Big Mothaf#($*!@^ Rock!

Last night certainly was eventful, what with having to deal with some people in the building who decided it would be a good idea to break things. Among the issues: a broken window from a rock someone threw, a broken exit sign someone tore from the ceiling, a broken door and door handle, and one of our fraternities' letters were broken by someone. Three issues involved NAUPD, and I was up (along with my partner on call and our ARHD) until 5am writing reports and taking care of business. All-in-all, the most eventful night I've had all semester. The good news is, I only have 2 more nights on call for the remainder of the semester: one Thursday night in a couple weeks, and one Sunday night at the end of April. Then it should be all downhill from there! Oh, and my Diamondbacks SWEPT the Colorado Rockies with a final score today of 5-2 coming on a ninth-inning 2-run home run by Mark Reynolds and a tenth-inning solo homer by Stephen Drew. Prior to both of those, the DBacks only had three hits, zero runs in the game! I LOVE late-inning heroics!

Mr. Greek

So yesterday was Mountain View Hall's big event for the spring semester - the Mr. Greek competition. This is basically a male beauty pageant for members of NAU's fraternities judged by members of the sororities and a few select "special guest judges." The point was to raise money for both the charity of choice for the winner and the charity of the Mountain View Hall staff, NACASA (the Northern Arizona sexual assault assistance center). The staff of our hall planned, prepped for, and executed the event. I myself was the "Finance Chairman" (even though I was alone in my committee), which only meant I got to collect and count the money raised from the ticket sales at the event. Fun job, I know, but we did raise $1700 for the two charities, divided up as $1,000 for the winner's charity and $700 for NACASA. As for the event itself, well, I can only speak to the second half, because throughout the first half I was staffing the door and counting money and tickets. But once I did get in, cash box full of money tightly under my arm, the second half was entertaining. The event was set up to have four rounds: a "chapter pride" round, formalwear round, intermission and first cut of contestants, talent round, and question round. I saw only the intermission and cut and the talent and question rounds. We certainly have a lot of talented people here - singers, dancers, mimes... yeah, I said mimes. Overall, the event was a stunning success, with the victory going to Kappa Alpha Order member Stephen Mark Land, Jr. and his charity, the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Runners up were Danish Ishaq of Kappa Sigma, Matt Bond of Theta Chi (one of my guys), and Ryan Guss of Delta Tau Delta. Oh, and the "Mr. Congeniality" award going to Phi Delta Theta member Axel Sapwell. Despite this thing stressing the entire staff out for the past two weeks, if not longer, it went well, though I have to admit, I am thoroughly glad it's done with!

"The Lumberjack" Screws Students Over Again

This time, though, it wasn't the College Republicans. Yesterday, the Lumberjack released a "specialty publication" entitled the "Best of NAU" with a bunch of little blurbs about a variety of people, places, and things that students could read and then go online and complete a survey to vote for the best ______ in Flagstaff. Sample categories: 1. Hottest professor (male and female) 2. Best place to have sex on campus 3. Best place to take someone on a first date 4. Best activity for underage people on a Friday night 5. Best fraternity/sorority Well, unfortunately, their writers at the paper (who shall remain nameless, as I know who they are and don't want a witch-hunt) decided to write the following things about several of the Greek chapters at NAU: 1. Alpha Omicron Pi: "On Nov. 23, 1963, NAU was blessed with Alpha Omicron Pi sorority (YAY, us)." 2. Alpha Delta Pi: "... And if you're still not convinced, we heard a rumor that they like to get busy with some pretty wild pillow fights." 3. Kappa Alpha: "... So when you see KA on those sweaters and shirts all over campus, be sure to let them know we're not worthy of their excellence." 4. Phi Delta Theta: "So maybe you're actually into the whole brotherly love thing, but we know most of you are only into it for the trips to Lake Havasu and the easy access to sorority girls." 5. Pi Kappa Alpha: "Plus, we hear they can play a mean game of beer pong." 6. Theta Chi (these are my residents): "Who the hell wants to be an ox for life? ... Located in Mountain View, the fraternity is on campus and ready to do whatever fraternities do. I guess being a big dumb animal for life doesn't sound so bad after all." So, basically, Greeks were insinuated as being: blessed, full of themselves, wild, party animals, womanizers, alcoholics, and big dumb animals who don't really do anything. Um, yeah, not cool. Many, many of these people are my good friends, and aside from the obvious that they're pretty pissed about this stuff, the writers did not take into account all the good things that these chapters do, including donating tens of thousands of dollars collectively to charity annually, posting thousands of hours of community service annually, having some of the highest collective grade point averages of any group on campus, and being leaders on our campus (student body president, homecoming king, ASNAU senators, etc). Because the writers are not themselves Greeks, and because they did not seek the input of anyone within the Greek system regarding these comments, and because, well, a lot of this stuff is just false altogether or unfounded, their comments are also libelous. Yesterday, when my staff and I found out about this article, I came up with the idea to organize a petition drive to get my residents in Mountain View to sign to formally request that the Lumberjack both retract their statements and issue an apology to all the chapters, which I implemented and obtained 356 signatures for in about 8 hours (which percentage-wise equalled 67% of my building). I delivered the petition to the Lumberjack head honcho today with Greek Life coordinator Wendy Davison during a meeting she was having to try to come to an amicable conclusion about the issue. During the meeting between Wendy and I and the two Lumberjack advisors, they refused to retract any of their statements, citing creative license (despite the fact that each chapter paid around $120.00 for the advertising space), and were exceptionally indignant about the whole matter, refusing to apologize for any of their insults on the grounds that "it is entertainment" and "it was supposed to be funny" and "it accomplished its mission of being a fundraiser." Well, needless to say, my whole building is pretty much up in arms. After living here in this community for a year, I really understand that the stereotypes portrayed by "Animal House" or "American Pie: Beta House" are very much unfounded and defamatory, and all the work that my residents have done on NAU's campus to dispel that negative image was washed out by less than 100 words in yesterday's paper. You might think "but does anyone actually read the paper?" Well, I can tell you that 5,000 EXTRA copies were printed just yesterday so that they can be placed on the Dome seats during sporting events, and the results copy of the paper yet to be released is set to be given to everyone attending graduation in May of this year. So yeah, it's going to get read. And not just by students, but by their parents, friends, relatives, little siblings, everything. So, I'll post again later on some of the results of the next couple weeks as this issue moves forward, but I have heard tell that two chapters, Phi Delta Theta and Theta Chi, are preparing lawsuits alleging defamation of character over the issue. I will be helping as much as I can, so I hope anyone who is reading this will also show their support for what I feel is a more than worthy cause.

Ita Infit

"And so it begins..." Many moons ago, I started a blog for the purposes of recording my time at college. Well, as most can probably tell, that didn't really go anywhere. But in the spirit of making certain I can remember all the crazy stuff that goes on in my life as a Resident Assistant for Mountain View Hall at NAU and in looking for a job after I graduate this May, I am going to try again. So, for those of you that don't already know what I do, I am the Resident Assistant for Mountain View Hall, which houses the fraternities and sororities on campus. Whereas most places have a "fraternity row" or several on- or off-campus houses, our Greek Life is contained in one of the biggest buildings on campus which looks out over the spectacular vista of the San Francisco Peaks in Flagstaff, Arizona. Each RA in the building gets to work with a chapter or two on one of the View's floors: I am the RA for Theta Chi and Sigma Nu, with a few Kappa Alpha members as well. I've been in this position since the beginning of this year, and it's become one of the best things I could have ever done for myself. To start with the basics that everyone knows about the position, I am compensated for my room and board and food here on campus. I have my own room in the hall without a roommate, and in return, I work on-call shifts in the building once or twice a week, and work at the building's front desk checking in and out items, and helping out wherever needed. On a deeper level, I get to connect with almost 600 people in this building who are absolutely amazing. Before I came here, I had some of the same stereotypes about Greeks that many other people do, but I have come to really appreciate all the positive things about my residents and their organizations, which are not unlike my previous posts with the College Republicans: each chapter does community service on a regular basis to raise money for their "philanthropy" (some type of organization in the country), they study hard and typically have very high grade point averages as chapters, and promote a sense of community I never really found elsewhere in college. The reason I am talking so much about them is that they are a very big part of who I am this year, because I work so closely with them. Not a lot of people who are unaffiliated with Greek Life know about this stuff; I know I certainly didn't before becoming an RA here. On the opposite side of work, I am striving to finish school this year by May so that I can graduate with my bachelor's degree in American Political Studies with a focus in Public Administration. Just a few more weeks to go! Right now, it's also crunch time for me to be finding a job. I have a couple prospects right now with a variety of campaigns for Republican candidates, but nothing noteworthy -- yet! Believe me, the job hunt will certainly be a big focus of my later postings! This weekend, I made the most of my time off, since I wasn't on call and didn't have to work the desk before today at 2pm. I decided my best course of action was to sleep until about 3pm on Saturday after going out with some of my friends the previous night. After that, I really just chilled out to the max for the rest of the day, watched some tube, played MLB2k6 on my XBox360, and then went back to bed after eating some Chinese food. Today, I got up early to try to accomplish some homework due tomorrow, and I'll be working on that all night here during my 11pm-2am desk shift. So you know what that means...! Feel free to email/IM me until all the wee hours of my shift 'cuz I'm gonna be bored!