Ellie-Fence

Happy birthday to one of my dearest friends!  I met Ellie, better known to many as Fence, at the very beginning of sophomore year in college, during cross-country preseason.  Since then, my beloved Eleanor has lived in Boston and Austin (and India and New York, but they don't rhyme) all in the name of education.  I don't see her one percentage as much as I'd like to see her, but sometimes it happens, usually in Cambridge but most recently for a weekend in Minnesota. 

Whenever we are in the same zip code, though, we are happy as clams.  I get to see her in less than a month, this time to celebrate another beloved's wedding!

Ellie is very smart but can be very silly, too. Here, she is pretending to fly.

I think at least one reader might enjoy this impromptu haircut shot.

 

We even graduated from college.

And sometimes we dance on the streets of Cambridge.

I hope she has a wonderful day.

A strategic plan

Reader: When you have a goal you want to accomplish, how do you achieve it?  You make a to-do list of tasks to get done, right, and then spring into action?

Not quite. 

One of my main takeaways from this week’s conference, over and over, was how crucial strategy, planning, introspection, research and assessment are in a communications challenge.  Every step should thoughtfully tie in with one’s institutional goals, instead of slapping together a loosely assembled list of tactics, wildly throwing all of them at the wall and hoping something sticks.  During the research and planning, an ideal communications strategy would involve thinking carefully about preserving an institution’s key messages authentically while reaching for new goals and objectives.  Communications specialists must define how their work gets measured—they set those expectations to make sure that they get a clear assessment after the project of what was a success and what wasn’t.  Every part of the process should be tied into goals that advance an institution’s mission: the big picture.

It makes sense, right?  You have to be careful and methodical.  The stakes are high, because a big initiative involves a lot of time and resources and effort. 

But what if we applied that care and precision to our own lives? 

Think about what you did today.  Did you work out, go to your job, have coffee with a friend, cook, watch TV?  What if every—okay, what if most tasks and activities in your day tied intentionally into a broader plan to live out the values and goals you choose?  Would your day be different?

Now, to be clear, regretfully I still go down the dangerous road of over-thinking life from time to time, and I’m not advocating that. I’m not advocating literally and fully extrapolating a traditional communications plan to the extent of selecting a tagline the way an admissions or campaign team would.  Actually, now I can’t decide if that’s a horrific idea or an awesome one.  I kind of want to brainstorm life taglines with my friends.  (What would yours be?)

Rats, I digress.  Circling back, I don’t believe in over-planning life and every hour in it.  That sounds exhausting, unproductive and hideously un-fun. One could also argue that my vision leaves no room for spontaneity—but at risk of getting extra convoluted, spontaneity may be an important life value in itself.  I’m not supporting being more rigid, or forcing a schedule structured solely with activities that line up with the values and A Big Plan. 

Trust me: I’m not close to solving this puzzle, and this post would be unbelievably obnoxious if I were.

But in good communications plans, specific tactics come way at the end.  What if we saw the hours in a day that way, and believed that how we spend them should be determined only after we set the big picture?

I don’t even know what all of my big picture looks like. But I have parts of the day that correspond to my values—I just never really thought about it before.  I run because I want to take care of my body, test myself, and be active around the city: I value health, challenge, and community. I email a video of cats to my sister and leave a voicemail for my mom: it’s important to be close to my family.  Those are a few of the values on my list, which probably come as no real earth-shaking surprise given the content on this blog so far. 

What about your own big picture, Reader?  Think about it.  Why do you spend your days the way you do?  Reader, these are rhetorical and personal questions.  You don't have to comment on them, and your answers may be very different from mine.  And most of us have chunks of hours that are non-negotiable. Those commitments aren't bad—they're just not flexible.  

But just what if you could spend a few more hours per day intentionally, with the strategy of lining up those hours like tactics toward your broader life goals?  What would you do?

Wordless Wednesday: Boat Cruise Edition

Burgers and maple creamees

Last night's Church Street view

This shall be known as the food post, with barely a dash of Lake Champlain mixed in.  Tomorrow, my fellow conference-goers and I are going on a boat cruise around the lake, so if you were a betting reader, I would not bet against never seeing another photo of Lake Champlain on Miles and Laurel.

Last night, a new friend and I walked downtown and shopped the sweetest group of boutiques.  I might have purchased jeggings (pipe down, Blogger spellcheck!) but will probably never fully admit it, even when I wear them.  Sonja and I found a restaurant called The Farmhouse but the wait was an hour, so we ate at a pub on Church Street.  It was just fine, especially the outdoor seating on a 75-degree evening with people-watching galore all around us.  But today, it seemed that everyone at the conference had dined at The Farmhouse to rave reviews...so we had to try again.

Tonight we went earlier, and we snagged an outdoor table.  I ordered tomato-fennel soup and a bacon cheeseburger with Vermont cheddar (and local beef and bacon too, but that doesn't have a ring quite like "Vermont cheddar").  Our meals came with a condiment tray that included root beer barbecue sauce, which was amazing--and I'm not even a major barbecue sauce consumer.  All in all: I'm ready to pronounce that meal the best burger I've ever had.  Please do yourself a service and go here if you are ever in Burlington.

But the Vermont food tour was not complete.  Last stop: the ice cream stand by the lake, for maple creamees.  "Creamees" is the Vermont equivalent to soft-serve ice cream, and this stand boasted maple creamees. The ice cream was perfect, with a gentle but not overpowering touch of maple--as I said so articulately when I tasted it, "like syrup but way better!"

And then, on the shuttle back to the dorms, we were chatting with the driver about Burlington, and I saw my chance and grabbed it: I got to ask a local if he ever forgets to notice the lake.  "Oh, no," he said emphatically, and his face changed in a way that showed how much he loved it. He told us that he lives a stone's throw from the lake, outside town in a house that has seen his family through five generations. "Morning, evening, it's the same water, but it always looks something different."

It'll be hard to top his view, wherever I'll be in 30 or 40 years, but I hope I get a monster-sized kick out of my neighborhood the way he does.

Roar!

Burlington brawl

More on that irresistible title later.

This morning I woke up early, courtesy of a broken air conditioning system in the UVM dorms that left me (and from what I heard today, everyone else!) tossing and turning in my hot dorm rooms.  (It reminded me of college cross-country pre-season in a very charming way, but I can say that now because the AC is fixed!)  I decided to run through campus again and check out the lakefront path.

Do people here ever tire of the Lake Champlain views?  Has it gotten more picturesque every day for the duration of its history?  As the sun rose higher, it started shining light on the pink clouds hanging over the mountains.   

 
I also passed Church Street, which seems like a bustling pedestrian mall with great restaurants and shops during normal hours.  Before the clock turns seven, though, it looks like pigeons run the show.

Despite all of my visual and written yammering about Lake Champlain, readers might be surprised that one of my favorite sights so far is unrelated.  It's this punny duo of stores that happen to be next-door neighbors: a bar called What Ales You and a salon called Mane Attraction.  Next question: is it a better story if the same person owned them and conceived both names, or if completely different people drummed them up?  I'm not sure.

 

In the less than 24 hours I've spent in Burlington, I have concluded that it's a sweet and crunchy place.  There are signs on the street that discourage vehicle idling because of its environmental impact, and the coffee stations include soy milk in addition to milk and cream and sugar.  I love this place.  It came as a surprise to me, therefore, when I ran by this sign advertising none other than Burlington Brawl '12.  I'd pay a lot of money to see what kind of crowd this draws.  Is it Burlington's counterculture?

Whoa!

Contrary to what you think, photography was not the main objective of this morning's run.  You know how when you leave for a trip and fret about forgetting something, you chase your fears away by saying you can always buy it when you get there?  Turns out that it's not so easy when you're in a college town in the summertime.  Bottom line, it was a time-sensitive and unpleasant emergency: I forgot my toothbrush!  I had to find one.

I encountered no drugstores or grocery stores on any of the streets I covered running or walking, so I began searching for gas stations.  I found two--one right next to the other--about half a mile away from my dorm, so I went in the larger and better-stocked store to investigate and struck out completely.  I felt utterly pessimistic as I walked into the tiny gas station, which was more like a cafe and already somehow smelled like employees were cranking out a day's worth of French fries.  Lo and behold, there was a toothbrush buried in the toiletry section! 

The cashier and the customer ahead of me thought I was the funniest and strangest sight in the world, shopping for a toothbrush mid-run.  I agree, I must have looked bizarre.  But something in my social functioning at such an early hour prevented me from clarifying my situation, and the jokes about trying to brush my teeth while running ran wild.

Finally, the cashier handed me my change and got serious. "No, really, it'd be pretty tough to run with a toothbrush because of all the foam that's already in your mouth from running!" she said.

Just another one of running's dangerous side effects: rampant foaming.  I think I've heard it all.

I may sign off with a pawprint from now on. Love, Catamount