Draggin'

There are times when school helps me to feel as if my life has some purpose and meaning; I feel like I'm on a path to figure out what the best use of my remaining time on the planet might be good for. Then, there are times when I can't figure out what the hell I was thinking. This is one of those weeks.

The last couple chapters of the Argyris book were well nigh impossible to stuff in my brain. I was already fried from writing all weekend. Now we have a presentation to prepare, and I'm pretty burnt out. Our next teacher already sent us the syllabus for the next class, and it's a doozy. Lots of reading before the first class, lots and lots of writing. Much more writing.

Sometimes the artist part of my brain chimes in and says, "what the hell are you doing here in organizational corporate land? This is not your ouvre." Sometimes I'm inclined to agree, but then I remember how much I dislike the life of an "artiste", and how much more of my time I spend obsessing over stupid shit when I'm less engaged in work/life.

More Critical Thinking

I continue to really like my Critical Thinking class. The workload has been a bit scary, we have an ongoing personal project, a group research paper and presentation (I just finished writing my part), weekly reading and essay questions pertaining to it. The research paper has been the scariest part. I've never written a real one, and I've never done a group project. Group projects are difficult at best, my team has been good, responsive and we've worked through any tension that's emerged, but it's still really hard to coordinate on a project. This is a good time to try out my fun new terminology: Espoused Theory and Theory-in-Practice.

Espoused Theory is what you believe, Theory-in-practice is what you actually do. They do not always meet up. I believe a teacher's espoused theory in assigning a group research project is to create a group dynamic and force people to work together constructively. I think the theory in practice is the professor does not want to read 14 research papers. Just a guess. The research group dynamic is different than a group project dynamic in the work place. We are all responsible for a huge part of each other's grades in school, at work it's just one project of many, and usually somebody (often me) will take on the responsibility to make sure it doesn't suck. I think our project is going to come out well, but it's been really hard to narrow down our topic (ethical business practice in corporations), and things keep shifting. Even if we don't do fab on it, I'll be happy for the feedback, since I wrote half of it. But I think we'll do okay, my writing partner is pretty experienced and seems satisfied so far.

I do wish it had been a 2 or 1 person project, but I guess my big struggle in the world is learning to tolerate ambiguity. Really not my strong point. Hello Buddhism.