Don't Forget Your Lance

When our Honors Program director, Vince Brewton, asked us what our core four values were, I immediately recited in my head, "Eye contact, enthusiastic voice, share a smile, stay connected."  Sadly, those are the 4 Core Essentials of a Chick-fil-A employee and are completely not what he was asking for.  No one else really remembered them either, except one girl who randomly knew like two of them.  It turns out that he had verbally typo'd anyway and there are actually five core values, and here they are: Creativity, Integrity, Curiosity, Achievement, and Service.  Even though those remained a mere vague memory from my first couple of weeks here as this semester progressed, looking back it turns out that those words describe perfectly my first semester of college.  Mission accidentally accomplished!


I just love seeing how my time at UNA has revolutionized some parts of my life, while setting in stone other things that were already in me.   College has only served to verify the philosophy I always lived by: Don't freak out about what others think of you - no one cares what you're doing anyway. 


When we first got to college, a common freshman observation was, "Wow, everyone is so cool here."  Do you know why people are so surprised?  Because high school was retarded!  We were conditioned for pressure and anxiety about awful failures at life like that dude who wears his pajama pants to class and that girl who has too much fun on the weekends.   So many conversations I have had with other students this year have this theme of "I look back at high school and realize how much it doesn't matter."  Yes, it was a formative time in our life during which we made important relationships and decisions, but we still look back at it and scoff.  IT IS OKAY to be best friends with the super-weird kid that makes you laugh.  He might creep everybody else out, but who cares?  I'll tell you who doesn't care - the better part of six billion people.

I am the same person I was before I came here, but the way I view God, other people, and life in general are always changing.  Like Dr. Vince said last night: Values change.  Plans change.  "You just have to suck it up and be okay with that."  Along with the excitement and triumph I have experienced in the past few months, I have also faced circumstances of disappointment and uncertainty.  All of these led to differences in my outlook on things, and I am totally all right with that.  Change is good.  I have now actually walked to town at least three times, which never would have happened where I'm from.  I've had three of my own articles published in a real newspaper!   I have met really interesting, cool people and watched them grow into college life while I did the same...  I use an umbrella now, people!  Also, I should probably tell my boss I can't referee this basketball season, because last night I got a call and found out I will have a steady job in town after Christmas break!  

The following random song quotation may be the end of my freshman HP blogging experience, but this moment is just the beginning of life as I know it.

"Ain't no lie baby, bye, bye, bye." - 'N Sync                 





   


 

Say HELLO to Our Beans

As we walked to our habitual 5 o'clock Monday dinner before freshman Honor's forum last night, someone in the group said, "This'll be our last forum, y'all," and everyone gave a cheer that dissolved awkwardly into a sad groan.  It's strange because Forum was another thing that kind of drew us together, and now we're just not going to have that.  I'm sure this semester was just the start of the awesomeness that's been going on among us Nerd kids.  We know, anyway, that we'll pick up another like-minded class the first semester of next year too.  I liked the speakers and keeping this blog, but if everything stayed the same in life, I would probably get restless and move to San Diego and pierce my eyebrows. 

"How to be successful" - is that a new, original, and exciting concept to you? 'Cause it's not to me. No one can learn the one key to success, and yet everyone wants to teach it to us.    It was another businessman, Mr. Billy Hargett, that came and spoke to us, and as he began talking about the sort of businessman-type things that we probably cared about the first several times we heard it this year, I geared myself up for fifty minutes of voice tune-out, minimal note-taking, and the eventual throes of depression.  I am exaggerating because I'm tired of business.  Also, I was wrong.  What's new?

As it turns out, I may be an absolute expert at tuning people out while appearing wonderously absorbed with every word-pearl they toss in my direction, career-wise I am not even at the level of Apprentice.  Being the aimless peasant that I am, this is a fantastic time to learn how to be responsible.  This was the first note that I took:

1. Show up, be prepared, do the right thing RIGHT - consistently.

Seriously, as much as it was my inclination to think, "Gah, show up on time, really?!" I wrote this down because I am one of the most careless people I have ever met, so this was actually sensationally relevent to me.  Like, I think I was five minutes late to Speech today because I wanted a vanilla hazelnut latté from Einstein's.  Was it worth it?  Oh yes.  Were there repercussions?  Not at all.  Out of consideration for my professor and classmates, though, I probably could have resisted the coffee for thirty minutes. (We got out early again.)  A further point he made that broadened the horizons of my perspective on time management is that when it comes to anything - work, family, play - "Be there when it counts." So maybe it was okay that I missed the first half of people passing around the sign-in sheet and Professor Hendren joking about military terms because I got there before the good stuff.  I'm just copping myself out right now.

What I mean is that even though we won't always be perfectly prepared and tight-ship sailing, we should never completely give up and end up missing what really matters.  You may end up missing your firstborn's first steps because you are at work, but that does not mean you should give up on taking part in the rest of your child's life any more than it means you ought to up and quit your job.  Do what you can, as much as you can.     

The  following is a beautiful and magnificent collage of wisdom from last night that I enjoyed enough to jot down and expound upon now: 

Professionalism!  Have it!  Know what to do and how to do it.  Know what to improve and why you're doing that anyway.  Know how to report your progress.  When it comes to executing ideas in a team, know when to lead, follow, or get out of the way.  Know the most dangerous place in the building - the break room, of course!  Nothing in there but  a water cooler designed in a circular fashion in order to make scathing gossip-time more functional.  Exceed expectations.  Don't leave holes in your plan, because Murphy's law says that of all the things that can go wrong,  the worst thing will be the one to happen, at the most inopportune time.  Learn to communicate truthfully and effectively.  Your life does not have to be a monologue: Anyone can blather for an hour, but it takes skill to get your point across well in thirty seconds.   Also, if someone you're talking to asks you a question that you are not prepared to answer, "don't lie, ever."  

"I will get back back to you." > "Sure, I guess, maybe." 

'Kay? 

"If I sold this guitar and a piece of my heart for you, would you hop on a bus and leave just because - would you?" - Hawk Nelson

:K