What I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving

As I sit here in my apartment, 1800 miles away from my family, I contemplate on life. How much things have changed recently. People who have came into my life, and people who have gone out of it. Would I have guessed in a million years that I would've left California to go to school in the midwest? Never.

So, in honor of Thanksgiving, I think about what I am thankful for in my life:

I am thankful for my family and friends. Now most people would say that first as well, but I think that's because these groups of people are so influential in our lives. I know mine are.

I come from a large Portuguese family. I have 4 aunts, 3 uncles, 14 cousins, and 15 second cousins. We are a very loud, opinionated bunch, because we have to be, it's the only way people could hear us. In fact, if someone new came into this environment it would be very strange for them. The decibel level at our parties are at near stadium audience levels. Thanksgiving and Christmas sound more like concerts than family gatherings. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

These three guys have been the core of my friends as long as I could remember. We have over 48 years of collective friendship between us. We have been through a lot, from having walnut fights, burning our foreheads on hot-wire, charging at my bathroom and bedroom doors, effectively breaking them off the hinges, and all other sorts of shenanigans. The list can go on forever.

I am thankful for my education. If you were to ask me a year ago if I would even be going to college, I wouldn't have had an answer for you. At the time I was just working, trying to save up any money I could. I was afraid I was going to fall into mediocrity, even though I knew I was meant for bigger things. I just took a shot in the dark and started looking at out of state colleges that would have an agricultural communications major. I applied to Kansas State and to my surprise was accepted a few weeks later. I went to visit a couple months after that and realized these people here aren't just faculty, not just students, they're family. So essentially I have two families. Some don't even have one, and for that I am thankful. Not only that, but I'm thankful for a great athletics program here at K-State and being able to watch such an exciting football season. I can't wait for it to be basketball season!

I am thankful for being involved in agriculture in this country. According to Dirty Jobs host Mike Rowe, everything comes from two industries: mining and agriculture. I happen to agree. In my opinion, the three noblest professions are being in the military defending our freedoms, teaching children and passing on knowledge, and growing food to feed the world. I genuinely enjoy working as an ambassador and representative of agriculture. This is definitely something I want to have a career in.

So while you are eating your turkey tomorrow and hanging out with your family watching football, take a second to think of what you are thankful for.

AGvocacy in the limelight...

When most people from outside California think of the sunshine state, they like to imagine the "Hollywood lifestyle." In fact, I have had a couple people here in Kansas ask me if I know any famous people. All that I can tell them is that my hometown has produced some famous people, including Star Wars creator George Lucas, Justified Star Timothy Olyphant and Jeremy Renner, who you will see in the Avengers next summer. I have never actually met any movie stars personally. In fact, I have respect for hardly any film or television stars, the same goes with musicians. A lot of them sell out their values and beliefs for fame and fortune.

I have, however, met celebrities of a different kind. These people are the ones who I respect on a much higher level. The people I am talking about are people in the agricultural community promoting and defending the industry. People that risk being personally attacked for supporting an industry that feeds the world. Some of the real celebrities I have met include: Past CA Secretary of Agriculture A.G. Kawamura, Past US Secretary of Ag Anne Veneman, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, and the young lady I met yesterday evening.

I'm talking about Teresa Scanlan, but you may know her as Miss America. She is the youngest Miss America ever at only 18 years old, although if you spoke to her you would think that she was much older. Her platform she chose to advocate for during her reign is the promotion of farmers and agriculture, as well as educating about eating disorders, and this woman knows her stuff. She came to give a lecture here on campus about production agriculture and the challenges that we will face in my generation.

Yes, I know I'm blinking. I think when you stand next to Miss America, you look less attractive by comparison.

Here's a better picture.

While she was not raised on a farm, her parents taught her the importance for agriculture. She has a deep respect for farmers and everything they go through day-to-day. I am glad we have someone like her who can intelligently describe our position to mainstream audiences. Her motto for her platform is "Not everyone farms, but everyone has to eat."

I'd like to thank Ms. Teresa Scanlan for coming to Kansas State and even more thanks for her choosing agriculture as her platform and working with farming organizations and charities.

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.