Seattle

Goal:  Obtain a Ph.D. or  D.B.A. (Doctorate of Business Administration)

Why?  I am a lowly paid instructor compared to my well-compensated colleagues - several of whom  are (cough) not great teachers.  Also, with only a Master's I am relegated to entry level classes.  Ph.D's and D.B.A.'s are referred to as "terminal" degrees for more reasons than one.  But, basically it is something I have to do if I want to retire in this field.

Observation:  Since arriving in this country I have been giving a free test that mirrors the Myers-Briggs test.  I won't bore you with all of the details but one of the categories on this test is whether a person is "judging" or "perceiving."  Judging people see the world as black or white.  They make decisions easily because they see things as right or wrong.  Perceiving people see shades of grey in everything.  They are not great at making decisions because they see good and bad in just about everything.

I am a Perceiving person teaching in a place where (almost) all of my students are Judging.

This is a window to a dissertation and research:  Is the population in the Arab world is vastly different than the western world?  If so, what are the human resources implications?

Step 1 is to become a certified Myers-Briggs examiner.

I explained this to my new Dean and said, "In seven years I have never requested or received University funds for any professional development - until now."  The only places I could find for certification at a reasonable price was in the US.

She approved paying for my flight to Seattle and the training.  Since my beloved airline Etihad doesn't fly directly to Seattle I will book two tickets:  One round trip ticket from Abu Dhabi to New York and another from New York to Seattle. It will be fun to see a group of my former students who are now studying at NYU.

And now the recurring thought I've had many times today:  OMG! OMG! I work for an employer willing to send me 8000 miles for a training session that in no way directly helps them.  Has any employer ever been willing to do anything like this in the past?  Noooo....

A Halloween to remember

So I'm not exactly a new-agey-touchy-feely guy... but I used to get premonitions that were spot-on.  They were literally visions.  I would see a scene that later would happen.  They ended in my early 20's and I long ago dismissed them as coincidences or perhaps wishful thinking.

As I was leaving the US in August I had no premonition but the overwhelming anxiety was something I just  could not rationally explain.  Sadly, the anxiety proved to be justified as settling the farm estate has become a whole lot more complicated due to crashing corn/bean prices and family infighting.  In the summer of 2004 I sat in the kitchen with Mom and Dad and gamed out all of the scenarios of dealing with the estate - what would work well, what wouldn't work, etc. - and I have to give Mom credit:  Ten years ahead of time she was able to see where the problems would lie.  I love my father dearly but he was clueless.  He was literally the Rodney King of our family - "Can't we all get along?"

Our farm land will go on sale on October 31.  The sale price could be stable or down hundreds of thousands of dollars.... talk about a scary Halloween!

Fortunately, a farm near ours will go for sale in late September.  I consider it the canary in the coal mine.  Has the fall in corn prices killed land values?  We shall see soon enough.