After two long rainy days that started off the second to last week of classes, we finally had a sun filled day. This was perfect timing for McDaniel’s first annual FunFest – essentially a mini-carnival. The FunFest was hosted by the Trumpeters (no, we do not play trumpets) as a fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club of Westminster. We are hoping that next year the new Trumpeters will continue the FunFest and carry on the tradition!

Several organizations on campus joined in on the fun to make the event a success including the Asian Community Coalition, the Writing Center, the Free Press, Alpha Lambda Delta, and Allies. Each organization hosted a different carnival game that students could play to win raffle tickets. The lollipop tree seemed to be the most popular game followed by the “Pie a writing tutor in the face” station. I paid $5 to pie my friend in the face and it was well worth the money! There was also a rubber duckie grab, corn hole, ballon darts, and “Comic Knockout.”

Music was blasting and friends were chatting all afternoon while soaking in the sun to begin their long awaited farmer’s tans. There were a lot of lucky winners who won donated gift cards to restaurants and businesses located all over Westminster. The most sought after gift card seemed to be the Rafael’s $20 gift card  (a popular bar to hang out with friends on Thursday nights).

The event helped raise over $160 for the Boys and Girl Club of Westminster, which I am sure they will be excited to hear about!

Intramural sports at McDaniel are a great way to have fun with friends while feeding a little bit of your competitive side. Literally anyone at McDaniel can enjoy intramural sports – even those who think they are not athletic! I have had several people who had never played a sport before participate on my flag football team and they are the ones who never stop talking about how much of a blast they had.

One reason that intramural sports are so versatile for any kind of student is that there are different leagues within each sport ranging in competitiveness. The most competitive league by far is the Men’s League, but if you are someone more interested in having fun while intimidating a few people in the process than the Coed or Women’s (but now always) League are a better fit. There is also a wide variety of intramural sports to choose from including flag football, outdoor soccer, indoor soccer, basketball, softball, floor hockey, and volleyball. I am currently on a coed volleyball team this semester and looking forward to playing two games tomorrow night. We narrowly lost two games last week so we are hungry for victory!

While there are plenty of t-shirts distributed to students at McDaniel throughout the year, the most coveted t-shirt by far is the Intramural Champion t-shirt. I have witnessed seniors shed tears upon failing to win this shirt at their last opportunity before they graduate. It is not the easiest feat to acquire the Intramural Champion t-shirt and it does require a significant amount of sweat and dedication. As a freshman, I was fortunate to receive the champion t-shirt for winning the Coed Volleyball Championship and have been wearing my t-shirt with pride ever since.

One great thing about McDaniel is its close proximity to Baltimore. It is fairly easy for students to take advantage of the city and have a good time during the weeknights and weekends. Last night, for instance, I went to an Orioles game with a group of guys from my tennis team, which is a pretty popular thing for McDaniel students to do.

If you go on the right nights you can get really cheap tickets! Last night was only $10, pretty affordable for college students. We drove into the city, but if you do not have a car you can use McDaniel’s transportation system called the Pickle (big green shuttle van) to get to the Owings Mills metro station, which will take you right into the city.

If you are 21 you can get to city early and hang out a popular bar right outside of the baseball stadium called Pickles Pub (not to be confused with McDaniel’s transportation system). You can enjoy talking with friends and meeting new people while staying refreshed with Baltimore’s proudly brewed beer National Bohemian Beer!

The O’s games attract a large crowd so you always feel like you are at the right place when you first walk into Camden Yards. Last night was a particularly exciting night since the Tampa Bay Rays and the Orioles were tied at 6 and needed to go into an extra inning. The Orioles had the bases loaded when they hit a home run and made the fans go crazy!!! It could not have been a better ending. My friends and I even made it on the JumboTron and had our three seconds of fame!

Half of my group made their way back to McDaniel while the rest of us stayed behind and celebrated at the bars, which are always a great time especially when the Orioles get a victory!

Red Square is the center of campus and the perfect location for McDaniel’s new tradition of hosting a Farmers Market! Since this event was such a success last semester there was no question that it had to be done again this semester.

Local businesses set up tents and sell their goods to students trekking across campus. I could not resist the smell of the freshly popped kettle corn and gave in to buying a large bag. SERVV had a wide variety of fair trade gifts from all over the world – perfect gifts for Mother’s day coming up! A local jewelry shop lady had a consistent crowd of girls admiring her collections of handmade earrings. The pickle tent might have been the most popular by far especially since they had free samples. The old bay seasoned pickles were quite a hit! I was a little disappointed that the bread man was not at this Farmers Market, but honestly it was probably a good thing (I bought/ate way too much bread that day). Either way it was a great event that attracted a lot of students and provided something different/fun to do in between classes PLUS it supported the local businesses!

My mom was not too exhilarated at first when she heard that I went to a peep show with my friends, but little did she realize that it was actually a display of marshmallow masterpieces.
The PEEPshow has become quite the popular event to attend around Easter time in the past six years since the tradition began. Local artists, families, businesses, and school groups submit hundreds of creative and wacky marshmallow masterpieces. I did not realize just how many submissions there were until I got there!

Admission was free – something always attractive to college students (aka me and my friends). We spent about half in hour laughing at humorous submissions and dropping our jaws when we came across those truly spectacular masterpieces made entirely of marshmallow Peeps! We were about to leave when we found out that there were three more rooms of Peeps creations upstairs – it seemed endless! The most entertaining part about the peep creations was the titles of the creations. All of them incorporated the word “peep” into the title – examples: Peep-seidon, The Life of Peep, Silver Linings Peepbook, and Same-Peep Marriage.

Vote chips were available for purchase so that you could vote for your favorite creations. The creators of the entries with the most votes wins a Peeps themed prize pack. The best part is that all the proceeds benefit the Carroll Country Arts Council. All the submissions are up for sale and quite a number of them were already sold when I went. The last day of the PEEPshow is April 7, 2013 so it is not too late to check it out if you live nearby! Maybe you can submit a creation next year!

Here is an example of one of my favorite submissions!
Title: Long Live Sesame Peep