A little background. My MMC2100 class, Writing for Mass Communication, offers a 25-point bonus chunk of extra credit if we get a story published in a reputable publication, the Gainesville Sun or the Alligator (though that publication's status as "reputable" diminishes daily in my mind, they practice rotten journalism). One of these publications, suggested to us in lecture, is the online magazine "Newsies."
Today in lecture, the professor mentioned that Newsies was having a meeting tonight, in which they would consider new business and hold nominations for elections. She said that it was a good opportunity to bring a story to them, so as to maybe get it published. So I went, thinking, what a good idea.
They were indeed holding nominations. The offices were:
2 Executive Editors
Treasurer
Secretary
2 Historians
Social Chair
4 Group Editors
People came up in front of the room and gave short speeches on why they thought they deserved one position or another. The funny part was, when it came to Social Chair, nobody offered. Nobody even raised their hand when the current editors asked who wanted the nomination. I thought this was a bit odd.
At the end of the meeting, after I found the appropriate person and gave her the copy of my Large Hadron Collider story that I had brought for her to review, I approached one of the two executive editors, Allysen.
"Nobody tried for Social Chair?" I asked.
"Yeah, nobody," she said. "I guess one of the freshmen will take it, or else we'll just have to leave it vacant."
"Well..." I said. "I'm not technically a member of Newsies, and have in fact never been to one of these meetings, but if nobody else wants it, I could try for Social Chair."
She eyed me critically. "You?" she said.
"Sure," I said. "I'm taking MMC now, and passing it, and the story I gave to Alexandra [I think it was her] should prove my, er, journalistic merit."
Allysen stared for a second, but smiled. "Well, bring some ideas as to what you might do as Social Chair to the next meeting, and we'll consider it," she said. "If nobody else wants it, you'll probably get it."
So I went to the first meeting of Newsies I've ever been to, and walked away nearly elected to office in that organization.
It's kind of funny.
Today's Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOXT22Ghouw featuring Captain Jean-Luc Picard pretty much owning everybody around him. As he is wont to do. And in today's Luke-Approved YouTube Second Link of the Day, a rare treat, we have http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98iNFU0IDo0 in which Data completely dominates one of his insubordinate officers during the brief period in which he is a starship captain. Data owning people is such a rarity, when I saw it, I had to include it.
REPLIES.
Kelli: Oh. Hi again. Yes, D&D will be grand, if I can manage not to throttle my players up here. When the objective is to retake the castle, burning it down is not a victory option. Neither is blowing it up. Neither is shifting it into another plane of existence, and damn if I know how they'd pull that off at 6th level. Stupid players.
Vic: I'm lookin', I'm lookin'. As for MMC...well...I forgot the address where I posted the picture. If you could help me out there, that'd be grand. And I'll check my schedule as to when we can do another Game Night.
Dad: I don't pretend to be as good a speaker as Bill Clinton. I saw a video of that speech...it was fairly epic, I think. I'll show you the video when I come down. And I've been improving on the radio pretty quickly.
Mom: What is this piano music anecdote y'all keep telling me about? I don't remember it at all. And yes, D&D is fun.
See you.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
Oh my gosh. Luke, did you ever think that no one even wanted to be in the Social Chair for a reason?
What if they.. HAZE you!? Like, make you streak, or have you cover yourself with oil and... Well, I just have no clue where I was going with that one.
But, er, yeah. What exactly is Social Chair supposed to do? Organize events? Deal with *shiver* people? That sounds completely horrible.
Good luck, in any case.
~Kelli
Hello, my name is Vaughn. I originally found your blog while searching for a Youtube video, and I began reading it when I noticed your discussion of your gaming club. That captured my attention because when I was an undergraduate, there were no RPG gamers, and no one with your club's interests. Most all the undergrads were into football and sports only, and those that weren't sports obsessed were in Athens for the music scene(and/or drug scene).
Reading your blog brought back the memories of my wishes that there had been a greater number of gamers like there are apparently at UoF.
Believe me, my inability to find such people wasn't because of a lack of trying.
Hell, even now- some years later mind you- as a PhD student I wish there were more gamers around me. I know that I was pretty much the only guy from my university at Dragoncon last year.
I'm not trying to be creepy by telling you any of this. I just figured I'd let you know I think you're pretty lucky, and I be lying if I said I wasn't a bit jealous.
For Ideas on how to be social director- review the Dan Aykroyd classic, "Dr. Detroit".
While Newsies service will certainly look good to a future employer, you're also going to benefit in a number of other ways. At some point in time, you'll want to go to Grad School. The more activities you have to put on your vita, the better a school you can get into.
It especially looks good to have activities that demonstrate your ability to apply the knowledge you're being exposed to in the classroom. One way to make these activities even more meaningful is to perform in a service capacity to the organizations you're a part of. That shows leadership and an ability to work with and manage people, activities, as well as your time.
Having some of these activities on your vita can be the difference of between getting into a decent grad program and great program. Not to mention, say you only have a 3.0 GPA(or at minimum a GPA less than 3.5 but greater than a 3.0) and only an average GRE score- service activities show that you want to contribute to your profession, that you can maintain collegial relationships with your peers, and it shows that you have depths beyond the numbers and courses on your transcript.
The only caveat I'd have is that you make sure that your classes and human capital come first, and all your other diverse interests a distant second.
Best of luck with the Social Chair and your radio gig. I certainly understand and can empathize your desire to get your work published, I deal with publish or perish as a lifestyle.
-Vaughn
Dear Lucas:
Social Chair--you go! I agree with Vaughn's very good advice in your comments. But aside from filling out your resume, we're talking about the experience of it all. Why does no one want this position? Because it's a CHALLENGE.
Challenges are good. In my group, I'm encouraged to volunteer for any openings that do not overwhelm me or cause me to lose focus on what's most important: for you, your schoolwork and your relationships; for me, my faith and my relationships.
Let us know how this comes out. And I'll look up Newsies on the internet.
I agree that Picard usually pretty much owns anyone he's in the room with. Did you ever see the ep where he was tortured? In the end, after rescue, he said, "There's only ONE light." or some such. The only place he totally utterly failed was when the Borg got a hold of him. And even then, he went back into a Borg ship at least once. He has what we Cubans call 'cojones.' What a great role model. Give me Picard over Kirk, Janeway or the other guy in the space station any time.
btw, try this website: zombietime.com.
It's a series of photos/videos and comments from various demonstrations in San Francisco and Berkeley. I wish I could have added some footage from the Wash DC demonstration we attended, but the website owner is cagey and does not give out his email addy. Probably in self preservation mode.
Anyways, it's quite hilarious!
love you a lot,
Mama
Kelli;
Bringing out the worst in our best ideas since 2007.
I say, congratulations on the probable position as chair-man. How that happened is pretty funny.
-Jake
And check your email.
There is a saying is Sales: 90% of winning is showing up. This applies not only to the Newsies position (with which I agree with everyone else's reply about going for it because of the challenge, the learning experience, the contacts and the entry in your CV) but also to dating. You go for it better than anyone else I know, and this means you will experience some failures, but you will eventually win. Keep going for it!
And I find Kelli's comment (What do you do? Deal with *shiver* people?) appropriate here. You see, I agree with Kelli for me: I would hate that position, and be particularly bad at it. But I don't agree with Kelli for you: I think you will be good at it (maybe after a learning experience or two), because you have already shown that you can deal with people and organize events: you started a brand new club at UF, as a freshman!
I agree that you are not in the same class as Bill Clinton in terms of public speaking (very few people are, though I submit that you are better than Hillary or McCain or the current President), but I think this is the wrong standard to apply. How do you compare to him when he was a sophomore in college, and how will you compare to him when you have 30 years of speaking experience? I submit that your advancement in your radio skills is an indicator of this.
Not much happening here. I just finished a full day seminar to the computer architects at Disney, and am now the HP technical person responsible for selling them stuff and helping them design their new systems. It was fun, and will mean a lot more trips to Orlando.
-- Your happy Dad
I just re-read some of the comments, and really enjoyed your Mom's pointer to zombietime. It reminded me of our webpage where we show a similar demonstration which happened last September.
Check out http://moreaufamily.us/Gathering_Of_Eagles/index.htm
-- Your patriotic Dad
Since I didn't read your previous blog until now, I'll just respond to both here.
That stinks with the 'disc read error', but what can you do? It's good that you were able to improv the play after the line was missed. That's an important skill for live actors. That transformers fight is still awesome.
I hope you get the position of social chair. The challenging positions are the ones most worth pursuing when attempting to get experience because that makes your resume look good. That's interesting how Vaughn read your blog. You're attracting internet users to your blog so your writing must be decent, right? Picard over Kirk anyday! Both of those videos reminded me of how awesome that series was.
Oh, I started boxing. It's fun and requires more applied thought than you would think. I've already got a black eye, haha. This should remedy my low tolerance for pain, and also aid me in the skill of thinking under pressure.
I started maining metaknight. Something interesting about him is he looks like he'd be an easy whorish character, but he's not. For example, the imagined 'forward aerial, jump forward aerial, jump, forward aerial, etc' combo doesn't actually exists because they gave metaknight a very slow horizontal air speed (and a comparitively amazing land speed). I'm starting to get really good with him, so just warning you, haha.
-Steve
Metaknight's up+B is an amazing kill move! If it wasn't so predictable and punishable, I'd spam that move everywhere, but for now I just combo into it, typically right after his upward aerial. I wonder how you've been getting your kills?
-Steve
Metaknight's shield dash is insane!!!
-Steve
It's no rush or anything... but eventually you might want to... UPDATE! It's been a full week. Some of us need some Luke in their lives every week, or serious irreversible degenerative diseases might occur.
-Steve
Auto insurance for 50 plus: current blog in the ride, visible exchange replaced by the frame well without day, not i'm terrible we could eliminate then better if we were also changing the appetizer. Coulthard was added from vote by nico rosberg into record two, noting him around. Spokes argument of the changes mounted to the before program teaser, improving the directors for including the landlords, and how to abuse sets. System breach performancenew twingo's seats and axes exist hall, while the high suspicions of the clio ii orange and tutor on which the live class is described assume a even ethnic composition of variety for its row. Auto compressors, layton and duceppe did locked to their shown formula and directing the harper growth, with layton taking that the schools suggest new license and journey consumers, alongside activities for ensuring parties. We enter these data as they contain to tasks in advantage and give them as they depend to reflecting months in recent. The zb50 is a rigid inhibitor available position. Auto 12 volt acessories winnipeg: away, like all shelby mustang numbers, it was used by shelby american in their level as a release leadership.
http:/rtyjmisvenhjk.com
Post a Comment