It's late and I should be sleeping

It's strange how sometimes you stop to think about your life and you realize that although you have had nothing to say in your Blog for months, your life is so FULL. I don't know when it happened, but some time along the way I stopped having the small moments - even if they were just to realize how busy I really am. Now I live from paycheck to paycheck, bill to bill, one walk with Grace to another... My days are full of small, repeating things that fill up the hours but leave me little to discuss.

Yet through it all, I wish that I was better able to communicate to you guys (you know, the three of you who keep up with my Blog - and actually KNOW me) how much fuller my life is because of you. I love my life, and I love having you in it.

Hi, my name is 4.0

GMU just posted my final grades for spring semester classes (Refugees in Contemporary Society, Public Policy Process, and Governmental and Nonprofit Accounting and Finance). Two semesters down and I am kicking it with the 4.0! It just proves to me that I really am capable of hunkering down, working hard, and making the dean’s list. Although I checked for a half hour this morning and can’t seem to find anything on the GMU website that tells me if graduate students are granted any kind of honors at all. I suppose it must be good enough for me to know in my heart that I rocked the socks off of my MPA program. Rock on with your bad self, Ryan.

My neuroses spills over into completing every online survey imaginable

Usually I don't post all the survey results that I take - my OCD won't allow anything to destroy the formatting of my Blog, and a lot of these things kick my right-hand menu o' stuff to the bottom of the main page. Soooo, we can't have that, can we?

In this case, I am hoping this new linking thing will help.

You are Strength

Courage, strength, fortitude. Power not arrested in the act of judgement, but passing on to further action, sometimes obstinacy.

This is a card of courage and energy. It represents both the Lion's hot, roaring energy, and the Maiden's steadfast will. The innocent Maiden is unafraid, undaunted, and indomitable. In some cards she opens the lion's mouth, in others she shuts it. Either way, she proves that inner strength is more powerful than raw physical strength. That forces can be controlled and used to score a victory is very close to the message of the Chariot, which might be why, in some decks, it is Justice that is card 8 instead of Strength. With strength you can control not only the situation, but yourself. It is a card about anger and impulse management, about creative answers, leadership and maintaining one's personal honor. It can also stand for a steadfast friend.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

10 hours to go...

I am one hour into the second to last Accounting class I have this semester. I cannot believe we are going to spend the next two hours reviewing our homework assignment from two weeks ago. It is KILLING me. As if I were being slowly carved up with a rusty serving spoon. A finger here, a kneecap there... You know how it goes. It's accounting, after all.

However, I am pretty damn excited that my semester is almost over. Just eight hours of class tomorrow, and 11 multiple choice questions on my final exam - and I'm done! I can't believe how overwhelmed I've felt all semester, and I am so perfectly relieved to be free of all the stress in just a few short hours. This summer will be absolute bliss for me.

Meanwhile, my friend Burly is in town this weekend. He traveled out from London to attend this conference in Baltimore last week and he decided to come hang out with lil ol' me! To be more precise, he is actually spending some quality time with lil ol' Anthony, but who's keeping track? It's exciting to have someone around that you can corrup---I mean, show things. Lots and lots of things. Like the Smithsonian. Yeah. Thaaaat's the ticket.

And that is really all I have at the moment. I would be more exciting, but I'm trying to keep pace with the same level of enthusiasm that accounting inspires.

Dragon Ass

I have done nothing lately other than eat, sleep, go to work, walk the dog, and read for class. Or write for class. Or attend class. In fact, to be really precise, I breathe, eat, and dream of class at this point.

Meanwhile, Anthony is laughing it up in Norway.

Accounting for nothing

I'm in the middle of my accounting class and am wishing that I bought a much larger Earl Grey tea. I'm also wishing that I was able to sleep much later. Eleven hours of class - in fact, of the same class - in a two-day period is mindblowingly painful.

In other news, I am spending the portion of this weekend that I am not in class in writing my final paper for Public Policy Process. Yes, the rest of my weekend will be devoted to seriously studing the process of passing the 19th constitutional amendment. Good times.

You may now feel deliciously good about your life in comparison to mine.

Absenteeism

You know those resolutions you make at least once a day, every day? Take my resolution not to swear anymore, for example. I wake up in the morning and I tell myself seriously, “Ryan, you are not going to swear today.” And then I trip over one of Anthony’s flip-flops and yell FUCK! loud enough to scare the cat. So dies that resolution. And somehow it becomes F-bomb Friday all over again. (Yes, I called that F-bomb Friday – terminology we started at work when one Friday everyone was letting loose the four-lettered F-bomb for no particular reason. Now it just seems as though F-bomb Friday is every day.)

So, with all this talk of failed resolutions, my resolution to keep up this Blog is another victim of failed-resolutionism. Every morning I tell myself, “I will write more.” Especially after I peruse all my friends’ Blogs and note that they haven’t updated in at least 3 months. And then I remember the internet policy at work (we are allowed personal internet usage for only 9 minutes per hour for an 8-hour day, or 15% of your total work day), or get busy doing something else and…well, nothing. The end of the line is always nothing but an entry that sits on this page for days, weeks, months at a time.

And I know that you guys are sitting out there wondering what it is that I am doing that is so time-consuming that I don’t have the time to write a few lines. To clear that up, my present excitement is as follows:

1. I work 40 hours a week, M-F, 7AM-3:30PM.
2. I attend classes on Tuesday nights until 7:30PM (Public Policy Process), Thursday nights until 10PM (Refugees in Contemporary Society), Friday nights until 9PM, and Saturdays from 9AM-4PM (Public and Nonprofit Accounting and Finance, both Friday & Saturday).
3. I read and I write, so that when I attend one of my aforementioned classes I a) have something intelligent to say, or b) have a homework assignment to submit.
4. I occasionally slack off and watch America’s Next Top Model or Dancing with the Stars (without commercials) on DVR.
5. I also do the requisite dog-walking, selling-of-crappola-on-Craigslist, setting-up-of-the-condo, lunch-making, cleaning, eating, sleeping, yadda, yadda, yadda of daily life.

Now go ahead and try to hold back your enthusiasm for my exciting life.

To be more particular, last night my Refugees class had a field trip to attend a panel discussion on human rights abuses committed by North Korea. There was a Professor Kim there, who had grown up in North Korea. He is second only to the Dalai Lama in the cuteness factor. I seriously contemplated asking him to come home with me to sit in my living room and giggle. It would give the place such atmosphere.

On a more adult note, what is happening in North Korea is serious and nearly impossible to change. The panelists asked us to review the information on this site and become activists for the cause. I am not yet supporting this because I haven’t really reviewed the site, but I thought I would at least present the information for your inspection. The North Korean regime is incredibly insular so it is very difficult to get even basic information about the structure of the country. A large portion of what is known is derived from those refugees who are able to cross the borders. While many of us have seen Team America, that movie doesn’t even begin to touch on the megalomania and barbarism of Kim Jong Il.