Week in review

It is officially October! Time has flown by since this summer and I cannot believe that I'll be home for five days at the end of this week!

It's funny how apparently in Chicago, it is rainy and cold while it's still sunny and in the 70s here in Columbia. This fall, I've been inspired by my three day weekends and the weather to partake in more fall activities. On weekends without football games, a lot of students will go home to St. Louis, Kansas City, etc...so I figure, let's go on adventures! If I was a college student in a larger city, that's what I'd be doing anyway, so let's explore Missouri!

I'm about to go apple picking for the first time since church youth group in junior high and have never been more excited. There's corn mazes, haunted houses, Halloween stores, raking leaves...all fall activities I will participate in :) I'll enjoy the free time while I have it, right?

Despite having a lot of exams this week (four tests/quizzes in one day on Thursday!), I really did feel like I had time. I got to relax, hang out and chat with people in my room for hours guiltlessly, catch up with friends I hadn't seen in awhile and overall felt successful.

Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF) is a group for college students across the country to establish as their respective campuses so Orthodox Christians have a place to befriend each other and complete service to the church together. Mizzou did not have an established chapter when I came here, but one guy had registered OCF as a campus organization so I 'joined.' Thursday night, me and the two other most active members held OCF's first official meeting and planned activities for the entire school year. We're doing a weekly bible study, meetings, activities with other OCF chapters at schools like Kansas and University of Illinois, and taking trips. It's nice to finally see our hard work follow through and create such a close-knit group of Orthodox Christian students. With six active members to start and probably 10-15 that might attend activities, we're off to a good start and I really look forward to working with OCF in the future. Be on the lookout for the OCF blog, so then I will officially be running four blogs.

Thursdays at 4:45 pm is my favorite time of the week. I no longer have any class until Monday at 11, and can finally drop all of my books and take a breath and sigh or relief. So after the OCF meeting, I met up with Miles to catch up and get coffee at Lakota (a popular Columbia coffee venue). Funny thing...I have never drunk (there you go grammar exam, have never drunk..dranked...drank...I think that is correct) an entire glass of coffee before. I decided to try the pumpkin spice latte (fall fever again) and a girl from my dorm last year was working so she threw in an extra espresso shot. So I drank the entire glass....and was on a caffeine high for HOURS. I was scared of myself. I liked the glass of coffee, was energized....and need to somehow convince myself that if I ever need to stay up and get work done, I SHOULD NOT rely on coffee. I WILL get addicted and spend money for the rest of my life....so now another challenge of resisting temptations has been added to my life.

I have also realized how nice and happy it makes me to genuinely know and be acquainted with a large percentage of students on campus. I rarely walk anywhere without waving, smiling or stopping and saying hi to someone, it really does feel like home. This week in itself I have seen almost everyone I know walking around and just laughed upon reflection about how I know or met them and how a campus of 30,000 feels so small.

Off to apple picking but don't worry...more to come later!

What a great day to be a Phi Mu!

It was an exciting day for the public relations of Phi Mu's Chi chapter here at Mizzou!

First, I got an e-mail from TOMS nationally saying that they saw our photos from recruitment and want to feature an article on our chapter :)! My intense chain of command of e-mailing the organizations paid off!

Next, Chi chapter is featured on the FRONT PAGE of the Phi Mu national website for our hospital donation! Woot woot! Kerri called me about it last week but I kept it on the DL until now!

Go Phi Mu!

Money floating around the greek system

This is a long-awaited rant, but one thing that perturbs me about the greek system at universities throughout the country is that while we are philanthropic, bonded and more....we still spend a LOT of money. Tonight's chapter development meeting discussed finance, and provided some interesting statistics

• Greek chapters spend about $14,000 on supplies for Mizzou's Homecoming
• $17,000 for Panhellenic Formal Recruitment
• To hold the letters of a greek chapter, you are paying at least $1,000 to the national organization per MONTH
• And my personal favorite, is that during recruitment, $3,000 are allotted for 'disposable goods' such as napkins and cups for water. That's it. So if Mizzou's 14 greek chapters did not distribute water or soda during recruitment, the world would save $42,000.

This is money that we could do so many philanthropic or useful things with, and why don't we?

Life is a continuous competition, and this is not only the greek system, this goes for everything. Colleges across the country, businesses in the workplace, private and even public schools, and more....it all comes down to spending more money than the opponent so you can look better.

Writing this does nothing for the greater good, because that's not going to change, but I encourage you as the person reading this to look at what you're spending money on sometimes. If it's between that extra favor for your sorority or fraternity, or putting $5 to buy canned food, which one will you choose? I hope that in the long run, decisions like the second one will outnumber the first, and then maybe there won't be thousands of dollars floating around college atmospheres, businesses and the greek system.

Nothing can ever be perfect...so stay the way you are

If there's one thing I learn more and more on a day-to-day basis, it's that nothing will ever hit perfection. In fact, sometimes I think my life is a running joke. Whenever something is about to be right, it goes wrong. As one thing is accomplished and crossed off the to-do list, another is added. And it's a continuous process.

I finally completed my online history course, and timing issues occurred so I cannot yet even enter my journalism emphasis area. One stressor down, another line of appointments and appeals to go. The weekend approached and I thought I'd have all this time to work....that didn't happen. People commit to something to help an organization to take something off of my position's to do list....and then they don't do it so I end up doing it anyway. I try to check up on my friends and care about their lives...but apparently, sometimes it just comes off as being nosy instead of genuine caring feelings.

Heck, I just spent half an hour typing this blog post, and Safari force quitted and deleted everything I wrote. Didn't even save it as a draft. So I'm retyping what I can remember of it.

And the ultimate best...the backbone of my life, my MacBook Pro, decided that it's brain was full (also called the hard drive in the real world) so I could no longer save files to my computer. And my other favorite life occurrence, I called to make an appointment and was told walk-ins are all day, and as I get to the help desk, a sign is hanging up that says "at lunch...be back around 1:30." It was 1 pm. I had the lovely experience of waiting a half an hour when I specifically called to see how I could avoid doing so. And my computer still doesn't save files to the hard drive...I need to clear more space. Woohoo.

One thing I have learned in marketing that applies to not only the business world, but everyday life is when you should practice mass marketing...never. You can never make everyone happy. It's just not possible.

I, as can be seen, cannot cope with this fact of life. Why can't everyone be happy about something? Don't we, to some extent, share similar values so that one person can value and appreciate that of another? If we all value respect, can't we be happy when someone respects another?

No. Complaints, complaints, something is always wrong. Pessimism, pessimism. Throw some whining, tweets, text messages and whispers in there. People like Bruno Mars and music exist in my mind to reinforce positive ideas and convince us that even while appealing to so many categories in life, people should appreciate you as you are.

You know, you know, you know I'd never ask you to change

If perfect is what you're shooting for than just stay the same

So don't even bother asking if you look okay, you know I say

When I see your face, there's not a thing that I would change

Because you're amazing, just the way you are.

So stay up until 4 a.m. Procrastinate if that's how you work best sometimes. Do silly things. Fill up your calendar. Be honest with people. Yell at the hostess for taking over an hour to seat your table at the restaurant when she told you it would only be 45 minutes. Sleep for 13 hours instead of being social. Respond to text messages in your sleep just so you don't disappoint people with non-immediate replies. And yes, these are all things I have done this weekend.

This personally gives me hope that someday, somewhere, I will meet people who will teach me that someone will appreciate who you are. When I am stressed or disappointed during the day, I stop, breathe, pause and think "Because you're amazing, just the way you are." "Because you're amazing, just the way you are."

It's encouraging, and inspires you to do what keeps you happy. I am happy where I am, although these struggles come along the way, but fight through them with this hope. So when you're upset, remember that staying strong to the person you are is the first step to reinstating your overall happiness, and I will do the same :).

Photos for those of you that do not read my blog

Here are some photos from my weekend in review so if you don't have time to read my insights, you can still know what's going on here in Columbia! Enjoy!

Phi Mu social!
Sophie's birthday party!

Family Weekend: Kate and her sister Bridget, me and Amy!

Phi Mu block at football games!

I knew Truman at the game so he called me over for a photo...what an honor!
Since we beat Miami of Ohio 51-13, we sat in the front row by the end after staying the entire game!

Socially savvy

This past week, AAF Mizzou (American Adversing Federation, also called 'Ad Club' for short) held a panel of speakers on Tuesday evening about the advertising and public relations industry. How did the president of AAF contact them all to come speak? Through Twitter.

Throughout the presentation, participants were encouraged to 'tweet' with the three professionals' usernames on a PowerPoint slide on the board, along with a hashtag to add to each post. I would say that the main point of the presentation was to stay involved with social media, because you will always be ahead of the game if you do so. As a result, multiple people at the presentation went home and made a Twitter. I have always had an account to follow organizations, but made the life decision to partake in tweeting. America, be prepared.

I also made a LinkedIn page, Wordpress professional blog to revise over the next couple of months as a resume-type page, and am in the processing of updating this page to stay socially savvy and "in-touch" with the world.

But can one stay "in-touch" with what's going on on Earth if they are focused on the small quotes, tidbits and continuous happenings of the internet? Can they observe and appreciate the small things in life and outdoors when they're focusing on their tweets?

One thing I like about Twitter, but realize is pathetic about our society, is that you share your continuous thought-stream with America. This is both a positive and a negative. It's positive to use this social media as means to benefit organizations, our culture, businesses and more...but the more I tweet, the more I see it as an outlet to release your life and feelings to something that doesn't exist and people that don't care.

When I think of something I tweet, it's a thought that you either are too lazy to verbally or face-to-face share with someone else, or something that you hope the rest of the Twitter-world and world wide web will think is amusing, unique or clever. Your mommy, daddy, best friend, significant other or friends don't care about what you have to say....so tell your so-called social network of connections. One of them might care or think it's funny.

As someone that strongly values talking on the phone with people, Skyping and keeping in touch with friends, I find this disappointing. If it's really something that important to you, whoever you call to tell or share the story with (or in Twitter...out of context to sound more awesome in the 140 characters you have to share) will listen and acknowledge your feelings. You don't have to feel forced to share your recurring thoughts to the rest of society, but we do because it's conformity. It's what everyone else is doing, how everyone else is getting jobs and connections, so to be in touch with reality....we must do it too.

My question at the end of this presentation is where to draw the line between tweeting and networking in the professional world. What if the CEO of a large organization, elementary school teacher or the founder of a sentimental non-profit swears in a tweet...do we lose respect for them or acknowledge that they are real people with real thoughts too? On Facebook we don't, we fire them for having inappropriate photos and more. But on Twitter, it's just your thought stream so it's okay? This mindset confuses me.

As I tweet (you can see my thoughts on the sidebar of this screen), I hope you understand that I am always hear to listen. Call me if you want to talk. If I care about you, you most likely have my phone number...and if you don't....maybe you will receive a shout-out in the near future because you follow my blog and I don't know who you are and that scares me. Sometimes, I do tweet with the mindset of "Nobody else would care what I have to say right now so I'll just post this to the internet." Hopefully, the rest of humans doing this today DO have someone to listen to them in life, because in reality...I think legitimate friends and non-internet connections are someone's support system moreso than the comfort of their computer, keyboard, Blackberry or iPhone.

Big-Little Week

This past week was where Phi Mu families were established as the older members received their "little sisters!" After an intense preference system, I am happy to say that Danielle Carter is my little and is a perfect little Twainer!! She lives in my old suite and it was fun taking adventures to get the gifts over all week. Here are a few photos from big-little week and revelation!

The letters I mod podged and lion puzzle :)

The new family- Shelley and Amy, Danielle and I and Stephanie and Marah!

Mine and Danielle's shirts say "A Twainer and a Phi Mu lady...la creme de la creme!"
Our new family tree :)

All the big sisters waiting at the quad!