Moonlight Breakfast

Today was the first “study break” event of finals week. The Office of Student Life put on the Moonlight Breakfast in the quad so that Kenna, Dean Avery and other could serve us food. We could all come out and have some bacon, sausage, eggs and orange juice at 9pm at night while studying for our final exams. Some lucky students have already finished their exams and have a free week ahead of them, while others are frantically studying for exams they have on Friday. A lot of students were out there, though, some for the free food right now that their meal plans are running low, others just to see people and take a break from their studies, as it is meant to be. There was a screen playing music videos and oddly enough baskets on the tables with small finger puppets and tiny erasers for students to take. Perhaps the most amusing was the fact that there was a cartoonist out there as well making drawings of students.

Senior Dinner

The Senior Dinner is one of the last senior events before the actual senior week begins. Everyone actually got dressed up and was looking good when they arrived at the set up tents and tables in front of Thorn Hall. Seniors got their hands stamped before getting wristbands in order to consume Oxy-approved alcoholic beverages. I created a slideshow for this event as well, though this time tried to include as many seniors as I could, not only my friends. Included were those seniors who e-mailed me photos of themselves and their friends, as well as my own InterVarsity and MEChA/ALAS photos. A few students spoke, including Cesar Serrano, and we were given gifts by the alumni association, who we suspect puts this event on mainly to inform us that they will be bothering us to donate money to this institution from now on. I did get a lot of loud responses from the slideshow, so that pretty much makes it a success as far as I’m concerned.

MEChA/ALAS Banquet

This year we held our end of the year banquet for MEChA/ALAS at the Latin-American restaurant Arco Iris (literally rainbow in Spanish) in Highland Park, my old neighborhood. Our historian Virginia Parra prepared a slideshow of the years events and we all ate some great food. The event was a joint one with Latino Grad, and so a silent auction was held to raise money for the ceremony. This so-called silent auction got loud, however, when Michelle Angeles had to fight to win her exam prep course. The big part of the night, of course, was the announcement of the new e-board. The emotional ceremony begins with the current e-board lighting up their candles. We then each called up our successor, handed them a new candle and lit it with the flame from ours. This was followed by a short photoshoot of the e-board and seniors, as well as Cristina Franco’s announcement of next year’s Latino Grad committee. All in all, this was a great night and a great way to end out award-winning year.

Final Edge

This Wednesday night was a very emotional time or all of us as InterVarsity Christian Fellowship held its last Edge of the year; the last one after four years for us seniors who have been a part of the community this whole time. Jenn Pope and Harah Milki gave some parting words on behalf of the senior class and also announced that they would be coming on as intern staff. However, it was also announced that neither intern Daniel Groot nor volunteer Eddie Ko would be returning to Oxy next year.

The underclassmen that feel they know us so well put on a skit depicting a future reunion of our class, where I’ve apparently made millions off of my own card games. I created slideshow that was played during the Edge, as well as a movie using the iMovie skills I’ve recently acquired thanks to this class that I showed the seniors afterwards. Being the rowdy Christians that we are, a lot of us stayed afterwards and played music on my labtop while those who wanted to took over the dance floor. I even got a chance to show off some of my aquired Salsa skills.

Leadership Awards

Before the Edge on Wednesday night, this year’s Leadership Awards were held in front of the marketplace. I was there along with Cesar Serrano, Leo Magallon, Virginia Parra and Sara Camarena representing MEChA/ALAS. There were student speakers, including HC and swim team captain Mike Heffner and First Nations club president Mike Adams. Our first surprise of the night was after Relay for Life and Apollo night were announced as events of the year, when we heard our club’s name called out and Semana de la Raza declared the equity program of the year! We were excited to win the honor, but even more excited when we were called up again and MEChA/ALAS was actually declared the club of the year! (Oh yeah!) Kenna even said aloud to us, “You all look so surprised.” When we got up to accept the award.

Jesus Maldonado was definitely deserving of his advisor of the year award and Virginia was recognized as an emerging leader of the year. We were all excited and happy, especially for being club of the year. However, the biggest surprise for me came when Dean Avery announced the final award, the Dean’s Award for Integrity and Creativity, and said my name. Apparently, the administration actually likes my Oxy card game idea and even awarded me $500!

Last Bible Study

So Tuesday night was our last scheduled bible study of the semester and our bible study leader Eddie Ko decided that he wanted to cook dinner for us as a farewell. We got together for dinner at the Armadale House where Eddie lives with Daniel Groot and Matt Taylor, the Intervarsity team leader. Eddie prepared dinner for us and we all met at the house. After eating, Eddie had each of us (since most us of there were seniors) go around and share some of our favorite memories at Oxy. I shared about a couple of my favorite InterVarsity conferences, being elected to the MEChA/ALAS board in the first place and the epic journey the InterVarsity men took into the depths of the grand canyon and back (which not everyone believes I did.) While I wouldn’t say the experience as a whole was the best bible study ever, it was at least a memorable experience.

MEChA/ALAS Elections

The final official meeting of MEChA/ALAS this year was, of course, the elections for next year. As per our tradition, the meeting began with the current leaders giving a description of their positions on their board, those running for e-board each talking about why they want to be on the board and finally opening it up to questions from any of the members for the candidates to answer.

There were a couple surprises that night. The first one, which presumably some people knew about, was from Danny Cruz. Danny was the chair (president) of MEChA/ALAS last year as a junior, but took this year off, so he will be coming back as a senior next year. Wanting to run again, Danny had his girlfriend Cristina Franco bring her labtop to the meeting so that Danny could run via the power of the Internet. (Whoa.)
The second surprise was from Beto, who started answering questions despite not being on the ballot and at the last minute was encouraged to throw his hat into the race for Co-Chair (vice-president).

We have a strong competition going on, so there will hopefully be a strong e-board forming to continue what we have done next year.