In the Office and Off the Road

My travel season (the main portion at least) has finally ended.

The odd thing about travelling is that while the months seem to go extraordinarily quickly, they finish leaving you feeling as though you have lived 8 months.

That's actually a pretty fair assessment since you're (willingly) dragged from city to city to hotel to hotel to school to college fair to random restaurants and crappy fast food joints and awesome holes in the wall. Thousands of people, thousands of stories.

Then home, you hope, to breathe, breathe, breathe, but in reality it's to attend meetings, answer emails, answer the phone, facilitate preview weekends and tours and visits, drop by local schools on your list, eat food you froze knowing you weren't going to be home long enough to buy more groceries, see your housemates and workmates and "special friend", and go home to crash every night.

My schedule this year was pretty nice because I was basically on a week, "off" a week. However, since I have local schools, my weeks off were spent out of the office as well. At least I got to sleep in my own bed, though.
Another counselor was out of the office for nearly 6 weeks straight.

Even then, though, we have it so good. At fairs--which we love because we get to meet other counselors who understand the job and don't say things to us like, "Oh, your students see you as professionals? I thought you were, like, student buddies"--we talk with one another, and it always makes me cling so tightly to my school when I hear them talk of how they are set out on the road for 9-12 weeks at a time.

When we're on the road, it's hard to remember our office and real lives are still existing without us. We miss announcements, jokes, fun local events, birthdays, etc. What we gain is time with our applicants, our soon to be applicants, family members of our applicants and soon to be applicants.

We love it. I think the time that we realize just how much we missed home is when we turn the car toward the barn or when we get that first hug and can't seem to let our loved one go.

On the homefront, it's a season of deserts and floods.
You try to cram in all the love and snuggles (and emails) you can before you leave and in those intermediary pieces between trips, then spend all the time on the road subsisting on text messages, crappy internet connections, and promises.

Now I'm home. Time to settle back into routine as well as I can, buy some groceries, re-learn how to spend appropriate amounts of time with my friends (reassuring myself that I can see them again the next day), do my chores, and sleep.

The Driving Force

Driving in Texas is unlike any form of automotive interaction that I've ever experienced.
However, I had one main foundational fallacy. I once believed that all drivers in Texas were like Dallas drivers. Not so. Each city has its own personality.

Dallas drivers are deliberate. They're like smart bombs. They know  their trajectory and approach with precision. They may cut dead in front of you but believe you me, they were over there thinking, "I'm approaching at equal to above average pacing, with a half car distance between us. Lane change in 5, 4, 3, 2, NOW." It's incredible. I love driving with them, even if they do go an average of 14 over the speed limit.

The drivers of Austin are more cautious and are on the polite side of things. In my experience, the austin-ers just want to be friends. They most closely resembled the drivers of Tulsa, in my opinion.

San Antonio was the one that threw me off the most. Pretty consistently it was a solid five under the speed limit. They are both hesitant in lane changes as well as haphazard in all moves. Arkansan drivers would find much in common with them. I would never have guessed that I would feel more anxiety driving with them at a slow pace than I do with the "crazy" Dallas drivers.

Tyler, thus far, is much like Austin. They're not in a particular rush, but they seem very conscious of their driving, which I appreciate.

There's one more week in Dallas and one new city to add: Longview. 22 days in Texas is a really long time. This week I'm starting to feel it a little bit. Still fun! But feeling the separation from my friends back at the office. And starting to get concerned about the inches of work piling up on my desk...

But wow. When I get oober frustrated, I always seem to have one interaction that makes up for it, be that on the phone with one of my new applicants or with a student at a school or fair I visit.
It's surreal and so real and awesome to be at one of those events and think, "I wonder which ones of you will be the new SMLT director/worship leader/honors council member in just a few years". And I get to be a piece of getting them here, just like Ryan Terry was for me. How very cool.

That's my driving force: pre-visioning the future of my (hopefully) students.

Kickin' Beats and Taking Names

Today, Texas melted my cupcake.

That is not innuendo for anything.
My first of two college fairs today gave me a cupcake.
I put said cupcake in car as I navigated my way across the Dallas ring.
And it melted.

Melted.
Cupcake.

...

How.

Other than feats of physics (Is that physics? I'm not sure. I was, after all, a creative writing major, not a science major), I have already started learning some things about Texas and college recruiting.

1. I am not made for Dallas driving. It makes me want to repent of all my sins and update my will.
2. Making friends with other reps is actually a really good idea. It's fun to exchange ideas on how we're doing things differently/similarly. Also, if you're both trying to work a difficult area, you can exchange schools/contacts to help one another just get in. 
3. Give yourself super extra time to get places. You will get lost. Even if you see the school, you are not in the clear. Find the high school office then give me a call.
4. Bring more than one phone charger and put it in an accessible place.
5. Pack snacks. This is one is more like a life rule, but really. Snacks, guys.
6. Casually dressing in your school colors makes you so cool. It wasn't my idea; I actually saw a very hip sort of girl at another college fair do it then my own boss and have since been very cognizant to ask myself the question, "Does this come in navy or gold?" Today, for instance, I am sporting the yellow/gold bridesmaid dress I wore in my best friend Caity's wedding (yah that's right I actually wore it again. Can YOU say that about any of your bridesmaid dresses?) with a blue striped scarf. And I feel very school-spirited without being all up in your face about it.
7. It is difficult to have road rage when you are listening to the Bible on audiobook.
8. Dallas has a bollywood radio station: "Fun Asian Radio." Top notch. Even the commercials. I especially enjoyed the inspirational hit: Roobaroo by A.R. Rahman and Naresh Iyer. I'm not being ironic. It has a beat you won't be able to resist decoratively twisting your hands to.

Today thus far I have had a classroom visit and a college fair. In an hour I have another college fair.

It's going well so far. Only one student took a snooze on me today. In all fairness, the music on my promo videos is really soothing.

I think I enjoy talking with students just as much as I enjoy talking to their parents. Don't even get me started on my "momference" idea. I may have one at the end of September. It's pending. But I for sure have one scheduled for October, and I am stoked for it.

Moms gotta mom. I get that.

Time to leave Starbucks for my second college fair today.

Out of the Office and On the Road

It's taken about a month of nonstop work, but I have finally put together the enormous puzzle that is travel season planning, and I head out this afternoon for Texas.

My schedule itself is rather strenuous . Check it out for yourself; it's all online.

Between school visits, college fairs, and personal visits with families, the next month is going to kick my little Oklahoman booty. I am floored.

Texans are some of my favorite people. Yah, they're loud and full of themselves and opinionated and gun-slinging, but that's what makes them awesome! Their state pride is inspirational and has made them the object of my admiration for years now.

As someone who has been trying to get fellow oklahomans to spread the joy of oklahoma far and wide and been patted on the head for my efforts, I love a place that has their state pride practically stamped across their foreheads, on their overpasses, and on their bumper stickers.

Stay posted. Each day will come with its own set of victories and defeats, but that's the beauty of it.
When you work in an office all day every day, the biggest excitement you can hope for is a new coffee creamer in the staff kitchen. It's fun and pleasant and my office is such an uplifting environment, but "thrilling" probably isn't the word for any office.

I'm ready for a little adventure back in my life.

What a Networked Web We Weave

Never underestimate the power of storing minute details about your friends and family.

Some may call it hoarding, some call it having an internal encyclopedia, but ultimately, it works as a really great networking device: "How weird that you know that one really bizarre café from that really small town that my second cousin twice removed lives in! We're practically related!"

You know, except that you say it in a way that seamlessly convinces them that the world is the size of a bean and that, apparently, the gods ordained this moment. Which God probably did, but that's not the point right now.

My dad is the bomb at this.

For instance, we were once in Arizona in the desert.
Not like, how all Arizona is the desert.
The actual desert.

And my family and I were riding four-wheelers around and ran into this family with their trailer who offered us some of their homemade beef jerky and tabasco sauce because, you know, when in Arizona, eat questionable food from strangers.

My dad got his chat on with them and he and the guy realized that they had played against one another in fifth grade football.

...what.

This is like an on the reg situation. My father could find a connection in Timbuktu.
And people love him for it.

I also do not see this as a manipulation device but rather, using your assets to ease/speed up connection. They're going to like you (what's not to like?) they just need a little catalyst.

First business trip was last week.
12 Dallas schools in 2 days (read: exhaustion)

Did I mention that my predecessor in this job is unreasonably good at what she does? (read: intimidation)
I needed to make a good impression, in my own way.
Because I'm not like my predecessor. I'm like me.

You'd be surprised by what kinds of things you'll find in common with people if you ask the right questions.

For instance, on my trip, I ran into the old basketball coach from my high school alma mater (what??) and we reminisced about his favorite game coaching, at which I was a viewer. Bonded over our mutual fascination at one of the players from our opposition.

At another school, the dean heard that I'd just moved home from the UK, mentioned that his daughter has been living there, and where her husband (or friend) had just started a coffee shop. I happen to really like that small town and know for a fact that they have some salted caramel truffle that is to die for.

It was all just really fun. And a good reminder to never take any interaction or experience for granted. You really never know when you might be talking to your father's primary school football rival.