I'm finally facing my biggest fear, and it's not of heights

I have a confession to make.

When I was in high school, I considered myself a great poet, though it wasn’t great poetry. It was mostly a lot of rhyming crap that made people laugh, or not. I wrote poems for my basketball team and hung them up on all of our lockers, and I penned versus for my friends that documented our lives at the time. A few of my poems were even published in the school newspaper!

If I felt something, I wrote a poem to express myself, half of which I wouldn’t dare show my mom.

I thought I was a good writer because I could put my feelings into a rhyme scheme. That was the extent of my writing experience back then.

No, that is not my confession.

One day in English class we were assigned to write a research paper. I was excited about the assignment, at first. Then we were instructed to include headers and footers. WHAT? I had no clue what headers, footers and resources were, and I didn’t care to find out.

Rather than learning the APA style process, I simply didn’t write the paper and took the F.  I failed English class.

Still not my confession.

In May of 1979, when I was a high school senior, I took the U.S. Army’s job aptitude test. It’s still beyond me why the Army determined that I was best suited to be a journalist. Maybe because I scored miserably in the other sections of the test (electronics, mechanics, etc.) So, after basic training, I attended the Defense Information School (DINFOS) to learn the craft of writing news, feature and sports stories.

The writing of a journalist is different than that of a researcher. Journalists interview people in person or on the phone and simply quote them. No footnotes or scholastic resources needed. I thrived as a journalist, and earned several Journalist of the Year awards throughout my 21-year military career.

This is my confession: I have a fear of writing research papers!

Needless to say, I’ve waited until the last possible moment to write my Master’s project research proposal paper, which was due July 15. Nope, it’s not done yet, but I am relieved to report that I am almost done!  

I am finally facing my fear by writing my very first research paper! The first draft of the project proposal is nearly finished, complete with headers and resources. It’s actually not as hard as I imagined. In fact, I admit it’s a valuable learning experience that I am kind of glad I was forced to do.

So how did I do it? You’ll have to wait for my next posting to find out.

Kids, camping are distractions, but proposal paper must be done

            Working on my Master’s project this summer is harder than I thought it would be.

            There are several obstacles getting in the way of me focusing on writing my Master’s project proposal, which is due July 15.

            The primary detractors are my two kids.  I’ve been basically ignoring them for more than four years now. That’s how long I’ve been a grad student at Kent State University. They are getting used to me being “busy,” but it’s getting old for all of us, including the other parent who has been picking up the slack for far too long.

My justification for being absent for half a decade is that in the end I hope to land a teaching job, which will allow me to be home more often. I long for teacher’s hours. Being home with the family in the summer, in the evenings and on weekends is a luxury I do not enjoy now.

Life as a photojournalist is fun and exciting, but you know the old saying: “News never sleeps," and neither do I. I work at the Toledo Blade three nights a week and every Saturday. And nine months out of the year I spend four mornings a week teaching photography at Owens Community College. That’s a lot of hours away from my girls, who are 11 and 13.

They will need me in high school, so I am working hard now so I can be there for them then. I hope they understand that.

This is our new RV, with Cedar Point's water park in our rented backyard.

Another distraction is our love of camping. We just bought a new RV, which means we are in the process of trying to sell our old one. It takes a lot of preparation to go on a camping trip. A camper is meant to be used, and this summer is no exception. Camping is the only time I give my total attention to the girls. I won't give that up.

But hope is not all lost.

I have been slowly collecting the scholarly research I need for my paper’s literature review section. I’m also piecing together the required parts of the paper:  introduction, methodology, project explanation, etc. Before long I will have all the necessary components of a proposal paper!

Whenever I get to the point when I want to quit, I imagine myself doing really fun things with the kids during their final summers with us, before they go off to college. That’s all the inspiration I need to force myself to sit at the computer on a beautiful sunny day.