Stephanie's first year at Hiram

It's that time of year

2008-04-25T11:18:00.001-04:00

Good News!!!!

2008-04-01T10:41:00.002-04:00

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

2008-03-26T23:41:00.003-04:00

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.

2008-03-26T22:35:00.001-04:00

Questions and comments are always welcome!!!!

Being Good and some "Aligned" Energy

2008-03-26T21:56:00.004-04:00

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

2008-03-16T23:07:00.002-04:00

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!

2008-03-12T22:52:00.000-04:00

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

2008-02-27T21:58:00.002-05:00

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

2008-02-08T11:48:00.000-05:00

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!!!!

2008-01-24T12:47:00.000-05:00

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!!!

2008-01-08T19:14:00.000-05:00

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.

Spoiled

2007-12-03T16:50:00.000-05:00

Professor Pittman is one of the most involved and caring professors I have ever had. She is such a sweetie. Everyday she sets up a little goodie table for us. She knows that colds are going around, so she brings cough drops, tissues, purrell, lotion, candy, and even drinks. She brings a random assortment of drinks for us everyday such as bottles of coke, vitamin water, orange juice, even starbucks drinks!!! Tonight we are having a pizza party. For extra credit, we can work on our family tree during the three weeks. We need to get back to the turn of the century on one side. She is going to give us an overview of how she would like it done and some useful resources tonight, and is bring pizza. I am really glad I am in the class. It has been a positive experience for me. It is not a time to slack in any way. We were reminded that missing one day of class is equivalent to missing one week's worth of class in a twelve week. We have two or three readings every night and we have to take notes on them that will be graded at the end. I am enjoying the material a lot. I am thinking about the dynamics of African American Families today in a way I never thought of them before. The enslavement of African Americans in the past, and their treatment even after they were freed, has left a lasting legcy. A few things we have considered are the involvement of the mother versus the father in child rearing. During slavery and reconstruction, it was not easy for a father to be involved. Did you know that during slavery, slave owners didn't even recognize any type of relationship or connection between a father and children? ...that a slave family was a mother and children? ...that it was perfectly fine to sell a father away from his family, or even a mother separate from the children? The class is long at times, but never dull. Either the teacher or other students are constantly interjecting personal stories or jokes. We have taken so many notes!!!! We have to take notes (that will be graded) on every lecture, movie, presentation by other students, and article we read because they are all fair game for our mid-term or final. Anyway it is time for pizza so I will write more later!

First day of the three week

2007-11-28T16:26:00.000-05:00

Today was my first day of the three week class. The class I am taking is Sociology of Black Families. I chose the class because a.) it would count toward my biomedical humanities requirements and b.) my advisor said it would be good for me to consider the life structure of people different than me especially if I plan on going into the medical field. This made sense, not everyone I expect to treat as someone in the medical field will come from the same background as me. I assumed most of the people in the class would be there for the same reason I was, they were recruited to expose themselves to different cultures as it would be pertinant to their future careers. This is not what I found on the first day of class. I realized I was one of three white students in the class. I was not sure what to think at first, because this was a different setting than I had ever been in before. I wasn't sure what to do, continue with the class or drop it. It probably took me about an hour to get back in my comfort zone, and by the end of the three hour class I knew I was not going to drop it. Everyone in the class was very open minded and friendly. The girls were very welcoming and I didn't feel like and outsider. The teacher assigned us "families" that we will work on our two presentations with. I am in a group with Nikita and Rob, and I think we will make a great "family." The teacher is LaShawnDa Pittman, who is here through a fellowship while she works on her Ph.D in Sociology through Northwestern. She is really friendly and seems like she will be a good teacher. I will keep you updated on my progress in the class.

60.72%

2007-11-19T18:10:00.000-05:00

What does 60.72% mean? Well I will tell you. This is finals week, and is obviously stressful. My mom sent me a note with lots of goodies, including a magazine clipping that says "60.72% is the difference in salary between someone with a bachelor's degree and someone with a high school diploma (the Bureau of labor and statistics fall 2005)."

Hiram has very unique semesters. A normal semester is 15 weeks, and a typical load would be about 4 classes. At Hiram, the semester is broken into two parts: a 12 week component in which we take 3 classes, and a 3 week component where we take 1 class. The twelve week ends before thanksgiving break and spring break. This mean it is almost impossible to have any assignments over break, literally, because you are between classes. Our finals started on Sunday afternoon and will go through Tuesday. Then we will be off until next Wednesday. Finals are very stressful!! I have been cramming for about a week now. In chemistry we had a test on chapters 6-9 on Friday, and then today we had the final on all the chapters (1-9). John Andrews is my teacher and he is very good! I promise you. It is hard work, but it is well worth it. If i had it to do over, I would still take his class. I am hoping it will help me as I continue toward a science degree. Another professor I would suggest is Joseph Gallant for physics. He is new to Hiram but has a great sense of humor and is very realistic about his expectations. All of my teachers seem to have been realistic about the finals. They all realized that we have other finals and tried to make it as bearable as possible. My cumulative math final was turned into a take home test. Don't think I got off the hook too much because it still took a little over five hours!!! My room mate has a paper that is due tomorrow, and just a few hours ago she got an email from the teacher giving them a week extension. I have heard a few stories of hard teachers; I'm sure we have our share. I heard we have a new psychology teacher that has a pretty high standard. One of my friends, Ben, has an intense calculus class. For each test they take, they have a retake the following day where they can get up to half of the points back that they missed during the first try. Well on the final, the highest grade was a 55%, but they still get their retake. Where every you go, you just have to study and you will be fine! At any rate, I am off to study Physics. Tomorrow after 11 am I will be homeward bound for a week! Happy Thanksgiving!

Yet again, the professors shine through!!

2007-11-16T18:03:00.000-05:00

I am taking a one credit hour class entitled Cancer and the Arts. It has been a great class. Last night was our last night. I was going to stay after class and talk to the professor - Jon Moody - about possibly picking up an ethics minor. I heard him ask a few other students to stay after. When everyone left I saw that it was our four international students he asked to say. He asked each one if they had somewhere to go for Thanksgiving. He didn't let them off the hook with just a yes answer. He went through the whole, "are you sure?" "Where are you going?" set of questions. He said he has extra room at his dinner table and he wanted to make sure everyone had somewhere to go. I thought that was one of the sweetest things. Oh, and did I mention that he also went home before class to bake us delicious brownies?? Well, he did.

A college full of awesome professors.

2007-11-02T22:22:00.001-04:00

So yesterday I was studying for my statistics test with two other girls. We weren't really getting anywhere so we decided to go to the Professor for help. She, like every other teacher, always encourages us to come by, especially before a test. She also told us to wait for a few minutes if she isn't there because she went to get food. Well, she wasn't there. We decided to sit outside of her office and wait. Brad Gubser, the other math teacher, walked by and told us that our teacher had gone home. He then told us he knew we had a test tomorrow and asked us if we had any questions. We had a lot! He had two meetings in the next two hours, and he insisted on moving the second one to help us, even though he wasn't our teacher. We tried to say it was ok, we didn't want to make him move meetings. He helped us for an hour, and went over both chapters. I was so amazed that someone who wasn't even our teacher rearranged his schedule to help us!!! To top it off, he sent us an email the next day asking us how we did. I am really impressed with all of the professors I have come across so far at Hiram. They all seem to go above and beyond. They are very supportive of the students and have a very, very open door policy. One more example. My chemistry teacher, the guy with the great British accent, invited all of the chemistry students to his house yesterday for dinner. Every year, him and his wife host a dinner. They live right here in Hiram, basically on campus. He said we were more than welcome to come in our Halloween costumes since it was only the day after Halloween. I walked in with my friends, and every room in the lower level of the house was packed with students. His wife made wonderful food and about four types of deserts. Professor Andrews told us all about the food: they had beef tips (or something, I don't eat meat so I don't remember exactly what it was), rice and curry for the vegetarians, and an organic salad. They also had cucumbers in dill and something else (very delicious!). The science students and teachers hung out for a while. I couldn't believe how relaxed the night was, and how comfortable I was in my professor's house. When it was time to go, we went up to his bedroom and got our coats. It felt more like I was in the house of one of my parents' or grandparents' homes, not a professor. We really do have amazing professors here at Hiram.

Is anyone out there?

2007-11-02T22:03:00.000-04:00

I was just wondering if anyone is reading my blog. I hope that I'm not just writing to thin air... It would be great if you could leave a comment or something. Maybe your name, school, how you found out about Hiram, how interested you are.... Feel free to ask questions, and I promise I will answer them as truthfully as possible. I know I appreciated honesty when I was looking at colleges. Muchas gracias!!!

It must be said...

2007-10-26T21:49:00.000-04:00

It was the first week of school when it happened for the first time. For some reason, there is a bit of an obsession for pulling the fire alarm in the middle of the night this year. I live in centennial, and it is always around 3 AM when it happens here. I remember the first time, waking my roommate up, putting decent clothes on, contacts in, trying to find our shoes and still get out of the building in a descent amount of time. We waited outside for about a half hour. We had to wait for the volunteer firemen to get a call, get out of bed, and check the *whole* building. Within the first month, there were 13 prank alarms pulled. Last year at this time there were ZERO. The college posted signs that (I believe) say falsifying a fire alarm is punishable by up to $1000 and six months in jail. They finally stopped!!!

So fast forward to last night. I was up till about 1 studying and was going to get up the next morning around 7. Wouldn't you know someone decided to pull a fire alarm once again. Three AM, as usual. So far, no one has been caught. I wish some people would start talking!! I know our senate has looked into possible solutions. Problem is, the fire alarms are everywhere, so even if a solution is found and is reasonably cheap, there are like a hundred gazillion fire alarms you need to take care of. I also happen to know that our security is looking into solutions. We asked about the specifics, and they weren't comfortable telling us the details. It makes sense, why would they tell the students what precautions they are taking. The point is for those students to fall into the trap. I hope it happens soon!!

Fall Weekend

2007-10-16T01:38:00.000-04:00

Another great weekend!!! Last week was week 7. That may not mean anything to you yet, but if you come to Hiram it will. Hiram has a cool set up for there semesters. Instead of a normal 15 week semester, we have a 12/3 program. We take an average class load of three classes during the 12 week and one class during the three week. I am really looking forward to the three week parts, but I’ll talk more about that when it comes. The semesters are somewhat intense, but isn’t that what Hiram is all about? My classes are definitely moving along, as you can tell by how stressed I seemed about my chem. test. At the end of the 7th week, we get a fall weekend. We have no class on Thursday or Friday. Most students go home, and for students that live far away, this is often their first trip home. I absolutely loved it. It was so wonderful, first of all to have a shortened school week, but most of all to have the time off. I went home and spent the majority, ok basically the whole weekend, with my boyfriend. I was really in the mood to celebrate autumn this year. I never really had a favorite season before, but this year I decided it is fall. The campus is really pretty in the fall, which first put me in the mood. But I was really in the mood to take advantage of the apples & pumpkins & fall goodies time of year. I got online and looked for different festivals. I found some cute ones around here, but Zak wasn’t up for any of them. My favorite would be the apple butter festival. We decided to spend the weekend home instead. To keep in line with my fall festiveness, we went to my uncle’s fruit farm and got pumpkins. We then proceeded to spend our Friday night drinking apple cider and carving pumpkins. My mom cooked us wonderful meals all weekend! I have gone home a lot, probably at least every other weekend. But this weekend made me realize exactly how much I missed being home. I miss my mom – she is like my best friend and it is hard to be away from her. I miss how cozy my home is. I miss having quite time. It was nice to wake up and have the whole morning to myself, in a completely quite and deserted house while my mom was at work. I miss good food. It’s amazing how my mom can make like one thing for dinner with two side dishes, and it is sooooo much better than Hiram’s 25 different options. I came back and spent most of today being sad and frustrated. I sometimes feel that my dorm is my bedroom/closet/bathroom/kitchen. I miss having a whole house. I am so much more relaxed at home. Sometimes I get stressed just by walking into my dorm because of how little it is. This is my little home. One little mess makes the whole room look messy. I just get frazzled about all the things I have to do – clean, homework, call this person, do that. I just haven’t found that system that works for me yet. I need to get into a grove; develop a schedule. Being home was such a contrast to this. I had to consciously stop dissing the dorm and stop telling myself that a home is better. I do like the dorm, it’s just a bit of an adjustment. It really helps that I still have very supportive people around me, namely my mom and Zak. I’m sure eventually I will love being here more than at home.

2007-10-08T21:59:00.000-04:00

This weekend was homecoming and it was a blast! Starting last Wednesday, there were homecoming activities. They had a dodgeball tournament, a comedian on thrusday, and a bon fire on Friday. There was a parade Saturday morning and then the dance Saturday night. The theme was Hollywood nights. I heard they were having an outside company come in to decorate. When I got there, I was a little disappointed in the decorations. It doesn’t matter tho, cuz it’s not the decorations that make the dance. I also heard that they had limos for us. It sounds kind of corny, but they had 3 limos picking students up in front of the kenedy center, driving them maybe ½ mile to the coleman center, the athletic center. My boyfriend didn’t see the purpose of waiting like 7 minutes for a 2 minute ride, but it was part of the experience. We went down early for dinner. The dinner is free to the first 400 people to go get tickets. It was delicious and the deserts were great. The dance was so much better than my high school dances. The dance floor was packed tight. At my high school, there people were always very spread out, and probably only half the people there were dancing at any given time. Not this. It was really fun. Originally, I was going to wear one of my fancier prom dresses, but ended up opting for the little black dress per request from my boyfriend Zak. I think that I may have felt out of place if I had worn something super fancy.

Homecoming was a big relief for me. I had spent the whole week before studying for my chemistry midterm. (I’m not sure how homecoming and a chem. test fit in the same blog, but I’m doing it anyway.) I actually didn’t participate in many of the homecoming activities during the week cuz of the upcoming test. I have Professor John Andrews. He is very competent and moves kind of fast. Don’t misunderstand me, he is not a bad teacher moving too fast for you to keep up, you just have to make a conscious effort to stay ahead. It all worked out tho, cuz Katrina, who is in that class with me, and I dominated the test. I guess a week of hard studying returns good rewards, homecoming and a good grade.

Meet my roomie!

2007-10-03T13:12:00.000-04:00

These are pictures of roommate Katrina and me. We met when we were both here for a scholarship competition. We talked online for a while and then started talking about all the “big questions” you would want to know before rooming with someone. It seemed like we would be compatible so we decided to be roommates. As it turns out, we get along great! We turned into best friends. It’s really weird, even after a week, we would sit here talking as if we had been friends for years. I was a little bit nervous about living in a dorm since I am an only child. It worked out fine for Trina and I. We hang out together all the time. Basically, we are inseparable. I have seen some roommates like this and I have watched some problems emerge for other people. One girl went home for the weekend and later found out there was a party in her room and a few couples may have ended up on her bed. Needless to say, she switched roommates. There is an RA on each floor (an upperclassmen that kind of controls the floor). They are wonderful and are very helpful whenever you have a problem. We also have an RD, resident director, in the building that is a grown man living in a 4 room apartment. His full time job is solely to take care of the problems in our building. Both the RA and RD will help anyone having problems with a roommate. It seems like the majority of people do not have many problems. They may not be best friends, but they get along just fine. As long as you are a descent person, your roommate should be too. It seems like communication and courtesy may be the key. I live in Centennial, which is an all girls building. It is connected to booth, which is co-ed. I love my building! Everyone is friendly, for the most part. It is a calm place to live, not to mention in smells *much* better than anywhere there are guys, haha.

Campus Day

2007-09-26T21:59:00.000-04:00

Today was sweet! Hiram has this day every fall called campus day. The students get the day off school and the professors serve the students brunch. The purpose is that all the students will spend the day volunteering. There were so many things to get involved in. Some students went to local places such as animal shelters and Hattie Larlham, a home for the mentally disabled. Lots of groups did work around campus like landscaping, painting or composting. I think it is a great idea. How can you turn down volunteering when you get a free day off school. It couldn't have been a better day. Today is my long day, so I got out of chemistry, physics and stats!!! My physics professor is hilarious. He is new this year, and isn't always sure of Hiram's traditions. He appearantly doesn't read his email, cuz he didn't even know about the day. Maybe you had to be there, but it was hilarious to hear him complain about missing class because of a so called "Save the World" day. He kept asking if it was for real or if we were trying to pull one over on the new teacher. To make it even better, tomorrow is my birthday!!!

The beginning of a crazy week..

2007-09-26T02:06:00.000-04:00

My day was crazy. Let me back up a minute and tell you I was really motivated when I made my fall schedule. I have an 8 am chem class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Tuesday morning physics lab and Thursday morning chem lab, both at 8:30 am. This morning, Tuesday, my physics lab was canceled. This was a huge deal... I don't even think you understand. For the first time since I've been at Hiram, I got to sleep in past my room mate!!! I am always the one trying to be quite and get ready in the dark, and I finally had my turn to sleep in. I set my alarm for 11, sure that I would be up much before that. Lo and behold my alarm went off and I was still fast asleep. At noon, I attended a convocation by Eric Coble and Laurie Frey. They co-wrote a musical called Unbeatable. Let me say it is phenomenal. From noon to one, we were able to listen to a shortened version, as well as talk to Laurie. The musical is based on her bout with breast cancer and it is hilarious! Although it is sad and depressing at times, it came right back up rather quickly. She is an amazing woman, with a great sense of humor and a large dose of courage. She hopes that it may make it Off-Broadway and even Broadway. If it makes it big, and you ever get the chance, *go see it*. I promise you it will be worth your time. It worked out good for me. I am taking two one credit hour classes. One is Cancer and the Arts. This class was thrown together as an after thought. It turns out that there will be two plays a couple speakers at Hiram this fall, all dealing with Cancer. The powers that be (haha) decided it would be a wonderful opportunity to make a class incorporating all of the events. Therefore I was required to go to this presentation for my Cancer and the Arts class. My other one credit hour class is Writing about Illness. We are reading short stories about illness as well as writing short stories ourselves. I love how the class is set up. Each week, a different student writes an essay. On Sunday the student emails the essay to all of the class members (all 10 or so of us) who then make corrections/suggestions and send it back by Monday. (Our class meets on Tuesday). This class also required that I go to the Unbeatable convocation. In case you missed it, I was killing two birds with one stone.

I caught up on homework and started studying for my upcoming Chem test after lunch. Then from four to five, I went to my Writing About Illness class. 5:30 pm was the science mixer where all the science students and professors got together to talk about research and career opportunities. At 6:30, my Chem teacher (thankfully) held a study session for next week's test. Let me tell you about Professor John Andrews. He is British and has the sweetest accent ever! I know you've all heard stories from other college kids who have had professors with such thick accents they couldn't even understand them. Not him. His accent is so proper and his choice of words is so interesting that it actually helps to keep me interested in an 8 am class. Then at seven I went to the student senate meeting. I am filling in for another bio-med student, Emmy Lou. She was elected representative of our major then found out the meetings conflicted with her psych class. I love going to the senate. Granted, this was only my second meeting, but I really enjoy them. They meet every week and seem to actually represent the students very well. This week we met with Jack, the man in charge of our food. Let's be honest here, Hiram food service isn't exactly in the top ten in the nation (it would actually be easier to describe our position from the bottom, not the top) but they are working on it. I realize you can't make "home cooked meals" when you serve 1,000 students three meals a day, but it was still a bit of an adjustment. I guess that Hiram switched food companies a few years ago. Before then, they ran their own food service and now they are owned by a national company. Jack talked to the senate about improvements and concerns. The students in the senate had many comments for him, and he answered each and every one. I can say that he honestly is looking to make the food better and takes our suggestions seriously. He was in the cafe during my first week here, and had no problem coming right up to me to ask my opinion. He pushes students to write comments, and we have seen the comments put into action. We thought it was really cool when we walked into the cafeteria last week and saw all the comments students leave with a typed response from him beneath. Students typically ask for more variety, and for the food to appear more appealing. We have asked for things like different salad dressing and they showed up on the salad bar the next week.

Ok this blog got really long and I have other things to do so I guess I'll just tell you more later.

Allow me to introduce myself....

2007-09-18T13:46:00.000-04:00

My name is Stephanie Gasper. I graduated from Western Reserve High School, just out side of Canfield, Ohio (about 45 minutes from Hiram). I chose Hiram for the cliche reason that I knew it was the college for me when I walked onto the campus for the first time. Different people in my life had told me that I would know which college to pick when I walked on the campus. I all but laughed in their faces. How would I know what I wanted? How would I know what type of college will work for me? If I have never lived in a dorm room, how would I know which one would suit me better? I didn't think I could pick from a first impression.
As it worked out, I didn't have any classes on Friday's during my senior year of high school. Each Friday, a friend and I went to a different campus. We ended up at Hiram one week. I absolutely loved the campus. If I had to pick one thing that sold me on the campus, it would be the people. I'm not even kidding when I say that everyone - students, teachers, and faculty - is the friendliest bunch of people I encountered at any college. Students here talk truthfully to prospective students. Any student I asked a question to would answer it gladly. (It is such a cool feeling to make friends with the students I met when I was here for tours and at other prospective student programs. In physics, I am actually lab partners with one of my tour guides from last year.) The teachers and faculty were just as nice. I met with a teacher on one of my visits to Hiram and he was another reason I picked it. Denny Taylor (pictured on the left) reminded me of my favorite high school teachers. He had such a passion about his work as a biology professor. He is a genuine nice guy. He told me about the trips he takes students on both internationally and locally. He seems to think of the students as his friends, in a sense. I am really looking forward to taking a class from him sometime in the future.
Ok, so I applied, got accepted... blah blah blah. In April, I came to Hiram for orientation. I met with my advisor, Sandy Madar, about my classes. Being a pre-med student, she suggested that I look into the accelerated biomedical humanity major. With this major, you can graduate with the equivalent of a pre-med degree in only three years. In order to graduate early, you take a little heavier course load, but you also take a summer class. Call me weird, but I thought this sounded fun. I ended up signing up for a three week summer class. It was a biology class called "What is Human." There were only 8 students (6 girls and 2 boys), and it was a blast. First of all we developed a great friendship that we still lean on. Secondly, we ruled the campus. We had it all to our selves for a little over a week, and then we were sharing with the sports teams. It was so amazing to be able to get used to everything w/o the craziness that goes on when the campus is full. Thirdly, we had two amazing teachers. Colleen Fried and Carol Donley are a great pair. They were very laid back and easy to get along with. We did a lot of work, but it didn't seem like it. It wasn't till the class was over three weeks later that I realized that I had written 5 papers and read 3 books. We were in class for three hours a day and probably spent 3-4 hours a day doing homework, but it was spread out between eating, working out (well ok only once or twice a week) and hanging out with friends. I have no regrets about coming early. The only thing is it has kind of changed the way I made friends. We had an awesome group of eight, so even when the rest of the students came we tended to stick with our original people. We have "adopted" roommates and new significant others. As far as people breaking up with their high school boyfriend/girlfriend and how quickly (almost) everyone found a sig. other on campus is a whole different blog. I have so much I can say, but that's about all the time I have for now.
*Stephanie*