Geoff Schoenberg

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So, this site has been rather dormant over the last little while. Sorry about that. As anyone who has ever followed my attempts to blog, tweet, or really, do anything, I tend to work in spurts. But now I’m back, for a few posts at least…

Expect to see posts reflecting on my masters completion, PhD decisions, and the whole journey that has brought me to where I am now. I can’t promise that they will be in any logical order but I sure hope they’ll be enjoyable all the same…

That’s it for now… stay tuned!

I’ve started a new blog. It’s called Gratitude Letters and its at mygratitudeletters.wordpress.com

The purpose of the new site is to provide an opportunity for people to express gratitude and to read gratitude expressed to others. Eventually, I’d like the website to have a wide collection of letters written by all who would like to contribute.

That’s it for now, so go, check it out. And, if you want to write a letter… email me at gkschoenberg (at) gmail (dot) com with questions or submissions.

Peace.

And, thanks for reading my blog. I appreciate it.

Listen. Care. Love. Give.

I do not own a car.
I am nowhere near owning a house.
I’m not married or engaged or, really, anywhere remotely close.
I still do not know what my ‘career’ might be.

My ten year high school reunion is coming up in early September. I wish I could be there as I, contrary to many, really enjoyed my time in high school and would like to see the people who helped make it such a great time. Sadly, living on the other side of the world means I won’t make it.

Ten years is a long time and it would be really interesting to see what people have been doing and experiencing. As with any reunion there will certainly be surprises, both good and bad. There will be great conversations and awkward conversations. Inevitably, most conversations would likely follow a similar path: What are you doing these days? (My masters). What comes after? (No freakin clue).  Are you seeing anyone? (No). What ever happened with [ex]? (Umm, I had obtained my pilots license and was flying her and our 14 children on a private flight over the north pole until I crashed and was the only one who survived, but it was more than six weeks ago so no big deal. OR, we broke up).

These conversations bang home the predominant cultural goals that I grew up with. These revolve around getting an education, getting into a career, getting married, buying a house and having kids. These are all admirable qualities and I do not for a second begrudge people who have achieved or are striving to achieve these goals. Each of these, I would imagine, is extremely rewarding and can bring an incredible level of satisfaction, but my path has not taken me down these roads. Even when examining my education (the one section you can say I’ve achieved), the environment I am in can be a little disillusioning as I am surrounded by people with or near completion of a PhD, whereas I have not even finished a masters. This makes my potential academic career seem SO far away.

It can be, and often is, depressing to look at the statements at the top of the post. To see what is often defined as ‘successful’ and not tick any of the boxes, and also knowing that these goals are still a long way off. I am certainly aware that achieving each of the aforementioned things does not guarantee the feeling of ‘success’, or recognition from others that you are ‘successful.’ I also know that these measures no longer align with what I view as successful and therefore I should not define myself by them. And I don’t.

So, what do I measure my success by? Well… that’s a good question and will have to be another blog post.

Meanwhile, what would you want to ask a friend you haven’t seen in 10 years? Post in the comments!

It seems like 90% of my conversations these days at some point discuss what I am going to do once I finish my thesis. Here’s the answer. I don’t know. And every single day I have different thoughts or ideas or plans. On any given day I may be staying in Australia to do a Phd, moving to the UK to work on the Olympics/Commonwealth Games, starting my own company (doing what??? Well, that’s a whole other list), working at a ski hill in Japan, moving back to Canada and figuring something out there; there’s so many options.

And I have no idea how to choose what to do. Obviously there are financial matters, visa issues and other logistical matters, but I’ve usually been able to make all that stuff work out. The problem is I genuinely don’t know what appeals to me. I love the uni lifestyle, but am I ready to commit to another independent research project. I know I love working with people and I’m unsure if I get enough of that in a research environment. I know I miss my family and my friends in Calgary, but I don’t miss the city and the weather. Working on a major event was amazing, but is that something I want to do again? I’ve never been particularly good at working for myself, but maybe I just haven’t done the right thing yet?

I’m worried that I’ll end up taking a past of least resistance. Since I’m unsure of what I want, I’ll just do something that is easy and ‘makes sense.’ I know (in my brain anyways, the rest of my body is yet to follow) that the most important thing is to first finish the masters degree. Once that is sorted hopefully it’ll be much easier to examine my options for a post-masters life.

Start of another week tomorrow. Aim is to have a draft of chapter four done by next Monday. It’s now in writing so I have to make it happen… Please feel free to suggest reward or punishments for me if it doesn’t happen!

Where does church fit into the life of your average Christian young adult (18-35)? My reflection is that there seems to be two main options. Either it plays little to no role or it plays an overly significant one. There appears to be very few casual church members amongst my peers. I find that the majority of my Christian friends do not go to church outside of Christmas or Easter. The flipside of this are my few friends who do go to church tend to be very heavily involved with their church and religion. I guess I qualify as one of those ‘involved’ people (especially as I ended up going to the funeral of someone who I never even met…). My recent involvement in the appointing of our interim minister to a permanent position has caused me to reflect on why this dichotomous approach to church attitudes exists.
I don’t think there are many churches that are appealing to the liberal young adult. The churches that have strong young adult communities have built this community based on more conservative Christian values. These churches tend to focus on aspects of Christianity that can be difficult for a more liberal young adult to adopt. The rejection of homosexual marriage, the belief that we must be saved from our sins, the use of the bible as an indisputable document are often key beliefs in a stereotypical conservative church. While you may debate the merit of such positions, it is fair to say these values do not typically appeal to a liberal attitude.
So where does the liberal go? Well, the theological option would be the United (Canada) or Uniting (Australia) church. In this case, the key beliefs tend to be more focused on love, acceptance and social justice; all typically more aligned with a liberal rather than conservative attitude. While the beliefs may be better aligned, there are a different set of conditions that detract that seem to dissuade my peers from attending. The problems surrounding these congregations are almost always the same. Usually the congregation is quite old. The music tends to be old-fashioned and the service follows a very traditional method at a time that is inconvenient to young people. Often reluctant to change, these churches struggle to engage the young adult of today, especially without alienating/angering current members of the congregation which leads to non-attendance by those this post discusses.
That’s it for right now. I’d like to think of it as a ‘part one’ that has identified some of my thoughts on the issue. Ideally, part two will start to highlight ways the church can become more involved in the life of a young adult. However, given my current rate of blogging, you can probably expect that post to come in early May 2019.

This is a response I crafted to a discussion of dissent that occurred on a Soccer referee Listserv I subscribe to. The discussion was around dissent….

I consider dissent to be a comment or action designed to undermine my authority or usually as a measured action or statement suggesting that I am wrong. Dissent is (usually) different than an emotional reaction to a call and it is different from being foul or abusive.

I am fine with players having reactions to my decisions. The game can be emotional or frustrating and (some times) I don’t expect players to quell a natural reaction to disappointment. (especially sometimes when the player may actually think they haven’t done anything wrong). If this natural reaction occurs immediately after the call is made and is not overly demonstrative, then I do not see it as being dissent. If, however, the player continues to react beyond a short instinctive time period, then they are choosing to make an issue of my decision, rather than experience a brief frustration, that is now dissent. Or if the player has come from a distance to make a point.

On the flip side, there is also a difference between dissent and the sending off offense of foul, insulting or abusive language. Sometimes it seems easier as a referee to give a yellow for dissent when really it should be a red. If you are being sworn at, or being personally insulted, it’s far more likely to be a red than a yellow. I know I’ve made that mistake in only giving a yellow when I was told “You are a F*&$ing joke”.

Dealing with dissent has been one of my flaws as a referee. I have typically tried to show that it doesn’t bother me and get on with it. But that “it doesn’t affect me” attitude is interpreted by players to be a sign of weakness. They see a referee who won’t do what they are supposed to. This season I have taken to making an example early of the first time there is anything close to dissent. Hold up play, isolate the player away from everything else and be firm. Someone pipes up again a few minutes later? A very loud and very obvious caution seems to ensure people are staying quiet. It’s been working really well for me. I’ve been surprised, I expected more players to have a bit of a “toughen up ref” attitude, but the majority of players have seen and responded to it as a sign of strength on my part.

How do you distinguish between “not dissent”, dissent, and a send off?

This is not something I admit very often, but I know I’m not perfect (but don’t tell anyone!). I know there are lots of things I do that I can improve on. I saw this quote and it struck a chord with me.

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
— Ira Glass

I know I have a tendency to sometimes think I’m doing a great job and not notice where I can improve, or to expect something to come easier than it is. We all want to be good, to have something come naturally, to impress others with our brilliance. The fact is, skills take time. Writing IS tough. Public speaking requires practice. Leadership can be developed. Yes, some people are more naturally gifted than others but even gifted people still take time to hone their craft. So when you’re struggling, know that it’s okay. Failing is what leads to brilliance.

Keep trying, keep experimenting and keep exploring your talents.  You will surprise yourself, it just might take a while.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll know that back in December I started the Reverb10 challenge. It was meant to be a daily blogging challenge and obviously, I failed miserably by only getting to December 9th. But whatever, get over it. Anyways, I decided to write a blog post tonight and went back to the prompts and have picked up where I left off.

Prompt: Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out? (For the record, I’m including the start of 2011 in this and future reflections as well)

_______________________________________________

Like a poker player who always remembers bad beats, it is easy to remember poor decisions made. Remembering the good decisions or the lucky cards is harder to do. So what were my wise decisions of 2010/11?

As with many of my thoughts (not sure if they’ve been documented here), at first glance the previous year didn’t have many major decisions. Many things were obvious choices or not really decisions at all. However, upon further reflection my wisest decision came in my selection of a new place to live. I found out in July that I would need to find a new place by the end of September. As Melbourne can be a difficult place to find a place I started my search immediately and ended up in my current residence on Fordholm Road.

This decision saved me money, put me in a (generally) better location and provided a much better sense of a “home.” On the whole, this decision has been great. Despite the trying times that come with shared houses and housemates coming and going, things have settled down and I’m super happy with the current living arrangement.

So that’s what I think my wisest decision was in the last year. An honourable mention goes to the decision to go home in November, but at $1100 for round trip flights to LA it wasn’t really a decision.

And a special mention for John and Justine, my new housemates. Welcome to the awesome Fordholm flat!

So, a lot has been written recently about issues within the NCAA. These blogs/columns/podcasts have rightly pointed out some of the issues surrounding cover-ups, hypocrisy, exploitation and archaric rules. Usually this has led to calls for reform and, in many cases, radical change. I’ve had a random idea and will propose it here. There are a lot of details that would have to be ironed out, but hey, it’s a random blog post from an unpaid Canadian in Australia. If you like it, do the research yourself!

If I was the commissioner of a smaller conference (Mountain West, Mid-American, Conference USA) this is what I would do. Leave the NCAA and start your own professional University-affiliated league. Each team would be aligned with a University. The main purpose of this would allow players to be paid and, in theory, allow the currently lower profile league and teams to attract the top talent. Since you’ve left the NCAA you would not have to obey all the NCAA’s restrictions. Universities could offer players the opportunity to make some money before jumping to the NBA/NFL. To allow the “college sport” atmosphere to continue you can still have student and age restrictions.

Why do this?

Well, you would probably be able to have the best college product since players would be paid. Because of the star power, a lucrative TV contract wouldn’t be too far away. You up the profile of your conference and your schools. You might even attract more applications from non-athlete students due to the higher profile athletics. Since this league would be starting from scratch, rules and regulations of the new league (salary caps, contract lengths, recruitment) can be structured to fit modern times.

Obviously there are some problems. Breaking away from the NCAA means your teams/schools would not be able to compete for the NCAA’s National Championship. While it would probably work for Men’s bball and football, it might be more difficult for the non-money making sports. I also don’t know about legal implications etc.

Just a random thought. It’d be a big gamble, but if a conference was able to pull it off, it would change the face of college sports!