to take a look at their programs, and found the one I'm now enrolled in, which seemed to be the mix of personal growth, mythology, and engagement with the larger world that I'd been looking for. Freed finally from the financial need to use a graduate degree to further my career (which had been behind the MBA thoughts), I knew it was the one.

But I tend to leap in without thinking when enthusiasm levels are high (my closet full of unplayed instruments is a testament to this), so I decided to take a more cautious approach. I drove down to Santa Barbara with Debbie to check out the campus, and went to their info day to hear about all the programs and get a sense of the place.

I fell in love.

The only question remaining was when to start. It was June by this time, and the Fall quarter started in mid-August. Still wanting to test my passion for this idea, I decided to wait a couple of months and then apply to start mid-year if I was still feeling strongly about it. And that's exactly what happened. After getting recommendations from friends and colleagues, writing the personal statement, finding an old academic paper that still sounded good, and getting transcripts sent, I waited for that big packet to come in the mail.

So now I'm about to embark on this big adventure, once that will suck up all of my vacation and most of my spare time for the next two years, and I couldn't be happier. I'm also glad I waited...I considered going to grad school after getting my BA, but had no real direction at that time or for a long time afterward, and I think it would have been a waste of money. Now as a seasoned 40-year-old, I feel like I have some real experience and thinking to contribute, and a much deeper appreciation for the community that I'm about to join.

And with that, I'm off to do some pre-reading before President's Day...I'm determined to finally develop those good study habits I was always told would be helpful. :-)

Posted at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)