Wednesday, April 1, 2009

so what have I been up to lately?

Other than marathon six hour long meetings for the club I mentioned two posts ago, spazzing out over the various group projects, homework, papers, and exams I have, nothing much really. ..yet for some reason I seem to find myself busy from day to night. ..weird.

Schoolwork wise, I have a paper due on Friday in which I assess a company's corporate social responsibility efforts. My group chose the overall industry of toys and games, and I chose the wonderful company of Nintendo. Who doesn't love Nintendo? I heartily admit, I loved Pokemon (and maybe do still.. hehe), and the Wii? Brilliant console. I love playing it at my friend's house. As I was doing my research, I was really impressed by some of their social initiatives. They seem to do quite a bit more for their employees than the average global company -- child care leave up to two years? Letting people work two hours a day so they can take care of their child? A "Refresh Leave" system? Pretty amazing. 

I'll stop the discussion of Nintendo's CSR here, because I really should be doing that on my paper! =P But to further the discussion on CSR, what are y'alls views on corporate social responsibility? We had an absolutely amazing two classes today in the comm school, each group presented on a CSR topic of their choosing and held a Q & A session.

We had topics ranging from Conflict Diamonds to Walmart's CSR Auditing to Gender Inequality in the Augusta National Golf Course. I wish I taped the presentations so I could show everyone! (I think my classmates wouldn't be as amused though). They were so professionally done in terms of presentation, Powerpoint slides, and supplemental media. I also thoroughly enjoyed our Q & A discussion section as well. We had debates going on how to best introduce more women into the Augusta club/is it even legal to do so, to the motives behind Walmart's CSR Auditing, and to why conflict diamonds are gaining prominence in a time when they're not such a big issue anymore. Truly amazing class, I looked around today and was quite proud I was in the comm school. This is the type of education you come to UVA for.

i just walked in...

to a guy dressed in a hot pink semi formal dress draping a boa around himself.


That was extremely disturbing...



until I remembered that it's Sigma Chi's Derby Days! Derby days is Sigma Chi's annual philanthropy event that's basically one big contest between all the sororities for a week. It usually takes place in April (and somehow always during a crazy exam filled week, sigh), and there are different competitions everyday. Every sorority competes to get points, and the one with the most points wins at the end of the week. It started yesterday, with the decorating of the fraternity house. The house is open at 10 am and sororities race to find the best corners/balconies to put up their decorations in.

Today's was a lip sync contest -- all sororities get one of Sigma Chi's pledge to teach a lip sync routine to. Usually, this ends up in a contest of how we can embarrass the pledge the most -- when I last checked my email, we were debating between getting him to dance to 'Womanizer', 'Single Ladies', or 'My Lover'. He was actually pretty stoked about it too, or as stoked as a guy could be in a hot pink dress with a boa when I saw him. My sorority actually placed second for lip sync last year, so I'm  excited for this year's results. =)

Other events throughout the week include a blood drive, penny war, bike to Uganda, and Powderpuff Football. I'd like to specifically mention bike to Uganda -- exercise bikes are set up on the portion of the Lawn right in front of Old Cabel hall, and all day long passersby just see people biking on them. It's definitely an interesting sight, and the goal is to bike enough miles to go from UVA to Uganda. Definitely a brilliant fundraiser, whoever thought of it was a genius. This event makes multiple appearances a year, and it's a great hit with UVA's athletic student body.