I did it.
On Monday, August 30, 1999, I began my trek towards higher learning at Prince George’s Community College…then a bunch of stuff happened. At some point in 2003/2004, I decided to move everything college related to Anne Arundel Community College. When I first moved to Laurel, I was living in the Anne Arundel County side so that made sense. Little did I know, I was going to wind up back in Prince George’s County. I still kept my stuff at AACC because I thought it was a better school for me than PGCC (it was and it is.) Through highs and lows beginning with the Summer 2005 through the Summer 2009 semester, I stuck to it as best as I knew how.
As many of you know, I recently started the next phase of my undergraduate career at Towson University in Towson, Maryland. For those who are not familiar with Maryland, it’s directly north of Baltimore. I had left AACC, three credits shy of getting my Associates…math. I signed up for basic general math, the one I should have signed up for in hindsight at AACC instead of statistics. I’m still asking what I was thinking in picking that subject, but that is a moot point. I have earned my math credits.
What’s bad about this?
This is one of those things that I had to see for myself; Brit Hume on Fox News Sunday suggesting to Tiger to take up Christianity. Could you blame me? Usually when you hear about someone suggesting turning to Jesus as one’s savior, the news travels fast to the point that people want to scream red. So when I watched the video of what Brit said I wondered…
Another Reason To Be Thankful…
From HisAir.net:
Former XM The Message programmer Jim Epperlein’s wife Connie checks in with HisAir.Net today with great news regarding her husbands 10 month battle with Pancreatic Cancer. “I wanted you to know that Jim is FULLY recovered!!! He’s been strength building, eating everything he wants and he’s walking 6 miles every other day! This last weekend (11/7) marked 5 months that he’s been home from the hospital. Connie goes on to say, “Jim recently had a follow-up visit with his Family Practice doctor, Dr. Swink, who told Jim that in his 35 years of medical practice he’s “never had or heard of a more remarkable story”! This wonderful outcome is truly a MIRACLE! Thanks so much for all your love and support over these last several months!! All of this wonderful news comes during the season of thankfulness! We are looking forward to Thanksgiving and all of its special meanings . . . especially in light of our wonderful news! God Bless!
Jim has been keeping busy with the start-up of his own broadcast and consulting firm called JDE – Artist & Broadcast Consulting. In addition, in August, he started working on his Masters Degree in Communications Management at Towson University. XM laid off Jim last year he now works part time on the air at WRBS/Baltimore (95.1 SHINE FM).
I had the pleasure of meeting Jim earlier this year when he briefly came to WAVA. We were all praying that Jim would be able to beat this. Personally, knowing that WPVI-TV Philadelphia Sports Director Gary Papa lost his five year battle with this disease earlier this year, this is great news to be thankful to God for on Thanksgiving. God is real and he answers prayers.
Thanks to my friend Izzy at Star 99.1 in New Jersey for pointing me to the link.
Jim, I hope to see you on campus soon. :0)
Focused…
Have you ever reached a point where you want stuff to change from the status quo in your life?
In case you have not been keeping up with current events, I have recently located to Baltimore County, Maryland to be closer to school. There have been some recent events at work that is causing me to look for a job closer to home (Yes, I still drive to Arlington, Virginia to for work making me ultimately thankful that I have a job in this industry full-time somewhere.)
I was looking around recent events that happened to me that in the past month and realize that I can do better than this. Not even so much as a career, but as a person. I look at people my age and younger who are just nailing the scoreboard. I ask myself, why not me? I am not blaming anyone else but me for not doing more with what God has gifted me with and the opportunities that he has presented to me. With that in mind, I now must challenge myself to make sure I do everything within my power to ensure that I am successful, not only in my career, but as a person.
While I will not divulge everything in regards to what is happening at work (not yet,) I will say that working at a Christian station made me lazy spiritually. I thought that by working here would be great for me spiritually and that the environment would be better. To say that I was wrong is a total understatement. I regret letting myself go so spiritually lazy and I am now going forward to get back on the straight and narrow, purge of the things that I do not agree with. Just like I often say just because it’s Black, doesn’t mean that it is good for you; that can also be applied to anything involving Christianity, Islam…and everything else for that matter. Now, if anyone knows of a good Bible-teaching full gospel church
I know career and schedule wise, things will not improve until I find a job in the Baltimore area, but I feel that moving to Baltimore was the first step on a new journey in my life in addition to starting over in a sense from the slop that I have realized that I have created or stepped in. In a way, what I am doing in my life reminds me of how great this country, America, is.
This is a country where you don’t have to be a rich person to reinvent yourself. You can work hard from humble beginnings to be successful and independent. That’s probably why I admire my new friend, AfroCity Brown. She was raised in the system and decided that she wanted out and not depend on the government anymore. From the looks of things, she is doing quite well.
Humbling…
This past week, I went to my soon to be Alma Mater, Towson University to get my OneCard. The OneCard, in addition to serving as a student ID, also serves as a debit card of sorts. As I saw my ID, I was humbled. Humbled at the fact that in a couple of years, the past decade I have spent in broadcasting will have some teeth to it. Humbled at the fact that I made it into a university after a long decade of being in school (which included a collective four year absence.) Admittedly, I could have done it sooner had I not bs’ed it for a year and a half.
I also have found it humbling while some of my friends have lost their jobs because of the economy, I have been blessed to rejoin two places where I was previously employed before, Traffic.com in Washington and WNAV-AM in Annapolis I am hoping that I will be working out of their Baltimore office soon, should a spot open up.
It’s called moving on and growing in life, a position which have have done more in the past year or so than anything else, starting with my car purchase in March of 2008. For someone who is known for being a hermit, this is a big deal.
One more thing to add the list of life changes, moving. This time, it is not a move across the parking lot. In August, I will be a resident of Baltimore County, Maryland. This was not an easy decision of whether to stay in Laurel considering the safety net around me. However, it would be more convenient to me as far as school, 20 minutes away as opposed to being 40 minutes away and then doubling back to Laurel, and then commute to my main job in Arlington, Virginia.
Overall, humbling is the overall emotion right now, but still chilled.
