Norah for yah

I can’t be alone in loving Norah Jones. My friend Jake thinks that she is OK. I think she is a K.O. She’s incredibly talented, has a great voice, and she is all that beautiful in this world. She’s like a modern day Emily Dickinson – intelligent yet vulnerable. She is my first favorite Norah. Number two is Norah from “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.” aka – Kat Dennings. Number three on my Norah list is Norah aka Emily Blunt from “Sunshine Cleaning.” Whoever decided to make a movie with the premise of cleaning and disposing of biohazardous waste material from crime scenes (blood, dried up membranes, other horrific matter, and decaying flesh) is an idiot. Oh, wait, they got Emily Blunt and Amy Adams to play the two starring roles. Well played, director… well played.

So, what have I learned in the past few days – I am not looking forward to this 120 question test they (my teachers) call “The MFT.” My classmates and I are responsible for teaching each other the contents on the exam. The two areas I have been blessed with are – IS (Information Systems which I already presented poorly) and Statistics (which I don’t know anything about). I just took the stats course 5 weeks ago and I remember nothing. I hated it so much and cared so little about anything that was going on that I couldn’t teach smart monkey about probability if someone was threatening my life. They’d pull out a samurai sword and tell me to start talking gibberish about stats and I would stammer like an idiot. Maybe because I think samurai swords are cool, but mainly because I don’t know anything about stats. My thought would be – why not have someone who knows something about this stuff come and teach the class? I guarantee there are professors and geeks around the area that could interpret statistical research much more eloquently than I will. I’m not looking forward to this.

I just finished up my application to Miami Ad School in Minneapolis. Actually, I have one part left. The pink sheet which informed me of what I needed to do to get into this school let me know that I had to video tape myself informing the crowd about why I am creative and how I will be a good fit at ad school. I hate this question and am still having problems answering it. I’ve had weeks to think about this query and still, I can’t answer it. How do you explain something like that? I just wrote the school advisor and told her that I may submit a silent film (see Charlie Chaplin). Strictly non-verbal communication. It might be the way all ads are seen in the future – like when everyone becomes deaf. I blame George Bush and radioactivity for this impending deafness. What I’ll probably end up doing is having my English major friend, Zach, interview me at a local establishment that all the cool kids hang out at… The Recovery Room. We’ll be in there with a camcorder a few sheets of paper, aviator shades, and director chairs. The theater kids will trip all over each other thinking we’re holding auditions for “Guys and Dolls.” I should be a director.

Class comes early tomorrow, so I am going to sleep – dormir (to sleep) en espanol.

 

Norah Jones – http://youtu.be/wE4lnC25fnU

 

an active student gets the worm

What a week. I am starting to wonder about a number of things. I have gone through life with the opinion that what I think about the world is usually pretty accurate. Not only is it accurate, it’s correct. In some ways, I know most certainly that I am wrong – probably 50% of the time. In other ways, however, I am pretty confident in my views.

I’ve recently heard many college graduates talk as if a job, career, money, respect, responsibility, etc. is owed to them. As if when they graduate, the world at that point, owes them something. I understand that after one goes through four more years of school one might expect to have an easier time getting a position they have wanted for some time. However, expecting a job to come to you (especially in our economy) is absurd. And, it’s not simply the degree that gets you a job, it’s what else you do with your time while in college. This is something of which I am quite certain.

I graduated from WWTC, or as my friend Andrew calls it “more high school,” in 2006. At that point I was certain that it was just a matter of days until somebody discovered my genius. It ended up being a matter of many months, a move to Minneapolis, a lot of money foolishly spent on courses in Madison, and about a dozen trips out of town to job interviews. I found out quickly that nobody owed me anything and I didn’t get hired by anyone.

Eventually I got a job that I liked, but didn’t want to make a career out of it. So I quit and came back to Viterbo. I thought that this time would be different. I honestly thought that because I was on a bigger campus – a University campus, mind you, this would mean that knowledge would come pouring out of the walls and into my brain through osmosis. I was under the assumption that I would imbibe so much information at this school from professors, garden gnomes, and educated wizards that I would go home sick each day. Well, that was just an illusion. It’s an illusion most people have about college. It’s understandable, but if you are looking to get a lot out of your education simply by showing up, you’re going to be disappointed. I just realized this a few weeks ago.

Barry’s little brother is heading off to Madison this fall and he was asking Barry and I about what he should expect from college. Barry, the wiser of the two of us, told Alex that college isn’t so much what they (professors, scholars, lecturers, etc.) give to you, but what you put into it. When I was younger I was also under the impression that college was about sitting in class rooms and getting your mind blown by earth shattering concepts and theories about almost anything. The honest truth is that the best classes I’ve taken at VU have been World Religions with Dr. Reese and Spanish 101 with Jason McAtee. If we’re being honest here, my marketing and management classes have offered me some valuable insight, but they haven’t revolutionized my way of thinking. I opted to take World Religions and Spanish. I chose to volunteer my time coaching and writing for different magazines and individuals. I chose to get active in clothing drives and got lucky in meeting Pat so that I could write this blog and in the Strides magazine. Most of what I have learned in the past 2 years at The U has been outside the Dahl School of Business.

I’m affectionate towards Viterbo because I have had a great two years while attending this University. But, it wasn’t the University that made me become active in living and giving. They simply encourage and promote this behavior. But, like anything else in life, it’s all about what you put into it. College can and will be a great stretch of years for any individual who can shatter the illusion of college professors bending spoons and peeling paint with their minds. It’s not happening at Harvard and it’s not happening at Viterbo.

My friend Tony was telling me last week that he heard from business students (his freshman year – 3.5 years ago) as they enter college that they are going to start their own business – everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. Naturally, Tony asked them what company they plan to start and they had no idea. Which is fine – most people don’t know exactly what they want to do when they are 18. But, after four years of exposure to thoughts, ideas, and opportunities to get involved and form opinions, many students still have no idea what they want to do. And this is the interesting part. Then you ask what internships they had – none. What other experience do they have – none. Where have they worked during college – nowhere. Have they branched out and made new friends, read any interesting literature, had any original thoughts, traveled anywhere, etc. – not likely.

College is great. But, it’s just another four years of your life and a lot of debt if not used correctly.

 

New Car

I bought a new (to me) Honda Accord. In order to prolong the theme of – influential female minority, her name shall be, Dora. RIP, Oprah. Hola, Dora.

Here is the story… I was over at my best brother Barry’s parent’s house this Friday just after getting back from Rochester to buy my sweet new whip (car). I got there and much to my delight, his lovely sister and two nieces were in attendance – they must have heard I was coming. Anyway, Taylor was getting nuts with the Dora stickers and I got peppered with a few. Barry and I decided to make a run to Pizza King for gyros (so good) and on the way, I thought, I should take this stupid sticker off my hoodie so peeps don’t think I’m illegitimately creating babies! So, I put it on my steering wheel (naturally) and as I did that, I looked at Barry. He looked back, saw what I did, and we both said, “Dora.” So, that’s my new car’s name. It’s great. She’s dark green with a very environmental aura – well, with Oregon plates and all. I want to keep those Oregon plates on there because they look cool, but I think that’s illegal.

Grad Speech #1

Dearly Beloved,

Think about this… which is easier – doing, or not doing? Oddly, both of them are difficult. If we try and sit still and do nothing for two minutes, I think we’ll find that almost as difficult as being active for two minutes. However, in life – big picture, doing nothing is much easier than doing something. In doing – having dreams, ideas, aspirations, etc. we open ourselves up for criticism. There will be people waiting to tell you of how foolish our ambitions are and how we shouldn’t concern ourselves with them – because that’s easy. It’s easy to criticize, condemn, and admonish. Any fool can do that, and most fools do. I wish this wasn’t the case, but it is. And, the opposite of doing, of course, is not doing – being insipid creatures that take up space. We could clam up, have no dreams, goals, or desire and nobody will bother us – except debt collectors. This is the truth.

It’s difficult to have a positive attitude. It’s ridiculously, almost impossibly, tough to keep a positive disposition in a world that loves to see us fail. We will undoubtedly get (metaphorically or literally) knocked down a time or 10,000 in the next 50 years. And such is life. You might lose your job, or get demoted. You might have troubles in child birth, or not be able to have children at all. Maybe your kid won’t like you? If you’re like me, you may doubt the possibility of ever finding anyone who will marry you. Ultimately, your parents will die… you will die. These are the facts of life. The question we will have to ask is what will we do with the time we have before it’s over? You will have choices to make every day. I’m not talking, Armani, or Versace or Coach vs. Prada. I’m talking about your approach towards the rest of the world and that’s completely up to you – at work, at home, at the gym, at school, with friends, family, the guy you see everyday walking to the subway station. And then there will be those who we will run into who are simply impossible to love let alone like. It’s true; we aren’t going to make friends with everyone. And, they might not like us either. Oh well. We can’t control that.

I moved to Minneapolis for three months in 2006. For reasons unknown, I accepted the worst job of all time – but I didn’t know it at that time. I could talk entirely about the pitfalls of walking around a large city’s suburbs while trying to peddle some stupid promotions for a go kart track. But, that would be counterproductive to my intended point. Anyway, there was a guy who I worked with and his name was Adam. Adam and I were out “pounding the pavement” one day when I probably told him something about how I would rather be in solitary confinement for the next 2 years than work another day on this job. He looked at me, exhaled some smoke from his cigarette, and told me that there are only two things in this world that I could control: #1 was my attitude. And 2 was my work ethic. At the time, I wanted to hit him right in his stupid smoker’s mouth and tell him to go wrestle a cougar. But, I didn’t. I just kept about my business and thought about what Adam told me. And, it made sense. I hated him for that. My attitude was subpar and my work ethic was probably worse. I was the problem.

In most instances in life as we look back and as we move forward, we’ll remember scenarios and encounter new ones where we don’t want to think so, but if there is a problem – we’re having a brutal time at work, at home, with friends, etc – if we think about it, we are probably the problem. But, we can also be the solution.

I am convinced that, with the proper mind set, there isn’t a single problem we can’t solve with a little help and encouragement from one another. Not just from the people sitting in this room, but with all the human resources you will have at your disposal really soon. The hard part is figuring out how to lead them and inspire the seemingly lifeless and unlovable among us. The answers are varied, and none of them are easy. But if it was easy to be a great leader, everyone would be.

I think that the answer, in my experience, comes down to love, compassion, empathy, and respect. If we are able to move forward from Viterbo with the notion that we all have an unending amount of each of these items, we will be the change that the world needs to see. Even if we make an impact in a small circle, it’s still going to be a positive one. Think about it, we have a limited amount of physical resources in which we can distribute; we live in a finite world. I learned that in an earth science class. But we, each one of us, can make the often times difficult choice to be kind to one another, be loving, compassionate, and respectful. We can arise each day with a determination to positively impact those whom we come into contact by simply not gossiping, slandering, and belittling others – we can choose to do that which is not easy and in doing that, we can inspire.

We’re all in this together – life that is. And we are each other’s finest resource; I would encourage all of us to embrace that fact as quickly and as fervently as possible. Two people sit in a room. One says, “I can” while the other says, “I can’t.” Both of them are right – whose attitude will we embody?

Fare Thee Well and God Bless.