Job Hunt: Infinity

A few weeks ago I took a week-long social media break. I tried to not check Facebook or Twitter Friday evening-Thursday evening. Tried. I'm a news junkie so I did end up checking Twitter several times, but avoided tweeting. I avoided most of Facebook aside from one check or so a day to make sure I didn't miss an invite (but also because it's my job to be on Facebook for work and NASPA's Veterans Knowledge Community). The break was needed.

In 2015 when I attended the national NASPA conference, I took down some thoughts for me to blog about later. One of those bullet was: Why are we here? What are our motivations? What do we want to gain? Are we considering our motivations when planning our days?

I presented during #NASPA16. My presentation did not focus on what I do professionally or my research area. I didn't propose the session, my name wasn't listed with it. But there I was, in front of a room talking about what it means to be authentic and professional while using social media. But here's the rub: I'm having a hard time personally curating my Twitter feed in the past several weeks. My job isn't very difficult, it's basic support staff stuff. But it does become hectic and chaotic with a lot of moving parts. The past few weeks we had many visitors through my office, I worked on multiple projects with people from other offices, and I had meetings of my own to attend. And I got frustrated. There were days when I was angry. There were days that when I got home I wondered why I should go back the next day. Normally, I would tweet about these things as ambiguously as possible but I don't feel "normal" online at the moment A few weeks ag...

My last tweet was April 29th. Well, the last one you probably saw, because I did respond to one person who tweets mainly about baseball and hockey. He's also our local Single A baseball team radio announcer, you likely don't follow him. Anyway. I took part in a conversation that I found really interesting. It was also full of assumptions. So, I did what I did in grad school: I challenged those assumptions. I treat Twitter like a giant grad school class. I respect you as a person, I probably follow you for a reason or follow a conversation for a reason, and if you're participating it's probably also for a reason. So, if I disagree with someone in a conversation, it's likely that I don't actually disagree with the person. I probably disagree with their opinion/answer/tweet. I might even agree with whatever was said, but I'm trying to poke holes into it so I can learn more about it. I like to consider things in their entirety, and I believe that your idea...

From what I've been told, dinner at my parents' house can be difficult. Not because the food is bad or there isn't enough wine. It's how we talk, how we connect conversations, how we link things or ideas together that most people don't understand. My husband has told me that during the first few family dinners, he strategically kept his mouth full so he wouldn't have to participate. Now that I have a lot of alone time, I've realized I have those same dinner conversations in my head. The topics don't always line up in a logical way, but they make sense to me, and would probably make sense if I spent the time explaining how they are linked. Here's a fun example of the past few minutes of thinking (in the order in which it was thought). I've removed some of the really off-hand stuff, like it's almost time for bed, I need to fill and freeze the kongs, and I wish Washington would calm down already. I read " Congratulations Graduate; Elev...