Pictures are: UCSD Student Foundation members at the Chancellors 5k to support student scholarship, on a raft on Mission Bay for 'floatopia' a fun event where you anchor a raft and hang out on the beach, me with a few advisors at the Elen show filming, Professor Popkin explaining peasant villages, sailboat (named Taco Surf), UCDS Asayako drummers at an student org performance, UCSD sit-in protesting state fee increases for educational costs, performance Dean and Britta at the Loft, Ellen Degeneris show came to UCSD and that was the turn out, the microfilms machine that I use to research alumni articles for my 'unoffical history' project
In one word, it's going Incredibly.
I have the most spectacular year going for me so far. It is busier than ever (I didn't believe I could actually get more busy than I was last year, but yes, I have accomplished it) but more wonderful as well. Unfortunately I lost my camera (I believe it's now resting at the bottom of the Pacific somewhere) so the only pictures I can share are those that friends have posted on the ever-reliable Facebook.
PS. Today was an incredible day for me. One of those days that gets started and you can't find a reason to get a smile off of your face. I got SO much done, worked with a number of incredible people, enjoyed my classes, and I just can't help thinking how great of a life I'm living-thank you for being a part of it :)
Here's the Breakdown
School
Just like I guessed it, my classes are spectacular! In Sociology of Food we've now discussed everything from food and sex to obesity and social conceptions of food. The readings that we are doing are always interesting (probably the reason that I'm actually caught up in this class) and we have our midterm coming up on Thursday.
The MOST exciting thing is though, that I just got approved to work on an independent research project with a professor I had last year. I'm going to be PAID to interview all of the top CEO's of innovative companies in San Diego and I might get Published at the end of the study! The Professor, also the Dean of UCSD Extension, does a lot of research and was just awarded a grant to compare UCSD's innovative community with that of Melbourne and Sydney AU. While I don't get to go to Australia, I do get to interview some of the people that made San Diego the incredible hub for innovation that it is today--talk about a Great way to make connections my final year of school! So yes, I'm above the boiling point on the excitement meter on that one :)
As for other classes,
Intro to Acting is also a lot of fun-we have had numerous days where we practice walking in 'neutral position' and even spent half of a class period one day laying on the floor relaxing and, well, meditating. Because the class is small, I've grown close to about half of the members and every day after class we go to the student center to have a drink at the Pub while we talk about just about everything. The best part of this is that we are all very different people but acting has forced us to let down our boundaries so the connections are amazing.
My political science class is hard, and not extremely interesting, but the professor is a riot. If anyone sits in the back two rows of the lecture hall he yells profanities at them until they move, he is constantly doing horrible drawings for the class on the board, and he says some of the most inappropriate but hilarious things I have ever heard from a professor. It's definitely a class that you can never be prepared to sit through because he always does something crazy to liven things up. (picture of him with a drawing on the chalkboard of a 'village with watchtower')
Lastly I have a business project management class where the final class objective is to work with a team to build a skyscraper made from spaghetti and marshmallows that can hold 50 sheets of paper and stand for 20 minutes. Random, right? While I can't always understand what the professor is saying, I feel like I have a great handle on the material because of my projecting experience. See, being involved really does help you academically!
Work
Ya, I still have 3 jobs...and I get in trouble almost every week because I work more than 20 hours a week between the three of them (University rules say students can only work 19.5 hours a week).
But the jobs are great. For the Center for Student Involvement, our new staff is fully trained and finally functional (without us having to check everything they do). I'm currently working with our manager to prepare a presentation for Northern Arizona University's National Collegiate Leadership Conference that will be about our development programs for student leaders at UCSD. The conference usually has an attendance of a few thousand so it's going to be exciting to get to present! I'm also working on honing my skills as a manager and learning (to my despise) how to not make mistakes in math because I'm responsible for timesheets.
With my Alumni Discovery job (okay I'm really excited to talk about this one!) I'm currently working on a project to interview ALL of the past AS Presidents (for the UCSD student government). So far I've interview 3 people, 2 lawyers and an entrepreneur, who developed amazing policy that created many of the buildings and programs that I benefit from today. Once we have 'discovered' all of the past AS Presidents, we are looking to help them develop a 'past presidents society' through which current student leaders can have mentors, a scholarship fund will come out of it, AND there will be a compilation of the history of AS based on my interviews that will be promoted with the UCSD 50th anniversary! Exciting!
Also with alumni I am working on my own publication-a sort of 'unofficial history' in which I am collecting alumni stories about fun/controversial/historical/student driven events that happened on campus and then finding related articles in the archives of the school newspaper to eventually compile into a book! I've got three sections of stories so far and am working al I can to get more going. It's a labor intensive process! Phew!
Involvement wise...
I'm the Chair for the Student Foundation Development Committee--(check out studentfoundation.ucsd.edu) which raises money from students for students, in the form of merit-based scholarships. I just got the confirmation to go ahead with a 'pub quiz' or trivia night at the campus pub at which students/faculty/staff can play some trivia for prizes with all donations going directly to student scholarships! We've raised about $300 in the past few weeks, but are looking to this event to really boost our donation total. Wish us luck!
UCSD Cares is UCSD's annual week of service/philanthropy and last year I was the chair of the student committee. We raised $13,000 for Rady Children's Hospital over the week (wahoo!) and are looking to make it even bigger this year. I though, will not be chairing the event as I feel it time to move on so next week I'll be running my final meeting as we put new chairs and committee chairs in place. It'll feel good to hand it off and see what a new group can do!
Oo and I'm on the sailing team and I'm doing to start doing Outback Adventures-guiding camping/hiking/kayaking trips for UCSD students on random weekends-my first meeting is next week!
Life
Apart from all these 'required' type things, I am living one great life. As I mentioned before I joined the UCSD Sailing team and have been able to practice once a week for the past 5 weeks (I'm getting good!). I even sailed in my first regatta and while I'm not skippering (steering and dealing with the main sail) I've been told I'm doing quite well as a crew (manning the jib, little front sail and helping with other boat-sailing tasks). It's AMAZING and I'm so so glad to be doing it.
I've also been able to go to quite a few art festivals, beer festivals, and musical performances at school and around San Diego. The culture of art and music here is incredible and i'm doing all I can do immerse myself in it this last year.
I've also gotten really into yoga in the past few months and am planning to spend Thanksgiving weekend at a yoga retreat at Joshua Tree. It'll be 4 days of camping, yoga, and hanging out in the desert and is lead by a professional instructor who teaches in San Diego. I'm getting Really excited for this trip.
hmm...what else has been going on...? I think I'm about storied out for now. I'm going to add some pictures and then post this long clip for you all to read.
I hope that life is going well for each of you and that maybe just a little bit of inspiration to do something new can travel from me to you (I seem to have so much of it lately). Best wishes and lots of love xx
