Go West, Young Zach

{ Allow me to apologize in advance, this is going to be a little lengthy like last time, but it is an all encompassing summary of a fantastic trip! Enjoy! }

In my last post, I quickly mentioned that I was composing it in a van on the way to Wheaton College and Chicago. As I write this one, I am in the van on the way back to school. Lots of fun things happened in between, and I would love to share!

For Fall Break, I had the amazing opportunity to go on a Student Government benchmarking trip to Wheaton College with three of my six fellow cabinet members. Additionally, we were able to experience the awesomeness of Chicago, but more on that in a bit.

This was my first time in another time zone, and it has also been the farthest west I have ever been. So, it was kind of a big deal! And, I loved every second of it. It was truly an amazing trip, and I would go so far as to say it was my favorite fall break in my four years of college.

Upon arriving at Wheaton, we were instantly greeted by a phenomenal group of people who were in Wheaton’s student government (SG), and they treated us to deep dish pizza (so good!) at a local pizza shop. In following, we gathered back at the SG office in Wheaton with their student government as well as some SG representatives from Taylor University in Indiana. We all bonded very quickly and discussed each of our respective SG structures on a high level. After that, I got to experience a bit of Wheaton apartment life with my campus host who was one of the executive vice presidents on Wheaton’s SG.

On Thursday, my fellow cabinet members and I met with our respective counterparts from Wheaton and Taylor and were able to get a little deeper into discussion about how our roles work at our respective institutions. It was truly a valuable learning experience, and it would be fair to say that we have a bunch of ideas to bring back with us to possibly shape or enhance the way we do things within our SG.

Our time with each other’s SG took most of the day, and it was most definitely a great experience. In the late afternoon, my group headed into Chicago with the end goal of seeing the Blue Man Group. Upon arriving in the city via the Metra (train), we had dinner at Boston Blackie’s, which is rather ironic since we were in Chicago... Needless to say, I enjoyed an absolutely phenomenal Boston Blackie’s burger and probably the best glass of raspberry iced tea that I have ever had. Post-dinner, we did a little walking and then finally gave up, hailed a taxi, and traveled up to the Briar Street Theatre where we saw the Blue Man Group. Our SG president was able to get us third row seats in the poncho section (if you have ever seen the Blue Man Group or heard about it, you’ll know exactly why we needed ponchos), but luckily we were not in the splash-zone. The show that the group put on was rather well done, and pretty funny at times. I really did not know what to expect, but I would definitely recommend going to see the group at least once to anybody; it is quite the experience.

On Friday, our group spent the morning visiting different places on Wheaton’s campus, particularly the Marion E. Wade Center. If you do not know the importance of this building and are a fan of C.S. Lewis, you definitely need to look into this and make every attempt to visit it. Various things of Lewis’ are on display at the Wade Center, particularly a desk he used, a pipe, a pen, and, most importantly, the wardrobe that helped to inspire The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe! I was quite proud to get a picture next to that wardrobe. All of the items on display at the Wade Center were pretty legit, and I am more than happy for having the opportunity to have witnessed it all. The remainder of the morning involved seeing an excavated mastodon at the Wheaton Science Center, seeing the Billy Graham Center, and taking many pictures of the magnificent architecture and landscape of Wheaton College.

In the afternoon, we went back into Chicago with the primary goal of ascending the Sears Tower (now professionally known as the Willis Tower, but, apparently, native Chicagoans are a bit hostile toward this new name) and looking out over the city of the Skydeck. I have never ridden in a faster elevator, and words cannot adequately describe the beauty of the views we had from the tower. It was beyond exhilarating. We could see for miles, and it was simply stunning. Many pictures were taken (obviously), and we even got to stand on one of the glass ledges that protrudes from the tower for quite the [slightly intimidating] view. There is nothing quite like standing on glass and seeing the city directly below your feet. It was quite the mind-blowing experience.

After our experience in the tower, we explored Millennium Park which included seeing The Bean and The Great Lawn. We ended up eating dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. on the Navy Pier, which was a fantastic choice. After walking around a little bit after dinner on the Pier, we took the subway back to the Metra station and left Chicago for the last time for our trip. It was indeed a bittersweet moment, but I suppose all good things come to an end eventually...

Overall, this trip to Wheaton College and Chicago was quite spectacular. I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to go, and I would certainly love to go back at some point. I feel as if I like cities more and more with every time I go into one. There’s just something about the general atmosphere and culture that is so invigoratingly awesome; honestly I do not know if I can quite put my finger on it, but I really do enjoy the urban culture. I will miss Chicago in the meantime, but I am definitely satisfied with how this fall break panned out.

Another Year Gone

Wow. Where in the world did the last eight and a half months go? It feels like I only just started my freshman year of college, and now I'm suddenly done with my junior year. I'm certainly starting to understand the whole phenomenon of time going faster as you get older. Soon enough, next May in fact, I'm actually going to have to be ready to, as the saying goes, "enter the real world." Holy wow. I have certainly known that the day would come, but I cannot quite say I envisioned it approaching like a thief in the night.

While, at times, time may go a little faster than I would like it to, I can honestly say that, in retrospect, this year has probably been my best year of college so far. That is a fairly large statement, especially since my freshmen year was simply awesome. However, this year was definitely a winner in many respects. I had some pretty decent classes, made several new friends, deepened relationships with current friends, and was able to further cultivate my relationship with God. Concerning the latter, I am definitely a long way from home, but since He refuses to give up on me, I have every reason to keep on chugging along. God is great. Amen.

So college... Yes, apparently I finished my junior year of college. But wow, what a year. I could not have asked for better bonding times with my friends or for better educational experiences. I had a lot of fun and learned a ton. I would have to say that my work on the Intelligent Water Management System project, which I mentioned in Possible, Not Easy, was by far the most applicable learning experience of my academic career. I was able to apply and further learn major-related concepts on a real world problem and also picked up some intrinsic lessons along the way, particularly that of project management. I am privileged to be able to work on it again in the upcoming year as well. Though at times the work could be discouraging, it was and will continue to be completely worth it in the end.

I also joined my school's 'Student Senate' in February, which later evolved into a run for one of the cabinet positions of our student government association for the upcoming year: Vice President of Finance. As a Business Information Systems major, what on earth possessed me to do that? Well, I think the desire to be further involved in my school coupled with the desire to gain some practical business-y experience with which to widen my horizons drove a good portion of that decision. I ended up running uncontested; ergo, I got the job without a problem (which can probably be both a blessing and a curse...I'll be optimistic and lean more towards blessing). While I know it will definitely be a lot of work, I look forward to serving my school in the various ways that this position will provide. I am also eager to see how I can apply my major to this position. The nature of VP of Finance is not necessarily that of technology, hence the name; however, I strongly believe that there is a huge opportunity to bring my knowledge, abilities, and previous experiences to the table in order to enhance the duties of the position as well as contribute to the overall improvement of the student experience at my school. Needless to say, I am definitely looking forward to taking on this role in late August.

This past school year was definitely a great one, but I am also quite content with it being summer now. I started work again last Wednesday, so I did not really give myself much time off. But that is okay, because it was fully my choice to do so. And, before I forget to mention it, I GET TO ATTEND MY HOME CHURCH FOR MORE THAN ONE OR TWO CONSECUTIVE SUNDAYS AT A TIME!!!! Yes, if you could not tell, that does rather excite me. I love, love, love my church family, and look forward to seeing where God takes us in the coming months. Also, I hope to maintain some kind of regularity in writing posts. So keep checking, and please feel free to share or leave comments! I certainly would not mind a little bit of healthy conversation.

Making a Difference

Allow me to preface what I am about to say by officially welcoming myself to the blogging world. Yay!! *Confetti* *Other Random Party Effects* This is definitely something new for me, unless, of course, you count micro-blogging via Twitter. By the way, follow me: @zkantner. Anyway...

As I was saying, blogging is basically a new concept for me, but I feel rather inclined to give it a go. Why, you may ask? Two reasons. The first is simply that I want to express some of my thoughts in writing, cacophonous as they may end up being. Writing is a primary form of communication, the quality of which seems to be running down the drain at an exponentially increasing rate among people my age and younger. I want to further develop my personal writing technique and hopefully stir up some healthy conversation at the same time. The second reason is more or less a child of the first: I think about/read about/hear about various different things every week, and I feel as if I just do not give some of a majority of those things a fighting chance outside of a short one to two minute conversation with a friend or two. Do I expect everyone and their mother to read and respond to what I have to say? Of course not, but there is nothing wrong with at least putting some thoughts out there for anyone who cares to take a look. So, here's to a new experience with endless possibilities!

Last night I attended a short chapel for the Collaboratory at school. This particular chapel is a weekly occurrence which takes place before the various Collab groups go their separate ways and work on various projects that have worldwide impact (such as projects with World Vision). This particular chapel featured Dr. Michael Zigarelli, a professor of leadership and strategy. I unfortunately have not had the pleasure of having him for a class yet, but I will at some point next year (and I am genuinely excited for when that opportunity finally arrives).

Dr. Zigarelli spoke to us of an event that happened back in 1999 when he used to work at Fairfield University in Connecticut. One day he noticed that when his young son went out to get the paper, he stood at the end of the driveway staring into the sky at some unknown yet captivating sight. Dr. Zigarelli figured he might as well have a look since his son, at this age, would only pay attention to Barney and related TV shows for the same span of time that he spent staring into the sky on this morning. It turns out that the boy was looking at three news helicopters hovering not to far out in the distance behind their house. Later that day, Dr. Zigarelli learned that these helicopters were hovering above a scene where, hours before in the dead of night, a single mother and her four sons were killed by an Amtrak train. The mother was running across the tracks to retrieve her youngest son when the horrific incident occurred.

After recalling the incident, Dr. Zigarelli went on to mention that this woman, Julia Toledo de Urgiles, happened to be a custodian at Fairfield University, the very same place where he worked. She happened to be struggling to pay for everything. She was only making minimum wage and was attempting to support four children as a single mother. Dr. Zigarelli and Julia never had contact with one another, but Julia represented a type of person that many of us tend to ignore or may even be ourselves. She was invisible. She was one of the people that many of us today simply overlook. There are just some people with whom we do not concern ourselves. It is a downright regrettable truth. We live our lives, interact with those we know, and try our best to stay out of everyone else's business. But when we step back and take a minute to examine the situation, there are many invisible people, like Julia and her children, who are very real people with very real lives and very real problems. And like the rest of us, they deserve the same love and respect that we give our friends.

In the words of Dr. Zigarelli, "In Jesus Christ, there are no invisible people." Everyone in this world longs to be loved, cared about, listened to. What if we actually took the time to give someone else a little bit of our time? What if we chose to dwell with those who, in our selfish and corrupted mindsets, appear to be below us when really they are people just like us? What if we gave that person across the coffee shop a chance to feel like a real human being? What if we actually loved people the way Jesus taught us to love? I think the world would be a very different and more likable place.

"Making a difference begins with one person at a time. Making a difference begins with one conversation at a time." These words from Dr. Zigarelli struck me at the core last night. If someone had taken the time to get to know Julia, maybe offer her some help, would her situation have been any different? We will never know, but I would go out on a limb to say that circumstances would most definitely have been different.  It is time we all reconsidered how we go about our daily lives.  For all we know, one conversation could make a world of difference in someone's life.  If we are so busy that we cannot find even a few minutes to engage in someone else's life to make them feel like they matter, then our priorities are way out of order.


Romans 12:9-13