Bad Back

First of all, I finished 4 drafts of fire posters and sent them off to Brian. I still think they need a little touch up but at least we know the look I'm going for. Brian will be on vacation the next few days so I'll get feedback on that later.

Unfortunately, I spent my afternoon at the hospital here in Williamsport. I have a lower back infection that is getting worse and I went to see if they could do anything for it. They prescribed me some antibiotics and it's a wait and see thing. If it gets worse, they will have to perform a procedure. This has happened to me once before so I'm not too nervous. Just disappointed. Also, this probably spells the end of my Civil War Battlefield marathon I had planned for the weekend. The plan was to drive to Lynchburg, VA on Friday and over the weekend hit Appomattox Court House, Petersburg, Richmond, Spotsylvania, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, Fredricksburg, Manassas, Monocacy, The Antietam, and Gettysburg. I don't even know if I would have got to all of those but the chance is now very slim.

Work

Ever since Connections started, my days have been simplified. Instead of taking tours and bouncing around from place to place, I walk to my office and work on my projects. Although I value what the tours brought to my view and perspective of Penn College, it's good to sit down and just work on the projects I've been tasked with. I think the reference card is going to be approved. The fire safety posters are nearly done. We're making progress on the Recycling marketing and I've started a new project working on procedures. I also think this blog is going pretty well. I met with Brian before lunch and we had a solid conversation. I hope I didn't take up too much of his time as I ended up having a lot to say. I've started to think about various projects to end my experience and help Penn College attract another intern next summer. I'm learning a bit more about what I will be doing this fall in my assistantship. I'm getting a little anxious about where I will be but I'm confident things will be great!

Morning Walk!

So here's what I experience every morning when I walk to work. It's best not to watch it full screen as my camera is not that powerful for videos and you lose a lot of clarity. I made another video of my office but it is too big to load to the blog. Unfortunately, if I can't load large videos, my New York video may be a bust. Or I'll create a YouTube account which I reeeallly don't want to do. I'll figure it out.

Oh boy!

So I have discovered in my extreme laziness of the weekend that all that sitting around caused a possible pinched nerve in my lower back. It is really uncomfortable to sit. But I'm not complaining too much since Sara Hillis has a bulging disc in her back and feel that would be even worse.

As far as work today, I finished the draft of the reference card for RAs. It looks pretty good. Had a little trouble with the formatting but I think it should work out. Lee liked it and I passed it along to Brian and Tim. I then started playing with the information needed for the recycling posters. I'm not sure how it's going to work but we shall see! Here's to a better day tomorrow!

Post Weekend Review: Heat!!!

OMG! It was so hot this weekend that I threw all plans out the window. I watched the World Cup Soccer match between the US and Ghana, which was a losing effort on Saturday and did my laundry Sunday night. Those were the only times I went outside. I was perfectly fine staying inside, posting New York Pics on Facebook, and creating a New York Picture video for this blog. I also started researching a possible Civil War Battlefield Tour for the 4th of July weekend. Like the New York Trip, it's ambitious and I'm not sure if there will be time to cover it all.

Senior Visit Day!!

After a morning of putting together the GoogleWave tutorial for the Recycling project, I helped out with Senior Visit Day. Penn College invites students who are going to be entering their senior year of high school to come visit the campus. From what I understand, these are students who have already shown an interest in Penn College. I assisted with the tour of Rose Street Apartments, basically greeting and delegating visitors to one of our 5 tour guides. It was a lot of fun hanging out with the Summer RAs and Adam, a Conference RA. We also received pizza from Wegman's which was delicious!

As far as the tours go, most were really short tours. I did not go on one of the tours but I remember the tours I gave at Bailey Hall at Minnesota. I was always 20 to 30 minutes and I showed them everything and had time for questions. I will say I am a little bias as we had to really push Bailey Hall as a place to live since it wasn't on the Main Campus of Minnesota. From what I gather, the emphasis for this Senior Visit group was to see a room. Also, this group of "tourists" may not have started their research yet. It just seemed really short to me but short and sweet may work here!

We called it a day at 2pm. Plans for the weekend: I'm probably going to head north and see the Baseball Hall of Fame, maybe up to Lake Placid to see Herb Brooks Arena, and then work on the pictures I took in NYC! Definitely taking it easy tonight though.

Recycling

This morning I met with Katie, Krista, and Kyle Baker (Summer RA) to discuss recycling ideas. I did a bunch of research on what other schools are doing and also discovered RecycleMania, which is a nation wide recycling competition. There were a lot of great ideas that we could totally "borrow", although Penn College is registered as a team.

Once we got into the meeting, there were a lot of ideas but Kyle had a great idea keying on the statement "What's Your Number?" Plastics with numbers 1-7 can be recycled, it's kind of humorous and we can take it several different ways. Krista also had the idea of "Go Green with Penn College Blue!" which the recycling bins in the rooms are blue. Both are solid ideas. Then I started talking and things got confusing. There was some sort of communication issue going on but it was hard to identify and fix. From my perspective, Katie, Krista, and Kyle were focusing more on what they can do with those two examples while I continued to look for more ideas. At one point, I switched over to talking about what we could do with their ideas but that might have made things more confusing. I'm not sure if there are different philosophical things going on or if there was just too much trying to be discussed at once but hopefully things will go a little better next time. I definitely need to take some time and figure out how I can better communicate.

I continued looking at Recycling information the rest of the afternoon. Kyle passed along some information and ideas and I had the idea to use GoogleWave to communicate and share information because I can see our in boxes being overloaded. Brian and I have been using it and it has worked out but I think for the recycling project to be sustainable after Krista and I leave. or even Kyle, someone can see what we've done and picked up where we left off. I'm not sure if this will help communication but at least we can keep information organized in a single space. I'll see what they say.

Went to Wegman's to pick up some food supplies. Two things I am missing from Midwest grocery stores: microwavable bbq pulled pork and cheese curds. I can't find them any where in Wegman's and I'm thinking about branching out to a different store in my quest.

Surprise!!!

So Friday is Ashley's birthday and the Residence Life staff have been working on a surprise party. Apparently, Ashley loves celebrating office birthdays, organizing some elaborate extravaganzas in the past. The staff decided to have a surprise lunch at LeJeune Chef! The rest of the staff arrived at the restaurant early and we strategized how to surprise her. This was kind of funny to listen into because we kept changing what we were going to do. We finally decided on something and when Ashley arrived we unleashed the surprise! She was totally surprised, quote "I'm not even in birthday mode!" (This tickled my funny bone all afternoon!) The lunch was delicious. I had some beef dish, the name of which I cannot pronounce.

As far as the work day goes, I'm getting close to completing the RA reference card. I'm having trouble getting things lined up but have the bulk of my information. In the evening, I went to the Connections dinner, which was delicious. However, I had not seen the Links in a while. So, they razzed me a bit for that. I also showed up in shorts and a t-shirt, which they razzed me for not looking professional. I informed them my work day ends at 4:30 but they were hearing none of that! Haha! Good day!

Rainy Day

It's raining really hard here. Good day to be inside. The ResLife staff is interviewing another candidate for a coordinator position, I think. I had a short meeting with Brian. He wanted to check in on how I'm doing here, which I'm doing great. I think he feels a little bad that we haven't spent more time in conversations as he has had a busy summer with building a new residence hall, interviewing candidates, handling the end of the year closing, and preparing for next fall's opening. He's a busy guy.

I think part of having an intern is so they can continue to move forward with projects or ideas they had over the course of the year. I'm not sure who would work on these things or who would have the time if they did not have an intern. Basically, even if it wasn't me as their intern, I'm glad they have the opportunity to host an ACUHO-I intern.

Connections!!

Connections has officially started and the campus is buzzing! Nearly every employee is wearing a connections polo. The Residence Life staff is helping with check in. Since Link training is over, I no longer need to have a schedule printed for me by Barb. It's kind of sad that I won't be making my daily visits to the ResLife office and I won't hear the awesome/funny/weird conversations they have. However, it also means I won't wonder each day what my schedule is going to look like and I can plan my work week more efficiently. I really hope the Links' video went over well!

Post Weekend Review: New York, NY!!

So, this weekend I went to visit Tim and Lindsay Amundson in New York City. Tim is one of my best friends from the University of Minnesota and I was the best man in Tim and Lindsay's wedding. We had been talking about a possible visit to NYC for a long time but I've never had the money or time to go. Tim and Lindsay are moving back to Minnesota at the end of June so I had to go! Plus, it was my birthday weekend, so NYC was my present from me.

From Williamsport, I drove 2 hrs and 45 mins to Dover, NJ where I caught the Amtrak. Tim met me at Penn Station and we went to eat. After that, we went to their local pub where Lindsay's friends threw her and Tim a surprise going away party! Good times were had by all. The next morning, Tim and I hit the ground running with the touristy spots. In order, this is what we accomplished over the weekend:

Saturday

First New York Subway ride

Chrysler Building (outside, plus my first NYC taxi ride!)

Grand Central Station

Chinatown/Canal Street (Lots of replica stuff, I heard "Oakley, Rolex, Gucci" a lot)

Walked over Brooklyn Bridge

Grimaldi's Pizza (New York Style Pizza, delicious!!!)

Brooklyn Bridge Park

Boat Tour of the Hudson (aka view Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, USS Intrepid, Chelsea Pier)

Battery Park

Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian (George Gustav Heye Center)

Wall Street Bull

Outside of New York Stock Exchange

Outside of Federal Hall

Ground Zero (Lots of construction here, tough to see and understand what is what)

NHL Pro Shop (Lot's of Blackhawks stuff, aka awesome!)

Outside of Radio City Music Hall

Sunset at The Rockefeller Center (Amazing view, probably better than at the Empire)

Mexican Radio (It's a restaurant, amazing food!!)

Times Square at Night

Sunday

John Lennon Tribute in Central Park (Went early to get pics before tons of people showed up)

- Strawberry Fields

- Dakota Hotel (Across the street from Central Park)

Shake Shack (Great little burger place!)

Columbia University Campus (One of the original colonial colleges! Beautiful campus!)

Grant's Tomb (Pretty awesome little museum, got some sweet pics and video)

Central Park (Took some pictures, tossed a baseball around, there is so much to see there!)

After Central Park, I was beat. I'd been in the heat all weekend and decided to throw in the towel. We went back to Tim's, I gathered my gear, and pushed west to Williamsport. I got home about 10pm. I may have been exhausted but it was well worth it.

I will recommend two things: 1. make sure you have an extra camera battery with you at all times and 2. you can do so much more with someone who knows the city and subway really well. I would not have seen half the things had it not been for Tim. I'm not sure how I'm going to post the pictures. There's kind of a lot. Maybe a movie? We'll see. Overall, great weekend! Thanks to Tim and Lindsay for their hospitality!

End of Links Training

In the morning, I stopped in to the ResLife office to pickup my schedule for the day. While I was there, Barb, Erin the Friday Work Study student, and I followed up on the bulletin board project. Jerikah apparently had a ball cutting out little pictures of items to have and not to have in the Residence Halls. Erin, who was previously in Graphic Design, had the duty of posting everything. They picked my brain a bit more for the project and we also talked a little student affairs.

Eventually, I had to leave and help with with the last portions of Links training. The students made an awesome video to introduce the students to Penn College. The administration really liked it, saying it was the best ever! They had a little work to do on the closing but overall sweet video!

Then we went back to do some scenario training as a wrap-up to all the things the Links have learned. I played the role of student and asked about going to class and getting Penn State tickets. I must say all of these students are really prepared to help the new students with orientation. They all gave great answers to the scenarios and they have retained a lot of information. Penn College has a solid orientation leader training process!

After that we unpacked some linens and called it a day! I'm off to New York!!!

Fire Safety Poster and Avation Tour

It was tough to go to work after an awesome concert last night but it had to be done. In the morning, I continued to work on Fire Poster Research. I reviewed Brian's comments on the Google Wave for the fire safety poster/video. Apparently there is already a video used so I am anxious to see that. I put more ideas to paper as far as a poster goes, I really want to find or make a fireman's cross logo. We'll see if I can find that or accomplish that.

In the afternoon, we had a tour of the Aviation Center. What a cool tour! I'm glad I brougt my camera to take a few pics. The Aviation Center is connected to the Williamsport Regional Airport and is part of the school of transportation. They work on planes, engines, study the aerodynamics, and all sorts of stuff. It was awesome! This is the last of our academic tours. I would say we ended on a great note! Here are some pics:

Bryan Adams!!!

So, I'm sitting in the Residence Life office and Elliott Strickland walks into the office and asks if I want to go to the Bryan Adams concert at the Community Arts Center. I hesitated for a moment because I have a lot of homework to take care of before my New York trip this weekend. Then the moron truck hit me and I immediately said yes, receiving a free ticket!

The concert was amazing!!! It was an acoustic set on a nearly empty stage. The tickets were on the floor, about 13th row. He played a lot of songs I recognized, told a few humorous stories, and took a couple requests. He came out for a 4 song encore and was about to leave the stage but the crowd response was so strong, he stuck around to play 3 more songs! To add a little twist, he informed us that they have been recording their last few shows to possibly make a live acoustic album and would record this entire show!!!! I really hope he uses the Williamsport recording cause I would so buy that CD!

Directors Meeting and a New Project!!

This morning we had a meeting with the student development directors. I worked on a little fire safety research before that. They discussed some reorganization of the "Awareness" weeks and talked about having one group take care of those instead of trying to recruit a whole new group. They also talked about Penn College Promotion and really keying in on the Blue Crew, which apparently started out as a tshirt fundraiser. They're also thinking about using that with the alumni. Elliott Strickland, who was leading the meeting, went on a weird email tangent but it was really about using Penn College signature lines properly. It was kind of one of those "just kidding" moments.


After working on some more campus fire safety research, I met with Kas to discuss check out procedures. I had asked Tim if he had any information and he provided a diagram, which was kind of confusing:

Kas and I really looking to improve this process. I was very involved in the University of Minnesota's process and believe I know it pretty well. Kas and I had a great conversation about this and I think we're going to solve the issue.