Longer Blog Coming Soon!

Hi All,

Sorry. It has been a very busy weekend and I have an exam tomorrow morning plus a take home exam due Thursday!! Plus lots of other work to do! I promise I will post a long blog as soon as I can!

It was a very busy weekend around Rockhurst with the Hopkins 5k and family and alumni weekend.

Check out the Rockhurst Facebook page for tons of pics from the weekend (hint there is at least one of me). Good luck finding it.

The heart of the semester

Hi All,

Alright the honeymoon period of the beginning of senior year has officially ended!

Reality has set in. You know the period when you just have to keep up on your reading and all the beginning of the year festivities are going on. My first exams of the semester is this coming week. This is when it really matters (it has mattered all along but you know what I mean). It is the time in the semester when 20% or more of your grade in a course can be determined in the course of an hour long exam. A lot of my courses this semester are set up where we have 3 exams per semester. It is hard to believe that already about a third of the semester or a sixth of my senior year has passed.

This week I have a business law exam and possibly an Intro into operations management exam (our professor said he would tell us Monday if the exam is going to be Wednesday or if he is going to push it back a week). Both of these classes are part of the core that every business student in the Helzberg school of management has to take. I really appreciate the business school core in addition to the school core. The business school core has made sure that we are well rounded and knowledgeable at least on a basic level in all the various aspects of business from organizational communication to accounting to business law.

On Thursday I stopped in to say goodbye to one of my former business school teachers who had taught me micro computer operations and marketing. He has been teaching here for countless years and has certainly impacted countless number of students.

Here are a few quotes for the week.

"Do what you can with what you have where you are" -Theodore Roosevelt

"Never frown because you never know who might be falling in love with your smile" Justine Milton

P.S. One final note I have this awesome application on my phone called motivational quotes. It has countless quotes and changes them every so often. It certainly offers some good food for thought.

Iggy Week

Hi All,

As you might recall from my blog entry last weekend, I mentioned that this past week is Ignatian Heritage week. It was a week packed full of events. It started off with Fr. Bill, Director of the Jesuit Residence here at Rockhurst giving the homily at the student mass last Sunday. For the gospel they read out of the Saint John's bible that was commissioned by the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of Saint John in Collegeville, Minn. The Director of the project came to speak on Wednesday night as part of the Ignatian Heritage week events. The Director came into his position before the idea was brought to Saint John’s to do this bible, it just kindof fell into his lap. Tim Ternes the Director of the program was a great speaker, he filled Mabee theater with students, faculty, alumni and community members for his talk.

I have to say it is amazing to see this reproduction of it up close. There are 7 volumes of it that make up the whole bible. It is the first time in nearly 500 years that there has been a hand written bible. This is the heritage edition of the bible. There are only 299 reproductions of it.

“Saint John's Abbey and University commissioned The Saint John's Bible to ignite the spiritual imagination of all peoples throughout the world,” Ternes said. “Their goal was to commission a work of art that illuminated the Word of God for a new millennium, in a way that is relevant to the 21st century.” To read more click here: http://www.rockhurst.edu/news/article/saint-johns-bible-coming-rockhurst/

The artwork in the Saint John's bible is simply amazing how it is contemporary and relevant to this century. There is actually a photo of the twin towers weaved into the prodigal son artwork in the bible.

On Tuesday, we had our annual mass of the Holy Spirit asking the God to send the holy spirit’s blessing upon the university this year. This is a tradition that is done by every Jesuit school. Afterwards we had a Renaissance themed lunch. It was a very nice mass and the lunch was very yummy.

Other than that my classes and my internship are keeping me busy. 

Hope you have a great week!

Below is a picture of the bible.  

Quote for the week: "Our greatest battles are that with our own minds" -Jameson Frank

A Great Short Week!

Hi All,

Hope everyone had a fantastic Labor Day last weekend! It was a very relaxing Labor Day for me. I went for a long 6 mile run in the morning on Labor Day! The rest of the day was spent on just working on reading ahead for classes and doing some work at my internship. 

This week has gone so fast! Tuesday felt like it should be Friday but after that the rest of the week flew by. Having Labor Day off I got to miss the busiest day of classes which was nice in a way. Now this week reality of a full week will set in. I am interested to see how it is. 

Last week the Honors Program had it's first event. For members to remain active in the honors program they have to attend 2 events each semester. These events range from academic focused events to pure fun events. The event last week was about studying abroad and one honors student who studied abroad shared about their experiences. I have really enjoyed the honors program has put on over the last few years. I am now President of the Honors Exec. board. The Exec board works extremely hard to organize the events for the semester as well as facilitate communications among the program members and helps to maintain the honors room. The honors room is a study room only for honors students in Sedwick with couches and tables. It is great to go in there and relax in between classes or to work on a group project. If you are considering coming to Rockhurst make sure you apply to be in the honors program. You will be glad you did.

This week is Ignatian Heritage week! Next week in my blog I will talk about the exciting events that take place on campus during Ignatian Heritage week during my next blog entry.

In honor of Ignatian Heritage week here is a picture of St. Iggy here on campus.

Quote for the week: “Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching”  Satchel Paige

P.S. I hope this weather cools down its been soo hot lately!

A week done

Hi All,

So the first full week of classes are done and we already have a three day weekend for the Labor Day. Labor Day serves as a nice break for those students who are getting a little home sick and need a taste of home. At schools like Rockhurst where a lot of students come from places within 4 hours away a majority of the students here go home for the labor day weekend. I was at my internship on Friday and came back, thought to my self, where did everyone go? and I was like oh yeah Labor Day weekend.  Anyway, I needed the three day weekend, I have been busy with my internship and also with a Haiti water and education project. Campus has been coming alive this past week. We had the free stuff fair on Wednesday where all the clubs and student organizations have a table so that both the incoming freshman and returning students can get a taste of what all Rockhurst offers and decide what they want to get involved in.

This weekend I got to take a break from doing homework and watch the Notre Dame Fighting Irish win their first game of the season. It is so exciting to have college football back on! I am a big college football fan. If I had to choose my favorite sport of the major sports to watch it would be college football. I am one of those that likes college over pro. Sorry, to those of you who are huge pro football fans. There is something magical about college campuses on game day weekends.

Anywho, Rockhurst hasn't had a football team in a very long time. We were undefeated back when did have a team though!

Hope you have a great start to your week.

Me at the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance Student Association Table at the Free Stuff Fair

Happy Labor Day!

Service

Hi All,

Hope everyone had a good week. Classes started on Wednesday and the class reading assignments have already started to pile up but hey what would college life be without them. I am excited to have this be a full week of classes so I can get back into a routine. For me routines are really nice and help me to keep a low stress level.

Anyway, I wanted to take this blog post to reflect back to what I did last Sunday. As some of you may not know every year as part of freshman orientation all the incoming freshman along with community members and upperclassmen participate in the Finucane service project. This service project was a part of orientation my freshman year that I really enjoyed!

This was my fourth year participating in the Finucane service project. We went to a community garden where we helped them clear bush out from around fruit trees that are growing. These fruit trees are for anyone in the community to come pick the fruit from which I think is a really neat concept. Father Curran, the President of Rockhurst even came with our group. I really think it is so neat that father still participates in the service project. Make sure to check out the pictures at the bottom of this post from our service project site.

I think it is really a great way for upperclassmen to set an example for the freshman going along with them to do service projects. A lot of the sports teams and greek organizations on campus also participate in the Finucane service project.

What a great way to instill one of the Rockhurst's core values in the freshman by doing this service project. It also introduces them to a wide variety of organizations in the community where they can go to do service learning projects for classes in the years to come. Since the freshman go to sites by orientation groups likely they have friends in other groups that went to other sites so that each one after sharing their experiences with their friends in other groups now knows about 4 or 5 places to go to volunteer in the community at least.\

Reflection is also big here at Rockhurst. To end our time at the service sites the orientation group leaders, lead the group in a reflection which is a really nice thing to do because it can be so easy at times to loose sight of who you are doing the service for.

Quote for the week: "True courage is taking another small step each day toward achieving your vision"

My goal for Senior Year... Magis

Hi All,

So as I have been blogging I have been thinking about how cool it would be to have a theme for senior year.

For those of you who don't know how this works is Rockhurst every year picks a theme for the year to focus on and this year the theme for the year is Magis or "More". So it is a pretty broad theme and the university will have an easy time incorporating the theme.

After reading the book "The Time Keeper" on our family vacation to myrtle beach and reading through a website that listed the best quotes from the movie I found this: “There was always a quest for more minutes, more hours, faster progress to accomplish more in each day. The simple joy of living between summers was gone.” 

My goal, wish and prayer for this my senior year (my final year, my last harah, my final chance to leave an impact on Rockhurst, a community that has given so much to me over the years) is:

-To live each moment present to those around me and always striving to use them for the "Magis" and the greater glory of God our father.  

I have a habit of misusing time in ways that do not further this and this year as Honors Program and Nonprofit Student Association President's I have the chance to really leave a mark on this university and set those programs in director of the "Magis".

The Honors program is all about the "Magis" of knowledge and intellect. 

The Nonprofit Program is all about the "Magis" of serving others  and wanting more from life.

A quote from the book, “He cried that night for all that he had lost, but he would say it taught him a valuable lesson: that holding on to things "will only break your heart.”. There are some things and past relationships in my life that I need to let go of they only break my heart keeping them. I have also tried to simply my life in terms of the amount of stuff I have. 

I have given myself this goal of living this year for the "Magis" and making the most out of my time here.

As a friend of mine who is the Residence Director in McGee said that they are putting the "Magis in McGee"!