leave of absence

[JonathanBelles]

Hey everyone,

Over the next 6-7 days I will be a round much less than normal. I will be at the 2008 Florida Region Honors Institute for Phi Theta Kappa from the 11th-13th on Treasure Island. Posting will be scarce during that time. On the 14th I will be leaving for Universal Studios in Orlando and I wont be back until mid day on the 17th. I will not be anywhere near the computer during my visit to Universal.

Thanks.
Fact789-Jonathan

[CajunMama]

Have fun!

[Miss Mary]

Definitely have fun! Enjoy your week Jonathan.

[dizzyfish]

Have fun! We want to hear all about it when you get back.

[tropicana]

and more importantly, we wanna see pictures.

[KWT]

Yep I wanna see pictures as well, have fun there!

[Pburgh]

Congratulations and have fun. Oh, and Happy Birthday too.

[Stephanie]

Have a great time!!

[DaylilyDawn]

I hope you are having a Great Time over at Universal!

[JonathanBelles]

Status:

I skipped the event today because of a few problems, all is good. Pictures will be up next week.

[JonathanBelles]

I just uploaded a bunch of pictures to my myspace from the Phi Theta Kappa Mini Honors Institute for anyone who is interested. I will post them here when I come back from Universal.

[DaylilyDawn]

Cool! Looking forward to seeing them.

[JonathanBelles]

I am back, Ill post a story and pictures as soon as I read through all the posts that I missed.

[JonathanBelles]

Im gonna break the story into parts because I dont have the attention span to sit here for a few hours. All (90+) pictures are available on myspace and soon on facebook.

Friday July 11th, 2008

Today was a very long laborious day. I went to the Bilmar Beach Resort where the Florida Mini Honors Institute was being held for the most part. From 3p until 7:30 p me, Cassandra (who youve seen on page 10 of my main thread), Joia, Jen and I did registration. Most of what we did was talked and readied the sound equipment , and of the 16 groups (15 chapters and the chair) 6 did not up until Saturday. The real fun began at about 7:35 when we were welcomed by the wonderful Denitsa and Connie (the chair/coordinator). They explained a little about what we were doing over the weekend. Then we did roll call, which as a Phi Theta Kappa tradition every chapter has their own call-hence we are Eta Nu...Denitsa (also our chapter president) called out Eta Who...our chapter called back Eta Nu! All fun. From there we had a town hall meeting type discussion on our theme this and next year "The Paradox of Affluence: Choices, Challenges, and Consequences", which I thought was amazingly interesting. Even though we went over the 9pm time limit by over an hour I wish it had continued. At the end of it all we went out to eat at Bennigans as Eta Nu and had a great time, and we were out until 12:30-1am. The 4 girls went back to the Bilmar and Cassie took me home and then also went to the Bilmar.

Here are a few pics of the hotel and our view...since I forgot to take pictures of bennigans (grrr)

[JonathanBelles]

Saturday July 12th, 2008

Today was the longest of the three days, and also the last for me. I drove up to SPC where late registration was being held. Again I was in charge with Cassie, Joia, and Jen of registration. When all of the chapters showed up me moved into the music center where our new provost Dr. Karen White spoke followed by Government/anthropology professor Joseph Leopold spoke about "the relationship between education and and affluence." Basically he spoke a little about the relationship of schooling and money and then the affluence of love, and then opened it up for a seminar. Following Leopold was Dr. Paul Cutlip who is an Earth Science professor and he spoke about "Malthus, Darwin, and the ecology of affluence" which basically dealt with the newest green society, and he tried to tie in the Paradox of Affluence (but didnt do so well). After that we went into our first seminar group and talked about the speakers before that. Although it was called a seminar, it was actually pretty fun.

Following that we went to lunch and went back to the music center where I met Senator Charlie Justace, which was our next speaker. He was a former Eta Nu member. He talked about "The Role Economic Policy Plays in the Paradox of Affluence". Most of the information was going right over the audience's head (mostly under 25y.o. and non home owning). We eventually broke it into a q&A session. After that we moved to a second seminar group, which we used more to get to know everyone than to talk about the speaker. lol

After that at about 3:45 we all carpooled down to the Dali Museum for a tour. I had never been there, even though it is right here in St. Pete. I had fun for a trip to the museum. He paintings are very amazing. Then we traveled back to the Bilmar, and we ate at Sloppy Joes. I got a pizza (and an drooling chocolate cake). After that was the party of the event. The Treasure Island Dance was pretty fun. We even got the people who dont dance to move (including our advisor who youll see in the pictures). The DJ was our own SPC DJ, so I already knew him pretty well. That got over by 11 and I was home (and exhausted) by 12.

I decided to skip out on the third day because it was only three hours long, and it was mostly jeopardy, and I wanted to sleep in. XD


Mr. Leopold


Dr. Cutlip


Senator Justice




Dali


Sloppy Joes (from left is me, Denitsa, Jeannie, and Cassie)


Me in the picture! lol bored while the girls were getting ready.


Treasure Island Dance Party


Our adviser on the right.


Eta Nu-I was taking the pic(sorry for the blur....From left Cassie, Jeannie, Jen, ?, Denitsa)





Our view of the beach and sunset

[DaylilyDawn]

Very Nice! Seeing you in one of the pictures, you are a good looking young man.Keep on the track you are on and you will go far in life. !

[TexasStooge]

Looks like you had a great time there!!