"Elevator Speech": Or, what makes me, me.

My name is Anthony Gill. I'm from Spokane, Washington and I'm currently a freshman at Santa Clara University, Undeclared in the College of Arts & Sciences.

While I have many interests (which probably explains why I'm undeclared), foremost among them is skiing. Since the age of four, I've been skiing at Schweitzer Mountain Resort in northern Idaho overlooking Lake Pend Oreille and Sandpoint. While college will force skiing to take a temporary backseat, I'm looking forward to a few modest trips to Tahoe to take advantage of Squaw Valley and KT-22.

Lake Pend Oreille is visible from Schweitzer Mountain Resort, the largest ski resort in Idaho and my favorite place on the face of this planet. I've been skiing since the age of four.

I've always attended private school, from preschool through college, and I view that as a detriment to some extent; private school tends to exclude certain points of view. Regardless, I am extremely grateful for the education I have received up to this point, and I'm glad to be studying at Santa Clara University. Before coming here, I was a student at Gonzaga Preparatory School, the high school affiliated with Gonzaga University. Go Bullpups! (And Go Zags!)

Even if you attend a university that falsely thinks that it's a rival of Gonzaga's, it's hard to deny that they too have a pretty beautiful campus. Spokane is indeed very lucky to have the school.

In 2012, my primary leadership focuses were on Senior Class Council at my high school, of which I was the President. We worked on Spirit Week festivities, the Senior Picnic and Slideshow, and various other activities throughout the year. I was also a Co-President of Knights of the Leash, a service organization for junior and senior men which sponsored projects across the greater Spokane/Coeur d'Alene area. In the fall of 2011, I led a Retreat Crew, one of three groups of seniors that leads a weekend retreat for Juniors. Based on the First Week of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, the retreat was one of the highlights of my high school career and remains in my mind as one of the best weekends of my life.

Retreats have formed a large portion of my time through college. Magis, a four-day retreat based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, takes place every January at Camp Gifford, an idyllic rural retreat overlooking Deer Lake in northeastern Washington. When the lake froze over last year, it formed the perfect backdrop for some serious contemplation and reflection.

I've been a lifeguard and swim instructor since I was fifteen, and have worked for my City's Parks & Recreation Department at a neighborhood pool for the last four years. I love teaching kids to swim and ensuring patrons' safety. This summer, I intend to apply for an Assistant Management position so as to further my management and aquatics skills.

Comstock Family Aquatics Center in Spokane, Washington is located in the middle of a residential neighborhood on the South Hill. The 1911 original bathhouse has been extensively remodeled on the inside, but unfortunately, the staff room remains under three-hundred square feet.

Last year, I worked hard in the final weeks of President Obama's re-election campaign, phone-banking and working with SCU College Democrats and other organizations to make as many calls as possible in order to ensure Barack Obama's eventual victory. It was a lot of fun and remains one of my best memories of 2012.

I love my hometown of Spokane, but sometimes wish that it contained more points of view. I am often asked why I did not choose to attend Gonzaga University, an institution which I absolutely love and one at which my mom works. I reply that I wanted to have an experience away from Spokane for a while, to try new things and make a change. It's been a very difficult adjustment, but it's a big comfort to know that Spokane will always be there to welcome me home. From the mountains, to the sprawling pine forests, to the great, shimmering blue lakes, it will always be there to welcome me home. And I know that it will, as I firmly intend to live there after college (i.e. grad school, etc.).

Spokane's a beautiful city that's just in need of some minor updating.  Downtown, Riverfront Park and the Spokane River beckon, as, indeed, do dozens of eateries and establishments. 50,000 runners descend on the downtown area each May for Bloomsday, the world's largest timed road race, and each June, for Hoopfest, the world's largest three-on-three street basketball tournament. Both are bright spots in the region's cultural landscape.

I am very interested in urban planning and smart growth. Development has always interested me, but only recently have I become so interested in mixed use development and planning. Perhaps it's because I envision this type of growth as being the type that will break Spokane free from its constant mis-characterizations as an "ugly," "dystopian" town.

I'm also very interested in public policy, law, economics, and politics. I've debated major options, but remain undecided as I also very much enjoy the sciences. I just don't quite feel ready to give up that biology/math side (Public Health...?), although, we'll see what happens. 

Given my location in the Pacific Northwest, I certainly have a taste for the "hipster"/"organic"/"local." My music taste as trended indie in recent years, and while I'm certainly not a total hipster, I am much more likely to enjoy live music and art shows than I am to enjoy raucous partying and drinking. Right now I'm really into Carbon Leaf, Civil Wars, Collective Soul, and Dispatch. Explosions in the Sky, Fleet Foxes, Florence + The Machine, Fun., The Head and the Heart, Imagine Dragons, Keane, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (featured below in their breakthrough hit "Thrift Shop ft. Wanz." Also of note, Ryan Lewis hails from Spokane), MGMT, Mountain Goats, Mumford and Sons, Needtobreathe, Passion Pit, Radical Face, Rusted Root all round out my music selection. Of course, that grows by the day. I naturally have a tendency toward the ironic as well, so don't be surprised to hear me listening to Ke$ha, Taylor Swift, Lady Antebellum, or Hunter Hayes as I'm entering a classroom.

On T.V., my "Greatest Hits" are much more mainstream, although they certainly include some one-off and older hits. "The Newsroom" and "The West Wing" are my top picks (I love me some good Aaron Sorkin production/writing skills), followed by Arrested Development, Parks & Recreation, and 30 Rock. Portlandia is my weekly hipster fix, and The Colbert Report and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart "fulfill my news requirement." Rounding out the list are Revolution and cult-favorite-gone-canceled Last Resort. I don't know why, but almost all of the new shows that I actually like every season don't make it through a full year. Below, watch as "The Newsroom" staff receives news of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting in one of the best, most gripping and raw moments in television in 2012.

Anyway, I'm excited to get to know everyone in ASCI 21, and at Santa Clara University as a whole. Certainly it's been a wild ride, and I anticipate that ride continuing. The trick, I've found, has been in my approach. I'm likely to fail, likely to get depressed, if I maintain a critical attitude. But if I do the opposite, the result is much different. So I've been trying as much as possible to follow the words of a Jesuit from India, Anthony de Mello, S.J., who coined my all-time favorite quote: "Extend your arms in welcome to the future; the best is yet to come!"