Agriculture Awards

Some times I forget that I am in the agriculture department. Well, it's hard to forget when the guy I sit next to smells like cow manure, or when the group in the back of the room is trading snuff with each other, or when I take a class called "Biotechnology and Plant Breeding." I mean its hard to remember when my extra circular activities are not agriculture related! All of my free time went to residence hall government from freshman year on, and this took away from opportunities to be active in the ag department.

For some reason, however, I was nominated for Senior of the Year in the department! I was stunned when I got the letter. I tried to be active in my own way by being an undergraduate teaching assistant and volunteering with the ISU horticulturist. But none of that compared to the other seniors nominated!

It was an honor and I accepted and went to the ceremony. I think one thing I had going for me was my GPA and the professors I got close with for the past four years. Even though I had no chance to win, it was fun to see other peers get recognized for their hard word. I sort of realized what it felt like for someone who is only partially active in ARH or Housing to sit through our award ceremonies! Nonetheless it was fun!

Senior of the Year was the second to last portion of the program, but my lovely roommate agreed to join me so I wasn't alone! We giggled at how most of the farmer boys still looked like... farmers, even when they were being nominated for big awards! I can thank her for the pictures!

This is a picture of the chair of the department! He is a really nice guy and was always there for me if I needed something!

The group of us who were nominated! I love how bright we look! :) The girl second to the left won and the guy on the way left won the most prestigious award in the department! I was certainly in good company for sure!

Receiving my certificate for my work in the department!

All things considered, it was a really great honor! This was the Sunday of Spring Retreat, so Shannon and I were wiped out and I was certainly not as qualified as the rest of the nominees, but it was definitely fun.

Speaking of which, I need to go unpack some more and find that certificate and hang it up! :)

Spring Retreat

When I went to the statewide conference, IRHA, back in March, I bid for hosting a retreat called Spring Retreat. This means that I wanted ISU to host a miniature business meeting for the IRHA group. It would mean that all of the communication coordinators from around the state would come to ISU for their meeting.

I have never hosted personally, but I have helped! In 2008, I volunteered during IRHA's Winter Business meeting, as well as volunteering during ISRAA (the RA conference) conference in 2008. Then in 2008, I helped Shannon and her co-chair Julie host the Semi-Business conference at ISU. In 2009, they hosted the state wide conference, IRHA. Whew, lots of hosting going on! But Shannon, Nicole, and I wanted to try for hosting Spring Retreat and try it out.

A few things about Spring Retreat:

• It's not exactly a "Business meeting," its more of a transition weekend. Many schools don't want to spend money on something like that - which makes this a very small meeting!
• Money is tight at all Illinois schools, so many groups were looking for an inexpensive meeting
• Spring Retreat took place after our terms were over, so it was weird not being an actual part of ARH and hosting something sponsored by ARH!
  

Beyond the struggles of the conference its self, we experienced many issues:

• 3 co-chairs was faaaar too hectic. We all wanted to do it, but there were many times were someone felt left out :(
• We had about 1009238 problems with our invoices. Wrong figures, wrong schools, people dropping out, wrong taxes - ahh! It was so frustrating! Because of that, they were sent out sooooo late.
  
• The hotel we chose... well, they were a bunch of losers! They had no customer service and did not care to see if were satisfied or not. Amy will never be staying there again!
  
• Many other little bumps along the way that hopefully we were able to manage!
  

It was a GREAT learning experience, and I do have to say I am glad I was able to do it. Some time next week I am going to type up stuff to pass on to anyone else who is interested in hosting a conference and send it to ARH people and IRHA people to keep on file. If there were things we knew about hosting ahead of time, we could have avoided some of our troubles! (There's nothing like waking up on the Friday of the conference realizing we never made name tags!)

Putting that aside, we asked for some volunteers to help make sure things flowed smoothly. We were in East Campus as well as the hotel, so we made sure to have people in both places when necessary. But a lot of the time, while the group was doing business, we sat around. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast with our co-chairs and volunteers and advisors! Here are some pictures of us goofing around during our off times. Everything looks so fun here - but in between these down times, I was so so stressed out!

Friday

One of the first things we had to do on Friday was set up the hotel for check-in and entertainment. This is a 100% staged photo, but we DID work hard!

Shannon was in charge of making cute door decs for the conference people to know where their rooms were! They were so creative and pretty!

Setting up entertainment was easy, we had board games and guitar hero for night time activities. Here Shannon and Angel are getting everything plugged in!

After dinner and check-in, business started... and that's when we hung out in an adjacent room until we were needed. Lots of card games and Uno!

Then, after business, we moved back to the hotel for "entertainment." This group of volunteers and I had a blast playing lots of Apples to Apples! Personally, I think we needed to amp up our entertainment options and this is something to consider for next time! But we had fun at least!

Saturday

Saturday was a 7am wake up call to get to the hotel for breakfast and set up the business room for day 2! Sadly for Angel he had a roommate conflict and had to sleep on Shannon and my floor for the night! He had an even earlier wake up call cuz we were co-chairs! At least he looks comfortable?

Here's a picture of the communication coordinators who were present at the retreat. This is the room they did a lot of their business in

Meanwhile, our group played more card games, drew pretty pictures, and even did each other's nails!

It was a blast to hang out with ARH people for essentially the last time, as well as learn how to host something. I wish I had tried this earlier, but it was still a good experience. Our evaluations were decent, but I still feel like we could have done better. Own worse critic, huh? Sunday morning came quickly when Shannon and I had to check people out of the hotel... from 7:30-10am. We were hungry, tired, and in need of a shower, especially when we got back to our room aroudn 3am! We came home and slept until 2pm, we were so tired!

I love that this was my last conference experience! Good times with ARH and definitely many lessons learned!

End of ARH Events

Even though my term has come to an end, that doesn't mean the fun ended! There were QUITE a few events that our administration had planned and were required to fulfill before we could be "done" for good.

Random Acts of Homosexuality and Day of Silence
Nicole, our outgoing RA Liaison, and ARH have been putting on a program to honor Day of Silence and the LGBTQ community. This year we had a two day event, the first a program called "Random Acts of Homosexuality" and another called "Day of Silence" Here are some pictures!

During Random Acts, we set up a spot in our largest residence hall and had a group of volunteers just hang out and do random things. Some of us are straight, some of us are gay, some of us are bisexual. But can you tell when we are hanging out?

Here is a shot of our group playing a heated game of Uno! Can you spot who is gay in this picture?

Playing Uno was getting REALLY intense! But the point was to raise awareness that we are all human! We attracted a LOT of attention and it was GREAT!

On Wednesday, we met up again and passed out materials for the Day of Silence on Friday. We had hundreds of free t-shirts, thousands of free buttons, and informational papers

It wasn't long before all the t-shirts were gone and we just had buttons left! It was so cool to know we gave out EVERY t-shirt and most of the buttons. On Friday, the National Day of Silence, we saw hundreds of people wearing buttons and t-shirts that we passed out!!

Relay for Life
For three years at ISU, I have participated in Relay for Life, and in high school, I walked as well. It is such a powerful event and I love sharing it with people at school who want to make a difference as well. There are just TOO many people in my life who have been affected directly or indirectly!

This is the survivor lap and they release the balloons to signify releasing the stresses of cancer! This was so cool to watch!

This was the ARH Relay for Life team... what a FUN group to walk with all night!

One of my favorite parts is the Luminaria lap. Bags just like this can be purchased for people who have survived, who are fighting, or who lost the fight against cancer. The bags are set up around the perimeter of the event and glow sticks are placed inside. It's the most powerful hour ever!

The big hope sign that sits on the quad. I purchased a pinwheel for one of our family friends who is currently fighting his fight!

Student Involvement Center Awards
Each spring, the Student Involvement Center has an awards ceremony to recognize Registered Student Organizations and individuals for their service during the year. ARH decided to put in a few programs for consideration for awards and a few individuals from ARH were also nominated for awards! It was really exciting and my last award ceremony as an undergrad!

As many of you know, this is VP of Student Affairs, Steve Adams... one of my favorite people! He said some nice words at the ceremony.

Angel won First Year Student and he is apart of ARH! We were SOOOO proud!

There is a group of people who are selected to be in the category of "Who's Who" and its a nation wide recognition. There may be someone you recognize all the way to the left in the blue ;-)

This is a shot of all the award winners from the day! The three people standing in the back row all the way to the right are ARH people. :D

This huge group of people represents the four organizations that organized and planned an event called Pig Out with the Prez. I was on the planning committee with three other people this year! We won collaborative program of the year!!! Oh - and I am standing next to the ISU President. Booya! Haha!

Here are the two awards we won for our programs: Suicide Prevention Awareness and Pig Out with the President... and they're hanging out in our award corner of the ARH office! So proud!!!

Earth Day
One of the events that the ARH sustainability chair and his committee planned before our term was over was an Earth Day reception. It was sort of a kick off to Earth Day and it featured a guest speaker, yummy organic (and non organic for picky people) food, and booths from "green" student groups on campus. It was fun and the guest speaker was really funny!

People such as the ISU sustainability coordinator, the ARH sustainability chair, and others spoke to greet people to the event

The centerpieces. Ok, obviously they are not amazing or anything... but my ARH friends understand why I took a picture of them. I did pick them out and help with them! Not quite my taste tho! :P

The guy on the left is the guest speaker. He was HILARIOUS! I basically developed a huge crush on him. You should see the amount of pictures I took. I am so creepy! I heard he's single...

The speaker, Chad, is known for cleaning up rivers from garbage and other pollutants, and he is also a big advocate of making the world greener. He presented ISU with a free Oak Tree. I really DO love this guy! The man on the left is the head of grounds, guy in the middle ARH's sustainability chair, and then, of course, Chad.

Something that is also AWESOME (Dad, that was for you) was he brought 100 free TREES to give out to people. I was SO EXCITED. Shannon and I each took one (and somehow hers ended up coming home with me!). They are Eastern Redbuds. Next goal: convincing my dad to let me plant in the backyard. The other tree went to Stephanie for her new house with Adam. I cant wait to help them plan their landscaping!

Talk about a busy end, even while I am not in the organization anymore! It was definitely fun going to programs... and even more fun not to have to plan them or be worried about them. :) I got to see the other side of things for once, it was pretty cool. I am proud of ARH for what we were able to accomplish, even during a busy time of transition. These memories will stick out to me as much as the past two years have!

Passing of the Gavel! End of the End

Oh. My.

As I have mentioned, only a few times, ARH has been a big part of my life for the past three years. :) There is an event called Passing of the Gavel to pass from one administration to the next and celebrate the year of achievements, accomplishments, and triumphs. The Vice President of ARH is responsible for planning and executing the ceremony, and I have to say - it's my favorite thing to plan. (Next to Move-In of course!) ;-)

This one was obviously extra emotional for a few reasons:

• This would be my last official event as VP of ARH
• My main advisor went into labor the Monday before and wouldn't be present
• We were awarding the first ever Dave Nolan Award

So obviously, this was the last event for me. At the conclusion of the event, the president and I pass the gavel to the new president and vice president. That concludes all of our responsibility, privilege, and title as the voice of the residence hall students. Literally, I walk out of this as a general student. Don't get me wrong, I was partially excited to pass on this responsibility but I was also scared to start my adjustment of passing on this experience.

I got a text message from my advisor, Kim, on the Monday before around lunch time that she went into labor. HOLD THE PHONE. Her due date was May 1st, and it was April 5th.... I suddenly lost my therapist, advisor, and support! I was hardly prepared to end my year without her and I was not particularly emotionally stable leading up to Passing! Not having her at the event was eating me alive and I spent some time crying about it! :( Of course I was happy and excited for her, but talk about an emotional few days!

Last summer, University Housing Services lost a great member of its team, Dave. He lost his battle with cancer. Dave had only been with UHS for three years, but he made quite the impact. He was known for the behind the scenes work he did and his gentle ways. I worked with him in quite a few ways; move-in and renovations advisory council. He was always very patient with me and knew what to say when I was frazzled or confused. Glenn and I tried to think of a way to commemorate his impact and we came up with the Dave Nolan Award that exemplifies all of his traits. We added this to the yearly awards we present at Passing of the Gavel. We also invited his entire family to watch the presentation of this award.

So there you have it - three huge reasons why this year's Passing was tough! But enough of blabbing for awhile.... let's show some pictures. :)

A shot of the room... I invited 200 people and 120 RSVPed yes to come! My biggest event! :) I served heavy hors d'oeuvres and had a "green" ish theme! I couldn't eat a thing because I was so nervous!

After some tasty-ness, Glenn and I started the event with appreciation of the GA and our executive board

We acknowledged eight groups for their hard work with ARH!

Then we appreciated all 10 members of our executive board. I picked this picture to represent our exec board because... let's face it... Shannon means a lot to me! I made her cry with my speechy thing :P

After appreciation and a short conference presentation, we started awards! This is Jessica presenting Amelia with the First Year Student Award! There are 10 awards total.

This is Dave's wife and family presenting the first ever award. The place was very humbled.

The last award presented is the ARH executive board member of the year. I was very lucky to win this award and was presented by my second advisor, Raechel!

My outgoing VP speech. I gave one last year - but I was the incoming VP as well! So it was more of an "address." Trust me, outgoing speeches stink! I only cried a tid bit!

The VP of Student Affairs came to give a few words and Pass the Gavel between administrations. He is one of my most favorite people at ISU!!!! :)

Glenn and I have had a few funny stories in UHS and Student Affairs and Steve was touching on a few of them. We stood up there like champs and laughed at ourselves. Good times. :)

This is it! This is Glenn and I preparing to Pass the Gavel to Ryan and Jessica! It's over!

Shannon and a bunch of amazing ARH people surprised me with a scrapbook at the end of the event. They had assembled it behind my back as a big thank you! It is beautifullll!!!!

Shannon and I posing after the event. We have gone through a lot together!!!

This is truly the ending of an era. Ok, era is a little dramatic.... but this is a huge chapter in my life that ended and a big one that opened for the new administration. I enjoyed every single experience, every single person, and every single event because I learned SO much and I learned about this passion I didn't know I had. Yes, there were ups and there downs, and there were times that I wanted to quit and never turn back. But each one of those experiences helped shape me as well as shape others around me.

I dont know what to do with my time anymore! My schedule just reduced from 8 office hours to 0, 8 weekly meeting hours to 0, no more general assembly meetings, and no more executive board meetings! I better take up knitting or something!! :)

Easter 2010

This post is sort of empty, but there is one really cute picture that came out of Easter!!!

This year's Easter was different that in the past.... Doug and Annmarie did not come home from Carbondale because it seemed like too long of a ride. Then, it was a year for Jack and Ben to go to their Dad's side..... so it was just Megan, Tommy, and me! We of course had a good time, and we ate at the big people table for dinner. :)

At one point we were looking at pictures in grandma's digital picture frame and decided to add one of us! That's where this super cute picture came from!

How great is this picture? We are a cute bunch. :)

Then we started to goof around and I tried to paparatizi Tommy with my camera. The next few pictures show my progression, as well as Tommy's frustration with me being annoying. Haha, I love my cousins!

Gotcha!

Haha, time to stop I think :P

Well, we had a TASTY dinner and fun conversation! It was certainly a fun Easter with our smaller family this year! :) No matter who is there, it's always so fun!!! Gotta love those Italians!