GSU Blog Series: My Experiences, Senior Year

This is a series of blogs regarding Georgia Southern University, my alma mater. I attended GSU from the Fall of 2007 until May, 2012, when I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology. These blogs will reflect facts and opinions in regards to various things I experienced, saw, or heard of while at GSU. 

I'm not a credible news source, however I do check my facts before writing them down. Below the blog, I credit the conversations with people, if any, that played a hand in shaping the body of this blog. If you have any issues with what is being said, please feel free to contact me.

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Kay... now that I have my Firefox settings re-configured, we can get on with this blog!

I should note that I attended GSU for 5 years. So I consider this to be my true "Senior" year, versus last year. This was obviously the easiest to remember, but I'll do my best to not add so much fluff an get on with the order.

Basically? I'll try not to bore you.



First thing: moving into Apartment 727. It was my new one-bedroom I'd have for my last year in school, which I have to admit, I was kind of excited about. Again I was on the 3rd floor, but the cool thing is that I could visually see my old apartment (and my old bedroom) from the living room window in my new apartment. Literally 100 steps away, give or take.

I got some friends to help me move, and this is when I realized how much crap I actually owned. It was terrible, probably the worse was moving that living room TV.

There were a lot of memories in that apartment. You would thing going from living with a roommate to living alone would be a big change. It may have been, but I adapted pretty quickly. I didn't really change any mannerisms I had, with the exception of being responsible for all the upkeep in the apartment versus sharing the duties.

Surprisingly I didn't have a ton of people in my apartment all the time like I initially thought. I had gotten use to driving to see my friends in their places so I spent a lot of time at my friends' apartments versus them being at mine. But there were, on the occasion, some parties in my place. One of them in particular was my friend's bachelorette / wedding party. It was a pretty elaborate plot, but in the end it was pretty cool. In the end, we all chilled in my place watching TV and enjoying the weekend. Lots of inside jokes came from that party too.


It was also my last year in Marching Band, along with the first year for our new Marching Band director, Dr. Colin McKenzie. From the get-go, he was definitely a difference from Dr. Fallin, but I have to say it was a great difference.

The one thing I liked, from the beginning, is that I was quickly reminded why I wanted to do Marching Band all those years ago. Granted Band Camp was probably the toughest I had gone through in 9 consecutive years, it was by far the best. And to top it off, I loved my section more than words could say.

It was weird. I was the oldest person in the Clarinet section, by far. With me being a Senior, I wanted to be more of a role model than anything else. That's just how I function. I wanted to help, I wanted to be an extra set of ears if anyone needed, and by far, I wanted to have all my stuff together. But one thing I never did, or wanted to do, was over-step my Section Leaders. I have MAD respect for Caitlin and Alex, because they made it fun and exciting. They listened to us, were cool yet firm, and above all, really made my last year that much more memorable.

That's not to say there weren't little bumps along the way. But I think in the end, I left on a high note, much more of a high note than I could have imagine.

The aspects of Southern Pride changed a bit. Things were a lot harder, Dr. McKenzie was a lot more, well, strict and hard on the group. My opinion? It all paid off for the best. It's what SP needed. Dr. Fallin did a fantastic job, definitely at least during my first 4 years. With Dr. McKenzie though, Marching Band, specifically, is his job. This is what he's here to do (along with conduct a University ensemble, but you get the point) so obviously he can devote a lot of time and effort to it. I feel, that's fantastic.

And the results started to show just in that first year. And it'll continue to get better and better. Hopefully I can make it to a show.



One cool thing, in a way connected to Marching Band, was spreading out and meeting new people. Again, it should be noted that I can be very shy around people, new people. This year, I pushed myself to be more vocal, more open, especially to the Section. I think heading up the t-shirt design and making a genuine effort to make everyone happy, helped with that.

Probably the best situation that came out of that was meeting my friend, Kelson.

Now... to that point, I'd been having problems with a friend of mine, and it was a situation that got to be exhausting, to the point where I was almost at my wit's end. Sure I had other friends to talk to, and I did that. But the situation itself was just.... bad.

Now, I have to say, Kelson and I sat next to each other at every single football game all season long.... the pictures prove it. It's funny, I had originally tried sitting in a different area, and I moved next to Kelson because it was the only other open space.

Great decision.

He's pretty awesome to hang around.

The pictures are well-documented on my Facebook (which if you're reading this, chances are you can see them), and Kelson is in, I'm willing to bet, 1 out of every 3 or 4 pictures. It just happened like that. But, weirdly, I never talked to him before that. I had the number of every person in the section, but I never talked to him.

So on the trip to Wofford, while everyone else was sleeping that morning, I sent him a random text message, in my typical fashion. That in itself ignited a long conversation that lasted the entire bus ride. It's here I find out that he's wanted to chat with me all semester. I had NO idea, or at least, I was so involved in everything around me that I didn't see it.

From there, we just talked.... and talked.... and talked. It became a situation where you rarely saw me without talking to Kelson at some point. There were even times I shifted my spot in the "Arc" just to play next to him or talk to him more. It was kind of funny, but no one had any problems with it. We'd goof off a little, but mostly we were pretty serious. It surprised me, because I don't think I'd had ever made a friend that fast before. But when you think about it, we'd been around each other all season, so really... the foundation was there.

I was afraid when the season ended that it wouldn't go any further, but we hung out consistently during the Spring Semester. He was a great help to me for the Relay for Life team I was a Team Captain of. To me, it was awesome. And it was a great reminder and pre-cursor to all of my friends. It reminded me that I needed to slow down and appreciate the people around me, the people who want to spend time with me and appreciate me as who I am. I don't need to be so wrapped up with one friendship that I sacrifice making so many others. And to my credit, I feel like I've done that... at least, done that better. I haven't heard many complaints.

Sometimes you need reminders like that.



One of the most exciting things to come from my Senior year was my trip to Orlando during Spring Break. I have never gone on any trip like that with my friends, mostly because of money, time, and well, I'm always in California if I'm not in school. But this year, I HAD to make it happen.

So I pulled together 4 friends, and we spent the week down in Orlando at Universal Studios.

EASILY the best time of my life.

I truly did have a lot of fun, even if some.... aspects.... of the trip didn't go as plan. I think it was because I put a lot of time into planning everything out that when something didn't go as planned.... well, it kinda bummed me out. If only I had my mindset that I have now.... back then. That would have been an entirely different scenario.

But it truly was fun. There too are so many jokes from that trip I can't even tell you.

The best part, theme-park wise, EASILY was the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

I'm going back there. You think I'm kidding.

Granted yes I KILLED my wallet with the amount of shopping I did, it was totally worth it. The people I was with made it a memorable experience. I couldn't have asked for anything better. The experience was just one that I can't put into words. There was so much that happened, so many good moments, in and out of our hotel room (which was amazing by the way) that I can't... I just can't. It gave me the bug to want to take all my friends and go on trips with them to different places. Even today, it still doesn't seem real to me that it actually happened. It's like I went to sleep for a week and dreamed everything.

It was just awesome. That's all I can say.



Immediately after Spring Break, I had about 2 weeks before I was to return to Orlando for my final TBS Southeast District Convention as an Active. I'm always excited about SED, because it's a time to see all my Sisters (or SisTAUs as it's affectionately known ) that I normally don't get to see.

What made it better was that Eta Xi voted me to be the Delegate. Terminology not withstanding, I was the main voice representing Eta Xi in the Delegation, as well as an active member on one of the committees. Through an amazing turn of the wheel, I got to be on the Nominations committee. We got to listen to all of the candidates running for District office.

THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN. I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT.

That's all I can tell you.

I got to meet and talk to a LOT of people that I would never have the opportunity to talk to otherwise. It was such a blast to sit there with a group of people and get to know them. People from all across the Southeast District were there, and I did my best to connect with a lot of different people.

It made the Sunday after a long day on Facebook, searching for people.

The love of the Southeast District is so strong. There was never one time in the 3 conventions I went to (Gainesville, FL; Athens, GA; Orlando, FL) that I felt like I didn't deserve to be there. And I think TBS in its own right did a lot to shape my college experience, as I've precluded to before. It's where a lot of my close friends came from, and where my love of music and service not only increased, but deepened as well.




So that's it.

Well, there's the whole "I walked across the stage on May 12th and officially became a graduate of Georgia Southern University" thing, but that was the cap on all of this.

Of course as usual there were a LOT of other things that happened this year.

Two of my best friends got married in September and I was the best man if you will...
I had a job working for the IT Services Help Desk on campus.....
I was the Team Captain for a Relay for Life team, the Music Students Against Cancer (and we rocked hardcore, just saying).....

There are little things that happened that were all apart of this last year experience.

It truly made me sad to say goodbye to Georgia Southern.



But that is all in the GSU Blog Series talking about my time as a student. All 5 years.
Thanks for taking the time to read it.
I feel like you have definitely gotten to know me a great deal. And if you haven't, feel free to ask me questions. Hey, maybe I'll turn that into a blog or two.


If you have any ideas on anything I can include in this series, leave a comment on this video, or contact me via my Facebook or Twitter, leaving #GSUBlogSeries somewhere. I'd like to continue it.


I may take a few days from typing out anything. This one has really racked the brain.
But really... by a few days, I mean like 12 hours or so.