Carissa

Best day ever...well, not ever, but up there...

2011-04-23T07:01:00.000-07:00

Have you just had one of those days where you felt invensible...or super strong...or just happy. For me that was yesterday. I place emphasis on day, the night was not that great, we won't go there. I want to focus on the things that made my day great...I didn't wake up to an alarm clock, I went to exercise and it was an awesome work out...then I got on my bike and went on the most glorious bike ride of the season...it was not a long or even hard bike ride, but it was the sort of ride that made me happy...I kept saying to myself "this is what I needed." I did all of this out from under the rain cloud that is Mount Vernon and under the bright blue sky that is Bellingham, WA. I am getting in a funk...I need more bike rides like yesterday!

Don't Compete, Don't Compare, Don't Complain...

2011-02-07T12:24:00.000-08:00

So this last week I received a letter from a friend of mine. It is so amazing how certain things come to us when we need them the most. My friend Teagan sent me this letter, out of the blue and it seemed so appropriate to what I have been feeling. Mainly insecurity and an enormous amount of stress, fear, anxiety and anticipation. In her letter she told me something that a teacher shared with her: "Don't Compete, Don't Compare and Don't Complain." It is so easy to get wrapped up in doing just those things. I feel that I have been so engaged with competing, comparison and self pity that for a short amount of time, I lost who I was and what I was here for. No worries, for the time being, I am back on track!

Integrity...

2011-01-23T13:13:00.001-08:00

The Merriam-Webster Learners Dictionary defines integrity as “1. The quality of being honest and fair, 2. The state of being complete or whole.” It is often said, “Integrity is a virtue.” What is virtue? “Virtue is a moral habit which generally results in the gaining or maintaining of your values.” With that, “Integrity is the virtue of practicing what one preaches. Or more importantly, practicing what one believes is right. A 'man of principle' is not a man who understands a principle, but a man who understands, accepts, and lives by a principle.”

I define integrity as how honest, realistic and justified someone or something is. The first time I ever heard the word integrity was when I was in 8th grade and my English teacher was questioning my classmates ‘integrity.’ She was positive that a classmate of mine cheated on his English assignment, and it was then that I first heard the phrase ‘integrity is a virtue,’ spoken. It is amazing that I remember that particular instance in my childhood. It really struck me as something so grown up. When my teacher said the word ‘Integrity’ it sounded so mature. I immediately looked it up in the dictionary and I remember going over to my classmate and telling him that the teacher just called him a liar! For me, telling someone they are ‘liar’ is just as bad as telling someone to ‘shut-up’. Growing up, my dad made it very clear that my sister and I would never use the word ‘shut-up.’ My dad said that when you tell someone to shut up, you are telling him or her, “you are stupid, no good, not worth listening to, I hate you and go away.” My dad was very adamant that we never use that word, and to this day, I think I have uttered that word maybe a handful of times, moreover, I have never, ever heard my dad utter the words ‘shut up’ to me, my mom or sister, never! I never want to be told to shut up, or be called a liar, or to have my integrity questioned.

When you question someone’s integrity, it is far worse than just calling him or her a liar. You are questioning their character, their values and how they conduct their life. Integrity is like a cake, it is an ‘end’ product. There are certain recipes for integrity, one bad egg and the recipe is spoiled. When integrity is spoiled, it is not easily recovered because; there are so many aspects of a person’s personality and character that go into defining that person’s integrity. It goes above and beyond just telling the truth. A great way to understand integrity, is to simply look at the other words people use in place of it: character, decency, goodness, honesty, morality, probity, rectitude, righteousness, rightness, uprightness, virtue, virtuousness. These are all loaded words with numerous connotations. Integrity, as mentioned above, is how we practice what we preach. It is not only how we conduct our lives, but also how others see our lives being conducted. Practice what you preach!

I spent a lot of time studying Latin. I know, it is an ancient and dead language, but it gave us the foundation for communication. It gave us words like integrity. The root word of integrity is ‘integer,” meaning whole or complete. Thus, when someone’s integrity remains intact they themselves are whole or complete. Working in the historical field, often time we would look at the historic integrity of something, whether it be a structure, or a translated passage. Was the structure upheld or restored to its historic integrity? Was that passage translated with integrity, in other words, were there any liberties taken in the process? When a building has lost its historic integrity or liberties have been taken in translating a passage, they have lost their completeness, and are no longer seen as honest renderings.

When someone lacks integrity, they lack honesty, not in just what they say but how they conduct their life. I had a friend and neighbor once that turned out to be someone who lacked integrity. She lied to me, she made excuses for inexcusable behavior, and she lacked the courage to confront those who once cared for her and come clean with them. I not only lost all respect for her, I furthermore questioned her motivations and integrity. I could not trust her words, her reasoning or her commitment. It comes as a loss when you can no longer trust someone, when their integrity has been spoiled, because in most instances, you have invested a certain amount of yourself in that person. Nevertheless, when I chose to walk away from that friendship, I reconfirmed my commitment to upholding integrity as one of my core personal values.

I have friend who was a law enforcement ranger that exemplifies what it means to have integrity. He not only practices what he preaches, he conducts his life in a way that all things, character, personality, personal and professional habits, measure up to. This last summer he was placed in a very compromising situation. He had to make a decision to confront several of his co-workers, neighbors and friends, and issue them violations for breaking park regulations. I know this does not sound that bad, but when you consider that these people were his friends, his neighbors and his co-workers, he had a lot to lose in doing what was right. Nevertheless, knowing that it was his job to uphold the integrity of the laws he was charged to uphold, he did his job and carried it out with dignity and fortitude.

Those are the types of qualities you have to have and hope that your partner has when it comes to law enforcement. Someone who is going to walk the walk, talk the talk and in compromising situations, know the right thing to do and do it. Integrity in that regard is the most important core professional value in the law enforcement field. It incorporates all other values and is a physical and mental embodiment of knowing and doing what is right at all times. It is leading by example both professionally and personally.

Last week I wrote about commitment. This week I want to reconfirm my commitment to the virtue of integrity. I want to reconfirm my commitment to this academy and state again my personal and professional commitment to myself: I have a commitment to serve the public in a way that reflects positively on my agency. I have a commitment to represent my family with upmost integrity. Above all, I have a commitment to myself that I will live my life in a way that, with each decision I make, every idea and value I promote, and how I conduct my affairs, will reaffirm the integrity of my character. I am committed to do all of these to the best of my ability, with respect, dignity, and grace.

Commitment

2011-01-11T23:01:00.000-08:00

The Merriam-Webster Learner’s Dictionary defines commitment as a “promise to do or give something…a promise to be loyal to someone or something…the attitude of someone who works very hard to do or support something.”[1] To summarize, commitment is a physical act, a gesture and a measure of character. It is not something that is black or white; there are gray areas within commitment. These gray areas fall within how, as a society, we measure and in turn are measured by our level of commitment, as well as by what areas we place emphasis on. Therefore, commitment is a tool, much like a scale, by which we weigh our personal and professional values, build our belief system, and maintain a balance with legal, ethical and moral expectations.

My working definition of commitment is being able to identify the most important people, places and things in my life and measure what I do and how well I represent each without compromising my own integrity. When you make a commitment, you commit to uphold the decision that was made. It is better to be upfront and make a choice not to commit to something at all, then to go back on your word, or act in a manner that would disrespect what it is you committed to.

With that being said, the best way for me to understand commitment is to look at other words that, we as a society, use to describe commitment: adhesion, allegiance, attachment, fidelity, constancy, dedication, devotion, faithfulness, fastness, loyalty, piety, steadfastness. When someone talks about commitment in these terms, we are approving certain actions, attitudes or behaviors. When as a society we use words such as: disloyalty, faithlessness, falsity, inconstancy, infidelity, treachery, and unfaithfulness we are condemning certain behaviors, actions or expressions.
Commitment is a tool, it is how we measure and how much we invest in what we value or deem acceptable by societal norms.

The only time commitment comes into question is when we, as a society, dislike the object of commitment. For example, someone who showed a high level of commitment to teamwork would be praised by our societal standards. However, what if that team’s objective was to carryout hate crimes, and they did not call themselves a team, but a gang? Therefore, someone could exhibit the highest level of commitment, but his or her objective is both lawfully and socially unacceptable.

When discussing commitment, it is easy to look at and dwell on motivations, values, and determining what is right or wrong, and good or bad. When it comes to identifying someone who exemplifies commitment, I want to look at someone who has expressed commitment with integrity and generosity. My graduate school advisor, mentor and committee chair, Dr. Brady is someone who in the most simple terms invested in me and “worked really hard” in supporting my educational endeavors. That, according to Merriam-Webster, that is commitment. I believe the reason why she was such a brilliant professor, mentor, team leader and team player, is that she can prioritize her personal and professional values and beliefs and at the same time encourage her students to find areas of equally worthy value to commit to. Her exemplary level of commitment to me, encouraged me to reciprocate that level of commitment in myself and my schoolwork.

The antithesis of commitment is simple, it is the absence of being able to identify the things that are important to you or worse yet, to act in manner that would contradict the values, or break the bond between something having previously being committed to. There is a negative connotation with not being able to commit to something. Again, that is determined by how we evaluate what it is that is NOT being committed to.

Every decision we make involves a commitment and the level of, it allows us to judge and be judged. This is a huge factor when looking at commitment from a law enforcement perspective. You do not want to be associated with attitudes, behaviors and actions that are illegal, socially unacceptable or morally objectionable. It is important in life and in the field of law enforcement that you align yourself with those who place the same level of commitment on the same values and code of ethics. We have laws that define how we are to behave. As a law enforcement officer, I have a commitment to uphold those laws. This is an easy commitment to make because I very much believe in the laws that I will be charged with upholding. It would be very detrimental for me personally and professionally to associate with people who exhibited a lack of commitment to those laws; it would jeopardize my career and my integrity. I am not willing to risk my personal life and professional career based on someone else’s lack of commitment in these areas.

I have a commitment to serve the public in a way that reflects positively on my agency. I have a commitment to represent my family with upmost integrity. Above all I have a commitment to myself that I will live my life in a way that, with each decision I make, every idea and value I promote, and how I conduct my affairs, will reaffirm my character. I am committed to do all of these to the best of my ability, with respect, dignity, and grace.
[1] “Commitment.” http://www.learnersdictionary.com/search/commitment (Jan. 9, 2011)

This week!

2011-01-11T22:52:00.000-08:00

The last week and a half has finally caught up with me. I didn't even get out my pajamas on Sunday! It felt so good. I just stayed around my new place and worked on homework ALL day! It payed off, I did well on the first test. I was elected as the team leader for my team. It is like a class president position but there are two of us. I am the team leader for team Cascade and a fellow Boisean is the team leader for team Evergreen...way to go Boise, kicking out some leaders. I had to write a memo on commitment. It was a challenging piece...but I enjoyed exploring my feelings and definition of the word. I wonder how many agree or disagree with my definition. We did the Physical Efficiency Battery on Monday. I was all geared up for the 1.5 mile run, I even made a new mix for my ipod, but there was 3" of snow on one track and .5" of ice on the other, so we ended up doing everything else. Good news is I passed all of the other components, and did so above the 25% minimum...but I still need to work on getting all of my scores better. Now if my knees would just stop hurting.!.!. I am meeting so many new, amazing and inspiring people in the academy. Everyday I learn something new about my classmates and I am so honored and proud to be part of this academy and this class!

Long day

2011-01-06T22:28:00.000-08:00

Today was a hard day, not because we had tests, or had to do 1,000 push ups, but because we were sitting for 6 hours reading the NPS Law Enforcement Reference Manual, literally, chapter for chapter. It wasn't all that bad, except for the whole 6 hours thing...I guess we had to get this out of the way! The week is catching up with me...and I can't wait until Saturday after five, when I am done for a day and a half...but I am still loving it!

Day three...and I am feeling it!

2011-01-05T22:19:00.000-08:00

Done with day three and we all agreed that today when we were let out, it felt like Friday...oh how I wish. I had my EMT class tonight...it was really cool, and tomorrow my classmates can expect to get their vitals checked! However, Mondays and Wednesdays are going to be a killer, 13 hours on campus and that includes classroom instruction, training, and 4 hours of EMT lessons at night...but there is a good group of people in my course and I am learning more and having fun every day...check out the videos I posted on my facebook, we watched them today in while discussing ethics and professional conduct...pretty interesting.

3 Way conversation...

2011-01-04T21:52:00.000-08:00

Day two...much better than day one...I found my voice! It did not waver when I spoke and I was able to contribute to the conversation and even share a little bit of NPS history with the class...after all, me, historian, love history, love NPS, ok so I probably came off as a NPS geek, but oh well! I also gained some perspective today that I think will help me with my all around visitor use perception and that perspective was/is patience. Don't get me wrong, I have had patience, some days more and some days less, but today looking at visitor use of parks and the reasons why people come to the parks, patience makes more since in why as LE rangers we need more of it...after all, 'patience is a virtue,' right?We also spent a lot of time talking about professionalism, workplace harassment and ethics. We discussed what types of ethical dilemmas LE rangers may face in the park and how to deal with those...how do we measure ethics? It was a very interesting conversation...Tomorrow I will begin the EMT training...it seems that there was a snafu with the EMT registration and that only 6 people from the PLEA were successfully registered...I feel bad that not everyone who wanted to take the EMT course got in...I am not sure if I feel guilty that I did, or wishing more cadets made it in so that there would be more people to study with...hmmmm!

First Day Down!

2011-01-03T21:44:00.000-08:00

Today was the day...all my energy, stress, focus (or lack there of) all boiled down to today. We started at 7am, sorry 0700 hours, and I am happy to report that all went very well. I was very surprised to find out just how many of the cadets had absolutely no NPS experience. And all the buzz at lunch time was about the PEB (Physical efficency battery, a big fitness test)we are doing next week...most of them had never even heard of it! Overall today was a good day, never mind not saying anything for the first two hours or raising my hand for fear of everyone hearing my voice quiver or seeing my hands shaking or spotting the sweat marks accumulating in my pits(I was and to a large degree, still am that nervous) but at least there were no curve balls or surprises thrown my way...so yay, first day down. I am exhausted...8 hours of class room discussions then two hours at the gym, I am ready for bed and the owl outside my window is telling me to shut my eyes...First Day Down!

T'was the night before the academy

2011-01-02T21:36:00.000-08:00

And I can't focus! My mind is every where. My stomach is growling, not because I am hungry, or maybe I am, I can't remember what I ate today, where the day went and what I am forgetting about tomorrow...??? Nerves are racing! I keep repeating 'just keep swimming, swimming, swimming...' and that keeps my mind at ease for a few moments....I am excited, nervous and hopeful...in the words of my favorite Ranger named Eric: WHOOO DOGGIE! Here we go!

getting right down to it!

2011-01-01T19:09:00.000-08:00

So in two days I will be dressed again in green and grey, this time around I will be a student though...I really have no idea how hard, easy, challenging, and/or enlightening this program is going to be. I rang in the new year with some of my fellow cadets in the program and had a great time. It was kinda funny to sit back and watch how they all interacted with each other, passively sizing each other up by asking subtle or not so subtle questions like: 'so what are you hoping to get out of this...,' or 'is everyone ready for push ups...,' or 'are you going to volunteer to get tazed...?' It was all well and good, and for the most part, I think everyone I met is going to do great and is probably just as antsy to get things going as much as I am. There were some point through out the night when the conversation got a little quiet, but everyone was pretty conversational and when there was a lull and things got quiet someone, mainly me, would bring up the side boob action that was witnessed in the SVC rec center...that livened things up a bit...I am really trying not to give too much of myself away. Not to be all out there (unlike the chick who was not wearing a sports bra, but was wearing a rather revealing tank top)...to keep my self to myself...if that makes since...I don't want to leave this program with regrets or feeling embarrassed or feeling like I was just part of the crowd...I am doing this for me and I need to keep that focus throughout the program...I guess what I am trying to say is that I don't want to loose myself after I have worked for almost a year getting to the point where I am finally comfortable with the decisions that I made that led me to this point!