I received my acceptance letter...

I received my official acceptance letter in the mail yesterday. I need to send an email to the admissions liaison to clarify the requirements. The letter stated that I will have to receive a 3.25 on three courses at the end of my first semester. But, I will only be going part-time and taking two courses. Hmmm…

I was pulled over by a police officer...

The Grad is on his way home Sunday night after doing laundry at his parents’ house. It is shortly after dusk when he makes his last turn to go down the road his apartment complex is on. He is talking to a friend and notices the infamous blue lights behind him. The Grad tells his friend he’ll call her back. He pulls over in the parking lot of Papa John’s and rolls down his window.


Officer: Good evening sir, may I see your license?
The Grad: Sure… (slightly frustrated)
(reaches for wallet to find license)
Officer: The reason I pulled you over is because your taillight is out.
The Grad: Oh it is? Well at least its not for a [speeding] ticket. (Gives officer license.)
Officer: No, no. We try not to give out tickets for taillights being out. You could have just replaced it and it could have gone out. Wiring get crossed up sometimes. Ms. Grad, I’ll be right back. (Walks over to police car and calls in license number.)

The Grad texts the friend he’d been on the phone with and thinks that the officer must have a lisp since he referred to him as “Ms.” He is slightly agitated and can hear the officer communicating with whomever it is that checks license numbers at the precinct. The officer begins approaching the Grad’s vehicle.

Officer: Here you go Mr.Grad. You’re all set to go. Try and get that taillight fixed as soon as possible.
The Grad: Alright. Thanks.
The Grad drives away and calls friend.
Friend: Hello?
The Grad: Ain’t this some bull…

The Grad and his friend talk about the incident. It's no big deal, but that's what they do anyway.

The End

Death in the Family

My grandmother's oldest sister died this morning. She lived in Ohio and was in her mid-70s. I didn’t know her that well, but she was family. I don’t think I’ll make the funeral. Rest in peace Aunt Pearl.

Glad I got that taken care of...

For the last few days I have been trying to take it all in and calm down. I had a moment on Saturday that purged a lot of the stress and burdens I’d been dealing with the last few months. So now I’m in that “exhausted-because-I-just-got-all-this-shit-off-my-chest” kind of phase. A great glass of wine and good night’s sleep will presumably do the trick but I have to wait for the weekend to do that. (I don’t want to mess it up by having to answer to an alarm clock.) But anyway….

Yesterday when I got home, it was time to do some cleaning. Generally, I keep a very neat and clean home. But recently, I had started slacking. I had laundry to put away, dishes that needed to be washed, mail that needed sorting, et al. As I was getting ready to vacuum, I picked up an envelope that was on the floor. And guess who it was from...my student loan lender. It was an invoice and I’d already missed my first payment. So immediately, I’m think “hold the hell up…this ain’t due for another few months.” I found the number to the lender and gave them a call. Of course there was no option to speak to an associate… just to pay. Umm so…I just kept pressing 0 until I got someone on the phone.

Now I’m for equality of all people and discrimination of none. I’m aware that other people need a paycheck just as much as I need one. But dagnabit....when it comes to matters of bills and student loans it is crucial that we both understand each other clearly over the phone. The associate had a heavy, heavy accent. All I know for sure is that I’m still under my grace period for one of my consolidated loans and that I’ll need to apply for a forbearance when its over, and that I have a forbearance for an additional loan that ends August 24, 2009…the day I start classes, at which point my student loans will automatically go back into deferment. How sweet is that?

And so the journey begins…

I consider myself to be a master of positive thinking. Worrying, complaining, doubting, and all that stuff…what good does it do? Gloria Naylor wrote in The Women of Brewster Place that “women are all always talking about what a man ain’t instead of what he is.” And that’s how I tend to look at things. What is...rather than what ain’t. It took a long and hard time for that type of thinking to embed itself into my mind in the form of habit, but it was worth it.

When I applied to graduate school twelve days after the deadline, I never once thought that I’d be rejected. Pursuing a degree in Communications felt ordained to me. One morning as I was on my way to work (before I submitted the application) I prayed to God to give me a sign today to let me know that I’m following Your will for my life and pursuing that which You want me to have. When I got to work a reminder popped up on my computer screen saying “What to Expect in Graduate School Seminar this evening at 5:30pm.” I’d completely forgot about the seminar that day and up until that moment wished I was in a bed rather than an office chair. One of the speakers at the seminar was the chairman of the College of Communications. I remember thinking, “Wow. Father, this must really be for me. Thanks for the sign.” And I held on to that thought…that this was for me…in spite of my less than stellar application…even now.

Today, I was just about to go on my lunch break when I decided to check my email. I’d been checking it five and six times a day since I’d submitted the application. This time there was an email waiting on me from the chairman of the College of Communication. I’d been accepted. Yep…you read right. I’ve been accepted to the Master’s in Media and Communication Studies program for the fall semester. Man…God is so good.

I received a provisional acceptance letter. What it is and what it ain’t. Because of my test scores I’ll have to take the GRE again and score at least a 950 and earn a 3.25 cumulative grade point average on my first three courses. I have that in the bag. In the last two years of undergrad I’d gotten my act together and was easily earning 3.5 and up each semester. And the GRE thing…well of course I’m not going to blow the roof off it when I only studied less than a week for it. I got an 880 on my first try and with some studying I’m sure I’ll surpass the blanket requirement of 1000.

I can breathe now. I can make plans. I wanted to start grad school in the summer, but things don’t always work out how we want them to, now do they? So, I have five months to enjoy and prepare. I’m going to enjoy working and living without having to take a class or write an essay. (I don’t think I’ve ever had that luxury.) But I’m also going to prepare. I’m going to read Fundamentals of Communication and work on my speech…speaking clearly, eliminating “umms” and enunciating “g” on words such as going, doing, believing…stuff like that. All that’s left for me to do now is convince my lender to defer my student loans until after I receive my master’s since they start in June. Wish me luck on that, lol.

One Step Closer

I heard back from the College of Communications admissions liaison…but let’s go back in time for a minute.

I finally received my GRE test scores on Saturday (when I couldn’t do anything with them besides look at them over and over). Let me just state that I really, really hope I get in because I don’t want to have to pay for that test again, let alone take it again. It cost $140 and I had to borrow the money from my aunt to pay for it. I have yet to pay her back…but I told her I was one of her investments and that she’d receive her dividends in a few years. And she will, she knows I love her.

But anyway, I walked the test scores over to the College of Communications because as of…umm…TODAY they still had not received them. So, this morning I took it upon myself to be proactive (and to settle my own anticipation). I wrote an email to the admissions liaison thanking her for how helpful she’d been (mainly to pump her head up, but she was helpful), asking if I needed to do anything else concerning the application, and when could I expect to hear something back since I was really cutting it close in regards to time and deadlines. I mean, classes start May 11 and I don’t have an acceptance letter nor am I registered for any courses. She replied to my email in a very direct and “cut-the-bull” response:

I received your scores and I should know something from the committee sometime next week. I will notify you by e-mail.

So, all I can do now is wait and hope for the best...

Not everything is a stereotype…

By now I’m sure you’ve heard about the incident with the Moats family…NFL player prevented from saying goodbye to his dying mother-in-law, the officer’s gun being pulled, the officer ego tripping, the police chief’s statement, etc....



Earlier this week, the couple, Ryan and Tamishia Moats, appeared on “Good Morning America” and talked about the incident. First of all, I was pleased to see another example of black love on display across the nation, albeit under heart wrenching circumstances. As Robin Roberts, asked the questions we wanted answers to, the Moats responded with grace and dignity, and said that they forgave the officer and will accept a personal apology (I may be paraphrasing but here’s the link to the interview http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Health/story?id=7204226&page=1).

Now I first heard about this incident last week. I saw the headline on a message board that I frequent, but skipped over it because I didn’t want to know the details of the depressing story at the time. I knew that it would make headlines and that I’d inevitably see it again. And I did. A few days later I went to get a haircut and it came on the television in the barbershop just as the barb…excuse me…stylist started working on my sideburns and neck with the razor. It was a lesson in self-control and self-mastery to say the least. The sounds of Ryan Moats’ pleads and frustration made me hot inside…I needed to do something…join in on the conversation about the incident with the other patrons, or tell what I would do if I’d been in the situation. But I couldn’t. Half of my face was covered in shaving cream and the other side was under a razor. And so the heat festered…and I had to fight back tears that decided they wanted to show up for the event as well.



I’m glad to say that I controlled my emotions during that experience. Not because I was afraid I was breaking some “Man” law, but because I need to learn to remain impartial when dealing with situations like these that I may come into contact with in the future when I begin my career. So, I capped off what I was feeling and slipped the emotions I was feeling out of me…bit by bit.

I have to give it too the Moats. If I was prevented from being at the bedside of a woman who was like a mother to me over some bullshit it would have take me a long time to remember was forgiveness is. (Of course I say that because it hasn’t happened to me and hopefully it won’t.) But with that stated, and after being in a state of spiritual vulnerability and being surrounded and uplifted by those with compassion on reserve, I probably would have been just as forgiving to that ass. I think I also would have rested well knowing that vengeance is the Lord’s and my, my, my, didn’t that officer get what was coming to him? Child…

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/sports/football/Most-Hated-Cop-Speaks-Out-on-Moats-Traffic-Stop.html

This blog was inspired by a discussion a friend and I had on the recent film “The Secret Life of Bees.” Now it was no masterpiece by any means, but I found it to be a charming and sweet (no pun intended) cinematic experience, and for the most part didn’t have any complaints about it. However, the friend that I was talking to about the movie thought otherwise. She is a woman of substance and supports causes to uplift the black community so I listen to what she has to say and welcome the intelligent discussions that we often have. She stated that the film supported the stereotype that black people are forgiving…now you know I looked at her sideways when she said that. “Forgiving…what do you mean by that,” I asked.



POSSIBLE MOVIE SPOILERS
She went on to explain that realistically black people wouldn’t act like the characters in the film. They wouldn’t be so forgiving as to allow a little white girl to live with them whose actions were associated with the death of their loved ones and so on and so forth…
END OF POSSIBLE MOVIE SPOILER

Of course I thought about what she had to say…and pondered the things she said; mainly that one of the stereotypes about black people is that we are a “forgiving” people. I don’t think that’s a stereotype. I believe it to be true. After all the shit the black race has been subject to we still are a forgiving people…and this could be related to the strong influence of religion and spirituality in our lives. More importantly, I think we all know someone who will remind us that we will be consumed by our hatred, feelings of victimization, and feelings of being slighted when we fail to remind ourselves of this time proven theory. Furthermore, the Moats…after their ordeal…forgave the officer who acted like and ass and kept it moving because they knew in the end that forgiveness was their strength, the past could not be changed, and that comeuppance would be just around the corner.