Six Seasons and a Movie

Hey Everyone!

Today is Thursday which means my favorite TV show will be airing tonight, Community!  Community is an unconventional situation comedy about 7 individuals who find themselves washed up at Greendale Community College.  They become a family of sorts as they form a study group and bring together very different world views.  Last week was the premiere of the 5th season.

Hold up, 5 seasons?  Aren't people normally in College for 4 years?  Yes, you would be right.  So, let's do a quick recap of last week's premiere. (Spoilers Ahead)

Season 5 opens up with Jeff Winger's commercial advertising his attorney skills.  We zoom out from the screen showing the commercial to see Jeff Winger unshaven and having his possessions taken away.  He ends up back in Greendale at first to get evidence against a graduate who has become the defendant of a shady bridge accident case.   What ends up happening is that he runs into his old study group and finds that all of them have been out of work and having a rough time since graduation.

Jeff then mischievously convinces them to take legal action against the school for their bogus degrees.  The group follows suite and end up destroying the table they studied on.  Jeff experiences a change of heart when he sees a Hologram of the late(?) Pierce talking about the new museum and how Greendale is a place to find yourself again.  Jeff remembers all of the memories he had with his study group at Greendale and goes back to them to convince them to not take legal action.  To instead, enroll at Greendale so they can find themselves.

The group agrees and Jeff becomes a teacher.  He includes co-worker Professor Buzz Hickey (Breaking Bad's Jonathan Banks) as part of the group.  (Replacing Pierce in a way.  And thank goodness.)

Prof. Hickey shows Jeff the ropes of being a teacher at Greendale.

(End Spoilers)

I'm looking forward to tonight's episode.

I'm also excited for this new year.

The season premiere of Community definitely comments on current events.  This day and age is a bad time to be a college graduate.  The work force is oversaturated with talented people and a lot of college grads are actually going back to school or picking up a trade.  The economy is in a rough spot for everyone.

For me, 2013 was an extremely challenging year.  I found myself more discouraged than I had been before.  My last semester in school was the most difficult semester I had ever experienced.  I've been as optimistic as I could but found myself in negativity whenever I rested my head for sleep.  Most of the time, I couldn't get quality sleep.

2014 is a new start.  Like the characters in Community, I get a fresh start and I don't need to think about the past but simply take the lessons I've learned from it.  As Inara said, "A challenge is an opportunity in disguise."  2014 and the rest of life will be challenging.  It always will be.  Sure, it's easy to feel like a failure if you find yourself going back to school or

not getting the job you want.  For me, I actually failed a class last semester.  I never fail classes.  The thing about failure is that it isn't a dead end, it's a part of the journey to success.  Failure does hurt and takes some time to learn from and move away from but that's exactly why new beginnings like a new season or a new year are so important.

Community has often had a sword floating above it's head of potentially getting cancelled.  The cast and crew started to promote the television series with #sixseasonsandamovie.  They are so dedicated to the show they won't stop until they've had six seasons and a Community movie.  I think this is an attitude that I want to have in my life.  I don't want to give up.  I want to keep going whether I fail a class or lose an internship.  We can learn from our past we don't have to be slaves to it.

Hope you take advantage of this New Year and embrace every opportunity that comes in disguise.  What are some challenges you have overcome?  Got a favorite moment from Community?  Comment below!

-Stephen