Winter Term Moving Along

David R.

January 29, 2011 - 7:32 PM

Week four came with a couple of midterms, but I handled the pressure like a pro and it's looking good so far. I got a solid A on the finance class test and I think I did pretty well on the media studies test so I should be in good shape. Midterm weeks can create stress but studying hard usually pays off.

Sports are starting to pick up at Oregon now that the spring sports are about to begin. Today we had a double header with women's basketball in the afternoon and tumbling and acrobatics at night. The women's team played California and showed many glimmers of hope, but the ladies fell to Cal in front of a good crowd at Matthew Knight Arena. The men's team is about to head home after being away for a few games. The state of Washington will make a visit this next week as the Cougars and the Huskies will come down to Eugene to get their first taste of rowdy new home for Oregon basketball. The men fell to Cal today in Berkeley but played well and kept the game competitive. The men's games in the new area are a great experience and the Ducks will come home to a packed house on Thursday.

Before the women's basketball game today, I was over at the market of choice holding a focus group for my journalism project. My team's client is CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) of Lane County and our goal is to increase the organization's awareness within the greater Eugene community. Our first task was to do some initial research to figure out how to best reach the potential volunteers in the community. We held a focus group of people who have volunteered at CASA to see how they first became involved with the organization and what they feel would be the best way for us to reach the potential volunteers in Eugene and inform them about CASA. CASA works on behalf of abused children in the Eugene/Springfield area that can't speak for themselves. CASA is an incredible organization and its volunteers have incredible impacts on the lives of the less fortunate children in the community. It has been fun to work for this organization and I look forward to creating a killer plan to get the organization's name floating around the community.

I'm finally getting over the BCS game loss, and it really has been a tough pill to swallow. It was hard to watch the continuous highlights on ESPN, and it's hard to think about how truly close we were. It was hard to see the season end that way and I'll never forget watching Auburn storm on to the field. All we can do is gear up for next season and see Darron and LaMichael yet again. Oregon has a solid recruiting class so far and we have received great publicity throughout the country, allowing us to spread our recruiting presence. The Ducks look on to next season, as the Pac-12 Championship may be decided by a critical game between Oregon and Stanford in Palo Alto.