A Break From the Chaos of It All!
First of all, Happy New Year and happy 2020! We made it through the '10s!
For some of you who know, being a student in college is rough. There are more than enough trivialities and work just seems to pile up on itself. This was the case last semester. I promise you I would try to post regularly, but my classes had other plans for me. For the past five months, I have dealt with a writing intensive journalism class, an anthropology course, a theater construction workshop, and of course, a dreadful quantitative math course at a local community college. While I cannot lie and say that some of these classes bored me, I will share some things from my classes that were critical to my personal growth. For my journalism course, J2100 I had to deal with a whole lot of criticized edits in my writing. For me, the hardest part of that course was trying to properly understand the rules of the AP style as well as understanding grammar in a reporter’s view. I wrote a story on a student who was double majoring in chemistry and music while at the same time performing opera for a show that was taking place in November. In my community college course, I just sort of rolled with the punches. I did get help with a math workshop on Thursday nights, but the commute from the university to the community college and back were taking a lot of time from extracurricular activities. By the end of finals, I emerged with a B in both and to me, that was all that really mattered. For theatre, I constructed sets for productions; this just made me more familiar with my tools. As for anthropology, I got to learn about many different cultures from the Yanomamo of Venezuela to the Masai warriors of Kenya. I learned of walking marriages and patrilineal wives which were both based in different regions of Asia. It was also through this anthropology class that I met one of my new friends. Her name is Lauryn and she is from Massachusetts studying in international business, which kind of pairs up with my international journalism major given they are both international.
I first met Lauryn during the first weeks of August when I was trying to get the hang of my new job as a Desk Attendant at Wolpers residential hall. Lauryn and a couple of her friends were just trying to get access to their mailboxes and we really hit it off. It was only two weeks later did I notice that she was also in the same anthropology class as I, so we became really good study buddies.
As for the job I mentioned, being a Desk Attendant can have its pros and cons. For instance, I can complete my homework at my desk by the computer, which was forbidden to me as a security guard at the university library last year. I can also listen to music off the computer when I am done with my homework, which can give me a little bit of time to just relax. The main portion of my job is quite simple though. If a student has received a package, I make sure the package is in the back room. The student must then produce their ID to me, so I can run to the back room and make sure the package is for the person that is up in front of my desk. The hard part about this job, is that sometimes I am given long hours. It’s not that I’m complaining or anything, but sometimes it would be nice not to get the late shift all the time. Another thing that annoys me are the residents who lock themselves out of their room. If they have their phone on themselves, they can easily open their door back up by clicking on a link posted on every floor. Sometimes, there will be students who are foolish enough to leave their key and their phone inside their room. This means that ever so often I will see a student in nothing, but a towel come up to me and ask to have access back into their room, which is something I cannot help them with. Only the RA’s are responsible for that when a student has lock themselves out of their room without both forms of access.
Now that I am back for winter break I have spent a majority of my time working a secondary job as a deli meat cutter at Kramer Foods based in Hinsdale. It’s a simple life to just cut meats and cheeses and the people I work with are really nice folks. I have met some very interesting people from the other side of my counter such as Chicago news anchor Dick Johnson from NBC 5 News. Mr. Johnson was gracious enough to let me email him some of my material from school. I have also met a lot of people who just go crazy for spinach dip. Since it was the holiday season, a lot of people wanted spinach dip, so I’ve been shoveling a whole lot of it at my job. My co-workers give me a lot of support in saying they appreciate my work which really touches me. It’s not often you hear that from fellow employees working with you, but I’m glad they feel I am a critical person on their team. Plus, I’m one of the only tall people on the staff who can reach just about anything in the cabinets filled with containers and paper towels.
I have only caught up with a few people this winter break, but whenever I did hang out with them it was a fun time. At the annual Brynda family Christmas party, everyone had a fun time getting to know my sister’s boyfriend who spent his first Christmas eve with us, which was such a joy. I got a lot of Christmas gifts I wanted and enjoyed catching up with my cousin who just started her first year at Saint Louis University.
I plan to be back in Columbia by the 15th of January because I have work training on the 16th but other than that, I will spend next semester doing my best in finding housing as well as securing an internship over the summer. Until next time!
By the way, to get a better understanding of what I've been doing on the journalism front here are couple links to a few of my projects that I have worked on all of last year.
This video project was to cover the Missouri Symphony Orchestra.
This project I covered how flooding of the Missouri River affected a lot of bike riders on local trails.
https://soundcloud.com/sean-brynda/katy-trail-npr-audio-project
This group project talked about the trend of Urban Agriculture within the City of Columbia.
https://sites.google.com/view/urbangrowthcolumbia/home
Finally, this was a profile I wrote on a student who was majoring in both music and chemistry while preparing for an Opera performance.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U0R2NSWxX-ZWNYT1QeyqJaoTne__7vYR-AY2iZsUfLQ/edit?usp=sharing
One more video for you. Some of you have asked what is the Mizzou fight song, so I took a video of the marching band during homecoming. Enjoy!