First Year Blog

I’m sitting in the computer lab in Stein right now, with an hour left before my first Latin exam. I feel as if I know what I’m doing, but terrified that once I see the test, I’m going to forget it all. Normally I would be sitting downstairs at one of the little round tables next to Cool Beans 2, but all of them were taken when I got here, so now I find myself in this computer lab that is the only non Pepto-Bismol colored room I’ve seen in the entire building. Go figure.

Before I resume my last minute studying, I’d like to make note of the event of the week. On Wednesday, Greg Mortenson, co-author and protagonist of the book Three Cups of Tea came to give the 2YO keynote speech in St. Joseph’s Chapel. For those of you who don’t know (nor I, until last summer when I realized we had summer reading…again) the 2YO program is a series of events Holy Cross provides to its sophomores to help them find direction in their studies. Earlier this year, we had an “academic extravaganza” where we could all learn more about different majors and research opportunities.

But back to Greg Mortenson.

The first thing I’d like to say about him is that he was just as tall and bashful as his book described him to be. I find being bashful and interesting trait for someone who has taken such great strides to go from selling nearly everything he owned to build a school in Pakistan, to becoming someone who has risen so high that his book is now required reading for head military forces in the Pakistan/Afghanistan area. I suppose he never let being bashful get in the way of anything. For all of this, he was a lovely speaker. He threw in jokes here and there (I can’t help but think of Fr. McFarland as our ‘tribal chief’ now) and gave us all a more in depth version of how he went about building his schools and what we could do to help. When it came around to getting my book signed, his assistant took my book first, so when he held out his hands, I assumed he wanted my book, which I didn’t have. Awkwardly, I put my hands in front of me, which he took for a handshake. I was horribly confused and flustered, and ended up scurrying away quickly when the ordeal was done.

In terms of shyness, I reckon I’m far worse than he is.

Oh well, off to pass my Latin exam!

p.s.- This post was written Friday…and then I didn’t get around to posting until today, Sunday…oh well…

p.p. s.- More information about Three Cups of Tea and Greg Mortenson can be found at http://www.threecupsoftea.com/ You should definitely check it out.

Salvete, all!

Today has been such a strange day so far that I figured I might as well share it with you. This morning, Jill’s alarm went off at around 6:45, and since I didn’t have to get up until 8, I just rolled back over and kept sleeping. Well, apparently my alarm didn’t go off, and hers never went off again either, so that at 8:50 I woke up disoriented and realized in a panic that I had ten minutes to get to my 9 a.m. Sociology class…clear-cut across campus. Jill scrambled out of bed as well, late for work. To top it all off, I walked in late to class only to find that they were in the middle of a pop quiz about this weekend’s readings. Needless to say, I walked out of there needing an iced tea and a hug. But just for good measure, when I came back and ran to get a shower so that I could work on my Greek translation, I broke my little mirror with which I do my makeup. By the time 11 rolled around, I was ready to call it a day.

However, this beautifully sunny Monday has taken a turn for the better after a bit of a rough start. My Latin class for tomorrow was just cancelled, which gives me time to study for our exam Thursday and to catch up on some other reading. We also got our first Greek quiz back and, thankfully, it went just fine despite my nerves. Also, I’m excited about a few new activities that I’m going to be involved in over the semester, including a Constitution drafting committee for Eta Sigma Phi, the Classics Honor Society. We’re trying to become a recognized student organization, but need to draft a Constitution before we can be an official RSO. I’m looking forward to being a part of this mostly because it is my class and the classes to come who will enjoy the privileges gained by an RSO status, such as fund-raising.

A shout out to fellow blogger, Kimball captain, future Oxford student, and dear friend, Colleen Curran! This weekend, Colleen came to Holy Cross for the last time in a year to say goodbye to all of her friends and Holy Cross professors. We took the shuttle to Providence on Friday night (on a whim!) and had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, where we stayed and talked for a good three hours. I’ll miss her very much and obviously wish her all the best at Oxford! She’ll be blogging while she’s over there, so definitely check out what she’s up to in jolly old England.

I have a mound of reading to accomplish…sorry for the novel! Take care and Xairete!

The substituted benzene rings are drawn so that it looks as if a long column of hexagonal eyes are staring straight at me, wondering why I can’t “provide a good laboratory synthesis for each compound”. I will learn—fast—how these compounds are created. My first organic chemistry test of the semester is on Friday. If last year taught me anything, it was to not wait ‘til the day before to start studying for exams. So far, I’ve made some good headway into the review packet, but now I’m stuck on how to attach Iodine to a benzene ring. It feels as if this should be more simple than I’m making it out to be, and I’m sure I’ll slap myself on the forehead when I realize how easy it is to attach one little halide to the ring.

In the meantime, I’ll distract myself from chemistry and ramble, as per usual.

As I’ve mentioned before, my SPUD this year is Salvation Army Tutoring, and on Tuesday my entire SPUD group crammed itself into a SPUD van and a student car and drove to the center for SPUD site orientation. We got to see the kids and say hello, and they were wicked excited to see us, just about as much as I was to see them! I can’t wait for next Tuesday to meet some of them more personally. My only concern is that Major Babbit (the woman in charge) mentioned that they were going to try to teach the kids music on Tuesdays. My musical talent is near to nothing, short of high school chorus in senior year where I learned I had abominable singing skills. My computer skills are decent though, so maybe that’ll be more helpful…

On Friday, I went to see Angels and Demons with some friends of mine at Seelos Theater. The theater itself is fairly new, having opened last year right next to the Kimball administrative offices. I really liked the movie, and I’m sure my friend Tom liked it even more, as every time something mildly unexpected happened, he’d exclaim “What?!”. Ashamedly never having read any of Dan Brown’s novels, I can’t say I have any complaints about the movie. Furthermore, it had Ewan McGregor in it—of whom I am a shameless fangirl.

After the movie, I went up to the CAB sponsored magic show put on by Derek Hughes, a magician with a sense of humor to boot. It was fascinating. Never in my life have I seen a man (or anyone) magically make a deck of cards disappear, only to have them pull the deck out of their pants a few minutes later.

Today was Brickfest for Loyola Hall. Basically, we ate doughnuts and bagels while painting bricks to hold the doors to our rooms open. My room door doesn’t need a brick for it to stay open—my roommate and I keep the door open whenever either of us is in the room—but the novelty of having a brick was too much for me. I’ve been looking forward to Brickfest all week, and when I finally got to paint my brick…I misjudged the size of my letters and failed to paint my entire name. Instead, I am now the owner of a Bran brick. My roommate made a brick as well, and then the two of us painted one side each of a third brick. My side of the brick has a sparkly pi; her side has white flowers.

It’s now occurred to me that it is past midnight, hence my version of “today” is in fact “yesterday”. Ah well, and goodnight!

Or rather, good morning.

Xairete!

When I say that this week has been insane, I truly mean it. Last weekend, I worked a grand total of approximately 13 hours at Kimball. I practically lived there from Friday-Sunday. Despite this, however, Friday was my friend Katie’s birthday, and my friends Allie and Jen made a special dinner for her in Clark kitchen, which included delicious pasta and salad, along with the traditional Funfetti cake. We all completely overtook the kitchen space and had a great time eating together. Even though the weather outside was dreary, we were cozy enough in Clark to barely notice it!

Also taking place this week was the first of the Study Abroad meetings. It’s hard to fathom the fact that in a year, I could be living in a completely new country and not actually attending Holy Cross! I still have a lot to figure out about which program I want to do, where I want to go, etc., but I do have my choices narrowed down to either a semester in Rome, or a year in England. The next few months will entail much deliberation on my part, applications, and heart-to-hearts with some professors to figure out what I really want the rest of my Holy Cross experience to be like. I’ve spoken with upperclassmen friends who have done both programs I am considering and I am seeing that the process of figuring out where I want to go isn’t going to be as easy as I had hoped it would be. I’ll just have to keep my options open!

In academic news, I just took my first Greek quiz this afternoon (hope it went well!). As I’m taking two translating classes, my workload has become absolutely insane. Both Latin and Greek are taking over my life—as if I would have it any other way! With the support of my family, friends, and professors, I’m getting through the work and figuring out why it is that I want to study this field. Especially now, after having gone over almost 200 lines of Greek for a day and a half, I can see that the satisfaction I get from studying Classics is so worth all of the late nights in Dinand. (But seriously, I live there.)

Valete, all! Have a wonderful weekend!

Here is a collection of collection of odds and ends from the week past, in which I have lacked the motivation to write an honest-to-goodness well written blog entry. You have my apologies, dear readers.

Monday: I have come to the realization that I cannot maintain a straight face in Latin, as saying the words out loud tickles me to an extreme. Amamus (we love) makes me think of “I’m a moose”, for example.

Tuesday: I got to break in my new pink laundry basket. After breaking the handle of my hamper last year due to too much weight (I was stupid and threw my detergent bottle in there once), I decided to aim for the more sturdy plastic laundry baskets. There are a lot of machines in Loyola basement, and I was pleased that most of them were empty. While not as spacious as the laundry room in Wheeler, I still think it’s lovely.

Wednesday: Co-curricular extravaganza night. I was the first person on the list for Science Ambassadors and signed up for CAB (Campus Activities Board) as well. I would like it to be further noted that the CAB table had excellent M&M cookies. Currently, sign ups for clubs are now on an online forum type of thing. The paperwork is now electronic, and the emails for clubs are now sent through that website. It’s pretty cool, actually.

Thursday: I survived! Due to my poor scheduling skills, I have both of my labs that day, as well as my creative writing class jammed in between. Essentially Thursdays are a big rush from eight in the morning to five in the afternoon. However, being in the Organic Chemistry lab is always fun and in genetics, we got our Drosophila!

Friday: First Latin quiz. Before Professor Lao entered the room, everyone was talking about how they hoped that the quiz would be first. When Professor Lao got into the classroom, she announced to the class that she usually begins the class with the quiz, but since it was our first one, that she would put it off to the end of class. The irony caused me to giggle. Professor Lao asked if I was alright, which prompted a fit of full blown laughter from me.

Please note: I have been told I have an obnoxious laugh.

I later went to the Shoppes at Blackstone with Clara, Lenore, and Dominika. I didn’t buy anything, but it was nice to get off campus.

Saturday: My friend Mike was making fun of me at breakfast, so I was crafty and stole a piece of ketchup covered egg-white-with-cheese omelet off his plate as payback. I was both shocked and impressed at my success.

Sunday (today): SPUD orientation. I couldn’t get into my SPUD from last year (Grandkids—Jesuit), but I’m signed up for Salvation Army Tutoring this time around. I’m really looking forward to meeting the kids!

Xairete!
Hope everyone is having a great beginning of the week! I had my first Principles of American Government class this morning at 8, and I can already see that although the class is going to be very interesting, I’m not going to be happy about trekking down to Smith on cold November mornings. For now, however, the weather is beautiful and is supposed to stay in the 60s-70s range for the rest of the week. Only the mornings are betraying any indication of the cold fall and winter days that will soon be upon us here in Worcester!

Classes are in full swing this week, and I am a little surprised at just how intense the workload is already. My time is basically only being spent in class, in the library, or at an activity. My classes are especially difficult because I have two translating classes; i.e., in both Latin and Greek I have to do prep work for translations. Although I already feel like I’m in the routine of knocking out a translation so much more quickly than I ever did last year or in high school, the work is still a little daunting. However, these classes are offset by my Intro to Sociology and Government classes, which are more focused on readings. I’m staying sane, somehow!

The big news from this weekend is the fact that I survived my first shifts as a true Kimball captain (with workers and everything!). Saturday mid-day (2-5) was quite the trial by fire. My friend Cat and I are on the shift together and hadn’t realized that that was smack in the middle of the first home football game, so we spent the three hours running around like chickens without a head trying to figure everything out. To make matters even better, our shift fell at a time in between manager’s shifts, so we had to look to the full-time workers to help us get the pulper started, unclog the vacuum, find electrical outlets, put kitchen supplies away, and all sorts of other Kimball things. We were quite proud of ourselves after this, and treated ourselves with heaps of ice cream to celebrate.

Off to Latin! Valete!

There’s something about doing something you haven’t done in forever that is oddly thrilling. Thrilling, because it’s something you haven’t done in awhile; and ‘odd’, only when that certain something is ‘attending classes’.

Today was my first day of class since being on the Hill. I left my room with something that should have been pride at waking up with my alarm, but was instead a feeling of regret for not having scheduled all afternoon classes.

In case it has never before been noted, I am not a morning person.

At any rate, after filling up on eggs, sausage, and hash browns at Kimball, I made my way towards genetics. Quite honestly, I’m terrified of the course, but was heartened by the fact that my lab manual has a recurring character named “Drosophy” the Drosophila. After genetics, I quickly made my way towards the chemistry building in the hopes of getting a front row seat. I slid into the classroom, found a seat right in the front of the room, and was thrilled at the fact that I had snagged the best seat in the house. A girl then sat next to me and pulled out her notebook. It was labeled “Analytical and Physical Chemistry”.

I’m only in Organic 2.

Instantly, I sprang from my seat and ran to the room next door, where all the good seats were already taken.

Several hours later, I found myself butchering an ancient classical language…also known as trying to pronounce words in Latin. Thankfully, the boy next to me had taken some Latin in high school and tried to help me out. I was actually really excited at the fact that ‘ui’ makes the “we” sound when said out loud. I wrote it down in my notes as “whee!”.

I am easily amused.

As it is, I hope all of you had a wonderful summer, and that you have an even better (although it might be impossible to believe) school year!

Salvete, omnes!
Welcome to another school year at the Cross! I’m beyond excited to be here and I cannot believe that I’m a sophomore. Driving onto campus last Tuesday was a surreal experience: I had forgotten just how beautiful Holy Cross is. I had a steamy hot day for move-in, unfortunately, but since I arrived almost a week earlier than everyone else to train as a Kimball captain, I just took it slowly and unpacked over a couple days. My new home is Clark hall, which is right next to Mulledy. I literally just jumped one over, and I can see my old dorm from my new room. I do miss Mulledy and its awesome facilities, but Clark, as an all-sophomore dorm, is proving fun as well. My roommate Jill (you may recognize her name from last year’s posts) came Saturday, and with her came an explosion of color in our room. It’s very homey!
So from Wednesday to yesterday I spent my days practically living at Kimball, training and working. Becoming a Kimball captain was such a great honor and I must say that it is the most fun I have ever had here at Holy Cross, despite the smell in the back where the food gets dumped (the infamous “pulper”). I was a little disappointed at first because when we went to pick shifts for the semester, which is done by a lottery system, I went almost last and had practically no pick of any shifts (all the ones I wanted were long gone). However, it turns out that I’ll be working on Saturday afternoons and Sunday nights, which gives me the whole week free to do my schoolwork without the pressure of going to work. All’s well that ends well. I’m very excited to meet my workers, and on both of my shifts I am working with very good friends (shout outs to Cat and Katie!). Another year great year at Kimball awaits!
I just returned from my first class, Intro to Sociology, and later on today I have my first Intermediate Greek class. I’m a little nervous to start Greek up again, but also excited because my class is pretty much the same as last year, and we always have a blast together. Tomorrow I start Latin, another class in which lots of my classics friends will be, and I actually had my Principles of American Government class cancelled because my professor is at a conference. Since that’s at 8 a.m., I can’t help but be a little excited about getting to sleep in!
Off to Dinand to get a jump start on my assignments (yes, I already have homework…this is college, people). I’m so excited to be back at HC, and even more excited for all of the great memories yet to me made in my second year at the Cross. As my friend Ashley said so well, “It’s like we just went to sleep and woke up and everything is right back the way it was.” Valete!

Salvete all!

Well, the end is here! Actually, it has been here since my last shift and epic ride home on Saturday, but I got my wisdom teeth out Monday (which explains the delay in posts). Only my left cheek is swollen, which is a good look for me, I think. I cannot fathom the fact that I will be home for the next 4 months—it seems unimaginable after eight months of constant back-and-forth, five hours down and five back up—Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring Break, Easter…where did the time go?

The last question on my last exam, Astronomy (bright and early on Friday morning), was one that caused me to reflect on this all-too-quick passage of time. It asked something to the effect of, “What was your favorite or the most interesting thing you have learned this year?” I know my professor meant “in Astronomy,” so after I answered about a concept we learned this year in class, I took the question to a broader scope. I have learned so much about myself this year, had so many wonderful experiences, and as I dotted my last “i” and crossed my last “t” on my exam all of the fantastic memories I have made this year came flooding back to me. I vividly recall making it to the top of Mt. Monadnock and looking around in shock at the fact that I had survived a mountain climb without getting seriously injured. I still remember my first trip to Boston, the beautiful city to which my friends and I already have plans to go back. I can still smell the change in the air when the leaves started to turn colors so bright that I could not help but stop and stare. I recall being so sick during study period first semester that I could not help decorate the hallway for Christmas, but walking out after all was finished and soaking up the season. A blur of memories involve classes themselves—rocking back and forth in my comfy chair in Montserrat, discussing some ancient piece of art which tied in brilliantly with our reading, or re-living my trip to Rome with Doc Bender, listening to him lecture once again on sites that I saw first-hand with him. Most of all, I’ll remember walking to Kimball at 6:45 in the morning, bundled up against the torrential rain or wind or whatever other crazy weather Mt. St. James was throwing at us that day, and loving every second of it. Fenwick at sunrise is a sight that you just have to see to understand.

The bad news is, you’ve got about four months until you hear from me again. The good news is that I’ll be blogging next year about my new adventures! I can guarantee that my sophomore year will be just as chock-full of shenanigans as this year has been. I have enjoyed writing this blog so much and I sincerely thank everyone who has taken the time to read my ramblings. So, until next year! Valete (in the true sense of the word—be well!)!

Salvete all!

Well, the end is here! Actually, it has been here since my last shift and epic ride home on Saturday, but I got my wisdom teeth out Monday (which explains the delay in posts). Only my left cheek is swollen, which is a good look for me, I think. I cannot fathom the fact that I will be home for the next 4 months—it seems unimaginable after eight months of constant back-and-forth, five hours down and five back up—Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring Break, Easter…where did the time go?

The last question on my last exam, Astronomy (bright and early on Friday morning), was one that caused me to reflect on this all-too-quick passage of time. It asked something to the effect of, “What was your favorite or the most interesting thing you have learned this year?” I know my professor meant “in Astronomy,” so after I answered about a concept we learned this year in class, I took the question to a broader scope. I have learned so much about myself this year, had so many wonderful experiences, and as I dotted my last “i” and crossed my last “t” on my exam all of the fantastic memories I have made this year came flooding back to me. I vividly recall making it to the top of Mt. Monadnock and looking around in shock at the fact that I had survived a mountain climb without getting seriously injured. I still remember my first trip to Boston, the beautiful city to which my friends and I already have plans to go back. I can still smell the change in the air when the leaves started to turn colors so bright that I could not help but stop and stare. I recall being so sick during study period first semester that I could not help decorate the hallway for Christmas, but walking out after all was finished and soaking up the season. A blur of memories involve classes themselves—rocking back and forth in my comfy chair in Montserrat, discussing some ancient piece of art which tied in brilliantly with our reading, or re-living my trip to Rome with Doc Bender, listening to him lecture once again on sites that I saw first-hand with him. Most of all, I’ll remember walking to Kimball at 6:45 in the morning, bundled up against the torrential rain or wind or whatever other crazy weather Mt. St. James was throwing at us that day, and loving every second of it. Fenwick at sunrise is a sight that you just have to see to understand.

The bad news is, you’ve got about four months until you hear from me again. The good news is that I’ll be blogging next year about my new adventures! I can guarantee that my sophomore year will be just as chock-full of shenanigans as this year has been. I have enjoyed writing this blog so much and I sincerely thank everyone who has taken the time to read my ramblings. So, until next year! Valete (in the true sense of the word—be well!)!