Approval

As of 10am Saturday morning my research proposal was accepted unanimously by the department. BOOYEAH! It's now moved on to be submitted to Taylor's I.R.B. for approval. I'm hoping for notification within a week.

Though parting ways with friends after college is difficult, it makes the time with these people later in life seem so good and so beneficial. Time with Phil was very good. Sushi and a new entry into the journal, of course. We met Michelle for lunch and it was fun to ask her questions and see how the two of them share the same space. I think there's something necessary about having someone in your life periodically who knows you outside of your current context and circumstance. Maybe it's the ability to step away from an expected role one plays too often, or maybe it's the weight of time that such a person's inquiry carries with it. Ultimately, I think it's simply the sincerity and depth of a friendship that persists in the face of seperate lives and different spaces. There's comfort and refuge to be taken in these relationships. Thank you Phil for a breath of fresh air.

Yesterday I turned in the last big assignment I have academically for the semester until the last week of class. Though a front loaded semester made for a hecktic last 3 weeks, especially, I'm looking forward to a schedule that I can fill up with one-on-one meetings with students. Coffee anyone?

yawn

Sunday - Stayed up all night. Wrote an EXTREMELY frustrating paper for Spiritual Formation class. (Had the best conversation of the year up to this point with Caleb and Ben during the middle of the night)
Monday - 5 hours of sleep. Late PA meetings followed by a phone call that left me sleepless for quite a while.
Tuesday - 4 hours of sleep. meetings with students till late followed by 6am wake up for work @ the coffee shop the next day.
Wednesday - Stayed up all night again! Ended up rewriting my entire lit review for my thesis proposal. Good news: it was officially submitted to the department at 7am this morning.
Tonight - Falling asleep as soon as I finish this post... Ahhh sweet sweet sleep how you've been so elusive to me this week.

It's been a long time since I've done 2 all-niters in one week. I hope it's another long time before I do it again.

ruffles

Amy and I talked over Skype this morning with Joanie, our Czech host. It was very encouraging to get answers to some of the questions our team's had over the past month and a half. Looks like we'll be spending most of our days in english & gym classes between elementary school through high school & even some adult learning oportunities as well. In the evenings it sounds like we'll be inviting the school kids to hang out with us at local pubs and our residence. We'll also be spending time working with gypsy communities (Roma) and childrens' homes. Evidently our first weekend in the country we'll be helping host a soccer tournament with some of the younger kids in the area. Overall, the excitement level was raised more than I thought there was room for, to be quite honest. I can't wait to share the news with our team on Monday.

This afternoon & evening Amy and I ran down to Indy to see a movie. Afterwards we were walking through an outdoor mall and she asked if we could look for a present for one of her friends who's birthday is this week. We walked in to Ann Taylor Loft and Amy sort of walked around looking for stuff. As I stood in the back of the store for a few minutes I started to look around the store. Angela liked Ann Taylor alot because they have a good petite section with clothes that are her size. I identified this section and spotted several tops that she would have looked at. Had we walked into this store together this is what would have happened. We would have walked to the petite section and begun perusing. She would have picked up this yellow short sleeved top with little ruffles down the middle and looked at it. I would have walked over and said that looked very nice and that she should get it. She would have agreed but then put it back on the rack and walked away. I would have waited until after she'd finished looking around and then picked it back up and encouraged her to get it. She would dismiss it as too expensive, to which, I would have said I wanted to buy it for her. Once I would have convinced her that I really wanted to get it to help build her work clothes wardrobe, then she would walk back to the rack, look at the shirt and then put it down and looked at several other ones behind it that looked similar, but with different colors and no ruffles. She would have picked up a brown one that was a few behind the yellow one and ask what I thought of that one. I would have told her that i thought that one was nice too. Ultimately she would decide to let me purchase the brown one for her even though she likes little ruffles alot, because she doesn't like the way that yellow looks on her (she says her skin is too pale) and she thinks brown is much safer for work.

I wanted to sit down on a stool in the shoe section and cry for knowing how specifically that would have played out.

Thank you Andrew and Amy for getting me through this weekend. Everyone comes back from Fall Break tomorrow night, and it wont be a moment too soon, I'm sure.

Lighthouse

Last winter and spring I spent quite a bit of time thinking and praying and fretting about sponsoring a Lighthouse trip for this school year. I was in the throws of an extremely demanding semester and frankly, was not sure I had it in me to take on another committment. As a student, I went on a Lighthouse trip that was very formative for me. I had great leaders and a team dynamic that was very positive. It was very important for me that I would be able to commit myself to a team's preparation and development sufficiently. I think what eventually pushed me over the edge enough to make a decision was that my friend Amy Barnett found out from her supervisor that he'd let her lead a trip this year (Amy's wanted to lead a lighthouse trip for some time now, but her job's calendar isn't very conducive to taking the month of January off). Sometime in late April we found out we were going to be leading the trip to the Czech Republic. BOOYEAH!

My Lighthouse experience as a student was also to the Czech Republic, which only increased my already high level of excitement. We'll be working with the same host missionary (Joanie), that I worked with as a student. I'm very excited. Over the summer Amy and I got to select our team of 16 students. 5 guys and 11 girls. I was suprised at how few of the applicants I knew. Again, this was a process covered in prayer over a week or so. Amy and I spent several summer nights sitting in her back yard by a fire talking about plans and desires for our team, the most significant of which, was the idea that we wanted to foster the idea that God is not waiting to work in my life this January while I'm in Czech. In fact, He's at work right here; right now. It's our goal throughout the semester to pose the question 'How do you observe God at work in your life right now?' often. We've also challenged them to consider packing their bags for the month in such a way that they would be able to donate everything they bring to the missions organization except for the clothes on their back and a souvineer or two.

Since school has started, we've had team meetings every Monday night for a few hours. We also went on a 24 hr. retreat to my parents' place on the lake on weekend. Honestly, my excitement for them has grown with each interaction! Each of these students is fabulous. At the end of each meeting, after everyone leaves, Amy and both look at each other with huge smiles. They are 16 unique and engaging personalities. We're meeting one-on-one with each student throughout the semester, which has also been such a blessing. These students, individually, and this team, as a group, are special. I can already tell. They may not know how well they're going to fit together yet, but Amy and I already see it.

Amy and I went to Payne's tonight and got some coffee and talked for a while. The conversation eventually got to lighthouse and I think we must have spent a good hour to hour and a half laughing and talking about our team. We made a several predictions and lists in the same vain as yearbook 'most likely to' stuff. For instance, 'person most likely to punch a crying girl on the trip ____'. We also decided to both journal about our personal goals for each student on the team. This will be good to direct my individual time with these students.

In Lighthouse, I see maybe the most tangeable mainfestation of God's sovreignty in my life. Last spring, when I agreed to lead a trip, I was unsure about whether I had the time for this or the discipline to juggle all of my priorities correctly. I also would not have guessed how things have changed with Angela and I. I think that this group of students stands to be the direct beneficiary of that change. As I will now have more of myself to offer them personally and emotionally. I think that they will likely fill at least part of a very empty spot in my heart over the next few months. I hope that this is beneficial for all involved.

Lighthouse was a big deal for me as a student. I learned alot about the poor and marginalized, the world outside of America, the global church, culture, diversity, faith, the great commission, and loving people. None of these concepts were new to me at the time, and in fact, I would have said that I had a fairly deep understanding of several of these things before I left. But the experience shifted things for me. New perspective is so powerful and so often worthwhile. One of my most repeated prayers for these 16 students is that this experience offers that to them as well. These are things that occur outside of the details of a well delivered program. They are things that happen outside of reading a book and writing a paper about it. They are sensed and formed through the nuances and intricacies of personal experience. I hope that even in spite of Amy and I, that they are able to experience this shift. I pray that God is bringing together the perfect storm, of sorts, in their lives right now so that their experience in Czech is valuable and significant, and purposeful, and new.

I barely know most of these students at all, but I have already found them endeered to me in so many ways. God be with us in our efforts to give you glory by the way we show love to one another over the rest of this semester and while we travel to Czech.

how about orange?

I think the theme of today was coming to terms with the idea that I need other people to help me. I may not like it. It may not be comfortable. I may not find it very easy. I still need to let other people help me if I hope to move through the coming weeks and months in a healthy way. And maybe that involves more overt coordination than I think is appropriate or maybe that means being ok with the fact that some people are going to let me sit and talk with them more now because they understand I need it more now than before. Humility. Perhaps I need to be ok with being a 'project' for some right now. Maybe that's not an innately wrong concept. I certainly identify students at times who I think I need to spend more time with or effort toward because of situations occuring in their lives. Why should I take offense to others approaching me in this same way?

Admittedly, It's very difficult for me to submit myself to other people in this way. Maybe it's pride or fear or insecurity or masculinity or something else. No matter what it is, I think I just need to come to terms with the fact that I'm hurting alot more than I understand right now, and I'm not big enough to handle it on my own. Even if I was, that whole mindset is incongruent with a Christian approach to relationships. If I can be there for someone else I can let someone else be there for me.

Thank the Lord for good, honest, considerate, genuine, patient, gentile friends.

To Write Love On Her Arms

Tonight I attended a presentation by Jamie Tworkowski, founder of To Write Love On Her Arms. Powerful thoughts by a follower of Jesus showing God's redemptive love in ways that purposefully resist cheap labels. I pray we continue to love one another authentically, not because we're 'trying to be real', but because we genuinely see the image of God in each others lives. May God be glorified by these jars of clay. May we communicate that to one another by the ways we treat each other.

Coffee with Alex and Eric was wonderful. I felt genuinely light-hearted. I hope that I know where the two of them end up next year, and the years after. With thesis stuff at a point where it will spend the next several weeks being approved by various people around campus, that work will die down. I'm hoping to fill my schedule with one-on-ones with so many student's who I've not given attention to for the past two months.

Amy sent an email out to our lighthouse team today and accidentally copied me on it. It was about trying to frame my circumstances in a way that made sure they understood it was a big deal and that it would be nice if they went out of their way to tell me they cared about me. Though I know this was done out of sincere motives, it is very difficult to not be very frustrated by this. It's exactly one of the biggest reasons I have been so hesitant to tell people. I don't need to be a project. And I don't need special consideration, especially from my students. I mean, the last thing I want is for one of these student's I've known for a month and a half over a few hour long meetings to feel the weight of trying to step into this space of my life feeling even remotely responsible for my spiritual or emotional well-being. That's not for them. It would be one thing for one or two of them to want to extend some extra encouragement my way of their own accord, but that this sort of thing would be prompted by some more coordinated effort is difficult for me to appreciate.

And as I read this email maybe it's more evidence of an unhealthy expectation of myself. Maybe I need the community no matter the method or medium. Maybe I need anyone and everyone to take a little responsibility for my well-being considering the changes. What do I know?

hugs & vomit

I stayed up late last night doing school work. I was pretty tired when I went to bed. But I ended up staying up rediculously late wondering what she's been up to these past three weeks since we last talked. I wonder how school's been for her. Has her 5th period class still been giving her trouble? Has she thought up something fun and creative for her core plus class? Is she still teaching on Romiette and Julio? I wonder if she's been staying at school late still, or if she's going home and spending more time with her apartment girls. Does she feel a little bit colder these days? I certainly do, especially on the weekends when I'm sitting on my couch alone. Does she notice the missing hugs as much as I do? I thought about that today... strange. I am craving hugs right now.

She was here during homecoming this weekend. I think that contributed to me not coming out of the apartment this weekend. That would have been really difficult. I mean, I think I'm fighting hard to hold it together right now. If I'd happened to cross paths with her accidently I may well have broken into a lot of little pieces on the spot.

I told my PA's and my Lighthouse team about the breakup tonight. It made me want to vomit again. As I was riding in the car with Amy I figured out why. Every time I tell someone else it forces me to realize that this is more real than before. As if by not telling anyone I would somehow be suspending it somewhere between reality and imagination. That's pathetic, but it also makes sense. I think my initial coping mechanism is to feel numb to everything, allowing me to feel some sense of emotional stability. However, it's causing me to be unable to be joyful or lighthearted when people around me are. Because if I let myself feel happy, then I'll also have to let myself feel devistatingly sad. Thus, by telling someone out loud about it, it overwhelms my emotional self with reality so abruptly that my body responds with a nautious feeling. I've been trying to understand this for the past 3 weeks. Maybe understanding will bring relief.

Modeled masculinity and it's effects on male college student engagement

I'm taking a break from school work. Ben, Caleb and I have been working at Payne's since 6:15 this evening. Mostly working on back checking citations I've used for my thesis proposal. Let me tell you how enjoyable that is. More enjoyable than taking my first drink of soy milk from Ben's Latte something or other that he ordered. Let's just say it tastes about as good as it smells when you steam that stuff. Not good.

My thesis topic is on modeled masculinity and it's effects on male student engagement in college. I have been researching this topic for almost two years now. During my first year back at Taylor the hall director I worked with wanted to make a presentation at a national conference that our staff would be attending in the summer and challenged me to get on board because it would help me get my feet wet heading into masters study the following year. I agreed and as we considered all of the different aspects of student life that we'd delt with during the semester, the topic of male student disengagement peeked our interest and away we went.

Student engagement (almost synonymous with the term involvement) is defined as the amount of physical or psychological energy that a student puts forth into any academically positive experience. Academically positive experiences occur both inside and outside of the classroom. They include things like asking questions in class, incorporating information from an outside class into the current class, co-curricular activities like student leadership positions or student activities cabinets, service learning projects, intramurals, attending various seminars and lecture series on campus, etc. Engagement also includes less formal things like building relationships with students of a different ethnicity, socio-economic, or geo-political background than you.

That spring I conducted a small scale qualitative study of 8 students in my residence hall; 4 students I considered ‘engaged’ and 4 that I considered ‘disengaged’. The study yielded two notable findings. First, the biggest contrast was that the ‘engaged’ students had older male mentors or role models in their lives and the ‘disengaged’ students did not. Second, The ‘disengaged’ students were less able to identify unrealistic characteristics of a male TV or movie character they perceived as the traditional man.

As I’ve spent the last year or so in more formal research of the topic, I’ve decided to look specifically at how masculinity is connected to student engagement. My research on masculinity has been very intriguing. First, masculinity is predominantly a social construction (i.e. boys learn what ‘being a man’ is from observing other men in their lives as they develop). Traditional masculinity , as defined my many sociologist and psychologist, constitutes four primary focuses: competition, status, toughness, and emotional stoicism. Men who embodied these focuses were integrated into society pretty functionally 40 years ago because there was a high level of congruence with the socio-cultural expectations of men at the time. Time has changed and culture along with it. We find men and women on a much more even playing field in most aspects of life: educational, vocational, relational, marital, etc. Unfortunately, for a broad range of attributed reasons, masculinity is being constructed (modeled) with the same traditional focuses. This incongruence between the modeled traditional masculinity and the new social expectations of men are causing any number of negative side effects the broader culture. My research steps into this space to gauge it’s effects specifically on male college students’ level of engagement.

Higher education has begun to feel the disengagement of male students, especially by student development professionals (i.e. residence hall directors, student programs directors, etc.). Male students are vastly outnumbered in applying for leadership positions, attending campus events, participating in class discussions, etc. A researcher by the name of George Kuh at Indiana University has been conducting a large scale data collection through an instrument he developed call the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) since 2001. A lot of schools, big and small, use this instrument because of the prevailing culture of assessment on college campuses. His research shows that male students are less engaged than women right now and they are much less engaged than they were 10 years ago. Again, this is where my research steps in by finding out if there’s any attribution to the trend. Certainly a trend this wide spread has more going on than simply not programming well enough or catering enough to the needs of college men. Male students are still entering college reporting just as high of expectations as women and as men did ten years ago, but they aren’t following through with those expectations.

In a culture of video-games, facebook, and iPhones, male students are certainly doing things with their time. Why is it that these other things are so much more appealing to them during their college years than engaging in the college experience they’re spending their money for? I’ll be looking to see if there is any correlation between their measured level of traditional masculinity and their level of engagement in college. Certainly this is not the whole answer, but I would be surprised if I found no correlation. It’s also a good start, as a student development professional, to be able to get more to the root of the issues with a student spending hours a day at a video game or checking facebook.

Regina Spektor

I sat in my apartment alone doing nothing last night and I'm doing the same tonight. I told myself all week that I didn't want to do this, but here I am. I wonder why noone's called or tried to make plans with me prior to the weekend arriving, and then I remind myself that I can't remember the last weekend during the school year that I made plans with anyone other than her. And it's not like I'm running around proclaiming my vacant weekends to anyone either. I shouldn't expect others to read my mind. All in all, it's shaping up to be another very long weekend. Why can't I just pick up the phone and call around to find something to do?

Phil and Michelle came up today for Homecoming. Talking to him this afternoon for a few hours was a breath of fresh air. I'd pay alot of money right now to live the next six months or so with him in an apartment in Indy again.

I've been listening to Regina Spektor's song Summer in the City alot. I dont know if it's the forlorn way she sings the song that seems to echo how I feel inside, or something about the lyrics of the song itself.


Summer in the city
means cleavage cleavage cleavage
And I start to miss you, baby, sometimes
I've been staying up and drinking in a late night establishment
Telling strangers personal things

Summer in the city,
I'm so lonely lonely lonely
So I went to a protest just to rub up against strangers
And I did feel like coming but I also felt like crying
It doesn't seem so worth it right now

And the castrated ones stand in the corner smoking
They want to feel the bulges in their pants start to rise
At the site of a beautiful woman they feel nothing but
Anger, her skin makes them sick in the night
nauseaous, nauseaous, nauseaous

Summer in the city,
I'm so lonely lonely lonely
I've been hallucinating you, babe, at the backs of other women
And I tap on their shoulder and they turn around smiling
But there's no recognition in their eyes

Oh summer in the city
means cleavage cleavage cleavage
And don't get me wrong, dear, in general I'm doing quite fine
It's just when it's summer in the city, and you're so long gone from the city
I start to miss you, baby, sometimes
When it's summer in the city And you're so long gone from the city
I start to miss you, baby, sometimes
I start to miss you, baby, sometimes
I start to miss you, baby,


Things to talk about in future posts:
1) what to take away from the past 3 years
2) my Thesis
3) the Czech Republic
4) presidential election
5) Cubs
6) the job search
7) new music

Peers

Sometimes things change abruptly and it offers a new perspective on your life. In my case... I don't know that I have any peers in my life with any regularity. There are not alot of 26 year old, unmarried, male graduate student, assistant hall directors at a small Christian campus in Indiana. Maybe this is the case with all of us if we choose to see ourselves as defined by 4 or 5 demographic labels all at once. Whatever the reason, this is what I'm thinking about this afternoon. I've got alot of things going on inside without anyone to feel totally at ease about sharing them all with and simply taking in their responses without trying to frame it in some way. Maybe this is evidence of more root issues... I have a hard time trusting as fully as I should. Though this is not a new observation about myself, this reality seems to be hightened all the more, considering the changes. Who do I talk to and whom can I sense genuinely cares and genuinely understands? Ultimately, this thought process is pretty selfish, but still frustrating all the same.

Lets try this again...

I think there is an inverse relationship between the size of the crowd and the level of perceived loneliness. This coffee bar feels more like a cage than a workplace at the moment.

I hope I go to visit Shorb over fall break. Phil's coming up tonight to save me. My mom and sister came down for Airband last night...

I'm still in a fog. I wonder how long it will last.