I spent the past week in Boston for a professional conference.  Being born in the Midwest (Missouri) and raised almost all of my life in the South (Arkansas), it is not hard to believe that I have not made it up North all that often.  In fact, the furthest North I had been until this past week was D.C.  Boston was everything and more than I had expected.  It had history.  It had a great nightlife.  And it had great food.  Not to mention, it has some amazing institutions of higher education, which I was able to visit Harvard.  The conference was like a family reunion.  I saw and reconnected with people I knew from my undergraduate days, graduate program, and professional career, as well as made a ton of new contacts throughout the conference.  There is nothing better than the feeling of having your passion refueled from a conference.  I left Boston tired, no lie, but excited about all of the meaningful work that lays ahead of me over the next year.  From my academic course work and research to the work of my assistantship and internship, there is plenty on my plate and to look forward to completing.  The conference made me even more ready to tackle it!

If being professionally recharged was not enough, I decided to hit the gym some since being back.  I actually ran two miles today on the treadmill at the gym.  Dang, I feel good.  Or, more like, tired, but good is relative right?  This is even after I had worked out last night with a friend (we did chest and shoulders).  Why the sudden urge to visit the gym?  Simple:  summer!  It will be here before you know it and I still have the holiday pounds to work off (and muscle to get back).  If I had more time and commitment, I would actually go through with the three month P90X system that I purchased a couple months back.  The only problem is that the workout routine is six days on, one day off, and realistically I just do not have that sort of time to commit.  Or, maybe I do, but I choose to spend my time in other ways.  Besides, going to the gym and seeing other people work it makes me want to work it that much more.  Competitive much?  As my friend told me at the gym last night, "I am only competing against myself."  I laughed.  Yes, we are our own competition, but it sure is motivating seeing others lift weights and run in order to keep myself going.  I may be my only competition, but I sure am not my only motivator.  It takes a village to raise my heart rate!

This weekend looks like it is going to be a good time to catch up on some much needed rest, studying, and cleaning my apartment and car.  I am a firm believer that a picked up house reflects a picked up life, so I plan to get my life more picked up over the weekend.  I am also going to have lunch with a friend I have not seen in a while, so I am really looking forward to that.  All and all, things have been moving along nicely with school, work, and life.  I have more than enough to keep me busy these days... which there are no complaints coming from me.  Speaking of busy, I think I am going to watch some television and take it easy tonight.  Tomorrow will be packed full of productiveness... until then... laziness here I come!

Things can seem tough.  Really tough sometimes.  Life decisions, life choices, and just plain life can seem so overwhelming at times.  And, when things feel like that, we feel alone.  I know I have.  We even feel like we can't tell anyone else because, well, they wouldn't understand or we would be embarrassed or we might feel too ashamed or proud.  Whatever the reasons, we feel that what it is that is really bothering us, what is really bringing us down is our own cross to bear and our own weight to carry.  When I look around and when I talk to people, though, I see and hear a lot of tough situations being fought by others.  A lot.  From sickness, to finances, to relationships, to loss.  We all deal with difficult things throughout our lives.  All of us.  I know in the past I have forgotten that whatever it is I am dealing with, there are others out there who have dealt with it or could relate or just feel for me in whatever given situations I am in.  I think too often we allow ourselves to stand in the way of help for fear that others might not understand, or care, or even love us.  It has not been my experience, though, with anything that has felt like the weight of the world on my shoulders that someone else made me feel worse.  In those times in my life, people have always made me feel better from just listening, from just relating, and from just helping me accept my own decisions and move towards bettering myself because of them.  I just really have thought recently a lot about the baggage we are all carrying around with us or the experiences that we have all gone through and how no matter what, there are people out there who have been through it, are there to help us through it, and others who need our listening ears and open hearts.  It's just how do you know if what you're going through someone else can relate to, help with, or is going through?  I guess the only real answer, as risky as it might be, is to talk about it and see what happens.  I think more so than not, we will be surprised by what we find:  love, support, and opportunities to grow.  This could be me just being optimistic or overly empathetic, but I truly do believe in the human capacity to help one another through life's experience.  It honestly may be the only way.

The world has really changed a lot since I used to seriously blog, say, back when I was in my undergraduate days, or even when I was in high school.  Heck, in high school, there did not even exist blogs.  I created my own.  Too bad I did not invent something like Blogger or Moveable type back then.  I could have really hit it big.  Now, though, there are blogs, wikis, YouTube, and Facebook.  It makes me ask the question:  do people even read blogs anymore?  I mean, blogs about people's lives.  Not, per the usual these days, blogs about the latest Hollywood gossip.  I must admit, I have not read someone's personal blog in quite a while.  I wonder what people are talking about these days?  Do people still write journal entry type blogs, or only short status updates?  It just makes me think that maybe times have changed and this blog is not even relevant anymore.  Maybe I am wrong?  Just questions to think about, more so than any real conclusion about whether or not there is much stock in updating this blog.  But, because I miss it like usual after a few months, I will give it a go at updating about the happenings of my (tragicomic) life.

I finished my first semester of my doctoral program and, boy, does it feel good.  Aside from being under the weather this whole past week, which thankfully I am slowly but surely pulling through, I finished strong.  Like any new endeavor, the beginning is always a test to see how up to the challenge you are.  And this definitely has been a new chapter in my life.  I went from working all the time in a job I loved and being surrounded by friends who I miss dearly to moving to a new place, knowing no one, and going back to school full-time.  Things like establishing new friendships, losing a sense of professional identity, and transition issues became themes in the past six months that I had thought about in preparing for this change, but were harder in certain ways than expected.  I am still working on these areas, but finishing this semester feels like a step in the right direction.

I was watching the Oprah Winfrey Special at the White House tonight (which my best friend who loves her would be so proud!) and really appreciated the honesty that First Lady Michelle showed when answering Oprah's question about President Obama's and her relationship being envied by others.  To paraphrase, Michelle basically said that they are at a great place now, but that to young couples there will be times of great challenge, as there were for them.  It's about working through those times that really matters.  Seeing as how I do not fall into the category of young couples at the moment, but am younger, I took away the message that everyone has to go through challenges to get to a "good" place.  It came across as very honest to admit that whatever envy others may have of their relationship, where they are as a couple now came through making it work.

Right now, I am definitely at a challenging moment in my life, both academically and personally, and through this I can get to a good, even better place.  Isn't that really the goal of why I am doing this, any ways?  I admit this, because, well, when people who I have not talked to or seen in a while ask me how I have been or what I am doing these days, I usually tell them about my education, about my career, and about the good things that are going on, which usually generates a response of encouragement and support.  I mean, that's great, right?  At the same time, though, it only tells some of the story.  Nothing is ever always rainbows and butterflies and this is no different.  I have my challenges, I have my worries, and I have my struggles.  I think we all do.  I think there is a balance in life that with all the good, always comes some bad, or with all the bad, always comes some good.  You can't have just one or the other.  You have to have both.  And, I can be honest and real enough to admit that things are both right now.  Good and bad.  More good, than bad, but both nonetheless.  I think in bad times, you have to look for the good to keep you going, and in good times, you have to be humbled by the bad to keep you in check.

My site really could not be named better for my belief in life, if not in general but just my own.  That life really is tragicomic!

P.S.  As you may notice (or not if you have not been checking back often, which I don't blame you because I rarely update), I had to disable the comments.  Why, you ask?  Well, I had so much spam through my comments that it was ridiculous.  Yet another thing that has changed about blogs--now spammers comment more than real, actual people.  Seriously?  So, if you ever want to comment on something I write, please feel free to drop me an e-mail.  I would most certainly like that!

It has been over three months since my last post.  Seriously?  As you could imagine, I have done a lot in those three months.  I started my doctoral program.  I have read a ton of stuff.  I have talked about even more.  I have taken midterms.  I have begun doing research.  And I have even gotten a program accepted at a national convention.  Exciting stuff school-wise, huh?  Outside of school, I have kept myself busy with work too, everything from training the student judicial board I advise to working on online training modules.  Between the two, school and work, I stay pretty busy, but I have also gotten to visit my friends in North Carolina, march in the National March in Washington, DC, and gone to Atlanta, GA a couple of times.  I am really looking forward to this upcoming weekend when my bestfriend, Chad, comes to visit and we are going to Atlanta Pride.  It should be an exciting time, no doubt.  Since it will be Halloween weekend, as well, we are dressing up as an amazingly cute duo.  I will keep you guessing on what exactly we are going as, but it will be worth the wait.  So, work, school, and personal life have been exceptionally full and I am enjoying that.

There is plenty more to catch you, my one or two readers, up on, but for now I will start getting back into the journaling business one small entry at a time.  I am going to try to get back into the habit of this again, but I make not promises because I think I say I am going to journal more more than I actually journal.  No more saying.  Hopefully, more doing!

And just for fun, because I love me some Gossip Girls...