WTF?

On Thursday I participated in what was known as the WTF Day, or in other words, the "Where's the Food...Without the Farmer Day. There is an organization called I Love Farmers...They Feed My Soul founded at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo from a group of agriculture students (some of whom I've known from FFA or MJC) and they wanted to plan a national event on multiple college campuses promoting the American farmer.

When I found out Kansas State wanted to participate I wanted to help. When I was at Cal Poly, I felt bad that I never really helped out with the organization except once at the World Ag Expo, but I always felt guilty for not doing more.

We had two groups of students, one group was in front of the student union, the other in front of the agriculture building. I think for next year we should just concentrate everyone in one location, because I think it shows strength in numbers.

Overall it was a good day, although we may have not gotten the amount of media coverage that we wanted, we still reached a lot of people on campus. And that, in the end, is the most important thing.

Manhattan, KS: A little slice of Americana

So I know it has been a couple weeks since this event took place, but I want to talk a bit about the K-State homecoming parade. I stumbled upon this by accident (I was doing some shopping in the town center when I walked out and saw a parade going down Poyntz). I was pleasantly surprised.

I guess coming from a place like Modesto, CA, I have gotten used to parades being a thing of the past. When I was a kid, the 4th of July parade was a HUGE deal. I remember getting up at 8 am and sitting downtown with my family waiting for the parade to start. Over the past couple years, support for that parade back home has been dwindling, and they have barely made it work. What started off as a two hour or longer event is now only around an hour if we are lucky.

That's what I love about this place: it still has pride and tradition. Maybe it's because of the fact it's a smaller town, but I don't believe that. I think that it has to do with the people.

If you walked around town, you would see this. People were helping other people paint displays on the main street.

I came out with some good pictures. This parade had everything: shriners, Smokey the bear, floats, bears in cars, old time-y cars and even a cow statue.

Even in Kansas there are still segways. How disappointing.

It was definitely a fun time, and it lasted longer than my 4th of July parade back home! I guess bigger cities just don't have that Americana that smaller towns do. It's funny because American Graffiti, one of the best movies about americana, is based in Modesto, CA.

Agriculture Future of America Conference

Last weekend, I went to the AFA conference in Kansas City, MO. AFA stands for Agriculture Future of America. First off let me say, this was in my top two best weekends I had since I moved to Kansas, the other being when my sister came to visit. I hadn't left Manhattan since May, so it was refreshing to get out of town and see someplace new.

I carpooled with a few other K-State students over to our hotel in Kansas City. It's interesting how many people I've met here that are either from the west or east coasts. I'm beginning to think this is a trend.

This conference was awesome, one of the best I've ever been to, and I've been to a lot of them. Not only were the speakers and workshops great, but I met a lot of people from all over the country.

I think my favorite part of the conference was the time I got to spend with the other people from Kansas State. Before this conference, I don't even think I said hello to them, which was terrible. That weekend I must've met 8-10 people from Kansas State that I never talked to, and it was great getting to know them. Above is a picture of a few of us with Orion Samuelson, a broadcast journalist for RFD-TV.

I also enjoyed the speakers and workshops. Our first speaker was Captain Charlie Plumb, a navy combat pilot from the Top Gun Academy who was captured in Vietnam and kept in a Vietnamese prison camp for years. We also had a woman named Jan Hargrave who was a body language expert teach us about how to read people. She even taught us how to read romantic body language, which I will make sure to remember.

There was also a career fair, where I met a lot of great industry professionals for internships. I found out I was paired with a company called ICM, which I later found out was a biofuels company. At first, I thought I would have nothing to say to these people because I knew hardly anything about ethanol, but it turns out their internship they offered was right up my alley.

All in all, it was a great conference. I learned some great things, met some great people and was re-engerized to come back and put these skills I learned to good use. It's something I'm definitely looking forward to next year and may even try to become a national officer for the organization. We shall see.

Just an Update on that Grim Reaper Picture (Actually Father Time)

For those of you who had read my post a couple weeks ago about some pictures I took on campus, I commented on a mysterious sundial that's located in the middle of the quad. Here is the picture below (you can click on it to enlarge it):

I stated how odd it is that there's a sundial in plain view with the grim reaper on it. After being puzzled, I went to look for answers. Why was it there? What does it mean? Why would Kansas State allow a sundial with the epitome of death right in plain view?

I went to the library, the only place I thought suitable to ask a question about Kansas State lore and mythology. I met a man named Dan, who worked for the library, and asked him "I was wondering if you could help me with an odd question. I noticed a while ago that the sundial in the quad had a picture of the grim reaper, and I was just wondering, what's the deal with that?" He looked at me funny and said he never noticed that there was a grim reaper. I then showed him the picture, where he stared at it for a little bit and said "oh! that's not the grim reaper, that's supposed to be father time!" Father Time? When I think of Father Time, I think of someone like Jeffery Tambor in that one episode of Arrested Development where he had to play God, with a big white robe and long white hair with the beard to match. I never thought of Father Time in a dark robed, scythe carrying, lone-ranger type of guy. After doing some research though I was quite shocked to see the similarities. Take a look for yourself:

Father Time

The Grim Reaper

There you have it. I think you could agree with how easily you can mistake that sundial like I did. My first Kansas State mystery solved! I'm ready for the next one, and make it a challenge next time won't you KSU?

Facebook: Why I will return and do it right this time

Go ahead and say it. I'm a hypocrite. It's not something that I am proud to say in the first place, but I shall be making my return to Facebook. Not because I miss it, not because I am having withdrawals, but simply because I was blaming the wrong person for my problems with the social media giant. Everything I said in my last blog about Facebook were my honest opinions. I do believe that Facebook is used too much nowadays to just rack up friends and stalk people legally, but instead of looking at my own lack of self responsibility I blamed the site itself. I stated that Facebook caused me to become antisocial and not using the site because it forced me to become overly social. That simply isn't true. My own behavior caused this. I have no one to blame but myself. It's like saying that you cheated on your significant other because you were forced to. You weren't forced to have an affair, you CHOSE to do it for your own reasons. You chose to ignore responsibility for your actions. This is happening all over the world right now, not just with Facebook.

My friend who left Facebook stated in his letter that he is sick and tired of Facebook and how it contributed negatively in society. The problem isn't Facebook, it's the people who use it. It's like owning and using a gun. If you are trained and certified to use it responsibly, no problems will occur. Put that same gun in a curious and uneducated child's hands, and that spells disaster. In the words of Dr. Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park, "(Genetic) power is the most awesome force the planet's ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that's found his dad's gun." Facebook doesn't contribute negatively to society, all it does is allow those "children who found their dad's gun" to have a larger platform to express their ideas and opinions on a broad scale.

Why did I decide to go back to Facebook all of a sudden? It wasn't because I was missing it per se. At first I did find myself going on the computer to check it, only to remember it wasn't there anymore. No, I want to go back to it so I can show how a responsible person SHOULD use it. It's all about BALANCE and MODERATION. Obviously checking your Facebook every two minutes is a bad thing, but you also don't want to wait an entire week before you return people's messages.

The final factor that played into my decision to come back was actually a presentation in my agricultural communications class by a man named Jim Langcuster, who works as an extension communications specialist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service. He talked about platforms and how important social media will be to the future of journalism and agricultural communications. After his presentation, we asked him questions. I raised my hand and asked him "how would you address critics (which was really just me) who say that social media such as Facebook and Twitter actually degrades communication and takes away emphasis from personal communication?" He chuckled and said that he didn't believe that. He believes that Facebook actually DOES encourage face to face communication. After he gave his answer, multiple students in my class defended Facebook and gave specific examples of incidents where Facebook has given them a new process to communicate with people. After class, I took a look at myself and I realized something: the blame shouldn't go to Facebook, it should go to ME. I wasn't angry at social media, I was angry at myself for my behavior. And to be honest, it's a lot easier to blame a website than look at your own faults. To be honest, I have a security blanket, and sometimes instead of doing things that push myself or requires a lot of effort on my behalf, I just go hide under my security blanket. It's something I need to work on, but I realized not having a Facebook is actually leaving me worse off. If I need to push myself to be more social and meet more people, Facebook is a fantastic tool (if used responsibly). Not to mention the fact that I'm a communications major and social media is something that I will not only encounter in school, but also in my career. If I leave myself out of the loop, technology will pass me up and I will not be an adequate communicator in my career. This is not a smart business strategy.

I will gladly take the verbal bashings from people. I now understand the truth, and that empowers me. I know that if I want to use Facebook I can. I shouldn't punish myself because I'm not happy with my own behavior, I should strive to correct it. I also will be responsible for myself on the web and off. If more people followed that equation, maybe Facebook wouldn't be so bad after all.

Home Came To Me Last Weekend

Last weekend was a great weekend. My sister Renee, who is quite the traveler, decided to come visit me. I hadn't seen her for almost 5 months, so it was very nice to see her. I kind of felt bad because I completely took advantage of her having a vehicle, having her take me to run errands on the first and last day she was in town. I also got to eat at the Little Apple Brewing Co., one of my favorite steak places ever.

Probably the highlight of the weekend was going to the K-State/Missouri football game on Saturday. It's quite amazing to see the color purple completely covering the stadium.

Tailgating is obviously huge here. I was told at school the next week that most of the stadium's parking lots were filled by 10 am, and the game wasn't until 2:50 pm.

The man with the white hair in front of the team is Bill Snyder (the stadium is named after him, with good reason). This man singlehandedly pulled K-State out of the depths of mediocrity, twice. He will definitely be a hall of fame college football coach. We are now currently ranked 17th and 18th in the college football rankings, and will hopefully be undefeated when we play Oklahoma on the 29th.

It's amazing to see the pride in this school, and I can say that while I am not from Kansas, I feel a sense of belonging here to this university. I have nothing but good things to say about KSU and being K-State PROUD!

This is our mascot, Willie the Wildcat. From what I've heard, the identity of the person who is the mascot is kept under wraps. He is not allowed to tell anyone. If you're asking yourself why is he wearing biker gear, that's because that day was Harley Day, so he rode in on a harley.

On Sunday my sister and I went to the Sunset Zoo here in Manhattan. It's funny because while being in a smaller town, it actually has pretty cool animals including bengal tigers, red pandas and sloth bears. There were other animals too.

This bird didn't move once. It looks like the William Howard Taft of birds.

I was surprised to see one of my favorite animals, the otter. These were quite a bit smaller than the sea otters one would see at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

All in all it was a great weekend. Renee got to see a little bit more of where I live, we got to see the Wildcats beat Mizzou and we got to go to the zoo.

Around Campus

So last week I decided to take some more pictures from KSU's campus to show all the people back home some more.

This wasn't actually taken by me, but by my partner in my agriculture communications class, but I liked it.

This is Anderson Hall. It's the admissions building here on campus. Every building on campus has these stone walls, making campus look like a castle or a fortress, which is pretty cool in my opinion.

This is probably my new favorite picture. I came across this walking back from class.

KSU also has lots of wooded areas. This is part of the nature area in the southeastern area of campus.

I'm sure I'm not one of the only people intrigued by the sheer amount of the squirrels and rabbits around here on campus. Every time I see one I just want to yell "squirrel!"

I found this sign on the ground, and I couldn't agree with it more.

This is the most puzzling piece to KSU in my honest opinion. This is the sundial in the middle of the quad, between the buildings for the library, College of Agriculture and the Department of Art. On it is a picture of the grim reaper holding his scythe with the phrase "Grow Old Along With Me, The Best Is Yet To Be". I think I found something to research here on campus on my down time. Let me know what you think it means in a comment.