A Graduate Student's Guide To All Nighters.

1. Take out contacts and put on glasses. THIS IS IMPERATIVE. Your eyes will get sleepy and grainy if you leave your contacts in.

2. Make coffee. Good creamer is a necessity. If no creamer is available, opt for milk and brown sugar, like they do in India.

3. Make sure you have a good internet connection, your laptop's power cord, and bright lights on in the room.  A good smelling candle helps, too.

4. STAY HYDRATED. You'll feel better, plus it will give you built-in five minute breaks.

5. Put your phone on silent. This is not the time to text. In fact, turn it over also so you can't even see the screen. This is the time to work your butt off because your assignment is due in less than 24 hours.

6. Every couple hours, eat a high protein snack... while watching Kid President's Pep Talk. "Not cool, Robert Frost!"

7. BREATHE.

8. It's best to NOT put on your pajamas or comfy clothes. It keeps you in the "working" mind. I'm not saying put on your  best Business Professional outfit, but stay in jeans and a sweatshirt. Don't even wear slippers.

9. Sit at a table. Not on your bed. Or on the couch. Or on a comfy chair.

10. Be open to your assignment moving in new directions, to your paper topic shifting a little as your research progresses, but be sure to keep it limited. Don't "Ride like the wind, Bullseye!"

11. At some point, you are REALLY going to want to brush your teeth. Do it. But resist the urge to clean the bathroom while you are in there. You don't really want to clean. You just don't want to keep working.

12. Persevere. Just keep going.

JAMS.

I have never had this much difficulty writing a paper for school.  It only has to be 350 words, and I am scrambling to get one coherent sentence out.

WHY?!

It isn't even a paper, really. It is a blog post. About why a journal mattered. Why it is important to the communications practitioners. I write blog posts all the time.

The difference?

I'm writing it for a grade, not just to express myself and my thoughts.

The thing is, maybe I've over my head with this class. I'm not a communications practitioner. I'm a 24 year old, sitting at my dining room table, wearing a sweater from Old Navy and socks my Grandma knitted. Let's get real.

Why does this journal matter?

Because it's real.  It discusses real issues that are often overlooked by my small Alaskan brain.  Terrorism is bigger than the middle east and those who practice it. It causes real hurt and pain and frustration and anxiety. It makes people want to join forces with terrorists so that they can protect their families and eat regularly.

Everything we do affects things globally. The USA declares war on terror, and political cartoons in Kenya reflect that. A potential terrorist is tried for attempted bombing of a plane, and newspapers in Nigeria write all about it, but twisting the events - framing the events - so that it doesn't look so bad on them. Trying to make sense of what happened.

That's what communication practitioners do: we make sense of things and tell other people about how they make sense.  If we are unable to do that, well, we failed.

If everything is connected, we need to think about how our writings and publications affect others. But more than that, we need to think about how WE can affect others.  How we can make a difference.

Maybe this journal doesn't matter. Maybe it only matters to me.

Or maybe I just don't have the words to explain the panic rising in me over the fact that people are suffering... and so often we do so little about it. So often we don't even notice. Too often, we don't even care.

Technology.

I can blog from my phone now?! Whoa. Thank you, 21st century.

Sin Part 2.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17  (NIV)

That's how. Remain in Christ.

What if that isn't just a church answer? What if that's really how it works? What if remaining in Christ, in His word, always praying, always pursuing, always pouring out that perfume onto His feet... what is that IS how it works? What if I am attached to the Vine? What if the Vine gives Life everlasting - in the future and here?

What if my life becomes that perfume, that sacrifice offered on the altar, that complete tithe for Him? And what if I take Malachi 3:10 and run with it: "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it."

That would be cool. That would be God. That would be godliness.

I like that.

Sin.

Guilt is never enough to change behavior.

Conviction is, until you forget about the conviction.

Choosing in your heart is not even enough - your mind is still open to attack.

So what is it? What does it take to actually change behavior, turn from sin, and embrace the Lord?

Graduate Part 2.

And PS - I am already on WEEK FOUR of my graduate course. Can you believe it?! I only have nine weeks left of this semester! Eeks.

Graduate.

Have I mentioned I love my graduate courses? I love them.

I think I'm designed to be a student for life. I love learning at my job - everything from using Excel and Adobe, to encumbering Payroll for 2500 employees, to preparing presentations for large groups of people.

And I love learning in my class: how to analyze professional journals, how to select samples, how to write literature reviews.

So good. I feel so blessed.