Road Trip!!!!!

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Robert

I think the value of a good road trip has been lost among our age group. For example, some of the best memories I will take from the year’s Spring Break will be from the 13 hour drives there and back with two of my best friends. Regardless of this, three other friends who also came with us to Florida will be flying back, and they have no idea what they’re missing. After all, nothing will help you get to know somebody better than 13 hours of close, personal interaction. It’s an invaluable piece of the college experience, in fact, I would argue that you have not lived unless you’ve packed up the car with a few of your closest friends and driven through the night to a tropical destination of choice.

For the trip down, Rachel and Stevie arrived at my house at 1am and we began our perilous journey to Florida. On the way down we drank red bull, exchanged funny stories, listened to Taylor Swift, Mackelmore, JT, Calvin Harris, whatever we had on our iPods; whatever was necessary to keep ourselves awake. We took shifts for sleep, always making sure that the driver had someone awake keeping them company. It wasn’t easy but by dawn we had made it to South Carolina in record timing. In five more hours we were smelling the fresh ocean air of Cocoa Beach, driving with the top down on the Florida coastal highway blasting Luke Bryant and loving life.

The drive home is less exciting, naturally. We still have the radio going, but it’s raining and the impending classes on Monday have us all a little down in the dumps. Is still fun though, and I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world. Rachel has been reading to us from a book she has to read for her Spanish class which hasn’t been terrible to listen to.

Go on road trips with your friends! And don’t text the whole time either. Because ultimately your friends now will be your friends forever and this is how you’ll get to know them the best. Well, in my opinion anyway.

Tennis Time

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Luke Schmidt

As you have figured out from recent blog posts, it is currently spring break for McDaniel students. Students are visiting other countries, staying at home, or relaxing on a beach in Florida with friends. My spring break was all about tennis!

The men’s and women’s tennis teams had the awesome opportunity to travel to Hilton Head, South Carolina to compete in a week long tennis tournament. Despite the 12 hour van ride to get to Hilton Head that began at 4:30AM, the trip was a great time. Every day was centered around tennis whether it be practicing twice a day or competing in matches. The teams we played were from all over the country and had players from all over the world (quite a few from South America that were top ranked in their countries). That said, McDaniel had quite the competition, but this experience was necessary to prepare us for our conference matches.

Everyone appreciated the warmer weather immensely and welcomed sun burns with a smile; however, there was a lot of rain in the mornings which made for a fun time squeegeeing tennis courts for hours… The trip was a little bit of a tease since we did not actually get to spend any time at the beach, but we were just happy with shorts and sandals weather.

The best part about the trip was the team bonding. Spending every minute of your day with the same people for an entire week is a great way to build team camaraderie. Cheering each other on during matches and creating personalized chants like “BILLUPS!!” really brought the team together. This is thanks to our new coach, Bob Dietrich. He gives the team an incredible amount of energy that will definitely help us get some important victories this season.

Our first conference match is tomorrow at Washington so we will hopefully see the results of training intensely all week long. Let’s go McDaniel Tennis!

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.

Spring Break: All The Cool Kids Are Doing It

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Robert

One of the best parts of college is, of course, Spring Break. You’ve seen it portrayed in the movies, tv shows, and you’ve probably had a few great spring breaks of your own in high school, but in all honesty nothing can truly compare to the awesomeness of a well planned Spring Break combined with the freedom of college. Most students at McDaniel look for warmth after spending a winter in the chilling Westminster wind, and to experience any noticeable difference in climate, that means Florida. I don’t have any definite number, but I could name at least 20 people I know on campus who are in Florida right now and in the process of thawing out.

My friends and I have pinpointed Cocoa Beach, Florida as our salty-aired, sunsaturated, beach of choice. We’re returning this year for a second time; mostly because it’s dirt cheap and you still get all the warmth of the more expensive destinations, but also because Cocoa Beach is one of the Best beaches on the Eastcoast for surfing and two of my friends are really into that. Plus who could pass up this view:

Anyway what I discovered is that you can actually find hotels that have kitchenettes for really cheap. The Days Inn at Cocoa Beach (the hotel we stayed in last year) offered them at a great low fee, and that meant that we could just buy our food at the Publix right across the street. All that was left to cover was the gas to get there. Three of my friends flew because they could afford it, but if you can find two people who are willing/able to split up the driving and the cost of gas, it can actually end up being pretty cheap and easy to get down and back.

What I’m really getting at is that nothing should stop you in college from having an awesome Spring Break. Save up your money and go south, you won’t regret it. Nothing beats 80 degree, sunny weather after a winter on the hill, and it follows a similar principle to pizza: there’s good pizza and bad pizza, but even bad pizza is still good. Unless warm weather isn’t your thing, in which case I hear Killington still has plenty of snow, in fact I think they just got a fresh powdering with this last system that moved through. Anyway, there’s some food for thought.

Spring Break

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Kaitlyn Vadenais

Spring Break is HERE!

Officially it started for me yesterday, since I have no classes on Fridays. But that’s a minor detail…

This first weekend is for getting some work done and getting organized for the trip. Monday my roommate Shannon and I leave for Florida! We will be in Daytona Monday through Friday and I cannot WAIT. After this long winter all I need is some days on the beach, soaking up the sun and the warm weather.

As our last Spring Break before the real world, Shan and I decided it was worth the slight splurge, even on our college budgets. While we are down there, in addition to catching a million rays and getting four shades darker at least, we are going to catch a couple Green Terror baseball games and meet up with our friends on the baseball team and roommates on the softball team for their off day on Tuesday.

It should definitely be a fun and relaxing week before coming back and rejoining real life. After seeing friends at different schools post Spring Break statuses and pictures for the past two weeks, I am more than ready for my turn!

Because of Spring Break, March always flies by and after we get back, we only have one more week before April. WHOA.

Stories from the Hill

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