Thursday, August 30, 2007

Too much to do, too little time and I'm the worlds worst procrastinator!

Greetings Friends,
It's been a few days since I've last posted and I apologize. I wish I had some great excuse, like I was attacked by a pack of wolves or I've been bogged down with homework and classes but both would be lies. I just really haven't thought of anything to write about.

It's been a semi-awkward week. Not having to worry about going to class or homework, while everyone else around me is talking about their new professors and the 2 page paper they already have due, but I am most definitally far from jelous and have my own things to worry about. I leave in 3 days and am not even close to being ready. I still have laundry to do, money to transfer, copies to make and things to buy and I have to pack. The thing is, I am the worst procrastinator in the world and would not be surprised if I was running around on Saturday or even Sunday morning trying to get everything ready.

I've also had a bit of a problem with a friend. I'm not going to dump on here or anything, but I promised to be real with ya'll and well I'm being real. A good friend and I haven't really been talking that much lately and it's stressing me out. I'm scared I'm not going to get to have real goodbye with him and then it'll be 13 weeks until I see him and yea and its hard to just sit down and ask because no one likes serious conversations, and so I'm still not sure what to do.

I've worked in admissions all week and thats been fun. I haven't really worked there much,so I'm finally getting a feel for what its to like to do actual office work in there, instead of just giving tours.

Friends and I went out to eat tonite at PF Changs and it was delicious we also got Coldstone,which was by FAR my favorite part :)

Just a few minutes ago I got back from a walk and found a card and balloon on my bed, and it was from my fraternity brothers wishing me good luck in London :) I felt loved! haha.

But yea, its 1:00 am and I need to be in bed like forever ago. So I'm signing out.

4 days till London!

ciao

Drew

Sunday, August 26, 2007

WELCOME HOME

Greetings Friends,

Everyone is now officially on campus. YAY! Tonight is the annual Stand Around and I am uber stoaked. It's going to be super great getting to see everyone again!!

Yesterday all the Greek students helped the freshman move in and it was hard to believe that only a year ago, I was moving into Kresge.

At times I felt bad for the students because they would pull up in their car and it would be bomarded with 10 greek students ready to carry all their things up to their room. It was also funny to see some kids who brought literally 3 car loads to school, knowing that half of it would be brought back at some point, because it wasn't needed. But now, my arms hurt from all the heavy duty lifting I did yesterday :(

It was super awesome though, because even President Byrd and some of the other vice-presidents of the college were right there with us, helping students move in. Would you see that at Iowa? I think not!

We also had the first BINGO of the year and it went FABULOUS! We had pry around 400 people in the BSC for it and we were done in 40 minutes, which was great!!

It's starting to get SCARY I officially leave in 7 days for London and am nowhere near ready. I started preparing today though and went through my clothes and decided whats coming and whats not. BUT it was a tough job.... I really dont know how they expect a person to bring an entire semesters worth of clothes in two suitcases Now I need to buy a few things,find a second suitcase and begin the actual packing!

ANYWAYS, thats enough for now.

take care

ciao

DREW

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Busy like Bee

Greetings Friends,

Like I've said I am getting SO EXCITIED that everyone is getting back on campus.

Today was especially fun. We had our first CAB meeting of the year and it was pretty much just a work day and getting things ready for the whole week of AWESOME activities we have planned!

We stuffed 400 bags full of goodies for the new freshman coming to campus(okay, so that wasn't exactly fun) but it was just great hanging out with everyone again and laughing and joking and just getting back into the norm. We had lunch in Pfeiffer and then Ann, Rachel and I went BINGO shopping and it was FABULOUS.

You see bingo at Simpson blows the bingo at your county fair out of the water! Today we spent over 800 DOLLARS IN PRIZES!!! We bought anything and everything dvds,cd's,food,fun random toys, an iron , laundry degerent and so much more. As usual with a CAB BINGO we buy a super big awesome prize for the last round and the prize for this weekends bingo is a 32" HDTV!!

Tomorrow is going to be another busy CAB day. We're putting up posters advertising all the great CAB events next week; a comedian, the movie "300" played outside, a lecture, discounted movies and free tickets to I-Cubs games! And we're also making big sheet signs to advertise the "Stand Around".

So yea, today was just super great. I saw all my CAB friends, went shopping and had a FABULOUS time!

till next time

10 days till London

ciao

Drew

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Familiar Faces, Lame Rain and London approaches!

Greetings Friends,

It is currently pouring out and I am now soaked from running out to the parking lot to check car windows. Usually I am a huge fan of rain and love playing in it, but when I don't want to get wet it's just not the same. But really, I went maybe 50 ft and I am now soaked from head to toe IT IS RIDICULOUS!! Especially since just a few hours ago we were playing wuffle-ball outside and complaining because just standing caused sweat to run down my face. So yea, if the rain could stop that'd be great, I mean the streets are already minorly flooded and a section of the road the city just recently worked on near campus has buckled. ITS CRAZY!!

Like I said before, it was getting exciting, finally seeing friends and familiar faces on campus and last night was at its best. All the greek houses are offically moved in and so SAE is back to being full of some of my closest friends on campus and it was fun to just talk and hang out with everyone again. It's also nice to now see other people that you know when you walk across campus, instead of being able to walk across campus and not see a single soul a month ago.

WELL, I've mention my upcoming trip in London in pretty much every blog, so I decided today I'd expand on it a little further and talk a bit about the London study abroad program.

In 11 short days I will board a plane with 20 other Simpson students,along with a Simpson professor and head to London (Kensington-Earl's Court) to be precise, where I will spend the next 13 weeks taking classes and seeing the sights and sounds of NOT ONLY London but Europe as well. All the students are staying in a "flat" (apartment complex ,in american terms) and will be living with another Simpson student, pretty much just like dorm life here at college. We will also have a common lounge area and access to phone and a kitchen to cook our food.

I am taking 4 classes over there: British Culture and Society, which is just getting to know the culture and visiting London, Virginia Wolf and the Bloomsbury Group: which is an english class talking about the writer Virgina Wolf and reading a few of her novels, I am also doing a service learning course in which I will be volunteering somewhere (im hoping a theatre) and then reflecting and talking about my experience with that and finally an art and modernism course. It should be exciting!! Also, classes will eventually be held on Tuesday - Thursday, allowing us time to visit Europe and London and enjoy our time aboard.

Right now, I'm pretty excitied for the trip. I still have ALOT of preparations to do and things to pack however. I'm also minorly sad. Just knowing I'm missing out on all the memories here, Yell Like Hell, Formal recruitment ,etc. But know i'll be fine in London.

So yea, thats about it for today, I think it's finally stopped raining.

ciao

DREW

Monday, August 20, 2007

My Fabulous Weekend

Greetings Friends,

I'll begin today by defining the lingo that Beth mentioned in her comment to my previous blog.

Curse of the Seal- I'm actually not 100% sure of which seal it is (we have two on campus) one is located in front of the BSC and the other is right in front of college hall. BUT, the rumor is that if you step on the seal, you'll fail your next test or have bad luck or something like that. Some people say its just the seal in front of college hall, but I just avoid both and so far its proved useful and I haven't failed anything in college.

Sledding by Pote Theatre-pote has some super great little hills right next to it and during the winter you will usually find students sledding down them in makeshift sleds .Whether it be garbage can lids, pieces of cardboard or trays from Pfeiffer dining hall (which are of course later returned ;). There's also a great sledding hill down by fraternity row.

SAE's "small towning"-this is a super awesome fun event that we do during the year. We choose a random high school ; or maybe a school one of the brothers has a tie to. (ie: last year we went to Pleasantville because one of the seniors was student teaching there) but we dress up all crazy in their school colors and look ridiculous and show up and cheer super loudly and just have alot of fun, and we never tell them who we are or where we're from. We just show up. It's great and people will come up and ask where we're from and parents will come up and be like "THANK YOU/GOOD JOB/YOU GUYS WERE FUN" and its just super cool.

Now, about my weekend.

This weekend I went up to Minnesota with Jamie and Tiff for the "Minnesota Send-off" which is pretty much a meet and great and little social gathering for all the Minnesota students who are coming to Simpson this fall. It's a chance for them to meet eachother as well as Minnnesota kids are currently going to Simpson and even Simpson alum will come.

But anyway. It was an amazing time! We left Saturday morning, from good 'ol Iowa where it was great weather and sunny. Then we got to Minnesota and it was rainy and gross and cold. BUT we weren't going to let that dampen our spirits. When we got to Bloomington (we stayed right next to the Mall of America :D) We checked into our hotel and then left to go eat at "Noodles and Co." which is quite amazing! After that we went to Ikea(it was my first time ) and shopped around there and then we went to the mall! All this time we just chit chatted about Simpson life,life in general,funny/embarrasing stories and pretty much everything. I mistook a moon lamp for a banana lamp and even bought a few things myself.

We got back to the hotel around 9:30 and just vegged out and got caught up on the new season of "The Hills" as well as "The Real World". We were also very enthralled by "Datlines: To Catch a Preditor: RAW" which is like the show only it goes into more detail about certain cases and how ABSOLUTLY RIDICULOUS some of these people are. It was oh so entertaining but also disgusting at what some of these people think of!

Sunday morning allowed us to sleep in and I was super excitied to find out that Tiff and Jamie's "sleeping in" is alot like mine (ie: getting up at noon) but we still had to get up by 10 to have breakfast.

We then headed back to the mall to do some more shopping. Tiff had to buy a new outfit because she had left her dress up clothes for the send off back home. LOL.. and I got a gr8 new pair of jeans from Express!! We had lunch at a great little restaurant called "Kokomo Cafe".
After the mall it was time to head to the send off. It was held in a cute little conference type area in Edina.

OVerall the send-off was alot of fun. I met some the new freshman that are coming to Simpson and also got to meet some alums and I saw one of my absolut best friends who lives in Minnesota. The only thing that sucked about the weekend was the stupid weather, it poured all day Sunday..in fact..We ran from the car to the buildings with newspapers over our heads.

The ride back was pretty good. Tiff, Jamie and I played with the "book of questions" and had quite a few good laughs. We listened to some Mika and just had a super awesome great time and I had Culver's ice cream for the first time!!

So that was my weekend in a nutshell. It was pretty much my only break from Indianola for the summer, and it was FABULOUS!

I hope this blog finds you enjoying your last few days of summer.

Have a great year and I'll blog again soon!

13 days till London!!

Drew

Friday, August 17, 2007

Simpson Lingo


CAB, Hawley, Pfeiff-dogg, SGA ,BSC, fraternity row, Mildrid,

....is your head spinning?
No clue what I'm talking about?
Well, by the end of this blog you'll know.

Today's blog goal is to get YOU, my gentle reader, in the know on the Simpson lingo. So, that when you read my blog or another stormblogger's blog or visit campus and hear students talking about one of the previously mentioned OR many other common Simpson terms, you won't be left scratching your head. But rather, will know exactly what we're talking about and be all the more prepared when you take your first step on campus.

LET'S BEGIN

CAB-stands for Campus Activities Board, one of the many student organizations on campus. This group is in charge of bringing all sorts of entertainment on campus. Whether its a rock band, bingo night with AMAZING prizes (like iPods and tvs), hump day ha's (when a comedian comes to campus and is usually held every other Wednesday), or even a ghost hunter. CAB is here to make sure you don't get bored on campus. AND the best part is that everything they bring to campus is FREE!

Mildred- No, this isn't student organization, she's the ghost of college hall. While I do not know her whole story. I do know that she was a student at Simpson at one point and fell over the edge of the stairs in college hall. Feel free to stop in and ask any of the admissions counselor's to tell you a Mildred story. I've heard a few myself.

SGA-Student Government Association. Kind of like the Student Council of Simpson College. Each spring elections are held for SGA and each class votes on 4 senators and 1 class president. Elections for the freshman class are held in early September. SGA is in charge of allocating funds to all the student groups on campus as well as making sure that you're concerns and voice is brought to the attention of the administration.

BSC-Brenton Student Center. I consider this the main social hub of campus. Here you can:

  • Check your mail
  • buy your school books and Simpson gear
  • grab a bite to eat in the Storm Street Grill
  • attend a CAB event on the weekend
  • sit and visit with friends in the gallery

Or do a number of other fun things.

Pfeiff-Dogg-Pfeiffer. The main dining hall on campus. Now, really it could just be that me and my friends call it Pfeiff-dogg BUT I do remember eating with a friend once who had a friend visiting from another school and she was like "lets go to Pfeiff-dogg and her friend was like "WHAT!?" So yea, you might not hear it referred to Peiff-dogg all that much but at least you'll know.

Hawley-So, you want to set up a study date with Hawley? Wait, in line so does everyone else and PS, its not a person. Hawley, is the academic resource center on campus and is located on the 2nd level of Dunn Library. Hawley has tutors available to help you with those tough classes, english majors there to help proof read your papers before you turn them in, or a nice quiet room to study in or make up a missed test. Make friends with Hawley and you'll do great in college!

Fraternity Row-this is a row of residence halls on campus, and like the name would imply home to 3 of Simpson's fraternities. The soccer practice field and tennis courts are also right next to fraternity row.

Stand Around-This is one of the biggest if not the biggest social event of the year. It's held at the very beginning of the year, after everyone has moved back onto campus. Sponsored by CAB. The event has all sorts of inflatable games, free things (last year it was tropical snow), music blaring and prizes like t-shirts,beads and stress balls. It's a chance for returning students to catch up and new students to meet everyone.

Yell Like Hell- personally one of my most FAVORITE events of the school year. This event is held on the Friday of homecoming week. Groups of friends or housing units will get together and make an awesome stomp/yell routine (think STOMP THE YARD) and perform it. It's in Hopper Gym and the place is seriously packed wall to wall with current Simpson students as well as alums that are back for the weekend. It's a freakin' amazing time and there's an energy in there that you just can't match.

There you go my friends. A peak inside the Simpson vernacular, granted it doesn't even come to close to covering all the terms on campus. I think I covered the most popular ones. But I hope it helps and that next time when you're on a tour of campus and someone mentions Yell Like Hell or BSC you'll know exactly what they're talking about.

~Adios~

Drew

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

It's Getting Exciting

Greetings Friends.

OOOOO... I am beginning to feel the excitiment of fall move-in day in the air and I am getting super stoaked!

My fellow students are gradually taking back over campus and it's super nice to see other Simpson student life, instead of just rental groups (which consist of either annoying stupid high school kids OR grumpy and demanding old people). Football training has started and so I've seen a few friends on campus who are on the team and today the Community Advisors (CA's) moved in and I have a few friends who are doing that this year and so I've seen some of them too and so its really great seeing old faces again.

Campus is starting to clean up too and maintence is busy fixing things around campus, like the sidewalk in front hillman. I looked out the window today and saw that they had tore up the sidewalk between hillman and carver and it looks like they're going to lay brand new cement and everything and that will be awesome. Because, when it rains or all the snow melts the sidewalk there becomes a lake and they have to cover it with a board and put up cones and it just gets really annoying and my feet get wet. Plus the trimming of trees,mowing of grass,cleaning of all the residence halls, and just a bunch of little things like that. Along with phone calls from friends telling me they move in in T-minus a week and I am totally STOAKED!! Next Tuesday is move in day for the fraternities and I can't wait to see all my brothers again and to have the house full of people and see open doors and I'm just ready. BUT it's bitter sweet, because then I'll be here for two weeks and then its time for me to go to London.

I only have two days left with Summer Conferences and am excited but kind of sad. This summer I worked with all the rental groups that we had on campus. Whether it was basketball team camp, ELI (which was a bunch of science teachers) or even Elderhostel (think summer camp for old people) and attended to them. We had to check rooms before each group, make combo/key cards for them, sometimes make beds and do whatever else they needed. It's alot like hotel work and sometimes it got pretty random. A couple weeks ago we had 500+ teachers on campus and it was crazy. That week alone I: de-bunked beds, directed "traffic" in Pfeiffer, set up audio/visual equipment, ran lights and sound in the theatre, made a billion copies of random things, and danced to the beat of an african drummer. The days that week were long, usually 10-12 hours and the people usually weren't pleasent to deal with. BUT at the end of the week, the directors of the groups on campus were super appreciatve and I felt like I accomplished something. BUt yea, its a great job. It was always something different and the other students I worked with were great and my boss was the coolest ever. Like, today we went out to lunch to celebrate the end of the summer.

I really need to start organizing my things for London though and its kind of hard because right now i'm "homeless". I have moved out of my summer housing in barker and havent moved my things back home because I'm staying on campus right up until I leave, so I can be here for work week for SAE and see everyone during the first week of classes and since i won't be here in the fall I have no room to put everything in. SO, right now all my junk is in the library of SAE and i'm sleeping in the extra bed in one of the brother's rooms. But yea, I definitally need to get on buying needed items for London, going through my clothes and im currently debating on whether or not I want to get a new camera.

This is where I think I'll cut it off for now.

PS! If you EVER have any questions about something you read (like: What's Hillman? or what's SAE? ) or about Simpson life etc. FEEL FREE to shoot me an e-mail and I'll be glad to answer and be honest about it too :)

~PEACE~

Drew

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

I ♥ the Iowa State Fair

Greetings Friends,

I ♥ the Iowa State Fair...well pretty much the food. I seriously have no problem paying my 10 dollar admission just to eat the food there! lol..

I went last night with a couple friends and ate my most favorite fair food....cheese curds!! OMG they are DELICIOUS!!! haha..I also had some of my friend's turkey leg, which was also quite tasty.

I also went to the fair sunday with the fam jam and we got new cellios..which was exciting because I didnt plan on getting a new one until i get back from London..but mom called me Saturday and was like "dad wants to buy you guys new razors" and at first i totally thought she meant like shaving razors and was like umm..why would he do that? then i got caught up and realized she meant phones...but yea.. I was going to get the strobe, which had the super awesome little flip out keyboard thing..but i didnt like the buttons and got a krzr instead and its fabulous...

We went and saw the butter cow and harry butter(potter) and walked around the varied industries building..which was kind of annoying at times.. I hate people who walk super slow or randomly stop and get in my way...its annoying...other than that I love crowds of people and it was nice to go to the state fair with my family and see them.

But yea... I love the state fair..its a great time!

Out like Jessica Simpson in a spelling bee

Drew

Monday, August 13, 2007

A little post about alot of things!

Greetings Friends,

So, last week was Iowa Private College Week and it was pretty awesome.

I was a tour guide for the week, which meant giving 2 tours a day in the WONDERFUL August heat, as well as the rain on a few occassions. But it really actually wasn't too bad. I met some great students. It was kind of crazy because a few went to the school my uncle teaches at and knew him and then I gave a tour to a girl that I met on our FBLA trip to NLC in Nashville and I also saw a girl that I went to QUEST with a few years ago. But it was neat meeting all the different people and I really didn't have any really super bad tours, most of the peopel were super nice and asked questions, which makes it alot more fun and easier.
The best part however, was getting to see all the other "IPCW leaders" again. It was nice hanging out with friends from school again, instead of just me and steve like its been all summer. We went out to eat a few times and saw the new Bourne Ultimatum (Great movie BTW)! So yea, it was nice and got me all the more excitied for everyone to come back to school, but also depressed me a little, since I'm leaving September 2nd to study in London for the fall.

So,my friend and I had a mini-adventure last night. He was supposed to go pick up our faculty advisor for SAE from the airport last night, because he been on the leadership cruise for our fraternity. So, I said I'd go with him and we head to the airport at 8 o clockish. We get there and were minorly worried that the flight would be delayed because the weather had been super crappy. So, we arrive and realize we aren't exactly sure which flight Dr. Walt was on and we see that one had arrived on time and was here and the other flight that we suspected he was on was delayed until 10:30!!! Well, we wanted to make sure which flight he was one and we head down the the bank of teller desks or whatever you want to call them. We stop at the Delta desk and the guy was super friendly and searched his name and told us that he didn't have a Walt on his flights. Which was fine,we didnt think he was on Delta, and the guy directed us in the direction of the United desk, which was the flight we thought he was on. WELL, we get down there and 2 ladies were working. One at the American Airlines desk and the other at the Northwest Airlines desk. First ,we check with the lady from American just to make sure he wasn't on one of her flights and she was SUPER RUDE and said that she couldn't help us because we didn't have his flight number or connecting city. We then asked if she could get someone to the United desk for us and she said "well, he's on break and I don't know when he'll be back" so we go and wait a little more. Finally, we ask the lady at the Northwest airlines desk to page him and she was RUDE. Slamming open her desk drawer and dialing, then saying on the phone IN FRONT OF US, that we were nagging her (when we had asked ONCE for her to page someone) then she tells us that "they cannot give out the info we need due to TSA regulations. SO I tell her that Delta did and she says "well go ask Delta, the other airlines can't" which is funny because I'm pretty sure Delta is exempt from TSA guidelines. SO ANYWAY, the united guy shows up and is super friendly and searches his flights no problem. He then asks the two ladies who told us they can't give us info to search their flights and they do it no problem. Finally, Steve calls a friend and has him check in his room to see when Dr. Walt arrives, turns out his flight doesn't come in until TONITE!!!
haha. So,yea it was a stressful time and just made me super mad becauase I HATE poor customer service and that is most defintally what we got from a few of the people working there. After doing retail,waitering and this summer conferences job I definitally know the difference between good and bad customer service and can't stand it when people are rude!!

but I'll end my story telling here since this post is getting rather lengthy.

Have a good one.

~Off Like a Prom Dress~

DREW

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Greetings!

Hey There!
Welcome to my blogspot for Simpson College...WOOT WOOT Go Storm!!

As you may have already read, my name is Drew and I am a Sophomore here at the BEST private college in Iowa!..haha...but no seriously... I really love it here at Simpson.

N-e-way the point of this blogging profile of mine is just to show what its like to be a college student at Simpson. Sharing the good exciting times with you; like homecoming, fraternity events and may term things as well as the not so hott times; finals, gross weather and the like.

SO, yeah... if you look around on my profile you'll see a bit about the activities I'm in and what i'm into. So I won't waste your precious reading time typing it again.

Anyway..that'll do as my introductary blog.

Stay tuned for more to come!! I'm really going to do my best to blog at least once a week, hopefully more when things pick up and school starts!

ciao!