Dissertation completed

For the first time, this evening, the entire dissertation is complete. One week for my professor to review, one week for the committee to review, and then I should be defending. There will still be editing, but the document as a whole is finally together.

221 pages, ~41,000 words (I swear I didn’t PLAN on it being 41k words, my 41 bretheren… :) ).

Thank you guys for all your support over the years of attempting this…I am sure I couldn’t have done it without the support of my friends.

-- The Old Fool
“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” -George Orwell.

Blog - Musings of an Old Fool by Juan Lopez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at lopezj4141.blogspot.com.
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Chicken soup for my soul...

I am back on the LU campus for the week-end, helping to usher in a whole new class of fresh-faced brothers into 41.

After having been too ill to attend last year (my only miss in 12 consecutive initiation/EO years), I am VERY glad to have the opportunity to be back, and taking my place as one of the keepers/tellers of the oral histories and traditions in the floor. It was one of the aspects of the whole weeks that I always enjoyed as a young underclassman myself, and now to be able to have the great privilege to take part in the week in that way is a real shot in the arm of my good humor and morale. I love telling these old stories, enjoy the laughs, and more than anything, enjoy participating in this grand old tradition kept alive simply because of the joy others find in it and their desire to continue uplifting these traditions year after year.

Thank you, my brothers for all the years we have done this together in the past, for keeping the traditions alive...and you new brothers - I look forward to years of getting chances to know each other some more. Welcome! And remember that once a 41er.... (that's right, you finish the phrase for me now...)

Always in style:

From LU Years

Memories of years gone by:

From LU Years

From LU Years

From LU Years

From LU Years

Last good shot of the pristine original 41 tiles...

From LU Years

--
The Old Fool

“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” -George Orwell.


*NOTE: I reserve the rights to all the original postings in this blog. Do not use without permission and/or full attribution.

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A new level, then thankfulness

(December 2007, been a while)

Today, more specifically this evening, marks a new level of pain in my humble personal experience.

The onset of some of these pain episodes is occurring much faster than in the past. Yesterday evening this was but a mere tickle of a hint that something could be settling into my foot. This morning it was stiff enough that the total range of motion in that foot was about 1/10 of the ROM for the other foot. This afternoon I was on a cane. This evening I was in hell. I spent the hours from 7 pm to 1:30 am barely able to move on the couch, able to sense each heartbeat from the blinding pain it produced. Every slight shift in position brought me to the verge of tears. I ended up trembling to the point of shivering, sweating, and simply muttering to myself as the pain simply continued to increase with no possibility of relief. The hours rolled into each other. Finally the prodigious amounts of feeble pain medication I have available kicked in a little, and I am back to simply being in as much pain as I ever have been rather than 20x more.

And yet, there is a brighter side to this: at the peak moment of crisis, when I was about to lose my head and start screaming insanely for ANY relief, I was brought back down to earth by you, my friends. I know, I was not speaking with any of you directly, but I had to occupy my mind with something, so I went reading. I read old letters, your blogs, and some of my own "memoirs". I was reminded that no matter how small my universe seems to shrink in moments of crisis to the size of ME alone, there are incredible examples of strength, grace, and endurance that leave me humbled and thankful to know you. 

You know who you are, individually, as each of you face your own struggles with your own individual strength, grace, and courage. Given the things in life some of you have had to face, and what you've done with yourselves, my universe re-expands and becomes manageable and gets placed in a perspective that can exclude insanity as an inevitable destiny.

God bless you, my friends. I truly am the luckiest man alive. How many people are this blessed with this many examples of strength, courage, and poise to draw on for succor in the darkest hours of the darkest days? For sure, many people can think of more examples than I, but precious few can think of as many in their own close and personal life. 

Thus, with a new level of pain comes an even greater gift - a new level of thankfulness. How empty the lives must be of those unfortunate piteous souls who cannot count even one of the likes of you as their friend? Yet, I am filled to overabundance with you.

One of the most moving moments in my life was walking back up to 41 after taking that semester off for illness at the beginning of this changed life journey. I had been overwhelmed by the emotion of having everyone on the floor gather around me for prayer before leaving for that trip...but it was the return that seared itself into my soul forever. As my brothers cried out my return, and I was engulfed by a wave of hugging, cheering, smiling, and some weeping fellow 41ers, I knew then that I had been truly blessed...for no matter what happened to me, I would always have a strong core of brothers to draw upon for strength, courage, and peace. 

Over the years it has been hard to be distanced from those original core brothers, but their effect will always be with me. And the rest of the people I have met and become close to over the intervening years have been as big of a blessing, and in some few cases, even bigger.

Thank you, my friends...thank you for making me the luckiest man alive.