Dance Grab a date

Last Friday on the 5th we had a grab a date. This is where we each find a date and bring them to the house to partake in some kind of social activity. This week we had a dance grab a date where we learned how to Waltz. Guys lead and girls follow. Girls had to perform twirls and spins. We learned the waltz square step, the balanced step and the progressive square step. The waltz was in 3/4 time (123,223,323...). It was a great educational experience and we had a lot of fun.

Shunta

RETRO Open Mic Night

RETRO, open mic night was pretty tight. It was at the ethnic cultural center the EEC on the south side of campus. I and four other brothers attended to support one of our newest brothers, Ryan Trinidad. The event last about two hours and was composed of a medley of spoken word poetry, live musical performances, beat boxing, and a group known as "Swag Crew" who performed a series of party dances to a song not appropriate for this blog. Ryan's performance was towards the end of the event. He and his friend Drey wrote a comedic poem defining and elaborating on several slang terms and colloquials associated with their home city, Tacoma. Needless to say, they were hilarious. For me, RETRO was a unique experience. I'd loved the energy in the venue and the sense of community and fellowship that embodied the event as a whole. I saw a lot of the comradery on that stage that I see everyday in the house. I felt like I knew the EEC and the people there very well. They reminded me how lucky we are to all be brothers.
A-Fang

Hot Yoga

On February 20th, we gathered a group of about 30-35 guys to go to hot yoga. It was mainly a sound body event but fulfilled the challenge requirement for many freshmen. As we got to the building, our instructors were extremely friendly and quelled most of our fears. Many guys were scared because of their lack of experience and the level of difficulty. But at the same time, many were excited to try something new. As the class before us got out, we headed in one by one, taking a deep breath of the sweaty, hot air. Merely standing in the room made us drip with sweat. As we were just getting used to the environment, we started off with a couple stretches and breathing exercises. This was followed by many other poses which many struggled to do while some were quite successful. After the hour and a half session of pain, sweat, lying down, and fun, we were all glad to be done. Grabbing our soaked undergarments and clothes, we headed to the showers. As we were heading out towards our vehicles, the instructors reminded us that we have two more weeks to go to nine more sessions. In the two following weeks, some took advantage of their offer, while some did not. Overall, the event was great because it allowed us to try something new while getting an awesome work out.






HFF
Joe Lee

Community Service

For our community service project, we decided to help out a dairy farmer with some basic yard work that he needed done. Six of us sophomores drove out to Sultan, Washington at 10 A.M. to see what we could do to help out. When we got there, Chris, the owner of the farm, showed us around and gave us our tasks. We were assigned to take down 200 yards of barbed wire fence. The job took us a total of 7 hours to complete because of the tedious process of taking out staples and rolling the barbed wire. We also had to use a tractor to take out the estimated 30 wood posts that were buried two feet into the ground. After a long day of work, it felt good to give back, even if it was just several hours of taking down a fence. We know we did some good for someone in need.

Taking care of business,
Justin Chavez

Digital Ethnography

So eight of us in the house are taking an Anthropology of Rock n Roll class where we were assigned to create a digital ethnography on a musical or cultural event. I spent this last three day weekend working on my video to get it finished and crossed off my things to do. With that said I thought I would share this with everyone.



HFF
Suryan

9-ball Tournament

On Friday the 5th of February, I, along with a handful of fellow students, represented the UW and other schools in a regional 9-ball pool tournament held on campus.

The tournament began Friday morning, and due to the small number of participants, we all had the chance to play each other in a best of 7 games match. At the end of Friday's games I had won 23 and lost 12. This put me into the bracket which was to be played out on Saturday. I occupied third place, 3 games behind the leader, one game behind the runner-up.

Tournament matches were set up as a race to 5, meaning the first competitor to win 5 games advanced in the winner's bracket. Saturday morning, I arrived feeling fantastic, and it showed. I won my first three matches 5-1,5-2, and 5-2. This automatically qualified me for the final match.

I was lucky enough to have two of my brothers, Alex Keller and Leon Hardman, there to keep me company in my waiting and to cheer me on. Unfortunately, I conceded twice in the final to the opponent I had beaten 5-2 in the morning.

I was very disappointed to lose. However, not only did I beat the competitor who had demolished me all week in our practices, but I played with a research professor from the atmospheric sciences department at UW for hours after each day of the tournament. What a great shooter! Though second place wasn't exactly where I wanted to come out, it was for the best. I have met quality pool players who I will continue to practice with while I am here, and a second place finish is just the right amount of encouragement and disappointment that I need to bring my game to the next level.

It's great to be a SigEp, and here's to the next tournament,
Mike Davis

Leadership Speaker

Last Monday, our Membership Development team brought in a leadership speaker named John Norlin. His overall message encouraged us to be servant leaders. When he explained the servant leadership triangle that you see here, he explained it from top to bottom.

Our goal at the beginning of this meeting was to learn how to be better leaders. He explained that in order to earn leadership, we must build influence. This influence allows us to earn leadership in others' eyes. To build influence, we need to partake in service and sacrifice (sacrificing our time to serve others in everyday situations). For anyone to want to partake in this, they must have love for others on some level. John told us about 'agape' which is the Greek name for 'love by choice.' He explained that we have to choose to love others and serve them even in the face of difficulty or opposition. Finally, we need a will to make these choices on a daily basis. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to stick to them when faced with challenges. He explained that this will is gained when we have intentions followed by actions; intentions without actions mean nothing in the end. Through these steps John showed us how we can earn leadership by putting others before ourselves.

HFF,
Blake