Well this is it! It is now technically Wednesday of exam week for the S109 semester. I am still awake because I have been spending the past couple hours going through old papers from the semester and beginning to set things up for next semester. I fortunately do not have anything to study this week because I have no scheduled exams so this is my way of preparing to finish the term papers that i have to write. this paper work though has been on my mind for weeks and as i've always said, i need organizaion in order to truly finish anything off. so now that i'm physically and mentally prepared i can focuse on doing my best job with finishing the term papers. tonight was the exam jam, so it was able to set me off in that great mood. i spent time with some good friends just relaxing and having fun. I was able to eat some free food which was served by the teachers, get a free AMAZING back massage, attend a session of 'blessing of the brains' from campus ministry in which you could join in meditation through prayer, and also we were given the opportunity to pie some of the RAs in the face. that was definitely amusing! oh and how can i forget the kareoke. i was able to witness some very interesting performances from some of my friends as they attempted to ...i believe sing... is the word several popular songs from the ages. it was definitely a fun night. and come saturday i will be able to travel home, again through the megabus, for just less than a month. i am hoping to work A LOT at home with my lovely ladies at Hallmark and to build closer relationships with my family! i've realized a lot this year how much i really would like to bond with my family more. i don't want to be cheesey, as some might think. but really, i do love my family. of course we fight and bicker and tease each other and oh my gosh do we get on each others nerves sometimes. but i love them. hey, family is the one thing that will always be there anyway! so whether i like them or not. i'm stuck. but i'm glad i'm stuck with this family. a big irish family in the southside of chicago is one of the greatest things ever known. i'm glad i'm a part of such a community!

 oh and i want an ipod and the twilight series for christmas ;)

 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! It's been a great semester!!!

So Thanksgiving break went by in the blink of an eye. Before I knew, I was sleeping in my bed at the dorms and I was preparing for the torturous Monday that I just encountered. 

But my break wasn’t all that bad, but I’m certain I’ve had better. I went home Tuesday night after my ASL class and slept at home that night. Then Wednesday morning at 6:30 AM, my mom and I made the 4 ½ hour drive to Pigeon Forge, TN, to meet up with some of her friends to hang out for a bit. We shopped, went out, and just had some good general girl fun (say that ten times fast lol). They ended up going home on Wednesday night but Mom and I spent the night in Tennessee. Then on Thursday morning, Thanksgiving, we went up through Gatlinburg, surprised there were people out and shops were open, but we went up into the mountains to Cade’s Cove and drove around on the path up there observing the natural scenery. It took three hours to drive the 25 miles up the mountains, the 11 mile trail, and the 25 miles back into Gatlinburg. It was excruciatingly slow but my mom and I had fun in the car making fun of all the other holiday drivers. ;) We ended up leaving for home at 2:30 PM and got to my aunt’s house at 7 PM. We were tired, I was hungry, and I was exhausted from driving in the car for almost 8 hours (Cade’s Cove trip + the drive home). The Thanksgiving meal at my aunt’s was good and we had fun hanging out and just being goofy. For example, my uncle had my two younger cousins, Lexie who is 8 and Jake who is 4, put on a circus and do acrobatic tricks for us in the middle of the living room. Of course, my other cousin, Sean who is 1, wanted to join in and he tried doing his own flips, unsuccessfully might I add.  

Friday was Black Friday and my mom and I went out again and shopped till my feet just about fell off my legs. It was fun though and I got some gifts for people crossed off my list so it was productive to say the least. Then on Saturday my brother and I spent 4 hours raking leaves for my mom (she’s showing up a lot in this isn’t she? Wow… lol). Of course, on Sunday we were looking out into the expansive backyard and my mom said, “Wow… it looks…” and I said, “Desolate.” And she said, “No. I was gonna say pristine.” Lol But later she did say it looked a bit desolate so ha! She agreed with me! Lol I like the leaves on the ground, just as much as I like snow on the ground. I just don’t like to clean either of them up, but again, who does? J 

Sunday I spent the day watching the Bengals lose again, but what else is new? I also watched the Steelers-Patriots game so that was fun. I like both teams so I didn’t care who’d win (I’ll prolly get flack for that later but oh well). Then I came back to school for school this week and the exams are next week so… 

Only four more full school days left and four exam days and then break! I’m going on vacation with three of my girl friends from Friday, Dec. 12^th-Sunday, Dec. 14^th, so I am really looking forward to that! But it’s getting down to the wire and I am stressed beyond belief but I really don’t have that much to do. I just need to calm down and breathe and I’ll be fine. That is some good advice for everyone though. J Until next time, breathe evenly and deep and all will be fine… J Now, if I can just remember that for myself… ;)

So as I am writing this right now, for all of you MSJ blog readers, I am currently on the Mega Bus on my way home to Chicago for Thanksgiving break. We just stopped in Indianapolis to drop off some passengers and pick some up as well. We are now driving through the city briefly to get to the highway again so I can finally be dropped off at Union Station and can see my Mom. Since I’ve been going to school, I haven’t been able to see her, or any of my family for that matter, all that often. I remember my first time going home like it was yesterday. I was taking the Mega Bus for the first time and my dad was the one to pick me up from Union Station. I remember seeing him across the street and just smiling from ear to ear – I was home! I caught up with my dad on the way back to house about everything I was learning in my first semester of college and just kept saying how weird it was to be back home. It had been over a month, the longest I’ve ever spent away from home. We finally got to my house and I ran down the driveway to the back of the house, walked in to the kitchen, and shouted my Mom’s name as she turned around and spread her arms wide open. I think that was the biggest hug we have ever given each other, ever! Neither of us wanted to let go! (It was a mushy mother-daughter moment – the kind I would never trade for anything) I put my luggage in my room and walked around the house and said hi to the rest of my family and my dog and just kept saying how weird it was to be home. I then called all of my friends and told them I was back in town and I met up with each of them to give them the same kind of hug as I did my parents. I was just so excited. Since then, I have been able to go home one other time besides holiday/summer breaks. That was this past September, about 2 years after my first trip home. This current bus ride is my second time home this semester and I am oh so happy to see everyone!

---

Well I got to my house around 10:00 Chicago time and now it is 1:00 in the morning and I am sitting her with two of my best friends, just waaaaaay happy to be home. I've already seen my parents and one of my sisters, Deirre. And as soon as I walked in to the house the first person I saw was my brother, Liam, who wasn't supposed to get in to town until tomorrow; so that was a VERY nice surprise.

So I'm home, I'm safe, I'm happy & I'm thankful to be here with the friends and family that I LOVE so dearly!

Thanks again for reading my blog and stay tuned for next week

Hey everyone!

Turkey day is rapidly approaching and I have to say it is one of my most favorite holidays.  It might have something to do with the fact that I love to eat and always put my diet on hold during the season to enjoy Thanksgiving as much as possible.  My reasoning for this is that I am extremely thankful for how fortunate I am to be able to stuff my face and spend time with my family. So my weight cutting for wrestling can wait. Sorry Coach.

As I said, I am extremely thankful for all the things I have:  heated house, a great family, warm clothes, food, clean water, great friends, an amazing girlfriend, and a caring church among other things.  Many people are not as fortunate as I am and Thanksgiving usually reminds me of these people more than any other time of year.  This week is Homelessness Awareness Week and the College of Mount St Joseph is hosting a week full of events to share homeless perspectives with the students and the rest of the community. 

The week starts with a representative speaker from the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless. Homeless experiences will be shared, followed by a question/answer session about life on the streets. “Street Vibes”, a newspaper written by the homeless of Cincinnati, will also be available.  Tuesday, the movie “Dark Days” will be shown. This film is biographical documentary about homeless who live in abandoned tunnels in New York. Then Wednesday, the Mount’s Quad will turn into Shantytown.  Students will make shelters out of cardboard in the Quad and participate in a mock soup kitchen.  Then the students will actually spend the night in their cardboard shacks outside in the elements!  The week ends with a candlelight vigil in Shantytown on Thursday night and a reflection on connections between homelessness and our faith and how we are called to help the homeless. 

This whole week will hopefully raise awareness of the seriousness of the homeless situation, not only in Cincinnati, but all over the country, especially when so many jobs are being terminated these days.  I know I’m going to try to make an effort to help out in some way.  I’m not too sure how just yet, I’m involved in a small food drive type event at my church that is gathering items to host a Thanksgiving dinner for needy families, but I’d like to do a little more.  I would like to call on any of you reading this to try to help out a little as well. Any little thing helps.

Let me give you an example of something my cousin, Paige, did a few months ago.  Paige took about forty bucks and bought a handful of gift cards to Arby’s.  She took the gift cards downtown and just walked around.  If she crossed paths with a homeless person, she would ask them if they liked Arby’s and give them a gift card.  Then she would hang out and talk with the people and get to know them a little. She heard some pretty crazy stories along with some real heartbreakers.  Paige has done this a few times now and it has gotten to the point where if she’s downtown, she has people coming up to her and thanking her for the gift cards and the meal they purchased with them. 

I have a lot of respect for my cousin for doing this and I hope that I can find the time and money to do something half as decent as what she did.  I challenge you to do something too!

Have a great week!

>Eric M.

So this past week was interesting. Tuesday was election day and Obama won. We all knew that was gonna happen but I know a lot were hoping that McCain would win but oh well on that front... Wednesday morning I registered for classes for the second semester. I got up at 6:15 AM and my registration time was at 6:30 and as soon as I could get in, I registered for my classes and I got in my 6 classes in 5 minutes. One of them is now waitlisted so I managed to get one of the last 3 places- that was exciting and nerve-wrecking lol :) On Thursday I had to baby-sit in the morning and because of it I was almost late to my 10 AM class- that day I had to present a project with my partner Stephanie and I wasn't sure if I'd even make it on time so I had her get my things out of my dorm room so that she could start presenting if I was late or whatever but I got there on time and then unfortunately the projector and my computer weren't playing nicely with each other so we had to start late any way because we couldn't get the power point up and everything... it was very, very, very nerve-wrecking! But we aced the project so I was happy about that! :)

Then Friday was my 20th birthday!!! I met up with my family on Friday night at Kenwood and we had dinner and my parents gave me for my birthday the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer and then the first 3 books of the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini (I don't know when the 4th one will be out :( ) and my twiny twin Alex got some gaming stuff so he was happy lol :) Then after that, I went to the Mall and did a "Silent Dinner" with Nicole and we got to "talk" with a deaf man named Stuey so that was very interesting. I went home and hung out after that. Then Saturday my friends and I went to Newport: Maria, Sam, Bridget, Sarah, Jimmie, and Kristy. We met up with Alex and her date Josh and since Alex turned 20 on Sunday and I did on Friday, we were having a joint party on Saturday! We saw "Eagle Eye" and then ate dinner at Johnny Rockets! It was a pretty fun time and we enjoyed ourselves- getting out for a night was a relief and a blessing in disguise since I have so many projects and papers to do that I was even able to get out was pretty amazing! LOL :)

But now I gotta go get ready for class so I'll let you know what fun and new exciting thing happens this week! Prolly not much that's for sure lol :)

So, unfortunately, I have nothing new to really report. I'll give you an overview of my past week and what's potentially coming up this coming week, but I'm sad to say, I live a semi-boring life right now. 

Last week: Well I already told you my car broke down but the update on that is nothing. I still haven't gotten it back yet! It's frustrating! I feel cut off from the entire world because I have no car and no way to go anywhere. It's a sad reality when we feel lonely because we don't have a car... Wow... hopefully my dad can hurry the mechanic up so I can get my car back early this coming week. I'm still doing my service learning hours at St. William's Homework Helpers Program. I don't know if I ever mentioned that or not? See, I need hours to get a service learning credit for one of my classes- it's required- and I need 30 hours and I have to do a tutoring program 3 hours a week so hopefully, that combined with other odd service jobs, I can get my silly lil credit by the end of the semester or I get a stupid incomplete for my class. Go figure. I had a meeting with my advisor about my classes. It lasted 10 minutes. I already knew what classes I'm taking, I've already taken my Praxis test, and I'm already accepted into the Education Department so there wasn't anything to talk about. He cleared me to register and on Wednesday morning, I'll get up at 6:30 AM to register for my second semester of my sophomore year of college. Wow... time flies... Halloween was Friday but I didn't do anything. It's the first Halloween that I've really missed. No car equals no parties and no trick-or-treating so one of my friends came over and she and I ate candy, made puppy chow!, and watched movies. Exciting right? Not... On Saturday, I took a computer proficiency test so that I can waive a computer class that I'd have to take for my degree if I didn't pass this test. I don't know how I scored yet but I'll prolly find out some time this coming week. I eventually had my parents come get me and I spent Saturday night and Sunday at home. I came back to the Mount, worked on a project with my partner for my Human Exceptionalities class, interviewed my mom and recorded it for our project, and now I'm here. Boring... :( I like variety and this is certainly not it. 

This Coming Week: Since I still don't have a car, my dad is coming to get me some time on Monday so that he can take me home so I can vote on Tuesday. Yes, finally, Election Day is this week and I can FINALLY stop seeing political commercials on TV and stop hearing them on the radio. I'm so sick and tired of politics! I honestly hate politics but whatever... So Tuesday is Election Day. Wednesday is the day sophomores register for our classes- yay! I like getting my schedule ready and knowing what I'm taking next semester so that's exciting. Thursday, my project is due. And Friday is a special day! Friday, November 7th is my birthday! I'll be leaving the world of teenagers behind and becoming a true young adult in some kind of sense. I'll be 20 and I'm so excited! That day, I'll be going to Kenwood to have dinner with my family and hang out and then that night I have to go to a "Silent Dinner" at Kenwood Mall. It's a Deaf community event in which my classmates and I have to go to participate in a conversation  with a deaf person for an assignment for class using our newly acquired sign language skills. It's going to nerve-wrecking and I'll be so nervous to do it. I'm not that confident of my signing skills so I'm not sure what'll happen. Then I'll go back to my house to celebrate some more with my parents and my twin! lol :) Saturday will be boring but that night I'm having a party with my friends at Newport so that'll be good. It's a joint birthday party because my friend Alex is turning 20 on Sunday so she and I are having a mid-way party- my birthday Friday, our party Saturday, her birthday Sunday. It'll be fun!!! :)  

And that's my life. It's boring... Awesome ain't it? I'm sure after the election, registering, and my birthday, I'll have much more to talk about next time :) Until then... bon voyage!

Cars. I hate them so much sometimes. So last year I was a commuter, and not once did I ever have any kind of car trouble. Like, none at all. The worst it ever got was when I took an hour and 15 minutes to get to school on the first major snow of the year and people were sooooo slow getting places on the highway. I got to class half hour later. That's the worst that I can remember... 

But as soon as I move into the dorms! Then that's when the car decides to be a pain in the butt! Ugh... I've never had a real good history of cars so far... I tend to be on the paranoid side of cars and I mistrust them- especially when they make noises I don't understand. The first car my parents "bought" me- I had to pay for a quarter of it (combined with my brother, we bought half of the car)- was a 1997 Ford Taurus and it was a P.O.S. We ended up nicknaming the car "Lurch" for obvious reasons. It was literally lurch when it shifted from first to second gear on acceleration. We ended up having to learn how to take our foot off the gas at the right time, just like a manual car with a shifter, just so we could possibly attempt to have a smooth shift from one gear to the next. It was sooo annoying... We ended up having to sell it and we got another car. A 1998 Chevy Lumina (and later that became my car and my brother got a manual 1991 Honda Civic). 

That is the car I still have. It's a good car since it's 10 years old and it only currently has 60,000 miles on it. I've personally put on 16,000 miles on it since April of 2007. But we were doing good, changing the oil, filling the fluids up, changing blades, etc. and spending obscene amounts on gas. (So happy btw that gas is now $2.29!!! It's a drop of almost $2 in 6 weeks- it peaked at the time of the infamous "storm" and I think we all know what I'm talking about) But now its being stupid!!! Let me explain... 

On Tuesday night this past week, my friend Maria and I went out and on the way back, the car decided to "sputter" and jerk forward and back while I was driving. Kind of reminiscent of Lurch. I was riding on empty on gas so I eventually put in like 4 gallons on the way back but that didn't stop it from doing the lurch 4 or 5 times. Then I called my dad, who is not bad at diagnosing car problems, and he said it might be a dirty fuel filter. I fixed that on Wednesday morning and the entire day I drove the car, it didn't do anything. I thought it was fixed. Then on the way home from school I was driving along and I was turning left from Delhi-Fairbanks onto River Road and in the middle of turn, the car did the lurchy thing again. I freaked out. I decided to go slow- under 35 mph- and was gonna stick to slow roads to my house (there's a route through Downtown and follows the river to the East Side that I chose [River Road, Mehring Way, Eggleston, Pete Rose Way, Eastern, Kellogg). It did the lurching thing FIFTEEN (15) times before I had to pull over. On the turn from Eggleston to Pete Rose, I turned, it lurched and didn't stop lurching. At that point I figured out something wrong with the acceleration part of the car- something with the fuel pump or fuel injector. So I pulled over in a parking lot, called my mother, called my father, called my brother, and called a pick-up truck. My mom I had to call so she wouldn't freak out that I was pulled over to the side of a road; my father so he knew the car was going to the shop so he could pay for it ;) for me (we have a very trusty mechanic in Newtown so it's all good); my brother so he could come get me; and tow-truck for obvious reasons. 

The kicker of all this is the fact that my brother's car broke down two weeks ago. It broke down on a Friday, I picked him up, he was without a car for a week, got it back the next Friday and had it break down the following Tuesday. So he got it back on the Friday that my car broke down so we got to drive his car home after we got mine into the shop. Our cars just aren't doing well are they? 

So I'm without a car this week and I have places to go and places to be and I can't get there... :( I hate being without a car and it's annoying having to depend on others to get some place. I was lucky Tom (fellow blogger and a best friend of mine) went home this weekend so I caught a ride back with him on Sunday night. That's a great thing about living less than a mile from one of your best friends. :) 

After all is said and done, I'm without a car, I still don't trust cars, and I much more prefer the movie over the real thing...

This weekend, my whole family is getting together to celebrate my nephew's baptism. My aunt and my grandma drove in from South Bend, Indiana this Friday night with some of my cousins. We had a great weekend full of fun activities like shopping and pumpkin carving. We went to the outlet mall right here in Cleveland and shop til we dropped. It was so much fun. Then my dad and I took my cousins to pick out a big pumpkin for all of us to carve. We had a pumpkin face drawing contest and whoever won could put their drawing on the pumpkin. On Sunday, the big day of the baptism. We are so happy for my sister, Ellen and my brother in law, Todd. Little Baby William is so lucky to be born into this warm and fun-loving family. Following the baptism, my sister has invited everyone to her house for lunch. This is going to be a fun time because everyone can catch up with each other. It is also a great time just for everyone to be together.

I love weekends like this because as I said in the last blog, Family is number one in my life. Family is always there for you when things get tough and you just need some warm advice from your family.  I really hope that everyone enjoys themselves at the baptism and the lunch following.

So I just have to say this was a fun week!!! It was only a four day week so that was definitely a plus for me- no school this past Friday!!! :) Monday, I had my classes and did nothing as usual. Tuesday was the same. Wednesday was normalish. On Wednesday night, I stayed up until past midnight to help my friend Jimmie celebrate his 21st birthday on Thursday! His sister came over and celebrated in the traditional way that is the 21st birthday. I did not partake since I had an early day on Thursday. Thursday was fine. But Thursday night was AWESOME!!! 

I got to go to Cirque du Soleil with my friends Kristy and Maria! It was freaking AMAZING!!! It was the show Saltimbanco and was full of single performers and cast performances and flying high stunts and awesome showmanship and just extraordinary make-believe skills! We had so much and it was just across the river at the Bank of Kentucky Center on Northern Kentucky University's (NKU) campus so that was just a stroke of good luck to have it so close! It's never been this close that I know of in the last few years! The bad part of it all was we weren't allowed to take pictures because "if your camera goes flashy then our performers go crashy" (that's what the woman in the beginning told us- she was one of the performers so when she said it, it was funny as heck- the intro, not the part about crashing). My favorite part was when Eddy (that's what the program named him as) went up and down this imaginary hallway and opened all these doors and one was a closet full of toys. Such as a yo-yo that he played with, a bat, and then a ball that became an interactive part with the audience (one guy did well, a woman managed to "throw" the ball short and then too far, and then a man who threw the ball at Eddy but when Eddy tried to hit it with the bat, the ball flew into his mouth and then he ended up swallowing it. He tried using the bathroom to get it out but the toilet was already clogged so when he tried to flush it, the bathroom filled up with water and he became submerged in the water. He called someone on his "cell phone" and they let him out and flooded out and knockd down some other performers. I will remind you, though, that none of this was real and all of this was done with just Eddy on the stage. No props. Just him, his body movements, and his sound effects. It was freaking HILARIOUS!!!). I ended up buying the DVD of the show for my parents since it was their anniversary, but it's also so I can see it again and enjoy the fun I had all over again. 

Some of the other acts were two women doing high flying acrobatic work, a juggler that used like 12 balls, two muscle men (hot!), four high flying bungee cord performers (they were AMAZING!), a woman with these two balls flying around on these string things (I don't know what it was so I can't explain it), and some awesome singing (it was all in French so I have no idea what they were trying to sing but I got shivers anyway so it must've been awesome whatever they were singing). And of course, everytime they just "said" something, it was just jibber jabber in some made up language and I didn't understand a word of it but it was funny as heck! :) 

We had an amazing time and 2 and half hours was too short! I want to go again as soon as I can because Cirque du Soleil is just an amazing demonstration of creativity, ingenuity, athleticism, and pure genius! Wow... just... wow...! 

Friday I had off so I did some service hours as Mercer Elementary School on the East Side and got about 6 hours worth in. Then I had to go "rescue" my brother. His car broke down on the side of East 275 so I had to pick him up and follow the tow truck to the car repair shop. Then Saturday I got to go to the home football game. We lost to Anderson University but I got to hang out during the game with my parents so I had a ton of fun doing that. Then my mom and I did some errands and now here we are! :) Tomorrow I'll go back to school and it's all down hill from here. We're in the home stretch, half way done with the semester and just half of it to go! Only 8 more weeks! Amazing how fast school has flown by...! I'm ready for a real long break but I'm not ready to get to the end just yet... It'll be too much fun just getting there!!! :)