Summer and Longwood

This summer has rapidly gone by and I have found that I have nearly 1 month until I head back to school for my final year. This whole process has happened far too quickly and I truly feel that I just need to go to college for the rest of my life. It has too many upsides with short classroom days, friends in close proximity and nearly every day open to get work done. Not to mention the friendships that were made over the years and the memories that we share. It baffles me to know that after the next 10 months, many of the people whom I have come into contact with at Longwood I will most likely never see again.

I have made friends while working various other jobs over the years, and I feel that I have a good support base for when I am forced to leave the college atmosphere and continue into the world of adulthood. It will just be a large mental state change for me. It will no longer bewhat parties to go to for the weekend and which club meeting to attend, but instead will be which bill do I pay for first and which improvement around the house or apartment should I work on first.

Right now I, plan on focusing on the end of my summer working and then preparing to have another great year at school. You'd better believe that I plan to live it up during my last year at Longwood. I know that it will forever be missed in my heart after I leave. I am jealous for the future generations for all of the great things that the school is adding and how I wish that we had it when I came in as a Freshman.... especially the dominant basketball team that is soon to come!

Birthday/ Senior Week

My 21st Birthday was yesterday. I spent most of the day with a severe headache and feeling woozy. Sleep I found is an essential desire for one who has just celebrated the festivities. I have found that during my time here at Longwood with the vast majority of the school gone, that the town of Farmville is practically deserted. There is never anyone walking around near the bookstore or around Curry and Frazer. It becomes a rarity to see people out on Iler field hanging out or a group of more than two walking down Brock Commons. It resembles a fancy ghost town at night, without any cars on the road past 9PM. The usual Friday and Saturday night hustle and bustle of Longwood Students that grace the town on their way to or from a party is minimal if at all visible. I can now say that I've seen Longwood in a much different life when it solely becomes the full-time, year round faculty on the campus. Those who keep the place running you'd think wouldn't have much to do over the summers between semesters, but it is visibly apparent in there faces that there is more than meets the eye.

CHI walk with Virginia Tech Remembrance

Last night, CHI moved with a special purpose across the Colonnades walkway. CHI is a secret society on campus which maintains and promotes the spirit of Longwood. They failed to pass out CHI droppings, but realized the significance of that the spirit of Longwood must be put on the backburner because last night, April 16, symbolized the first year of remembrance of the tragedy that happened the Virginia Tech.

The walk brought a humbling effect to the crowd the watched eagerly as the unknown and hooded students came walking through. The signs that were posted in Dorrill Dining Hall and on Joanie on the Stonie both clearly stated that there would be no droppings handed out. Droppings are the "all important" collectibles that students collect giving them a 'piece' of Longwood spirit. They are very rare to come by and even with the prior announcement that they would not be handing out droppings, there was still a rather large turnout despite the cold weather.

During the walk, CHI members who normally wear blue robes with a white shaw and a blue Rotunda decided to sport a different look for the occasion of the night. The Hokie orange was shown and a maroon Rotunda instead of the usual blue.

During the middle of the walk, the CHI train stopped just before Joanie on a Ponie to announce that they wanted a moment of silence to remember those who's lives were lost and affected by the events that happened exactly one year ago. Some people embraced others, some held hands, and many others stood and kept to themselves thinking of those who were affected by the events. It is not something that will ever go away and Virginia Tech has left a lasting affect on the entire nation. Campuses nation wide had services, vigils or remembrances to honor those who had fallen. Virginia Tech has widely affected schools in other ways as well in attempts to change the campus safety policies.

CHI appeared to not want the distraction of droppings to prevent those in attendance from getting the message that the walk last night was solely Longwood's spirit recognizing Virginia Tech and all that the school has been through. Hopefully the group will continue to recognize the most important things in life and continue to put that first and foremost above all aspects of life.

Intern Position

Sometimes it is better to be lucky than anything else in the world. The chance that life is going to follow its pattern just as they should is very slim. There are twists and turns that take place every second in the world that I believe are pre-planned thoughts by a higher being. Not all people may see things the same way that I do, but it is my belief and we all have a right to believe what we want.

Last summer I worked as an intern at Dominion Resources in Media Relations. This position came to me just by chance. I had been working with a neighbor of mine, Billy Davis, who owns his own landscaping company and does various jobs around Virginia and sometimes neighboring states. I was working with him through the summer around my schedule with Dick's Sporting Good's and after one night of working at Dick's, they told me that they didn't expect the volume to be as heavy the next day as they had thought and that they would not need me to work. Well God works in mysterious ways and I immediately went to talk to Billy after getting home from work and he said it would be fine for me to work with him the next morning.

The next day, I rose before the roosters crowwed and went with Billy to work a job in residential area of Cary St. On the way, he told me that the lady we were working for worked at Dominion, which happens to be where my father works as well. Once there and working, I was frequently moving from the backyard to the front picking up tree's and planting them in holes I'd dug in the backyard. To my luck, or God's work, I was leaving Billy's truck after picking up a tree from the front when a lady walked out. I saw her Dominion ID and thought that maybe she would know my father, because apparently he knows at all at the 'Big D.' She said that she did not know my father, but then we got to talking and she found out that my major is in Communication Studies. She then began wondering what the heck I was doing manual labor for when Dominion has an intern program. I began communicating with this lady, Irene Cimino, at least once every two weeks during the school semester, and eventually I landed a job with Dominion the following summer.

Now, after working for an entire summer and winter at Dominion, I found myself almost back to looking for other jobs and wondering what the world has to offer. I had been observing the Dominion website and monitoring my position from the last 8 months to apply when I had the free time to be careful and particular about the details. I recently went back to the Intern application website and found that it was no longer posted. They had taken the job posting down and I felt that I might have missed out on a golden opportunity to go back to a place where I had a great history and experience in the position. To my luck though, the boss of my former manager personally sent me an Email requesting that Dominion would like to have me back if I was still planning on doing so. Life's plan takes its twist and turns in mysterious ways, I've learned that sometimes it is a hassle to try and keep up with each individual one, but eventually everything will work out just as it was planned to do.

If you'd like to read more about the twists and turns that take place in your life or other people's personal lives, I'd like to recommend a book that I am currently stuck in the middle of, but anxiously waiting to finish, When God Winks. Check it out.

Politics of Today

2008 is an election year today's news has been found to be dominated heavily by just that. Election coverage can be found nightly on almost every news television station. If not on a TV, then the coverage is definitely covered in newspapers and Internet sites alike. One topic that I have been attempting to pay close attention to has been the energy crisis debate. With my history of working for Dominion Resources, I have a new understanding about the energy field and some of the many things that go on within a power company in our nation. The candidates have debated and made their cases. I know that I have already decided to back Barack Obama, now it's almost time for you to decide who the candidate is that you plan to support.

Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama have all laid out plain and simple what their plan is for our energy future. The only difference is the importance on each candidates list and how hard it was to find their 'simple' plans. Hillary Clinton listed issues on her website to what I believed were the most important to her campaign, where Energy was listed as the fourth out of fifteen. It sat only behind strengthening the middle class, affordable health care, and ending the war in Iraq. I think that I can accept that for now. She has an comprehensive 12-point plan to changing America's current state. She wants to incorporate carbon emission programs forcing utilities and industries to make cleaner and more efficient energy. One of the big things for electric utilities is clean coal technology, because this would force many companies to invest heavily in changing over their current plant into a different view.

John McCain's energy plan I believe was the most simple out of the three candidates. Just because it is simple however, does not mean it is the best solution for our future. John McCain's website shows his plan, but also his lack of interest in this topic of our nation's energy. McCain has a three line plan to solve all of our problems.

"He has offered common sense approaches to limit carbon emissions by harnessing market forces that will bring advanced technologies, such as nuclear energy, to the market faster, reduce our dependence on foreign supplies of energy, and see to it that America leads in a way that ensures all nations do their rightful share."

I dont know about you, but for me, I'd like a little bit more reassurance about what is to come with out nation. Renewable energies, fossil fuels, and global warming as a result of much energy consumption is currently a big factor on my radar and will only become a larger part if I am to join an electric company post graduation.

Barack Obama decided to go into the most depth with his plan for changing our nation's energy future. A detailed 19-point plan as to the changes he wants to implement are led into by a section discussing the problems that we currently have. On his website, he is the only candidate to lay out the problems before beginning to discuss the solutions that he wants to put into place. He also includes his speech on energy and his energy plan. For a candidate who is willing to place that much information for his plans out in the public, there is no way he can run for election with a platform such as that and not implement those plans if elected. I believe that he will bring a sense of energy security that this nation needs in the future.

We all know that it will not happen overnight, but every knows that good things take time. I don't expect Barack Obama to be an instantaneous hit with the nation immediately after he takes over, especially while adjusting to new members in the Senate and Congress. Given the proper amount of time, I expect to see some wonderful changes to come in the future though that will make our nation as a whole a much better place to live.

Procrastination

A friend once said to me that procastination is like masturbation, because in the end, you're only fucking yourself.

This phrase used to mean very little to me until I began working on a group video project. This group project consisted of myself and two other group members who were given the task of coming up with two different videos and scripts as a group and then another video package that was put together individually by myself. In working with my group, I quickly learned that waiting to the last minute to try and finish a project especially with limited resources in a definite no-can-do. The other life-long lesson that I learned is that it is near impossible for someone put together something flawlessly the first time with a program that they have never used. Has anyone ever tried doing work on Final Cut Express?! Most of you probably have not simply because it is a program for Mac computers... second of all, it is not offered standard with a Mac computer. It is an expensive add on program that that is only used by those who make take the steps to purchase and install it on their computers. After that, there is an 1162-page instruction guide on how to use every aspect of Final Cut Express. The majority of people in life have never read a book that was over 1000 pages, yet alone an instruction manual for a random program that discusses how to crop out a fraction of a second. Learning a program such as FCE is something that takes time and like mom used to say "good things take time." So to all you readers, realize that good things take time and you can't do something very well if you choose to procrastinate. You'll only screw yourself over in the end.

~Royaly Screwed

Networking

If there is one piece of crucial information that I would give to youngsters these days, then it would be to network. Meet and talk to every single person that you possibly can in life. There will be some people that you will run into that you might not think are that significant, but every person in this world brings something different and unique to the table. I have found it to be very easy for me to network in life because I am a very open and friendly person who likes to meet others. I have no problem joining into an existing conversation if I see it working for my own betterment.

Networking is something that I have long had a natural ability to do, but it wasn't until recently that I realized that such things don't just happen by chance. In a book that was bought for me by my ex-girlfriend's mother as a Christmas gift, When God Winks, I have found that everything in life happens for a reason. I discovered that the people that we come into contact with all fall into place for a certain reason. The planets align and the stars move into place so that things may happen according to how the Lord wants them to be done. The author, Squire Rushnell, talks about how the power of coincidence guides your life. I've found that God has played a significant role in guiding my life and keeping me on the right path. This straight and narrow has also begun setting me up for success in the future.

Rushnell talks about how he got his break into radio from walking down a main road to the main town and also attempting to hitch-hike on the way. His radio broadcasting idol happens to pick him up on the way and personally knows his interviewer and asks Rushnell to tell his interviewer hello. Interesting the way that things worked out for Rushnell. My breaks in life have come similarly.

The summer before my sophomore year of college, I was working at Cold Stone Creamery and was looking for a second job with the lack of hours that I was starting to receive. I talked with my neighbor who happens to own his own landscaping company and said that I could work for a few weeks before I had to go back to college. After a few weeks, we had a new job and Billy told me that the lady whose house we were going to work on happened to work at Dominion and knew my good friend and neighbor Billy Warf. Deciding to play innocent, when I saw her walk out of her house that morning, I conveniently saw her Dominion ID badge. I asked her if she knew my dad and we talked for a while. It ended with me telling her I was a Communication Studies student and her sayins to 'keep in contact.' The following summer, I got a job as an intern at Dominion.

During the spring semester of my next year back at school, I was working on an assignment for a professor and he asked me to research information about the Richmond Times-Dispatch. During my search, I came across a sweet woman by the name of Andrea. She was kind enough to talk to me for just under a half-hour. At the end of our conversation, she gave me all of her contact information and said that if I'd like to come by and sit in on a meeting, take a tour, or just see what things are like at a newspaper station, that she'd be more than willing to help out and set up arrangements.

I have yet to explore the final option, but all of these things happened by chance. Things fell into my lap. Many networking opportunities that people have in their lives, they don't pay attention to the significance of it. Chances to network remain all around us in all facets of life. A connection could start from a friend, girlfriend, boyfriend, parent, cousin or anyone else for that matter. Be aware that networking is an essential tool for the world that we live in. It can and will get you far in many places. The only exception to the rule being, if you are the CEO's daughter or son, you will always get a foot in to places. No networking necessary for you except to be born healthy and your parent will be all of the networking that you need in life.

Injury Free: No Fun Leagues

The Big Diesel keeps going. The Kidd is no longer a kid. Big Ben's ticking is no longer like clockwork. The NBA is supposed to be the top league, however the top players are not given the fair chance to shine because of old laggards who have decided that they are not ready to give up the millions, fame, and idea that they may not have the same game at 30+ that they did when they were 22.

There is so much talent that is either in or near the NBA level. There is even one player averaging 37 points per game in the NBADL. Go look it up and give him some more hype so then maybe he’ll actually get a shot at the NBA sometime soon. The league works to protect its valuable assets almost like the NFL’s new rules where you can’t lay a blade of grass on the quarterback once the ball is released from his hands. The NBA now has a touch foul and anything remotely dangerous is considered an intentional foul to protect the safety of the players and hopefully keep them around longer.

Everyone who played the game 20 years ago will say that the league is entirely different than it was when they played and that is the truth. NBA doesn’t care about the athletes as long as they can make money. The one reason that these rules have been initiated is to protect the ‘valuable’ and marketable guys like Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, Greg Oden, and LeBron James. As long as those guys can stay healthy and bring in the big bucks, then the guys at the top could care less about the rest.

Its the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Do you happen to feel like you have a temperature over 100 degrees? Maybe you are having bodily chills or a dry cough and headache? The runny nose will not stop and you are always feeling tired. Well, my friend, I want to let you know that you are experiencing symptoms of Influenza also known as the flu!

The flu season can start as early as October and last until May. The flu affects large numbers of people nationwide. College campuses are one of the more heavily hit places each year because it provides a breeding ground for the virus to spread with roommates, classsmates and friends sharing food and drinks. It can spread as easily as a drop for liquid from someones mouth or nose.

There are many ways to attempt to prevent the flu such as avoiding others who are sick with it. This is a highly unlikely method though, so flu vaccinations is probably a close second. They are administered by doctors offices, clinic, and now even your neighborhood friendly Wal-Mart store. Be sure to wash your hands frequently during the flu season because it can kill many of the diseases that people carry around.

After aquiring the flu, ways to get rid of it are to drink plenty of fluids, medicines and my all-time favorite which is to sleep more. Fluids to clean your system and sleeping are the most effective ways though because the body itself is a healing machine made to rid the body of waste and diseases.

Good luck and good riddance. Flu season 2007-2008 signing off.

We can be heroes, for just one day...

Desperate times call for desperate measures and some of these measures a parent just cannot make on their own and nor could I.

Since I can remember, I've always wanted a baby daughter in my life. I intend to spoil her and treat her as my little angel. A boy has kind of come second on my list but I definitely want one of them as well. In either case, I cannot even begin to fathom what I would do if the situation were to arise where I might have to potentially put them in harms way. Many men and women in the past have taken things into their hands when it came to putting their life first or their children's.

The picture to the right is that of a family in Germany where the building was ablaze and smoke was flowing from the building. The child's mother and father are in the background, and the gentleman with his hands up in the air is the uncle of the baby. I know that I would not be able to drop my child from any distance with adrenaline or not. The fact that the uncle saved this little 9-month old boy's life by ripping him from the arms of his mother and dropping him to safety below of a police officer is astonishing.

The uncle in this story just happened to be in the right place at the right time to make the pressing decision to make an attempt to save this child's life from smoke inhalation. Unfortunately for the uncle, on the same day that he became a hero and could celebrate, he also had to weep for the loss of his other nephew who passed away in the fire.

For more on this story, Click Here.


In another instance, the Washington Redskins lost one the heart and soul of their defensive unit on November 27th 2007. Sean Taylor was at home with his girlfriend, Jackie Garcia and his daughter Jackie, when an intruder came into his home. Taylor forced his girlfriend and daughter to lock themselves in a room while he went out to confront the intruders. Unfortunately, Taylor was shot his femoral artery and died in a Miami hospital after fighting a day for his life.

Taylor was not as lucky as the uncle in the previous story to come away with his life; however, he did sacrifice his life to save the greater good of his girlfriend and daughter. He will forever be remembered for that act of love and compassion regardless of his hard hits and off field incidents. A last impression is many times a lasting one.

The truth is that there are many stories on a daily basis where people sacrifice their own safety and put their life on the line day after day. We commonly recognize the major incidents with media coverage on TV such as Taylor's case, or a situation where the story is so bizarre and eye catching like a baby falling from a window that we rarely notice the ones in our everyday life. Police officers, cops, lifeguards, our nation's soldiers and others around the nation and the world on a daily basis put their life in situations where they could very easily be harmed. The have learned through their training some tactics to lessen the danger, but nonetheless, they lay it on the line for people that they do not know and have never come into contact with. If we as citizens could look past the differences between each other and be willing to lend a helping hand when one is in need then maybe, just maybe we could be heroes for just one day.

Speech

Rhetoric is the art of persuasion and is used daily in life to try change the opinion or viewpoint of someone. The basic goal of rhetoric is to try and show a listener and/or reader that the points that you are arguing for are more valid points than those who are in opposition. One small piece of advice though is to not try and outdo a rhetorician with rhetoric.

The three most basic principles of rhetoric that are used are ethos, pathos and logos. These principles when used well can be very efffective; if not, then persuasion will not take place and one might lose their argument. I'm here to tell you a little story about a recent experience with rhetoric from a first hand point of view.

Elders, parents, and teachers will almost always believe that what they know is correct and somehow a step above what another may believe. Mind you that opinion and bias may come into effect here from my personal experience. I have recently been put into a situation where I've wanted to argue a point to the extreme of where I got things my way. I know that life is not fair and things will not always turnout according to how you want them to. In trying to get a teacher's point of view changed, I tried using logos which is the logical appeal and use of reasoning.

My logos appeal was essentially that things are better than they were before and I had shown much improvement from the beginning of the road. This was not seen the same way by my 'superior' but more or less seen as the fact that it was expected to be much better and then flipped back around saying that it was better yes, but there are many more ways that it could have been altered to make it even better. Tell me you don't expect an amatuer on the PGA Tour to knock off Tiger Woods do you? Its not going to happen except with much experience and only then is the golfer going to have the rounds of his/her life and have Tiger have one of his off days in order to be better than him.

The second approach used was that of the ethos which is developing credibility to one arguing a certain position. Attemping to do this, I used examples from the past of my history and what I had done and what I had done to try and improve things from my past. Unfortunately, to no avail, this did not work either.

I chose not to hit on the last appeal of Pathos because it simply was not relevant. I thought that I could persuade the teacher by telling them that I had gotten numerous speakers into their class and that they had 'thrown me under the bus' on numerous occasions asking me to speak for other classes and present things, however, I chose not to take that route. Instead, I listened intently as they instructed me on the grade appeals process. That might have to be a route that I take instead. I guess only time will tell, but not too much. I guess Ill have to use the time inbetween to work on my rhetoric skills for the future. Life moves pretty quickly. If you don't stop and take a minute, you might miss it.

The Ageless Wonder Kid

Will Brett Favre come back for an 18th season or will he hang his helmet for the final time.

Brett Favre came into the leage in 1991 as the second overall quarterback drafted and the 33rd overall pick. He is currently the ONLY member of the 1991 draft class from the first two rounds still active in the NFL. The only other one was fellow 17-year vet. Ted Washington who went down in October with a season-ending knee injury.

Farve led the youngest team for the 2007 NFL season to the NFC Championship game, before an overtime field goal left the Packers without a trip to Super Bowl XLII and Favre still in search of his second Super Bowl victory.

Now that the young Packers team has some valuable playoff game experience, a motivated head coach and an optimistic outlook for next season, Favre truly has something to look forward to next year. The question on everyone's mind is if he will take the steps necessary to come back for his 18th season to try and win it all.

This past season, Favre spent his weeks lighting up the record books. Week 4 in Minnesota, he hit a 16-yard pass to Greg Jennings for his 421st touchdown breaking Dan Mario's mark.

Week 15, he hit a 7-yard slant route to Donald Driver for the NFL's All-Ttime passing mark breaking yet another one of Mario's records. There are plenty of other records that he holds such as touchdowns, wins, completions, attempts; hell he even broke the record for most interceptions during the 2007 season.

Brett Favre has already established his legacy as a quarterback in the NFL and the question that remains is if he will come back in order to lead his team to a victory in his final game as a player. The Packers established a defensive dominance during the season and the team should only get better through this April's NFL draft. Family has long been a big part of Favre's life and been a motivating factor in his past decisions on whether he would continue or not. The day after his biggest role model and father Irvin Farve's death, Brett threw for 399-yards and 4 touchdowns against he Oakland Raiders. Favre has had ups and downs over his career, but the family support has kept him going through the years and breaking through the record books.

Farve has the Packer's record for most games played and is currently the Cal Ripken of football with this 253 consecutive games started. The only player in NFL history with more consecutive starts is the "Ironman" of football Jim Marshall. Marshall started 282 consecutive game and 302 including the playoffs for the Cleveland Browns and Minnesota Vikings.

Records have never meant anything to Favre, but he wants to win. He is a winner. He always has and always will be a winner. If he does not see the opportunity to win, then Favre will most likely not return for his 18th NFL season. The 2008 Green Bay Packers though will be returning young and more experience players to their 13-3 season from a year ago and as long as Favre returns, the Packers have the opportunity to go all the way. Look to see the timeless Brett Favre starting at Lambeau gun-slinging like the kid that he is in 2008.

Go Pack Go!