“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So... get on your way.”

So I am apparently on the "blog every other month" schedule. Not by choice, but rather by circumstance. In the two months between my last post and now I have been on an on-campus interview at Santa Clara, was straight-out offered a position atLMU and hinted at for another two, accepted a job at Santa Clara, closed McCarthy for the last time, packed, said many, many tearful goodbyes, moved hundreds of miles toNorCal, closed another building, and am now sitting in my (three-bedroom, bath and a half, dishwasher/laundry/dryer/patio infused!) apartment thinking about the ocean.

My love affair with bodies of water is well-documented. I was swimming before I was walking, spent every summer in either our pond, a neighbor's pool or frolicking (yes frolicking) in Lake Erie at our family's summer house. My summer memories are mainly on a boat or the dock at Bay Point and look something like this:


And this:

I have swam in our pond less than a month after there was ice on it (late March in Ohio is still pretty damn cold!) and one of my favorite places in the world is in a warm tub with a good book. My affair went so far as to dictate my job search out of grad school. The moment a job would post I wouldGoogleMap the location and if it was more than an hour away from either the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean I would mark it off my list. Looking back it probably wasn't the best or most responsible technique, but hey, it did get me toLMU where this was my backyard and only a five minute drive away:


So now for the first time in four years, I'm landlocked. Santa Clara is nestled between two mountain ranges. (To be fair, the natives call them the "foothills," but trust me, they are mountains, at least to this Ohioan who considers any change in elevation to be a serious deal.)

At first it was a little suffocating to not be able to see the ocean. I have always identified with water, with its fluidity, with its ability to conform and shape to what it was given. I would always choose the ocean when asked for a metaphor about myself in one of the hundreds of icebreakers I've done in my life. The comparisons to not only who I was, but also who I wanted to be seemed to be endless.

The ocean was both consistent and spontaneous. You could set your watch to the tides, but in the same breath those tides were influenced by such far-away constituents as the moon! The connectedness of the ocean was also appealing to me. Staring at the ocean or standing with my feet in it often made me wonder about what else that droplet of water or grain of sand that was now settling onto my big toe had touched in its lifetime. Had it skimmed the outside of a fish? A cruise ship? Been at the bottom of the sea where it have never seen the light of day? Been on the shoreline of Indonesia?Bora Bora? Japan? South Africa? Who else had experienced the same thing I had, only on a different continent or time zone?

I liked the volatility of the ocean. I liked that an earthquake thousands of miles away was able to influence the swells that I saw outside my back door. I liked the constant movement and shifting that the ocean offered. That same droplet of water was was just on my big toe will never again be in that same spot again in its lifetime. The transitional nature was alluring to me and continued to be throughout my time atLMU.

Reflecting back (as a good Jesuit educator should), this fascination seemed to make sense. I was in a time of huge transition by moving 3,000 miles away to a place where I knew not a soul to a city that was thousands of times bigger and a world away from what I had always known. However, there was something else that was very intoxicating about the ocean.

The ocean bends and molds itself to its surroundings. Sure it can slowly and painstakingly wear down rocks or landforms, but in the short-term, small-scale, the ocean bends to you. You steer a boat into the ocean and it moves out of your way and leaves a wake behind you. You step into the ocean and the water moves out of the way of your form and then instantly returns to support you. In many ways, I was the ocean. I let people drive over me and leave me in their wake. I got out of people's way and then instantly returned to support them, somehow drawn to their essence in my proverbial ocean.

My reflection on the ocean brings me to the new allureness of the mountains that surround me. Santa Clara is nestled between two mountain ranges so any way you look, you see them and almost feel cradled by their height and stability. Any time I go outside and drive anywhere, my breath catches the same way that it used to when I saw the ocean. To be consistently impressed by nature says something and makes me think about the qualities of the mountains that now surround me:


Mountains are steady. Constant. Enduring. Not-to-be-messed-with. The only real way to change a mountain is with a whole lot of explosives and a lot of determination. However, tiny streams of water that start at the top can carve down the mountain and change the face of it forever, while still never impacting the core of who and what the mountain is.

My fascination with mountains really kicked off with my AB trip to Appalachia. Like all AB trips, this one had a deep impact on me, especially when it came to environmentalism and particularly mountain conservation, the details of which I will save for another post. One of my favorite parts of the trip was where we stayed. The location of our accommodations was at a Catholic Worker farm and it was "back in the holler." The holler was the Appalachian way of describing the valley of two ridges where many Appalachians lived. The space was quiet and calming and supportive.

You just felt safe when you were in the holler and the more that I think about my current environment I think that's what I'm feeling. The thing that I like about mountains is that the core of who they are will always remain the same, but the outside changes with the season and with the environment even if these are sometimes not in line with one another. During my internship in Pomona, CA it would be between 90-115 degrees every day, but the local mountain would still have a snow-covered peak. Steady, consistent, but can still surprise you.

I'm in a place in my life where I want to be more of a mountain than an ocean. I don't want to have to conform to everything that gets put in my path, but still be able to be impacted by circumstances around me. I want to be able to stay true to who I am, but still be able to let the proverbial rivers of life work their way into my life. I want to be strong. Steady. Unwavering. Supportive. Calm. Safe for others.

And I think I can be that here. It's a good feeling.

Transitions and Possibilities

Yes, it has been two months since my last post. I blame Carmen. And by Carmen, I mean Twitter. Carmen deactivated her Facebook a few months back which is my main form of communication with her. I hate talking on the phone and somehow Skype dates are much harder in practice then in theory. However, she kept her Twitter account so last month I joined. I like to think that I've been blogging 140 characters at a time, but it doesn't have the same cathartic impact as a giant blog post about life can have, so here we go.

I am neck deep in the job search. As opposed to some of my previous posts when they job search felt like some kind of amorphous blob in the very distant future, without any real shape or purpose, this search now has shape and I'm working on the purpose. I had to make my peace with leaving LMU. I honestly think I had to go through the stages of grief and genuinely mourn for this LMU LA life that I've built for myself.

Denial: I was here the whole first semester. When people asked about the job search, I would just brush it off. I refused to look at jobs and even more adamantly refused to update my cover letter and resume.

Anger: This started to set in over Winter Break. When I went back to Ohio, I realized that I might find the "perfect" job in a horrendous location and this made me really, really angry. I was mad about the whole process, angry at Res Life for the four-year and you're out policy, pissed at people that were already in jobs that they loved in a city like LA.

Bargaining: This was the beginning of the job search. The mentality that "well if I just apply for a few jobs outside of LA, then karma will come back and something will open in LA or at LMU."

Depression: This happened around the beginning of February and seemed to coincide with the mentality of my senior RAs who were starting to realize that they too were leaving LMU. We became tied into this horrific cycle of one person crying which made me cry, which only made the first person cry more. It was a mess.

Acceptance: I'm starting to get there. I know that it will work out in the end.

Part of what helps with the acceptance stage is the possibility of what other positions could bring. I've applied for a variety of positions, everything from leadership to service to Res. Life. I've also realized that my dreams of living in SoCal forever may actually be pipe dreams so the positions I've applied for include exotic locations such as Fairfield, Connecticut, outside of Philly, suburban Massachusetts, and Newport News, Virginia. The thing that I have really been processing has been the tension between a "perfect" job and a "perfect" location. I'm not sure it is a war I will ever win, but I can't help but see a job description and then immediately look up the current weather conditions.

In the midst of all of this the Alternative Breaks Coordinator position at LMU opened. As you all know from my previous blog posts about the topic, but the AB experiences I've had while at LMU have been some of the most influential experiences I have had in the past four years. I have been challenged in every sense of the word through my trips to DC, Mexico and Appalachia. I immediately became excited at that prospect and started to let it be known that I was interested in the position. I met with the Director of CSA who supervises the position and she encouraged me to apply. The position just posted on the HR website so the first thing I do tomorrow will be to apply.

I have also applied for a Resident Director job at Santa Clara University. Santa Clara is very similar to LMU in a variety of ways in that it is mid-sized, Jesuit university with a huge commitment to service and social justice. It is located just outside of San Jose and is only 45 minutes from downtown San Francisco. Although the RD job there is similar to the RD job at LMU in many ways (judicial work, RA supervision, facilities management, etc.) it would also be a step up for me. I would have the opportunity to supervise grad RDs, have a lot more autonomy in my work and every single building is a full-blown Living Learning Community with Faculty Directors, Faculty-in-Residence and all the residents take a common course together.

I've already been through two rounds of Skype interviews and was offered an on-campus interview! Hooray! The more I hear about culture at Santa Clara, the more I think it could be really, really good for me. Exciting perks of the job include:

• The aforementioned work with Living Learning Communities and working with faculty.
• I asked the RDs on the interviews how they would describe RD culture and the first thing they said was that RDs are really, really respected on campus. They said that people understand who they are and what they do and that they aren't mistaken for students from faculty or staff.
• While the location is not on the beach, Santa Clara is still close to two major cities and we all know it can sometimes take just as long to get to downtown LA or even West Hollywood with traffic as it would to get from Santa Clara to San Francisco.
• I would receive between a 30-45% raise. Yep, 30-45%. Let's be honest, I'm not in this profession for the money. I know I will never be wealthy or rich, but it would be nice to have some security. It would be nice to be able to really build a nest egg. I would love to be able to buy a plane ticket or a nice birthday present for someone and not take 20 minutes to move around money or countdown the days until my next payday.
• A meal plan, plus they have 2-3 bedroom apartments and some of them have some combination of laundry, dishwashers and/or patios.
• Pets, pets, pets, pets, PETS! I could have a dog!!!
• I asked the RDs to describe their duty system and what are some typical calls they receive. They all said that up until this point in the year they have responded in person to 2-4 calls each. The. Whole. Year. Since they have grad RDs, they have the grads handle all of the small things so they RDs are only asked for really big issues like sexual assault, arrests or major medical issues. I can't even describe the idea of being on duty for a week and only responding to one thing in person or not even responding at all!

The more I think about this potential move the more right it seems. It could be really good for me to move away from all of the LA drama and start fresh again in a position I know I would love. I would still be able to supervise students which is my favorite thing in the world, while being challenged in ways that LMU frankly can't provide anymore. While the thought of starting over and getting to know a new school, town, student culture, and set of colleagues again is somewhat exhausting, it is also exhilarating to think about the possibilities.

So right now I'm focusing on the possibilities.

Connectedness All Over the Place

Hi, my name is Marci and I'm obsessed with Strengths. Nope, not how many weights you can lift. I'm talking about Strengths Quest, this incredible personality type test. Basically, after years of research and thousands of interviews, the people at Gallup (as in Gallup polls...they are a trustworthy bunch!) found 34 themes of talents of people in all kinds of jobs. They then created an assessment tool to help people find what they kind of potential they have for strengths.

One of my Strengths is Connectedness which I have actually blogged about before. Connectedness is one of my favorite talent themes because I know that there is a reason why I have it in my top five, which turns into a little bit of the chicken or the egg game. Do I have Connectedness because there is a reason I have it or is there a reason why I have Connectedness? Either way, I LOVE it!!! Did I mention that Positivity is my #1 Strength?

Moving on...I bring up Connectedness because yesterday something happened that was so bizarre that my Connectedness is still buzzing! So here's the scene: I'm in a committee meeting to figure out how to bring this program called Sparks to campus. Sparks is an initiative that puts people into small groups of fifteen people for five weeks and asks them to take a risk every week and then report back to the group. Some of my students and RAs have been doing it for a few years and LOVE it so we want to bring it to a larger audience since the impact has been so truly incredible.

The main guy of Sparks (Jason) was talking about how he thought it was important that we are able to link Sparks to Ignatian spirituality since there is such a presence and identity of Jesuit theology on campus. He then said that he had been doing some research about Ignatian theology and how there are four pillars. None of us around the table (including my current Resident Minister who is a double LMU alum, has his master's degree in theology and is current getting his PhD) could name them so we went on our merry way.

At the conclusion of the meeting I walked the two feet from the conference room to a computer in the main office of Housing. I checked my e-mail quickly and noticed that there was a follow-up from Sister Thuy who co-runs the Christian Life Community (CLC) small group program on campus. Last summer I decided to stretch myself a little bit and lead a CLC about service and Sr. Thuy and I had just met the previous week to chat about how everything was going. We didn't talk at all about Ignatian theology during our check-in, yet her e-mail was staring me in the face with this:

Dear Marci,

Thank you for your love and support to our students here at LMU. It was so wonderful to be able to sit with you and hear your journey with the students especially the service component. I am still smiling today because I think you are so valuable to our students.

Also, are you pretty knowledgeable with Ignatian Spirituality? If anyone asks you to define Ignatian Spirituality in a few words, you could say that it is:

1. Finding God in all things

2. Becoming a contemplative in action

3. Looking at the world in an incarnational way

4. Seeking freedom and detachment

God Bless,

Sr. Thuy

First, how sweet is she? I seriously spent the entire meeting alternating between grinning like an idiot and blushing like mad due to her onslaught of compliments. If you are ever having a bad day, just find a nun. They will seriously pull you out of any craziness of your everyday life.

Second, how crazy is this?!?! Although I'm sure I've heard these tenets in passing before, I've never seen them laid out like this before and the fact that it happened minutes after we were searching for these exact things is still blowing my mind. After I checked my e-mail, I promptly printed the four tenets, marched back into the conference room, totally interrupted a conversation between Briana and Jason and said "I'm sorry, but my Connectedness is going crazy right now and I just have to tell someone about this."

Strengths Quest defines Connectedness in part as:

This happen for a reason. You are sure of it. You are sure of it because in your soul you know that we are all connected. Some may call it the collective unconscious. Others may label it spirit or life force. But whatever your word of choice, you gain confidence from knowing that we are not isolated from one another or from the earth and life on it.

Connectedness: I love it, but sometimes it freaks me out.

Word Search: Part II

Full disclosure: The topic of this blog was meant to be the last one, but I got away from my point when I got to talking about All-Service Org Night so let's see if I can reign it in this time.

Tuesday was All-Service Org Night and all the Presidents of the orgs get up and do their little speeches. The one that has stuck with me the most actually came from an unlikely source. Crimson Circle is an all-male org and was the first service org on campus and actually existed when LMU wasn't even LMU yet. They were formed in 1929 to be the ambassadors to Loyola University at the discretion of the President and are basically really proud of the "fun" part of their mission which is "A commitment to service and fun." They tend to have a little bit of a chip on their shoulder and Magis (another all-male org) was actually formed when a new Crimson thought that there wasn't enough of a focus on social justice within the org. Quite the controversy!

Even though they are those kids that you sometimes just want to wring their necks, they are really, really great guys. They are those guys that say whatever they want, but would also do anything for you if you really needed them. I was lucky enough to have half of the sophomore class in MESA last year so I've definitely developed an appreciation for who they are as individuals and as an org.

Back to All-Service Org Night. Aaron, the President of Crimson got up and said that he was recently speaking with someone and they citing some research that said that the sum of who you are can be found by the words that you surround yourself with on a day-to-day basis. The words you speak, music you listen to, articles/books you read, the conversations you have, and the topics you think about are a better indication of who you are, what you value and who you want to become than any personality test, resume, or Facebook profile. Aaron continued on with a lovely speech, but this thought really struck me.

If I were to do an inventory of the words that surround me, what would they be? I had this image of bees buzzing around me, but instead of bees, they were actually words. What words would be there? Service? My staff's names? LMU? Blogging? Friends? I couldn't get this image of what is basically a self-fulfilling prophesy that follows you around. Then I realized that I needed this to not just be an idea in my brain, but that I needed a visual. I present to you that visual. (Click on the image to see it magnified)

I stumbled upon this awesome website that makes word cloud for you. All you have to do is put in your blog or favorite website or you could even make your own out of a list of favorite words or quotes. The larger the words, the more often they occurred in this blog, so according to this theory, my life should go in the direction of the largest words in the bundle.

Service Potential Remember People Convivir Grateful Life Love Staff

If that is not me in a nutshell, I don't know what is! So dear readers, what words surround you?

Word Search: Part I

Tuesday marked the fourth anniversary of my favorite night of the LMU year. Tuesday was All Service Org Night and from an outside perspective, it is really hard to understand the awesomeness that is All-Service Org. Night. First, for my non-LMU friends, a brief overview of service orgs: Imagine if you will, all the best things about a sorority or fraternity (sisterhood/brotherhood, support, retreats, awesome meetings, formals, new members, recruitment, etc.) and none of the worst. Then take that same idea and realize that the soul purpose of these orgs is to do service both on and off-campus and then reflect about it as a group. Yeah, it's pretty damn incredible.

All-Service Org. Night is the kick-off event for the recruitment season. (Again, to compare it to Greek Life, it is more competitive to get into a service org than it is to get into the Greek community. Last year only 39% of applicants were accepted. That is craaaazy!) All of the orgs are there in their finest (they all have these adorably unique sweaters that they wear), they all get three minutes to introduce their org and then they have tables set up all around this huge gym for people to pick up information and start the wooing process.

I'm in the room for recruitment as well. MESA (my incredibly wonderful service community) mirrors the service org process so we have a table, we show up in our shirts, we promote our events, etc. since there are a large number of first-year students in attendance that night. My first service org night was a surprise to say the least! I had no idea what to expect. I just knew that Tom (my counterpart in the Center for Service and Action) told me to be there from 10-11:30pm and try to get people to come to MESA's Open House. So I showed up with a few meager brochures, with no giveaways, no personalized buttons, no current members to help recruit, and basically an "Ugh, I can't believe I have to give up another night for work!" attitude.

Then the presidents of the orgs all got up and gave their speeches. Little did I know not only how those presidents would impact my LMU career, but how much their speeches would change how I thought of students in relation to service. I remember that Jenni West, the president of Marians (an all-female org known for their love of all things feminism) got up and asked the crowd "How many of you think that men and women should be treated the same?" Once every person in the room had their hand up she said "Congratulations. You are all feminists." I remember Heather Prandini got up for Ignatians and began by saying "So I have a tendency to ramble and to tell random stories and now I'm telling a story about how much I ramble. Cool." A month later I would be interviewing her for an RA job, forming a rush crush on her during the RA Selection Process, and eventually hiring her as an RA on my staff for the following year. I remember that Alaina Williams got up to speak for Sursums. She was an RA on AJ's staff that year so I knew of her, but never really interacted with her all that much. I can't remember specifics of her speech, but I remember that she was so lovely, eloquent, reflective, and it was clear that she had a true servant's heart. I find myself today anxiously waiting for her next blog post about her life as a full-time volunteer in New York City and feel like we are more and more like kindred spirits with every phrase and word written all the way from NYC.

The main speech that hit home for me was from Adrian Cuevas who at the time was President of Magis, an all-male service org. I vividly remember the picture that was formed when Adrian took the mic and all 50 members of Magis lined up behind him, clad in black sweaters, white shirts, and gold ties. As Adrian began to deliver his speech, all 50 guys put their arms around each other in a show of solidarity. Adrian spoke of living God's plan for your life as a servant to others. He quoted famous Ignatian scholars with the same ease as some students did with rap lyrics. He urged each person in the room to find what truly made them come alive because what the world needed wasn't charity, but a word full of people who live their passion on a minute-by-minute basis. While it may not be a surprise to most of you, I found myself tearing up at Adrian's words and even more so the incredible energy in the room that night. To see 350+ current members of orgs nod along with Adrian's words and to see another 300+ students who were there to find what service at LMU was all about, it was almost overwhelming.

I had had a really, really rough first semester. New state, first time living in a city, trying to figure out a new job, navigating through the politics of a small campus, all while finding friends and dealing with the most difficult staff known to man, I was really questioning my place on campus. However, at the end of Adrian's speech, I distinctly remember thinking "Yep, this is where I'm meant to be." The level of connectedness in the room that night made it clear that the Universe had a plan for me in this place.

Attitude of Gratitude: Res Life Style

I can't believe it has been nearly three weeks since I blogged. This is unacceptable and I plan to remedy this lack of putting forth thoughts into the world right this instant. Here we go...

Res. Life has us do these little written reflections from time to time which we read to the group at a Res. Life meeting and then they get bound into a lovely book filled with everyone's reflections. Last year we did "This I Believe" statements which was really quite wonderful. I stewed and stewed about the topic of my essay for last year. Should I write about small towns? Chocolate? 20 year friendships? I ended up writing about Disneyland which turned out to be an essay about the power of second chances and giving things a go again once you give yourself the opportunity to grow up a little bit.

This year's theme is "Attitude of Gratitude" which may look familiar to some of you. If it doesn't, please reference the top of this blog. You would think for someone who has literally titled her blog about having an attitude geared towards gratitude would have a variety of things to talk about, but alas, I was miffed. Should I focus my efforts on my love of supervising students? Developing relationships with my colleagues? Exploring the city that I love? Puppies and rainbows? I waited a really long time for inspiration to hit so here it is:


I didn't know what to write about for a really long time. My problem was not a lack of inspiration, but that I am grateful for an abundance of things in my life. Should I write about service? Social justice? My lovely colleagues? Lady Gaga? The city I love? The wonders of Tivo? My ridiculous staff? I guess it is a good problem to have, but a problem nonetheless. I struggled with this for so long I actually sent in a sub-par essay to Lori as a placeholder because I just couldn't narrow it down.

I finally decided to write about service, but then I decided it was a little cliche coming from me. It's no secret that I love service, am grateful for service and more importantly, am grateful for the lessons that service has taught me while at LMU. This thought process brought me to a particular lesson I've learned through opportunities that service has given me.

While on my AB trip to Mexico last March I had the great pleasure of meeting Gerardo and Katy, the owners of Casa Hoy a service-themed hostel located in Cuernavaca, Mexico. On the first day at Casa Hoy we sat down as a group and Gerardo went over our iternary, what to expect when we went to our service placement in the middle of the Mexican desert and generally calmed the fears of 12 very nervous Americans. At the end of the night Gerardo introduced the concept of "convivir" which loosely translates as a Spanish verb meaning "to truly and genuinely connect with another person." Gerardo challenged us to find moments to convivir while on the trip. It would be difficult. Difficult to convivir with fellow group members when they share something during a reflection that you disagree with. Difficult to convivir with a seemingly ageless grandmother who doesn't speak Spanish, much less English, whose bedroom you and 7 women have overtaken for that week. Difficult to convivir with children who are apprehensive of you because you look like the people that come to play with them for a week and then are never to be seen again.

Gerardo told us that if we get nothing else from this trip, we should take back with us the concepts of conviviring together. This ended up happening in surprising ways. While on a hike together, while picking up cow dung in 100+ degree heat together, while teaching the kids how to play the card game "Speed," which needs no language translation. It came when the entire group brushed their teeth together and rinsed and spit into the plants as not to waste precious water. It came when telling ghost stories until three in the morning and bonding over the fact that nobody's digestive tract would ever be the same. The group really experienced conviviring over breakfasts of hand-made flour tortillas, lunches under the shade of a lone tree and dinners that were filled with laughter and story-telling.

I am grateful that I have been able to use this concept of conviviring while back at LMU. Maybe this was when anyone one of you stops to visit me at my "RD Drive-Through Window" for a five-minute conversation about your day or when we all guilt-trip each other into coming to the Lair for lunch or staying late at the Crimson Lion. It comes when you go up to Malone to drop off a judicial file and end up visiting nearly everyone on the second and third floors. We are able to convivir in the walkways between meetings, training our staff, or stealing glances during meetings when something strikes two of us as hilarious at exactly the same time.

Those moments, those conversations, those full-body bouts of laughter with co-workers that have become dear friends make me truly, deeply grateful. The e-mail chains of ridiculous pictures of animals with poor grammar or a six-hour tennis tournament on one of our few days off are all moments when we are able to convivir and for that, I am grateful.

Two Worlds and Two Years

I just realized that I will spend the first day of 2011 in Sycamore and in Los Angeles and will fly over about 10 states in between. There has to be some kind of wicked irony that my new year will be in both my old and my current life and I will perhaps be flying over some place that could be my new life.

This time of year there is always the temptation for resolutions. I haven't had the best of luck with resolutions which is something that I realized fairly early on in life. My resolutions in elementary and high school started to manifest in such statements as "I'm giving up broccoli this year" or "I resolve to be honest no matter what this year" which was a fancy way to tell people off. College didn't lend itself to a whole lot of resolutions and neither did my first few years at LMU. However, last year I made a resolution to take at least one picture per day which I actually did a pretty good job with for awhile. I made it all the way through July before my phone started freaking out and it made it hard to take a picture every day. I'd say I still have 75% of the days documented, but haven't uploaded them to my album yet.

There is an allure to resolutions. The promise of change and improvement and life-changing results. It's sexy. It's fun to fantasize about a "better life," whatever that means. Who doesn't want a better life? Becoming a happier person, with better relationships, not to mention shinier hair and a more svelte body. What's not to like about that? My problem with that notion is that it implies that where you are is inherently worse than where you could be. The problem is that you invalidate the present by always dreaming about the future and in my experience, the here and now is pretty damn amazing. If (and this is a big if) you let it.

So that brings me to 2am on January 1, 2011 which means I am in the New Year in my old life, but in the old year in my new life in LA. About 20 minutes ago I read a quote which spurned this post and I hope to incorporate into this new year.

We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives, not looking for flaws, but for potential. ~Ellen Goodman


Here's my list of my potential for growth, not the things I want to change:

• I think I have a lot of potential in my job search. I know I have the potential to not freak out, it will just be a matter of tapping into that.
• I know I have potential for how I approach relationships, both in the sense that there are ones that are not healthy and I need to dial back, but others that have potential on their own if I invest time and energy.
  
• I have some amazing potential in how I go about my spiritual development. I feel like I'm made a lot of progress, but know that I've only scractched the surface.
• I am pretty sure Los Angeles still holds potential for me. I have experienced enough of the city to fall in love with the sights and the experiences, but know that it still holds surprises for me. Spring semester is always insane, but I really don't want to waste the potential of LA due to being "too busy."
  
• My buidling, staff, MESA, RHA and all things McCarthy still have a lot of potential. This could potentially be the last time I supervise student staff or advise student groups in this capacity so the potential for greatness looms in the not-so-distant future.
  

So dear readers, where does your potential exist in your life and how will you capitalize on it in this new year?