When most people hear the word “Italy” they think of stereotypes, gondola rides, the Coliseum and way too much pasta and pizza.well folks, for once, the stereotype is right.

Recently, several others and I traveled to Italy and explored the country by bus, plane and lots of footwork.  I think I have done the most walking I’ve ever done in the past eight years and climbed so many steps that if I see another one, I would cry.

The first day we arrived  my friend Kelsey and I instantly beelined to a restaurant and, unlike in the states, Italy seems to have a limited choice of what a starving girl can eat.  Let me outline the choices we had in the Jesolo Beach area: pizza with ham, pasta with tomato sauce, pizza without ham and pasta with a different sauce.

I’m exaggerating to a point and even with the limited choices we seemed to have, the food choices we did have tantalized my taste buds.

I don’t want to spend this entire column commenting  on how amazing the sights were in Italy (which they were, of course) and how great the food was (which it was), but it seems to me whenever I go on vacation, especially to a place like Italy, my former self seems to fall away.

Ok, I know, that sounded super ridiculous, especially in describing a trip that lasted a measly week.  But the fact I was around people I did not know, and places I hadn’t seen before, attempting to speak a language that totally sounded like Spanish, brought out someone in me who had more excitement for life than ever before.

Damn, I told myself this column wouldn’t get cheesy, but there it goes.  Moving on, probably the best city on the trip would be Assisi.  Most people might say the Duomo in Florence or the Trevi Fountain in Rome is the most beautiful place in Italy, but no…Assisi was breathtaking.

When the group arrived in Assisi, the small Italian town met every expectation I had of the countryside.  Compared to Florence and Rome, Assisi was a quite, modest town that did not brag and overcrowd itself with millions of tourist junk shops, and the streets weren’t as littered with pigeons, even though they seemed to have a happy home in Italy.

We decided to explore the city a bit instead of staying around the small city center, and we discovered a long path of steps that led to a place unknown to us.  So, like good little journalists, we decided to give in to our curiosity and climb up the steps.

What we discovered beat any expectation I ever had because, right in front of us, huge, green mountains rose and surrounded us. A castle that has seen its heyday stood to the side.  It was a picture that seemed to come out of Google images.  I stood there for a while thinking to myself, this is why I came to Italy.  It was something out of a dream, a quiet one layered by the birds and the once-in-a-lifetime view in front of me.

The rest of Italy had its sights too.  When the group was in Florence and we walked around the corner and saw the Duomo towering over us, it was a sight I couldn’t believe for a while.  People actually managed to build this monstrosity of a building.

While there were some ruffled feathers on the trip, any problem that seemed to arise never brought down the excitement of physically being in Italy.

Overall, I will never regret the weeks before the trip of having $2.32 in my bank account and living off Chef Boyardee for lunch.  Italy will always be memories I bring up whenever someone tells me “think of a happy time in your life.”

“Because we did everything right up to the moment that SACS was going to come to our campus, we’re in a really excellent position to be able to go through consolidation.” -Raymond Whiting

New consolidation delays visit from SACS.

With the consolidation of Augusta State Uni-    versity and Georgia Health Sciences University, Augusta State will no longer be visited by SACS in March, which means that a Quality Enhancement Plan is no longer required, according to Wesley Kisting, assistant professor in the Department of English and Foreign Language and director of the QEP. However, Augusta State still has plans for the future of the KNIT program.

“The QEP we developed called Knowledge Integrated, or KNIT for short, is going to move forward,” Kisting said. “(It will be) fully funded for the full five-year term as a university initiative. So, its status has changed, but our intention to implement it and its’ basic design have not. Basically, what that means is, we’re moving forward with it because we now see it as an excellent idea worth implementing and worth funding, but not because SACS requires it for us to be reaccredited.”

The consolidation of the two universities cancels out the reaffirmation process Augusta State was about to go through.

“ASU is no longer getting reaffirmed as ASU, we’re moving directly to the consolidation phase, which operates by a different set of guidelines, so SACS doesn’t require a QEP under those guidelines,” Kisting said.

Raymond Whiting, professor of political science and associate vice president for institution effectiveness, said the ruling for the original visit would have never been done and going through the accreditation did not make sense. One reason was financial because site visits cost around $32,000 to $36,000.

After this decision, a letter was sent for a one year delay on the reaccreditation visit until Georgia Health Sciences University and Augusta State are fully merged.  Also, a new prospectus, which outlines the plan for the new university, will be created for the Commission on Colleges to look at.

“Right now because we did everything right up to the moment that SACS was going to come to our campus, we’re in a really excellent position to be able to go through consolidation,” Whiting said.  “Georgia Health Sciences University went through their full reaffirmation last year, we were prepared this year.  Both institutions have already gone through (the process), we have all the data, we have all the information, we’re well prepared.”

Being prepared included having a QEP in place, but now it is not required by SACS, Kisting said. The reason for this is because of the consolidation, and the univeristies have not had a chance to evaluate the learning problems of the students at both schools because they have not yet combined into one institution.

“The deficiencies our students have here (at Augusta State) might not be the same as the deficiencies they have down there,” Kisting said. “To ask two institutions to go through that rigorous self-assessment before they even become one makes no sense. The simpler way to put it is consolidation resets the SACS clock or time-frame, so we almost certainly will be asked to do a QEP in future reaffirmations, but probably not in the next five years after we’ve consolidated. But five years after we’ve consolidated, then probably we’ll be back to the normal reaffirmation process where you do have to have a QEP.”

Where Augusta State is concerned, they do not want to waste the idea and wait five years to implement the QEP, Kisting said. So, they are taking this former requirement and adding it to the curriculum.

“We don’t want to abandon a good idea just because we are no longer required to implement it,” Kisting said. “The reason it began as a plan that everyone was serious about implementing because they wanted to improve student learning. So that intention has not changed just because are not going to be reaccredited by SACS or because we’re not going to stay ASU.”

Besides it being a good idea, Kisting said another reason it was decided to continue with the KNIT program is because of the support it received from the faculty and administration at Augusta State and GHSU.

“The leadership at Georgia Health Sciences University has heard about the plan and essentially agreed this is a good plan that benefits everybody because it strengthens our core curriculum,” Kisting said. “So, they understand the costs that we predict for the plan, they understand that the faculty has bought into the plan here. They realize that some of their faculty may want to participate in this plan, although we teach most of the core. They’ve expressed several times their commitment in making sure it’s implemented and funded for five years.”

Some of the faculty at Augusta State was hesitant about the initiative because other initiatives have come and gone before, Kisting said. But the leadership is serious about this program and its implementation.

“I think this is the perfect signature program for the new university we are becoming,” Kisting said. “It’s a commitment to improving the core curriculum experience that will appeal to lots of colleges and universities nationwide. It’s a very simple, very affordable and I think a very well thought out strategy for making sure that students see stronger connections between their core classes, learn a little better what some of the personal and interpersonal benefits of knowledge are and will also build a much stronger sense of campus community, which is something that both of our institutions will benefit from in the long term.”

While the KNIT program is being implemented, the merger is also moving along and to keep it moving, there is a consolidation steering committee consisting of 21 people, which has community members and people from both institutions with staff, faculty and student representatives.  There is also a consolidation action team beneath it, Whiting said, which consists of eight people and four from each university.  However, the community members within the consolidation groups did not get picked because of any business or financial affiliation.

“They’re not there representing the bank,” Whiting said.  “They’re there representing a member of the community who has been involved in education.  So, they’re individuals who have been a member of our foundation or a member of the foundation down at GHSU or have been active in supporting the university in another way.”

During this process with the consolidation groups, steps have already been made to make this merger a reality.  Ricardo Azziz, president of Georgia Health Sciences University, spoke for about 20 minutes at the Augusta State University faculty meeting Thursday, March 8, about the mission statement, vision and values for the new university.

A new mission statement, vision and values are required by SACS to accredit the new university, Azziz said. These statements show SACS the new university has a plan for the future. It was created by group effort, with little involvement from the two presidents.

“Dr. Bloodworth and I had the least input into that,” Azziz said. “It really had to do with the group and again the group is partly the working group that has been appointed by the chancellor and there is a staff group that prepares material for that working group of the chancellor.”

The mission statement, which is broad and descriptive, is longer than traditional mission statements because it covers the consolidation of the two universities, Azziz said.

The vision statement, however, is shorter than the mission statement, but revealed a large vision for the new university.  For writing the values, Azziz said since many of the values between the two universities were similar, and it was fairly simple for the group to write the seven values, which are collaboration, compassion, excellency, inclusivity, integrity, leadership and scholarship.

“We want to be a destination, we want to be a place where students come here and say ‘I want to go to Augusta to train,’” Azziz said. “You want to have a place that patients say ‘I want to go to Augusta to have my care’ and that’s the vision. We want to be world-class, we don’t really want to say well we want to be as good as our neighboring institution or we want to just as good as our counterparts across the state, we want to be world-class.”

The announcement of a merger between two major universities came as a shock to many on campus, but as time goes on people are starting to see some of the positives behind the consolidation.
One of those faculty members is Chad Stephens, associate professor of chemistry, who said he sees how the merger will benefit students in the long run.

“It’s going to give students more opportunities,” Stephens said. “I think the thing I hope improves is student success on our campus.”

One aspect Stephens said he hopes improves is the graduation rate of students. According to the University System of Georgia Graduation Rate Report, the graduation rate for Augusta State University first-time and full-time freshman through summer 2011 was 6.72 percent of students. What this means is out of 804 students who started in fall 2007 as full-time freshman, only 54 of those students graduated in summer 2011.

Stephens said another aspect he hopes will change is the new university adding more full-time faculty than part-time and this change helping to increase the graduation rate.
“Studies have shown full-time students that have classes with full-time faculty show better retention rates,” Stephens said.

While Augusta State is known for its close-knit community, Stephens said there has to be value within a university when it comes to student’s success and the merger could bring a better chance for that.

“Enrolling students is one thing, graduating is another,” Stephens said.
Barbara Kiernan, the chair person of the department of biobehavioral nursing at Georgia Health Sciences University, said she is also looking forward to the merger between the two institutions.

“I think we are looking forward to the ability for each of the schools to take advantage of each other’s positive offerings,” Kiernan said.

Kiernan said she believes the merger will have a good affect on both of the universities.

“I think it will bring the aspects of graduate programming, the ability for more students to attend graduate school from the ASU side, although I know there are some graduate programs,” Kiernan said. “I (anticipate) for the folks on the GHSU side the ability to enjoy camaraderie with the folks in arts and sciences, to enjoy the opportunities that (Augusta State’s) campus has to offer (and) things like sports and other amenities that I know are up there.”

Ricardo Azziz, president of Georgia Health Sciences University, said he hopes to create a more efficient university where students, faculty, staff and the community can be proud.

“There is no hidden agenda other than what they see,” Azziz said.

Some of the benefits Azziz said would come from the merger will be a greater collaboration between faculty when it comes to research and a university that can be “a greater Georgia University.”

Katherine Sweeney, registrar and director of admissions at Augusta State, said she is looking forward to specific aspects of the merger, including benefits for the students.

“We are all very excited about the possibilities,” Sweeney said. “We will now be a comprehensive research level one institution with a lot more to offer to our students. The faculty collaboration opportunities will be wonderful.”

When most people hear the name, the eyebrows will scrunch in confusion of such a…unique name.

Pickle’s Café and Grill with its odd name has a quiet atmosphere with a look that is typical to casual dining places; the low lighting, neutral colors and the logo everywhere in the restaurant, which, as most people could guess, resembles a pickle. However, a couple of aspects that stood out to me were the exposed brick that surrounded the restaurant and the open kitchen that I do not see too often in restaurants. (Really, what are they hiding?)

Other than the name and logo, Pickle’s features the usual items that are native to casual dining restaurants, such as Applebee’s or Chili’s, like the All-American cheeseburger and Southern favorites, such as Pickle’s Fried Chicken. The restaurant, however, did step out of the box with an item called Orange Chicken Stickers, which are chicken skewers with the restaurant’s own orange teriyaki sauce, which did catch my eye for a second.

When I decided to try the restaurant, it was a difficult choice to pick what to have from the many cultural choices to choose from… do I go with Southern soul food or Italian with the Pasta Bolognese smothered in a four meat sauce? However, I went in a completely opposite direction with a Louisiana classic, the Shrimp Po’ Boy.

The food arrived within normal timing for a sit down restaurant and while the presentation was nothing to rave about, the food was delicious. The sandwich was filled with shrimp to the top with a sauce that was tangy and spicy at the same time and the restaurant put plenty of sauce on the sandwich with it dripping down from my sandwich and when a sandwich does that, you know there are plenty of flavors within it.

Speaking of sauces, the restaurant also holds a profusion of sauces that seem to, like the food, range in cultures from a Horseradish Barbecue sauce to a Mandarin Ginger sauce and even a unique combination of flavors, such as the Honey Lime Soy sauce.

However, even with the Louisiana entrée and the range of sauces, the side item was completely American with french fries as my side. However, they were not the usual potato wedges that lack salt and taste like a potato that just came out of the ground. Pickle’s put a combination of spices that tantalized the tongue and begged me to take another bite.

If a person is feeling a lighter meal, the restaurant offers salads galore from the Plain Jane; cheddar cheese and mixed lettuce to a Grecian salad piled with toppings like kalamata olives and roma tomatoes.

For the that sweet tooth that is begging a person for a taste of sugar, Pickle’s offers delicious temptations with the Chef’s Signature, which is a croissant covered in cinnamon sugar with vanilla bean ice cream on the side and a cinnamon sauce unique to Pickle’s drowning the croissant with cinnamon sweetness.

Now we get to the all important question that was on my lips when I first heard it, but why Pickle’s as the name?

For owners Dick and Ann Collins, the name does not have any special meaning; they both just wanted a “whimsical” name for the restaurant.

So if you are ever driving down Fury’s Ferry Road and just cannot seem to decide on a restaurant, give Pickle’s a try. With the unique name and bountiful choices of food, it’s bound to make anyone smile.

This is not about having an overgrown academic health center, an overgrown health sciences university. This is not about having a liberal arts program that simply becomes maculated; this is about a new university,” said President Ricardo Azziz at the assembly Jan. 12 regarding the newly announced merger.

Questions rang from all sides of the Maxwell Theatre as President William A. Bloodworth Jr., and Ricardo Azziz answered questions about the merger between Augusta State University and Georgia Health Sciences University.

Bloodworth and Azziz did make one thing clear out of a sea of questions. They emphasized the merger is not about budget cutting, but it is primarily about having a larger, better university.

However, there were still many questions to be asked, one in particular was about increases of tuition and fees and how Augusta State’s low fees were one of the many benefits of attending the university.

“All I can say, and this will be my commitment, is to keep tuition increases as low as possible,” Bloodworth said.

Another topic that was voiced during the meeting was about departments being cut from Augusta State University and in particular the nursing department. There were no solid yes or no answers, but Bloodworth and Azziz both said the two nursing departments at the universities will be combined into a larger nursing department. However, there is no intention for the merger to result in departments being reduced or cut in size at Augusta State.

“There’s very little overlap here which will make certain aspects of this consolidation actually easier to work out,” Bloodworth said. “The only overlap that we have an academic program is in nursing, so that will have to be figured out. Other than that, we offer programs entirely different from the programs at Georgia Health Sciences University.”

This idea of larger departments within a better university was repeated throughout the meeting. Walter Evans, professor of English, pointed out a potential benefit from this merger.

“I think that in the University System of Georgia, it’s like a pyramid and the schools at the top of the pyramid are UGA, Georgia Tech, Georgia State and GHSU and below that is a tier of schools like West Georgia, Valdosta, Georgia Southern and so on and we’re about the third level down,” Evans said. “What’s going to happen is we’re going to leap a level at least and Azziz wants to put us at the very top and what that means is that we’ll be closer to the front of the line when money is partialed out.”

According to Evans, one of the worst aspects about this merger is the unknown. The lack of solid facts makes faculty, staff and students alike uncomfortable with the change and what will happen in the future. However, the Board of Regents, Bloodworth, Azziz and other higher-ups have clarified that the new university will still remain an open access university, letting different types of students in.

One aspect that Evans said was another issue with faculty and staff was the family-like atmosphere that exists on campus with the holiday luncheons and other events. The question is will that atmosphere disappear with GHSU coming into play and the more corporate atmosphere that exists on that campus?

“Comparatively speaking, GHSU is more of a dysfunctional family, that is, people not getting along with each other quite as well as we do up here,” Evans said. “There are more egos down there, there’s more money down there, there’s more pressure down there. One question is will their corporate culture overwhelm ours or ours overwhelm theirs.”

Michelle Benedict and James Benedict, both retired professors from Augusta State, said they also have the same concern that the corporate atmosphere of Georgia Health Sciences University will take over Augusta State’s more close knit atmosphere.

“I’ve got strong doubts (about the merger),” James Benedict said. “But here’s the thing, I think we’ll be able to tell by the makeup of the committees and by what gets turned out if were being steamrolled or not, but at the moment I feel like the victim of a hostile corporate takeover.”

Michelle Benedict said she is afraid this larger university might not be the right thing for the long run.

“This image that students, faculty and staff have is ‘Oh my gosh, we’ve got these egomaniacs taking over’, (and) see our president is so not that,” Michelle Benedict said. “It’s as if Dumbledore is being replaced as Voldermort and the community is under the imperious curse.”

However, the faculty and staff are not the only ones who are worried about this issue. During the meeting, one person brought up the question of how large the classes are going to grow with the new university and if that oneon- one relationship between professors and students will disappear, which Azziz had an answer for.

“We will have more professors, we may have more students, but hopefully the ratio will be maintained,” Azziz said. “Remember, bringing in students from Georgia Health Sciences University isn’t going to change the ratio of the classes. They’re not going to all of a sudden be sitting in your classes.”

Even though Bloodworth and Azziz attempted to answer as many questions as possible at the assembly, there are still questions that are unanswered and will remain that way until the merger becomes a more solid entity. To make this possible, each university will put together a planning committee and will submit the members for the committees to the chancellor. After the committees are approved, the committees will be combined into one with Azziz in charge.

“I think that we’re all going to be under a lot of stress, confusion, and anxiety for the next little while,” Evans said.

When Gordon Eisenman announced his resignation as dean in the College of Education last month, it came as a surprise even to those who worked with him closely.

Eisenman, who served as dean for two years, stepped down on Sept. 20. Paula Dohoney, the former associate dean of the College of Education, was asked to fill Eisenman’s vacant position on an interim basis following his resignation. Dohoney said she was shocked to say the least when she learned that Eisenman had resigned.

“I don’t know what the circumstances were (leading to Eisenman’s resignation),” Dohoney said. “He came in on that Wednesday (of his resignation) and shared with me that he’d gone to the president’s office and resigned. Literally, I had not a clue as to what was going to happen from that point forward, so when I was asked to be the interim dean, I was completely caught by surprise.”

William A. Bloodworth Jr., president of Augusta State University, said Eisenman had likely grown weary of the demands the position of dean of the College of Education required.

“It’s a difficult job,” Bloodworth said. “Education is a different animal (compared to other academic fields). I think Dr. Eisenman thought that it was best for him and the college, and his future if he stepped down.”

Dohoney, who described herself as Eisen-man’s “biggest fan,” praised the leadership qualities which he demonstrated during his tenure as dean and said he leaves behind big shoes to fill.

“He provided a vision for initiatives,” Dohoney said. “One of the initiatives happened to be our upcoming NCATE accreditation visit. NCATE accreditation is significant in that if we don’t have it, we are unable to certify teachers in Georgia. Dr. Eisenman provided the vision and the leadership in seeking that. He also has provided leadership and vision in grant writing. We received over a million dollars (for grant writing) last year. The year before he became dean, we received zero.”

Tammie Vickrey, the secretary to the dean in the College of Education, said Dohoney was an ideal selection to bridge the gap between Eisenman and the next dean, who will be hired before the end of next spring.

“She has made (the transition) as smooth as possible along with everybody else in the office,” Vickrey said. “She’s been here for two years, so she is familiar with the working of the College of Education and what needs to be. She will be obviously taking on a larger role now. There’s so much more that has to be done in that role, but (Dohoney) is a go-getter and a finisher. She gets things done that other people don’t want to get done. She makes sure that things are followed through with and done correctly every time.”

Although Eisenman is no longer serving as dean, he still remains a part of the College of Education. Vickrey said Eisenman elected to return to the teaching faculty, where he served prior to his appointment as dean, and will continue to have an influence in the college.

“With Dr. Eisenman still being here as a faculty member, Dr. Dohoney has the opportunity to have feedback from him if she has questions about things,” Vickrey said. “He still will have a very supporting role in the College of Education.”

Bloodworth said he expects Eisenman will be eager to begin teaching at the university again. “I think he is more than ready to return to the classroom,” Bloodworth said.

Bloodworth expressed appreciation for the way the members of the College of Education have picked up the slack to ensure the college does not skip a beat in spite of the abrupt change in leadership.

“The people in the College of Education have come together to keep the enterprise moving forward,” Bloodworth said. “Dr. Dohoney has stepped up to the plate, and the department chairs have all pitched in to make it work, so I think that everything will work out just fine.”

“Free car wash!”

Those were the words drivers heard while driving down Flowing Wells Road as the ROTC students and others attempted to pull off a world record.

The car wash took place on Saturday, Sept. 24, and it was free for the people driving in but they could donate if they wanted to. It had many volunteers there doing different tasks.

Cassidy Leach, who is an ROTC cadet and senior psychology major, was one of the volunteers at the car wash and had a specific location.

“We call this ‘The Talk,’ which is like a control center,” Leach said. “So as people come up, the people associated with the car wash, then I’m putting them in areas that we deem needing more support.”

According to Blake Corbitt, who was the organizer of the event and senior biology, pre-med major, his colonel pitched the idea of combining an attempt at a world record with fundraising. The money raised from the event will help support community service events.

The current record of most cars washed, according to Corbitt is 4,918, and he plans for the event to wash 5,000 cars; however, Guinness did give them some rules to follow to achieve this record.

“We’ll have to move because it’s the rules that Guinness gave us is that it has to be 25 people at each location,” Corbitt said. “Then we move from location to location throughout the day washing all the vehicles on the lots along with any cars that pull in while we’re there.”

According to Corbitt, there was not a Guinness official at the event to oversee it since it costs about $8,000 to have one there so they chose to record it another way.

“The way it works if you don’t have an actual Guinness official show up is that they can send you this record breaking packet that lays out all the guidelines,” Corbitt said. “You have to have pictures, documentation of everyone there, you have to have documentation of all the vehicles washed, (and) you have to have an unbiased person counting with clickers how many cars you washed.”

The event had many sponsors supporting it, including Advanced Auto Parts, that provided the buckets, soap and other items, and Coca-Cola, who provided the refreshments for the volunteers, Corbitt said.

According to Corbitt, the event was not able to break the record, but managed to wash more than 380 cars with 30 volunteers and raised around $1,500 with the volunteers giving it their all.

Andrew Anderson was someone faculty and students alike saw as a person who was easy to like and admire, and someone who seemed to look at life with an unusually optimistic outlook.

However, when some of the music faculty and students found out about his terminal liver cancer, they looked at him with, if it was possible, more admiration. Christine Crookall, associate professor of music, knew Anderson from various music classes and said she could see from the very beginning that he possessed more of a maturity and confidence in what he wanted to achieve compared to younger students.

“That turning point is when I realized what he was living with,” Crookall said. “He had been diagnosed with this horrible cancer and no one knew how to treat it. I guess it allowed me to understand him in some ways a little bit better as far as where his drive was coming from.”

Anderson found out about his cancer a few years earlier, and, at the time, the prognosis did not look well. According to Robert Foster, professor of music, the doctors only gave him a few months, but Anderson lived for 10 years before recently passing away in May, displaying his fortitude and strength.

“His love of music was apparent right at the very beginning,” Crookall said. “He was really, really driven from the first moment I met him and he was always asking me what he could do to improve on this (or) that.”

Anderson received a degree dealing with computers at first; however, he realized where his true passions lie and returned to Augusta State University to pursue a degree in music. He was involved with many of the music groups on campus, including the wind ensemble and jazz ensemble. He graduated in 2006 with a Bachelor’s of Musicm, and Foster said that Anderson was determined and reliable the entire time.

“He seemed really mature, dedicated, hardworking, had a great sense of humor. I mean really, really funny,” Foster said. “He loved music; he was very friendly with people, very helpful to other students.”

After he graduated, he headed to Sweden for a couple of years and ended up coming back to teach students about music and show them why he was passion- ate about it and why they should be as well. According to Foster, whom formed a band called Pulsar , which Anderson was the backbone of and where he played percussion. They were also very close and Foster supported Anderson with not only his music but his disease.

“I went over to his house when he was in the final stages a few times,” Foster said. “He was just still cracking, there were times when he was kind of out of it, because he was really heavily medicated with the pain medication, because he was wasting away before every one’s eyes, but he just kept his spirit, it was right there.”

Foster and his wife made a customized recording for Anderson, a healing CD for fighting cancer, and Foster said that that was when the most amazing things came out of Anderson. This was one of his answers to the questions that they asked him during the process.

“The biggest goal is to be rid of the cancer,” Anderson said. “However, I never want to lose sight of the empowering nature of this disease. If one looks past the obvious horrors of the disease itself I believe he or she will find the greatest B.S. filter of all time. Cancer has taught me true focus, discovering what the true priorities in my life are and how to focus on them.”

Gonorrhea, syphilis, AIDS: subjects not typically brought up in everyday conversations. However, there is one week that brings awareness to this topic.

Sexually transmitted diseases are not a favorite topic of anyone’s, especially in the doctor’s office where some have to face a hard truth. However, Annie LaForce, assistant director for programs, organized a week specifically dedicated to providing information to students about STDs and was able to do something different this year than in the previous four years she has done this event.

“This is the first time we’ve had the health department come out which I think is a great thing because they have more resources and more money to devote toward (STD Awareness Week) than we do,” LaForce said. “We don’t really have a budget so a lot of ours is just brochures, but they have more time and more energy, and they’re a little more dedicated to it than we are.”

The Richmond County Health Department came out on Monday, April 11, with various brochures about different STDs and other items to display for STD Awareness Week, including pins, stickers, and even cookies. Shawn Walker, a community disease specialist for the Health Department, among others, came out to encourage students to get the information and use it.

“With HIV, I know that it does impact a lot of people in so many different areas,” Walker said. “Whether they are infected, they know someone who is infected or if someone doesn’t know, I’m trying to get them this information and get them tested, so they’ll know what their status is.”

According to LaForce, the students received better information about STDs from the Health Department than Jaguar Student Activities would have been able to provide. However, during the week, there were booths set up in Allgood Hall and University Hall as well as the Jaguar Student Activities Center handing out information to students passing by.

“First we want to make sure they know (STDs) are not a taboo subject, it’s something they need to learn about and something they need to become aware of,” LaForce said. “I especially want people to, if they don’t want the information or need it, then to give it to their friends they may think need it or to help them learn a little bit more about it, in case there are some of those students who don’t know much about it.”

Some of the worst STDs out there, according to Beverly Collins, assistant professor of nursing, are herpes and AIDS, because they are viruses that cannot be cured at this point in time. Collins also said it is the worst thing to not inform a partner about a sexual disease for whatever reason.

“It’s now the viruses that are much harder to treat,” Collins said. “Herpes (is) painful, lifelong, nasty, if your partner doesn’t tell you and with that comes AIDS.”

In the past, STDs were something that could be treated with antibiotics, Collins said. There used to be systemic problems that would cause infertility, arthritis and other complications. However, when the medical community realized they could do cultures and treat these problems, then the viruses, like AIDS and herpes, started to grow exponentially.

It’s not only the young generation facing the STD problem, but also the older generation, such as widows and other older people who start to date again. Because most have only had one partner and were born in a time where inhibitions did not allow talk of these topics, some are unaware and contract one, Collins said.

“We have new people facing this issue with very little experience to know how to face and deal, and if we don’t have those who have been through it saying ‘Hey let’s teach,’” Collins said. “In fact, we have other people saying don’t teach, I’ll take care of it myself, my way and ignorance is not bliss.”

It is 3:30 a.m.

Now when most college students hear this, they’ll say “so,” because a mass majority of college students are so sleep- deprived anyway and 3:30 a.m. doesn’t even faze them.

However, I’m going to go out on a limb here, be bold and say…I like sleep! There! I said it. I like to go to bed at a decent time and am proud to say I get six to eight hours of sleep.

Nevertheless, what am I doing right now? Writing a column that isn’t even due for another week. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a procrastinator at heart, and I seem to work better under pressure most of the time. This might get you asking, if she claimed to love sleep so much and admitted to being a procrastinator, why is she writing a column at 3:30 in the morning that isn’t even due for another week.

One word, my friends. Thunderstorm.

Yes, even though I love thunderstorms just as much as I love sleep, but not when it knocks out the power in the middle of the night and my bedroom becomes an unbearable (and not wanted) sauna. Let me explain, the air conditioning in my house, for some reason, does not reach my room as much as it does the others and if a couple of fans aren’t on in the middle of a late spring night, my room becomes, for lack of a better word, uncomfortable and it makes me want to scream at the world in a not-so-nice way.

Another reason I don’t like thunderstorms while I am sleeping is when it knocks out the power, because I am a light sleeper, it scares the you know what out of me and I don’t think anyone likes the feeling of being jerked awake, especially in the middle of an especially nice dream. Thanks, thunderstorm, thanks a lot.

I feel I should say why I like thunderstorms, just to give it a fair chance. Thunderstorms, to me, are majestic in a way. I can stare at one for a couple of hours and still be fascinated by it. There’s something so random, yet so ordered about the way it works with the lightning and the thunder giving each other a balance of sorts creating harmony out of what seems like chaos.

It is now 4 a.m.

My brain is officially shutting down for the night.

It is 11:38 p.m. the next night, and I feel like last night was just a really bad dream. I hate when I have this feeling because I feel absolutely crazy when I think about the night before and wonder if it was all just a dream or if it really did happen. Of course this time, I have proof that it did because I wrote half of a column last night. But if I didn’t have this column as proof I would have sworn that last night’s thunderstorm and the electricity going out was just a small-scale nightmare.

I don’t know why this happens sometimes, but it’s like one of those nights that are just so amazing and remarkable that the next morning it seemed like you stepped off the earth for a minute and woke up back in the real world thinking the night before was just a passing dream.

Also, if you did not already guess this, I had no earthly idea what to write about for this column, so I decided to take advantage of a stormy night and write about my not-soimportant thoughts.

It is 2 p.m., and this column is done.