Georgia Southern!

Posted by Josh | Posted on 5.25.2009

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I have now been at Georgia Southern University 2 weeks and the verdict is......I LOVE IT. If you are not familiar with Georgia Southern, it is located in the booming metropolis of Statesboro, GA (I would again like to introduce you to Sarcasm). GSU is home to 18,000 students and Eagle athletics. Statesboro is a small lil town with everything centered around the university. Though there is not too much going on in the 'boro (mirroring my 'boro, home to MTSU) there are many things in the area. Savannah is only 45 minutes, the beach is an hour, Atlanta is still a 3 hour haul, and then parts of Florida are only 2 hours....so some beachin good times will hopefully be had this summer!

During the academic year, I was not the most satisfied with my assistantship experience. I was beginning to question my chosen profession. Luckily, the past two weeks alone have squashed those little dissatisfactions! Not only are the SOAR leaders awesome, the professionals are too. My supervisor is an alum of the HESA program at South Carolina (she graduated in 2007) and has provided me with a great experience thus far. She actually announced her promotion from Coordinator to Assistant Director of Orientation and Parent Programs the day after I arrived in the 'boro...so a search will soon be occurring for the Coordinator position (it made me feel great to "accidentally" overhear a conversation between her and her supervisor saying it was too bad I still had another year of school left...and her suggesting it is not uncommon for students to do grad school from afar...). The orientation office falls under Admissions at GSU...and all of the Admissions recruiters and Admissions staff have been extremely welcoming and friendly over the past few weeks. Although, one decided to tell me I look like the 4th Jonas Brother (which reminded I had been compared to David Archuleto by a parent at Orientation last summer and compared to Zach Efron the summer before. Awesome). There is also a girl two years ahead of me who graduated from MTSU, the HESA program at South Carolina, and works in the Leadership office at Georgia Southern...so I apparently am stalking her. Crazy.

The SOAR Leaders (Orientation Leaders) have to be my favorite part of my internship. SOAR is a very well respected office on campus and recruit the best of the best for the SOAR Leader positions. There are 23 (21 new timers, and 2 returners who are "in charge"), all amazing. I have been in training with them for the past two weeks...and will be training this week as well...then its our first session on June 1! They even made this awesome video...a parody of "Im on a Boat" to talk about their Bus system, "Im on a Bus":

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1106192571398&ref=share

I was able to get back to Columbia for a night to hang out with some peeps during this long weekend. But anywho, its a full week ahead, so Im outta here!

We're Def. Not in South Carolina Anymore...

Posted by Josh | Posted on 4.09.2009

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I feel comfortable saying that California is NOT the South. Its a true fact of life, like dogs don't like cats, or rain is wet, or Lindsay Lohan is crazy.


Last week (and at the time of posting, I now mean back at the beginning of April) I was an intern at the Western Region Greek Leadership Conference/National Cultural Greek Leadership conference out in San Francisco. For those of you loyal readers (which is apparently none, seeing as I just discovered a View Counter that is at 14 views....since August. I didn't cry....much) I posted some short daily updates on Twitter. Basically I wanted to be a celebrity who feels they need to share everything from their status in the coffee line to their pooping schedule. No one really cares.....except when it comes to me, of course. But let me give you a quick lil rundown of the week.



Tuesday

Arrive to San Fran at 2:30 pm. Receive my first "Where are YOU from?" at 2:37pm. Dinner with the entire conference staff at some place that I forget the name to...still a great place though. I am interning with people from Montana State University, University of Denver, University of California, Stanisglaus, University of San Francisco, and University of Oregon (Chi Omega). We are in meetings til midnight being trained on the week ahead...and let me tell you the time change was rough to work through...basically it was 3am "my" time. Yay bedtime.



Wednesday

Moreeeeee training. A day full of learning the ins and outs of how those westerners do things in their neck of the woods. I recieve my 14th comment regarding the apparent "accent" that I have. It is Wednesday when I realize the other interns are pretty bangin.



Thursday

First day of conference stuff. 800 students and advisors start flooding into the luxurious Hyatt-Regency in Burlingame (San Fran). I am the all-helpful greeter for the flock of students/advisors entering the Greekified conference. Looking back, however, this may not have been the best job suited for me.


Example:

J: Hey! How are y'all doing. Are y'all here for the Western Region Greek Conference?

Students from school in Oregon: (long pause)........um....what?


The "accent" apparently got in the way. Thursday...like Friday and Saturday...was a great day, but extremely long. It was normal to attend a Conference staff meeting at 6:30am and be finished with our last assignement at midnight-ish. I spent my days setting up educational session rooms, assisting speakers, herding cattle (I mean students), tearing down educational session rooms, introducing speakers...and having a grand ole time. I met a lot of great people though. So the experience was a great one. The 5 other interns were awesome to work with- and I have been able to stay in contact with a few of them over the past several weeks. California is NOT the South....but it was still a pretty darn good time.

Twitterin to CA

Posted by Josh | Posted on 3.29.2009

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Twitterfied.

I leave for California on Tuesday morning to intern at the Western Region Greek Association Leadership Conference...that's a lot of words. Anywho, I am still unsure of my schedule and what I will and will not see, but I have a fun little Twitter account so I can upload info and pics from my phone. So get ready and get jazzed to be tweeted. If my updates have a link attached to them- click on it because those are the pics. 

Click HERE for a twitterific good time.

Bama Girl Trailer

Posted by Josh | Posted on 3.25.2009

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I thought this was an interesting trailer. The documentary is from 2007 footage- but its interesting. It has won numerous awards, if you check out their website.



It was SROWtally Awesome!

Posted by Josh | Posted on 3.19.2009

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OH it was SROW sweet.

"Cheerleading camp on crack." There is no better way to describe it. Well maybe Cheerleading Camp on heroine....but I'm not really sure of the affects of heroine. Mom, do you know? Anywho, it was an awesome weekend! I met up with the SOAR team (the orientation team) at Georgia Southern last Thursday and traveled with them to Ole Miss for the conference. Man, they're an amazing group. Nearly as amazing as me, but we won't get into that debate at this moment in time. The 9 hour bus ride was just that....9 hours. And let me tell you, 9 hours is a long time. It's way longer than 5 hours.

Thursday we arrived at the majestic Holiday Inn of Oxford, MS. The hotel must have decided to go with an African inspired lobby. And by African inspired, I mean they randomly had three stuffed lions in glass cases in the middle of the lobby. No hint of Africanness anywhere else. It is my guess they got the lions from the zoo down the road and stuffed them...that's not too morbid, is it? We arrived to the jungle late late Thursday night...so we went to b
ed. Yes, I know that is a good story- I'll tell it again later.

Friday morning we walked around the square of Oxford. Great southern square. Afterwards began SROW. And let me tell you it was the beginning of a SROWtally awesome weekend. The first event was a sticker swap for all the undergrads. See, now when I heard there was going to be a sticker swap- I packed my personal sticker album of Lisa Frank and scratch-n-sniff stickers...but that was apparently not the right thing to do. The 1400 students in attendance crammed themselves into the Rec Center gym and went crazy, slappin their school's stickers on various spots of peoples' bodies (and by various, I mean everywhere....everywhere) to the beats of sweet lil T.I. and Soulja Boy. The picture explains it all. That night was the Sing/Skit/Dance Competition. Let me tell you, this was not taken lightly. Schools have been practicing their stuff for months. And I don't want to sound biased, but Georgia Southern's was the best. They ended up winning Third place. Yayy! The video is their performance.

Saturday was mostly educational sessions. There was some good. There was some really bad. But all...interesting. The theme of the conference was "Once upon a SROW..." so it was all fairytale/Disney themed, which was also....interesting. I participated in the Graduate Case Study Competition and actually ended up winning! Best Communication!! So that was SROW exciting.

There was a closing award ceremony on Sunday...and I have to take a second to brag on Georgia Southern. They won more awards than any other school in attendance- and there were schools from all over the Southeast (yes, even U. of Alabama). They won the Service Project, 3rd in Dance Competition, 1st place in the SCVNGR Hunt, Me with the Grad Case Study, and my supervisors won the Best Presentation of the conference! So it was pretty cool to see GSU doing so well.

They have such a top notch program and their orientation leaders are just simply the best of the best on campus. I cannot wait to work with them this summer!

But now, its back to the grind (what does that actually mean? What grind am I getting back to?). School work and grad asst work is no fun. But I counted today and I only have 39 days until the last day of classes. Which I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing. I have a ton of stuff to do until then. Boo. Simply, Boo.

I am also beginning my countdown to San Francisco: 12 Days.

I started a Twitter account (if you haven't heard about it, google it) last week. So I will include a link to my Twitter site so you can see all my Tweets (yeah, thats right, my Tweets=my updates) while I am in San Fran. I'll just be uploading what I am doing, what I've seen, and pictures from my phone...yes, I am such an innovator of communication. HA




Oh, what a semester so far...

Posted by Josh | Posted on 3.09.2009

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Why hello sweet sweet cyber-world. Oh, how I've missed thee. Now let me count the ways....1. I...ooo, shiny!..

And by shiny and bright, I mean my life. Oh, I keed I keed. But, the graduate life is going swell. Just swell. Let me tell ya though, this second semester is not the easiest. 12 hours of time-draining classes and 20 hours of GA work is a little much. But who am I to complain. 

Right now, the weather is a sunny 85 degrees and the first official day of Spring Break. So, I may not be spending it on the beach livin it up in PCB (uh, yeah right) but its still nice outside. Days like today are reasons I heart USC (again, University of South Carolina..not that OTHER one). 

In case you haven't heard, I have accepted an internship at Georgia Southern University for this summer working with freshman orientation. woop woop. im excited to be working with them. I am actually heading to Ole Miss with all of the orientation leaders this weekend for SROW (Southern Region Orientation Workshop). It should be an interesting conference. There have been at least 10 different people who have described the conference as "cheerleading camp on crack."

I also found out I will be interning at a Greek conference in San Francisco later this month!

This semester has been going well...but busy. The best word to describe it is busy. Until next time (whenever that may be), have a good one.

The Beginning of a New Semester...

Posted by Josh | Posted on 1.11.2009

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...And a new year!

Spring Semester 2009 begins tomorrow (Monday). Excitement overcomes me (ok shoot me. Im halfway lying). Aside from still working in the Resident Student Learning office, I have also registered for four classes which I'm keeping my fingers crossed will be more enthralling than last semesters' (which were the equivalent to watching the History Channel). It is hard to believe I am already starting the second semester of my graduate career, which at the end, will mark my half completion of the program. This semester will also include a few exciting events. Ill give you a rundown of them, I know you're giddy with excitement to find out:

1. Summer Internship Search: Many students within the program search for a Summer Internship. One popular avenue of choice is NODA (which deals with Orientation programs). Today is the final day to submit resumes and applications. From here, I wait for my 8 schools of choice to receive my info...and then I wait. My list of choices included Florida State, Alabama, Florida, Ole Miss, Texas A & M, Georgia Southern, Tennessee, and Auburn. Though I am nervous, I am also excited to undergo the entire process.

2. GARP (Graduate Assistant Recruitment Program): It is the recruitment program for potential graduate students. I am ready to meet the new peeps and see how the whole process works, since I was unable to attend mine last year (I was in Hawaii...I know a horrible excuse!).

3. SEIFC (South Eastern Interfraternity Conference): Over the holiday break, I submitted a proposal to present at this conference which is attended my fraternity councils across the south east..and found out last week it was accepted! This will be my first time to conduct a presentation at a regional conference!

4. ACPA (American College Professionals Association): Many of the students within my program will be traveling to attend this conference in Washington DC in March. It will be a great trip...especially in DC yo!

5. Graduate Assistantship: I also will be interviewing within the next month for a different assistantship for the 2009-2010 academic year. I am thinking about taking a Housing live-in position, but am open to other opportunities, depending on what spots will be open for next year. Due to the greatness of the economy and budget cuts, there have already been GA positions eliminated next year...which is scary.

Well, those are a few things I'm looking forward to. BUT, let's take a second to recap last week. It was training for Resident Assistants and I was responsible for creating the video for Resident Mentor (RA) Recruitment. I decided to do a little YouTube spoofin, and the product is the hilarity of this video. Enjoy! (make sure to watch the out takes!)

Click HERE to see the vid if you are on an Apple or have Quicktime. Quality is 100 times better