It’s more than just going to school…
Posted: January 31, 2013 Filed under: Cedar City, Student Life | Tags: cedar city, College Worries, Community Attaches, Events, High School, Junior, Leadership, presidential ambassadors, Senior, suu, SUU Open House, University Housing, youtube Leave a comment »SUU has a ton of amazing events that they put on for not only high school seniors, but juniors as well. Everything from Senior Overnights and Expos to Open houses and Junior Previews. All of these programs are amazing, but nothing is as good as SUU’s Leadership Weekends. This amazing event gives high school seniors a chance to come to SUU for a Friday and Saturday to tour campus and housing as well as get a feel of college life. The reason for the whole event however, is the chance to be introduced to all the leadership organizations on campus that you, as a student, can become part of. The idea that one can get involved in more than just academics here at college should be enough to perk anyone’s interest.
This past weekend, we had our first Leadership Weekend, and it has been on my mind a lot lately. I am very passionate about Leadership Weekends because I attended one my senior year and I can honestly say that in some small way, it changed my life. Up until that point, I was very scared about college and moving away from home. I knew I could do it, but the thought was just scary. When I came here to SUU for that weekend all of my doubts and worries were washed away. I had the time of my life. The people that I met and the things that I did where so much fun and really got me excited to move down to SUU. The kids that were in my PD (Personal Development) Group are still my friends today. I even get to work with some of them with in my leadership organization! Not only do I still talk to my peers from that group, my PD group leaders (2-3 older students who are assigned to be leaders for the weekend) Kyle and Shaun are still my really close friends as well. In fact, Kyle is my Resident Assistant for my floor!
I am so glad that I took the chance that I did and came to SUU to participate in Leadership Weekend. From that I was able to get involved with the Community Attaches (one of leadership organizations for University Housing. Simply described as basically ambassadors for housing) and become the President of the group as well. I have had a LOT of interaction with many people who are important to the university, giving me valuable references and assets to my resume. It is really nice to go to someone who plays a big part in the university for something such as a reference for a job or application for something else on campus.
Here at SUU your academics should come first and foremost. You are paying big bucks to get an education that will take you places in life, however coming to college and already having something more to be a part of is a big deal. Your college experience should be more than just school work and sleep. Get involved and make your mark on the university. Being a part of one of SUU’s 9 leadership organizations can do just that for you. So, don’t hesitate to sign up for the next one that rolls around. You won’t be sorry you did!
Here is my PD Group from my Leadership Weekend 
The one in the black jacket and hat in the front and the one in red (also my RA this year) in the back are the best PD group leaders ever.
OPAH!!!
This was right before our Balloon Drop our last day of the weekend 
And just something for your viewing pleasure, this is my PD group’s skit for the last day. It was, hands down, the best one of the weekend!
Cedar City Korean Festival 2012
Posted: October 5, 2012 Filed under: Cedar City | Tags: cedar city, college, Community Involvement, Fun, heritage theater, International Relations, Iron County, southern utah, southern utah university, tbirdnation, UT, utah, utah college, youtube Leave a comment »You should feel very very sad if you did NOT go to the Cedar City Korean Festival on Wednesday this week. Of all the cool things to do in Cedar City, I’ll assume that you’ve taken advantage of some, but this was one you DEFINITELY should have been at. (See those capital letters in DEFINITELY? It’s because I’m pretty serious about it.)
The event was hosted by Cedar City and SUU’s Korean Club on campus. Free tickets, a single night, the Cedar City Heritage Theater, hundreds of fellow community members, exposure to high culture, and lots of really fantastic things to see. The nice thing about being at SUU is that I’m also part of an incredible community: “Festival City, USA!” I believe the Korean Festival will be back again next year, in the meantime enjoy these pictures. And in case you’re wondering, I really loved the show!
Cedar City has a great connection to Korea for a variety of reasons. From what I understand, this year’s festival was the fourth annual Korean Festival. It was obviously a great success and I’m excited for it to come again next year too. It has been a good opportunity for Southern Utah University to collaborate with Cedar City for a internationally-based project. Thanks to all those involved for putting together an incredible event. I fully appreciated every bit of it!
The End of the Beginning
Posted: May 2, 2012 Filed under: Student Life | Tags: cedar city, college, Final Post, Fun, Fun Times, Lessons Learned, southern utah, southern utah university, suu, tbirdnation, UT, utah, utah college, youtube 3 Comments »My Freshman year of college is coming to an end. Although the reality of this has yet to sink in, I’ve begun reminiscing over this past year. I’ve loved it for many different reasons and learned many different things throughout the school year. These include-
1. School work, even at college, really can be fun. Example- Radio and TV Broadcasting, English 2010, Comm 1010, Nutrition, etc.
2. A fun group of friends can make the best out of any situation.
3. I love going on hikes. I never really knew that until this year.
4. Don’t attempt handstands after doing Ethan’s arm and chest workout.. You will crash and burn.
5. Sometimes, a white pair of pants is sweet. Seriously, they can be pretty cool. Who’d of thought?
6. I was lucky enough make a ton of AWESOME friends here at SUU. To everyone I know here at SUU- It really was great getting to know you. Even if it was only for a little while, I really did enjoy it.
Now, I learned many other things throughout the year, but there are WAY too many to list. All I know is that I am extremely lucky for the experiences I’ve had while at SUU my freshman year. I was lucky enough to be a part of this blog, as well as the Presidential Ambassadors program. I was able to give over 30 tours to potential students for SUU and tell them why I personally love the school. I was able to start my own real radio show on Power91. Although college life does have ups and downs, I’ve loved it here at SUU. While I am going on a LDS Mission for the next two years, I’m already excited to continue on my education, and my life, here at SUU.
Thank you to my parents for helping me go to college here at SUU, SUU itself for all of the awesome opportunities I’ve had in my freshman year, and thank you for reading. It means a lot to me.
Now, if you want to keep reading, I have some exciting news below.
As a part of my TV Broadcasting class, we had freedom for our final project to do whatever we wanted. I decided that I wanted to make a short action parody movie, and then began filming. My ambition took over however, and I ended up creating a 15 minute movie instead of the required 2-5 minutes. Because of this time and effort put into my film, I decided to enter it into the Thunderbird Film Festival, and…. I was lucky enough to receive the first place award.
At this time I’d like to give a giant thanks to everyone that helped out. We spent a massive amount of time on this film, and I like the way it turned out. My friends and I all got together and had the “Premiere Showing” tonight, and it was great.
The Epic Movie Premiere!
So thank you to everyone who had a part in my film, big or small. I really appreciate what you did for me. You are the best.
So, without keeping you waiting any longer, here is my short (15 minute) action parody film, complete with fighting, a super evil bad guy, bad Chinese lip dubbing, and many other jokes.
It’s, “The Epic Movie!”
I hope you enjoyed it!
The Impressionistic Comedy Show!
Posted: March 7, 2012 Filed under: Student Life | Tags: cedar city, Comedy Show, free, funny, hilarious, impressionist, Melissa Villaseñor, owen wilson, southern utah, southern utah university, suu, tbirdnation, UT, utah, utah college, youtube Leave a comment »Now, I know what you’re thinking… Didn’t Mitch post about a comedy show last week?
Why yes, yes I did. But SUU is cool enough that we had another comedian come last week as well!
This time it was Melissa Villaseñor, famous impressionist.
Here’s a YouTube video with some of her impressions-
She came down and did a great show for us full of awesome impressions, funny jokes, and multiple “busted guts”. It was a really entertaining show!
She was hilarious live! Her Owen Wilson impression was FANTASTIC! My friends and I are still trying to recreate that magical voice.
Then, after the show we were all able to go up, talk to her, then snap a picture with her. Could it get any better? I don’t think so.
Look at all of those goofy faces!
This was a great way to take a break from studying for Midterms and have a little bit of fun.
The Hunger Games, SUU Style.
Posted: February 9, 2012 Filed under: Student Life | Tags: admissions, cedar city, college, senior project, southern utah, southern utah university, suu, suu admissions, tbirdnation, the hunger games, UT, utah, utah college, Utah High School Tour, youtube 5 Comments »A huge part of my last semester here at SUU is working on my Senior Project. I’ll be spending a lot of time writing up my Senior Thesis as part of my Mass Media Theory & Effects class. We’re working on developing our papers the entire semester, currently I’m working on my Literature Review. For my thesis I’m doing research and a content analysis on popular lifestyle blogs. But my project is not really what I want to talk about, I want to share with you the Senior Project of a student who graduated last year.
Last year my friend posted this video on Facebook. Having read the Hunger Games and knowing this friend only posts quality stuff I watched the video.
I would have believed someone if they told me this was the legitimate trailer. Then I started noticing a few things that seemed very familiar to me, the Southern Utah landscape, and I knew I had definitely seen some of these faces around campus before.
This was the 2011 BFA Capstone Project for former SUU student Kim Shelby. The video has been up on youtube now for around 10 months and has over a quarter million views! That is a quality Senior Project.
What could be better?
Posted: January 24, 2012 Filed under: Student Life, Uncategorized | Tags: admissions, cedar city, college, facebook, social media, southern utah, southern utah university, suu, suu admissions, tbirdnation, tumblr, twitter, UT, utah, utah college, Utah High School Tour, youtube Leave a comment »
This semester is CRAZY. I have no doubt that the coming months will include many hours in the library, in the Mac lab on campus, & in professor’s offices for help during “office hour” (thank goodness for that! It will be a saving grace this semester). But, we can get into all that another week. For now, I wanted to share with you one of my favorite classes that I’m taking this semester. It is called Social Media. You already know it has to be good, right? Well, I guess some people might not be as … interested (I refrain from using the word obsessed here) in Social Media, but I, as you might have guessed, am not one of those people.
Even though this class is my earliest at 8:30 a.m., I am excited to go twice a week. Not only is my professor fantastic (click here to find out more about Ellen Treanor) and enthusiastic about teaching, but she has provided many opportunities for us to not only learn about important social media networks, but we will also learn how businesses use social media for marketing. These techniques are key for surviving in the “real world” after college if I want to pursue a career that involves social media (which I do).
So, right now each classmate is presenting on a social media platform & as Ellen says, “becoming an expert” in that field. My assigned platform is Tumblr. Here is my Tumblr and fellow Tbirdnation blogger Sam’s Tumblr, which he created when he took the social media class last spring. We started last week & learned about Twitter, Blogger, and LastFM. There are so many social media networks out there & I’m excited to learn more about them all during this semester!
Plus, we have to use these sites for our class …which means instead of Facebook being a distraction, I can say it’s for an assignment 
chipmunk fever.
Posted: January 10, 2012 Filed under: Student Life, Uncategorized | Tags: admissions, cedar city, christmas break, college, southern utah, southern utah university, suu, suu admissions, tbirdnation, UT, utah, utah college, wisdom teeth, youtube 1 Comment »As a great start to the semester, I thought I’d tell you about one of the most eventful experiences I’ve ever had during a break…
I lost wisdom. In the form of four strategically located teeth.
Here’s a little (ish) story of what happened (photos below):
My dentist said now was as good of time as ever to remove the below-the-gum teeth. Better now before the roots grow, he said. Because my dentist was performing the surgery, I wouldn’t be “put under”; rather, I would just be numbed. This means I saw the tools, heard the drilling, and everything else.
So, let’s be honest. I was a LITTLE bit nervous. The dentist proceeds to start giving me shots to numb my entire jaw. Well, as he gives me a shot for my upper jaw, the shot hit a nerve, which caused a shock. I was more than freaked out about that, especially because for 3-4 minutes after, I felt dizzy and couldn’t see straight out of that one eye. Let’s just say … I was shaking a bit & nervous.
But, then it was time to get started.
The top two came out relatively easy. But … then it was time for the bottom. Apparently there was bone they had to cut through & then because the tooth wasn’t coming out, it had to be cut into pieces. The numbness was starting to wear out, so the dentist gave me 4 more shots for my lower jaw. Nearly an hour later, the tooth was finally removed! On to the next tooth.
They gave me more shots before they started & although the same process had to be repeated of removing bone & cutting the tooth, it didn’t take as long. The only trouble I had at the end was the fact that the dentist kept asking me to open my mouth “a little wider.” Well, for one, I couldn’t tell how wide I was opening it. And two, after 2+ hours, my mouth was sore. I could not keep it open!
The following thoughts swirled through my mind during the nearly 3-hour process:
“How did people do this before having medicine?”
“I should find out the history of getting wisdom teeth out … who discovered that they need to be removed? When was that?”
“My lips feel huge!”
“When I have a baby one day, I will definitely take advantage of the epidural.”
“I’m glad i don’t have a cold sore right now.”
“Focus on the words of the song, not the pressure.”
“If thou shall endure it well, thou shalt be exalted on high.” (my personal favorite that made me crack a few smiles)
Here are some photos to enjoy:
Before:
After:
Right outside of the dentist office. I was able to smile a little.
A few days later…
Swelling gone! Hooray. It ended up taking about two weeks to heal completely because I ended up getting dry socket (a nasty infection) so the swelling last longer than usual. But, all is well now. And, even though I couldn’t eat the delicious Christmas Eve dinner, at least I can enjoy all the treats Santa left in my stocking…just a few weeks later.
I also recorded myself in the car on the drive home. If you watch it, I hope you enjoy!
Eric
jillowhitaker
Kirk
Laurel
Jess
Nathan
Thor
Becky
