Hey all! Not oo much exciting to share for the past couple of weeks. There were no more trios into the city since the first one. I will be going again though. As of right now there are tentative plans with friends to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art next weekend.
This past week was Homecoming. It was definitely different then homecoming at Eau Claire, but I did enjoy not being bombarded by people saying "vote for me!" and shoving stuff at you. There were a few posters around but not too many. The school gave out so much free food this week, that I actually did not need the entire 15 meals a week on my meal plan. There was free pizza, free BBQ chicken wings, burgers, hot dogs, pretzles, ice cream, cotton candy, and a bunch of other stuff. There were quite a few events sponsored throughout the week, but most of them did not interest me, mostly because they cost money to go to. There was a free movie night, but it was a comedy that I had seen previews for and had no desire to see.
Saturday was game day. I did not go to the game as football holds very little interest for me, however I was happy to know we won, especially as this has apparently been a pretty bad season for thei Pioneers. There was a free carnival next to the football field though that a friend and I did go to. There was more free food there, which made both of our days :). There was also ice cream and cotton candy. The cotton candy brought back a lot of child hood memories. There were a couple carnival games, but mostly a climbing wall and inflatable toys, like bounce houses, an obstacle course and a gigantic slide. These may be geared towards little kids but that did not stop us. I raced my friend through the bouncy obstacle course...and lost lol but it was still fun. I made up for that in successfully climbing to the top of the climbing wall, barefoot, when Aubrey barely made it a couple feet up. We called it even-she won the race, and I climbed to the top lol.
I played one of the carnival games and won a little tiny toy dog. You have no idea how excited I was about that. I am pretty sure Aubrey thought I went nuts. All in all it was a pretty fun day.
Today I slept in and meant to do some of my homework for the week. I did a little bit, but unfortuantley not much. I did get together with a freind tonight for the season premier of Once Upon a Time, a show we both absolutely love watching. I think its safe to say I never thought a real person could squeal as much as she did when out favorite male characters came on. For those who know me very well, you could say Glinda does, but I said a REAL person lol. We have decided its going to be a weekly thing to get together to watch the episode which is fine with me!
All of my classes seem to be going well, but the first test of that comes this week in the form of two quizzes and a test. I also have my first paper to write. It should be pretty easy to write as its only supposed to be about 700 words and its on the show Graceland, which is another favorite of mine, even if I have only seen the first 4 episodes, but I adore Aaron Tveit, so what can I say?
Well like I said, not to much exciting this week but I am still alive and perfectly fine! lol
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Sunday, September 15, 2013
IV:XLG and the Big Apple
So at first it seemed like this week was not going to be too exciting, business as usual with classes, but then I was invited to IV:XLG with the WPU Intervaristy Christian Fellowship. IV:XLG stands for Intervaristy Extra Large Group and was held at Essex County College in Newark, New Jersey. We carpooled from campus, and I quickly discover ed I do not do well in the backseat in city driving. I was soooo happy to get out of the car and find out they had free water bottles being handed out to the students.
It was an enormous meeting of 6 or 7 different IV chapters from New Jersey and New York that met for a night of worship and message. The theme of this year's message was Human Trafficking and was extremely eye opening in the vulnerabilities of young girls and women and how easy it is to fall into the trap of human trafficking and how easy it is, especially for children to fall into the never ending cycle. My previous knowledge of this issue was definitely lacking and most of that came from Liam Neeson's movie Taken.The speaker gave his testimony and his experiences with exploiting women and how it took a second look at a music video for him to figure out that maybe the culture he had been raised in was not beneficial. It scared him that in this video, he saw a woman mostly naked pole dancing: he had to do a double take as he thought it was his sister. He then went on to explain how the majority of these women in music videos that exploit a woman's sexuality probably have a history of sexual violence and then segued into what that means for us as Christians. He then talked about us and practicing our faith and what it means to truly be a Christian and not just go through the motions. I do not have to words to describe how his message impacted me. I can only say that I was definitely overwhelmed and extremely glad to be part of such an awesome chapter of Intervarsity while on the East Coast.
On a completely different topic: New York. What comes to mind when you think about NYC? I had a vague idea of what to expect, but it was definitely a shock. It was gritty, loud and crowded, and I loved every minute of my time in the city yesterday. Everyone is selling something, and I mean EVERYONE. From comedy shows to ripped off Broadway tickets to "here have my CD, oh and tip me for it." I went with James into the city and in our afternoon in the city we counted 24 Elmos (from Sesame Street) 4 Cookie Monsters, 2 Woody's from Toy Story, several Marvel characters, Mario, and other assorted characters wandering around for photo opportunities. I caved and took a couple pictures with Elmo and Cookie .Monster. We spent most of the day in Times Square. Seeing the number of people there yesterday really puts into perspective how many people fit in there for New Year's Eve to watch the ball drop. The ball is out year round and I was actually able to see it. We were also able to get $77 tickets for Wicked at the Gershwin Theatre Box Office and had fantastic seats. Lindsay Mendez, Derek Klena, and Katie Rose Clark did an amazing job and as it was Jame's first time seeing it, we were both blown away. Walking around Time's Square, it is also easy to get cheaper tickets for the majority of shows on Broadway and it is easy to find any given theatre as they are all within and 8 block radius of each other. There is everything in Times Square including a huge Toys 'R' Us with a wonka candy headquarters located inside and a gigantic Ferris wheel...inside the store. Most stores we went in (Disney, Hershey, M&M, souvenir shops) are all multiple floors, which I kind of expected, but figured there were multiple stores in one building.
I will for sure go back into the city to explore some of the museums and attractions we passed, like a free museum about the NY area and a Ripley's Believe it or Not museum. I do want to go to the Met, Central Park and Ground Zero. We did have some slight issues with bus timing, but thankfully it did not affect us getting back to campus.
That's all for this week, now off to do the homework I still have for the upcoming week :)
It was an enormous meeting of 6 or 7 different IV chapters from New Jersey and New York that met for a night of worship and message. The theme of this year's message was Human Trafficking and was extremely eye opening in the vulnerabilities of young girls and women and how easy it is to fall into the trap of human trafficking and how easy it is, especially for children to fall into the never ending cycle. My previous knowledge of this issue was definitely lacking and most of that came from Liam Neeson's movie Taken.The speaker gave his testimony and his experiences with exploiting women and how it took a second look at a music video for him to figure out that maybe the culture he had been raised in was not beneficial. It scared him that in this video, he saw a woman mostly naked pole dancing: he had to do a double take as he thought it was his sister. He then went on to explain how the majority of these women in music videos that exploit a woman's sexuality probably have a history of sexual violence and then segued into what that means for us as Christians. He then talked about us and practicing our faith and what it means to truly be a Christian and not just go through the motions. I do not have to words to describe how his message impacted me. I can only say that I was definitely overwhelmed and extremely glad to be part of such an awesome chapter of Intervarsity while on the East Coast.
On a completely different topic: New York. What comes to mind when you think about NYC? I had a vague idea of what to expect, but it was definitely a shock. It was gritty, loud and crowded, and I loved every minute of my time in the city yesterday. Everyone is selling something, and I mean EVERYONE. From comedy shows to ripped off Broadway tickets to "here have my CD, oh and tip me for it." I went with James into the city and in our afternoon in the city we counted 24 Elmos (from Sesame Street) 4 Cookie Monsters, 2 Woody's from Toy Story, several Marvel characters, Mario, and other assorted characters wandering around for photo opportunities. I caved and took a couple pictures with Elmo and Cookie .Monster. We spent most of the day in Times Square. Seeing the number of people there yesterday really puts into perspective how many people fit in there for New Year's Eve to watch the ball drop. The ball is out year round and I was actually able to see it. We were also able to get $77 tickets for Wicked at the Gershwin Theatre Box Office and had fantastic seats. Lindsay Mendez, Derek Klena, and Katie Rose Clark did an amazing job and as it was Jame's first time seeing it, we were both blown away. Walking around Time's Square, it is also easy to get cheaper tickets for the majority of shows on Broadway and it is easy to find any given theatre as they are all within and 8 block radius of each other. There is everything in Times Square including a huge Toys 'R' Us with a wonka candy headquarters located inside and a gigantic Ferris wheel...inside the store. Most stores we went in (Disney, Hershey, M&M, souvenir shops) are all multiple floors, which I kind of expected, but figured there were multiple stores in one building.
I will for sure go back into the city to explore some of the museums and attractions we passed, like a free museum about the NY area and a Ripley's Believe it or Not museum. I do want to go to the Met, Central Park and Ground Zero. We did have some slight issues with bus timing, but thankfully it did not affect us getting back to campus.
That's all for this week, now off to do the homework I still have for the upcoming week :)
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Syllabus week
Hey guys! There was a lot of stuff going on this week and I was definitely kept busy! I arrived here in Wayne, New Jersey about 1:30 East Coast time. I got from the airport to school by cab, and let's just say I am glad I was not the one behind the wheel. The New Jersey Turnpike is insane! It took a little while for the cab driver to find the dorm, but the campus police, and campus football players were helpful with directions and helping with luggage. I knew going in I would have the room to myself the first night, but as of right now, it looks like I will not have a room mate which is quite nice. My room is a typical 2 person dorm room, but pretty big. For those of you who know the size of the rooms in Towers in Eau Claire, the rooms in High Mountain West (my dorm) are even bigger. I share a bathroom with only 2 other girls, who share a room on the opposite side of me. They are both returning students, and are both of Caribbean descent which means its nice when they have music going as its usually reggae or theatre as Shauni is double majoring in Public Relations and Theatre. I can see New York from the study area in front of our rooms, we call it the pod.
I have yet to actually go into New York, but the fact that I can see quite a bit of the skyline from my dorm is awesome. Another awesome reason to have returning students living so close to me, they told me how to get into the city without having to deal with trains or switching buses. Apparently there is a shuttle that picks up outside my dorm and goes directly to the Port Authority Station on 42nd Street-a block away from Times Square. The campus here is gorgeous. It is very green and the buildings are all red brick and beautiful. Campus itself is fairly small, making it easy to get to everywhere I need to go. The food in the dining hall is wonderful, but that could be because I am so used to the caf food at Eau Claire :P The meal plan I am on also has a certain amount of Pioneer Money (which is similar to the Blugold Dollars at EC), but the nice thing about this money, is that it can be used at local businesses such as CVS, a few pizza delivery places and other nearby business. CVS is handy at 5 minutes walking, for snacks, toiletries and other minor things I was unable to bring with me and I did not have to spend any of my own money, and just used the Pioneer money.
Classes this week were fairyl boring, but as any college student knows, the syllabus and class expectations are always boring. However, my Geography professor is insane and very flamboyant. He is always running late and shouts his lectures: there are 7 of us in the class. :P He is from Taiwan and talks about it quite a bit. from 12:30 to 2 every day is common hour on campus and this week there has been a lot of free food and music during common hour and its not uncommon to see groups of guys just break out and start dancing. The student affairs group on campus has organized a lot of activities on campus this week, plus things that I found. I found Intervaristy which made me incredibly happy and PK (Pastor Ken) is amazing! The other students were so welcoming and genuinely happy to meet me, which made the inevitable awkwardness of meeting new people fade pretty quickly. I also met a few new people at new student/transfer student activities and there are a few that we have just hit it off really well.
Today I was waiting for the bus for a school sponsored trip and did not know anyone else in the group, aside from one girl who wasn't there yet, and a guy came up and was like, "You look a little lost. Would you like to join me for the day?" So the three of is pretty much spent today together at the Fun Plex about an hour away. We paid the school $7 for this trip which included unlimited go-karting, laser tag, $40 worth of arcade tokens for the arcade games, bumper cars, carnival rides and food for the day.
A lot more happened this week, but nothing really worth mentioning. For now, though, its time to go meet some friends for dinner and probably do what little homework I do have.
I have yet to actually go into New York, but the fact that I can see quite a bit of the skyline from my dorm is awesome. Another awesome reason to have returning students living so close to me, they told me how to get into the city without having to deal with trains or switching buses. Apparently there is a shuttle that picks up outside my dorm and goes directly to the Port Authority Station on 42nd Street-a block away from Times Square. The campus here is gorgeous. It is very green and the buildings are all red brick and beautiful. Campus itself is fairly small, making it easy to get to everywhere I need to go. The food in the dining hall is wonderful, but that could be because I am so used to the caf food at Eau Claire :P The meal plan I am on also has a certain amount of Pioneer Money (which is similar to the Blugold Dollars at EC), but the nice thing about this money, is that it can be used at local businesses such as CVS, a few pizza delivery places and other nearby business. CVS is handy at 5 minutes walking, for snacks, toiletries and other minor things I was unable to bring with me and I did not have to spend any of my own money, and just used the Pioneer money.
Classes this week were fairyl boring, but as any college student knows, the syllabus and class expectations are always boring. However, my Geography professor is insane and very flamboyant. He is always running late and shouts his lectures: there are 7 of us in the class. :P He is from Taiwan and talks about it quite a bit. from 12:30 to 2 every day is common hour on campus and this week there has been a lot of free food and music during common hour and its not uncommon to see groups of guys just break out and start dancing. The student affairs group on campus has organized a lot of activities on campus this week, plus things that I found. I found Intervaristy which made me incredibly happy and PK (Pastor Ken) is amazing! The other students were so welcoming and genuinely happy to meet me, which made the inevitable awkwardness of meeting new people fade pretty quickly. I also met a few new people at new student/transfer student activities and there are a few that we have just hit it off really well.
Today I was waiting for the bus for a school sponsored trip and did not know anyone else in the group, aside from one girl who wasn't there yet, and a guy came up and was like, "You look a little lost. Would you like to join me for the day?" So the three of is pretty much spent today together at the Fun Plex about an hour away. We paid the school $7 for this trip which included unlimited go-karting, laser tag, $40 worth of arcade tokens for the arcade games, bumper cars, carnival rides and food for the day.
A lot more happened this week, but nothing really worth mentioning. For now, though, its time to go meet some friends for dinner and probably do what little homework I do have.
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