Blah

1st piece in the Albany Student Press (UAlbany)

Alpha Phi Omega National Service Fraternity, Incorporated

ASP Article

Alpha Phi Omega is a national coeducational service fraternity founded on the three cardinal principles of leadership, friendship and service. The Alpha Delta Eta chapter at SUNY Albany was founded in 1994. The basis of the Fraternity’s brotherhood comes from a foundation of shared beliefs, experiences, and an understanding of our fraternal history and goals. We live and serve under The Scout Law and Oath Loyalty and Service. Today the fraternity has over 170 active brothers and only wishes to expand further. Alpha Phi Omega is the single most representative undergraduate intercollegiate organization in the United States of America.

As a community service organization, we volunteer throughout the week from the beginning to the end of the semester, even on holidays. We serve our campus by marshaling events and hosting campus cleanups. We give back to our community by volunteering at the Boys Scouts of America, Albany United Methodist Society, Regional Food Bank, and Habitat for Humanity. A favorite volunteer opportunity among the brothers is visiting The Daughters of Sarah Jacobs Massary, where we play board games and converse with the senior citizens residing in the center. It has become a permanent weekly activity, to write letters to current soldiers serving and veterans, volunteer at Goodwill and UAlbany’s Don’t Walk Alone. We partnered with Five Quad Volunteer Ambulance Service and hosted two blood drives this semester. APO volunteers at the annual Breast Cancer Walk, AIDS Walk, Child Abuse Walk, and Out of the Darkness Walk. We are strong supporters of Relay for Life, and this year raised $4, 747, earning the title of the organization that raised the most money at the university this year.

We hold our mission and goal to heart, and make sure we do the most we can in the name of community service. This semester, we have completed over 5,000 service hours and have fundraised over $1,500. At the end of the semester we donate any remaining money to multiple charities. In addition to all of our volunteer work, we host fellowships such as movie nights, ice skating, bowling, and t-shirt tie-dye, dinner and lunch dates, to continue to strengthen our bond as friends and brothers. We are unified and extremely compassionate about what we stand for and what we do. Our aspiration is to continue to recruit people who selflessly devote their time, commitment and enjoy serving for the greater good. 

 I am a proud brother of Alpha Phi Omega National Service Fraternity, Incorporated.

a way home

So I’ve been a little MIA, but I’m back.

hello world.

just a lost hippie.

It’s hard to tell sometimes. 

Whether walking on my own two feet is right anymore. I thought I would have it figured out by now, but what had happend was …

Hm. 

I no longer become angry at myself, because that is just redundant. Too much energy lost in nothing. How did the others do it? The masterminds, geniuses and extraordinary people of our time and before? Did they doubt themselves? Question the reasons of their own existence? Did they ever devour the thought of no future? Because if they did, then I must be on the right track.

I like to believe there is something out there, bigger than myself and I am the only one to find it. When does my search begin? Yesterday? Today? Tomorrow?

#JustALostHippie

rabbador-spaceporcupine asked: where you at?!?!? you said we better chill then i never heard from you again lol

currently sitting in my kitchen … you?

Can never get tired of this one …

Having a Coke with You by Frank O’Hara

Having a coke with you is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse

it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it

One of my favorites …

The  Good Morrow by John Donne

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?

’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,

Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres,

Without sharp north, without declining west?

Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

Stale Popcorn

Stale Popcorn

“Twi-hard” or not?

By: Cristina Diaz

Unless you have been living under a rock or in another galaxy for the past three years, you probably have heard of the “Twilight” movies. Adopted from the Twilight books, written by Stephanie Meyer, these movies are a must to watch on your to do list. Fans of the saga, “Twi-hards,” mostly girls ranging from the age of 13 to 21 from around the world, craze over the big event by throwing Twilight parties, re-reading the books, camping outside of the theaters for the midnight previews, returning to the theatres to watch the film multiple times and much more. I cannot help but ask myself what in the world is happening to these people? Why spend so much time and effort on something that truly does not benefit you in anyway? I cannot say this too loud, or they will find me and attack.

The latest installment, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 came out on November 18 and has been leading the box office since then. The PG-13 vampire romantic flick has generated a total of $587, 926, 409 worldwide from 4, 066 theaters in the 17 days of its release. It is expected to stay afloat as number one for the rest of the month. The film is about a doomed vampire Edward Cullen, who hates what he is, eats only animals and lives amongst humans with his family, and falls head over heels for a very awkward and lonely human, Bella Swan. Edward bases his whole existence on Bella, and she does the same within a month knowing each other. Their love which is a love of only movies, and recommended not to be tried at home; deals with opposition of a certain werewolf, Jacob Black, who does not believe in wearing shirts throughout the movie or giving up his love for Bella, vampire/ human baby making and the fact that they cannot live in a world without each other.

Everyone wants a happy ending, and secretly we all have the idea of our perfect match. However, this sends a horrible message to teenage girls worldwide. As girls fantasize, drool and dream of their very own Edward or Jacob, taking the meaning of hopeless romantic completely into a different level. Simultaneously, they are creating a very strict rubric for the men of our world, the not so perfect kind. We all know that movies are fictional, even though emulating so much from real life, yet these “Twi-hards” bite into it. Yes, pun indeed intended.  They obsess with owning everything and anything having to do with franchise, buying posters, purses, sweater, blankets, pen and the list goes on.

I kind of enjoyed the earlier vampires; deep, dark, ugly, gruesome, and blood thirsty, who burst into flames instead of shining like a disco ball in the sun. We were afraid yet intrigued by them, but now we obsess in having them as our boyfriends and husbands, just a tad bit weird for my taste.  The last film The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 will come out next year. Will “Twi-hards” be no more?  Maybe they will snap out of it, and realize that a movie is just a movie. But they can always go back to Nicholas Sparks and his heart throbbing, guarantee tear jerking novels, convincing girls that love is out there for everyone in the most dramatic way possible.  A book is just a book, good luck getting the message across. Until the next “complicated-true-love-from-the-movie-will-be-my-reality” epidemic, stay clear.