Students’ Views

Highlight of the week:

Meeting Benjamin Mckenzie (Ryan from the OC) at the Georgetown Courthouse for an Early Voting Rally and offering him breakfast tacos while my friend Eva and I are still wearing the clothes from the night before (due to late night paper writing session). We had to hold the pose for awhile due to technical difficulties on my camera, but that’s no problem for Benjamin, who said “I enjoy this quality time with you.” After this shot was taken, we hurried back to campus for class, and glowing from our celebrity encounter.

I’ve been trying to become involved in the Texas Primary excitement by working this coming election day as well as attending the various rallies for candidates in the Austin area. Last week, I went to the Barack Obama rally on Congress St. in front of the Capitol. It felt more like a concert than a political speech with people passing out propaganda for their causes, t-shirts with Barack’s face on them, and signs proclaiming ‘Change.’ My friend’s brother’s band (Black Joe Lewis and the Honey Bears) opened for Barack and we were able to get fairly close to the stage for his hour long speech in which he addressed health care, student financial needs, ending the war in Iraq, and the options for economic growth and development.

This lady was really into Ba-racking the vote.

For my sustainability class, we’re learning how to build/maintain bikes for the campus and Georgetown community. As means to learn about bikes, I’ve been checking out the model for Southwestern’s Pirate bike program - the Austin Yellow Bike Project. I start volunteering over Spring Break, and meanwhile, the website for the Southwestern program will be made in the next few weeks along with a press release, ways to get involved in the project, and a call for donations.

I also was just elected to be the Membership Development Chair for my sorority - placing me on our ‘Standards’ committee (council that makes decisions on chapter issues) and my office is to plan ‘Open’ meetings, which are once a month meetings where we do events to better know members of the chapter - anything from making crafts, going to concerts together, or learning about a social issue. I’m also in charge to planning 4 events a year for the chapter and the campus for greater academic and community involvement for the members of my sorority.

Korouva Milkbar (the campus student-run coffee shop) is back in action this week opening with a dance party that, even with missing the dance moves of Walker, maintained an incredible level of sweaty, late-night, study break dancing. More KMB events to come, I’ll write more/take more pictures.

Tomorrow night I’m going to see JUSTICE play at Stubb’s in Austin, and I’m going to see Wilco play in Houston on Friday night. Hopefully, I’ll pay attention in class this week instead of just being excited about these shows.

I’m also interviewing for a summer internship next week for National Instruments in Austin doing Marketing/PR work. Southwestern offers an Internships Connection fair every semester where various employers come to campus and hand out information about job opportunities . I was able to find this job through the Career Services office, and they also helped me complete my resume and offer practice interview sessions in order to be prepared for applying for employment.

And finally… is there such a thing as going to too many costume parties?

Kappa Sigma ‘Enchanted Jungle’ Pledge Party… Jessie as a tree, I’m a fairy (with about 50 glow sticks on, best idea ever), and Cait is a sunflower.

Kappa Sigma ‘Valloween’ - I’m a bird, the roomate is a bee, and we both create impressive homemade costumes.