BACCHUS General Assembly Recap

So I just realized I have a lot of recapping to do because I haven't posted anything since our Euchre Tournament. I've been super busy at work (in a good way) and blogging seems to have taken a back seat. Could it be? Am I cured of my blogging habit that's lasted all these years? Only time will tell.

For now, I thought I'd briefly recap my trip to Reston, VA for the BACCHUS General Assembly. Because we were scheduled to present at 2:00pm on the first day of the conference, we had to leave Bowling Green at 3:00am sharp! Rather than taking two cars, Faith rented a minivan for us and our 4 undergrad students from the Student Wellness Network. It was so early, I forgot to pack dress pants. Notice my jeans in the award ceremony above... yeah...

I thought a road trip would be the perfect time to try out my new Waze app that Chris showed me a few weeks before. Basically it's a free GPS app for the iPhone with live traffic updates, road hazards, and even ways to message other drivers. It sounds like a very wellnessy app to have for a trip to BACCHUS (except the texting part, but there is a pop-up that disables texting while you drive).

So we're cruising along, listening to Pandora - Owl City station, and munching on virtual PacMan candy on the Waze. Everything was cool until we hit the mountains and the Waze signal got very choppy. When we stopped for McDonalds breakfast, the signal was lost for good. Luckily I brought my old GPS (Jessica Garmin) with me. Even though her maps are about 6 years old, I knew the signal would be reliable. So there I was navigating with both systems running: One with old maps and a strong signal, and one with new maps that would cut in and out.

Aside from the navigation difficulties, the conference went really well. We ended up winning a Mental Health Program award for our "Erase the Stigma" panel discussion on mental illness. Courtney, one of our students, was also elected to the Student Trustee position on the national board. Sweet!



I didn't get as many workouts in as I was hoping (seems to be a theme this month), but when I went to the hotel gym I ended up meeting and lifting with Jared from Montana and Gerard from Jersey. I love starting up convos in the hotel gym, it's a laid back environment and you know nobody is a regular so you're not interrupting anyone's routine.

We skipped a speaker showcase on one of the nights and went in to DC to do some touristy stuff. After the sun set, it was really cold and windy - and once again I tried to rely on technology to get us around. I even downloaded Yelp to try to find us a place to eat, with no success. None of the restaurants were correct on the map, so we ended up wandering around. By wandering, we stumbled across the Occupy Washington camp - so I guess that's something I wouldn't have seen had we gone directly to the restaurant.

I feel like I'm writing a long postcard with this recap, but it feels good to be blogging. I'm actually in the hotel for another conference right now, which is why I even have time to jot a few things down. More on that later, I'm sure!

College students love trophies

I think the subject line on this post is pretty self-explanatory, but let me explain: College students especially love trophies.

Trophies are an exceptional prize for events with college students (thesis topic, anyone?) because college students are nostalgic, appreciate recognition, and proudly display tacky momentos in their living quarters.

Disclaimer: I don't have facts to back this up, but...

I think college students are especially nostalgic because they are going through a transition and can't help but reminisce about the "good ol' days" before all this responsibility. A video that circulated through 4 of my Facebook friends' walls provides more evidence for my contention that college students (and young professionals) are very nostalgic. 

College students appreciate recognition (who doesn't?) and like to receive credit for their actions. A trophy is a symbolic pat on the back that lasts for as long as they own the trophy.

Finally, college students proudly display tacky momentos in their residence halls and apartments. College students also have a lot of shelf space but not a lot of shelf-worthy items. This results in proud collections of weird tacky objects (the perfect nesting grounds for a trophy).



Last night, we had a National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week euchre tournament with 9 teams. We got a lot of comments about the trophies, suggesting that they are "legit" and "totally official looking." I had to agree that the trophies look "totally official" because they are, in fact, totally real trophies from a trophy store (QuickTrophy.com).

In conclusion, trophies make better prizes than $5 gift cards to Starbucks.

[Photo courtesy of Sorcyress. Licensed under CC BY- NC 2.0.]

Element dance team from BGSU performed at the Falcon Football Fiesta

The Falcon Football Fiesta was sort of a pep-rally party thing leading up to Homecoming weekend. My favorite part of the night was a performance by the dance crew "Element." Here's a clip of their performance:



The Peer Educators were there with a Fatal Vision activity for alcohol education. We stood there for 3 hours and had about 10 people stop by the table. As you can tell by the video, alcohol education wasn't the main focus of the event.

First Pinkberry in Ohio, 1 of 3 on a college campus

Ever since I watched the Harvard Sailing Team "Boys Will Be Girls" video (below), I wanted to try Pinkberry. (Every guy should have a knowledge of it!)

Now that the BGSU Pinkberry location is the first Pinkberry in Ohio, and 1 of 3 locations on college campuses nationwide, I can finally agree that it's "totes the best hund cal fro yo."

The staff was what I can only describe as aggressively friendly. They asked me if I wanted to try a sample of every flavor. When, after two samples, I said I had made my decision, they seemed to be shocked that I didn't want to try more.

I ended up getting watermelon with kiwi and strawberry "swirly pearls" on top. If Swedish fish laid eggs, they would taste and feel like swirly pearls.

All in all, I left with a very satisfying and elitist feeling knowing that not only had I purchased the best hund cal fro yo, but that I was among the first in Ohio to do so.

Facebook Timeline and easy OSX screenshots

I can really kill two birds with this post! I just wanted to share a couple neat tricks I came across during Fall Break. The second will be used to highlight the first, and that is Facebook Timeline:

I've heard Facebook Timeline referred to "the journal I didn't realize I was keeping," which I tend to agree with. Facebook Timeline will be going live on October 16, 2011, but it is already up and running for Facebook developers. If you want to enable it now, basically you have to be a developer.

To be a developer, all you have to do is create a Facebook application - even if it doesn't work or do anything at all. Instructions to become a developer (of nothing) can be found via Mashable. It took me about 2 minutes to enable, and now I can make sure I have my timeline sufficiently edited before the big release date.

 

I noticed that a bunch of unflattering photos of myself came rearing their ugly head in the timeline, which appears to give more 'news feed' preference to albums rather than just status updates. Although I had a lot of the unpleasant photos untagged, I still appeared in previews of the entire album that popped up regardless of whether or not I was tagged in them.

Although these photos were never removed from Facebook, I always felt safer by not being tagged. Now that the albums themselves are given more prominence, it's worth taking a walk down memory lane to make sure your public image is intact.



Hiding items from your timeline is easy using the 'Edit or Remove' drop down menu, or you can choose to highlight items by clicking the star, which makes the post wider to cover both columns.

Isn't this fun? I'm using neat trick #2 to talk about neat trick #1. That is to say, I'm utilizing several OSX screenshot capabilities to take quick captures of my Facebook page.

I always wondered how people would take images of their comments on Tumblr and then publicly comment on those comments - it seemed like a lot of work. Now I realize they must have been saving a screen shot of an arbitrary area as a file by holding Command+Shift+4 on their Mac. Check out more options on this Hack College post.