It has been awhile since I posted. Though not intentional, I do admit my life in the United States does have the same excitement I feel that it did in Japan. Still, here are some updates of what has been going on in my life:

I helped The Digger move into her abode in the town of Berkeley, California. Going to Berkeley is a lot like traveling back in time to the 50's or 60's. Many of businesses are locally owned, understated store fronts and signs abound, car dealerships do not have the large expansive parking lots we have become accustomed to, and what would any college town be without its share of homeless people. The Digger's apartment is on the 3rd floor of a small apartment building with a parking garage underneath. In the event of an earthquake, she may survive, but the Civic would be toast. 

  

For those of you who frequently drive the I-5, the Apricot Tree Diner on Panoche Road near Fresno is a delight! The food is pretty bland, but gawking at all of the old tin lunch boxes more than makes up for it.

Driving a 14ft U-Haul truck through the Mojave desert is murder on gas mileage...I got less than 10 between Needles and Barstow where we spent the night. With me in the truck and The Digger in her fuel efficient Civic, I envisioned us as pioneers crossing the desert with me driving the covered wagon and her riding the pony. 

I want to give a warm shout out to the civic leaders of Berkeley who recently voted to shut down the U-Haul service centers in Berkeley city limits. YOU ARE A COLLEGE TOWN! PEOPLE WILL BE ARRIVING THERE IN U-HAULS!! 

During a pit-stop at the Flying-J Trucking Center in Kingman, AZ, I was offered the graduate assistant position in the Extended Campuses (formerly Distance Learning) Service Center (via cell phone of course). In the interview, my general responsibilities were described as supporting the program coordinators, responding to student inquiries in the service center, and supervising the student worker staff. Since starting a week ago, my major accomplishments have been updating the department's online directory and hauling 14 bags of shredded paper to the recycling dumpster. 

I guess that is all I can think of right now. I know I should post more often, but life happens. 

10 Things About My Week

1. In the past year, I have had several friends endure battles with Cancer. Because of this, and to support them in some way, I have decided to grow my hair out and donate to the Locks of Love charity, which makes wigs out of human hair for cancer patients. I don't know what it will look like when my hair is 12in long, but I'm sure I will look something like Chris Farley from the "Wayne's World" movies. 

2. I have started morning mediations on the back lawn of the house. I went cycling on Monday or Tuesday of this week and afterward felt the need to stretch and meditate for awhile. It was really great and helped me focus, so I'm going to keep doing it. 

3. The monsoon rains have returned to Mountain Town after a week of 90 degree heat. Hopefully I didn't kill any of The Professor's plants. 

4. Group Processes is going well. Something got stirred up inside me and now I need to go to Montana in August to fix it. Should be a fun road trip is Mrs. Pitt can accompany me. She may even get to see real American cowboys. 

5. Spent some time the last two days at the Celtic festival. I don't know what Japanese katana swords, friend chicken fingers, and Guinness beer have to do with Celtic culture and history, but they were selling them there. They even had pirates. 

6. Kozue's wake up time has digressed to "anytime I want to go in and wake her up" since she is impervious to alarm clocks or other arousal devices. 

7. No progress on the Hawaii trip for Kozue and I. I just haven't wanted to work on it. 

8. I was making lots of my pumpkin spice bread until we ran out of chopped walnuts and the food processor doesn't want to work for me. I guess I'll wait until Momma Pitt gets home and she can show me how it works. If they say it's broken, I'll question as to why they kept a broken appliance in the house. 

9. It is possible to get a sandwich from Crystal Creek Sandwich Co. and get back to school in 10 minutes or less. 

10. Still no money from my Primerica job, but I'm working on it. 

Highlights From the Week

1. Every Thursday a group of Pro-Life protesters gathers outside of the Planned Parenthood clinic next to the restaurant where Mrs. Pitt works. One of these days I'm going to have to stand out there with my Pro-Choice poster, which I think will say something like "Legal Abortion Saves Lives!" 

2. After busting my butt last semester to get a 4.0, I have been coasting through my summer courses and still doing well enough to get A's. Of course it helps that the grades are based on my demonstration of certain counseling skills than memorization or papers. I think all graduate courses should be summer classes. That way, only 1/3 of the class content is actually covered! 

3. I recently had an editorial letter published in the local Flagstaff paper. My letter was about the absence of marching bands in the 4th of July parade. I was immediately flamed by people accusing me of being selfish, self-centered, ignorant about the work involved of putting a band together, and insensitive to the financial needs of high school and college band instructors when all I wanted to hear was "Stars and Stripes Forever". It quickly became the most commented on letter over a 3-day period. 

4. My sister's geriatric cat Cassie seems to have bonded with me for the summer. I think it's because I make her nemesis, Duchess, disappear when ever I walk around the house.  

5. Kozue and went shopping for some health insurance for her today. I quickly realized that shopping for health insurance is a lot like shopping for a car. You can have your choice of options, you can expect to have the same monthly payment, but you can't "test drive" the health insurance plan to see how it fits you. 

6. I'm working with a few other classmates to draft a workshop presentation proposal for a conference in November in San Jose, California. When it comes to hotel rooms, I'm trying to decide if having a Sleep Number bed is worth a total $12.20 more than a room with a view of the pool.

7. I've gotten some training appointments under my belt with Primerica. I even passed my Life License test. Now I just need some money!

8. Momma Pitt and The Professor have been gone for a week already on their European Vacation. The last time they were in Europe, we washed our underwear and socks in our hotel room's sink and dried them on the top of the suitcases the next day in the car. Their absence has allowed Kozue and I a minor return to independence and domesticity. Now if I could just teach Kozue how to get up before 8:30 in the morning. 

9. My cat Bustopher has now killed two rodents this summer. I didn't think he had any hunting instincts. 

10. I'm back in contact with my cousin in Oklahoma. It started out with old fashioned letter writing and immediately moved into the medium of Facebook. 

10 Points to Speak Of

1.) Summer school is over.... at least for the first session. My second class starts on July 6th. This class was different because is a very practical and pragmatic class. There was never a lot of reading, just taping and demonstrating the skills we learned about in lecture. The professor was very knowledgeable and did a good job demonstrating the skills we would need to demonstrate. 

2.) Kozue and I have been taking whatever free time we have together to visit some of the sights around Flagstaff. On Saturday, we went to Walnut Canyon National Monument to see how the ancient Sinagua indians lived. Today we took the skyride to the top of Agassiz Peak. Our stay at the top was shortened however because of an incoming monsoon. 

3.) Still no income to speak of from my Primerica job. Hopefully some will be coming soon. I'm still scheduling training appointments and studying for my life license test. 

4.) Michael Jackson died. Oh well. I do equate his death with the death of Elvis Presley a generation earlier, but honestly, what has he done lately? 

5.) My next car is going to be a cherry red, Toyota 4-Runner. 

Okay, so maybe that's only 5, but thinking of ten is hard! 

The Long, Slow Death of a Blog

I must admit that my propensity and enthusiasm for blogging has waned in the past months. The cause of its decline is as of yet unknown but perhaps it is because I am too busy with school and do not wish to bore you (all 3 of you) with limpid accounts of what I'm learning, or it could be that my life has become boring and uneventful... something I do not wish to share with others. I do not take as many pictures as I used to, which is to say I take none. 

In the event that I do not return to this blog for quite some time, here are some developing stories in the lifeline of the The Pittmeister:

1.) I am presently searching for a locale to complete my 300 hour capstone internship next summer. So far, the only candidate is Western Washington University. Last week I emailed their director of International Studies and am currently waiting to hear back from him. 

2.) In my ongoing goal to get into a shape other than "round", I have taken to cycling to my summer school class on the NAU campus 3 of the 4 mornings I have class, but so far this week I have only done it once. This morning and yesterday threatened rain and due to my experiences involving cycling in rain, I have an intense fear of it. 

3.) The Professor and Momma Pitt will be leaving on 7/3 for a 3-week trip to Europa to visit our friends in the Netherlands and The Digger in Italy. Therefore, Mrs. Pitt and I will have the house (and of the responsibilities) to ourselves. What will we do with it?

SnowMaking Comes to Flagstaff

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the case of indigenous and native peoples in the case of using reclaimed water to provide snowmaking at the Arizona Snowbowl, which is 7 miles north of Flagstaff on the San Francisco Peaks. 

This issue, which has divided the community of Flagstaff and the surrounding communities for the past several years, appears to be finally put to rest, at least in the courts. 

I am against snowmaking on the peaks because no one has come forward to definitively say that snowmaking will not harm the environment. Though I want the city of Flagstaff to prosper and have more reliable skiing, I do not believe this is the way. 

For more information, read the link at the bottom. 

azdailysun.com Top Stories

Random Thoughts and Rants

1.) You know, it really sucks that I have been unable to procure a graduate assistantship. Of the many positions I have interviewed for, I have learned that for a few of them the people who were hired had qualifications that I as a graduate could never have. One of the people offered a position had been the former supervisor of Student Life's graduate assistant's husband! I learned recently that a person with 17 years of community college teaching was hired for an Academic transitions program position. How can I compete with that?! Hiring a graduate assistant should be about hiring someone who wants to learn about a profession and gain experience in it, not hiring someone who has has worked professionally for 17 years! 

2.) I'm beginning to feel as though doors are starting to close for me due to my inability to get a graduate assistant job and it is making me doubt whether I could get a job upon graduation. I'm not a person who you're going to get to know and feel comfortable with in a 25-30 minute interview. I'm a human being and I'm more complicated than 25 or 30 minutes allows me to be. I hope my summer job works out and I can make some money going into the fall semester because it looks like I'll not have any source of income during the fall semester. 

3.) It looks like Flagstaff is either experiencing its monsoon season early or will have a summer of monsoons. For the past week and a half, we have had thunderstorms with heavy rain nearly everyday. I'm starting to believe in this climate change stuff. All I need now is for the Big Earthquake to hit California and it breaks off the mainland...before my sister moves there of course. 

 

My 1st year of graduate school has drained me, stripped me of my identity, and has left me feeling depressed. I'm not sure why I have felt depressed recently, but began soon before the semester ended. The cause could be for any number of reasons. My failure to procure a graduate assistant position is definitely one; lack of any recognizable income is another. The fact that I my wife and I are living with the parentals could be another. It could also be attributed to the letdown of summer and not having homework deadline hanging over my head. Whatever the cause, this depression is affecting me in ways I never thought depression could. I don't eat, lack appetite, and have general feelings of apathy and lethargy. I'm not happy and have acquired a short temper of late. I don't feel like myself at all. Perhaps I need to visit the CTC on campus. Perhaps they can help me work through my issues. It is ironic that in my academic zenith of a 4.0 g.p.a., I am the most unhappy I have ever been. Perhaps this is why I didn't chase the 4.0 before now. 

The Digger's Graduation from CU-Boulder

My sister Erin graduated this weekend from the University of Colorado at Boulder with her MA in Classical Art and Archeology. For Erin, it was another step toward her ultimate goal of earning her Ph.D. From here, she heads to UC-Berkeley where she will spend the next 5 years of her life researching the minutia of the Roman and Greek classical periods. 

Good Luck Erin!

In The Books

My 1st year of graduate school is nearly in the books. I have 1 final exam tomorrow and 1 final presentation with paper due and then I am finished. But there will be no rest for the weary because I am enrolled for summer school classes, 1 each 5-week term, so in total I expect to have 6 weeks of true vacation this summer. During that time, I will be helping my sister The Digger move out (again) and taking day trips around Flagstaff with Mrs. Pitt. After my summer classes end, we're planning to take a long road trip together to Montana to visit my family's land and see the western United States. Expect for my posts to be as infrequent this summer as they were this semester, but I plan on posting pictures of my adventures, so keep checking back for those. 

Have a nice summer! The Pittmeister is in margaritaville!

Spring is MIA

Flagstaff has never been known for its capacity to have spring weather. Spring here usually means wind and a chance of snow. Being at 7,000 feet (2,000m), we barely have a summer. This year however, our spring has been held hostage and as recently as Thursday we had snow and driving wind. Last year it snowed twice in May and one of those times was the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. I miss Spring. In Japan, spring was always foretold by the coming of the cherry blossoms. Here, the buds are either blown off by the wind before they get a chance to bloom, or are frozen off by a late winter freeze. This year the lack of spring has me especially pissed off!

Granted a Slight Reprieve

It appears as though April will not be the hellish month I first envisioned. In my myopia, I failed to realize that the two papers due in my student development theory are already drafted, so only simple editing will be necessary. The challenge will be to have my group paper completed by 4/27, but since my group has already held our focus group meeting and it was successful, I am not too concerned about having that completed if we work diligently on it. 

Still, I am looking forward to living in Margaritaville, if only for one night. 

Final Push Into April

In 2nd grade, my teacher Mrs. Fairchild taught us the phrase "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb." I raised my hand and interjected with "that's true in every place exept Flagstaff!" which promptly earned me a seat on the bench behind her desk and my name on the board.

The lovely spring temperatures so prevalent last week seem like a distant memory with the frigid mercury hovering around the freezing point today and we are four days away from April Fools Day. From my current vantage point, I can look outside and see the blue sky, the sun, and evidence of the blowing wind. It's cold outside!

April will not be a fun month academically for me. I have 2 papers, a presentation, and a take home final for College Student Development Theory. A group paper and presentation for The American College Student, and a comprehensive final in Ethics, which I don't think is very ethical.

The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is I am finished with school on May 4th, the Monday of Finals week, which has never happened before, so I will be making mucho grande margaritas Monday night.

Over Christmas, Kozue and I went out to visit her family. Her brother Takeki is a fireman and so we stopped by his fire station and the let me drive the big fire engine!

Return from Seattle and Final Thoughts on NASPA and Seattle

I returned from Seattle today. I got up early to catch an early shuttle even though my flight didn't leave till 10 this morning. I had a vexing shuttle bus driver. When he asked me when my flight and I responded with "10!" his response was, "you should have slept in!" Keep in my mind this was a 7am shuttle. Later, when purchasing my ticket, I handed him a $20 bill for the $11 dollar fare. He asked why I wasn't using a credit card (a receipt is only given w/ a credit card) and I responded I was trying to keep my balance down. "That's everybody!" he retorted. At this point in time, I felt like responding with "I'm sorry, are you a bus driver or a topical comic?" I swear, some people...

Seattle was a very clean city, if you don't count the supplicants constantly asking you for your change or to simply ask you a question (which you know is for your change) as you walk by the nearest Starbucks. Mrs. Pitt and I would enjoy the fresh seafood, the cool climate, the evergreen trees, the cultural diversity, and the proximity to the water. There is a plethora of universities in the Seattle-Tacoma area and so I would imagine plenty of job opportunities. Sadly, during my short stay in Seattle and at the NASPA Conference, I was not able to network with anyone from those institutions. 

My sister, The Digger, likes to blackball and blacklist certain airlines because their incompetence. Now, while I can't argue with her reasons, I would like to give kudos to Alaska-Horizon Airlines. Their seats were soft and supple, though cramped, and the service was agreeable. I would fly them again. 

NASPA on the other end, gets my barbed end of the beating stick. They said their conference began on March 7th, however no free sessions were offered, only "pre-conference" sessions. Now, I don't know about you, but when I think of the word "pre-conference" I think of sessions and workshops that take place before the conference's official start and end dates. So, there I was in Seattle, with two days of "official" conference time, but nothing to do b/c I didn't want to pay the exorbitant prices for these workshops. Second, I think a lunch period should be offered during the sessions. No lunch time was on the schedule, and so I missed lunch. Now, when I miss a meal, I'm cranky and I don't wait to eat with colleagues. I almost didn't make it to a dinner of graduate students last night at 6:15 b/c I was so famished. 

Well, that's my trip in a nutshell. It's back to the grind tomorrow and tonight I had to read theories relating to homosexual identity development. Fun stuff! 

Also, Momma Pitt had the carpets cleaned today and b/c of that, had the furniture moved all around. When I came home today, I thought we had been robbed b/c the chairs were not in the right place. Instead, our house likes the one owned by our friends: TnTJ.