Fraternity | JerseySmarts.com

Posts Tagged ‘Fraternity’

Removing Distractions and Focusing on Getting Down to Business

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Next Wednesday I’m heading to Danvers, Massachusetts for my fraternity’s 50th Biennial Convocation. If you’re not in my fraternity – or any other fraternity for that matter – this is our organization’s national convention which takes place every other year. For the last three conventions I’ve walked away with a major volunteer award (either the #1 local volunteer in the nation or the #1 regional volunteer in the nation). This year I’m ineligible for those awards since I was elected to a higher level volunteer position that does not have an award associated with it. No biggie – I’ve been extremely busy in the two years since the last convention and that’s the focus of this entry.

Sometimes we can get distracted from the important goals that we are each trying to reach in life. For some folks, those goals are big, grandiose accomplishments like climbing Mount Everest, losing 100 pounds, flying an airplane, etc. For others, those important goals are as seemingly simple as purchasing a new telephone, being sure to attend Church on a weekly basis, showing up to work on time, or even having a job to go to show up to in the morning. The point is that each person has their own objectives that they’re trying to reach.

Recently, I realized that I was becoming more and more distracted by insignificant people, places, and things. These insignificant distractions – on there own – are nothing out of the ordinary. However, combined they put a person in a bad spot where they can’t move forward. Here are some examples of what was distracting me:

Clients that don’t get it. I’ve mentioned this annoyance before on this blog, but some of my website clients don’t understand what my small business’ role is in their overall internet presence. For example, some of my clients think that it’s perfectly acceptable for me to create a website for them and then – two months later – completely redesign their website because their tastes have changed. These types of clients are clueless and abusive and I’m shedding them from my portfolio. In the grand scheme of things, their inability to make a decision should be – and now, in many cases, is – insignificant in my world.
Dumb cell phone games. My current and former roommate can tell you that I was nearly addicted to playing BrickBreaker a few months ago. I mean it was crazy! I’d play that stupid game on my cell phone while I was at work, waiting in traffic, sitting trying to watch television, at the restaurant, you name it! I was consumed with scoring 1,000,000+ points (which I did) that I wasted a bunch of time in the process! Talk about something insignificant getting in the way of getting work done!
Stupid television. This is interesting because I don’t really watch much television other than a few shows that I DVR. Sometimes, I put the television in my bedroom on as background noise while I work on my laptop, but I don’t “watch” whatever is on the screen (typically a news channel like FOX News). In the last week I’ve kept the cable box off more and missing whatever dumb talking heads are on the television certainly could be the very definition of insignificant.

The reason that I emphasized the words cable box in the last point is because I’ve been keeping the television on so I can do some more working out on my Wii Fit. In fact, removing each of the insignificant activities listed above has allowed me to do something else that is more important. Less talking heads = more time working out. Less BrickBreaker = completing more tasks at the office and advancing my work overall. Less whacked out clients = more time to spend on teaching an online course.

Sure, there are a lot of other things that I’ve cut out of my daily routine and by doing so I’ve created more time to focus on the things that matter. However, I’m not going to list them all here because then I might be wasting your time!

Posted in Random Entries | 1 Comment »

What the Hell Does “Pwned” Mean?

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

Due to my association with the fraternity, I have a lot of connections with guys who are a few years younger than I am. One of these guys is a smart kid who was playing around online as the whole online communication thing became popular. So one day I asked him what the word “pwned” means and where it came from. Sure, I understand that it’s a variant of the word “owned,” but why the use of a “p” instead of an “o” when spelling the word? Here is his response:

The phrase “pwned” originated because of a typo, and it stuck as a phrase among the elite, or “l33t” h4ackers of the AOL Chat Room era, circa 1999-2002. A “newb,” or newbie, was a new face in these chat rooms where the “l33t” hung out. One was said to be “l33t” if they had a 3-character screen name and/or their screen name was in lowercase, as there was a 4-character minimum upon signing up and all first-letters of the screen name were always capitalized.

Just thought I’d share that with everyone so you understood what the hell this ridiculous term means, too! Thanks, GGL!

Posted in Computers, Internet, & Technology, Random Entries | 1 Comment »

College Fundraising in a Troubled Economy

Thursday, December 4th, 2008

The New York Times ran an article the other day talking about how institutional advancement (i.e. fundraising from alumni) is faring in the current economic climate. There are a few interesting parts of the article which I’ll share below, but I encourage you to read the article linked above if you have the time. From the article:

But for everyone else, this year’s giving season is an exercise in a different sort of asset allocation than the one we’re used to for our retirement accounts. It’s about competing demands, the rising need to pay for basic human services in our communities versus the emotional pull from the educational institutions that helped shape us.

I used this quote from the article to highlight the last sentence regarding how we are shaped by our educational institutions. I hear this line from my undergraduate institution, my graduate institution, and my fraternity time and time again and frankly, it’s insulting. I’m sure that there are some people in the population who go to college as chunks of clay and who are then shaped into whatever artwork their professors can manage, but how prevalent is this type of person in society? I know many more alumni from my undergraduate institution who can’t stand the college than who adore it and thank it for making them who they are today.

In fact, the comment that I hear most often from my fellow alumni is that the school was too expensive to attend and that one or two overbearing professors really left a negative mark on some students. In fact, it gets a little humorous to hear how one or two of the English professors are out of line (and out of the times) with their stance towards educating college students and how their methods are not replicated in the working world at all. Stupid professors…

Plus, what ever happened to the idea of students being their own people and bringing something new to the university? Why is it that some people think these universities and organizations shape individuals? Isn’t it the opposite? Don’t the individuals shape the climate and the culture of the organization? Anyway, the following text is also from the article:

The Amherst endowment, which stood at $1.7 billion at the end of June, lost about a quarter of its value over the next four months. The families of its students suddenly need more financial aid because of the economic downturn. And now the college is turning to its alumni for help, at the very moment that many of them are experiencing their own catastrophic financial losses.

Again, I focus on that last sentence with respect to my experiences with my undergraduate alma mater. At some point in November I received the annual phone call from a Freshman at my old college asking me to donate. The new strategy for these solicitations is to have you talk a little bit about your time as an undergrad and give your suggestions to the student on the phone about how he or she can make the best of their time on campus. It’s all an effort to get you to donate to the university – nothing more, nothing less. Well, after about thirty seconds of my babbling about undergraduate life to a Freshman who wasn’t listening anyway, the girl made the “ask.”

If you haven’t been solicited by the telephone before, the “ask” is when the person on the other end of the phone gets to the point in the script where they need to ask you for a donation. They usually start out high and are willing to go as low as they need to go in order for you to say “yes” to their request. This girl asked me to donate $1,000. I almost fell on the floor! Go back and read the last sentence quoted above – alumni are feeling the financial crunch, too! How dare my undergraduate institution (where I paid nearly $100,000 in tuition) ask me to donate $1,000 in this economic climate!? I told the girl that I was offended by the number and that if the university knew about my current status (which they SHOULD know about – I teach there), then they’d know that the number was out of my range. So she asked me for $500 and I told her that I wasn’t going to donate anything and thanked her for her time.

Up until now, I haven’t asked to be taken off of the solicitation list from my alma mater because I wanted to get the phone call and to consider an annual donation to a cause of my choosing (as stated in the article). However, after the ridiculous ask by the college this year I think I’m going to request to be taken off of their annual solicitation list. I donate my money to the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation not because the fraternity “shaped me” in anyway (it did not), but because I know where the money goes and I see the end result with my own two eyes. I would encourage all of you to do the same in terms of researching and understanding where your scarce donation dollars are being spent.

Posted in College & Fraternity Life, Money, Jobs, & Finances | 1 Comment »

Unnecessary Complications: Professorial “Colleague”

Monday, September 8th, 2008

Chances are that I’ve posted very few, if any, stories about my time in class as an undergraduate at Monmouth University. Frankly, I saw my college classes as a time to really get into the coursework and become engaged with the material. Yeah, it’s sort of nerdy, but I was so busy with work and running the Fraternity outside of the classroom that I had to get my educational fill where and when I could.

Here is a brief review of one of my more annoying stories which relates to the unnecessary complication of the day…

I was an English major. I loved every bit of being an English major because I love books, reading, new ideas, old ideas, etc. All of the corny crap that an English major likes – you get it. Due to scheduling conflicts, I had to take an English course during the summer to graduate on time. The only course I could fit into was African Women’s Literature. I figured that at the very least, it would be awesome to read new material from a topic area that I never studied before.

Then I walked into the classroom on the first night of class and I knew I was doomed.

I was the only white male in the room. That didn’t bother me, but when I looked at the professor she gave me a look that would have stopped a charging bull right in his tracks. If looks could kill, I wouldn’t be here right now. So I quietly went to the back of the room and endured a summer of writing A-quality papers and receiving D’s on them, being treated like a third class citizen, and generally being disliked by my professor. For example, I was literally told that all of my opinions were wrong because I had no basis for them (the woman actually said this to me in front of everyone). Meanwhile, a female friend of mine in the class would wait a while and say the exact same things (word for word) and she would be praised for them. Talk about a sexist professor…

It’s probably worth mentioning that this woman is an African (actually born and raised in Africa) and that she generally despised everything I did in class (including when I would show up early to review notes). I couldn’t win with this woman because I was a white male. Hey? What can you do, right? Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. With this woman, I had no chance. I was fine with it…because I filed a complaint against her after I graduated (she controlled the internships for the entire department so you didn’t want to piss her off as an undergraduate).

Then I became an Adjunct Professor at the school last fall. She taught a course that ended 10 minutes before my class began. She routinely kept her class in session until about two or three minutes before my scheduled start time. I don’t know why – I didn’t care, but I just wanted to get into my classroom to get set up for my class.

Last night I arrived at campus at 7:05pm for my class, which begins at 7:25pm. Guess who is teaching before my class again? That’s right! At 7:05pm, her class was still in session and since her scheduled end time is 7:15pm, I decided to go take care of some paperwork. At about 7:12pm, I heard a shuffle of students leaving the classroom, but I just wanted to finish reading a quick memo that was in my inbox. After I read the memo, I looked around the corner from where I was standing and I saw my students now sitting in the classroom. As such, I walked over to the classroom and put my pack down on the front desk. This was about 7:14pm.

Turns out the woman was still “packing up.” Let me explain “packing up.” She had logged out of the computer in the front of the room such that the log-in was the only thing on the screen and her bag was packed, zippered, and buckled. She was literally standing there with one hand on her bag and the other hand on her mouse making circle motions around the log-in prompt. CIRCLE MOTIONS! I’ve never seen a scene like that before in all my years in the classroom – like she was daydreaming.

Anyway, I popped open the buckle of my bag and took a sip from my water bottle and she looked at me and said, “Are you teaching a class here now?” To which I replied, “Yes.” So she gave me that same look I got all of those years ago and said, “I still have the classroom.”

Shocked (literally), I turned to the clock in a deliberate motion and said, “For another minute?!” And she said, “Yes.” So I tried to play nice and I said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll go wait outside.” To her credit, she quickly said, “No, no, it’s okay.” She said this in a mean voice, no less. And I replied, “Are you sure? It’s no big thing.” And she replied, “I just feel rushed is all. I don’t like being rushed out of the classroom.”

The woman’s bag was packed. She was logged out of the computer. She was literally making circles with the pointer of the mouse around the log-in prompt. At that point…YOU’RE DONE IN THE CLASSROOM! LEAVE!

Bear in mind that 5 or 6 of my students are now in the classroom watching two Professors have a brief, yet awkward argument. I try to constantly be the good guy in the classroom so I said, “No rush, please take your time. In fact, you can stay – we’d love to have you!” I said that last part in a joking voice trying to break the awkward tension. She only replied, “No, I’m being rushed. No.” Then she glanced at the clock, saw 7:15pm, grabbed her bag and left.

I was literally left standing with my mouth open, shocked at the unprofessional conduct that I just witnessed. As a student, I knew that this woman hated me and all those like me, but I thought as a professional colleague she would at least have the courtesy to make some small talk and send beginning-of-the-semester greetings to a fellow professor. Nope. I was treated like garbage.

For me, that seals the deal. This woman is an atrocious professor both in the classroom and professionally. She should be fired on the spot. Her ratings at RateMyProfessor.com are abysmal (not that they should matter, but they do) and her conduct towards a colleague she did not know was vicious, full of contempt, and confrontational. That is unacceptable.

And worst of all, she did this in front of my students. I then had to explain to my students that she was a rough professor even when I was an undergraduate and apparently that hadn’t changed much over time. The real shame of it is that she made herself look like a fool in front of a few students who will now likely never take her course (I might not have properly captured how awkward and distant she was during our brief conversation, but she came off like a person off of their medication).

Plus, she ruined my night and ruined my day. I had a great day at the office, a great day preparing for class, and a great class after she left. But her arrogance and downright rude demeanor really put a damper on a great day for me. So I’m going to be mad about this for the next few minutes before I go to bed and then wake up tomorrow and ask for a classroom assignment change. I’m not trying to fight this woman who obviously has personal issues – I just want to teach my class and continue to have fun while doing it.

September 11, 2001 Update: I asked for a room change and when the room assigner asked why, I simply mentioned this Professor’s name and she said, “No need to say any more – I know what the problem is.” The room assigner went on to tell me how this Professor causes problems each semester and that the issues regarding this Professor range from arrogance to intimidation to completely off-the-wall antics. The woman also mentioned that there are more complaints filed against this Professor each year than any other teacher at the university. What fun!?

I’m not going to get a room change, though, as the options didn’t fit the needs of my class. I’ll just deal with Professor Arrogance and continue to make a paper trail in case I need to file a complaint at some point. What a shame that people like this are employed as teachers…

Posted in College & Fraternity Life, Idiots, Morons, & Fools | 6 Comments »

Back from Long Beach, California

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

After a hell of a time out in California and two of the busiest days that I’ve had in a long time since landing back in Newark – I’m back in business! Stick around to my blog because I’ve got a lot of content waiting in the wings. I’ll try not to overload you guys with information, but I make no promises.

California was a great time and my delegation from the fraternity won a ton of awards (which I will detail in another post). I’ve been extremely busy since I came back to New Jersey so one of the forthcoming posts will talk about what I’ve been up to at the office and in my home office. Plus, I have some fun events coming up that I’ll be posting about…so keep checking back!

Posted in Random Entries | No Comments »

Creepy Fool Gets Arrested at Monmouth University

Thursday, April 12th, 2007

My alma mater had a really gross incident occur yesterday. In case you haven’t heard, a creepy old goof ball was arrested at Monmouth University yesterday for planting a video camera in the men’s locker room. What a filthy, disgusting scumbag this jerkoff was, huh?

There are so many issues here that it’s not even easy to discuss all of them in one sitting. Why was this creepy old bastard allowed to join the gym at Monmouth University if he wasn’t an alumnus and wasn’t local to the university? For those of you that don’t know, he wasn’t from the local area.

Further, why was he allowed on campus in the first place if he had an old access card? If the guy’s sole purpose is to go to the gym because he’s a “member” and his card indicating that membership is expired…then shouldn’t he NOT be on campus?!

And what really pisses me off is the reaction that one of the students had to the entire thing:

“Doesn’t bother me,” he said. “I really don’t care.”

That pretty much sums up 99% of the students that I’ve ever met while at Monmouth University or that I’ve met since I’ve become an alumni advisor to my fraternity at Monmouth University. I deal with kids who go to school all over this state and virtually none of them would have had that completely uncaring reaction. And good Lord, if I had my way I’d take this pervert and give him a few minutes with some of those guys that he so desperately wanted to see naked.

I have no problem with the fact that this weirdo likes dudes, but I have a HUGE problem with him invading the privacy of these unsuspecting students to get off. That’s just disgusting and I hope he get what he deserves.

Posted in Gym Stories, Idiots, Morons, & Fools | 2 Comments »