All Settled and Ready to Go!

On Saturday my dad and I made the two and a half hour journey back to campus.  It was time to move me from Murray Hall to my summer housing, an apartment in Brandt House.  We also had my dad's college friend, Eileen, come and help us.  She lives in Iowa City and it was great to see her!

It wasn't too bad packing up my room in Murray; luckily, I had done some packing before I left for England.  We loaded up my dad's truck and then drove around to Brandt.  We checked out my room and decided we wanted to rearrange the furniture to give me some more space.  Once the furniture was moved, we could start unpacking things.  Currently, I'm almost all unpacked.  It takes a lot of time!

Getting situated in Brandt was an all day job.  Once I checked out of Murray and got my new key, we had to run a few errands to pick up some essentials.  But when my dad left later that night, I was all set to go.  I really like the set-up of my room and I've spent part of today hanging up stuff so my room has a very homey feel to it.  Just the way I like it.

And then today was my one day to start catching up with friends staying on campus this summer and get ready for my two jobs to start tomorrow!  I also took in some of the nice weather; part of the Trailblazing Trio reunited (Mike and I) for a bike ride/roller blading excursion around Cedar Lake.  I also FINALLY did some swimming in the pool.  I don't know why it took me so long.

After an eventful, yet relaxing day, I'm ready to go to bed.  I start in Admissions bright and early tomorrow and will meet with Professor Eichhorn to talk about what projects I need to start (or continue on).  I can't wait; it's time for this summer to really begin!

An Eventful Friday Night with Music and Fun!

Boy, was my Friday night busy!  It started off with Tonic Sol Fa, an acapella music group.  It was part of the Marquis Series and they sang to a pretty full Sinclair Auditorium.  It was a nice mixture of cover songs and original songs; you should definitely check them out if you haven't already!

After their performance, it was back to Murray for a game night.  Heidi and I invited some friends over and we ended up playing Catch Phrase for a while.  It got pretty intense at times and in the end, under pressure, we said some silly things.  But that's okay, it was a lot of fun!  It was nice to hang out with my friends since I've been so busy I haven't seen them as frequently as I would like to.

To end the night, we all piled into cars and went bowling!  SAC was sponsoring free midnight bowling and who wouldn't take them up on their offer?  Somehow, the bowling gods were smiling upon me and in my first game, I bowled a 145!  WOAH.  I think that's a new personal best.  The second game didn't go nearly as well, but I did manage to crack 100 (that counts for something, right?).     

Senator Reelected!

Good news!  Yesterday was the campus wide voting for Senate seats for the 2011-2012 school year.  Each year you have to be reelected if you'd like to continue to participate in Senate.  This year I ran for a spot in Murray (if you remember, last year when I joined I came in as an At Large Senator).  An email hit everyone's inboxes last night and I'm one of the four Murray Senators!  Our first meeting is tomorrow and I can't wait to see what Justin and Kelly (the President and VP) have in store for this upcoming school year.

Side note: There has been a lot of exciting things happening on campus so look for some more posts soon.

I'm All Moved In

Good morning readers!  Just wanted to let you know that I moved in yesterday.  The move went well and it's really nice to be back on campus.  It was great seeing old, familiar faces, catching up, and having everyone comment on my short hair (I chopped off eight inches this summer).  Murray is still Murray and Heidi and I really like our new room and our floor.  There are 13 freshman living on sixth floor this year and I'm excited to get to know them all.  There are a few from the Writing Center, Jordan (the girl who knew me during Admitted Students Weekend because she read my blog!!), and other girls I will soon know.  I'm excited to show all my floormates our decorated and moved in room; it's a corner room, it's spacious, although both of us think we will one day this year walk down to Murray 607 (our old room) and just barge right in.  That will be entertaining!

After my mom, dad, and sister helped move me in, I went to the Greek Life Cookout on the PUB Patio for my first dinner at Coe.  I got a big hug from Pam who was excited to see me back on campus.  After dinner, I checked out the rooms of my friends, caught up with people I saw as I walked around campus, and finished rearranging all my stuff in my room.

Today will be a busy day: Sophomore Conference is an all day event ending with dinner with President Phifer and his wife.  I'll be sure to blog about it tomorrow!

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! :)