Inauguration to ASUSU

Well, Its official. This past week, All of the new officers for ASUSU were sworn in.

ASUSU stands for the Associated Students of Utah State University. I am now officially the Business Senator. With the inauguration, I got a new office in the student center and a whole lot of responsibilities. I am very excited to continue to serve the students of Utah State. This school has done so much for me! I can't wait to give back!

A Week

Well folks,

This past week has been A week. It is a week that is put on by the Student Alumni Association (SAA for short). There were tons of fun activities going on!

Let me tell you about some of them:

Monday we had the Red Bull Chariot Race. One of the roads right next to campus was shut down completely, the road was turned into a race track with hay bails and students raced their home made chariots around the track. It was really fun to watch.

Tuesday SAA showed Back to the Future" on the jumbo tron in the spectrum which is the building that we have our basketball games.

Wednesday there was a bike mob which rode around campus.

Thursday was the Inaugural Miss USU. Much like the Mr. USU that I competed in at the beginning of the school year. The Theme was Hollywood It was so fun to watch all of my friends compete for the title of Miss USU with their talents.

Since the theme was Hollywood, we had some celebrity visitors...

Last, but definitely not least, was Friday with Day on the Quad. The A day Dance, and TRUE AGGIE NIGHT! Friday was basically a combination of all of my favorite events!

I can't believe that another A week has come and gone. The next week is dead week (a week with no exams) and then its finals week! DANG IT! TIME FLIES!!!

Hiking the Wind Caves

My little brother and sister are in High school still. This week was their Spring Break, so my family came to visit me. We decided to take a trip up Logan canyon to explore!

Lucky for us, by not even going 20 minutes up the canyon you pass several parks, several rock climbing walls, and several hiking trails! We decided to hike up to the wind caves. 

Let me tell you what... the wind caves are SAWEET! It is always an adventure up there. It's about a 2 mile hike with a pretty steep incline, but once you get to the top, the cave is huge and really fun to climb around.

Here are a few pictures from the adventure.

SPRING BREAK!!!!!

Let me tell you what! Spring Break always comes at the perfect time every year! Just when everything is wearing down on you, and school is driving you crazy you get one week to take a step back, chill out, and enjoy a life of no responsibilities. Vacations are the only thing that keep me sane.

Hiking in Hawaii!

The view from Sunset Beach 

Talk about some shaved ice!

This year, a few of my friends and I took a trip to HAWAII! We are awesome food like shaved ice and little shrimpies, and we did all sorts of crazy things like Hiking, beach bumming, and swimming with SHARKS! I'm not even kidding, we dipped ourselves down into a cage surrounded by 12 hungry sharks! It was CRAZY!

On our way back from Hawaii, we stopped for a few days in Vegas. Me and my buddy got hooked up with tickets to Recycled Percussion on the Vegas Strip. Let me tell you what... their show is AWESOME! I've never met such an energetic group of guys ready to put on such a sweet show. 

Recycled Percussion opening their show... BOOM BABY!

And now, we are back in school... and its not half bad!

Winning the Election

Last week I talked about the campaign that I was running for elections week. I was running for a position on the Associated Students of USU (ASUSU). I was running for a position called  Business Senator... and  I WON!

And that's my week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I was outside on campus all day long talking to my fellow students about my goals for office. I handed out business cards and had many friends helping me by wearing buttons and ties to advertise.

I used this video in my election to portray my passion and vision for the School of Business.

Me and a few of my friends who also won their elections after our first meeting!

Thursday night they announced the winners. Tons of my friends also won their elections. I can't wait to begin work with all of them. Our training starts immediately and pretty soon we will be working in our offices. It is going to be so much fun!

Elections week Is here! I hope the preparation pays off!

This week is going to be crazy! It is elections week for ASUSU (Associated Students of USU) and I am running for Business Senator. There is so much work that has to go into a campaign. This past week, I have been sending emails, posting on Facebook and twitter, painting ties, building giant A Frame's out of plywood, and painting banners to hang on buildings. All this while still attending class, working, and staying on top of my classes. The life of a student is a busy one!

Here are some pictures of what I've been working on.

These are my A Frames before they were put together. Lookin' pretty good right?

These are the banners that I will be hanging on buildings

I made about 100 of these suckers. I am going to hand them out to my campaign members  to wear throughout the week.

Weekends are Life Savers

I am pretty sure that the only thing that keeps me sane at times is the weekend! This week was stressful. I guess all of my classes are on the same testing schedule because I had four exams this week; Business Ethics, Operations Management, Natural Disasters and International Economics. By the time I finished my last exam I was done. Fortunately it was time for the weekend.

Look how many people can fit in a living room.

 

Sometimes the weekend is just a nice time to relax. Thats what I was planning on doing until I got a call from a friend inviting me to a Valentines day party that our neighbor was throwing. I'm glad I went because it was a blast. There was dancing, decorations and great food.  I just sat in the back and stuffed my face with cake balls. They were so good!

 

Now it is Sunday night and almost time for a new week to begin. BRING. IT. ON!

 

Bear Lake Retreat Center

Last weekend I had the opportunity to go to the Bear Lake Retreat Center. Bear lake is about an hour North of Logan and Utah State has a cabin right on its shores. Chances are, if you get involved at Utah State you will spend a weekend up at the Retreat Center. And you better look forward to it because this place is a blast!

This time, I was up there for an A Team Retreat. The A team is a group of students who help with new student orientation. We are just starting out as a new team so this retreat was a good way to help us get to know each other.

She asked for a Giraffe

We all had to explain who we were in 60 seconds. For mine, I taught myself how to tie balloon animals and gave them away as presents.

Do I look like Bane? That's what we were going for.

Once one or two o'clock hits things get a little crazy.  We started making grills out of pretzel sticks.

Looks miserable, doesn't it?

After sleeping for a few hours, and i'm talking just a few hours... most of us woke up and did yoga. I say most of us because I was still asleep in the corner of the room. That is why I am not in this picture.

SNOW STORM

My very first memory of Utah State goes back to way before I had ever made the decision to come to school up here. I was a Senior in high school and I was visiting campus for an interview. I can remember sitting in the Eccles Conference Center in the middle of campus and looking out the window at the quad and the pine trees around the building. As I sat there it began to snow giant puffy flakes. It was an awesome sight. After a few minutes the snow had begun to accumulate and there were students everywhere walking from one class to another. Someone gathered a snowball from the ground and chucked it across the pathway  at one of his friends. It looked like so much fun to be a college student on campus at Utah State!

Old Main and the Quad! 

Now fast forward however many years later... I have spent many winters up here in Logan. We have, I guess what you could call, a love-hate relationship. This Winter has been extremely love-hate! Right now it is love! This weekend we have had so much snow! It has almost been snowing for 2 days straight, at least 8 inches or so. It makes Logan so beautiful! Take a look at these pictures!

My apartment parking lot... not that pretty compared to campus.

Hello Walk, covered in snow

This is what you come to at the top of Old Main Hill! Its worth the climb!

Activities Galore

Whats up everybody!

I'm sitting here in the Student Center computer lab reminiscing about all of the activities that I have been able to go to since the new semester started. I've just got to say... Putting all of the educational value aside (which Utah State has a TON OF!) The value of the friends that you make and the activities/memories that you get to make at this place is second to none! Tonight, there is currently a mini golf course being set up by the Sig Ep's throughout the TSC complete with black lights, there is a 'USU's Got Talent' show going on across campus, and there are countless club meetings going on right now that anybody can get involved with.

I wanted to highlight some of my favorite events so far. Last Saturday there was another Po Bev. If you don't know what Po Bev is, I wrote about Poetry and a Beverage a few weeks ago. This time they gave out free mugs with the drinks! Talk about a deal!

I wish my camera could do this dance justice, but You get the idea.

On Friday, there was a 30's dance in the Alumni House. There were easily over 500 people at this dance. I always love the 30's dances because they are only 30 minutes, so everybody dances their little hearts out for a solid 30 minutes then, we all take a break, and it's on to the next activity.

Killer Whale, Monster, Lion, Penguin! This balloon artist was AMAZING!

Last week, there was a back to school BASH. They showed the movie 'Pitch Perfect' in the Student Center Ballroom. They also had some photo booths, face painting, henna tattoos and my favorite... A BALLOON ARTIST! I asked her to make me a monster and she did! Check out the picture.

New Year, New Semester

Goodbye last semester. Happy Holidays. NEW YEAR! and hello next semester. All of this is such a blur! Life moves along too fast.

New Years Party in Salt Lake City, Utah

This semester is going to be a BLAST! I am a member of some of the coolest clubs. I am participating in 2 internships and my classes are all really fun. Utah State has so many opportunities around every corner that not a moment goes by that I wish something was different. There are too many good things... as the saying goes, sometimes life gives you too many lemons. What am I supposed to do with all of these lemons!

I can't wait to share this semesters new adventures with y'all! Get ready for a CRAZY trip!

Finals week... then A BREAK!

Well, it is Finals Week… DUN Dun dun!!!

These finals are bitter sweet for me because I don’t want any of my classes to end. I have awesome professors and I am learning about the coolest things. What am I going to do when it is all over? I guess I will just have to look forward to the upcoming Spring semester when I can start all over again, because it is inevitable, finals are happening, and they are coming fast!

Let me tell you the best way to get through finals week. It requires a lot of sugar! I always go and buy a bag of peanut M&M's and a bag of some sort of fruity candy. This Semester I got some Starburst Crazy Beans!

Took this picture of my candy stash... unfortunately these only lasted me 2 days. :(

It is crazy to think about how much weight is placed on these finals. They are your way to prove how well you have picked up what your professors are putting down, if you know what I mean. When all is said and done, all that you have learned is being compacted into a measly little two hour test. Sure it’s stressful, but that doesn’t mean that there is not time for any fun. In fact, tonight there is a SILENT DANCE in the library. Everybody pops their headphones in and dances like crazy to their own tunes for a half hour. Then at 10:00 exactly everybody howls like crazy! Yelling all of your stress away. After the howl is over every goes back to studying like crazy. Studying is important, but not going crazy is almost just as important. I've got a video of the beginnings of the dance from last year. It starts with a few peple and grows to a TON of people! Thirty minutes later, everything is back to normal.

This is what all of you future aggies have to look forward to!!!!

Festival of TREES!

Last Friday, I was spending some time down in Salt Lake City with some friends and we decided to go to the Festival of Trees. I know that many festival of trees are going on right now around this time, but I'm sure there are none that are bigger than this one!

Up-side-down Tree

Lots of trees

This festival had HUNDREDS of christmas trees. Two performing stages with back to back performances all night long. We saw performances ranging from clogging grandma's to showtune choirs with 5 year old soloists. There were also gingerbread houses, Christmas quilts and my favorite, Christmas FUDGE for sale.

The whole festival was put on by the Primary Childrens Hospital as a fundraisor. They raise over 1.6 million dollars from this event every year! It was so fun to kick off the Christmas season with an event of this calibur!

UTAH STATE TREE!!!

Let the Holidays begin!!!

The Death of Me! (But I'm still alive)

Last week, my entire week was taken up by Corporate Finance. I had an exam on Friday and every waking hour that wasn't spent in meetings, or class, or work was spent in my finance text book.

I am happy to report that I got an A- on my Exam! Happy day! What can I say... Finance isn't exactly my cup of tea. I have to work really hard for good grades in that class and an A- represents hours of tireless studying, lots of hot chocolate drinking from the cafe in the library, and lots of studying with groups of friends. 

My Chick-Fil-A sandwich was a heart

I was able to take a little break to go to College Night with some friends at Chick-Fil-A. They have buy one #1 combo meal and get another for free on Tuesday Nights! Sometimes I buy 2 meals for myself (because it is really for the price of 1) and sometimes I share my other meal with a friend. This time I took a picture of my sandwich because it was showin' me some love! You can see for yourself why.

The cool kids call it Po-Bev

Tons of students watching the performances

Once a month, ASUSU has an event called Poetry and a Beverage. We all call it Po-Bev for short. This weekend was the November Po-Bev and it was a blast! There were hundreds of people there and there were some really cool performances. Po-Bev is basically an open mic night. Anybody can sign up to perform and you can do anything you want. Most people will play a musical instrument or sing a karaoke song, some people recite poetry from their favorite author and others recite poetry that they’ve written.

Every month the beverage is something different. This time it was milk and cookies. It was really fun to hang out with some friends, watch some friends share their talents, and to eat some milk and cookies.

Chillin' at Po-Bev

Career Exploration

Center for Economic Development Conference Room

This past week I had an AWESOME opportunity! The School of Business has a program that allows students to explore different career options. We drove down to Salt Lake super early in the morning and had appointments all day long. One of my favorite companies that we visited was a non-profit organization called Center for Economic Development. This company was located on one of the top floors in a tall building. We met in their conference room where you could see the entire Salt Lake Valley out of these HUGE windows.



The Capital Building

Some of our other visits included an investor, the Governor’s office, some political campaign consultants and the Chamber of Commerce. It was such a rich experience. I learned so much! It was great to be able to take a day to think about my future. Because of that day, I have spent some time rethinking some of my goals. Being a student is the best part of my life so far! The options are endless and every day, new opportunities present themselves! Utah State has opened so many doors for me. I can't wait to see what’s in store for me these next few days and months!

The Governer's Office

Texas Roadhouse Group Project

Little girl painting a pumpkin

This semester I am taking a management class that teaches us how to manage organizations and people. For this class we are put into groups and we have to plan and carry out an event that raises money for a non profit organization. My group decided to team up with Texas Roadhouse, a restaurant here in Logan. Texas Roadhouse donated 10% of sales to our non profit organization. We planned some fun Halloween activities to go on in the parking lot of Texas Roadhouse to bring people to the restuarant. We had a Trunk or Treat, and we had Pumpkin Painting. Lots of little kids had a lot of fun getting candy from the trunks of cars and painting pumpkings in AGGIE colors.

Trunk or Treat Car
 

The Narrows!

This past week was Fall break! With the extra day without classes I went with a few friends down to the Zions Narrows in Southern Utah. We hiked from the top of the narrows all the way to the bottom for a total of 16 MILES! This hike wasn't just a normal hike either, it was through a river for the most part. We woke up at 4:30 and began hiking in the dark with frost on the ground and our frozen breath in the air. The first time that we had to cross a river, it was fridged! After crossing the river for the hundreth time, there was not more feeling in my feet which was actually a good thing because my legs were getting soar!

It was so early, I couldn't help but yawn

Sitting on a log! a good break from the river.

Despite all of the crazy hard things that we put ourselves through, it was all  worth it! I would do it again if I ever get the chance. That canyon was BEAUTIFUL! The walls were so narrow and so tall and the leaves were amazing bright fall colors. This midsemester break came just at the perfect time. LIFE IS GOOD!

Open Houses

This week I had the opportunity to go to the Utah State Davis County Open House. We have these open houses all over the state and in several other states too. I have always had a blast going to these open houses. It is so fun to talk to high school students who are thinking about Utah State. I was in charge of getting people to join the Facebook group. You all should join the group right now! It's called "USU incoming class 2013"

Utah State ROCKS! You'll never hear anything different. and if you come to one of our open houses, you can take a picture with Big Blue too.

See y'all up here soon!

Steve

Alien Babies and Chinese Takeout

my home remidy collection

  Well, This week has definitely been a little bit of a change of pace. I have begun to pass a couple of kidney stones and so I have spent a lot of time in my house taking pain killers and trying to sleep. Let me tell you, kidney stones are PAINFUL little suckers! I call them little alien babies because it feels like I have a little aliens crawling around inside of me. At one point I looked up online some home remedies to take care of these things and I went to the store and bought everything that could possibly help.
I missed a lot of class, but all of my professors are very understanding.

my Chinese takeout with football in the background

On Friday night, we had a football game being played at BYU in Provo. Provo is about 2 hours South of here. All of my friends headed down to that game. I couldn't go because I was in so much pain. I ordered some Chinese food for delivery and watched the game on ESPN all by myself. Fortunately I was able to talk to my friends during the game through texting and twitter.

The little alien babies haven't passed quite yet, I can't wait until they do! that will be a relief!