The Loop, and the Future

There is so much happening in my life right now.

I love my job, but I don't love the money I'm not making. Hopefully, it will all be easier in a few weeks when we get a third roommate.

I miss being fashionable. I went shopping today with money I probably shouldn't have spent, and got so excited about the things I bought. I also got sad that I won't be able to wear them to work. I hate uniforms.

I am really busy, but trying to pretend like I'm not. I obsessively text and tweet in order to make myself feel the illusion of leisure time. That's kind of sad.

I have done two performances with the Wordpulp Slam Team in the last two weeks. I have one this Thursday (7/15) and the following Thursday (7/22). The week after that is the arrival of my third roommate, Primary Day (7/27), another Wordulp event (7/29), our house party (7/31) and my birthday (8/1). On August 3 I hop in a van with the team and head to St. Paul, Minnesota for the National Poetry Slam. I'm excited and scared shitless. So much to do and so little time.

I have pretty officially landed a job with a local start-up publication called The Loop Magazine. We are trying to become an urban version of The Oklahoma Gazette on glossy paper with some more flavor added! I loved the girls I met who have been running the show for the last year. I wrote a rough draft of my first piece just now and was all jazzed up so I decided to update my blog. I'll edit the piece tomorrow and then send it off in hopes of getting good reviews.

I've gained back three of my thirteen pounds lost and I need to fix that as quickly as possible. I don't care so much about the pounds, except they are directly indicative of how much work I haven't done in the last two weeks.

I started to get back into OSGA stuff but then all of this life happened so I haven't continued.
My roommate's manager at Starbucks is trying to set up an interview with me, but I'm antsy about it. I love Build-A-Bear and I already don't focus on it that well. But I need more money too. If Starbucks is offering full-time I might really need to look into it. My boss hasn't said no to a raise. She hasn't said anything at all.

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My job with The Loop has got me thinking about the future. I think I could be content to work one "day job" and write for the magazine for anywhere from two to seven years. I say seven years because then I'll be thirty and I should probably pass that mantle to someone else, and start the teaching gig. Hopefully the economy will have turned around by then and I might even be settled into a stable relationship.

Magazine writing is what I always wanted to do until I developed my political persona and made myself believe that it wasn't a serious job. Now that my ideas have run the whole gamut, I think I'm ready to do, rather than just think. I know what I'm capable of and I'm ready to get out there and try my luck at life.

I want to teach, but not right now.
Now to just finish out this degree...

iWrite

I have a friend Lamarr Womble, who has a life philosophy about passionate living. He believes, and lives out the belief, that one should assess their passions and turn them into a lifestyle. What you love is what you should do. If you are young, don't even get started on a career path that steers you away from your passion. If you are older, integrate elements of what you're about into your life - make it your side hustle - until you become so good at it that maybe your side hustle can become your main hustle.

Eighteen months ago when I first heard this philosophy, Lamarr asked a simple question: "What's your passion?"
Even in the most fundamental and basic of things, I find a way to be complicated. He asked a singular question and I gave a plural answer. I can see now how the answer has changed slightly (or how I am looking past the blinders I had on at the time) but it still plural. I am passionate about writing, politically activism, and children.

As a 22-year-old with a semi-good job working with kids and an inclination to not be tied down at the moment, I think I should take some risks to pursue my love for writing. I have been presented with several opportunities that I don't follow through with - partially because of lack of organization, partially because of fear.

It's time to stop being afraid.
What step will I take today to pursue my passion?
Drafting and/or editing.

P4L: The Breakdown

Passion, desire, motivation, love, inspiration
None of these words describe anything tangible. They describe feelings or emotions.

Some people go through life doing what needs to be done without really engaging their emotions - without being worried about how they feel about things.  In the public sphere we are encouraged to use the word "think" and never "feel", we are taught that emotions are nothing, that actions/rationale are everything. 

Lamarr Womble branded his concept on purpose. Passion - the feeling - for Leadership - the action - is the intersection between the ethereal and the practical. It is the heart's way to the head, and the head's way to balance the heart.  Don't think for a moment that passion is all fluff and fancy with no concrete necessity or basis.  And don't be fooled into the belief that you can lead successfully (for very long) if you are not passionate.

As co-author to this book and someone who lives her life by its philosophy, I know this concept through and through.  Allow me to give you a piece of advice, before you embark on the journey that is passionate living. Open both your mind and your heart to these ideas; experience this on a practical and an emotional level.

When I first heard the P4L concept at a conference when I was a junior in college, I experienced it on an emotional level because my life had been overrun by the practical. I was in five or more extracurricular organizations, taking 16 hours of classwork, work 2.5  jobs, and having panic attacks. I was spread too thin. It wasn't, as a poet I know wrote, "what I loved but what I felt I was supposed to do" (Colin Gilbert, "Desert of Words").  After hearing that I didn't have to reinvent the wheel, and not everything requires a degree, and I didn't have to (and shouldn't!) quit my day job to develop my "side hustle", I was near tears with relief.  A leader has to hustle, but if she is resourceful, and if she's hustling for what she really wants then it won't feel as hard - and it won't cause panic attacks!  Here's the challenge: If you tend to shut off your emotions and focus solely on action - let this book appeal to your feelings, your heart.  Read it all in a short amount of time, don't dog-ear pages or make notes or use a highlighter.  Don't study it, just receive.  And once you've let the initial impact settle (a week or more) then go back through and pull out the more practical elements.  If you tend to never look at the practical and focus solely on the way you feel - let this book teach you that practicality doesn't have to be dispassionate.  Take this book slowly and in small bites: one chapter a week with a highlighter and a pencil. 

Lamarr hit the bull's eye with this. It will change your life - not just your collegiate career or your job search, but your whole life - if you let it.

Happy reading, passionate living, effective leading!

teachers of the world unite!

my best friend, jen, goes to emporia state university. apparently esu is a teaching university, just like the university of central oklahoma (where i start in two weeks). jen transferred there (rather than university of kansas or kansas state univ.) when she decided she wanted to teach. Her roommates are both math education majors, like she is. i met three other english education majors and a history ed. major. i felt so happy and purpose-driven while i was with them. it was interesting to have that many people together who want the same things.

when i got home, i watched lean on me and cried.
last saturday at church, pastor craig used the backdrop of the movie coach carter for his message. i cried throughout the whole message because i love that story so much. freedom writers, mona lisa smile, the dead poets society, and the breakfast club all make me feel the same way.
there are times when you definitely just know what you're supposed to be doing.
journalism was fun and it engaged my mind, but i never cried while imagining the possibilities of it.

"in His grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. ...if you are a teacher, teach well." - romans 12:6, 7b

"but now let me show you a way of life that is best of all. ...if i had the gift of prophecy and if i understood all of God's secret plans and possessed all knowledge...but didn't love others, i would be nothing. ...let love be your highest goal." - 1 corinthians 12:31b, 13:2, 14:1

Be The One

These are quotes and points that I heard from speakers this weekend at the Big XII Conference on Black Student Government. I am not silly enough to assume that all of these are original quotes, as for the purpose of this, though, these are the people who used these quotes to make their points.

A couple weekends ago, I went to the Big XII Conference on Black Student Government and it taught me so much about what it means to be a good leader, what it means to be young in America, what it means to be Black in America, and what it means to be all of those things together. I got a week's worth of knowledge dropped on me in two days. If you ever have an opportunity to go to this conference, you should go. And FYI, there were several white people there. Lol.


“Education is an opportunity, not a free ticket to success.”
“You can’t compete with someone whose purpose is bigger than yours.”
-Dr. Joe Martin

“I pledge from this day forward that I will live life to the fullest, treat people with respect, take advantage of all of my opportunities, make it my mission to find my passion, keep it real, and know my next steps to accomplish my goals and live my dreams.”
-Passion Pledge
Passion For Leadership
Lamarr Womble

“Legacy = Intelligence + Vision + Excellence”
“If the grass is greener on the other side, the water bill is also higher.”
-Jonathan Sprinkles

“Don’t make an organization. Make an institution.”
-Amon Rashidi

We are the “warrior class” (ages 15 – 26)
“Make sure you get what you came to get.”
“Do we move up as a culture, as a ‘we,’ or will we abandon the ‘we’ for the ‘I’?”
“Let’s not sleep through the revolution.”
-Alonzo Jones

“’To whom much is given, much is required.’”
“We can do anything as individuals. We can do anything better as a team.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being rich. There is something wrong with being a rich, bad person, a rich person who doesn’t contribute.”
- Joseph Smith

“Too many of us try to see the world with our eyes and not with our minds.”
“You cannot hate the root of a tree and not hate the tree itself.”
-Dr. Lasana Hotep

“People should always be more important than protocol and politics.”
“Who got next?”
-Felicia Hall Allen

“Just because you know something, doesn’t mean you’re using it.”
“A good leader is always willing to fight one more round.”
“Students are one of the world’s most abundant natural resources.”
-Dr. Kathy Humphrey

Isn't it strange that princes and kings,
And clowns that caper in sawdust rings,
And common people Like you and me
Are builders for eternity?
Each is given a bag of tools,
A shapeless mass, A book of rules;
And each must make - Ere life is flown –
A stumbling block or a steppingstone.
-R. L. Sharpe

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates
others.
- Marianne Williamson