another disastrous football game?

Alright, so at this point in time I don't even really want to comment on our football team anymore. Hey, they try and the student body definitely appreciates that. There are some few choice words about certain key people in the football program that I heard at last Saturday's game that I don't want to repeat however...

So let's focus on our other awesome teams, such as men's tennis, women's swim, and men's basketball (to name the ones I read about the Cav Daily today). As usual, I'm always in awe of student athletes. I can't imagine having to get up to work out at 6 am, go to class, go to afternoon practice, probably some evening workouts, and then finally getting to do work. There was actually a guy on the football team in my comm block last semester, and the poor guy was travelling when our group projects were due. I think his team worked out something like meeting for two days straight, working on it just a little bit when he was gone, and staying up all night the night before the presentation to go over any final changes.

For this time's football game though, I can cross something off the 100+ list of things to do before you graduate list -- I tailgated on the Lawn! It was a club tailgate since one of the co-chairs is a Lawnie. The way a Lawn tailgate works is that there's usually music playing from the room, a folding table set up outside with food and drinks, and games going on in the Lawn. I ate lots of wings, played some frisbee, and wished that my club had a crochet set like some other rooms were playing. Tailgating on the Lawn is quite an experience, I wish I'd had the chance to do it before. And, to cap off this day's entry -- here's a picture of our marching band at the beginning of the game.

i sound like frankenstein...

Honest to goodness, I sound like Frankenstein. Over the weekend I've developed the worst sorethroat ever, I've been croaking to all the Honor Loan applicants I've had today, and if my lymph nodes get anymore swollen I swear they'd burst. Sigh. Argh! No time to be sick! Get better now!

The good things is is that I don't have the dreaded H1N1 swine flu. (I'm glad I'm not infecting other people and don't have to take a week off school...) Although for some reason, swine flu's been hitting UVA harder than most colleges. We have around 34 cases right now at school -- resulting from one crazy 17 case increase overnight. I've been trying to figure out why that's the case, and I really haven't been able to come up with an answer. It's not as if we have significantly different living situations compared to other schools. *shrug* A combination of climate and location? Any speculations from the audience?

Parents will be glad to hear that Student Health's on top of the issue though. We've received I'd say no less than 10 related emails since school started, and will be offering vaccines later this month or October. As a morbid friend and I like to say, diseases like swine flu, SARs, avian flu and what have you are the modern black plague. Is this nature's way of population control?

And on that disturbing note...

september already?

Rahh! Say it isn't so! But before I degenerate into my usual fist-shaking-at-sky-in-attempt-to-delay-graduation bit, let's move on to an event I'm attending tonight through the comm school - a Business Advisory Services Panel.

For all you potential consultants out there, what I've learned though my Strategic Management Consulting class (and through general osmosis of information in comm school hallways), is that this industry has been hard hit by the financial crisis. There's a dearth of jobs and a huge supply of highly talented and qualified people pounding the streets. Looking a bit grim there. =(

However, a bright spot is that business advisory services have really picked up in the last couple of years. In spite of all the doom and gloom, they're actually showing a small growth in the industry (for all non business minded folks, that's major in these times). So tonight, I'll be attending a panel with AlixPartners, E&Y, PwC, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Navigant Consulting presiding. I'm really looking forward to this, it'll be an interesting three hours.

sittin' in my office...

Alright, next bit of my post will reveal a lot of my personal identity *dundundunnnn!*

I'm currently sitting in my office in the Office of the Dean of Students, holding Honor Loan office hours. I'm the Honor Loan officer this year, which means I make short term, emergency loans to students in need. This means I hold 10 office hours a week, sitting in Peabody (hey, if any of you are campus touring -- come upstairs after the tour to say hi to me!) and reviewing loan applications. It's pretty awe inspiring to realize how much the school trusts its students when I have access to a $100,000+ fund. Student self governance at its best. This is why I love this place so much. =)

I walked in about half an hour ago to all the deans frantically taking rubber wristbands out of small individual bags and repackaging them into brown paper bags. They were prepping for the new tailgating rules on the Lawn -- it's a tradition for Lawn residents to hold tailgates outside their rooms before football games, and this year is no different. However, residents are limited to 40 guests this year, controlled by wristbands designating that you're a guest of this resident. The wristbands are a cute green, but I for one am still not in favor of this new policy. This creates so much hassle for both the office and the resident. Of course, the argument is that yes you'll have to know who all your guests are, but who's to say I'll always know who my guests are? What if I open my tailgate to the new members of my CIO -- how on earth would I have gotten to known them after one general meeting? Isn't this the whole point of get togethers, to get to know people you don't? Instead, this feels like it encourages elitism by reserving the Lawn for close friends of residents, not to mention what a headache it'll be to collect wristbands at the end of the tailgate before people run off to the game in their excitement. I don't know, I have my doubts about this

end of the first week!

And whoo, what a week! I was running around from 9:30 am to about 9:00 pm everyday, but gloriously enjoying it! Apart from the requisite classes, I was also going back and forth between my clubs and hanging out with friends.

Some of the notable things that always happen the first week of class include the activities fair, Rotunda Sing, and of course the first weekend. The Student Activities Fair was held on the Lawn this year, which I actually didn't attend because I was holding office hours for one of my positions. I really wonder what that sight looked like... hmm. But the fair is when all 500+ student organizations at UVA turn out en masse, set up tables and posters, and try their best to bribe -- er, convince students to join them. =P I say bribe because since the fair usually happens on a really hot day, lots of organizations have freezepops or chilled drinks. "Free freezepop if you sign up on our mailing list!" Haha, quite crafty eh?

I'm actually dashing off to a club event soon, I'm co-chair of a peer mentoring organization that's holding a scavenger hunt today. (Any of you who are reading this and are first years, it's horribly easy to figure out who I am from this, haha. =P )