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 CAB had an event on Tuesday night in which we invited Nick Motil, an acoustic musician, to come play at the Mount! It was a really awesome mini-concert! We had a meet-and-greet as part of the CAB executive board (I'm the publicity chair) and I got there late. I had class at 6 and supposedly it was supposed to go until 8:30 but we got out at 7 so I went with Nicole (the treasurer) to the meet-and-greet for an hour and then we stayed for the concert at 8. It lasted until 9:30ish and it was some really great music. He plays acoustically and it's like indie rock/folk rock so it's really good. He played songs off his three albums, One of These Days (2005), Live from the Black Box (2007), and Everything's Alright (2008). He is well-known for often playing without wearing any shoes and his song, "One of These Days," is one of his most popular and recognizable songs.

            He played for an hour and a half for about 35 people in the Corona Room and he infused comedy into his set list which was quite a treat most were not expecting. With stupid stories (in his opinion), such as about a fan while he was on tour who requested “Free Bird” while being drunk or how free brownies make an awesome day-maker, and his other silly anecdotes, such as how he met his best friend and  his fiancée, the show was quite a success.             He was also here last year and was a success then so he was brought back again this year for a repeat performance. Hopefully he’ll be back again next year and more people will be able to enjoy his music.

            Music by Nick Motil is available for listening on iTunes, Rhapsody, MySpace, and his home page, http://www.nickmotil.com/. “No managers, no labels, no shoes…no problem!”

So Stress has been my best friend lately. I have so much to do and so little time to do it, it seems like! Ugh... its annoying! I had a presentation to do on Monday night in my CED class and I have to present again on Tuesday during my IDS class as a PL. Then I also have a research paper due at the end of the semester that I've yet to start along with two papers that serve as exams in my ENG and PHI classes and a paper in my ASL class. Along with my hectic schedules, it's getting to be a pain. This is my Tuesday this week: get up at 6:30 AM, baby-sit 7:30-8:30, class 10-11:15, my CAB meeting 11:30-12:30, class 12:45-2, class again 2:15-3:30, break, then class again 6-8:30... It's a non-stop day that I'm not sure if I'll have to breathe during but oh well... I thrive on fast pace days sometimes, but other times I don't... 

I went bowling last week which was a good stress reliever, though. On Thursday night, CAB and Lions for Life (our pro-life club) sponsored an event at Western Bowl and I bowled two games for free so that was awesome to smash some pins! lol :) Then on Saturday I went to the Bridge Bowl! It's the Mount versus Thomas More and this year it was played on their campus (last year it was here). We lost 19-0 but it was fun, I guess. It was raining but my mom and I had fun. Then we went shopping and I blew $100 on clothes so that was fun! lol :) Time to get in the winter season! Today is snowed most of the day even though none of it really stuck so that was no fun but at least it was the first snow of the year! I love snow! It is definitely my favorite time of the year!!! :D 

This coming weekend, my boyfriend comes home from school so I'll get to see him for a week so I'm happy about that! And next week we have two days of school and then we're out for Thanksgiving break! We get Wednesday-Friday off so I'm excited about getting some time off! I need a break... I also need time to get things done. Time is like money: we spend it, we save it, and we invest it, but once it's gone, we never get it back.

I have been awake since 6am this morning going through e-mails, papers, binders, folders, books, web-sites, phone conversations, and everything else possible! Lets start off with the first two hours of my day. I spent two hours this morning putting together information for an interview that I would have for Kiss 107 about my involvement through the Mount on www.collegeweeklive.com. I then got ready for the day and went to my 9am class. Afterwards I spoke with Cliff about the semester so far and picked up my the Flip Video Camera to start taking more footage for the video that will ...eventually... be up on this blog page. He also had mentioned some ideas for the phonathon job just so many hours later. I then had just enough time to stop up in my room to check e-mails again before my tutoring for ethics. My tutor helped me pitch some ideas for my last ethics paper for the semester. I finished tutoring and made my way up to the room to yet again CHECK MY E-MAIL for more updates for the day and this week. ((I feel like I get 10 e-mails every hour - I'm too involved.)) I then rushed my lunch in order to once again check my e-mail so I can be ready for another interview for the day. I was able to speak with Shane Fero for an hour today about glass art. He is the president of the Glass Art Society and has created some amazingly beautiful pieces and has been able to present, lecture, demonstrate, and teach the techniques of flameworking. I had this interview with him today because of a research paper that is due on Thursday for my flameworking course. We have to research the technique and history of the glasswork as well as an artist who uses the technique and their thoughts and experience with it. I chose Shane Fero because of his magnificent work but never expected to be given the opportunity to speak with him directly about his fabulous work! The best thing I got from the interview was this direct quote from him. His words are inspirational:

“Coming from a traditional background, you learn by practice. Somebody that is coming from a background doesn’t have to have huge skills to make something beautiful. You don’t have to have incredible flameworking skills to make incredible art.”

I've been in a great mood ever since! But still tired because there has been more to add on to the day. After the interview I had voice lessons and then had to rush up to the theatre lobby for the campus ministry leadership team bingo event. I was unaboule to stay for the whole thing however because of choir. Of course after choir, I went up to my room again to CHECK E-MAIL AGAIN before dinner in which i rush in order to get to work on time. Working the phonathon was of course slow tonight because its the last week of calling and we were calling some of the more difficult customers. We made it through though and ended up making it over our goal for the semester. So it overall was a big success. Well after work I had another meeting with campus ministry to talk about the bingo event earlier in the day, as well as the trick or treat for canned goods event. They were BOTH BIG SUCCESSES! We are really excited about it. We also began talking in to more details about upcoming events for the semester. This includes shanty town in which any of the mount students/faculty/staff etc. can build a place to stay for the night of november 19th out of cardboard boxes and sleep outside. it is a big part of our homelessness awareness week! we talked about more details within the week about movie events, speakers, and more. i'm really excited about it! we have more events coming up as well, including a night hike on december 2nd that is welcome to all. after the meeting i was finally able to come back to my room FOR THE NIGHT and get ready for bed. and so now i'm here. writing this blog, tired as can be, and still having to work on more homework, including that ten-page paper that my interview was for. thankfully i have more than enough information to feed off of. its just a matter of whether my brain is too fried to work on it much tonight before i sleep.

well either way, thanks for reading my blog again!

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 :)

Hey guys!

SO I lied about doing the Habitat for Humanity project last weekend. The plans fell through. BUT we did redeem ourselves as a respectable team by cleaning up the woods and walking trails around the part of campus known as Earth Connections which counted as community service hours.  The mission of Earth Connection is to explore ecology, demonstrate sustainability, and experience spirituality.  The team worked for four hours on Saturday to clean up the downed trees and other debris and decaying material that was left from the “hurricane” a few weeks ago.  It was a pretty cool experience where we got a lot of work done and got a little closer as a team. It’s also very gratifying to do some work without receiving any monetary compensation and doing it for the good of the community.  

Speaking of teams, the wrestling team will be hosting the Blue and Gold Showcase this Thursday, October 23 at 7:00p.m. in the Harrington Center.  This is an intersquad match, where we just wrestle our teammates to allow the school to get to know the team.  This should be pretty cool, there are about 15 matches scheduled and Coach Stouffer got us a spot light to hang from the ceiling of the gym to shine on the mat.  He’s going to turn off the rest of the lights in the gym and just leave the spotlight on. This should be pretty cool! If anyone is semi-interested in wrestling, or the Mount St. Joseph wrestling team, come out and support us Thursday night!

So I was a bad girl on Friday... :) I decided to skip classes (which was only 2) and I went on a field trip with my mom's classroom to a pumpkin patch!

That is one of the kewl things about Cincinnati- we have a TON of pumpkin patches. We went to Shaw Farm off of 131 in Milford (get off at the Milford- theater- exit on 275 and then follow that road straight and you'll eventually hit on your left- go for like 15 minutes) and it has pumpkins, a corn maze, a wooden maze (it's made of wood planks and only has one exit and one entrance right next to each other so you can let your kids go in and you can just stand watching the entrance/exit and they're bound to come out at some point or another), a hay ride you can take, and then a little shop you get candy, goods, food, drinks, and fun stuff in.

While we were there, we went on the hay ride and that was a blast! Then we got to see some animals- goats, a horse, chickens- that looked freaking hilarious! because they weren't the normal kind of chickens, they were ones with a ton of fluff and they looked like they were wearing boots around their feet, and some pigs. We also did a sensory activity. It was a bunch of boxes of corn with hidden objects and you had to find certain ones hidden in the corn. There were also boxes of mixed seeds and you had to identify what seed was what based on a diagram/chart they gave you. We also played in the mazes, played in the wooden "houses" which were just boards put up into house with no roofs so kids could go in and play and stick their heads out of them, found a pumpkin (those little tiny gourd ones- so cute!), and just ran around having fun!

This was also a part of my service hours for one of my classes, Human Exceptionalities. We need 30 hours to get a service learning credit, a free credit toward your total of credits that you can only do 3 times over the course of your 4 (or more) years at the Mount, and I'm working on that right now. So I got 5 hours helping out my mom on a field trip (these kids all have autism in some form or another) and I had fun in the process!!! :)

I love pumpkins!

For Homecoming we got a pumpkin shaped stress ball (just a balloon filled with sand) and it so much fun to play with!!! :)

Hey guys!

I just got done with my intramural soccer game (we won putting us at 5-0 on the season!) and found out that wrestling practice is cancelled on Friday (the afternoon session) and Saturday because the team is planning on participating in Habitat for Humanity on Saturday. This is pretty exciting and I figured I’d let ya know.

First off, let me rewind and explain a few things.

The College of Mount St. Joseph has an organization called SAAC which is the Student Athlete Advisory Committee. The purpose of the SAAC is to enhance the total student-athlete experience by promoting opportunity for all student-athletes; protecting student-athlete welfare; and fostering a positive student-athlete image, while maintaining the tenants of the Division III philosophy (information courtesy of the MSJ website).  This is my first year as a member of SAAC and it’s really a cool experience.  Last meeting, we talked about organizing involvement of the MSJ athletic teams with the Habitat for Humanity projects around the city.  I told Coach Stouffer about this and he decided to cancel practice for the weekend and get the wrestling team involved!

This is pretty exciting because Habitat for Humanity repairs and builds homes for underprivileged people so they have a safe and livable place to live.  Here at the Mount, community service plays a big role in our values and beliefs and there are a lot of opportunities to get involved and really make a difference in the community. I’m proud to have the opportunity to be a part of this and it should be a very valuable experience.

I’ll let you know how everything goes, and hopefully get some pictures to show you!

Take care!

>Eric M.