2020 “Be on the Road”

wildboom

If you don’t know me that well then you might not know that I like cheesy quotes. As we have started this new year and this new decade there is one in particular that has been on my mind. It goes like this:

“If you don’t know where you are going any road will get you there.”

I like that saying so much because I often feel like I have no idea where I’m going in life and there might not be a direction that speaks to me. Sometimes there is, but most often there isn’t and that’s okay. It’s not even that I need a destination and even if you do have one that’s not really the point. The point is to be on the road.

Another cliche saying talks about life as a journey and not a destination. It’s also been said as “The road is better than the inn.” They mean the same thing. In both, you can’t enjoy the journey unless you’re on the road. So even if you have no direction. You have to get on the road and you have to move forward. It doesn’t matter what road. It doesn’t matter if you take two steps forward and one step back. It doesn’t matter if you take one step a month. You just have to make sure you are moving forward.

There were times in my life where I thought I had it all figured out, but life is full of surprises. At the end of my undergrad at CMU, it was down to the last two for a graduate assistantship that would have paid for my entire master’s degree. I thought this was the plan. I was confident the assistantship was mine, but they gave it to the other person. The destination that I had been moving towards quickly became far less concrete. I had to think about whether it was something I really wanted to do. If it was free sure I’d do it, but when I was forced to slow down and think about it I definitely wasn’t confident enough to pay for it out of my own pocket.

Instead, I decided I would take the time to travel. It was the perfect time in my life where I didn’t have anything tying me down. I had a new direction. Part of that direction was pursuing Muay Thai fighting in Thailand. I always loved sports and this was my opportunity to pursue a sport seriously and without the restraints of a full-time job and the more expensive cost of living, I would have had in America. Then I got knocked out in a training round and bounced my head off the concrete suffering a concussion. That derailed my plans and made me really consider the dangers of the sport I was pursuing. It didn’t stop me from stepping into the ring and having one fight, but it probably stopped me from devoting a lot of time and energy to a sport with pretty severe long term consequences. Again the direction changed. This time I focused solely on traveling. I ended up having an amazing trip that spanned 7 months, 34 countries, and 4 continents. I saw so much. I learned so much and that made me really appreciative of what we have in America.

Those experiences abroad made me acutely aware of all the blessings we have and how I had taken many of them for granted. The power of an American passport, the power of being a native English speaker, the power of the American dollar and the ability to make a decent wage, and so many other things were on full display when I was traveling. The United States has given me so many opportunities and as a result, I wanted to do my part and serve. As soon as I got back I joined the Army National Guard. I made so many great friends through training and the Army has opened up so many opportunities for me.

If my original plan of grad school had worked out as I had planned I would have missed out on so many memories and experiences I can’t imagine living without. Instead, I stayed on the road and kept moving forward even if it was a different road than I started on. Now I’m one class away from my master’s degree except this time the Army is paying for it.

Now, as I move forward now into a new decade I have some plans, but in a lot of ways, I still don’t feel like I know where I’m going. But as I learned from the previous decade plans are prone to failure and destinations are always changing, but one thing is for sure. If you stay on the road and keep moving forward you will be surprised where the road takes you.

Big Personal Impacts in the Last Decade

  1. Started high school
  2. Started first real job at Dairy Queen
  3. Started wrestling
  4. Graduated high school
  5. Started college at Central Michigan University
  6. Started working in the college athletic department
  7. First solo trip to Nicaragua at age 19
  8. Bought my first house in the hood of Saginaw to rent out
  9. Graduated from CMU
  10. Bought a one-way plane ticket to Vietnam
  11. Trained Muay Thai and had a semi-pro fight
  12. Traveled the Transiberian Railroad
  13. Saw the Great Wall, Lake Baikal, Auschwitz, Berlin Wall, Eifell Tower, Mona Lisa, the Rock of Gibraltar, and other cool stuff
  14. Slept in the Sahara desert
  15. Sailed a crossed the Atlantic ocean from the coast of Africa to the Carribean (Canary islands to Antigua)
  16. Bought a house to live in, with friends, in Saginaw
  17. Joined the Army National Guard and got commissioned as an officer
  18. Army training and the friends I made
  19. Started training jiu jitsu
  20. Started my Master’s degree

Those are just some of the things that I accomplished in the last decade. I’m excited to see where the road takes me in the 2020s. God bless!

2020 “Be on the Road”

Summer’s Gone

wildboom

I have not done as good of a job at updating the blog as I would have liked, but I have an excuse and it’s school. I’m taking 18 graduate-level credits this semester and it is pretty draining. I am working towards my Master of Science in Administration with a leadership concentration. I only have so much mental bandwidth and unfortunately is goes to school instead of fun, creative thoughts that I might post here.

I have had some creative thoughts and ideas that I wanted to touch on here, but I really haven’t had time to really expand on them. If I do have some free time I try to spend it with family or friends and that’s what I’ve been doing.

All things considered, I’ve had a good summer! I had two weeks of annual training and then two and a half weeks of a warfighter exercise so I did lose about a month of summer to Army training. But I learned so much through those experiences and I made some good relationships. Aside from Army training and classes I made a couple of camping trips with friends and family and made it to a couple of weddings. Pretty recently I went tailgating in Wisconsin for their game against Central Michigan University and then this past weekend (10/12/2019) I went to Central Michigan’s homecoming and had a lot of fun with old college friends. Below is a mash-up of my summer photo highlights:

  • Saginaw Abandoned Train Station
  • Family Camping Trip in Ohio
  • Empire Bluff Trail
  • Camping near Sleeping Bear Dunes
  • Army Training
  • Not a great fisherman
  • Wedding
  • Party on McCarty gang
  • Abandoned house in Saginaw
  • Tailgating in Wisconsin
  • CMU Homecoming
  • Family Camping
  • Brothers

School has been going well and I actually had a really interesting emotional intelligence class during the summer. That class was actually valuable and I think I learned some stuff. For the most part, though I’ve been jumping through the hoops and not absorbing too much. I am a firm believer in Pareto’s principle which says that 80% of the result comes from 20% of the effort. An 80% is passing so if I can get away with 20% effort in the classes you better believe I’ll do it. Most of the classes are a waste of time anyway. If I want to be a better leader I would be reading biographies of great leaders and I would spend more mental bandwidth trying to lead as an officer in the Army National Guard. Instead, that mental bandwidth is going to classwork. As much as I complain about it I am excited that I’ve been given the opportunity to get a free master’s degree. Maybe someday it will get me where I want to go.

In lieu of my lack of creative thoughts, here is an assignment I did for a diversity class. I interviewed my Brazilian coworker Denis:

Diversity Interview

For the personal interview paper assignment, I chose to interview my coworker – Denis. Denis works as a welder at the guitar shop where I work. Denis is originally from Brazil where he met an American girl studying abroad. They fell in love and at first, she intended to stay in Brazil. However, Denis’s family encouraged him to follow her back to America where they believed there would be more opportunities for him. Denis doesn’t get to see his family much unless he travels to see them in Brazil. However, at the time of this interview, his parents had just left after visiting and staying with him for a month on their first trip to visit him in the United States.


Q: Growing up what was your perception of the work culture in Brazil? Do you think it was accurate?
A: “My perception of work culture in Brazil was that in order to do well, in whatever job it was, you needed to work hard. Growing up I watched my dad work hard and get ahead based on his work ethic. When I started working, I found that was true – hard workers were rewarded.”

Q: When you came to America what was your perception of the work culture? How has it changed since you’ve been here?
A: “When I came to America, I thought that you needed an education to; 1. Get a job, and 2. succeed. Now I know there are many jobs you can get without having an education but I think in order to really be successful in America, unless you get lucky, an education is necessary.”

Q: What are the biggest differences in work culture between America and Brazil and how do they affect you?
A: “I think the work culture in America is more easy going. People can have flexible schedules or time off depending on their situation. The pressure to work at a fast pace is less in America. Also, there’s not such a thing as a “sick day” in Brazil, unless you have a doctor’s note.”

Q: How did you feel when you worked with people from different cultures?
A: “I think it depends on the person. I’ve worked with Americans who are hard to get along with and I’ve worked with Americans who have become great friends. It really depends on the person, not their culture, I guess.”

Q: What were the benefits that you got from working with people from different cultures?
A: “Learning new working styles and understanding how someone else might approach a project differently from me.”

Q: What were the challenges that you faced with working with people from different cultures?
A: “Adapting to a different work philosophy was hard at first. In the beginning, language was the biggest challenge, obviously. Sometimes people don’t have the patience.”

Q: Have you suffered any discrimination or stereotyping based on your ethnicity?
A: “Yes, like I said before, some people are hard to get along with. If you’re having a bad day it’s easy to take it out on someone different from you. Or someone new to the company. Or someone you don’t respect for whatever reason. But that’s not only an American thing.”
Q: Has a shift in the US political climate ever caused any issues for you or does it cause any anxiety or concern?
A: “Not really. I believe if you came into this country the right way, you shouldn’t feel any anxiety or concern. I’m here legally, paying taxes like any American or other legal immigrant. I don’t use food stamps or government aid. That gives me peace.”

Q: Are there any obstacles that you have had to overcome? How did you overcome them?
A: “The language barrier took some time and practice. Also getting used to American customs – small things like greetings and goodbyes are different than in Brazil.”

Q: What was the hardest thing to adapt to when you moved to the United States?
A: “The climate was hard to adapt to because I came from a tropical country. Driving in the snow was tough at first. Being away from family and friends was hard and it never gets easier.”

Denis has faced discrimination as have many foreigners in America. However, Denis is able to take it in stride and stay focused on working hard and making the most of his opportunities here. He is fortunate to have the support of his American wife not only emotionally, but with a marriage visa. That makes his path to employment much easier than many less fortunate immigrants. Apart from dealing with discrimination and cold Michigan winters adapting to the language and the work culture has been difficult. However, Denis finds being away from friends and family the hardest, which is a good reminder that no matter where you are from there is always common ground and that our core values might actually be more similar than they are different.

…hope you enjoyed my homework more than I did! Hopefully, I can get back in the groove and think more creatively and post more often!

-Sam

Summer’s Gone

What’s New??

wildboom

Back in Michigan! I’m home. I’m chilling in Saginaw on a Friday night at my house right now. It feels like my life has been a revolving door of big adventures that have kept me uprooted and unable to settle. I’ve been back in Michigan for probably 5 weeks now and it’s weird. I’m here and I’m living a normal life again, or at least what constitutes as normal for me. I do know that there will be another definite uprooting adventure for me in the future. I’m waiting on a top secret security clearance, which typically takes a year, and then I’m off to military intelligence school for close to 5 months. That’s more like it. Typical Sam. However, in the mean time Saginaw is the spot apparently!

So what am I doing with my time? In keeping with always trying to stay busy and living life with a good sense of urgency, I’ve dived head first into a master program. What’s it in you ask? It is a Master of Science in Administration with a leadership concentration. So it’s essentially the most generic degree I could have chosen. So why did I chose it? Another good question, but I’ll tell you why. I get $6,000 an academic year for schooling through the Michigan state tuition assistance program. I can also get a 40% tuition discount at my alma mater Central Michigan University (FIRE UP CHIPS!!!) as a military member. So with a 40% tuition discount, my tuition rate is $340 a credit. That means I can essentially take 15 credits (well 17.6 credits, but most classes are 3 credits so really 5 classes for 15 credits) an academic year at zero cost to me! So I don’t know what I may need a master degree for, but I’d rather not be 35 and find out that I have to relearn how to school. Since I’m not that far removed from taking classes and it’s free I’m taking advantage of the benefit! But still why such a generic degree? Wouldn’t an MBA look better? Yes, I see your point but there is no 40% discount on the MBA credits. So there, that’s how I made that decision.

The summer semester is the last semester of the academic year with it resetting for the fall semester when kids typically go back to school. So in order to take full advantage of that $6,000 of state tuition assistance for this year I am cramming five 3-credit grad level classes into my already busy summer. This summer I have two 2-week training periods for the National Guard as well as weekend drills. I’ll be locked up in June at some point and then in August at another point for some good old fashioned Army training. Oh, I didn’t mention all my classes are online, and could potentially be at the global campus in Saginaw. So what am I doing to live? To stay alive and keep the lights on I’m back to work at the guitar shop. I work 10 hour days on Tuesdays and Thursdays and that gives me enough (so far) to support myself if I’m living frugally.

If that wasn’t enough, I’ve started a new hobby! I’ve been going to Jiu Jitsu 4 times a week since I got to Saginaw 5 weeks ago. With my wrestling background and other martial arts background it’s a sport that really suits me. I became pretty comfortable with the pace and technique almost right away. That doesn’t mean there still isn’t a lot to learn! If I roll with anyone who is more than a beginner it feels like I’m playing checkers and they’re playing chess! In Jiu Jitsu a black belt can often take over 10 years to achieve. There is just so much technique and muscle memory involved.

I started going because of a high school buddy who has been going for the last 3 or so years. He kicks my butt, but him and all the guys there are really great and easy to get along with. I’m really appreciative of being accepted into the gym culture pretty quickly. It’s nice to have a new group of guys to hang out with who have a similar interest. Also, my boss from the guitar shop goes a couple of times a week! How many employees get the opportunity to try and choke out there boss after work?! That’s pretty cool!

And that is what my summer will likely consist of! I had a couple of wedding to attend, but it looks like my National Guard drill weekends fall on both of them. We’ll have to play those weddings by ear, but that is part of the commitment I made! I’m excited to keep progressing in Jiu Jitsu, but I’m probably even more excited to finish these classes! I’ll update the blog with more adventurous things that will hopefully be happening in the future!

What’s New??