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!

From the town meeting...

City Council Meeting

Right now, I am sitting in a Columbia City Council meeting for my news reporting journalism class (J2100). The last such meeting I attended was the Glenbrook School Board meeting when Torch was recognized senior year, and Kara, Mr. Halpern and my parents all made fun of me for wanting to stay at the meeting and hear them discuss the agenda.

I never realized how boring these types of matters were until right now. The board is currently discussing the landscape and rezoning of a development on Rock Quarry Road, and this isn’t even something a journalist who is actually at this meeting will cover. This makes me feel really bad for people with boring occupations, who discuss such things for a living. I have gained a new respect for city government members because they spend hours discussing these matters, and in the end, no one will notice anything they’re talking about on this property…unless they were at this meeting.

I still enjoy politics and would act as some type of public official any day, but it’s interesting learning more and more about the logistics of town hall meetings. It’s basically like they’re putting on a show with all the “points of order,” “motions,” and rules. People from the public can speak for no more than three minutes, and if you represent an organization, you may speak for five. They read off legislations (for example: B218-10) and go through each board member and say (I or Nay), then move on to the next one if there is no discussion. After I leave or during this meeting, I will write a story about anything from this meeting by noon tomorrow to practice writing on deadline. Back to the Torch days :), and it’s exciting to feel legitimate!

Workoholics Anonymous

One of my most recent revelations is that I have made myself a machine. I guess it hasn’t gone quite that far because I still talk and have a personality, but I am a workoholic. I take a list of work, accomplish it, and the process never ends. Sometimes on Thursday evenings (since I have no Friday classes) I feel a sense of freedom, but I don’t know when I will actually feel like I can do whatever I want without feeling obligated to academics, organizations and obviously, seeing friends. The other day, all I wanted to do was sit down and watch a movie while doing nothing else…when have I ever done that?

So my goal is to utilize these phases of workoholic-ness, get ahead and take some breaks. I do love everything I’m doing and everyone I’m around, but I got less than two hours of sleep last night. That’s just not healthy. I ran completely off of 5-hour energy shots all day, not one piece of food in my body. I was like an eight-year-old girl after her first sleepover, almost anything and everything that happened made me so cranky that I’d break out into tears. No time to nap, exam tomorrow, paper for Wednesday…it never ends.

Thankfully, I felt less anxious at dinner and was able to eat and put up photos during chapter! Ultra productivity is always exciting…like writing this right now. My iPhoto is gaining intelligence as it actually utilized the FACES application and tagged people…by itself! How awesome is that?! Productivity without even trying! Keeping faces in tact (which means accepting or rejecting who face finder guesses is in your pictures) has proved successful and is not only useful for choosing photos for birthday presents!

Yes, the things in life that make me excited are lame. I am excited for the next two hours (hmm..) when the city council talks about something I find useful, like renovating the Columbia airport or recycling. I’m at that point in life where I love applying my knowledge since all six of my classes are interesting. In my video interview with the manager of a local t-shirt design shop, I asked him what he thought the company’s sustainable competitive advantage was and have never felt more intelligent. So it’s been a busy week…wait…it’s just Monday. Let’s review the weekend!

Bad weather? Who cares..it’s college!

Friday night was the Phi retreat, where the new member pledge class gets to bond and a couple of sophomores get to bond by helping out. I was one of the lucky ones who got to do this and even luckier…taxi’d people back and forth from campus! My 5-speed driving improves by the day…with hills and deer this time (don’t worry, I didn’t hit one). We had a bonfire, acted out The Creed, and got some stuff organized while the Phis enjoyed each other’s presence.

Being true to the WOMANhood :)

Saturday was a productivity day where I bought and made my big-little gifts (you will probably see photos of these later in the week) and tailgated/went to the football game against San Diego State. We won in a close game!

Laura, Kathryn, Amy and I!

The Phi Mu block!

Sunday morning, with inches upon inches of rain from that weekend, proved that nothing ceases to cancel Watermelon Fest. Now this is a fun fraternity philanthropy for Lambda Chi Alpha where you basically have a watermelon fight…but it turned into a mud fight as anticipated. Here’s some photos from this craziness! I just have to remember…at no other point in life will people be so open to throwing watermelons at each other and mud-sliding..what a concept!

From clean to dirty...

The outcome...

Speed networking

Last Thursday night (sorry, I really didn’t have time to stay on top of my updates!), Mizzou’s Alumni Association Student Board hosted a True Tiger networking dinner, where students who are True Tiger members and alumni “speed-network” at the Reynolds Alumni Center.

It’s unfortunate that the more notable alumni do probably not have the time to commute to mid-Missouri for such events, but it’s still nice to meet and discuss Mizzou memories with other students and a variety of alumni.

One cute piece of advice received that I will probably rate now in my normal conversation is my ‘fun point average.’ The man at mine and Laura’s table, as well as Laura’s dad, both had an economics professor who had a philosophy of evening out your GPA and your “fun point average,” so if you hear me using that term..now you know! Right now, in this meeting, my fun point average is probably a 2.0. And it only stays that high because I’m being productive.

Other lessons I learned and inspirations I felt:

• I came to this realization post-Mexico, but I can live wherever I want when I graduate if I find a legitimate job! And I’m excited to do so and brag about my whereabouts to Mizzou students at alumni dinners in the future!
• I have more written down at home...no worries!

Well now that you have read and totally enjoyed this entire post, wish me luck convincing the J-School to allow me to start my sequence next semester! Have a great evening!

Week in Review

Mid-September has been full of events, work, drama, homework and more!

Sunday evening Mizzou Student Foundation held a Grateful Tigers party, where students on scholarships attend and write thank you notes to their donors. Here's Truman and I smiling at the end of the event!

Monday, we had a nice lunch for Laura's birthday and enjoyed the sunny afternoon. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were full of studying for the first marketing exam, which was more difficult than one could ever anticipate, and more online history lessons! Thursday night I went to an alumni networking dinner through True Tiger, which I'll explain more further in the next post. It was a week where I got little sleep and looked forward to Friday the entire time, and Friday was spent with stress, more history work and getting more clients for the Maneater! I was very pleased with my first pay check and look forward to the rest of the semester!

Friday evening after pomping, the Phi Retreat for new members was held! As a member of the KROP committee, I got to help out at the new member retreat and watch their pledge class bond while the helpers from my pledge class bonded, which was fun. I played taxi-er through Columbia going from the Rock Bridge area to campus 6 times back and forth to bring people over, but all the girls had a great time. I never noticed how many hills exist in Columbia/the rest of the midwest except Chicago!

Saturday kicked off Mizzou home football games for me since I missed last week's McNeese State game (who cares about them anyway?) and Laura, Kathryn, Amy and I tailgated a bit.

M-I-Z......Z-O-U!! Even with some rain and playing San Diego State, who is surprisingly ranked 6 in offense and was a very good team, it was a full game! The spirit was not very exciting until the end when it was a very strong competition, with Mizzou only winning 27-24 with a touchdown in the last 2 minutes. I unfortunately was one of the lame people who left early, not just due to rain, but overall exhaustion from the week. Thank you to ESPN text updates on Amy's phone, I was well aware of what was going on :)

(more pictures to come next post!)

TIME Magazine Commentary

This week has brought an end to my TIME magazine subscription, a nice graduation present from Kara that I thoroughly enjoyed reading last year. The last two issues were mailed to Twain and forwarded here, and at first, I didn't have the time to read them. But like a good journalism student, I had to give them credit and at least flip through headlines and read the stories I find interesting.

In the September 13 issue, I found many!! Specifically in the LIFE section.

• We were always provided a lot of information at GBN about gap years, and TIME featured an article about whether it's worth it and what college views are on gap years. People did some really cool things, and Ben had an excellent journey in his gap year in China, but I found it striking that some ivy league universities are starting to fund gap years for students. Not just allow them, but pay for them. Interesting concept.
• Laughter-yoga is a new exercise with health benefits that has courses across the nation! People can start clubs across the US to promote this type of mind-body therapy and participants go through breathing exercises and small aspects of traditional yoga, with minimal athleticism (according to the article). There is no proof of its success, but I definitely looked into laughter yoga courses around Columbia and there is one group that meets monthly! Let's see if I go!
• Last but certainly not least, some idiot of our nation has instilled WedLock, divorce insurance to pay unhappily married policyholders a payout after his or her divorce. This absolutely appalls me. The article states that it's about $16 a month for every $1,250 of coverage, but in order for payment installments to work out properly, you must have been paying for four years to get your first installment. The article jokes about receiving WedLock as a wedding gift. Thus, when you get married, the first thing on your mind should be whether divorce is an option. What kind of pessimistic society do we live in? There are enough temptations and negative influences bringing us downhill from having strong faith, but to already be pursuing the option of not staying married to someone just because you can? How horrible. How would you feel if your spouse even brought that up? I don't think I actually love you, we're just getting married because we kind of like each other now, so let's buy this divorce insurance? I'd love to hear that couple's conversation. So in conclusion, I'm disgusted that this is even invented.

In the September 20 issue, not so much, but an interesting statistic--$75,000 is the annual household income needed to make Americans happy according to a new study. Anyone earning a larger salary than that has no effect on your overall feeling of contentment.

I've enjoyed TIME for the past year and look forward to finding more appealing current events to the population reading this and sharing them here!

More of Iowa: Edit

After yet another week of this craziness I like to call this semester, I haven't had time to update the blog. But I've obviously wanted to so expect a couple of updates besides this one in the next couple of hours or so!

First, I'd like to give a shout out to my mother for directing me toward the correct definition of sanitary landfill. As lovely as it means, this signifies that human sewage are in these landfills, making them even more unsanitary for that matter, but meaning they have nowhere else to store it. LOVE rural areas. Thanks mom!

Here are some pictures from last weekend's Iowa trip so you can visualize what I said in the last post!

The horse on the road!

Helen and I at her Linden friends' apartment!

By one of Iowa State's main buildings on campus, kind of comparable to Jesse Hall at Mizzou. It's a pretty quad-type area!

Another building on the quad of our campus tour, proving where I was. Ha.

We both have the same Macbook Pro, camera and cell phone!! How crazy is that?!

At parties at Iowa State, boys carry backpacks around. I was in shock.

Saturday night was September 11, but we did not put together that people would have an America party. So people came in red, white and blue....and this shirt. Wow.

Leaving the house on Sunday and appreciating how beautiful sorority living rooms are!

I ended by appealing the parking ticket I got from the Ames police this week because in their Greek'land', they alternate which days of the week they park on which side of the street. That would be too complicated for Mizzou.

A weekend in Iowa

As I began college, I made a goal to visit all of my best friends from home at their schools. Not only would I get to see their universities, but meet their friends, see where they live, travel the campus, etc.

So far, I have accomplished Northwestern (Becca), Georgetown (Kara), DePaul (Irina and Elizabeth), University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign (Meredith, Anastasia and all of GBN), and now, Iowa State with Helen!

After looking through plans for the rest of the semester, this was the only weekend I would have time to leave and visit Helen at Iowa State! I drove north about 4-5 hours Friday morning through nowhereville USA...the unestablished areas of mid-Missouri and southern Iowa. I drove on the 63, which is not even a real highway, for about 200 miles and the funny thing about country roads is that they go from 70 mph to 20 mph in an instant. First, it's a divided highway that you're flying at 90 on, and then it's going through Macon, Missouri and driving by a Sonic and if you're lucky, a gas station or so. So I definitely can say this drive enhanced my worldly and rural experiences.

I arrived in Ames to Iowa State University, but campus wasn't roaring this weekend since they were playing their rival (University of Iowa) in football at Iowa City. I still got to see the college town where 65% of residents are students and staff of the university, and it's interesting to compare "college towns." Ames, although just a city in Iowa, seems more suburban than Columbia and although a lot of the accommodations are similar, the way it is laid out just makes it seem more foresty/large brick homes-like. It was interesting!

I stayed with Helen in the ADPi house and took a tour there, met her sisters, and the Linden friends which was fun! We went to an amazing barbecue restaurant for dinner, went out, took a tour of campus and the architecture and design center and just enjoyed some quality time! Pictures to come. Here are some highlights of the drive (you get these when you're in the car alone for 9 hours, and can only drive stick shift and talk on the phone simultaneously so much)

• I felt this way going to U of I, but I love driving through places and seeing counties and town names that you hear about but don't think actually exist. I saw towns with a population of 75 and just giggled. Yes, I'm from Chicago.
• The Missouri-Iowa border has about 20 fireworks stands. How do any of them make business if they are all right next to each other? And only so many people cross from Missouri to Iowa daily? I have no idea. If it wasn't so early in the morning on both of my trips, I probably would have bought fireworks since I never have but always have wanted to. There's always Indiana :)
• Road signs on the 63 basically made my day, and helped. After hearing my Thea Stephanie tell me a story of her trip to Kentucky when she picked up a hitchiker because she felt bad, I almost picked up hitchhikers. It would have been really sketchy and I obviously avoided doing so for safety reasons, but it was really tempting until I saw the highway sign that said "DO NOT PICK UP HITCH HIKERS." It reminded me of cautions that might have gone over my head but in the grand scheme of things, they're people trying to get somewhere too. I know it probably isn't worth the risk of strangers and the overall creepiness, but it could have been a good deed if taken the right way.
• Highway sign #2: Sanitary landfill. I'm sorry, but I personally do not believe that any plot of land that's a landfill will be sanitary. You are dumping your trash in there. Why even advertise it as 'sanitary?' Because it's cleaner than the incinerators in Mexico? Okay Missouri and Iowa. You keep your garbage nice and sanitary in large hills on the side of highways and make yourselves feel better by calling it clean.
• Highway sign #3: *photo of horse carriage* SHARE THE ROAD. So I laughed upon seeing this...until I laughed even more when I actually saw an Amish man and a horse carriage next to me on the highway. I'm in no way mocking the Amish and cultural norms, or the cultural norms of this region, but solely the fact that on a highway with a 70 mph speed limit, there's horses right next to you. It's pretty amusing.
• Helen's roommate has a car so she will probably get to experience the same drive (I hope so!) and come visit Mizzou sometime second semester! Woot!

So in the future, I'm planning to visit Michigan (Stacey), Notre Dame (Kalyn), Arizona (Hannah), Colorado-Boulder (Jessie) and Penn State (Anna). I'm seeing Emily and the Mexico crew in Boston at Hellenic this Thanksgiving break so that's checked off the list :) This might sound unrealistic, but don't worry...I already have projected times and weekends planned so it's going to happen.

Another goal that arose was to visit my best friends at school in their hometowns. This one is almost done too! Another east coast trip, Minnesota, maybe Tennessee sometime and Kansas City over Thanksgiving break and I'll be done! This isn't thought of as accomplishing a list although it might appear so....it's taking trips, traveling the world, meeting exciting people and seeing friends, coming off in list form.

I have a really busy week (surprise) per usual so look forward to spontaneous survival updates!

9-9

To end Labor Day weekend, we celebrated Amy's birthday. Instead of doing a typical dinner downtown, she raised the idea that we all live in Missouri and none of us have ever seen the state capitol. Kind of pathetic? More pathetic since it's only 30 miles away (while that might seem far in Chicago, that's pretty darn close in Missouri). So we went out to a lovely dinner in Jeff City at Ria's where we did not run into anyone we knew (another benefit of eating out of Columbia) and explored Missouri's state capital city.

Amusing parts of the evening:

When dividing up cars, we split up as 'suitemates' (Kate, Kathryn, Laura and I) and 'Jews' (Andrew, Asher, Amy and Shaina). Hahaahh. Funny how that worked out.

Here's our suitemates photo...with the amusing part being an icon of the Virgin Mary in the back left corner above the bathroom.

The Capitol Building!

Twainers in front!

So other than that, it's been an oh-so-exciting week. I do not begin class until 11 a.m. and have not slept in once yet entire semester. I've woken up at 8 or 9 to volunteer for organizations, catch up on current events, work for The Maneater or run other errands I can't find time to do during regular business hours (I never realized what a difficult task this was...why can't regular business hours go until 7 pm?). Thankfully, I'm caught up on school work and heading to Ames, Iowa tomorrow to go visit Helen! Wish me a safe drive!

The little things during the day

My latest realization as I think of stories to share with others is that in general, my life is not very exciting. I just make a big deal about the small things that happen to me on a daily basis and make them stories, which I guess is pretty typical of journalistic behavior. Or just am used to reporting things as stories, so I share them as such.

Anyone who is friends with me could probably tell you that I tell pointless stories. But sometimes, they just need to be shared! Why do people tell things? Sometimes for sympathy, affirmation, just to have someone listen....but today, I'm sharing them out of aggravation. All of this could have been avoided if people valued preparedness, or admitting their mistakes. But they don't...let's take a look at my past two mornings.

Yesterday morning, I took an exam for my online history class (2 assignments and 2 exams to go!) and was told to have a specific journalism advisor send an email to an online course advisor to get something confirmed. Quick task- right? It was a 'walk-in Wednesday' so I wanted to verbally explain this to the advisor rather than email back and forth for a couple of days to have this simple task figured out. Walk-in Wednesdays don't begin until 10 am, so I was told that gosh forbid I interrupt someone a couple of minutes early, I should just wait 45 minutes. At 9:55 am, I saw the advisor I needed to speak with take her purse and leave the office. WHAT? I went into the office and questioned the secretary about it...asking, were you planning on telling me I've been waiting 45 minutes to talk to someone who just left for the day? And she goes, oh, no, sorry. Great waste of morning. All she had to do was say that the woman was leaving her office, and this would not have happened.

This morning, for MSF I was supposed to register people for a research conference. After arriving at 7:40 am, some other MSF members and I realized that the conference we were told was today is actually happening tomorrow. Yay for waking up hours early, and putting on our polos and nametags for no reason. So I head over to Starbucks, needing a strawberry lemonade blend to wake me up. And the barista said, "We're out of strawberry puree, and lemonade." WHAT?! Two days in a row of disappointment, and when I'm running on only a few hours of sleep, my first instinct is to break out into tears. Great. Thank you self-control. If Starbucks' manager would have noticed this the night before, they could have walked a few blocks down to the other Starbucks and picked it up, continuing to happily serve customers and take over America. But no, instead, I, the brand-loyal consumer with a gift card, walked downtown to get my strawberry lemonade.

Giordanos' freezer broke on my birthday leaving them out of ice cream, Jamba Juice eliminated my smoothie from the menu, I'll never forgive Panera for discontinuing my raspberry brownie cake.... I must be really strange if things like this happen to me so often.

But when Fridays runs out of food and I'm working, I tell my tables at the beginning so they don't get disappointed. I also acknowledge the fact that if my manager would have noticed that we were short on something, we easily could have obtained it earlier. So, I think everyone should do this so I don't get angry in the middle of my long days. And have to tell such pointless stories. :)

Ghostown of Columbia: Labor Day Weekend

For those of you who have never seen the town of Columbia, Missouri on Labor Day weekend, it's dead. Everyone goes out of town since especially in Greektown, the women have been here for a month and need a break. That puts everyone in St. Louis, Kansas City, Lake of the Ozarks, Chicago, and very few of them here. I made the decision to chill in Columbia and go up to St. Louis for the day with friends to watch us beat Illinois! That still left some silent time in CoMo on Thursday and Friday, with more relaxing time to come today and tomorrow as people come back in. Here's some photos and stories from the eventful weekend that was not as homework-productive as it should have been, but very fun and a lot of bonding time :)!

At the Reserve to visit Anna and seeing Kyle & Leshard! Twainers stick together!

Saturday morning, Kathryn, Laura, Shaina and I took off for St. Louis around 7:30 am for the first Mizzou football game against U of I! After some not-so-good football and a stressful first half, we beat Illinois 23-13! Go Tigers!

Lesson 1: If you want to tailgate, plan it in advance with everyone you want there- a car, food, location, drinks, games, everything....and then you don't have to wander. I think wandering and meeting people is fun, but I would probably enjoy the tailgating experience more if everyone I wanted to see at the game was in spot beforehand an after, thus a lesson to apply to Kansas City Thanksgiving break!

Marching Mizzou creating the state of Missouri- represent!

How awesome it was to see Brooke Atlas (front left at the 40 yard line) as the drum major of Marching Illini! Great job!

After the victory, the 4 of us along with Andrew & Sherman roamed the streets of St. Louis since the weather was gorgeous. We ate dinner at Friday's with not-so-good service and only a partial black card discount =O, and took photos by this lovely fountain--where we happened to come across a Segway tour and a wedding party that M-I-Z'd us! Amusing afternoon.

Friends :)

St. Louis Arch

Andrew's talent at taking jumping photos! And gold beads are in my face, haha!

The 6 of us at the Arch, no one has killed each other yet!

Lesson 2: Two hours of driving now feels like nothing. After traveling so much this summer and daily commutes in Mexico to San Jose de la Zorra, I don't really have a time perspective of traveling until I think of the total commute. Example- I could've gone home this weekend, but I thought that there was a lot of work I could do in the extra 12 hours I save by not going home. But a 6 hour drive to Chicago and back seems like nothing.

Lesson 3: In the nearby future and for Lent, I am utilizing some variation of giving up texting. I text way more than I should and always expect to have a text message when I look at my phone...always. I think it's incredibly rude to text across the dinner table, others in the room within a small group of people when something is funny, but instead of saying it aloud, mass texts occur. I am not 100% ashamed since I'm not initiating the texts, but I'm participating and being rude without even noticing it anymore. It's like when people don't even realize they swear because they're so accustomed to doing that...I don't want that to happen to me with my phone anymore than it already has. So I am laying off my phone and not going to always be talking to someone else, but focusing on the task at hand. Newest goal, wish me luck! And that doesn't mean you can't text me....it just means I won't necessarily respond within 10 seconds and will wait until after I'm done eating lunch with whoever I am, or done with class, or whatever meeting I'm at.

That's my update and hope all is well!!

The Pursuit of Happiness

As I sit here comfortably- hair down, wearing tights and a tank top- at my desk in the alcove of mine and Kathryn's room (stadium view out the window!), I realized something. I'm happy. Blogging makes me happy. I was legitimately excited to sit in this exact spot and write something, whether for my personal use or for whoever is nice enough to care about me and/or read my posts!

I think the only thing that would make me happier is doing it with an ocean window view on a bay window...but I have years to work up to that. For my journalism news reporting course, I attended a lecture today titled "Pursuing happiness: What works and why" by Professor Kennon Sheldon. And I have all semester to attend speakers, but why did I choose this specific one? Because I didn't think I was happy. Amidst a busy week, I wanted to hear him speak specifically on this topic. How can you pursue happiness in a stressful college life? Stop everything you want to do, half-'ass' (for lack of a better word) your way through courses, do an activity or two, and miss out on everything you could have done in college and shrug it off later with free time? NO!!!

So in order to stay involved, functioning and happy at the same time, I listened carefully to the lecture. In addition to discussing his research studies, book reviews and more, there were a few key points I found most interesting about Sheldon's presentation that explain a lot about life.

• Sustainable Happiness Model: Three broad categories help to determine your subjective well being- genetic constant (50%), demographic circumstances (10%) and intentional activities (40%). Hedonic adaptation is part of the demographic circumstances, your genetic constant helps determine your set point and base line, and intentional activities are important and controllable. The implication here, according to Sheldon, is that you must change what you DO to account for 40% (or more!) of your happiness level. So you can stay in your high range of happiness by controlling your actions and not what you have.
• Hedonic adaptation: You can get used to almost anything, so even if it provides happiness at the beginning, it will tend to fade away as you no longer notice the things you adapt to.
• Self-determination theory: This discusses optimal motivation, and how all humans have three basic psychological needs: autonomy (doing what you choose), competence (doing it well) and relatedness (connecting with others while doing so).

Five Happiness Prescriptions

1. Change what you DO, not what you HAVE. Then VARY how you do it.

2. Pursue intrinsic goals for self-concordant reasons.

3. Try to be your unguarded self in social settings.

4. Balance time across the day.

5. Try to manage your life so you feel autonomous, competent and connected.

Wasn't that interesting?! The most difficult aspect of happiness is maintaining it, but using these strategies and positive hope, I think everyone could give it a try! Think about it...you have the rest of your life to live for others literally, such as spouses and children, so take now to do things intrinsically and not because friends want you to do them. Who wants to fake their true self in social situations? Nobody! So don't do it!

As I look at these, I wonder...which of these am I missing that is currently not contributing to my happiness? Probably some of the time suggestion, I have an over-necessity for the connectedness and autonomy, but small efforts can make a big change. And that applies to everything.

So...this post has the 'revelations' tag because I feel like I have learned a lot about the world/myself while writing it, one thing being, what makes me happy?

• Blogging
• Taking pictures
• Writing
• Connections with people/social interaction
• Planning and being in charge (Type A...)
• Being involved with things I find interesting (I saw an advertisement for a Latin Dancing group today...how awesome would that be?! I wish I had time to go to a meeting!)
• Exercising
• Advertising...for those of you who don't know, as an advertising representative for the Maneater student newspaper, I get incredibly excited when I conquer a new company and convince them to purchase advertising space. It's weird, I know.
• Beautiful places

So what am I going to do about it? Continue with intentional activities and maintain a happiness level! And in the future, I can combine all of these skills to start a party planning business within the next few years! And for now, I can balance my time and just be happy :)

Therefore, I hope you can apply these lessons to your lives too and sustain happiness. In the meantime, I'm going to try writing my blog in proper AP (Associated Press) Style for the duration of it in order to practice for my journalism courses, and hopefully being in nine hours of writing intensive courses will improve my writing skills. Have a great day!