Peace, Love, and Unity

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned a conference I went to before spring break so now that I have some time to write about it I’ll do just that. About a month earlier, my pastor from my church in Indianapolis sent me a facebook message about some opportunities that she thought I might be interested in. It highlighted two opportunities sponsored by the Disciples Peace Fellowship, an organization affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) my own denomination and the denomination affiliated with Transy. One of the opportunities presented is their summer Peace Internship program and a Young Adult Peace conference. I was offered some aid to attend the conference and thought that it looked like fun, so I jumped at the offer.

My next step was to find a friend to go with me since the conference was in Kansas City, neither my parents nor me thought it would be a good idea to make the 9 hour drive by myself. Thankfully, one of my closest friends, Elizabeth, is also a DOC’er (and double PK) and decided to join me on this adventure. Unfortunately for this venture, my car is a manual and so few people know how to drive a standard, so I was on my own for the actually act of driving. The conference started the Thursday night before SB so we had to leave early Thursday, meaning we missed class Thursday and Friday. This meant both Elizabeth and I had to make arrangements to take our test or presentations early, we had to finish the papers and homework that were due at the end of the week. In case you were wondering, yes the week before any kind of break is always busy, and no neither of us slept hardly at all the 3 days leading up to the conference, but the nice thing was that we were able to talk to our professors and they were flexible with everything.

We drove past the Arch in St. Louis, it's one of the only pictures I have from the trip...

The actual conference was an interesting experience, seeing that it was called a conference I was expecting a big crowd but when we got there we were told that everyone was at dinner and we went to meet them (and got lost on our way) and we were met with the 10 other smiling faces of the other people who were there. The small group made for some good discussions and we all knew everyone else that was there by the end of the weekend. We listened to keynotes on peace efforts in communities, took part in some very interesting discussions on the issue we see face us as young people in our society, and Elizabeth and I got lost almost every time we went somewhere new.

Ultimately the group at the conference found ourselves faced with the prospect of actually doing something after a weekend of talking, so we organized ourselves into a group of people seeking to start a national peace movement and the conference was to serve as a catalyst for the creation of a future organization. We did have some fun on top of all the serious stuff, having dinner together and going dancing in Kansas City. It definitely was an adventure and I was met by an experience I wasn’t expecting. I imagine you might hear more about this later, the conference sparked an interest in creating a peace organization on campus but we’ll see about that.

Me and Elizabeth out Dancing

Hope you’re enjoying the spring weather!

Judge if you may, but I'm addicted to ChatRoulette

That's right folks, your favorite Transy admissions blogger has an addiction to ChatRoulette. What is ChatRoulette you may ask? According to the all-mighty Wikipedia, "Chatroulette is a website that pairs random strangers for webcam-based conversations. Visitors to the website randomly begin an online chat (video, audio and text) with another visitor." Sounds kind of creepy? Well sometimes it is, but sometimes it's a really awesome way of meeting people from all over the world. I now have AIM buddies from Ireland and Italy, and I've met people from California to Richmond, KY. Now, you might be asking yourself why I'm talking about this on my admissions blog, well funny thing is, I end up talking about Transy with pretty much everyone I meet. I'll give you some sample dialogue of how a typical conversation might go, I'm "Me" and the random stranger is "Partner".

Partner: Hey!
Me: Hi! How's it going?
Partner: Good, u?
Me: Bored because I'm obviously done with all of the homework, readings for class, meetings, and other responsibilities that I have because otherwise I would never waste me time on a website like this. (:
Partner: so ur a student?
Me: Yep, are you?
Partner: ya.
Me: Where are you from?
Partner: minnesota, go golden gophers! where r u from?
Me: I'm from Indiana, but I go to school in Kentucky.
Partner: uk? do you know the john wall dance?
Me: haha. I actually go to the other school in Lexington, you've probably never heard about it but it's way better than UK.
Partner: whats it called?
Me: Transylvania University.
Partner: dracula?
Me: haha, not the first time I've heard that one. Transylvania actually means "across the woods" in Latin and we were the first university west of the Allegheny Mountains.
Partner: allegheny mountains?
Me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegheny_Mountains
Me: It's actually the 16th oldest college in the US.
Partner: ok cool. What are you studying?
Me: Computer Science and Spanish

And it continues from there, but you get the picture.

There's a Ben Folds impersonator that composes songs on the spot about the stranger he meets, so Ben Folds put a concert on ChatRoulette.

It's funny for me to think about the days when the name Transylvania meant nothing more than a place in Romania where all the vampires hang out, but it's refreshing to remember that a large percent of the population has no idea who we are. I like to be able to share my stories about Raf Week, Greek Life, Residence Life, and adventures abroad.

Spring has sprung

Please forgive me for the serious lack of updates in the last month, it's been a busy time. Seeing that, I have a lot to tell you all about!

Since we last talked, I've been running around campus like a crazy person with all of the different organizations I've been a part of. I got to be a part of a fun event the last weekend in February, the committee I'm on for RA staff decided to put on a Karaoke contest! We had pizza and snacks and of course some awesome karaoke selections, and we had an amazing turn out! It was a lot of fun.

I convinced my two good friends, Emily and Erica, to sing Sk8r Boi with me at Karaoke.

The next weekend was a really cool event that the Panhellenic society put on for Women's History month, my fellow blogger Amanda read some original works, you should check out her update on that. I read "My Short Skirt" from the Vagina Monologues but there was a little bit of everything.

The next week, was the craziest week I've seen in a long time here at Transy, the week before Spring Break and I was leaving two days early. So, I got to squeeze 5 days worth of tests, papers, rehersals, meetings, and programs into 3 days - very little sleep was had. On Thursday, my friend, Elizabeth, and I headed out for a Peace Conference in Kansas City. I'll save the details of that an the rest of my Spring Break for next time! Until then, enjoy the sun!