Witticism O’ The Day: Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my hard drive??

What a great Homecoming weekend, am I right? Okay, it kind of sucks that our football team fell apart in the terminal minutes of the fourth quarter, but at least the score was close this year! The Homecoming Parade was full of pep, the fireworks were breathtaking…literally (when the giant mushroom-cloud/fireball exploded my heartbeat ceased to exist) and the mass of people tailgating at Hughes Stadium was just plain inspiring. But what I loved the most about Homecoming was the earth-shattering spirit of all the students; there was just this energy that you could feel in the crowds walking to class. People were faithfully wearing their green-and-gold (and sometimes orange) all week long. By Friday, I realized that I’ve never seen so many different CSU shirts all at once! I hope the spirit of Homecoming lasts all the way until Thanksgiving, when people start wearing turkey costumes and gobbling on their way to class...anyway, my favorite Homecoming event was the 5k Homecoming Race.

Why my Homecoming Rocked

I had the pleasure of waking up at 5:57am on Saturday morning to volunteer for the 5k, which started at 8am for all of those crazy people who dig running. I worked alongside 30 other sleep-deprived HES (health and exercise science) students to fill helium balloons and make a balloon arch that stood above the starting line of the race. The sun started to peep over the buildings and as it shed light on all of the volunteers and vendors on the Oval, and I remembered how awesome Rams are with getting involved. I have to say, trying to tie balloons and then trying to tie ribbons on the balloons was very difficult that early in the morning, especially because my fingers were frozen in the 40° morning.

Despite my frozen appendages and sleep-deprivation, volunteering for the Homecoming Race was awesome. Here’s some reasons why:

1) I learned how to make a balloon arch. I had always wondered, and now I know! One more useful skill to add to my resume…

2) I got free food! I’m not sure if I was really supposed to take it, but watching all those people running 3.1 miles really worked up my appetite.

3) I got the Homecoming Race shirt for free! Now I can wear it to class and people will think I did the run, like all the other HES majors out there!

4) Waking up sucked, but biking across the plaza at 6:20 am on a Saturday was pretty cool. Nobody was out, it was dark, and it was just so convenient to ride right through the biggest dismount zone on campus without having to get off my bike.

5) Volunteering is awesome. All silly things aside, it just feels good to volunteer both your time and effort to a cause. CSU has so many great opportunities for students to get involved, and if you don’t take part in some of them I have to say, you’re missing out on a really fun part of college. Also, I figure I should mention that the Homecoming Race is part of the entire Fort Collins community—it’s not just CSU students running out there, which is one of the reasons why CSU is such a unique campus. We really get involved in our community, and our community is invested in us. I encourage all of you Rams (or soon-to-be Rams) to volunteer, get involved, lend a helping hand to somebody that needs it.

Have a great weekend, Rams! Tune in Wednesday for my next post.

Michelle Stout, a CSU senior majoring in health and exercise science, is currently serving as president of the Student Alumni Connection—commonly known as SAC. As president, Michelle is responsible for networking with CSU alumni and helping fellow SAC members to do the same. Through this, these students are learning important skills that will serve them in their future careers.

This year, Michelle led her fellow SAC members in building the Grand Marshal float for the 2010 CSU Homecoming Parade. For nearly two weeks, the group worked hard to create a float which went along with this year's theme, "Living our Legacy.”

Take a look at this week's video to learn more about Michelle's CSU: SAC!