Lazy Days? Not so much.

You would think that with 6 weeks off there would be plenty of time to just relax and enjoy Colorado.  Unfortunately for me, that hasn’t been the case.  There’s plenty of preparation to be made for the next quarter, such as ordering books, checking past syllabi, reading, reading and more reading.  Also, there are lots of opportunities for internships, in the US and abroad, that I’ve been applying for which entails writing cover letters and adjusting my resume to the job description.

Cry me a river, right?  Yeah, I guess I may be whining a little, but winter break doesn’t necessarily mean ‘time off.’  In terms of my performance this past quarter, I just received my grades and I’m very happy with the results…we’ll start from the bottom and work our way up: Comp Pol 21st C = B+; Civil Wars and Int’l Response = A-; Topics in Relief Operations = A.  Not too bad for being out of school for 12 years!

The weather here has been pretty darn cold recently.  Yesterday we received about 2 to 3 inches of snow, and the temps last night were in the single digits (no minus sign, though!).  Suppose to get more snow this weekend and during the day the temps won’t get out of the 20′s!  Haven’t experienced cold like this since 2000, so its tough getting adjusted.  Can’t stand scraping ice from our car windows, its like nails on a chalkboard to me.  But next week the temps will be back into the 40′s so that won’t be too bad.  I just hope weather is decent when we fly to North Carolina for Christmas.  The weather there better be good enough for golf!

Hmmmmmm.  More sleep, watch tv/movie, or work on application for USAID internship…should I flip a coin?

Winter Break!

Phew!  The last couple weeks were very stressful.  Total of 42 pages done for 3 different classes, plus two presentations.  Celebrated properly though.  After my last presentation on Thursday the 17th, I met w/ my cousin who had 3 free tickets to the Broncos game!  13th row, 50 yard line!  Best seats I’ve ever had at a football game, and it just so happened to be my first NFL game!  Very cool, and very exciting ending.  Yes, at the end, I got cheesy and Tebow-ed it!

Now I have a lot of time on my hands.  I’m still working at iDE three times a week, but in December I will interview w/ the Red Cross for a position with the Native Community Partnership Initiative.  If I get it, I may say ‘bye-bye’ to iDE since Red Cross will satisfy the Peace Corps Practicum requirement (150hrs in under-served population).

This week, however, I will just be enjoying my completion of the first quarter.  A good friend of mine is visiting from NC, and we are going to Ft. Collins to celebrate T-giving at my brother and sister-in-laws place.  Should be a great time!  Gonna make Brandy Alexander pie for the first time and also fry up some wings and use a Ghost Pepper hot wing sauce that I’m sure will scorch a few taste buds.

Later for now…gotta go check on the Ghost Pepper hot sauce Chili!

Birthday Bumps

Very eventful birthday weekend! The family and I drove up to my brother and sister-in-laws place in Fort Collins to celebrate our birthday (my bro and I are Identical twins). Our cousin Joe was there as well to join in the celebration, and even planned a trip for us to a gun range Saturday morning so we could help site in his rifle for Elk hunting the following weekend. My brother recently received a rifle from his father-in-law, and I hadn’t been target shooting for a very long time, so I was really looking forward to it.

It was a pleasant little country drive out to this massive gun range. We got our target sheets from the office and made our way to one of many 200 yard ranges. Cousin Joe took several shots, measuring each time where each bullet hit the target and adjusting his scope for the error. My bro, Matt, shot 4 times w/ his rifle, no scope, and missed the target all together.

But that’s not nearly as bad as my shooting. Joe insisted that I try his rifle, so I sat down, and tried to get comfortable looking in to the scope and also situating the butt of the rifle into my shoulder. I never quite felt comfortable, and I mentioned his several times to Joe, basically begging for a little more instruction or suggestions for holding this high-powered rifle…I got nothin’!

So, I lined up, maybe situating my head a little too close to the scope, exhaled and pulled! Excruciating pain shot from above my right eye, and

as I looked down, blood was pouring like water from a gutter. No one said a word…and I slowly got up and walked back to our vehicle where Joe and Matt met me w/ t-shirt that I could hold on the open gash. A couple other guys who were there shooting, nicely came over to make sure all was well, and I was comforted by a story one of them had of a friend who did they exact same thing a week ago.

Nothing like a trip to Urgent Care! Six stitches later, a few kind words from the wife (“Your just a liability”) and the birthday weekend continued! Fortunately, nothing else as painful occurred the rest of our stay. We went for a nice hike in the Roosevelt National Park (Youngs Gulch) and had a great evening, filled w/ fantastic food, a big birthday cake and percosets!

In severe pain!

Hiking w/ the Hitchhiker, Samuel

In the words of Billy Joel…PRESSURE!

Rough draft, readings and winter registration, OH MY!

Wow, good stuff. I knew it was coming, I knew I would have to eventually sacrifice a Saturday in order to get work done. It just feels all wrong!

Oh well, there is something to be said about being productive as opposed to lying on the couch, sippin’ beers (or good ol’ Kentucky Bourbon) and watching football. But did it have to 75 degrees and beautiful outside as well?? C’mon grad school gods, at least make it rainy, gloomy, cloudy and miserable!

The toughest part of grad school isn’t the actual school work, its the quarter course planning! Seriously, its tough to manage, trying to figure out what courses are offered in which quarter in order to satisfy core and program training courses as well as finding courses that will apply to your area of concentration. Luckily enough, DU has an excellent staff in the student affairs office…don’t know what I’d do without Susan Rivera! She is truly a superstar!!

Well those are my grad school rants for now…make sure you read ‘Birthday Bumps’ for a good laugh!

Lots to do!

Six to eight page paper due on Wednesday and group project on Thursday…but we’re going to Ft Collins this weekend to celebrate my birthday anyways! Mid-term for Comp Politics for Wednesday, which doesn’t look to be too difficult. Just analyze what we’ve read in the first five weeks and then apply that to a case study of our choosing (4 options). Hope I can get it done b4 Tuesday, bc I’d really like to go see Primus Tuesday night!

In other news, the internship at iDE (International Development Enterprises) is going really well. Stephanie, my boss, is pretty crazy and fun, and she also gives me some interesting work, like researching Mali and iDE’s potential for opening up projects there. Its fortuitous that I’m working here because they do a lot of grant/proposal writing and my project paper for Civil Wars is to write a proposal. I should be able to gain a lot of insight on this type of writing, which I’m gonna need bc I’ve never done it before.

Plan for the day: Got a Students for Africa meeting at 10am and then get crackin on this mid-term! Hope I don’t get too distracted…looks nice outside

Sorry for the delay…

Wooo weee! Sorry for the long hiatus, but that’ll happen when you haven’t been in school for 12 yrs and papers and mid-terms are creeping up. I still haven’t lost one important skill, the art of procrastination! I am at the professional level, I think; I can find just about any reason to not be productive.

Anyways, the biggest news is that I was recently hired by International Development Enterprises (iDE) as an intern to the VP of African Relations! Very exciting, and last week was my first days on the job (3 days a week, approx 20hrs). My boss is very cool, and DU grad! There’s also another DU grad that’s working full-time for iDE that started out as an intern, so that gives me high hopes. So far, I’ve been doing some administrative work, but I was also asked to research organizations that are already on the ground in Ethiopia doing Water and Sanitation work. iDE works mainly with rural farmers, improving crop production w/ irrigation systems, pumps and water/sanitation systems. Its very interesting work, and they are really growing. The next country their interested in is Mali, so they’re trying to do some Market Analysis and make sure that its a viable option.

As far as the family goes, we’re managing. Halloween is coming up and we can’t wait to get Samuel into a costume, but there are so many good ones its hard to choose…he’ll look good in all of them, of course! Sarah is really loving her job, and learning a lot. Shaemus (our dog) is troublesome as ever, but he’s playing well with Samuel…wonder what kind of costume we’ll get him!?

Alright, got some reading to do, of course, no surprise there. And some research on Trasnistria! Look ‘em up.

Already through the 2nd Week??

Wow, they weren’t kidding when they said quarters will go by fast. Had triple the amount of reading to do this week, and I got through most of it…MOST of it.

Comparative Politics and Civil Wars both had interesting group exercises, and I believe the Comp Pol exercise gave me my idea for the final paper…comparing Ghana to a few of the surrounding West African nations. Thats sorted, so now I’ve got to figure out a topic for my Civil Wars paper, and I’m finding that one a little harder to decide upon. Prof Burgess gave us some good resources to search for ideas and current projects…and I’m procrastinating a little (of course this topic is due by next week).

Had some good group meetings with Students For Africa this week. Very excited about that group, the other students involved and what we plan to accomplish this year. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get some RPCV’s interested as well. Speaking of which, that group, Peace Corps DU, is getting together at the new presidents place for a BBQ pot luck on Sunday. Should be a very good time, and I believe my family and I will be bringing a spicy African chicken dish. Chicken Yassa, very tasty.

Alright, better start doing some research on a topic for Civil Wars…or maybe I’ll go for a hike?

First Week of Class

Monday…great day…no class.

Tuesday…even better day…no class.

Wednesday…you guessed it…my first class!  Woo-hoo!!  Comparative Politics of the 21st Century tury tury tury.  Sounds very futuristic, but I’m guessing we will deal with the past.  I haven’t been in a classroom in 12 years…I hear you can use these fang dangled portable computers to take notes!

Seriously, its been awhile which is why I chose not to kill myself w/ 15 or more credit hours.  Two 5 and one 2, a perfect 12!  Topics in Relief Operations runs during the last 4 weeks of the quarter…right when everything will be due for the other 2 courses, perfect timing.  All three of these classes run from 6pm to 8:50, so I’ll need COFFEE!

My first class, CP of 21st C., was ok…kind of boring material, a quick history of CP, but Prof Holland made it interesting and kept me awake.  She’s pretty lively, and comical at times.  Overall, I think its going to be a good class, not too demanding, but it will keep me busy.

Civil Wars with Guy Burgess is gonna be awesome!  Very interesting to me as it will be concerned w/ a lot of the conflicts in Africa, which is where I’d like to return (RPCV, The Gambia).  Prof Burgess is funny, loads of great metaphors to make you laugh and understand the concepts behind peace building and conflict resolution.  He explained that his section, as opposed to Prof Sisks, takes on a more practical approach, and there’s only one major project that can be an academic paper (which he thinks there are too many already) or an actual Request For Proposal (RFP) paper that can be addressed to a real or realistic funding agency.  This RFP can give you real world proposal experience, and I’m looking forward to exploring this option.

All-in-all, its been a good week.  I’m happy because I made the right choice in coming to DU and Josef Korbel!

Bring on the weekend!