University of Richmond

Archive for the 'Artsy Performances' Category

An Eventful Two Weeks

April 19, 2009

I’m back!!! These last two weeks have been a whirlwind of events and activities. Sure, I’ve had academics and other things on my mind, but there have been so many other fun things to do that I simply had to take full advantage of them. Plus, the weather has been amazing. Since there’s been so much that I’ve done and so little space to say it in, I’ll try to do a Spark Notes-esque version of my life over the past two weeks. That way, I can get back to finishing my end-of-the-year projects as the last week of classes begins tomorrow.

ExSCAVaganza: My friend casually asked me if I wanted to do a scavenger hunt with him last weekend. I thought it sounded like fun, so I agreed. I didn’t know it was going to be a 24-hour scavenger hunt. Yep, 24-hours. It kicked off at midnight with a 300 item list and also a treasure hunt of sorts. It was fun, but very time-consuming. My friend and I did finish second, though, earning us a $50 prize.

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Things containing the word “wall” (ie: wallop)
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A Mary Kay representative

Last Lecture: The University of Richmond brought the famous “Last Lecture” series to campus. Students voted and selected my former accounting professor to speak. I knew I had to go and see him dispense advice and life lessons since he was a great professor. I wasn’t the only one who wanted to see him, though, since I was forced to watch it in an overflow room since the other room was standing-room-only. It was a great speech and I’m very glad that I went to it.

Easter Weekend: My friends from church and I went to the sunrise service for Easter, which meant a 7:00 AM service. After the service and a few more hours of much-needed sleep, we went to our church’s campus minister’s home for lunch. We had an amazing meal and spent a wonderful Easter afternoon playing games and relaxing. It was so nice to simply get away from campus and escape homework for an entire day.

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Easter with fellow UR students from my church

Honors Convocation: I was inducted into Beta Gamma Sigma, a Business Honors Society, this past week at an Honors Convocation. That same day, the rankings were released for Business Schools. UR moved up to #12 in the nation overall earlier in the year, but the specific specialties’ breakdowns were not released until that day. We were ranked #1 in the country in the areas of Corporate Strategy, Financial Management, Macroeconomics, Marketing, and Quantitative Methods. That’s five #1 rankings!!! No other school had more than one, including the Wharton School of Business, UVA, and MIT. Our Business school also received very high rankings in Microeconomics, Accounting, Sustainability, and Business Law. Furthermore, we had the smallest class sizes for core Business courses of all ranked schools. It’s clear to see that our Business School is truly going places. For the full list, check it out here.

Rent-A-Dog: One of my organizations, InterVarsity, did a fund-raiser where we had professors bring their dogs to campus for a day and then rented them out to students. The students flocked to the dogs, many of them missing their own pets from home. It was a perfect day for the event and it went quite well.

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Brittany playing with Zeke

Bellis Fest: Every year, the Westhampton College Student Government puts on a carnival on the Westhampton Green for the entire student body. There are inflatable activities, live music, a dunk tank, free popcorn, cotton candy, and lots more. It was a beautiful Friday afternoon and the perfect way to end the week.

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My friend, Billy, dunking the Student Body President

40th Anniversary Celebration: InterVarsity also celebrated it’s 40th Anniversary at the University of Richmond this weekend. Lots of InterVarsity alumni returned to campus and enjoyed festivities including campus tours, an alumni vs. students volleyball game, and a dinner.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying: The spring musical was being performed this weekend, so several of my friends and I went to watch the show. It was a very funny and very well-done show satirizing the business world. Plus, it was fun to see some of my friends perform in it.

Sorority Social: I was invited to a sorority social by a friend on Saturday night, so a group of us went out to eat at Carytown Burgers. Then, we attended their Semi-Formal downtown at the Berkeley Hotel. It was a lot of fun and I think everyone had a really good time.

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My friend and I at her sorority social

That’s pretty much everything that I’ve been up to from the past few weeks. It sounds busy (and it was), but it was very enjoyable. I only have one more week of classes and then one week of finals before I am a Junior. What a scary thought. I just won’t think about it. Back to work. Adios.

Quote of the Week: “Nobody got anywhere in the world by simply being content” -Louis L’Amour

Thought to Ponder: A Pennsylvania law: If you spy a team of approaching horses, you are required to pull to the side of the road and cover your car with a blanket or dust cover that has been painted or sewn to blend into the scenery. But, if the horses react skittish to your efforts, you are then required to disassemble your car and hide the parts in the nearby underbrush.

Shout Outs: David for being such a good friend and a great person… and because he asked for one.

YouTube Video of the Week:

In case you have not yet seen this viral video phenomenon

March Madness

March 22, 2009

Hey everyone, March Madness is upon us and I don’t just mean basketball. I’ve definitely been watching my fair share of the tournament (sadly, Wisconsin lost in the second round :( ) but I’ve definitely had my fair share of other things to keep me busy as well. Because I still have a lot of work to do, I’ll keep this post short. I don’t have any pictures from the week, so that will keep it even shorter.

The main event of the week was my hosting of a prospective student. He was a pretty cool guy and he was here interviewing to be a Richmond Scholar, which is an amazing opporutnity. I am one as well and we get full tuition, room, and board as well as priority course registration and housing and so many other amazing perks. I just learned that he was offered the scholarship and he is planning on coming here next year, which was exciting to hear. So, as a host, I attended tons of receptions, talks, dinners, and other events over the course of his 3-day stay. During those events, I met some amazing individuals and I am really excited to meet the rest of the University of Richmond Class of 2013.

I also have been running a Medallion Hunt for InterVarsity, which has been a lot of fun, but it has taken a lot of time. Each day, I issue a clue in the form of a riddle or word puzzle that leads the participants closer and closer to the location of the hidden medallion. Right now, it is so close to the end that I think someone will find it tomorrow. Like I said, it’s been a lot of fun to create the riddles, but it’s distracted me from my other work as well.

For some fun and relaxation this week, I attended an a cappella concert, the showing of “Seven Pounds” in the Pier, and also had some game nights with friends. All of that, of course, was in addition to the hours of the NCAA basketball tournament that’s been on TV. That’s all I’ve got for you right now. I’ll close with the embedded video of a slideshow that I created to reminisce on the Alternative Spring Break trip that I went on. It’s 15-minutes long, but I enjoyed making it and am equally fond of sharing it.

CDRT Slideshow (Part 1 of 2)

CDRT Slideshow (Part 2 of 2)

Quote of the Week: “Everybody pulls for David, nobody roots for Goliath” -Wilt Chamberlain
Thought to Ponder: In the song Yankee Doodle, is he calling the town, the pony, the hat, or the feather “macaroni”?
Shout Outs: Addie, Addie’s mom, and all of the other prospective students
YouTube Video of the Week:

Pool Mishaps

Springtime in Richmond

February 9, 2009

Greetings Prospective Students!!! I know how you are all feeling right now. You’re most likely in that period in which your applications are out of your hands, but you have not heard back regarding your acceptances. You’re excited to see what your future holds, but very anxious at the same time. My best advice to you would be to simply try to enjoy this period, have some fun times with your friends while you’re all still together, and just let things reveal themselves as the time comes. There’s nothing more you can do, so enjoy your last few months in high school while they last. Best of luck to all of you.

The highlight of the week was a speech by Chris Hansen, the host of “To Catch A Predator”, and the following reception. Chris Hansen is basically a pioneer in investigation journalism. “To Catch a Predator” is about catching online sexual predators who prey on underage teenagers, which is a rather weird concept for a show (and even stranger to admit watching), but it’s quite interesting and entertaining. One of the staff members here at UR who lives in one of the residence halls used to watch the show with his residents every week. He decided to see if we could get Chris Hansen to come to campus to do a talk to UR students, and here he is. The speech was fantastic and it was really fascinating. He did a Q&A session with the audience and also discussed ethical boundaries in journalism, the determination of innocence and guilt, and many other pressing issues. Afterwards, there was a reception and I decided to attend. As always, I had my camera and I happened to get a chance to talk to him and get a picture with him. You have no idea how excited my friends and I were.

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Chris Hansen speaking on-campus
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Meeting Chris Hansen of “To Catch A Predator”

A clip from “To Catch a Predator”

As far as what else is going on in my life, I can tell you that I’ve been very busy. My organizations have been sapping a lot of my time and energy. In the midst of last week, I calculated that within a three day stretch, I had twelve hours of meetings. That’s not counting classes or organizational work done on my own, that’s face to face meetings and discussions. I’m on leadership for the Collegiate Disaster Relief Team which plans an Alternative Spring Break to New Orleans. This week, we reviewed applications and issued acceptances. It took tons of time, but it was fun to read all of the amazing things that UR students have done. For example, we had applicants who have tutored inner-city children, traveled to the Philippines to advocate against prostitution and women trafficking, worked for the Bulgarian Red Cross, travled to Guatemala to help build cinder block stoves, served as a volunteer EMT, and did HIV/AIDS research. We have accepted eighteen remarkable students and are now getting down to the final tasks before we go in early March.

My class work didn’t do many any favors in this busy period. I had plenty of work to keep up with amidst all of my other projects. I just finished a 12-page paper on the rhetorical precept of logos and also had an exam in both Business Statistics and Managerial Accounting. Despite less than ideal amounts of studying, I feel as though I ended up with good grades on both.

Enough with work, time to get onto some really good news in my life. I finally received the news that the classes that I want to take abroad this summer will count for the classes I need and give me the credits I wanted!!! With that good news, I applied to Saint Louis University - Madrid for their one-month summer program. I’m really excited. I plan to take a Finance class as well as a Law class called Legal Environment of Business. I wasn’t sure this would work out for a while, but it appears that it will. After the summer program, I am planning to backpack western Europe on my own for forty days and visit roughly ten European countries.

Other fantastic news is the weather. Yesterday, it was sunny with a high of 75 degrees!!! That’s Fahrenheit. I’ve been waiting for this weather ever since I got back to campus. It was so nice that my friends and I couldn’t take it anymore. We went outside to the sand volleyball courts and played over an hour of sand volleyball. It was amazing.

Finally, I had a lot of fun with a Modlin performance. The performance was the 5 Browns. They are five 20-something siblings from Utah who were accepted to Juilliard and are also all piano virtuosos. Their story is quite remarkable. It was an entertaining show to see them all perform together. Here’s a clip of them performing and their story:

The 5 Browns Performing


The 5 Browns

Quote of the Week: Spring is nature’s way of saying “Let’s party!” - Robin Williams
Thought to Ponder: Did you know that a giraffe and rat can go longer without water than a camel can?
YouTube Video of the Week:

I want one