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Change can take many forms. One can create it, undergo it or experience its effects. Today, I ask you to consider making a very important change. Try being a donor, in the monetary sense. I know that this request may seem crazy in this period of high unemployment and underemployment. However, now is precisely the time when we must stretch ourselves to give so that others may have, so that we may build, implement, provide, prevent... When we give in times of scarcity rather than in surplus we can truly determine what we need, could do without, and create in that empty space.
I believe giving can transform us. When you give the money designated for luxuries or necessities, you begin to reconstruct your life, how you think and behave, how you relate and what you expect. When you consider the spiritual, social, and ethical ramifications, giving becomes transcending, philosophical, and divine. It lifts you out of your ordinary routine and places in on that path less traveled. Whether with big bills or pocket change, the money you give could help to create the world you wish to see—one that is brighter, braver, and more compassionate. Although I might sound like a southern preacher during offering time, my rationale is no less true or significant. Give and just behold what you reap in return. Of course you can start by giving to our class gift at the following link: http://www.ssw.umaryland.edu/2009gift/
When I set personal goals a new life starts materializing. As I add plans and details, I further flesh it out: the blue in the sky, the white of the picket fence, and a dog named Bam-Bam. I become a whole new person in the future tense. As I finish a task or accomplish a goal, I slowly etch this person into the present…becoming more of him each day.
Though I may work towards one direction, circumstances in life can sometimes lead me elsewhere. Failure remains a possibility in every opportunity I pursue. I normally try not to dwell on this. In doing so, I think I have missed an opportunity at wisdom.
Despite the odds, I had already imagined my life as a Presidential Management Fellow. I had a window office with a man-plant on the ledge and an artist loft on 14th Street. When I failed to read my name among the finalists, I mourned the space that deferred dream left behind. There was some other life for me to live. I waited for vision, searched for insight.
So this led me to a discussion on being and becoming, failure and opportunity. I have not reached a conclusion, if one is even possible. The discussion requires more time than I currently have to spare. However, I encourage you to have the same conversation with yourself, with others. There is, at the very least, growth and liberation in our opportunities as well as failures. We can move purposefully inward to reach and clarify our external goals and walk away wiser and bolder from the journey.
There is more than one yellow brick road to Oz. So grab your best red running sneakers because Dorothy, Toto, and the gang are waiting.
…together in the struggle…
…until next write…
Searching for a job can feel like a daunting task filled with uncertainty and anxiety. It prompts people to define their life goals, identify their purpose, and make critical choices. A recession can complicate the process, creating obstacles as well as opportunities. Though some would portray us as competitors, we are in fact comrades in the struggle. So, this blog entry will provide you with a little information on how to capitalize on your cover letter. Possibly, give you a whole new top to the kettle.
While exploring ways to update and upgrade my cover letter, I came across some tips by Jimmy Sweeney, a career advisor, featured on the website for Fried Social Worker. I thought a few warranted applying and even sharing with others. So, briefly I will summarize a few gems that you can use to bedazzle prospective employers. In doing so, I make no endorsement for the man or his products. As the saying goes, Caveat emptor!
First, although it might sound aggressive, try sending a follow up cover letter and resume if you have not received a response to your initial submission. In the follow up, accentuate your skills and achievements, sound persuasive, enthusiastic, and confident. Second, use a post-interview cover letter to thank the employer for the interview and to briefly highlight your qualifications. The body of the post-interview cover letter should be no more than one paragraph. Third, develop a networking cover letter and all-in-one resume cover letter to generate referrals, job prospects, and advice from people in your social and professional networks. Lastly, include a postscript in your cover letter that conveys your availability and desire for an interview.
I sincerely hope these tips yield their intended outcome for you—a well paying job. All the best in the job hunt and life thereafter…
…together in the struggle…
…until next write…
Though you may not apply for a Federal position, describing your qualifications in government-speak could actually increase your chances of securing that coveted job. So briefly, I will share what I have learned about KSAs. I am no expert and warn you to regard my suggestions as such. Use your own discretion and assessment to determine the applicability. However, I still believe this information has value, no matter the degree, for all the job seekers in this recession.
KSA stands for knowledge, skills, and abilities. It is an essay that describes the extent to which you qualify for a position and possess the identified credentials. For example, an application may ask that you describe your ability to analyze problems and develop solutions. You would respond with a KSA that details these abilities with concrete examples. KSAs elaborate on positions and qualifications listed in your resume or curriculum vitae.
You can format your KSA in the CCAR Method: context, challenges, action, and result. Provide the context. Name some challenges you faced. Describe the actions you took. Delineate the results that transpired from your actions. Write concise, clear, and grammatically correct prose. Use active voice and exact numbers when possible. You can find numerous books and websites to assist you in this endeavor. Seek them out.
By writing in this fashion, you begin to really capture and convey your job performances and competencies. Include your narratives in cover letters and say them during interviews when appropriate. I make no guarantees but suggest that this will allow you to present a more qualified and employable version of yourself. One who receives those sought after job offers and (for the truly blessed) signing bonuses (unfortunately I do not think signing bonuses are the case for most social workers).
...together in the struggle...
...until next write...
I thought I would post the speech I gave at the Spring Student Orientation on the 14th of January. I delivered it as well as a person could do suffering from insomnia. Enjoy…
No doubt, all of you already possess strategies that have helped you to achieve success, that have brought you here today, feeling of mixture of anxiety, excitement, and pride. I will provide you with three more to consider and perhaps to even add to your current list. As you embark on your graduate school journey, I say simply be conscious, purposeful, and open.
As you await the start of classes or field, remember to calibrate and tune your senses, your reflective and introspective lens; your consciousness is just as important as your textbooks and highlighters. Each moment you partake in, live fully in it and exhibit a consciousness of self. You will occupy many roles: the role of student, intern, leader, group member, or maybe even part-time employee or full-time parent. Each will provide you with opportunities for application, revelation, and frustration. Heed the details, content, and process of your engagements. Act with awareness of your feelings, thoughts and expectations, of your surroundings, of the person you are now and want to become. Know that during your time as a student you will strengthen your conscious use of self as a practitioner, researcher, and intellectual.
Identify your purpose here in both a general and detailed sense. We have put out the welcome mate and heralded your admittance; now you must chart your own path through this MSW odyssey. You are the end and must make the means, the process meaningful. Develop goals, plans, schedules, timelines…be purposeful. Say good morning to that purpose, take it to class, sharpen and revise it; remember it when life seems overwhelming and impossible. Let it inform and guide your actions, light your way. Allow it to transcend and merge with the world around you.
Lastly, remain open. Try, create, test, volunteer, lead, organize, make mistakes and their corrections…start from a point of openness. Feel, think, recognize, and connect…open yourself up completely to being changed and a change agent. Let go of the fears and anxieties, the need to be perfect or in control. Open yourself up to being filled and fulfilled. This all requires work so let each task stretch you a bit, force you to take a different form or shape, perspective or approach.
Whether you apply or ignore these three tips is not the point. This merely serves as a reminder to not live this moment of your life in the last minutes of the twilight hours.
All the best my brothers and sisters…
...together in the struggle...
...until next write...
When I turned in the last paper that signaled the end of my fall semester, I walked out of the social work building and into the night feeling like an ember just beginning to kindle and to flame. Although I could sense the mental meltdown approaching, my mind had already started rebooting, listing tasks to accomplish over the short winter break. Cleaning occupied the top position on that list. The dishes in the sink, the tiles on the shower walls, the dust atop the furniture, so much needed scrubbing, washing, straightening, and sweeping. Beyond the tangibles to clean, lied the spiritual and emotional self to navigate, purge, order, nurture, and process: wax on, wax off!
I started off slow, taking days to gather and sort, to discard and recycle, to launder and disinfect. I often took breaks to watch a DVD, walk the neighborhood, exercise or relax with friends. The dust-bunny wars were unlikely to ever reach a ceasefire so I was in no rush. I even took a few moments to reflect on how it all evolved and transpired. Does it matter that the dishes lack that spotless luster and gleam; that I chose to tend to other pressing obligations rather than the accumulating mess around me?
When I finally scrubbed to the white of the walls, to the glow of the faux silver ware, I realized it does. As you know, our environments influence us and we alter, create, and influence it. In your personal spaces, no matter their locations, take time to ensure that they uplift and enable rather than restrict and obstruct. I know it’s hard; I get tunnel vision too and often disregard the dirty clothes under the bed. However, the clutter that you clean, both physically and spiritually, may perhaps liberate you to burn bright and ravishing in the coldest of winters: wax on, wax off…Daniel-san!
…together in the struggle…
…until next write…
Stories of “scratchin' & surviving� abound, especially in our existing economic woes. Daily news reports describe high unemployment rates, hiring freezes, layoffs, and benefit cuts. Out of these seemingly bleak and dim opportunities, many graduating students, like myself, must now try to forge and fashion their careers and lives. Simultaneously, many individuals currently struggle to make the unraveling and fraying ends meet. Expenses grow disproportionately out of the reach of incomes. Needs go unmet and people end up in all sorts of places and situations, living out alternate endings of the American Dream.
These thoughts remind me of the show Good Times. I remember watching reruns on the big, brown living room television. Watching James, Florida, Thelma, J.J., Michael, and Willona, even the episodes with Janet Jackson (Ms. Jackson if you're nasty) as Penny. The theme song stands out, epitomizing, in an the everyday vernacular, the brilliance of human resiliency, of community, of being grateful for those brief and fleeting good times.
This is not an entry about nostalgia. No time is ever really the best of times because it all depends on whom you talk to and when. Instead, I refer to the show to reframe the economic debate and problems to one about human relationships. I’ll stop briefly and let you think of it in those terms…
I could say more but this is not an essay. Rather, it is an invitation to a place where we need to go, need to re-conceptualize, and restructure in order to inhabit this world more fully and humanely. As you forge and fashion your life, reflect on how you can live and relate to others in empathic and empowering new ways. See these crises as opportunities to use your talents to address systemic and intractable problems. Together, we can “keep our heads above water� and experience some good times. That, as J.J. once said with the clap of the hands and snap of the neck, is truly “Dy-no-mite!�
...together in the struggle...
...until next write...
Since October, I have lived in such an incomplete, preoccupied, and hurried fashion. Accordingly, I need all sorts of additives and preservatives just to stay fresh and productive. From my morning mint tea to my midday 70’s music mix, I perform various rituals to “get me through this semi-charmed kind of life.�
As a graduate student, I suggest creating and executing rituals that calm the chaos, reduce the anxiety, restore the energy, and maintain the health. This will help in those moments when you feel—like Henny Penny—the sky is falling. As a friend (waz-up Adia) recently advised me, you own your own sunshine even on dark days.
These days my ray of sunshine comes from the Curtis Mayfield song Move On Up. Just listen to it one morning. Let it awake you. Elevate you. Groove you to a brighter possibility my brothas and sistas. I have it playing right now. I feel so much better for it.
In these semi-charmed kind of times, we need to perform rituals that keep us going, grooving, and moving on up!
…together in the struggle…
…until next write…
I get silent… Search all the words I know to express this newness slowly emerging…
I boil the water for tea… Wait for the heat to revive the dried leaves, to release their flavor… I remain quite… Reach for crayons and markers, scissors and construction paper… I sit at a table crowded with several months worth of work… Make space, a way… Make meaning… I tend to it: drawing and shaping, revising and dissecting, mending and revealing… Drink it in… Remaking: remade, renewed, and lost in composition… I remain silent until the meaning, the language, and the life takes hold, flies free, and maturates…
…together in the struggle…
…until next write…
Our lives can often consume and confine us. The daily struggles, whether work, school, or family related, can overwhelm and overburden. Our schedules get overbooked and we, in turn, think how the day never really furnished enough time for it all. During these moments, we can loose or neglect our connections and contact with others, with the world. In the complex and chaotic times we now face, we all must perform the most significant, defining, far-reaching action we have as citizens: an informed, hopeful vote.
We are a nation in a major transition, at a climactic verge. We all have critical decisions and choices to make. What we finally decide on will, no doubt, shape the content and course of the future. Therefore, we must set aside the time to be informed, inquisitive, and attuned. We must, at least during these times, try walking in the shoes of another. Think from different perspectives; consider alternative methods; imagine and pursue the impossible. We must weigh, reflect, discuss, and deliberate as if our livelihood and life depended on it…they, of course, do. Inquiry and insight, at the very least, should guide our vote and our actions thereafter in (re)building our nation and communities.
Hope, I think, should undergird and drive the process: hope in democracy, in mankind, in change, in collective action, in love, in voting. We must, as Jesse Jackson states, keep hope alive. Ignite it. Feed it. Let it spread. Even if your chosen candidate loses, it must never diminish or extinguish your hope. Hope that the people united will never be defeated!
…together in the struggle…
…until next write…
You could, theoretically, decide not to participate in the rich and diverse student life here at the School of Social Work. In fact, you could simply limit your engagement to just going to class and field placement, only interacting with the people you encounter in those domains. However, why would a brilliant and dynamic person such as you make that decision? Why would you not want a thick and full experience? You most certainly pay for one regardless if you actually get it. Time, distance, workload, and personal obligations: these factors should not hold you back or keep you from joining any of the student groups.
When you enter the school and the profession, you will automatically and unavoidable become part of groups. Task Groups. Social Groups. Therapy Groups. Or maybe just the group for disgruntled, broke and tired social work students, which I am a member of. As you already know, the group experience is a reciprocal, interdependent, and interactive process. You get and give; teach and learn; speak and listen; support and receive upliftment. Goals are identified, pursued, and accomplished. Sound inviting? Well, it should. I am undoubtedly inviting you to not only partake of but to lead.
Do not just live on the sidelines or in the margins; fill the page with drama, romance, adventure, and mystery. Certainly, I am not guaranteeing that any of the aforementioned will occur. However, the possibility is no less there depending on your willingness, reaction, perception, and involvement. When you leave and look back, perhaps a melodramatic 80’s song will mysteriously start playing and remind you of all that you gave, received, and created in your group experience.
Although I had an extremely ambitious agenda to tackle over the summer, the bulk of my time was spent either at or traveling to my internship. Along with two other graduate students, I interned with the Office of Community Services (OCS) in Washington, DC. OCS was an office within Health and Human Services Administration for Children & Families. I was specifically assigned to the wonderful Division of State Assistance (DSA).
OCS primary mission was to alleviate and eradicate the causes and consequences of poverty and to assist individuals, families and communities to become more self-sufficient. OCS implemented many programs to accomplish this mission.
As an intern, I mainly worked on the Community Services Block Grant Program. Community Services Block Grants provided funds from the federal government to states. States, in turn, distributed these funds to designated Community Action Agencies, who would then implement antipoverty programs and services. Numerous policies govern and complicate this process. There were too much to fully discuss here.
Needless to say, I was excited and enlightened by it all. I had to actually tone down my energy and idealism to fit the parameters and responsibilities of my position. Regrettably, I had to accept that I was not going to start a revolution from my 5th floor cubicle in the Aerospace Building. However, I did make valuable contributions. For example, I collaborated with a public policy intern from William and Mary (waz-up Stefanie) to develop the DSA Briefing Book for the new incoming administration.
My experience, of course, was not without problems. For strange reasons (probably due to a repressed trauma involving a train set), I thought taking the commuter train from Baltimore to DC would be this adventurous, scenic and, perhaps, romantic ride; an Indiana Jones meets Murder on the Orient Express kind of thing. Alas, my adventures were nothing like the Raiders of the Lost Ark. I encountered late, cancelled, and overcrowded trains. Without music and disco lights, the sweaty armpits in my face and bony elbows in my back did not facilitate an ambiance or a desire for romance. On many occasions, I did not reach Baltimore until about 2 or 3 hours after the scheduled time of arrival.
The internship, no doubt, was worth the minor difficulties. Although this may sound like an infomercial, the Federal Government offers great employment opportunities that do not necessarily feel or equate to “working for the man (or woman)�. You can, in fact, create change, albeit on a subdued revolutionary scale, from a 5th floor cubicle if you so desire.
together in the struggle…
until next write…
Despite my workload and 4:40am wake-up time this summer, I have held this thought, this Joan Didion title in my head, pondering it during those brief and sporadic moments of silence and rest. All of its meanings and possibilities have not yet reached me. I find fragments and slivers on the ground and in the morning cereal that force me to change what I had previously thought. It still, however, aptly describes my foundation year, one full of magical thinking.
There is more than just the allusion and adventures of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy being invoked. Indeed, there were mythical, psychological and even psychosomatic struggles. The thinking became very abstract but yet like a tree in the backyard: growing, shedding...shading. Therein, I believe, lied the magic.
I thought in circles and squares then in points and colors. There was a window and a road...a back and forth. Water spilling over edges and a line forming. Absence and a light switched on. I keep arriving and leaving but never reaching home. Then there was nothing and too much. A bird singing and a sense of so much more to come...maybe another year of magical thoughts, of magical living.
together in the struggle...
until next write...
June 27th, 2008 is no ordinary Friday. In addition to the usual festivities that normally happen on this day, like payday (hallelujah!), another highly important event will occur as well: National HIV Testing Day (NHTD) 2008.
Like most social workers around the world, I am always amenable to joining an honorable cause. Helping the National Association of People Living with AIDS and numerous other governmental and nonprofit agencies to promote this annual campaign seemed like a cause I could easily participate in.
Besides assisting the Administration of Children and Families’ Office of Community Services to advertise NHTD to employees and grantees, I decided to actually get tested and blog about it.
Let’s beam ourselves back in time to last Friday, June 20th, 2008. The sun blazed hot and humid in the sky and there was hardly any breeze to cool the sweat collecting under my dress shirt. It was almost the perfect summer day to walk half of a mile to the clinic on Delaware Avenue. Proceeding with urgency (I had to be back within an hour.), I felt calm and bright and part of a larger movement and purpose. Although not quite reaching the moon, this decision and moment, these small steps still had a great impact on mankind, on public health. I hurried, fanning myself with the printed-out Map Quest directions along the way.
The clinic was once an elementary school. You could still hear and see the spirit of little kids running on the linoleum tiles in penny loafers and sneakers, standing in line for the water fountain and teasing each other in between sips.
The free walk-in testing service was conducted in a small room located on the second floor. A woman seated at her desk smiled and instructed me to sit down. She pulled out some forms and began with the standard questions: Have I had unprotected sex in the past year? Have I had sex with an injection drug user? I answered all of her questions and I signed in several places. She informed me that my confidentiality was protected throughout the entire process. I should not worry. Then she reached for the test instrument and asked me to open my mouth so she could swab behind my upper and lower lip. Of course, the minute the test stick hit my mouth I cried like a baby! Not really, it was painless. I received my results in 15 minutes. The entire process, from completing the paperwork to taking the test, took about 20 minutes. I was back at the office within an hour, trying to cool down and wishing I had made a detour to the beach.
You can visit this website to obtain the address of a testing site near you http://www.hivtest.org/ as well as to download NHTD materials and view public service announcements developed by students. Know your status; it is a simple, painless and, for the most part, free testing process.
Spread the word and join the fight against HIV.
Along with the milk in the refrigerator, you should never worry about when life will turn bad or spoil. No doubt, it eventually will. However, there are ingredients you can add, perspectives you can take, and plans you can implement in order to transform it into…voila: yogurt…or cheese if you are in the mood. I made a healthier upgrade from the lemonade metaphor. It still conveys the point but with a greater nutritional value.
You will encounter many worst-case scenarios during graduate school and throughout life. There are some you can anticipate and prevent. Then there are others that happen unexpectedly and unavoidably. They will all have their day so you should not feel afraid, anxious, or angry. You possess skills and strengths. You will apply and develop them; even acquire new ones. You will adapt and adjust. Regain your balance and continue your path, maybe in a new direction or at a slower pace toward the moon instead of the sun. You will still shine brilliantly regardless of the scenario, even if you stumble on the way up to the stage. Of course, we promise not to laugh but to applaud resoundingly.
There are many answers and avenues that will lead you to the right state, the right fit. Each scenario, from the worst to the best, has opportunities imbedded in it. They contain opportunities for you to learn, to grow, to challenge, and to change. In the process, you may discover an unrealized, untapped power inside, maybe even of the Jedi lightsaber variety. Nonetheless, always, always know that people surround you, who, like Cyndi Lauper, will catch you when you fall and redirect you when you get lost. Do not hold back or hesitate. We are waiting…time after time.
…together in the struggle…
...until next write...
The time has come for me to purge and pack, to say goodbye and find another place called home. Like Woolf, I am searching for a room of my own.
The roommate life was wonderful, both on the soul and the budget. Since August, I have shared a rowhouse with three other graduate students, who were all Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. We were kindred spirits. Although randomly thrown together, we formed a bond and provided each other with support and advice, home-cooked meals and Scrabble matches. Life mirrored episodes from Cheers, Friends, Seinfeld, and, even, Golden Girls. It was uplifting, enlightening, and entertaining. Just reminiscing over our time together invokes the song “Thank You For Being a Friend�. I was very fortunate, especially at $375 a month.
My plans for the future require that I leave my dark room in the basement two blocks from campus. I have so much more of Baltimore to see, so much more to accomplish. I need space and light, a feeling of infinity and invincibility, a fortress, perhaps, of solitude. I need a place that can do more than just house me, but nurture and ground my ideas and creativity. This is normally not advertised in the apartment postings on Craigslist. However, it certainly was there when I viewed the apartment, definitely, in a sense, welcoming me home. I have chosen a one-bedroom apartment in Reservoir Hill rather than in the trendier Mount Vernon or Charles Village. I concluded that a greater refugee, inspiration, and rejuvenation lied in Druid Hills Park than in Starbucks. That, indeed, was priceless.
So when my second semester ends, I will load up my car and drive to another address called home, a scenario repeated numerous times in my nomadic life. However, I know no matter where I go home is always, always in the land and the love, in the sea and the sand.
Of course, you know what the card attached would say… However, if you need help finding your way, your home here in Baltimore, then just email.
…together in the struggle…
…until next write…
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