Hailley at Coe

Okay so I'm on campus but I'm sure you're probably wondering where I live, who my roomie is and what else I do on campus when I'm not doing homework.  Well never fear, all those questions will be answered in this post.

I live in Murray Hall and I have two roommates for the first semester.  First there is Heidi, also known as my "twin".  She is from Batavia, Illinois and she's amazing.  It's kind of a funny story of how we met because in the end we requested each other when roommate forms came out.

Our story goes like this: in February her family and my family met when we ended up going to observe the same English class.  Her dad and my dad hit it off and we did too.  We saw each other a few other times during the weekend and then we went our separate ways.  As the months rolled on I wondered, "What college did Heidi end up choosing?" We hadn't exchanged emails or phone numbers so there was no way to get in touch with her.  April came and I was back on Coe's campus for the Writing Center Competition.  When it was time to get into our groups I was looking at the other members and suddenly, there was Heidi.  She and I ended up in the same group, how crazy is that?  We connected instantly and had a great time with the Writing Center.  As the day went on I learned she too was undecided like myself but she was choosing between Purdue and Coe.  At the end of the day we exchanged emails and phone numbers and decided to keep in touch.  And we did.  We are both fans of extra long emails and we talked about everything.  In these emails we learned we have literally everything in common.  We kept telling each other that if we both ended up going to Coe we would be roommates.  One day Heidi sent me an email telling me she had decided on Coe.  But I still didn't know yet.  And then, like I told you earlier, one day I knew it was Coe.  I sent Heidi an email in all caps saying I had chosen Coe.  She flipped!  We were both so excited.  And then we knew fate had stepped in and now we must be roommates.  So we requested each other and BAM we're roommates.  People also think we are twins/sisters; we gotten so many "Are you two related?"  We joke with them and say we are because we like the same things and apparently we look alike, although our other closer friends don't really think so.

Heidi and Hailley :)

Our other roommate is Sabrina who's a foreign exchange student from Germany!  She is super sweet and Heidi and I are so glad she's our roommate.  We even are learning some German!  Unfortunately, she's only here for a semester so we'll be sad to see her leave.

Hailley, Sabrina and Heidi aka the proud occupants of Murray 607

Murray is a great place to live.  It's the tallest building on campus with NINE floors.  There are two elevators and each floor gets to paint their lobby area to add style and character to the floor.  Right now ours is a "lovely" picture of Bart Simpson because our floor use to be a boys floor.  Luckily we have chosen a new picture to paint over Bart and will be doing that soon, yippee!  Murray houses students from freshman to senior and also many of the international students.  It's a great place to meet lots of people.  Our basement houses a full kitchen, seven washers, eight dryers, two TVs and a pool table.

The other dorms housing our friends are Armstrong, Greene and Voorhees.  Armstrong is the all freshman coed dorm.  It's got five floors of us freshman.  No elevator but they just redid the bathrooms (which are SUPER nice).  Heidi and I enjoy chilling in Armstrong.  Greene is the all boys dorm and Voorhees is the all girls.  We don't visit Greene or Voorhees very much but as you might guess, Greene smells a lot like boys and Voorhees is a really quiet and really well kept dorm (because it houses all girls). 

I'm hoping to get some video of our room and rooms in other residence halls.  The pictures on the Coe website (http://www.coe.edu/campuslife/housing) give you a pretty good idea of what they're like but I think some video might give you an even better idea.  I'll work on it.

At Coe I'm planning on majoring in English and Creative Writing.  I'm also interested in French and History and that's one of the great things about Coe is their approach to liberal arts; I'm free to explore my other interests.  But I'll discuss my classes and whatnot in a later post.

Also I've got two jobs on campus.  The first is as a Writing Center consultant at the Writing Center.  Now I realize I better expand on what the Writing Center is.  Coe's Writing Center is one of the largest Writing Center's in the US.  Our staff is over 70 and we're the only college to employ incoming freshman like myself.  The goal of the Writing Center is to make better writers and provide a place for positive and constructive feedback for Coe students working on papers.  So whether a student is stuck on what to write about, they need help with their first draft or just want someone with fresh eyes to read their paper, the Writing Center is here to help.  Our advisor is Dr. Bob and he makes sure the Writing Center is in tip top shape.  Although I've only worked in the Writing Center a handful of times and have had only had a few conferences, I can tell I'm going to love working there.  I think it's fun when a student comes in and I'm there to help them.  My second job is a Coe Work Study and I'm working in the cafeteria.  The caf is a pretty important place because kids need their food.  So far I'm having a pretty good time.

The other big extra thing I'm doing as of right now is playing in Coe's Concert Band and taking clarinet lessons.  I've played the clarinet since sixth grade and adore it.  I'm taking lessons with Dr. Carson who is also the director of the Concert Band.  I've got a lesson once a week, a clarinet seminar with four other clarinet students and band rehearsal twice a week.  Add in practice time and I keep myself pretty busy.  All the music classes are held in Marquis Hall.    

So that's what happening with me.  Upcoming posts include a recap of the first weeks at Coe and more!  Enjoy! :)