Ivy Years

Right now, my entire suite is empty and there are probably no more than five people left in my hall. My most distinct memory of my first American Thansgiving will be how @%$#ing hungry I am, since all the dining halls closed. Although to be fair, I did choose to stay in Ithaca to catchup on work and I did procrastinate on stocking up until after the convenience stores all closed, which leaves me with dining-hall-nabbed fruits and vending machine chocolate bars for sustenance.

Life has been hectic to say the least. Here’s a brief recap.

Work/Stay/Play in Syracuse. This is three-day “conference” that brought together 36 students from Cornell, URochester, and Syracuse U to solve, in a creative and collaborative manner, a huge issue the region faces: how to retain students in Upstate New York after graduation. Cornell paid for the transportation, food, and hotel for all her representatives so I was immensely grateful. Here’s the Daily Sun article!

Kingston getaway with my suite & Royal Military College Christmas Ball. My entire suite drove up to Kingston this past weekend to visit friends. Coincidentally, the Christmas Ball, supposedly one of the top parties in Canada, took place on the same weekend so my good friend Wendy came in from Toronto for the “festivities”, in the tame sense of the word. If I were to tag this tidbit, it would read: wall-scaling, Queen’s, poutine, pancakes, military boys men, endless dancing, black squirrels, Felix Felicis, and generosity and genuineness of so many people we met.

Student Assembly Finance Commission (SAFC) interview. Imagine my surprise when I walk into a boardroom in the basement of Day Hall to find 15-20 people inside – all ready to interview me, together, for an extra-curricular activity. With my love of interviews and public speaking, suffice to say, I decided to bath in the (doubtful) limelight of the occasion and ramble on about my previous experience doing financial services for the Commerce Undergraduate Society (THANK YOU TRAVIS). I’m happy to report that I’m a newly minted Commissioner on SAFC! Very excited to start allocating that $1.2 million (alright, less mathematically challenging than the CUS’s excel budgets but it’ll be fun).

Pants Off! for Charity event at the University of British Columbia. The organizers of this – one of whom is my good friend Lucas – will probably kill me for posting this so late, but here it is! The event was a tremendous success and raised over $400 in the span of a few hours. Here’s photographic evidence of the event

Lucas is the one on the left (you didn’t think I was going to let you off the hook by being “one of the three pantless boys” now did you?).

CORNELL, let’s see some creativity.

P.S. – My mom, an avid reader of this blog and self-proclaimed my biggest fan, will be so proud that it only took four entries before photos of half-dressed boys appeared on Ivy Years.