Regionals 2012

What a weekend! It will be hard, but I shall try to describe the amount of fun the WTAMU SIFE team had in Dallas this past weekend at teh 2012 Regional Competition.

For starters, we met up Thursday morning and drove our way to Dallas caravan style. You learn a lot about your teammates when you get to see how they drive. Hahaha! Anyways, once we got to the hotel and had dinner Thursday was our quiet night. Friday started at 5:30am, at least for the girls in my room, because we had Regional Competition from 8:30am until about 4pm.

Regionals in a nutshell is where all the SIFE teams in our region are split into different leagues, and then each team has a select few give a presentation about the team itself and all the projects and awesome things we have done in the community over the past year. The presentations are judged, and at the end of the day the top 2 or 3 teams from each league receive a trophy and move on to the National Competition in Kansas City, Missouri which will take place in May.

When not presenting, or if you were like me and just went for fun, there’s a career fair to explore and you can always sit in and watch other teams’ presentations. It’s a really interesting day full of networking and lots of free stuff plus everyone looks snazzy in the required business/professional dress…that’s right everyone is in suits, girls included.

Afterwards we all went out to dinner, relaxed a bit, and then had a grand old time out enjoying the Dallas nightlife  and then Saturday was a long day for everyone as we drove back to Canyon.

It was an amazing experience and so much fun! Can’t wait for the trip to Nationals!!!

Check out the SIFE page to see pictures and find out what else we’re up to http://www.facebook.com/pages/West-Texas-AM-University-SIFE/149299728425775?ref=ts

Sun!!! :)

Hey y’all!

Looks like the warm weather is making a brief appearance before disappearing over the weekend. If you ever listen to anything that I write on here, take advantage of the sun! Jump into some shorts and a t-shirt and go outside! Because believe me it won’t stick around long

The weather forecast for the weekend is pretty grim compared to what we’ve had the last couple of days. It starts tomorrow with a high of 37 and they say that we’ll get rain/snow through Friday. Isn’t supposed to warm up until about Sunday, and thats only going to be around 68-70.

So heed my words! Go out and enjoy today’s weather! Yes I know we’re all studying like lunatics, but you can take small breaks to keep your sanity. Open your window and let the sun into your room, take your textbook outside to read. Just find someway to take advantage of the sun before it’s gone.

Bugs…

Hey y’all!

It’s that time of year again when the cold/cough starts making its rounds on campus. You know what I’m talking about  No matter what school you go to you should be familiar with the spring cold by now, though most people don’t seem to know the easy way to cure it. So I thought I’d share my remedy for this pesky bug with you guys.

Start by covering your basics. Wash your hands frequently, keep a box of kleenex in your room and a few on hand, eat lots of Vitamin C. Those are things that everyone does naturally when they think they’re getting sick. If you want to make it as quick and trouble-free as possible, you have to take some extra measures. First, I would encourage you to go out, usually to Walmart, and but at least one box of tea. The standard Lipton or whatever brand you like will work, but peppermint is best for sinuses and colds. The honey lemon ginseng does wonders for your throat too. Anyways, drink lots of tea. For those of you who are weird like me and put milk and sugar in your tea, trade them for honey until you recover because the milk will just make it worse. Second, cough drops will become your new best friend. Get yourself a bag and keep a few in your pocket. They really do help, especially since they will also clear your nose so you can breathe in class. Hahaha Third, go get a bag of clementines. That’s right. A bag of mini oranges. And you will want to eat them 1) because they’re good 2) because you want to get better.

I know some of this sounds weird, but trust me it works. I’ve been doing this for about 2 weeks now and I’m finally rid of that bug! If you have other cold cures, please share. Always happy to find new ways to avoid being sick. Hahaha

S.I.F.E.

Hey y’all!

So in one of my last posts I mentioned S.I.F.E., the group on campus that I joined, but I realized that I didn’t really say what the group is. On oversight on my part, but soon to be addressed.

Students In Free Enterprise, or SIFE, is the largest campus organization here at WTAMU. They work in the community doing community service projects as well as some business consulting. Some of the projects in the works right now are Beyond Green, which is a research/consulting job for a company who wants to build an ecofriendly kitchen, Achieve the Dream, where a group of members tutors English to refugees living in Amarillo, and Fill the Field, which is a food drive of epic proportions. So lots of different ways to get involved and find a niche in the group. I am part of the Kids Cafe project which is where I literally spend an hour every Friday and Monday afternoon dishing out trays of food at one of the elementary schools in Amarillo. Basically I get to see what it’s like to be a lunch lady and the kids get a free dinner when they may not have eaten at all otherwise.

Apart from the projects there are one time events that people sign up for just to rack up hours, which we need in order to go to the Regional Competition (I’ll explain that in a bit). For example, a group of about 13 of us spent 3 hours volunteering at the High Plains Food Bank Garden this past Saturday. We cleaned up the garden and spent lots of time flipping compost piles. I have to say that after shifting 10,000 pounds of rotting bananas, I’m not as much of a fan of that particular yellow fruit anymore. Regardless we had fun and helped get some work done in a much shorter time period than it would’ve taken the pair who run the Food Bank. Plus afterwards we went to check out Cadillac Ranch and then had lunch together, so it’s not all work and no play.

Now the reason for wanting to put in so many hours is so that each person is eligible to go to Regional Competition. This is a 2 day/1 night road trip to Dallas in April where all the SIFE groups in the area gather. Each group has an 8 person team give a presentation which includes a video and speeches telling the judges exactly what we’ve been doing to better our community. I’ve been told that the WT SIFE team has won Regionals consecutively for quite some time (the figure escapes me at present), so it’s something worth going to. Also, there is a HUGE career fair where all the companies who sponsor SIFE (mostly Fortune 500 companies) will have booths up and will be looking to hire us. A big plus for college kids!

So a worthwhile endeavor to say the least. Check it out http://www.facebook.com/pages/West-Texas-AM-University-SIFE/149299728425775

SIFE – “A head for business, a heart for the world.”

Involvement in Moderation

Hey guys!

A few weeks back I encouraged y’all to go out on campus and get signed up for clubs, organizations, and do everything you could. After taking my own advice, I realize that was a little crazy. So I thought I’d revise my previous statements and say that getting involved is definitely a good thing, but give your schedule a look first.

So that this makes a little bit more sense, here’s why I’m recanting my earlier enthusiasm. The week that I told everyone to go join a club, I did just that. I’ve been a member of S.I.F.E. (Students in Free Enterprise) for about 3 weeks now. Don’t get me wrong, I love it :) It’s a great group that does lots of cool projects that help out the campus and the community. Whether you do the same or find something else, regardless of what you sign up to do, you’re going to get really busy, really fast. For example, I need to earn 20 hours by working on projects in time to go to the Regional Competition in April, so of course I jumped in head first and signed up for just about everything available. DON’T DO THIS!!! Unless you have absolutely nothing else on your calendar, give yourself a little breathing room and adjust.

I only say this because 1) There will be days when you get homeworked in the face and need to not have 5 billion things to do 2) You won’t always have the willpower to keep imitating the energizer bunny and 3) You will not have any time or energy left to spend with your friends. I’m speaking from experience. My friends/dormmates had no idea where I was or what I was doing for most of the past week and a half. When I finally emerged on Saturday it was like they were surprised to find me still alive.

Anyways, so the point I’m going for here is yes you should find a group/club/organization that you enjoy! I just caution you to keep your datebook close to hand so you know what else you have on your plate before taking on any large number of commitments. You will be happy you did in the future I’m not trying to scare anyone out of joining clubs or anything, just advising you to be smarter about it than I was. Hahaha

GO SIFE!!!

Weekend Entertainment

Hey y’all!

As you can probably tell by the title of this post, I thought I’d share one of the many ways we college kids enjoy our weekends up here at WT. (No this does not necessarily involve alcohol, but should you be of age and wish to add it you can.I do not encourage it though.)

Anyways, no doubt most of you either have or soon will learn of the infamous Midnight Rodeo dance hall/bar upon joining us in Canyon/Amarillo. Yes people will tell you sketchy stories and advise you not to go there, but with a little common sense and some friends you will have fun and be no worse for the wear. My friends and I go out and dance every weekend purely for fun, and have yet to have a mishap. (Knock on wood) It’s just a fun way to get out, have fun, relieve stress, and meet new people. Granted you will meet a few who have had too much to drink, but they are not scary or hard to get rid of.

So presuming that I haven’t scared anyone off from ever venturing to Midnight Rodeo, the reason I thought to write about it is because of the concerts they put on frequently. For example this past Friday and Saturday I paid a grand total of $30 to see Granger Smith and Pat Green live in concert. So over 2 nights I got to see a couple of amazing shows and dance with lots of fun people, both good friends and new aquaintances. Even better is that this isn’t a rare occurrence. Next Friday will be Kyle Park, March 2nd will be Stoney Larue, March 16th they’ll have Josh Abbott, and that’s only the ones in the near future!

Needless to say, these concerts are a ton of fun and won’t send the college kid budget up in flames. So I would encourage those who love country music, dancing, or both to check it out. You will definitely see me there!

New Experiences

Hey guys!

So it’s three weeks into the semester and I’m not sure if it’s something in the water, or just the general aim of everyone to make this semester better than the last, but it’s been crazy so far! We’ve stayed far more up to date with our classes, been much smarter when it comes to tricky situations, and way less susceptible to procrastination. It’s almost scary how smoothly things have been running…

Now that’s just the school front. In our free time we’ve gone to concerts, a couple of my friends have gotten tattoos out of the blue, everyone has been working out like fiends, and most of the dorm has jobs and other commitments springing up like daisies. Compared to last semester, this is a complete 180 degree flip…and it’s definitely a good thing!

If I could get an adequate video of the feel of our dorm I would gladly show y’all, but like I said everyone has become involved and productive this semester so when we do get together it’s insanely crazy. This is what parents imagine college kids should be doing when they’re away at school, but with our ‘we want to have fun and enjoy life’ twist.

 My only advice now is to come up here and join us. Hahaha!  

Super Bowl Honors Style

Hey guys!

I assume that most of y’all watched the New York Giants pull off a victory Sunday night in Indianapolis. Now I realize that most people watch the Super Bowl whether they actually like football or not because it has the greatest commercials of the year, but personally I’m so happy with the result. Hahaha

Ok now that I’ve had my fun, and you’ll see why I had to in a bit, I shall share our Super Bowl antics with y’all. First off I want to point out that we are not the kind of crowd to go out and drink and have a ridiculously crazy night that we most likely won’t remember. Nope. Us Honors kids spent the night in our dorm lobby, chowing down on snacks and a 5 foot sub sandwich, screaming at the TV and each other. Not exactly what you’d expect of college kids, but by now we’re family and family is who you watch the Super Bowl with. Anyways, we laughed, a couple of guys cried, and one of our boys spent the last minute of the game outside, lying in the lawn, praying, because he thought he was jinxing the Patriots. Obviously it didn’t matter as the Giants won regardless. I don’t mean to rub the score into anyone’s face by the way. I was the only Giants fan in the room and so I’m enjoying being the victor while I can. Hahaha

Now on to the most important part of the night…the commercials. I don’t know about the rest of y’all, but personally I loved the yogurt commercial where the girl headbutts the guy, the M&M ad, the Chevy apocalypse, and of course the Doritos bribery dog. We were all in tears of laughter the first time we saw these, that’s how good this night was.

Can’t beat food, football, and great friends!  

 

Honors Seminar (pt 2)

So earlier I gave you guys an overview of what an Honors seminar is like. Now I’d like to share some of our rather crazy tales from our week of partial supervision in Galveston Hahaha! There are lots of them, but don’t worry I won’t get carried away. Here are a few of the better adventures we had, in order of the level of entertainment provided from least to most.

Deep Sea Fishing: This escapade took place Saturday morning and began around 6am. All but two of our group of 18 came out for four hours of fun just outside the Galveston Harbor. Of the four hours, we spent half of it feeding the fish. I say this because there was only one catch the entire time and that one was too small to do anything with besides cut it up for bait, which one of the crew did while it was still wriggling around. Kind of creepy… The other half of the time my compadres and I were relaxing upstairs in the breeze, having some snacks, and watching our friend Vanessa freak out over the ever-circling seagulls. It was quite the start to a day.

Galveston Harbor Tour: We actually went on two tours of the Galveston Harbor, but the second one was infinitely more fun. The trip out on the Earl Martin Jr. took us past the oil rigs, the TAMUG campus, the wreckage of the Selma, and out to the cross-section of the Houston Ship Channel, the Inter-coastal Waterway, and the Galveston Channel. The tour itself was very informative and educational, it was the tour guide that made it so much fun Captain Alan told jokes, stories, and played chicken with dolphins the whole time. Hahaha! He even introduced us to the Ghost of UTMB, the story of which is about an old Aggie sea captain who now haunts the UT medical branch campus. You really can see his face in the wall too!

NASA: Our level 9 tour of NASA showed us all the behind the scenes technology and research that is allowed to be shared with those who aren’t NASA personnel. We saw the shuttle, Robonaut, the makings of a house for living in space (Mars), the Neutral Buoyancy Lab which is basically a giant pool where the astronauts practice for their space walks, and even Mission Control (all 4 of them). Now I know this all sounds like it would be a very formal outing, and yes we were all dressed up, but us Honors kids are the kind who can find entertainment in just about anything We explored everything, role played in Mission Control, shared some amazement over the silverware dispensers in the cafeteria, and had to hold back the boys from jumping into the Neutral Buoyancy pool. Hahaha! We were the most fun tour those guides had had thus far

Sandcastle Building Contest: This was the most fun activity we had all week, and it was an assignment from Dr. Davis, our professor for the seminar. We were given about two hours and four plastic cups per team to build whatever we wanted in the sand, no criteria to follow. Challenge accepted! So our teams of four split up the beach and got started. At the end of the two hours there stood two fortresses, a giant starfish, and our team’s collection of random structures. Hahaha! We had started out building a castle, but one we left our master architect to carve it into his detailed masterpiece the three of us who were left just built whatever we felt like. We ended up with a castle, a tower, Cowboys Stadium, Bigfoot Caves, and Sand Henge I’ll have to get the pictures up for y’all when I get a hold of them. Anyways, the smaller of the two fortresses won the competition simply because they had added a Neutral Buoyancy Lab Regardless, we all had a blast!

So I hope that these anecdotes entertained, informed, made you think, and/or at least made you smile  

 

Honors Seminar (pt 1)

So I realize that most high schoolers are thinking about college based on classes, books, sports, and money. There isn’t much thought to what you’ll do with your spare time once you get things going. My recommendation is to join some sort of club. In short, get involved on campus. It’ll hep you make friends and begin your network of contacts that you will one day need.

One of the many groups and clubs found on the WT campus, mine is the Honors Program. It’s more of an academic society, though most of us Honors kids aren’t the kind to spend all of our time studying. We prefer to work smarter rather than harder Anyways, it’s a group that does require certain scores on SAT/ACT tests, but the opportunities you will have access too are worth looking into.

A good example of what the Honors Program can offer are the seminar classes which Honors kids are required to take at least 2 of before graduating. The seminars are a semester long class followed by a week long trip that will allow you to build on the content covered in class, as well as expand your knowledge on the subject. The most recent was the Engineering based seminar this past fall semester, which I was part of, and our trip was a week spent in the Houston/Galveston area. Basically, I and 15 of my friends/classmates lived together for a week in a beach house in Galveston, and spent that time going to museums, TAMU Galveston, NASA, and lots of boats. When we weren’t busy seeing all the sights, we were at the beach, in the hot tub, or relaxing at the house. It was a week well spent

Apart from the seminars, Honors has connections in just about every department and will use them to help gain options for students who show the initiative to go after them. It’s like having your immediate family within the extended family of WT.

Granted Honors isn’t the only group you can join on campus, but luckily you can be Honors as well as anything thing else you want. You can be in every club on campus and still be in Honors, which our current student body president happens to be.

Hope I gave you something to think about! I will have stories from the seminar trip up soon