There is a time of the year in college when everything kinda gets wrapped up in a bunch of crazyness. You forget to call your mom at least once a week and say hi. You forget about those papers you were going to give to a specific office, oh yeah, my mom asked me to give those in too. Anyways...I also got caught up in a lot of stuff, and with a girlfriend, clubs, school work, work and other stuff...you forget about little things like posting on this blog. So I'm sorry :(

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You: The Epic Tale of Alex Booking The Largest Stand Alone Student-Funded Concert, Ever? 

Sirens....

Hello all.

This last week, Beloit College had a full scale emergency drill. It had been planned for many years and almost 300 outside of Beloit College were involved, most of them being emergency responders. I wrote a blog/article that is on the Beloit Website as a part of the English Department and it can be seen below. I played the role of a victim in the drill and my thoughts are written out. Enjoy!

"Views from a Victim"

Leaves fall down.

Happy Fall.

One of the really awesome things about Beloit is that we have a Fall Break, which is really unique! Spring and Fall breaks are "optional" for students and they dont have to go home. I LOVE Beloit when there arent many students on the campus and all is at peace. So I went home for the weekend and then came back for a week of relaxation and NO school work. I gave many many tours at Admissions and made some money, we made caramel apples as well as an apple crisp (we love to cook) and a group of us went with the office of Student Activities to Volcano Falls a local "fun park" where we played some go karts and mini-golf and they paid for it! I love college :)

"Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!"

One of the really cool things about going to Beloit is all the awesome events that come to campus. As Programming Board Director I help do a lot of really cool events, but sometimes something really special comes.


Last night we had the National Public Radio show "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!"


The show featured Emmy Award-winning comedian Paula Poundstone, author Roy Blount Jr. and Boston Globe sportswriter and author Charlie Pierce as panel as well as host Peter Sagal and veteran announcer Carl Kasell.


The college has spent the last three years trying to get the show to come here and it was well worth the wait. The packed house in Eaton Chapel took part in an interactive 2 hour recording, which will air THIS SATURDAY nation-wide on NPR. It is listed to weekly by 3 million people.

A Close-Up Look at College Life (literally)

I love taking pictures. Its a huge hobby of mine. I took some random macro pics this week. Here they are...


What do you do on a weeknight, with no more homework, its 10pm and you were ditched by your other half for a group project? Get a wheat crust cheese pizza at the C-Haus (the campus bar/club) for only $2

Local, really good Root Beer only $1 with your pizza

The Beloit Public Library has the most amazing collection of DVDs and CDs...its insane! Right now we're working on Six Feet Under-Season 2. Along with many random CDs

The $20 DVD player from Wall-Mart. A good friend. Wall-Mart on the other hand...not so friendly.

iTunes=amazing.

List of readings to do :(

Cell phone and highlighter...two important things in one.

The Coolest Job Ever?

Hello everyone...Sorry I have been a little slacker-ish on here. My bad. Life is busy here in Beloit. Theres lots and lots to do. Often there is too much, which is a plague I often suffer from. But its one of those bad, but still good things :)

Ok. So there has been this thing that Ive been wanting to talk about on here for a while, but for several silly technical reasons, I couldn't. But now that's over....so....

Attention Class of 2012: A large part of what you do on New Student Days is in my hands. Yes, in the hands of Alex Catalan. Scary, huh? Why you may ask?  Well, its because a few weeks ago I was hired for one of the post amazing jobs ever: Head Orientation Leader. This might be the most responsibility that has ever been given to me, but I am extremely excited.


For those of you who do not know, and I imagine this is most of you...New Student Days is a week-long orientation where just the first year students are on-campus and you are in a seminar group of your choosing and you do all these fun awesome events...and I wont even begin to explain it all, because there is way way way too much...BUT, its an awesome experience, and I can just about guarantee that if you come to Beloit as member of the class of 2012 or 2013, that I will be one of the first people you meet as a student at Beloit College and that makes me one happy camper.

For more info on New Student Days and to check out that awesome packed schedule...see this....NSD 2008 is just being planned now, so the site will be updated through the year....
http://www.beloit.edu/~stuaff/orientation/

Until next time...hopefully very soon ;)

Why are you reading this? Why should you be reading this? Who is this dude?

Those questions are probably coming into your mind right now...so I'll try to answer them.

As I said earlier, my name is Alex Catalan. I'm a sophomore. Besides that, I'm not really sure what to tell you...so I'll just go from here...

I do a lot at Beloit College. I'm a busy person who loves to be involved and relax at the same time.

I'm in a giant room with three other people, listening to music and sitting around trying to decide if we want to get ice cream or not. There are so many choices, Dairy Queen or Cub Foods. Cone or Pint. Hmm, what to do?

What do I do here at Beloit College apart from making important choices surrounding ice cream? Well. I'm a dork for things like BelCon, (our $250,000+ student government organization) where I serve as the Programming Board Director and am on the Executive Board, overseeing things like our Film Series, Folk 'N Blues festival,
all Student Programming events and more. I'm also on the Family and Friend weekend committee, help out with the Round Table (the campus newspaper) and am in the League of Pissed-Off Voters. More on these another day. I am also one of three Gold Key Coordinators who run the campus visit program for prospective students like yourself. If you visit Beloit, I might just give you a tour. I also just got a very cool job, but that will have to wait for another post as well.

I am also a student, surprisingly, ya know-with classes and such. This semester I am taking Journalism, Psychology, European Union, and US Congress. They're fun, different and engaging.

I'll talk a little bit about non-Beloit life next time because this is getting too long, but I hope ya'll come back for more.

Oh yeah. We decided to order pizza. Sausage and peppers. 8.50 between four people=a good college life.

Hello World

The Beloit College "motto" is "otherwise known as life." For myself and many other students at Beloit College, the school is our world and we invent ourselves within our world. My name is Alex Catalan, I'm a sophomore here at Beloit and I hope this blog gives a little glimpse into my world. I am here because I am a student at Beloit. I am here to talk about my life and share my true experiences as a college student...I'm not an Admissions person with an agenda, I'm not a pretty viewbook with nice pictures, I am not paid to write this...I'm just another student with stories to tell you. More about me next time.

Hello world.