Mindless Ramblings of That One Guy

as usual, my life is incomplete without some political activism in it. march 7 marked the 2nd annual lgbt student day at the capitol, which was quite a bit different than last year. i went down to des moines with rachel, and we lobbied our cedar valley legislators in regards to the bill to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the state civil rights code. i actually had my first negative response from a legislator, which was quite a shock and a challenge for me. this legislator didn't see any reason for the bill, and they didn't seem like there would be much of a chance for their mind to change. recently elected this year, i've known this legislator as a member of the community for awhile and was rather disappointed to hear them speak so negatively. but alas, you live and you learn. i love lobbying, and it was about time i have a situation where i actually have to fight! here's a few photos from the event:

this is a photo from the press conference. notice rachel and i! lt. gov. patty judge spoke, it was good. plus somehow rachel & i ended up in the waterloo-cedar falls courier for it later.



a picture on the platform for the speaker of the iowa house. ako abdul-samad is the legislator in the middle who got us in... notice i have the gavel in my hand.

all right, later that week... (or rather, the next day) was rock for a cure. the pikes put on a rock concert at mojo's to raise money for relay for life. it was a great success, the bands were awesome, and the place was packed. we raised over $1000 for the cause, which is coming up next weekend, so i'm pretty pumped about that too. we sold t-shirts for $10 each during the week too, which were a hit. it was awesome because so many people were wearing them on thursday (the day of the show).

and after that, it was spring break time! i spent most of my spring break in clarion, iowa, (small town iowa, i know) with my boyfriend. and when i wasn't there, i was working at the hy-vee here! not really anything exciting. but upon returning... that week was quite a busy one.

to start off, rachel, who has been doing a lot of the work for the glbtau decided to step back and work on her classes, meaning the rest of the exec committee have to pick up the slack, especially me. we're working on planning pride week (which is april 16-19). i'm having to run around and prepare things for that, which is just a thrill. haha. our theme is "erasing the isms: breaking barriers between racism and sexism." i'm really excited, we have a great speaker coming in, so look for more updates about that later!

but the rest of that week... of course. i had two applications due that friday. one for SAA and another for the NISG Executive Cabinet. on top of that, i had my big project in international relations the day before. the applications went well, and the project in international relations--a UN simulation of the situation in iran--went great too! i got a 95 on the resolution i wrote up for the country of france, so needless to say, i was proud. and as far as the applications, i was offered the position of Director of Diversity Affairs and found out I was accepted to SAA just today!

i came home to my dorm room tonight to find this waiting at my desk for me. on the inside it says "to welcome YOU to SAA!" i was pretty excited.

and of course, the sunday after that week was special olympics! that was a fun time, i got paired with a lady named mary alice from prairie view. i don't really know where that is, but they only brought three people to the competition. it was held in the uni-dome, which was cool. here are a few pictures from the morning:

the whole group from prairie view.



the lighting at the beginning of the ceremony.



me and mary alice.

let's see... what else has been happening in my life? oh of course, ingress week was last week, meaning i was busy almost every single night with ceremonies and such. it was awesome to experience ingress week and initiation from the initiate position rather than the pledge position. needless to say, it was a great week, and i think we initiated some great guys on saturday. after initiation on saturday, i ended up watching star wars all afternoon with two of my fraternity brothers, donnie and greg. considering i had never seen any of the star wars movies before, i was quite impressed. afterwards, we all headed to the house for an initiation celebration with a great big huge party sub!

i figured that since the last initiation picture i put up (from the fall) was the serious one, i'd put up the funny one this time!



robert, one of my brothers, and i hanging out at the pike house.

also, this past weekend i hung out with rachel and some of my other friends syd and angie. we kicked back, relaxed in ROTH, and watched a bit of a scary movie called first born. kinda different, but it was great to be able to relax after my past two hectic weeks and take a breather.

as if i didn't have enough pictures with rachel as it is...



me and syd. we met in oral comm last semester and have been friends ever since. she's pretty awesome.

and i think my entry is just about to end. last night i was elected the treasurer of the NI Dems for the 07-08 school year. i'm very excited about that, especially with the presidential election coming up so quickly. i am now also in charge of planning the meetings for glbtau, which sometimes drives me up the wall, but we had an awesome meeting tonight relating to lgbt history. we played "gay jeopardy." haha. sounds funny, but it was definitely educational. i'm currently in the process of suit shopping for the formals i have coming up in the next few weekends (adpi and my own). and of course, relay for life is soon. and did i mention i'm moving out of the dorms next year and into the pike house?

many things are achanging in my life! ;).

oh, and how could i forget the presidential scholar picture?

we talked kent, the professor who teaches our presidential scholar seminar, to let us have class outside last week (and this week too!). definitely a cool prof. i love that class. (see if you can find me!)

and i guess i should probably share the newest addition to my family. my mother brought him home from her spring break in colorado.

i leave you with a picture of rocky, who was found abandoned in the rocky mountains. cute little pup, he is.