Here are three good things that came out of 2020...at least for me

Tonight we say goodbye to 2020, and I don't know a single person who feels the least bit sad about that.

A global pandemic, social and political unrest, economic uncertainty, and those Australian wildfires that feel like they happened five years ago will do that.

On top of it all, my family endured the loss of both my mom and my mother-in-law within 18 days of one another this past summer.

I'm with you if you think 2020 can go suck eggs.

As always, though, there is both good and bad. These past 365 days haven't been all gloom and doom.

Here are three good things about 2020 from my life. I'm almost certain you can come up with three (or more) of your own.

(1) I got to work from home and (mostly) loved it

The circumstances necessitating that millions of us suddenly become telecommuters in March were obviously not great, but I quickly fell in love with the routine. True, I miss seeing my co-workers. I mean, I really miss seeing them. Occasional visits to a mostly empty office don't cut it. On the other hand, I've saved a whole lot of money on gas and car maintenance, so there's that. And I enjoy being around my family so much. I wouldn't mind if, even after we got back to normal, my company maintained a schedule where those who are able to alternate days between working from home and working in the office can do so.

(2) I finished my master's degree program

It was a good 25 or so years later than I had intended, but I finally got that elusive graduate degree. I used space in this blog to whine about the workload on several occasions, but I finished in July. I'm proud of that.

(3) I end the year with the same incredible family with which I started it

Never, ever take the people in your life for granted. Life is too amazingly short and fragile for that. No list of good things in my life would be complete if my wife and five kids weren't part of it. They are the best things about my existence. Thankfully, 2020 didn't change that.

Not that you asked, but here's an update on graduate school

I am to the point in my master's degree program that I marvel at those who have made it through this. Here's what I'm finding, as I enter the final two weeks of class #2 (of 11 classes in a program that will take me two more full years to complete at a minimum):

• There are certain problems raised by opting into a master's program that you simply cannot solve. For example, I am chronically sleep deprived, and I see no way whatsoever of getting around this. I work, I come home, I briefly see my family, I do homework. Then I go to bed and do it again. And again. And again. There is no wiggle room there simply to go to bed earlier. There IS no "earlier."

• Related to that, I am not running nearly as much as I used to nor nearly as much as I should. Again, I see no way around this. It just is.

• I am eating terribly, and my weight is creeping up. I could improve this with some self-discipline, but I'll be honest: I am tapped out when it comes to self-discipline. What self-discipline I have serves merely to get me out of bed in the morning and doing everything I have to do.

• Weekends are spent either studying/writing or worrying whether I'm studying/writing enough. There is probably a better mental approach to this, but I haven't yet found my groove there.

I hate how whiny this all sounds. It's my decision to do this, no one else's. And it is a first-world problem of the absolute highest order.

But it's the dominant reality in my life these days, and I now have even greater respect for those who have earned graduate (or post-graduate) degrees, or who are currently in the midst of doing so. You amaze and inspire me.

Every day I think about hanging it up after I get through this particular class. I did that once before, about two years ago when I started a master's program in public relations through Kent State University (this current program is in integrated marketing communications through West Virginia University...go Mountaineers!) I learned a lot at Kent, but I came to a realization that, given my life circumstances, it was insane to try and push through, so I quit.

I think about doing that now, too. I have good reasons for pursuing a master's degree, but it would be SO much easier to just chalk this up to bad judgment and move on. There are two reasons why I don't:

(1) I hate the example it sets for my kids and for anyone else in my life. I feel like I used to do/accomplish big things in my life ("big" by my standards, anyway), and now all I do is shy away from them. I enjoy this material and many things about the academic experience, and I want to keep going, so I do.

(2) My support system. And by "support system," I mean my wife.

Terry has stepped up to the plate with this far better than I have. She does an amazing job trying to arrange things at home so that I can study and do what I have to do every day. And more importantly, she will hear no suggestion of quitting. There is no "let's talk about it" or "oh, honey, I understand." There is simply, "no, that's not happening."

Which frankly is what I need to hear.

She is, as always, the most impressive person I know and the saving grace in my life.

Of course, the decision to walk away yet again from master's-level work (I actually did it in 1997, as well, when I VERY briefly tried an English program at Cleveland State University and realized I was too busy...and that was with only two kids!) is ultimately all mine. She can push and goad all she wants, but in the end, it's my call. She just helps keep me on track.

Here's the thing: I'm pretty certain I'm going to see this through to the end..."The End" being December 2020. I just don't know how, exactly. When you're not taking care of yourself properly, and you're sitting at your computer struggling to understand Chi-squared tests and non-probability samples and statistical significance formulas, you see no clear path to the end.

Do you know what I mean? With most things in life, you can pretty well chart out how it's going to go. God, of course, throws things at you that force you to change course, but for the most part, you can actually see the ultimate goal of whatever it is you're doing. You can envision how you're going to get there.

I cannot do that. I'm about to have the luxury of a six-week break from class that I desperately need and that will easily be one of the top five greatest things that has happened in the history of the universe. So in the short term I'll be fine. And I'm even taking the late spring term off so that Terry and I can indulge ourselves with a once-in-a-lifetime Australian cruise in late March/early April. That means, after Nov. 28, only one class to worry about in the space of 5 1/2 months. Easy enough.

But what happens when I dive back in this coming May? From there the breaks will be fewer and further between. It will mostly be go, go, go, go through the nine remaining classes and 18 months, the last of which is a capstone experience that, I'm finding online, regularly makes people cry and curse their decision to build on their bachelor's degrees.

How do you get through the day-to-day of THAT? I have no idea. There will likely be coffee and an ever-pressing Terry involved. I just can't envision what that daily reality looks like.

Yet I'm going to keep on keeping on. Not sure I have a choice. And occasionally I'll write a melodramatic blog post like this one to make myself feel better.

I appreciate you reading. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go write a discussion board post on a topic I vaguely remember reading about. It could have been last night. Or was it last week? I have no clue...

When you're 46 years old and going back to school

I think I've mentioned here the fact that I always wanted a graduate degree but never got around to earning one. Against the advice of my dad, after I earned my B.A. from John Carroll University in May 1992, I got as far away from classrooms as I could. After nearly a year as a full-time sports journalist and a full-time student, I was burned out both mentally and physically.

I figured, "Why bother? I'm going to be a sports writer for the rest of my life."

Which of course did not happen, because long-term plans rarely work out the way you assume they will.

Over the course of time I came to the conclusion that I needed a "real" 9-to-5 job, and eventually I got into PR and marketing. It's a very rewarding career and one that has paid the bills for my family for several years now.

In the back of my mind, though, I feel I should have gotten that master's degree. I've come close to starting a few times, but the whole not-enough-hours-in-the-day syndrome has gotten in the way every time and I shut it down.

But not anymore. Beginning next week, I will officially return to the ranks of the matriculated as I begin online coursework toward that elusive advanced diploma. It's a mouthful to say, but I'll be pursuing a Master of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communication with a concentration in Public Relations from Kent State University.

If people ask, I just say I'm going for "a master's in PR from Kent State."

As I said, it's an online program. The whole thing. Welcome to the 21st century.

As I understand it, each week the professor teaching whatever class I'm taking (I only have room in my schedule to take one class at a time) will post the material for that week and required reading online. Then, by Thursday I'll be expected to engage in some sort of virtual class discussion. Each week ends with a paper or other assignment due on Sunday.

Then the whole thing starts again on Monday.

Each course is seven weeks long, and I have to take 12 of them to earn the degree. With breaks and everything, that means I should get the master's in the spring of 2018.

IF everything goes as planned, of course, which as we've seen above very often doesn't happen.

But that's the idea.

I'm intrigued by this concept of asynchronous online learning. I don't have to "attend" class at any set time; rather, I can adapt the reading and other coursework to my family and work schedules. I won't be getting much sleep either way, of course, but the flexibility of the whole thing appealed to me.

Now let's see whether I actually learn anything. This will be an interesting experiment in teaching that old dog those new tricks.

My loyalty will always lie with John Carroll, but for the next couple of years I guess I get to be a Kent State Golden Flash, too. Which my daughter Chloe, a University of Akron student, will not like. Akron and Kent are fierce rivals.

In the real world, that is. In the virtual world, everyone gets along and sings Kumbaya.

At least that's what I'll tell Chloe.

So if you DID have it all to do over again...would you?

I've made some good decisions in my life, but sometimes I can't decide whether they were actually good decisions or just so-so decisions that, with a lot of divine assistance, turned out well.

Either way, my life is pretty darn good. For all the things I tend to take for granted and the blessings to which I'm oblivious, I can at least say I'm good at being grateful.

But let's suppose you had a one-time-only offer to go back and redo up to three things in your life. First, would you take advantage of the opportunity? And second, if so, what would those things be?

I don't really have much in the way of regrets, but if you were to open the time machine door and allow me to step in, here are the three items I would change if I could:

(1) I would have gotten a master's degree (at least) directly after my bachelor's
When I graduated from college in the spring of 1992, I was running on fumes. For months I had been going to school full time, working full time, and helping Terry plan what turned out to be a pretty decent-sized wedding. Graduation was a time when I could lift one of those weights off my shoulders, and I was grateful for it. My dad suggested I stay in school another couple of years and get a graduate degree. I said no thanks. In retrospect, Dad was right. I always figured there would be time later for a master's program. But here we are decades later and I'm still without that advanced degree. And probably will be for at least several more years, if not forever. I should have toughed it out.

(2) I would at least have seriously considered a career in academia
I love to learn. I love (and miss) the classroom environment. I love research. I love to obtain knowledge for the sake of obtaining knowledge. All of these seem like indications that a career spent as Dr. Scott Tennant, Professor of <FILL IN THE BLANK> may have been a good move. We'll never know now, but I think I could have thrived as a scholar. (Though hey, maybe someday?)

(3) I would have forced myself to become better at home repairs and handyman stuff
I know I'm still perfectly capable of learning these things, but I feel like you're more of a sponge for practical knowledge like this when you're younger. Maybe not? All I know is that I should have listened closer when my dad tried to teach me a lot of this. Once again, Dad was right (ARE MY CHILDREN NOTING THIS 'DAD WAS RIGHT' THING AS A RECURRING THEME?)