Marching On

3/1/11
Today was VERY long day. It started with work at 8:00 am then ended after Silver Taps. After ENDS 101 and PSYC 345, my afternoon was spent looking at locations for the Women's Leadership Forum Luncheon. It amazes me that people wanted to schedule hour long appointments when all I needed to do was walk the location and see if it was big enough then pick my favorite one. Regardless, after 3 hours of walking around and repeating all the details of the event, I settled on a location, The Association of Former Students! I was so caught up in the excitement of finally having a venue, that I completely missed a Supplementary assignment for ENDS. Cool... NOT! You win some you lose some though right?

3/2/11
Nothing too exciting today. My classes were cancelled, so I spent the day laying in bed for the first time in a while! A much needed refresher...

3/3/11
After my typical start to a Thursday morning, I was surprised to go to ENDS 101 where we discussed Leadership. Of course this was destined to be my favorite lecture! My mom always gets mad at me and tells me that my organizations are good and all, but I am here to go to school. Although I respect that opinion, my opinion that my learning experience at Texas A&M has been outside of the classroom. Some of the info that I have learned from classes has been applicable, but I'm not going to be in  classroom forever, so it has been good for me to be able to adapt to other environments. The only thing that was unclear to me in lecture was Servant Leadership. After discussing the 10 characteristics of servant leadership, I realized that I there was nothing about actually serving others in the list. There were actions that you commit when interacting with another person, but serving is an actions of one's own doing, regardless of interaction with another person. This can mean anything from giving your time to help someone in need to picking up trash in the classroom without being asked. I think Spears needs to re-evaluate his list....

3/4-6/11
This weekend was spent in preparation for Sunday night. Friday at 8:00 am letters went out to all of the applicants who applied for LEAD director. After long and difficult deliberations, we selected 20 directors. Sunday night was their Subcommittee Revelation, where they got to find out what they were in charge of. On Friday, I planned out what we were going to do for rev, then went to the LEAD  Date Party at the Rec Center! It was so much fun!

After being exhausted from Date Party, I called it a night. Saturday, I woke up and immediately made my shopping list for all of the things that I had to buy for Director Rev. My list consisted of bandanas, laminent, colored cups, picture frames, posters, markers, rubber ducks, shirts, glow in the dark paint, spray paint, glow in the dark beads, and string. I know you are thinking WHAT THE HECK COULD ALL THAT MAKE?! It could make the perfect rev! I spent the rest of Saturday with one of my Execs and we got all the materials (except the dang purple plastic cups!) Our plan was to have 2 fakeouts then the real rev. The first fake out was to tape a piece of paper on their forehead that they were given, then they had to figure out which subco it said from other people. We made the little slips of paper for this. The second fake out was to put names and numbers on the botttom of rubber ducks and put them in the fountain in front of George Bush Library. The numbers grouped together then had to put together a puzzle to find out their subco. For this, we had to write on all the rubber ducks and make the poster board puzzles (which was insanely time consuming). I save making everything for the final revelation for Sunday, so I got up, and got ready to make the shirts. Our final rev was to have black lights set up in a room and we would have their shirts that said their real subcos positioned into a circled and we would walk them to their spot then they could remove their bandanas! When I opened the package, I realized that we had purchased kid sized shirts! Great! Another hour long Wal-Mart adventure and I finally had the right sizes. Making the shirts was about a 6 hour process and in between spray painting, splatter painting, writing, and blow drying, I still had to go find purple cups. I took 3 different trips to go look for them, but didn't have any luck, so I finally settled on some purple glass ones at World Market. Everything got done just in time for Arturo and Taylor to meet me at my house and go. We went to meet the directors and Joel at Fuzzy's. Everything was going perfectly! The night went by with a few speed bumps (such as EVERY purple glass breaking after all my troubles), but overall it was amazing! So excited to have LEAD Staff 2014!

3/7/11
Monday was spent hashing out all the last details with Women's Leadership Forum. I booked the catering, confirmed the event location, and confirmed speakers. What a relief! Now all that is left to do is advertise and get students there!

3/8/11
After going to ENDS 101 and PSYC 345, I sat at work feeling as if I was forgetting something. I checked my planner, and sure enough, I was! I saw that the first part of my 12 Soft Innovations project was due for my ENDS 101 at 5 pm! As I sat at my desk, the only ideas that I could generate were things that would warm me up because it was about 60 degrees in my office! I camp up with the ideas of hand held heaters, robes with neck pillows, and a heat and massaging belt for my back.Then I went to the restroom and passed the disability services center and saw a man who looked extremely tired from pushing his wheelchair. That drove my motivation for my last idea of gears for wheelchairs that would make inclines and declines easier. Isn't it strange that many of our ideas come from environmental cues?

3/9/11
After my SOCI 206 Exam, I headed straight for 2818 Place where I started setting up for the Safe Spring Break Pool Party where we were serving alcohol free margaritas and snacks to try to get students to make safe decisions on their Spring Break trips. A day in the sun is never a bad thing, especially when you are getting paid to do it!

3/10/11
Today I was a bad student and did not go to any classes. I had the worst case of Spring-Break-Itis that has ever existed! The only thing I could think about was how much I had to take care of before I left, including finding someone to keep my dogs for me! My day was spent sleeping in, running errands, working out, tanning, and packing. All in all, it was definitely a productive day, just not in school terms...

3/11-19/11
SPRING BREAK! This week was spent in Panama City Beach! I stayed in a house with 33 people, some who I knew, some who I didn't know. I had the best week because I finally got to relax a little bit and not feel like I 30 meetings to attend everyday. I came home feeling very rejuvenated and feeling like I had 33 best friends. It is weird sitting in my house and hearing silence. Makes me a bit nostalgic for Florida....

3/21/11
Today I prepared all of the materials and presentations for MSC LEAD'S Sophomore Leadership Workshop. It was originally planned as a conference, but due to the snow day earlier in the semester, we had to postpone it and shorten it. After our Staff Meeting, my subcommittee met in the Student Programs Office to organize all of the programs for SLW. Once we got all of the materials set and confirmed the speakers, we called it quits for the night. My anticipation for tomorrow is uncontrollable!

3/22/2011
I woke up feeling like this was going to be a good day. Of course when you have that feeling, you must guess that something is probably going to go wrong. At 1:24pm I received a call of bad news that put a damper on my whole day. Why is it that anytime you encounter a conflict, it is the only thing that dominates your thoughts? Is it because you become occupied with trying to identify every solution or every way that the problem could turn out? Throughout the day, I caught myself thinking about the phone call about every 10 minutes. After being excited and prepared for my Sophomore Leadership Workshop for about 2 months, I found myself not even wanting to be there. Although my sophomores had worked extremely hard and I was very proud, I could not even express that because I was so upset and caught up in worry with my problem. How can we learn to set aside our problems and worries so that it doesn't affect our daily life?

3/23/11
I took a personal day today and talked to a counselor to try to find a way to handle conflict that would be beneficial to me.

3/24/11
After sitting through my normal Women's Leadership Forum Planning Committee Meeting, I started my long walk, to the architecture building. I was curious as to what we would be learning about from our guest lecturer. Within the first 3 slides of his presentation, he mentioned National Women's Day and Month. The remainder of the class was spent discussing the differences in gender throughout the different time periods, advertising, dress codes, and careers. This day, I could not escape my inner feminist. Seeing all of the facts about women being in positions of power made me proud. It also makes me assess the things that I am doing. If there are so many women around the world stepping up into these positions and making changes, what can I do to help? What differences do I want to make. As the Personal Branding Profile asks, what do I want my legacy to be? This is possibly a whole new challenge to me. Working with the Women's Resourse Center on the WLF may be a blessing in disguise, an opportunity waiting to be seeked!

3/29/11
The day finally came! I have been planning the Women's Leadership Forum all, semester, and the time finally came! After all my hard work, my plans were coming to fruitition. I have never been so proud of something! As with any event, there were a few changes that had to be made and a few mistakes here and there, but overall, the forum was a success! Although I missed both ENDS 101 and PSYC 345, I still got to see Dr. V, who actually attended the WLF Luncheon and got to see my hard work! After reflecting on my new self challenge of what legacy I would leave through my female leadership, I decided to use my networking to pursue a dream. A passion of mine is global service, and through Elizabeth McKee Gore coming to speak, I learned about two campaigns through the United Nations. Nothing but Nets raises money to send mesquito nets to homes in Africa and GirlUp works locally through teen leaders to get young girls excited about a global service project and findign a way to be able to make a difference. After a long discussion with a member of my subcommittee, she and I decided that where  better to start a GirlUp campaign, but here in BCS?! There are hundreds of high school students who volunteer locally, but what can we be doing on a global level to expand that realm of service? We are working with Elizabeth McKee Gore to figure just that out!

The Girl Up Website!

3/31/11

 It was strange not attending a WLF Planning Meeting for the first week in months! Instead I was making up a PSYC 345 exam that I missed on Tuesday. It was strange taking an exam in a break room where the aroma of coffee broke my concentration cycle. After my exam, I was so tired. I made it to ENDS 101 just in time for class to start! Our group presented our idea of TrackIt to the class then listened to other groups. After barely being able to stay awake through some presentations, I decided that it was a better idea for me to go home and nap than going to PSYC 345. WORTH IT because I ended up sleeping through the night!