Stephen Yeargin

I’m sitting in the UT-area Hilton hotel in Knoxville, Tenn. on a computer that by all accounts should probably have stayed at home. I mean, had it been stolen, I’m not sure I’d really bother to report it to the cops. But I digress, poor Samantha’s laptop has been dead for a lot longer. Both of us need new ones for our respective purposes (hers is grad school, mine is … well undergraduate work yet undone).

I’m attending my second Carlson Leadership Academy in as many years with my chapter of SigEp. I had not intended on going this year, but a paid spot opened up when one of our officers had to stay in town for work. This one was not as nice as the Atlanta trip last year for a number of reasons. We had nicer rooms, better food, and overall a better venue in Atlanta. The “etiquette lunch” ended up being cold cut wraps, apparently by some illness that befell the presenter. Either way, I could tell this was a lot more relaxed of decorum for the meals. I’m not a huge proponent of formal dining, but I do know that if it is expected, you behave accordingly. Even the wait staff didn’t seem that versed in it.

Others have had similar things to say about the weekend.

My officer training sessions went very well, although it doesn’t take much to realize the differences between chapters. While some may have the better academics, better athletics, better leadership and overall a better chapter in our national’s eyes, I am proud to say we perform the most basic defining quality of Sigma Phi Epsilon very well. Some may live it better, but it is my humble opinion that we take our stuff very seriously, while other chapters see it as a mere formality. My writing is purposefully vague there.

We have just finished up the final of the “Hot Topics” sessions on Risk Management. SigEp is unique in the fraternity world for having a very stringent risk policy, which is why our national insurance premium is among the lowest. Still, we’ve had our chapters that have made major errors of judgment that end up costing all of us in the long run.

Update, Feb. 6, 2005 5:28 p.m

I got back into Martin around 3:30 this morning. I think we managed to sustain conversation for then entire trip back, so I was dozing off towards the end of it mid-sentance. Just for the novelty of it, I’ll leave the GPS of this one as Knoxville, even though most of this was written in the newspaper office.

A great weekend, but I’m glad to be home. Since it is Super Bowl Sunday, I’ll go ahead and say it’ll be the Eagles by seven.