woe for SIS...

aka the Student Information System that's replaced our old student system. I've been struggling with it for an hour now and thoroughly dislike it. Listening to all my fellow students, I don't seem to be alone in my dislike. My biggest problem is that it bounces me from login page to home page and back again without ever letting me login to the system. And my class register time is tomorrow, so I *need* to be able to be in the system. Ah great. I'll get up earlier tomorrow to try on Grounds, hopefully that works, if not, I'll be tearing my hair out in the computer lab.

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.

what an epic weekend

I haven't had such a crazy weekend since first year, and now that I'm recounting it I'm thinking "gee - did all that really happen?"

So we left last week with my fear of everything to come, and I got it all done! In fact, my take home midterm is currently sitting in my comm school mailbox with a grade on it -- but I reallllly don't want to look at it. I don't think it's going to measure up to my insane standards. Sigh.

So, last weekend, I threw a party on Friday just for the heck of it. I haven't rounded up my friends for a party since first year and felt that I was long overdue for one. Since this event I've realized that people don't really check Facebook anymore, it's aggravating! The majority of the people I invited didn't respond, so I had to track them down in person and ask them if they were coming. After I did that I thought hmm, about 20 folks are coming, that's fine. It'll be a nice, intimate crowd. Wow, little did I know, 80 people came! I had a delegation from every single club I'm currently active in, and a lot of friends from first year. I don't think I spoke in a normal voice that night, I was too busy screaming in delight at seeing people I hadn't seen in two years. Definitely a good time.

Saturday night I went to a friend's 21st, but only really went to laugh at him lounging on his bed. I'm not sure why he was in bed for his birthday party *shrug*. After that I went with friends to attend a dance party on the Corner -- definitely a good DJ, and those are really hard to come back. And the highlight of the night? I played Starcraft with a bunch of guy friends until the wee hours of the morning (or more specifically, 5am). ..was I nuts or what? 

Weekends are supposed to be a time to catch up on sleep, but I totally shorted myself. This week marks the major recruitment week for a peer mentoring organization I'm co-chair of. Speaking of which, I'm really proud of how far we've come. In two years, we've progressed from a sprawling, unfocused, disjointed group to one that close knit, very active, and much more known in the community. I'm so proud of my executive board and all we've accomplished together. Now if only all the groups my life were this wonderful, I would've been quite happy this year. Ah well.

wheee my butt's on fire!

As usual, not really. I just have the slight feeling that I'm hurtling through a black hole for this week. I have so much to do and so much due that it's slightly scary. Really scary actually.

Let's see.. take home midterm due, quantitative analysis memo due, lotsa homework due, recruitment for a club I'm president of, and drawing up the budget for my sorority. Eeeeep. This is your typical week after spring break, when everything underneath the sun decides to descend on you and see if they can crush you by sheer amount of work. Picture a chicken with bugged out eyes running around frantically. Meeeee!

I had an absolutely fantastic weekend though, it was Virginia Women's Chorus' tour weekend. This year, we went up to DC and performed in the National Cathedral! I was so excited for it, this is probably the most prestigious place I've ever performed at.

We left Grounds at 10 am on Saturday and got to DC at around noon. Weather all weekend was quite horrid though, overcast, cold, rainy, and gloomy. Following our arrival, I went on a five hour shopping marathon at Pentagon City Mall with lots of my fellow singers. That was definitely my exercise for the week, my thighs hurrrrt. Later that night I went walking on the streets of DC with one of my sorority sisters that also happen to be in the chorus. Of course, night life in a big city is definitely much more different than Charlottesville.

Although there's a lot of stuff going on (and I had the most amazing spinach artichoke dip at a diner on the corner of 18th and U), I have to say I've grown used to the secure atmosphere in C'ville. I pretty much walk down the street without a care, whereas in DC I was definitely hunched over my bag and looking around suspiciously -- probably being wayyyy too paranoid.

We performed at the service on Sunday - and wow. I only want to perform in cathedrals from now on. The vaulted ceilings give us such amazing reverb. After our last song, I swear our voices echoed for a good 10 seconds. A lot of parents came and surreptitiously filed out after our performance (or as subtle as you can be considering the front seven pews were all parents..). The Head Virgil was an absolutely wonderful man, I wish I remembered his name. If I get my hands on a picture, I'll post a picture of us in the National Cathedral.

I seemed to have done lots of extraneous work last week though, sigh. I spent five hours in the lab working on abovementioned memo, only for the professor to tell me that my group was referring to the wrong chapter. I've spent 10 hours on my sorority's budget thus far, and it's still not done. *gaspfaint* I stayed up until 4am on Friday working on random things -- I'm such a nerd, usually people stay up in the wee hours of the morning partying. Hahaha.