Dawn Is Me

It’s a high-flying flag. Think I’ll wave it.

*wave, wave*

There, that’s done.

I would probably be accused of being unpatriotic by a lot of people. That’s because I don’t drape myself, my web sites and my belongings in the American flag at every opportunity.

I’m not the type to wear patriotic undies, mostly because I just feel there’s something innately disrespectful about using the flag to cover your booty.

I express my patriotism in other ways.

Like not trying to weasel out of jury duty. Like participating in my community’s politics. Like being an active member of a political party. Like working to get candidates elected. Like running for office.

Hell, like voting.

The fact that I don’t have a Dodge Ram with an American flag and eagle painted into the rear window of the cab doesn’t mean a whole lot, on balance.

In other news …

I’m terribly depressed. Not clinically depressed … at least, I don’t think so. It occurs to me that I’m probably not in the best spot to make that diagnosis or lack thereof. I’m not lolling around in bed, unable to drag myself up, not getting anything done, etc., etc.

On the contrary, I’m spinning like a frickin’ top. If anything, maybe depressed isn’t the word for it. Maybe I’m just overwhelmed.

So, I bet you’re wondering what’s on Dawn’s docket?

Well, I’ve volunteered to be a major staffer on one local campaign and a county coordinator for a particular state-wide campaign. I shut down my newsletter for awhile but I’ve launched a weekly Blog Talk Radio show on top of my weekly podcast. I’ve taken on content supplier duties with two more outfits, in addition to the writing I do for Small Business Trends. I have accepted an extension of my service on the executive advisory board of a certain national organization for women business owners. I am planning another research project, the proposal for which I intend to submit at the end of this month. I’m also preparing to go back to school — Hartwick College, to be precise — in September.

I feel like I must be forgetting something in there.

On top of which is the usual dealing with the kids and feeding them and other stuff that falls under the general category of Being Mom.

Yeah.

Overwhelmed is probably a good way to describe it.

You know … now I think about it, I could do with my own Declaration of Independence.

It’s been awhile, huh? Did I leave you hanging? I’m sooooo sorry …

So, yeah. It’s Ricky’s birthday. He’s 13 year old now, officially a teenager (as he has reminded me about 16 times already today). Having survived season one of As The Teens Turn, Ricky doesn’t scare me.

He couldn’t possibly out-do Psycho Boy. No way.

To bring you up to date, I have not only decided to go ahead and go back to school, I have applied to and been accepted by Hartwick College. They even gave me a fairly huge, 4-year scholarship to get me started.

Come September, I’m going back to school! I’m totally jazzed!

Of course, if either Kimmie or Gina winds up going there within the next few years, it’ll get just a tiny bit bizarre. I’ll enjoy it and I expect which ever of my girls is there will also enjoy it.

The City of Oneonta, on the other hand, may take some time to recover by the time we’re done.

That’s about the best thing going on with me right now. Physically, my world has been circumscribed by the fact that I blew my knee while FIRMing in a hotel room in Rye, NY.

(And what was I doing in a hotel room in Rye, NY? I was working out, of course! Oh, alright … I was down there for the nominating convention of the NYS Democratic Committee, where we officially designated Andrew Cuomo as our candidate for government. No suspense involved in that one at all … but I digress.)

And I’m still very depressed, although I don’t really know why. You’d think, with me gearing up to head back to school (something I expect to thoroughly enjoy), that I’d be aux anges but I’m down in the dumps instead.

Of course, my domestic situation continues to go quietly and cheerfully down the toilet. That might have something to do with it. Oh well.

Of all the things they tell you are difficult in life, one thing very few people mention: transitions.

Being in a rut can be quite painful.

Starting all over again can be fun but frightening.

Getting from point A to point B … painful, frightening, logistically tough, lonely … you name it.

My hope is that I’ll start having fun again … later.

So, here’s my question of the moment: Should I go back to school?

This isn’t the first time that people around me have encouraged me to go back to school. I’ve attended some very first-rate universities but, for reasons into which I will not delve right now, I never finished.

Yes, it’s true. In spite of my obvious brilliance, I do not have a degree of any sort from an accredited 4-year post-secondary institution of higher learning.

That has never really mattered to me before. As I told my lamenting mom back when David was a baby, I haven’t been doing anything I needed a degree for and, if and when I decided to do something for which I’d need a degree, I’d go get one.

It’s possible that I’m at the point where I need to go get one.

That’s because I’m at the point at which I am conducting research studies, via one of the divisions of my company. All of the folks I’ve been dealing with around this research — and I’ve only just started actually writing papers, for the record — has been very encouraging and very ready to take me and my work seriously and very ready to let me know that they don’t care that I don’t have twenty-six letters after my name and I shouldn’t care either.

Except that I do care.

For one thing, I am aware that there is quite a bit about research methodology that I don’t know because I’ve never studied it. Besides that, without even a B.A., I feel very insecure about my work and tend to question my qualifications.

Anyway, one of said colleagues has been encouraging me to consider going back and getting that degree. The biggest difference is that, instead of getting a degree in Economics, which is what I had been thinking about, we talked about me getting a different social science degree.

Maybe Sociology. Or Modern Anthropology. Or even Psychology, in which I have always had an interest.

Given what I do, you might find those choices odd. But it’s all about the kind of research training I want. Right now, in the field of the microbusiness, there isn’t enough information out there for number crunching to be useful. Or maybe I have that backwards: there’s too much information out there for number crunching to be useful.

We don’t need to know what these tiny businesses do at this point. We need to know why they do it. That means surveys and interviews and stuff like that, as opposed to regression analysis and econometric models and stuff like that.

So, anyway, yeah … I’m thinking about going back to school. What do you think? Give me advice.