Favorite commute on campus?

Over the weekend, I was at a party near campus and I met a lot of new people. Always one to try and meet new people, I told these students that if they ever had a question for me or wanted to say hi to me on campus, don’t hesitate.  I really put a lot of energy every day into trying to remember people’s names and special things about them. And, so, begins the story.

I was driving to campus this morning, to come to work, after waking up pretty late.  If I wake up late, all of the spots in my favorite parking lot are usually taken.  This particular lot that I want to park in is at the top of Torgersen Hall, hear the second floor exit, and unfortunately each spot was taken by either a handicapped placard-ed vehicle, or by a service car.

So, I continued around campus, to the Femoyer service lot, since I’ll be walking to my other work after this work, it made most sense to park there. And so I did.

After parking there, I got kind of excited – I was getting ready to embark on my favorite commute down the hill near Torgersen.

This picture doesn’t really do this hill justice. Although it’s not that steep, it is long. The max speed is at that top (to the left of this photo) for sure.  Once you get down the first hill, and roll to the other side of Torgersen Bridge, there’s another, steeper hill. It allows me to get from Femoyer Hall in upper quad to Squires Student Center in about 2 minutes. I think it’d be an average of about 3:20 if you were to walk.

And, so, I ran into one of those kids that I met over the weekend, and he said hi. He then asked me what my favorite commute was on campus – since, you know, it’s not the most accessible campus in the world.

You guessed it.

Want to know what my least favorite commute is? Going backwards on that same route. Forwards? It’s all up hill. Backwards? Yeah. It’s miserable.

I love Hokie Football, though.

However, when your team is not doing well – AKA, I can’t remember the last time we were .500 (3-3) this late in the season – I don’t think you need to focus on some new gimmick uniform redesign in order to energize your team. I think that he focus should be on coaching and getting the team better to hopefully make an ACC Championship run.  Florida State and Clemson are not as invisible as we thought, apparently, and I think they are teams we can hang with, only if we end up getting leaps and bounds better than we are right now.

In the mean time, enjoy this WHITE helmet for a MAROON EFFECT game. For some reason, I think that they will probably still blend the classic retro VT’s with the new modern, stylized VT’s – something that’s angered me since last year – but oh well. Neither Frank Beamer, nor the marketing department ask my opinion. But they should. Cause I’m still all about orange uni’s.

Where to go from here?

As an undergraduate student, I was extremely involved. Over involved. Hyper involved.  I knew (know) about most of the plethora of resources on campus for any issue, and got involved with any major cause I believed was important.  This was what sparked my interest in higher education in the first place.  Starting my fifth year at the university, I realize that I’m having a hard time contributing to new causes, and discovering some that I care about as much as the ones that I’m already engaged in.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love everything that I do now – from serving as a Hokie Ambassador, to writing for the school newspaper about higher education, to working in the Event Planning office and helping students see their events actualize. Also, continuing engagement in the Actively Caring movement, and spreading it into multiple schools locally, and spreading the message individually nationally.

I’ve ceased most direct involvement in numerous things, like the SGA, Yates Project, YMCA, SAASS, Big Event, etc.  I’ve been trying to focus on things that will also help me develop professionally, not just get me that involvement and commitment to service I sought as undergraduate. I’m trying to be a little more intentional than that now.

For one of my classes, it’s an activity for us to revise our resume to focus on the professional experiences that we are having as graduate students.  Let me tell you, this is an activity I welcomed – to be able to scale back on my over-loaded resume, full of events activities from my undergraduate career.  But I still feel a need to get even more involved.

Later, at the request of a stranger earlier today, I’m going to pen a blog about my day to day life. You’ll see that I literally have no extra time left in the day. But somehow, I still want to be more engaged in my community.  For example, I caught wind of Safe Zone trainings – events that are put together to educate our community about the issues that face lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual/gendered, queer, pansexual, etc. students.  This was a certification that I would appreciate having, would benefit me developmentally, and also would be a nice credential to have as I plan to work with diversity issues someday.

But I really can’t decide where to go from here. A professor, when I posited them the same question last week, reccomended that I go from being the student that is committing, to the professional that is organizing commitment.  I certianly plan on doing that to an extent, but I plan to always be that person that is committed.  Obviously, in about a year and a half my time as a student at any level will have maxed out.

As a graduate student and professional, I’ve loved having the opportunities to help other students get engaged. And I’ve kind of started to realize that that is where I have passion developing – just as a friend suggested to me on Facebook tonight.  After all, that’s the definition of living Ut Prosim as a way of life. I remember being so blessed and honored to win that Aspirations! Award last semester. :) Maybe I should get involved with a committee to help further the recognition of others…

I feel like I look at least three years younger in this photo, when it was only 6 months ago!

Can’t wait to see where this journey takes me. :)

via Room at Our Table

I saw that the Chittenden family updated their blog this week, so check it out! :) Can’t wait to go see them this weekend before the Homecoming game. Remember their stand is located on South Gate just behind the stadium, and just past the GERMAN Club Manor, on the left. Search for their last name, “Chittenden,” in the blog post search function to the left of this post if you didn’t get to read my original post about this family’s very touching story.  It was titled “The best piece I’ve ever written.”

Unforeseen Blessings.

 

 

The Rally Foundation.

A good friend of mine from college, Elizabeth, is working with the Rally Foundation in Atlanta since we graduated from Tech. To learn more about the Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research and how you can help kids with cancer, go to http://www.rallyfoundation.org/. She sent me this video to check out, and I couldn’t help but want to share it with more people.  Please check this out if you have just a few minutes (four, to be exact) of extra time today or any day in the near future.

I’ll warn you that I don’t like the song on the video, but the video is absolutely touching, well-filmed, and a beautiful, beautiful message. I love seeing kids living their lives, no matter what else they might have going on at home, inside their bodies, or around them.  We can all definitely learn a lesson from them.  My oh my, the things that we can learn from children…


**Robert Mondavi Private Selection will donate $1 for every share, like and retweet of this video up to $50,000. *

Thanks for viewing, guys!