I love travelling, I love looking at maps, and I love planning my future. That said, this week was fun! [Note: I have 2 sisters, one lives in Washington, DC, and one lives in Gonaives, Haiti.]

First, my father and I finalized my travel plans for Thanksgiving/Winter Break; they are awesome! My sister and I will both be driving home to Boston for Thanksgiving, and my friend Robby will be coming with us. I haven’t been home since August, so I am looking forward to the chance to relax and show off my city to one of my friends.

As soon as my finals are over, I will fly to California to attend my cousin’s wedding in San Luis Obispo. Then I’ll go from there to my uncle’s house in Columbus, Ohio. From Columbus, Hilary and Kelsey, 2 of my coolest cousins, and I will be flying down to Haiti to visit my sister. We couldn’t be more apprehensive about the trip: its my fourth visit to Haiti, but for Hilary and Kelsey, its their first time to the third world country. I called my sister in Haiti today and she is already thinking about how to make our stay as fun and helpful as possible. For sure we will be playing plenty of soccer.

The other great thing that happened today was that I finally turned in all my paperwork for my semester abroad: Belgium, here I come!! It was a rush at the deadline (including a drive to Walgreens to get one more passport photo printed), but I got everything in. Now I just have to sit back and wait for the Belgian university to get back to me. Fingers crossed!

So, all in all, as a person that loves flying, seeing friends and family, and planning trips, this has been an awesome week.

My friends and I have a new awesome tradition: Ice skating every Friday! I grew up in New England, skating on frozen ponds and rivers every winter with my family. Skating outdoors is the best. I have fond memories of shoveling p ice rinks and playing pick up hockey with my dad and brother, or smashing thie ice and trying to ice-fish with my sister. One of the things I miss most when I’m at school is winter sports, but skating every Friday is helping fill that hole.

It all started when one of my friends, who is from Texas, said she wanted to go skating because she’s going to school in the “north.” Now, despite the fact that McDaniel is as far from the north as Hurricane Sandy was from being dry, I agreed that skating was an awesome idea. Another friend said that he played hockey when he was younger and he’d love to as well. All of a sudden, we were going to the Reisterstown Sports Complex and we were skating!

Skating has been awesome. So far, we’ve had 9 different people go, worn 2 Halloween costumes, met 1 hockey prodigy, taught 2 friends how to skate, and only taken 1 girl to the hospital! It has been great to get the extra exercise and to prepare myself for winter break (so as not to be embarrassed by my sisters).

I went today dressed as Where’s Waldo. When I stepped on the ice, every preteen at the rink (maybe 200) started screaming at once. They were so excited to see someone dressed up that they couldn’t contain themselves. At first the attention was nice, but eventually it did get pretty annoying eventually. In the end I let some kids borrow my hat and glasses, and we had a great time skating around and around and around.

On Saturday I went to a corn maze in Pennsylvania called Maize Quest. I went freshman year too, and it’s the only corn maze I’ve ever been to (we don’t have many corn fields in Boston). Simply put, Maize Quest is the single greatest day ever.

Three of my closest friends (Becky, Kyle, and Joel) and I were all on the same team. We raced through the maze looking for different clues hidden in dark corners of the field. We started off great: we ran into some other group and we were doing much better than them at collecting clues.  Then the sun went to down and so did our luck. Suddenly we kept going back to the same places, couldn’t find any new clues, and started getting annoyed. However, we kept our spirits up with plenty of jokes, and eventually gave up and went to get some Cracker Barrel.

The Maize Quest is one of the activities run by the Honors Program every semester. Becky is this year’s Honor’s Events Coordinator, and she organized the trip, which is open not only to Honors students but also to friends of Honors students (or really anyone that wants to come). This year at least 4 non-Honors kids came (out of 30 total students). Events like the corn maze are awesome because it lets kids who are normally studying and reading and discussing Aristotle let loose and act like idiots. And nothing brings friends closer than getting lost in the darkness over and over and over.

If I could give one piece of advice to give new students, it would be to sign up for events like this one! There will be countless Saturdays that you sleep in, lay around all day, watch a movie, and then go out. Going on a day trip, even if it turns out to suck, will be a great chance to bond. And I promise it will create lasting college memories.

I just finished my first long paper of the semester. It’s 12 pages on the history of the trading fairs that took place in the French province of Champagne in the 12th and 13th centuries. The class I wrote it for is European Economic History, taught by Dr. McIntyre, one of two writing classes I’m taking this semester. The other is Writing for Law and Policy with Dr. Dobson. Interestingly, even though the assignment for European Econ was much longer, the Law and Policy writing assignments have been much more challenging for me.

When we learn to write in elementary, middle, and high school, we are taught to write in a certain way, and to a certain audience. What is difficult about the law class is that we have to write in a completely different style. The audience for a lawyer’s brief is other lawyers, for a client letter, clients. Lawyers have to be able to write in diverse styles so that they can be understood by people who have PhD’s and by people who never graduated high school. Lawyers also need to be able to write in a sympathetic manner, in an angry tone, or in a deferential way.

I do NOT want to be a lawyer. I don’t think I’d be great at it and I don’t think I’d enjoy it very much. But that doesn’t mean the law class is a waste of time. Learning to write like a lawyer has helped me understand how to better frame my writing depending on the audience. This skill can help me when I’m asking my dad for money, when I’m writing a letter of intent to study abroad, or a thank you letter to my grandparents. I guess what I’m trying to say is, not every class in college will be directly related to your career, but you can put all of them to good use.

This week was midterm week. Midterms are basically the first time you really know how you’re going to do in a class, because you have done a substantial amount of work and your teacher has revealed how she is going to grade large assignments. Most teachers give midterm exams, but some assign papers or projects instead. I don’t mean to brag, but I usually do well on big assignments. I test well, I’m a good writer, I know my way around a PowerPoint, and I’m a decent public speaker. In fact, my biggest faults are definitely smaller assignments that I neglect or overlook.

That said, I don’t mind midterm week (or finals week) as much as most of my friends do. Sometimes I study in groups with classmates, and they ask me why I’m not as worried as they are. I tell them what my 11th grade biology teacher used to tell us before each big test: if our life is the chalk, then this test is a speck that the eraser missed. Whenever I begin to worry, I always remember that no single test can define my future; I will always have at least one other chance to better my grade.

So I took my midterms. I only had 2, in my science class and in my business ethics class. I did pretty well on both of them, not blowing anyone out of the water, but certainly doing well enough to please my mother (the ultimate question: is Mom happy?). Now begins the part of the semester that seems the longest; fortunately, Halloween should be a fun distraction!