Igniting the Hope within the BJC

THON.  The 46 hour long dance marathon and world's largest student run philanthropy.  Even though it has been two weeks since THON weekend, it still feels like just yesterday.  Each year this is one of the largest events that occurs on campus.  THON may have started from humble beginnings, but it has rose to a magnitude such that it fills the second largest structure on campus, the Bryce Jordan Center (second only to Beaver stadium).  The BJC has now been home to THON for ten years, and has become the home of hope on campus.

The BJC is a large arena in the shape of an oval on campus.  On the inside of the BJC, a hall rings around the whole building, with the inner arena in the middle.  During THON weekend, the BJC comes to life in a variety of colors and lights.  This variety of colors can be best seen in the seating area around the arena (but with nobody sitting in the seats).  On this weekend, there is also a diamond shaped stage at one end of the floor.  On the outside of the BJC is a ring around the whole building that dances with many different colored lights.

The first thing that you notice when you are walking up to the BJC on THON weekend at night (during the day it's the line to get in) is the lights dancing around the BJC.  These dancing lights are like the dancers inside of the BJC, full of hope.  Hope to make it through the 46 hours, hope to defeat cancer, and hope to light the way to the BJC.  In the dark of night, it is hard to see the roof of the BJC, but you can see the right of light.  It is like all of the hope that fills the BJC is so great that it has blown off the roof to the building, releasing the light of hope into the night.

This light of hope is not only on the outside of the BJC, but also on the inside.  All throughout THON weekend, the stands around the arena floor are packed with people to cheer on the dancers and the kids.  Every organization in this crowd, has different colorful THON t-shirts, that makes their group stand out from the rest.  All the clubs also have giant signs for their organizations with many of these signs also lighting up.  All of these factors add together to create a rainbow of light and color all around the stands to inspire hope in the dancers on the floor.  This people evokes the hope within all everyone who witnesses this sight to believe in THON's cause.

The hope that comes from everyone inside the BJC is so great that it inspires other people to believe.  This ability to inspire is so great that it leads new people to take on THON's cause, and talk about this story.  One example of this power to draw people into the hope, was the surprise concert by DNCE (whose most notable member is Kevin Jonas...or was it Nick?).  The hope created by THON is so great that it inspires so many people around the world to believe in its cause, even people as well-known as Joe Jonas (the true Jonas brother of DNCE).

THON is an amazing event that truly does build hope in people, dancers, and kids everywhere.  The BJC may be the home for THON, but it is not the BJC that creates the hope.  It is the people inside the building, that are working to do something greater than themselves for the good of others that inspires the hope that flows from the BJC.  For this reason, the BJC is the home of hope at Penn State.

Parking Perspective

Every day when we walk from class to class, we usually follow the same paths.  We loop around buildings, or go through them, and follow the concrete paths that run all around campus like a maze.  To us this is how life always is, however, birds, and even the Penn State squirrels have different perspectives on the world.  Birds can fly high up in the air, and look down upon the world in a way that we usually can't in our everyday lives.  However, one of the best places that we can try to see the world from this different perspective is from the top of one of the parking garages.

The parking garages on campus are all fairly similar.  They are tall rectangular structures with many different levels that people can park their cars on.  All of the parking garages jut up above the other buildings that surround them, and from the top of one you can see all cross campus.  The parking garage I went to was on this night was the HUB deck, which is right beside, you guessed it, the HUB.  From the top of the deck you can look out across the HUB Lawn, White building, South halls, and even up to the life science bridge.

When you look at the world from another perspective, you can see everything in a different light, in this case the moonlight.  At the top of the parking garage, everything looks different from above.  One particular thing that I had never noticed before was that the one roof of the HUB was a wave like shape.  Whenever we look at things from a different perspective we can better understand things such as where people are coming from and how to do things we did not understand before.  When we think about things from other perspectives, the mysteries of the world can start to unravel.

From the top of the parking garage you can look down and see the many paths that snake all around campus that people crowd during the day.  At night these paths are barren of people, but still connect all of the many buildings all around campus.  These paths are like the connections between people, because each path leads to a multitude of different places, like we have an intricate system of relationships.  Sometimes it is important to look at these relationships from above to better see how everything fits together, like a puzzle.

Birds have an interesting view of the world that it is hard for us to ever understand.  Only when we try to think about things from a different perspective, can we begin to better understand things.  This is the basis of the idea of walking in someone else's shoes, as well as the idea behind this blog.  This blog's goal is to look at Penn State from a different perspective, a different light, the moonlight and why the parking garage personifies the idea of looking at things from a different perspective.

Gate of Change

In a night, everything can change.  That Idea become truly apparent when I woke up this morning to find four new inches of freshly fallen snow outside my window.  I know that it has been winter for a long time now, but it was still surprising to see the snow appear and change the familiar landscape once again. This change in scenery is reminiscent of our life changes when we came to college, which feels like forever ago.  The one location on campus that can symbolize this change is the Allen Street Gate.

The Allen Street Gate is a big cast iron fence.  You can find it on the edge of campus, along College Avenue and just below Old Main.  The fence is made up of many ornate designs crafted out of the same cast iron that the gate is made of.  On each side of the gate stands a large stone structure to support the gate and keep it in place.  From the Allen Street Gate you can look the whole way up the Pattee Mall to the library.  There are also paths going past the gate on either side, leading up onto campus.

With the gates location on the edge of campus, it marks one of the borders between the college world, and the real world.  Some people, when they first came to campus, walked past this gate, to start their new life as a college student.  This gate, even though it doesn't open, is the gateway to a whole new world for these students full of new opportunities, as well as many new challenges.  College life is a gateway to a whole new chapter in our lives, one that we feel like we started ages ago, even though it wasn't quite that long ago.  These gates also symbolize the change in our lives after we leave college.  One day we will all leave our college lives behind, and leave out these gates, or by some other path, to move onto our post-college lives. 

Along with the Allen Street Gate symbolizing the changes in our lives, they also symbolize the change in the season.  The night when I visited the gate was the night that it snowed very hard, and was also really cold.  It happened that I visited this gate of change the night that the campus completely changed and put on a new white coat.  The fresh coat of snow this morning was symbolic of the challenges that lay ahead whenever we have change, as well s the beauty that comes along with both change and challenges.

 The Allen Street Gate is one of the many gateways that we will pass through throughout our lives.  We will pass through gateways to changes in our lives, as well as to changes in the seasons.  With each of these changes, comes many more challenges but also beauty.  It is up to us to embrace the power of change, confront the challenges it poses, and show the beauty that we inherit from the change, just like Old Main did after our last snow storm.

Art-chitecture

Penn State is a collection of people from all around the world.  With such a wide variety of people, everyone has their own little bit of creativity.  One of the most creative and interesting looking buildings on campus is the Stuckeman Family Building.  This is building is also known as the Architecture Building, to people like me who never knew the true name of the building.

The Stuckeman Family Building is a unique structure.  The first thing that can be noticed about the building is that it is a Statue of Liberty copper color.  The building is also very cubic in shaped, and kind of looks like a big long square copper snake, on a square brick brown rock.  This is a really abstract way of describing the building, but I really don't know how to describe it.  The building also has many different windows all over with all kinds of different shapes.  The walls of the building jut out at some points and there is also a little walkway that goes down under part of the building.  There is not very much symmetry to the building, and it is very block like, but it is still a very cool building to look at.

The building itself is truly a creative and interesting piece of architecture, which fits with it being the home of the department of architecture.  This building is a work of functional art, that is used every day.  That makes it a truly beautiful piece of art.  Everyone who creates something in life strives, to make it a piece of art.  Whether that person is building a house, painting a picture, writing a book, or even cooking dinner, everyone tries to turn their projects into a form of art.  This is one of the things that makes trying worthwhile, to see the beauty in something you have created and feeling that accomplishment of knowing that you created something.

The Stuckeman Family Building also emphasizes innovation.  The whole building itself looks like a giant ball (block) of innovation.  The large windows on the end as well as the many windows jutting out of the side like portholes allow people to view all of the surroundings and bring in as much inspiration for innovation as possible.  These many windows symbolize the buildings openness to innovation.  As well as a willingness for people to take in other people's ideas when creating art.

The Stuckeman Family Building is truly a piece of art on campus.  The interesting and creativeness of the architecture of the building truly show that it is home to architecture students all across campus.  The Stuckeman Family Building is an icon of innovation on campus and can take inspiration from all around it.  This building is truly an invitation for people of all majors to include their own art in all of the things that they do.  That way that they can be proud of the things that they create and know that what they did create is unique just like the Stuckeman Family Building.