My biggest task today was finalizing the piece that I have to read for the induction into LIT, the Literature Honor’s Society here at McDaniel College. I wrote a poem for it that is called Nightwish that I really like. The idea actually started from the name I gave a club in the Vampire the Masquerade campaign I am doing with a bunch of my friends. However, I think the poem turned out nicely. Honor societies are a prevalent factor of life at McDaniel and they have societies for all kinds of majors and minors. Literature is only a minor for me, but I love it and I really cannot wait for the first few meetings of LIT.

Night Wish

A whisper in the shadows, eaten by the dark,

A soft sigh in the moonlight, taken by a breeze,

A deep breathe while sleeping, heard by no one at all,

A wish in the night;

A dream in the early hours of the morning,

Forgotten as time goes on;

A fleeting thought as they try to fall asleep,

Lost in hours of slumber;

A laugh in the silence, only heard by her lover,

A gasp of fear, only heard by a friend,

A splash from a tear drop, silent in the room,

A wish in the night?

What is a wish in the night?

Is it a dream forgotten in the lights of day?

Is it a nightmare, pushed out of your mind?

Is it the passing ideas that we so often forget?

A sleepy glance, as he drifts off at night,

A smile on her face, as she wakes with the light,

A look of confusion, as they look around with fright,

What could they have wished in the night?

A wish in the night is the plot of a dream,

A wish in the night is a brief instance of memory,

A wish in the night is the fear of a nightmare,

A wish in the night is the end of a story;

A final breathe, ending a life,

A silent sorrow, lost to the world,

A new cry, beginning anew,

A happy tear, starting again;

What is a wish in the night?

Is it a happy dream or a tearful sorrow?

Is it a thought in the wind?

A memory brought on by the rain?

Night wish is the sounds lost around us,

Night wish is the looks that we miss,

Night wish is the time speeding by us,

Night wish is the way to remember all that we miss.

That is the poem, Nightwish, that I wrote.

I also had a major paper due for Boukhars today and I was quite proud of myself for writing 10 pages in 2 days because before that I had been sick and just not really up to working on the paper. I feel like I wrote it well, however, so I was glad to turn it in and proud of myself for being able to get it done in time even though I missed half of my classes last week thanks to broncitis. I am also glad to see that while I have a lot of make-up work I am not too far behind in any of my classes. I really enjoy writing so the poem and the paper were not too much work at all. I am actually looking forward to doing a few more short pieces in the near future, mostly for fun but also just to have something to submit to Contrast, the lit mag here on campus.

I always thought that with the end of high school I would leave gym class behind forever, but part of McDaniel’s liberal arts plan includes four half credit gym classes. At first I was wary of this requirement. I started off taking things that can only be described as easy credit. I took fitness walking, and I also took jogging. As the names sound these classes did not require much past participation.

Once I reached junior and senior year, however, more options started being open. There were fun classes offered that usually filled up quickly, but for the first time I was in a position to actually take them. At this time gym started seeming like a fun way to unwind rather than a dreaded chore. I looked through classes and tried to decide between things like bowling and archery.

So my senior year gym class what did I end up with? Fitness games. It sounds ridiculous but the word fitness convinced me. At first I was apprehensive, but it turns out to be one of my favorite classes. We play games that I used to play in elementary school, only now we are more physically capable. I actually feel good at them! It’s like going back to kindergarten reading as an adult, easy! We have played all sorts of silly tag games which, other than going faster, are pretty much how I spent my elementary school days. Right before graduation it is nice to be nostalgic for a good childhood game and actually have the chance to play it.

So remember that internship interview a while back, well I finally got follow up on it and it went really well. I got to hear more about the actual job that it entails and it sounds like a lot of fun. I will be working with emergency services in order to design a system in case of a prolonged power outage in Carroll County and various other simulation based systems as well. I haven’t gotten the internship for sure as of yet, but I was told to expect to be contacted about orientation early next week, so I’ll know soon if nothing else. I hope I get the internship, but if it doesn’t work out then it just means I’ll have a little more free time for the remainder of the semester.

I also did formally get the job I applied for at Rite Aid, which is great. It is a night shift job which won’t be good for my sleep schedule but it is about 28 hours a week and it pays more than my previous pharmacy job which is also nice. I am getting the extra job in order to hopefully start paying back some of my college loans early as well as in order to save up money for a trip to Jordan and for post college. I am not too worried about the money, but the extra cash will be nice for savings and for making my trip to Jordan more feasible. The summer program I want to do is a lot of money – about $10,000 in all and I have more than half of that saved up already but it is still a lot of saving to do. If it doesn’t work out though, I already have a backup plan. I applied for several summer internships – my favorite is a research program in Texas which my choice of research topics.

This week was really busy with the final Rite Aid interview, the followup for the internship, and more. Still, it was a good week and yesterday I took the day to just relax before doing homework, etc today. I still have a paper and a few short readings to finish tomorrow, but the day to rest was definitely needed and well enjoyed. It is always nice when the semester is busy to get a day to just relax, catch up on your favorite tv shows, play guild wars (or whatever your game of choice is), and just breathe.

Last night, one of the clubs I’m involved in on campus, Heroes Helping Hopkins, had a different sort of fundraiser: eating at Buffalo Wild Wings!

Heroes Helping Hopkins (HHH) is a service club on campus, and we make dinners for families at the Believe in Tomorrow Children’s House who have children in the pediatric section of John Hopkins Hospital. It’s a really fun and rewarding way to show some kindness to people who are going through a tough time. The idea is simple- we have “Cook Nights” every month that members sign up for to drive down to the Children’s house and make a meal and a dessert for the families.

In order to have the money needed for buying the food for such Cook Nights, our brilliant leadership organized a fundraiser with Buffalo Wild Wings, where if people brought a specific coupon, 10% of their purchase would go towards HHH. Other campus organizations have done this before- but never have I seen this amount of advertising for the event! HHH was on top of making sure everybody on campus knew: Facebook, emails, word of mouth, they had it all. As someone who knows about the effort it take to promote events, I was pretty impressed. Even more impressive was the turn-out on Thursday night. I’m pretty sure half of McDaniel turned up that night.

My friends and I were there for both a friend’s birthday and the fundraiser, so we had a relatively large group and had to wait a while to be seated. As we were waiting, there was a constant stream of greetings to people we knew coming and going and spotting even more people in the crowd already eating. Surrounded by TV screens showing at least ten sports games at once, we had a fun time eating and joking around. All told, HHH raised $236 for our future Cook Nights!

Not bad for just eating wings and burgers.