Sunday Morning Rambles

Ahhhhh... Spring is here. I hope you've been enjoying the glorious weather! I've decided to write a haiku in honor of the occasion:

Sunshine on Friday,
rain drops late in the evening,
Snow banks slowly melt.

I know, deep. :D

I was playing racquetball on Friday after an open house event at my department. No one else was there, just me hitting the racquetball against the walls. In this meditative state I thought back to how I got involved with the GSO. I first heard about GSO when I went to the Graduate Student orientation in 2005. Liz Redkey, the president at the time did a great job of informing everyone at orientation of the services offered through the organization. I was pretty impressed with the type of services the GSO offered. What peaked my interest were the trips to NYC, Boston, tickets to see broadway shows and being able to make 100 copies or prints at the office.

In the beginning of the 2005 academic year I visited the GSO Office, I got a departmental copier code (the system changed last year to individual codes), and picked up free tickets for piano recitals at the PAC. From time to time I would stop by the office and serendipitously find that there was a free food event happening, like the one for Latin American Heritage Month or Black History Month.

By Spring, I became the RGSO representative for my graduate student group. I signed up for the GSO listserv and around April they had tickets to see Bill Cosby at the Palace Theatre in downtown Albany.

Josalyn, Amirah and Sophia were the office managers then and were always very kind to me. Sophia, also the 05-06 GSO Assembly Speaker always refered to everyone as "my beautiful people". She was this strong beautiful person in the Africana Studies Department. Josalyn, I think was in the sciences and we'd have great conversations about academics and social issues. Amirah, I always found was a lot of fun, always excited about something.

I didn't really go to the GSO office often. I might have gone a few times in the semester and I've only had a few conversations with the people from the organization, but I felt very welcomed at the GSO. It was just nice to have a space in the Campus Center that belonged to graduate students where one could meet people from all different disciplines. In one of my conversations with Sophia, she said, "we're like family" [all 5,027 of us].

Anyway, about two weeks ago a graduate of our programs sent me an e-mail on a comic strip about graduate student life called PhD Comics. After reading a couple of them I asked our webmaster to include the RSS feed on our webpage. It's pretty relate-able and very amusing. On our front page if you scroll down it'll be on the bottom right.

Okay, enjoy the rest of the weekend! Oh don't forget, this week is the Spring Forum! Campus Conversation on Academic Integrity and Plagiarism: Would an "Honor Code" make a Difference? March 27, 2007, 6:00-8:00 p.m. in the Campus Center Ballroom. Very relevant and important discussion we're considering as part of our University community. And one other thing: Campus Reading Project! We've given away a ton of Elizabeth Kolbert books, Field Notes from a Catastrophe. I hope you were able to pick up a copy at the GSO office. It was a very contemplative read and in light of the conversations on Global Warming it'll be a important discussion for the University to engage in. Check out the GSO calendar for the events that'll take place this Thursday, March 29th. I hope you'll join in!