Holiday Happenings and general Tom-Foolery

I was told last night that I need to post more frequently to appease the 1-3 people that actually read this blog. So for you who read this, I apologize.

Thinking over the past month since I have last posted, I guess a lot has been going on from trying to make holiday plans, getting notification of a friends wedding, my godbrother releasing his first single, the strengthening of the realization that I have to go back to school, and my swag coming back. I am going to try and string all of these together, if I can do it, I deserve some type of medal (if only blogger was like facebook). This is going to be a marathon post so get your popcorn ready!

I got the "Save-the-date" notice for Luke's wedding. For those who don't know who Luke is, he is my best friend from high school who is a Marine and is currently on his second tour of duty in Iraq. Anyways, I got the note on Saturday, Even though I have known the date and location of the wedding for almost six months, I was still sent a notice. The pleasantries of wedding proceedings are an interesting notion which I may tackle in a post as the wedding gets closer. As the "Co-Best Man." The notice along with other things going on (thanks Chris) got me thinking about the idea of managing friendships through transition. The one question that continues to come up is how do you merge your previous life to your current? I am still work on that one. I will keep you posted when i get some answers.

One effort to consolidate the lives is attaching to similarities in all situations. One thing I think that I am pretty good at is making friends quickly and being comfortable in most situations. However, Midland threw me off my game for a bit. I got here and the people were incredibly nice but I just wasn't making the right connections which came so easily to me in college. When I finally made a good friend, he moved away (sounds like a plot for a bad made for TV movie). I was really distraught. I began thinking, what has happened to me? Midland was changing me. I was no longer the relaxed, charismatic and mildly aloof gentleman that I have grown accustomed to being. In the past, when I have had serious problems, I dig down deep and do some serious introspection. During this time I thought of many things that could be wrong. Questions that ran through my head were, Is Midland changing me? Are the people here just fake? Do they not like black people? Or, Is it me? The hypothesis that I landed on was that it was me. The first piece of advice that is always given to someone entering into a new situation is to relax and be yourself. I have given this piece of advice countless times but in this situation, I forgot it. Sure enough, things began to click. the way I judge if a successful connection was made is if after you have met a person, they remember your name and want to talk to you again. I walked into Oscar's (local Midland Bar) and for the first time in Midland people recognized me (other than bartenders, I think I drink too much), I had good conversation (which in non-existent in most bars), and I left feeling good (not drunk). I feel confident in proclaiming that My Swag is b=Back! So, the moral of this story is to really be your self and rely on the lessons learned from your past experiences.

I attribute much of the development of my swag to my godbrother, Justin. He is about 4 years older than I am and I always looked to him for guidance growing up. Everyone has the person that they believe to be the epitome of cool, for me that was Justin. Well, he has been a professional singer since I was in middle school and now he has finally released his first solo single. For those interested, his website is http://justinclay.net/. I am proud of everything that he has done and this single is a monument to the achievement of dreams.

(only two more topics to go, don't give up)

Justin's accomplishment along with awareness of what it takes to succeed in the corporate world has only solidified my resolve to go to a top 30 MBA school (I am considering the Ivies as my top choices). I am also pretty certain that I do not want to get an MBA specializing in Supply Chain. The concepts of supply chain seem intuitive and and the skills that you gain from studying other subjects can be applied to developing Supply Chain solutions. Last week, a young (35) Dow employee told us about his experiences and how going to Harvard Business School really helped to develop his career and to really understand who he was professionally and how that relates to his personal world view. I think insight like that, is something that i can gain while working but can gain more rapidly from a full-time top tier MBA program. I have some time before I need to make the decision of where but I do know that in 5 five years I will be enrolled at a school somewhere.

The answer to the question of why do I want to be successful is answered simply saying because my mom said so. My mother did not lay down the plan for my life explicitly but I know I try to do my best because I am representative of her and for that matter, my entire family and anyone that chose to support me. Holidays are very special to me for that reason. The holiday that really means the most to me is Easter. My senior year of high school, I was celebrating Easter with a lot of family friends that we went to church with. Myself, Greg, Little Brian, and Mr. Henry were on the basketball court following dinner. While we were playing, Mr. Henry collapsed face first while trying to defend Greg from driving the lane. At first, we thought that he was joking and then we realized that he wasn't moving. It was the one time that I didn't have my cell phone with me and for that reason I will never be without someone wit ha phone handy. So I sent Greg running to get the adults from the house. Meanwhile a young woman was walking buy and she let us use her cell phone to call 9-1-1. After it was all said and done, Mr. Henry was pronounced dead at the scene from a hereditary heart condition that has caused deaths in the same way for many years. The one thing I really remember from the funeral was that Mrs. Henry came up to the three of us and told us not to blame ourselves and that she was glad that we were there to be with her husband in his last moments and she told us that we were blessed and destined for great things. From then on, everything I do is never for me, it is for those who support and believe in me. Holidays are a time when I renew my focus on those individuals.

This holiday season will be a little tough. It is the first thanksgiving where I won't be spending it will my parents. I am very thankful however that there are people in Midland looking out for me and really becoming my surrogate family and inviting me to events like watching Barack Obama speeches, celebrating birthdays, and thanksgiving dinner. As it is right now, my Christmas/new years plans are up in the air. I will probably fly home for Christmas and then for new year's I hope to be in Dayton. I just have to find a place to sleep for the weekend.

Now that I have spent nearly two hours writing this post, I am going back to work.