Big Fish in a Big Pond
Wow! What an incredible night I’ve just had! We had the elections for South Quad Hall Council’s Executive Board for 2008-2009, and I won President! I’m thrilled and am really excited to continue my involvement with Hall Council next year! My good friend Lizzi is going to be Vice President, so it will be fun to work with her and continue putting on great programs for all of South Quad!
What else is new? Well, last week I was working really hard on Casino Night, an event put on by the South Quad Residence Staff. We finished up all our decorations and set up Wednesday and Thursday nights, and the actual event was held Thursday night. We had four areas set up in the cafeteria, each resembling different hotels in Las Vegas. We had the Circus Circus hotel, the Luxor, Treasure Island, and Caesar’s Palace. Each of these areas had their own unique decorations, and one type of casino game was present at each one. I was in charge of decorating and running the Circus Circus area, and we did some cool stuff! We bought a big tent over which we draped yellow and red cloth to make it look like a Circus tent. We had red, yellow, and blue balloons, Christmas lights, and a blown-up monkey! We also had a cool clown! All of the decorations really made the night special…the Treasure Island area made an entire ship out of tables and cardboard boxes! Besides the decorations, all of the RAs who worked as dealers wore suits, and we had a whole multicultural area which featured casino games from around the world. There were some really awesome prizes, including 3 iPod shuffles and DVD sets of casino-themed movies (like the Ocean’s 11, 12, 13 series). Overall, the event was truly fantastic, and I had serving as the DJ. I mostly danced around with friends during the event, and didn’t play too many of the games because I was so busy schmoozing and running the music.
Another exciting thing from last weekend was my trip to the Dance Marathon to morale some friends! Dance Marathon is an incredible organization, and they are the largest student group on campus. Every year, they hold a 30-hour marathon where participants must stand the whole time. It’s a celebration of all the fundraising they have done throughout the year, and is a really good time! Check out their website here…they are awesome: www.umdm.org
The Michigan Student Assembly elections are starting right now, and they are very intense! The dominant party is MAP, Michigan Action Party, and my good friend Chris is running to be an LSA representative. He has been busy every minute the last week just going around to different residence halls, fraternities, sororities, and organizations to campaign. Every spare minute he gets he goes to the Diag to hand out flyers telling people to vote for him. I’m going tonight to help him campaign, and in two days the elections will be done and we’ll know who all the winners are! It’s incredibly exciting and resembles the current presidential race in that the candidates take it very seriously. MSA’s website: http://msa.umich.edu/
I remember high school student council elections as being a popularity contest, but in college, it’s about who is the most passionate and intent on winning. There isn’t really school-wide “popularity” at Michigan mostly because it’s so big. Of course, within different communities there are more well-known individuals, and there are definitely social clusters around residence halls, frats, sororities, organizations, and social identities. But overall, it’s just a big sea of people! I actually love that I’m able to get the best of both worlds – when I want to just be a Wolverine, I can, and when I want to be with people who know me and whom I love, I can. One thing that really surprised me after about a month of living here was how often I see people I know! Granted, I’m an extremely extroverted and social person, but still, the odds are simply not high that walking across the Diag at any given moment I would see 5-6 people I know. But it happens every day!! All of my friends, extroverted or introverted, report roughly the same thing. I was really concerned about coming to such a big school, and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to “make a name for myself” or have a presence, like I did in my 1700-person high school. While it’s true that it’s impossible to be known by all 38,000 students (unless your name is Chad Henne), within different social circles and communities, I’ve definitely been able to carve a niche. The great things it that all those communities overlap, and the individuals I have made connections with through those communities are all a part of the larger Michigan culture, so I see them in different contexts and on a day-to-day basis, and honestly – it’s just fabulous!
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10:41 PM
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