Hallo nochmal! The elusive Lily is, indeed, still here. After slipping off the face of the blogosphere around Fourth of July, I successfully finished my summer internship with Lidl US, reunited with my host brother as well as a former CBYX buddy of mine in Seattle, spent quality time with the fam in Salem, survived two weeks of 9am-9pm band camp and, oh, a particular highlight of September, got my wisdom teeth removed! And now, it's back to the college grind here in good ol' Eugene.
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| The past two months in overview-- winning a Lidl something special, catching a Mariners game, loosing my wisdom and getting new marching band uniforms. |
Because it is the weekend-- how about them Ducks? As a dedicated member of the Oregon Marching Band, I've been to the past three football games. One was against Colorado. We lost. One was in Pullman against Washington State. We lost. And the most recent one was against UW. We lost. It is a bit demoralizing to lose game after game, but the old adage "the band always wins" remains true. Countless fans and students continue to give us high fives and high praise as we're walking home or eating somewhere in uniform after the game.
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| Me, a dedicated Oregon football fan, with Jonah, my number one fan. |
Unfortunately the Ducks' downward slide on the college football totem pole means our bowl game prospects are looking more like the toilet variety than the Sugar, Orange, Cotton or Rose kind. From a public relations perspective it has been interesting watching the team's, university's and media's reactions to recent outcomes. At the most recent game against UW, Oregon decided it would make excellent use of a commercial break and flaunt its new Marcus Mariota Sports Performance Center in a 90 second video shown on Autzen Stadium's jumbo screen. While the center is stunning, it didn't seem to be boosting team performance or morale. (Oregon was 50 points behind UW when the video was shown and didn't exactly make a comeback.)
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| Hillary Rodham Clinton Donald J. Trump Bingo. |
Oregon football hasn't been the only televised event under the public eye in the past few weeks. The presidential and VP debates have been excellent fodder for the political pundits and news outlets as well as us common college students. I watched the past two debates with my roommates and we even had bingo cards full of catch phrases and inevitable topics for the presidential one. This election season has been alarming, unusual and disconcerting. I don't want to get too political, so all I'll say is thank God Saturday Night Live is on again. And they even brought Jimmy Fallon back for a bit!
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| The UO PRSSA Executive Board with our first meeting's guest speaker, Lydia Fakhouri. |
As many of you know, the reason I love to geek out about the PR approach of Oregon football, presidential candidates or (perhaps most often) grocery stores has to do with the fact it's my major. I'm excited to broaden my PR experience even more this year as the Events Director for UO PRSSA. As a side note-- if you're available October 26th or 27th, I highly recommend swinging by our Ducks Love Dogs event on campus. It'll be a cute, cuddly time. And then, of course, I'm still at Toastmasters and Duck TV. Needless to say, Fall Term won't be boring.
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Celebrating my dad's retirement this fall.
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Even with a slightly disappointing football team and the inevitability of Oregon's rain and winter gloom, I have a feeling the next eight weeks will zip by. It's busy terms like this one when I'm especially thankful my family lives just a short drive away. And now my dad is retired, I'm looking forward to weekday brunches or the occasional Cottage Grove bike ride with the fam. I'm sure I'll find a spare hour or two between planning PR events, marching band rehearsals and going to class. But for now it's time to study!
