Tag: grad school (Page 2 of 3)

Big Girl Bed

March 20, 2006 / DB

I’m mixing topics dangerously tonight. Don’t tell my wife.

Fellas, it was the best day of the year today. That’s right, the first day of class after spring break. Tans o’plenty. The higher ratio of silicone and saline among the students in the 21st century as compared to the 20th century, when I was an undergrad, makes the day all the more interesting. Granted, that was only when I was out walking around. It’s worth noting that the grad students all seemed to be holed up in the library or something over the last week. We were all just as pasty as we were a week ago. Except for the one cute girl in class who’s actually getting her Master’s in another program and just taking a few journalism classes for content. She had a tan. She was the only one, though.

OK, enough of that. M. slept in her big girl bed for the first time last night. She showed a profound disinterest in the pack ‘n play up in Saginaw, so we ended up putting her in our bed until we went bed each night. That worked, so we figured why wait to get her off the binky first. Throw her in her bed and see what happens. It did take about 30 minutes longer than usual to get her to go down, and she woke up a couple times during the night, but we got a good 10+ hours out of her in our first try. No naps today, so that was troubleseom. But, she’s currently back in there for the second night, so it might work. If we can get her off the binky soon, toilet training won’t be that far away.

Names

March 8, 2006 / DB

Hey, I’m on spring break! I’m thinking about loading up the cooler later and heading to a local tanning salon, popping open a few cold ones, and yelling at women to flash me. Yes, I’m almost 35, married, and about to become the father of a second daughter. But a guy can have some fun, right?

Actually, we’re taking a little trip next weekend to visit some friends who moved to Michigan last summer. We’re hoping that the temperature is somewhere above freezing. Saginaw isn’t known for its balmy winters.

I forgot to share some big news last week: we’ve scheduled S.’s c-section. If she can hold out until then, Little Girlfriend will be delivered on May 17. That will be 39 weeks, and M. was born at 38, so those last seven days could be interesting. The clock is now officially ticking, 10 weeks to go. All was well with S. on her most recent check-up. Fetal heartbeat still excellent. Momma as comfortable as she can be at this point.

Which all leads us to the fun process of naming the next kid. To review, we had a list of five names for M. roughly five months before she was born. Narrowed that down to two names in June, and picked M. about 4-5 hours after she was born (she surprised us, we weren’t quite ready).

This time around, we’ve had some struggles. We had a list of names before Christmas that we were going to let sit for awhile. After the holidays, we agreed we weren’t terribly fond of any of the names, so we scrapped them and started over. Last week, we got that list down to four names we’re pretty happy with. So we may be done, finally, with that initial part of the process.

How do we pick from this list? Ask our toddler, of course. For a couple weeks I’ve been asking M. what we should name the baby. She just looks at me and says, “Baby? Baby?” Not terribly helpful. This morning, however, when we were telling her names on the list, she repeated two of them. While I was at school, she came close to saying the other two names (they’re slightly more difficult names to say). While that is fun, again it’s not super helpful when she repeats every name rather than just one that she likes most.

I did think of a way to ease the process, though. I could always sell the naming rights. The Colts got $112 million last week for the rights to their stadium for only 20 years. What kind of paper could I bring in if I offered the name of my daughter for her entire natural life? Toyota has a nice ring to it. Maggie Brought To You By Old Navy. Apple Presents Brenda. If some British guy can make $1 million by selling pixels on his website, surely this can work, right? Perhaps I should secure the funds before I share this idea with the Mrs. It might help me make my argument if I can show all our kids’ educations as well as our retirement will be taken care of.

Back To Class

January 9, 2006 / DB

Today was my first day of class for the spring semester at Bloomington. It was a lovely, typically Indiana winter day: cold, breezy, nothing but grey in the skies. I spent 45 minutes looking for a parking place (I was trying to avoid getting a campus parking pass by taking the chance of finding a spot on side streets and humping it to campus on foot) before I gave up and went to a parking garage downtown. Turns out you must have a parking permit from the city to park in residential areas near campus in Bloomington. Bummer. At least I allowed myself plenty of time so I still had 30 minutes to get to class (It’s roughly 75 minutes from our front door to campus).

I walked through the Sample Gates to symbolically begin my official days as a graduate student (the pic above is of the Sample Gates). A couple nice Mormon lads greeted me 50 feet into campus. I took a lap through the Union and saw a couple IU hoopsters hanging out. I’m pretty sure one of them was <a href=”http://iuhoosiers.collegesports.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/white_dj00.html”>DJ White</a>, although I later heard that he had injured his foot for the second time this year and is out indefinitely, although I didn’t notice any crutches or braces or anything. Reminded me of my days as an undergrad when you spent the first several days of the fall semester looking for the freshman basketball players. I grabbed a copy of the student paper and was greeted by a headline announcing the assistant dean for IU’s College of Arts and Sciences was leaving to become the dean of KU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. I thought to myself, “That’s a pretty good trade: me for a dean!” Found my class, settled in for a few hours of academic fun.

As I expected, this semester will be dramatically different from the courses I’ve taken so far. I’m taking a Media & Society course and a media ethics course. Neither class has any required textbooks or any exams. Both are high on the professor finding readings and either putting them on reserve at the journalism library, sending them out via e-mail, or distributing in class. I have to write three papers for the Media & Society class, and then one small paper and one major paper for the ethics course. In fact, the ethics class does not meet for three weeks in March and April so that we can concentrate on our research. This isn’t going to be one of those papers I used to “research” for three nights then write the night before it was due. Our grade is made up completely of submitting a literature review in February, an initial draft in late March, and then presenting it in April and submitting a final draft by finals week. The professor said he wants these to be papers that we could submit to journals for publication, so it’s going to be pretty intense.

In the Media & Society course, we’ll be looking at the media as a social institution and how it relates to government, economics, technology, etc. Our weekly topics include: New Media Malaise, The New Politics of Media Criticism, Civic Participation, Interest Groups, and so on. There are roughly 30 students in the class, as it is now a required course, and most are in their second semester of graduate school. There are a couple doctoral students in the class as well. Our professor has been at IU for something like 25 years, and seems like the stereotypical professor: laid back, slightly aloof yet warm and friendly, enthusiastic, full of information. If you saw him walking down the street, you’d think, “Professor.”

My ethics course has only 9-10 students in it. We have an opening month of ethics theory, then we’ll tackle some current issues that we each brought to class today (mine related to how the media operates in times of war when the government places more restrictions on the “free” press). Then we get turned loose on our paper. Both courses appear to have a lot of discussion, but this class should have especially intense discussion because of the smaller number of students and the nature of the subject matter. This professor is also super friendly, and a slightly more buttoned down version of the typical late-40s graduate course professor. I find it interesting the level of encouragement and attention I’m already getting compared to what I received as an undergrad. You obviously are getting the best professors in grad school, no graduate assistants teaching tuned-out 18 years olds, and they take an active interest in your progress. Where I felt stupid going to professors as an undergrad for guidance or clarification, they almost force you to talk to them outside of class if you have the slightest level of confusion in grad school.

Those are thumbnail sketches of my two classes. I’ll obviously be sharing more as the semester continues. It looks like it’s going to take a lot of work to do well, and tons of work if I want to maintain my 4.0. I don’t think I’ll be knocking out a book a week outside of class like I did last spring. But challenge is good. That was one reason for going to grad school: to get taken out of my comfort zone. To be forced to think in ways I’ve not thought before. To be challenged by others not because they’re trying to cut me down, but because we’re all trying to make each other better. It was a little intimidating to hear the kids who have already been through a semester talk. I don’t think I’m totally in that grad school mental mode, where you think deeply about every single issue and discuss them for hours on end. I’ll have to learn how to talk better, how to frame arguments better, how to accept criticism better. When I started my desktop publishing class last fall, I couldn’t see how I would get to the end of the semester completing all the assignments and getting good grades. But that turned out pretty well so I’m excited about this journey and ready to accept some small failures along the way in order to improve myself.

Final Draft Indifference – More Sonogram Info

December 7, 2005 / DB

As an undergrad, I was lucky if my papers went through a draft and a half before I turned them in. Now, I spend hours editing, rearranging, and basically picking apart everything I write for school. I had finished, more or less, my paper by 11:00-ish today. At 2:00 I was still running through it, searching for the occasional awkward phrase or word. When I finally decided I was done, I wanted to read through it one more time, from start to finish, to make sure I hadn’t overlooked anything. For this final read, I could barely keep my eyes on the page. If I wasn’t going to pick anymore, I had no interest in it, apparently. Weird.

Back to this morning’s sonogram. Little Girlfriend #2 weighed in at a hefty five ounces, estimated. Careful readers may recall that M. weighed 12 ounces on the day of her second sonogram (on St. Patrick’s Day!). Never fear, M. was 20 weeks along when we found out she was a girl. LG2 is only 16 weeks, so she’s still got some catching up to do. We had a high-resolution ultrasound this time. Freaky. For the first part of the scan, the images weren’t much different than last time, just slightly clearer. Then they kicked on the 3D effects and things got strange. Suddenly we could virtually see her face: eyes fused shut, ears looking like misshapen blobs. Skinny arms and legs with a prominent spine. It’s almost too much of a look inside your wife’s stomach. Yet cool at the same time. As I said earlier, all appeared to be developing on schedule. Measurements were right where they needed to be. Functioning organs that were visible in the scan seemed to be, well, functioning.

We took M. along with us but she seemed uninterested in watching the images on the screen. I kept telling her to look at the baby, which normally gets her attention, but she was too busy trying to get out of my arms and into S.’s. She had a minor meltdown, which I’m sure the tech and doctor loved. But what can you do?

Pregnancy is a series of steps. Once conception has taken place, things are out of our control. We can just wait and hope for the best. I think all parents consider the worst at some point, often just before check-ups like this. Hopefully, we’re reassured by what we learn in these visits. Sometimes, though, I wonder if we know too much. What if we found something today that wasn’t quite right yet we could do nothing about? Is it better or worse to know? We’ve been lucky enough to have no found any surprises (so far) with either of our kids. But you can’t really relax. There’s always another milestone in the distance. 20 weeks. 24 weeks. 28 weeks. 30 weeks. 32 weeks. 36 weeks. Every segment of the pregnancy is full of hope and excitement but always balanced with fears about things you can’t control. At times I think it was easier to be a dad back when we were supposed to be uninvolved in the process after making their DNA contribution! I wouldn’t trade my experiences for anything, though.

What A Day

November 5, 2005 / DB

Yesterday morning, M. woke up at 5:00. Yuck. I went in and got her untangled from her blanket, found her binky, and tried to make her comfortable. I went back to bed, but could never go back to sleep. S. got up around 6:30 to prepare for work. I got up shortly after to get M. ready to go over to her grandparents’ for the day. They left just after 7:00 and I spent the next 30 minutes reading e-mail and the web.

I had a project due in my publishing class last night. We had to design a letterhead, business card, and envelope for a business, real or imagined. I thought I was just about done when I went to bed Wednesday. I figured I would have a few small elements to clean up then I could slowly print copies, put the package we turn in together, etc. over the course of the day. From the time I began working at 7:45 or so until I left for class at 4:45, I spent all but 30-40 minutes working on the project. There’s nothing like realizing you need to change your color scheme, or two elements are out of proportion, which requires adjusting everything, at the last minute.

By the time I got to class, I was totally fried and jittery from the deadly combination of little sleep and too much caffeine. We have to turn in a write-up with our project, stating what our intent was, how we created our products, and things we liked/disliked about the process. I had a line that said something along the lines of “I liked my base concept, but I’m not sure if I was able to capture that in the final product.” I was not looking forward to presenting and being graded.

All my worries were for naught. The class really seemed to like my work. Our instructor said a few things I did were perfect examples of how you should put a project like this together (I admitted it was from dumb luck rather than reading the handout he had given us) and he seemed to approve of it as well. Suddenly, I was flush with energy and confidence. I was ready to go run around the block! To drink 20 beers! To go dancing all night! Instead, I went home and ate some dinner, watched the first half of the Pacers-Heat game, scheduled a recording for the remainder of the game, and was in bed before 10:00. A pretty good day, all things considered.

Silly Kids -or- How Technology Doesn’t Change Some Things

September 14, 2005 / DB

As I wrote about last spring, it’s always a little disconbobulating adjusting my expectations for the academic world today as compared to how it operated when I was an undergrad. When I was finally finishing up my bachelor’s degree, e-mail was just beginning to become a form of staying in touch with your instructors and other students. Today, e-mail is often the primary form of out-of-class communication. IUPUI has, and I imagine most schools do, a rather formal method for putting classroom resources on-line called Oncourse. You log in and all of your classes are listed. Under each class you can find the syllabus, assignments, materials your instructor hands out in class, class-specific chat rooms and message boards, and a “drop box” which is an electronic in-box where you can submit assignments electronically. It’s all pretty cool, but since I wasn’t enrolled in the class I sat in on last spring (I was enrolled in a graduate research course), I didn’t get to really experience the system. This semester, though, I am able to use Oncourse for both of my classes. If I’ve learned one thing from three weeks of navigating the system, it’s that students really never change.

For my media law class we had an assignment due this past Wednesday. We were to read a decision from the Washington Supreme Court regarding a law that banned video games that depicted violence against law enforcement officers from being sold to minors. Our professor passed the assignment out in class the previous Wednesday, but also posted those questions and the reading material onto Oncourse. When I logged in on Tuesday, I was alerted that there were several unread discussion messages. I accessed the message board and scrolled through a series of “What are the questions?” and “Where is the reading?” questions. It seems that regardless of how technology changes the academic experience (i.e. you can realistically miss class but never miss an assignment as long as it’s posted) undergrads still wait until the last minute to do things and then panic. I would expect that all of these kids are much better versed in how to use Oncourse and more in the habit of checking it than I am. Yet, I was still able to find all the materials after a quick series of clicks. Not sure why these kids were missing it.

My favorite message, though, was one from a student that said something like, “I have the reading and the questions, but I don’t understand them????” Like I posted last week, the readings were a bit dry and full of legalese. But if you stuck with them, reread things you didn’t understand, and focused, you could start to make sense of the decision. And I say this as a sleep-deprived father who’s always looking for an excuse to nap. The questions were pretty straight forward, so I’m not sure what this kid’s problem was. “How did the court rule?” isn’t that difficult to decipher.

Anyway, this all reminded me of a class I took late in my undergrad career when I was going back and filling in those slots in my liberal arts portfolio I had missed (or withdrawn/flunked at my first pass). I was a 24 year-old in a class full of 18 year olds. They cracked me up with their innocence and nonchalance about school. One kid in particular was always great entertainment. Despite the fact even quizzes were carefully labeled on the syllabus, he was prone to shout, “Dude! We have a quiz today?!?!” when our instructor asked us to close our books and clear our desks. Cheap entertainment.

Thank You

August 11, 2005 / DB

…to all who posted comments or sent me e-mails after my big news on Tuesday. I’ve been very excited about this turn of events, so have had some trouble focusing on the things that get me through the day like reading, writing, and eating. I’m starting to feel normal again, though. Of course, when I order my shiny, new <a href=”http://www.apple.com/powerbook/”>PowerBook</a> that I feel is necessary for success as graduate student, I’ll probably start freaking out again until the FedEx truck pulls up in a couple days. (Why order on-line when I’ve got an Apple Store five minutes away? Well, I can avoid the sales push to add the AppleCare plan or any other peripherals to my purchase. Although I am going into the Store today to play around with a Book a little more and who knows what can happen while I’m in there.)

A few comments on your comments:

I’m struggling with mascot loyalty. Technically, I will be a Hoosier. Then again, I’ll be taking classes at IUPUI which is the Jaguars. But my degree will say Indiana University. And, of course, unless you went to a small school for undergrad, you really shouldn’t have any mascot loyalty to your graduate school. I know a few people who spend four years in Lawrence, KS followed by three years in Columbia, MO and they for sure are not Tiger fans. I guess I’m secretly hoping the stars align and <a href=”http://www.kusports.com/news/mens_basketball/story/114938″>Brandon Rush</a> decides to go to UMKC for a year so I can interview him and ask inappropriate questions about his oldest brother when they come to play IUPUI.

And it is Indiana University, not the University of Indiana. I guess many state schools used to be named in this manner, KU notably and the Lawrence paper has never adjusted, and IU has never decided to switch letters around. Native Hoosiers get quite defensive when you refer to their school by the wrong name. See also: Ohio State alums.

I believe the commute to Marquette would be a killer, but knowing a fine journalist like Chris Farley was an alum is tempting.

I do start classes in two weeks, but I was already enrolled under the non-degree program umbrella. I’m supposed to talk to the associate dean at IU next week to get everything squared away. I’m not sure how it works exactly with balancing contact between the faculty in Bloomington vs. Indy.

It’s very gratifying to have other people review what you’ve done in your career and find value in it. That’s really what I thought would get me into graduate school, the fact I did a very good job for 6 1/2 years doing things that in no way matched my strongest abilities. Still, I was nervous they would overlook those accomplishments and focus on the fact I rarely went to class some semesters as an undergrad and have one of the most horrible transcripts ever as a result. If I ever make it famous and get interviewed on national TV (Even C-SPAN’s Book TV would be fine), I can look in the camera and say, “Kids, this is what you can accomplish with a GPA somewhere in the barrio of the <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendoza_Line”>Mendoza Line</a>.

I’ve got lots of projects in some state of readiness. I’ll try to get you caught up over the next couple days.

A Whole Lotta Worryin’ About Nuthin’ -or- How I Got Into Grad School

August 9, 2005 / DB

(Please note my excellent grammar in the subject line.)

So much for thinking it would be several weeks, if not months before I heard back regarding my graduate school application. I was informed a few minutes ago, via e-mail, that I have been accepted into the Indiana University Master’s in Journalism program. Holy shit, this is actually going to happen! I’m going to go run around the block ten times to celebrate, then probably puke from excitement.

What Am I Up To?

April 20, 2005 / DB

Things will continue to be a little slower than usual here for the next couple weeks.  I’m working diligently on my final project for school, and expect the next week to be extremely busy for that alone.  Immediately after I submit my project, I’ll start working on my formal application for graduate school, so I’m pulling together some information for that already.  Finally, we’re having some work done around the house this week, so I’m spending some of the time I’m usually stuck to the computer outside consulting with people to make sure the right things are accomplished.  I beg for your patience in the coming weeks.  I may surprise you with some traditional, long posts here-and-there, but for the most part expect shorter works for the time being.

Friday Notes

February 11, 2005 / DB

Some random bits in advance of the weekend.

I’ve not talked much about school since class started. Things have been going quite well so far. As my professor warned me last fall, the class is very basic and at times a little slow for someone who’s already got a degree. But I have been learning some good rules about print journalism writing that are different from academic writing. As we get deeper into the class, I’m sure there will be more things I learn that are new and useful to me. We’ve written four stories so far, and I’ve been getting 9-10s out of 10 on each assignment. I am reading the paper a little differently than I used to, and am paying more attention to stories about the media than I used to. I was always a big fan and regular watcher of Keith Olbermann’s Countdown on MSNBC, but even more so now that he typically gives a lot of attention to media/journalism issues.

The biggest thrill of class so far, though, was an encounter I had Wednesday. We meet in a computer room, which remains locked between classes, so each day we have to loiter in the hall until the professor comes down to let us in. Wednesday, I noticed a guy was wearing a Kansas shirt and a hat with a Jayhawk on it. I had to go over and see what the deal was.
“Are you from Kansas?” I asked. Even with people who are from Kansas, this isn’t the best way to open a conversation.
“No…I just love their basketball team, man.”

OK, now we’re getting somewhere. I told him that I went to school there back in the day. He asked if I went to games when I was in school, and I told him absolutely. I camped out and everything. He thought that was pretty amazing. I withstood the urge to offer to pay his tuition next semester in reward for his fine taste in basketball teams.

My good friends know I have a tendency to obsess about music that I enjoy. With that in mind, prepare for some obsession over the next 10-15 days. We’re going to see my musical hero Neil Finn and his brother Tim on Feb. 22. They’re coming through town on their current US tour, which will be in a very stripped down format: just the two of them and a bass player. In preparation, I’ve got a fat playlist with all of my Split Enz, Crowded House, Finn Brothers, Neil solo work, and Neil & Friends tunes in constant rotation. I’ve got the Neil & Friends DVD out so M. can see them as well. As I put this post together, I’m watching the Finns’ in-studio appearance on KCRW yesterday. Prepare yourselves for some remembrances of particularly important concerts in my life, reviews of some of the Finns’ works, and of course an extended review of the concert after the fact.

The big Indy news today is Reggie Miller announcing his retirement at the end of the season. Peyton Manning might be huge now, but Reggie was Indy’s first truly national sports star. He’s much beloved by residents of this basketball crazy state. I’ve made my disdain for Reggie quite clear since we moved here. That disdain has turned into indifference as I’ve become more and more of an overt Pacers fan. I think his retirement is an appropriate and classy move. It would be easy for him to hang on for one more year now that the Pacers have no shot to win it all this season. He’s smartly hanging it up before it’s obvious he doesn’t belong in the game any longer. I think it’s funny that after all his apoplectic yammerings three weeks ago when he said Craig Sager incorrectly announced Uncle Reggie would be retiring, it turns out to be true. He wasn’t mad because the reports were false; he was mad because another TNT reporter beat his sister to sharing the news. Excellent.