Students’ Views

I feel like I’ve been going to both extremes lately with partying and doing as much school work as possible.  I still have the bruises on my legs from dancing on stage at Girl Talk at Emo’s in Austin on the 20th. The show was pretty incredible, 200+ dancing people, my feet didn’t touch the ground while I was in the crowd, and I think it was probably the sweatiest I’ve been in my entire life. Girl Talk/Gregg Grillis performing on stage! The view of the crowd from the stage. I didn’t take any pictures, but The Decemberists play at Southwestern on the 30th. It was their first show for their current tour, and the only show they played in the South. It was such a good show, they played several singles for their upcoming release Always a Bridesmaid: A Singles Series. They also played several of my favorite songs ‘Sons & Daughters’, ‘July, July’, and a fabulous encore of ‘O Valencia’. It was by far the best large act concert that has been put on at Southwestern so far, and the students involved in planning the event (members of the University Programming Council) all did a wonderful job of organizing the event. Colin Meloy, the lead singer of The Decemberists, encouraged the audience to go out and vote on Tuesday.

In celebration of the end of the election, Student Peace Alliance is hosting a viewing party on election night on campus. I’ve been going to events all semester for watching the debates and political issue discussions. I’m really excited, and hopeful, as the election comes to an end, and of course, if you haven’t already… GO VOTE ON TUESDAY!

I’ve also been really busy with Tri Delta. Last Friday, along with Kappa Sigma, we had a volleyball tournament where people donated money to basically watch us show our athletic talent, or lack of (in my case). We raised over $300 in 5 hours and all of the money went to Dylan, a 4 year old little boy, and family friend of SU student Kaity Cromwell. Dylan was recently diagnosed with stage IV lymphoma, and all of the money raised will help his family with some of their medical costs. We also had Delta Desserts on the 29th, which is our annual big philanthropy event for St. Jude’s Research Hospital. Every Tri Delt bakes two or more desserts, people pay $5, and it’s all-you-can-eat. I’m not sure of the exact total, but I believe we raised close to $1000. It was such a fun evening, we held it at the Howry Center (which is a small banquet room with an outdoor patio on the golf course at SU), and we had so many people come by during the 3 hours of the event. I almost got pied in the face, people could pay $1 to vote for which Tri Delt gets the pie, but thankfully despite the efforts of many of my friends, I lost by 1 vote to fellow senior Porscha Williams.

For Halloween, my roommates and I decided to host a party. Halloween is probably my favorite holiday, I love making costumes, and it’s so fun to see what other people create. This year I was a ‘Jenn and Tonic’, and my roommate let our reality tv show addiction out in the open with her costume of ‘Jon and Kate + 8′. My house and I are still recovering from the weekend, and going back to the harsh reality of working on my capstone and other school work.

Speaking of my capstone, I’m really excited about, love my topic, am enjoying researching, but am also getting more and more nervous about my final product. My class (there’s 7 of us, all writing different papers relating to the relevance of the Communist Manifesto) will be presenting our work on December 4th and will be inviting the entire SU community, especially other political science majors and professors. We’re planning on a pretty elaborate panel discussion with food, poster art, and a question and answer session. While the planning for the presentation is complete, I still have SO MUCH WORK to do on my actual paper, which is due by December 8th. I’m expecting the month of November to be completely consumed by Marx.Homecoming is next weekend! SO excited! I have to go to SING practice right now, I’m in two dances for the Tri Delt skit, and I can’t dance at all, so I need as much practice as possible before the performance on Saturday evening. I’m really looking forward to seeing friends who graduated when they come back to SU for the weekend… more updates soon!… GO VOTE ON NOVEMBER 4th.