Sushi

Tonight a small group of us went out to sushi to celebrate our friend's birthday. During the school year, we usually go out to sushi once a month or so with about 10 of us. Melissa, the birthday girl, is closest with a few of the girls in our sushi group that are either out of town or working tonight. To make up for their absence it was up to Ryan, Mubarak and myself to make the dinner a blast anyways. Two hours and $113 worth of sushi later we were wrapping up a great time. We laughed and told funny stories and poked fun at Melissa's fortune tomorrow night (it is her 21st birthday tomorrow). Overall, it was a lot better than I think Melissa expected and I am glad we had such a good night.

Culturizing

I had my first meeting of my Chinese Culture class today. Like most other Chinese courses, there were a lot of international students from China in the class. During part of the course we were instructed to mingle and meet new people in the class and talk a little about ourselves. I turned behind me to an international student, a girl named Vanessa (Ye Wu in Chinese), and we engaged in conversation. She just got the US five months ago and talked about wanting to meet more Americans and get more American friends to help her diversify her experience in the states. I talked to her again in break and after class, offering my help with anything she needed. This is my first steps to offering my friendship to her as well as helping her get more involved on campus to help her meet a lot of people. She speaks good English, so I am sure in due time she will make many American friends.

Good Company

I went to a barbeque today to celebrate my friend moving into a new place. He had a few friends over for this house warming event and it was a good time. We shared a meal and some beers, threw a football around and played with his dog. We spent 3 hours in good company with each other, making us laugh and smile just by being together. That is a mark of friendship; it is when you can just enjoy being in the same room as them and it puts you in a better mood because of it.

Rio

Went to see the movie Rio with a few friends today. It was the start to celebrating the last day of freedom for my friend, who is about to start her job Monday and begin experiencing the "real world". Just for today, we were able to give her one last day of just good college fun. A movie, dinner, drunk putt putt golf and just chilling til 2 am was good enough for us and it gave her a chance to remember she is still young and one of us. The real world may have arrived for her, but it doesn't mean she has to forget how to have good old fashioned fun.

Mover

I helped a good friend move today. It was actually a great time because we had a few other friends helping out and we ended it with some beers and going out to dinner. It was turning something that is usually a pain into a social event where many hands made light work.

Mr. President

My buddy Andrew has a lot of potential. He just finished his freshman year and despite his age he has a lot of raw leadership skills that I know will take him places in the future. This spring he was elected President of the Counsel for Inter-Club Collaboration (CICC) at the Lundquist College of Business. Basically, what CICC does is creates opportunities for members from all of the clubs in the business school to get together and form relationships between the different clubs.

Today Andrew had his first event as president of CICC. He and his executive staff organized a summer get together potluck for a handful of the club members still in town for the summer. Based on what I was hearing from other people, it didn't look like there was going to be much of a turnout. Knowing it was his first event, I decided to help out. I corralled some friends from AKPsi to come out and have some fun. Despite the small number that did show up, we still managed to have a good time and get to know some new people. It was a good day and hopefully the start to a good year with Andrew at the head of CICC.

Collaboration

Tomorrow morning I have a final for my business law class and it is a real stress on everyone in the class. I have a number of friends that are taking it with me and we decided to get together after class and do a study group so that we are all best prepared for the final tomorrow. We used each other as resources to be able to get the best information out of ourselves and put it together for a massive study sheet to take into the final with us. I knew more about employment discrimination and security law while others were better at interpreting cases and environmental law. Together we were able to accomplish more than any of us could have done alone.

Synergy is an often overlooked component to getting things done in a group effort. In the business school we focus on group work and getting the most out of our team members. Today was a perfect example of our education being put into action. It took a willingness to help others understand concepts that some of us knew very well to make it all work. Our individual personal sacrifices were justified with the greater good for the group and that is what makes us better for it today.