Shiggity Shiggity Shwag
All Hail Update!
In the student affairs world, March Madness takes on a whole different meaning. To some March Madness means tournament season. To me, it means conference and travel season. Lets start at the beginning of the month shall we?
March 1 - 5: Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities (APCA) conference - Atlanta Georgia:
For the past 4 years I’ve always gone to the NACA national convention. Unfortunately with this programming board, we couldn’t afford taking too many folks to Boston for this years conference (foo). Instead I found out about a conference which was closer in Atlanta, less expensive, and served the same purpose as NACA (which is go see bands, comedians, lecturers and do a shitload of networking). APCA was a good change of pace from NACA. The acts were just as good, and less expensive. It also attracted many different schools who I really didn’t mean at NACA. I met a lot of great people there and overall had myself the same rocking time that I would have had at NACA.
Before I go on to the next week, I will now present the Fuck you of the week. This week it goes out to Delta Airlines. I had to catch a flight out of Atlanta to my next destination in Glufport MS. My flight was supposed to leave at 10:30am. I’m waiting by the gate bored off my butt for about an hour and a half. At 10:30 they tell me that the flight has been delayed to 11:00am. 11 rolls around and they tell me the flight has been delayed until 11:50am. So I have approximately another hour to work with, so I decide to go get a sandwich. I get my food, come back to the gate at 11:20am and the gate then says my flight is leaving at 11:30am and they are boarding. I present my boarding pass to the gate and they tell me “I just cleared that flight to leave, you missed it”. I argue saying they told me it was going to leave at 11:50 and why did they leave early. They tell me they called me over the intercom and I missed it. Well a lot of good that does me when I’m getting a sandwich in an area of the airport where I can’t hear the announcements. You’re an idiot lady! They took off without me, the next flight to Gulfport was at 3pm and I had to wait around for that flight. I totally hate the experience of traveling via airports. Here’s to you Delta Airlines. FUCK YOU…….you suck!
March 5 - 11: Alternative Spring Break - Bay St. Louis, Mississippi:
One of my students put together an Alternative Spring Break trip to Mississippi to help out with the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. From the moment I landed a different vibe filled the air. All around you saw downed trees, blown over billboards, and blue tarps covering roofs, and houses trashed. We took a trip to New Orleans to see what that area was like. The news did not do that place justice. We drove around a neighborhood and it was an absolute landfill. We saw houses crashed up against one another, houses turned into complete rubble roofs at floor level, boats and cars flipped over, and just total devastation. I have never seen anything like this before.
Over the course of the week we worked from 8am to 5 or 6pm helping out families who’s houses were destroyed. The first house, Phil’s house, was a complete skeleton. We needed to take down light fixtures, drywall, and the Air conditioning ducts. It was very messy work indeed. The second house we worked on, Paula’s, it was a change of scenery. Instead of destroying a house, we were actually constructing and helping paint her house. Her house was coming together really nicely, so it was good to actually see us putting things together than destroying houses.
The third house, Darwin’s, hasn’t been touched since the hurricane hit. This was actually Darwin’s first time coming back to the house since the hurricane hit 6 months ago. Behind those doors was one of the most depressing things I’ve ever seen. Everything in the house was trashed and ruined. In the whole house stood at least a foot and a half of mud, junk, gunk, sewage, and overall nastiness. The house smelled of vomit and rotting food that has been sitting around for the past 6 months. All Darwin wanted from this house was some pictures of his family, we would junk the rest. One of the happiest things I saw on the trip was after the initial minutes of the students being in shock of what they saw, they immediately said “ok, grab a shovel” and proceeded to clean up and knock out the drywall.
I describe this experience as fun/depressing/eye-opening/hopeful. Despite the homes being ravaged and destroyed, Phil, Paula, and Darwin were in very high spirits. They were all very happy we came down and volunteered our time to help them in their time of need. I still think about them since I got back, and I hope they finally get their homes and their lives back in order. This trip also gave me an appreciation of what I have around here, and I am thankful. The smiles we put on their faces made this trip worth my time, and I’m glad I came and helped.
During our off time, I thought Lisa and Glenn the ways of Rummy 500 and Lisa the ways of Sukoku. I think I created a couple of addicts.
I’m in the Whee for three days, then I take off to Kansas City for the Association of College Unions International (ACUI) tomorrow. Back on the road, should be fun.
In other news, today was rough. My aunt Barbra died of lung cancer last night in Hawaii. This had me bummed pretty much all day today. I’ll go into it later. May she rest in peace.
In happier news, I can’t wait to go to Vegas this June.
I must finish packing now and hit the hey. Sure this was a long entry, but this should hold you for the next couple of weeks.
Hope your day went better than mine.
ROCK!
In the student affairs world, March Madness takes on a whole different meaning. To some March Madness means tournament season. To me, it means conference and travel season. Lets start at the beginning of the month shall we?
March 1 - 5: Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities (APCA) conference - Atlanta Georgia:
For the past 4 years I’ve always gone to the NACA national convention. Unfortunately with this programming board, we couldn’t afford taking too many folks to Boston for this years conference (foo). Instead I found out about a conference which was closer in Atlanta, less expensive, and served the same purpose as NACA (which is go see bands, comedians, lecturers and do a shitload of networking). APCA was a good change of pace from NACA. The acts were just as good, and less expensive. It also attracted many different schools who I really didn’t mean at NACA. I met a lot of great people there and overall had myself the same rocking time that I would have had at NACA.
Before I go on to the next week, I will now present the Fuck you of the week. This week it goes out to Delta Airlines. I had to catch a flight out of Atlanta to my next destination in Glufport MS. My flight was supposed to leave at 10:30am. I’m waiting by the gate bored off my butt for about an hour and a half. At 10:30 they tell me that the flight has been delayed to 11:00am. 11 rolls around and they tell me the flight has been delayed until 11:50am. So I have approximately another hour to work with, so I decide to go get a sandwich. I get my food, come back to the gate at 11:20am and the gate then says my flight is leaving at 11:30am and they are boarding. I present my boarding pass to the gate and they tell me “I just cleared that flight to leave, you missed it”. I argue saying they told me it was going to leave at 11:50 and why did they leave early. They tell me they called me over the intercom and I missed it. Well a lot of good that does me when I’m getting a sandwich in an area of the airport where I can’t hear the announcements. You’re an idiot lady! They took off without me, the next flight to Gulfport was at 3pm and I had to wait around for that flight. I totally hate the experience of traveling via airports. Here’s to you Delta Airlines. FUCK YOU…….you suck!
March 5 - 11: Alternative Spring Break - Bay St. Louis, Mississippi:
One of my students put together an Alternative Spring Break trip to Mississippi to help out with the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. From the moment I landed a different vibe filled the air. All around you saw downed trees, blown over billboards, and blue tarps covering roofs, and houses trashed. We took a trip to New Orleans to see what that area was like. The news did not do that place justice. We drove around a neighborhood and it was an absolute landfill. We saw houses crashed up against one another, houses turned into complete rubble roofs at floor level, boats and cars flipped over, and just total devastation. I have never seen anything like this before.
Over the course of the week we worked from 8am to 5 or 6pm helping out families who’s houses were destroyed. The first house, Phil’s house, was a complete skeleton. We needed to take down light fixtures, drywall, and the Air conditioning ducts. It was very messy work indeed. The second house we worked on, Paula’s, it was a change of scenery. Instead of destroying a house, we were actually constructing and helping paint her house. Her house was coming together really nicely, so it was good to actually see us putting things together than destroying houses.
The third house, Darwin’s, hasn’t been touched since the hurricane hit. This was actually Darwin’s first time coming back to the house since the hurricane hit 6 months ago. Behind those doors was one of the most depressing things I’ve ever seen. Everything in the house was trashed and ruined. In the whole house stood at least a foot and a half of mud, junk, gunk, sewage, and overall nastiness. The house smelled of vomit and rotting food that has been sitting around for the past 6 months. All Darwin wanted from this house was some pictures of his family, we would junk the rest. One of the happiest things I saw on the trip was after the initial minutes of the students being in shock of what they saw, they immediately said “ok, grab a shovel” and proceeded to clean up and knock out the drywall.
I describe this experience as fun/depressing/eye-opening/hopeful. Despite the homes being ravaged and destroyed, Phil, Paula, and Darwin were in very high spirits. They were all very happy we came down and volunteered our time to help them in their time of need. I still think about them since I got back, and I hope they finally get their homes and their lives back in order. This trip also gave me an appreciation of what I have around here, and I am thankful. The smiles we put on their faces made this trip worth my time, and I’m glad I came and helped.
During our off time, I thought Lisa and Glenn the ways of Rummy 500 and Lisa the ways of Sukoku. I think I created a couple of addicts.
I’m in the Whee for three days, then I take off to Kansas City for the Association of College Unions International (ACUI) tomorrow. Back on the road, should be fun.
In other news, today was rough. My aunt Barbra died of lung cancer last night in Hawaii. This had me bummed pretty much all day today. I’ll go into it later. May she rest in peace.
In happier news, I can’t wait to go to Vegas this June.
I must finish packing now and hit the hey. Sure this was a long entry, but this should hold you for the next couple of weeks.
Hope your day went better than mine.
ROCK!