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Every year, the McDaniel track and field regular season ends with the Twilight Meet, our one home meet of the year. It is a small meet and not as prestigious as many others we attend, but I think it makes up for that in character.
One thing that our home meet is good for is reminding us that we do track and field because we love it and it’s fun. Sure, I’m ecstatic that I qualified for conference championships in discus and javelin, but that wouldn’t have been nearly as good of a moment if my friends, teammates, and even competitors weren’t there to congratulate me and wish me luck.
Throws that are usually a little boring are made a lot more interesting by the banter between and among the teams.
The 4×400, which is usually taken very seriously, becomes a somewhat silly thing at the Twilight Meet, in which everyone takes it seriously even though a quarter of the people running it usually don’t and many people, competitor and spectator alike, spend the race laughing and smiling at general camaraderie.
This year, the meet ended with a team photo, a speed walking competition, group dinner, and for my friends and I, a silly run race.
Even though having a meet in the middle of the week is a little inconvenient (there’s nothing like having homework to do after a meet), it is always a fun one that I look forward to. By the time it comes around, I need that little reminder that I compete not just for the challenge, but also for the team and my love for the things I do.
Yesterday evening, the political science department sponsored the event “So What Just Happened: A Report from Annapolis” which featured Maryland Senator Edward Kasemeyer ’67 and Maryland Delegate Susan Krebs speaking about the past session of the Maryland General Assembly.
Both had attended McDaniel College, back when it was Western Maryland College. Krebs had needed to transfer after her freshman year due to financial reasons, which was very poignant to the students in the room as she was citing an amount around $4,000 as being too expensive. Both have worked towards grants for funding students in Maryland, valuing both higher education and K-12 education very highly.
In Maryland, the General Assembly (GA) meets for ninety days in the spring and has that time only to pass all of the legislation it wants to. The one thing they are required by law to do is to passed a balanced budget. In the past election, Maryland elected a Republican governor, so the session this year was different to how it had been in past Democratic years.
I asked them about the most contentious legislation that had been on the floor, and was surprised to find that it was the small things that they tended to get wrapped up in. They talked about a piece involving online hotel booking systems and the taxes they paid that had meant a lot of lobbyists had become involved, as well as a bill for pregnant women to give birth at home. I was trying to get some ideas for legislation for Maryland Student Legislature’s Annual Session, which is quickly coming up, and was excited to get some ideas to research.
They were both extremely friendly, and though Kasemeyer is a Democrat and Krebs a Republican, it was fun watching their dynamic and how they were playfully courteous.
 My number one goal for MCHC was to get a picture with the Salisbury seagull. Mission accomplished! On day two of my time in Salisbury, I woke up, did my hair and makeup, and went down to the hotel lobby for continental breakfast, eager that my day to present at MCHC had come.
Because I was a little slow to get ready, eat, and pack up my things, I (sadly) missed the morning’s first session of presentations, but I made it back to Salisbury’s campus with plenty of time before my own session. During this time, I was able to fulfill my goal of having my picture taken with the statue of Salisbury’s seagull mascot.
Prior to my presentation, a woman from a community college presented about Mexican art. One thing that was cool about MCHC was that a lot of honors students from community colleges were represented and that presenters were students of all ages.
Next, I gave my “Comicking Depression” presentation, which I had already delivered for my senior sem presentation and in my Honors Colloquium class. I think talking about depression and how it’s represented by ordinary people through web comics is a fun and important topic to talk about, so I was glad to have the opportunity to present it for a third time to some people who hadn’t seen it.
People responded really well to what I had to say, and they asked me some great questions, giving me the opportunity to talk about how to I came up with my project and what I thought about the use of animation in ads for antidepressants. It was a thrill to talk to people who were genuinely interested in what I had to say!
After my presentation, I attended one more session, a panel about women and/as monsters in literature. And after that, my McDaniel peers and I grabbed bagged lunches to go — in order to attend the conference, we had to sacrifice the afternoon of Spring Fling, so we were eager to get back to campus as quickly as possible in order to partake in the fun.
But it was a sacrifice that was worth it. I had a great time attending MCHC and getting a peek at life on another college campus. (I still think McDaniel is the best college for me!) It was a valuable experience to get to present my work to people outside of McDaniel, and I know it’s an experience that will help me in my professional life.
On Friday morning, I woke up bright and early to catch a ride to the the Maryland Collegiate Honors Council Conference (MCHC). Located at Salisbury University on the Eastern Shore, the drive to MCHC was three hours long — or at least it should have been…
I had the pleasure of riding “the Pickle” — one of McDaniel’s many green student transportation vans — with a few classmates I knew and one I didn’t. The ride gave me the opportunity to get to know Shannon, a 29-year-old veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who was also presenting at the conference. Shannon and I had so much fun talking to each other and learning about each other as our peers slept in the back of the van that we missed a turn without realizing it. When I saw signs that were pointing the way toward Wilmington, Delaware, it occurred to me that something was amiss. When I checked my phone GPS, I learned that we had driven half an hour out of our way and had just crossed the Delaware border. Fortunately, no one was late for their presentation, and it was the sort of error that we were all able to laugh off, in spite of the fact that it caused us to be on the road for an extra hour.
I watched four student presentations before heading to one of Salisbury’s coffee shops to take a break and put the finishing touches on my own presentation. In the first panel I attended, one McDaniel student talked about Iran, and Shannon talked about her experience in Afghanistan. In the second panel, I heard a student from another college evaluate whether or not Hitler was an economic genius (he wasn’t), and I got to hear Leanna present about the Living Memorial in Budapest, Hungary.
I had an hour to myself in the coffee shop, as students from colleges across Maryland presented their scientific research during a poster session, and afterward, we had a catered dinner that included beef, salmon, mashed potatoes, and a very popular chocolate cake. After we ate, the MCHC board presented nominees for the Portz Award, an award that recognizes outstanding Honors students in Maryland. My friend Alexa from McDaniel was nominated, and while she didn’t win, I was proud to learn about her accomplishments and see her be recognized.
 Cris and Sunshine gave a very fun performance at the MCHC open mic night. After dinner, students from Salisbury’s honors program hosted an open mic night in the lounge in their student center. I stayed for a little bit to listen to people perform. Highlights included a Salisbury student who has two albums on iTunes and Sunshine and Cris, two McDaniel students who performed a fun duet.
Eventually, I decided to head back to the coffee shop to put more finishing touches on my presentation, and then ventured around Salisbury’s campus to find their library so I could print my presentation notes. Afterward, I went back to my hotel, where I did a little reading and readied myself for bed. If I had brought a bathing suit, I could have used the hotel’s hot tub, but in terms of luxury, I still had my choosing of one of four pillows that the hotel had provided on my bed.
On Saturday, over 300,000 people turned up to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for Global Citizen’s Earth Day Festival.
I took the pickle into DC on Friday and spent the afternoon exploring Smithsonian museums I hadn’t yet had an opportunity to see. Then, I went to George Washington University and stayed the night with a friend. I’ve kept intending to visit him, but my schedule has kept interfering, so it was great to catch up and I had a lot of fun meeting his friends, who were all really sweet and friendly. I wish I had more weekends left to go back and visit again!
I got up at 8:30 the next morning and took the metro down to the Mall and reunited with a few McDaniel friends who were also attending. It was a gorgeous day and I had a good book to read while we waited for the event to start.
 This is the only photo I have, taken of the line to get in behind me around 9:30AM–I was too busy living in the moment to be preoccupied with my cell phone! As the event was in support of Earth Day on Wednesday, the speakers mainly talked about climate change, poverty, and gender inequality. There were so many high-profile speakers there that I was quite overwhelmed. When they announced that Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations was speaking, I completely freaked out. As an international studies major, there couldn’t have possibly be anything cooler. (Chris Martin, who does a lot of global work in addition to fronting Coldplay, spoke after him though which came close!)
Train played in the middle of the day. They’re a bit out of my normal music taste, but I have a soft spot for them as they’re from San Francisco, too. I was surprisingly impressed by Usher, who I’d never really listened to but who turned out to be an amazing performer. A lot of people came for Fall Out Boy. Mary J. Blige also put on a good show, and though I’d never heard of My Morning Jacket, I enjoyed the music they played. The final act, however, was the one I had come for: No Doubt. I’ve loved No Doubt since I was about ten years old and first started listening to rock, so it was a total treat to see them playing live.
My toe, which I broke almost four weeks ago, isn’t better yet. I had a blister on my blister from walking around on Friday so I couldn’t wear the special shoe I have for it–there was physically too much pain for me to bear with it rubbing against the blisters–so I walked around in bare feet all day. By the end, my feet had never hurt so much in my life, not even after I’d hiked forty miles in Yellowstone one night. I can’t yet put weight on my dumb baby toe without it aching, so my other foot bore the grunt. I also missed Spring Fling at McDaniel, which is probably the most fun and lively day on campus in the year. However, it was all completely worth it. Ban Ki-Moon! No Doubt! I’m still in shock.
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