So it's a bit late...what can I say? Have you ever known me to have free time? Anyway, I'll give you the update on school / work. To me they are both one in the same anyway. In fact, one of my friends at the university told me a great line the other day: "I never let classes get in the way of my education." I think that works well for my perspective on school right now.

It's my final semester. Yes...I'm finally graduating at the end of this semester. And I'm sure you all thought I'd be in school forever. Alas you are wrong. I'm almost done. I have five classes, four of which are actual classroom classes. The last one is an independent study on programming in ruby on rails. If anyone reading this knows web design, they'd understand how cool ruby is.

Anyway, the rest of my classes are pretty much communication courses. I'm in Small Group Communication, Visual Communication, Writing technical texts for general audiences, and my capstone course. So it's pretty full. I'm also very involved outside of the class world. And that's pretty normal for me. In fact, usually it takes priority.

I'm still running the TV studio on campus. That's been going well. I'm excited about the energy there. People are starting to see the potential of the station, and that's great. For once people may not take us as just a stupid campus TV station. That's fantastic. We're forming alliances, organizing, and stirring up trouble. I love it.

Easily I put in 30 hours a week there. I am incredibly devoted to it. We're producing a new series. It's called "The Heist" and I'm the producer of the show. So, I spend a lot of time preparing and running meetings. It's so much work, but I love all of it. In fact, I love it so much that I am planning on starting up a production company after graduation. I'll keep you posted on it.

I mentioned back in December that I'm writing a book too. That's still going on. Essentially it'll be a book about gender. It's going to have some of my story in it, but mainly it's intended as an educational book. I intend to revolutionize the way people learn and think about gender. I am actually spending this coming summer researching with a faculty member on other perspectives on gender as well as read the current scholarly research. I'm already considered an expert, but after that I'll be pretty darned educated when it comes to gender.

My parents recently came up to see me speak in a class. Afterwards my father told me that the world needs my book. He said I'm such a scholar on it and he was impressed. How cool is that? I've impressed my dad...of whom was the most uncomfortable and even downright angry about my transition at first. Afterwards they got to see me win a student leadership award. Last year I was nominated, but I didn't win. This year I did win. It felt pretty awesome. :)

Let's see...what else is going on... Oh, the state university system has asked me to speak at some conference. I'm not sure on the details yet. I've also been asked by the big 10 school in this state to speak for housing. And I've also been asked by my alma mater high school to speak as an all school assembly. That one is amazing to me. I'd have to give two presentations because there isn't a room big enough to have me speak to the entire school. I'm a little nervous considering what happened in a high school near my college when I was brought up a year ago. We'll see though. apparently the administration is on board already. I'll keep you posted.

Exams are coming up. I have one on Monday that I'm very not prepared for. I'm not sure I care though. As long as I pull off a C to pass, I'm fine with it. I am ready to move on with my life and am not really learning a whole lot anymore. Plus, the professor that teaches Small Group Comm and my capstone is really kinda odd. I don't feel like the class is organized or prepared much. I don't know what I'm expected to do. I don't know what I need to bring to class. I feel so unprepared, and so does everyone else. It's a strange classroom environment.

Apparently with my job as station manager, I've stepped all over the technical manager's job. I don't know what to say about that. I've been thinking about it for a day since I found out about how he feels. Honestly and frankly, I'm not sure his feelings are justified. I've found myself doing his job because I've felt that he hasn't been pulling his weight. In fact, he really hasn't since he got the job. He's lazy, has no ambition, or vision, and he doesn't think long term. So, things don't get done. Equipment breaks and then sits there. Things need to be replaced and he does nothing. I run a studio, not a junkyard, and I need things working. If he's not going to do what he's paid to do, then I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to pick up the slack. I've sent the three broken cameras in. I've written the proposals to replace our battery system and a computer. I've purchased the new website. We've had MiniDV decks broken for several months now. THey are pretty important to our operations, and he lets them sit and rot. He wants to replace them, but he doesn't take the initiative to write a proposal to get them replaced. He doesn't send the decks in. He just sits on his ass. So yeah...I'm a bit upset about it. He really has no right to feel that way. I'm going to talk to him about it soon.

Anyway...it's 3:00 in the morning. I've been up entirely too long today and have stuff to do tomorrow. I better get some sleep. I'll post another update about something soon. Catch ya later.

Luv,
Jess