My Cray Cray Weekend

Yay!! I totally survived the weekend. Things were going really well this week so I kind of put off my homework since I didn't have as much reading, and I wanted to reward myself. Well... this was a mistake. I realized Saturday morning that I needed to do my reading questions and write my first draft of my issue paper for my Monday class ASAP. I had to basically start getting ready for Michael's birthday party around 7pm and I already was short on time since I woke up late that day. I left to work in my office and only had 5 or 6 hours to complete these tasks.

Then there was crisis! For my issue paper, I spent all my time researching for an article that was going nowhere. I didn't know what I was talking about and hated the topic. About 4 hours into this, I trashed my paper and decided to pick a whole different issue topic. I found a suitable (but not wonderful) replacement but by that time, I had to leave my office and get ready. This meant I had accomplished maybe about 15% of what I should have done. But at that point, I just needed to get away.

Michael's birthday was totally awesome. It was the first time I actually felt like I had partied since I have been here. I came with Melissa, Kathy, and Kyla and we looked awesome since we had all gone shopping together to get our neon wear. I was excited because I rocked some glitter hair.

The whole costume theme was like heaven to me. I absolutely love color! It was awesome to be at the party with all my HESA friends. Almost everyone was there. I got to drink my signature powered and vodka cocktail. I loved interacting with both the 1st years and the 2nd years. It felt like one big cohesive cohort. I got home around 2am, took a shower and crashed on my air mattress. What a night!

Well this meant that I had to get up in the morning and write my responses to our reading questions before 1pm. And I still allowed myself 8 hours of sleep. But even with the sleep, I still had a distracting hangover. I finished the response the best I could just in the knick of time.

But it wasn't over. I still had to write the Issue Paper in enough time to allow Kyla, my revision partner to revise it that evening. I don't know how I did it, but I managed to finish a draft by 4:30 pm! So this allowed for plenty of time to relax, shower, go grocery shopping. However, I decided to bail out on the shopping idea because it's STILL RAINING here in Bloomington and raining hard. I didn't want to deal with carrying grocery sacks and an umbrella. It just seemed like a wet disaster waiting to happen.

So I watched the Frosh video required for my Student Development class. I would have watched it with the rest of my cohort who had plans to watch it together at Wilkie, but I forgot like an idiot, because I never think to look at my calendar on Sundays. I'm glad I watched it alone though. I could pause and take notes and really take in the messages of the video. I really enjoyed the video because it was basically a longitudinal study through video of college freshman living in the dorms of stanford. I knew I was going to love it because it was basically like MTV's the Real World: College!

I realized today that there is a major difference between my Monday Higher Ed class and my Wednesday Student Development class. Watching the video and doing all the many assignments we've done now have made me realize I love working for and learning about students way more than learning about institutions and administration. I like my Student Development class WAY more! I don't really have an interest in Higher Education by itself, but I am fascinated with Student Development and the Student Affairs aspect.

So now I'm about to submit my Issue Paper and the cray cray weekend will come to an end. This week I plan to be much more aware of my assignments. My free time is slowly getting eaten up by school. But I'm loving every moment of this experience.

Smiling as always,
Cameron