Competition versus Cooperation.
Competition
Synonyms: rivalry, challenge, test of skill, contest, struggle, emulation, simultaneous demand, suppression of another
Cooperation
Synonyms: joint, common, working together, active assistance, shared, mutual benefit
These two words are like the yin and yang of work. When there is cooperation, there is always competition. It could be obvious like in sports when you're actually working as one to be victorious against another team who is also working as one. Or it could be less obvious like in a planning committee; you are working together to make something better than before, but no one wants their project baby to be worse than the last project or worse than the other company's project, so you are in competiton not only with these other ideas, but with your own previous ideas. We always want to be innovative and new with our ideas, so in a sense, we are competing against our peers as well as our past selves to come up with better ideas.
There is also the ugly side of competition... when people are so wrapped up in winning that they forget themselves and get...well... ugly... It was brought to my attention that one of the teams got a little ugly with another team and when I heard this I was just like "really???" What's the point of lowering yourself just to seemingly get ahead in the tiniest aspect of the competition. But that's okay because we are all aware that competition does tend to bring out the ugly side of people. A lot of times we just need to step back and think about things in the big scheme. Cooperation uplifts everyone involved, friendly competition is healthy, but ugly competition sets us back as a human race.
Just a few thoughts...
Skee-Wee to the Sorors
Friday, January 29, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
My Values
Meet my family, or at least a small part if it...
The majority of who I am c
omes from the values instilled in me by these very people among many others. There is a strong bond that goes beyond our nuclear family into the extended family. They have encouraged us to have goals and work to attain them. We work to go throughout our days in the name of Jesus, and I work to preserve my integrity with my actions as well as my words. My close relationships (friends and family) are priceless... I am one of those people where if I am on your side, I'll do anything to help/protect/make sure everything okay in your life. (However, I'm also the kind of person where if you turn on me that's the end of that...) It would not work well if the values that I hold near and dear didn't match up to those of the Sorority that is also near and dear to my heart. In preserving my integrity I am maintaining high moral and ethical standards. Scholarship is not only beneficial to my personal life, but in my success I am able to make the people I care about proud. I honestly and truly enjoy being of service to all mankind 
because it helps people grow, you make connections and learn things from people who most likely will never remember your name or what you did, but they will remember how you made them feel. As I briefly touched on before, these values govern my everyday activities, my lifestyle, and just the general way that I carry myself.
My personal and organizational values (yes that's kind of redundant and repetitive... lol) fit into the NPHC by overlapping and expanding upon the values of each of the other organizations. We are all connected through our founding principles and our current goals. Each values being able to uplift our people whether it's through achievement, scholarship, integrity or service service. Our different methods to attain a common goal are what make us unique organizations in the same council.
I just love this picture!!!
Until next time...
Skee-Wee to the Bloggers :o)
The majority of who I am c
omes from the values instilled in me by these very people among many others. There is a strong bond that goes beyond our nuclear family into the extended family. They have encouraged us to have goals and work to attain them. We work to go throughout our days in the name of Jesus, and I work to preserve my integrity with my actions as well as my words. My close relationships (friends and family) are priceless... I am one of those people where if I am on your side, I'll do anything to help/protect/make sure everything okay in your life. (However, I'm also the kind of person where if you turn on me that's the end of that...) It would not work well if the values that I hold near and dear didn't match up to those of the Sorority that is also near and dear to my heart. In preserving my integrity I am maintaining high moral and ethical standards. Scholarship is not only beneficial to my personal life, but in my success I am able to make the people I care about proud. I honestly and truly enjoy being of service to all mankind 
because it helps people grow, you make connections and learn things from people who most likely will never remember your name or what you did, but they will remember how you made them feel. As I briefly touched on before, these values govern my everyday activities, my lifestyle, and just the general way that I carry myself. My personal and organizational values (yes that's kind of redundant and repetitive... lol) fit into the NPHC by overlapping and expanding upon the values of each of the other organizations. We are all connected through our founding principles and our current goals. Each values being able to uplift our people whether it's through achievement, scholarship, integrity or service service. Our different methods to attain a common goal are what make us unique organizations in the same council.
I just love this picture!!!Until next time...
Skee-Wee to the Bloggers :o)
Haiti Relief
The Lovely Ladies of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc in collaboration with the Band of Brothers will be collecting monetary donation for the victims in Haiti. With every dollar you give Theta Chapter will match your donation. Let's be a blessing to the Haitian people! For info on where to donate contact me or... contact aka.theta@gmail.com =) Help us be of service to all mankind ♥
PS. Are you all aware of the collaboration efforts transpiring around campus?? Contact me if you have specific questions, I have information from the Haiti Relief Meeting and can help point you in the direction of the right people.
Skee-Wee to the bloggers
Snooze Blues
Feel free to listen to the song as you read this post... I feel it enhances the point!!
So this morning, much like every other morning, I am a victim of the snooze blues. I set about 5 different alarms hoping that when their powers combine it will annoy me enough to actually wake up and get out of bed. This hope fails almost every morning. After each rising of the sun, I beat myself up for waking up 2 or 3 hours later than I had planned which means I'll be rushing to complete everything in my ridiculous schedule--but that's neither here nor there... I managed to pry myself out of the bed after I've convinced myself that I've wasted enough time that I can NEVER get back! Have you ever taken the time to think about that? You mysteriously lose 5 hours on Facebook (or Twitter for those of you who choose to Tweet), your 1 movie break turns into an all day marathon, your 30 minute nap turns into a lovely sleep--doing all of that is great until you factor in class work and extra curriculars and jobs and other obligations. Then you're back at angry for wasting...TIME. (Sidenote... when I woke up this morning I made the decision to blog about time...only when I could finally find the time...please note the time of this post!)
So, back to my point... Has it ever made you cringe at your time management when you realize that for every moment that passes, you can never get it back. It would be amazing to actually have a time machine or something to manipulate time like they have in the movies, but it's reality and we are the lucky people that don't get that luxury. It makes me want to utilize every moment to its highest potential, but this whole "needing sleep in order to function" really puts a wrench in my entire operation. I have the problem of volunteering my time when I should actually keep quiet and take a nap or just sit for 2 seconds--who am I kidding, if I sit I'll probably start working on something else. My philosophy when it comes to schedules and due dates is to try to get ahead. So I'll work like crazy so that in theory I can be lazy in the future. The plan is flawless until I finally free up a day and someone says "hey are you free to do whatever?" And here is the entrance of my problem...if I actually have free time...I'm going to say I have free time... I have no idea why I do it, I guess it's just hard wired from my parents. Now... the only person that is hurt by my "little problem" is me... And that's not even completely true. In spirits I'm free as a bird and I enjoy feeling like I'm making a difference out of my time on earth... I guess only my physical body suffers because I'm throwing off all of these biological mechanics that I wont discuss right now. (Ask me about it if you'd like to hear more on that topic.) My uncle always describes me by quoting Hubbard: "If you want work well done, select a busy man - the other kind has no time." Feel free to take a moment to let that marinate...
Now here is the point. We, in efforts to be of service to all mankind, give the most important gift--our time. But, honestly how great of a gift are you personally giving? Is it like time by Tiffany, or re-gifted Costco time...? In order to change the world, we as a people, let alone as members of Greek organizations, should try putting a little more time into our efforts to change the world. As much time as you plan for a party or step show or what-have-you, you should put that same amount of time and effort (if not more) into whatever you want to do to change the world. Now with that said, I should probably stop rambling and sleep. I hope you enjoyed the song! I'm planning to use all my strength not to hit the snooze button in the morning...
Goodnight all, and as always...
Skee-Wee to the bloggers
And yes...for those of you who were wondering--I was listening to the song as I blogged :o)
Friday, January 8, 2010
First Day of Class!!
Fraternities and Sororities have this stigma about them. It's no secret. What do people do over the weekend? "Oh I went to this CRAZY frat party with slutty sorority girls everywhere!!"
Yea... about that...
The time of change to the image of fraternal organizations is way past due. Many organizations are built upon the principles of uplifting their surrounding community, brotherhood or sisterhood, service, and scholarship among other things. However, the public rarely sees these principles in action. They see the social gatherings however CrAzY or mellow they may be. Is this because that's all the organization does? H-to-the-No! An ugly truth about the college student is the fact that the majority of the population cares about a party exponentially more than they care about service. It's not that college students are just selfish bastards, but often we don't equate service with fun, even though more often than not you will have fun whenever you're serving your community (let's call this "constructive socialization"). Part of our responsibility as leaders on this campus is to serve and give back to the community that raised us. However to do this, we need to make service attractive to the people we are inviting to help us.
Making sandwiches for a local soup kitchen is in reality the ideal way for Greek Organizations to bond (again... "constructive socialization!!" is it beginning to catch on??). Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were a part of almost every one's childhood, and (at least in my opinion) they're still the greatest thing since sliced bread. The work actually made the initial conversations less awkward. Instead of the standard "here's an index card find out these things about your partner and then introduce them", we got to hold actual conversations that were each unique and wonderfully unstructured.
From this class period it finally clicked in my head that maybe we should change the way we present some of our service projects . Not necessarily changing the location and what we do, but just change the connotation behind it(see how much better "constructive socialization" sounds?). Yes we're all told it's good to volunteer, you need to volunteer to get into a good school, volunteering makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. But when it comes down to it, there is a scarce minority of the people on campus who are willing to get up early on a Saturday to help their community. How exactly do we change this? I really have no idea! I'm open to suggestions... some people give food, gifts, incentives, or what-have-you. Maybe this is the pay it forward part of volunteering. In a perfect world people would want to volunteer for the sake of humanity... in our world, it's all about what can IIIIIIII get from volunteering?
Well optimists of the world... I guess we have some work to do...
Until next time... Skee-Wee to the Bloggers
Yea... about that...
The time of change to the image of fraternal organizations is way past due. Many organizations are built upon the principles of uplifting their surrounding community, brotherhood or sisterhood, service, and scholarship among other things. However, the public rarely sees these principles in action. They see the social gatherings however CrAzY or mellow they may be. Is this because that's all the organization does? H-to-the-No! An ugly truth about the college student is the fact that the majority of the population cares about a party exponentially more than they care about service. It's not that college students are just selfish bastards, but often we don't equate service with fun, even though more often than not you will have fun whenever you're serving your community (let's call this "constructive socialization"). Part of our responsibility as leaders on this campus is to serve and give back to the community that raised us. However to do this, we need to make service attractive to the people we are inviting to help us.
Making sandwiches for a local soup kitchen is in reality the ideal way for Greek Organizations to bond (again... "constructive socialization!!" is it beginning to catch on??). Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were a part of almost every one's childhood, and (at least in my opinion) they're still the greatest thing since sliced bread. The work actually made the initial conversations less awkward. Instead of the standard "here's an index card find out these things about your partner and then introduce them", we got to hold actual conversations that were each unique and wonderfully unstructured.
From this class period it finally clicked in my head that maybe we should change the way we present some of our service projects . Not necessarily changing the location and what we do, but just change the connotation behind it(see how much better "constructive socialization" sounds?). Yes we're all told it's good to volunteer, you need to volunteer to get into a good school, volunteering makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. But when it comes down to it, there is a scarce minority of the people on campus who are willing to get up early on a Saturday to help their community. How exactly do we change this? I really have no idea! I'm open to suggestions... some people give food, gifts, incentives, or what-have-you. Maybe this is the pay it forward part of volunteering. In a perfect world people would want to volunteer for the sake of humanity... in our world, it's all about what can IIIIIIII get from volunteering?
Well optimists of the world... I guess we have some work to do...
Until next time... Skee-Wee to the Bloggers
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Hello Assignment 1
Well...Hello blog world. My name is Dana, and usually the next part of this statement depends on which audience I am addressing. In a Greek organization setting I'd finish it up with "...and I am a member of Theta Chapter Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated at THE Ohio State University." If it were a regular scholastic setting it might be "...and I am a 4th year anthropology major graduating on June 13th (hold for applause)." Or if it were a normal setting where no one actually cares about that part of the introductory conversation it would simply end in an "...and you?" Anywho... now I am officially introduced on most of the basic collegiate aspects.
It seems like people's favorite question to ask any member of a Greek organization--other than "what did they make you do"--is "why did you join your specific organization?" I never know exactly why people ask this question, though. Are they looking for guidance? Are they just nosey? Are they actually looking for a right or wrong answer upon which to base their judgment? But I like to go with the honest truth: there never REALLY was another option in my heart. Okay my family is majority Phirst Pham, but we have representatives from the entire NPHC, so the family pressure never actually occurred in our house. Yes, I was the real life little girl in front of the mirror wearing my mother's high heels holding up a pinky. When it actually came down to decision time, I researched like it my was major. I looked at other organizations information, representatives, and programs, however I just didn't feel like any other organization would be a right fit for me. So it was AKA or bust, then the clouds parted and I got a call about the rush fliers around campus. And then the rest is history!
This idea of a blogabus... the name makes me chuckle, by the way... but I actually think it's genius! At the end of each quarter all of the syllabi, power points, notes, tests, homeworks, readings and any other printed papers used for a class are thrown away. Ideally it would be recycled, but this in this slightly less than perfect world that just isn't the case. I'm excited to see how we could use all of these new technologies to our advantage even though Theta has jumped on the Facebook and Twitter bandwagon. Although personally I refuse to tweet... it is an efficient way to get your information out there to the people that want to hear it. Well this should be an exciting quarter!
Until we meet again...
Skee-Wee to the bloggers!
It seems like people's favorite question to ask any member of a Greek organization--other than "what did they make you do"--is "why did you join your specific organization?" I never know exactly why people ask this question, though. Are they looking for guidance? Are they just nosey? Are they actually looking for a right or wrong answer upon which to base their judgment? But I like to go with the honest truth: there never REALLY was another option in my heart. Okay my family is majority Phirst Pham, but we have representatives from the entire NPHC, so the family pressure never actually occurred in our house. Yes, I was the real life little girl in front of the mirror wearing my mother's high heels holding up a pinky. When it actually came down to decision time, I researched like it my was major. I looked at other organizations information, representatives, and programs, however I just didn't feel like any other organization would be a right fit for me. So it was AKA or bust, then the clouds parted and I got a call about the rush fliers around campus. And then the rest is history!
This idea of a blogabus... the name makes me chuckle, by the way... but I actually think it's genius! At the end of each quarter all of the syllabi, power points, notes, tests, homeworks, readings and any other printed papers used for a class are thrown away. Ideally it would be recycled, but this in this slightly less than perfect world that just isn't the case. I'm excited to see how we could use all of these new technologies to our advantage even though Theta has jumped on the Facebook and Twitter bandwagon. Although personally I refuse to tweet... it is an efficient way to get your information out there to the people that want to hear it. Well this should be an exciting quarter!
Until we meet again...
Skee-Wee to the bloggers!
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