Do you believe in miracles?

This weekend I did my "job" of commentating a basketball mens and womens double header. I love going to every home game and feeling like I'm really part of the action. Both teams have struggled some this year, so when they both won Saturday I was really excited. The women won big and the men won on a last second shot. My boss thought the clip was cool, or he just wanted to laugh at me, but regardless, he posted it on youtube. I'm the one yelling when Tatman hits the shot and also the one calling him a hero.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOQm0MD0Rx8

Inauguration

Coe sent me to the inauguration a couple weeks ago so I thought I'd take this post to share some pictures!

While in DC I was participating in a seminar that was focused on the inauguration. We had lectures in the morning and random site visits in the afternoon. I had some interesting site visits like the World Resource Institute, League of Women Voters and Coasta Rica Embassy. On the first day, however, we just took a bus tour of the city. This is me with my main man, the other Lincoln in the picture.


This is one of my favorite views from Washington, looking down the mall from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial (that is the reflection pool and Washington monument behind me). Also, notice the construction going on behind me. Preparations were being made for the inaugural concert which was held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial the Sunday before the inauguration.
As part of some of the lectures we had in the morning, C-SPAN filmed a couple segments in the auditorium we were. This is Brian Lamb, the founder of C-SPAN. The day before this picture was taken I managed to get on live t.v. when I asked the panel a question. Strangely enough my uncle called right after and told me he saw me!
This is the view I had for the inaugural concert on Sunday. We got there around 12:30 for the 2:30 concert and it was already packed. I watched the whole thing from the jumbo-tron in the upper-left hand corner of the picture. A couple big names from the performance included: Tom Hanks, Steve Carrell, Tiger Woods, Jack Black, Bruce Springsteen, Usher, Stevie Wonder, Shakira, Garth Brooks, U2, Beyonce and Pete Seeger (to name only a few).
The whole thing was amazing. I've told a couple people that singing the national anthem at the end of the concert with a couple hundred thousand fellow Americans was like nothing I've ever felt before.One of our site visits was the Capitol building. This is a picture from inside looking up into the done in the rotunda of the Capitol.

And yes, I did actually go to the inauguration. I'll post pictures from that next week, but I've got to get to the wrestling meet. The Kohawk wrestlers are ranked #4 in the nation and are taking on the #3 and #19 teams, so it should be some great wrestling!

Break Update

A quick update:
Break has been awesome. I went home and caught up with family and friends and spent a weekend in Chicago with my brother visiting museums and hanging out with some cousins. Recently I came back to Cedar Rapids to focus on finding a job after a graduate (ahh... real world!). I am also tying up some lose ends with my job as treasurer before I hand the responsibilities off to the next person.
The most exciting thing I came back to Cedar Rapids for, however, was to catch my flight to Washington D.C. Friday! Coe has given me an amazing opportunity to participate in a 10-day seminar studying the recent election and upcoming presidency. I have also managed to secure tickets to the inauguration through my Congressmen, so watch for me on T.V.!
And don't worry, there will be plenty of pictures and stories on this page in the future!
Classes start on Jan 14. I'm going to miss a couple, but I'll be back soon enough. Hope everyone had a great holiday season!

AAHHHH.... Break

Break is finally here.
After revising all my papers, giving all my presentations and taking all my finals I am finally done! While I'm definitely glad to be home and relaxing (I just woke up at 11:30), this break is a little bitter sweet for me, because for all I know it may be my last one. I'm also using the break to look for jobs after I graduate and most of them are taking me to places across the world. While I can't wait to get a job and travel, its a little daunting thinking how far away from home I could be.
So with that thought in the back of my mind I'm enjoying every minute of this break. Aside from shoveling my parents driveway a ton, I've been spending time catching up with old friends, enjoying some cooking and spending time with my family. And yes, sleeping as late as possible.

I'm really looking forward to the end of break, though, when I head to D.C. I'm going to take a 10-day class that culminates with the inauguration! I'm so excited to get back to D.C. and the reason I'm going makes me even more excited.

If I have the time and internet capabilities I'm going to try to blog about it some while I'm there so check back. In the meantime, however, I'm going to go shovel and take a nap.

Crazy...

Life has been pretty crazy lately. Thanksgiving break was great, but when I came back Monday a tempest of activity awaited my return. First of all, this is the last week of classes, with finals starting next week. I've got a couple papers due, a couple end-of-the year tests and one project. So in case school wasn't enough to keep me busy I tacked a bunch of other stuff on.
-The Christmas Vespers Program: This Christmas tradition at Coe is a combination of readings, prayers, singing and all around Christmas joy. I had the honor of reading this year.
-Intermural Racquetball: I love racquetball. I love it so much that when it was announced and IM league was being played this fall I signed up for both singles and doubles. We're in the final couple days right now which means scrambling to finish all my games (I played 4 matches Tuesday afternoon!)
-Kohawk Basketball: The Kohawk men and women opened conference play last night at home. One of my friends and I are "the voice of the Kohawks," bringing the game to the world via the Kohawk Sports Network on the internet.
-Student Senate: Last Saturday we had out Budget and Finance Day. As the treasurer I oversaw the proceedings as we allocated over $140,000 to our clubs and organizations across campus. We had to discuss the budgets before the full Senate on Wednesday night.
-Job Search Workshop: Our Career Services Office held a workshop designed to give graduating seniors tips on how to find jobs. This was a pretty big reality check for me - I graduate in 6 months!
-Sherry Wott- Sherry is a diversity speaker coming to campus speaking on how to have difficult dialogue. Its sponsored by the Residence Life Department and sounds like an interesting talk.
-The Office: Now this probably doesn't sound as important as the others, but it definitely is. Every Thursday night for the whole semester anywhere from 5 to 20 fill my apartment for our weekly ritual of watching Steve Carell create awkward moments and drop unforgettable one-liners.

Oh yeah, and I write this blog which has already taken enough of my time for today... I've got a paper to write!

Electra- fying

Each year Coe's theater department puts on three major productions. Right now they are performing their second show of the year, Electra. The play follows the life of Electra, the main character, as she agonizes over the death of her father, who was a great warrior. Adding a twist to the plot is that Electra's father's murder is her own mother. This pain of losing her father at the hands of her mother drives Electra nearly mad.
I had heard of this play written by Sophocles and was pretty excited to see it put on by my peers. The main character, Electra, was played by my friend Addie. Seeing Addie transform from herself, a happy friendly person to the deranged Electra was amazing. The amount of emotion pouring off the stage from all the actors was unrivaled by any show I have seen at Coe. Adding to the skill of the actors was a first class set that included rain, blood and knives.
For one of my classes my first year at Coe I had to go to a play. I was reluctant to go at first but after seeing the ability of Coe's performers and the professionalism of the production I haven't missed a show yet, and it seems like they just keep getting better.

Fall Break

So every year Coe has a Fall Break midway through the first semester. As this semester is already drawing to a close, our Fall Break was obviously quite a while ago, but my camera has been broken so I have to rely on friends to get me pictures to put on this site. Well, that and the semester coming to an end generally overwhelms me with everything I have procrastinated on all semester!
Anyway, this year for fall break I went with two friends to Chicago for a weekend. My friend Mike is from Skokie, which is a suburb right next to Chicago, so we decided to use his house as a base. We left Cedar Rapids Friday afternoon and after a stop at my house in DeWitt it was off to Skokie!






We got into Skokie and ate a delicious meal of lasagna with Mike's family and watched some baseball before heading out to visit some of Mike's friends. We were pretty tired from the trip and went to bed early, as we had a big day planned.



Saturday morning we woke up and immediately called resturaunts in town to see which would have the Iowa football game on TV. Naturally, Buffalo Wild Wings, one of our favorite places, was where we ended up. After the game (they lost, of course) we got on a train and headed downtown to Chicago. We stopped and picked up my friend from home, Landon, who is now a student at Columbia and living in Chicago (that's Landon on the right). We just got off at a stop with no real plan or destination and wandered the streets for a while until we wound up at Millennium Park (with the giant metallic "bean"). While we were there Mike was enticed by a game of bags at the restaurant in the park, so just like we do every other weekend in Cedar Rapids, we ended up playing bags for a few hours, except it was under the Chicago skyline, which was pretty cool.
After our hours of bag playing we didn't feel like paying to eat at the trendy restaurant where we were playing bags so we stopped by Jimmy John's for a sandwich (while Amy escaped to do some quick Michigan Ave. shopping). We were then back on a train to meet some other friends for a drink in a different part of town. We then jumped from place to place until we realized it was 3:00 a.m. and we should probably be heading back soon! The night ended with another train ride to Mike's house and a very welcoming night of sleep!


We got up the next day and made the trip back to Iowa feeling good about our little adventure from the ordinary!