These Students are Going to be the Death of Me?!?!?

In writing this post I needed to look back at my planner for March and I am pretty sure I just had a panic attack. How in the world did I do everything that is on this calendar? I was teaching classes, still working a lot of hours as a Public Defense Investigator… man, I miss going to the jail and conducting intake interviews and spending a lot of time with the members of the Pi Beta Iota Chapter of Alpha Phi Sigma. Our chapter of the National Criminal Justice Honor Society was founded in the fall of 2016 and the students worked really hard to earn the title of 2017 Club of the Year at IRSC. Of course, these over achievers (or psychos as I affectionately consider them) wanted to repeat so they decided that they needed to up their activity and community service events in March because the cutoff for point submission was fast approaching. I am not sure who is more insane or lacking in common sense, the students who suggested these events or me who approved the increased activity and was required to attend each event?

Before I throw the adorable, over-achieving, true crime loving lunatics under the bus, let me explain that I was already in crisis. My son, the one and only child I have with only two legs, decided that he would turn 22 years old. Just who does he think he is? I am nowhere near old enough or ready to have a child that is 22 freaking years old. I got married at 23 and had my son at 25. I will kill him if he even considers getting married and having children anytime soon. I AM NOT READY! So as you can see my psyche was fragile at this time. Maybe my need to fight feeling old enough to have a 22 year old is what led me to approve all of these events and think I was spry enough to survive them….. hmmmm hindsight is 20/20 they say. 

Anyway, I just added up the number of events these honors students held, participated in and knocked out of the park. 23! 14 in the last 6 days of the month! I went with them to clean beaches, roads and parks. I now have OCD and feel the need to pull over whenever I see trash on the side of a road in at a ballpark. I wonder if the college would consider this as a valid work comp issue and send me on a vacation…. One where I won’t see a beach that I will want to clean!

FYI- Still have to wait a couple of more weeks before I would find out if I was awarded an Endowed Teaching Chair and if the Alpha Phi Sigma students would win Club of the Year. If I haven’t mentioned it, I have the patience of a gnat. This would be a really really long two or three weeks.

Blog that I Should Have Posted in February…oops

So this month has been busy with lots of jail interviews, Alpha Phi Sigma events and teaching. So of course, I decided to add something else to my plate and mind you that it isn’t appetizer small. I decided to apply for an Endowed Teaching Chair at the college. What is an endowed chair??? A LOT OF WORK! But also a lot of fun…. I hope. Over the past few years, I have worked with numerous agencies, countless hours of community service and explored many facets of the criminal justice system. Two areas that really peaked my interest were those of cold case investigations and search and rescue events. In 2016, the sister of one of my students went missing and was, after a month found, having been murdered. Getting involved with the search honed my professional interest in becoming more hands on than following traditional academia and focusing solely on research and publication. I felt my education as well as that of my students could be enhanced by these experiential activities. Aside from teaching, my second passion is giving back through community service. 

With this in mind, I decided to marry my two passions and submit a proposal to create a cold case institute at the college. I wanted to be different than the institutes that I was familiar with in that I wanted the students to work directly with the jurisdictional agency. I would provide the theoretical concepts and academic knowledge while bringing in local agencies that would go through cold cases with the students. Students would be allowed to review the case and how it was conducted, what evidence was obtained and  see where and why the case had gone cold. Students and LEOs would work side by side to reexamine to case, consider new avenues to explore, revisit scenes and witnesses/victims/suspects. The thought of students learning what skills they will need upon graduation to work in various aspects of the cj field from the actual professionals who would consider hiring them was just amazing and an opportunity I could not pass up.

I want them to learn critical thinking skills, how to deal with diversity of culture, age, gender, socio-economics, and just as important to have compassion and empathy when appropriate. It sounds like a lot for someone to teach but I kept telling myself and others that I did not have the sole responsibility of this undertaking but instead was the one to organize it and make it happen. So, I submitted a proposal, crossed my fingers and waited to hear whether or not the college would make this newest dream come true and give the students something to go absolutely crazy for…..

Are you an alien?

Well I managed to go roughly 36 hours without anything blog worthy happening. I didn’t mention it at the time but it is TOTALLY blog worthy in my opinion…

Episode 2 of the podcast, The Making of CrimeCon aired the other night. That in itself is exciting but taking it to another level for me was the fact that I was the guest interview. Yes, me?!? CrimeCon allowed me to give a little tease about my upcoming presentation in Nashville. I promise it will be interesting. If you want to hear the podcast, you will find a link to it here on my website or you can catch all of the episodes on iTunes or the crimecon.com website.

Ahh, now back to the craziness that was this morning. As I have mentioned, I am a criminal investigator. I LOVE this job. One of the best parts is getting to interview clients. This morning was a bit busy but towards the end, a gentleman I was interviewing looked at me a quietly asked, “Are you an alien?” Before I could even answer he said, “You’re a reptilian.... a powerful one.”

Ok, so that caught me a little off guard but I hear all kinds of things that seem to come out of left field so no biggie. So I casually asked him, “What kind of reptilian am I?” This obviously wasn’t one of the questions that was on the form I needed to complete but I considered it polite to respond before I got back down to business. My client, then informed me that I was a powerful reptilian and could control politicians. Normally I would consider this a pretty cool “super power” but in this day and age, I don’t want to be blamed for ANY political choices being made NOR do I want people getting upset because I am not using my reptilian powers to their full potential. So let’s just keep the fact that my alien identity has been outed a secret for now.

On a side note, my client also said that I needed to keep my ink pen safe because it has magical powers. Yeah, I think I can handle that…. Now if this pen could only grade my students homework assignments on its own…hmmm

Welcome...to the Bachelorette Party?

So I was asked to start a blog because of the sheer number of weird and crazy things that happen to me, around me or just happen to land in my lap. Keep in mind that I do NOT go looking for this craziness it just ugh..forget it. Not sure you will believe me anyway. Instead, just enjoy the antics of my life that my amazing family, friends, and co-workers tolerate!

I honestly can’t remember that last time that I was invited to a bachelorette party let alone attended one. I think the last wedding I attended was for my niece, Jessica, and that was almost a decade ago! So imagine my surprise to get an invitation to a bachelorette party VIA Twitter for someone I have never even met?!? At first, I was a little confused, then shocked and then busted out laughing. See if you don’t know, I was honored to speak at last year’s Inaugural CrimeCon in Indianapolis and even more thrilled to be chosen again this year to present in Nashville in May.

It seems that a group of friends have chosen CrimeCon 2018 as the perfect place to host a BACHELORETTE PARTY! Ok, not everyone will appreciate this venue to celebrate one of their wedding events but I think it is brilliant and memorable and obviously so does she and her criminal justice professional, true crime fan friends. So yes, @shelleykoski I will meet up with you at some point during #CrimeCon2018 to celebrate and congratulate you.