AugieBlog

This past Friday I had the opportunity along with my classmates to go to a poetry day at Rivermont Collegiate in Bettendorf, Iowa. The school goes from Pre-Kindergarten to 12th grade. Important for the readers out there to know is the architecture in that school was incredible. It was like walking into the house from There Will Be Blood  minus an angry Daniel Day-Lewis.

We each led sessions on different aspects of poetry and all had some pretty awesome stories to tell. Some of the kids were insanely talented! I believe one them will be Steve Jobs at some point in his life. He’ll find a way to make billions off of poetry. I live in an idealistic world folks. Blame it on all the cartoons I watch.

For the session I did I had the great pleasure of working with “SotaMan” Sam Calcagno. We decided to borrow the Epic Rap Battles of History format to help teach the kidses about persona poems and lyricism. Me and Sam rap battled each other like two housewives fighting over a date with Channing Tatum. We showed the kids an example before we let them run wild, Sam was Tom Brady and I was Mickey Mouse. We both got hella served. We ran a few sessions and got to hear some amazing poems and hilarious imagery. Students became more and more creative as the day went on deciding to experiment with different ideas. The children were such characters as Justin Bieber, Anne Frank, Tom Cruise, The Sun, and even Chex Mix. The Chex Mix girls challenged us to a rap battle and it got pretty heated. Me and Sam battled the Chex Mix girls as Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos. Those girls killed it when they told us we are the only thing keeping Honey Boo Boo alive.

We also got to listen to Poet Elise Paschen which was pretty tubular friends. Her name is perfect for being a poet too, it’s like being an action star named Chet Wonderkill.

On that note I leave you with advice from one of my idols and former teachers at Columbine Mr. Tom Tonelli, “Just remember when you’re driving, you are carrying precious cargo: yourselves”.

Posted on April 23rd, 2013 by garymiller11
Filed under: Gary Miller | No Comments »

College has been filled with many decisions to be made. Before coming into college, I already knew that I wanted to study abroad, the question was, where?

Augustana does a great job at providing international programs that will fit most students’ interests. There are programs for specific majors, research oriented, or internship based. Some programs are longer than others which makes it easy for students to find a program that will work with their school schedule. Some places where Augie students have studied abroad include Ecuador, Germany, Nicaragua, Italy, Australia, Spain, France, Ghana, and Jamaica.

Not only is it easy to find a program that fits everyone, but all students who have complete a certain number of credits qualify for Augie Choice which is $2000 that can be used towards studying abroad.

I am very excited for next year because I will be studying in Seville, Spain from January-May. The program that I will be completing is somewhat different from the rest. It technically isn’t recognized as an Augustana program, but Augustana accepts the credits completed during the program. I will be completing 18 academic credits including a possible internship during this time, which means that I will be finishing my Spanish major while in Spain!

http://www.augustana.edu/x37820.xml

Posted on April 20th, 2013 by alejandracampos11
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Growing up I had some wonderful neighbors who lived by me. These neighbors were the Nissen family, consisting of three gentleman who gave me some wonderful life lessons. An example of which included telling me that blood made the grass grow. I tried telling my teachers this for years but I always ended up eating bars of soap because of the verbal serve jobs I would give those fools. I apologize now for all the mean things I said Mr Graham? Carter? I don’t care.

I looked up to these gentlemanly Nissen boys in the same way my kids will look up to Liam Neeson, so thank you Chris, Matt, and Daniel-san. Their contribution to my psyche was made possible by their birth makers, Ed and Sandy. Also thank you Ed for always trying to bite my ears off, that helped me develop an immunity to the cauliflower virus. Thanks for also teaching me that Tom Cruise was not to be trusted.

These children taught me about “love” and that darkness was my only ally.

The Nissens were responsible for many terrifying moments in my childhood too. My mom would get me a movie to watch such as Barney, Power Rangers, Three Ninjas or any other normal kid fare. The Nissen boys would ditch that in favor of horror movies. I also remember watching Casino at a pretty young age so hooray for me being mature! So thank you guys for making me the normal in no way weird or nutty as a fruitcake kid I am today.

Below are some of the harrowing moving talkie pictures I was subjected too and how they taught me life lessons.

10. The Leprechaun

The Leprechaun was the first time I was introduced to a horror movie. Some of my earliest memories are of me sitting in the dark and hearing people taunt me with, “I’m the Leprechaun“. For years I couldn’t look at a clover without thinking it would call upon a leprechaun who would not only eat me but sound creepy doing it. Warwick Davis was terrifying in this role much like his work as an Ewok in Return of the Jedi. I watched the entire series with young Daniel-san Nissen and every time somebody stole that Leprechaun’s gold, he would make some rhymes and find his victims.

If you get a chance watch Leprechaun in Da Hood, I believe it is the finest in the series. 

I guess I just learned to be myself from these movies? Yeah that’ll work.

9. The Thing

Lessons Learned: Don’t trust anyone. Someone will try and eat you and become you. Michael Moore I’m looking at you.

The resemblance is uncanny

8. The Silence of the Lambs

Lessons Learned: Lotion will make your skin beautiful. I learned what chianti is and that it goes well with fava beans. I think this movie probably inspired me to fight back against bullies in a unique way as well. When I was three years old we had a family dog. This dog decided he would try and bite young Garrison. Young Garrison bit the dog as hard as he could and showed him he was the true werewolf pack leader. TEAM JACOB CAN SUCK IT. Like I told a few Augustana ladies today, “I am not a Wookie, Jenna Hofmann and Alissa Leirer. That fur is werewolf skin”.

Please let me babysit, I need the money.

7. Evil Dead

LessonsLearned: Chainsaws are the only viable solution for zombies or deadites and I should aspire to be like Ashley J. Williams. The Necronomicon Ex-Mortis is a worse book to read than Everybody Poops: Celebrity Edition by Michael Cera and Bo Bice. 

GO TO FORMAL WITH ME! WHY DON’T YOU THINK I’M PRETTY!!!

 6.  A Nightmare on Elm Street

Lessons Learned: Sweaters are really itchy and require a  hand claw to scratch your back  with. Fedoras are scary. Someone other than Randy Newman can haunt my dreams.

5. Friday The 13th

Lessons Learned: Jason looks a lot like me as a child.

You can always count on mom! Camp is overrated. Kevin Bacon wasn’t just in Footloose.

I love my mom April the same way man. I got so many feels.

4. Halloween

Lessons Learned: Michael Myers was only after Jamie Lee Curtis because of his constipation. Years and years of being blocked up and all she had to do was give him some of her Activia. For shame.

The face of Halloween horror

3. Species

Lessons Learned: Cooties are gross and girls are the ickiest.

This movie is awful.

2. It

Lessons Learned: Clowns are terrible people 24/7. They all float. Don’t trust anyone living in a sewer. I figured that would be common sense but I actually accept a lot of toys from the mole-men living underneath the 1J showers. This movie made me distraught. I don’t think a movie had a greater effect on screwing me up than this one did. I was constantly afraid of a clown coming up from the showers and pulling me down with him. I finally got over this fear after I learned how to be a mime, the clown’s only known natural predator. 

Hello, would you be interested in our wonderful Avon products?

1. Whatever This Is

I learned . . . math is hard.

My mom is actually responsible for this. Don’t ever do that to me again or I’ll tell Dad you were kissing Santa Clause.

Posted on April 19th, 2013 by garymiller11
Filed under: Gary Miller | No Comments »

Hey all!

I know it’s been quite a while since I have blogged. It seems as though life always gets overwhelming and you lose sight of what needs to be done.

29 days until school is over and it seems like we just got here not too long ago. I am nearing the end of my sophomore year. Which is terrifying. This means that I only have two more years left here at Augie and I have no doubt they will fly by.

I have been reflecting and reminiscing on my first two years here at Augie and I have a little piece of advice for all of you youngins. You can take it to heart or just chalk it up to me being sentimental.

Ever since I got here to Augie I have been focused on one thing. That one thing has been my future. Scary, right? Well, what I want to do is no easy task. I want to work on the operations side of a major league baseball team; to be exact, I want to be the first female general manager. Now you can see why I work so hard to get there.

I spend most of my days either doing homework, working on something for one of five exec boards that I am on, or working on stats for the baseball team here. In addition, I am constantly trying to make connections with anyone in Major League Baseball. You can see there isn’t much time to be a “wild and crazy” college student.

I am overwhelmed a lot of the time, but I enjoy everything I do and wouldn’t trade it for the world. But there are some days that I sit and think that I haven’t done anything a “normal” teenager would do ever since I got to Augustana. I haven’t had random movie nights with my friends on a weekday or been on late night trips to Whitey’s. It seems as though I have been to worried about becoming the perfect candidate on paper, I haven’t been a “kid.”

So incoming freshman, take notes.

1. Don’t worry so much about building the perfect resume that you forget to have fun. It will all come together. If it’s meant to be, the puzzle pieces will start falling into place.

2. Get involved, but not so overwhelmed that you feel like you are being pulled every-which way. Being overly involved can get exhausting.

3. Don’t be afraid to be that weird girl walking around campus with friends belting any and every song (that is me). Don’t worry about what other people think of you. Trust me, it’s a lot more fun to be random, crazy and outgoing than the average “popular girl.”

4. College is a little different than high school. You can start over and be who you want to be. The day you start, you get a clean slate. So who will you be?

5. And last but not least; live on the edge every once in a while. Now I don’t mean to get crazy and do something you will regret. Just live it up, have fun, hang out with friends on a random weekday. Don’t get to the end of your sophomore year and look back and have regrets.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very proud of all the hard-work I have done to make things happen for me and I would not trade that for the world. But as I am nearing turning the big 2-0 in August, I have been looking back at my teenage years and realized I forgot to live just a little bit more. So take note and learn from the decisions of your elders

Signing off,

Hannah

Posted on April 18th, 2013 by hannahsundwall11
Filed under: Hannah Sundwall | 1 Comment »

As I type this, I am bald. Or, at least, close to it. I have about a quarter of an inch of hair on my head.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

St. Baldrick’s, sponsored by the Roundel fraternity, was last Thursday, April 11. All of the shaves who had signed up had to arrive at PepsiCo Center at 6:30 pm to check in, turn in any cash donations, and basically get ready for the event. Most of the OZOs and Roundels were shaving their heads, but what I’m proudest of is the fact that there were fourteen women who shaved their heads too. I knew two of them–a friend from Alpha Psi Omega, the theatre fraternity and a friend from work.

I wanted to do St. Baldrick’s last year, but I found out about it too late and didn’t know anyone else doing it or what I had to do to sign up. This year, I signed up early and managed to raise about $310. In 2008, soon after I moved to the US from India, my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer. I didn’t get to see her again before she died in 2009. However, my mother went back to India to spend some time with her. During that time, my grandmother had her head shaved because the chemotherapy caused her hair to become matted and difficult to manage. According to my mother, that was one of the few times she’s ever seen my grandmother lose composure. After the shaving, my grandmother never let anyone else see her bald, always wearing a scarf or a hat to cover her head. My hair isn’t as important to me as my grandmother’s was to her, but I felt that doing St. Baldrick’s (more than donating any amount of money to cancer research) would be the best way to honor her.

The event started off with two nine-year-old girls getting their heads shaved. The fact that such young children were ready to lose their hair was really inspiring.

Then, the men started getting their heads shaved. They all lined up, and six barbers were hard at work with their clippers.

At about 8 pm, the men were told to wait, and the women were called up on stage. Finally, it was my turn. I’d been pretty nervous all day. Starting at about 6, I had become unable to sit still. So, at that point, I was ready to just get it over with.

I sat down, and the barber draped a green St. Baldrick’s cape over my clothes. Then the clippers started buzzing and soon large tufts of my hair were falling into my lap. People keep asking how it felt to have my head shaved, but that’s a really difficult question to answer. Honestly, all I could feel was the clippers moving against the side of my head. I didn’t really process the fact that I was bald until I walked off the stage and ran a hand over the stubble that used to be my hair.

Then my wonderful friends who had come to support me called me over to take some pictures together and feel my stubble, and from then on I was too buy to even think. But later that night, before I went to sleep, I realized that wherever she is, my grandmother is proud of me.

Life without hair has been interesting… Look out next week for some Bald Facts!

Posted on April 15th, 2013 by Rukmini Girish
Filed under: Rukmini Girish | No Comments »