Josh's RU Blog

Sunday, April 27, 2014

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!

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

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

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

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

Sunday, March 30, 2014

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 :)

Sunday, March 9, 2014

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 ;)