Tag Archives: Friends

Home Alone In Boston Is Not So Alone After All

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Of course we all look forward to Thanksgiving Break here on the Hill. Though we love our campus and friends dearly, we also love a few days without class and a fantastic home-cooked meal. I chose to spend the break with my friend Barnabas in Boston. I saw it as a chance to meet some new people and explore a new city, but I didn’t think it would changed the way I viewed myself as a McDaniel Student or McDaniel as a whole.

We left at 7pm after classes on Tuesday and arrived at Barney’s house in Boston at 3am Wednesday morning. After sleeping for most of the morning on Wednesday, I awoke to meet both of Barney’s parents and enjoy a delicious breakfast that made Glar pale in comparison.  However, there was a feeling I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I felt like a Cowboys fan in the middle of a pack of Redskins’ fans at the game on Thursday (Go Skins!), and I realized it was because I was not with my family on this holiday for the first time in nineteen years.

Living only an hour away from my home at school, I see my parents plenty. Still, there is something very nerve racking about breaking a tradition you had not realized the importance of; then add the feeling of lost in a big city and you have an early nineties Christmas movie. (Home Alone 2, best Christmas movie ever right?)

Later in the day Barney and I went into the city to see the historic sites which put me in a better mood. My mom is a huge fan of American history as was my grandfather; so if there was any acceptable way to spend Thanksgiving away from my mom, it was to spend it looking at important pieces of history like the burial grounds of John Hancock, John Adams, and Paul Revere. Touring, what locals call, the “North End,” which to this day embodies the image of colonial Boston complete with crooked streets, alleyways that you have to turn sideways to walk through, and the Boston Harbor  all these sites representing the precursors of the ensuing fight that would allow our nation its freedom.

All this time I had been wearing my McDaniel College hoodie to proudly represent where I come from just as Boston boasts a proud history of brave men. And it was just as we were outside of Paul Revere’s house on North Street that I was stopped by a guy shouting “Hey! Do you go to McDaniel College in Westminster?” Of course I said yes,and the guy proceeded to tell me that he was an alumnus of the school. He had attended McDaniel back in the eighties. He described in detail how Red Square used to be a parking lot, and what it was like to have Gill Gym only be composed of the single gym brick building we refer to as old Gill these days. He told me his time at McDaniel was the best of his life and that he wouldn’t trade it even for a free tour of Paul Revere’s house (okay so I made that up, but good lord the house looked so cool and tours were so expensive).

It was so cool to encounter randomly someone who had attended and graduated from McDaniel, a student body of about 1700 students, in such a large city with over 600,000 people. I didn’t feel so homesick after that because I realized that home is all around. At McDaniel, a huge part of your education is to make you a citizen of the world. I’ve never been out of the country, but I can definitely say that I feel as though I am quickly becoming a part of a great community of alumni and students in this country and that when I wear my McDaniel hoodie I am home as far as I’m concerned.

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To Be a Part of Something Big!

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This past Friday I was initiated into the fraternity I have been pledging for most of this past semester, Alpha Sigma Phi. As anyone might indicate, becoming a part of a fraternity is no easy undertaking and consumes a good portion of your time. This is true. Finding a balance between my various responsibilities to class, friends, and school work was quite difficult. It was worth it though to join arguably one of the best fraternities on the Hill.

Alpha Sig is a social fraternity with a purpose: To better the man through an understanding of the core concepts of silence, honor, charity, purity, and patriotism. By publicly promoting this goal, which most fraternities only share with initiated brothers and pledges, the fraternity is held accountable by both itself and the community at large. This makes the fraternity a body of men, of whom are some of the best guys to know on campus, and of which it is an honor to be a part. Not to mention they’re some of the most enjoyable people to hang with.

Brotherhoods have two major stigmas: that they change perfectly nice guys into jerks, by robbing them of their beliefs and brainwashing them with new, conformist beliefs; the other is that it is essentially a way for losers to buy friends. It’s not one and it’s not the other, it might be called a mixture of both but I feel that neither statement can be taken in their fullest senses.This is me saying that this is not an accurate representation of Greek life at McDaniel in general, and is certainly not applicable to Alpha Sigma Phi.

I was not brainwashed in the process of pledging. However my mind was opened up to many new ideas about what it means to be a citizen of my community, this country, and in many ways the world as I was encouraged to question my goals and values. This with the intent of making me a gentleman, not to take away everything that is good in me. I did not buy friends, but I did gain 27 brothers who I have come to enjoy and love through the sharing of common values. They are friends, but they are so much more that. Though the true bond we share is revealed only through the secrecy of the initiation process, the result is the same: a band of brothers all committed to improving each other as gentlemen and humans.

Though I may look back on this experience as one of the more challenging of my lifetime, it was certainly one of the most valuable and I treasure this experience as it has put me in a place where I feel confident in the forward direction my life is heading, and in my peers as good influences in my life. I highly recommend Greek life, like most things it sounds scarier than it is, and when it’s over you get to wear letters!

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Intramural Sports

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McDaniel College is home to 24 Division III athletic sports, all part of the Centennial Conference. But we are also home to 11 intramural sports that I would argue are just as competitive, if not more so.

Several of my friends play on an intramural football team. While they always acted intense about playing time and uniforms for each week, I always took their comments as boys being boys. However, I finally went out to a game this past weekend. They played under the lights and my roommates and I had been promising we’d check it out before the season was over.

I was surprised how how legitimate the game was. Although it was flag football so there was no need for pads or helmets and there was no tackling, the boys all played really intense and followed the rules a lot more closely than I would have guessed.

My roommates and some of the boys are getting a team together for an intramural volleyball tournament on Halloween night. I think that intramural sports are a great way to get active and have fun with friends. And having that intramural champions t-shirt at the end of the season makes you the envy of a lot of people on campus.

There are a lot of intramural sports to check out, including floor hockey, basketball, and softball. So if you’re not ready to commit to a division 3 sport but you’re not ready to give up your high school sports, consider playing intramural and get the best of both worlds.

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It’s important to take a break sometimes too…

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Fall Break means changing leaves, beautiful Fall weather, time with family, and, most importantly, a break from the stress and rigor of school. For me it meant homework, studying, reading, and, most importantly, becoming a recluse so that I wouldn’t fall any further behind in my classes than I already had. I spent Friday and Saturday on campus, and after deciding that I really did miss my parents enough that I had to go home, I through my laundry and my books into my car and drove home.

Anyone will tell you that since Fall Break falls right after midterms, their homework load is usually pretty light. Teachers give students a temporary breather before slamming them in the second half of the semester between homework and eventually finals. I was less than enthused that I had such a heavy homework load, and was not the best guest to my family since I spent most afternoons locked in my room working. Then I realized that I had a sizable presentation due on the history of Wine due on the first day back from break, which added greatly to my stress. I felt alone in my struggle, especially since I didn’t have any of my school friends nearby to lean on.

Thanks to the invention of Skype, I managed to get unite virtually the friends with whom I was working on the presentation. I had expected that I would largely be leading the assignment since that is the way these things go, but each of them told me they had been doing a little bit of work on theirs all along and were finishing them up and even offered to help me do my portion of the project. I was overjoyed but still had a lot to do. At this point my friend Barney texted me and told me that he and my friends Kyle, Carleigh, and Nicole were down in my area and going rollerblading and that I should take a break and join him. After some hesitation I decided that I would rely on the help of my peers in getting the assignment done and allow myself a break.

What a great choice that was. It’s nice when a community, like the one at McDaniel, is so much a part of your life that you’re a part of it even when you’re an hour away. Thanks to my friends I too was able to have a Fall Break too, I was even reminded by Barney to spend my final day at home with my parents instead of with my laptop which was a much needed. I was reminded that while the family I have at home is important to me, the family I have at McDaniel is equally important, possibly more so, because they keep me grounded when I forget what is important. I don’t recommend falling behind on your assignments, but it’s important to realize that working yourself to death is no way to live.

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A Little Place Called Pub

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As many will agree, the Pub offers the best food on campus. This is not to say that the food offered at GLAR (Englar Dining Hall) isn’t palatable, just that the Pub’s food is more popular and maybe slightly better in quality since the food is made-to-order. In the past Spring semester they just gave the new offering of a chicken quesadilla which is by far the best thing they make there, but this is not on the meal exchange so it isn’t necessarily the most popular food offered. What is on the meal exchange, however, is the beef steak and cheese (or cheesesteak, whichever suits you. My roommate from Philadelphia always gives me a hard time) and this is my personal go-to everytime I’m in the mood for a quick snack.

My friends and I have taken to the regiment of playing pick-up soccer five times a week sunday-thursday from 10 to 11 when the gym closes. This leaves Friday and Saturday free for homework and other weekend activities. Since the Pub stays open until 11:30, it serves as a perfect post-soccer hangout. The chicken tenders are a good choice here because these are the only pre-cooked items on the menu and can be served within minutes.

Another good use of the pub is a quick lunch on Saturdays in the Fall where you just want to get back out to the football game. If you leave the game right at halftime and head directly to the pub, you can have a quick meal and be back out to the field right at the beginning of the second half, or even take the meal to-go which is an option that students can check on their meal exchange tickets.

The Pub is a fantastic dining option on campus and is, in general, a great place to hangout before classes, after classes, and between classes. Last year I found that one of my friends, Karen, had the same hour and a half break on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we would meet at the Pub for lunch and talk about our days; who was annoying us; what homework we hadn’t done for our next class. The Pub is more than a dining place, it is a staple of the McDaniel campus.

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