Wow. So I just realized I hadn’t blogged in three weeks. I feel like I’m a bad blogger now. Apologies to all my readers. I won’t let it happen again.

The last three weeks have been exciting though.

The first big thing to happen was when Gov. Howard Dean visited campus on the 4^th. He spent the better part of two days running around campus and meeting with a variety of students. One friend of mine even got to interview him for her thesis on John McCain’s concession speech. The marquee event of his visit though, was his speech at Emens Auditorium about students getting involved in politics. It was everything a good speech should be: impassioned, exciting and full of useful knowledge. When he walked off the stage, I felt extra motivation in my goal to work on a campaign.

Then things got really fun.

After his speech ended, I went up to the front of the auditorium and joined a conversation with a few of my friends who happened to be standing up there. After about 10 minutes, I looked around and realized we were basically the only people left. Right as I was about to turn and leave, President Gora, walked out onto stage and one of the other people standing in the auditorium asked if we could go backstage and meet Gov. Dean.

She said yes!

So that person and my group of friends went back stage and sure enough, there stood Gov. Dean. Right as we got back there, President Gora personally introduced me to Gov. Dean, and mentioned that I had worked in Washington DC before. That led to a several minute conversation between me and Gov. Dean.

After that ended, we all went down to the basement of the auditorium, where Gov. Dean took pictures with a group of high schoolers, then with my friends and I. It was definitely a memorable experience.

The next day, I took the writing competency exam in the Teachers College, which is something that every student is required to take and pass before graduation. If you enjoy writing, which I do, the exam is fairly easily.

As soon as I got out of that, I sprinted over to Sursa Hall to catch Tom Kelley, the senior innovation manager at IDEO, give his presentation on innovation. I wasn’t able to stay the entire time, but what I greatly enjoyed what I did see.

Leaving there, I went back to my house, packed up my car, and drove the 4 hours back home with my girlfriend because my mom had bought us tickets for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra for that weekend.

Even though I only went home for the concert, the weekend turned out to be crazy fun. On Friday, we all went to the local zoo and botanical gardens because none of us had seen the new addition that had been made. It was definitely worth the trip.

Fun little fact: I have a zoo/museum addition. Whenever I’m in a new city, whether in the US or abroad, I have to visit as many zoos and museums as possible. It’s a product of my childhood. My mom would always take my sister and me to Chicago or St. Louis and we’d visit various museums and zoos. It helps being at a zoo and having someone who studied zoology in college with you because any random question you may have can be answered

That night, I invited some of my friends over and we played two incredibly intense games of Monopoly. Speaking of addictions, I have a slight Monopoly addiction when I’m home. Only once in the last 6 months have I ended a game before a clear-cut winner has been crowned. I’ve probably played at least 20 games in that time, each game lasting 4-5 hours. It’s one of those games where conversation and competition can occur simultaneously.

As for the concert, it was amazing too. It was three hours of intense guitar ripping, fire blasting, laser show goodness. I would’ve taken a picture had it been allowed.

And not to make this a theme, but I most certainly have a concert addiction. There have been times where I’ve skipped meals and spent that money on concerts. I’ve been blessed to be able to experience over 100 nationally or internationally recognized bands in concert. In fact, I already have tickets bought for a Five for Fighting/Bare Naked Ladies/All-American Rejects show coming up in December, a Owl City show coming up in January, and I’m trying to line up my schedule so I can buy tickets for a John Mayer show happening in April.

However, back to my weekend of events. Originally we had planned on leaving right after the show, but we realized there wasn’t anything to do in Muncie that Saturday night so we ended up staying in Peoria an additional night. I invited some of my friends over again, but instead of playing Monopoly, we had a change of pace and played Pokemon Master Trainer instead. This is a game I hadn’t even heard of before, let alone played. It was pretty fun though, I’d have to admit.

After my fun weekend of events, I really didn’t want to come back to Muncie, but I had to because a) class and b) my fraternity was having elections. This is the third election I’ve been involved with and I knew going into it that it’d be a long meeting. I wasn’t wrong. It ended up totaling 5 ½ hours. But the people that were elected are going to continue to keep the fraternity on its path to more great accomplishments.

Sadly, after the amazing weekend I had, the entire next week was just business as usual. Literally, nothing exciting happened. I had lunch with some friends which was awesome, but other than that, nothing that’s worth blogging about occurred.

Luckily, the same can’t be said about this past week. Last Saturday, I got invited to a political fundraiser for this candidate running for Sheriff. It was out north of town and I went with two of my University Democrats friends. The venue it was held in was gorgeous. On top of that, there was tons of free food, plus an open bar and free cigars. I didn’t partake in the open bar since I was driving, but I most certainly had my fill of food and topped it off with a nice stogey.

The coolest part though was all the conversations I ended up having. Some of the most powerful people in Muncie took time out of their evenings to come up to my friends and me, even though we were clearly the youngest people in the room, and talk to us. We made so many connections to help the organization that night.

The next day, I went out to lunch with a friend of mine who is now a doctoral student at Purdue followed by some shopping with him. Yes, we’re guys, and yes, we enjoy shopping. Who wouldn’t want to look fly for the ladies?

In all honesty, I only bought two ties. They were even on sale.

However, the fun light-hearted afternoon turned into an intense crazy night. The Patriots-Colts game was on and my entire fraternity met up in the house to eat pizza and watch it. Now I’m a Bears fan, and had no beef with the Colts, until Colts fans decided to be bad sports and remind me at every possible opportunity in the last three years that the Colts beat the Bears in the Super Bowl. So because of that, I have become a Bears fan who also roots for whoever the Colts are playing and especially roots for the Patriots.

Needless to say, the Colts’ opponents let me down for a 10^th straight week, as the Colts came back from a massive deficit to beat the Patriots with almost no time left on the clock in the 4^th. I still haven’t heard the end of it.

The next night, I was in Bracken Library and stumbled across the fact that there was going to be the Leonid meteor shower that night. My family would go see a couple meteor showers a year when I lived back home so I was excited for the chance to do it again. I posted a message on my Facebook and Twitter to see if anyone else was interested. A few people were.

The risky part though, was the fact that it had been raining off and on all day and the weather forecast showed partly cloudy to mostly cloudy skies for the entire night. I stilled planned on going out from 2am-4am and spending the entire time in efforts to just see one meteor.

I left the library and looked up to see the first clear sky I’d seen all day. I hoped it’d stay that way. I got back to the fraternity house, bundled up in as many layers as possible, packed my friends into my car and we headed out north of Muncie to the middle of the country.

We set up shop and stared into the night sky and for an hour, watched hurdling pieces of rock and ice streak across the night sky. It was gorgeous.

Afterwards, we went to Sunshine Café, one of only a few sit down restaurants in Muncie open 24-hours and had some of the most ridiculous conversations imaginable. The greatest parts of college are the late night talks with friends.

Me at Sunshine Cafe. The hands behind my head belong to my roommate. Punk.

On Wednesday, Ball State hosted Central Michigan in the last home game of the season, which meant it was also the last home game of my college career. I had major plans to get out of class, go tailgating, and go watch Ball State upset their rivals. Class got out early and I hurried back to the fraternity house to change into warm clothes so I could get out to the tailgating lot. The only problem was that none of my fraternity brothers were going to the game. Considering they provided half the fun for me at the games, this was a major disappointment. I ended up not going at all, which proved to be smart. Only 10 cars showed up for tailgating and we got beat 35-3.

On Friday, my fraternity held it’s formal at the Horizon Center downtown. The Horizon Center is a beautiful convention center that’s connected to the Muncie Children’s Museum. While I enjoyed the dance immensely, it wasn’t the most fun I had that night. That came later.

Around 2am, after leaving the house hosting the after-formal party, my girlfriend and I were headed back to the fraternity house and her apartment when I noticed this girl walking down the street with a yard sign tucked underneath her arm. Being the curious person that I am, I asked my girlfriend to pull over next to her so I could ask her about it. After a quick explanation from the sign girl, I did what every smart person in that situation would do, invited the complete stranger into my car to give them a ride. She gladly accepted. After dropping her off, we ended up driving around for an hour and offering rides to over 30 different people walking through the streets near campus. Twelve of the accepted. It was by far some of the most fun I had ever have and we definitely racked up some massive karma points.

On Saturday, I woke up bright and early for a class. Yes, there are a few classes that occur on Saturday. They’re usually attendance based. This class is held at that time to teach the lesson that “business isn’t Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm.” After class I went to my friend’s style line, which was held at the Student Center Ballroom. A style line is where someone picks a store, and creates a line of clothing that goes together from that store and has people model it on a runway. It was a lot more fun that I was expecting and some incredible creativity was shown by some of the promoters.

This week looks like it’s going to be an exciting one as well. Our Thanksgiving Break starts after classes end on Tuesday, so I’m going home and spending time with my family.

So, thank you for reading this behemoth of a blog post and I promise not to go so long again without blogging. As always, your questions, comments and criticisms are always welcome in the comments section.

The last week and a half has been a mixture of mountainous highs and valley-like lows. I was expecting a few good times and a few bad times and got the extremes of both.

It all started the Thursday before last. Upon finishing my news anchoring at WCRD, I was free for the weekend. Unlike most weekends however, this one was going to be extra special because it was Fall Break and my girlfriend and I had made plans almost six months earlier.

The original plan was to go to Brown County for a few days and camp, hike and fish. My girlfriend was even able to plan out a nature photo shoot for her work. Earlier in the week though, we decided that while camping in October sounds fun in the middle of the heat of summer, that the reality of camping in 40 degree weather isn't all that great. So we decided we were just going to make a day trip out of it. Drive down to Brown County early Friday, grab dinner with her parents that night, then drive to Purdue late that night to visit some other friends for the rest of the weekend.

On Thursday however, a tanker truck carrying liquid propane crashes into an overpass at the intersection of I-69 and I-465 in NE Indianapolis, shutting down the ramp we need to easily get to Brown County and just overall wreaking havoc on traffic around Indianapolis.

Then that night, while we're out with a bunch of friends, my girlfriend starts having some really bad pains in her back and kidneys. She didn't think much of it since she gets them every so often so we continued hanging out with our friends and thinking about the weekend ahead.

We awake the next morning only to find that not only is it raining cats and dogs in Muncie, it's also pouring in Brown County. The problem was though that we couldn't just scrap our original plans of getting dinner with her parents because the dinner was to celebrate their 25^th wedding anniversary. On top of all of it, my girlfriend started running a fever. We both we back to bed and grabbed a few more hours of sleep.

Friday afternoon, we embark on the two hour journey to Bloomington for dinner. Right from the start, everything that could go wrong went wrong. It would pour rain for a few minutes, stop, then the clouds would open and bright sun would cover the earth, only to hop right back behind a cloud and have it start pouring again. It made everyone crazy drivers and drove me bonkers.

We thought things were getting better because the traffic heading into Indianapolis was light. However, the second we got onto I-465, traffic came to a standstill. It stayed this way for the majority of the time we were on it. Because of that set back, we ended up driving on I-65 through downtown Indianapolis during rush hour, causing another traffic headache.

By the time we reached Bloomington, our two hour trip had become a three hour nightmare. On top of it, my girlfriend's fever had come back and started to reach a higher level than would've been liked. Luckily though, we were treated to some delicious steak at the end of it.

After dinner, we headed from Bloomington to West Lafayette to visit a friend of mine who is now teaching at Purdue. The trip there went extremely well and we had a great time that night.

The next day was going really well as well, until late-afternoon, when all of a sudden I felt like all of my energy had been drained. Throughout the day, my girlfriend's fever had stuck around. We both ended up taking a nap in the middle of the get together. Our nap became something much longer and we didn't wake up until much later that night. Once we were up and about, the nausea set in. Despite the fact we hadn't eaten since morning, we couldn't bring ourselves to eat anything without the urge to throw it up. We both we went back to bed, hoping it would be better in the morning.

It wasn't.

The next morning, a whole slew of symptoms came on. It was official, we were both sick with something, and whatever it was, it was nasty.

We spent the entire next day battling with body aches, headaches, nausea, exhaustion, sinus pressure, coughing and fever. I was worried because I had a major paper due the next day and had planned to spend the majority of the night working on it. On top of that, I had a test and another major paper due the day after my first paper.

We got back to Muncie and I went to the library, but was fairly unproductive.

Bright and early Monday morning, we were up and at the Health Center on campus. Despite walking in only five minutes after they opened, the place was packed. We waited around awhile and both saw the doctor and were told what we had: H1N1 a.k.a. the swine flu. I wasn't allowed to attend class until my fever had been gone at least 24 hours without the help of fever-reducing medication. On top of that, I had to seclude myself from my own house because I had over 20 roommates who I didn't want to expose to my illness. So that afternoon I packed up everything I would need for the next few days and moved into my girlfriend's apartment.

Part of me was a little excited though. This gave me an opportunity to work on stuff that I had been putting off and guaranteed that no one would come around to distract me because no one wanted to get sick.

My thoughts of motivation and productivity were quickly dashed though. By the end of the day, I barely had enough energy to get off the couch, let alone write an email or research a paper.

I slept for 13 hours that night (with a little help from NyQuil). I felt slightly more refreshed Tuesday morning, although all that sleep made my neck a little stiff. However, by mid-afternoon, my fever spiked. My hopes to be 100% by Wednesday were in vain. By the end of the night, the stiff neck had become more serious and I was having problems turning my head without moderate pain. I used Icy Hot patches and ibuprofen to help it, but none of it seemed to work.

By Wednesday morning, despite making sure I fell asleep in a comfortable position, my neck had become worse. Eating became a chose because opening my mouth past a certain point made my neck hurt. Luckily though, my fever broke mid-afternoon and I had hopes to be out and about by Thursday night.

Early Thursday morning, I was awoken by the pain in my neck. It had gotten to the point that it hurt to breathe out of my mouth. Something was seriously wrong. Being stubborn however, I refused to go to the Health Center and instead took some pain killers I had left over from a previous prescription. They barely touched the pain.

That afternoon I finally broke down and went to the Health Center. I was no longer sick with any of the flu symptoms, but I couldn't turn my head, breathe out of mouth or eat. The doctor prescribed me Vicodin and muscle relaxers. I was happy to possibly be relieved of some of the pain, but was disappointed that I wouldn't be able to be out and about for at least another day.

I went home, took my meds and was knocked out for the rest of the day. By Friday afternoon, when I finally got up, my neck was tremendously better, although nowhere near perfect.

That night I had a small get together for my girlfriend's birthday and reconnected with all those people I hadn't seen in almost a week. On Saturday I volunteered with my fraternity at the pledge drive for Indiana Public Radio, and enjoyed Halloween festivities that night.

But now here I sit, at 5am Monday morning, pulling an all-nighter, trying to catch up on the massive amount of work I have left over from this past week.

The past week and a half or so has been a crazy one. It all started last Friday when my girlfriend and I drove four hours to my hometown of Peoria, IL. I rarely go home except for extended breaks but this trip was for a good, yet sad, cause. Earlier this semester, the school board voted to close my high school, Woodruff High School, after 73 years of existence. Like most people, the school district is getting hit hard by the economy. That weekend was Woodruff's homecoming so I did exactly that.

See, I was a band nerd in high school, playing four different instruments. Playing in the band was something I continued with through my freshman year of college when I marched with Ball State's The Pride of Mid-America. An alumnus of my high school's band, who happens to also be a good friend of mine, decided to get a group of former band members to go to the homecoming game and play with the marching band. So that's what 20 or so of us did, we traveled the varying distances and came together with the band and played our instruments. It was amazing to catch up with people I haven't talked to in years and the football team smoked their opponents 35-0. After the game, a group of us stayed up until the wee hours of the morning talking about the past.

The next day, after not getting much sleep, my girlfriend and I drove the four hours back to Muncie so I could go to Pi Beta Phi's Barn Dance. I am good friends with a large number of Pi Phi's so it was amazing to go to a dance and be surrounded by all my friends. Being so tired from the night before, I ended up sleeping for almost 14 hours and didn't get up that next day until almost 4pm.

I wish I could've reveled in the rest I got but alas, school caught up with me. I spent the next three days studying intently for the two midterms I had last week. I think from the time I woke up that Sunday afternoon until when I finished my last test Tuesday night, I slept for something like 6 hours total and was studying for about 80% of the rest of the time. I spent most of that time in Bracken Library, which is open until 3am, and the rest of it in the study lounge at my fraternity house or the Entrepreneurship Lab. All the work paid off though because I scored a 92% on both of my tests. This is the first semester in college that I've had A's in all my classes through the midway point.

The rest of the week has been a breeze since then. On Wednesday night I ran my first meeting as chairman of the Ride Across the Purple Valley Philanthropy, and had a great turnout. The RATPV is a 577-mile bike ride across Indiana put on by my fraternity, Phi Gamma Delta, raising money for the American Red Cross. This year's ride is May 9-12, 2010 but planning for it has been going on for months.

Thursday night I went to the WCRD studio and reported the news with a few other anchors like I do every Thursday. I ran the sound board this week and it definitely wasn't my smoothest speaking day or board running. It didn't help that the news about that little boy in the balloon in Colorado kept changing as we were walking into the studio.

On Friday I slept in, went to lunch with a friend, and met up with my parents, who were in town for Family Weekend. We went out to the theater and watched Paranormal Activities. This is mark the last time I ever let my mom convince me to go to a movie with her. That movie might possibly be the worst thing I've ever watched. Afterwards we grabbed food at Olive Garden and chatted about what my plans were come May and Graduation.

For me, this conversation is one that goes one of a couple different ways. I'm an Entrepreneurship major, and Ball State's program is ranked top 10 in the nation because of something called "senior sweat." This is where seniors in the program write a full business plan and pitch it to a group of executives who then decide whether or not the student should pass the class. That's all good and dandy except it happens 48 hours before graduation, so I won't know until that point as to whether or not I'm graduating. If I do graduate, then I do one thing, if I don't graduate then obviously my plans change. Either way though, I have to have a plan laid out.

On Saturday my parents and I went to the Ball State football game, and I watched my mighty Cardinals fall to 0-7 on the season. Otherwise I spent the rest of the day watching college football on TV before going out and playing cards with a few friends of mine.

Today has been equally exciting. I've spent about 5 hours of today in the library and sat through two before watching my Chicago Bears completely break down and lose against the Atlanta Falcons.

I have a fun week of lots of class work ahead of me, but luckily Fall Break starts on Friday. I'm planning on spending my time at Brown County State Park and visiting a friend of mine who's now teaching at Purdue University.

As you read in my last blog, this past week was Homecoming Week, and I was a part of the committee that planned all the events.

Can I just say that the theme may have been the best ever because last week was definitely the “Best Week Ever.”

It started on Sunday with the Flag Football Tournament Preliminary rounds out at Bethel Fields. It might have been the earliest I have been up on a Sunday all semester, and that wasn’t a pleasant feelings given the fact I had gone out the night before. Overall though the event was a success and the competition was INTENSE. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tall muscular man run scared from a tiny little girl until that day.

On Monday, we had Opening Day Events and Bonfire, which consisted of teams competing in an obstacle course, tug of war and gladiator joust. I helped run the table for the tug of war. I think this might have been one of the most stressful moments of the week. There were several hundred people crowded around the one rope and I had to run from the table to the rope and tell the MC who was up next, then run back to the table after the tug had been finished to update the bracket and then repeat the process. Once that was finished I caught my breath and waited for the bonfire. Oh wait, it ended up not happening because of the windy conditions. BOOO!!! However, the DJ and MC got creative and after the awards ceremony, cranked some dance music and the 500 or so people on Lafollette Field turned the event into one big dance party.

Tuesday brought about the Residence Hall Dinner and Talent Search, the two events I hadn’t attended before. This year’s Residence Hall Dinner went right along with the TV theme of the week. The trays were designed to look like TV dinner trays and the food offerings were ones you would likely find in a TV dinner such as Salisbury steak, chicken pot pie and fried chicken. I ate more than my fair share. It was incredibly delicious. Afterwards I headed over to Emens Auditorium and was unprepared for what happened next. Twenty acts showcased a variety of performances ranging from dance, to banjo playing to barbershop quartet. The talent that was displayed that night completely blew my mind.

Wednesday brought the finals of the Flag Football Tournament and Fireworks. This was one of the most stress-free moments of the week. I got to sit back and enjoy some kick-butt football at Schuemann Stadium and follow it up with explosions in the sky.

No matter how amazing the events in the first part of the week were, nothing compares the my personal favorite event: Air Jam. Air Jam is a lip-synching competition that pits 20 different organizations against each other. Think of the craziest music video you can, then imagine that happening on stage. That’s kind of what Air Jam’s like. Some acts are mediocre but most are just out of this world. It wouldn’t be possible without the audience though. For the third year in a row, the event was sold out, which means over 3,500 people were jam packed into Emens Auditorium. Let’s just say, it gets really loud.

Friday was the day I had been working up to for months. It was the day of Bed Races. Costumed teams of five race beds down Riverside Avenue in a competition to see who’s fastest. My job was to find businesses to donate prizes that could be handed out during the event. I found quite a few and we were able to hand out over 30 different prize packs ranging from free sandwiches to $100 baskets of hair products. That night was the Alumni Association Awards Dinner were various alumni were recognized for their contributions to the university.

Knowing I had to be up at 5:30am on Saturday, I went to bed at a fairly decent hour: 2am. I figured I would be able to fall asleep quickly since I was pretty tired. Of course, Murphy’s Law had to strike. My mind was racing about how the parade would go that I couldn’t fall asleep. Sometimes I just worry way to much about stuff I have no control over. Plus it didn’t help that I had to sleep in the same place as a symphony of snoring.

So, after maybe 20 minutes of sleep (alright, it was more like an hour and a half, but that doesn’t sound as dramatic), I crawled out of bed, but on a suit, and got picked up to head over to Muncie Central High School to help line up the parade. I was in charge of lining up the marching bands. It’s hard enough lining up high schoolers, it’s even tougher when it’s early in the morning on a Saturday and they feel the need to blare their trumpets as loudly as possible.

Despite the splitting headache I ended up with, the parade went well and I was able to ride in the same convertible as my best friend. There’s nothing like singing your heart out to Fall Out Boy while riding in a convertible with your friend along a packed parade route while throwing out candy to little children and making their day.

After the parade, we fought through the traffic to the Alumni Center and I met up with my parents and girlfriend and we partook in the pre-game brunch. Ball State does many things well, and food is definitely one of them. After gorging on hot dogs and hamburgers, I took everyone over to the tailgating field for a few minutes so my parents could talk to the few fraternity brothers of mine that they know and I could see some of the graduate brothers I hadn’t seen in awhile.

The sad thing about being on the Homecoming Steering Committee is that moments after you’re going full force with it, it’s over. During halftime at the game, the steering committee was led out onto the field and introduced to the crowd. It’s great to be standing on the 50 yard line with a group you’ve worked with for 7 straight months and see thousands of people in the stands.

However, once we walked off the field, it was over. Seven months of planning had been finished and we were no longer a committee together. Homecoming was done.

I celebrated like anyone in that position should, I slept for 15 straight hours.

It was great.

But now it’s back to reality, and reality includes a low bank account. I’ve used the excuse through the first six weeks of school that I couldn’t take a job because I needed to focus on Homecoming. I no longer can use that excuse. So on Monday, I went to the Career Center and got a referral slip for this student assistant position on campus and I interview for it later this week.

As for now, I have a column to finish writing for the Daily News and class to finish reading for. So until next time, peace out!

You may not realize it, but this week is the best week ever.

For the past 6 months, the Homecoming Steering Committee, consisting of myself and 15 other students, along with 4 advisers, have been working diligently on planning out every aspect to this year's Homecoming, themed "The Best Week Ever". It started to come to fruition today as Ball State Homecoming 2009 kicked off with the preliminary rounds of our new event, the Flag Football Tournament. Now I may be biased since I'm on the committee, but this year's Homecoming is going to be epic. Every member of the committee has gone above and beyond the prior year's efforts and it definitely shows. There are other new events besides just the Flag Football Tournament, such as the Scavenger Hunt and the Storefront Decorating Contest. These are on top of the already amazing events such as Bed Races, Talent Search and Air Jam.

Regardless of the events though, Homecoming marks one of the few times a year that the overall community feel of Ball State really comes out. See, I came to this university because when I first stepped foot on campus for a tour during my junior year of high school, I felt like I was home and all the strangers walking by me on the sidewalk were part of a family I wasn't quite a part of yet. The community feel of Ball State is hard to describe, but it is always definitely present. With Homecoming, it seems that everyone makes an extra effort to come together and show school spirit. Even though our football will take the field on Saturday with an 0-4 record, the student section will be cheering like it's a 4-0 team.

Being a member of the Homecoming Steering Committee, this week will mark something different. It will mark the culmination of a lot of hard work and a lot of new friends and new knowledge. The last six months have been a roller coaster of long nights, many phone calls, crazy laughs and all filled with incredible people. Many of the other members of the Steering Committee were stangers to me a mere six months ago, and now are some of my closest and dearest friends. Even though com Saturday, we'll no longer be working together, we'll still all have a spot in each other hearts.

Also, being a member of the Steering Committee shows something that Ball State is extremely good at: creating immersion opportunities. As the Community Sponsorships and Promotions Chair, I got to work one-on-one with many of the businesses in Muncie and gained valuable knowledge for my major. I was able to see different theories and terms I have only read about before, in action. The image the definition of marketing leads one to have is starkly different than the actual image of marketing in action. This is just one example of the many invaluable things I learned in my position and just furthers my love and my debt to this university.

But, since it is Homecoming Week and I am currently writing this at almost 2a.m., I feel it is time to grab some sleep before tomorrow's Opening Day Games and Bonfire. So, feel free to ask any questions you may have and I'll get back to you as soon as possible!

Peace out!