Lee-der-ship (n.)

"Leadership: The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it." ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

So this question hasn't been able to leave my mind for the last week and apparently on the minds of others too. Everyone I talk to lately seems to be questioning the qualities needed to be a leader. Be it when you are talking about who you think will be a better president or talking about how you did in your interview for Resident staff next year. It just dominates my mind. Between RA training, RA interviews, Student Council, Job Interviews, Group Projects and School, its become rather ridiculous. I have started chiseling out a standard cookie cutter response that I know will look good on a resume or interview sheet and can spit it out without thinking.
Interviewers ask: How do you make a good leader?
"Being balanced. Knowing when to care and when to push. When to stretch and when to compromise. Knowing how to support but at the same time know when to drive those around you. Knowing when to step up or when to step back, even if it is hard."
But do I really believe it?
I was talking to our Dorm Daddy Rich Kane the other day when I brought this question to him and he told me something that I will try to keep with me for as long as I can.
He told me that the only good leaders are the ones that people don't realise that they are being lead by. A true leader is not afraid to step back and let others shine and bring out the best in the people around them.
And its true!! How many times did you work in a fabulous group where everyone worked really hard and did they're best? Did it seem like everyone was the leader yet at the same time no one was? We've all had projects or situations like this. But if you think harder about it there was someone asking questions or throwing out ideas or just encouraging people, right? They were true leaders. Not every leader needs to take charge and fearlessly lead their troops into a glorious death or battle, while those are still great leaders it may not be right for every situation. While it is effective, don't get me wrong, I have had it back fire on me more times than not. Sometimes people just don't want a dictatorship or even a hierarchy. I mean that's how our country as created right? England thought that if they kept a strong fist with it's colonies that everything would return back to normal, but we all know how that turned out.
I've been playing a new game I found called Europa Universalis III. In this game you step into the lives of famous rulers and try to keep your country alive. Its hard. You can't survive without your board of advisers. So even great rulers need support and each one of those great men had anywhere from one to twenty other men and women supporting them, each one of them a leader in their own right. I've learned that there are so many different kinds of leadership out there. Leading can be everything from assigning tasks, to giving complements, to even just suggesting someone use their strengths to make the situation better.
In a way everyone is their own kind of leader in their fashion. Some may be subtle, others in your face. Some may have been leaders all their lives and we only remember them for their great moments.
We all know the Shakespeare phrase, "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them." Well, I don't agree. I believe that everyone has greatness inside them and use it everyday, we just tend to remember the really epic moments of greatness.
So I guess I think that next time someone makes you feel better when you're down or gives you a compliment, thank them for being an everyday leader.
Now all I have to do count down the moments till I get that letter Friday that tells me whether or not they think that I am they type of leader they need for Resident Staff next year.
Wish Me luck!!!

Stop the world...

I wanna get off.

Fairy Tales and Nonsense

I was going through old novels of mine for a book club and found a poem that I had written after reading a particularly sappy romance fairy tale sometime senior year. I had shoved it in the novel near the back cover. I couldn't remember what the story was about or why I had written the poem, so I sat down in the middle of my dorm room and started reading it again. Then I remembered why I had written the poem a couple hours later when I finished the book again.

The story was about this princess who was in an arranged marriage with a man she hardly knew but had known about since child hood. She had loved him from afar but she was unsure if he felt the same. So in order to test him and if he truly loved her she ran off and left behind clues. The final lines in the note she left behind was two words, "Catch me." Of course the hopeless romantic in me loved the story. She guided him and let him know her true heart at the same time getting to know his and falling in love in new ways then she had before. They almost lost each other due to doubts and uncertainty but in the end he finally found her. And I remember being so inspired that I wrote my own cryptic note for someone someday to read and had stuck in the back of this novel, forgetting about it until almost a year later.

*I apologise for the lame attempt at poetry, and excuse me if there isn't any thing "poetic" about it. English was never my strong suit and we tend have a love/hate relationship with each other. But here is the poem.

Catch Me

Fight me
Fight with me
Fight for me
Challenge me
Stretch me
Pull me
Shape me
Chase me
Tame me
Catch me

Push me
Top me
Be stronger than me
Out-man me
Cherish me
Protect me
Stand up for me
Respect me
Care for me
Care with me
Catch Me

Duel for me
Duel with me
Joust for me
Joust with me
Rescue me
Save me
Know me
Like me
Love me
Catch me

Be the man I need you to be
If you don't you may just loose me.
Are you going to catch me?
Is no one going to catch me?

I thought that you were the one,
but here I am without someone.
Alone and lost without out a guide,
with no one standing by my side.

Catch Me, that's what I told you,
but you have seem to have fallen through;
the cracks inside my heart are deep,
filled with only these tears I weep.

All alone is where I stand,
on the shifting hills of sand,
Time itself will not stand by,
and soon my love will slowly die.

If only my dream could be real,
to hold you close and really feel.
Before I loose myself too much,
bring me back with your touch.

In this darkened room I stand,
thinking that you hold my hand.
This feeling on my senses play,
hearing words that you can't say.

I'm standing on Love's final edge,
balancing on that ragged ledge.
But then I feel hands about my waist,
saving me from Death's greedy taste.

I feel your body next to mine,
touches sparking down my spine.
You put your mouth next to my ear,
and say the words I need to hear,

"I caught you"

So yeah. Tonight has been all about fairy tales, knights and heroes to me, So I thought I'd share that because not only did it inspired me, but touched me later when I found it again. I hope that maybe it might have touched you too.

Looking Glass

I'm a little lost when it comes to the people I have surrounded myself with.
They're so...
They just need to go away.
I'm tired of holding my tongue back because I might offend someone who offends people on a daily basis. Its true. Everyone hates you because you're an egotistical, vain, attention-whore. I know when not to act like a girl and shoot back with petty remarks, more than I can say about you. I hope someone smacks you in the face with a good dose of reality and can confidently say that it is coming soon. No one can stand to be around you they're just too polite to walk away. We all talked about you today. You left outside and everyone let lose. Did you not notice that when you walked back in how the conversation died? No, you were too busy thinking everyone loves you. (BUZZER) WRONG!! You're so insensitive and discriminating. You're jokes aren't funny, they're hurtful. There is a reason you're the only one laughing. Everyone actively tries to avoid you and talks about you the second you're gone. Its disgusting how shallow and petty you are. Insult my clothes, fine. Insult my political choices, whatever its not like its new. Insult my religion, why not? Its practically our nation's greatest pastime at this point. But when you assault my character I'm done. I loved how it was my fault when a job wasn't done. Didn't matter if it wasn't my job to begin with because apparently it's always MY fault when something goes wrong or falls apart!!! So if a job wasn't getting done why didn't you get off your royal butt and do it? Oh whats that? You're a lazy slacker? Oh sorry I forgot for a second that you might have been a decent human being. If I hear one more story about how your life has been handed to you on a gold platter lined with pixie dust and sunshine all the while you're gossiping horrible things about me behind my back I might just haul off and rip that silver spoon out of your mouth and beat you over the head with it.
I'm done.
I'm done with you and the headaches you always bring.
Now I'm sure there are others reading that at one point thought this might have been them. I wouldn't be surprised but the truth of the matter is that its not. The person this is about doesn't even know this blog exists. But to those few my only question to you is why? Did you expect it? Are you digging for a reason to hate me? Are you that into yourself that everything around you is about you? Or are you miserable and you want to make sure that everyone around you is as miserable as you?
I have noticed in the last year that the age old saying is true, Misery loves company. That's why I wrote this rant, because the last thing I want to do is make some one else feel better by putting me down and making my life a living hell. Too many times. I've had too many people that I called friends and cared about stab me in the back. Guys and girls alike. People love drama, drama makes people miserable and gives others a sense of entitlement. "Well she did this.." or "He said that.." Everyone around me says that they hate drama, but as those words are coming out of their mouth the dagger is sinking into someone else's back. I hate people who have made the lives around them so miserable that people have to censor what they do and how they talk or how they might respond because they know that if that person finds out your life becomes hell. I thought I left it all behind in High School but no. Obviously I wouldn't be writing this if it didn't. People in college are just as petty and miserable as those I left behind in High School. They live for drama and because we are all pretty much forced to see each other 24/7 it happens. Why have I gone home so many times recently? Because if I don't I'll go insane. I'm already a hermit. I only come out during short periods of time because I don't want to talk to people. I constantly hear "Jocelyn I hardly ever see you anymore!", "We haven't talked in forever!", "Where have you been? We thought you died!"
Wanna know where I've been?
Back in my old pattern I established senior year. Make myself so busy that I won't have to deal with people if it isn't in a formal setting. I bustle from classes to meetings to appointments to jobs to volunteering to programs to planning... all in the hopes that I don't have to talk to anyone. I wont go back to it, that place needs to stay away. I fought it so hard and now when I thought that I can finally move on, it comes back. I'm doing good! I should be happy! I have a great boyfriend, a wonderful family, I'm finally doing well in school and getting my body back to the way I loved it. But why am I so close to going back there? I see her. Staring back at me with that false smile that says she's okay when she really isn't. She hated herself. Didn't understand why she was constantly passed over, ignored or hated. What had she done? Was she not good enough? Was she not pretty enough? Was she too loud? Too rude? Too... too...
No. She wont cry anymore. She's strong and beautiful. She was just a swan swimming with ducks.
But that's her.
I don't know who I am anymore.
I became cross and short with my mother over nothing, I have been neglecting my relationship with my boyfriend and its tearing me up inside, I hardly ever talk anymore, I have been hurting those I love without even trying, I have made my grandfather who I love and adore think that I am angry at him and don't love him anymore, and worst of all I've neglected my walk with God. I've let petty people keep me from truly worshiping him and it hurts. I love singing praise songs and letting my voice tell God how much I love him, but that hardly happens now. I will admit I've been tested and refined but each time I still know that I'm probably going to fail at one point or another. I've grown. I can see it. But at the same time it feels that what I've gained isn't even close to what I've lost.
I was so secure in who I was and what my character is, and now its like looking into tarnished silver. I can catch glimpses of my true potential but there seems to be so much crud to get through just to be able to see it, let alone make it shine.
I know I'm not perfect. I'm anything but. Still. I only hope that this doubt will go away and I can truly shine for him.
I'm tired of pretending. I'm tired of holding back. I'm tired of sitting and watching. I'm tired of watching people ruin other peoples lives.
But I have to remember that I can't save the world. That's not my job. I'm not a super hero despite what quizzes might say. I'm just a person in need of forgiveness and touched by grace.
I may not be a super hero, but at least I know one.

Being Sick Sucks.... Hard Core.

Sound Track of My Life
IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

So, here's how it works:

1. Open your music library.

2. Put it on shuffle.

3. Press play.

4. For every question, type the song that's playing.

5. When you go to a new question, press the next button.

6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...

Opening Credits: Storybook Love by Willi De Ville from Princess Bride Soundtrack

Waking Up: So Much For My Sad Song by Chris Rice

First Day of School: Simple Things by Amy Grant

Falling in Love: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds by Bono & The Edge from Across The Universe

Fight Song: Feels Like Tonight by Daughtry

Breaking Up: Amaranth by NightWish

Life: There's Nothing Like A Show On Broadway by The Producers Original Movie Soundtrack

Mental Breakdown: Is She The Reason by Destiny's Child

Driving: When You Got It, Flaunt It by The Producers Original Movie Soundtrack

Flashback: Anything by Third Day

Getting Back Together: Complainte De La Butte by Rufus Wainwright from Moulin Rouge Soundtrack

Wedding: No Ordinary Love by Toby Mac Feat. Nirva Dorsaint-Ready

Birth of Child: Happy Little Working Song by Amy Adams from Enchanted Movie Soundtrack (Oh Lordy! Yes Tammy I can hear you laughing from here. You too Mom... Wow that really is irony!)

Final Battle: Breakfast by Newsboys

Death Scene: Let Me Fall by Josh Groban

Funeral Song: Let Me Go Lover by Dean Martin

End Credits: The Hop-Clop Goes On by The Producers Original Movie Soundtrack

Wow really couldn't ask for a better ending really...

So the reason for this lovely interlude was because of this horrendous cold that I have. It has been so bad that I haven't been myself for like a week and a half. Yesterday I was so wiped and sick that I literally slept for 18 hours. Came back from classes around 4 and was out by 5 waking up every 4 hours because my body needed to do something, be it cough, need water, or just plainly breathe. But tonight has no such luck. After talking to my boy I tried sleeping, honestly I did. But not even NyQuil could stop this cough. So since around 5 o clock, after maybe an hour or two of continual sleep, I have given up and now are watching infomercials that sound really good at five in the morning and old cartoons that I haven't seen in years all the while listening to the weird sounds my roommate is emitting. So after extensively googling myself and finding things from when I was 11, cruising Myspace, and filling out my calendars for the rest of Feb. and March (and thoroughly depressing myself in the process) I have settled on doing this little ditty over here. I am surprised on how well it has actually turned out. Some of the songs baffle me, others seem like a perfect fit! So yeah. Off to reign more terrors on my box of tissues and the Internet!!

Snots Ahoy!

Well Huh.

God works in mysterious ways...
So for all that don't know I have been praying alot this last week, for a lot of different things but I think the largest things other than the occasional, "Dear lord please let this class be over with soon!" are the fact that I have been praying for guidence for where I am supposed to go to school next year and for my Dad and his job situation. College is a great place, I love it. I think I have been happier the last few months than I have been in a long time, honestly. Not anyone's fault really its just I was never really made for high school. But at college I have found myself flourishing. So over break my mom reminded me that I had been flourishing so well that I had until roughly Thanksgiving to decide what I was going to do for the next 3 years of my life. After the initial panic of it all had past I began thinking. What do I want to do with the rest of my life? So far in the span of maybe 4 months I have effectively eliminated 4 different possiblilities. Probably more if I really thought about it. I realise that I could never do anything medical period. Don't like it, don't like hearing it, definately don't like seeing it and you're not getting me even close to fixing it. After that I eliminated science. Unfortunately I don't have the attention span nor the paitence for dealing with it, AP Chemistry kinda killed that and whatever it left Chem 2 destroyed. I tried looking into psychology, but that really isn't an instant results career. That takes years that unless I am absolutly 100 percent sure I want to put in that it may make it worth it in the end... maybe. Art was quickly and efficiently killed due to the fact that even as a hobby it create more stress and well, it should just stay a fun hobby that I'm really good at. So to make a long story shorter I think I've settled on the career that I have talked about most of my life, Education. I realised that in every career I thought about I always wanted to teach it at one point, so I thought 'Hey? Why not be a teacher then?" The only problem with that is that SOU's education program is just barely getting on its feet. It wasn't started until just recently and not as fully develpoed as some others that I have seen. So that brought up the question, Do I want to go to SOU next year? Unlike High school I actually have a choice on where I want to go and can change it at anytime that I wish. So I have been praying about it, 'Lord, please help me. Do you want me to go to SOU, OSU o George Fox?' Well, apparently I don't take small signals well so God sent a pretty big one. I was at a basketball game this last Saturday night supporting our Girls and making my roommate see some kind of light, even if it was artifical. It was housing night and I am on the housing board so I was there in support of the other members running the program. Well at half time they had a drawing for two things (along with various gift cards) an iPod Touch and Free housing for next year. Well not knowing if I wanted to go here, and figuring that if I do I would be here as an RA and would get it free anyways, so of course I didn't want that prize. I even went so far to tell Bill (head of housing) and Rich (my advisor) that the housing was the one prize that I didn't want. So as Bill reached for the names for iPod touch I held my breath, I really wanted that iPod. But alas it went to the guy sitting just behind me. So I turn to talk to Erika (my roommate) as everything else was being drawn. The finally get to the housing and announce that they were drawing 2 names that would have to do a "Best of of 10" free throw competition. I thought, 'Hey thats going to be fun to watch', having had to do one last year and losing. So I look and see that Bill has a huge smile on his face and that Rich looked like a kid on Christmas as they begin to read the names. I panicked at the beginning of the first name because it was a Josh. I turned to Erika and muttered, "Oh Thank God. For a second I thought that was me." No sooner had the words come out of my mouth then my name came out of Bill's. "CRAP!!"
Yeah, thats right, my name. Which meant that I had to go down and shoot 10 free throws in order to win a prize that I didn't want. But I was up against a guy so it shouldn't be a problem if I didn't try super hard because he was going to smoke me. So of course he pulled the ladies first card and off I went. With cheers of "You Go Girl!" I conviently figure how to just bounce the ball of the ring after 3 baskets (2 of which were clean nets by the way) 3 would make both him and I look good right? Wrong. I think that they picked the on guy in the whole gymnasium that was worse at Basket ball that I was. He only got 2 baskets! That's right. I won. Roughly $6,000 worth of housing for the next year that gaurntees that I can live where ever I want on campus. For most of the night I was really upset that I had won. At first I felt like I had stolen the prize from somone who might have really needed it. Then I found out that they actually did offer the other guy free housing too, but I was too busy looking at Erika and Rich laughing so hard that they both looked like they were going to cry. I left the game early and Erika and I went to dinner, the whole time I kept thinking 'Why? Why did I win?' I finally realized that this was my fleece. It was soaking wet and because I ignored it on the ground God had picked it up and thrown it in my face. You see I was thinking of applying for an RA job which everyone was basically telling me I was going to get. But for some reason I didn't believe them which was me ignoring the fleece on the ground. God had tried to show me one sign and I ignored him, even actively fought him. But one can't really ignore a sign that big can they?
So the moral of the story is that I have to really open my eyes when viewing the world around me, especially when I ask for signs.

Wow

They may come close...

But the way they make me feel right now makes them pale in comparison.

You're the first to give me roses and I can't stop smiling.

I wish I could show you how much I like them.

Thank you so much.