Jolly January

Happy New Year readers!

This is it.  This is my last semester.  It’s a weird feeling knowing that I have to find a big boy job in a few months and won’t have to go to night classes anymore.  I am very nervous, yet excited to be starting a new chapter of my life soon. 

First I gotta get through these next few months, and the classes I’m taking surely won’t be letting me graduate without working for it.  I have Public Policy Analysis and Capstone, two classes that require a lot of work.  Public Policy Analysis requires a decent sized paper at the end and my Capstone project will be an even longer paper.  For the latter I will be conducting a survey with city and county managers in Kentucky about citizen engagement; it is a follow up to a survey done by another MPA student a few years ago.  For Capstone we also have to write a paper reflecting on our time in the program and on the classes we took, but luckily this is due earlier in the semester.  The last month of school will be challenging with my PPA and Capstone project due about the same time, but after that I’m home free.

Around the department we have quite a few events coming up.  We will be having an ASPA-MPA dinner in February and the Awards Banquet in April.  We also acquired tickets to SVP’s Fast Pitch event where local nonprofits make a short pitch for funding.  It was a lot of fun last year, and I’m looking forward to going again this year.  I am also still working with Dr. Misis on our KY law enforcement social media paper, but we should finish that before I graduate.  I will be doing a project for the program where I’ll be updating our alumni database to see where everyone is working, so I will be doing lots of social media creeping. 

At the Aronoff I will be having a busy next few months as well.  All the big shows seemed to be saved for the new year.  In December I worked “A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder” which was a charming little show.  I also worked the Cincinnati Ballet’s “The Nutcracker” which was just as enjoyable to watch as it was last year.  In January I worked “Disney’s The Little Mermaid” twice.  It was very fun, but different from the movie.  It was neat seeing all the little girls dress up in their Disney princess outfits for the show and seeing them fall in love with the characters and the music.  February will be busy there for me since I’ll be working another Cincinnati Ballet show, Chris Rock’s standup, and the musical “Something Rotten.” 

Well that’s all for this month folks.

 Thanks again for reading, see ya next month!