Never the Same

I know I've talked about it a lot and I'm sure most of you are tired of hearing about it, but when this prompt was assigned for this week's blog post there's way no way around using it.  I learned more about the World, my likes and dislikes, my personality, my ability to get along with others, to figure things out by myself, to comprehend when I understood nothing, and so much more; when I studied abroad.  But, I'm not going to bore you with tales of six weeks in the merde.  Instead I will share a few of the most memorable moments.

The Decision (Yeah I'm Lebron)

 My final week in the States included an accounting final on Wednesday, my little brother's graduation party on Friday night and my flight left from Columbus at noon on Saturday.  But I had something quite important on my mind; to be more specific someone, my girlfriend Hannah. 

Now I have never been one for relationships, or really any commitment of any kind.  I've never held a job for more than six months and even my friends seem to change every couple months.  But something about Hannah kept me interested.  Anyway, we had been dating a mere two months and the decision to break up was on my mind.  Actually it had already been made; we were going to break up when I left.  But on one drunken night in spring quarter I actually let this slip to her, and I was surprised by her reaction.  She was hurt, obviously, but she understood.  She didn't think about herself but instead on what I would be missing out on if I stayed with her.  I wouldn't have the opportunity to hook up with a foreign girl, or do all the wild things that single, intelligent me would get into.  But oddly enough I didn't want to do any of those things.  I had no interest in the mystery of a foreign girl.  I knew I would get into shenanigans whether I was single or not but I just couldn't bear breaking up with her.

Anyway, we spent as much time as we possibly could together before I left; which left no time for packing.  I ended up waiting until Friday afternoon to even start packing and ended forgetting: a towel, a rain jacket, a swimsuit, a power converter, a translation booklet and brought no school supplies of any  kind.  I have also been one known to regret decisions and I did my best to rethink this one.  Every time we talked it seemed like we fought about not seeing each other.  At one point I even broke up with her, without really talking to anyone else about it.  It seemed like she wanted me to just tell her that everything would be alright but I honestly didn't know if it would.

This was my mistake.  I was off traveling the world and she sat around all day in Ashtabula, Ohio with nothing to do but think about me.  I would be lying if I said I thought about her much because honestly I didn't very much.  But everything was going to be ok, I don't know why I didn't realize it.  I was the one traveling the world and doing new and exciting things every day.  It was really up to me to tell her that everything was alright, and it was.  So we made it through the summer and haven't turned back yet.  She's been the greatest thing that has happened to me and without this summer, I probably would never have even given it a chance.

The Train Station

To pretense this next story, I need to share some information.  My group decided to purchase the Eurail Pass, which allows you to get on any train in Europe during a certain amount of travel days.  What we didn't know when we bought it was that only 10% of the seats on the train were designated as Eurail seats.  For that reason, you needed to book weeks in advance.

The first weekend we went to the Nantes train station and booked our tickets to Bordeaux without any effort.  It was a 2 Euro scheduling fee and that was it.  The next week we went back to book our tickets to Paris at the international desk.  But there are 8 of us and he says he can only accept three separate payments, but none of us have the money to put it all on our cards.  So we go to the other line.  It is impossible he says.  None available.  But how could this be? We were just told that it works at the international desk?  We went back to the international desk and he wouldn't even let us try to work with him.  It is impossible he says.  There is NO WAY we can get to Paris and he is tired of working with us because we don't speak French.  

Totally frustrated we leave and go back to your friend's apartment to plan out our next move.  "Impossible he says" this would never stand back in the states.  I thought the customer was always right?  I've worked at several customer-oriented jobs in my past and been bitched at by customers when I acted ten times nicer, why are we getting this treatment now?  We spent hours jotting down every single train we wanted to book, the number, the time, the location, everything.  Then we headed back to the station.  We walked into the door and the man at the desk held up his hand motioning us to just leave.  We went over to him and he acted like we were intruding on his day by asking him to do his job.  His manager even came over and yelled at him to work with us.  So finally he started to talk to us.  First train, "Impossible!"; second option, "impossible!"; and so on and so forth.  We didn't know what to do.  Eventually he just told us that we were wasting his time and other customers were waiting.  He even grabbed the next customer and pulled them into the seats in front of his desk to show that he was done working with us.  So we went to his manager.  First words out of his mouth, "I am not American, I am French; Speak French to me."  But none of us spoke French.

Eventually we asked our advisor to go to the station and book our tickets for us.  It took an hour of him yelling at her about how arrogant we had been and pompous Americans we were for him to even work with her.  She then got our tickets booked for a swift 300 Euros, on top of the 700 we paid for the Eurail Passes to begin with.  All because of this douche bag at the international desk.

My 21st

I'm sure some of you have heard me talk about my 21st birthday, but I spent it in Pamplona, Spain.  After a nightmarish adventure booking our tickets, skipping a class that was rescheduled after we had booked our tickets and fighting with our advisor about insurance issues; we were on our way.  

We spent the Thursday night in Hendaye, France just on the border of Spain.  Not a super exciting night, but it was on our way to craziness so we didn't care.  The next morning we woke up, walked 2 miles into Spain and caught a local train to San Sebastian, Spain.  The "Half-Shell Beach".

We spent all Friday and Saturday in San Sebastian and I celebrated my 21st in San Sebastian.  It was really nice because we stayed in basically a college dorm, so there were college kids everywhere.  Also, we had kitchens in our rooms so we were able to cook.  Anyway, we went to the beach and were separated from the girls.  We picked up bread, cheese and 1liter of wine each for probably 5 euros each.  After enjoying our spoils, Ellis and I decided it would be a good idea to swim out to the dock where a diving board was.  After we were out there for a little while, the others seemed to try to come out but turned back for some reason; honestly its a bit hazy.  We got tired and decided it was time to swim back.  About 100 yards from the beach I feel a sting on my arm.  Then a life guard was on top of me with a kayak.  He told me to follow him and I swam after him while getting stung over and over from every direction.  After a gruesomely painful swim back to the beach I threw myself onto the ground.  While I lay there writhing in pain, the other tell me that Ryan had tried to swim out to us but got caught in a school of jellyfish.  He was battling them off and began to drown before Martin and Alex swam out and saved him.  These were the stings I encountered on the way back in. 

We went back to the dorms to lick our wounds while the girls prepared dinner.  I passed out in the grass outside and was completely burned on my frontside when they got back.  We ate dinner and I began my Black Label Journey... 

As you can probably imagine, I don't remember much of the night from here on in.  Apparently we went downtown to some clubs.  Then I proceeded to spring out the front door and they had to chase me down.  After being refused from 3 cabs, all MBs, we were finally allowed into a cab to take us home.  End of my night.

July 7th we wake up on my birthday and hang out at the beach all day.  We bought tickets for the 9pm bus to Pamplona that night.  The beach was topless, nuff said.  On the bus to Pamplona, we were pretty excited but didn't know what to expect.  First of all, we thought we were being clever by catching a bus from San Sebastian to Pamplona.  They had 6 buses leaving every 15 minutes completely full of people just like us, but with zero luggage.  No bags, suitcases, pillows, blankets, nothing.  These people had the full intention of passing out on the street.  The people across the aisle from me were snorting cocaine with 100 euro bills.  Shit was about to get real weird.

Entering Pamplona was like entering a MOB Scene.  People were everywhere.  Thousands upon thousands upon thousands.  We got off the bus and a guy was in a wheelchair and there was a newspaper of a guy being dragged by a bull the day before.  What had we gotten ourselves into.  Ellis and I stayed out until 5am and it felt like we left the party at its peak.  People were face down in gutters, piled on top of each other in the park and we slept in the train station.  We slept here...

We woke up at 6am, basically after laying down for an hour and headed to the beginning of the race.  At this point, only Martin and I had decided to stick with our decision to run.  I can't put the run into words so I will just assume that I will explain during class and leave you with one video.

And since the quality of those suck..

I hate college but love all the theories

Student Development Theory

Why would we learn about student development theory in an Intro to Leadership theory class? After digesting your readings for this week, tell me what you think. How does student development theory connect to leadership and facilitation? What's the point? Do me a favor and cite specific ideas, concepts, etc. from the readings that stood out to you or that you still have questions about (At least three, please.)

It is crucial to learn about student development theory because we are students.  Everything that we read about applies 100% to the experiences that we are living on a day-to-day basis. 

Chickering's Psychosocial Theory of Student Development

I felt that I experienced Vectors 3 and 4 of Chickering's Psychosocial Theory of Student Development when I studied abroad this summer.  Once I had seperated myself from my normal friends and my normal life, I was finally given the opportunity to understand what it was that I like.  Studying abroad gave me the chance to venture out on my own, make plans, direct others, understant my strengths and weaknesses, and so much more.  College gives us the opportunities to LIVE OUR LIVES.  Nothing bothers me more than watching my friends go through college and learn nothing about themselves.  I have friends from Cincinnati that go to class everyday and workout; they live with high school friends, go home every couple of weekends and have never even been out of the state.  They KNOW with 100% certainty that they will go back to Cincinnati when they graduate and probably live there the rest of their lives.  I just want to grab them and shake them!  College isn't a time for knowing anything.  Nothing is guaranteed.  Everything that I previously knew was taught to me by my parents, but how do I know it is true?  The only way to trully know who we are is to experience diverse people and diverse environments so that we can go back to what we "know" and evaluate its true nature. 

The reason I mention all this is because I am a student leader.  I refuse to watch students let their college experiences pass them by.  It's the reason I joined SLA and the reason I am taking this class.  We want to get out in front of the student body and not just tell them how to take advantage of their time in college, but to show them.  College is a time for improving your skillset; whether that be soft or hard skills.  We at SLA are so confident in our skillset that we step in front of other student leaders and show them how it's done.  It is crucial that we understand how they will react to our leadership and therefore we must know multiple theories on student development theory.  My two favorite parts of Chickering's Theory are Vector 7 and his notes on size of institution.  I thought it was very interesting that he noted that the last stage of a student's development was integrity.  I have morals and values and what I consider to cross those lines.  But I do feel that those are constantly changing.  Students that "know" exactly what is important to them based on what their parents have taught them may struggle in these situations.  Without having experiences to draw on, it makes it difficult for them to relate with other people's situations.  And secondly, Ohio State's greatest scapegoat is it's size.  However I have always considered that it's greatest strength.  I meet new people every single day but also see those closest to me as well.  "As redundancy increases development decreases" could not put it any better.  We have the rest of our lives to have day-to-day, month-to-month routines; college is the time to constantly be mixing it up and Ohio State offers you a new way to mix it up every single day.

Leadership Identity Development Model

I thought it was very interesting that at both trasition stages, the student was brought through to the next stage by some sort of recognition via elders that they admire.  I find this very applicable to our SLA application process as we are almost always brought on by someone who is already affiliated with SLA.  Also, we are all student leaders in other organizations and therefore can learn a lot from one another; hense the cohort.  It is within SLA that we begin to regonize what our personal leadership style is.  I trully feel that every member of SLA is going through stage four during our years in cohort.  For this reason, it is key to only bring in students that have actualized the other three stages; which makes our application process incredibly important.

My last point from this article comes from the need for mentors and advisors.  Relating back to how important your elders are to your development, the article mentions these mentors as "threshold people."  It's important to have someone that understands what you're going through.  The need to bounce ideas and comprehend the vast experiences that one goes through in college becomes very evident the longer they continue on their journey.


Nick

I have decided to add a thought-provoking quote at the end of my posts from now on.

If everyone carried around an imaginary bucket with their feelings and experiences in it, have you helped fill anyone's bucket today?

Leading by example

Our assignment for this week came as a bit of a shock to me.  Unfortunately, I had underestimated the "in-depth" nature that our blog assignments would be, and decided to wait until after our SLA meeting to start.  However, I believe that I can come up with my best work under a time crunch so here it goes:

In this scene from The Longest Yard, one of my favorites, Caretaker informs Paul Crewe of something that he already knew; their players are horrible.  So Crewe puts himself in harm's to get some "hershey kisses."  In this example, Crewe goes through the Five Stages of Exemplary Leadership in order to inspire some players to follow him onto the football team.  He models the way by entering the basketball game.  Inspiration for a shared vision derives from playing the guards.  The process gets real challenging once the game starts to get dirty, but Crewe manages to keep respect throughout by continuing to model the way despite getting ripped off several times.  He enables Rabbit to act  and encourages the heart at the very end by winning fair and square, but still getting ripped off in the result.

I love this example because it is very real.  I have played any amount of pick up basketball games and this is the best way to gain respect.  The more someone talks, the less everyone respects them.  By just standing up to the group on their own court, he was able to gain the respect from Rabbit and eventually from everyone.

At the same time, I think that this clip is a great example of servant leadership.  Crewe is the clear leader of the inmate football team and has a lot on the line.  He very easily could have asked the guards to force the inmates to play with him.  However, he knew that if he inspired the masses, he would get more dedication out of them.  Crewe went around to different players and gained their respect in completely different ways to inspire them all to join a cause and believe in him as their leader.

You're going to start to notice a trend in my videos, I LOVE sports.  I think that sports are one of the most vital aspects of a young person's development.  The humbleness and oneness that working together for one goal brings out in a person, is unmatched in any other activity.  In this clip from Remember The Titans, Coach Boone is taking the boys on a run at 3 A.M. during their week-long preseason camp.  Coach Boone is considered a very extreme and charismatic leader because of his military style coaching.  But in the hostile environment that he was coaching in where different races were at his neck, it was completely necessary.  If he didn't lead with ridiculousness, his players would never do the ridiculous, which playing with boys of the other color was at that time.  

Coach Boone talks about how much boys just like them gave up in the Battle of Gettysburg and how it was now their turn to come together or the battle will be lost.  Liking one another is different from respecting one another and all he asked was that they earn each other's respect.  From then on, the team finally decides to be open to each other's differences and start to respect that they all had enough skill to become a great team together.