Semester of Craziness...Titles

Partners in the Parks
I applied for consideration for funding for the  Fire Island to Ellis Island excursion being run by Southern Utah Univeristy's Partners in the Parks program, run by Dr. Joan Digby. 
The programs description details: exploring "sites as varied as the rugged National Seashore on Long Island to National parks and National Historic landmarks in New York City. The Long Island segment will include hiking and camping on Fire Island, sailing aboard a 19th century oyster sloop, and a behind the scenes visit to Sagamore Hill, the summer home of President Theodore Roosevelt. The New York City segment will include several National Park System sites, among them Liberty and Ellis Islands, and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Participants will visit America’s first public park, Central Park, and contrast it with NYC’s most recent park developments in Brooklyn and Manhattan’s Meatpacking District: Brooklyn Bridge Park and the High Line, respectively. An important focus will be the connection between New York City as a port and its complex history of immigration. This week long seminar will include workshops on field biology and photography, readings and discussions of literature and history. Participants can expect an evening on your own in the Big Apple."  I was instantly excited when I learned of this opportunity and can't wait to hear if I am selected.

RNC Internship
I've also been extended the opportunity to intern at the Republican National Convention being hosted here in Tampa.  The process involves writing on a chapter of my one true historical love, Alexis de Tocqueville, specifically Democracy in America.  I'm a little apprehensive of the prospect, as I am very distinctly liberal.  While I'm assured that the internship would be an honor for anyone despite political leanings, and that the work would mostly consist of paging and working with the marketing team.  I'm not entirely sure if I could endure, morally, promoting the interests of what is quickly becoming such an indoctrinated party.  My full viewpoints on the extremism of both sides and why I consider myself a socially liberal fiscal conservative could fill an entire post on its own.  So we shall see how selection goes.  The office politics of Honors itself could command a full discourse at the moment, too.

NSCS Induction
A couple of weeks ago, I was inducted into the National Society of Collegiate Scholars!  My grandmother and partner attended with me.


USF Acceptance
I was accepted to USF provisionally.  Obviously, I have yet to return confirmation paperwork. This is the image I shared with my best friend B. :

She wants Hampshire, New College, and UMass, the rest are mine. We've both been provisionally accepted to USF, and I've just gotten notice in the last few days that I have received the Transfer Student Achievement Scholarship from the USF endowment.  It's a $1000 per semester, so not great, but good news.


Pam Iorio
I also had the honor of attending an appearance by former Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio.  The Honors Institute was gracious enough to give out copies of her book Straight Forward: Ways to Live and Lead.  It was a decent read and as the title suggests, it was straight forward about the five tenets of leadership she has come to embrace in her many turns in local Tampa politics.


Reasons To Be Pretty
A few weeks into the semester I started collaborating with a friend on a student run production.  We settled on Neil LaBute's reasons to be pretty.  We set out a budget with approval from  the club adviser and secured funding from Student Government.  Thus I became a "Producer".  I helped run auditions and became "Director's Assistant." When the Director friend ended up having conflicts because of another show he's acting in, I was designated to run rehearsals while he's gone and thus became "Assistant Director."  When he started to loose faith in the SM he has, he secretly designated me the real "Stage Manager."  He's got his head on straight, I promise.  This project has been like our baby this semester, you know if the parents hated each other or I was a just a good friend who is his surrogate, carrying it for him to raise on his own.  I don't mind, with the right opportunity and his sheer will, I think the Tampa theatre scene could see a large impact from him in a few years.

Sound Board Op for Vanities/Cocaine 
In other personal theatre news, I successfully completed my run as sound board op for Vanities/Cocaine, which included working the grid cleanup/lighting load in for the show.  Load in was by far the best work out I have had in a while, everything hurt, there was bruising!  Kinda want to do it again, though, felt good to just be in the theatre working for hours.  I manages 30.5 of them actually just over double the 15 required for stagecraft class.


Passing of Jesse Karns/Leadership Project is back on
About a week ago we received word that our friend and leadership project member Jesse Karns died.  I cried for a good bit when I found out, but then, Jesse was the sort of guy worth crying over.  At 27 he knew how to live.  Full throttle on adventure, he sky-dived, went deep water fishing, camped out.  He was extremely well read and philosophize with the better minds of the day given the chance, I'm sure of it.  Never mind the fact that he did all this from his powered wheel-chair.  He had been injured in a training exercise in the military that left him paralyzed from the neck down in his early 20's.  But obviously that didn't matter.  He was killed in a car accident coming back from an out of state trip with a friend.
On that note, the defunct 5k we had tried to plan to benefit Haiti, the 5k that was essentially the brainchild of Jesse, Dani M., Sarah Ashley B., and myself, the 5k he never got to see though completion...is back on. Renamed: The Jesse Karns Memorial 5k, proceeds will be split between the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund and The Special Operations Warrior Foundation.  Dani, Sarah Ashley, and I are looking at a December running.  "But you will be in NEW YORK?!," you wonder....

I think I'm set on deferring
I don't know for sure, but financially it's a good plan.  Stay here for a year with out school, work a lot hopefully in a theatre venue. Save up some money, which there is none of now despite best efforts.
I was actually quietly let go from Ruth Eckerd nearly a two months ago, after the manager came to the conclusion that my school/EC schedule required too much time off. Luckily I had some money: Financial Aid and Tax refund...that dwindled slowly but was ample for the past two months as I didn't bother with looking right away but focused on my classes and obligations.
With a little more than a month left in the semester I've started looking again.  I'm also pondering taking a throw away summer class, post commencement for the boost of a last refund. Something easy, Intro to music, perhaps. Columbia does require a Music Hum survey to graduate...