A trip to Baltimore

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Annie Brown

One of the perks of being in McDaniel’s Honors Program is the chance to go on the annual Honors field trip. This year’s trip was to Baltimore, and for only $5, I had the chance to be whisked away to the Inner Harbor on what turned out to be a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

I spent most of my afternoon at the American Visionary Arts Museum with fellow Honors Program member and e-ambassador Mara. The large mirror mosaics gave us a chance to work on some artistic photography before heading into the museum, where unfortunately, no pictures were allowed. I really enjoyed the exhibits. My favorite exhibit was called “The Art of Storytelling,” which is on display through September 1. The exhibit, which featured several artists, consisted of pieces that had very integral narrative components. I loved the beautiful and intricate fabric pieces done by Esther Nisenthal Krinitz, with which the artist told the powerful story of how Nazis came to occupy her small town in Poland and how she and her sister escaped before being sent to a concentration camp.

After we explored the museum inside and out, Mara and I returned to the Inner Harbor for ice cream and some people watching. Mara created a point system to keep track of all the runners we saw; whoever spotted a runner first would get a point. (Mara won.)

We browsed through a few shops before meeting up with the rest of the group at Bubba Gump’s Shrimp and Seafood to have a tasty and fun dinner paid for by the Honors Program.

After dinner, there was a little time before we had to board the bus to return to campus, so a few girls and I went to the newly-opened Marshall’s (which was not that great) and Barnes and Noble before our trip came to a close.

I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful Sunday to go to Baltimore and spending time with some of my Honors peers exploring the city was a lot of fun!

English major events galore!

Posted on April 13, 2013 by Annie Brown

The English department is busy this month, so it’s an exciting time to be an English major!

On Thursday, this year’s issue of McDaniel’s literary magazine, Contrast, was finally unveiled! Despite the fact that the magazine did not show up (the printer did not deliver the shipment in 48 hours as promised), the event was successful. Harrison House was full of students, professors, and even family members of those published. People read their published submissions as a slideshow of the issue’s artwork cycled behind them. There was also food–the brownies were delicious!

Last night, the English department, in conjunction with the Honors Program, hosted a literary masquerade. The whole campus was invited to come dressed as their favorite literary characters. I went as Hermione Granger, since I had a Gryffindor scarf left over from my archetypes and Harry Potter presentation. Some of my favorite costumes of the evening included Edgar Allan Poe, Queequeg (from Moby-Dick), Violet Beauregarde (from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and Nancy Drew.

There are still more fun English events to come!

This Tuesday, students from Dr. Kathy Mangan’s poetry class will be reading their poetry aloud at Carroll Arts Center. I’m hoping to go if I can find time and some friends to make the walk to the arts center with me.

This coming Monday, the English department, along with McDaniel’s Center for Experience and Opportunity (CEO) will host a panel of alumni discussing what they’ve done with their English degrees. I haven’t yet made up my mind as to what I’ll do once I graduate, so I’m looking forward to some insight and networking.

Next Tuesday, April 23, Shakespeare in the Square will take place in Red Square to honor the birthday of William Shakespeare. McDaniel’s improv troupe, Dangersauce, will perform a comedic version of a Shakespearean play, and other students will read or reenact works of Shakespeare of their choice. It should be fun, and I might try to find a sonnet of Shakespeare that I like to read aloud.

Having such an active English department makes me happy to be an English major at McDaniel!

So many things!

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Annie Brown

I’ve done and been to so many things over the past few days that I don’t know which ones to blog about! As a result, I’d like to share a lot of those things with you in the form of a list with some brief descriptions.

Saturday

-I went to MAWCA, a writing center conference, where I learned some new things and bonded with my coworkers

Sunday

-I finally gave my presentation on archetypes and alchemy in Harry Potter. The presentation was a success and my co-presenters and I had dinner at an Irish restaurant called Ryan’s Daughter afterward.

Monday

-Another week of class, but for the first time this year, truly gorgeous weather!

-Pinwheels! Rainbow pinwheels graced Red Square in order to promote student contributions to the Annual Fund. Private colleges such as McDaniel require contributions from alumni and other donors in order to make the cost of college more affordable for students.

-Allies Week began! Our campus gay-straight alliance, Allies, sponsors this week every year to voice support for LGBTQ issues. They host a lot of fun events throughout the week!

Tuesday

-My only class today was canceled so that the professor could meet individually with us to discuss our papers in progress.

-I spent two hours in the writing center, leading a tutoring session, discussing MAWCA and social media, and finding and photographing a new cover photo for the McDaniel Writing Center Facebook page. It was time well-spent!

-I took a walk around campus and took some pictures of the daffodils in bloom.

-An event called “Around the World in 80 Plates” took place in Red Square. I had fun tasting a number of the worldly desserts served!

-I registered for classes for next semester! I’m taking classes in rhetoric, writing, literature, and German cinema. I even snagged a spot in a yoga class!

-I went to “McDaniel’s First Time,” the first drag show ever held on campus. Being at a drag show was strange and unfamiliar to me, but I enjoyed it (and I learned that bringing a bunch of one dollar bills to a drag show is an expectation).

Overall, the warm weather, combined with the ample social interaction and plenty of fun things to do has made me a happy girl this week! Though busy, April is probably the best month of the spring semester because there’s so many fun things to do!

Poet Lia Purpura

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Annie Brown

On Tuesday night, I had the opportunity to listen to poet and essayist Lia Purpura read some of her work at tonight’s Bothe Lecture on campus. The Bothe Lecture, named for alumnus Christopher Bothe, is an annual lecture sponsored by the English department and the Bothe family in which poets and writers come to read some of their works aloud.

All of the poems Purpua read came from her book of poetry, King Baby, a collection of poems about a mysterious “being” (depicted below) that she and her son found in a river one cold winter day and the powerful impact that this being had on her.

I really enjoyed listening to her read, but it wasn’t enough. For me, listening to poetry is hard if I don’t have the text in front of me. But the way she spoke and the emotion that came from her as she spoke about this being, King Baby, convinced me that I needed to buy the book, which would be on sale after she was done speaking. Not to mention that memoir in the form of poetry is a genre I have found that I like and would like to read more of.

Unfortunately, it occurred to me early on in the reading that I had forgotten my keys, which are attached to a small pouch in which I keep my student ID and some cash. I was bummed because I would not be able to buy and book and have it autographed. Fortunately, a very wonderful person who knows who she is agreed to spot me the money to purchase the book. I am so blessed!

So the day was saved! I now have my very own copy of King Baby signed by Lia Purpura, who is also lovely—she concurred that listening to poetry while wonderful, is also difficult.

I have already read few the first few poems, but it will be a while before I’ll have a chance to tackle the collection in its entirety. But I am very fortunate to now have a copy of the book because it brings me one step closer to having that chance.

Easter on and off the Hill

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Annie Brown

My Easter weekend is quickly coming to a close.(McDaniel does not give students off on Easter Monday.) In just hours, I’ll wake up from what little sleep I end up getting tonight and make the two-and-a-half hour drive back to campus with my mom, who well then drive two-and-a-half hours back to Pennsylvania. All of the time spent commuting will be worth it though, since I had a lovely weekend with my family!

When I go home for the weekend, I usually have one of my parents pick me up on Friday afternoon. However, we did things a little differently this weekend: On Saturday afternoon, my whole family–both my parents and both of my siblings–trekked down to Westminster to see not only me but also Carroll Arts Center’s annual PEEPshow.

The PEEPshow, most fortunately, is not what its name might first imply; Westminster’s PEEPshow is a relatively new tradition in Carroll County where people create sculptures, movies, and other artwork made with Marshmallow Peeps, which are then displayed for about two weeks. I went last year with my uncle and cousin when they came to visit me, and I was so impressed with it that I went a second time that week. This year, I wanted to share the creativity and sheer awesomeness of the Peeps with my immediate family, and they were equally or more impressed by all of the great entries as I was.

The PEEPshow will be at Carroll Arts Center daily through April 7 from 10-7. If you live anywhere near Westminster, I highly suggest that you check it out, particularly if you already happen to be visiting McDaniel. But if you can’t go, fear not! There’s plenty of pictures from this year and years past here!

My fun this weekend did not stop with the PEEPshow, however. I got to go home for Easter, which was exciting since I did not get to go home for it last year (my family dared to take a vacation to California without me since my siblings were on spring break). I love Easter at home because it combines family and food with the added dimension of chocolate. This year’s Easter was extra great too. Some of my cousins, whom I don’t normally see on Easter, came because my oldest cousin, also home for Easter, had to drive back to college and my house is on the way. My extended family and I sat down to a delicious dinner home-cooked by my mother, and my dad even hid eggs around the house for my siblings, cousins, and I to find. (I’ll never be too old for an Easter egg hunt!)

My weekend was fabulous, and it’s kind of crazy that I’m still home. But the extra hours spent home instead of speeding back to campus on the night of Easter Sunday will be worth it because I truly got to enjoy my Easter weekend.

Friday night at Westminster Station

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Annie Brown

I’m not one to go wild and crazy on Friday nights, but I still like to have fun over the weekend. Often time, my friends and I will hang out in my suite’s common room (like we do on most nights), but tonight, I went with a couple of friends to Westminster Station, a local coffee shop.

Westminster Station is nice because it’s in walking distance from McDaniel (though we drove because it was cold and dark out) and because it’s open until 11 or so. They have a variety of drinks including tea, smoothies, and of course, coffee, and they’re quite tasty. They also have a gift shop with some pretty random and entertaining items. The atmosphere is nice–there’s plenty of tables but also plenty of sofas and there are more secluded and areas that are more out in the open. The bathroom is also worth mentioning, as it has a chalkboard wall. A lot of live music takes place here too.

There’s also plenty of books to read and look through. I was pleasantly surprised to find a copy of last year’s issue of Contrast, McDaniel’s literary magazine sitting on the coffee table where my friends and I situated ourselves for the evening. (I highly recommend perusing through the 2012 edition of Contrast if you ever get the chance–it’s a beautifully designed book with phenomenal prose, poetry, and artwork.) We spent a lot of our time looking through an astrology book that was also there, learning about our signs, our friends’ signs, and various interpersonal compatibility factors of each sign.

I had a lovely time and the fact that I was with a small group of friends was a nice change of pace for me. I have so many friends on campus who all like to hang out as one big group that I don’t always get to interact with my friends on a more individual basis. There’s nothing like being in a coffeehouse with good fun and good friends, and I would love go out for coffee more often.

McDaniel appears on Buzzfeed!

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Annie Brown

Like many, I love the internet. I love social networks, goofy videos, Tumblr, and memes of all sorts. (I even wrote a paper analyzing the rhetoric and genre of Advice Animals for my Approaches to Everyday Discourse class last semester. It was a fun experience–I got to spend gobs of time on the internet while writing a paper at the same time, without all the shame of spending all that time online while writing a paper not about the internet.)

So as an internet aficionado, I was thrilled tonight when I found out that McDaniel’s South Park and Contemporary Issues class was mentioned in an article, “15 Geeky College Courses You Won’t Believe Actually Exist,” which was published on Buzzfeed a few weeks back. The course is a sophomore interdisciplinary studies class about South Park and how the show deals with controversial social issues, and you should definitely read more about it here.

I love it when McDaniel gets national exposure, and to see the College get mentioned on a website so accessible and interesting to young people (and one that I really like) is exciting! Buzzfeed is amusing and even thought-provoking, and working there is my dream internship. Perhaps if I get to apply, I can tell them about my awesome college and our super cool South Park class.

And speaking of cool college courses, McDaniel has a lot of them. Check out our course catalog to decide for yourself which ones are the coolest.

Tips for making the most of your spring break

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Annie Brown

Spring break in college gives you the opportunity to do a lot of things, so take advantage of your time off. Here are some tips and ideas for your spring break:

1. Homework

If you’re stuck with homework over your break, don’t wait until the last minute! (This is a predicament I currently find myself in.) Either frontload your break with homework (after you’ve given yourself the first day of break off, of course) or spread it out throughout the entirety of your break, doing a little homework each day. Spring break isn’t supposed to be stressful, so don’t let it be by procrastinating.

2. Get Ahead

Were you not stuck with a lot of homework during spring break? Lucky you!–I’m jealous! Even if you don’t have a lot of things due immediately after break, if you have some downtime, why not get ahead? Try to get something out of the way that would cause you stress if you were trying to do it on campus, be that reading, some smaller assignments, or one larger assignment. The last half of spring semester is no walk in the park, so why not make life easier for yourself?

3. Go Places!

If you have the time and means to go on a big trip during your spring break, go for it! Vacations are fun and memorable! But even if you can’t go on a cross-country road trip or fly down to Florida, you don’t have to stay in your house for all of spring break. Find some friends or family members and plan a day trip or an afternoon outing. Whether you go someplace you’ve never been or somewhere you’ve been a hundred times, your backyard is a place for fun and exploration!

4. Apply for Summer Jobs and Internships

Summer may seem ages away, but the time to seek out summer jobs and internships is now, during spring break, when companies are looking for students to fill summer positions. Apply for a variety of things, including both paid jobs and internships, and just like applying for “reach” colleges, apply for some “reach” jobs–you never know what could happen.

5. Indulge in Some Downtime!

You’ve just finished up with midterms! You’ve earned some downtime! Catch up on that TV show you’ve been meaning to watch, rent a few good movies, tackle your bookshelf, or do whatever else is relaxing for you. Just remember to have your downtime in moderation–be productive too!

A trip to Lancaster

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Annie Brown

It’s been a lovely spring break here at home for me, but when my mom had off from work yesterday, we decided that the day would best be spent taking a day trip together.

We decided to make the not-too-far trek to Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, just a little over an hour away from my home and about an hour and a half away from Westminster. Lancaster is well-known for its Pennsylvania Dutch subculture, which includes groups of Anabaptists known as the Amish and the Mennonites.

Our mission in Lancaster was to shop well, eat well, and find a selection of tasty Pennsylvania Dutch desserts to take home, and we succeeded in this mission quite well. We first went to a few of the shops in the Rockvale Outlets before having a delicious all-you-can-eat buffet lunch at Miller’s Smorgasbord, with food so tasty it would make Glar food weep with envy. (Sorry, Glar.)

After eating more food than we should have, my mom and I drove around the towns of Intercourse (yes, that’s the town’s actual name) and Bird-in-Hand to go to some smaller shops and bakeries. My mom loves to explore Lancaster and she actually knows her way around pretty well. My favorite part of this leg of the journey was our stop at the Bird-in-Hand Bakery, where we were greeted by goats and fluffy chickens before we went inside to purchase chocolate shoo-fly pie, apple dumplings, and other Pennsylvania Dutch baked goods.

We finished out our trip by going to the Tanger Outlets, another outlet mall in the area, where we went to a few more stores.

I had a fabulous day! I added a few new pieces to my wardrobe and indefinitely postponed my “diet” yet again, but best of all, I got to spend an entire day hanging out with my mom.

A Pi Day fit for an English major

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Annie Brown

I’ve always seen Pi Day as a day that makes math accessible to everyone. It’s a day for people to make pi-based puns and jokes, eat pie, and perhaps even learn about some of the math that has to do with it. (If you happen to be someone who does want to learn something about pi, check out this video.) I made sure I stopped by the math department this afternoon to get a tasty slice of pie to celebrate and chat with some friends who are math majors.

While Pi Day is most certainly a day to celebrate math, my boss Josh, the director of McDaniel’s writing center, decided to add an English major sort of twist to it by hosting a a get-together he called Pi and Pie on Pi (Day). He invited all of the current writing tutors and tutors in training to his house for an evening of tacos, homemade ice cream, games, and of course, pie. He also screened Life of Pi for those who were able to stay.

The evening was so fun and delicious! We played Mennonite Madness, a very simple and super competitive game, and Whisper Down the Lane Pictionary, which was hilarious. The homemade food was delicious, especially the chocolate mocha Oreo ice cream. If I hadn’t had so much homework waiting for me back on campus, I would have stayed to watch the movie too.

I had a great time and I had fun getting to know my fellow writing tutors some more. We have a group of intelligent, friendly, and funny people who currently work and will be working in the Writing Center, so when you’re a student on the Hill, be sure to schedule appointments with us to get some awesome feedback on your papers and other writings!

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