Welcome to Headroom, where we discuss all things essential to mental health and well being. I'm your host, Jim Owens, a licensed professional counselor at Lansing Community College. I'd like to emphasize that while this podcast does not contain medical advice, it does introduce you to some phenomenal people who have incredible ideas for you and your life. Having said that, let's get into the Headroom and begin today's conversation with Andy George. Welcome.

Hey, Jim. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, man. Glad to have you here. We've been colleagues at the college for a number of years.

Yeah. Quite some time.

And we both were doing different things at the college at the time.

Indeed.

And I don't know if I. If you remember, you will remember. One of the first things we did together was we went to a high school to talk to students about going to college.

I do remember that.

And we went to co present to these middle school kids about, you know, start thinking about college now. One of those early awareness things. And on the way, I was driving this and I said, by the way, our boss's house is on the way. We're going to stop and rearrange the furniture on her deck. Is that okay with you?

Got up to some schnitzel.

Yeah, we did. We just, you know, a little prank on the boss. It's always good. She took it in. Good fun. In fact, she's like, I didn't even notice. Anyway, so if you're listening to this, Emily, that was us and you know the story, she said we should have gone into her house and rearranged the furniture and she would have noticed.

That's a little weird.

We're not going there. We're not going there. But we've been having fun at school here for a long time together. So I know you, but not everybody does know you. So tell us a little bit about who you are. Where'd you grow up? Just give us a little background.

Sure. Like you said, my name's Andy George. I grew up actually in the Lansing area. I grew up in Haslett, so not too far away. I'm a graduate of Hazlett high school. Goodness. 20 years ago now, which is a strange thought. After that, I attended Michigan State. I was a psychology and a secondary social studies education major. Student taught, which was a very interesting experience, but an important one. It's something that I've taken quite a lot from. I ended up coming into the teaching market in 2011, which is a terrible time to be looking for a teaching job.

Yeah.

Went back to graduate school and ended up with A job here at LCC, a part time job in testing. And I. It's funny because I intended to come finish my degree and like kind of work the job and move somewhere else. But I fell in love with LCC and like to the point where one of the things that I. I think back, like one of my great regrets was that I didn't go to LCC first.

Yeah, yeah. Being a heads up kid, we were right around the corner.

That's right. I was right. All my friends came here. Like, you know, I was lost for a little bit. When I was a student. It took me a little while to figure out what it was I wanted to do. And I feel like the connections that some of my friends had to their professors and of course, I mean, the cost would have been beneficial to kind of figuring that out in a way that I'm not gonna pay for until I die. Basically. Yeah.

Yeah. College is only getting more expensive.

Indeed.

So that's interesting. So, yeah, just right off to MSU right around the corner. Was it a foregone conclusion in your family that you were going to go to college?

It was actually. My parents met at Michigan State and so it's not an exaggeration to say the reason I exist is because of Michigan State. It's something that I just always assumed I was going to do. My father worked for the USDA and so he did a lot of stuff through the ag programs and things where we'd go to Small Animal Day and the big ag expos and that kind of thing. So I was very familiar with campus even before I got there, I'm sure.

And so not only was it, you're going to go to college, it was, you're going to go to msu.

I don't know that my parents put that kind of pressure on me. It was the only school I applied to though, so maybe I internalized it.

Well, yeah, I guess. So they did your job. They did their job well. It's funny how people will call themselves, you're a Spartan for the rest of your life. You went to school there. I don't know how many years you went to school there for, but.

Too many.

Too many.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. So what did you study in college? I mean, you said, what, psychology and social science. Yeah, yeah. And then teaching.

Yeah. My intention was to actually become a counselor. A marriage counselor. Oh, okay. And, you know, I ended up kind of seeing what that looked like and decided it wasn't really for me. And so I was really kind of scattered. I wasn't sure. What the heck I was doing with myself. And I ended up taking a job over the. Over the summer at a Girl Scout camp, of all places. I taught outdoor programming at a Girl Scout camp in Howell. And it made me fall in love with teaching. You know, it's certainly much simpler, you know, teaching archery than teaching social studies or civics or econ. But just being able to connect with students in that way is something that I started doing and I just. I loved and I still love doing.

Oh, yeah, I can see what you do now. We'll get into that in a second. It sounds so much like the mentoring that you would have done and the teaching that kind of blend between the two. Maybe you don't quite have such the mentoring capability or possibility as a school teacher. So you went all the way through an education program, did student teaching?

I did.

Did you work as a teacher?

I did not. Unfortunately. I. I ended up taking a job in the post office because that was what was available to me at the time.

Yeah, no, I know the market was saturated for quite a while there.

But, you know, it is. It is something that's always been in the back of my mind. And, you know, it's teaching. You know, I get to teach in my own way here. It tends to be more one on one or small groups than I think it would have been in a classroom. Yeah. And I find that that suits me better anyway.

Yeah, it sounds like being a marriage. Originally you were thinking of being a marriage therapist. It's like you want to kind of work with one or two people at a time, and that's kind of what you do now at the school, in a sense, it is still in education, which psychology and counseling is very rooted in education. So maybe could you tell the school or listeners what you do at the school a little bit?

Yeah, absolutely. So the actual title is Access Consultant, which is a nice jingo way or like jargony way to say that I work with students with disabilities. My job is to talk with them about the sort of barriers they experience as a result of their disabilities, and then find accommodations, find ways to help them break down those barriers so that our students with disabilities have equal access to the classroom environment. And that can be anything from trying to figure out how to help students take notes to providing alternative materials like braille or braille music. Really, it's one of the nice things about what I do is that it's always a little different. Every students come in with different ideas with different experiences with disabilities, that even if it's the Same diagnosis are radically different in how it impacts people. And so a lot of the fun is being able to kind of figure that out with students, problem solve and get those solutions in there.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I definitely want to hear more about that. You're making me think too of the. The idea around helping people get accommodations when they have a disability. I actually took a course in this 30 years ago when I was an architecture student. We had to take a class on barrier free design and of course it did lend itself primarily to physical disabilities. But there was no mention in a 16 week class of psychological disabilities at all. Not even neurological, which we now talk about neurodiversity and neurological. But go ahead.

Yeah, and really I think that's where a lot of that universal design kind of philosophy started is with the built environment. But it can be applied to materials, to websites, to classrooms, to core structures, all sorts of stuff. There's a lot of opportunities there for ensuring access for folks.

Yeah, absolutely. So that's much more, I think we talk more holistically now about access and disability and accommodation now than we ever have before. At least from what I can recall from being a student of it a little bit 30 years ago and obviously having worked in it for 25 years and yourself, basically you've been in education for 20 years with your higher ed as a student or not. So going all the way back to when you were in college, you were saying you were kind of lost for a little while. Was that something that you were aware your friends were experiencing too? Did you guys talk about that with each other?

I had a couple of friends who weren't really sure what they were doing, what was right for them, but I had also had many who did, whether they were at Michigan State or at LCC. Actually, I had a good friend who was very, very, very like she knew exactly what she wanted to do. She went and became a nurse. She went through the nursing program here at LCC and she's been working as a nurse for some time. And I feel like the conversations that I had with her because she just knew. And I'm like, how do you just know? I think it's in the nature of folks at that time in their lives to sometimes struggle with what it is you want to do. Because it's a big question, what do you want to do for the rest of your life?

And hurry up and decide because you're at a really expensive college, great college, really expensive. And also there's this value proposition of time is money. I need to decide sooner than later because I don't want to get behind. I don't want to spend too long in college because it costs too much. But I want to hurry up and get. I want to figure out what's going to make me happy in life and start pursuing that now.

Yeah. And I feel like a lot of times that time is money bit can really push people into a place where they're not necessarily making a good decision. That's a conversation I have with my students a lot is what's most important is that you do what you need to do to get to the point where you're successful. It doesn't really matter how much time that takes because it's different for everybody. Some folks do the two year thing and they're good to go. I've also had colleagues who spent significantly longer than that or taking a class at a time when they're working full time to become professionals as time goes on. And that's what worked for them. Particularly with folks with disabilities there tends to be. Folks tend to compare themselves against what's typical, which doesn't really reflect the fact that students might have barriers that it might be easier to take a little bit longer to take another semester, to take another year to get through those things and ensure that you've got the time and the resources you need to be successful.

But this is a dangerous thing, isn't it? That when we start comparing ourselves to other people. Indeed especially when we do it just visually because we are not by looking at someone, we cannot tell always what disadvantages they might be carrying around and or what advantages they might be carrying around that propelled them into the success. Who knows? Like your friend who knew she wanted to be a nurse, she immediately went and did it and she's been happy ever since. Maybe she had a career counseling class in school or her parents took her on job, what's it called, internship things and she got to experience, who knows, the advantages that she had that helped her figure that out that you and I might not have had.

Yeah, right. Exactly. And I mean in her case she'd actually worked, got a job early on in college as a caregiver at like a, an old folks home. And I think that's what like that solidified things for. She's like, okay, this is what I'm doing.

It's kind of hard to figure out what you want to do. Just going into the classroom and it's all hypothetical.

This is true.

Like being a therapist, I think I really like people like relationships. I think I'd like to make that work. And then when you get down to it, it's like, well, you're dealing with life and death stuff in here actually too. This is kind of like a paramedic job too.

Yeah. I mean, it can take a real personal toll on you as a, as a therapist. I know. Like that that's one of the things that, that kind of shied me away from it is I, you know, have the, the tendency to take things into myself in a way that it would be difficult to do that counseling job in all the ways that you need to and just leave it at work, you know?

Yeah. I mean, personally, I'll say that is something that we get educated on a little bit in school. We certainly get educated about. For those of you thinking of going into the field, we need you, we need more therapists. There's just nothing but waiting lines out there. But you do get educated into some resiliency. You learn psychologically in mindset, how to separate things a little bit. But the thing that drew you into the helping profession, or the thing that drew me into it is also the thing that makes me cry over my client's pain and, or stay up at night or lose sleep. Just various things. And I'm pretty good with boundaries now. But that's a learned skill.

Yeah, absolutely.

You have to acquire that over time.

And that's something I didn't realize at the time. I wonder now, knowing what I knew or what I know now, if I went back then, if I would have made the same decision or not knowing that there is some things, but I mean, it's. Who knows?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could still do it, Andy.

I could, yeah. That's phenomenal.

One more graduate degree.

Yeah. My wife would be so mad.

Don't let her listen to this then. But I do talk to people who are interested in this and they'll say like, I don't think I could do your job. And I go, you might not be able to do it as you are the person you are today. Agreed. I wouldn't be able to do it as the 17 year old kid that went off to college either. But I turned into someone that can do it. And part of that was my education. Part of that was experience.

Yeah. I mean, it's that personal growth, that professional growth. Absolutely.

Yeah. I'm sure you've experienced that in your own work at the school here. Because I even think about the work that you do. And first of all, you have to be so incredibly sensitive and I want to say intelligently creative and how you're going to help a student level up in the classroom, because, as you say, everybody's needs are different. Just because somebody shows up with a diagnosis of I'm on the autism spectrum. Well, if you met one person on the spectrum, you've met exactly one person on the spectrum. And I can tell you that personally, clinically, I can tell you from the research, and you know it too. Everybody's needs are different. So must require a lot of creativity. But that must be fun, too. It is.

I mean, it's never boring, that's for sure. And that's, you know, one of the things that I really enjoy about the work that I do is that even if I'm going into an appointment where I'm like, oh, I like the documentation, it seems like this. It could be something completely different. Or like, students could have a request for an accommodation that I've never heard of before, and being able to consider those things, to take students through it and do the very small part of what I do to helping them be successful, it's very rewarding at the end of the day. And I do love it.

Yeah, I can tell. And I hope you stick around for a long time because we need people with your heart and mind, your commitment to this, and you know that. And I think you are happy here. So I don't have to say that. But for anybody who wants to work in this field, we do need people indeed who are willing to do this kind of work because it does require creativity. It requires a great deal of education so that you actually understand clinically what's going on. I mean, you have had probably to bone up on medical diagnoses and terms and all kinds of stuff, right?

Yeah. And I was a social science major, man. Like, I'm learning all sorts of things about, like, we'll get new diagnoses or something I haven't seen in a while. And like, I. I mean, that's part of the job is finding some research, taking a look at what that means, and then talking to the student about what it means in their circumstance as well.

I'm curious about, because our work is somewhat similar. We actually work in the same department, but different areas. Right. Or same division or. Or. I'm not sure how to phrase it. But anyway, we're colleagues.

Yep.

I sit with people who are in difficult circumstances and help them work through them. So do you. How much of that does take a toll on you personally?

A little. I think it doesn't quite do as much. Doesn't take as much a Toll as it used to. Okay. Because I think to your point earlier, the skills you develop as a professional and that you just develop as a person who's growing and maturing, that's really been helpful for me. And I can think back to the way things were when I started doing this work and how I'm way different in terms of how I handled difficult situations and other things. But I mean, there are those situations that, I mean, for lack of a better term, bum me out where it's like a student has a reversal and you see them working so hard, you're doing what you can to clear those barriers. But I mean, it might be something that's completely unrelated to school that throws them off track. I mean, it could be life circumstances and things. And it's hard not. It's hard not to take that in on yourself a little bit because it's like cheering for your favorite sports team. I'm cheering these students on. That's part of what I do. And then when there are reversals, it's always hard to take that back. But looking through those sorts of situations and helping students know, like, you know, hey, this is not the end of the world. Like, this is not the end of your education. This is not the end of you. This is a setback and this is going to happen and happens to everybody. You know, we just have to figure out the best way to proceed. And a lot of times that's connecting to professionals like you, Jim, as well as all the other folks in financial aid or the various other people who can help those students work through those difficult situations. But it is, it's hard not to, you know, care. To care. Like, I mean, like as an empathetic person, it's a double edged sword. It's very useful.

You have to have these professional boundaries. It's like, I don't know about that. I'm a person, you know. Yeah. I'm a human being doing this work. I'm not a machine.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that's really important, particularly for those of you who are thinking about going into, into a field where you are helping folks, whether it's social work or counseling or something like disability services, to kind of be aware of the fact that you're just gonna have those days that hit ya. And you've got to work through that. For the people that you work for, for your students, for your clients. You work through it and you help them work through it.

Isn't that interesting? You probably fall back on so much of what you've learned in your own life, to help them learn what they will benefit them. And I want to press in on this concept of skills a little bit because this is something we want our students to pick up. And just anybody in general who's struggling in life, you and I have the benefit of being, shall we say, middle aged now. And we've learned things. And so the same kinds of slings and arrows that get thrown at us at this point in our life, even though they might be the exact same things that came to us in our 20s, they just don't hit as hard. And we have so many other ways of managing and dealing with it now that I want to instill that hope in the people I help. Like, you're going to struggle to deal with this right now, but it won't always be that way because you're going to grow, you're going to acquire more skills. And I think there's this old phrase like, if all you have in your hammer, all you have in your toolbox is a hammer, everything's a nail. And very often young people come to us and they only have one or two skills to deal with everything. And sometimes it's self destructive or destructive, maybe not even self destructive. It's just bad. And you got to come up with new ways to deal with those things. Have you had to figure some of these things out on your own?

Yeah, I mean, a little bit. I mean, personally and professionally too. Like, some of it is because I was that person with the toolbox, the nearly empty toolbox. I did well in high school, but I didn't know how to be a good student. Even basic things like how to study and how to manage my time is something I always struggled with. And so those are things I share with my students. Like, hey, you're not alone. I went exactly through this. And the hardest lesson I ever had to learn was how to ask for help. And so a lot of times that's what I'm trying to connect students to is like, you don't have that skill yet, and that's okay, you'll get there. But the good thing is that there are lots of people here who want to help you get that skill, help you develop that, help you grow so that the next time you have a reversal or a misfortune that you're better able to handle it, you're able to handle it in a different way that leads to a better outcome.

Yeah, by the time they get to us, they've already done that thing of I'm going to ask for Help? Usually, yes. Sometimes they get sort of strong armed over to our office. Like, I think you're going to want to talk to somebody in Student Access. I think you're going to want to talk to a counselor. I mean, obviously no one's forced to see us, but if they've gotten that far, they already have this value for. I'm willing to almost wave the white flag, like, all right, I surrender, I need help. But often I have to frame it because students are so reluctant, and not just students, but anybody are reluctant to wave the white flag and ask for help. Sometimes I've found that if I flip it around and say, if you've got a problem, you're not really asking for help, you're hiring people to help you get a job done.

That's a good way to think about it. Right.

You basically have shown up to my office and said, I'm gonna hire a counselor to help me out. I have a job I need to get done. It's called college. And I'm struggling in this area over here that needs work and somebody's going to. I'm going to have to hire somebody to help me figure that part out so I can get this entire project done.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think accommodations would be a very similar sort of situation. I'm hiring these disability people to help me figure out what accommodations are going to help and then to help enforce that, to make sure that I have an advocate for my needs.

Yeah. In fact, if you're a student listening to this, you have hired Andy and I. If you're a tax paying citizen in the Lansing area in Michigan, you have hired us to help these students. We actually get paid to do this. Sometimes we joke with students like, you know, I actually get paid to do this. I do love it. But, you know, this is a right that you have. So I love that. So coming back to that skill piece, you know, sometimes we can impart to them certain skills, but most importantly is just telling them there are skills that you can acquire that actually are going to make life easier, better. Because I know for myself and probably for yourself, there were challenges I knew were going to come in my life at some point. Let's say getting married, let's say having kids that I knew I was really unprepared for and maybe even ill prepared, as in, what I've learned is going to hurt me. Not only will there be a void of skills, I'm pretty sure I'm going to bring things to both my marriage and my parenting that are going to be bad for it. And I need to unlearn some of those things and learn new things. And that prospect seemed kind of daunting. And I didn't always know where to look to get that kind of support and education and how I was going to figure that out. But I don't know if you kind of perceive life a little bit like that.

Yeah, a little bit. You know, I'm not sure that I was quite as insightful as you were, Jim.

Okay, okay.

Like, granted, you know, speaking of, you know, marriage and that sort of thing, my wife has taught me a lot, like, perhaps more than any one person about communication and needs. Like, that's something that I am a much better person for having married my wife because the way that she operates and we operate together, it's helped me to be able to better put voice to the anxieties and the things that are eating me up inside that I don't know how to get out there. She's helped me have the time and the place to be able to think about those critically. And you never know who in your life. I mean, granted, your one spouse is probably going to be a pretty impactful person in your life. You know, you never know where that insight is going to come from, too. I mean, I've had a number of co workers and students and colleagues who've also helped me grow. And I guess the important thing is kind of being open to that development, that growth, wherever you find it.

Well, even though she's your wife, you still have to risk telling her your insecurities, your anxieties, your fears. And here I'm speaking of myself because I definitely, one of the things I brought into my marriage was I'm the strong, tough sea wall that you can crash against all day, every day. And nothing will, you know, nothing will shake here. I'll be solid, of course. I'm actually a human being made out of flesh. I'm actually very soft. I'm actually like therapist. I'm like, into feelings and stuff. But I had this archetype in my head of the strong male. And of course, I still have that. But my sense of strong is very different now. Very different. Like, I recognize the value in bending so that I don't break.

Indeed. And that's a very mature way to think about it. I think, like, you know, we have these preconceived notions about what things should be or how you should be in a relationship. And, you know, when you find that that's not necessarily the case or it's not the case for your situation that, I mean, that's an exceptional piece of growth.

It takes, I think, maybe an exceptional amount of courage to do that. Indeed, even if we grow up in the best households with parents who are constantly checking in on our feelings and stuff like that, it's still a risk to maybe our sense of self or identity or the part of us that wants to be able to stand up on our own or whatever. All these. You know, we could get into the deep psychology of it all. There's something about. We don't necessarily want to be seen as weak, and that has been horrible for our species.

Yeah.

That's just no other way to put it. From my point of view, it's just not been good for us.

Well, and professionally speaking, on the disability side of things, I mean, it's something that's really tough because people, when they come and they seek help, even if they're here, even if they're there, even if they are waving the white flag, as you said, it's not easy to say, hey, I've got a problem with this, or, like, I have difficulty reading or processing or everything from, like, the lights are too bright, and I have sensory sensitivity. Like, all these things we're kind of conditioned not to bring up, which is hard because we're holding people to a different standard. I think students without disabilities are out there existing in classrooms and doing things without barriers, and students with disabilities have those barriers, and that's what accommodations are for. But I mean, to your point, we have a kind of cultural preconception of, like, well, if something's wrong, then you gotta shove that right down.

Exactly.

And it's not healthy, and it's a barrier for folks who are seeking accommodation who by all means, deserve it. Deserve it.

Yeah. I think even of the help I need to do the work that I do on a daily basis as one of the mental health counselors on campus, there's definitely a temptation to always appear like, I'm mentally sound and strong and resilient and bring me all your. I don't know the phrase you're wounded and you're weary, whatever that quote is. Right. But it takes a certain amount of courage for me to show up to my colleagues and if they'll say, boy, I know you really had a couple crisis students today, which happened about a week ago. How are you doing? I could just say, I got it in hand. I'm experienced, I'm professional. I know what I'm doing. But instead, I walked into the office and they said, oh, Jim's here. And I go, no, my new name is Vicariously Traumatized Jim. I'm hurting right now. And they were like, okay, let's talk about that. And to be able to walk in, to sit down with my peers and go, I'm beat up and bruised right now. I'm pretty tough guy, actually. I've been doing this work for a long time. I really love the hard work of it. For some reason, I thrive in that. But it gets the better of me sometimes. And to be able to sit down. And I would have never admitted to that to my colleagues. Fifteen years ago, let's say maybe even 10 years ago, I would not have said, I'm not doing very well as a therapist. I don't feel strong. But now I can. So that was a growth process for me. I'm sure you have similar kinds of things because we're talking about the same kind of stuff. Yeah.

Yeah, indeed. I mean, it's. That's. I also have a great team. I have great colleagues. And I know that if there's something where I'm, you know, like a situation hits me just the wrong way. I mean, you know, and I like, I just, I need some help.

Yeah.

I know that I can go to, you know, to my colleagues, to my supervisor, to, you know, our leadership and be like, hey, you know, I'm. I'm really struggling with this. Can you guys help me out with this? Like, is there. Can we think through this in a different way? And I, I'm grateful to say that I don't have to. I don't even have to question. I don't have to think about it and be like, okay, so here's the problem I'm running into. How do we. Yeah, how can we take care of this?

You know, you don't conflate. If you don't know that word, look it up. Failing at things with. Then taking on the identity of being a failure, which is something I want students, everyone, to pick up on. For myself too, like, if I'm having a weak moment or I'm failing in something, it does not mean I am a total failure. I don't conflate what I did or what state I'm in of the day. Like, in a similar way, probably with students who benefit from accommodations, we don't want them to disidentify from their disability. That's part of who they are. But we also don't want them to over identify with it either, I guess. Is that sort of a struggle, do you think, for some students to wrestle through their identity in the face of a disability a little bit.

I think typically the issue is less over identifying and probably more under identifying. And some of that might be just presence of self, sense of self, where, I mean, we have students who walk in who don't necessarily know what their disability is. They might have had accommodations through high school. That's true. And they just don't know. And so that's often more. What we see is that folks don't understand how their disability impacts them. But, you know, it is. It's always hard. You know, especially what we see a lot is students who come in and see us after they've had a reversal of some sort, like, hey, I took my first test and it didn't go very well. And so they're coming to us with a lot of shame and that, like, well, I'm a failure. Like, like, no, like that. That's not. That's not necessarily the case. Like, you're not. You're not a failure. You're. You are a person who was. Was in taking a test or in a situation where, you know, you didn't have, you know, you were. You were fighting uphill, basically, the. The playing field was not level for you. And so let's take a look and see what you're learning is what your work is when that playing field is leveled.

I love that we'll have to end it there. But this idea, like, just because we fail, which is almost a dirty word in America, just because you failed doesn't mean you're a failure. We say it all the time. It's 100% true. In fact, we all fail all the time at all kinds of things. And it's. Even if we don't get back up, we haven't failed, we can let somebody else come along and pick us up. So I want to thank you for coming on the show. We're out of time, but let me just wrap this up up with. Thanking you, thanking our producers, everyone at LCC Connect, Daedalian and Jeremy, our producers. If you guys who are listening or seeing this want more information, you can listen to amazing podcasts at LCC.edu/Connect. I think we have more than 20 different podcasts going here. And lastly, I want to let everyone know who's listening if they're experiencing any health challenges. Do what Andy and I said. Reach out for help. If you're a student at LCC, you've got free mental health counseling available here. If you're just a member in the community, you can always call or text 988 anytime. And if it's a life threatening emergency, you can call 911, but you can get crisis help at 988. So please do that. Please reach out for help if you need it. Okay. Thanks again for coming on.

Yeah, thanks, Jim, for having me.