i think i left off awhile ago mentioning something about barack obama. he came to waterloo a few weeks ago, and a huge crowd turned up for him. there were so many people they had to move some people to the auditorium and broadcast it on the big screen in there. even though i showed up late, i got lucky because some of the northern iowa democrats had special students seats open in the gym. they were really close to obama, so i got some pretty good pics. he did a great job speaking, and i think he has a lot of good ideas, but i'm still up in the air...
welcome sign!
barack obama speaking. (pretty close, huh?)
after that, school went by like it usually does. we were in the process of discussing communism in the russian revolution in my humanities class, which was interesting cause i'd never really been taught about it before. my paper about that is due on monday, i just hope i can get all of that done! considering the fact that i got a b- on my last paper, i clearly need to hike it up a notch or something. at least i have somewhere to go from now, and i know that i need to improve.
of course, i can't forget mblgtacc ("whaaaat???" you say?). the easiest way i can explain how to pronounce it is like this: mumble-guh-tack. it stands for the midwest bisexual, lesbian, gay, transgender, and ally college conference. rachel, kim, spencer, and i traveled to minneapolis for the weekend of the 16th thru the 18th for it. it was definitely an enjoyable, educational extravaganza. i got to see some of my friends from other colleges, as well as listen to some interesting speakers talking about different issues that affect LGBTA college students and the like. now i get to work on processing all that knowledge and applying it to my life here on campus!
oh, and did i mention margaret cho was there? (for those of you who don't know, margaret cho is a hilarious comedian!).
from l to r: kim, me, rachel, and spencer. we stopped in kim's hometown (grafton, ia) to see her mom. she bought us snack foods and then took this picture. what a nice lady.
spencer and me waiting for margaret cho to come on stage!
margaret cho was undoubtedly hilarious.
spencer and i explored downtown minneapolis on saturday night. i took this picture because i thought it looked cool.
the uni crew! even though there were only four of us there, we definitely had a good time!
after that, i was a little behind on homework, considering i lost a whole weekend of being a good student. lulckily, i'm all caught up now! i'm glad that i got to meet other students from all over the midwest who are activists like myself. it was fun.
thursday, i missed class again for another conference. i swear, i am way too busy. this time it was in des moines--the 2nd annual governor's conference on LGBT youth. governor culver was there, and he gave a great speech. unfortunately, i didn't get a good picture of him. however, i got to hear a really great transgender speaker. she was full of lots of information on a subject we don't really hear about very often. i felt like i learned a lot.
transgender 101.
making some points...
this past weekend was most definitely interesting. cedar falls and most of northeastern iowa got hid hard by a snow/ice storm. it started getting bad on friday night, the night of amanda and peter's recital, which went really well, great job guys! anyways, after the recital, i headed over to the pike house for pledge dad night. it's really cool to be on the other side of pledging now that i'm an initiate. i really like the new guys and i hope they'll grow into great pikes some day. and i had to reminisce a little bit when my pledge dad showed up...
me and my dad from my old pledging days... adam. i decided we hadn't had a picture in awhile.
saturday was a day of being snowed in. i was awakened at 10, only to find out the gamma phi beta formal i was so excited for was canceled. hence, i got up anyways, and decided to do my laundry. i found out that at 10 am on a saturday morning... no one is doing laundry. i was happy. later, i ended up going to brunch with ben, one of the new pledges, and my old friend from rider (who lives in campbell now, strangely enough), billy. ben and i went back to his room and hung out and watched forrest gump. an old classic, it's just one of those movies you watch on a day when you can't do anything else. later, i ended up in chris and adam's room, ate with them and watched a bit of a movie. and here's where the fun part comes in. i went to leave to go hang out with amanda, jenny, and some of my other friends, only to find out that my car was frozen shut! it took me 45 minutes out in the cold to finally get all the ice off my car (probably about an average of 2-3 inches thick). after that, it was still pretty dangerous to drive. but i made it to jenny's where we hung out and made pancakes!
amanda and i before making pancakes.
sunday evening was amanda's birthday party, celebrated as an oscar's watching party (which means we got to dress up, which is always fun). we had ballots that we filled out of who was going to win, and the winner got a prize. we hung out, had pizza, and amanda had a great birthday.
sarah, amanda, me, and jenny--all dressed up for the oscar's.
and i guess that leaves me to my midterms. french midterms from last week went well. my international relations midterm on tuesday went awesome as well. i'm feeling very confident about my grades this semester... so i'm gonna keep on keepin on!
until next time...
