Archive for the 'The 4-1-1 on Me' Category

March 8, 2011 | 5th Semester,Life in General,Mentors,Prescott College,Spring 2011,The 4-1-1 on Me

As much as I’m enjoying the one-on-one instruction my degree program provides, the tough part has been finding mentors. Even while I’m working full-time and trying to get through the current semester, the search for mentors is never-ending.

And something I can’t not think about.

Time seems to go by so quickly and before I know it, damn, it’s time to troll for more mentors?

Needless to say, the spring session is almost over. Summer starts in May and I was hoping to have Marketing and Program Planning mentors locked in.

One out of two isn’t bad, right? Found someone for Marketing but summers seem to be the busiest time for program directors/managers/coordinators.

Or they don’t have graduate level degrees.

Another downside to this innovative program. I get a lot of “wow, this is great, I would love to help, BUT…I don’t have a master’s degree.”

*sigh*

That makes it a little more daunting.

I’m thinking I’m going to have to scrap the Program course this summer and go with something else. With that being said:

I’m looking for a professional to mentor my Multicultural YA Literature course this summer. In order to be considered, you have to have a graduate level degree. As a mentor, the time you give will be considerable but valuable. And, as a thank you for your willingness to inspire and guide a student, you will receive a small honorarium fee from the school. If you’re interested, please send your resume to acolston [at] prescott.edu and I will be happy to provide additional details.

February 23, 2011 | Road Trip Wednesday,The 4-1-1 on Me

Road Trip Wednesday is a “Blog Carnival”, where YA Highway‘s contributors post a weekly writing or reading-related question and answer it in on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody’s unique take on the topic.

You’re more than welcome to participate! Just answer the question on your own blog, and leave a link to it in their comments.

Topic #57:What do you want to know about writing and getting published? Post one question on your blog, then visit other RTW blogs and offer up your advice to their question. Hopefully, all RTW participants will get a handful or more answers to their question.

In light of this post, I want to know two things: 1) How do I go about finding an illustrator? and 2) What is the best way to publish a graphic novel?

February 13, 2011 | Life in General,The 4-1-1 on Me

My Dad sent this to me and seeing as how it’s Black History month, I thought “How appropriate.”

I’m Not Giving My Black Back

I’m Not Giving My Black Back! I’m not giving up my greens or my grits or saying “girl” and putting my hands on my hips. You see…Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair and I’m not giving up Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hammer, Mary McLeod Bethune, Sojourner Truth, Madame C J. Walker, Toni Morrison, or Dr. Maya Angelou, ’cause you see, I am a phenomenal woman and I’m not giving my black back.

I’m not giving up my crown, waves, braids, curls, locks, kinks or scarves. I’m not giving up sitting in Ma’s kitchen eating peach cobbler or sweet potato pie and hearing her ask me, “How you doing baby”?

I’m not giving up going to “You Buy, We Fry” on Fridays, or barbeques on Saturday playing bid whist, spades and slammin’ those dominoes. I’m not giving back Harriet Tubman‘s train, Soul Train, Coltrane or the midnight train to Georgia. Now, you can meet me at the function at the junction but I still won’t give up B.B. King, the Whispers, Fancy Ms. Nancy, Lena Horne, the Philadelphia Sound, Motown or the Temptations.

Cause you see, it’s the way we do the things we do, like building the pyramids that still stand made by our forefathers’ hands where the diamonds, oil, silver and gold are buried in our rich dark land.

I’m not giving my black back! I’m happy being happy with my wide slim hips and my wide nose and the rich melanin in my skin. I love putting lotion on my ashy legs (preferably the body butter from The Body Shop).

Oh, I’m happy being nappy and being in the skin that I’m in. I won’t deny or forget my ancestors who lay in a wet grave at the bottom of the sea in the Middle Passage from slave trade.

And I won’t give up on our youth of today who still need a way made. I won’t give back Miles even though he didn’t smile. I won’t give back Marvin Gaye, Richard Pryor, Phyllis Hyman, Billie Holiday or Billy Eckstein, Jackie Robinson or Jackie Wilson.

I won’t give back the electric slide, Alvin Ailey, Bojangles or Debbie Allen. You think I’d give up reading my Jet, Ebony, Essence, Emerge, Black Enterprise, Heart and Soul or Upscale magazines? For we are a colorful people.

Like Curtis Mayfield sang, we are a people that are “darker than blue.” We are honey, cinnamon, mahogany and chocolate. We are REDD Fox, James BROWN, Barry WHITE, The Mothers of the Church dressed in WHITE, The Color PURPLE, the Lady Who Sings the BLUES and we are Al GREEN with love and happiness.

Oh, NO… I’m not giving my black back!

I’m not giving back Maxine (Waters), Martin, Medgar, Malcolm, Mandela, Marley, Marcus, Muhammad Ali, Michael (Jordan) or the Million Man March. I’m not giving my black back.

AMEN!

Technorati Tags: Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hammer, Mary McLeod Bethune, Sojourner Truth, Madame C J. Walker, Toni Morrison, Dr. Maya Angelou, Harriet Tubman, Soul Train, Coltrane, B.B. King, the Whispers, Fancy Ms. Nancy, Lena Horne, the Philadelphia Sound, Motown, the Temptations, The Body Shop), Marvin Gaye, Richard Pryor, Phyllis Hyman, Billie Holiday, Billy Eckstein, Jackie Robinson, Jackie Wilson, Alvin Ailey, Bojangles, Debbie Allen, Jet, Ebony, Essence, Emerge, Black Enterprise, Heart and Soul, Upscale, Curtis Mayfield, REDD Fox, James BROWN, Barry WHITE, The Color PURPLE, Al GREEN, Maxine (Waters), Michael (Jordan)

January 25, 2011 | "Whoa whoa I gotta go...back to schoooool...again",5th Semester,Human Relations,Life in General,Mentors,Prescott College,School Daze,Spring 2011,The 4-1-1 on Me,Volunteer Management

Well, it was a nice break, but it went by so fast! During the break between fall and spring semesters, we moved into a new place downtown. A townhouse. 2 bd loft with 2.5 baths. Feels like we’re still getting settled. We get excited over the little things: washer and dryer inside the house (it was in an outside shed in the house we left), a dishwasher (I haven’t used one since I left home at 25!), a bathtub worthy of a bath. LOL. Then there’s the stuff that irks: our front doorbell doesn’t work, but the one at the kitchen door does, the kitchen sink drips, you have to hold down the lever on all three toilets to get them to flush, the toilet in the half bath likes to occasionally refill itself, the toilet in my office sounds like it’s still settling, the floor in the master bedroom creaks—horribly—in a certain spot, the shower head in the master bath spouts water…*sigh*. I’m gonna quit bitchin’ now. I know it’s gonna be fixed as soon as we turn in that check-in list. I guess this is what happens when you decide to rent.

Anyhow, spring semester starts today and I’m only taking two classes. Recently, I decided to push back my graduation date to December. I would’ve been done in spring 2012, graduating in May. Instead, I’ll be done in September and the ceremony will be in December. I’m officially a senior now with a 3.75 GPA. That’s the best I’ve done in school. Ever. LOL. This semester, I’ll be taking Human Relations with the wonderful Chantal Sheehan, Exec Dir. of New Global Citizens, as my mentor. And Volunteer Management with Shoshana Ross, Volunteer Coordinator at Free Arts AZ. I’m pretty stoked to work with Chantal again (she mentored my Financial Mgmt class last year), and I think it’s cool I’m going to be working with someone from an organization that I volunteer for on occasion.

While I’m learning so much from working one-on-one with mentors, the hardest part about this program (other than going back to school after so many years and working full-time) is actually finding mentors. I’m a shy person by nature and asking complete strangers to mentor me has been daunting, to say the least. Not too long after starting school a couple of years ago, I joined the local Young Nonprofit Professionals Network. I submitted an ad for a mentor on their website. What I didn’t know at the time is that that ad appears in the newsletter they send out every month. I’ve been lucky enough to get a few bites from that ad. I actually found my very first mentor when I went to college orientation. It’s very time-consuming on the behalf of the mentor and the honorarium fee is small, but I’m so grateful for their willingness to share their knowledge. I’m hoping all my mentors will be able to make it to my graduation next year. It would be great to see their faces among the crowd.

What’s a little scary is that I realized I didn’t have a plan when it comes to this degree. The ultimate goal is to run my own nonprofit. I was going to graduate, find a job with a nonprofit, work there for a few years and then open my organization. Lisa, my supervisor/friend, and I went to lunch a couple of days ago and she asked me a lot of tough questions. To my embarrassment, a lot of my responses were “I don’t know.” I’m a pantser when it comes to my writing and I think-–stupidly–I had that same mentality about my plan for the future. I have this goal that I want to reach and what I want to do, but have no clue what steps to take to get there.

My thinking was “With this degree, I’ll have a little more knowledge” and then it went from that to “Well, if I can just get these two particular classes under my belt, then I’ll start looking.” Truly, I’m just afraid of leaving my job. I’ve been there for 3 years and there’s a security there. A comfort zone. But it’s not what I want to do with the rest of my life. If I wanted a career in records management, maybe, but that’s not how it’s gonna happen. And Lisa plans on leaving as well, and, really, the job wouldn’t be the same without her.

So, now I have a plan. For the first time since I jumped into school with both feet, I have a plan. It scares the shit out of me because it means leaving my job by the end of the year, if not before. I just have to keep in mind that the end result will be worth it.

Technorati Tags: Chantal Sheehan, New Global Citizens, Shoshana Ross, Young Nonprofit Professionals Network

December 31, 2010 | Life in General,Movie Queue,The 4-1-1 on Me

Here are the movies I saw during the year 2010:

DAYBREAKERS – interesting take on the whole vampire thing.

NINE – Fergie. Wow. And Daniel Day-Lewis wasn’t too bad, either.

LEAP YEAR – I heart Amy Adams. I always get her and Isla Fisher mixed up.

BOOK OF ELI – So, did you think Denzel was blind throughout the whole movie or that God let him “see” until his journey was over?

DISTRICT 13: ULTIMATUM – The stunts and the fighting are pretty awesome. It also introduces the sport known as parkour

PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF – I so want to be a demi-goddess.

THE WOLFMAN – Anthony Hopkins always makes for a good bad guy.

ONG BAK 2 – The fight scenes in this movie are siiiiiiiick. Tony Jaa is f***kin’ amazing.

VALENTINE’S DAY – Liked the interconnectivity of the characters, but thought Taylor Swift sucked.

GREEN ZONE – Matt Damon makes a very good action star, but I was kind of expecting more.

CLASH OF THE TITANS – Blood of Hades = Kracken’s and gigantic scorpions. Sweet!

THE LAST SONG – Miley Cyrus didn’t do too bad. And her love interest was quite the hottie.

KICK-ASS – Great movie. Funny how an 11-yr-old girl–and her father–were doing all the ass kicking.

THE LOSERS – Chris Evans is H-O-T!

THE BACK-UP PLAN – Really good to see Alex O’Loughlin in a leading man role. Loved him in MOONLIGHT.

IRON MAN 2 – The film melting was the highlight of my experience

LETTERS TO JULIET - Once again I was reminded why I need to visit Italy

ROBIN HOOD – *blowing raspberry*

PRINCE OF PERSIA: SANDS OF TIME- Jake Gyllenhaal looked pretty hot.

SEX AND THE CITY 2 – I could’ve done without hearing Liza Minelli’s version of “Single Ladies.” I liked the outfits (but SJP has man hands!) and Abudabi is a beautiful country that I’d never visit.

JUST WRIGHT – Common is actually a very good-lookin’ guy. And Paula Patton is so pretty!

THE A-TEAM – Bradley Cooper has got the bluest eyes!

THE KILLERS – Ashton Kutcher makes a good action hero.

JONAH HEX – I like the last name. This movie was shades of THE CROW. I still miss you, Brandon.

KNIGHT AND DAY – Low-key version of his MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movies.

THE BOUNTY HUNTER – Gerard Butler. RRRRRR! I love how his accent comes through.

THE LAST AIRBENDER – The kid was cute. And I like the idea of kids having the ability to manipulate the four elements.

TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE – Still Team Jacob

DESPICABLE ME – “It’s so fluffy!

SALT – Angelina Jolie does really well when she’s kickin’ people asses. She should stick to these types of movies.

INCEPTION – You know a movie is good when you’re talking about it afterwards. So, what was your take of the ending–real or dreaming?

THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE

CHARLIE ST. CLOUD – sad, but good. And wow, David Franco looks just like his older brother, James.

THE EXPENDABLES – Everyone looked so old. Except for Jason.

SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD – I so want to be part of a band called Sex Ba-Bomb.

THE AMERICAN – quiet, intense, film. Not a lot of dialogue on George Clooney‘s part. And wow, he actually looksp retty good for his age.

MACHETE – Danny Trejo has been in 189 films. This is his first lead role. Wasn’t too bad.

EASY A – It’s amazing how one little rumor can get totally out of hand. Also, I would love to have a father like Stanley Tucci and a teacher like Thomas Hayden Church.

LET ME IN – We saw the original version (Swedish w/ subtitles) and liked it the best. Although it was fun comparing scenes.

LIFE AS WE KNOW IT – Josh Duhamel. Abs. That’s all I remember seeing. Oh, and he’s great with kids.

MAO’S LAST DANCER – Beautiful, beautiful movie. Go see this if you’re a fan of dance movies, specifically ballet.

RED – OMG, I so love Mary-Louise Parker. She was funny as hell in this movie. And Bruce Willis looked great, too.

DUE DATE – Spitting in the dog’s face? Unacceptable, Mr. Robert Downey, Jr. Masturbating dog? Totally unnecessary. Didn’t need to see that.

FASTER - Wow, is Billy Bob Thornton lookin’ old! But Dwayne Johnson sure looked good! Even though he didn’t say much. He let that cannon of a handgun do all the talkin’. LOL

MEGAMIND – Yes, I actually got Babendude to see this with me. Not as funny as DESPICABLE ME, but there were funny parts.

THE WARRIOR’S WAY – The way this movie was made was interesting. Babendude and I are big martial arts fans, so we’ll see just about anything.

CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER – Love Ben Barnes and his dark eyes. Watching this series makes me want to read the books all over again. And I SO want to see Aslan’s country, beyond the massive, magical waves.

TRON: LEGACY – Those motorcycles were so cool. And I liked how they were able to make Jeff Bridges look young. Very cool.

UNSTOPPABLE – Never a dull moment.

TANGLED – I heart Zachary Levi. This was just like watching CHUCK. But the animated version, of course.

What about you? Did you see any of these? Which ones did you see that weren’t on the list?

Technorati Tags: DAYBREAKERS, NINE, Fergie, Daniel Day-Lewis, LEAP YEAR, Amy Adams, Isla Fisher, BOOK OF ELI, DISTRICT 13: ULTIMATUM, parkour, PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF, THE WOLFMAN, Anthony Hopkins, ONG BAK 2, Tony Jaa, VALENTINE’S DAY, Taylor Swift, GREEN ZONE, Matt Damon, CLASH OF THE TITANS, THE LAST SONG, Miley Cyrus, KICK-ASS, THE LOSERS, Chris Evans, THE BACK-UP PLAN, Alex O’Loughlin, MOONLIGHT, IRON MAN 2, LETTERS TO JULIET, ROBIN HOOD, PRINCE OF PERSIA: SANDS OF TIME, Jake Gyllenhaal, SEX AND THE CITY 2, Single Ladies, JUST WRIGHT, Common, Paula Patton, THE A-TEAM, Bradley Cooper, THE KILLERS, Ashton Kutcher, JONAH HEX, THE CROW, KNIGHT AND DAY, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, THE BOUNTY HUNTER, Gerard Butler, THE LAST AIRBENDER, TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE, DESPICABLE ME, SALT, Angelina Jolie, INCEPTION, THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE, CHARLIE ST. CLOUD, David Franco, THE EXPENDABLES, THE AMERICAN, George Clooney, MACHETE, Danny Trejo, EASY A, Stanley Tucci, Thomas Hayden Church, LET ME IN, LIFE AS WE KNOW IT, Josh Duhamel, MAO’S LAST DANCER, RED, Mary-Louise Parker, Bruce Willis, DUE DATE, Robert Downey, Jr, FASTER, Billy Bob Thornton, Dwayne Johnson, MEGAMIND, THE WARRIOR’S WAY, CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER, Ben Barnes, TRON: LEGACY, Jeff Bridges, UNSTOPPABLE, TANGLED, Zachary Levi, CHUCK