I haven’t posted a lot in the past month, I suppose I’ve been trying to relax and enjoy my weeks off before returning to academics in January. I also believe I may be lacking in anything profound to post for now. That in itself may be a major change for me in 2012. I am less interested in frivolous posts and deeply personal posts. I’m not closing the walls to my emotions or anything, but I now have surrounded myself with people who I feel I can discuss those things with personally and not necessarily need a public venue for them. This is still a personal venue for me, I’m not making it professional, that’s going to be CMKULARSKI.NET, if I ever get myself to a position where I feel I have a handle on what that website it supposed to be.

This year has in some ways been a very productive year for me and in other ways has simply been a continuance of the status quo.

In January there was a bit of activity regarding my graduate student status. I found out that I was eliminated early in the review process for the M.A. in Counseling degree, but I completed by application for the MA-SOCY degree. By March I was notified that I had been waitlisted for the MA-SOCY degree and I therefore took that as a sign that my chances of admission had dropped and as such I would need to continue my education through an alternative route. I designed a plan to work toward a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies utilizing a program of my own construction. It would have been quite interesting I thought, but later in April I was formally accepted to the MA-SOCY program and things began to line up for me. I must admit, I do have some regrets over withdrawing my application and cancelling my plans for the MALS degree because it would have been a very interesting and unique experience. The sociology program has given me several new perspectives on the social world though. It is less through the academics so far, but more through the interactions with the people in my department. Each of my fellow graduate students and each member of the faculty has some different background they bring to sociology and as far as I can tell each of them sees sociology differently, in some ways it gives me hope of finding my own niche in the field. Things have turned out quite differently this year than I originally had planned or what I had hoped for, but I have very few regrets about the way that things have turned out.

Outside of academics I feel like not much has changed for me, except for an attempt to re-enter some of my artistic hobbies such as photography and ceramics. I have done only enough ceramics to ensure that my skill has not dulled, but my photographic interests continue to expand. I am finding the film medium to be more appealing to me now that ever before. As I find myself immersed in a technological way of doing most things and beginning a time of deeper social exploration in a society that seems to be in a rush to dispose of traditional ways of doing things I feel that sticking to film is important for me. It is ironic really that I do everything in very technical and efficient ways except for my artistic expression which uses two mediums that are often seen as “old”. This is the year in which I find myself understanding the importance of distancing oneself from a subject through the use of a less realistic medium for the purpose of drawing more attention to the subject and allowing the medium to fall away.

Most of 2012 has been spent on academic pursuits. I am deeply involved in the academy and in my life as a graduate student.