Life on the Road Pt. 2: The Empire Strikes Back...or something like that...

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Hello all,

It has been over two months since my last blog. Sorry if I've kept any of you waiting (or, I suppose, sorry to all of you who were like "Oh thank God he stopped bugging me with all those emails"). Hopefully there are very few of your in the latter camp. And also I apologize but I do not have any pictures really worth posting in this blog, but I promise I will have a couple for the next one.

Side note: my coworkers, watching me write this blog, are jealous that I haven't ever given them a shout out in my blog...so this one is for you, Jeff Melando (even though I gave you a shout out months ago) and this one is for you Dan Thompson, AKA my second boss...happy now? :)

A lot has happened since my last post...A LOT. I finished up my travels visiting USP, Pitt Johnstown, Lehigh (gorgeous place!) Case Western Reserve, and finally the Pittsburgh Chapter. By the end of it all, to be honest, I was very ready to be home. Don't get me wrong, this job is amazing; I have always wanted to be the kind of person who goes out and positively affects the lives of others, and that's exactly what I am doing. However the solitude of the job creeps up on you and turns into a cancerous loneliness. But my relief of being home was short lived, and turned into a whole other experience entirely...I'll save that for later in my blog.

Heading back out on the road in early January, I spent a brief couple days in Iowa City at IHQ preparing for our "A"s' Academy, an annual retreat held for the presidents of all of our chapters across the continent. It is held in St. Meinrad, IN at an archabbey. It's quite possibly one of the most peaceful places I have ever had the opportunity to visit. Among it's interesting features, it is the only ARCHabbey in the United States. It also happens to straddle the Eastern/Central time zone. Walking from one end of campus to the other, your phone will go crazy trying to find out what time it is (and that drains your battery a lot). I went as an undergraduate for the Duquesne Chapter in 2010, and I never thought I would return—let alone as a staff member! I had a blast again this time, and enjoyed getting to hang out with Steve Chapman, future "A" of our chapter. It wasn't all fun and games though! I logged just over 1400 miles that week, driving from Iowa City to St. Meinrad, back and forth from the Louisville Airport at least four times, and then at the end of that all the way to Kalamazoo, MI! Oh my poor car...

Probably the most notable thing that happened to me was when I was shuttling Kim Novak, a renowned speaker in the higher ed./Greek community, from the Louisville airport back to the abbey in a blizzard. Okay, I may exaggerate a bit when I say blizzard, but it was definitely not a good time to be driving: snow all over the road, thick snow blowing all around and high winds rocking the car, and few slippery patches on the highway. Oh, not to mention the drive back takes about an hour and twenty minutes in FAIR WEATHER. So imagine me driving in these conditions with a very important person in the back of my car in the middle of the night...let's just say I said a prayer once we finally made it back to the abbey safely!

After that I traveled all the way up to the Western Michigan University Chapter, which was my first time in Michigan other than a connecting flight in Detroit. Overall it was a fairly routine visit, and largely unremarkable (by no means am I saying that they are a bad chapter...but it was just kind of a blah visit for me I suppose). From there I stopped back in Pittsburgh for a day to visit the lovely ladies of AST and surprised them on their first night of recruitment. Seeing those girls always puts in me a good mood, and I hope my visit got them as fired up as they got me fired up to go back on the road again.

Now I am at UNC Charlotte, working on an expansion for the next couple weeks. This is a gorgeous campus (pictures to come soon I hope!) and an awesome climate. You know how Pittsburgh has its freakishly warm days in January and February? Well that's the norm here in Charlotte, NC. I have to remind myself that it's January some mornings when we head out to campus and it's sunny and 60 degrees outside! This expansion should be fun, hopefully much more successful than the one at EIU I did this summer. After this I will spend the rest of the semester once again traveling the northeast going to a couple places I was at last semester, and a few new ones (most notably Cornell, where Delta Chi was founded!) Overall I would say I'm pretty excited for this semster!

Oh...I almost forgot I did a "philosophy" section at the end of these things...I'm so out of practice! Well, I don't have a whole lot that's new necessarily, but I'm sure I will soon. The biggest thing I would be able to talk about that has happened since my last post would be the abrupt and painful closing of a major chapter in my life.

I am sure most of you know what that chapter is. If you don't, call me or text me. While this is my own personal blog, I don't believe a public forum like this is the place to discuss personal issues. I could write a lot of angry things, I could write a lot of very damming things. I could revert into a 10-year-old version of myself and be very heartless. But that isn't me. That's not a Cameron I want to be—and I won't be him.

Looking back at the things I've learned and written about in my blog, I would like to reemphasize and stress all of those things to you all: treat your values like your name, proximity drives relationships, build your relationship with yourself before those with others, you ARE your brother's keeper, you are what you believe in, "To measure you by your weakest link is to reckon the power of the ocean by the frailty of its foam." These are all things that I have learned over my life, and over the last seven months they have been underscored and highlighted. These are all things that mean a lot to me personally, and a lot to many of you as well. These are all things I valued and trusted in a person, and they were all foresaken. But I believe in paying things forward. One good deed deserves another. As for bad deeds...convert them into good deeds—great deeds. I believe in living by the Golden Rule as best as you can.

For as much negativity that could be said, there is twice as much positivity; way more than I would ever make any of you suffer reading through in a blog. When I look back years from now and reflect upon my time as an LC, there is no doubt in my mind that I will see the last six months of 2011 as one of the most impactful and pivotal moments in my life, for both the good and the bad that came with it. In fact, the end of Novemeber through early January seems like a strange trip through the twilight zone to me. Family issues, relationship issues, friendship issues...it was an incredibly intense winter. I'm not even sure how I survived it looking back.

Scratch that...I do know. It's because of you. It's because of the amazing network of friend I have. I always try to be the person who takes on the pains and struggles of those around me and attempt to help them see things more clearly. Sometimes I don't allow myself to let others do the same—or at least I am hesitant to do so. I really mean it when I say that I love each of you. So many of the people I know this blog is going out to have been there for me at one of the lowest points in my life. I've texted so many of you endlessly, talked on the phone, sat in your livingroom watching TV or just staring into space, cried my hardest in your car or on your shoulder, complaining and contemplating, etc. You all know who you are. You all know the memories I am talking about. You all know what you did for me.

I couldn't picture my life without you in it. I couldn't picture a life I would want to live in which I didn't know all of you. Having friends like you all reaffirms my belief that things happen for a reason, and people come into (and go from) your life for purposes that may or may not be clear at the time, or may only be clear in retrospect. Even with my English degree, I cannot find the words to express how deeply thankful I am for all of you. Some of the text message and little things many of you have told me or said to me in the last two months are things that moved me to tears, things that I will always carry in my heart.

I feel as though I am beating a dead horse, and I know I have many more blogs to come. But I will end things here for now...just know that I love you all.

Forever yours,

Cam

(p.s. I wrote this blog in a frenzy, please forgive any errors)

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