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Here's the best and worst from my first week of the new semester.
BEST:
1- Spending time hanging out at school, passing out calendars, meeting and welcoming students, helping them find their classes, and giving out free USU Brigham City window clings, which as you can see, look awesome in your car window!
2- I always love starting new classes, except for the part where I put all of my assignments for the semester on my calendar (it tends to look a little overwhelming from this end of the semester.) One of the things I love about the Brigham City campus is that the classes are small and I get to know the other students in my classes. This semester I am taking Intro to Geology, Marriage and Family Relationships, and Perception and Psychophysics.
3- As a recipient of a scholarship that I received through the Women's Center and Re-entry Student Center, I had the privilege of attending a reception on the Logan Campus. The reception was held in the Ballroom named for Evan Stevenson who was in attendance at the event. 
Evan and Jean Stevenson.
It was a really neat experience to hear from speakers who represented recipients, donors, and the people who read the many scholarship applications. According to Patricia Stevens, the Director of the Women's Center, this year there were 71 recipients who received a combined total of $150,000 in scholarships and $25,000 in tuition waivers. As a scholarship recipient it is so great to be able to shake the hands of some of the people who donate money to make the scholarships possible, thank them in person, and hear them tell about their lives. Patricia Stevens said, as a donor speaking to the recipients, "I hope you see yourself in us because we see ourselves in you." I know that this evening is an inspiration to me and I hope to someday be able to give back to the community that is helping me to gain an education and improve myself. http://www.usu.edu/womencenter/ http://www.usu.edu/reentrystudent/
and sadly, the
WORST- Thursday I missed my first student government meeting because of a sad thing that happened at home. While I was at school our two beloved mini-schnauzers got out of our yard and were hit by a car. Maggie came home from the vet after two days with a front leg that is paralyzed, but we lost our beloved Lilly. So here is a tribute in pictures to our silly Lilly the curly schnauzer who brought so much joy and happiness to our family in the last 3 years. She will be very missed by all of us, but especially by my ten year old daughter who loved her the most of all.
One of the first things I got to do as part of my new position was go to a two day training at the Logan campus for the Student Government Presidents from all of the regional campuses. http://distance.usu.edu/?campuses
This was not only very helpful, but I got to know some great people from the other regional campuses,and it was also lots of fun.
The first thing we did, was to spend the afternoon at the USU Ropes Course. http://ropes.usu.edu/ We had the opportunity to do a lot of fun and challenging activities that were all designed to teach us teamwork and leadership skills. So here are a few pictures... This is my automatic reaction to looking down for the first time while standing on a log that is suspended about twenty feet in the air.
The objective here was for the two people on the log to hold onto the end of their ropes, meet in the middle, pass each other, trade ropes and continue on to the other end of the log, remember the log is swinging from cables and is suspended 20 ft in the air. (Just for the record, I am afraid of heights!!)
This is how you get down after completing the last objective.
This was a great exercise in cooperation and teamwork that involved two people climbing this swinging ladder made from boards that started about 3 feet apart and progressively got farther apart as you climbed higher. The only way to accomplish it was to work together and help each other. This is Sarah Anderson on the ladder with me.
This is a 40 ft climbing wall, by the smile on my face, I would guess that I am not very far off the ground yet.
Here is proof that I actually made it to the top!
This is the way down from the top...Totally fun once you convince yourself to jump off the platform.
I don't have any pictures of the scariest activity but it involved climbing a ladder and then a pole to 35 feet in the air where I would stand on a platform roughly the size of a bathroom scale (OK it was actually about 18"wide and 30" long) and then leap into the air and try to grab a trapeze bar that was swinging from a cable. Of course I was in a full body harness and there was no way I could fall, but that fact didn't register to the self-preservation part of my brain that is looking down at how far away the ground is.So, I don't actually have any proof of this, but I think that one of the objectives in this rope course was to teach us that even when you are scared to death and doubt your own ability to do something, if you will just take the leap and give it your all, you'll find that you've got what it takes.
I though it would be good to tell you about how I ended up here (in life, at USU, and in Student Government)
First things first. I am considered a "non-traditional student." This means I am not young and fresh out of high school. I decided it was time to continue my education when I was 38 years old. When I was in high school my favorite class (actually, the only class I liked) was psychology, and I always had a goal back in the depths of my mind to return to school and study psychology. When I started here at USU Brigham City, I knew what I wanted to study, but unfortunately, not what I wanted to do with what I learned. Thanks to Susan Williams, an academic advisor, and her Career and Life Planning Class, I was able to explore and research options and do all kinds of fun evaluations that helped my sort out what type of career would work well with my interests, goals, values and job expectations. ( I highly recommend this class for anyone ) http://brighamcity.usu.edu/htm/students/advising
So, in my first two years here at USU Brigham City, I found that I not only loved going to school and learning all kinds of new stuff, but I also loved the school itself, the atmosphere and the people. I wanted to be more involved with the school and the students (probably a good indication that my career choice is a good match for me.) A friend suggested that I should get involved with Student Government and then this summer I was on the schools website and saw the application. The process I went through to get here involved filling out an application and then being interviewed by a committee. Less than a week after my interview I was standing at the front reception area at USU BC, and Jill Rasmussen the director of Student Services walked in and introduced me as this years Student Government President.
My Vice President is Jeremy Barber, who I am sure will be awesome. Plus, the icing on the cake is that this is a scholarship, so not only do I get to do all of this cool stuff, but I also get help paying for school. So I am very excited to dive in and get the school year under way!
Hello, and welcome to my life!
This is my first post in what will be a chronicle of my junior year at USU. I am the Student Government President for Utah State University's Brigham City Campus. As part of my responsibilities, I am supposed to keep a blog for the year. This means that if you are following this, you will hear and see a lot about what is going on at the USU Brigham campus, and a little bit about my life in general.
Evan and Jean Stevenson.
