terrified

Running for a position, any position, is actually kind of terrifying.

Gideon texted me and asked me what I thought about running for a position in SGA. Being in Stuco in high school I was like yes, absolutely, I think that's really cool. It's something I've wanted to be a part of ever since we got to A&M. In fact, I know it's pretty far fetched, but I would want to be student body president one day

But I'm not a boy
or in the corps
and I don't know enough people.

So basically it's really out there.

But Gideon asked me what I thought about running for a position and I said it's a great idea. It turned out that if you wanted to run, you had to sign up the next day. I hesitated and eventually caved in to pay the ten dollars and press "submit." I was excited!

Imagine....
Michelle Hoang: Off- Campus Senator 2016-2017.
Sounds pretty cool to me.

There was a mandatory meeting to go to that Sunday so of course Gideon and I went together. I was super excited, I would be meeting all my competition (who obviously are no threat to me).

Much to my surprise... I was terrified. Mortified, really.
First off, I woke up at 5:40 and the meeting was at 6. I struggled to wake Gideon up so we wouldn't be late. I was half asleep when we left.
Then, my favorite part, when we rolled up, we saw everyone wearing ties. And slacks. And button downs. And dresses. And heels. IMAGINE ME FREAKING OUT AND FRANTICALLY TRYING TO FIND THE EMAIL TO SEE WHERE IT SAID TO DRESS BUSINESS CASUAL BECAUSE THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT ENDED UP HAPPENING.
It was 5:55, there was no way we could make it home and back in time for this meeting. We shamefully walk into Wehner and sign in. The president of AXO sees me there. Of COURSE she was dressed in a beautiful dress, with perfect hair and make up while I was wearing ripped leggings, a wrinkled T shirt, glasses, and my hair in a (disgusting) pony. Yep. Super embarrassing.
She said "wow I didn't know you were running for anything!" and I tried to giggle and pretty sure I ended up chortling instead so yeah. I said "haha, me either!"
As the night went on I got more and more discouraged. I had NO idea what I was doing.
The meeting was about an hour long and they discussed the rules of campaigning. Rules? I didn't know there were guidelines to what you could or couldn't do. Then, when the presentation was over, people had QUESTIONS.

WHAT?! I never would have come up with any of those questions, either.
The meeting ended at 7 PM and at 7:01 PM, campaigning began. Instagram, Facebook and Twitter were flooded wth campaign photos.
Campaign photos?? I don't have any of those. Was I supposed to? Ha ha ah aha ha ahahahahhahahhahahha frick.
I got invited to many facebook events to vote for "Four to the floor" or "Triumph with two" and more.
Facebook event pages??

Kyle Grover sent a really long campaign message in our FLEX gm like a week ago. Was I already supposed to be campaigning?
So believe me when I say I was very intimidated. There was no way I would be voted as anything considering how casual I was about the whole experience.

Voting began Thursday 9 AM so Wednesday rolled around and I was like shoot okay maybe I should do something about it. So I wrote a little blurb about why I wanted to be off-campus senator and sent it to almost every GM I was in. I emailed Alpha Chi some cheesy thing about how I was running and how it would look good for someone in Alpha Chi to be in SGA.

Long story short, I didn't really make a huge effort to win. So, naturally, I also didn't go to the winning ceremony. I didn't think I'd get it. The ceremony was at 7. It was 8. I would have known if I had won.

8:20. I'm laying in Jake's bed. Pretty sure we had just gotten back from chicken express (lol).

And on my phone...
1 New Message
Gideon
"You won!!!!!! Congrats dude"


So now I'm one of Texas A&M's newest Off- Campus Senators. What that entails? I have no idea.