Genealogy

I have a new favorite website: https://familysearch.org

So far, I have learned about my Dad's family, which he never talked about. The only thing I knew was his father's first name was Aubert, because that was his middle name. But even with that little bit of knowledge, I found out his parents were Andrea (from Denmark!!) and Lars (from Norway!). LARS! What an awesome name. He was possibly an only child, from what I can tell. Lars was drafted for the WWII, but was 56 at the time, so he likely didn't fight. His parents were both from Norway, so I could trace back my dad's family to Norway. I wonder if they have any records there...

On my mom's side, I learned about my grandmother and grandfather. They're all from NY. (Represent!) I wish I could find information about their grandparents to see what countries they are from. I know Ireland and Germany, but I would love to know who and when. My husband's family on his mother's side is from Hungary. Beyond that we couldn't find too much.

So what did we learn today? What we already know, our kids will never tan and we need to buy stock in SPF 100.

Masters

I just applied for graduation from my master's program. I am so pumped and ready to be done. My husband will also be applying for graduation soon. We will graduate in May and Masters.. of something or other! I promise not to be one of those people who signs her name Jacqueline, MA.

And now that the grad programs are winding down, it is onto the next step. Family.

2/5 is National Nutella Day

I opened this with all intentions of writing about... something. Whatever, it's gone now.

I am super, insanely proud of my best lady friend over at the lower free bridge who completed her written comps for her PhD this weekend and will do her oral defense at the end of the month. I can't even imagine balancing PhD work and office work, and I give her huge props for doing this.

I have had a terrible habit lately of eating anything and everything bad for me. I know that the logical thing would be to do like a cheese free week or something to change things up. Right now, I want to focus on getting the leftovers from G's birthday out of my fridge, which mainly consists of pizza, pasta, and chicken, and a spinach dip, which I think I should bring in for lunch so I stop spending money, but I have no energy in the morning to do anything ever. I don't want to throw the food out because, frankly, I spent a lot of money on it and I don't want it to be a waste. But it was all worth it, because I was really focused on trying to make sure my husband had an awesome 30th birthday.

Happy Birthday, my love!

Yesterday, I wrote out all my assignments for my internship and online class and May cannot come soon enough. And I really should submit my detailed course information for my proposed social media course. I am just so nervous that it is terrible and dumb. 

Tonight the hubby and I go to the eye doctor. Hooray for new glasses and contacts!

Doctor Who and January Updates

This morning I woke up from a very intense, active dream which basically involved me in the weirdest Doctor Who episode. There was pizza, rocket missile mountains, dinosaurs (I think?), River Song, me, some kids, swimming pools, babies, and farms. And that was the end of the dream. I woke up right after I got a message from the Doctor about where to meet him. 

So in celebration of a Doctor dream and probably the closest I will ever get to being a companion, I wore my blazer I bought to cosplay the 11th Doctor to work today. No bow tie though, despite their coolness factor. 

It's weird. My last semester of "classes" start back up Monday, but I am not going to campus, because one is online and the other is an internship in financial aid. Today I am going to lunch with my internship supervisor, the director of financial aid, to discuss the goals and tasks of my internship. I am excited about it taking place at Panera. I am not looking forward to the hungry look in the eyes of the financial aid staff last night when I talked to them and they heard they were getting an intern.

In other news, my friend Beanie, over at Motion Picture Mission, found this money savings challenge on Pinterest yesterday and we both decided to do it. I deposited $10 from my checking to savings to get started, but next Friday is just $5, $6 the week after. I really needed something to spur me to save money, considering I haven't added to my savings since we moved in the house. I was going to set up transfers, but I like seeing the difference every week. 

My office-mate is out today, which means listening to music and taking all the appointments. 

It is real!

The Professor strikes again. I just talked to the English dept chair about the new Journalism major and she asked that I submit a fleshed out course description with goals, key readings, and objectives. I also have to come up with a title. I honestly think Social Media and Marketing is the most descriptive and catchy title for my course, so I might just stick with that. We also talked about offering it online, which I think I will do for the fall and then try in person in the spring.  Oh, and yea, she wants me to offer it in the fall. THIS FALL!! When we discussed it last, she thought I could teach in Spring 2014 at the earliest. Wow! I am now going to be finishing my masters degree and working on a course I will teach at the same time. It blows my mind. I mean, I guess I have been studying this stuff and living it since January 2008. 5 years, that's weirddddd to think about . I've been out of college almost 6 years. When the crap did that happen!! And my 10 year high school reunion is coming up! Too much is going on. It is all blowing my mind. I am going to be doing an internship with another department on campus on top of working and doing another online course. So if you don't hear from me until I graduate in May...  now you know why.


Also, it is the hubby's 30th birthday next week!! I am excited and can't wait! I can't believe all we have accomplished in the past couple years. And the Superbowl falls on his birthday this year, which really, could not be more perfect. Happy birthday, my love!

Sandy

Holy crap. I haven't written in a month.  Mostly grad school ate my life, then a little lady named Sandy came along and wiped out Long Island. I spent most of last week thrown into helping out at a quickly established shelter for those in need after Superstorm Sandy. About 2 months ago, a student worker in my office asked me to be the club advisor for a club she wanted to start. It was the American Red Cross Club and my reaction was "Sure, if we can get tshirts!" I was 80% kidding, but she got the club approved with shockingly speed and then she started planning things for the semester.

When I accepted the job as moderator, I thought it would mostly be about fundraising and handing out first aid kits. Maybe a blood drive, every once and a while. Then this crazy huge storm came through, devastating homes and changing the landscape of many areas of NYC and LI. So I donated money to the Red Cross and thought I did what I could. Then my college became a temporary shelter and the club president called and asked if I could come down and help them hand things out to people who needed them. This ended being most of my week last week, and we hit a lot more bumps than I expected.

As good as it was to help those in need, we almost had to fight and get constant approval to do it every day. And the kids who were there to help out were frustrated and demoralized. I found myself in a serious adult position. For the first time I had people, less than 10 years younger than me, truly looking to me for answers, guidance, and support. I really hope I helped them and that they don't get discouraged from helping in the future, but I felt that I was making it up as I went along, which I guess is what every adult does. I think we will get more people interested in the club when the other students have seen first hand that natural disasters happen at home, not just in far away places. And if this winter is as bad as they say it is, I think more of these kids should be prepared for little hiccups to big disasters. I think there is a lot of red tape when working with an organization as big as the Red Cross, but much of it is there for a reason. I have seen a lot of good work that these volunteers do and had people thank us for our generosity. I hope that I learn to be a little less selfish from this and maybe figure out how to be an adult that helps some of these kids stay on this course of good deeds and helping their fellow man.

Treat others as you would like to be treated.

Social Media and me!

Today was a special day for me. It was one of those rare moments in my professional life where my heart and head swelled up just because some people think I am good at what I do. The other day I was approached by my boss about the new Journalism and New Media major we will be starting Fall 2013. I am the department liaison with English and close with the current department chair, so she wanted me to learn more about the program to share with the counselors. Then she mentioned that JP (the chair of the department) was singing my praises and was interested in having me teach a Social Media class. She said she was ok with the idea and wanted to let me know before I met with her. I got somewhat excited, but didn't let my hopes get too high until I talked to her.

So this afternoon, I went to talk to JP. We talked about the major and the classes she has in mind for it. Then she also mentioned me teaching a class on Social Media. I admitted that I had given it some thought because my boss had mentioned it and decided that it could be covered 3 different ways in relation to Journalism and New Media: Social Media and Writing (how journalists are using it to get their ideas out, find out new ideas, connect with each other, and market themselves), Social Media and Marketing (using SM as a marketing tool), and Social Media and Communication (how SM has changed the way we interact, talk, get ideas across, and think).  She said if it is possible, maybe it could be two classes (I think for my own knowledge, I would stay focused on Marketing and Writing, since those are the areas I know best). After I left, I found myself already planning activities and how would I teach this. I have been researching and utilizing Social Media for 5 years now, and to have two people I respect very highly have the confidence that I could teach a topic about it at the college level basically blows my mind. I don't think they realized what a compliment they gave me by thinking of me and approaching me with this opportunity. Even if for some reason it doesn't work out, it has been a turning point in my life where I realize that I am a professional instead of just working at a job.

I do hope this pans out, I already have some ideas (self reminder: make the midterm to create a Facebook page for a book, movie, or business and have then write a paper explaining why how they would use it and the benefits of each section). I have been saving articles for a  long time, but so much of it is related to SM and higher education. I know I can find plenty more though.

It is really exciting to think that the efforts I have put in to gaining as much knowledge as possible about this area is actually benefiting me this much. So I really hope that in Spring 2014, you can call me Professor Rowe.

My future faculty picture

I was also asked to be a club advisor earlier in September and the club was approved last week. So to add to my work, recruiting, and grad school, I'm now the advisor for the Red Cross Club @ SJC. Less than 2 weeks til our first meeting!

Now the question is, what should the name of my classes be?