“In our school, we have only 5 black kids and 1 Hispanic child. When we come up to someone who is not like us – we don’t have a clue.”

As I was getting in bed tonight, after sharing a dinner and a football games with a few friends, I read this quote online. It led me to a documentary that luckily was on Netflix Watch Instant. You better believe I began to watch it, and it made me so excited for the work that I do with the Community. There is nothing better than making people realize how important differences are.

Sometimes, I hear my friends talk about funny jokes that they’ve heard on TV shows, or celebrities that they follow. And while I read my fair share of Us Weekly and People, and sometimes am able to catch Weeds or Family Guy, I always feel like I’m not as in tune with pop culture as my friends are, becuase I never have enough time to watch stuff on TV, or on movies. But then I get the chance to see things like this, and it makes all of that envy vanish. This movie really moved me tonight. I love opportunities like this that can change your perception on so many things, and really REALLY matter.

What is six million? Paper Clips.

And watching the Clemson/Virginia Tech game, I wanted to answer a question that I get asked pretty often. How do I stay so busy but still have the time to enjoy life, and not be super overwhelmed?

I always tell people that being busy isn’t difficult as long as you love everuything that you do. It’s so hard to get behind or feel overwhelmed if you look forward to the things you do. I also love new experiences and working with others, and as long as I get to do that then I’m happy! All of that being said, I decided to just write a post about what my typical Friday is like, since that was just yetserday and it’s the most recent week day that I can remember. For the most part, my Saturday consisted of laying in bed till about 11 a.m., waking up around noon to have friends over for the Duke game, and napping from the end of the game until about 7:30 when I woke up, showered, was GOING to get dressed to go out, but realized I was still kind of under the weather.

SO the result is rolling through an long to do list while also watching the Clemson vs. Georgia Tech game. Still not sure who I want to win here…but anyways, onto Friday.

So, on Friday I woke up around 10:30 a.m. for a meeting at 11:00 a.m. I am on the Council Executive Board for the YMCA at Virginia Tech, and I met wth several community members and YMCA @ VT members to discuss a task force surounding finding a new person to fill the “driector of Student pPrograms” role in the Y, a role that is integral in making sure that all of our student progams run well. After that, I grabbed lunch with a new friend, Nate, a guy who was integral in helping me out with all of my Homecoming campaigning. After that, I headed to Event Planning, where I work part time, to cover a shift for another co-worker.

During that shift, I had a meetinga t 2:00 to disucuss the transition of University Unions & Student Activities, a department of the Division of Student Affairs here at Tech, to Student Centers and Activities. After that, I took a quiz for one of my classes, Bee Brewing Science & Technology. I got a 100 on it, so I deemed myself as worthy of skipping class, and didn’t go to the 2:30 – 5:30 Friday evening meeting. I then went to meet up with a friend for dinner at 5:30 after a quick nap (my cold has been making me tired so quickly), and ended up not being able to find him. I actually had never met the guy before, but I was going to meet with him discussing a column he wrote for our school newspaper concerning how the Homecoming Court this year had limited diversit. We are planning on rescheduling of course.

After that, I ran home, checked some e-mails, showered, and then headed to the grocery store to grab a bottle of wine. I took that wine, which was  red Cabernet Sauvignon (SO GOOD) to a friends house where she had made dinner, so that was really nice. And then I headed to meet a friend on campus for the Soulstice concert, Fallin’ For Soulstice, with special guest – The Madison Project – JMU’s premiere male a capella group. That was a great concert, and I definitely enjoyed that. I headed from there, back to dinner, and then concluded my evening with a few more glasses of wine and some hookah.

A few other obstacles presented themselves toward the end of my night that prevented me from making it to a friend’s Halloween party, but my body doesn’t really like for me to have good Halloween’s anymore I’ve noticed!

BUT yeah, that’s my Friday in a nutshell! I did alot of procrastinating and e-mail starring last week, and now I’m going to take the time to rectify that whole situation.

Hope you guys enjoyed reading. I’m going to try to keep this blog up, but we will see how that goes.

<3

There is just something about meeting up with a friend, bringing a bottle of wine, and enjoying a fantastic, delicious dinner. I have the best friends who engage me in the best conversations ever. I am SO lucky.

These girls definitely know how to sing! Shout out to Ashley, her friend Danielle, and also Maddie for sounding FANTASTIC. <3 Alice too!

I got this in the mail today. No coming from address. No Name. Nothing. Just a written letter. This means that someone found out where I lived. Put this in my inbox. And took the time to pour out their feelings about a stranger to a stranger.

Wow.

1. I love getting mail.
2. I wasn’t sad about not winning (I don’t use the word losing). But this picked up any amount of hope I might not have had.

Thank you.

Begin letter…

You don’t know me, but I definitely know you. I promise i’m not writing just to get on your website (if this ends up there, then that is fine), but I’m actually a classmate of yours and we have alot of mutual friends. And you know…I’ve spent some time actually thinking about Homecoming since Saturday. I spent some time thinking about how surprised I was when a friend texted me and told me “that justin kid didn’t win.” How did this happen?

You know why, Justin? Becuase you didn’t make your campaign enough about you. You didn’t walk around barking the name of your sponsoring organization and telling people why they would really try and vote for you and hep you win. because it clearly wasn’t about that for you. You won anyway Justin. It was about sharing people stories about your life, helping them get to know you. You didn’t have a rock wall on the drillfield. you had you and your 2 friends. and your car.

A friend told me how many votes the top 2 guys got. Kyle got like 2300 and you got like 2000 I heard. I think that’s impressive. I hope your’e not disappointed that you wren’t crowned king. because your’e still king in the minds of over 2000 Hokies who may or may not even know you. Isn’t that crazy, Justin?

I don’t know you but i want to get to know you. i’ll be honest, the first time that i met you you didn’t remember my name. I thought you were an ass-hole. but watching you over the past few weeks, and seeing you everywhere really has shown me that you meet alot of people. and alot of those names you remember. Granted, my name i sjust Ashley, so its kind of common and easy to forget. But you are impressive in so many more ways than just the number of names you remember.

you don’t let that wheelchair hold you back. and if you’ve heard it once, youv’e heard it a thousand times – that’s an inspriation to everyone, everywhere, Justin. You don’t have any idea how just you living your life has inspired, even just me, to go out and lead mine better. because if you can do it, then why can’t i? that’s what i used to think. now i know that you’ve been blessed with a really special passion and a really special ability to make people listen to you. your’e a great leader, it seems. And people want to be around that.

I wish you the best with everything Justin. You changed people’s lives last week. you showed them what the power of passion can do. That other guy may have one and gotten that crown…[removed]…[but] You have to understand that he had his fraternity and a 900 member strong organization going. You said in my psych class that it’s you and your five friends running your campaign. Will people remember that you came in second? probably not.

But I can guarantee people will remember you. I know I always will.

You’re an inspiration. If you do anything in life, keep it up. Why?

Because you won.

_____________________

Thank you. I won.

Remember, in order to view the video you just have to right click it and click view video if you are using Safari. Not sure why that happens, but do check it out!

Really though, what’s going on with his hair right now?