How to make the narcissist panic? How to make them experience sudden uncontrollable fear and anxiety? The narcissist will drive you insane They will do everything they can to keep you off balance To keep you shocked or confused So you might be looking for a way to make them panic To make them lose their balance Because you can't deal with their tactics anymore It's driving you crazy They deny things that they've said or done They project their insecurities onto you They shift the blame onto you They gaslight you They engage in double standards and the double bind And they want to make you think that you're crazy They want to make you think that you're losing your mind So that they can then manipulate you and get you to do what they want Sometimes there's no reason for them to lie or manipulate you They could get what they want just by being fair or honest But they believe that they cannot achieve anything great by doing good They believe that they will only get what they want by doing bad By lying and manipulating people They believe that's the only way that they're going to come out on top They see themselves as being unfairly disadvantaged So they believe that they have to cheat to get the result that they want They will persuade you to do what they want by using force or threats They will intimidate you to keep you in a state of fear So that you remain under their control You're constantly afraid that they're going to do something undesirable to you You're afraid that they might try to hurt or expose you You're afraid that they might try to take something away from you They're always looking for your weaknesses or vulnerabilities They're always looking for what you value the most And that's where they're going to strike first They will do whatever they think will hurt you the most Whatever they think will make you panic They will make you think that your life is going to be miserable if you dare to go against them They will gossip about you to other people They will have all of their flying monkeys supporting them Agreeing with everything they say So that if you dare to go against them You're going to be the one who looks crazy You're going to be the one who loses everything Because the narcissist has managed to charm those people And they're thinking that they're this kind of caring person So there must be something wrong with you This is something that all narcissists do They all want you to think that they're close to all of these people So that you have no opportunity to say anything bad about them Because everyone thinks there's nothing wrong with them So they then think that you're the problem Narcissists are very weak fragile people They are very afraid They feel worthless and insignificant Which is why they need so much validation, compliment or money From other people to make them feel like they're worth something But they are very fragile people They are very afraid They might act strong But if you push back against them They will back down One thing that really makes the narcissist panic Is the truth Narcissists are pathological liars They lie about anything and everything And they expect you to lie too They don't understand how normal people think They can't comprehend it They assume that everyone is fake just like they are They don't realise that there are genuine, authentic people out there If you are completely honest with the narcissist In a direct way that does not attempt to disguise unpleasantness It shocks them It leaves them temporarily unable to react They don't know what to say or do COVID narcissists always play the victim They're always sick There's always a reason why they can't do something They've got it worse than anyone They can't work Everyone's against them Everyone's causing problems for them There's always some reason to feel sorry for the COVID narcissist They have to be the victim in every situation And if you call them out on it If you just point out the facts If you just say There always seems to be something going wrong for you They don't know how to respond They panic The narcissist always has to get what they want from you And if you've been around them long enough They will have trained you into giving them what they want But when you push back If you say no They will be really shocked They will panic Because they thought they had you under their thumb They thought they had total control over you But when you stop doing everything that they tell you to do When you stop agreeing with everything they say It causes them to panic Because they begin to realise that you're no longer under their control And make some feel like their pet is escaping One of the greatest ways to make a narcissist panic Is to expose them To reveal their true objectionable nature There is a side of the narcissist that they don't want anyone to see And if you expose that side of them It will make them panic There are a lot of things that they don't want people to know They want people to think that they're perfect That they don't do anything wrong And they go through great efforts to present this false image So when you expose what's underneath the mask It makes them panic Narcissists have to have control over everything They have to have influence and authority over you So that they can make you do what they want They are very weak fragile people They are very insecure So they have to bully you into submission And when you try to push back against them Their behaviour might get worse They might become even more controlling They might lie even more They might become even more rageful and intimidating They think that by doing this It will force you back into their control When the narcissist loses control over you They will panic And this fear of losing control Is the reason why they do what they do It's the reason why they deny something they've said or done It's the reason why they gas like you They want to maintain their influence and authority over you Because they're very insecure So to make them panic You can take away some of their control The narcissist is like an emotionally immature toddler They might try being nice first If they think it will get them what they want But if that doesn't work They will throw a tantrum They will shout and scream And if that still doesn't work They will get even louder They will even measure it by past experiences What it took to get you to give in And give them what they want They will assume that all they have to do Is shout and scream a little longer and louder And at some point you will finally give in The narcissist is just trying to figure out What they have to do To get you back under their control And then they will be that much more mean And aggressive the next time To get you to do what they want Because that's what makes them panic When they feel like they don't have control over you When they feel like they can't get you to do what they want Thank you for watching I hope this video has it with you Please like, comment, share and subscribe Click the bell icon to receive notifications For my future videos Check out the new Narc Survival website At www.narcsurvivour.co.uk Where you can read my blog posts Book coaching sessions And join a support forum If you are delighted to know My PayPal link is in the video description Coaching Inquiries You can email me at www.coachinginquiries.co.uk Thank you for watching And I'll talk to you soon


Look how good I look now in my 80s and 60s. But who wants to show them how bad they looked before? That's what I want. Who would take a selfie of like... That's just going to be right there. But my thing is, why do people need so much acknowledgement and so much like, you know, praise and look at me now. Like, just be yourself. If you're skinny now, be happy. Why do you need everyone else to like... You know what I think most of the selfie is? Is a facade.  Well, I know the truth behind the selfie, okay? She's taking it at my kitchen counter, but she's like got this like, Instagram filter on it, you know? Like, now we can have all these instant photo shops and if I go in early bird, maybe I'll look like I have a tan. It's not working, babe. You don't look fabulous.  I'm guilty. You do love selfies, right? I'm guilty of selfies. Tell me about the selfie. I am guilty of them, but I don't do it with the purpose of look what I'm doing. Do you do it with the filter? No, not all the time. But I may be like my makeup that day, or I may like my hair, so I want to take a picture of it. Why do you put posters? Of course we put our pictures up there. Yeah, why do you put posters? My family put pictures of that, but maybe I'm sending it to someone. What'd you say? Maybe I'm sending it to someone. This is so taxing, Amber. Do you have a picture of yourself? I'm going to say it right now, sugar. I don't take no pictures of myself. I don't want nobody to know what you mean. I'm going to call it no selfie. I'm not for it. I am against it, and I see people all the time take pictures of themselves, and I'm like, why? It should be because selfish. But then they do it, and I'm like, dang, I just worked out with her. She looked good, and she had already fluffed up her face but makeup on, you know. But me, when I work out, I got my afro out, I got my acne all exposed. I mean, I'm not trying to do that. I wear my T-Filene shirts, you know, because I'm not going, I'm going there for myself. Why does everyone always have to do stuff for other people? That's what the selfie is. They're taking a picture of themselves for other people. But in my defense, when I do take pictures of myself, it's for my hair and makeup. I don't think I've ever tried to look sexy for someone. But when I do see those pictures, though, or if I would have posted them, but okay, going back to that, when I do go on my Instagram and I see pictures of girls with lingerie, that kind of does, I'm scrolling and I'm like, okay, do I want to see your picture in the lingerie? I have a question. Is this the new porn? It is. Modern-day porn. Girls take selfies of themselves and then sex it to their partner. And then Instagram it. And then Instagram it. And then I go, Stacey's confused. Yeah, I'm confused. I know y'all were like, okay, selfies. So that, like my husband, so I would like take it with like, kind of provocative and then turn the camera on myself and then smile. But you wouldn't just send it to your husband. You would send it to all of your friends. That's where I would... Is it a trend? I mean, what is it? That's all girls are doing. When you lost all that weight, you know what I mean? Was it something?  But you know, just the whole like, meaning to be in the sports bra and sending it out to everyone else. Like, why do you need so much acknowledgement? I don't know if you have flat boobs. Why do you want to show me that? I don't want to see it. You don't have that problem. I know, I know. And I'm showing them the way I see it besides my husband. When you think about it, when you do take selfies though, you get to pose the way you want to pose. You got to fix it the way you want to fix your angles. Nobody's just taking the picture for you. You're the one that's like, okay, do you want to do fish face? So can you go with that? Yeah, what's a fish face? What was that? When you pose like, okay, so we need to go and have a selfie.


and I would have brought some Tim Horton donuts because in Canada Tim Horton donuts are the source of holiness because they got a hole in the middle and that makes you holy and eventually if you eat enough of them you begin to get a donut around here. It's a certain incarnational thing there. So it's a great pleasure to to be here at Franciscan University to take part in this this conference and particularly to to look at the the way in which we can grow in discipleship as servants of our Lord Jesus. It is a question of catechesis but I think it is really a matter profoundly of the way we are formed in discipleship and in my own diocese we we call in sensely catechetical office the office for formation in discipleship. So what I'd like to do this evening is to look at three different dimensions of that. I always look at three different points. I once my best teacher I had in the seminary was so organized everything was three points. He was a very wonderful priest. We thought if he ever got made a bishop his mitre would have three points like that. So the three points that I I want to to make this evening as talking about this are first of all what is discipleship. How do we live as disciples of the Lord Jesus deeply changed and transformed by our encounter with him and through that making present as instruments of God's grace the life of the blessed Trinity here on earth that's our mission to in our own communities and around their own heart as we're temples of the Holy Spirit and the blessed Trinity dwells within us and as everything we do in our parishes our families in the community in which we live to have a world in which the relationships of love within the blessed Trinity are made present here on earth as our Lord Jesus made that present through his incarnation. So the first is to reflect a little bit upon that vision of discipleship but the second point is sort of the downer we kind of go down and look at the present world in which we live and it's different for each one of us in different places but I think in a very real way we are living in a kind of a secularized world which goes totally contrary to that vision of interdependent love which we find in the blessed Trinity. That is the sea in which we swim that is the air through which we fly it is the environment in which we find ourselves and which comes into us constantly by a kind of toxic osmosis wherever we are and so we're going against the grain but that's what we're called to do as Christians we're called to proclaim a vision of discipleship which is rooted in the love of the blessed Trinity and made present here on earth in a world in which that interdependent love is countered by a vision of independence autonomy ego looking out for number one what ultimately leads to hell where the only song is I did it my way and so that that vision is countered by the world we live but I then that's the second point to look at some of the challenges we face they may be different in the United States and Canada I think I sad to say that I think we're farther along the path of autonomism may well be in Canada we have a very of this sort of secular autonomy our government is really quite something else in terms of restricting the communities of faith and imposing this kind of secular cold vision but I like to end off then with some reflections on how we as disciples of the Lord may more fully make present in this world in this world which is so rooted in individualism how we may make present in this world in our communities and our parishes our diocese our families the vision of Christian discipleship which is rooted in a vision of the father the son of the Holy Spirit and that is what we're called to do and that's what our Lord Jesus showed us how do we do it he came and showed us what does it look like to have a Trinitarian love made present here on this earth we look to the imitation of Christ he showed us that's how it's done I remember a couple of years ago when I was about seven I won a bicycle and I got on the bicycle and my sister showed me how to ride the bicycle so I was riding quite happily along and she was running behind me and then I realized she wasn't there anymore and she forgot to tell me how to stop the bicycle so I think that kind of demonstration is something that is very important that if we want to know how do we do this living the blessed trinity in this ordinary world of ours we look to the invitation of Christ and that's where we find the way to do that and that's how we find the meaning of Christian discipleship and so let's begin in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit that is our most common prayer and we usually think it is a signal that we're going to start praying it's also sometimes using classes as a signal for the students to keep quiet but it is actually in itself a profound prayer and it reminds us of the meaning of discipleship we pray in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit but we're called to live in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit we can't get our little heads around the meaning of the blessed trinity we only understand the gods we make success power we understand those things the God who made us we we don't get our little hands and our minds can't get a grip on that but what we do know because the Lord Jesus came amongst us to show us he gave us hints of what it is like we know that God is all powerful we know that God is personal we found that out in the Old Testament but we could never know about the blessed trinity if Jesus had not pulled back the veil and let us see the glory that is there in the very inner life of God and so he spoke of his heavenly Father he spoke of sending the Holy Spirit he spoke of himself I'm reading I'm going to be doing some talks later on in for a dear friend of mine Archbishop Miller in Vancouver for his priest about the Gospel of John so I've been reading the Gospel of John again and again and how often our Lord speaks of the one who sent me the sending Father I am the one who's sent by the Father and he sent to us and he sends the Holy Spirit to us and it's in that kind of interlocking mutual interdependent love that we find the meaning of Christian discipleship and everything we do our communities our parishes our families need to make that kind of non-ego centric love present and what does it look like physically it's washing dirty feet that's what Almighty God looks like the love of the blessed trinity is shown through washing dirty feet that's what Jesus did at the last supper he not only gave us a sublime holy Eucharist but he washed the feet the service of other people in that we find a radiant vision of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and so the first point I'd like to make is that as we look to what we're called to be to help form others through catechesis through our own experience of teaching in different ways to help form others in discipleship we need to help others and help ourselves to grow in a sense of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit that our life is not based upon the egocentric autonomy that is so common in our society not on independence but on the interdependent generous love which we find made present in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the saints that's our call to do that and then if we do that we will be able to be effective instruments of God's grace in leading others to Christ and to be true disciples in doing that it all comes down to an encounter with the Lord personal because God is not the force like the force be with you or something like that God's a who not a knit this is one of the most basic grammatical points in life we've got to know that everything who and it a person and a thing a who and a what God's not a what God's a who but if I don't that'd be interesting a nice book maybe the next encyclical from a holy father should be God's a who I don't think that's I don't think that's gonna probably go very far but we gotta you know we gotta love people the way the Blessed Trinity is loved and shown in Jesus we gotta love people and use things not love things and use people that's basic we need to know the one we love and so I just like to read as a sense of of how we get a sense of that encounter with the Lord and the experience of freshness of seeing who Jesus is you can't beat the opening lines of the first letter of Saint John now I have a a red Bible here because I believe that the Bible should be read and so on that point I can't help it this is I think what your constitution calls cruel and unusual punishment but I'm a Canadian I eat Tim Horton Donas I don't know about that constitution so you're gonna get pund to death here I hate to say I only studied the scripture but a lot of English literature so oh dear it's bad but anyway here is this this beautiful like and in the Greek it's like breathless it's gonna bounce us all over the place but I'll try to kind of communicate that a bit I I'll ham it up my mother said I can never be or you know I ham things up so much that I oh anyway I won't see what my mother said there's some things your mother says that you should never repeat but she said if I was ever a spy and well I'll say it anyway I can't resist she said if I was ever a spy captured by the enemy if they tied me up I'd never give away the secrets because I can't talk without waving my hands around so I'll ham it up a bit but here's the first part of the first letter of John that which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and touched with our hands concerning the word of life the life was made manifest and we saw it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us that's which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you so that you may have fellowship with us and our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ and we are writing this that our joy may be complete it's interesting in Greek our and your it sounds the same hemon hemon it's kind of hard so when people were producing this by reading right now sometimes that we're not sure what this should be we're writing this that our joy may be complete or writing this that your joy may be complete and which of them is correct yes you know they both are it's that that kind of excitement which which is to be ours and it is in that that we find the heart of our discipleship in that living with Christ and being with Him not from the head up but through experiencing His presence and being people through whom others experience the presence of Christ and thus are led as we are led by the holy people around us to live in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit by experiencing profoundly the one who shows us how to do that and if we do that then we will be forming people for discipleship no matter what our programs are and all that you know nobody remembers what's taught they remember who teaches you know whoever remembers the details you remember the impact of the teacher that's what they call Jesus the teacher and that's why they you know they respond that way the one we have seen we have taught we have touched and so that is I think the the way in which we need to look at discipleship and help through our catechesis and everything else to to let it be known I recently uh well this was this year yeah earlier I think I went over to Rome we had these unlimited visits and um looking at the different departments over in the Vatican you eventually you make meet the Pope as well and for the first time I've been on three of them one with Pope John Paul and one with Pope Benedict and one with Pope Francis and I went to meet I went the first time I'd ever been to the department for the causes of saints where they do the canonizations now it's interesting where they put it there's a big building in Rome where they held these headquarters you know I think the bottom floor is liturgy uh and then you get bishops so they're higher they're kind of going up and then you get the causes of saints apparently bishops are not as high as saints but that's okay and at the very top of the building you have the department for interpreting canon law which I've always thought was somehow not right but when when I went to the department for saints they were saying I don't know this what are they doing this canonization they said why we do this is that the proclamation of the gospel and formation of people for discipleship is most powerfully shown by looking at the stories of the people who have lived it that's why we canonize saints I mean God makes saints the pope doesn't make saints God makes saints the pope just reveals it makes sort of certifies it but that's how we are formed with discipleship is by being saints and I'll end off the presentation with that point that that is the key method if you want to say that program it's not a program according to the way we do what we're called to do is by living lives of practical holiness there is no substitute and it can be done day by day and so what I'll do now is just look at some of the terrain in which we we operate some of the world and you're familiar with this each one of us in different ways I just like to highlight a few of the challenges the kind of the static the friction we face as we're trying to help people to grow in a life of discipleship well I think one of the key things that we find in our society and I think it's probably similar in Canada and the United States is that we are in a secular environment in which the individual is exalted and the goal in life is autonomy independence the most dreaded fear is to lose that to be interdependent to be dependent on another person and we find that and I'm thinking of the experience we can all have at different times you know people and I'm hearing the the just I don't know Dr Willie I've never met him but hearing of a person who is struck down with a sickness and then becomes totally dependent that is a time when a person as I said is called to go deep in trust in the Lord but I think we all like to be under the illusion that we're independent now we can't keep up that illusion when we're children because children aren't allowed the luxury of being independent and as you get older you also are not that independent you it's amazing you know what happens you get older people don't speak as loudly as they used to you need these things to see what's going on I don't know what it is the eyes or something wrong with the paper like the print is much smaller than I'm sure it used to be you know that's what happens and the fabrics of clothing they keep shrinking it's it's there's something wrong with the clothing that's being made these days and something must be done about it but anyway we as we get older we discover all kinds of muscles that we didn't know we had boy I tell you being 71 is a lot different from being 17 however the fact is that this desire for autonomy this exaltation of autonomy it causes great evil it causes great loneliness and it's something that is radically opposed to a life of discipleship lived in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit in the invitation of christ whom we have seen with our eyes we have touched with our hands the one the experience that have encountered that we all experience in different ways we are called to live in a life of relationship and yet we live in a world of autonomy we are called to be analog christians in a digital world the digital world for example just so that they don't have to get a hook I've left my crozier at home but it would work to pull me off at 8 30 there's a nice digital thing here that says it's 802 and when it's 8 30 there's going to be this will drop and I will disappear I think so this is digital now it's got a lot of credit to it you know you see 802 that 803 804 805 806 dot dot bang bang each one disconnected from the other that's the world in which we live in a digital world and yet if you see like at the back of this place and on my little I got turned my little watch not to a digital thing but the screen you know where mickey mouse's small hand is here and his big hand is there and in that thing looking at that it's a little past 8 o'clock but it's not quite 805 we're kind of in relation where we are is in relationship to where we were and where we're going that is send that's sensible that's sane that's humane we are analog by analogy we operate with networks of meaning and structure and of love relationship the web of love the web of order in the universe is analogy it is relationship we are called to be analog Christians in a world that is each one each little individual atom and that's there's no future in that there's no president that either you know somebody once said to me if you're all wrapped up in yourself you make a very small package and it's true we implode into ourselves and that just is there's no future there but that is a very strong part of the world in which we live and so we must seek to celebrate relationships more and more of honorable love with one another and see to the relationships within the universe and not be caught up in this individualistic reality which is a kind of an exaltation of the will my will my I the smallest and most deadly letter the alphabet egocentric I think of a very egocentric king and this is the one I've never seen the movie the king's speech it's a great movie and I don't know how accurate it is historically to the two princes who were one became king and then the other in the 1930s the one was Edward the Edward the eighth and then George the sixth but it speaks very boldly to a real profound idea the glorious prince who was a star um who became Edward the eighth from birth he had been a star and he could see his will as being central not order and pattern in the universe the world around him but he became his will was central this is sort of like the medieval philosophy called nominalism which denied that there is order in the universe that the things like truth justice or essence or existence all these things that there is a real order out there instead it is just what the individual wants so for example we do not steal and God says do not thou shalt not steal the reason we don't steal is because God says don't do it but if he said do it we could steal it's just the will triumphant that's very dangerous there is with the reason we don't steal is because stealing is by the nature of things wrong that's why God says it's wrong it's not wrong because God says it he says it's wrong because it is there's something out there that is hard and real you can't see it or photograph it so the Edward the eighth what he was real to him was his his own will and even on that amazing farewell speech when he abdicated the throne to Mary Wallace Simpson we often say he said I cannot fulfill my duty as king as I would wish to without the help and support of the woman I love which is so romantic and so egocentric too because what he actually said if you listen to the recording he said I cannot fulfill my function as king as I would want to do so without the help and support of the woman I love and I think I want to know how much help and support anyway we won't go into that you're married I mean it's very appropriate his not his kingdom he was king Edward the V II II but his brother his brother however was very shy and stumbled around and stuttered and it was not a star but to him kingship honor fidelity these were real they weren't like names nomina they're named they were real there was order and relationship in the universe and so he became a very great man and his brother I fear I think did not why use that example it's because that kind of exaltation of the ego is deadly and it is not just found in british princes and kings these days it is found all around us I know in my own country and I don't know where you're at with euthanasia we just had the supreme court or a short time ago in Canada oh the supreme court there's all kinds of strange things and I won't get into that but oh my gosh they're suppressing Christian colleges and things like that you can't have a little community college a little Protestant one in British Columbia that among other things asked the students and teachers to promise that in that Christian community you're going to no lying no stealing and all that and that marriage has been a man and a woman you're gonna be faithful husband and wife you know that's considered to be oppressive and so it was argued up in the supreme court which decided the law society of cat of Ontario in Quebec and British Columbia you can get a degree from that university a very good degree but you can't get a job because the law society says you go to that university it's oppressive by excluding people who don't believe that marriage between a man and a woman so anyway it's argued up in the supreme court said yeah law society's right so anyway but we also have that was seven to two but we had a nine to zero judgment in favor of euthanasia basically a while ago all based upon highly emotional arguments and when people ask why do they want this sometimes it's a fear of pain and that's very understandable it is very understandable although palliative care can take care of that I think when my my sister was dying a few years ago from pancreatic cancer it's a great pain in that but I was very blessed she was very greatly helped by the doctors who would give her help in dying we we call euthanasia in Canada medical assistance in dying otherwise known as killing or lethal injection but you can give medical assistance to people who are dying or who are who are not dying it helps and so we should do that pain can we should deal with it you kill the pain not kill the patient and so that's one fear fear of pain and that's an understandable one a fear of being a burden you know fear of being a burden a burden to the children I'm just too much of a burden to others but we have to recognize that we are disciples of the Lord we we all depend on one another we are depending on our other people and having them take care of us is not a bad thing it's a noble and it's a beautiful reality which we all come to in different ways we may just not realize it think of that picture you know of the poster I think it was your boy son you see this sort of teenager with a someone on a young man on his back he says he's not heavy he's my brother it all depends so we need to help people to recognize and you don't need fancy hospitals and expensive drugs and things for that to recognize that we live in a relationship of love like the Blessed Trinity as disciples of Jesus and so no one is a burden to somebody else if we think they are we've got a problem and we need to be such people who don't think that way because that's bad it's it's no there's no future in that and also sometimes and this is especially true in Europe I think from what I've heard that people say well look I've I've shot my wad I've lived autonomously I've flown all over the place I've done this and that the other thing I've had a good life but I can't do those things anymore and so what's the point I am now dependent I'm not independent so give me the lethal injection and that is also goes against who we are and when people even in our Catholic communities even faithful Catholics they begin to think that way that we need to reach out and help form people in discipleship so they realize that our life is full and it does not depend upon my ability to do when I'm older what I used to do when I was a teenager we all break down and there's a Shakespeare has a wonderful statement about that you know how the seven ages of man we end up with sans teeth sans hair sans everything you know but there we are so this kind of we are in a world as we're trying to live a life of Trinitarian discipleship seen visibly through Jesus our lord whom we encounter constantly in word and sacrament as we're trying to proclaim and form in that discipleship we're doing so in a world which celebrates the untrammeled eagle and considers a lack of independence to be unlivable and so we're going against the grain of society and so no wonder we have a song all the lonely people where do they come or do they all come from and we're doing this all in a world which celebrates interconnectivity you know we're all friends on facebook or something you know they're all relating to one another like that somehow it doesn't seem to be enough this kind of digital well the digital again the digital relationships and we could help you can email back and forth you can have some connections but it's just not the real thing it's just not enough all the lonely people staring into their little computer screens which suck time away like that where did time go to time that could be used in living in the name of the father son of the Holy Spirit by loving and yet we're all abstract I remember I was at a meeting in Catholic education which we have a different system in in Ontario anyway but there's a whole bunch of us Catholic educators at a break we all put out our little our little strawberries or blackberries or whatever they were and and we were all either in the apple orchard or the berry patch we were we were all present to the people who are absent and absent to the people who are present now that's insane it just doesn't make sense you know that's the opposite but that's that's our world and it's kind of nominalism gone mad the same thing of course with conscience that conscience means what I think is right if you sort of think it over study it a bit whatever you want to do that's your conscience that is such a false view of conscience it's not the right way and sometimes you know Thomas Moore is shown as a model of conscience indeed is but his conscience do not that I want to do it this way it was because he studied and reflected upon the teaching of the church he saw what was right and he did it because it was right so this is the world of autonomy so here's some suggestions some kind of your friendly neighborhood cardinal fuel ideas here okay point number one take this down no point number one a little hopeful sign and that is in all of this world that I'm painting is a kind of a desert of autonomy there are the one thing that everybody has bought into including the most secular people in the world is the parable of the good Samaritan everyone accepts that they don't maybe know it's Christian they do so if you see someone who's a victim you reach out to them at the side of the road now that's a good thing we can build on that you know give me a little thread then a rope then we can build you know when you start across you want to build a bridge so this enormous bridge over here I don't know whether he shot a thread across the river and then brought a rope and then a beam and then a bridge but so you kind of have to do that so we got a little bit here to work with the fact that everybody believes in helping victims now it can be misused manipulated if you declare I am a victim the door is open gold sourced down you know so it can be false victim hood can be used to manipulate and I won't get into examples of that but it can happen but it is true it's a noble thought a noble thought and so I think we should remember that and that's why as we think about how we can help people to to grow in discipleship uh what I think we should do is think about faith hope and love faith is the beginning we see the hand of God this leads us to hope and it bears fruit in love but if we're to form people in discipleship what we need to do is begin with love helping the victim at the side of the road which we do all the time and help bring people into that that they may be filled with hope and then ask why are we doing this why are we doing this remember the story of someone in a jungle this sister was helping the most difficult people in a terrible situation of sickness and some millionaire went by and said I wouldn't do that for a million dollars and the sister said I wouldn't either it's love that makes that and why does a person love because of faith so that's we should do take the thread we have that even the most secular people see that this is what we see in Frederick Ozanam he was a young university student and he was uh with a group of his students studying fellow students studying the faith conferences in honor of Saint Vincent de Paul and one of the sisters who was working with the poor in Paris said get out there and start helping the people that's why the Saint Vincent de Paul Society does it that way and they're still called conferences but it's helping people in practice the faith and the hope but you you in practice you start with the love in theologically you start with the faith and next I think another principle might be good to think of as what do we do how we approach this it is care for the gathered reach out to the scattered this is kind of the pastoral plan of my diocese care for the gathered those who are here you know put on the I just came it flew in this morning when uh when the the awful moment when the little oxygen drops down put around your first first before you help the other so that you don't die of oxygen deprivation that before you can help the other so let's care for the gathered the people are already coming to church so that we may reach out to the scattered to the people who are caught up in the lonely desert of secularism and of autonomy triumphant destructive autonomy I think that's a good principle to use what we do in my diocese we break it down into vibrant parishes vocations carefully thought out of all vocations practically caring for the needy and evangelizing the culture by doing all of that it's very very important to reach out to the scattered and care for the gathered our communities that do that need to be communities of real Trinitarian love where people are attractive to come to people who are really showing see how these Christians love one another draws people in draws the scattered in if they see the gatherer living that way I think Mark Twain said I don't think I want to go to heaven because none of my friends will be there I see his point we don't want people living the Christian faith with grim determination I remember the priest at the seminary I taught at once he said the faith that is sad or mad and not glad is bad and there's a lot of truth to that so we got to have this welcoming communities where you see a joy that's not happiness or optimism which rich we often have no emotionally we don't often have happiness something was up and down optimism have you seen the papers have you looked optimism oh good grief but hope we have and hope brings us joy because we see all the grim things around but in the hand of the provident god Jesus Christ is Lord and therefore whatever the things one of my favorite hymns is oh god beyond all praising and whatever things happen you know I'll try well try them through our sorrows and rise to bless you still but there are going to be plenty of sorrows to triumph for so that's an I think an important thing I once asked a priest actually from around here Father Ronald Knot who came up to speak to my priest and he had some good advice this is practical advice so I never never forgot it well I don't I'm telling you about it he said what do you want to do if you want to perish to be vibrant and people disciples join together what you do is put your money in the music good point harmony trinitarian harmony put your money in the music your time in the homily and stand at the door of the church encounter people don't write them letters meet them nothing you know push the send button no go and see people face to face you know why we when we're typing things on the internet we say horrible things we would never say to someone we saw face to face no we've got to see people face to face our communities have to be like that that's like when I I've been I've been Bishop 21 years now oh good grief 21 years and I've had different vocation directors I always say look don't pump out brochures people not paper you know this is the way so stand at the door of the church and meet the people that's kind of kind of crucial and that's what we see in and you know we want preaching to be not sort of theoretical but deep down from the heart and the mind head heart and hands I always think this is um this is my old bishopy uh I guess I can 21 years I can have some old tricks of the trade head heart and hands whatever someone comes to my office as they do every half hour I sometimes dive under the desk in a fetal position oh no no just kidding just kidding but when people come with all kinds of good things and bad things and persistively they come with a good thing I say is it head is a thought out is it heart does it have a little love in it is it hands is it something practical so if we're going to be forming people in the discipleship always think of that is this theologically is intellectually God put our heads in so prominent a place in our bodies he must want us to use them we've got to think it through and then it's a God warmth and love you know we keep on pumping out documents all the bishops are former professors we can't help it we just documents come flooding out and nobody reads them you know why would they whereas the I know the children of darkness are telling stories which are convincing canadian supreme court justices to allow lethal injection I mean jesus told stories we should do that remember the greek thing ethos pathos logos from Aristotle build a bridge of trust touch the heart with a story and then tell them the truth communicate the truth through a story when you build a bridge of trust I think that's the way to do it and if we're going to communicate our faith we should do no less than that I mean let's imitate our lord jesus in that he talked about mustard seeds you know he didn't talk about the eschatology because the significance of the christ event good lord oh oh that would be horrible that would be oh no anyway so these are some kind of you know a little nitty gritty things I just suggest that we might want to to do but the most important thing and I think those saint makers in the saint department of the Vatican were right the most important thing is sanctity it's nothing is more important than the witness communicating our faith the witness of saints not just a few to get canonized but the witness of saints who have encountered our lord jesus and who are trying to live it with all their sinfulness day by day and if you ever hear that christianity or anything to do with christianity is an ideal up there somewhere floating kind of over there maybe made of crystal with balloons keeping it up nobody can read you know you can't actually live christianity oh what happens we gotta dumb it down no saints live christian faith every day it's very common the great challenges of our christian faith are the pathway to sanctity and it happens all the time so the idea that there's a certain model of christianity somewhere out there we all bow to it but no one actually can be expected to live it that is simply wrong we're called every day to live our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done in my life day by day day by day to see thee more clearly to love thee more dearly to follow thee more nearly day by day i mean it's done all the time it's not just the saints we get out of the canonizations so there is nothing more important in our life of catechesis and of christian discipleship then day by day in a repentant spirit recognizing that the gospel is not beyond our reach why would the lord god toy with us toy with us here's the gospel i remember i i do this sometimes with the little kitty patrick and mickey two little kittens my sister has but i've been known in my weaker moments to dangle a little straight thread in front of them and they're jumping up you know but i don't think god treats us that way with the gospel of our lord jesus christ so we need to live it but you know live it daily practically um i have five minutes and 26 seconds left so before this drops i'm gone down below i don't know what's below here so i don't think i'll read you the whole of this thing but i i recommend it to you it's the thing by um don henry newman and i'll read a bit of it i might talk about sanctity i'm not talking about kind of you're leaping through fire or you know doing all that some people do that you know martyrs and so on some people are called to die for christ but we're all called to live for christ in washing dirty feet things like that that's holiness that's what it looks like and we're all called to it we're not told it's something that a few people of somewhere else do every single christian is called to be a saint and every single christian can become a saint by god's grace the grace of god and i should put on a tweed jacket you know i have my uh you know my watered wool here but um here's john henry newman it is the saying of holy men that if we wish to be perfect we have nothing more to do than to perform the ordinary duties of the day well a short road to perfection short not because easy but because pertinent and intelligible i think this is a very sensible way in which we should proceed what is meant by perfection it means doing things faithfully the way they should be done he then is perfect who does the work of the day perfectly this is john henry newman it's also the little flower you know and dina don't have to go beyond that to seek for holiness you don't have to go out of the round of the day i insist on this because it will simplify our views and fix our exertions on a definite aim if you ask me what you are to do in order to be holy i say first do not lie in bed beyond the due time of rising give your first thoughts to god make a good visit the blessed sacrament say the angelus develop the eat and drink to god's glory say the rosary well be recollected keep out bad thoughts make your evening meditation examine yourself daily go to bed in good time and you are already perfect that's what we're called to do it's sort of the ordinary way in which we're supposed to live our lives and so this is the way we are to live it always has been it always will be this is living in the name of the father son and holy spirit in the imitation of our lord jesus christ in the little things of life and that touches the heart and then when we speak the words of the gospel there will be willing years to hear them and when we recognize each one of us that we are so very frail we nonetheless say lord jesus son of the living god have mercy on me as sinner and help me grow day by day to sanctity and that i think is what it's all about so i'll end off with these wonderful familiar words of of st paul which sort of tells us what we're supposed to do in our life have this mind among yourselves which was in christ jesus who though he was in the form of god did not count equality with god a thing to be grasped but emptied himself taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and having been found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even death on a cross therefore god has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name so that at the name of jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that jesus christ is lord to glory the glory of god the father amen


Well, welcome everyone to this presentation. Me, my thesis, and I, by a graduate of the FLIS program, Robin Dexter, who is a National Archives Archivist at Anchorage, Alaska's National Archives. And I'm so glad that she could be with us this evening. And this is Robin. I think you've seen her picture and read a little bit about her background on our FLIS colloquia page. So I'm not going to spend much time there, except to say that she's a very interesting person who's got a great story to share with you. And I'm going to let her do that so that I don't take up her time. So I'm going to turn the mic right over to Robin now so that she can get started. Great. Thank you so much, Dr. Ries. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here. Okay. So one of the things when you're working, especially in a distance format, is you still have to find a way to connect with your audience. And so I always like to ask who it is that I'm talking to. Is everybody familiar with the raising hands over here on the left-hand side, depending on your name?  Great. Okay. So can I see a show of hands for all of my, the first-year people in the audience. This is your first year, maybe even your first semester. Okay. All right. Good. Just scrolling down, looking at people. Excellent. Okay. How about people who are even just thinking about doing a thesis? Not really sure. Just kind of checking it out. I love that little scroll bar. That just makes life so much fun. Okay. Is there anybody who is pretty well-set that they're going to be doing their thesis? I'm just here to find out some information. Okay. Excellent. Good. Okay. How many people are here because they have to see me at work tomorrow? I see at least one of you. So there she is. All right. Wonderful. So I always like to, like I said, start out and just kind of get to know who I'm talking to, which is always good. And oh, there's, we've changed. There it is. Now moved up there. So one of the things you learn in the military is what we call death by PowerPoint. And so I always make it a point to tell people exactly what we're going to do and when we're going to end. People like to know that too. So I'm going to run through my bio. It's very short. Talk about my thesis experience, some of the requirements that you need to be aware of, and then also where to find all of the information that we talked about. And then some time for questions. And theoretically, we'll have it all wrapped up in about an hour. So next one. Shall we? Wrong button. There we go. So I'm Robin Dexter, like we've heard. I am a 2013 SGSU graduate and an archivist with the National Archives. I'm 37. I have two daughters and two Siberian Huskies. They, I've taken them for the walk. They should be good, but I do have to tell you, my neighbor's dog is having a come apart. So hopefully they will stay settled down. I did try to hide from them, but I'm not sure which set keeps me busier, my dogs or my children, or more frantic. So after I got out of the Army, you know, I needed something to do, basically. I had gone back to school with the intent to teach high school history. So I was a history major with a dual minor in education and military history. And after doing my first student teaching at a middle school, I very quickly realized that I was not cut out to be a children's teacher. Well, actually what I realized is that I didn't want to go to jail. So I dropped the education minor and focused solely on history and military science. I was still living on an Army base, and I wandered into one of the museums on post and asked if they needed a volunteer. And at that point, I kind of fell into the archives and never really left. You know, it was an amazing place to start in this business, and I was so very fortunate to have had that experience and that amount of support that I got. I graduated in December 2008 and started graduate school the following September. I worked full-time at the museum through graduate school. I was mostly a single parent as my girl's dad was still active duty and was mostly deployed. As I was wrapping up my coursework, I knew that I had wanted to do a thesis, and I was through with my proposal from 285. No, I'm sorry, that was my third proposal. I was through with my proposal. It had been accepted. The research was half done, and then a job opportunity with National Archives opened up. It was posted. I saw it. I bypassed it because it was for Alaska. I'm a southerner. I don't do below 40 degrees. I forgot all about it. And then it popped up again. Maybe two months later, something like that, two months later, it popped up on the SAA board list. And so at this point, there had been some personal changes in my museum, and frankly, I was in the market for another job. So I figured I'd throw my name in the hat.  And then I got called for an interview. At the same time, my girl's father was on his third tour in Iraq, and we were on orders to Germany, and from an Army perspective, we're pulling out of Germany. So it's kind of like the last chance to go for his job. And I did my interview, figuring if nothing else, I had a better understanding of the government hiring process because it is intricate. Carol can tell you too. And then I got the job offer. And it was a really difficult decision that even today impacts every day of my life. Ultimately, the decision was made that I would go ahead and accept the job. And we'd get Eric up to Fort Richardson, which is in Alaska somehow. But one of the byproducts of the decision of going up there was that I was gonna have to change my topic, but we're gonna get to that because there's lots more slides about that. So I went to Alaska, and I was there from April, 2011 to September, 2013, but we're gonna talk about a little bit about that transfer too. Oh, I moved my mouse. We gotta change that slide. So as I said, I had always planned to write a thesis, but I got closer. I saw the constraints, the time involved, and all of that. And the e-portfolio was looking better and better, let me tell you. As I said, I was working full-time. My girls were homeschooled. Their dad was deployed. And I just really wanted to be done with this portion of my life. You see this handsome guy right here on the right? That's Zanarkint, who is still two-day, the love of my life. 90 pounds of Zomai God Love Me Rotweiler. He was not aware that he was not a lost dog. Zan also still had his tail because he was a rescue dog. That's important in a minute. So this is spring semester 2010. Cloud computing had really just started coming into the public stream of consciousness, and I can feel a little slow to hop on the bandwagon as Dr. Fritz can tell you. My stuff was saved to thumb drives, discs. It's kind of scattered around. So Zan went running through the kitchen and as I was making dinner, and his tail caught my charger cord, yanked my computer to my tile floor. My screen was shattered, so was the casing. One of the discs that I had saved most of my stuff to was in the D drive. And we'd moved twice since starting school and things were kind of scattered all over the place. So a healthy portion, what I was gonna need for that e-portfolio was gone. Yeah, I guess it was back to the thesis idea. And this is where the real lessons are gonna start. I had already taken 284, written my proposal, which I thought was wonderful. And in my naivety, I thought that because I wanted to do this project, that everyone was gonna wanna do this project. Everyone was gonna wanna do it. And I just needed a chair to monitor the progress on the work. Yeah, I was wrong. I submitted it to a few professors who basically told me they didn't have the expertise whatsoever in the preservation of scrapbooks and kind of good luck on that. So I learned there was a great divide in what one wants to do their graduate work in and what finding a chair can actually support. Finally, I came to find Dr. Deborah Hansen and let me tell you, everybody needs someone like Dr. Hansen in their life. But we're gonna talk more about that in just a moment. Because at that same time, that's when I got the call that I was going to Alaska. So very quickly, for some of those of you who need a conceptualization of what that actually means, I'm from Virginia down here. And as you can see, we are talking about a move of 4,300 miles. There's an entire country between what we're talking about here. So, and I'm really sorry about the ad thing. I couldn't actually get the screenshot to disappear this, but still keep the numbers. So I'm really sorry about that. But I do wanna talk about more about the process of finding a chair. And because it's first, and I think it's probably really the most critical step because if you can't find the chair, you're not writing a thesis, finding a chair. You, as you're going through the faculty pages, you're looking at this and you're thinking that you have all of these names right here. You see, I even left a little slider bar because it shows you how many teachers we have in the program. And so you think you have all these choices. You don't. This note over here, this basically says that only people in one of these categories can actually share these three categories. You really have more like 15 people. You have that amount of choices and they have every student that approaches them. They have to have an understanding of what they're taking on. Cause really, like I said, you're tying your lives together for a year at least. Oh, Carol came back in. Moreover, you really have to find somebody who just gets you. Somebody that you can work with, who wants to work with you, who's excited about your topic, who understands where you're going and that you really want to work with. And frankly, if you're not living in a fear of disappointing them because you respect them that much, you're doing it wrong. Dr. Henson did actually reject my initial proposal and for the same reason that the others did. But she saw something in me and in my writing and coached me through writing a second proposal, which was on the history of my museum that I was working on. So now we're on proposal number two. We have my original and now we have the history of the museum. She did expect that and we got to work on the drafting. And again, everyone should have a Dr. Henson or they're doing it wrong. She was the best chair that I could have possibly hoped for. But how does one actually go about picking said magic chair? So if you click on any one of these names, it's going to take you to the professor's bio pages. And this is really the first place you want to start. Here we see Dr. Henson's bio as well as Dr. Louge. And some of what I'm about to say may come across as I'm being a little critical of Dr. Lou and that's absolutely not my intention. He was wonderful. I took his 285 class. He's a wonderful man, very good at his avenue in our industry. The problem is that it's not the avenue that I'm on. And which is why I'm using him as an example. As you're looking at what you want to do and what you want to write about, you need to approach professors that are in your same schema. The screen is a little small on my tablet that I'm using, but Dr. Henson is more in the social aspect of our history, of our industry. Women's history, processing, access, things like that. And that's kind of where I'm at. Dr. Lou is in the more technological realm of it and that's not what I do. So this is a mistake that I made that I really want you to learn from. When it's time for you to start looking at 285, look and see who's teaching it and check their bios to see what aspect they're coming from and kind of where their professional development is coming from. I wrote my proposal on Dr. Lou's class, but because he's more tech oriented than preservation of scrapbooks, my proposal actually didn't get the best grade. I got a B on it because he didn't understand where I was coming from and I had a hard time wrapping my head around where he was coming from. And also the format that is normal in his sector of our industry was completely useless for Dr. Henson. I actually wound up auditing her 285 class to learn how to do things that were appropriate for that side of the business. Now, once I did that though, I went through the proposal, but it set me back on the stuff of the semester. Had I not made that mistake, I would have actually graduated in December and not in fall. And if I were writing my thesis on the, let me think of something, the information seeking habits of second world countries, Dr. Lou would have been a better choice than Dr. Henson, but at the time I wanted to write about preservation. And frankly, I couldn't get it off the ground and when I couldn't, it became the history of my museum. So you can see kind of how Dr.... Dan will get to that in just a second. You'll see how Dr. Henson was a better choice for me. Danica said, so to be clear, are you suggesting we pick a teacher for 285 aligning with what we want to do our thesis on? There are only so many teachers for 285. I wouldn't say align specifically because you may not have that option and I don't want you to think that your call are blocked out, but hard science versus what we consider a softer science at least weigh that.  Does that make sense to everybody? Okay, good. That sounds like I see some comments. Good, okay. Let's see here. Where was I? Okay, so this proposal that I keep talking about, what exactly is that? It's the paper, it's kind of like a sales pitch. This is the paper that tells what you want to write about how you're planning on doing it, what you hope to achieve, and often it's actually the basis of your first chapter. It shows how you think, how you process and really how you write. But like I said, it's literally your sales pitch. The proposal is usually your final paper for 285 and that's why it's really important to pay attention to whose class you take. Like I said, Dr. Louis, a hard science guy. Preservation is not a steal. But that's exactly what I wrote and it was a mistake that I made, which is why I got to be. So don't do what I did. Like I said, they may be limited. You're going to have to consider that. And as long as you know that going in, if this is the only 285 class that you can get into or completely derail yourself, at least know and understand and take from my learning experience. Waiting, the waiting until you get to 285 to start thinking about all of this is actually too late. You're going to want to start thinking about this about halfway through your coursework and figuring out what you're interested in and what you can feasibly do. Start reading the bios.  Now I could have taken Dr. Hansen's class and written something for Dr. Frank's because our avenues are close enough. But Dr. Luz and Dr. Hansen's are too completely divergent. The school has some really great material on even making the decision of what you want to do. This video is an hour of your life and I understand that and I get that, but they really, Alina and her team that put this together did a really, really good job. These are everything you want to know about how to put your thesis together and the steps, there's more than one body, there's more than just you and your chair involved. There's the Office of Graduate Gape graduate and well anyway, we'll go through all that. Yeah, Office of Graduate Studies and Research and then there's the Gape office as well. So sit down and watch the video and really understand what it is that you're trying to take on this video is here for a reason. And then also there is a PDF, the other thing that I would highly encourage you to do and let me get the URL for this real quick. And this, oops, we need a sensitive mouse pad. There we go. So my personal laptop passed away the other day and so I'm playing with these on a relatively unfamiliar and that is gonna show you all of the things that you need to know for your final formatting, the things down to the margin and the pagination and how to actually construct the body of work that you're going to submit. Knowing what is expected of you as a final product in the very early stages, I think is a really important lesson that I wish I had taken the time, I scanned it, I read it, I didn't truly absorb it and that was wrong with me. I should have actually done that because had I thought about that as I was writing my chapters and Dr. Hanson was signing off that, yes, this is finalized, I should have formatted them all at that time and I didn't do it. So don't do that. Let's see, where was, yes, the video, the PDF. Most importantly are going to be these right here. Tanika, mine is 125 pages, deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. When you are even trying to debate on when you want to graduate and how you're going to do this, look at the deadlines, absorb them and understand them. These deadlines are not flexible. They don't care if you're in the hospital, I promise you, I was there. It's really important to understand the cutoff deadlines in what, when you're planning, whether to do it to the thesis, because it may set you back a semester, a year is completely normal to be able to do that. It's completely normal to be able to write a thesis, but we're going to get to that in just a second. Let's see, oh, right, I was talking about the content of what actually a proposal, where are my, oh, I need to go back here. And yes, deadlines that are non-negotiable. So I found a definition from a school in Arizona that's actually a little bit clearer than ours here. The proposal for a thesis or dissertation is essentially an outline of the research, kind of like an architectural blueprint building for a house. So you have your problem or your hypothesis. And so that is really, what is it you're trying to write about? What is it you want to know? What are you trying to learn? And then they want to know the importance of this research. So my first proposal, like I talked about, was important to me. I wanted to know about the preservation of scrapbooks, but there's not a research value in that. So your proposal is laying out, why is this even important to people? Why should we take the time to do this? Another question for your thesis is how much significant prior research has been done? And that was actually several of the professors feedback that I got is there's just not enough work to support a master's thesis on preservation of scrapbooks. That is a better doctoral dissertation. Let me talk a little bit about that in a second too. Your possible research approach or methodology, how you're going to put this darn paper together, and then potential outcomes of your research and why those are important as well. So in case people's brains are hurting because I just crammed a lot of information at you, we're going to talk about the things that I wish somebody had told me. So I'm gonna tell you, this can take a long time. It takes about a year, more if you move to Alaska. And you know what, frankly, that's okay. There is not, in graduate school, there is not a prize for cramming your way through it, not having good grades and not having the hands-on skills that you're gonna need to get out of graduate school. Next, your original made topic may not get approved. And until it does get approved, until your topic is approved, do not wed yourself to it. It makes for a frustrating experience. And I know because I did that, I was so invested in the scrapbooks because I was at the museum and the scrapbooks were stirring me in the face every day. And so I really wanted to do it. And so having to let go of that was kind of an emotional experience. And frankly, you know, I still want to write about those during scrapbooks, but like I said, it's a better doctoral dissertation. You may wind up with a chair that leads you rather than directs you. Like I said, you may not even really get to choose, really choose your topic. And that's why it's important to find somebody that you really click with. Because that topic is going to have to grow on you. My kids are actually still forbidden from saying the words Exxon Valdez, but we'll talk about that in a minute. You're abstract. Yeah, cramming is the worst. Exactly Lysette, cramming is the worst. And there's not a prize for it, frankly. Your abstract is going to change because your abstract when you first lay it out is this is what I think I know about this topic. And this is where I hope to be. But remember a thesis is you taking these bodies of work, extrapolating all of the information, wrapping your head around it and coming to some new conclusion or some new body of work that's important to the industry. And as you learn about your topic and you're writing that abstract, you're going to find out that what you think you know you don't actually know and it's wrong. And or it's bigger than what you ever thought. So when your paper is done, revisit that abstract and make sure that it really reflects your findings. I had to redo my abstract, I think probably four times.   Do nice things for people because they have to put up with you too. But it happens to us all. This is the one thing. Lord, I wish people had told me this, brain fog. There are still days that my reading comprehension fails. I did it to poor Carol this morning. Carol, I work with Carol Wilson. She's down there in the list. Yeah, she said something and my comprehension just failed. So for a while, my brain actually hurt. Like torn Achilles hurt. And other days were wet sponge full. You know, you can only get so much water in the sponge before the water just starts pouring out. That's what it was like. I've been done since March with my paper and I'm just now coming out of it. We all joke that some of the stupidest people that we know are also the most highly educated. This is why. They didn't know that brain fog was coming and they didn't take steps. So it's going to happen, unfortunately. But if you know about it and you're prepared for it, you can kind of get around it a little bit. I have run across students who actually don't know what a thesis is. Some think it's your magnum opus of original work. No, that's your dissertation. Others think it's this big, huge book report. And I know. Like I said, what was my wonderful quote I came up with earlier today in the car?   So essentially what you think you know is wrong and your thesis sends you on, or not complete, sends you on a mission to find out. And that frustrating learning part where you have to accept that you don't actually know or that you were wrong, that's normal. And that's a really big part of why you're doing this. You're doing this to learn. However, those preconceived notions can be really hard to let go of, really, really hard. And that's part of why having that good relationship with your chair is so incredibly important because in the editing process, when your chair is giving you feedback and you're like, no, that's not what, you know, I meant what I said, that your chair is trying to help you recognize the larger body. You're gonna gain some weight too. You will, or you're gonna lose it one or two depending on your body type.   You may engage in alcoholic beverages. The man at my corner store knew my name. Occasionally he'd put the last bottle behind for me because he liked me that much. It's the nature of the beast. However, recognize that that brain function and that brain fog that I talked about relies on nutrition and exercise. And guys, walking up the stairs to the kitchen for more mountain gym pop tarts, that's not the same as going outside for a walk. Just saying. Also understand that you may not find a chair. And just because you want to write a thesis doesn't mean that a professor has to accept you. And that was a hard thing for me to come to. If you can't find a topic suitable for yourself and a chair, then your thesis may not be the option for you. However, if you do find one, recognize the trust and the faith that they are putting in you. And have that same trust and faith in yourself. Because frankly, if this were easy, everybody would do it. You guys are following along in a class, and I'm following Dr. Frankson and Dr. Hansen. Not everybody gets through graduate school. You guys are an exceptional percentage of people that actually made it. And you should be so incredibly proud of yourself. And if you get through the thesis process or the e-portfolio process, and when you graduate, you are in a small body and you really need to be joined with yourself and really focus on that trust and that faith. Okay, that's enough hands-on holding and machinists. The next slide is the most important thing I may say to you all night long. Yeah, this is true.  I walked around with this expression for six months. I'll just let you enjoy that for a second. I always like looking at it. Okay, so last few notes. Seriously, take a word class. I thought that I was really, really good with word. Do it anyway, even if it's like a one hour online kind of class, do it anyway. There are things that you don't know about word that will make your life vastly easier. Also, just buy the darn thing. Yeah, I tried to come up with a few adjectives here as you see cheap, frugal. Yeah, yeah, I'm just cheap is what it is. I did most of my paper in open office because I'm cheap. And for eight months, I could not figure out why Dr. Hanson was telling me move this, move that, indent this, space this, adjust that because what she was telling me to do was exactly what was on my screen. Turns out that my open office and her word were frenemies. They just, going back and forth of the versions and the software, it just, it wasn't working. Just buy the student version. I think it's $85. Yeah, ultimately, as you do your final formatting, remember the PDF that I was talking about a little bit ago and it has these very stringent requirements. When you do your final formatting, you're gonna need that anyway. And I'll show you why here in just a second. Just buy it early and save yourself the hard day can have. Next, write your citations as you go. You're not gonna remember to do it over here and over there and maybe this, but maybe not. And you're not gonna come back to it and you're not gonna get to a stage 364, just do it.  It's better just if you write them and then come back to them. Also get a program called Zotoro. If you are not familiar with it, it is a, also somebody didn't tell me this until I was done with the last chapter. You don't have to write your chapters in order. And that kind of seems illogical and unstructured, but sometimes it's a really great way to reevaluate your information. And it doesn't seem like in your brain that the information was flow correctly, but it really kind of does. And if you have a chapter that you're really struggling with, there's nothing wrong with putting it down, going back to your research proposal and figuring out what's next and moving on for a little while. I wish somebody told me that. So at this point, you may be wondering exactly what it was I actually managed to accomplish with all of these losty words of wisdom I've had going. Remember when I said I moved to Alaska? Dr. Hanson decided that since I was moving away from my research topic, the museum, that my topic was not going to be the best topic anymore. And she wanted a topic related to Alaska. So I had to ditch all of my previous work, come up with a new proposal, a new plan, start a new job, my girls started redeployed again, all at one time. Got in for punishment, I'm not sure what I was thinking. But ultimately, so I did. This was the third proposal that I had done though, so I went that darn thing out, got it done, she was happy with it and got started on it. And ultimately, I took on the topic of archival roles and responsibility in disaster records using Exxon Valdez or EVOS as my case study. This isn't my whole abstract because that's kind of long, but it really gives you the gist of what it was that I was writing. What I really, I came from public history, I came from a museum into government records and those are very, very different creatures, let me tell you. And so I wanted to know basically how to to interact it and to do that, I had to figure it out. So how did I go about doing that? Time check, okay. These are my chapter headings. And one thing that I learned is that having interesting chapter titles makes the writing of the chapters, it really just encourages people to actually enjoy what you had to say instead of try to struggle through it. Just a note. So some of them are things like, what is this record schedule you speak of? And a quote, one of my favorite quotes actually, history does not unfold, it piles up. Yours, mine and ours. And the after-action report owed to the military. So I looked at two government archives, National Archives and the Alaska State Archives and then two public entities, the Alaska Resource Library and Information Service, or ARLIS, and the Valdez Museum because all four bodies have evos material. I looked at history, how the bodies developed, legislation, regulation, research or habits, processing, what else, scopes of collection, retention schedules, specific document processing and actually even finally some evos material itself. Really what I was examining was what government and public history archivists do and how we do it. I think I was trying to reconcile the two in my head and I concluded that the roles or what we do are actually the same. It's our responsibilities, i.e. how we go about doing it that are so very, very different. And I think that was the part that I was trying to reconcile. Which I did, by the way. Remember the irregularities between open office and word? This is one of them. This is actually my title page which managed to turn itself upside down. If this had only gone to Dr. Hansen, wouldn't have been a big deal. But this was my final submission. This is what actually went to the thesis board. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I turned in paper that was upside down. Just this page, though. Just by word. Don't be cheap, like I was. So, and actually she wrote me a very nice note for reasons beyond my comprehension. This page is upside down. I almost died of embarrassment, let me tell you. And when I submitted this, I blind copied myself and Dr. Hansen and neither one of ours were upside down. So I don't know what happened, but it did. Happiest moment time of my life at this year, this is the acceptance email. This email basically said I was done with graduate school. This was a bigger deal to me getting this email than hearing my name at graduation because I was actually still in Alaska for graduation. I still like looking at it. It's okay. You will, too. So now what? You're probably wondering where all of this has gotten me. I'm, like I said, I'm a NARA archivist. There are, the last time I looked at our TDA, there were about 175 of us across the U.S. Now there's about 3,800 NARA employees, but only about 175 of us are archivists. When I went to Anchorage, I went to see archivist and wound up taking on the acting director's role. So I got the office handed to me. And my education at STSU absolutely helped to prepare me for that.  There are classes I took that I absolutely don't remember taking. We all had our classes from those undergrad days. And you guys know what I mean. I don't remember taking them because they weren't pertinent to what I was doing at the time or even now. But the classes that I do remember taking absolutely prepared me for what I am doing. David De Lorenzo's records management class, I owe that man my job. Not gonna lie. He taking his class probably is what got me my job. Michelle Simmons at public education class taught me how to structure a lesson plan. It's actually what I used to come up with for what we're doing tonight. Erin Lorimer's description class. Poor lady, I still feel bad. I took a class when I was at the museum and in the military we structure things in the Army Archives program. We structure things very differently. So everything I turned into her was something we'd used at the museum and she just had the hardest time creating my stuff. I felt really bad. But I did learn a lot from her regarding placement and the structure, the value of finding aid. Carol, the finding aid that we use was I learned in her class. The template, like I said, the template that we use in both my Anchorage office and my San Bruno are based on what I learned in hers. Dr. Fring's social media class as well. You know that the archival world is really concentrated on sharing and access right now. And I still, back today, I even used things from her class to bridge a lot of generational gaps and overcame some personal biases as well, to be honest. Those biases are rooted in the fact that I have a cranky old cousin and her class helped me learn to share that sarcasm with the world. They appreciate it. No, seriously, I use a lot every day to bring the Anchorage office into a new access plan. I wanna say maybe it was lesson three, Dr. Fring's that we did. I based it off of that. And I doubt I would have been able to do all of that without the exact combination of classes that I took. After two years of running that office, I was transferred to the San Bruno office down here in California to run an inventory overhaul project. Yeah, Carol, so you now know more about me than you ever wanted to know. The thing about the federal government is that if you wanna promote up the ladder, learn new skills, gain a variety of experiences, you have got to be willing to travel. Otherwise, promotion comes very slowly and challenges only come when a new person arrives. If you prefer longevity and stability, you certainly can find a home in the federal government. But like I said, it comes very slowly. I know people who have been in the same job for 15 years and don't understand why they haven't been promoted. It's because they won't move. Whether it's right, wrong, or indifferent, it is the way it is. People have their comfort challenge, but my thesis and my coursework helps guide me through all of that in two ways. One, I actually get to understand what we as archivists do and why we do it. And even though I was employed as an archivist before starting graduate school, my classes helped solidify a foundation that was already built. The ones that I mentioned earlier gave me a firm footing to stand on and is what set me apart in my interview. 150 people interviewed, well, were selected. We're on the list, 25 interviewed, I got the job. Also never underestimate the power of vocabulary in an interview. David taught me that. Let's say, okay, moving on.  It's a federal agency, just like everybody. And I know y'all saw the news in October. Besides Carol knows me in real life and she would know that I was blowing smoke in your ear. Like I said, it is a government agency and it comes with every other sector out there, private, public, government, or civilian. It comes with benefits, it's drawbacks, six AM East Coast meetings, but it also has that Holy Magooly, I just found the document. Amazing people that I can safely tell you. Yeah, I would, and I can tell you honestly, I would go to war with some of them. And people I would love to kick off the island. But my thesis experience as convoluted. Yeah, convoluted as it was.  The best of experiences. And most importantly, how to pass on what I've learned to those of you coming up behind me. I did put together a short list. And these are things that I showed you already, but that you are also there if you wanna be able to copy them down real quick. But like I said, you saw them on the other page too. It is absolutely not a comprehensive list of thesis resources. These are places to help you figure out if you even wanna do this, even if you wanna come down this road with me. These are the pages, the three pages that I went back to again and again and again and again, especially the deadline page. Yes, excellent, we're right on where I wanted to be. I love it when that happens. Okay, wrap up. Questions. I'm in the middle of my thesis process now. And I find one, thank you so much for as a cost-conscious person myself. I also rely on open office. And in addition, my chair is visually impaired. And sometimes he can't always, he has a reader. And sometimes it doesn't always work with open office. So I am gonna just give in and buy a board. You scared me straight, thank you. But I was also having a life and having your school being miles away is something I completely understand. I live in New York. How do you stay motivated? And how did you plan your schedule so that you could stay on focus and not let life push it to the side? Part of it honestly comes from, the military my whole life. And you just kind of grew up with this mentality of this has to get done so you can move on. Part of it was a scheduling. I had my Google calendar and I literally blocked out time. This was my time. I was at work from 7.45 to 4.15. And from 4.45 to 5. I was driving home and from 5.30 to 6.30 the girls and I were at the gym. And it was literally that structured. I could pull that calendar and tell you what I was doing August 9th, 2012 at two o'clock in the afternoon. Well, it doesn't work at seven o'clock in the afternoon. It was literally that structured. And the alerts went to my phone and told me, it's time to get off the couch and go work on your paper. And that really was probably the best tool that I could come up with. And sometimes I did press ignore. And I did press delete. But it was a reminder that this still has to get done. And you can watch the rest of Downton Abbey. Well, it wasn't on then. You can watch the rest of Days of Our Lives. But you still have to get up and go write your paper when this is done. Yeah, you need blocks of time. And not just an hour or two. Sometimes you're going to be up until 2 o'clock in the morning and that's OK, as long as you know what you've got coming the next day. Tara, I did not. I wound up moving to, when I moved to Anchorage, we moved into a really good school district. What worked for me as I came home, I did all the girl's schoolwork with them as well. And I didn't start on mine until after dinner and bath time. So I generally would start on my working around 8.30 at night. Tara, it is important that how old are your kids? It can be done. OK, you've got one. Yeah, it can be done. Absolutely. I read this original research. Dina, let's see. I was looking at preservation of scrapbooks. There is a woman named Jennifer. And I will remember her last name here. Just Google Jennifer in Scrapbook Preservation and you'll find her. There's just not a lot of supporting material to be able to do it. And like I said, I had a really hard time. I still want to write about it. It would make a wonderful doctoral thesis though. Your pitfall is going to come in your sources because there's not a lot of academic sources. And it is also going to come in your literature review. And that's where most of the people I submitted to had issues. There wasn't enough literature. Would I say, Lucette, would I say that my thesis informs my job now? Absolutely, 100%. I think I really wrote that topic as a way to reconcile what I was doing as a public historian moving into government records. They are very different fields. And I had to wrap my head around both of them. It absolutely impacts what I do still every day. Because I had to go through and understand things like record groups and retention schedules. And how the paperwork process of the Electronic Records Archive, which is now how we accession, is different than a scope of collections and accession agreement. I had to work those through my head. And looking back on it now, that's what my thesis was really about. It was less about the Exxon Valdez and more about what we do and how we go about doing it. Let's see. Danica, you currently work for the Federal Government Records Management. High five, you. You are one of the few. Slide into archives at some point. Captions, let's see. Yes. And I have lots of things to tell you that I don't want to take up the other's time with, but that the teachers that I suggested were David de Lorenzo, Michelle Simmons, Erin Laramore, and Dr. Franks. And I am currently at National Archives San Bruno. I'm really easy to find, honestly. If there's something that you want to talk about after we get offline or at about 10 o'clock tonight and you're sharing at your computer and go, God, I wish I'd asked you that. Just call me at work. Or email me. It's robin.dexter at narra.gov. Absolutely, Danica. Please do so. I highly encourage all of you. If you have something that I can help you with, shoot me an email. I am easy, easy to find. Can you type your email into the chat area for them, Robin? Absolutely. Any other thoughts, questions? Carol? Carol. Hey. Hey. So my main question, I guess, is that because you had to snap through where you lost your e-profile and then you ended up doing your thesis, in the long term in the job market, would the e-profile work better or the thesis? Or does that depend on what industry you end up in? After I lost everything that I could have used for my e-portfolio, I truly did not investigate it further. I'm not the best person to answer that question. What we can do is probably push that off to Dr. Franks, who's a vastly better person to answer it. And Danica, you're very, very welcome. Yeah, it's a totally practical question. It's a great question. Let's see. I probably need to take mine off so she can. That's OK. I think Carol turned hers off. All I was going to repeat is what Dr. Linda Main has told me many times that she believes that most of the students do e-portfolios and that they find value in it because they go back and understand what they have accomplished and they're better able to package themselves to sell themselves when they're looking for new positions or promotions at work. So they find value in that. The other end is she's hearing from prospective employers that they are looking for students who are able to do that and that there is value in them in the portfolio themselves because they're putting all that material together and they're being able to go into an interview and explain exactly what they know and how that's going to help them in different positions. So I think it depends. If you're really interested in a topic, if you have a passion for a particular topic, as Robin did, even though she changed it a few times, I would say the thesis. If you don't have that passion, remember, it's going to take you at least a year. A new portfolio is a half a year. So you're adding an extra year of time to your schooling and it might be better that you do the portfolio if you really are excited about something and willing to give it your all for that length of time. It could be longer. And if you move to Alaska, it adds time. Or your chair happens to retire. It's like mine. Wow. All right, so we have one minute left. If anybody, I'm a big fan of, exactly, I don't want to hold up other people from things they have to do. Tara, what can I answer for you? I was just wondering, it's kind of related to what we were talking about, about getting a position. But I'm wondering in terms of, if you're wanting to go on and get a doctoral or enter a doctoral program in library science or in another area, perhaps, which is going to make you be more competitive for entering that graduate program, a thesis or a e-portfolio? Yeah, Dr. Franks, I see your comment there. Thesis is, I think thesis is going to make it more competitive. Or make you more competitive, I would think. That's my question. I would agree. I would agree. You have to be able to show you can write. And the structure of being able to put together a master's thesis and the structure of putting together your dissertation for you with that specific question is going to be more experience. I think she's right. Let's see, someone else, Victoria, was that? I thought I saw another hand, too.  And I'm going to turn off the recording. And then if you have another question, I'm sure she'll stay around a minute or so and answer after I do that. So Robin, thank you very much. We really appreciate you sharing your time with us this evening. It was a terrific presentation.