Being Homeless: Or, Not Having a Functional Area

I am the Registrar Registration Administrator at the Boston University School of Social Work. Sounds like a fairly impressive title, right?

As those of us in Student Affairs know, titles are sometimes not totally indicative of what we actually do. Mine is actually fairly accurate to be honest. Where I find myself lacking in some way is that I often feel homeless when interacting with other #SAchat people. The functional areas which are closest are Academic Advising and Enrollment Management, but I’m at best on the fringes of most conversations as they tend to focus on literal advising and admissions respectively. I’ve also seen the Registrar’s office under Academic Affairs, which brings a whole new set of prejudices and confusions on both sides of the Student Affairs/Academic Affairs coin (and I believe we ARE both parts of the same coin, but that’s not really part of this post–I’m saving that for another time). To make this post more relevant, I’m assuming that Registrar is within Student Affairs as that is my training and how I view my current position*.

In a nutshell, I take care of everything from the day a student pays his/her deposit: on-board incoming students; track academic progress/success; plan semester schedules with the departments, then help the students plan their programs around that; grad review and tracking; maintaining student records; and updating/implementing policies/procedures to make things run more smoothly for students and the school. Honestly, I generally like what I do, and it’s well-suited to many of my skills and preferences.  It makes me wonder where the other registration-type people are; I’m the only one I know outside of my counterparts here at BU; it’s kind of lonely. Maybe there’s a #SAReg hashtag and I’m missing it (just checked–nope)? Does #EMchat or #AcAdv talk about reg issues when I’m not looking?

 

We talk a LOT within Student Affairs about functional area, but where can one make a home for herself when she doesn’t quite fit in? How does one reconcile a preference for one functional area with a  job in another one?

 

 

*For the record, I learned as I wrote this that CAS lists “Registrar Programs and Services” as a functional area for which they have developed standards, so we are considered a “thing”.  And then we have  American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers, which leads me to believe that professionally at least, Registrars count themselves within Enrollment Management.

Being in the Moment When Everything is Falling

“I have decided to be happy, because it is good for my health.” Voltaire
from Etsy

I’ve been trying to write a student affairs-related post for about a week now, but I have had no energy to get the thoughts into cohesion. Some of it has to do with end-of-the-year craziness (May 17…on May 17, all will be right in the world), but some of it is personal, which is totally blocking my ability to think about much more than the tasks immediately at hand.

2 days after the mess that was the Boston Marathon Bombings, I received a late-evening call from my dad–Monday he’d been diagnosed with Squamous cell carcinoma & was having it removed Wednesday; totally routine, he’d be in & out that day & could even drive himself! Yeah, not so much. After a few hours at the Dermatologist, he was told to call a family friend because he was going to Worcester for emergency plastic surgery. The cancer was all gone, but so was my dad’s nose. When he called me afterward; distraught, in shock, and totally overwhelmed, I think I broke a little–I’d spent all day Monday watching the news & communicating my safety to loved ones; I found out the following day that someone I was once very close to was a volunteer medic at the finish line, and my empathy for her was immense; now this.

I don’t think I realized just how closed up I had become until reading a blog post from a fellow polytheist/pagan and came upon this line (edited for swearing):

“See, [stuff] happens, and that’s the way it is; pick a mythology, any mythology, and stuff on a cosmic level of SUCK happens to all the gods. Any god. Pick one. If they can’t spare themselves and their own families what the hell makes humans think that they’re going to get a free ride and have everything handed to them on a [omitted] platter?”

As I wrote in my last post,  the Gods don’t LET things happen, they just do. The gods of most ancient religions were part of the world, not outside of it, as with many modern religions, and are bound by it. Because I view Them as part of the world, I cannot expect any one of Them to single ME, or Boston, or even the USA out of all the other millions of people, and cities, not to mention animals, plants and ecosystems. Talking to my dad on Sunday, after several more visits to check the healing before the reconstruction, and as he’s getting ready to return to work after a couple of weeks away, he told me that he’d been feeling really sorry for himself until he remembered the woman attacked by a chimp in 2009. Laughing, he said that he had it pretty good.

And he does. So do I.

I’m meeting a friend in Downtown Crossing after work, so tonight I will get off the T at Hynes & walk down Boylston Street, being HERE. NOW.  Hopefully, a few of the negative daemons that have plagued me since Patriot’s Day will be exorcised as I enjoy the sun & air.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” 
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

A Prayer for Boston

Earlier this week, someone from my religious community posted a prayer on her blog in response to the Marathon Bombings at Baring the Aegis: Prayer for Boston. Elani lives in the Netherlands, which shows just how far-reaching this is. A part of me still has difficulty believing this is real–Boston is known for cursed baseball teams and being the starting point of a war that happened over 200 years ago.

I shared her post on G+, and my Catholic  Brother-in-Law expressed that it gave him comfort, which I greatly appreciate. I replied, “One thing about my religion that comforts me in times like this (and many won’t understand this) is that the Gods aren’t omnipotent or omniscient (or at least don’t act on that if they are)–they work within the world, not separate from it. Thus, there’s little reason to question “Why did God let this happen?” The Gods didn’t LET this happen, it just did. Now I can turn to Them for comfort and peace rather than being conflicted as many are in times like this.” It’s important to me to have faith in something, to know in my heart that there is more out there connecting all of us in Good–as a Neo-Platonist, I do believe that The Good is the ultimate object of the human soul, whether you consider it the end of the reincarnation cycle, Heaven, the Halls of the Dead, or simply the end of your existence.

“May Hermes Psychopompos carry the souls of the dead safely cross the river Styx.
May Hades accept them favorably, and may the judges judge them fairly.
May Asklēpiós tend to the wounds of the injured
May Ares instill in them the passion of life, and the strength of a thousand warriors.
May Hypnos sooth their weary minds, and cloud them in sleep
May Dionysos calm their terror.
May They offer the same to emergency personnel and passers-by who were witnesses.
May Dikē who weeps at the injustice done upon all touched by this tragedy, clutch the strong thigh of Zeus the All-wise, and beg of Him the severest of punishment.
May All-Mighty Zeus send winged Nemesis to administer swift judgement.
May Her judgement take from the guilty parties an equal or greater price than their victims have had to pay.
May Hēlios the All-seeing whisper truths to law enforcement, and guide the investigation swiftly towards those who conceived and executed this terrible crime.
May Athena led Her aid to them.
May Zeus the All-mighty bless those who ran not from the area, but towards it, in an attempt to offer aid to those wounded or dead.
May he look favorably upon those who ran away as well, as the will to live is at the core of every mortal’s life.
To all Theoi: a last plea. To protect those whom the media will persecute, but are innocent of the crime.
To protect the innocent scapegoat from the actions of a species in the grips of fear and revenge.“

*Bold highlight above is mine.*

What I’ve Learned from Video Games

LEGO Lord of the Rings for Wii
Image from ToysRUs.com

*This post will have a bit of technical lingo, but it’s not important to be familiar with the video game in question to understand the post)

I’ve been playing LEGO Lord of the Rings (LLotR) off and on since Christmas, and am learning quite a few things from it (I have finished “story-mode” and am now in “free-play” trying to reach 100%). Please know that although I’ve never been much of a gamer, I’ve had quite a bit of exposure: by the time my brother died 5 years ago, he had 6 console video games (including the original Atari we got when Nintendo came out & a family friend upgraded) and 2 handhelds.

I’m not good at video games, especially the ones that need a lot of hand-eye coordination or the ability to remember/key long cheat codes  (think Mortal Kombat & Mario Brothers). I much prefer RPG-style games (Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy 1 were my favorites as a kid). Playing LLotR is making me realize why I have never completed a video game in my life: I don’t level-up enough. LLotR doesn’t have leveling as one may understand it from other games; I can’t move to the next stage without completing the basics of the current level, but I don’t need to be a Level 52 with magic & weapons upgraded to 27 in order to defeat Sauron or anything like that. It takes TIME to level-up in video games, something I’m not always good at. I want to get to the end and to the next thing instead of the tedium of constantly battling the minor enemies to actually prepare myself for what’s next.

LLotR is also feeding into my One Word: Here. Now because there is a TON of quests, items to collect, and world to explore that it can’t be done all at once. To complete the Hobbiton area, I need to re-do Amon Hen, the Mines and Pelennor Fields–I need to focus (One Word 2012!) on the task at hand; I can’t be distracted by all the other quests and collectibles. I don’t exactly think outside the box all the time–when there’s a fallen bridge beside me, it’s not always my first nature to try smashing it to get the collectibles that are behind it, or to shoot randomly at different items on the off-chance they will drop something.

This brings me to my final video game lesson:  sometimes you need help, but don’t rely on it. One of my favorite things to do when my brother played Final Fantasy was reading the guide to help him out–I LOVED that thing, and am saddened there isn’t one for LLotR. I bookmarked an online wiki not long after I started playing however. This disappoints the perfectionist in me since I want to do it all myself, but I notice myself relying on it when I get just a little frustrated rather than using it only when I need just one…more…treasure…to reach 100% for a given level. It’s EASY to let someone else do the hard part and map it out–they are experts in their field for a reason, right?

It just might be more satisfying though to give it a go yourself; slowly, attentively, trying to smash apart everything made of LEGO pieces to see what’s hiding there.

How To Love An Introvert

Reblogged from Thought Catalog:

Be quiet. And that doesn't mean that you are no longer expected to share your feelings and tell jokes and engage in conversation -- it just means be quiet. Sometimes, quiet is needed. Learn to appreciate what quiet can be for people. Learn how two people can sit on different sides of the room, silently engaging in their own activities, and still achieve a profound sense of closeness.

Read more… 613 more words

This could also be titled "The Care and Feeding of Jessi Robinson."