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Jonathan Kraft
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December 30, 2002

Dear Friends,

It’s the last days of 2002, and I’m looking forward to 2003!  For those of you who have received my Christmas letter before, feel free to skip to the next paragraph.  However, if you have never received my Christmas letter before, then I’m glad to have had the chance this year to meet you and/or become reacquainted with you.  This letter tends to be long, so my recommendation is to print it and then read it sometime when you have time.

As with last year’s letter, there are a few ways you can read this letter.  The first is by simply reading it in your email (as you probably are now), or, you can go to my web site where there are two formats of the letter.  One is the printer-friendly version, which has no pictures and is in smaller type, and by reading the other version, you can see the letter with some pictures and in a bigger font.  If you want to read the version with pictures, or view any of the letters I’ve written from the past six years, just visit http://www.strive4impact.com/letters.html

So, without further ado, on to the Christmas letter for 2002!

As some of you remember from last year, I worked at Hallmark, starting in September of 2001.  This was the start of my final year at UNC.  On January 5th, while working at Hallmark, I fell from a shelf and injured my back.  The injury lasted quite a while, and I think I still have some residual effects from it, but overall, I have recovered, so that’s a good thing!  Even though Hallmark was a great place to work, I was still a broke college kid, and needed more income, so I started working as a lab consultant for the Candelaria computer labs on UNC’s campus.  Basically this meant that I sat at a computer and waited until someone had a problem with a lab computer or printer, and then I went and fixed it.  For someone else, this might have been a boring job, but for me, it was great.  When people did have problems, I could usually fix them, and when they didn’t, I spent time playing around online.  This let me really spend time working on my website.

Some of you might remember my old site at Geocities, and some of those pages are still used.  The many months I spent building my first site(s) at Geocities were when I really begun to learn how to build effective pages.  I mentioned www.strive4impact.com above with regard to my Christmas letters, and it has been a major project for me this year, as it’s now more than 220 pages.  I don’t want to spend too much time in my letter talking about my web site because it will start to sound like shameless self-promotion, but I would be remiss in talking about this year’s experiences if I failed to talk about those I’ve had with my web site. 

I’ve really learned a lot about how to build pages which have content that Internet users are interested in.  (As an example, if you go to the calling advice section of the site, http://www.strive4impact.com/callingadvice_files/callingadvice.html, you can find all kinds of information about how to save money on state, national, and international long distance.)  As a result of building content-rich pages, I have begun to receive a lot of traffic from search engines like Google, for all kinds of search terms.  This has been good because it has taught me how to build pages which get listed well at the search engines.  I have seen a dramatic increase in traffic to my site.  In January of 2002, I received an average of 14 visitors/day to my web site.  In December, I’ll receive an average of about 615 visitors/day to my web site!  I’ve taken those pages which get listed well, and partnered with businesses which offer great products, and any time someone from my site clicks to a business site I’m affiliated with, and purchases a high-quality product (to name a few: calling cards, progesterone cream, books), I earn a commission for referring that new customer.  It’s not been a huge source of revenue, but I’ve enjoyed getting a feel for business on the Internet and how it works.  I’m not going to talk about it too much here, but I will mention links and other relevant things about my web site throughout this letter.

On February 14th, I had a Valentine’s Day party for anyone who didn’t have a Valentine, or even for people who did… they could come, eat lasagna, and have a generally good time.  It was a good party!  It was a bit smaller than I had intended, but it was nice.  A girl named Carrie, whom I had met at German club a few days earlier, came to the party after I’d invited her.  She and I found out that we had a lot in common (outside of the fact that we both spoke German), and we started dating.  I knew from when I first met her that she was leaving for Germany in September for a year abroad, so we weren’t going to be that serious.

My classes for the spring semester, my last semester of college, seemed to breeze by.  I was finishing up my required courses for my B.A. in Human Communication, and took a social dance class to fulfill my P.E. credit.  Social dance is a class every guy should take!  Aside from learning some moves that most women wish you could lead them in (basic salsa, basic mambo, etc) , I also was in a class where you were expected to dance, and there were at least four times the number of girls as guys, so I really enjoyed Tuesday nights in Gunther Hall.  Sarah became my dance partner in that class, so that made it fun as well!

On a Thursday in March, I had followed Carrie to a car place in the morning where she was going to get her oil changed, and I picked her up at lunch to go get the car.  While on the way to the car place, she told me that the professor of her class that day, Dr. Kastner, had mentioned that there was a charter school looking for a part-time German teacher.  So when I dropped Carrie off to get her car, I went back and met with Dr. Kastner, who called the principal of the school that was looking for the German teacher.  We set up an interview for the next day, Friday, and I was hired that day.  That was the Friday before Spring break, and I started teaching the Monday following Spring Break.  So I arranged to take three of my classes as independent study, and began teaching German to two classes of 8th and 9th graders.  It was very difficult for me at first, but as time went on, I settled in and I came to enjoy it.  (It also helped that two of the kids who liked to cause trouble in each of the classes (respectively) were expelled about three weeks after I started.)  Starting teaching meant that I had four jobs (Massage Therapist, Computer Consultant, German Teacher, and Hallmark), was dating Carrie, and was trying to finish college.  Something had to go, so even though I enjoyed it, I stopped working at Hallmark.  It was a good experience to work there, and thanks to the women I worked with, I now know that periwinkle is a color, and that in order to wrap presents well, you have to use more tape.  I also learned a lot about the shopping habits of men and women, and how they differ, particularly around holidays, so I was disappointed to no longer work at Lolly’s Hallmark, but it worked out for the best.

Having worked at Hallmark, in addition to having two female roommates (down from three during the fall semester), definitely contributed to the idea that I was going to put my Roads Theory down on paper, and I wrote it as my final project paper for two of my classes.  Living with Becca and Tiffany (and Jenny in the fall) taught me a lot about the differences and similarities between men and women, and living with them without a doubt helped me to crystalize some thoughts for the Roads Theory. The Roads Theory has been in development for several years inside my head, and says that the differences between the sexes can be summed up by the simple fact that the sexes simply have a perspective difference on what traveling through life looks like.  A man views life as a road.  Everything that happens in his life happens on his one road.  He can start, stop, change directions, back up, and even decide to take an entirely new road, but ultimately, he travels this one road.  A woman views life as a vast network of roads, all interchanging, exchanging, crossing over, going in many directions, all running at the same time.  Every event, circumstance, experience, encounter, meeting, relationship, and even each new emotion; is stored as a new road or pathway being created within a woman’s life perspective.

I present the Roads Theory from many different perspectives, and acknowledge that it is a generalization to say that all women are one way and that all men are another way, but as a generalization, the theory holds true to all circumstances I’ve encountered, and I believe that it finally explains the differences between women and men.  I also offer some practical advice for how the theory can be applied.

Just to give you a little taste:  In the theory, one point I address is that men consolidate, while women diversify.  Here’s a small excerpt:

“The phrase ‘one size fits all’ simultaneously warms his heart and chills yours…he wants the one thing, while you crave, well, one of everything, he seeks the one remote control with 50 functions, the power drill with 50 bits […and] the software that promises to double your RAM with just one click […] The tuxedo is his Universal Formal Wear […] Men like to purchase stuff in sets: tool kits, CD boxed sets, six packs[…]Women, conversely prefer to sub-specialize […with] a color consultant, a shampooer, and a stylist, all hovering over one head of hair […] Moving south […] the dermatologist, the masseuse, the tailor, the manicurist, the gynecologist, the waxer, and the pedicurist.  As a personal example, I fully understand this consolidation vs. diversification phenomenon.  Having lived with both male and female roommates, I can use the shower as an example to demonstrate this point.  The shower in a house with men will have shampoo, a bar of soap, and the optional items of a washcloth, razor, shaving cream, and conditioner (but more likely a man will buy a 2 in 1 combination of shampoo and conditioner).  Living with two female roommates, the shower currently holds 15 bottles, 2 razors, and a squishy puff thing that I assume is for washing the body.  One bottle volumizes, another minimizes, another detoxifies, while another purifies and removes blemishes.  I have no idea what most of that means.”

The theory turned out to be 31 pages long, and I have decided that I am going to expand it into a book this summer.  For a while, the theory and write-up was online, but I have taken it down because it wasn’t complete.  It also was generating a lot of interest (50+ visits/day), and I was concerned about someone taking the theory and using it as their own before I’d had a chance to officially copyright it and finish it.  So, be on the lookout for it!  I’m planning to have it finished by January 1, 2004.  (Okay, once again, enough shameless self-promotion!)

April was a fun month.  I enjoyed finishing up my classes, went to a Hawaiian Luau (view pictures) with Carrie, made poticia bread with Carrie, my cousin Megan, and her now husband Aaron, and looked forward to my upcoming trip to China!

I graduated from college in May, and moved back home to Aurora.  While in Aurora, I continued giving massage, but that proved to be a bit more difficult at my parents’ house.  So, I discovered that the airport in Denver has a couple of places where you can go to get massages, and my dad found an ad in the Denver Post saying that they were looking for massage therapists.  I applied, and began working at A Massage, Inc.

One day in June, for some reason which escapes me now, I was in northern Colorado and driving back home in my AUDI (my first car I bought myself).  Those who have been close to me in the past three years have heard of the travels of the AUDI, both good and bad.  That day was the final day for either good and bad travel for my AUDI and me.  As I was driving down I-25 (the major north-south highway in Colorado), I suddenly had steam start pouring out of the air conditioning vents.  I didn’t know that steam could pour, and maybe you didn’t either, but trust me on this one, steam can pour.  In fact, steam can pour very well.  My car began overheating, and I tried to get to an exit, but had to pull off on the side of the highway.  Luckily, there was an auto repair place on the opposite side of I-25, but there was no way to get across the highway with the amount of swiftly-moving traffic that presented itself out of nowhere, so I walked ahead on the highway about ¼ mile, to where there was an underpass that I could walk through.  I went to the car repair place, and they gave me some water in an anti-freeze container.  I walked back the ½ mile to my car (¼ mile each direction—uphill both ways mind you!), and I opened my trunk to discover that I was also carrying, in my trunk, a full container of anti-freeze/coolant.  (Some people may find it odd that I happened to have this in my trunk, but when driving the AUDI, I made sure I was prepared for whatever.  So I emptied half of the water and half of the anti-freeze into the anii-freeze/coolant reservoir underneath the hood (of course dealing with non-pouring, but rather very intense hissing, steam).  I got back in the car and oh so carefully merged onto I-25.  I got another three miles or so before steam again began pouring from the vents, and this time, anti-freeze and water was in the car with me, on the driver’s side and passenger side, so now my feet were sitting in a nice green fluid as well.  I never knew green went well with my shoes.  I found out that day that it did.  So I pulled off, luckily this time at a gas station, and repeated the process.  I got back on the road, 3-4 miles more, more pouring, more green fluid.  Whoo-hoo!  I have no idea how many times I repeated the process that day, but a trip that should have taken 1 ½ hours took more like 4.  I did get the car back home though, and was able to sell it this November for $500 to a mechanic and his son, who drove from northwest Utah to pick up the car after finding my ad for it on my web site.  (Oh, I love the Internet.)  The funniest thing about the situation is that my car died on me in June and I made my last payment on the car in…yup…you guessed it…June.  Life’s kinda’ like that sometimes I guess.   

When I graduated from college, my gift from my parents was that they paid for my trip to China.  There are over 300 pictures and some interesting stories online, which you should definitely check out, and I got to go for 11 days with my sister Deanna, and both of my parents, as well as my cousin Jan and her husband Josh, and 300 others from college choirs across the US.  (I also learned a lot about airport security that trip, and hope I never have to learn about it in that way again, and that’s about all I have to say about that, at least in this letter.)  It was truly an incredible experience, and has caused me to think a lot about going back as an English teacher some time in the next couple of years.  We’ll see what the future holds.  There is something amazing however, about traveling halfway around the world and meeting people who are a lot like you.  I expected China to be very foreign, and in some ways, it was, but in a lot of ways, it wasn’t that much different than being in America.  I really enjoyed my time there.

After getting back from China, I continued working at A Massage, Inc.  I also got a new (new to me) car.  A ’97 Camry.  After having the moon-roof in the AUDI, I couldn’t have a car without one, so it has the moon-roof and power everything, so I’ve enjoyed having a newer, more reliable car.  A Massage, Inc. decreased my hours, and I needed additional income, so in addition to working at A Massage, Inc.,  I went back to Kelly Services, an office temporary service.  They put me on a two-week temporary assignment at a company called Telwares, which was quite possibly the easiest and most pleasant job I’ve ever had.  It involved playing on the Internet until the phone rang, answering the phone, being friendly to whoever called, making sure that a calendar was scheduled properly, and going back to playing on the Internet.  It was good that the position was easy, because between the first and second week I worked there, I woke up on a Saturday with a headache, so I took a shower, and I got worse as the day went on.  I got to the point where my muscles hurt so much that it hurt to stand up.  I spent most of the weekend asleep, and ate very little.  I got a little better as the week went on, but still didn’t eat much, and still didn’t feel well.  Outside of throwing up, I had just about every symptom you can name.  So I finally went to the doctor on Thursday.  They suggested that since I had been in China, it might be Hepatitis.  They drew blood and played with my reflexes.  In the long run, all they could tell me was that it wasn’t Hepatitis, but that I had an elevated liver count, and that they didn’t think I got it in China.  I went back for follow-up bloodwork in November, and my liver count was normal.  So who knows what it was.  But I’m glad it went away.

Also during that week at Telwares, I got a phone call from the headmaster of the Charter school where I taught, asking me if I wanted to come back and be a teacher at Frontier Academy in the fall.  So I was hired on as a German teacher for the ’02-’03 school year.  Since showing up for my first day, I have acquired some new titles: high school theater teacher and webmaster (http://www.frontieracademy.net).  I suppose that’s what happens when you have some diverse skill sets and work in an environment where those skills can be utilized, and I’m glad that they can be, because I might be bored doing just one thing all day.

Teaching in Greeley meant that I had to find a place to live, so after much apartment and house hunting, I finally found a place (actually, I finally went back to the very first place I looked at).  I wanted to find a place where I could live comfortably, and also have a space to continue to offer massage.  The place where I live is a one bedroom plus sunroom.  I use the sunroom for giving massage, and it works out very well.  I like living by myself a lot.  It’s quiet, I make my own rules, and it’s something I’ve never gotten to do before.  Prior to going to college, I shared a room with Adam up until my senior year, and while I’ve been in college, I’ve had roommates every year, to keep my costs down and because it provided a nice social aspect.  Living on my own this year has been great though!  The only thing I don’t like about living by myself is eating alone, so, if any of you who are nearby want to invite yourselves for dinner sometime, just give me a call and we’ll set something up!

I’m enjoying teaching…As I’ve said to many of you, I enjoy teaching theater more than German for a couple reasons; the biggest reason is that with theater, I am teaching something I really enjoy, and really know how to teach, because of the way I was taught.  I’m doing what my teachers did for me to instill a love for, and understanding of, theater.  In contrast, most of the learning I had with regard to German came in college and in Germany, where I was basically responsible for teaching myself.  I have been trying to teach German that way to my students, and for a few of them, it has worked very well, but for some, it has not.  I also have a student in German who doesn’t want to be there, and has been put into the class against his preference to take Spanish, and so there is someone who actively works against the learning process.  It will be very rewarding if I can find a way around that attitude, but I don’t know that I will.  Time will tell.  In the long run, I think that if I am going to stay a teacher, at least at Frontier, I will want to be teaching theater.  That may or may not be an option, but again, time will tell.

September was a little bit of a difficult month.  Carrie and I had become more serious than we had intended to be, and September 3 (the day she left for Germany) rolled around very quickly.  Saying goodbye to her at the airport was difficult.  Goodbye is always difficult.  With goodbye, I’ve learned that there are always a couple of choices: 1. You let it make you hard, and develop a shell around you so that you don’t have to get close to others, and by never getting close, you’ll not have those difficult goodbyes in the future, or 2. You let that goodbye break your heart.  And instead of letting it break your heart in two, you choose to let it break your heart wide open, and you share yourself even more, so that when the time comes, your heart is even more ready to say hello again.  I realized this when I left Germany in the summer of 2001, and am fortunate to have had this realization at a young age, because even though it is a more difficult choice to make, it is one which leads to a more rewarding and fulfilled life.

September was also difficult because 9/11/01 still haunts me.  It still haunts most of us, and we know something is coming in which the United States will play a major role, maybe even a role it’s never played before in global warfare, the role of the aggressor.  That scares me a lot, because in war, there are supposed to be rules, but they always are broken.  When no one knows what the rules are, because so many of them have been broken, the world becomes a very confusing place.  And really, as Americans, we don’t want war.  We don’t want to see death and destruction.  But we do want victory, we do want glory, we do want security, and we do want to be the best.  We have a hard time understanding why victory, glory, security, and being the best often come at the expense of death and destruction, and when the cost is death and destruction, we tend to acknowledge, and then disregard, the negatives that were used to achieve the positives.  This is made apparent by watching any major American news broadcast, particularly the opinion shows that can be seen on MSNBC and CNN.

In my travels, I have learned that people are people, and no matter where you go in the world, we are so much more alike than we are different.  However, because about 5% of people (from every country and every walk of life) choose to focus more on our differences than on our similarities, and choose combat over compromise, the other 95% of the world’s population is left to play clean up.  It’s truly a shame, and is, in my opinion, the primary reason that we’re about to go to war.  People are wondering how much it is about the oil in that part of the world, but it’s much more about ideology than it is about oil or any other economic motive.  Economics, at every level, from global to individual, are much more a matter of ideology and beliefs than anything else.  I pray that America will take into consideration all sides of the issue when deciding what moves to make, and I pray that we are guided by an understanding that there is a higher power which connects and unites us all—globally.

One book that really gave me a lot of hope during this time, and gives me a lot of hope generally, is a book called Think and Grow Rich.  It was originally written in 1936 by Napoleon Hill, and addresses a lot of the feelings that people had after the depression.  It is very motivational, and more than simply talking about growing financially rich, it talks about growing personally rich in your life, by surrounding yourself with ideas which help you to become a person who is rich in experience, character, and spirituality, and that through this, you can achieve any financial or personal goal you desire.  I was really glad to have the thoughts from this book enter my mind at this point in September.

October was a bit difficult as well because I had a hard drive crash on me.  I have never had this happen, and it is not something I would wish to happen to… well… anyone.  My brother Adam had actually built a computer for me over the summer, and in order to move all of my stuff onto a new hard drive, we moved my stuff onto his computer, and then transferred it back onto my new hard drive.  When we moved them all back onto the new hard drive in August, it was my chance to get my files from the past 8 or so years all cleaned up and organized.  I spent several hours organizing the files so that they were finally set up in a way that I could find everything that I wanted.  This is the point at which I should have backed everything up, which means, of course, that I didn’t.  Oops.  More than oops really.  More like stupid.  I looked into the cost of recovering the drive, and it ranges from $300-$1500.  It’s one of those important but not urgent things that you often neglect to do, but should do.  I know now, and I hope you can learn from me.  BACK UP your stuff often.  You never know when your computer could crash.  The good news is that I still have the majority of the information (everything up until the end of July 2002) on Adam’s computer.  The bad news is that I’m going to have to spend hours in order to reorganize it all again.  Oh well.  But learn from me please.  Get a good surge protector, and back up your information often.  This is particularly a good idea when you have spent hours in front of a computer organizing 8 years’ worth of information.

In the last three months of 2002, my life has become pretty routine.  I get up, go to school, teach, come back to my apartment.  Two-three days/week I give massage, Monday nights I keep my German up by going to German club’s Stammtisch (where we all sit around at a bar and chat in German), and I have spent a lot of time working on building partnerships and pages on my web site.  Routine has brought some stability to my life that I haven’t had since going to college, and that has been good, because it has allowed me time to do some things I have been wanting to do, but haven’t, because I’ve been too busy.  One of those things has been to read quite a few books.  In addition to Think and Grow Rich, this fall I also read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Cashflow Quadrant, George Orwell’s 1984, and a book which my German friend Anne sent me called “Notes From A Big Country.”  It’s a great collection of thoughts about American life, and a good read if you like to laugh!

Anne is quite the world traveler, and visited Colorado on her way back to New Zealand from Germany.  It was nice to get to see her in October/November!

As I said before, teaching theater has been good.  We performed the first-ever one-acts that Frontier Academy has had, and it was really great to see the kids do things on stage that they wouldn’t even have thought about doing the first day of class.  Theater really offers them a way to break out of themselves and their world and get into the mind and character of someone else. That’s been great for me to be able to offer that to them.  We performed our one-acts on December 12th, and on December 13th, I drove to Denver and then my dad took me to the airport, where I flew to Atlanta, GA, for my friend Jason’s graduation.  I’d never been to Atlanta before, and the trip to the Waffle House there was…hmmm…interesting…  The graduation ceremony was nice (long, but nice), and Kelly, another friend from high school, came for the graduation, so we got to spend a lot of time talking, which I’d never gotten to do with her, so I enjoyed getting the chance to hang out with her as well!

The last part of December brought with it some new things!  My older brother Brian took his girlfriend Jamie to New York.  They had an amazing weekend from the sounds of it, and he proposed to her on a dinner cruise, right underneath the Brooklyn Bridge.  So I’m going to have a sister-in law, and I’m excited about that!  As well, on the 21st, my cousin Megan got married to her long-time sweetheart Aaron, and had a great wedding!

Christmas was spent at home with the family of course, and was very nice.  I’ve really enjoyed having some time off this break and am currently debating whether or not to disrupt my new-found stability during the next year. 

I did go skiing on December 26th and 27th, and, of course, what Christmas letter would be complete without some kind of injury to report?  I went off a rather large jump, and in my landing, I won the downhill snowballing championship trophy, otherwise known as king of the Faceplant Olympics.  I landed on my front side where I was carrying my cell phone and wallet in a front pocket, and believe I broke a rib.  I haven’t visited the doctor yet, but that’s the injury report.

My friend Kelly emailed me to ask if I make New Year’s Resolutions for the year, and I really don’t, because I feel like they’re a little short-sighted and kind of dim.  One reason why is that on New Year’s Eve, you might go out partying, and have a great time, perhaps too good of a time, and then you wake up on New Year’s Day and you’re supposed to make resolutions on that day which are going to be relevant to the rest of your year?  I think it’s a much better idea to develop a list of life-goals; things that you want to accomplish by certain years and certain ages.  Then, if you insist on doing something life-impacting on January 1st, you can use New Year’s Day to reevaluate those goals and see if they’re still relevant, and if they are, what progress you’ve made towards making them into reality.  If they’re not relevant anymore, you can create some new life goals.  For me personally, New Year’s Day gets used to take down Christmas lights, and any other day of the year can be used to reevaluate those life goals.  January 1st is mostly a day for relaxation I think!

Time will tell what the next year has in store, and you’ll be reading this letter next year before you know it.  I hope you make the most of your time between now and then!  I’m planning a very successful and enjoyable year as well!  No major plans as of yet, but some will be happening I’m sure!  There are other things I could talk about from this past year, and I do on my web site, so I hope that in the upcoming year, you will make at least one visit to my web site (enough already with the self-promotion)!  

I heard something at Jason’s graduation ceremony in Atlanta which is my wish for you in 2003. Strive to be someone who is not only successful, but work to become someone who is significant.

 

“Kill the habit of worry, in all its forms, by reaching a general, blanket decision that nothing in this life is worth the price of worry.  With this decision will come poise, peace of mind, and calmness of thought which will bring happiness.”

- Think and Grow Rich
Napoleon Hill

 

"Argue forcefully against your most dearly held hypotheses.  Only then will you know if they stand up to scrutiny."

Fast Company, Nov. 2002 p. 90

 

 

 

 

Best Wishes for an incredible 2003!

 

Peace Always,

 

 

Jonathan Kraft