Exchange Student Roommate

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Whitney Walker

My apartment is gearing up to have an exchange student from Brussels live with us for a semester. I’m super excited to meet her and see what she is like! I have always been fascinated with foreign countries so I hope all my questions don’t annoy or scare her. It will be a very French semester. Maybe I’ll learn some new recipes. I’ll most certainly learn more of the language. It will also be a learning experience for the whole apartment. Luckily one of our other roommates and I are taking a French class this semester so we will all be able to help each other out. Finding a balance with a new group of people living in one place is always hard. I think this semester will be easier because four of us already have a balance and systems that work nicely so I think we’ll all be very accommodating and helpful towards our new person! As long as she doesn’t mind Disney movies, then shes good to go in my book.

Looking forward into this semester and all the new challenges it holds is so exciting for me. I can’t wait to learn from all my experiences and share as much knowledge about college life as I can with all of you. It’s going to fly by and before I know it I’ll be crying because all the Seniors will be leaving me. Here we go Spring 2013!

Volunteering and Bingo fun

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Annie Brown

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is one of the few holidays McDaniel students get off from class (though if you’re not on campus doing a Jan Term, you’re off for the day anyway since you’re still on winter break).

Though I had off from class today, I decided to make today a “day on” by volunteering on campus for our annual MLK Day festivities. For four years now, McDaniel, along with the local Carroll Community College, has hosted a service-learning event for elementary, middle, and high school students on MLK Day. I volunteered last year for it and enjoyed it, so I thought I would volunteer again!

The day included a couple of guest speakers, a talented high school jazz band, lunch in Glar, and a streaming of the inauguration. My favorite part of the day was card making. I got to supervise elementary and middle school kids as they made and decorated cards to benefit members of a local senior center, and I got to make plenty of cheerful cards too.

I had a great time volunteering, but it left me exhausted! I took an unnecessarily long nap before going to dinner, and a couple hours later, I was off to my next exciting activity of the day: Bingo!

If there’s piece of universal advice for college students I can give, it’s to play Bingo whenever it’s offered. Playing Bingo on a college campus is a fun way to be social, but more awesomely, there’s prizes. Awesome prizes. Awesome prizes worth a lot of money prizes. (Like gift cards!)

The last time I played Bingo at McDaniel was in August, and I was very lucky to win a $100 gift card. Which is why I was stunned that tonight, in the eighth and final round of Bingo, I did it again! I couldn’t believe it, but I was also very happy! Several other people were only one space away from a full Bingo card, but with pure chance, I managed to be the lucky winner.

So as you can imagine, I had a pretty fantastic day!

MLK volunteer part 2

Posted on January 21, 2013 by cwb003

The second volunteer opportunity I had was at McDaniel. It was a fantastic morning that had been planned since August. Not only was there a band there were also speakers talking about the march on Washington. Afterwards the children who attended did a service learning project.

The most fun to help with was the service learning project. First I supervised children making cards for elderly people. This was very exciting, the children were more inspired than I was. They included nonviolence quotes inside of the cars. While making the cards I was able to meet and talk to many people from the Westminster community from younger generations.

After the card making and band was over we also watched the inauguration. It was wonderful to have such a powerful event on an already powerful day. Cleaning up the glitter from the cards was the most difficult part, but it was all worth it. I am lucky that I was able to have several volunteer opportunities for MLK day.

MLK volunteering part 1

Posted on January 21, 2013 by cwb003

I did two volunteer events for MLK day. The first was part of my Jan Term class, and it was in Washington, D.C. It was an excellent adventure. It took two hours to get there, but it was worth the drive.

This was a volunteer example of what happens when there are too many volunteers. It was crowded and difficult to move around. We were only able to help for two of the four hours because it was such a full room. The volunteers packaged materials for the homeless.

The reason this related to my class was that it was meant to be distributed to LGBT homeless youth. We packaged school supplies, toiletries, and clothes. It was gratifying to see everyone come pick up items that they needed, especially since it has been so cold lately. It always feels satisfying to volunteer and MLK day is a great opportunity to participate in such events.

Super Bowl bound!

Posted on January 20, 2013 by Annie Brown

After a well-played game against the New England Patriots, the Baltimore Ravens are going to the Super Bowl!

While the Ravens aren’t my favorite football team (that distinction goes to the Packers), I’m excited because life on campus (once the semester starts back up) is going to be a lot more exciting!

McDaniel College and the Ravens have always had a special connection. Through 2010, the Ravens held their annual summer training camp on campus, which made Westminster a hotspot for Ravens fans hoping to see their team in action. Disappointingly, the Ravens now have training camp at their own facility in Owings Mills, Maryland, but the Westminster community still feels closely connected to the team.

Since a lot of people on campus are from the Baltimore area and other parts of Maryland, McDaniel is full of Ravens fans. And as a result, I predict that the energy and excitement of the first week of the semester will be higher than it usually is because it will lead up to the Super Bowl!

Go Ravens!

The Puzzle that is Book Buying

Posted on January 20, 2013 by Whitney Walker

College kids always look for the cheapest price. Especially when it comes to buying books each semester. I currently have about 6 tabs open on my Google Chrome. The school bookstore, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, CollegeBookRenter, Half.com, and Facebook. I always each each site and go with whichever has the book for the lowest price. In some cases I rent it from our bookstore, sometimes I use College BookRenter or Barnes and Noble. Sometimes it’s easier to just buy an e-book of it and put it on my Nook. Other times, and these are my favorite, I’ll know of a friend who took the class last time it was offered (this is where Facebook comes in handy). I can ask them if they have any of the books I could borrow or buy from them. Most of the time they at least have 1 or 2 which is good enough for me.

It’s always a puzzle to make sure you are buying the cheapest one and still not forgetting any of them. Then once you buy them all, they get shipped to your house usually one or two at a time because of all the different sellers. My mailman must hate me. For this semester, I had over 20 books shipped to my house, not one of them came from the same seller as another. Now I will have the great joy of taking them all back to school. Although, finally having all my books makes me even more excited about the coming semester. I can;t wait to be back on campus with everyone and studying the things I love!

Here’s to a great new year and semester! I look forward to all the challenges and achievements it will bring me!

Activism

Posted on January 17, 2013 by cwb003

The great thing about my Jan Term class is that is encourages social activism. Yesterday we had a visitor come talk to us about Equality Maryland, which is an organization supporting legal equality for members of the LGBT community. They shared with us ways to support the organization and get other friends involved in activism.

This weekend we also plan to take a trip to do service work. Since Jan Term allows for more free time we are able to take trips. This weekend we will do service and next week we will be going to Washington D.C. The class is all about doing active work for LGBT rights and it is great to have an opportunity to be involved.

Speaking of being involved our class time was also moved until this afternoon so we can meet with the local GLSEN group, a local group for LGBT issues. This is another great opportunity I am excited about. Although we won’t be doing service it is still another opportunity for hands on experience, and since they are located in our town we will be able to make connections with people who live nearby.

Overall I am really enjoying how hands on this class is, and I can’t wait to become more involved in activism.

Yoga day!

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Annie Brown

Today was finally yoga day, the day I’ve been looking forward to all Jan Term! I love yoga, and I don’t think a coping with stress class would be complete with out it.

Before Jennifer, the yoga instructor, arrived, our class was visited by a reporter and a photographer from the Carroll County Times, the local newspaper to interview some of us about our experiences in Coping with Stress and with Jan Term. I was one of four people to volunteer to be interviewed, so I’m hoping that I’ll be quoted in the article. The Carroll County Times does a lot of reporting of what goes on at McDaniel, and McDaniel students are able to pick up their newspapers around campus free of charge.

When the yoga instructor came, we pushed all of the desks to the classroom walls to make plenty of space to lie down. Jennifer led us through yoga nidra, a process of yogic meditation. This process involved focusing on our breathing, becoming aware of our bodies and body parts, experiencing feelings of warmth and coolness, and detaching ourselves from any thoughts that entered our minds. Unfortunately, I struggled with this process because since we didn’t stretch or do any yoga poses beforehand, my back hurt lying on the hard floor for that length of time (even with my yoga mat) and the classroom was very cold. However, when Jennifer asked us if we had any questions once the yoga nidra process was over, I asked her to take us through a few yoga poses, which she happily did. I’m glad, since the class seemed to enjoy the poses and we were able to warm up as well. My back felt much better too.

Amazingly, I only have three class meetings left of Coping with Stress. Tomorrow, we’ll be learning about hypnosis, on Tuesday, we’ll be handing in our culminating projects, and on Wednesday, we’ll be quizzed on what we learned in the class. (Since we have off on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, there’s no class on Monday.) Taking Coping with Stress has been a pretty good experience, and I hope I’ll be able to use some of the lessons and stress reduction techniques I learned when I dive into spring semester in just a couple of weeks!

2012 Favorites

Posted on January 15, 2013 by cwb003

Since we are now well into 2013, and it looks like we have pulled through another apocalypse, I thought I would share some of my 2012 favorites. As a college student I am fond of music and reading (who isn’t?) so I thought I would share a couple of my favorite albums and books of 2012.

Two of my favorite albums

1) Metric- Synthetica http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUvG77SeIpI

This music is so good. I listen to it when doing homework, while on facebook, anywhere! I just love the sound.

2) The Mountain Goats- Transcendental Youth

I have always loved this music group. They have written some of my favorite songs (Woke Up New and Up the Wolves). Not only that but they just made an album called Ghana, which is my favorite country.

Two of my favorite books

1) The Fault in our Stars- John Green

I love cutesy books that take my mind off of schoolwork and this was one of them. He also wrote one of my favorite books, Looking for Alaska.

2) Behind the Beautiful Forevers- Katherine Boo

I had never heard of this book, but I picked it up off of the new releases shelf in the library here at McDaniel and it’s pretty good. I like reading about international stories and this was an enjoyable read about a town in India.

Returning from my quilting bee

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Annie Brown

Yesterday afternoon, I was gearing up to go back to McDaniel later in the evening, when my mom and sister came back from the fabric store with a few bolts of beautiful fabric. They had decided to follow up on my suggestion that we make a quilt for one of our family friends who is undergoing chemotherapy.

Not wanting to pass up an evening of quality family and quilting time, I decided to postpone my return to campus to this morning and get sewing instead! I’d say this proved to be a wonderful choice. My mom cut and pinned fabric while my sister and I sewed and ironed. In only a couple of hours, the face of our quilt (the top part with all the different pieces sewn together) was nearly finished! (Some of the pieces weren’t lining up though, so we decided to call it a night.) We also talked about how “back in the day,” it was common for women to make quilts together in quilting bees, and that’s kind of what it felt like.

Spending an extra night at home to have a small quilting bee was wonderful, but it did come at a small price: I ended up being late to class. Since I don’t keep a car on campus, my dad drove me back. And unfortunately, a number of things got us behind schedule, including a 10-minute delay that involved one of the tires of our car sounding funny that resulted in us going back to the house to take our other car instead.

So I ended up getting to class at around 10, thirty minutes after it started. But I didn’t stress, since a lot of the factors that caused me to be late were out of my control. Dr. Mazeroff, my professor, was very understanding when I explained my situation to him during our mid-class break.

Though it’s courteous and in good practice to be on time, most professors at McDaniel won’t get upset if you’re a few minutes late. If for whatever reason you’re really late, apologize to your professor after class or in an email and explain what happened. Professors will often say that it’s better to show up late to class then not at all. Some professors might deduct points from your grade, but you’ll never get a detention–college doesn’t work that way.

I try not to be late, but sometimes time and other things I can’t control have a way of working against me. I’ve learned that it’s best to not let these things stress me out. My lateness this morning really doesn’t matter in the smaller or the grander scheme of things. What’s important is that I spent an extra night at home doing something fun with people I love…and now I know what I need to do to be on time when I return back to campus on a Monday morning : )

Stories from the Hill

Monthly Archives: January 2013