It's that time of year

Good News!!!!

The showers are (hopefully) fixed. The college had plumbers come in and work starting last week and just finished up yesterday. They found a few small problems, and then they found a broken valve that was allowing cold water to be pumped into the hot water line constantly. They also had maintence men on call, just for our problem, all weekend. It is fixed, and they are hoping that is the only problem. I am too! I was very happy that they spent so much time and man-power on the showers finally. They had a great response this time.

Also, I sent the lady an email about getting a (real) massage at our Health Center. I am very excited to be de-stressing, as finals for the 12 week are coming up next week. I will tell you whether our masages are worth getting or not!

I was told to be honest

I am tired of taking cold showers. I had a really long day, and it ended, yet AGAIN, with a cold shower. We have had issues with our shower for a long time now (since last semester). It used to happen a lot more frequently, but now happens roughly once a week to me. We have cold shower water sometimes. If I'm "lucky," if you can call it that, it is cold from the start and I can go to another shower. If I'm unlucky, the water gets cool/cold mid-shower, with shampoo all through my hair. Imagine washing that out! Tonight, the shower never got warm, so I never got in. After waking up at 6:30 to do a little extra studying for a 8 am chemistry test, I was really looking forward to ending my day with a warm shower and my favorite body lotion. I went to another bathroom, where I ran into a girl who told me that she just finished a cold shower. I trekked down to a third bathroom where I finally found a warm shower. I have been told that the problem is in the reproducibility of the problem when the maintenance men come to fix it. I, on the other hand, seem to have no problem in the reproducibility department!! Just last week, on my only day without 8 am class, I also had a cold shower. I woke up, made coffee, did a yoga DVD, and then headed for the shower. The shower was cool and I was not happy. I was back in the bathroom a little later and heard someone turn the shower on and off, on and off. At first, I wondered if she was the princess of "going green", and turned the water off when she didn't need it (like while shaving or shampooing). Then she turned it on and off a few too many times. I asked her if it was cold and she said yes. Imagine being stuck in a cold shower. I don't take cold showers at home, and I don't understand why I am taking so many cold showers here!

P.S.

Questions and comments are always welcome!!!!

Being Good and some "Aligned" Energy

On Monday night, we had our Bissell Symposium. From my understanding, this is a yearly symposium, in honor of one of our alumni, Howard S. Bissell. A different topic is picked each year, and this year we had a Bio-ethicist, Stephen Post, from Case Western Reserve University. He spoke on "How Giving Gives Back," and any student that so desired could receive his book, Why Good Things Happen to Good People, for free. It was a very inspirational and upbeat presentation. He had lots of statistics supporting good things that come from being, well, good. Here is my summary of some of the statistics he presented:

• Nuns who used more positive words in their younger years (late teens and early twenties) lived longer.
• People who watched a TV program on Mother Theresa had a boost in their immune system (as measured by something in their saliva) compared to people who did something else, like peel potatoes.
• Donating to a charity, even a small amount (read, $5), can boost a person's mood for the rest of the day. When subjects were given a menu of charities to donate too, there was a spike in a certain part of the brain when they had the "ahh-haa" moment and found the charity they wanted to donate too.
• Volunteering provides people with a "helper's high," causing them to feel better.
• Allowing infants to receive love and affection from their mother significantly decreases mortality rates of infants as compared to infants who are not care for/ kept close to the mother in the days following birth. This was first discovered by a lab tech whose rats kept dying because he was treating them, like, well, rats! He noticed that the rats across the hall were thriving much better and were actually healthier too. He also noticed that the lab tech there held, comforted, petted, soothed, and talked to the rats. She provided then with "love" and they were thriving.

So in conclusion, there is evidence to suggest you should do good things for other people and good things may just come your way.

On a side note, I wanted to tell you about my "energy". There was an email circulating about a holistic medical company coming in to give body treatments. There were about 16 - 1 hour spots, and I got one of them. I was very exited about my "massage." Funny. I soon found out that it wasn't a massage at all. It was an energetic body treatment. The lady told me that our bodies give off energy, and sometimes it is not flowing right. She said that they do a lot of light touches, repositioning of the limbs, and perhaps gentle rhythmic rocking of some body parts. I was very skeptical at first, and wasn't sure what to think. Then I thought about, of all things, my physics class! We are discussing relativity (great fun!) and recently learned that, say, an apple weighing 1.2 kg could provide enough energy to power the entire country for 1 hour. That is, however, if we could just create an apple of anti-matter weighing .6 kg and use and apple weighing .6 kg (or something like that, please don't quote me because physics is not quite my forte!!!) The problem is in creating anti-matter. But at any rate, it convinced me that there is a ton of energy in the world that we are not even aware of, so I was convinced that it was--perhaps--possible to be radiating energy from my body. I laid on a table, fully clothed, listening to soothing music, while the lady redirected my energy. She would do things like have one hand on my knee and one hand on my foot for a while, then do gentle things to my feet. It was relaxing, but I'm not sure if I would do it again. It was relaxing, but it would be relaxing if I dimmed the lights, put on my favorite music, and laid in my bed, stress & distraction free, for an hour as well! I looked it up online, and found out that if I had gone to the center (instead of them volunteering/getting paid by the student senate to be here) I would have paid $65! In my opinion. If I am going to pay $65 (or have someone else pay it for me) I want my bones aligned and my muscles worked! I do not mean to offend anyone who knows more about these practices and has more faith that I do in the practices. On that note, I did hear that our health center has a massage room. I know they have (free) light therapy for those who get depressed in the winter, or any other reason you may want to use it. I was also told (by the staff) that a lady (possibly a masseuse) comes in a few times a week and that I could set up an appointment with her. If I remember right, she creates a relaxing atmosphere in the room, with music and dim lights and possibly incense. I don't think she actually massages you, but I could be wrong. I think they have a massage table (like those massage chairs or massage pads you buy and put on a chair). I could be wrong. I think it is like $10 for a good amount of time (possibly an hour?). I guess I will have to check it out and report back to you. Oh my....

Shadowing

I shadowed a pediatric physician over my spring break. Hiram set up students with alum so that the students could shadow them. I was really excited about it. The dr. was about a half hour from my house. Even though it was my first technical shadowing experience, I really learned a lot. I observed the doctor and found some things that I really like, and other things I would do different if I were a physician. The staff, nurses, and nurse practicioner were great. They answered all my questions and talked to me about other things. There is so much time involved to be a dr. It really made me think about a lot. I sure did a lot of talking with my mom afterward about the pros and cons, as well as some interesting cases that I saw. I think it is great that Hiram connects current students with alum. Going to the actual job shows you more than any book could.

Surprise...early break!

Hiram is in the snow belt, that's for sure. We do get a lot of snow here. I live south-east of hiram by about 45 minutes, and I see a difference between the amount of snow that I get here and at home. We got hit with a horrible ice storm last week. Monday was gorgeous, I was walking around in a tee-shirt. All the snow started melting. Tuesday was rainy, and then it got cold again. We were getting the worst ice. I went to a restaurant with friend, and we actually had to chip a good 1/4 inch of ice off the car. I couldn't even scrape it, i had to pound it. Then we lost our power on tuesday night. The power lines were getting pulled down because of the weight of the ice. We were on generators for about two hours and then all the power went out. Being the responsible student that I was, I decided that I was not going to class the next morning. I could not set my alarm, and my cell phone was going to die during the night. I figured that if I couldn't even set an alarm, I was not going to stress about waking up. When I did wake up on wednesday, I found a sign on the bathroom door that said all classes were cancelled. I felt so weird. I was on campus surrounded by people, and felt completely isolated. I couldn't get online. I couldn't turn on the TV to watch the news, I couldn't use my cell phone. It was erie to think how easy it is to isolate us. I needed to watch a movie and then write a paper about it. My laptop was definitely going to die within about an hour. I decided to head home for the day. That way I could watch my movie, shower, and recharge my cell and computer. It was kinda cool to go home and have the house to my self in the middle of the day. My room mate called me later in the evening and told me that the campus was shutting down at 8 pm and we were headed to spring break early. I was really depressed during the first couple days. I was snowed in the house and couldn't get out to do anything. I was going stirr crazy. It's amazing how much more motivated I got on monday after I was finally able to get out of my house!!

Second semester vs. first semester

I feel that there is a noticible difference between the first and second semester. Time is going so much quicker this time around. I think that the first semester seemed like a big deal. I was living in an environment that I had never lived in before. My mom wasn't here telling me when to go to bed or when to hang out with friends. I was definitely not getting enough sleep, which made my classes seem even harder. I was trying to make a life for myself; meet new people, decided who seemed like a potential friend, make a daily schedule. Everything was just a big deal. The semester seemed to take so long because each day was something new. Now, I have established my daily routine. Also, it helps that I am taking chem II and physics II. I already figured the classes out, and I did not have to go through the stress of figuring out how the teacher tests, when to do homework, etc. This semester seems much easier for me. Some of my friends have said just the opposite. Some people say that this semester is much more time consuming for them, and that their first semester felt like it was just the social part of college. With my extra time, I have decided to get involved a little more. I started going to our Medicus meetings. This is like a pre-med club. We have a lot of academic clubs here on campus. We have a chem club and a veticus (pre-vet) club. Also, I finally started going to the women's bible study. This is something I said I was going to do all last semester, but never made it. I love going. It is on tuesday nights in a lounge in my dorm. There are a handful of girls, and most of us go in our p.j.'s (we meet from 9-10). It reminds me of the sleepovers we had at my church all through grade school. The girls are amazing. All of the girls seem genuinely sweet and like people you want to be around. You know when you meet someone who is just genuinely nice, well that is how all of the girls seem, and I'm not even exaggerating! Also, I joined a sorority (much to my boyfriend's dismay haha). Go Delta Chi Lambda's!!! Zak was a bit bothered that I wanted to join a sorority because of the stigma surrounding them. Hiram doesn't seem to have typical fraternities and sororities. We are too small to be able to get away with things. Besides, most students live on campus, so there is no place to hold wild, out of control parties. Also, each member must attend a session each year that tells us how wrong hazing is. Hiram has a zero tolerance policy for hazing. They said if we couldn't tell our parents and/or publish the story on the front page of the paper, it shouldn't be happening. I found that these rules seem to be obeyed. I joined the Lambda's because they seem so down to earth. At every meeting, they stressed that all the active members have lives, and they know we do too. The Co-Presidents are Nora and Kelly. They are both seniors, busy planning their life after hiram. Kelly is a theatre major and spends a huge amount of time doing theatre stuff. Nora is a swimmer. We had two weeks of activities, and we never had more than like 10 students (including active members and pledges) and that was perfectly OK. I wanted to get involved to get to know the girls, and because I would not feel pressured to let them consume all of my time. During the two weeks, we did various activites such as a board game night, decorating our big sister's door, and going for half price appitizers at the little bar and grille on the corner of campus. I guess we try to do at least one community service activity per semester, and we hosted a dance the week after inductions. That's all for now... I'll catch up more later!

Hiram Happenings

The KCPB
Hiram has this cool office/organization/thing that plans great events for us. Some people may think that there is nothing to do in Hiram because we are in the middle of no where. To some extent, this is true. There are not many fast food places, or even entertainment in Garrettsville, the closest little town. But, we have this KCPB thing. They do so much for the students, and i don't think I even know about half of it. Last week, the brought in the Comedian Pete Holmes, who has been on both VH1's best week ever and comedy central. I went to that with some of my girls and it was pretty fun. He had a great sense of humor (obviously) and did a lot of interacting with the audience. A few days later, they hosed a coffee house thing with a country singer. Then, they put on a superbowl party. You can also get a lot of cheap (i.e. FREE) tickets through them. Although I have not taken advantage of it yet, they have a movie night about once a month. Either on a friday or saturday night they provide the transportation to the movie theaters in Aurora. Students sign up for the movie they want to see earlier and the week and pay $5. The money is refunded when you show up tho, so you can basically go to one free movie each month. The KCPB has brough lots of outside entertainment in through out the year so far. We have had countless comedians, hypnotists, musicians, ect. They really do give us stuff to do, and it's not dumb stuff either.


Bread and Soup
Every thursday we have this thing called Bread & Soup. It is held in the KC and students can just use a meal swipe to get in. Community members can come, but they have to pay. Money from each person is donated to help combat hungar both locally and on a bigger scale. I went last night for the first time. They had three different soups, and they were all delicious. The bread was also great, like bread that you actually go up to get seconds. Last night was special tho, because they also had a habitat for humanity auction. During spring break, 2 professors and 16 students will work on a habitat for humanity house. Each person needs to take a $50 donation. To raise they money, they hold an auction. This auction is something to see. They advertised it as a big thing, and let me tell you, it was! Many of the professors, their wives, and sometimes even their mothers, make "famous" food year after year. Here is a list of some of the more famous and coveted things:

*Brad Gubser's famous cheesecakes (plain and caramel swirl)
*Matt Hils & Prudy Hall's homecooked pancake breakfast (for 6-8) & nature walk
*Anita Stocz lasagna dinner (for 12)
*Anne Riedel's famous raspberry chocolate brownies
*Dottie Summerlin's dinner (for 6) featuring her famous cheesy potatoes
*Mario Renzi's flyfishing lessons
*Carol & Al Donley pancake breakfast (for 4)
*Jon Moody's donut party

The cheesecakes easily went for about $50, the lasagna dinner for $150 (after a long struggle between groups of students), the nature walk and pancakes for just less than $100 (also a struggle between eager students. I don't remember what the other went for, but they were all such a hit. That's the thing here. I keep saying how great the professors are, and last night proved it. These students are willingly paying big bucks to have delicious food with their professors. Professors and students get along so well here. I found one of the more interesting deals to be the juggling lessons and bon fire (sorry I don't remember the professor offering it). It is just so cool that there was such a variety. I was not one of the big spenders. I got a little basket with food from our own fair-trade shop. From what I hear, it was opened by students in one of the fall's colloquiums. I will have to go check it out and report back, but they are really advocating the products so far. They are bought from companies that support things like fair treatment and pay of their workers. At any rate, it was a good laugh to listen in during the auction last night. I'll add more later, I'm off for a physics test...... oh joy!

One last thing... they raised $1,400 at the auction!!!!

Chemistry: check! One test down (four more to go). We had our first test on Wednesday. I was a lot different that I expected it to be. I kind of felt like the material on the test was much deeper than what was taught in class. I'm not worried about my grade though. The teacher made the test worth half credit so that we could all get used to her testing style. Also, she blatently stressed that she gives partial credit, so put something down even on the multiple choice. I was actually feeling better about the test when I went in than when I went in (and shouldn't that be the other way around?!?!). I guess I will just study a little differently next time. I do like how the class is set up. We have five tests, each covering 2-3 chapters. The last test is the final and it is not comprehensive. That makes my day. After each chapter, Professor Modarelli ties the chapter into real life and gives us examples of chemistry in our lives. I like it a lot. The first two chapters were about gases, the greenhouse effect, and the ozone/global warming. We talked about things we could do, as well as watch a movie. The movie was sooooooo cute. It was called Arctic Tale, and followed a polar bear pup and a baby seal in the Arctic. It showed the detrimental affects of global warming. It wasn't a bad movie at all. Queen Latifa was the narrorator and it was producted by National Geographic. It really made me want to "save the world," although I felt pretty hopeless. I definitely realized how necessary it is for me to recycle each and every water bottle I use and turn the lights off as much as possible, especially when I'm not in the room.


My Family Tree
As I briefly mentioned before, I worked on my family tree for extra credit in the three week. I am forever greatful to Professor Pittman for the assignment. She didn't ask us to dig in very deep, however, it was just enough to spark an interest in me. I have spent the last month researching my family tree and I am having so much fun. I would suggest it to anyone. Atleast talk to your older family members. Find out what it was like for them growing up and any other stories they will tell you. Also, ask them to generate a list of names: the names of their parents, their aunts and uncles (and spouses and children), and their grandparents (as well as any other family they can remember). I have been working on My boyfriend's family tree a bit too. His great grandmother is still alive and I feel like it would be such a shame to let the family history die without talking to her about it. Sadly, when we went to see her, we found that the last year hadn't treated her so well and she wasn't that competent. My grandma is having a blast helping me figure things out. It is almost satisfying just to see how much fun she is having, and it is definitely building a new connection for us. I love hearing her stories about her and my grandpa. They were married for 52 years before he died and they had such a love. It is almost better than a great romance novel because it is real life and it is my grandparents. I realize I am not doing a family tree justice, but it is so very satisfying. I would suggest to anyone to do something with their family tree. I started on Ancestry.com, to which you can get a free 2 week trial membership. I also found I could go to my local library (the main branch) and they had a whole section of the library dedicated to genealogy. My library has all of the local newspapers back to the early 1900s, which is great for finding obituaries. I will let you know if I find any kings or someone important in my family history!

So much to catch up on!!!

Ok, I have not written in a long time and have a lot to catch up on. I'm going to go with the excuse that my computer at home was way to slow to use! That sounds good. I guess I will start with the things that happened before Christmas break. As you knew, my class was a new experience for me. It ended up being a really good one. I would definitely take the class over if I had the option and would recommend it to anyone. It was a growing experience for me. The class ended up having only one other white girl and the rest were African American. The class was really accepting of both the other girl and I. I felt very comfortable by the end and have no regret. The class was somewhat trying at times. The teacher was awesome, but she did give us a pretty heavy course load. We had 2-3 reading each night, and had to outline each one. During the last week, we had a make up class on Monday. This mean we had class from 1-4 and 6-9. Our final was only 2 days later and our study guide was like 6 pages. I felt the stress for sure. Professor Pittman would like to teach the class in the twelve week, and I don't think she would have to add any more material and would still keep a twelve week class busy. By the time I was done with the final, I didn't want to even talk about the material for another moment.

Christmas Dinner

Did you know that Hiram puts on a Christmas dinner for the students? Probably not since I didn't even know until the day before. The upperclassmen started talking about it and saying it would be the best food we would get for a long time. The dinner was the week before break. It was in the Kennedy center. My roommate, a few other people, and I went over to eat. We walked into the main level and it was gorgeous!! There were huge tables, some had lots of fruit cut up, and the others were filled with cheese and crackers. The main table had some sort of meatballs (I'm a vegetarian), artichoke dip, Brie cheese stuff and maybe something else I can't remember. The desert room was something else. It was like 9 tables of the best deserts ever. They had things like rich chocolate deserts and peanut butter pies. As completely impressed as I was, I was somewhat disappointed. I felt like the meal was huge, but didn't have any real food, just hor' dourves. We sat around enjoying ourselves and talked for a while. Just about when we were full, we heard someone mention the food upstairs. Turns out, we had enjoyed only the appetizers and deserts, and confused it for the whole meal. We venture upstairs to find a Christmas *feast*. They had roast and turkey, both at one of those tables they slice for you. They had chicken, salad, pasta salad, and honestly, the buffet with the most options I have ever seen at a buffet. I really wished that we had know that was more food upstairs. Needless to say, we left very full!!

Kwanza

During the last week of school, there was a Kwanza dinner for the students. We needed to get a ticket ahead of time, although the tickets were free. I had no idea what Kwanza was, which was somewhat ignorant of me. One of my friends Simone asked me to go with her. She had an extra ticket since her roommate couldn't attend due to scheduling conflicts. We got dressed up and wandered down to the Coleman center, which was also decorated to a "T". What I didn't know was that Kwanza was an African American holiday celebrated at the end of the year to be thankful for everything they have been blessed with. I walked in and found that my whole three-week class was there, that two of the students had planned the whole thing, and my teacher was the mistress of the ceremony! I had such a great time. Various students took turns reading and doing performances pertaining to each of the seven days of Kwanza. I found out another girl in my class, Isabella, had a phenomenal voice. The food was once again, out of this world. It was all catered, and even with smaller than normal portions, I couldn't fit everything on my plate! They had a great feast also, although I can't recall the menu for you item by item because it was well over a month ago. But I'll try so here goes: corn bread, mac and cheese, green beans, turkey, greens, corn, etc. It was a great cultural experience for me and I was very thankful for all the experiences that the last three weeks of the semester had given to me.

My Break

On more of a personal note, I had a great break, although I feel it was way too short. I enjoyed the time with my mom and by boyfriend Zak. I spent time working with my mom doing medical billing and coding. I went skiing at Peak'n Peek in NY with my family and had a great time watching my boyfriend and step brother learn to snow-board. Unfortunately, the second half of the day was rather rainy, and we were all soaked. I would have much rather had snow! One of my favorite things over the break was my time spend working on my family tree. It all started in my three week class. For four extra credit points, we could begin our family tree and go back about three generations on one side of our family. I went to my grandma and we spent a whole Saturday going through a box of obituaries and funeral announcement card thingies. She also pulled out some old pictures, like a family picture from 1911 of my grandma's great grandparents and their 8 children. From there I signed up for ancestry.com's free 14 day trial. I have had so much fun! I am addicted! I love ancestry because I can get the old census records. My grandma loves that I am interested and has found so many various papers such as marriage license, birth certificates, death certificates, baptismal certificates, christening records, war enlistment papers, etc. My mom and I found out that our local library has a whole genealogy section. They have every issue of our local newspaper back to the early 1900s. I am not doing this project justice. I would suggest this to anyone. It is fun and very satisfying. If nothing else, I encourage anyone to at least talk to your grandparents, great grandparents, parents, or other older relatives. Ask them about their parents, grandparents and their spouses and brother and sisters. Write it down. Write down any other names they remember. Also ask where these people lived, at least the state. Next I think is the part that is more fun. Ask them to tell you stories of their childhood and of these people. I found some stories that are funny, sad, and everything in between.

My Spring Classes

Wow this sounds weird, but writing the word "spring" right now just send a wave of refreshment over me. I was kind of dreading coming back, but my mom really helped me cheer up and see the positive things. I love the college, I was just hard to come back after a break at home. It wasn't so bad after I got here. It was nice and I was soon back into the swing of things. I woke up ten minutes before my 7 am alarm, which made me happy because I was scared I wouldn't be able to wake up. I have Chem II, Physics II, my freshman seminar the Philosophy of Love and Friendship, and I will have some kind of ethics class during the three week, but I'll talk about that when it comes. I am debating about another class, an independent study with the teacher from my fall three week class, Professor Pittman. I really want to work with her on her dissertation work, but I'm not sure if I want to put even one more thing on my plate right now.

As always, If you have any questions, feel free to ask me by posting them.