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On Thursday, May 3, 2012, many students sat throughout the plaza at Spring Arbor University to enjoy the BEAUTIFUL weather. Suddenly, music started playing from the clock tower and many social work students emerged wearing black t-shirts with a red and white question mark symbol on the front. They all gathered outside the library and started dancing to the song, “Where Is The Love?” by the Black Eyed Peas. I hope you enjoy the video I recorded of the flash mob. At the end of the video, I was also able to interview two social work students about the event. Enjoy! God bless… and take a moment to intentionally love someone today.

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On Wednesday morning, students already had chairs, couches, and blankets laid out on the lawn in front of Ormston (the oldest men’s dorm on campus). The purpose? PORCHFEST! For the past 31 years, Ormston has continued their tradition of providing a night of comedy, song, and impersonations. You don’t want to miss this annual event!

Unfortunately, this year it began to rain early in the afternoon and didn’t stop until later that night. However, the RA’s had a backup plan and moved the event inside to the Dunkle Gym in the Field House. The gym was packed wall to wall with students, faculty, and staff.

For your viewing enjoyment, I have provided a clip of one of the performance from the night. My roommate’s fiance’, along with several of my other friends, participated in this montage. The video does not give this performance justice, but I hope you enjoy it!

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On Friday night, a line started forming outside the Field House doors in order to get ideal spots for the Switchfoot concert (even though doors didn’t open until 7:00pm). I arrived at 5:30 in order to help sell merchandise during the evening.

The whole Merchandise group!

This past January, I talked with Bobby Pratt (SAU’s Assistant Dean of Students and the Director of Housing and Student Programs) and had the honor of helping with marketing for the Switchfoot concert. I helped hang up posters and contacted surrounding colleges. Three months later, it was so cool to see that line starting to form. On Friday night, Bobby also had me be in charge of selling Switchfoot merchandise. After recruiting 7 other student volunteers (consisting of my roommate, my fiance’s roommates, and other friends), I couldn’t wait to talk to Switchfoot’s merchandise manager to get the details for the night.

Once the doors opened at 7:00pm, a bunch of students, teachers, parents, and fans rushed through the doors. I LOVED running the merchandise table because I was able to meet tons of people from all over (even outside of Michigan). We had a full house. The bands were incredible and the lighting was fantastic. It was such an honor to work with the Switchfoot crew and I pray that they will continue to have a safe tour and that the Lord will continue to bless their ministry.

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Here is my certificate of completion for the conference!

On Tuesday, I had the honor of attending an all-day psychology conference in Jackson, MI with three of my psychology professors and four other psych students. Even though it was a long day (a 6 hour lecture), I thoroughly enjoyed it! I learned so much material and I thought the information was fascinating!

The conference was entitled “How The Brain Forms New Habits: Why Willpower Is Not Enough” and was presented by Dr. Brian E. King, Ph.D. The event was sponsored by the Institute for Brain potential.

I’m sure that you already know that changing a behavior is not easy, rather it is very challenging. But what you may not know is that SO MANY different components (brain functions, memory encoding, repetition, environment, etc.) all play a part in forming and maintaining habits. Here are some of the interesting things I learned from the conference today. Enjoy!

Did you know?/Interesting thoughts…

• A habit is an automatic response to improve well-being and does not require conscious attention
• A reinforcement is when we notice that something makes life a little better, so we increase the likelihood of that thing with repetition (can either be in the form a a reward or a relief)
• Depression can be viewed as a habit: there is a negative affect, so to get relief an individual withdraws from a situation. There is an increased negative affect so they withdrawal even more to increase their relief (becomes a cycle) until they spiral down into clinical depression
• In the Basal Ganglia (a part of the brain), habits are stored as PERMANENT memories
• You cannot unlearn a habit, however you can try to replace that habit with another, more prominent habit
• Caffeine is an addictive substance that hijacks the habit learning process. This addiction is comparable to a cocaine addiction, but sugar is more common than any other addiction because sugar is so easy to obtain and can be found in many forms

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Kelly Clarkson Stronger (picture from http://www.turbolyrics.net)

In my Methods and Procedures of Counseling class, we explore many different techniques and therapies. This past week, we studied Existential Therapy, and I absolutely loved it! I can relate to this type of therapy and as the “counselor,” I can apply these ideas to my own life.

One view of human nature from the existential viewpoint is that you help the client face dilemmas of isolation, alienation, and meaninglessness. Viktor Frankl (the founder of logotherapy – a form of Existential Analysis) once said, “That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.” Sound familiar? Kelly Clarkson recently quoted this in her song “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You).”

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger Stand a little taller Doesn’t mean I’m lonely when I’m alone.

Amazing! These lyrics perfectly align with existential therapy.

One of the core expressions in existential therapy is “Who I’m going to be, I’m now becoming.” What a powerful statement! We have a choice over who we are and how we deal with our experiences. Here are some other thoughts from existential therapy that I want to leave with you to think about and possibly apply to your own life. I hope this provides an avenue for some self-awareness:

• We can’t change certain events in life, but we can change the way we view and react to those events
• We can choose to act or not to act – inaction is a decision
• Sometimes we fail to live in the present. We are too preoccupied with the past, future, or trying to do too many things at once.
• Sometimes we can be so preoccupied with suffering, death, and dying that we are not appreciating living
• We do not need to be perfect to feel worthy.
• Authenticity is the courage to be who we are, and we need courage to move on despite anxieties that we face.

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After attending my roommate’s piano recital on Tuesday night, I had the privilege of attending my fiance’s roommate’s vocal recital on Thursday night. Kyle Rehnlund (tenor) and Emily Cleveland (soprano) are both senior music education majors and performed their recital together. They each prepared their own pieces and then prepared a fun piece together for their finale. They were amazing! The vocal talent here at Spring Arbor University is amazing, and Kyle and Emily represented our University well.

I attached is a clip of the first part of the song they sang together, “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better” from the musical “Annie Get Your Gun.” This was a fun way to end their recital. The audience loved it and I hope you do too. God bless!

(Accompaniment by Hannah Baker)

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