{"id":2811,"date":"2016-07-12T15:46:25","date_gmt":"2016-07-12T15:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/?p=2811"},"modified":"2016-07-12T15:47:41","modified_gmt":"2016-07-12T15:47:41","slug":"wirtz-19-the-summer-of-the-drinking-bird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2016\/07\/12\/wirtz-19-the-summer-of-the-drinking-bird\/","title":{"rendered":"Wirtz ’19: The Summer of the Drinking Bird"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The office developed a slightly peculiar obsession with the drinking bird toy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Christian Wirtz ’19<\/em> – I don\u2019t want to give away any of the secrets hidden within the walls of Hovey Cottage. But if you\u2019re looking for them, I would start behind the cardboard reindeer\u2019s head in the common space.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re a bit quirky.<\/p>\n

I applied for a summer position because I needed something to do; and money, I really need money. I applied for a summer position in Hovey because that\u2019s where I do my office work for Brent Harris when I have Game Day Staff responsibilities outside of Mud Hollow, Little Giant Stadium, Chadwick Court, or Goodrich Ballpark.<\/p>\n

\"Wirtz<\/a>
Wirtz ’19<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I may have needed something to do, but what I got and continue to get is professional development in an office filled to the brim with wonderful people who are great to work with.<\/p>\n

While working with Steve Charles, I\u2019ve had the chance to tell the story of my formative years as a young soccer player and the importance of the people I met along the way. It started off as the story of how I played soccer, it became the story of how the people I met changed my life. Steve and I both learned how divine printer intervention can lead to a new way of telling a story. But I\u2019ve also learned how to write more concisely, which was something I have always struggled with and will, in addition, help my academic writing.<\/p>\n

Working in the Communications Office has also exposed some of my weaknesses and has at least presented the opportunity to get better. The one that stand out most is my interview skills. I\u2019m not good at conducting interviews; I always feel like my questions don\u2019t make sense or that I\u2019m going to forget to ask an important question. I get really self-conscious; it\u2019s who I am. Richard Paige has assured me that the person I interview will be more nervous than I will.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what you\u2019re going to ask \u2014 they don\u2019t,\u201d he told me, \u201cthey\u2019re just as worried about saying something stupid as you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Likely the most intriguing yet frustrating project I\u2019ve worked on is historical sports results. I started with football and now I\u2019m working on soccer for the 50th<\/sup> anniversary season. Intriguing because I think it\u2019s fun to learn about the backstory of over 100 years of Wabash athletics (and when we\u2019ve beaten DePauw, most importantly). This has been easily one of the most frustrating projects I\u2019ve ever done. Record-keeping, especially for soccer in the 80s is lacking. Where and when were games played? I don\u2019t know, but I could tell you the score. So Brent Harris and I are now in the process of researching microfilm in the Crawfordsville library in hopes of finding schedules.<\/p>\n

If I had to point at one thing and say \u201cthis is the best part of spending a summer in Hovey,\u201d I would say that it\u2019s my professional development. I\u2019m working an almost full-time schedule and I\u2019m working on a variety of different projects that (usually) engage my mind and my interests. I\u2019ve been given the chance to give input and thoughts on recruitment pieces. Most college students wouldn\u2019t spend the summer between their freshman and sophomore years at an ordinary school; but then, I\u2019m not most and Wabash transcends normality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christian Wirtz ’19 – I don\u2019t want to give away any of the secrets hidden within the walls of Hovey Cottage. But if you\u2019re looking for them, I would start behind the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2016\/07\/Wirtz-Bird.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2811"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2815,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811\/revisions\/2815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}