As with last year, I learned a lot about myself and what I’ve accomplished in 2011. It’s funny how the past two years seemed to have a theme: 2010 was all about going to Thailand, and 2011 is all about doing ballroom. It will be interesting to see what ends up being my 2012 theme. Hopefully some good things will come out of this coming year.

Well that’s it – my 2011 blogging journey. Thanks for coming along for the ride! Be sure to check out my other blog where hopefully I’ll be better about posting on a more frequent basis. Other than that, I look forward to posting again on this blog for #Reverb12!

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DAY THIRTY-ONE – One word. Encapsulate your hopes for the year 2012 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word.

My word for 2012 will be destiny.

Why? This coming year will be a pivotal one for me. Not to sound so over dramatic, but the decisions I make in 2012 will probably affect me for the rest of my life. I firmly believe in that.

What kinds of decisions you ask? Well the biggest one is where I will find a job. As relayed in a previous post, I’m crossing my fingers that somehow a school close to home will be hiring. After having that big conversation with Mike, and spending so much time with him this winter break, I’ve decided that I really want things to work out between us. I love him and want to spend the rest of my life with him. So if that means figuring out what would be feasible between the two of us, I’m willing to have that conversation. But, why oh why couldn’t there be any big research schools with a PR program in New Jersey? That would make things so much easier. *sigh*

2012 will also be when I take my comprehensive exams and start writing my dissertation prospectus. I have to decide how I will manage my time this coming summer and study while writing the diss. Luckily for me my friend Beth shared her schedule, and was very successful (and didn’t seem stressed out at all!) so I will definitely follow her lead. My only fear is that I will be uber burnt out by the time I get to that point, but hopefully taking a few days off after the end of the spring semester will get my back to my motivated self in no time!

And of course we can’t forget ballroom. I’m going to look to ballroom as my release when the stressors of the job market and comps and dissertation writing bring me down. I’ll just say, “eff it, I’m taking a break, and I’m going to dance for a couple hours!” I think this will work out very nicely for me. Plus I love my ballroom friends, and my partner, so that’s an added fun time bonus, haha.

So those are my hopes for 2012 – seeing where my destiny takes me. I’m excited to see what the future brings.

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DAY THIRTY – Achieve. What’s the thing you most want to achieve next year? How do you imagine you’ll feel when you get it? Free? Happy? Complete? Blissful? Write that feeling down. Then, brainstorm 10 things you can do, or 10 new thoughts you can think, in order to experience that feeling today.

Is it just me, or are these prompts getting a little redundant on my ambitions, and what I want to achieve the most this coming year? We all know that I want to get published and be a successful teacher and scholar. That’s old news. But I guess I’ll change it up a bit with two things I want to accomplish – one academically, the other more personal.

Academically, I would like to pass my comps with no revisions in Fall 2012. I don’t even need to pass with distinction – passing with no revisions is just fine for me. I will feel quite accomplished and relieved if I am able to do this. Here are ten steps to help me get there:

1. Get a good reading list together
2. Plan out a study schedule
3. Stay focused and on track
4. Outline, outline, outline
5. Don’t re-read everything, just the important stuff
6. Treat studying like a full time job
7. Study out loud with Melissa (my comps buddy!)
8. Practice answering questions
9. Constantly quiz myself
10. And most importantly, take weekends off! I still need to achieve that work/life balance!

Personally, I want to place in a ballroom competition this coming year. Don’t necessarily need to get 1st place – any ribbon will do at this point. I will feel extremely happy if I can achieve this. Here are 10 steps I can take to get there:

1. Practice as much as possible
2. Ask veterans for help
3. Practice by myself when Edd can’t make it
4. Take Dan Calloway’s classes (Beginner and Bronze)
5. Videotape ourselves and critique
6. Have vets watch us and critique
7. Stay in time with the music!
8. Perform, perform, perform…smile and sell it!
9. Perfect my technique
10. Write down every step and tip I am given

I just realized that I answered this prompt incorrectly – these 10 steps aren’t things I can do today to get myself feeling accomplished. But they are definitely things that I can do within the next couple of months to help me achieve these two goals for this upcoming year – and I am looking forward to working hard to achieve them!

DAY TWENTY-NINE – Awkward. What makes you squirm, looking back at 2011? Write about a moment in which you were uncomfortable, out of your comfort zone, or caught off-guard. Why was it so awkward?

Let me begin by saying that I can think of many many many awkward moments in 2011, some of which occurred within this past month! However, a lot of these awkward moments are at the expense of embarrassing someone else, and that’s not very nice. So I’ll make fun of myself instead and tell a tale that left me feeling mighty awkward…

As you might have guessed, this occurred at a ballroom competition. Ohio Star Ball, to be exact. We were gearing up for a full day of Latin dances.

I was wearing my hot pink dress, and had my friend Victoria safety pin the back and sides of my bandeau top to the actual dress. However, when I went out to dance the jive with my lovely partner Edd, little did I know that wearing a different strapless bra that day meant that my bandeau top would stay put on the back and sides…but not in the front!

Somewhere in the middle of the jive I felt the whole thing fall down, and surprise! my twins were shaking freely on the ballroom floor.

Luckily for me, the dress was able to cover the goods, so no extreme harm done, but we joked that it helped us get multiple callbacks.

So yes, I’d have to say, dancing the jive almost topless was a pretty awkward moment for yours truly. Let’s hope and pray that’s the last wardrobe malfunction I’ll ever have to deal with, haha.

Hey, watch that hand!!

DAY TWENTY-EIGHT – Future Self. Imagine yourself five years from now. What advice would you give your current self for the year ahead? (Bonus: Write a note to yourself 10 years ago. What would you tell your younger self?)

Since I am currently stressing out about the future, I’ve opted to write to my younger self. Thinking about where I will be five years from now freaks me out a little too much at the moment.

Rowena, circa 2001

Dear Rowie,

At this point you are 15 years old, blossoming into a young woman and relishing your high school years. As a sassy teen you probably don’t want to hear any advice from anyone, let alone your future self, but I wanted to take this opportunity to give you some words of wisdom as someone who knows what lies ahead.

So here we go – some things to think about for the next 10 years:

• Stop being a perfectionist. In about three years this will come bite you in the ass – you will get really sick your freshman year of college because you are so stressed about school. Calm down and realize that you don’t need to be perfect at everything. Just try your best – if you can tell yourself that you really gave 110%, then that’s all anyone could expect or ask for.
  
• Don’t be so hard on yourself. This goes along with the perfectionist thing. If you mess up and make a mistake, don’t think that you are an absolute failure and dwell on it for days, weeks, months. It’s not worth it! You are not going to be good at everything. You need to accept that, right out of the gate. Trust me, it will help you further on down the road.
• Make time to have fun. Of course this is a no brainer to a high schooler, but you will find as you grow older that you will become a workaholic and find it hard to make time for relaxation and fun. Make time for it! Not only will this help with your sanity, but you will make some nice memories too. And speaking of memories…
  
• Cherish your friendships. You will find that some friends will come and go. Some will be harder to let go than others. But you will find that there will be the select few who stick around. Cherish those people who care about you. Take time to give them a call, visit with them, hang out. These will be the people you will rely on when you need them the most.
• Learn from heartbreak. About three years from now, you will get your heartbroken. And it will be bad…and when I say bad, I mean really bad. It will seem like your whole world is falling apart. But I want you to know that things will get better. You will get over this person, move on, and find someone else that’s way better for you anyway. Don’t give up on love. It may really suck at the time, but take it as a lesson learned.
• Find your passion. Strive to do work in something that you love to do every single day. If it longer excites you, drop it and move on to something else that excites you, fires you up. Life is too short to be stuck in a job that you hate. Find what you are truly passionate about and find some way to do it.
• Never stop singing. As someone who will be a lead in all the high school musicals coming up, you may find it hard to believe that you would need this advice. But you will find that as you grow older life will get in the way, and you won’t be able to sing and perform like you used to. And this will make you very sad. So I’m telling you now to never stop singing and performing, even if it has to be in a small way. Find ways to sing, even if it means YouTubing karaoke songs on your laptop (don’t worry, you’ll find out what YouTube is later on).
• Be nicer to your parents. This is something you will continue to struggle with for many many years. I understand that they can get really annoying, and ask too many questions, or the same questions, or tell you to eat 5 million times a day, or creep all over your Facebook (another thing you’ll find out about later) and be all in your business, but you gotta realize that they do it all out of love for you. They have both sacrificed and worked so hard to help you get to where you want to be in life, so you owe it to them to be less snarky. I know it’s hard, but before you know it, they will be gone, and you don’t want to regret never showing them how much you love them, right?
• Don’t settle. This applies to all aspects of your life. Don’t take the “easy road” just because it’s easier. Go for that dream job. Find the man of your dreams, marry him, and have lots of little babies with him. Accept challenges head on that you face, and work your ass off to get what you want. You are too talented to settle for anything less than what you deserve. Never forget that.
  
• Take care of yourself. Stay healthy and active. This may seem like crazy advice, especially at this point of your life where you are in amazing shape, but you will find that as you grow older and move on to graduate school you will gain a few pounds and will get a little unhealthy with your eating habits. There will come a point where you can’t eat whatever the hell you want and not gain a pound from it. Your metabolism will certainly slow down. So start good habits early on and make better food choices. Exercise in any way that you can. You will be thanking me later for that one.

Well little one, that’s all the advice I have for now. Please believe me in saying that I am so proud of you, and can’t wait for you to see all the cool things that you will experience in the next 10 years. Embrace it! You have an amazing and wonderful life and future ahead of you. Live every moment to the fullest and with no regrets.

Your future self,
Rowena

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN – Action. You talked about ambitions earlier in the month. When it comes to ambitions and aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?

In my previous post, I wrote that my ambition was to become a successful teacher and scholar at a prestigious research university.

What’s the next step? Work hard and continue doing what I’ve been doing.

The “big three” that I need to excel in to get to my ultimate goal include Research, Teaching, and Service. Therefore, I need to:

• Work on getting manuscripts out for publication (and making them good enough to get accepted!). Pump out research that matters and makes a difference.
• Be the best teacher that I can be. Never forget about staying engaging and mentoring students the way my mentors have helped me.
• Continue with service at the University. Serve on committees and help out the Department and UMD in any capacity that I can.

Since I will be going out on the job market toward the end of 2012, it is crucial to get my CV where it needs to be over the next couple of months. I am thankful for winter break because it has recharged me and got me pumped and ready for next semester. I even had a very vivid dissertation-related dream the other morning that prompted me to wake up at 6:35 a.m. and start reading and searching for articles. If I can keep this momentum going, then I will hopefully have no problem taking those next steps to ensure that I am the best candidate possible.

However, there is now another factor that I need to consider. A tough conversation with Michael last night has brought to light that he would rather not be too far from his family. Which means that if I want things to work out with him, my ambition needs to change to: be a successful teacher and scholar at a prestigious research university…somewhere in the Northeast.

It stresses us both out just thinking about it, but I can’t help but worry about what the future holds. Luckily I study two fields (public relations and health communication) that are in higher demand with more jobs, but what if no one is hiring within driving distance of NJ? Would I ultimately have to choose between my relationship and my career?

These are tough questions to think about. But at the moment, since nothing is set in stone, the only thing we can do is wait and hope for the best.

DAY TWENTY-SIX – Try. What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2011? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it?

Next year, I want to try to get at least two more publications in before I go out on the job market. Bonus points if one is in The Journal of Public Relations Research. I wanted to get a pub into that journal last year but it didn’t work out. I submitted but unfortunately was rejected. Over the past year the acceptance rate has gone down, in an effort to reduce  backlog and increase the status of the journal. Whether it was bad timing or bad writing on my part, I was unable to reach that goal last year, but this year my plan is to produce manuscripts (single or co-authored, doesn’t matter to me) that could potentially be JPRR quality.

DAY TWENTY-FIVE – Surprise! What surprised you in 2011? Did you do something unexpected? Or perhaps some life event/milestone snuck up on you? How did you handle it? How did it turn out?

The best surprise I got this year was when Michael didn’t tell me he was taking off of work and drove to Maryland to spend time with me on our 5 year anniversary.

I was teaching a summer course that day when he gave me a call. He asked what I was doing that day and then told me that he was 20 mins away.

This was an awesome surprise because I didn’t think he would have been able to take off of work (this was back when he was still relatively new at the job). He picked me up from campus, and then we spent the day watching Lost and getting yummy foods at the local diner.

Even though it was a pretty low-key day, the fact that we got to see each other on our special day was all that I needed. Five years is a long time to be with someone, so it definitely warranted some sort of celebration!

I wonder what surprise is in store for our six year anniversary…?

A wonderful surprise indeed!

DAY TWENTY-FOUR – Gift. This month, gifts and gift-giving can seem inescapable. What’s the most memorable gift, tangible or emotional, you received this year?

The most memorable gift that I received this year was the gift of time with my boyfriend, Michael.

As previously mentioned, we haven’t been able to see each other as much as we have in previous years. Since I’ve been busy with school and ballroom, and he’s been busy with work and band stuff, visits have been a little more sparse.

So when we do get to see each other, I consider it the greatest gift because every moment spent with Michael is great! Whether it’s going to the Silk City Diner for my birthday, taking a tour of Citizens Bank Park, or just cuddling on the couch watching TV, I treasure every moment spent with him.

Being in a long distance relationship is really hard, and takes a lot of work. But when you do finally get to see each other, and spend time together, those moments shared are priceless. You can’t get any better than sharing the gift of time together. And this year, I am incredibly thankful that I am blessed with that gift.

DAY TWENTY-THREE – Core Story. What central story is at the core of you, and how do you share it with the world? (Bonus: Consider your reflections from this month. Look through them to discover a thread you may not have noticed until today.)

After reflecting on my posts so far, my core story is this:

I am a performer.

Here are the ways that I perform in my life and share my core story with the world. Let’s start with the obvious and work our way down:

I am a ballroom dancer. My newest type of performance, but something that I now can’t seem to live without. Ballroom dancing isn’t just about the technique and knowing the steps (though that certainly helps!). It’s about feeling the music, feeling connected to your partner, and selling your dancing. I’ve been told several times that couples have been called back despite mistakes because they were smiling the entire time. So you know that that means…jive face – ON!

I am a singer. No matter how much I love ballroom, this will never go away. Whether it’s singing karaoke in my basement with my parents, belting showtunes in the shower, or singing along to guitar strumming on roadtrips, I will always consider singing my #1 passion. Now if only I could sing and dance at the same time…?

I am a teacher. Ever since I started teaching back in 2008 I’ve always considered every lecture a performance. You think singing in front of a crowd is hard? Try keeping college students engaged at 8 in the morning! Over the years I’ve tried to make classes more interactive, by asking questions and including activities to keep students involved. Not only does it make things interesting all semester long, but it also helps with evaluations come end of the semester.

I am a scholar. With me planning on going on the job market this upcoming year, I need to bring my A-game on. Going on the job market can be considered a performance as well. I need to sell my research, sell my teaching, and demonstrate that I can be a colleague that others would want to work with for the next several years. This upcoming year will be all about prepping for the job market performance – I’m nervous, but I can’t wait.

I am a girlfriend. I must admit, I probably have not been performing this role as well as I should be lately. Michael and I haven’t seen each other as much as we usually do, now that I’ve found ballroom and he’s been busy on work trips and playing with his band. Now that I’m home for a couple of weeks I’m excited to spend some quality time with the man, reinforcing once more why we’ve worked these past 5.5 years.

I am a friend. I’m also trying to get this particular performance up to snuff, by contacting friends I haven’t seen in months. Last year I talked about how I am terrible at keeping in touch – and I must admit that this year hasn’t been any better. But I hope that soon enough I’ll catch up with old friends here in NJ and then come back to MD to pick up with my new friends. It’s an exciting year ahead in terms of friendships, that’s for sure!

And that’s my core story. I’m excited to see where it takes me in 2012.