Freshman Convocation 2009

This past week was the 3rd annual Freshman Convocation. The idea of convocation is to celebrate your beginnings as a Montana State University Freshman. My freshman was the first year they did this event. Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea was our speaker, last year it was Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This year was Steve Lopez, who wrote The Soloist. This story was also made into a movie last spring with Robert Downy Jr. and Jamie Foxx. Lopez tells his story of experiences meeting a man who lived on the streets of downtown Los Angles. It was really interesting to hear him tell his story in person. At the end of his presentation he signed books for anyone that was interested. I would recommend the book for a good read. The Soloist was chosen as “One book- One Bozeman,” a program to promote community literacy through reading a common book. The community was invited to the event as well. Convocation is a neat thing that MSU does for the freshmen, I’m looking forward next year!

Montana Summer

This summer I worked for an architecture firm in Missoula, MT. It was a lot of fun and a great experience, I felt really lucky to have the opportunity to work for such a great firm and with great people. I moved up to Missoula a week after the spring semester and moved back last week. I made plenty of trips to Bozeman to attend events such as Music on Main and the farmers market. Every Thursday evening during the summer they close down Main Street and bands perform. The first one of the summer is always my favorite, The Clintons, a local band from Bozeman. It is always great to see everyone from school at these events. This summer I also traveled back to Bozeman to help with the Freshman Orientation sessions, we had one in June, and two in July. I advised freshman who were interested in architecture so it was a lot of fun to share my experiences and show them some of my projects from the past two years. I also got plenty of floating in on the Madison and Jefferson Rivers this summer on inner tubes. It was a great summer in Missoula, but I’m glad to be back in Bozeman. I hope everyone is ready for classes to start and get into the swing of things, here we go. . . 5-4-3-2-1

1/2 way done with ARCH

This is my board layout for my arch studio final, this was due on Friday at noon, and this Friday we have to have a model built of this. So I'm pretty much half way done, I got a lot of work ahead of me this week though. Our project was an urban infill site downtown, some of us designed a wood shop, some designed a space for a metal shop and a glass shop. It was fun spending a lot time downtown to document our site. We have a laser cutter that we can use to cut our pieces for our models, I think I'm going to use that, it should help speed up the process. I've had a lot of fun working on this project and have spent a lot of time on it, it will be nice to be done. I'll post pictures of the models as soon as I have those done on Friday. Until then I'll be working away in Cheever Hall.

relay_for_life

Relay for Life in an annual event that is put on by the American Cancer Society to raise money to find a cure for cancer and remember those who we have lost and celebrate for those who have survived. There are over 4,800 relays nationwide. The overnight event is full of fun activities while members of each team are making laps around the track. Our event was held at the MSU Field House. There were games of dodge ball, volleyball, basket ball, rockstar pong, karaoke, and lots of good food. The event locally raised over $44,000. Next week is UM's Relay for Life, and we always have a little friendly competition, we have 3 years in a row in the past. It was fun staying up all night, lots of people brought couches and lounge chairs to rest in when they were not making laps or taking part in the activities. It was really fun to walk around and chat with friends or make new ones and share stories about random things. This is something I'm definitely going to participate in again next year.

Google Maps

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I find my self spending countless hours looking at google maps. Above is a link to the MSU campus area and Bozeman. This gives you a good idea of the size of our campus and the town of Bozeman.

rail jam

Free weekend entertainment is always fun, this past weekend wast the 2009 Rail Jam. This is an annual competition where skies and snowboards from the surrounding area have the opportunity to show their skills. This year the event was helt at the Gallatin County Fairgournds. They set up scafolding and haul in a buch of snow and put a rail. It was fun to hang out with friends and see all the taleted skiers and boarders there are in Bozeman.

Spring Break 09

Spring break is always a nice chance to relax halfway through the second semester. This year my friend Kayla from architecture and I drove down to California. We left after class last Friday and stayed with a friend in Provo, UT. It was about a 7 hour drive the first day. We went to a comedy improv show that night, it was a funny show. The next day was a 10 hour drive, down through Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and then California. It was nice to stay at a home while on vacation. It was the first time I've had three complete meals in a day. We also went to In N Out Burger multiple times. On St. Patrick's day we went to Venice Beach. It was fun to see all the street venders and all the interesting stuff they were selling. While we were in California my brother was on a Breaksaway trip in New Orleans. Breaksaway is a program through MSU where students can take a trip and do community service while on spring break. They did some work in parks in the New Orleans area and some other community service activites. They had the opportunity to go to a Hornets game while they were down there.