Perfect World...

First off, I'm not going to limit this blog to fraternal life because I felt that our final project showed you guys what we thought the perfect fraternity would include. However, what I want this blog to demonstrate is how my perfect world would be. First off you have to realize exactly what would you want to have your world include and what would you take out of it. With that being said, I would definitely take out all types of diseases in the world with the hopes that people would be able to live long healthy lives. I know death is a part of life, but when a life is taken too soon due to an illness, I feel bad for the people who have to deal with that type of heartache. I would take out poverty, everyone would be rich in my eyes. There would be equal opportunities for everyone regardless of race, religion or gender and everyone would have a high paying job. Everyone would have health insurance coverage and would no one would be above another. All racism would be extinct! If you look at it, hypothetically speaking, Bill Gates could literally give everyone in the world a million dollars each and still live more than comfortably!

On the other hand, in my frat I would want everyone to to do equal amount of work. We all came in with the same goals such as community service and brotherhood. There are certain guys who do all the work so, I would like to see everyone give their all. I also would have the things we do in the community recognized more often and put a positive light on my frat not just the bad things that happen.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths for my Chapter

We are a close-knit group, like the family aspect really is there

When we actually get on one accord, we can do some great things, such as community service and most recently the stroll competition

Strengths for my Council

We are an independent bunch, but sometimes too independent and we tend to get carried away in our own world.

We have a genuine care to help our community

Strengths for my Community

We have come a long way in terms of what we decide to make possible.

We have very inspirational people who have paved the way for our success

Weaknesses for my Chapter

We have a huge problem with time management.

We have WAYYY too many opinionated people in my chapter, therefore some meetings nothing will get done

I think we don't have a sense of urgency, and it hurts us in the long run

Weaknesses for Council

Our biggest weakness is that we are nowhere near as unified as we should be, especially for an African-American organization

We tend to blame our problems on other people, we don't hold each other accountable for things

We argue over things that are beyond our control.

The lack of respect for each other

Weaknesses for my Community

The accountability piece works here as well, there is too much that we don't hold each other accountable for, especially being in the position that we are in.

Laziness, I think the community has so much potential if they actually decided to get up and do something. Imagine the possibilities if everyone in MY community reached their full potential

By the way, in doing this assignment about my chapter, I thought it was funny that I was able to easily identify our weaknesses but it took me forever to find out our strengths. And as for my community piece, I decided to use the African-American race, so in knowing that it would make sense to go back and read through it again...*light bulb goes off*

Oath

Rather than talking out the side of my neck and having my thoughts swirl through my head, I decided to take the true definition of the word oath, and break down the definition and apply it in our everyday rituals in our respective fraternities and sororoties. Now oath as defined by Merriam-Webster as a solemn usually formal calling upon God or a god to witness to the truth of what one says or to witness that one sincerely intends to do what one say. Now think about this, an oath is basically an act that is witnessed by God to uphold your word. Now what is your word in terms of your fraternity. What did you promise to do before God in terms to make your organization better or to hold yourself to the standards that your founder members set out before. Making an oath is important because once it's set, its up to you to make sure that your standards are in tune with the standards of your organization. I feel that you really can't be a productive member of your organization unless you uphold the oath. Now let's go back and see what kinds of oaths you took when you became a member of your organization. For me, I know I took an oath to become a catalyst for change and to help my community in any way that I can. So for me that's what I need to make sure I never turn my back on what I promised to do.

My secret thoughts on Ritual

It's funny because the title of this blog embodies exactly what I consider what rituals are supposed to be. They are supposed to be secret. They are supposed to something that only the members of your fraternity hold near to their hearts that they wouldn't want the rest of the world knowing. Rituals are what make our fraternities and sororities unique in the sense that everyone has different beliefs. Our rituals are what molds us into productive members of our fraternities and sororities. I feel that our rituals are kept secret because as a fraternity, there are special indicators that we can secretly identify if one is a member or not. If it weren't for this rituals, technically anyone and everyone could pretend to be a member, then what would the purpose be on joining. The thoughts on rituals that was given in the video were insightful, and they explain the definition of ritual in whole, but I think that ritual is deeper than that.

What did we do today….or last week?

First of all, I have to be completely honest; I wasn’t in class last Friday to even have a good or knowledgeable answer to this question so this will be relatively short but don't worry I will make up for it later. but rather than just taking this assignment on the chin, I asked some of my peers who did come to class and participate what they did, and I decided to really dig deep and find out why we had to do this. It was cold that day so I’m glad I didn’t walk around, but all jokes aside here is what I got from last class. We went out as a class to Sorority and Fraternity Row on High and 15th and we talked to members of different Greek fraternities and sororities and asked their opinions about what they felt that their organization stood for in terms of their values and rituals. Now just with that background information, I came up with reasons as to why this particular task had a deeper meaning. First off, we talked about values in class. The values that we looked for in a council were what we felt that were important to our success. What you have to realize is that every Greek organization has the same moral principles and objectives, we just have different ways of obtaining it.

Why We chose a service Project

I feel that the theme of last week's class was to pay it forward, but in order to truly understand that theme, we had to do something where we would not be able to get something back for what we did. It was truly a selfless act where we did something not for personal gain or reward, but we did something because we can. I feel at the end of the day, that project embodied why we all joined a fraternity or sorority. We are all in a position to do something because we are looked at among the community to serve others and make a difference in the world. It might have been something minor, but in the long run, we must not make light of how many people our project might touch that we wont know about, and should we know about those lives, no. We should be able to do things like that everyday, especially now with the crisis in Haiti. We should be moved to do more as members of these organizations and use our voices to reach out to others that can do more as well. We, however must set the example and I feel with making the sandwiches, we made a small step in order to achieve a larger goal. There was a lot that I learned from this project about the students from other councils. I learned at the end of the day, we are all students, but we truly don't know the power that we hold by just doing something small. At first, everyone in the room did not know one another expect from their respective councils, but after it was all said and done, we all came together to accomplish a goal that we collectively felt needed and should be done. That's how we are supposed to work as councils. There isn't any reason that we should not know one another now being that we are a part of the Greek community, but maybe this class is needed for that sort of thing. I enjoyed working with the members of the other councils and I look forward to seeing where this class will take us...

Numero Uno

Hello everyone, my name is Leo Obasohan, and I guess this is my very first blog entry. I am kind of skeptical of this being that it reminds me of a diary but I guess it isn't so bad. I am a fourth-year Sport Management Major from Columbus, Ohio. I guess I will go right into the assignment. I am a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. Zeta Chapter. Kappa is the second African-American fraternity ever founded, however it was the first that was founded in the Northern part of the United States. I chose this organization because at the time, I felt that this was the fraternity that suited my personality, however I knew I wanted to join Kappa a long time ago, maybe even as far back as high school when I saw my first step show at Ohio State. When I came to campus, it was the Kappas who showed me virtually everything I needed to know about campus, so naturally that's who I hung with and asked for advice. I made my decision to join Kappa my sophomore year, and I am very glad that I made that decision. The experiences that I have had within the fraternity are invaluable and the people that I have met have been very influential. I am close with members from different chapters in different parts of the country. It's definitely something that I would never trade. Now as for this class, I must be honest and say that I am not very happy to hear about it. I wanted to made a difference in the NPHC, but I had envisioned a different way of doing it. Taking a class to build leadership to me is a dumb idea. Leadership isn't something that you teach, it's a characteristic that has to be shown in someone. I don't agree with the class as a whole,but I am always willing to meet new people and gain new experiences and see life from another perspective. As for the Blogabus, I would much rather have a paper one in my hands that way I can refer to it at any time. I see the reasoning for having it as a blog being that everyone more or less lives on the internet, however we are still in college. All in all, I am excited to see how this quarter goes and I am very interested to meeting people in the other fraternal councils.