I’ve been communicating with some new contacts lately. Or, more to the point, I should say I’ve been renewing some contacts with former aquaintences of mine from high school. It’s been a humbling yet exhilirating experience. Almost twenty years have passed since I graduated from the hallowed halls of South Dade Senior High. It’s time to take a walk back in time.
Yeah, I probably should have kept up with them, but life happens. Life before the internet, anyhow.
I just want to say “hey” to anyone who swings by here as a result of my link on the SDHS Class of ‘88 site. Welcome to my little corner of the world.
A friend of mine who works for a non-profit in the education sector has turned me on to a prediction market that her organization has set up for demonstration purposes. This prediction market acts like a stock market, only the questions being bet on are much more interesting than the price of a company.
I recommend you visit it at http://markets.nitle.org/.
Here I resolved (to myself, quietly, in my head) that I would be posting more on my blog. Alas, I have failed, thus, to do so.
Today is the first day back in class for the students here at Florida International. It’s busy, but eventually it will die down. I don’t know if that’s because students get into a routine, or drop out. Probably both.
Tracy and I have our schedules pretty much set for the Spring term, and will need to start working toward our respective classes. Then each of us have our day jobs: hers, homeschooling the kids; mine, managing the call center at the aforementioned esteemed institute of higher learning.
So, here is my resolution:
I resolve to write in my Blogs on a daily basis. If only to put in a snarky comment or two.
Watch for further updates. I promise, they will be there daily.
This much was made certain to me by the beer I had last night at the local Hooters (Doral, for those who really need to know too much… 
). One of my partners-in-crime and I, after finishing our presentation, decided that we needed to get out, so we invited two of our classmates and went. These classmates were a couple of ladies who we terrorized, encouraged, and who will be missed as we move on in our respective programs.
I’m truly hoping that I’m able to keep in touch with all three, and perhaps a few other people from the class. I generally find it hard to make friends, because I’m usually quite shy (though people who get to know me might argue with me on that point), and the people I got to know in this class are genuinely interested in helping improve themselves while simultaneously improving society.
And that’s not a bad combination…
About three hours ago I finished my final assignment for the term. It was a paper on transit-oriented development in the Miami Metrorail corridor between the Northside station and Earlington Heights. It’s an overwhelmingly desolate area in some serious need of sprucing up.
The last thing, academically-speaking, I will be partaking in this term is a presentation tomorrow at the Miami-Dade County Government Information Center. A group that I participated in (and acted as a project manager for) will be presenting their assessment of the Miami-Dade government web portal. We hope to ace our assignment. Some people in the class view our group as having an unfair advantage because we have two Ph. D. students on the team… I’m more inclined to say that it’s because the two Ph. D. students have serious “real-world” experience.
The kids are doing well, though I must say they are indeed missing their father. It shows. The amount of misbehavior increases tremendously when I reach this portion of the term; but even at this level, they are better kids than some of the other kids I do come into contact with at the parks.
I’m working at the library, covering the Library Service Center desk for my student employees who are also taking final exams.
Can’t wait to go home.
Turns out that might be the wrong question.
I’ve been struggling to complete a paper that’s already a week and a day late. This paper will be, when all is said and done, my first attempt to break into the sphere of academically-published works. The subject will be open source software and its use in local governments for eGovernment purposes. Time management issues have, together with health issues (I nearly broke my hand and wrist last week in a fall, my kids had been ill, the dog ate my homework - pick two of three… I swear two of them are true) have conspired to keep me from this extremely important task.
I hide behind my e-mail, blog, Twitter, and instant messages. My BlackBerry is always attached to my hip, even when I’m at the dinner table, when sometimes it finds its way out of its holster and into my hands while I’m trying to enjoy my family. I’m a geek. Technology rules my world.
Because. I. Let. It.
Dr. Ganapati (he may check out my blog, he may not… he is my advising professor in my new program, and is an instructor of mine in my IT and E-Government course this term) said something quite thought-provoking last night, after I said “Technology is merely a tool.” He said: “We need to control it.” Unstated, but no less profound were the words he didn’t say but was clearly thinking - before it controls us.
Perhaps better words would be: “Before it consumes us.”
Pretty soon people might think that I’m a bit nuts. But that’s okay.
I’ve got a few minutes left on my lunch break, and figured I would answer a question that I posed to myself in this forum on November 15th: “So… do I really want this Ph. D. or what?” .
My answer is a simple “Yes.”
I have the drive and the ability to do the research necessary to set myself apart in the academic realm.
Now all I need is to do it.
I’ve been giving the Ph. D. I’ve been chasing some serious thought. Do I want it or not?
I took the summer off trying to figure out if I want it. I’ve transferred into a new Ph. D. program, this one in Public Management, because I thought it would suit my needs better. (I’m not interested in International Relations as much as I am interested in information technology, communities, transportation, and the environment.)
In technical terms, this move would suit my needs better.
But do I want the degree? Do I want to go into the academy? Do I want to pursue education for the sake of education? Or do I want to pursue my interests as an avocation?
If I pursue my interests purely as avocation, I still would want to continue my education in my profession, which is Public Management. So does this merely change the focus of my education?
Nothing but questions this morning… wish I had answers.
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