Month: November 2014

Hey Everyone!

I can’t believe it is almost Thanksgiving and I am really excited for it!  I also get to see my family tomorrow as they will be up here for the entire week visiting my family in Salem – I get to see them tomorrow and then join them on Wednesday when I get out of classes. When I came up here, 9 weeks seemed like such a long time, but really it has gone by super fast, and that is a good thing because it shows how much I like it here.

Also, I got football tickets for the Colorado Boulder Game, making it so that I have gotten tickets to all four games.  They have all been on my computer. I have also gotten tickets three times for my friends on my computer.  Bottom line: I have decided my computer is lucky.

Last week I got to go to Columbia Sportswear Headquarters in Portland with the Warsaw Sports Business Club.  It was a really cool visit.  We got to hear from the CEO and the head of procurement.  We also got to go on a tour, and went shopping at the employee store.  I really enjoyed visiting the company and may look for an internship their in the future.

That was also the most productive part of my weekend.  On Saturday I basically watched football, and then played board games with my RA and friends for like four hours.  We played Risk and it ended up being really fun.  We kinda ended up getting really into it and at one of my friends threw dice, vehemently marched around the room all because we did nothing but take one little territory.  Other than that, I celebrated my friends birthday on Friday and went to Pride and Prejudice on Sunday.  I ended up skyping my friends for over an hour from home, and as great as that was, it did not help me get my homework done at all.

As the term winds up, the biggest thing that I have going on is my research paper.  I am writing it the International Olympic Committee (IOC) reform as they have become too financially demanding when it comes to countries trying to host an Olympic.  This actually has a lot of recent news as Oslo, Norway recently withdrew their bid.  They claimed that  the International Olympic Committee was demanding too many things like special privileges for IOC members.  This includes things like special parties and traffic lanes just for them.  In addition, the Olympics have just come to cost a lot of money, and the cost have steadily increases throughout the past few years.  Sochi, for example, recently spent 51 billion dollars to host their recent winter Olympics, the highest cost of an Olympics to date.

I could definitely write much more about this topic but I feel like that is a good summary of what is going on.  I am enjoying the research paper as in addition to everything that I have already read about the Olympics, I am reading things like the actual candidature procedure itself.   Why anyone needs to have read the actual candidature procedure I am not sure, but I find it very interesting.

The best part about this paper is that the topic is really interesting.  I have already liked many Olympic related things on Facebook.  Now those pages on Facebook are posting things about Olympic reform.  Basically, my research is getting handed to me and its great.  (It also really annoys my friend who is in the same class as she is have a much harder time finding sources).

That is all for now, maybe I’ll post part of my paper when it is done if anyone is ever interested.

Amanda

P.S.  Here is a photo of us celebrating my friend’s birthday!

Hello again!

For the first time ever, I am writing this blog post on a Thursday night.  That is because tomorrow I am going to Portland with the Warsaw Sports Business Club to visit the Columbia sportswear headquarters.  During the visit we will get to hear different speakers including the CEO, take a tour, and finish off the day at the employee store.  I am really looking forward to it, but to get back to my point, I will not be back in time to do this blog post tomorrow, when I usually write it, bring me to this moment right now.

This was the first week (week seven) that I have not had a test or paper due since week three.  This was a good thing, because I had a lot of other stuff to do, like catch up on some history reading from last week and start to figure out my classes for next term.  Figuring out my classes for next term has not exactly been an easy process. For starters, there is so many different things that I could take, and there is so many things that I want to take, so it is hard to narrow stuff down.  I tend to have decision issues when it comes to things like this because I want to do everything and it is probably my biggest problem.  On top of that, I am looking into entering  the business honors program next year.  My adviser has told me that that is something freshman don’t do because they don’t have enough of the pre-business administration classes taken. Today however, I received an invitation to the honors program and was told that you don’t have to have all of the classes taken.  They encourage any freshman with over 25 credits to apply, which I qualify for.  So next, week I am going to meet with the honors program to talk about a plan and make sure I am track with the right classes if I do decided that I want to do the program next year.

I can comfortably say that anytime I have had questions, needed support, or was confused I have had people to turn to here.  Just like in high school where I always had people to turn to, like friends and family, I have people to turn to here as well.  I think high school and here are very similar in that aspect.  Here I have friends to turn too, my family to talk to at home, and my really cool RA. My FIG (freshman interest group) assistant also really helped me this week with figuring out a question about what math class to take and how many credits as well. As far as asking for help here, thankfully I haven’t really had to do that yet.  I would say though, that if something comes up, I think that I will have just as easy time asking for help here as I did at home.

To talk about something cooler than stuff like classes, last weekend I got to explore Eugene pretty well.  On Saturday, two of my friends and I went to the Saturday market and looked at all the stuff there like jewelry and other stuff that vendors sell.  Then on Sunday, my friend and I went to Off the Waffle.  Off the Waffle is without a doubt the best waffle I have EVER eaten.  It kinda makes not want to eat waffles unless it is from Off the Waffle (I will probably break this but it sounds good right?).  I also went to the gym almost everyday this week and went to a pool off campus where I swam a mile.  Being back in the pool has me really looking forward to January when the pool in our rec center opens.  Finally, tonight my friends and I went to the Ducks After Dark movie 22 Jump Street.  I hadn’t seen it before, but really liked 21 Jump Street.  The two movies are very similar, but I will agree with my friend when I say that 22 Jump Street is funnier.

I should probably be going to sleep now, but I will most likely watch some TV before I go to bed.  My friend got me started on the show Gilmore Girls.

Anyways, until next week!

Amanda

 

 

Hey everyone!

This week has been a crazy week.  On Wednesday, I had a test and an essay due, both in my morning classes – so yeah, that was pretty fun.  I also had two club meetings this week, so I didn’t really get to see my friends much either. Hopefully this weekend will change that!

Last weekend, with Halloween and the game(which was awesome) it was hard to get to Sunday, concentrate, and be ready to take a test on Wednesday and turn in an essay.  But for Halloween, my friends and I all dressed up and took pictures.  I was a cowgirl, my friends were superman, the Tardis, and Aphrodite.   Then for the game on Saturday, I went with my three other friends, and then we got food afterwords.  Both of them were a lot of fun.

Then on Sunday, I had to write my entire history essay.  I also read a paper for my Ethnic Studies class, and wrote a rough draft of a cover letter.  I got it all done, but needless to say it wasn’t as much fun as Halloween and the game.

My Ethnic Studies test was actually not that bad and I think that I did pretty well.  I also think that my history essay went pretty well.  I emailed it to GTF ahead of time and he told me that it was pretty good, so I am pretty happy about that.  The best thing this week was that I got a 98% on my business midterm, when the class average was a 77%.

Its crazy to think  that we are this close to Thanksgiving, because that means that we are actually really close to the end of this term.  For Thanksgiving, I will be going to Salem to spend time with my family.  I guess that would be a tradition that I am upholding.  My family has gone to Salem for Thanksgiving for years now, so that is something that I am looking forward to.  Other than that, I can’t really think of any traditions that are no longer occurring since I have left for school.  There are definitely things that I miss like my friends, family, pets, and Sierras (where I would go a lot on the weekends), but I wouldn’t say that they are traditions.

As for here, I think something that is becoming a tradition is that my hall goes to brunch together on Saturday mornings at Barnhart.  I think it will turn into a tradition because I didn’t really like breakfast foods until I went to brunch, and now I do.  Also, Carson Late Night is like my favorite place to go.  On Wednesday night, a lot of people from our hall decided to go right as it closed and it was pretty fun.

This weekend will definitely be calmer than last weekend.  I found a place to go lap swim, so I am definitely planning on doing that.  Other than that, I will probably hang out with friends, watch some movies, and do homework.  I want to catch up, and keep ahead so that I am not swamped with work like I was this week.

Finally, I am starting to think about my class schedule for next year.  I know that I am going to take Econ 201 and I found a class on ancient sports that I really want to take, but other than that, I don’t really have anything set in stone yet.  I am meeting with my adviser on Tuesday, so that will definitely help with my decision making.

I attached some photos from last weekend for you guys to see.  The first one is photos from Halloween and then the other one is from the game. Oh, and there are probably some other ones that I just uploaded because I think that they are cool. Talk to you next week!

Amanda