06-APR-A-2

 

THE ARRIVAL OF SPRING HERALDED BY CHERRY BLOSSOMS

AND THE CHERRY BLOSSOM TEN MILE RACE,

 BUT ALL OF IT ECLIPSED BY THE INTENSIVE MONASTIC WEEK

OF COMPS PREP AS I MOVE INTO THE MARRIOTT COURTYARD DULLES WITH MY COMPS TEAM

 AND WE SURVIVE THE ORALS AND WRITTEN EXAMS

 AS SPRING BEGINS TO LEAF OUT DERWOOD WOODS

 

April 1—9, 2006

 

No one said it would be easy. They were right.  But, it has been done!  And that is an accomplishment, combined with the fact that we may even have learned a lot and not killed anyone in the process, which seemed to be a high likelihood going in, with a few blow-ups during the course of the intensive study week.  I would not have been able to study much of the abstruse material without having done it in a team, and the most widely divergent team at that—the pairs and spares, the oldest geriatric student the graduate ELDP program has ever had and the youngest—the latter being daughter and granddaughter of patients I had operated on in another era of my life.  Steve Miner, a lawyer with an administrative post as a county executive in Accotink on the Virginia Eastern Shore who dropped out form Cohort 12 because of a personal life crisis joined us for his Comps, and Lou Andriotti, in the middle of taking calls on new nursing home acquisitions at the same time fielding calls from his 92-year-old mother and having missed three sessions in a row (thereby taking only the orals with us and planning on taking the writtens in July) joining us from far back in the catch-up mode.  We were the only team of four, all others being five, and we were the only one not hand-picked by self-selection, since we largely were assembled from the leftovers as we were out of town when teams were picked.  Our very great diversity and our different backgrounds probably made us the  favorite “America’s Team” and we were also the dead last for the oral exams  After initial breakdown from at least one member over insecurity about which question to pick to answer as our first (and only)  choice, balking at the very moment we adjourned to take the test, we got the material covered anyway in an unscripted helping each other through the oral exams, and since it seemed to be going well, we tried integrating the information and raiding it further levels of analyses, in a few cases “swinging for the fence.”  It was actually enjoyable once it was under way.  And the bottom line is—we passed, and not by a close margin.

 

The writtens were tougher since we assembled in the computer lab with strict rules read to us, and had to pick two of three subject area questions except for a mandatory response form two questions on research.  The more open ended questions were essays in typing speed, and I had to consider whether I could keep up with what would be a much faster and more thorough verbal response.  The morning and afternoon sessions are each coded with different numbers so that the examiners reading each section oar not supposed to know who it is that has written them, and they are graded over ten days by the first examiner, and then passed to a second examiner for the second reading and rating.  If, ten days later, there is a split decision, the exam goes to a third reader to break the tie, and each one of the steps takes ten days, so we may not know at the time of our next session in May, when we reconvene from as far away as Hong Kong and Albuquerque or Sacramento on May 5.  Since we are out on May 5 at Five O’clock PM, it is the only time we would be available for an evening farewell get together (even though there are sessions in June and July as our last assemblies as Cohort 16.)  This means a party for all the faculty and students and this time it is my turn to host the event, and we will have a catered party at Derwood. On the evening of May 5 Friday night before our Saturday session at which we are supposed to have our Dissertation proposal and the first three chapters prepared for the later proposal defense.  So, we do not yet know about the results of the written exam and may not even by the time of the May 5 reception, but we will all still be very bonded together as a Cohort 16 and then launch into however long it may take us to get the thesis researched and done, before scattered graduations over the coming years.  This is the outcome of the “Trust the Process” which has been repeated to us in the period during which we were “Fading our Voice as a Community of Scholars.”

 

I had bunked in at the Marriott Courtyard with the others of my Comps Team, despite the earlier plan to be in Derwood for the week, which would have been cheaper, of course, but it would not have been appropriate to drive daily to Ashburn 38 miles away to get access to the wireless and high speed internet, which Steve Miner used very effectively, calling up data out of Google and other sources to give references to our literature reviews and structural models and conceptual frameworks..  It was hard, it was fast; it was done with a lot of bonding and trusting, and we learned interdependence, and then performance—and it is now done.  On to the next stage which is going to be more individualistic and pickier and perhaps a bit more frustrating in re-re-doing efforts that may be interrupted by the rest of life schedules.  It has been encouraging to see that three people in the Cohort fifteen just ahead of us were in this same position when we saw them off last August on their last session together, and three of the 20 are done with their defense now—two doing quantitative studies and one a qualitative one—now completely done.

 

WE “TAKE A BREAK” AT THE BEGINNING—

OUR COMP TEAM JOINING ME AT THE PACKET PICKUP RUNNERS’ EXPO FOR THE CHERRY BLOSSOM TEN MILER AND WE

SIT ON THE POTOMAC RIVERBANK ADMIRING THE CHERRY BLOSSOMS WITH SEAFOOD PICKED UP AT THE FISH MARKET

 

I moved in on Friday night into the Marriott as Steve Miner made it at midnight from lower Eastern Shore Virginia and Lou Andriotti drove down form Grand Rapids Michigan to arrive at mid-day on Saturday.  Shiree had checked in to the Hotel early Friday to study as she has for the last six weeks when she quit her job to study for this exam.  I had heard that others had already been hard at it for two weeks full time, and still others had been having weekly sessions from the group that lives around local Loudon County Northern Virginia for the whole semester.  Many had completely scripted rehearsed answers to each question which to me seemed like plotting out every move in a warfare battle plan which would evaporate with the first shot.  We freaked these folk out completely when I suggested that as soon as Lou arrived form his drowsy drive from Michigan with a Lexus SUV load of the paperwork each of us has accumulated to three hundred plus pounds, that we go downtown since I had to collect my runners’ packet, and we would go see the cherry blossoms which had peaked in their perfection as I had checked on them in a long run on Friday when I took off form the Wellness Center club at GWU and ran out the length of Haines Point under a bower of cherry blossoms that were peaking at perfection just in time for the arrivals.  I knew tour buses and thousands of people would be choking off the Tidal Basin as a place people crowd when the blossoms are peaking, so I had an alternate suggestion, and despite the anxieties and misgivings, they agreed to go with me.  We took off on Saturday afternoon as Lou arrived.   He was drowsy and unprepared to study, and less prepared since he had not studied.  We drove down to the Crystal City Marriott from the Dulles Marriott where we were camped.

 

The runners’ Expo is a big thing for someone who has never seen one, and the group of fit runners picking up the registration bags looked quite different than our group.  We went to get the number pickup and tee shirt, and then stopped at the Marine Corps Marathon and Army Ten Miler booths.  The grunt that is a mark of the marines is “A Hooah!”  meaning, some would say, “Heard, Understood and Acknowledged!”  and is often shouted back and forth among the running pack along the MCM.  We each got the Hooah pins and wore them at that point and forward in our own team building, and an unlikely group as runners but a good team building process.  We drove over to the DC side of the Potomac, since Lou had said something about the Pike Fish Market in Seattle, so I thought we would drive BY the Tidal Basin (to the degree that anyone can during the peak of the blossom time) and visit the Fish Market downtown, where I stayed in Steve’s BMW as they ran out to buy fish sandwiches, crawdads and drinks and we went to the Marine Memorial on the banks of the Potomac and as they’re looking over the Jefferson Memorial and the cherry blossoms that we could see much better than anyone trying to park near them.  It was a beautiful relaxing afternoon visit and got everyone off on a right approach as our colleagues who were cooped up got ever more tense.

 

We returned to study and then I turned in to get up very early because of the “Spring Forward” and drove the Audi which I had just had all tuned, new rear brakes, and a wash and servicing down to GWU and parked inside talking the last look at my emails at the office before a week later. I walked over with a group of fist timer runners who were all excited: they explained that they were all GWU graduate students, and I asked in what department.  It turned out that they were all MPH students, and I could tell them a little about the run as well as the MPH.  When I got to the MCRRC tent to leave my warm-up suit, the sun had come up and the air was warming to the point that I could wear shorts and singlet for the race.  It was a set of nearly ideal conditions, unlike last year when Joe had been so frozen running next tome that he uncharacteristically did not congratulate any of the runners around him, but just shivered and ran.  Last year I had met with Charlie and Cindy Clark and Imme Dyson who had done well despite the freezing wind, and this year we had agreed to meet here as well.  They were predicting a women’s’ world record today with high seeded runners from Russia and Romania as well as the crowd of Kenyan and Ethiopian runners for the men.  They got what they expected in this big race.

 

First the biggest news: Imme won her age group for the fourth consecutive year, and Freeman Dyson and she and I celebrated with a group of photos including the ones she could not stay for last year under the Cherry Blossoms.  Next year Imme will be 70 so she will batter that category as well as the Boston next week.  Cindy came in second place in her age.  The woman Russian won by a six hundred meter margin and set a new women’s world record for the Ten Mile Race of 52 min. 11 sec, while a Kenyan male made it 47 min 53 sec.  I ran somewhat longer, but at least I had passed both Imme and Cindy so I should do well in the next year’s category for age as well!  One of my thrills is that I ran rather quickly at the start with amazingly little problem with my back or leg and the nerves that go numb when my back is slipped out of line.  As I did so, I passed both Cindy and Imme, with whom I had hoped to run for a while but she thought she was not doing well and urged me to go ahead.  I ran ahead to about a one mile post, and saw a familiar figure alongside me who also recognized me—Bill Rogers.  Bill Rogers had won this event five times running, at the same years he won the Boston Marathon four years in a row and also the New York Marathon four years in a row.  He is now fifty four, and runs a little slower, but conducts clinics.  He had known me form frequent meetings in both Boston and here in the Cherry Blossom where he is a celebrity entrant, and he had read my book “Out of Assa”.  He asked about my friend Joe, who is recovering form a pulled hamstring and has not run for two weeks, or he might have joined me.  We ran together for a couple of miles before I figured I should not try to keep pace with a world class runner for threat of not being able to finish, and wished him well.  I ran along as well as I expected to do and finished in something between eight and nine minute pace.

 

I stayed for the award ceremony and helped Freeman and Imme Dyson get to the bus to their hotel, as I returned to GWU to retrieve my car.  I drove from downtown to Derwood to shower and to pack up those items I had forgotten to pack, some toiletries but mostly papers.  As I was doing that, I looked out into the Derwood woods, and saw a couple of kids in battle dress sneaking around in my woods, where there is as yet no leaf cover to hide them—a reason I have been able to find the owls who are calling to each there in the barred owl language I can almost decipher, and shoot photos of them before the leafing out of the trees.  I saw them bend down a small tree and snap the top off form it to hang a colored shirt on it and then scamper away.  Since I have been picking up beer cans and plastic trash left by just such kids, I walked down into the woods and retrieved their shirt from the broken tree.  One of the kids yelled at me “Hey!  That’s our flag!”  I replied, “I have just struck your colors.”  I tossed them the shirt and they said I should get out of the way since they were in a paint ball battle. I invited them to think about doing it elsewhere, since they were on my property and I would not allow it, and on the other side of the stream in the park it was illegal so that they would be arrested and I would be the first to call—brandishing my cell phone.  The one got rather huffy saying they were not doing anything harmful, and I pointed out that I did not think breaking down my trees and making me pick up the plastic paint blobs all around was anything I would tolerate.  They moved off grudgingly.  Since I have now returned home after a week away in Ashburn Virginia, I get a chance to clean up the revenge of the kids who own my world as well as the rest of anyone else’s:  I have large pink paint blobs in the middle of several windows on the house.  If they think they can shoot with impunity on my property and at my home, they should see what kind of ordnance I have available to shoot back, and the splotches from my hits are truly biodegradable!

 

SEMI-CELEBRATIONS ON COMPLETION OF THIS PART OF THE “HAZING RITUAL” WHICH IS THE GRADUATE PROGRAM COMPS

Our Comps team went to “That’s Amore” for Italian pasta and wine as Lou’s treat after the orals, and then after the writtens we went to have beer and peanuts at Longo’s to celebrate the near-completion of the first half of the ELDP.  We will have to get back to work on the next phase shortly, but my first thought was that I needed to go out on the run!  On Palm Sunday I came back from church and went for a run at Needwood, and will start in on the long series of items postponed for the duration from Rwanda through the Comps, and start proactively planning the crowded schedule of the next series of events through May and June.  There is a ground swell of requests from a lot of people who wish to go with me on the next mission almost anywhere and I am trying to sequence them to get them scheduled around the requirements for my dissertation.  I have labeled two albums of Rwanda and will be catching up with other items to be programmed in to the summer before I have to get the proposal completed and defended.

 

But, Spring seems to be here and can be an encouragement to get out and run as well as plan new life events as the budding leaves are pushing out visibly by the day!