*PiscesGrl

Sayonara!

I was waiting to post this until I got my grades back.  Two As, bringing the final GPA to 3.981 (15 As and one sneaky A-).  So, now I only have the Pi Alpha Alpha induction on 5/21 and graduation on 5/22. 

This has been fun...for hard work.  Who new 3 years ago I'd be saying that?!  I met with a MA state representative to present a group project on the Franklin Park Zoo, I had a project sent to the town finance director of Concord.  I've even been commended for my "interesting" take on issues...I'm not sure if that's always a GOOD thing, but hey, why not. 

So, now I'm on the job hunt (though anything I find needs to be closer to home and as enjoyable as my current job), I'm back to volunteering (some for an animal shelter, some for a literacy program), and I'm on a mission to drop the 30 lbs I gained while being too busy writing papers to eat properly.  The last one is going to take some mental fortitude.  But, I've proven I have the ability to do whatever I want when I set my mind to it, so here we go!

I found that the most important part of the MPA program isn't the professors or the assignments or the reading - it's the people.  I met so many people with so many different viewpoints and experiences.  Each class took me out of my comfort zone, because I needed to be able to present my views in a manner that would not alienate or offend people.  Some of my classmates didn't do that, but they were very few and far between.  Most listened, offered their ideas, and we were able to build a consensus.  Very few of the conversations got to a point where anyone could potential harbor ill will. 

So, I'll leave you with this - liberal, conservative, socialist, libertarian, anarchist, whatever.  We had a diverse group of students, and we all managed to be respectful in expressing ourselves and listening to others.  (If only the larger population would follow suit.)

BTW - May tends to have many elections and votes for local communities.  My hometown is considering a Proposition 2 1/2 override this month, in fact.  If your community has a vote scheduled, GET DOWN THERE AND LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD!  Otherwise, don't complain when the "other guys" win.  =)

Well, I managed to do one thing I've been known for...

I completely fell off the grid.  I've been so absorbed with work and school and papers that I forgot (or ignored, probably) everything else.  I've got 20 pages left to write by May 3rd and then I am DONE DONE DONE! 

I gave my presentation on Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences...not my best work, probably, but still good.  I, unfortunately, went last for that day's presentations - which meant my 15 minute presentation ended up being 30 because we had PLENTY of time for questions.  Awesome.  One of the questions brought up a topic I hadn't looked at: CORI reports and how detrimental they are to people who have been in prison.  This is definitely true, but there are other aspects as well - like the fact that some places do not bother running the reports, some places run very abbreviated reports, they rely on your name and birthdate - causing some information to be mis-reported on people's reports, and there have been cases where out-of-state convictions did not show up on the report at all.  Nevermind that a company may look at your arrest record and decide you're too much of a risk, even if the arrest was only for possession of a small amount of drugs. 

Today, I'm finishing up the paper for that class, and then I have 10 days to finish the 25-pager.  Oye.  I can't believe I'm going to be done in 2 weeks. 

Also, I was accepted to Pi Alpha Alpha, the honor society for public administration.  Huge honor.  I honestly wasn't sure I was going to make it, since I dropped just below a 4.0 last semester.  I'm not even sure what the requirements are! 

4/20 was the 11-year anniversary of Columbine.

4/19 was the 15-year anniversary of the Oklahoma City Boming.

4/16 was the 3-year anniversary of Virginia Tech. 

If those 3 incidents don't put some perspective on our world, I'm not sure what will.

Whoops!  Fell off the grid.  I blame the fact that February has flown by.  All of a sudden, I looked at the calendar and realized, March starts next week.  Who saw that coming?!

Anyway, classes are rolling along.  Having the Capstone at 7:15 on Mondays is a little rough (schedulers?  Do you hear that?).  2 hours to waste before class.  Sometimes, I feel like my brain is shutting off halfway through.  And, I forgot my book today, so I'm flying a little blind.  I've already read it, but I like having the physical book to refer to. 

At any rate, both of my classes seem to fit into each other, so that makes things easier.  Now I need to research high-profile drug case and the corresponding drug reforms.  That should be interesting. 

One step forward, 10 gigantic leaps back???

So, I've officially had a week of classes...granted the first session is always a review of the syllabus but it counts!  Tons of reading, 4 1 page reflections, 1 6-8 page policy paper, 5 2 page case-study responses, and 1 25-30 page paper about my theories of public administration (specifically on New Public Management).  And here we go...3 months. 

Obviously, you know Scott Brown is the new MA senator...I'd consider him to be more of a moderate/independent.  I'm not sure if this was a response to the Health Care debate, a response to government in general, or just a general "no, we're doing this our way now, forget the status quo."  I'm leaning toward the latter.  Everyone I've talked to resides in the middle, as it seems like the Left and the Right are getting further and further away from the "middle class".  And, I think President Obama saw that, considering he's proposing so many tax breaks for the middle class now..."Middle Class Task Force"?

And now there's the race for Governor in SC...and the Lt. Governor managed to jam his foot so far in his mouth, it's pretty amazing he can breathe. "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed! You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that."  Oh dear. 

Now, here's the thing.  Everyone makes mistakes.  VP Joe Biden is well known for his gaffes.  The Libertarian candidate for MA senator, Joseph Kennedy (no relation, as they made ABUNDANTLY clear) referred to Martha Coakley as "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha"...possibly a play on The Brady Bunch, but there are so many people who would have missed the reference (and now I feel old).  And Press Secretary Robert Gibbs managed to state that MA voters electing Scott Brown did so in support of the President (not sure where THAT came from...but I'm not sure you can elect a Republican in support of a Democrat, especially when said Big D was stumping for the Repub's opponent). 

But this?  Failure on a massive level.  He "didn't intend to offend anyone", but he has a strange way of showing it. 

It really is 2010...and I'm still having trouble writing the date!

I'm entering my last semester!!!!!!  I applied for graduation in May, I confirmed that I didn't need to take the one credit course added in after I started the program, and now I just need the syllabus from my 2nd class and I'm good!!  I had to enroll in a new class this week because Emergency Management was cancelled.  Too bad.  Though, maybe I'll just take that stuff at Mass Maritime (they have an Emergency Management program that I've been looking at).  Or maybe I'll take some time off to decide what I want to do with the rest of my life.  Though, time off didn't help that before.  =) 

Speaking of emergencies - 7.0 quake in Haiti.  The pictures make it look like Port-au-prince has been levelled.  Which is probably true.  And then I made the fatal mistake of looking at my Facebook.  Apparently, one of my friends doesn't agree with people choosing to donate to Haiti for the disaster relief. 

"How many people are going to fall for the relief scam for Haiti? i bet alot of people will, esp the request to send a text to a certrain number and your phone bill will be charged hahaha yea ok, if you believe that i got a bridge for sale. Also remember you send money to American Red Cross, the money you donate will no...t go to Haiti, it will go in some bank account, just likt the did with the moeny for 9/11."  I'm trying to cut him some slack because his mom died a couple of weeks ago, but seriously!  Misanthropy, how edgy. 

Ya know what?  The texting isn't a scam.  The Red Cross/AT&T raised $1.4M in one day.  The Red Cross had already pledged $1M, and if my donation goes to backfill their coffers so they can help more people, so be it.  Money will help more than hard donations right now, because they need $$ to clean up before they can actually do anything. 

41 aftershocks as of this morning.  And the infrastructure was bad enough, never mind the structural damage from the earthquake itself.  It's going to be bad for a while. 

http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/#utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-sk&utm_medium=ha&utm_term=haiti%20relief  If you can donate, cool. If you can't, that's cool too.  I know the economy's still killing a lot of people.  Prayers, thoughts, good will...the American Red Cross is also hosting blood drives (granted, the need is always there...maybe the Haiti disaster will bring out more people...the winter is a slow time for blood donations, apparently). 

Happy Holidays!

Whew!  This semester flew by.  I'm waiting on my grade from my human resource management class, and then I'll OFFICIALLY only have 2 classes left!  What will I do with my spare time?!

It's possible I could end up with an A in this class, even after freaking out on the mid-term.  85 there, but I've had As on everything else.  We shall see.  I had the final last night, and I finished in about 40 minutes (really, probably 30, but I didn't want to be the first person to hand it in lol).  My teacher already finished grading them, so I'm pretty sure he doesn't sleep.  Even if I got the lowest grade in the class, I'll have a B+. 

Now, I need to come up with a topic for my paper for the Capstone course.  I think I'm going to compare the public sector and the private sector somehow.  Other than that, I'm homefree until January 23rd.  Then I start my Emergency Management class on Saturday mornings. 

I guess this is where I say Happy Holidays and wish me luck!

Thanksgiving, then term paper, then finals, then 2 CLASSES LEFT!!!

I signed up for my 2 final classes at Suffolk!  Scary scary thought.  I've been in the program for so long, it's going to be strange to be home around 6 ever night. 

My Grantwriting class is over.  We handed in our final project this week.  Hopefully, we will get the grant for our program.  And, I should be starting a new grant project for the Animal Protection Center of Southeastern Massachusetts shortly, so that's exciting.

I started working on my term paper...I'm writing about the legality of affirmative action as related to the Rooney Rule in the NFL.  It's interesting: the NFL follows the Rooney Rule (all teams must interview at least one minority candidate for a vacant head coaching position before making a choice), but they never actually adopted it as part of their charter.  Even more interesting, the commissioner decides the sanctions on a rule that ISN"T actually formally adopted.  The only team ever fined was the Detroit Lions the year the rule was instituted...$200,000 was quite the warning to all of the other teams.  Hopefully, my topic will make for an interesting paper.

Other than that, it's been one of those weeks where anything that can go wrong seems to.  Hopefully, since we had 3 bad things happen, that should be over.  Rule of three, and all that.

Whoops.  I missed last week.  I was still a little freaked out about my midterm (I got an 85...lower than I wanted but better than I thought lol).  I haven't taken an in-class exam in years, and I nearly had a panic attack when my teacher dropped the blank test on my desk.  First, I read the questions to find the best place to start, and I started to panic that I'd studied the wrong stuff.  BUT!  I found some questions that I knew right off the bat, and I went from there.  I really thought I was going to fail outright. 

Today is my last grantwriting class.  We're handing in the summary and budget planning for our project, and I'm hoping we get all of the points.  So far, we've only lost one point, and that was because we didn't state the need clearly.  I'm fixing that for the actual grant package.  As we're writing the grant, we're supposed to schedule time with Professor Lavin to make sure we're on the right track.  We shall see.  Hopefully we'll get the grant. 

And, my other organization finally got back to me.  I should have their information by next week so I can begin to prepare the grant documents.  I'll need to schedule some time with the head of fundraising for the group...we shall see. 

Other than that, I just had my one-year wedding anniversary, and we're rapidly approaching Thanksgiving.  I guess, the more you try to relax, the larger the number of outstanding tasks.  I need to prepare an outline for my term paper (outline is due on Friday 11/13, and the paper is due 12/9 with a presentation).  It's like it never ends!

Score one for the good guys...

Our teacher reviewed the mid-term for next week: 10 short answer questions, all on stuff he's covered in class.  This means I just have to review the group project, go over my notes, and I should be good.  If this class kills my average....let's just not think about that, mmkay?

Today, we have to hand in our Goals/Objectives/Methods section for my Grant class.  The only problem?  All of our information is based on last year's program, which was 4 months long and covered 26 people.  The 2010 program?  12 months w/ 12 students.  We're definitely going to need to get the new information ASAP if they want a grant proposal to send out.  Otherwise, we're going to end up putting together a grant for the class and it probably won't help the organization.  Oh well...we shall see. 

We went through an article in my HR class today discussing the differences in compensation between the private and public sector.  While the article was skewed, you could definitely tell the skewed views of my classmates as well.  The disparity between the "average" salaries was something like $49K (private) to $72K (public).  The thing is, the public sector is obviously more homogenous.  On the other hand, you can't compare apples to apples anyway, even if you tried to compare the "public" sector to...my life insurance company.  My company has highly paid executives, as well as support staff who rake in about $36K per year.  There is no cap on compensation, so that leaves large outliers skewing the average.  And, most of the workers are support staff, which skews the median.  There really isn't a way to compare the sectors.  Though, we can all agree that the benefits for the public sector far outweigh those in the private sector...retirement, healthcare, etc.  Many of these just aren't offered to private sector employees. 

In the end, it really comes down to a comparison of benefits.  The public sector offers a better health insurance plan, which is much more expensive than those offered by private companies.  Private companies try to cut costs by limiting employer match for retirement plans; the public sector tends to have defined benefit pensions.  The public sector also tends to get more paid time off (what with holidays and such).  My office has 8 solid holidays (including an extra day for Thanksgiving and Christmas), as well as 2 "floating" holidays.  My boss allows me to take all of those holidays, plus Patriots Day, New Years Eve, 1/2 day Fridays, and 3 weeks of vacation. 

Hmm...maybe I should stay in the private sector...

Well, we didn't have a summer, so let's go straight to winter!

I woke up yesterday morning and scraped FROST off my car!  I can't believe we're 1/2 way through October, and I might need to turn the heat on soon. 

Yesterday, we handed in our Needs Statement and our Grantmaker Search.  We are now halfway through the project.  And I'm a little annoyed.  We spent one of our classes in the library, and the research librarian was supposed to run us through the grantmaker search sites and books at the library...instead, it ended up being a lesson on how to do research at Sawyer.  Something that is covered very early on in the program.  The next class, our teacher provided a bunch of information for searching, and we completed the assignment on time.  Unfortunately, some of my classmates DID NOT understand the assignment and blamed it on the library session.  And the teacher waived the assignment...the day before it was due.  We're all getting full credit, but seriously.  WE'RE IN GRAD SCHOOL!  Most of this stuff is self-directed or minimally guided.  There's no real hand-holding here.  Sometimes I wonder about my generation.

Also leaving me wondering - apparently, there are people out there who blame Erin Andrews for her stalker (you know, the guy who filmed her through a modified peephole and then posted the tapes on the internet?  That one.).  Apparently, it's her fault because she's blond, attractive, and on ESPN. 

Let's get some facts straight here.  The guy taped her without her permission, NAKED.  Posted it on the internet, WITHOUT HER PERMISSION.  I'm not seeing how her being blonde, attractive, or in the public eye makes ANY of this okay.  Ever. 

And, for the record, many people are stalked each year.  Not all of them are blonde, in the public eye, or Erin Andrews, or women for that matter.  And none of them ask to feel like they need to change their locks, their phone number, block people on the internet, close all of their blinds, and constantly look over their shoulders.   In the internet age, it might behoove us to remember, a victim is a victim...not someone who caused their own misfortune because some mentally unstable person couldn't handle not being in their life.