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.

Empowerment

The best thing that can happen when you are in a leadership position is to have somebody step up and take on a role voluntarily instead of having to seek someone out. It is even better when it is unprompted. I am an executive for my fraternity with my responsibilities surrounding professional business events for our members. Each executive has a committee to help put on events.

A few weeks ago a newly pledged member approached me about putting on an event that would combine professionalism and a philanthropic cause. We have gone back and forth and decided that he would head up putting together a charity golf tournament with my full support and assistance. As a veteran member and executive, I have more access to fraternity resources and experience in hosting events to make sure the event is a success. Today we finalized my role in the event (not to be put on for 10 months or so) and I have provided him with advice on how to get the ball rolling. I was able to empower him to take a vision he had for creating an event so that our members can benefit the most while making things better for our community and turn it into a reality. Well, almost a reality. It is just a start, but I have a good feeling about this kid and what is in store for this event.

Conversation

I met up with a friend today for about 10 minutes. She was wanting to get me a check she owed me for our fraternity's national convention. This girl is one of the sweetest and most enthusiastic girls I have ever met. All she does is love life and has this curiosity about her that makes it so that whenever you are with her you are never bored.

We just sat there and talked a little bit about our summer terms and what we were looking forward to the most in the coming months. We laughed and shared stories about places we have visited and shared the same excitement for our trip to Phoenix in a few weeks. It was a pleasant conversation and I know my day was a better because I got a chance to share those 10 minutes with her and I hope she felt the same.

Relax

Tonight on Facebook I saw that a friend of mine was stressing out because someone she relied on was failing her. I simply offered to help her out in any way I could. Later on I got a call. She needed 20 bucks to keep her account from being overdrawn because her roommate didn't pay her on time. I laughed at how small of a favor it was and gave her a hand.

Seeing the amount of stress that was lifted off her shoulders was the best part of my day. I was able to help her relax a little bit and made it possible for her to get a good night sleep without the worry of an overdraft. Hopefully she knows I would have done a lot more to help a friend in need.

Katy

Today I helped a friend move and I think it surprised her. I was just a customer and she was just a cashier at the local Market of Choice, but we became friends through my frequent trips to her store as we always struck up good conversation in line. We managed to hang out once in the year we got to know each other, which is sad because we always "tried" or "intended" to chill but it just never worked. So when she asked me yesterday for help moving to Portland from Eugene, I think she thought of it was a long shot so I decided to surprise her.

I woke up at 8 am and loaded up her sister's truck for her and tied everything down for the trip. She was a friend in need and I was more than happy to do anything I could to help her out. She may not realize it, but I now consider her a friend which means I will always have her back.

What this is about

When I go to bed at night I ask myself one question: how did I make the world a better place today? Only when I think of someone or something that I had a positive influence on that day will I let myself sleep.

My mission is to leave the world every night knowing that it is better off for me being alive. I am not talking about curing cancer or fixing world hunger, although that would be nice, but instead I am more concentrated on the little things in life that are often overlooked. It can be as simple as smiling at a stranger or striking up a conversation with someone on the bus because you never know if you are the only chance to be the bright spot in someones day. My life is not about me, it is about my affect on people around me. As Michael Jackson would say, I want to make the world a better place so I am starting with me because that is all I can control.

This blog is my way of recording how I have gone about accomplishing this mission. Every night I will answer my question here. This blog is my safety net that hopefully will keep me focused on this mission of mine and that I never forget that I could be having a shitty day but I can always do something to make somebody's day better and that will make my day worth it. If you find this blog then I hope that you can see that you can always pull a positive out of the darkest days.