Thanks to this little guy.  I bought it about a year ago but only really started using it after the french press broke.  Lattes and Americanos on demand — I love it.

Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I had kept the scholarship…

“If you are a U.S. citizen and were born outside of the U.S., explain how you became a citizen. If this does not apply to you please note as NA.”

Okay, I’ve filled out the common app a few times and have never had to answer this.  To be honest, it kind of ticked me off.  I already told them I was a U.S. citizen, why the flip does it matter HOW I became a citizen?  If you don’t know, I tend to be a bit of a smart-ass when I get frustrated (I get that, and my citizenship, from my father), so my response:

“Jus Sanguinis.”

If they don’t know Latin (like I don’t) they can google it (like I did).  Jus Sanguinis means “right of blood” which sounds much better than “my dad is a citizen” and is certainly much easier than saying:

“Birth Abroad to One Citizen and One Alien Parent in Wedlock: A child born abroad to one U.S. citizen parent and one alien parent acquires U.S. citizenship at birth under Section 301(g) INA provided the citizen parent was physically present in the U.S. for the time period required by the law applicable at the time of the child’s birth. (For birth on or after November 14, 1986, a period of five years physical presence, two after the age of fourteen is required. For birth between December 24, 1952 and November 13, 1986, a period of ten years, five after the age of fourteen are required for physical presence in the U.S. to transmit U.S. citizenship to the child.”

Consequently the same policy is what kept me from being able to claim dual-citizenship.  Italy is one of those countries that does not grant citizenship by jus solis (right of the soil), only by blood.

That’s it for today’s citizenship lesson.

“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” –  Phillippians 3:20-21

Now to reward myself with food

I have 184 messages to read…

This is why nobody used their student e-mail account.  Well, that and the ridiculous e-mail addresses they gave us: z_jamespj@titan.sfasu.edu.  Apparently in 2000 we weren’t worried about identity theft — my student ID was my SSN.

Yesterday I decided to spend the day in Jacksonville being a photographer’s assistant for my buddy Jinx.  He had a gig shooting school photo’s for the pre-school at Central Baptist.  From this experience I confirmed two things:

1 - I really want to have kids some day.

2 - I don’t have the patience to be a pre-school teacher.

Honestly, it was like herding cats at times.  It takes a very special kind of person to deal with OTHER peoples kids all day.

I had a pretty good run earlier today — great weather for running!  Now I’ll proceed to spend the rest of the day buried in HTML and PHP and other acronyms that will hopefully keep me self-employed (while watching Discovery Channel).

I love reading the facebook statuses that now read something like “trying to remember that God is still in control.”  If you, Believer, are now deflated by the nation’s choice for president, then you have bigger problems.

God never promised that our government would save us, or was even for us.  In fact, scripture tells us the opposite.  I really did struggle with my decision to not vote but found peace about my decision a few months ago in 1 Samuel 8.  Israel decides they would rather have a king to put their trust in instead of their God; and He allows it, but not without warning Israel what they were choosing.

I accept that by most people’s standards, I have “no right to complain” because I didn’t vote.  I have no need to complain.  I have no faith in government regardless of race, gender or political party.  This election is in no way a “loss” for Christianity or the Church, nor would it have been a “win” had it gone the other way.  My faith is in Christ and his bride, the Church.

I’m convinced that RSS feed readers are responsible for the degradation of the blogging community.  While convenient, feed readers restrict creativity and reduce the blogging experience to merely reading text on a screen. Reading the blogs of your friends via a feed reader is like reading a book on the computer — cold and mechanical — as if to say only the content (and not the form) matters.  A person’s blog, much like a book, communicates through its structure and design as well as the written word.  The templates we choose (or choose to design) are an extension of the words we write.  This is why I vow to visit your actual blog from this day forward.

Research has (probably) shown that a reader is 10 times (+/- 10) more likely to provided feedback on your blog when they visit your site instead of reading your posts through a feed reader.  Visiting blog sites has also been known to lower your risk of heart disease and increase energy levels (when done on a treadmill).

Will you join me in visiting the blogs of your friends?  Will you choose comments over convenience?  Together, we can change the (blogging) world.

Or, download his “Election Edition” of Mockingbird for free (or for whatever you want to pay) at www.noisetrade.com.  Fair trade music, what a refreshing concept.

My career goals haven’t really changed — I still want to teach at the college level — but I’ve been re-evaluating how I’m going to get there.  My initial plan of working in higher ed. until I can earn my degree(s) just isn’t working out for me.  Also, I’ve had a shift in teaching interests which has me starting from scratch on choosing a master’s degree program.

I’ve decided to try my hand at freelancing full time.  I’m actually more at peace about this decision that I thought I would be.  I had an interview scheduled with Lon Morris College last Friday (which pretty much was a done deal) but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  I just couldn’t see myself taking a job that wasn’t going to get me to where I wanted to go.  Sure, it would have been a stable income, but people should LIKE what they do for a living, right?

So, Part 1 of my new plan is to focus on building up a client base and pile up some cash.  To supplement the unstable freelance income, I’ll be looking for a part-time job.

If Part 1 wasn’t exciting enough, Part 2 should be!  Over the past few months as I’ve been running, my fascination with health, exercise, and fitness has been rekindled and now I’ve become consumed by it.  I’ve often thought “It would be great to have a job where I could wear athletic clothes all the time; like a personal trainer.”  Well, I’m now at a point where that could become a reality!  There are a few gyms in the Tyler area that are looking to hire certified personal trainers, so I’ve begun looking into becoming certified.  I really like the Cooper Institute’s certification program and will probably go that route.

Now for Part 3.  I’ve started looking into graduate programs at the University of Texas at Tyler.  Specifically their M.Ed. in Health & Kinesiology.  Unfortunately, I’ll probably have to take some undergraduate leveling courses since my undergrad is in Speech Comm and I chose physics and astronomy as my two science courses.  I hated biology and chemistry in high school which is why I avoided them in college.  At that time I really didn’t care about cells and chemical reactions but now I can’t get enough — in the context of health and exercise of course ;-).

So there you have my 3 part plan.  I’m excited to see how all of this pans out!

Oh, and when you get some time, check out my latest web project — LIFE, Inc. — at www.lifeleading.com.

My buddy Todd knew that I was feeling down and asked me to play bass with him tonight for the youth service at Bethel Bible.  Or maybe he just doesn’t know any other bass players in the Tyler area…  Well, he’s buying me dinner so that will make up for it in case it is the latter.

Want to watch us play?  Check out Todd’s Mogulus channel at http://www.mogulus.com/toddchannel.  Maybe like 6ish?  I don’t have a clue.  Maybe Todd knows…

The day I decided to start running again in April, I opened the door to the level of fitness I have today.  If you run, you’ve heard it before;  “Oh, I could NEVER run that far” or “I can’t even run ONE mile” as if to say that runners were born with super-human abilities that enable them to do things the “average” person cannot.  If you don’t run, I’m probably talking about you. That day I opened the door to running my first 10k in August.  That day, and every day since, I have been gradually opening (and sometimes closing) the door to running my first half-marathon in December and my first marathon in February.

Every day I have to make a decision, “Do I want to run Boston or not?”  I never really phrase it that way;  it usually sounds like “Am I going to run today?  Am I going to make sure I eat enough today?”  I’ve started to see that running doesn’t have to be my obsession to reach my seemingly impossible goals.  I just have to make some trade-offs.  Instead of sleeping in, what if I went for a run?  What if I went for a run instead of spending the evening watching TV and surfing the net?  Those little trade-offs (which will eventually develop into habits) will start to add up to some serious mileage which in turn will open the door to more satisfying finishes on race day and eventually take me all the way to Boston… and beyond?

Kouzes and Posner quote Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard who says “the human being is the only animal that thinks about the future.”  I’ve tried to get into running before with marginal results.  I focused on what I had done in high school and college, but never really thought about where I wanted to go.  This resulted in half-hearted efforts which lasted a few weeks.  Now, with my eyes on a seemingly unrealistic goal, I’ve run farther and faster than I ever have before and have the motivation to continue to climb this mountain.  Ziglar says “the only way to coast is downhill.”  What are your goals?  What are your dreams?  What do you want to be when you grow up?  YOU get to play an active role in shaping your future!  What are you doing today that will open doors for you in the future?  What are you doing today that is closing the door on a dream or a goal?

Oh, and I set a new 5k PR today!  I ran the Tyler Half/5k today which makes me 6 for 6 on running a race every month.  It wasn’t my goal of 21 minutes, but at 22:43 22:38, (waiting on the official results) I was just quick enough to sneak in a second place finish for my age group.

“If the author uses a word in one meaning, and the reader reads it in another, words have passed between them, but they have not come to terms.  Where there is unresolved ambiguity in communication, there is no communication, or at best communication must be incomplete.  Just look at the word “communication” for a moment.  Its root is related to the word “common.”  We speak of a community as a group of people who have something in common.”

After I read that, I immediately began to consider it in context of the Church.  The Church is a community of people who have one thing in common;  faith in Jesus Christ.  We come from every age, race, ethnicity, and socio-economic background, yet we (the Church) all have the same thing in common.  If we look at local churches as being a part of the greater Church, then they all should be equal.  If the local body professes faith in Christ and evidence of this faith is present (the fruits of the Spirit), then the Baptist church next to the Pentecostal church next to the Bible church are all equal.  So, then how do I choose a church to be a part of?

I’ve wrestled with this for the better part of this year.  Could I be so arrogant to think that I will choose the “best” local church?  Is there even such a thing?  If they are a part of the Church, as I am, does anything else matter when it comes to deciding on a church?  What if I could look past all of the differences and see the one true commonality — I think it could make all the difference.

I’ve been considering proximity as my main factor, which should be interesting.  The four churches within a mile of my apartment (why so many??) are, in order of proximity: First United Pentecostal Church, Vineyard Christian Fellowship, Glennwood Church of Christ and Rice Road Church of Christ.  Definitely out of my comfort zone.

One day, we’ll all focus on being the Church instead of going to church.

I’m officially in Tyler now, using up my remaining vacation days from UNT and doing a little web work to keep me busy.  It has been great not having to work during this transition because it has given me the time to get my life sorted out.  I’ve already scouted out the neighborhood and found a few great running routes with some really good hills; this fall is going to be great for running.  I’m running another 5k in October at the UT Tyler campus and I’ll be shooting for a new PR of 21:00.  We’ll see how that goes.

Something really cool happened to me yesterday as I was moving out of my old place.  I was planning to donate my old bed to the Salvation Army (because they would pick it up for free) but they showed up 2 hours early yesterday and I missed them.  As I finished cleaning out my old place, and as it neared 5:30 (when the apartment office closed), I was getting desperate to get rid of this bed.  I couldn’t stomach the idea of throwing a barely used bed away so I walked across the breeze way with intentions of knocking on doors until I found someone to take it.  The first door I knocked on I asked the guy if he could use a bed.  Well it turns out he just moved from Mexico and didn’t have any furniture.  What are the odds of that?  He was shocked at the idea that a stranger would give him something like this for nothing and insisted that he give me something for it, so I traded my old bed for a Mountain Dew.  Isn’t God awesome?  When we loosen our grip on our stuff (and it really IS just stuff) God can put us in situations to bless other people.  That definitely made my day.

So you may be wondering, “If you gave away your bed, what are you sleeping on now?”  Enter bedinabox.com.  This All-American company is awesome.  I bought a queen-sized 11″ memory foam mattress with a goose down cover and it is absolutely amazing.  And at $499 (200 bucks LESS than the current price) it didn’t kill my savings account.  Check them out — you deserve it.

That’s it for now.  Later.

Yesterday was my last day at UNT and to punctuate the end of my time in the North Texas region, I ran a 5K today.  With hurricane Ike nipping on our heels, the great people of Sanger, Texas came out to put on the 30th Annual Sanger Heritage Sellabration and 5K run.  Bad pun aside, it was a refreshing event, reminding me of my college days in a small town.  As the community was setting up tents and tables to sell their crafts roughly 40 runners gathered at the starting line.  With such a small field I was a little concerned about pacing, and getting lost.  Within the first quarter mile I was in about the 7th position.  I would hold this spot for about the first half when I started to pick up my pace.  I finished 5th overall and actually won my age group while also setting a new PR!  23:27 which was a 7:33 pace; I’m happy with that, but I can (and will) do better.  I’m just glad that none of the faster 25-29 year-olds decided to run this one

Now begins my vacation before I start my new job, that I don’t have yet.  No worries though

Me and my brother leading worship in Belize back in 2005.  I like to play the guitar upside-down to create a nice mirror effect in pictures.

“Stephen F. Austin State University
Nacogdoches, Texas

Be it known that
Paul Jeffery James

having successfully completed the Course of Study as prescribed by the
Faculty and Board of Regents and having complied with all other
requirements of the University, has been declared a

Bachelor of Science

and is entitled to all rights and privileges pertaining to that degree.
In testimony whereof, the Board of Regents, upon recommendation of the
Faculty, has granted this Diploma, bearing the seal of the University.
Done this the fourteenth day of May, Two Thousand and Five.”

First of all, I had no idea what my diploma really said, especially the part of being “declared a Bachelor of Science”.  It makes sense I suppose;  I earned a bachelor of science degree, therefore I would be a Bachelor of Science.

Can anyone now tell me what “rights and priviliges” I am entitled to?  Can I show this thing at Starbucks and get a free latte?  Did I miss something at my graduation (that I didn’t attend)?  I’m really looking forward to becoming a Master of something someday.  What does yours say?

Thanks for participating in my little quick poll — I’ve got some ideas floating around in my head and needed some real life input.

So what do they win?  They get to find out my “big news” before anyone else… that is unless you are not one of the above mentioned and are reading this post prior to their reading it.  But how would we ever know?

I’m moving… to Tyler, Texas!

The last few months have been very frustrating for me work wise, and church wise which has not been good for me physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually (hey, that’s MOST of Dr. Towns’ “Life Quotient Formula”!).  After a lot of careful thought and prayer I made the decision to head back to East Texas which is where my heart is.

So what will you be doing in Tyler?  Good question!  I’m still working on the whole job thing.  I’ll let you know more when I know more.  I feel my calling is in higher education and my ultimate goal is still to teach, so whatever I do it will be closely related.

That’s it for now — more details to follow.

Anyway, no news on the big news just yet.  I CAN give you a hint though:  it may or may not involve space travel…

I went for a run yesterday because it had been entirely too long since my last run and I’m paying for that laziness today.  I might get out for a quick jog today; the weather is just too perfect to pass it up!

Quick survey please: From what I can gather, most of my readers either are in college (Uni for my international readers) or have graduated from college.  If this is you, could you answer a few questions for me?

Why did you choose the school you are at/graduated from?

When did you make this decision? (at what age or year in school)

Do you feel you received/are receiving a quality education in respect to what you paid/are paying? (Are you getting your money’s worth?)

This last one is for everyone:

What percentage of Americans do you think hold a 4-year degree? (Not looking for what google thinks on this one).

Your participation is greatly appreciated and may influence the timeliness of the revealing of my “big news”

In other news, I took a week off of running after my 10k — not because I needed it but because I’m lazy.  I’ve got the next race lined up, a 5k in Sanger on Sept 13.  I might have a shot at placing at this one if all the 24-29 year old Denton guys stay home.

I’ve got some exciting news coming soon — as soon as I find out what it is I’ll let you know

In addition to the added sense of community, students have noted that larger classes make it easier to learn.  “I’m not worried about getting called on in class or being required to participate — it’s not really my learning style.  I feel I learn more when I can just listen to the lecture and take notes”, said one student.  “Sometimes I don’t even have to go to class because I can get the lectures online now.  This is a real plus for me with my busy schedule.”

The new classroom will cost approximately $10 million dollars to complete and will include a number of amenities to aid in learning such as plasma screen T.V.’s and stadium style seating.  The University hopes to secure the needed funds by asking each student to commit to donating an undetermined amount of money each month for several years.  “We don’t want to say how much it will cost each student because each student is different and we hope they will seriously consider how much they will be able to contribute over the next 3-5 years.”

Sounds absurd?

If “bigger is better” doesn’t work in the classroom, why do we think it works for the Church?

Even better than the race was the food after the race.  It seems the longer the distance the better the food.  I’m not usually one to partake in an ice cold beer at 9am, but it was free, and it was a light beer, and I had just run a 10k… It just seemed right

My coworker and running buddy John ran this one too and also met his goals — so now we’ve got a half-marathon in our sights.  This is what I’m thinking: I can run the half at the Dallas White Rock Marathon in December and then run the Cow-town Marathon in Ft. Worth in February!  THEN I can train and run the full in Dallas in December 09 to qualify for Boston 2010.  I’ve got 4 years to make it to Boston (I want to run Boston by the time I’m 30), but I think I can do it in 2.

Anyway, back to work tomorrow — this little “win” will definitely help carry me through what is sure to be a very busy week.

This is my 2003 Giant Rainier that has been in my brother’s storage room for the past two years.  Needless to say, I haven’t ridden it in a while.  There was a time in college when I really got into trail riding — I remember when Josh, Drew, Ken and myself road Raider Trail (which is in the woods across the street from the coliseum) at night, with no lights.  That was actually pretty stupid, but that’s what college is all about, right?

Anyway, this has been a very much needed break from work — I have been beyond frustrated with work lately and this weekend has been great for re-energizing and re-focusing.  Sometimes you just have to get away to gain some perspective.  The last part of that is most important.  If we just get away to escape and don’t learn anything, we’re going to get back to find the same old problems and frustrations staring us back in the face only now they’ve grown and we haven’t.  A vacation isn’t a break from reality — that’s not healthy — it’s an opportunity to regroup, re-organize, and prepare to jump back into the fight.  Bring it on!

Leading Your Students to Academic Success

You have most likely heard the adage “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”  A college professor of mine would always add the phrase “but you can salt its oats.”  With the addition of these six words we now have a suitable analogy for academic advising – we can lead our students to the waters of academic success, but we can’t make them drink; but we can create an encouraging environment that will enable students to take action.

Leading Your Students

While advisors seldom have formal leadership roles, an advisor is most certainly a leader.  Oftentimes management is confused for leadership, but leaders have a much different role than managers.  Leadership can be defined in one word – influence.  Bennis and Nanus describe managing as having charge of or responsibility for and leading as influencing and guiding in direction, course, action or opinion (2003).  Advisors have a tremendous opportunity to positively influence their students in ways which faculty and other support staff cannot.

The goal of an advisor is not merely to ensure students have an understanding of University requirements, but to enable them to make decisions that ultimately lead to their success.  What the student does as a result of the advising session indicates, to a degree, the effectiveness of the advising session.  A “win” in advising is not whether or not a student comprehends a list of requirements, the “win” occurs when a student applies what they’ve learned.

Enabling Students to Take Action: Salting the Oats

While the responsibility of action falls on the student, the opportunity to motivate and encourage a student to act is given to the advisor.  Kouzes and Posner state “Leaders take actions and create conditions that strengthen their constituents’ self-esteem and internal sense of effectiveness” enabling them to “make tough choices, to face opposition and the like because they believe in their skills and in their decision making abilities” (2008).  Succinctly put, leaders empower those they lead to make good choices.

How will you know if you are leading your students?  The end result of management is compliance.  The result of proper leadership is empowerment.  “Leadership stands in the same relationship to empowerment that management does to compliance.  The former encourages a “culture of pride,” the latter suffers from the “I only work here” syndrome” (Bennis & Nanus, 2003).  Evaluate each appointment.  How your student responded to the session will give you valuable feedback that will help you grow as a leader and as an advisor.  Additionally, check out the books referenced in this article to maximize your leadership potential.

Bennis, W., & Nanus, B. (2003). Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge (Harper Business Essentials). New York: HarperCollins.

Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2008). The Leadership Challenge (The Leadership Practices Inventory). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Today I signed up for the Hottest 10k – I’ve never run a 10k but I think I’m ready, or I will be by August 24th :-).

My watch is telling me I need to run more.  I’ve got a Suunto T3 which serves as my heart rate monitor and mini training log.  Every time I log a run it calculates all sorts of stuff and based on the number of runs I do, it calculates my activity level.  Well, I haven’t been running very consistently and yesterday it politely asked me after my run if I’d like to reduce my activity level from 6 to 5 ( a 6 being 1-3hrs of aerobic activity a week and a 5 being 30-60 minutes).  Feeling a little defeated, I conceded — I’m a 5.

She’s right though, I need to run more — I just wish it didn’t have to come from my watch…

Just say no to debt! You don’t need it. It’s not going to fix your problems and neither will a new president. You don’t win with money by buying things you can’t afford. You don’t win with money by borrowing it. To win with money (or at anything in life) requires a change in your habits: refuse to borrow another dime, develop a written budget and stick to it and quit buying things you can’t afford!

YOU are the answer to your problems, which is a good thing because you can’t change the government but YOU can change YOU.