Thursday, February 22, 2007

At the finish line... sort of


Me, with my letter


Today, I received a letter in the mail....

After filing out my personal information, writing 9 mini-essays, procuring three recommendations, attending a four-hour group interview session, going to a half-hour individual session, and waiting to receive an answer impatiently for the better part of two weeks... I finally know.

I have been chosen to be an RA for the First Year halls for the 2007-2008 academic year.

I was originally expecting the letter that would ultimately decide my fate (at least for the next year) on the 20th, so the night of the 19th I tossed and turned and my dreams were loaded with all sorts of possibilities from who I would room with if I wasn't chosen to be an RA to how I would arrange my room if I was.

The 20th came and went, and I didn't get my letter.

"Tomorrow. It should come tomorrow," my RA told me that night.

So, once again I spent a restless night tossing and turning and waking up at ungodly hours hoping for it to be Wednesday. I wrestled with dreams of being accepted and denied and couldn't decide which option seemed more plausible. I didn't want to get my hopes up, but then again, that's what hopes are for.

I crawled out of bed at 6:55 A.M. and went to shower at 7:10 (I wanted to look good when my big moment came). But, I ran into my RA on my way to the shower and she told me my letter would not come today.

"Tomorrow. It's going to come tomorrow," she said again.

"I've lost sleep over this, Duhita!" I half-yelled at her. But, despite it all, I couldn't help but giggle with frustration.

I went about my day as usual, and e-mailed my parents who were just as eager as I to hear from the Office of Residence Life. I let them know that my letter should be coming the next day.

I think it was a combination of the changing weather, the hectic Wednesday I had, and the constant stress of wondering about my RA position that made me sick. I was feeling so sick, in fact that I relegated to taking Nyquil. That's saying a lot. If I were being tortured for information, I'd give my adversaries anything they needed to know as soon as they pulled out the Nyquil with hopes they wouldn't force any on me.

Nyquil is 10% alcohol... so, for my body, that means that after taking it, I have 4 minutes of consciousness remaining. So, without wasting a minute I crawled into bed and, despite my anticipation of the coming morning, fell right to sleep for the next 7 hours.

I didn't even bother to shower before I went bolting upstairs at 7 o'clock to check if my letter had come. It had and I spent the next thirty minutes on the phone with my parents shrieking with excitement, and the rest of the day receiving congratulatory e-mails from my friends and family members.

It’s been a good day. Where do I go from here? Well, I'm hardly "finished." Heck, I'm just now getting started. I have to take the RA training course to learn the rules and responsibilities that go along with the title. I’m so excited to get started, and check back for updates!

Friday, February 16, 2007

So, you like politics?

... then come to Drake. So, you don't like politics? Then come to Drake.

I wasn't very politically inclined in high school. I took AP Government and just couldn't get into it at all... well, except for the days we watched West Wing. That was cool. But, for the most part I was really not interested. I wasn't of age to vote, and it all seemed so disconnected with my life that it was really hard to understand.

Don't get me wrong. I still don't understand a lot of it, but as I'm sure you're aware, Iowa is a political hot spot. With a presidential election in the not-so-distant future, everybody from Barack Obama to Hilary Clinton has been and will be in town. Although I can't claim to have full and complete knowledge of government or politics, I can say that I feel a responsibility as a legal citizen to start becoming politically active so I can, when it comes time to vote, select the presidential candidate that I feel is strong enough to take on the responsibility that comes with the title "Commander in Chief."

It's cool because hardcore PolySci majors are having a field day and even kids like me who never took too much of an interest before are getting excited about campaigns. Being at Drake is such a great opportunity to be able to see all of these people and learn about them.

Drake played host to the CSPAN 2008 campaign bus. Hilary Clinton visited the Drake Dinner not too long ago. Last weekend Barack Obama was in Ames (45 minutes away). Governor Chet Culver spoke in Olmstead with MICHAEL J. FOX during his campaign to become governor and brought his buddy Congressman Leonard Boswell with him.

Not only is being here a great opportunity personally as someone who has never been active in the political realm before, but it’s a great opportunity to observe the media in action. As a journalism major, I love seeing the photographers and the camera men and the reporters on their laptops. They are such a crucial part of each campaign and it’s so cool to see.

But, you’re probably more interested in seeing the headliners, not the behind-the-scenes dudes. Have some pics:



Culver and a very "foxy" Michael J.

Boswell

Another pic of MJF... just because I love him

For what it's worth... a horrible picture of Barack Obama (appologies)

The CSPAN bus!

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Habitat for Humanity

You'll probably hear this a lot, but I love being a part of APO. It's such a fun thing to be involved with. Last Saturday I participated in my first service project: Habitat for Humanity.

I've always wanted to be involved with Habitat and go to build sites and everything. Drake has a Habitat for Humanity chapter, but more often than not meeting times coincided with night classes and all of the spots to help out filled up pretty quickly. But, I finally got my chance with APO.

There were only three of us from Drake who went, but about six other kids showed up from Iowa State. The house we were working on wasn't too far away and was mostly built on the outside. That was so nice because that meant that we could work inside, instead of being stuck outside in the cold.

I ended up doing a lot of painting and touching up around the house. I puttied up some holes and got to use the nail gun once. It was pretty sweet.

Plus, we got to meet one of the partner families that is working with Habitat. Partner families are families who are waiting for their own house to be built, so they help build other houses to accumulate working hours and each family needs to complete a certain amount of hours as a part of their contract with Habitat.

I loved working on the house and it was awesome getting to meet some of the Iowa State kids. By the end of the day, I was covered in dust and paint and plaster and God knows what else, but I kind of liked it.

I'm excited to go again, but maybe next time I'll put my hair up... there's still paint in there.

Here are some pics!!


Natalie doing some painting

Naomi and her powertools!

Being silly

Drake and Iowa State Kids

Me hard at work painting

Friday, February 9, 2007

Snow Tubing

I'm not much of a skier and that's some sort of sin for people who live in Colorado. I tried it once but it was easily one of the most horrid, most humiliating experiences of my life. Granted, that was in 1999. So, maybe in the past seven years, I've come a long way with my skiing abilities, but I seriously doubt it.

Snowboarding never really appealed to be, either. I can't make it down the mountain with my feet separate, much less stuck together. But, what always looked like fun was inner tubing down the slopes. Basically, you use those same inner tubes that you would use in a water park, but you go sledding with them. I never got a chance to try it out in Colorado, but I was absolutely delighted when I found out that Drake was putting on a snow-tubing trip.

A little while ago I got back from my first snow tubing experience. I convinced my friend Erin to come with and we ran into our friend Kyle who helped plan the trip. Only about 14 people went, but it was fun anyway. We took a bus to Sleepy Hollow winter park and we spent a good hour and a half freezing our butts off and having a heck of a lot of fun.

The best part about it was that, unlike sledding, you don't have to walk back up the hill. There's a little "lift," which basically entails one of the workers there hooking your tube to a cable that dragged you up the slope. It was pretty sweet. But, nothing compared to the ride down. The slopes are 1,000 feet and are so cool. There are four "lanes" and some are faster than others which is good for the little kids who are kind of scared.

Not only could you go tubing individually, but you could connect your tube with your friends' tubes and you could go down together. Kyle, Erin and I had a lot of fun doing that. It was a little scary, but so fun.

So, check out some of my pics... sorry, I didn't get to take too many because it got really dark really fast. :)



Me and my tube



Erin and her tube



Kyle waiting for the lift

Thursday, February 8, 2007

A busy, busy week

Hey!

This week has been so incredibly busy and I'm so glad that I finally have some down time. :) Let's recap, shall we?

Sunday, Feb 4th

APO Initiation was cool. Well, it was actually a little creepy. First, all of the pledges had to line up, alphabetically and close our eyes. Then, active members read parts of APO history. Get this, the very first APO initiation took place on December 16th, 1925 and my birthday is on December 16th. Weird. Anyway, after we learn about the history behind APO, we had to put our right hand on the shoulder of the person in front of us and we were led upstairs into this room that was completely dark. It felt like we were about to go on some sort of amusement park ride. We were placed in an arc, read to some more, and we were able to open our eyes. The officers were standing in front of the arc. They read to us some more about the different components of APO (leadership, service, fellowship, ect...) and lit a candle to represent each component. We were then initiated and had to say the "oath" for lack of better words. It was a little scary, but then we were allowed to turn around and meet our pledge sponsor (pledge mom or pledge dad) and mine is this girl named Brittney who I actually met at one of the informational meetings. She requested to be my pledge mom so it was really cool to have someone I already know as my mentor. She presented me with my pledge pin and then the lights came on and everything was much less scary. Brittney gave me a bag of M&M's and a little glass turtle for my initiation gift. The turtle is APO's mascot and comes with a little poem about friendship and it's really cute because I love turtles and I have a turtle at home and everything.

Later that day, I met back up with Brittney and her roommate, Donna (also in APO) so we could go to the APO Superbowl party together. We didn't really watch the game and we only stayed through halftime, but it was really cool to get to know the other members and get to know Brittney and Donna better. Everybody seems so nice and I'm so excited to be apart of it. Later, I'll be activated and I'll be able to wear my APO letters, so that’s going to be exciting.

Monday, Feb 5th

Mondays and Wednesdays are pretty rough because I have four classes on each day. It's good and it's bad because it means on Tuesdays and Thursdays I only have one class. AND I have no classes on Fridays, which means that my weekend officially begins at 2pm on Thursdays. That's not bad, eh? But, again... think about having four classes on Mondays and Wednesdays. Only two of the classes are back-to-back, so they're actually timed out well because I have one at 10, two back-to-back from 12:30-3:15, and then and night class at six.

Tuesday, Feb 6th

In English we had to workshop each other’s papers and that's usually something I really don't like doing. When it comes to my writing, I don't like people reading it, but it was really, really helpful and I'm actually starting to enjoy the process. On top of preparing my draft for class, I also had to start researching and writing an article I was writing for J54 about college suicides, post my group's hypothesis for our presentation for sociology, and go to Walgreens to get my pills refilled. It was pretty hectic for a day with only one class.

Wednesday, Feb 7th

I went to all four of my classes, plus I had to do a ton of research about college suicides, get interviews, and finish writing my article for J54. I also had to fix up and finish writing my essay for English, and write my commercial that I have due next week in my broadcasting class.

Thursday, Feb 8th.

All of my big assignments for this week have been turned in, but later I have my individual interview to become an RA. I'm nervous because this is supposed to be much more formal than the group interviews. I think I'll do well. Some of the other RAs have offered me some pointers and I'm really grateful. It's supposed to be pretty long. Each interview is scheduled for half an hour. I'm the first to be interviewed, so that's a little nerve-racking, but I asked for that slot. At least I'll get it done and not have to worry about it for the next couple of weeks. It'll be a while before I found out whether I'll be an RA or an alternate, but I'll know in time to make rooming arrangements for next year.

Plans for the weekend

I'm supposed to be taking women's tennis pictures for the Times Delphic on Friday and I'm also going snow tubing. On Saturday, I'm hoping to go help Habitat for Humanity, and on Sunday I'm going to Mars Cafe with my RA and my floor and I have my first APO pledge meeting :) Should be fun!!!!!

Saturday, February 3, 2007

Alpha Phi Omega Omega



The whole Greek system thing never really interested me. My roommate rushed and she's now a Kappa Alpha Theta and loves it more than life itself. Personally, I found the strict rules of rushing a little too ridiculous and I really didn't feel like getting dressed up to be judged by a whole bunch of girls I didn't know. But, that's just me. Sororities and fraternities definitely offer great academic, social and service opportunities for their members, but it didn't really appeal to me.

What did appeal to me was APO. It's a co-ed service fraternity on campus which basically does a whole lot of community service types of activities. There's no house and it's super low-key and best of all, not very expensive.

Soon, most of the girls I live with will be gone every weekend with the crew team and I don't want to spend spring semester all by myself. I decided to pledge APO because I love participating in community service projects and I really wanted to meet other people. And, obviously everybody I've met so far is really nice (or else they wouldn't care enough to do community service) and I'm really excited for initiation. I thought it would be a really cool way to get involved on campus and enjoy myself all at the same time.

Since APO is a fraternity, once I'm initiated I'll be a "brother" and I'll have a pledge "dad," even though "he" might very well be a she. Even though I pointedly decided not to become involved with a social sorority, I must admit that when my roommate comes home from having real food at the Theta house or from a long night of games and movies, it kind of makes me jealous that she has this whole other community that she's a part of and I'm hoping I can find something similar to what she has with APO.

Plus, I'm drawn to the fact that it's a co-ed organization... if you know what I mean. :)

Friday, February 2, 2007

Drake Women beat Missouri State

I feel kind of bad for the women's basketball team since they're kind of in the shadow of the men. Actually, they're higher in the standings then the men and they're just as talented. So, here are some pictures of their win over Missouri, just so they can have a little more glory.









Thursday, February 1, 2007

GUESS WHAT!?

Ok, everybody starting with my last blog ("A quest continues") you can officially start LISTENING to my blog. I'm starting to make little practice podcasts and thought this would be a good way to do it. So, all you have to do is click on the title of my blog entry and you can listen to it. Leave comments and let me know what you think of it. So far, only that one is posted, but I'll probably get most of the rest of them running tomorrow.
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