Famous Last Words: Routine

Sometimes I think that the entirety of my week can happen in a blink. I wake up Monday morning, drive to school, and suddenly it's Friday afternoon and I'm just finishing work and heading home to start what I can only hope is a relaxing weekend. My relaxing weekends seem to take on a routine as well... sleep through Friday night, go to Grey Owl on Saturday to work for six to eight hours on homework and Student Government stuff, then go to campus on Sunday for Congressional committee meetings and more work. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination... I absolutely love having a routine and following it. But this weekend, I made a concerted effort to branch out a bit and do a few things differently. I went to a party on Friday night, and despite the feeling that my social anxiety was going to kick in and keep me from enjoying myself, I was able to go and enjoy my friend and mentor's twenty-first. Tonight, I took the initiative to get a few people together for a night of Halloween-themed fun and I'm pretty excited. I love how my week goes and I love how my weekends have been going, but I am really excited to change up my routine a little bit. Variety is the spice of life, right? It is during times like these that I'm also thankful for friends that realise that, sometimes, I get a little overwhelmed in social situations and are willing to help make me feel comfortable. I really am blessed with some of the best people around. Also, my week was just made my someone walking into Grey Owl with a "Make America Nasty Again" hat so that we as also pretty wonderful.

The "Nasty Women" Looking Regal and Powerful
Source: Wikipedia

Famous Last Words: Singing

On the third floor of the Conoco Phillips Student Leadership Center, there is a wide-open space with tall, vaulted ceilings, and at 11:00pm on most weekday nights, there also aren't usually students. The absence of people, combined with the acoustic nature of the space, makes it a great place to sing full-voice, which isn't something that I'm able to do too often. This week, I've found myself on the third floor almost every evening, belting out Sam Smith, Adele, and old-school Latin songs that I remember from high school. Singing is something that I find to be incredibly cathartic... there is really no substitute for the high that I get when I hit a powerhouse note in a song or when I create a really beautiful harmony with someone else. Unfortunately, this year, I had to quit my a cappella group because my Student Government Association position requires me to attend meetings the same evening as rehearsal. If there's anything that I regret from this year, it is absolutely that I had to quit. I didn't have much of a voice... I have to pay rent, after all, but I miss being able to sing with other people. It is honestly one of the greatest joys that I have in life. I've lately been thinking about starting a student organization with other people in my situation so that we can at least get together every so often to hang out and create beautiful music together. So far, I've found quite a few people, but I still don't know what that will look like. Do we buy sheet music? Do we hire an accompanist? I don't know, but I'm really excited to see where this all ends up. Even if it doesn't work out, I still have the third floor.

Famous Last Words: Failure

This week has been a great lesson that, even when life doesn't work out exactly like you want it to, it's still going pretty well. After pouring countless hours and significant effort into my application for the Ewing Fellowship, I got an e-mail yesterday that I was not selected for the award. I wasn't particularly happy; months of hard work appeared to be for not. However, as I talked to some other people, I realized that this award might have been out of my reach to begin with. This year, every recipient of the Fellowship was a Junior. In fact, I believe that I may have been the only sophomore even interviewed. I firmly believe that if you aren't attempting to do things that are slightly outside of your grasp, you aren't pushing yourself. Maybe this rejection was just what I needed to become re-energized as we approach scholarship/award season here at OU. Luckily, I don't think that the Ewing was my only chance to go to DC this summer... the LGBTQ Alum Club offers a scholarship to fund an internship relating to queer issues, and the DC Alum Club for OU offers a scholarship for internships in DC. There are clearly still options for me, and even if I don't end up working for the Human Rights Campaign this summer, I might study abroad or do something similar. I need to figure out when I'm going abroad, actually... I have to do it for my major, and I still haven't found the time to do so. Oh well. For now, I'm just focused on having a super relaxing weekend, doing some work, getting ahead on some things, and just spending time with friends. As we are half-way through Day 1, I have to say that it is a success.

Pun on a Post-It
Source: Flickr

Famous Last Words: Fellowship Reflection

This is a reflection on the last two weeks, which have been particularly exhausting. A few months ago, I decided to apply for the Ewing Fellowship, which is an award through the Political Science Department here at OU that funds a summer internship in D.C. For an aspiring lawyer, that opportunity is too significant to pass up. As such, I decided to apply. The application was extensive; it required two complete letters of recommendation, a 1500-word essay, a very specifically formatted resume, and a number of other smaller requirements. All in all, crafting the perfect application took a little over two months. Last week, however, was when I really needed to get down to business. I double-checked that my rec letters were in. I read, re-read, and then re-read my re-read copy of my essay probably about twenty times. I sent it to friends, co-workers, roommates... anyone that would read it had it thrust in front of their face. It was, quite honestly, an awful week as I strived to create exactly the kind of application that would help me to get the award. Yesterday, I got an e-mail that I had advanced to the interview phase. I almost cried. I hugged my boss, who happened to be nearby at the time. I called my mom. I celebrated with my best friend. Then I realized that I needed to prepare for the interview, which is supposed to be an intensive analysis of your proposed policy initiative by a number of political science professors. I've been spending the last 24-hours preparing for that like a man possessed. That being said, I am so excited to present in front of this panel. I get a rush from high-stakes public presentation that I don't think I can find anywhere else. Wish me luck!

Cortez A.M. Ewing, Namesake of the Ewing Fellowship
Source: OU Political Science

Famous Last Words: Orientation

Today, at 4pm, I am welcoming about 30+ new OU students into the Student Government Association. After a difficult week interviewing 50+ applicants, my team and I decided on the students that we thought would best serve the student body in the Undergraduate Student Congress. These were not decisions that we made lightly... this is a body that is responsible for allocating over $600,000 to student organizations, administrative bodies, and a number of other campus entities; it's a job that we take very seriously. That being said, I couldn't be more excited to welcome all these new people into the fold. We do some amazing work in Student Government, and I'm especially excited for the new freshman to get involved so early in their careers. I find it fascinating to think that this was me only a short 12 months ago. Last spring, I applied for Congress on a whim, and found it to be one of my homes on campus; now I'm the one doing the interviewing and appointing. I feel like I'm a little young to say that I've come full circle, but in this area of my life, I think that I might have. I've spent so much of today, and this last week, stressing over every little part of Orientation. What would I say to the new members? How could I present information in the most accessible way? Would they like me? However, now that it is time for it all to go down, I realized that I'm mostly just excited to share something that I"m passionate about with other people who might very well share that passion. What an exciting opportunity I've been given. Today, I'm thankful for the people that have poured their love and mentorship into me, which will hopefully allow me to do the same with these new members.

President Barack Obama speaks to a joint session of Congress regarding health care reform by Lawrence Jackson
Source: Wikipedia

Famous Last Words: Temporary Comas

Sometimes, you turn in sub-par work. It just happens. You get distracted, deadlines approach, stuff falls through the cracks, distractions take your time away from the work you should be doing... there can really be any number of things that detract from your goals. This week, I took a quiz in my LGBTQ Movements class that I was entirely prepared for and ended up turning in awful work. I had done the reading, I had thought critically about the arguments the author made, I had questioned what his purpose in writing it was... I had done everything that I was supposed to do.

However, when my professor gave us twenty minutes to answer the question the author poses to himself at the beginning of his work, I couldn't recall any of that awesome thinking that I had done or understand the notes that I had taken. I had a momentary coma, where the world around me kind of stopped, and despite the fact that my body was there, in the room, my brain was on break, out to lunch, on vacation. When she called time, I stared, kind of dumbfounded, over the incredibly incomplete and unsubstantiated answer that I had typed up. I turned it in, but I also wish that I could reach through cyberspace and pull that e-mail back to the safety of my hard drive, where no one can ever see it.

But hey, there's no use dwelling on it now. These things happen (or, as Carlotta from Phantom would say, "THESE THINGS DO APPEN"), and it's important to recognize them for what they are: temporary mistakes. I'm not sure what to do next time to rectify the situation... maybe bring a cup of coffee to wake me up, or talk to my classmates to stimulate my ideas. My takeaway from this situation is that sometimes things won't turn out as planned, and it really sucks, but you have to just keep on keeping on.

Photo of Anna Gigiel in the role of Carlotta in The Phantom of the Opera at the Roma Musical Theater
Source: Wikipedia
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Famous Last Words: Syllabus Week

I am generally an incredibly organized person. I pride myself on my spreadsheets and my Google calendar and my well-labeled files.

Stock Calendar Photo
Source: Pixabay

You would think, then, that I would thrive during syllabus week, which is basically a gift given to University students that allows us to prepare for the storm to come. However, this specific syllabus week hit me particularly hard. For the most part, I highlighted and sorted and classified with my usual flair, but I made far more mistakes than I intended to. I submitted event reservation forms for the wrong day, ordered equipment for an event that didn't actually exist, and proceeded to repeat the process only to find out that I had, again, erred. This sequence of events took me the entirety of an hour, and then took me the entirety of a forty-eight hour period to fix. As the workload intensifies this semester, and as the systems that I put into place to make my life easier become more strained and burdened, I need to remember that efficiency involves speech AND accuracy. One without the other makes for an entirely ineffective process, and while I wish I had the time for ineffective processes, that is not the case.

On the other hand, I need to remember to take more time for myself. I need to take time to sing, write, eat bad food, and watch trashy television. To that end, I have reserved Saturday nights (and by reserved, I mean that from 7PM on Saturday to 8AM on Sunday my Google Calendar is marked with an event named "Don't Even Think About Scheduling Works Here Jake, You Need This Time". I also need to make sure to go to the gym at least once every few days. Working out makes me feel so much better, and combats the fact that, although I am constantly working, that working generally involves me being fairly physically inactive.

*takes a deep breath*

And those. I need to do more of those.