As the second week of the semester comes to a close, normalcy has returned and I hit the ground running once again. The spring semester always seems to be more of a challenge between balancing scholarship work and school work and with the summer season rapidly approaching, it can be hard to stay focused. Although still in the beginning of a semester, things are exciting and I look forward to each day in class.

Wednesday was definitely full new experiences, starting with a 4:30am wake up call to wait in line in hopes of receiving a study abroad scholarship. The Provost (SAO) Scholarship application is a first come-first served scholarship opportunity for students who plan to study overseas for short periods, like spring break and summer, or longer periods, like a full semester. I have heard there is a lot of competition for this cycle that includes the summer scholarships. I arrived at the union at 5:10 a.m. and was about 25th in line. As the time slowly passed, more and more students trickled in and the aroma of coffee filled the basement as we all occupied ourselves until 8:00 a.m. rolled around. Then one by one we went into the office, turned in our application and that was it!

Although somewhat drowsy throughout the day, everything went well. I had an adviser’s appointment to discuss a letter of recommendation I had requested and was looking forward to the first AIGA meeting of the semester. When I got out of my drawing lab at 6:20 I conveniently walked up stairs to the AIGA meeting, scheduled for 6:30. I'm very thrilled the meetings are on Wednesday nights this semester; last semester they were on Thursday nights, and I was not able to attend. We started out with a great game that dealt with common labels of products, food, clothing etc., and then discussed all the upcoming events. There are always great opportunities available, like contests to enter and places to go to have your work reviewed. Although I feel I may not be at that point in my degree yet, I think it's great to hear about what's out there. Also, there's a department-wide event coming up, a career weekend in Dallas, Texas, and a resource page for OSU graphic design students to utilize in the works - all very exciting!!

I always say, “there's never a dull day,” and Thursday was no exception! A productive Student Foundation executive meeting centered on Cowboy Spirit started the evening off. It's really getting to the “crunch time” phase with this awesome philanthropic event, and I can't wait until Feb.12th!! There's still a lot to be done, but I think each year we're learning more, working together as a group, and I have no doubt it'll be a successful night!

After that, I rushed to the union to make it to the first Circle K International general meeting of the semester. It was great to see some new faces! We discussed all the upcoming events, informed them that they still had a chance to go to District Convention and played a fun ice breaker. The room was full of laughs that evening as we played a mixture of Catch Phrase, charades and Password. Everyone wrote a person, place and thing on 3 separate sheets of paper; then we split into 2 teams. A person on team 1 drew from all the papers and that team guessed, like in Catch Phrase, as to what they were. When time ran out it was the next person's turn on team 2 and this continued until the papers were gone. The next round all papers went back into the box and the same process was done but with charades and then the 3rd round was similar to Password. Acting out Burns Hargis, Las Vegas and a paper clip got quite entertaining haha.

When Friday finally came around, I decided it would be best if I went home due to the amount of progress I needed to make on scholarships, not to mention homework. It's not that I don't have a conducive work environment here, but I felt if I separated myself from any social possibilities (haha) and really focused on what I needed to get done, I would get the best outcome. I completed 2 scholarships and most of my homework so it was a pretty worthwhile weekend. If it wasn't for Cowboy basketball though, it definitely wouldn't have been an exciting weekend! “How 'bout them Cowboys!” It was a great weekend for Oklahoma State basketball with the boys win over Kansas State at Manhattan and then the girls win over Colorado!! The guys getting a record-setting win at that; first win on the road against a top 10 team since 1958! Now that's impressive. Here are some pics from this weekend!

Photos courtesy of Newsok

GO POKES!