This summer, I worked as a Summer Resident Assistant for the UIS Housing Department. I mostly worked with the East Side of campus since I'll be working there next school year. One requirement that I know that I'm going to regret is the 4 hour required desk shift at the Central Housing Office (respectfully dubbed HCOM). When it comes to professionalism, I make sure I put on my shiny shoes and my professional voice for the customer, yet, after working at HCOM within the past three months, I discovered how rude people these days. I try to treat people with the same customer service that I would hope to get when I call for questions/comments/concerns, however, caution is thrown in the wind and the profanity and insults come flying at us. However, I was looking at ways to improve my customer service capabilities and I think people should be glad that I don't answer the phone like this:
So near the end of the spring 2009 semester, I participated in a Small Group that was apart of the Christian Student Fellowship organization. It was truly an amazing experience. I read through the book titled “True Faced” written by John Lynch with my small group; the entire experience was definitely something that I learned and grew a lot from as I bonded and got to know my group members on a personal level.
The group was headed by Howard and Jeremy and I received the opportunity to get to know a kid named Will Alonso who came all the way from Pennsylvania to Central Illinois (I know right). I’d say that the entire event was the pinnacle of my growth as a person because each chapter somehow tied itself into some internal struggle or obstacle that I would encounter each week (obviously God works in mysterious ways in trying to reach out to people in need). I’m really glad that I got the chance to take part in such a great learning experience: I’ve learned so much about myself and why I act the way that I do and the discovery of the major flaws that are preventing me from becoming the person that I want to be. I won’t use this posting as an outlet of emotion on everything that I talked about, however, I will give you a Top 5 List that I feel that the book has helped me accomplish:
5. I’ve managed/still working on removing all of the negativity from my life and looking at life and situations from a more positive point of view.
4. Established a closer relationship with my family, especially my brother (whom I’ve never been able to seem eye to eye with).
3. Gotten the chance to connect with Will Alonso whom I found out I share a lot in common with (especially our love for the movie Van Helsing)
2. I’ve watched the friendship that I had with Jeremy grow stronger and bonded with Howard Kang who has helped me out more than he knows.
And……
1. I’ve seen an increase in my spiritual where I am praying more and growing closer to God. As a result of this, I feel as if my life is going straight up from here on.
So...I've been really busy this summer with my job at the Housing Department and taking summer classes at school, I've been slacking and inhibiting the world on the on-goings in life. However, very soon (now that I have time), I will release a diarrhea of blogs detailing Summer 2009: HOLLER!
With the release of their new single which has been topping the charts the past couple of weeks. I would have to say that I'm f****** pumped for the release of the new Black Eyed Pea's CD titled The E.N.D. (The Energy Never Dies) . It's so cool. I've been a big fan of the Black Eyed Peas since I can remember. Elephunk was the shiz, Monkey Business was the shiz x2, and I have a huge feeling that The E.N.D. is going to be amazing. From "Where Is the Love?," to "My Humps," and now "Boom Boom Pow!"
Everyone it told that college is supposed to be the best four years of our life, however, I feel that I'm having a little bit of difficulty enjoying college and spending time with my friends with all of this homework and studying getting in the way. Here's a typical day for myself:
1) Wake up @ 8:30 (grab your brush and put a little make-up....for you S.O.A.D. junkies)
2) Class @ 10am until 11:15pm
3) Class @ 12pm until 1:15pm
4) Class @ 2pm until 3:15pm
5) Lunch Break con mis amigos
6) Class @ 5pm until 6:15pm
7) Work out @ 7pm until 9pm
8) Study for the rest of the night and do my RA thang at the same time.
Yeah....I'm still trying to figure out how Dick Grayson was able to balance school work/college classes and fighting crime at night, because I'm literally drained of ATP (adenosinetriphosphate) by the end of the day to where I can barely concentrate. Fortunately I'm doing very well in my classes. The line up for classes consists of:
1) Human Physiology
2) Comparative Vertebrate Biology & Anatomy
3) Principles of Inorganic Chemistry (my favorite class....hint the sarcasm)
4) Survey of African American Literature
But, the best thing about college & UIS for the most part is the friendships that will bond (a covalent bond to be exact) during your struggle to succeed in the class. For example, I have Pavan to goof around with and study for Human Physiology.
One thing that I love about studying with or just having any class with Pavan, we'll always make a promise with each other that we'll start studying for exams the week before....and it ends up being the night before and us staying up until 7 in the morning studying. Yeah.....we're going to be doctors.
For Comparative Vert, I get the pleasure of studying with Angie Davis. Our studying consists of us freaking out abot the material and generating these weird premonitions that we're going to fail the exam when we actually end up passing it with flying colors. I'll have to say that we're pretty creative when it comes to making up cheers or dances to remember stuff....and then do them in class....DURING THE TEST! (more so me)
Finally, I have my favorite people to study or do homework with for Principles of Inorganic Chemistry. I get to study for exams with Marksies and Premalama Babuhead, by study meaning we do everything possible not to study. And who could forget Brittney Meyer, my partner in crime whom I share/come up with every possible catch-phrase or funny slogan. Let's just say, when it comes to studying, our friendship is tighter than intermolecular forces.....man I'm a nerd!
(Marksies is on the left.....he dips in chocolate!)
I miss studying with you guys.....
I went to the movies and someone asked me if I was one of those black people that scream at the movies yelling stuff like "Girl...don't go in there!" I replied yes, because white people in the movie always go in the room that the killer is in....he's behind the door! @LOL
Hello World,
I'm finally back to blogging after my extended hiatus from the internet. Let's just say that a lot has happened within the past couple of weeks (months for that matter), so the next couple of blogs will be your chance to catch up on the latest additions to the "E! True Hollywood Story" of my life....not so much. So, what better way to start catch-up blogs better than the best holiday of a college student: SPRING BREAK!
Spring Break is a pivotal point in a college student's career where he/she gets to let loose for an entire week. Imagine this, a year worth of partying and having fun that has been suppressed by the endless amounts of papers/studying/homework that professors love to throw at our faces that's on the brink of explosion. However, in order to experience Spring Break to its fullest extent, you must have all of the following steps to be completed:
1) Completion of homework and all studies so that nothing educational will intervene with "funage"
2) A group of friends that you are 1000% (on the Maury Povich Scale) sure will be as idiotic as you are.
3) The final step is to have an exotic and warm location to enjoy this break with your amigos/amigas
(Notice that there are no palm trees in of all places Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.)
Yes, we decided to "vacay (as the youngsters likes to coin the term vacation)" in Wisconsin Dells. However, even though we decided to go North, meaning that birds are now smarter than us in regards to travel plans, we still had a blast. First off, on the roster for this little shindig consisted of Pavan Ganapathiraju, Priyanka Deo, Craig Jason-Michael Rebou, Christie Yopst, Vicky Yopst, and myself.....yeah, so there was a good brown:white ratio going on here. We stayed at the Chula Vista resort, which is a nice/amazing resort that was conveniently established on top of an old Indian Reservation. I said that because when we arrived, it was below 50 (followed by snowfall) and I made a joke about the girls walking the Trail of Tears to walk to the front entrance because they parked so far away from the hotel. Second, the Hotel had a Hot Tub.......oh budday! Yeah....mostly the guys spent their time talking about their issues and emotional/traumatic events that plagued their lives....we also did our nails too. This is the part where I tell you I'm being sarcastic. The girls had their own beds and bathrooms, and the guys had there own king size bed to share.....yeah someone definitely ripped one the minute we were under the covers, yet we looked past that , and it was a lot of fun. Third, indoor water park. Most of the vacation took place in this wonderous aquatic environment because it gave us the chance to relieve all of our stress by beating out little 7 year-olds to the front of the line for the water slides. There was this one water slide that took you inside this giant donut that had flashing lights and crazy LSD/PCP drug lights. The worst part about that was that I went on it with Priyanka.....yeah, she's nuts, and we yelled Pumpkin Fest down the slide.
Yeah, here are a couple more pictures from being in the water park.....it was loads of fun!
(Craig smiles awkward.....and has junk in the trunk)
We also went miniature golfing and we found out that none of us has the capabilities of beating Tiger Woods even if we practiced for several (hundred) years. Yeah, especially Priyanka who managed to hit the ball out of the course on every single one. But we managed to take a picture with a pirate statue. That's always a plus.
However, the best part of the whole trip was that we got to go to this arcade and we definitely got our money's worth of prizes. Have you ever been to an amusement park and you saw grown adults walking in the place holding like a billion tickets.....for the first time, we were those people. I played a ski ball game and I only knocked down one pin, while the kid next to me knocked down like 7. Though I knocked down 1, my machine malfunctioned and gave me a shiz-ton of tickets. So....I decided to show Priyanka and Pavan the machine that broke down, they put in the coin, and the tickets came out. Like 1000+ tickets, we didn't have enought room in our pockets, so Priyanka had to empty out her purse and and walk around with a bunch of tickets in her purse. Craig won like 5, so he definitely contributed.
Yeah...and this is what we looked like carrying around all of the tickets we "won."
Yeah, with our combined tickets, we hadd 1000+ and we were able to buy the following:
1) Six Silly Hats
2) 2 Dart Boards
3) One Cheerleader Wand
4) A bunch of candy
5) Six Weird balls
However, number 5 on the list we didn't purchase at the prize counter, I wond all of those in a row at those Grab-Claw Machines. I've never played those games before, but I won six in a row!
It was sad to see the trip come to a close, however, it was great to reconnect with my friends and strengthen our relationship, because at that time, I realized that the time that I had to spend with them was very limited because Craig was graduating and we would soon graduate after the year. It was an amazing trip....and the best SPRING BREAK EVER!
