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 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!

It is officially wrestling season!  The team kicked off the season this past weekend at the Eastern Michigan University Open Tournament up in Ypsilanti, Michigan.  We took about 30 guys up to EMU on Saturday to compete with some very tough teams. Most teams in attendance were NCAA Division I teams.  As some of you know, the Mount is a NCAA Division III team, so competing against Div. I is pretty exciting.  Not many Div. III teams get to see that kind of competition. 

The day started off early, with weigh ins around 7 a.m. and wrestling beginning around 9. The tournament was broken into two divisions, the freshman sophomore division (comprised of freshman and sophomores), and the open division (everyone else).  Being a junior, I competed against the upper classmen, facing four Division I opponents, three of which were starters for their team.  I ended the day with two wins, taking out the Cleveland State starter and his backup. As a team, we faired pretty well considering the competition level we were facing. We ended the day with about 25 wins total, which is pretty good in my book! We had two champs in the freshman sophomore division, Dave Harris at 149 and Corey McGrady at 184.  Congrats to these two!

The day ended around 6 p.m. and we had a 4 hour bus ride back home. I am pretty happy with the trip.  It’s always nice to compete against some of the best athletes in the sport and know you can hang with them, that’s how well head coach Casey Stouffer trains us here at the Mount. 

If you’re interested in the stats of the tournament and how the season progresses from here, you can check out our info on the Mount’s website under athletics and I thank you for your support!

>Eric M.

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...

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!!! :)

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!!! :)

I've found out that I have one of the weirdest personalities that I've ever encountered. Let me explain. 

I love being busy. I do. That's why I was so bored this summer. I had a summer baby-sitting job for which I had to literally sit in the living room of this family's house for about four hours a day because the two girls I was "baby-sitting" were 14 and 11. They really didn't needed to be "sat" but they needed someone to drive them to activities, piano lessons, volunteer work, to their schools' summer programs, etc. The parents worked in combination 4 of 5 days a week and needed me to cover those days that they couldn't drive their daughters around. So that's what I did. But most days we didn't do diddily sqwat. I got very bored, very fast. I've completed 2 and 1/2 full cross-stitch projects in the last two summers. That's how bored I was.  

Anyway, I like to be busy. But then I discover that I get agitated while being busy. Or maybe it's when I get too busy. Take this past Thursday. I was supposed to have class 10-11:15 AM, then I was supposed to have one meeting at 11:30 and then another at 12 PM that was off-campus so we (a group of us were going) had to leave at 11:40 to get there but we had to be back in time for class at 12:45 PM. Then I was to have class until 3:30 and then I had another meeting at 5 PM. Well, as it turned out, the two meetings at 11:30 and 12 were cancelled. I was actually kinda excited that I got to have a full day but at the same time, I was agitated that I had to do all this running around lacking the time to breathe. So in the end, I guess it worked out okay. 

But then on the days I'm bored, like Friday, I get just as agitated. On Friday, I woke up at 9 AM to conduct an interview at 10 AM and I was supposed to have class 11-11:50 AM but the teacher was sick so class got cancelled and my next class wasn't until 2 PM. So I had nothing to do between the hours of 10:30 AM-12:30 PM. I ended up getting some laundry done and read some of a new book I got ("Public Secrets") but that was it. After my afternoon class I did more homework while I watched part of "The Patriot" (LOVE! that movie!) and then I went home for the weekend. I got home, caught up on my shows on DVR ("House," "Project Runway," but I couldn't find "Eureka"), and then went out to dinner with my parents at Main Street Cafe in Newtown (I/My parents [I guess I don't technically 'live' there anymore since I dorm] live on the East Side of Cincinnati). 

You have a lot of down time while you're living on campus. I never realized that. When I commuted, it was all about when to schedule my driving times around the rush hour Downtown and when to leave and when to come, etc. But here in the dorms, it's more like, what do you want to do when you don't have anything to do? There's only so much homework to do and only so many TV shows and movies you can watch. I also try to stay ahead in making CAB flyers and working on my article(s) for Dateline but again, there's only so much to do. I'm sure I'll come up with something... 

And this weekend shouldn't be anything extravagant either. I'll prolly watch TV or go shopping with my mom on Saturday and Sunday I know our family will sit down and scream at the TV as the Bengals play the Cowboys (and prolly lose in the process but we'll still keep our hopes up). :) 

Next week should be fun though! That's what I'm really looking forward to! We'll be heading into our 7th week of school (I can't believe how fast school is moving along this year!) so we have our mid-semester break on Friday so no school! But on Thursday night, my friend Kristy and my roommate/friend Maria and I will going to the Cirque du Soleil show at the Bank of Kentucky Center at Northern Kentucky University! It's so exciting! I read their book my Senior year of high school in my cermaics class (it was supposed to inspire more creativity in our work but I don't think it worked) and ever since then, I've just really been interested in thier performances and the work and elegance and fun that goes into each show. The show this time is Saltimbanco, meaning "to jump on a bench" in Italian, and it delves into the world that is the urban. It explores the city and the streets and the hustle and bustle of city life, according to their website (http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/CirqueDuSoleil/en/default.htm#). It looks absolutely AMAZING and I cannot wait to go!!! :D 

I'm sure I'll have another blog up soon, and it will be full of the details and fun of the Cirque du Soleil show and I can't wait to share it with everyone!!! So until next time, did you ever figure out if a tree would hear you if you fell in a forest? ;) lol