Thanksgiving Break Discovery

Happy Happy Thanksgiving!

When the turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie come out, everyone knows it's time for Thanksgiving.  Today is my last day at Coe because our break starts today.  I leave this afternoon and come back on Sunday night.  Heidi and I were talking and we decided on this: we are really psyched for Thanksgiving Break.  We know we will have fantastic times with our family: catching up, hanging out, and eating wonderful home cooked food.  But at the same time, we will dearly miss Coe.  Because at Coe we see our friends everyday: walk to class with them, hang out with them, eat dinner with them.  And so for about the next six days, that won't occur.  We'll all miss each other and serious catching up will need to be done when we return.  So Heidi and I have discovered we are an integral part of the Coe community and that feels great.  It's a beautiful situation we find ourselves in.

Have a great Thursday everyone!
    

A Crazy Week...Preparing My First Year Portfolio

This week has been a crazy one for me.  To start off, I had my first college research paper due today (Friday) for my FYS class.  The paper was on the 2008 Recession: how we got there, what happened once we got there, and why did it even happen in the first place.  I actually really enjoyed writing this paper (don't tell my classmates that, they weren't crazy about writing it!) and I felt it was a nice way to show my professor everything I've learned the past three months.  I now have a pretty good grasp on the crisis, the players involved, the gravity of this crisis as compared to recessions in the US' history, and the multitude of problems it created.  My paper, complete with three graphs, ended up being 12 pages so I spent a lot of my time this week revising and strengthening the paper.  At the same time as I was becoming very comfortable with the crisis, I was also preparing my First Year Portfolio.

Every first year has to make a portfolio; you include at least two FYS papers and then you could also include another paper you've written this year at Coe if you'd like.  The other part of this portfolio is a preface.  It's a reflection on your college writing experience so far at Coe and reflections on the two (or more) papers you've included.  You talk about your writing process in creating these papers, challenges you faced and triumphs you had.  You print two copies of your portfolios and one copy goes to a professor in your FYS area of study (for example, one of my portfolios will go to an economy teacher) and the other portfolio will go to another FYS professor.  Each professor will read my papers and give me a score from 1-6 along with feedback and comments.  The portfolios are a way for me, my FYS professor, and Coe to see how am I doing with college style writing.  So I finished my portfolio and research paper last night and turned them in today.  It feels REALLY GOOD.  Now I've got a nice weekend to relax and catch up on everything I had to put on hold while I worked on the paper and portfolio.  Then I've got Monday and Tuesday at Coe and then Tuesday afternoon, I'm going back to Mt. Horeb for Thanksgiving Break! Whoo!    

Slight Delay for Movie of the Week

Hey guys!

Okay so here's the deal: I'm working REALLY hard to get a movie up here soon but I don't know if it will be this week.  I have been really busy preparing a research paper and a First Year Portfolio (see next post) so I've been spending an enormous amount of time at the library writing and revising.  So I apologize for the delay but I promise a movie will be up here soon!  The movie I'm working on is called "Caf Creations" because sometimes the cafeteria food needs to be a little jazzed up and I (or my friends) will show you how to do it!

Car Jumping 101...Friday Night Adventure

Another exciting Friday night for me at Coe College.  First off, it was a little rainy which was fine but also sad because even though buildings aren't very far apart, it's still a pain in the butt to walk in the rain, even with a raincoat. But anyways, my friends and I decided to go on a little Target run and grab a few things that would sustain us until Thanksgiving break.  We head to my friend Haley's car and we get in.  Haley sticks the key in, turns it...no go.  Battery dead.  Problem.

So we head back to Murray, our Target plans dashed.  As we are sitting in Murray we are running through our lists of friends trying to decide what friend would know how to jump a car because none of us know how to and don't have jumper cables (because we don't have cars).  We finally figure out what friend would mostly likely have jumper cables and the knowledge of car jumping: Briana.  So we call her up and then Haley and I head back to the parking lot.  Here's what I learned about jumping a car: red and black cables which correspond to the positive and negative of the battery.  Hook them up, starting with the car that actually runs and then the car with the dead battery.  Let some of the juice flow from one to the other and then test it out.  To take the cables off, you just do the reverse of what you did before.  And volia!  The car no longer has a dead battery.

After that adventure, my friends and I went to our fourth Blindspot of the year!  Yipee!  My favorite part of this Blindspot was a five minute dance party at the end of Blindspot; I'm hoping it becomes a tradition!!  After Blindspot was Midnight Bowling at a bowling alley north of Coe.  Bowling was totally free, Coe's Student Activity Council sponsored it.  This council, known as SAC sponsors something every week for Coe students to do.  Sometimes there are midnight movies, ice skating, bowling, board games, pumpkin carving, comedians, musicians, etc.  So Midnight bowling ROCKED.  Got a 118 on my first game, so I was feeling pretty proud of myself! :)

And yep...that was my Friday Night Adventure.

A Trip to Baltimore!

Capitol

Hey everyone!

Coe College Writing Center (not all of us, just the 35 of us who went)

Right now as I'm writing this I'm sitting outside on the quad near the library enjoying the uncommonly beautiful November day.  All the trees around me are changing colors and some of their leave have fallen or are about to fall.  It's nice to be back on campus and enjoy this weather.  I said back on campus because only one week ago, I was headed on a train to Baltimore, Maryland for an nationwide Writing Center conference.  I think I've talked a bit about Coe's Writing Center but to recap, it's a place at Coe where students can come in with their papers (at any stage of the writing process) and consultants, such as myself, will help them make the paper better.  There are college writing centers across the United States and each year they like to come together to share ideas, discuss their practices and make new friends.  This year the conference was in Baltimore and I got to come along.

The harbor

Me at the Capitol

The trip was a blast; we left last Tuesday from Coe and returned last Sunday night.  We took vans to Chicago, a train from Chicago to Washington D.C., spent half a day in D.C. and then took another train to Baltimore.  The conference was three days and we got to explore the city along the way.  Any good trip isn't complete without good food and we certainly had that as well: Indian, Thai and seafood were our big three.  In Washington D.C., my friends and I racked in seven miles in only four hours and saw all the necessities of D.C.: the capitol, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and the White House.  In Baltimore we really enjoyed the harbor and spent a good amount of time there, shopping and wandering about.  It was a fabulous trip (as you can probably tell from the pictures I've included) and I'm glad I had the opportunity to do this through Coe and the Writing Center.  

Some Writing Center consultants shopping it up

Question of the Week

So here is the question: how does one release all that stress that us college students face?  Answer: CLARK RACQUET CENTER.  The video this week shows my friend Krista showing you the fabulousness of the racquet center.  Just a bit a history for those followers who like their history, the Clark Racquet Center was built 1989 and was funded with the help of K. Raymond Clark.  Enjoy!

Blindspot Footag

So it's the Friday night.
Before Halloween.
Everyone is pretty psyched.
And to make the Friday night even better, it was time for a Blindspot.

The thing I love about Blindspot is how people from all niches at Coe perform all different sorts of things.  And every Blindspot is unique because no one person or one group of people do exactly the same thing each time.  My favorite act of the night and maybe my favorite Blindspot act of all time was a cello quartet called Cellotic Chaos.  Four girls, four cellos, and one song.  Pretty epic.  I won't spoil what the song is though, I'll let you see for yourself (footage compliments of my friend Haley).