Campus Events

Looking back, I realize that I have been involved in campus events for around ten years now. That's almost a third of my life!

It started back in the fall of 1998 with the Residence Hall Association at Case Western Reserve University. I became an officer in the organization at the end of my freshman year, and my first big event to help with was Casino Night the following fall. I also helped with outdoor movies, Halloween parties for local kids, and SpringFest, which was one of my favorites.

I did take a year off between undergrad and grad school, but I was back working on events in no time when I was hired as a graduate assistant in Student Activities at the University of Dayton. You can lose track of all the events working in Student Activities, but I really enjoyed so many of them.

After working for two years in Student Activities at the University of Texas at San Antonio, I was ready for a change. The Campus Activities Board put on almost 50 events a year while I was their advisor, and I was tired. I really enjoyed working with the students, but I was ready to switch gears into academic advising.

Within two month of working at the Colleges' Freshman Advising Center, I was back to helping with an event. They needed help with the Sophomore Transition Fair, which has now grown into Sophomore Day.

When the first UTSA Advising Conference was being planned, I volunteered for that committee. I had no idea that I'd be co-chairing the second annual conference. After nine months of hard work, we had a successful conference yesterday with approximately 225 attendees for all over Texas (and a few from out-of-state). We actually had to turn away attendees because we had maxed-out our reserved spaces. The conference attendance grew by 17% in one year and could have grown more. I have been so fortunate to work with an outstanding co-chair and committee. It really is the people that make an event.

I think that yesterday was more than just the culmination of nine months of work but really ten years of experiences. I may not want to plan events for my entire job, but I realize that I still want to be involved in a few.

What have I been up to?

Obviously not blogging, or sleeping normally...

Of course there are reasons for this. I should begin with the big reason: pregnancy. John and I are expecting our "Peanut" due March 8, 2009. That makes me 15 weeks along (16 weeks as of Sunday). John tends to give nicknames, so it did not take much time for the baby to have a nickname.

The pregnancy is going well, but it has zapped my energy. I watched a lot of TV this summer. It is a bad sign when you start to see reruns on HGTV... The Olympics and politics have thrown in some variety.

I have discovered that the term morning sickness is misleading. It can strike at anytime. I finally gave in and asked my doctor for some medicine, which is helping. I have also discovered that elastic waist pants are wonderful, especially ones that are nice enough to wear to work.

I will try to post sonogram pictures, but literally all you can see is a little peanut. My next one is scheduled at 19 weeks, and I am really excited to see how much the baby has developed. Hearing the baby's heartbeat is such a joy. I leave my doctor's office happy because of those few moments.

John has already cleaned his stuff out of the spare bedroom for the baby, but I am behind on that task. The guest room now doubles as John's study space for Calculus.

Work has kept me busy too. In addition to the summer and fall rush of new freshmen to advise, I have been co-chairing our one-day academic advising conference. A lot of work can go into a one day event. It is coming up on the Friday the 26th, and then I am off to a conference in Chicago on the 30th. At some point between now and the 30th, I will be finishing up a poster presentation for the conference about our Sophomore Day event. Somehow, I still do some programming at work even though I no longer work in Student Activities.

So, life is good. Busy, but good.




Update: Yes, the best sonogram pictures were already in a scrapbook. I scanned them and hope that you can view them OK.