Archive for October, 2007

Busy Busy Me

October 12, 2007

This will be a relatively short post. Not because I don’t care anymore, but because I have already written this post… but it has been erased from my computer and I can no longer find it. This week has been very busy, probably the busiest since I’ve arrived, which means that there are many events to go ever. Although not very in depth, this should give you a good feeling about what an average day entails for me. Here are the major events of this week… again:

- The Dean of Richmond College and several other important staff members visited Gray Court (my residence hall) and talked to us about what has been going on in our lives. They also provided free pizza. :)

- I had Diversity Training for Student Government for three hours on Saturday. It was a rather long ordeal, but it was probably good for our group. The room was freezing, but it did keep us awake at 10 AM on a Saturday.

- InterVarsity sponsored a Dance Party at their apartments on Saturday Night. I got my groove on and it was a really fun time. It was really packed, but we made do. We had a lot of random people wander through in and join us in dancing and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

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InterVarsity Dance Party!!!!

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My friends and I relaxed from a long night of dancing

-I helped to throw a surprise birthday dinner for my friend, Kelly. We all met in D-Hall and one of my friends made her a cake. Due to limited resources, the cake was made out of waffles, strawberry jam, strawberries, and sprinkles from D-Hall. It was very impressive.

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Kelly and her “cake”

- Sunday brought the Intramural volleyball playoffs. Our team was the highest seed and made it to the Championship game after one victory. After a tough match, our InterVarsity team won the Championship! There were only five teams, but it was still an awesome time. It has been one of my favorite memories of college thus far.

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Our InterVarsity Champion Volleyball Team

- I began another Spanish presentation and had to create a TV show. We decided to make a comic version of Jeopardy, similar to some of the SNL skits. It wasn’t a lot of work and we all got a good grade!

- On Monday night, the current President and some of the other leaders of Student Government invited the newly elected Freshmen officials to go to Capital Ale House with them for Dollar Burger Night. Good times and cheap food. What could be better?

- I hosted two prospective students on Monday. Dominik and Jamal were my two prospectives from NYC and I showed them around campus and what a typical college night was like. I plan to continue being an overnight host and I may end up being yours if you come to campus. I also am applying to be a Tour Guide. If I end up being your tour guide, feel free to say hi to me.

- Finally, on Monday, I had a CORE paper due. I didn’t like it a lot and thought I could have done a lot better, but I had to call it good. My teacher had postponed it from Friday to Monday and it was due at midnight. Me, being the typical college student, finished the paper and e-mailed it to her at 11:52 PM.

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As can be seen, I work late at night, but sometimes fall asleep doing it

- 1984 was performed by a professional acting group from Los Angeles on campus on Tuesday night. Eight of my friends and I went to go see it. Since I hadn’t read the book, I thought this would be a cheating way to know what it was all about. UR does a great job of bringing a wide variety of acts to campus and most of them are free to students. However, I did not really enjoy this particular performance. Since it was free, though, I guess I can’t complain.

- Also on Tuesday night, I had my first committee meeting for Student Government. All Freshmen guys are on the Programming Committee and we discussed the plans for Homecoming in a few weeks. More details shall come shortly, but it looks to be a fun time.

-There was a Leadership Dinner for Richmond College on Wednesday night. Many of the leaders of different groups on campus were there and gave details on what they had done and planned to do. It was also a pretty good meal.

- After the dinner, I had my first Richmond College Student Government Association (RCSGA) meeting. It was fairly simple and we looked at approving some groups for donations as well as listened to important student concerns. However, since I am Class Chair and cannot vote, I was not allowed to be in the room for the most important part of the meeting.

- My CORE teacher is in Norway and so we did not have class this week. Instead, we had two online chats. They worked quite well and I didn’t have to waste time walking across campus to go to class. My CORE class is getting more fun and all that we do is discuss the books that we read. I have some papers coming up soon for a Midterm, but life seems to be going well.

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Some students in my online chat had fun on the White Board

- I had my second Spanish test. I think that it went quite well and I am hoping for a good grade. Most of it is still review from high school, but each test or quiz is an important part of your grade. The teacher is very nice and she seems to like me too. Just like high school, it is always nice to be in a teacher’s good graces.

- My Economics Midterm came back and I got a B-. With a curve, however, I ended up with a B+. I’m happy with that since that was the Midterm that I didn’t study for. I’m hoping that I can keep up the grades in this class since it isn’t too much work.

- I have slipped very far behind in Public Policy. It’s so easy to let this happen since you don’t meet every day and you just keep pushing the reading off to another night. I wrapped up the section on the death tax and found this very interesting. I found an interest in tax law, possibly, and find the numbers aspect of the political process to be the most interesting. The health care aspect is not exciting me, and the reading is very dry, but I’ll get through it.

- I received my second care package from home on Friday. It had a lot of food that is not healthy for me as well as Christmas lights, which always add a nice touch to a dorm room. Amazingly, I am not home sick. Fall Break is coming up and everyone is going home, yet I will stay here once again. I won’t see my family from mid-August until mid-December. I am so busy here and have constant contact with friends that I don’t really seem to notice. Everyone here seems to be busy too. Most of us were this busy in high school and we would probably be very bored if we weren’t always working on something.

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My 2nd Care Package from Home
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The contents of my care package

 

Thought to Ponder: Why don’t you ever see the headline “Psychic Wins Lottery”?
Quote of the Week: “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”- Galileo Galilei
Shout Outs: Dominik and Jamal, my prospective students; my family for the care package

Published on October 12, 2007 in Intramural, Artsy Performances, InterVarsity and Student Government. 0 Comments

Oh My Gosh!!!

October 5, 2007

Alright, so I know that I posted one last night, but I felt like I should add another story. This is my attempt to begin having more frequent posts covering fewer events instead of one giant summary. I mentioned that I had a Midterm in a few hours when I was writing the last post. For those of you who don’t know how college grading works, Midterms and Finals account for almost your entire grade. So, it’s pretty important. It was in Microeconomics and it was my first quiz/test in the class. I had Economics in high school and felt that everything was review. I brushed up on the Power Points for ten minutes after writing my last post and then was so exhausted that I went to bed. I planned to get up at 7:20 so I could study a little more for my 8:15 class. However, my alarm was set for PM and not AM, so I woke up at 8:05 and flew out of my room to get to class. I tried to study on the way, but realized there would be no way for me to remember all of the lists. I arrived to class and everyone else was already there and had started. I had somehow forgotten my calculator in my room and so I was pretty much freaking out. I had to skip a lot of the questions right away since I didn’t know the answer. I began to settle down as the test progressed and I was able to finish and still feel okay with how I did. I’m keeping my fingers crossed as I await my fate. He is a fairly tough grader and so I am a little worried. Yes, it was entirely my fault that I did not study more, but I had a lot of other stuff going on too. The campaign, paper, other quizzes just made me feel overconfident about this minor test. Anyways, that was my morning.

In Men’s Health last night, we talked about stress and relaxation techniques. We also had to take a stress quiz to see how we fared. Each term, such as “Fired from job” or “Change in sleeping habits” had a numerical value. A score of 150 – 300 had a 50/50 chance of serious health risk within two years. There were probably ten people in the class who fell into this category. There were ten over 300. I managed to score a 491. Most of my categories were stuff that every freshman dealt with: “Change in social activities”, “Change in living conditions”, “Change in number of family get togethers”, etc… I believe that I do handle stress really well, but this morning did not help. So, every student here has been going through a fair amount of stress, but that is nothing new for most of us. I lived this life in high school as well. I probably would be really bored if I wasn’t so involved.

Anyways, the moral of this post is: Always study for a major test, whether you think you need to or not. I didn’t study too much in high school and that worked for me. I haven’t studied too much here except for my other midterm, and that has floated me through. But when harder classes come around, I don’t think I will be as lucky. I have a gut feeling I pulled a B on the test, but only time will tell. I’m signing off for the weekend, which looks to be busy. Now, I’m off to write that CORE paper… or get sucked into Facebook…. again.

Quote of the Day: “Of two evils, choose neither” –Charles Spurgeon
Thought to Ponder: What shape is the sky?

Published on October 5, 2007 in Miscellaneous. 0 Comments

Hail to the Chair

October 5, 2007

It is now October and life is still flying by. It is 2:30 AM and I have a Midterm in about 5 hours, so this post had better be short.

Just a quick word of advice: I wish you all the best with your applications. Be yourself and make sure that they know who you are. Don’t try to be really humble, because others won’t be. Present yourself as you are and try to be unique. I submitted a word search that I made with odd little facts about me, such as my favorite candy, favorite season, organizations I was in, important adults, etc… When they had found all of the words, the uncicrcled letters created a special phrase. Make the admissions officers remember you. Once again, do not let the price tag stop you from applying. I have talked to many people and this financial aid package made this the cheapest school to come to. The major event of this week was getting elected as Class Chair for the Freshmen men. I was very happy when I won, since I had worked really hard on this campaign. It will result in me having a lot of work to do in the future, but I’m up for the task. I had used my theme of “Man Laws” and everyone seemed to like them. My official slogan became “There’s no B.S. with B.S.” For those of you who don’t get it, my initials are B.S. Although there were several roadblocks along the way, I had a group of friends who were great and helped me meet people and gain votes. Since I am Class Chair, I am a member of the Student Government. We want to hear from you, the prospective students as well. What would you like to see fixed before you come? If you decide to not apply, then why not? What did you really not like about your visit? My specific role as Class Chair entails me planning and organizing fun social events for the freshmen guys.

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My friend Buddy helped me campaign. He is probably the reason that I won.

This week, I continued to play Intramural Volleyball. Our team is 4-0 heading into the playoffs. I am really excited because we have a great team and it is a lot of fun. Wish us luck on Sunday. Speaking of sports, my Green Bay Packers and Wisconsin Badgers continue to be undefeated. Life is good for me.

My friends and I threw a surprise birthday party for my friend, Alex, on Wednesday. Due to a fire drill, we had to stall him longer than anticipated, but the surprise was still perfect. The look of terror when he opened the door was priceless. We had a fun time with cake, ice cream that turned into soup, and a piñata, which probably violated fire code. It was a nice way to relax midway through the week.

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This fire drill threw a kink into our surprise birthday party preparations

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Alex’s Surprise Birthday Party

Tonight was a concert here on campus. Robert Randolph and the Family Band played in our basketball arena. It was a great concert, but the turnout was not as high as I would have expected. Our Campus Activities Board does have a lot of stuff going on and most of their events are very good.

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Robert Randolph

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He had great audience involvement and the concert was great

I had a Midterm already in Public Policy. I thought that it went very well, but only time will tell. We are now embarking on our adventure into the political maelstrom that is the health care system. In CORE, I had a paper which was supposed to be due today. However, my professor pushed it back until Monday, which explains why I am writing this on a Thursday night instead of the paper. We just finished “Tao Te Ching” in that class. I didn’t know if I would like it, but I found many good epigrams for life. Our CORE class won’t even meet as a class during the next two weeks. Our professor is gone this weekend and next week, however we will hold online chats. I have a presentation to do in Spanish, but things are still pretty busy. I had my last class of Men’s Health today and I am finally done. Yeah! That is the quickest summary I can give you for my classes.

These are the only things that I can think of right now. I feel as though I have done a lot more than this, but I guess not. Apparently, campaigning took a lot more time than I had anticipated. Next week is a solid wall of events on my calendar, so I will be very busy leading up until Fall Break. This post is fairly short for me and I hope that it was still thorough enough. Life here is getting better by the week and I am wishing all of you the best of luck as you get deeper into your senior years of high school. This is Ben, over and out.

Quote of the Week: “Therefore those who would be above must speak as if they are below. Thos who would lead must speak as if they are behing.” –Tao Te Ching

Thought to Ponder: Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?

Shout Outs: My new friend Drew from New Jersey, everyone who voted for me in the election, Buddy and Jimmy for their friendship and campaigning

Published on October 5, 2007 in Campus Events and Student Government. 0 Comments