Hello again

Hello there! Well, it appears that it has been quite some time since my last blog...my apologies. Lots has happened since that last blog; however, so hopefully this will be informative, though it does have the possibility of being rather long.

Let's see...where to begin? Oh, at the beginning; naturally. So I went to Denver, Colorado a few weeks ago for an academic conference. The conference was reserved for masters and doctoral students in the fields of Industrial/Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, with the exception of some HUGE names in the field who gave keynote addresses. In any case, it was a good conference. I made some good contacts, my program did a great job with our presentations, and a good time was had by all. My group presented on cognitive ability and performance in police officers. Basically, we found data that leads to a conclusion that it is possible for police officers to be too smart for their jobs, but I think that could be the case with most jobs. Sound controversial? Indeed, we had many interested persons stop by to take a gander, ask questions, and give feedback, though no one alluded to the idea that we were wrong.

While in Denver we stayed at a decent hotel. Sorry to be vague here, but I'm not a fan of representing organizations that I'm not a member of and have no vested interested in, so I won't give names. Anyway, we had a few awesome shuttle drivers at the hotel, Rick and Bob, who made the trip that much better. They were both older guys, but knew exactly (or close to exactly) where all the hot spots were in LoDo (lower downtown) each of the nights we were there. Needless to say, they were the topic of many conversations both during our stay and for a while thereafter. [Sidenote: don't you hate it when people say "needless to say" and then go on to say whatever needn't be said? Irritating sometimes, though it's a habit that I have...sorry, moving on...]

Since I've been back from my conference life has been pretty standard. My colleagues are fighting with my university to get the money we were promised for the conference (the University said they'd give us X amount of money after we got back, but there is entirely too much red tape involved with actually getting that money - ridiculous). Otherwise, classes are going well and keeping me busy, as is work and securing my internship for the summer.

Hm...on a completely unrelated note, my internet sucks. Since we have been in our apartment my roommates and I have gone through two different internet companies. I'm not going to talk about my issues with internet and cable companies, so if you'd rather not listen, you might want to go about your daily business and skip the rest of this blog. The first company we purchased internet and cable from, and all was well in the world. That is, until our cable stopped working (though we were still paying for it). After a few months of arguing with the company, we canceled the cable and now have no cable; neat huh? Anyway, after that our internet began to go downhill, fast. So after a few more months, we canceled our internet with that company, completely severing our ties with that company. After that we signed on with a much more well-known company for internet, thinking that because of their name/reputation we'd have better internet; we were wrong. We are still with this company and just had the guy out here to fix it yesterday. It hasn't been 24 hours since he was here and our internet is already sketchy...again. Oh, and in lieu of cable we have Netflix (I know, I'm not a fan of brand "repping" but I view "netflix" as somewhat of a noun now, not really sure how else to describe it); not quite the same, but it works.

Ok, that's all that's new in my life. Sorry if you're bored to tears, hopefully something more interesting will come about soon. More to the point, hopefully I'll actually be able to blog more often; we'll see how my internet holds up.

Thanks again for stopping by. Have an enjoyable day, and be well.

Until next time,

J

What to Do?

What do you do when you want something so bad that you can't stand it, and yet there's nothing you can do to get it? It's not often in my life that I have such a feeling, but I seem to be having one more and more lately. For those who are familiar with the few posts on this blog, you'll remember that in the beginning I mentioned my girlfriend, T, who is in Iowa finishing up her bachelors degree right now. I, on the other hand, am in Virginia and am nearly half way done with my masters degree. The distance thing...well, it sucks, a lot. More than that though, is this feeling of helplessness that I find in myself. This scares me a little because it's not a feeling that I've ever had before.

In any case, I have this feeling and I can't seem to shake it. It's one of those situations that, given the opportunity, I'd drop everything to go back to Iowa and be with T, but that's simply not feasible right now. I have my work, work that's fairly important to my future and the occupational field that I'll be entering in just over a year. Similarly, she has her work that she needs to get done, and even if I were there, I feel as though I'd only get in her way and she wouldn't get anything done, thereby increasing her level of stress. I suppose then, that's why I'm still here and she's still there. Despite this understanding, the feeling remains. So what do I do?

Right now, and for the past...oh, it's been nearly a year now, it has been my prerogative that we stay as busy as possible so as to not be able to really understand how much we miss each other. That isn't working; we're both too busy as it is, and yet the pain of not being there is greater than ever. So then I thought, well, it might be good to see each other. Nice idea, right? Unfortunately the only amount of time that either of us can spare is a weekend, and there aren't any long ones left in the semester. Due to the expensive (both time and money) of travel, that's mostly out of the question. Additionally, it seems that seeing each other for such a short period of time might actually be worse than not seeing each other at all, as odd as that sounds.

So what do I do? I'm sitting here, feeling as though she's falling apart (if I can assume that the lack of me being there can cause such a thing), which stresses our relationship - a relationship that has the potential to be a lot more than it is, something that could potentially happen not too far from now. But in the meantime, what do I do? As I said, I feel as though I'm sitting here watching my relationship, and what's so much more important, T, fall to pieces, and there's nothing that I can do about it. I've tried staying busy and that doesn't work...so now my only hope is to muster through the remaining two months of this semester until I get to see her again.

Watching everyone else in relationships doesn't help either. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a selfish person, and I'm more than happy that friends of mine are in happy, healthy relationships, but that doesn't make my situation any easier. On the flip side, I see other friends (some of whom were in long-distance relationships similar to my own) whose relationships are falling apart, or have ended altogether. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand it makes me feel better that my relationship is still in tact - reaffirming my belief that it's strong and lasting. But on the other hand, it makes me think..."what if the 'rumors' about long-distance relationships are really true? What if they can't last?" And that, above all else, scares the living crap out of me.

So what do I do? Do I stop doing what I'm doing now, and disappoint myself? To be honest, that's not something that I'm not very inclined to do, and a small (very small) part of me thinks that T wouldn't want that either. Do I keep on going with my studies and risk disappointing T and losing my relationship? That's also something that I'm not inclined to do. Disappoint myself or T, or potentially both? Great situation you've gotten yourself into Jason...now if only I can think of a way to get myself, my girlfriend, and my relationship out of it all in one piece...