Final Blog Post

Hi All,

As this semester comes to a close I have completed one final, a paper almost complete and then two finals next week I wanted to say thank you for following my life at Rockhurst over the past few years. There are a lot of fun events this coming week.

If you are in Kansas City and want to attend or want to just learn more about the end of year events at Rockhurst. Make sure to check out the link

Baccalaureate Mass - 2 p.m. Friday, May 16, 2014.
(St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, 1001 E. 52nd St., Kansas City, MO 64110)

Commencement Ceremony - 1 p.m. Saturday, May 17, 2014.
(Municipal Auditorium, 301 W. 13th St., Kansas City, MO 64105)

http://www.rockhurst.edu/graduation/

Individual Year-End Examen

This was in Campus Ministries weekly e-newsletter. Thought I would share.

Individual Year-End Examen   

Recall that you are in the presence of God. 

No matter where you are, hilltop or valley, country or city, in a crowd or alone, you are a creature in the midst of creation.  The Creator who called you forth is concerned for you.  The Spirit of God, sent by Christ, will remind you that you are gifted to help bring creation to its fullness, to restore it to the Creator's way.  Ask the Holy Spirit to let you look on all you see with love.  "Love is patient, love is kind, love is not jealous or boastful, it is not arrogant or rude.  Love does not insist on its own way; . . . it does not rejoice in wrong but rejoices in the right. . . Love hopes all things." (1 Cor 13).

 

Give thanks to God for favors received.

Pause and spend a moment looking at this year's gifts.  Be concrete!  Recall the smile brought forth by an interaction with another, an act of patience, a success savored, a joy shared.  Take stock of what you received and gave.  Notice these clues that guide living.

 

Now look at your more permanent gifts that allowed your participation in this year and in this day.  Recall your particular strengths in times of difficulty, your ability to hope in times of weakness, your sense of humor and your life of faith, your intelligence and health, your family and friends.  God the Creator gives these things to you to draw you into the fullness of life.

 

Ask for awareness of the Holy Spirit's aid.

Before you explore the mystery of the human heart, ask to receive the Holy Spirit so that you can look upon your actions and motives with honesty and patience.  "When the spirit of truth comes she will guide you into all truth." (John 16:13)  The Holy Spirit inspires you to see with growing freedom the development of your life story.  The Spirit gives a freedom to look upon yourself without condemnation and without complacency and thus open to growth.  "Love hopes all things." (1 Cor 13:7)

Now examine how you have lived this year.

Recalling the events of your year, explore the context of your actions.  Review the year, month by month, searching for the internal events of your life.  Look through the experiences to see your interaction with what was before you - in the classroom, in your living situation, in your relationships with family, friends, your significant other, mentors and peers, in your work, in your service, in your leisure time, personally.  Ask what you were involved in and who you were with, and review your hopes and hesitations.  Many situations may show you that your heart was divided - wavering between helping and disregarding, scoffing and encouraging, listening and ignoring, rebuking and forgiving, speaking and silence, neglecting and thanking.  See the opportunities for growth in faith, hope, and charity and how you responded.  In each instance that comes to mind, what moved you to act the way you did?

 

Notice where you acted freely - picking a particular course of action from the possibilities you saw.  See where you now sense you were swept along without freedom.

 

See where the Spirit entered your decisions and where you might have paused to receive this influence.  "Test yourselves," St. Paul urges, "to see whether you are living in faith; examine yourselves.  Perhaps you yourselves do not realize that Christ Jesus is in you." (1 Cor)

 

Pray words of reconciliation and resolve.

"The word of God is very near to you, it is in your mouth and in your heart for your observance.  See, today I set before you life and prosperity, death and disaster. . . Choose life." (Duet 18) 

 

Now, having reviewed this year of your life, look upon yourself with compassion and see your need for God and try to realize God's manifestations of concern for you.  Express sorrow for sin, the obscuring darkness that surrounds us all, and especially ask forgiveness for the times you resisted God's light this year.

 

Give thanks for grace, the enlightening presence of God, and especially praise God for the times you responded in the ways that allowed you to better see God in your midst.

 

In these acts of sorrow and gratitude, you grow in knowledge of God's gentle labor for you.  "As the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in mine." (Jer 18:6)

 

Closing

Close with a word of gratitude, expression of love, or the Our Father.

Last weekend before Final

Hi All,

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekends! I am sure students across the country are prepping for finals at this very moments. Rockhurst has two more days of classes before a study day then finals!!! For me this is my final set of finals. Ahhh!!! I am so excited if you cant tell or guess! I have one final this week (Christian Mysticism) and then two next week. As well as a group paper/presentation and then my final for my English class is a paper I am doing on Alternative History Novel.

I have done some of the research this week for my paper so that I can get a jump start on it. I hope to start writing it later today or tomorrow. My goal is to get the paper done this week so that next week I can just focus on the two finals I have to do.

This week as you might know Rockhurst has a study day (which I personally find nice). Last year spring semester we did not have a study day we started finals on a Monday and ended them on a Friday. It is so hard to believe I only have two days of actual classes left then finals. It is crazy to think that two weeks from now I will be graduating and on my way back to Chicago to start a whole new chapter of my life. Where I will be working is still up in the air. All I know is that I have to trust in God that he will show me when the time is right.

It is not the school work that is going to be crazy this next week and a half but all the other stuff I have to get done. Like, interview(s) for jobs, saying good bye to colleagues and friends here in Kansas City and then finishing up my internship.

This weekend has been gorgeous it is like 75 out today. Absolutely perfect. I sat outside this morning doing some studying and just enjoying the nice weather.

The picture below is from a Tazie prayer service we had a Rockhurst back in lent.

Great Week

Hi All,

This past week has been so quick but good. Sorry for two As I mentioned in my previous blog post this past week was a short week due to the Easter break.

For all those who are part of Greek Life (which I am not) it was Greek week for them. From what I hear it is a really fun but exhausting week packed full of all sorts of events.

Also, this week we had our senior dinner for all Nonprofit Leadership Studies major or minors. We had a small group this week but it was really nice to all go out to dinner. Most of our Nonprofit professors also came to the dinner.

A construction update picture. As most of you know we are building a new academic building here at Rockhurst. See below for a picture. I can not wait to see it when I come back to visit Rockhurst University in the future. Rockhurst has a lot of big plans in store.

In honor of Pope John Paul II I want to quote a few sections:

-The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and independence, lies in the fact that people close their hearts and become selfish.-Pope John Paul II

-Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you, therefore no harm can befall you; all is very, very well. Do this in complete faith and confidence.-Pope John Paul II

-When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society.-Pope John Paul II

Back at it

Hi All,

Sorry for the delay again in falling off the blogging world for a few weeks. This last semester has been a really crazy one. For most seniors your last semester is pretty crazy because of on top of the full class load most seniors are applying for jobs and working a part time job. Almost all seniors I know are either doing an internship, student teaching or working a part time job at a restaurant or baby sitting.

This is my last full week of classes at Rockhurst (well it is not even a full week for me anymore because I got asked to come back to Chicago for an in office interview with a nonprofit). :) :) :).

Anyway, last weekend I went home for the long Easter Weekend. Part of the advantage to being at a Jesuit University is that we get a four day weekend for Easter Weekend. It is really nice for those like me who are a little further away from home. It gives us the opportunity to go home. I left Thursday and did not come back till Tuesday morning because I did not have class on Tuesday till 11am.

This was a really great Easter for me. It was so nice to be home with the family. I also got the chance to catch up with a few friends who I had not seen since Christmas. Also, I love my home faith community so it was great to be home to go to all the masses there. On Monday of Easter break I had an interview with a nonprofit and also had a meeting with a friend who is in the nonprofit sector as well.

This is the awesome view I got on the plan flying back into Chicago's Midway Airport. I love flying into the Chicago.

Have a great weekend! Enjoy this spring weather.

Here is an awesome picture from Campus of the flowers!

Pictures from the Virutal Conference/My Office

Enjoy these photos :)

 

All the pictures are taken from 1100 Walnut downtown Kansas City. It is so pretty in the morning with the sun coming up. I just had my one year anniversary at my internship. Crazy to think that I have been there for over a year now and worked over 1,000 hours for them!

 

Have a great day!

A evening in my life

Hi All,

I just wanted to post a quick reflection I did for two Christian Mysticism readings I just did as an example of the type of work I do on a weekly basis for classes I have never before posted an assignment I have done. So it goes as a first one!

Readings 13.2 and 13.3
These are both great readings in my opinion. Just putting that out there. I really enjoyed these readings. To begin with reading 13.2 from Clairvaux, I believe this is our second reading from Clairvaux this semester. I found it interesting how Clairvaux choose to structure this around the four degrees of love. Additionally, I found it interesting that out of all the parts they could include in this book the section they took was from the fourth chapter, "Man Loves Himself For The Sake of God". When one takes a minute to think about loving himself for the sake of God alone gives a new meaning to life. Two of the passages that struck me for various reasons are as follows. "When will this sort of affection be felt that, inebriated with divine love, the mind may forget itself and be come in its own eyes like a broken dish hastening towards God". This quote stuck out to me because I liked how Clairvaux describes the experience as becoming inebriated with the divine love. From what I hear the experience of being inebriated is a very powerful experience. Also the analogy to the mind forgetting itself and becoming like a broken dish was
an interesting way to think about it that I have not thought of before. The second quote I have found interesting is, "For it is impossible to assemble all these and turn them toward God's face as long as the care of this weak and wretched body keeps one busy to the point of distraction".
For the second reading it was also at least our second time reading Eckhart. Maybe it is just because I am a Nonprofit Leadership Studies major but I have always enjoyed the analogy to/relationship to poverty in both ways that Eckhart discusses at the beginning of this selection of Sermon 52. The one quote that I really found interesting was after he gives the definition Bishop
Albert has of poverty and then Eckhart says, "A poor person is one who wants nothing, knows nothing and has nothing. We shall speak of these three points". I like this definition. I think that it is simple and really powerful. I like how it says that a poor person is one who wants nothing and desires nothing. It is certainly interesting to meditate upon that.

Have a great evening!

 Cool sunrise looking out over the edge of campus :)

Catching up after a great weekend!

Hi All,

I took last week off of blogging since I had worked 35 plus hours and then had a few big class assignments. The virtual conference was part of my internship. It was an awesome experience the students who attended the conference are currently working on Virtual Case studies for six different organizations across the conference. This virtual conference was to make up for those who had flights canceled and couldn't get to Chicago back in January. This is the Alliance Management Institute.

Every year students from Rockhurst University who are majoring in Nonprofit Leadership Studies go to the Alliance Management Institute. (This is also the organization I have been interning for over the past year). I hope this connects some dots for you.

This past weekend my girlfriend came into town. I will blog more about that in my next blog entry! So sorry for falling off the face of the blogging world for the last few weeks.

Is anyone out there considering starting a blog?

Does anyone have any Rockhurst questions?

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

Helen Keller

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/helenkelle121787.html#dZOUvcvLeKUuRhxp.99

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

Helen Keller

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/helenkelle121787.html#dZOUvcvLeKUuRhxp.99

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

Helen Keller

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/helenkelle121787.html#dZOUvcvLeKUuRhxp.99

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

Helen Keller

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/long.html#Ki69vIKIH6b5moIP.99

It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.

Dalai Lama

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/long.html#Ki69vIKIH6b5moIP.99

It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.

Dalai Lama

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/long.html#Ki69vIKIH6b5moIP.99

Back At It...

Hi All,

Hope your month of March has been going great! Sorry for falling off the blogging sphere for a little while. As you might remember from my last post. Spring break was ended exactly one week ago today. So in the theme of "break" I decided to take a short blogging break. However, nothing to fear I am back to at it, to keep blogging through the end of the year. It is amazing I was looking at my blog count. I have almost done 100 blog entries. I find that so hard to believe.

...When people say the 4 years in college are the fastest years of your life...believe them because they are telling the truth. I am ready though. Ready to be done with college...now all I need to do is find a job. With spring break being later this year we come back from spring break and are almost at the 2/3rds mark of the semester. Crazy huh? Three weeks from now is the long Easter weekend we get then it is truly time to wrap up the semester.

Anyway, I decided to make this blog post a bit of a reflection on the past two weeks then next week I will blog about more of the happenings around Rockhurst. (Hint...A lot of exciting things are going on :) )

So, I was so blessed to get to spend my spring break with my amazing friend Lauryn. We had a blast just hanging out in Chicago and seeing the sights. Additionally, we did some interviewing for jobs and also took some time to relax. After all, it is spring break. We also got to see the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. If you have never seen it...I HIGHLY recommend it!

Then last Sunday-Monday I went down to San Antonio Texas for the International Fundraising Professionals Conference. It was a great experience and I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship to cover my registration to the conference. I just had to pick up my other expenses. It was an amazing experience. Next week I can include some more information on the conference. I really enjoyed the time I got to meet people from all over the country.

Here are a few pictures from over break :)
Have a great week everyone!

Sunrise from the trip on the way there. 

Chicago Pic :)

Chicago Pic :)

1 Week Till Break........AHH!

Hi Everyone,

Happy Sunday, Happy First Sunday of Lent! Hope everyone's lent is starting out well, for those who are Catholic. For me lent is a special time and an extra special reason to do some additional self reflection and discernment.

It is super nice here today, all the snow has melted and the sun is out! :) ...just maybe we are finally out of winter. We will see if that holds to be the case.

For me this has been a really productive weekend. I have finished (at least the rough draft) of a paper I needed to do for my American Novel class. I really do enjoy reading and discussing American Novel's. I am just a slow reader so reading novels is not something I do as much as I would like to. Two of the novels we have read and discussed so far are The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton and Main Street by Sinclair Lewis. I might have mentioned before that this class is a night class so we just meet once a week for 2 hours and 40 minutes but in a way it is my fastest night class that I have had. Reading novels makes night class go really fast. When you have that long of a class you are able to have some great in depth discussions.

Last week I got two exams knocked out so that is a really great feeling. The first round of exams in every class are always the ones I feel the best about when I get them done. It is nice to finally get a substantial portion of your grade set in the grade book. I am still coming to grips with that this is my last semester... most of my classes now I only have one more round of exams left in them... the final exams (some classes I have 2 rounds). I haven't but I could probably count the number of exams I have left on one hand (pretty crazy to think about).

I am so excited for spring break too which is coming up in a week. More on that to come in the future. But for now I am off to keep plugging away at homework and go for a run enjoying this awesome day.

A great quote I found the other day was:

" “All of us have a voice. All of us deserve to be heard. All of us deserve to be okay. My wish for you is that no matter where you are in the journey, that you take one more step.”- I do not remember who said it. 

Incase we forgot what snow looks like. This was a picture from campus last month when we had the snow days. The sky looks the same. The ground doesn't though ;)

A snowy Sunday...we missed the worst

Hi Everyone,

HAPPY SUNDAY (the last sunday before lent starts in the catholic church)! To all those across the country who have bad weather today be safe and stay warm... Here at the Rock we were supposed to get 5-8 inches of snow. I think we only got like 3 inches so far here if that (I have honestly not been outside yet today). That is my snowfall estimate from my window. I know most of the snow missed us and went south.

I cannot believe the amount of snow that has fallen across the country this winter. It seems to me to be a lot worse than normal.

Anyway, this is entering the two weeks of the semester that students call midterms. Its everyone's favorite two weeks of the semester..................I hope no one believed that. It is most definitely not. Anyway, so this week I have two exams and next week I have an exam, a paper and a project due.

In the mornings (Tuesday-Friday). St. Francis has daily 7am morning mass. I have been going almost every day since I came to Rockhurst four years ago. Here is a picture of the sunrise as I was walking over there. One advantage of getting up early is that you get to see some pretty awesome sunrises and get to experience the campus in almost complete stillness. I have experienced the campus in just about complete stillness this week also when I got up at 5am to workout with my roommate on Thursday.



Also, for all you country music fans Flordia Georgia Line was in concert in Kansas City on Friday night. I did not get to see them in concert but I did get to see their tour buses and trucks on the way into work. 


Have a great week everyone! Good luck to all students who have exams this week!

The Calm Before the Storm

Hi All,

This week is the calm before the storm of midterms and projects. Some people talk about having a midterm week where all their classes have exams the same week that is not the case for me this semester nor has it ever been the case for me. I am really lucky in that regard most teachers don't want us to have them all the same week and work around when others are. For most of my classes we either have 2 or 3 exams a semester in them. I have never had a class at Rockhurst with more than 3 exams.

Also, this week weather wise we have seen all seasons I am pretty sure from 30 to 70 and back to 30. Almost all of our snow has melted. We will see what this week has in store for us. I have a feeling we are due for at least one more winter storm at some point. We shall see though! Today I ran the most I have ever run in one day in my life 15.7 miles. I ran 3.4 miles then I had to go do an SI session for Managerial Accounting that I do then I went back to. Then I ran 12.3 miles with a friend. It felt great.

On Friday at my internship my boss gave us all little snow globes because of how snowy the conference I planned was. Here is a picture of mine. We also had a pizza lunch. I had a pizza craving I had not had pizza in such a long time! It tasted so good! I also, went to the Y for a swim that evening. That felt nice I have not been swimming much recently but I have been going more than I have the past few years.




Also, because it is the month of love to all who are in a long distance relationship here are a few quotes:

The ups and downs of life

Hi All,

The semester keeps flying by week after week. Pretty soon it will be spring break then before long it will be graduation. This week there is the graduation fair. It is crazy, but also exciting to start thinking about it. We get fitted for our gowns this week as well as make sure everything is in order to graduate. It has started to warm up... it is supposed to get up to 60 this week! We will see if that actually happens haha. I am not convinced we are out of the snow and cold weather yet

This week is when the first tests of the semester happen. I have my Christian Mysticism test this week. Christian Mysticism is so interesting of a call taught by an awesome teacher. It a really interesting subject to dive into. I was supposed to have two other exams this week but they got pushed back because of the snow days we had.

Last weekend I had an amazing weekend. I drove to Des Moines to see a friend of mine I had met at a conference. She is amazing. We are both majoring in Nonprofit so it is fun to share that as well as a lot else we have in common. It was so much fun to do something out of the routine and go spend the day with her. We went to see the movie Labor Day which was a really interesting moving. It dwelt with some interesting moral decisions. But for most of the day we just spend talking, enjoying each others company and wandering around the mall (The mall is West Des Moines is one of the biggest malls I have seen in a long time). On the drive to Des Moines I got one of my class.

To all those who were at competitive scholars day last week best of luck! Good luck to everyone making college decisions in the coming weeks.

The down side of life is friends who you have a really short string with. You feel like anything you do you say one wrong word or they take one thing the wrong way and run away before you even have the time to explain it kind of frustrating. But hey thats life. I guess you cant take anything too personally.

So true. Have a great week!

SNOW DAY!!

Hi All,

Happy snow day to all those in Kansas City! Hope you stay safe and enjoy playing in and shoveling the snow.

Snow days in college can go one of two ways:

--You are super productive and get ahead in all your classes

--You are not productive in anyway at all. You go outside play in the snow and enjoy life.  Sliding is such a big thing to do in college. So many college students love to find a piece of card board and go sliding. I never thought till I got to college that it would be such a big thing to do.

--When you live in the dorms snow days are huge movie watching days. I, a person that like to be productive whenever I can, watched at least two full movies while I was living in the dorms one snow day.

For me, snow days serve as a great opportunity to get caught up and get ahead on assignments. In this final semester on top of the regular class work, I also have to be job searching. That is what I have been doing this morning. There are so many job boards out there to search and so many leads to follow.

The funny thing is when we woke up this morning there was not hardly any snow on the ground but by the end of the night we are supposed to have 10 inches of snow. Which is a small amount when compared to how much snow I have gotten back in my home town of Chicago. Chicago has gotten more snow this winter than they have for years past. I do not remember a winter when it was this bad in Chicago. Anyway, we are in Kansas City (where they are a little slower at plowing snow than in Chicago).

...Exciting news this Friday is competitive scholars day here at Rockhurst. I remember coming for competitive scholars day 4 years ago. I am still friends with some of the people I met 4 years ago at competitive scholars day. Good luck to all those who are coming in for it!

Focus

Hi All,

Hope everyone has had a great week! I just went for a fantastic 6+ mile run. It was a perfect day for a run, 45 degrees and jammed out to some great Christian music.

I have had a great day and had the occasion to run into two friends who I have not run into in a while so it was great to see them! It is a great feeling to be done with classes on Thursday. Thursday's this semester I only have one class as well so it is a great way to end the week. I am becoming more and more of a night student this semester. I have 3 night classes this semester. All of them are very interesting I have to admit.

The night classes I have this semester include Auditing, the American Novel and Individual Tax. I already do taxes but this will have some more knowledge and not having to just rely on the tax software!

I am finally getting into a rhythm of the semester which is great because that is the biggest thing for me each semester! It is definitely my key to success! How about for you? Is finding a rhythm vital for you?

Everything is getting up and going here again at Rockhurst for the semester. The Greek organizations have their new classes and all the organizations are up and running again! It is exciting.

Oh! Exciting things were going on in the cafe today! It was vendor sample day! We have never had one before according to my memory but a lot of the vendors who sell products in the cafe were offering free samples of their products. It was a fun way to get a little dessert after lunch. Fun fact from high school we actually had the same cookie vendor as we do at Rockhurst. They do have the best cookies!

Here is a fun quote for the week!

Choices

As a new semester gets underway, there is an opportunity to make choices...

Take a few minutes to meditate on this... I will be back shortly with a blog to update all on the happenings at RU!

Haiti

Hi All,

Sorry I have been so mia lately. Last Tuesday I got back from a week in Haiti. See below for some pictures from the trip. The pictures are really worth a 1000 words.