schedule

My schedule for the Fall: lionschedules.com/nituix

I got an area summer job and the CA position for next year all this week! I’m actually about to leave for campus so I can meet my new employers for a business lunch.. Tomorrow I’m going to tour the FedEx in Lewisberry so I can apply for a job there, too, to supplement this summer. I’m going to be working a LOT, but hopefully I’ll manage.

psu athletics: home and away

HOME: I recently got back from Kegs on 2nd’s first playoff game for IM softball, and we beasted! We’re top-seeded in our division after splitting second with two other teams at 3-1 behind the undefeated Monkeys. (We got the top-seed by a one-run lead over the course of the regular season games.) But today we were ahead 20-5 until we succumbed to a replacement pitcher who walked in several runs. I got stranded on third, had a solid hit that the other team decided to actually catch, was in the hole for my third at-bat before the game was called on a foul-fly third out. The important part is we still won! Now it’s back to the diamond again tomorrow at 10:30..

AWAY: This past weekend, I went up to UPark for Blue and White weekend.  Essentially it’s a showcase scrimmage of the returning team for the coming year, before our new recruits and walk-ons come in during the fall.. But most importantly, it’s a great reason to enjoy some football and tailgate even in the spring semester.  The game was good, the weather was absolutely amazing, and I also had a chance to catch up with people that recently transferred from our campus to Main, as well as the kid I met from Alt. Spring Break and their friends from HACC (a.k.a. Harrisburg Area Community College). I know a lot of older students at Penn State Harrisburg have gone to HACC at some point before transferring in to finish up and graduate as a Penn Stater. Anyway, the game is open to the public and makes for a great chance to visit the campus with friends and family, so “keep it in mind in 2009″.

committee-makin’

The Exec Board for next year’s Lion Ambassadors club just sat down today for a good few hours to interview returning members interested in being a committee chair.
The committees requiring chairs for next year were THON, Community Service, Events, and Publicity; there’ll be 6 committees in all, including Fundraising, which our treasurer will be chairing. It wasn’t very formal, but there were a few standout candidates, one really tough call, and altogether each of us is happy with who’ll be in charge next year. I won’t announce any names just yet, but we know we picked people that are organized, assertive, motivated, full of ideas and will actually be willing and able to motivate OTHERS. Our goal is to increase participation and general excitement for the campus, club, and our activities.
After the decision-making we had our first chance to talk about plans for next year, too–and there are a lot of them. It’ll be so awesome! I can’t wait to see the changes start kicking in..

Anyway, just wanted to share. I’m THAT excited.

(By the way: I got the camera back again, and I’ve added more pictures to the photo-tour page! JUMP ON IT.)

ketchup:

Err, so I’m going to scratch mentioning the Lion Ambassadors Conference weekend and the rally–hopefully you all heard about that, anyway. It was a great weekend, but this late in the game it’s not really worth fleshing out. Still, if anyone is interested, I’d be more than willing to share with anyone who asks about either of those events.

Rock for Change just happened, and had to be moved inside from it’s original location in the Vartan Plaza (the odd-shaped, open area between Zeigler Commons, Olmsted, the Library, the TL Buildling and the bookstore). A bunch of local bands were invited by Sahar, the current SGA president:

the PSH Gospel Choir, Texas in July, Brunaya, Letters for Lovers, Collin CMurph Murray, Circus Circus, An Early Ending, Captain of Compliments, and Rufus J. Fisk.

The event had to be moved inside on the Stacks stage due to the forecast of rain, but it ended up working out because not a lot of people came to begin with. Don’t get me wrong, it seemed like we raised a decent amount of money–intended to benefit The Invisible Children, but I feel like I may have already mentioned that–but our campus often takes a lot of motivation to participate. I think the problem is that people don’t leave their dorms/only hang out with their roommates until too late in the first semester to feel comfortable doing anything BUT that.. I’m going to work on that for next year, though, CA or not. Don’t you worry, I’ve got good things planned!
Back to the concert: Circus Circus pulled a rave out of nowhere, replete with glow sticks and all. It was awesome! Everyone was digging the lights, at least, even if the band was too hard for some of the kids in the crowd. I had to leave early, admittedly, but let me just say that Letters for Lovers is much better in person, if you like the jist of their music. The bassist was hilarious, and it was good because he was just so hype, and did all these twirls and acted out the lyrics, etc. I loved it overall, and it was a lot catchier and upbeat than some of the music there. An Early Ending was my preference for the night–even though the singer seemed like kind of a[n amusing] dick, he had an good range for singing and what I call “raging”, and ALL of the other band members were impressive on their own. There was a high concentration of that type of music, though, and I know they’re going to work on making it more eclectic and easier to digest to improve the turnout next year; I like it, but that type of music just has a very specific scene.

I just went up to UPark last weekend with some friends to blow off steam and take advantage of our last chance of the year to go together, and we hit up the usual touristy places like the Lion Shrine, the Diner (you might just need to skip to the stickies, but I always like my mushroom swiss burgers there), the shops downtown and the Creamery. It also gave me a chance to visit a kid from MS/Alt. Spring Break, cop some movies from him (he’s a film major), and force my fellow ‘Burgers into the Pattee and Paterno Libraries for a test-run in finding books. After all, I’ll be needing those libraries eventually, right? Aside from the stairwells being just big enough for a single person, and Pattee’s Stacks 3 not being accessible via any elevator we could find, the books were actually SO easy to locate. And there’re a million lockable study carrels, in case I ever decide to study hardcore in my later years.

Anyway, I’ll be going up again for Blue-White Weekend this Saturday. For the uninitiated, it’s a scrimmage game open to the public–which, of course, still calls for tailgating–to basically showcase the team for the coming year. I wish I could go up Friday night, because I might be coming back early Sunday for my Marketing Club’s Harrisburg Senators game outing, but that didn’t seem to work out. At least I get to tailgate and sleep over Saturday.. We’ll see.

back again

Hey. Sorry to anyone who was just starting to read this blog for dipping out for so long. I guess I saw that the other two were posting about the exact same things I had to share, since we’re all in Lion Ambassadors together, and didn’t make time to write about something else. But after this depressing lapse was brought to my attention, I decided to use this time (1:20 AM) to enjoy some leftover pizza and the Daily Show in the background to spark my “creative juices”.

Actually, here’s a recap of what I’ve missed:

Boobies Ball (the big on-campus charitable event of the year for LAmbs), was a relatively huge success. The room we got for the occassion was filled the whole time, and people really seemed to enjoy themselves. I even danced in between selling tickets, which is really saying something. More importantly, we doubled last year’s funds raised with over $2500. That’s all profit, folks–straight to the Feel Your Boobies foundation bank account. Congrats to us, and thanks to everyone that participated!

Hmm.. our main lobby entrance for Olmsted finally opened officially sometime last week. It’s really nice-looking, I can’t lie; if you want to see pictures of the ceremony/part of the completed project, I think Jen loaded some. My little bone about it, though, is that it not only took so long to complete and inconveniently diverted so many students since the beginning of school–that’s unavoidable with campus construction, it seems–but today it was roped off again because they were continuing to work on the older molding or whatever it is. Isn’t the point of a grand opening to signify the opening of something?
Don’t toy with my emotions (and paths to class) like this.

After work today I went over to the Student Center in the CUB to help seat for a speaking event on diversity. The man that spoke was Morris Dees, a lawyer and activist of sorts from Alabama who pointedly represents underprivileged and minority clientele. He wrote a book, too, if you’ve ever heard of him–it’s at the bookstore, and it’s the only reason I recognized him, really. Dees was a great speaker, and I felt horrible that I couldn’t pay attention longer because I kept nodding off. I’m really screwing up my sleep cycle lately.. I guess that’s just one of the perks of being a college student.
Part of the reason I was so tired was post-first-IM-softball-game/major-win celebration from last night into the early ‘morn.. really I was just talking to friends until 2AM, but we really really did beast through that softball game. Wooo! Kegs on 2nd has gotten infinitely and miraculously better for no apparent reason, and I like it.
[By the way, DO check out Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center which he heads up--He has his own wikipedia entry, for cryin' out loud. You know that's legit.]

To wrap up: I’m planning my Fall classes right now–I schedule next Monday–but that’s another post; I just finished my last interview for the CA position today, and I’m crossing my fingers; Rock for Change is going down on Friday after classes, and I’m staffing that as well after work (free concert of local bands to collect donations to benefit the Invisible Children); clubs are wrapping up and classes are coming down hard, so everyone’s in a mad rush to study and do well for these last few weeks before finals.. Oh, and the annual Bathtub Races are coming up.

“Now back to you..”

So obviously I have a problem with being pseudo-productive on my days off. But at least I never specified which dinner–technically, I’m eating right now.
Anyway.
New York ended up being quite fun and quite wet at the same time. I walked to campus to get there in time for the bus, and however it happened (I blame it on lack-of-sleep-loopiness) I GOT LOST on the way. Seriously, how does that happen? It’s basically a giant “L” from Pineford whichever way you walk. But I’m over it; at least I got to the bus on time (actually FIRST) and had plenty of time to sleep on the ride up.

My friend from high school back in VA now attends the New School in the city & literally lives in Manhattan, so everytime I get a chance to go up, I call her to hang out. We didn’t pass up the opportunity this time either, because I don’t know when the next visit will be and, particularly fitting for a photo club trip, she has a seriously sweet camera which was at my disposal the whole day. Essentially we went to the ICP exhibits–yes, all two floors–and then hit the streets on our own. We had time to go to her dorm/apartment and pick up her roomie Fang and head out before we were struck by a TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR on the way to a nice burger place. Believe me, it was capitalized for a reason:

Yes, the pictures are a little large, but you see what I mean; this was when the wind was dying DOWN, after the rain. We were getting buffeted all over the freaking place… But at least I had someone who could lend me a change of clothes while my stuff was in her dryer. And afterwards, the weather was pretty decent (meaning nice and warm, sparse drizzles) and I got some great pictures & a thriftshop run in, so it was worth it.

As for Spring Break… well, now it’s time to go out, so I guess I’ll take a raincheck.
Happy Saint Patty’s Day!

NYC follow-up

Those photos I promised..

I’ll get back to the update after dinner (aka sometime tomorrow).

waiting for class..

…Because I’m not one of those lucky kids that got to leave after classes yesterday, and I’ve still got a full day or two ahead of me.

I realized I won’t be near a computer at ALL over break–and I’m not even sure on the picture situation for that yet, since it’s not recommended we bring anything expensive/electronic.
But it’s cool, I guess, because I’ve got a few things I could share:

1) Admissions asked Lion Ambassadors to help out with their Offer Receptions this week, which is when high schoolers come to the campus to check it out and get more info. after being offered admission.. I just sat through mine last year for this campus, and it all sounded the same except for the Student Panel session that they added (I think?) for the first time; that’s what we were there for. The first day it was just me and my other off-campus LAmb buddy, Jen. I actually liked it because we each got a chance to seriously answer some questions students and parents had and fit in stuff you normally don’t get to hear.
I did it again yesterday, and this time we had a relatively HUGE group of students (6), so it was sort of awkward standing around waiting for people to ask way fewer questions than they did on Tuesday as well as for your turn to answer. Either way, though, it was sort of fun… plus we got free lunch cards, which we weren’t expecting! Mmm..
I tend to bring my food from home or wait to eat until it’s free (haha) since I don’t have a meal plan or anything, so I always look forward to Stacks food. And Tuesday’s was amazing, too: cornbread-battered chicken breast with mac & cheese and a biscuit! Good ol’ Southern faves.

So yeah, I got pretty overenthused about that. I was talking to Jen while we were eating, and I kept randomly interrupting to make noises about how good the food was. It was pathetic.

2) I’m trying to be a CA for next year, aka an “RA” at other campuses, and I just finished my second preliminary interview yesterday. Seems like I did well, but we’ll see how that goes…

FF>> through today’s Astro test, 2 hrs of work, shopping for overalls for next week (again, I’m excited, haha. I’m going to be one sweet chicken-farmer-looking construction worker! nice tanlines, too, I’m sure), and then packing for Sat. & MS.

P.S. If I end up taking any good pictures on the NYC trip tomorrow I’ll put ‘em up here. Just to warn you, they’re mostly supposed to be artsy and technical; not sure how I’ll pull that off, but just in case. Later.