Midterm Review: A Visit from the Archbishop; Identity Questioning and CAKE!!

 Thursday Night featured the awarding of the Catholic Campus Ministry Association's Excellence in Facilitating Personal Development award and The Northwest Association of Student Activites Professionals Award for Innovative Programming to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a men's spirituality group. Again, I had my camera ready, resulting in some great and not so great photos and videos. Sorry for their lack of light/quality.

Archbishop Vlazny posing with the original group and Josh Noem .

 Starting in freshman year, groups of 6-8 freshmen gather with two faculty/staff advisors to discuss topics "deeper than girls, sports and cars," as co-founder Josh Noem puts their mission. Every meeting, a member shares their story through the lens of the year's guiding questions.

 Freshmen tackle the questions "who am I?" and "what do I believe?;" sophomores focus in their relationships and how they affect themselves and others; juniors discuss resiliency and how to persevere; and seniors review what has happened over their time on campus and discuss where they are headed.

The reason many are here, other than the Archbishop and cake

  I'd like to take part of this post to discuss my answers to those questions thus far and show you how the Archbishop answered the freshman questions.

I am the younger of two, a neurotic, somewhat intelligent, sardonic, passionate, often cynical but occasionally optimistic, California male who often enjoys being wrong because the situation has become more educational and puts the efforts of others ahead of my own so often I have trouble understanding my own interests, dreams or beliefs.

The second and surprise award

I do believe in truth, information, complex sentences, the importance of keeping a close eye on government bodies (that one's for you, Dr. Lovejoy,) and the idea simple things can be crucial to happiness, especially at unexpected moments.

My relationships are diverse but often shallow because I share more of myself through actions than words, which somehow leaves me feeling like the other person does not know who I am other than an aide or possible hindrance within the interaction.

 Whenever I try to interact deeply with others, I often either cannot coordinate the time or cannot facilitate conversation for a sufficient amount of time to be viewed as interesting or sociable to a normal extent. If a time presents itself, I will tend to keep you occupied for longer than you intended.

 My resiliency right now comes from the British method of soldiering on through the day and tasks. Like Jesus, I also need time to withdraw and understand the previous events.

 From the relatively nomadic style I pursue, I have no proper clue where my life is headed. I could be anything from a lawyer, accountant, priest, HR Rep, radio board operator, or transient.

 Here's the Archbishop telling his story, it is a long one:

Stay tuned this week for the student and advisor responses, partly so I can take my time rotating the video, the hardest part of the whole process and the main reason for the time of this posting

I teased it in the title and you were so patient, so here's the cake!

The final award of the night: would you believe there were leftovers?

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen will be having their Manquisition in the coming weeks, so stay tuned, readers and event fans!

For those of you who managed to stick around: who are you and what do you believe?