Tag Archives: Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving Festivities!

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Just like most people I know, I was very excited to go home for Thanksgiving Break.  I was excited for the food, seeing my family and friends, spending time with my puppy, and of course-shopping!  However, since I work in retail, I get to see shopping from both sides…being the shopper and being the employee that the crazy shoppers can sometimes be very rude to.

My fun with customers started on Wednesday night.  I went to work a few hours after arriving home, so I was already tired, but I was excited to see my co-workers.  When I got to work, I found out that I was going to working on special projects all night, in order to help the store make the transition from Thanksgiving stuff to Christmas stuff. It was actually a lot of fun, since I got to set up everything and make everything look pretty!  Plus, I got to bond with the new manager while we put up Christmas decorations!

On Thursday morning, my dad decided that it would be fun to clean up leaves as a “Daddy/daughter bonding” moment.  After that, I helped my mom finish cooking dinner and we waited for our company to arrive. It was really nice to see all of my family and spend time with them, since it isn’t something I get to do very often.  We had so much good food to eat, laughed a lot, and watched a lot of football (of course, watching the Dallas Cowboys lose was fantastic!).  After dinner, we had to take a break before eating dessert, which consisted of pumpkin pie, chocolate pecan pie, and fruit.  Then, on Thursday night, my mom and I braved the crowds and went shopping!  We went to Target and Walmart and stood in lines to get great deals. We ended up buying a lot of Christmas gifts for people and we had a lot of fun.  Plus, it was my best friend’s first time going shopping on Black Friday (or somewhat Black Friday, since it was Thursday…), so it was a lot of fun to expose her to the craziness.

On Friday, my mom and I braved the crowds again and went shopping at the mall for a few hours before going out to brunch with my aunt, which is a Black Friday tradition! Then, I braved the crowds from the other direction when I went to work.  It was absolutely insane at work all day, up until we closed at ten o’clock.  Many customers asked me for my entire shift how busy we were all day, and if we were crazy in the morning when we opened at six AM.  While my day was crazy and I was exhausted when I got home that night, it was a lot of fun.  People watching on Black Friday is always fun!

Overall, I had a great time at home for the weekend!

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I Am Thankful: McDaniel Edition

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Over the past few years, I’ve come to realize that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. I love the combination of lots of great food and lots of great family, and it’s a really warm, cozy, and fun holiday. I’ve also taken time over the last few years to reflect in writing about what I am thankful for each Thanksgiving, and I would like to share with you all of the McDaniel things I am thankful for this year.

  • I am so very thankful to be having such an incredible semester. I’m taking great classes with fabulous professors, and I live with such wonderful people.
  • I’m thankful that my suite mates are not just the people I live with but have also become my friends. I could not have imagined my suite being such a family unit, and I am truly blessed that we are.
  • I’m thankful to have strengthened my relationships with some of my friends who live outside of my suite. I am so lucky to have so many great people to rely on.
  • I’m thankful that I pushed myself out of my comfort zone a little to take a badminton class. My physical education requirement is now a quarter of the way done, and I got to learn badminton and get to know some people within my major because I took the class.
  • I’m thankful to have some great opportunities coming my way next semester. My schedule looks pretty good at the moment, and I’m adding in a course about working in the Writing Center and working on a presentation about Harry Potter and the Hero’s Journey to present in April at a Jungian conference.
  • I am thankful for the ever-supportive and amazing faculty at McDaniel College.
  • I’m thankful that in three weeks, the semester will be over. I’m going to miss this semester a lot, but after all of the stress that the next few weeks are going to bring, I’ll be so glad for things to wrap up so I can go home for a little extended down time before I get to return to McDaniel for Jan Term!

Lastly, I’m thankful to have such a great job at Admissions blogging for you guys, the prospective students. I truly enjoy sharing my stories, and I hope that some or any of the posts on this blog have helped you get a feel for what McDaniel is like.

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful, and I hope you’ll remember to be thankful too!

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Personal Victories

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I’m finally home for Thanksgiving break, and it feels so wonderful! I missed my mom and my puppy and my siblings so much, and we were all very happy to see each other when I returned to my home away from McDaniel.

I was afraid that I wouldn’t have exciting things to share with my folks other than the normal “the semester’s going great, but I’m pretty stressed this time of year,” but in a period of less than 24 hours before heading home, I received not one but two pieces of awesome news!

The first news I received last night after my Hero’s Journey class. Last week, I gave a presentation along with a couple of other girls about elements of the hero’s journey and alchemy in Harry Potter books 5-7. Another group presented about the same things in the first four books. After this week’s class, my professor pulled me and my friend Emily, a girl from the other group, aside to ask that we give a presentation about Harry Potter and the hero’s journey at a conference full of people who use Jungian ideas (the ideas of Carl Jung) in their work.

We’ve actually had a number of interesting guest speakers in The Hero’s Journey whose work is tremendously influenced by Jung–clinical social workers, an art therapist, a woman who practices the I Ching, a shamanic drummer, and even a Vedic astrologist.

Presenting about Harry Potter to these people will be a pretty cool experience. Like any presentation given at a conference, it will also look great on my resume, but most importantly, I’ll have the chance to work closely with one of McDaniel’s many awesome professors to put together a spectacular presentation. The presentation isn’t until April, so Emily and I will have plenty of time to work on this presentation and have this unique experience.

I got more fabulous news when I checked my email after lunch this afternoon! I received an email from Josh Ambrose, the director of McDaniel’s writing center, to tell me that I have been accepted into his peer tutoring course for this spring! By taking this course, I’ll be eligible to be hired in the Writing Center next fall. (So if you come to McDaniel and visit the Writing Center, it’s possible that I’ll help you out with your paper!) I’m super proud to be enrolled in this course now, because I not only want to be a peer writing tutor at the Writing Center but also because I had to get two letters of recommendation and interview with Josh just to get a spot in the class. I was so excited that I was screaming, cheering, and running throughout my suite–much to the annoyance of some of my suite mates who were trying to squeeze in after-lunch naps, as I later found out.

So tonight, I came home very tired but quite proud of myself. I feel victorious! It’s such a great feeling to know that all of the hard work I’ve been putting in this semester is being paid off with meaningful outcomes that are happening right now. I’m hoping that when I get back to campus after break, I’ll be able to use these accomplishments to help motivate myself through the rest of the semester.

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