Go 'Cuse!: Week Six

I'm from Upstate New York. Most New Yorkers I know that have emigrated from the Empire State take every opportunity they can to proudly (and sometimes annoyingly) announce their roots. After all, we <3 NY, right? In my experience, this is even more prevalent among those of us from Upstate; except we take it a step further in that we have to make absolutely sure that whoever we're talking to will hereafter be able to accurately distinguish between New York City and New York State, from which we are further differentiated by being that part of the state that is a considerable distance north of the city, but not necessarily including the western part of the state.

It's all very confusing to try to explain, but we still get ticked when people from outside the state don't understand.

We also tend to find unity and common ground with each other, at least in my little bit of Upstate. A victory or success for one Upstate community bolsters us all; a tough winter or a tragedy for one Upstate town brings us all down.

This week's victory? (though I may be the only one who cares about it at the moment): Syracuse University was mentioned in our assigned reading in The New Influencers by Paul Gillin.

SU is about an hour or so south of my hometown. I grew up watching the Carrier Dome surface on the horizon as we traveled I-81. I'm a sucker for SU men's basketball; my mother, sister and I froze our butts off watching them win the 2003 NCAA title on a little TV plugged into the cigarette adapter in my mom's Astro because we had an ice storm that year that knocked our power out for about five days. I even got to cheer the boys on in the Dome my junior year in high school: their cheerleaders were out of town, so my cheerleading team from Mexico High School (yeah, my hometown is called Mexico. You can laugh.) got to step in. That night will forever reside in my memory as one of the coolest nights of my life.  If I decide to go to grad school after I'm done at ONU come May, SU is at the top of my list (Newhouse, anyone?).

What a thrill of excitement it was for me to read that name in regards to NightAgency founders Darren Paul, Scott Cohn and Evan Vogel's alma mater!

I've always known that SU is a good school. The major reason I didn't really consider it when making my undergraduate selection was because it was simply too close to home. But to have its students referenced in a textbook for one of my favorite classes as an example for how to best use social media and viral marketing? Icing on the cake.

So. Stinking. Excited! Really. That's about all I have left to say on the matter. Eek!