When I was deciding which college to attend I knew I wanted to go to a huge football school that was loaded with school spirit. Sometimes we like to think that Penn State is the only school like this but that certainly isn’t true. Learning about THON on my tour of Penn State when I was a senior in high school is what made Penn State stand out for me. From the moment I learned what THON was I knew I wanted to come to Penn State and that I needed to be a part of THON.

THON is a 46 hour no sitting, no sleeping dance marathon in February that raises money for the Four Diamonds Fund which provides financial support for the children and families fighting pediatric cancer at Hershey Medical Center. This barely scrapes the surface of what THON means to me. Since I was a freshman I have been a part of THON’s morale committee. It’s a competitive position that is responsible for making sure the dancers stay healthy, motivated, and don’t quit during THON weekend. Each year I become a part of a new morale committee of 33 people that quickly become my family. It’s easy to find best friends on a committee where you all work towards the same goal and all believe in the magic of THON.

My 2013 Morale Committee

So now that I have finally recovered from THON last weekend (although my voice is still MIA) I have been reflecting on my past four years as a THON volunteer and what it has meant to me. THON has single handedly been the most important thing that I have ever been a part of. THON taught me important leadership, organizational and networking skills. Most importantly though, THON taught me the importance of selflessness and how grateful I should be every single day for the opportunities that I have. Seeing a little bald boy that is fighting cancer, laughing and drenching everyone with a water gun during THON weekend, quickly reminds everyone that we don’t have it too bad. The importance of caring about people other than ourselves is a lesson that is often skipped during the college years but being a part of THON has consistently taught me that lesson over and over again since the day I became a part of the organization.

When I talk about THON it usually turns into an endless rambling like this is but this time I actually have a point relevant to Global Studies. When I started looking at colleges I also made sure I would have the opportunity to study abroad, which had always been one of my goals. Sophomore year I found myself ready to pick out my study abroad programs but hesitating on making my final decisions because studying abroad would mean missing THON. I know this sounds absolutely ridiculous, especially to people who have not seen THON or felt the love in the BJC THON weekend, but it was a real concern for me. The special thing about THON is that it is a student-run philanthropy, which means you only have four precious years to be a part of it. I had already spent two years falling in love with THON and studying abroad would be turning my back on the one thing at Penn State that had truly made me a better person.

In the end I sucked it up and decided to study abroad for my entire junior year like I had always imagined I would. I wish I could say there was a reason I found the courage to make that leap and go for i,t but usually when I face hard choices I just make a rash decision and hope for the best. Lucky for me, I definitely made the right choice. I spent a semester in Cape Town, South Africa and the following semester in Granada, Spain and had the time of my life. I physically wasn’t at THON and I didn’t get to be on a morale committee that year but I didn’t miss THON. I got to tell people I met from around the world about THON. On February 19, 2012 I sat in the only Spanish café open at midnight, with the Penn Staters I was studying abroad with and all of my other study abroad peers that had fallen in love with THON just by hearing about it, and watched the total be revealed number by number over the live stream. It wasn’t as good as being there but it turns out I got the best of both worlds. I literally got to travel the world and meet people and learn about cultures that I would have never encountered and at the same time I got to tell people about THON and the amazing work we do as Penn State students.

I spent last THON weekend in Cadiz, Spain celebrating Carnival
The Penn Staters made sure to take a diamonds picture in honor of the weekend

Last weekend was my final THON which is why I’m being terribly wordy and nostalgic at the moment. Turns out, it was the best one yet. One of my best friends from abroad danced and I watched him receive inspirational mail from all of our friends in Spain. I met Charles Millard, the founder of the Four Diamonds Fund, and his daughter Stacia. We raised over twelve million dollars which simply proves that hard work and dedication pays off. I got to spend the last four hours of THON with my new friend Nick who was at his first THON and told us over and over again that THON weekend is better than Christmas. I walked away from my last THON, proud that I got to make an impact during my time at Penn State and that I also got to travel the world. Each one of those things alone would have been an accomplishment, but the fact that I got to do both makes me a really lucky person. In retrospect it looks like I really made the most of my time here in Happy Valley.

Meeting Charles Millard at THON

Spending the end of THON with my committee members and our friend Nick

THON 2013 total reveal

 Want to see what THON looks like? Check out my favorite promotional video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wokgXc5t2qM

Hint: It’s my favorite because I’m in it for approximately two seconds at 0:41. See if you can spot me.

For someone who had never intended to make a career of working with children, I seem to be looping back around to just that.  As part of my internship with the Center for Global Studies this semester, I run an afterschool club on World Drama at the Young Scholars of Central Pennsylvania Charter School.  At this point, all of the interns are involved with the Extended Day program at the school, with Katie and Matt running a French club, and Casey working on World Drama with me.  The interns also rotate to assist with “World Stories Alive: Tales in Many Tongues,” a multi-lingual storytime that takes place nearly every Saturday at State College’s Schlow Library (click here to view schedule).

Our duties at World Stories Alive tend to be fairly simple–a welcome fact for this lazy twenty-year-old on a Saturday morning.  We hand out papers, sporadically and frantically take a headcount, set out crafts, and practice our chair-stacking skills.  I don’t mean to brag, but I think I will be qualified enough to put the chair-stacking on my resume pretty soon.  We also help with the crafts as needed.  Our greatest challenge so far was probably the Spanish day craft, ojos de dios, which involves a lot of yarn-winding.  The presenter also did not bring an example, so Casey’s and my fooling around with string in the back of the room was actually rather useful.  The kids were actually more adept than we were in this case, and I felt like we were more frequently asked to help the parents to navigate the in’s and out’s of the craft.  The most difficult task of the day was probably convincing an eighteen-month-old that she could not, in fact, eat the entire role of yarn (you have to take one mouthful at a time, like spaghetti).

Like I said, World Stories Alive is a pretty straightforward assignment.  We offer help as needed, and we get to interact with cute children.  They are especially cute because they are with their parents.  The classroom is a different place entirely.

My younger sister is going to be a teacher.  She is among those lucky few who have had their career roughly sketched out since the sixth grade; there have been revisions, sure, and she still has not chosen a college–but she is going to be a teacher.  I am still figuring out my next academic year.  Scratch that.  I am still figuring out the details of my next month in college, and the career plan is still in its early stages of development.  Through all of this process, though, ‘teacher’ has never reached top ranking among the options.

In a way, teaching would make sense for me; if someone prompts me to discuss the public education system, they need only push ‘start’ and then run for cover as the rant begins.  Thanks to a couple excellent history and English teachers in high school, I also become strangely excited about certain subjects.  Don’t even get me started on Catherine de Medici, portrayals of the Bible’s Eve, or barricades in the streets of Paris.

Even when I have considered the idea of teaching, I imagine myself in a high school classroom — never elementary school.  And yet, my list of job experiences includes office staff at a swim club; arts & crafts leader at the same swim club; leader at an annual children’s drama clinic; assistant at children’s swim team events; classroom assistant at a preschool summer camp; and cashier at a children’s clothing store.

My sister insists that I am afraid of children, which is clearly not true.  I do, however, recognize the potential for them to stack themselves up and build a transformer-like monster to overthrow classroom order…figuratively speaking…

My World Drama club intimidated me more than anything else associated with this internship.  I had helped in classrooms before, but this was the first time that I would be in charge of a classroom on my own.  In the end, I was lucky enough to get Casey McAlpin into the classroom with me; I cannot thank her enough for her help.

After worrying about just keeping the classroom under control, there is the whole question of a lesson plan.  I have become used to adults involved with the program asking me, “World Drama, okay…So what are you…going to do?”  Well.  My goal is to focus on a different region of the world and a different aspect of theatre each week, until we finally begin working on a short play to perform at YSCP’s Extended Day Extravaganza at the end of April.  So far, we have talked about theatre in ancient Greece and made masks; we’ve learned about African storytelling traditions and created our own stories as a group; and we’ve talked about using body language to tell a story, and looked at dance performance in Mexico.  I like to use as many images and videos as possible, and we try to get the kids moving when we can; Casey does a great job of keeping the kids engaged with questions, and vocabulary words.  All the cool kids are saying bailar and compañero this week.

If there is one thing that dealing with children reminds you though, it is that kids are smart. They pick things up quickly, and will absolutely say the ‘darnedest’ things. So sometimes, I feel like I have to play their game. Week 1 involved the following dialogue:

“So what do you think we’re going to do in a World Drama Club?”

“STAR WARS.”

“Not quite–”

“WHY NOT?”

“Because we’re looking at our world, not a galaxy far, far away.”

All things considered, the clubs have been going relatively well!  My first group is made up of kindergardeners and first graders, while the second session includes third through fifth grade.  If you can catch their attention–be it with something funny, something they’re interested in, or something just entirely foreign to this small town in central PA–they are engaged.  And by the way the two groups have been trading off the claim on ‘Most Likely to Randomly Start Dancing or Pantomiming Star Wars,” I don’t expect to ever see a dull week at YSCP.  I have to wonder whether I am the one learning more in these classrooms, though.

As a transfer student from a modest community college in 2011, I did not take much pride in getting into Penn State other than as a personal achievement. Logistically, it would benefit me and my former girlfriend to be able to live together off campus, but it also happened to be the only four year university that I applied to. I should probably give the acceptance team a round of applause. I even applied on the deadline date. It doesn’t help that I was raised in a Fighting Irish familial setting, so Penn State sports were condemned overall. Fortunately, I wasn’t raised to conjure up an imaginary girlfriend.

Other than Penn State ice hockey games, I don’t participate in much with the school’s name or organizations. Even in high school, other than playing ice hockey, I never stayed after school for any activities. Being older than the average undergraduate student also has some effect on that too, I think. After becoming an intern at the Center for Global Studies (CGS), however, I began to enjoy interacting with faculty and students from various departments and the local community at Penn State. Getting involved became a necessity and I began to, feeling that I have a personal stake and duty to propel CGS’ objectives, seek out opportunities to do so as much as possible on my own.

This past weekend was another awakening for me with the ubiquitous nature of THON hitting me in the face. Repeatedly. I never knew what THON entailed. Of course, I knew that it raised money and awareness for kids with cancer, but any other details remained foggy. Several of my friends tend to disparage any popular movements at the college and, I’ll admit, my jaded cynicism probably adds to that pile now and then. The cult of personality that existed when I first attended here was certainly extraordinary (and annoying). But in the end, holding onto such first impressions is only keeping me from experiencing the university that I’m paying to attend in the twilight of my senior year. As the kids would say: stop being a hater, Matt.

Last semester I met a student, Katie Black, and we became friends. Proximity had something to do with it, I suppose. Now she’s a current CGS intern too. Katie is a “mom” in the Ohana chapter of THON. That’s THON-speak for being a leader, I think. She has been, more or less, my gateway to understanding everything THON. I got the insider’s view on canning weekends, the hustle of interviewing week, the drama and ultimately the self-sacrifice that goes into making THON possible. All of this while doing well in her classes and being active in the internship. And it’s not just her. In fact, the other two new CGS interns, Kate Milliken and Casey McAlpin, are also in THON and carrying the same weight. Apparently, I’m the scarecrow in this Oz story.

I’ll be honest: I don’t know where all three of the interns get the energy. I never see them drinking coffee at the office either. Are they huffing Free Trade beans in the bathrooms? It may be that I surf the web so much looking at sloths that I’ve become one. At 27, the prospect of waking up for a 9AM class is enough to splinter any motivation into a million pieces. And getting out of bed usually somewhat resembles this. I didn’t even know staying awake for over 24 hours without facing a final paper due the next day was possible. Not simply awake mind you, but dancing and standing the whole time. It’s ridiculous, I know, but it is for the kids. And I’m not being facetious for once.

That’s what I witnessed when I attended THON early Saturday morning at 9AM. Thousands (probably, I’m not good at math) of students along with kids, some who have cancer, and their families reverberated with energy at the Bryce Jordan Center (BJC). Everyone was wearing gym clothes, flashy Nike sneakers and matching group t-shirts. I was wearing a black pea coat with a bundled scarf and Katie said I looked like a parent. Personally, I liked the attention standing out, but let’s save that for for my self-psychoanalysis blog post. The arena resembled a giant color wheel. If they had started using the strobe lights I’d probably fall into a Dark Side of the Moon relapse. The music and announcers were extremely loud. The songs, not my favorite. People weren’t dancing as much as you would expect; however, I’m not going to complain about that considering this was me on Halloween. Everyone seemed happy, particularly the kids. I’m down with that. Especially when dressed like a parent.

Katie couldn’t stop moving even if she wanted to. No caffeine necessary. She’d been awake for more than 24 hours and was in line to enter the BJC at 10AM Friday. I could tell she was sleep deprived. I recognize it, not because of own experiences, but the fact that it’s a common college disease. Nevertheless, this is one aspect of THON that worries me most. Being a political science student has me questioning the volunteer versus coercive nature (and health risks) of the two day non-sleep-a-thon aspect of it. Not to mention the probable social pressures and potential prestige to be a dancer.

Punishment for sitting. You’ve been warned.

In only an hour, Katie and I would be at the Schlow Library helping with the World Stories Alive series that CGS sponsors on Saturdays. Personally, I didn’t feel like she should have been there at all. I had offered up the idea earlier that week that she could go home and sleep and I would handle it fine, but apparently I’m not convincing enough. I kept telling her to sit down and let me take care of set up, but she wouldn’t listen. That was reassuring since no woman in a normal state of mind ever listens to me. She still couldn’t stop dancing either or maybe it was the catchy Hindi song about birds and rats working together. When she told me that she was going home to sleep for a few hours and then right back to the BJC to do it all again, I had no words really and still had worries. I need to stop dressing like a parent.

What’s truly amazing to me is that Katie is only 20 years old. I can barely remember what being 20 was like, other than working construction in the freezing cold and having to hear Rush Limbaugh on an industrial strength DeWalt radio every day. It’s had permanent repercussions on my psyche. Nightmares, even. During the witching hour I can still hear his gurgled laughter, haw hawing me into an intellectually deprived coma. But I digress.

So much for that Socratic maxim of knowing thyself. I’m basically naïve and/or ignorant of the world around me. Okay, that’s self-evident. But this has been out of a personal directive rather than ignorant bliss. All those days I spend in the HUB listening to mostly banal conversations about Ramen noodles exploding in a dorm microwave has cornered me into the knee-jerk perspective where I write off the younger students instinctively. Some of those overheard anecdotes are good for a laugh and in many ways keeps me from remaining in isolation as to the youthful world around me. Besides, they’re young and doing dumb things. I’d be worried if I overheard two frat guys NOT discussing the logistics of beer pong.

“Just one more shot, bro.” – Socrates 

In any case, I’ve decided that I’m changing my mind. Is it common to think of role models as being older sources of inspiration? That’s what I had assumed or thought, but what I’ve seen and experienced so far this semester from a few students in their early 20s has shattered that. The alteration has come at a strange and nebulous time. A state of transience in my final semester. It is possible that my ex-girlfriend abdicating from our 3 year relationship recently has been the impetus for reassessing my provincial interests. And that’s most definitely a positive occurrence. The reflection, that is. The fragility of certainty has been cracked, revealing new sights, and the cave walls need some fresh paintings. Change calls the tune we dance to, I’m afraid.

Overall, I am in awe of their accomplishments and abilities to weather all these struggles and storms that would make a pirate ship captain Sisyphus look like a Saturday morning cartoon character. So congratulations are in order for CGS interns and role model extraordinaires  Casey, Kate and Katie.

And because I can’t get this out of my head: you could listen to every studio album by The Beatles nearly 6 times to cover all of THON weekend. Please please me.

Attending Matthew Ceccato’s Brown Bag Lecture on January 31^st proved to be one of the better decisions I made that day. Not only did I get a free chocolate chunk cookie (my favorite) but I also got to check “appear in the Collegian” off of my Penn State bucket list. That’s right; I made my Collegian debut in the photo accompanying the article about Ceccato’s presentation. It might just be the back of my head in the picture, but nonetheless it is the back of MY head.

In reality, I was extremely interested in Matthew Ceccato’s presentation “A Globalized Criminal World: The blurred lines between terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations,” because I am currently enrolled in the class, The Politics of Terrorism, and last semester I was an intern at the International Center for the Study of Terrorism. Many of Ceccato’s points complimented the topics I have been learning in class. For example, in class we learned that the term terrorism does not have one clear definition. Ceccato’s presentation, and the discussion afterwards, focused on the importance of creating a clear definition. Furthermore, in class we separate criminal activity and terrorist activity by deciding if actions are politically motivated or not. In class we learned that terrorist activity always has a political objective. Ceccato went further by explaining that many terrorist organizations use criminal activity, such as smuggling and drug trafficking, to fund their terrorist organization.

During our first day of my Politics of Terrorism class, our professor told us that terrorism is actually something we should spend very little time worrying about. Compared to the many other things that threaten our lives, our professor explained that terrorism does not happen often and does not directly affect many people. In other words, terrorism is something we spend a lot of time worrying about, but shouldn’t. Although this is clearly true, this idea is something that is hard for me to accept as a New York resident who clearly and vividly remembers 9/11. During Ceccato’s presentation an audience member brought up a similar point. The audience member told us that in the past terrorism funded their activities by robbing banks. When the FBI made a major crack down on bank robberies, terrorist organizations turned to smuggling and drug trafficking, which are harder for agencies to control and stop. The audience member suggested that the FBI shouldn’t have cracked down quite so hard on bank robberies so that the terrorist organizations wouldn’t have turned to narcotics. In other words, terrorism wasn’t so serious and dangerous that we needed to completely cut off their funding.

In other ways Ceccato’s presentation contrasted what I have learned in class. For example, he described the Red Army Faction as glorified bank robbers as opposed to terrorists. In class we learned that the Red Army Faction was fairly small and ineffective, but clearly a terrorist organization due to their political objective. The contrast between what I learned in class and Ceccato’s presentation only helped me realize that terrorism truly is not a clearly defined topic. Depending on your point of view, a group can look like terrorists, simply criminals, or even freedom fighters.

My Politics of Terrorism class and my ICST internship have inspired me to consider a career in counterterrorism and terrorism research. Ceccato’s presentation only furthered my interest. In fact, it inspired me to go to my professor’s office hours the next day and ask his advice on working in the terrorism field. Ceccato’s presentation proved that while terrorism might not be something we should spend every day worrying about, there is a lot of research left be done that could be especially relevant for the world today.