Vincent's Blog

This blog is long overdue, but here it is. The answer to Guess Who part 2 was indeed Ryan Forsythe. He is a father, the only male besides student workers in the Office of Admissions, and apparently he talks a lot. I will not share my sources on how I found out that he talks a lot. I am going to take a pause from Guess Who to talk about a lot of other topics.

The end of the year was interesting with the flood. The flood threw final exams off and tragically destroyed many businesses on Riverside. I was able to walk down to North Riverside and one of the two days that APSU was closed to take pictures and to see the damage. I will be in Clarksville for the summer working on campus and I am very sad at this moment. Three of the best places to eat on North Riverside to eat were destroyed. The first place was Casa Blanca. I know many of you say that they have another one on Wilma Rudolph, but it is still not the same. Instead of driving two minutes I have to drive five minutes and to me that is a big deal. Also, Taco Bell was destroyed with the flood. I know many people do not like Taco Bell, but when you cannot sleep and you have the munchies at 1 in the morning Taco Bell is the place to go. The nearest Taco Bell is on Madison or Wilma Rudolph. The last place was Waffle House. I know Waffle House may not look like the prettiest establishment, but that does not diminish the quality of their food. I love getting the large hash browns with either a bacon cheeseburger or waffle with sausage.

North Riverside was vital to many college students because of the closeness to campus. Now with those businesses closed I am on the lookout for new places because I am too lazy to drive the distances to the other locations unless I am really in the mood for it. I already know Johnny’s will be one of the places that I will go to a lot now. I personally love the BBQ sandwiches and fries. I know everybody talks about their honey bun and ice cream, but I am not a big ice cream eater so I just get the honey bun.  I know it’s a shame on me to not get the honey bun with the ice cream, so please forgive me.

Not only did the flood destroy many businesses, but many homes were destroyed as well. So please if you can and have the time go through your place of living and donate clothes, shoes, and non perishable food items.

The flood pushed back APSU final exams to Saturday. That was interesting because instead of sleeping in late on a Saturday morning many students were up bright and early trying to take final exams. This also pushed Housing check-out back to the last check-outs being on Mother’s Day.

Happy belated Mother’s Day to all mothers out there. This shout out goes to those mothers’s who have children, but also to those that do not.  You can be a mother without being a mother if you know what I mean.

I said earlier that I would be here for the summer. My jobs this summer are working for Housing and Office of Admissions. These are some of the biggest offices on campus and I am truly blessed to be working for them.  In the Office of Admissions I will be giving tours and have other responsibilities assigned to me which I am looking forward to. In Housing I will be a Conference Assistant working with the many summer camps that will be coming to APSU. I am also trying to plan some vacation time between the May and the end of August because once August hits I will be incognito because of Housing training.

I have bored you enough so I am about to sign off. Have a good day!

Sidenote: This is a terrible picture of me for my blog page. I have facial hair now!

I know it has been a while, but where is part 2 to Guess Who in Admissions. This has been fun trying to do. I do not want to be too obvious with my hints so my head has been stretched to the limits trying to scheme up some hints. Special thanks to those who helped me.

Hints:

1. Nickname could be “wind jammer” because this person talks a lot.
2. This person has sleepless nights.
3. This person is one of a kind.

For those of you who guessed Jenny, you are correct. If you guessed wrong it is still ok. Jenny’s office is the lobby of the Admissions Office where she serves as a secretary. Jenny said her main job includes coordinating campus tours, helping people with general campus knowledge, and greeting people. For many visitors that come to Austin Peay for the first time for a campus tour, or other reasons Jenny is usually the first person you see. She is always sitting at her desk with a smile on her face waiting and willing to help any and everybody that comes through Ellington. Jenny graduated from Austin Peay in 2007; while attending Austin Peay she majored in English. She is also happily married.

Stayed tuned for Guess Who, pt. 2 where I put the spotlight on someone else from the Office of Admissions.

I have been bored lately, and usually when I am bored I love to read or play my Xbox 360. Recently I thought of a new blog and/or game that readers will hopefully enjoy. I am in the Admissions office twice a week and there are many people that work in the office that I do not know. I figured if I did not know them, then other people may not know them either. So my game I created is called “Guess Who in Admissions,” so let’s play the game. I will give hints of the person and you guys have to figure out who I am talking about. I know there are a lot of people in Admissions so I will try to give a word bank.

Hint 1:
You never catch this person with anything, but a smile on their face.

Hint 2:
All visitors start off and end their trip the same way.

Hint 3:
This person’s office is the biggest of them all.

Word Bank
Amy Deaton
Dawn Vanderlee
Jenny Nickerson
Della Dennis
Ryan Forsythe
Katie Brown

I am a Resident Hall Director (RHD) at Austin Peay State University on top of being a full time student and a Govs Ambassador. My life as a RHD is very interesting. I have a staff of 4 and at least 80 residents that I am responsible for. I am the RHD for Rawlins Hall. I am also the co-Chair for the Training Committee in Housing. The Training Committee is responsible for making training for Fall and Spring. Also, we are responsible for finding out the good and bad of training and improving it. I co-Chair the committee with my immediate supervisor, Leslie Barger. She is new to Austin Peay, but is not new to Housing. She comes from another rival University. She is a great boss and an even better listener.

Before becoming a RHD I was a RA in Hand Village, and I also sat duty nights in Rawlins and Cross when I had to. It used to be all male, but with the increase in students that want to live on campus the powers that be (my bosses) converted it to a coed hall. The first two floors are males and the third floor is females. It has been interesting with a lot of funny stories. I have a great staff and I am very proud to work with. My whole staff is new at our job including me except Danterius. I am a first year RHD and Ashley, Brian, and Colten are first time RA’s.

Meeting my Staff
Danterius (“D” or “Dan” nicknames that people call him) is our vet of the group. He has been a RA for a while (at least 2 or more years). He is great to our staff and he brings leadership and experience to help the first time RA’s. Also, he knows a lot of the residents that have been at Rawlins for a while. He also works at a movie theater. Unfortunately, D is graduating this year and will be moving on to bigger and better things. I wish him luck in the future.

Brian is another first time RA. He is a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity. He recently just started working at Texas Longhorn. Sidenote: they have great steaks. Brian brings a laid back and calmness to the Rawlins staff. He graduates this year and I also wish him luck in the future.

Colten is another first time RA. He brings a laid back, calmness and funny approach to the job. He has a great girlfriend who serves as a secretary for him sometimes. The secretary comment is a positive one because she helps him with paperwork. Sidenote: I have a secretary to. This is Colten’s first and last year in Housing. He is moving on to bigger and better things in life. I wish him the best.

Ashley is my only girl and is also a Govs Ambassador. She is also a member of the Chi Omega women’s sorority. It is weird sometimes because one minute I am her boss (supervisor, if you want to get technical) and the next I am working side by side with her in Govs as an equal. We have found that balance and it makes working with her fun and easy. She is also the cook. When we have bonding times and the RHD is suppose to cook for their staff, that responsibility gets handed over to Ashley in which she gladly accepts because she loves to cook. If you see the pictures so also made us shirts.

Shirt Story
If you work for Housing or live in Housing we have different names for each building. Rawlins has always been nicknamed, the Raw Dogs. The nickname is not meant to mean anything bad about the building or the people, it is something that was just picked up. That was a story before the story. Rawlins the staff decided to embrace that name, but we had to change it around because we could not be raw because we now had females in our hall. So I nicknamed us “Raw Puppies”. We have different events and competitions among the resident halls during training and we wanted to show our hall spirit, hence the idea of the shirts. We knew other halls would make shirts to so we had to go over and beyond so our shirts were the best. The final product is what you see in the pictures below.

Rawlins, he front of the shirts Ashley made.

Rawlins, the back of the shirt

Rawlins Staff in Brandon Springs