Conflict & Dispute Resolution

I've been looking at graduate schools all over... I really would like to go to school in Colorado. I just have this fixation about living there. I don't know why, I just do. I looked alot at Utah too, as my second choice. But there just aren't any programs that interest me. I went through every major college's website and went through every graduate program they have, and nothing. I keep coming back to University of Oregon's Conflict & Dispute Resolution program. There just doesn't seem to be anything like it. And, I was just looking at it again, and it's under the School of Law. How about that?

School of Law

Conflict and Dispute Resolution

Graduate Director: Tim Hicks

Graduate Contact: Ellen Laing

Location: 330K

Website: http://conflict.uoregon.edu

Degrees Offered: M.S. and M.A.

Current # of Students: 15-25 cohort; 35 master's students

Program Emphasis: The Conflict and Dispute Resolution Master's degree program is structured to prepare a new generation of scholars, practitioners, and educators to rethink traditional approaches to conflict. Grounded in dispute resolution theory, the program combines broad interdisciplinary training and opportunities for individualized study and skills development. It equips its students with a mastery of skills and expanded perspectives in conflict resolution, from theoretical, practical, public policy, ethical and professional responsibility orientations. In addition, the conceptual knowledge and practical tools gained from this program will allow students to meet today's challenges with new answers and better questions.

Admission Requirements: Completed application, GRE, LSAT or GMAT score report, 3 letters of recommendation, personal statement, recent academic or professional writing sample, current CV. Note the we do not have absolute cut-off scores for the GRE, LSAT or GMAT. Rather we look at the entire application package and make our admissions decisions based on the whole picture. As part of the application process, we require a phone or in-person interview.

Minimum TOEFL: Toefl 575

Fall Admissions: 27 master's students

# of GTFs: N/A

From the program's website:
 
Our program is structured to provide you with the firm foundation during your first year from which you can then specialize during your second year, whether you want to help deal with the social consequences of climate change or work with other environmental and public policy issues, work in the international arena, in the corporate or non-profit sectors, in the community setting, in peace and reconciliation contexts, with interpersonal and family-based conflicts, within the justice system, or in some other area of the conflict resolution field.



Where would I get three letters of recommendation when I have been out of college for...7 years and I work for myself, so I don't have a boss who can write a professional recommendation? Ideas?
 
I did hear back from the program and my LSAT scores are still good for my application. I have to double check and make sure they will still be good if I apply for next year too, assuming I apply in the fall before my score hits the 6 year mark in December. They said the program is just down the wait-list candidates so if I got in, that's all I would be offered, so basically, that would be a waste of stress and effort because a wait-list seat is no seat at all. Better to apply next year, and early, if I were to do this. Do I really want to do this? Am I interested in this? ...Definitely more so than anything else I can find, and I don't have any other ideas... so...? Is that how one comes to make a decision like this? Because there's nothing else? The program does make ALOT of sense with my personality, background and interests. It is very much in the right direction, and I find myself looking for similar programs at other schools, but it's just too unique. The next closest thing would be a cross between Social Work, Counseling and Criminal Justice- and Law... which is funny because those are all subjects I've considered pursuing higher education in. (Except counseling... although that is the ONE subject I have been told more times than I can count [prior to all my issues] that I should do, but I'm not interested. My mom has an MS in Counseling... yelch.)
 
What are you thinking?
 
Is Oregon for me?

Dog vs. Cat SMACKDOWN

I've been wanting to show these for awhile, but had trouble gettiing online and I have been out of town and SO BUSY. Here is Toulouse my little boy cat and Charlie Brown my Beagle engaging in their nightly wrestling match. in the first one it may look like Charlie is picking on Tootie, but if Toot doesn't like it, he can just run away. And trust me, there are plenty of times he just walks straight up to Charlie BB and smacks him on the head to get things started! lol Excuse the mess... why clean up when they're going to run all over it anyway?

Crashed Hardrive Recovery Horror

Late last summer, right before I found out about Matt, I had a hard drive crash on me. It was a 500GB hard drive and it was FULL, completely FULL of client and personal photos.

Luckily, there were only a few images that hadn't been backed up, most were just edits that were totally replaceable and I could do over myself.  (From two specific portrait sessions shot a couple days before the drive crashed. The negatives were all backed up, but not the edits I had done.)

I took the drive to a few places to try and have it repaired, not initially realizing the depth of the issue initially. I called the manufacturer first for help, then called a private tech to look at it, then went to a few computer shops. Each place gave me worst news than the last.

The bottom line was the mechanics of the drive itself had worn out and it couldn't boot up anymore. In order to recover the data from the drive, it had to be disassembled in a "clean room" in a lab. The private tech told me to watch it with who I took it to because he had seen people get quotes as high as $10,000 for that kind of work. He sent me to a couple of underground people he thought might be able to help, but unfortunately, they didn't have the capability to do it safely. (At least they were totally honest and upfront about it.)

After I finished doing all of that running around I exasperatedly threw it on the couch and washed my hands of it. (Plus my finances were in REALLY bad shape. I didn't even have income to pay my rent, let alone some huge repair bill. I was living off my life savings.)

Right around that time, I found out everything about Matt. Then you know, I'm like checking myself into like, psychiatric day care facilities for myself. Awesomeness.

Somewhere in here during the drive crash,  one of my clients/familiy member of a friend notices some pictures are missing from her wedding set. Oh, weird, right? So I go back through them, and guess what? Like, 100 of her pictures which were on that darn disc didnt load on to her website. And they weren't back up before the site crashed. Whereas everything else on the drive had been loaded online so it was backed up. Even if I hadn't burned DVD back ups of everything, I at least had everything stored online on the client's websites. Or so I thought. Well, now there were pictures missing. And they were on this flipping drive.

I went through my computer, recycle bins, memory cards, the website, other client's websites, everything I could think of looking for those darn pictures. And ACTUALLY I did find some of them. But they weren't the pictures the bride was referencing. I found pictures from the wedding in the recycle bin and on a memory card (even though it had been months some how they were still hanging around randomly) but not THOSE particular portraits, which fantastically enough happened to be the posed family and friends portraits. Ugh.

By this time I'm shooting weddings every weekend, in therapy at least 3 times a week and on enough medication to tranq a horse.  I so could not handle all of this. The drive got put on the back burner while I tried to figure out what to do.

Periodically I've called placed and looked up places but alot of places want to ship the drive off to labs in the midwest and it really freaks me out that something woudl happen to it. Not to mention all of the horror stories I've heard. From all the people that have already looked at it, I've already been assured over and over again the data is perfectly fine and safe and can sit there forever like that, it's just the machine that poo-pooed.

As we got closer to the holidays, I got another email from another bride who got married in 2009 and who we did a little trash the dress session the day after her wedding in Carmel. She was going through her master discs and websites and... guess what? The pictures were missing. We both started on this frantic search through everything before finally figuring out those freaking pictures are on THAT drive too! Are you KIDDING me? What's with all this stuff springing up after the fact?

Uggggggh.

So, things have calmed down some, and I am not as out of my mind as I was a few months ago (although I think we all know things aren't great!) so with some encouragement from my friend I got back on the horse and tried to work on this fiasco again.

I revisited the places I had researched the last few months, picked a couple, talked to them all, narrowed it down filled out some paperwork and finally got the darn drive down to their offices for diagnostics exams. They claimed it would take like 2 days.

Here we are a week later I finally get an email back. (Hello? What kind of customer service is that? I think I picked the wrong place!)  Well, diagnostics are done, they're going to recover it, but they won't start it until they have my go ahead.  Because, you know, I have to approve the cost and all.  They gave me a quote.

Are you ready for this?

Are you SURE?

Positive?

...

No backing out now, right?

Are you with me?!





$2,036.00


ARE YOU FLIPPING KIDDING ME?!

I think I'm having palpitations. I emailed him back to clarify exactly what they would be recovering for that amount. (It better be the whole freaking drive and not just the 100 missing pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!) I'm going to die. Earlier today I ran by the boarding facility for the dog, and I kind of made peace with everything for the cost anyway and that it was going to be okay and it would work out fine. Then I got a load of this number. But you know at this point, I kind of want to just chuck my credit card across the counter and be like WHATEVER! FINE! Charge me $2,036 to recover these missing 100 pictures. It was my fault for not double checking these two websites. WHATEVER! You gotta do what you gotta do. You gotta get the pictures back somehow, and how else am I going to do it? These people got the power. They have my drive, they're going to get it back so I have to do it.

But holy FREAKING COW.. how on earth am I ever going to pay that off?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's just so much freaking money, I just... just... I mean... Uhhhhhh?? There's nothing you can do about it.  You just throw the charge card at them and pretend it never hapened. I mean, what else can you do, right? It's so much, it's like, you can't... you can't even connect the dots intellectually to what that even MEANS. It might as well be a million dollars.  I just bought a brand new laptop with a 500GB hardrive, 4 years of McAfee, 3 years of warranty and home repairs service from Dell, yadda yadda yadda. $500. Are you KIDDING me?

I'm gonna go throw up now.

I just want to remember today.

Leader: Bin Laden Death To Usher In New Era Leader Says He Expects Better US-Muslim Relations

POSTED: 9:40 pm PDT May 1, 2011
UPDATED: 9:43 pm PDT May 1, 2011

LOS ANGELES -- A prominent Muslim leader says he expects the death of Osama Bin Laden to usher in a new, positive era of U.S.-Muslim relations, helping Americans to distinguish extremist terrorists from the mainstream Islamic faith.


Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles, told The Associated Press on Sunday night that the death of the "standard-bearer of terrorism" is "hopefully the end of an era of darkness" in U.S-Muslim relations.


Al-Marayati said some fundamentalist groups may try to seek retaliation for Bin Laden's killing, but he's confident that Bin Laden's demise marks the beginning of the end of terrorism at a time when democracy is spreading throughout the Middle East


Read more: http://www.kcra.com/news/27739736/detail.html#ixzz1LBKfQEas

Meet me on Monday

1. What is your favorite kind of muffin?

I think I'm with Java on this one... Blueberry! (I always gravitate towards the stuseul topping too, but really, I think just regular blueberry muffins best. I like that little sheen they get on top. So good! Which is why I never make or buy them... I'll eat them. lol)

2. What was the first car you ever owned?

OWNED-OWNED as in, bought, made the payments and paid off myself? My 2004 Toyota Corolla Sport!

My client made this parking cone for me at a recent wedding I shot. I even got to keep the cone! I call it my car's "party hat" lol

If we're talking first car that was "mine" but I didn't really own and the parents could seize at any moment? 1988 Toyota Van, and a 1988 Toyota Corolla. I did end up owning the Corolla actually. So maybe the '88 is my first. Oh, well, I already posted the picture. But, the '04 is the first I ever bought and paid for myself. :) AND still own!


3. Which TV Show were you sad to see end?

Road to Avonlea, and Roswell.  Avonlea went off the air in 1996, and Roswell was more recent, 2003 I think.
Still sad about both and I own the complete collection of Roswell and have slowly collected the Avonlea series (it wasn't available at first, and when it was only certain episodes and only on VHS... I got those, but now I have to switch over to DVD... Poop.) I do still love and miss  Designing Women , but thank goodness for late night tv! That show still cracks me up when I can catch it! lol


ADDED! How could I have forgotten? My beloved Sex and the City? :) A show that shocked and appauled me when I tuned in at first, but as the show was ending and I was a little older, I realized it was just about men, women and relationships, despite the title that so freaked me out as a college kid. :) I miss it! And I love the re-runs. It really makes me want to go back and work on my French too.

4. What is your lucky number?

24 My birthday is March 24th, and I always looked forward to turning 24, and so I think it must be my lucky numba!

 

5. Pretzels or Potato Chips?

Oh, gimmie the fried potatos. Come on. Is that really a question?

New Laptop=Productiveness, Lots of ?'s about School

My new cheapie, [but totally fancy] laptop arrived after I spent this week playing cat and mouse with the stupid FedEx guy and culminating in being forced to pick it up at the FedEx store at 10:45PM on Thursday, I finally got the sucker. It's a little weird, and the keyboard is like a desktop keyboard with a full number set on the right side, which would be great if I was used to a desktop, but since I'm not, it actually just makes me mistype on the board, and likely will make my wrist even more sore than it already has been because I will be resting it at an even deeper angle trying to use the touchpad. Awesome.

Anyway, I am now again mobile, and can blog, browse the Internet and shop Amazon and Etsy from my bed, the couch, the bath tub, the potty, whewhoo. lol

(Did I just say that? Oh well.)

In my productiveness, I have now discovered I am in massive debt for this month, and I am going to go to the poor house paying to have my dog boarded at the kennel 6 days, my car at the airport for 6 days, and driving 4 hours roundtrip with gas $4.30 a gallon to said airport to go to this wedding in DC this next weekend. Oops. I really should have thought twice about saying it was okay to fly out of Reno. Definitely cheaper for them [the people paying for the plane ticket, or least I hope it was cheaper after all this hassle on my end], but it is not going to be cheaper for me. I live 5 minutes from the airport here in Sacramento and if I flew out of Sac I could have gotten a ride so I wouldn't have had to pay for the gas or driven there, or stored my car so that's a whole lot of money saved right there. Although, my dog is still going to have to go to doggie jail I think and that's going to be a couple hundred dollars. (I think I might cry.)

(Over both the money AND him having to be locked up. I don't want him to have to sleep alone!)

Anyway, I didn't have any money come in in April at all and I bought the new camera, the new laptop, and I didn't realize I didn't have my Photoshop program disc anymore so goodbye $200 more dollars for that too. (Smack head.) [I bought the student version since it's $200/the regular version is $1000... oh and now I have to register to become a student in order to activate it!) I also had to pay a couple of several hundred dollar bills for advertising this month too. Let's pray they work!

Anyway, my new computer is telling me all kinds of "great" news with it being so convenient to look things up now. Grrr.

One of the productive things I did (other than add up bills) was email an attorney about Matt. That took a whole lot of hours to first find one who was 1.) a woman, and 2.) had anything remotely close to the right specialization, and 3.) write the email.

The letter was still full of mistakes.
Despite all of that, as we come up on the 8 month mark of "the day of truth", (or the day my soul died, either can fit perfectly depending on the day) this was the first contact I have sent out. It was exceedingly difficult to do, but I know it was the right thing to do and a step in the right direction. I hope that she can help me or help me find someone who can.

The other thing I did tonight was email a woman from a graduate program I had corresponded with shortly before I met Matt. The program is at the University of Oregon and is in Conflict and Dispute Resolution and is a Master's Degree. It's a newer program and is very small. Their requirements are pretty vague and I had written with her before trying to nail things down, but I wasn't ready to take action because I didn't know what I wanted. The last week or so I have been thinking about this and dreamed a little (yep, I said it, I DREAMED a little) about going to Oregon for a year (but apparently the program is two years so scratch that) for the program, and then applying to law school again after I graduated.

Wow, that law school thing really does not give up, huh?



I wonder why.






My little day dream was to move to Oregon first for a year, and then Utah after that. But then I kept thinking that was too much moving, and I don't like to move. But I think I have also come to some kind of conclusion, or at least, self-analysis that my problem with just picking up and moving somewhere is that there is no purpose in it. I moved to Sacramento for school. I moved back to Southern California, again, for school. How can I randomly pick up and move to, say, Utah, or Colorado without cause? No family there, and my business, particularly in Utah would likely seriously flounder. (Way too much competition at really bottom  basement prices.)

(Of course another thought I had this week, after my last post, was why do I feel the need to be around family anyway? They are better off on their own. Then nobody feels bad about living close and not seeing each other. If we live far away and see each other at holidays, maybe we will learn to appreciate each other more. We can hope, right?)

Anyway, the self-analysis made me realize that without cause I'm not really one to just pick up and go. I'd like to, but it really causes a level of discomfort that is just beyond me. If I'm moving, I want to move with somebody, a partner and make a collaborative decision together. Or, let's move for school, or a job opportunity/offer.  Since 2 of those 3 don't work, how about school?

So on my new computer I looked up graduate programs in Colorado. The first school I was drawn to was the University of Colorado at Boulder. I scrolled through their list of programs and "Law" was listed as a graduate program. I excitedly thought it might be a Master's degree. When I clicked on it though, I found they actually have a law school. Hmm.

I went through the other schools in Colorado that sounded nice and had nice pictures too (always a good indicator of a solid academic record and experience... a nice website and pretty pictures..) but nothing really jumped out at me. So I looked up the information for University of Oregon's Conflict and Dispute Resolution Master's program.


The application deadline is apparently May 30th for this year, and school starts in August. I actually could still apply for this year.  Wow.

Some Pros:
Get the Heck out of dodge
New place
Start over immediately
Start my continuing education now
Do something which *I* consider productive and valuable to society and my life (I don't feel that way about photography really. I try, and am trying, and I am doing better with how I perceive it, but it's not "a real job" to me, even now. Even being published on the covers of magazines didn't do it for me. I want to be successful at it, but there is something missing.)

Cons:
Leaving my therapist
breaking my lease
changing alot of things really fast
having to start over
having to move
how would I even move by myself?
I'm under contract for a bunch of weddings in September and October in Sacramento, how could I start school and focus on that if I had to be commuting back here? (That's exactly how I screwed up law school)
I don't even know if I could get in to grad school as it stands now with my undergrad gpa, no idea where to get recommendation letters... and an average LSAT score.


If I wait a year, and apply in the spring or fall or whatever for matriculation for the Fall 2012 semester,  there are pros and cons to that too.

Pros:
I should be more ready to break out on my own and I will have a year to prepare for it, think about it.
I can start advertising in the area around the school for my business and in Oregon in general and try to begin working up there so my business is more based up there in 2012, than here.
I won't have to break my lease
I'll be able to plan and anticipate
I will hopefully have already gone to court for Matt and have things settled.

Cons:
I have to wait yet another year of my life to start my life. I say this every year. I've been saying this since 2008. (When I left law school) When is my life going to start if I keep putting it off?
My LSAT score will expire and I will have to study and take the GRE or LSAT, which is a HUGE ordeal and undertaking.


But, is any of this what I really want?

I don't even know. I haven't known what I really wanted in a long time. It seems like whenever there is any bit of a hint of what I might want I jump on it... but then I hesitate. Because really, I don't know. After what happened with law school... I just lost so much of myself. And after what happened with Mat... well whatever was left... I feel like that disappeared right along with him. I was never the kind of person who wasn't sure. I always had goals, had a plan. I powered through my bachelor's degree in 3.5 years while my friends puttered around at 5 years, 6 years... I always knew. But not now. I wish I knew. I just need some direction...

Conflict and dispute resolution feels like a good fit... I've often been told over the years I should become a therapist/counselor/psychologist (much to my own personal horror and active gag reflex), both prior to all of this, and even now I still hear it, both by people who are aware of what's happened and by those who aren't. Conflict and dispute resolution is more mediation than counseling; coming to peaceable negotiable terms, rather than a continual exploration of feelings, which is something I could get behind. I like mediation, or at least, I think I do. It's also something that's used in the family court system, and could possibly get me in the legal arena without a law degree. Interestingly enough, CDR is within the law school at U of O, although it is not a law degree.

The only thing I wonder is, as I look at the program, my thought process is the same, "Well, I would go to school there, get the degree, and then apply straight to law school."

If I'm going to go to law school again, why would I spend $17,000 a year on a Master's degree, which, albeit would be helpful in my experiences as an attorney, but would also just add to my debt and may not be used at all? Would I really just be using it as a way to prove to the admissions councils that I was smart enough to conquer law school this third time? Is that really a wise decision and a reason to get a degree?

I don't know. Why do I keep going back to the program though if that's my only interest in it? I could get a Master's in anything; I could do it locally and cheaper and prove the same point to the admissions councils.

What do you think?