Nature: Only a Camping Trip Away

Before I even considered coming to Transy for school, my family was introduced to Red River Gorge through my dad's father's family reunion. The first time we went we spend the morning awkwardly meeting family that we'd never heard of before and the afternoon hiking the Gorge. I remember my parents, my sisters and I encountering a herd of bison and thinking that we must be out in the middle of nowhere because I'd never seen anything like the wildlife or the Gorge before. Little did I know that the Gorge and all of it's natural beauty was only a short 45 minute drive from Lexington and Transylvania University for that matter.

Me, my Grandparents, and a Great Aunt at the Family Reunion last year

I don't think I've ever told you, but I'm a fiend for camping. I love packing up all the food, sleeping bags, and tent and getting away from everything every once in a while. My love for camping stems back to my childhood where we would camp where ever the best IndyCar race happened to be during the summer. Interestingly enough, I don't have a lot of friends at school that are too crazy about going off the grid for any extended period of time but I finally talked up a camping trip to the Gorge enough that I had some of my best friends, Erica and Emily, (and boyfriends) agree to go. We picked the weekend before May Term even began and started the countdown for the big weekend. We watched weather.com carefully as it detail the thunderstorms and rain that was planned for our weekend and we bravely loaded the car with our supplies for the weekend. (Tent, tarp, blankets, pillows, sleeping bags, chairs, 1 big jar of pickles, 48 hot dogs, and assorted Great Value food items.) The sky was overcast so we hurried to set up our tent and the rest of the site before rain had a chance to get everything wet, but the sky cleared up some and we passed the night making a fire and roasting hot dogs.

Chris, Tommy, me and Emily in front of our [almost] set-up tent

Early the next morning, I was awaken by the birds squawking and I got up and putted around until the rest of the group woke up. We had a light breakfast and looked over the maps of the area to pick out the best trails for our hike. We decided to hike up to Natural Bridge through a series of paths in the area. Unfortunately we ended up on a trail that we hadn't intended and on the map it even had a warning that it was an intense trail where the hiker would be faced with many stairs. We struggled through the stairs and marveled at the rock formations and other beautiful aspects of the trail, and finally we made it to the top and to the Natural Bridge. The Natural Bridge is exactly what it sounds like a big huge rock formation that bridges two parts of the mountain together and you can walk over it.

Me, Tommy, Erica, Chris, and Emily on top of the natural bridge

We loafed around on top of the area and explored some and then went back down and back to our campsite. The campground was really cool in that part of the river ran through the middle of it, so at our campsite we had the road across from us and the river on the other side of the road. It was clean and shallow and we played in it during the hottest part of the afternoon and then lay of the shade on the bank of the other side napping and reading and just enjoying the area. Later, as we were cooking our dinner (hot dogs) it started to rain so we grabbed some snacks and hung out in the tent for the night playing card games.

Wilderness Women (Me, Erica and Emily) hanging out in the tent during the rain

We woke up early to still wet conditions and decided to pack up and leave; we were back to Transy in time for brunch in the caf. The thing that amazed me was how close to Lexington this amazing geological area was and how far away we felt. I know several people ask about the size of Lexington. Is it too big? Is it too small? And in my opinion, it's just right. You have some really cool cultural opportunities that are typical to bigger cities like Festival Latino de Lexington or the Roots & Heritage Festival and you have malls and shopping and good food but you also are surrounded by horse farms and the rolling hills of central Kentucky and just a little further away you can find amazing wilderness like Red River Gorge and the rest of Daniel Boone National Forest.

Wilderness Women survey the wilderness

Lexington seems to be situated perfectly in the middle of big cities and big country, and neither is too far away for a day or weekend trip. There are orientation programs that travel around the state to work with people in Appalachia, students frequently take weekend adventures camping, and there's even a couple of mountain climbers hanging around campus. Keep it in mind, the world is just at Lexington's doorstep and Transy likes to hang out on the front porch.

Adventure is out there!

Hello Dear Blogging World! We haven't heard from one another in quite some time so I figured I'd stop by to say hello. We've entered that wonderful time of the year known as May Term, a time where we only have one class everyday for a month, yet it seems that I've been as busy as ever. Since May Term started I've only been on campus for one weekend day otherwise I've been running around adventuring, I'm going to rewind and take you through the adventures I've been on since we've last talked.

Boat Formal
One of my best friends, Luke, is a member of the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity and each year during May Term Break their whole fraternity takes a trip to Knoxville, TN (only about three hours away) for an overnight formal that takes place on a riverboat. I went my freshman year with the guy I was seeing at the time, but this year I got to go with a group of friends and it was fantastic. Luke and I shared a room with our other good friend Jerry and his two Dates so we all loaded up into the car and drove down early Saturday afternoon to Knoxville, we got there early enough to do some exploring of the city and we found a street festival and passed the afternoon wandering through the booths.

Luke and I exploring Knoxville

After that we all went to dinner with a couple more friends at a restaurant on the river and then came back, showered, and got ready for the dance. Even with threats of tornadoes, the fraternity members and their dates danced the night away on the river. The boat docked early because of an impending storm and we all got back to the hotel, I talked a friend into sitting out under the awning and watching the storm with me. We came back Sunday and rested for our next adventure on Monday.

Jerry, Me and Luke at the formal on the boat

Indianapolis with the Kentucky Boys
On the Monday of May Term Break, I convinced Jerry and Luke to travel another three hours in the opposite direction to visit my home in Indianapolis. I had a couple of bargaining chips including their fraternity's national headquarters are in downtown Indy, there's good shopping there, and they love me. So we took the trip up to Indy in my VW Beetle (Luke got the back seat and refers to my car as a bubble now) and we got there Monday afternoon, I took them around the town to see the sites and then back home to just be lazy around the house for a little bit. We went to dinner and finished the night in the hot tub looking at stars and relaxing before hectic May Term started. The trip was short, but nice and we returned Tuesday to get ready for classes on Wednesday.

Jerry and Luke at the Solders and Sailors Monument in the middle of downtown Indy

The Kentucky Derby

Another of my best friends, Erica, and I were presented with the opportunity to attend the World Famous Kentucky Derby with her mom and some of their family friends. I jumped at the opportunity because I'd never been to a horse race at all, let alone had the opportunity to go to the derby. So Friday after class we drove to Erica's house in Mead County to meet her mom to go to the Derby the next day. We enjoyed a relaxed night of talking and stargazing (she lives in the middle of nowhere so the stars were especially good) and then we were up the next morning for the Derby. We had both planned our outfits, complete with hats, but the weather disappointed us with overcast skies and plenty of rain. We ditched our hats and heels and went for jeans and rain boots instead.

Erica and I in our intended fancy-wear

The day was fun and we experienced it all, from the Mint Juleps to the mud in the infield to leaning over the rail for a race. We didn't get to see the actual Derby but we snuck up to the rail for the race following the Derby once most people had left to find drier places to be. We were exhausted by the end of the day but we had more fun than we had anticipated.

Us at the end of the day: Muddy, Wet, and Happy

Mom, RN, CNS
When I left for college, my mom started a new chapter in her life in pursuing her masters and it's been fun comparing course loads and talking about paper writing or research for classes with her. Two weekends ago she graduated from her masters program as an Adult Critical Nurse Specialist. Not only that she was inducted into a nursing honorary and recognized for her accomplishments in her program. She's been very excited about it all and next week my little sister, Maggie, is graduating from high school so the two of them and my dad are all going to take a celebratory trip to France this summer while I slave away at my computer all day... but that's a rant for another time. :) So I drove home to celebrate my mom for her graduation and for mothers day and I was able to spend some time with my extended family in their Mother's Day celebrations as well.

Maggie and my mom in their graduation robes

As this post is getting lengthy and I have oodles to say about my most recent adventure I'll leave you all now with this little gem about Transy. It's unique that during the last month of classes any student has freedom to do little more than study, but at Transy May Term gives you not only the opportunity to travel abroad (see my Adventures in Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia from last year) but it also gives you the flexibility to have weekend adventures in the surrounding area.

I hope that it's not been too rainy wherever you might be! Hasta Luego!

'tis the season.

Dear, dear blogging community, I envy you and the fact that many or most of you have not had to endure the season most hated here at Transy, Finals Season. For some reason I was stuck with one of the worse finals schedules I've ever had this semester, I had a BIG program due in my Netcentric Computing class last week and another one a two weeks before that, I had two Spanish literary analysis papers due in the middle of all that and then came actual finals week. This week I had three of my finals all scheduled on Tuesday, so I asked my Spanish professor if I could move my Spanish Civ final forward to Monday (Reading Day) and then I had my Golden Age Spanish Lit and Computational Theory finals on Tuesday, my last test, Netcentric, was conveniently scheduled for Friday so I've had several days to study and prepare for it.

It's been busy and I should get to bed, but I wanted to let you all know that I'm still living and breathing over here and after my test tomorrow I'm going to be free to breathe for the 4 days of May Term Break and I cannot wait! I'll update more about the exciting things I've been busy with in that time too!

Hope all the prospective students are having an ok time with the deadline that's approaching! If you have any questions, leave a comment or shoot an email!

Peace, Love, and Unity

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned a conference I went to before spring break so now that I have some time to write about it I’ll do just that. About a month earlier, my pastor from my church in Indianapolis sent me a facebook message about some opportunities that she thought I might be interested in. It highlighted two opportunities sponsored by the Disciples Peace Fellowship, an organization affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) my own denomination and the denomination affiliated with Transy. One of the opportunities presented is their summer Peace Internship program and a Young Adult Peace conference. I was offered some aid to attend the conference and thought that it looked like fun, so I jumped at the offer.

My next step was to find a friend to go with me since the conference was in Kansas City, neither my parents nor me thought it would be a good idea to make the 9 hour drive by myself. Thankfully, one of my closest friends, Elizabeth, is also a DOC’er (and double PK) and decided to join me on this adventure. Unfortunately for this venture, my car is a manual and so few people know how to drive a standard, so I was on my own for the actually act of driving. The conference started the Thursday night before SB so we had to leave early Thursday, meaning we missed class Thursday and Friday. This meant both Elizabeth and I had to make arrangements to take our test or presentations early, we had to finish the papers and homework that were due at the end of the week. In case you were wondering, yes the week before any kind of break is always busy, and no neither of us slept hardly at all the 3 days leading up to the conference, but the nice thing was that we were able to talk to our professors and they were flexible with everything.

We drove past the Arch in St. Louis, it's one of the only pictures I have from the trip...

The actual conference was an interesting experience, seeing that it was called a conference I was expecting a big crowd but when we got there we were told that everyone was at dinner and we went to meet them (and got lost on our way) and we were met with the 10 other smiling faces of the other people who were there. The small group made for some good discussions and we all knew everyone else that was there by the end of the weekend. We listened to keynotes on peace efforts in communities, took part in some very interesting discussions on the issue we see face us as young people in our society, and Elizabeth and I got lost almost every time we went somewhere new.

Ultimately the group at the conference found ourselves faced with the prospect of actually doing something after a weekend of talking, so we organized ourselves into a group of people seeking to start a national peace movement and the conference was to serve as a catalyst for the creation of a future organization. We did have some fun on top of all the serious stuff, having dinner together and going dancing in Kansas City. It definitely was an adventure and I was met by an experience I wasn’t expecting. I imagine you might hear more about this later, the conference sparked an interest in creating a peace organization on campus but we’ll see about that.

Me and Elizabeth out Dancing

Hope you’re enjoying the spring weather!

Judge if you may, but I'm addicted to ChatRoulette

That's right folks, your favorite Transy admissions blogger has an addiction to ChatRoulette. What is ChatRoulette you may ask? According to the all-mighty Wikipedia, "Chatroulette is a website that pairs random strangers for webcam-based conversations. Visitors to the website randomly begin an online chat (video, audio and text) with another visitor." Sounds kind of creepy? Well sometimes it is, but sometimes it's a really awesome way of meeting people from all over the world. I now have AIM buddies from Ireland and Italy, and I've met people from California to Richmond, KY. Now, you might be asking yourself why I'm talking about this on my admissions blog, well funny thing is, I end up talking about Transy with pretty much everyone I meet. I'll give you some sample dialogue of how a typical conversation might go, I'm "Me" and the random stranger is "Partner".

Partner: Hey!
Me: Hi! How's it going?
Partner: Good, u?
Me: Bored because I'm obviously done with all of the homework, readings for class, meetings, and other responsibilities that I have because otherwise I would never waste me time on a website like this. (:
Partner: so ur a student?
Me: Yep, are you?
Partner: ya.
Me: Where are you from?
Partner: minnesota, go golden gophers! where r u from?
Me: I'm from Indiana, but I go to school in Kentucky.
Partner: uk? do you know the john wall dance?
Me: haha. I actually go to the other school in Lexington, you've probably never heard about it but it's way better than UK.
Partner: whats it called?
Me: Transylvania University.
Partner: dracula?
Me: haha, not the first time I've heard that one. Transylvania actually means "across the woods" in Latin and we were the first university west of the Allegheny Mountains.
Partner: allegheny mountains?
Me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegheny_Mountains
Me: It's actually the 16th oldest college in the US.
Partner: ok cool. What are you studying?
Me: Computer Science and Spanish

And it continues from there, but you get the picture.

There's a Ben Folds impersonator that composes songs on the spot about the stranger he meets, so Ben Folds put a concert on ChatRoulette.

It's funny for me to think about the days when the name Transylvania meant nothing more than a place in Romania where all the vampires hang out, but it's refreshing to remember that a large percent of the population has no idea who we are. I like to be able to share my stories about Raf Week, Greek Life, Residence Life, and adventures abroad.

Spring has sprung

Please forgive me for the serious lack of updates in the last month, it's been a busy time. Seeing that, I have a lot to tell you all about!

Since we last talked, I've been running around campus like a crazy person with all of the different organizations I've been a part of. I got to be a part of a fun event the last weekend in February, the committee I'm on for RA staff decided to put on a Karaoke contest! We had pizza and snacks and of course some awesome karaoke selections, and we had an amazing turn out! It was a lot of fun.

I convinced my two good friends, Emily and Erica, to sing Sk8r Boi with me at Karaoke.

The next weekend was a really cool event that the Panhellenic society put on for Women's History month, my fellow blogger Amanda read some original works, you should check out her update on that. I read "My Short Skirt" from the Vagina Monologues but there was a little bit of everything.

The next week, was the craziest week I've seen in a long time here at Transy, the week before Spring Break and I was leaving two days early. So, I got to squeeze 5 days worth of tests, papers, rehersals, meetings, and programs into 3 days - very little sleep was had. On Thursday, my friend, Elizabeth, and I headed out for a Peace Conference in Kansas City. I'll save the details of that an the rest of my Spring Break for next time! Until then, enjoy the sun!

Lions, Tigers, and Rhino's, Oh My!

Hello blogging world! I hope this finds you well on this cloudy, rainy day but maybe you’re not from around Lexington and you’re reading this in the warm sun, if you are I’m jealous. It’s (continued) to be busy in the Transy neck of the woods, but that’s really pretty good for me. I tend to be more productive and organized when I’m busy because I have to write down the things I need to do and then I remember that I have to do those things instead of remembering them all the night before they need to be done. There are a lot of exciting things going on around campus these days, the winter drama production of Rhinoceros opened last weekend and continues this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 7:30, tickets are $10 to the general public and $5 for the Transy community and you can call (859) 233-3621. Not to mention our very own admissions blogger, Cory Collins, portrays one of the lead roles, Jean. I saw the play last Thursday with the first round of students who were interviewing for the William T. Young Scholarship; the play is def an experience you don't always get in the theatre.

Blogger Cory Collins turns into a Rhino
Photo By: Jason Sankovitch

The William T. Young Scholarship is a full ride scholarship that is totally merit based, anyone who applied before December 1st is considered for the scholarship and if they are found to be eligible they are required to complete an additional essay and conduct an interview on campus. The interviews are conducted over two weeks with two separate sessions of students. Each student comes to campus early on Thursday where they are introduced to a student host that they will spend the night with and just hang out with over their two days on campus. The interviews are conducted from early Thursday through Friday afternoon and the students get to sit in on classes and socialize with faculty and staff, not to mention each other. This year I was selected to be a student host and got to hang out with a senior for the day (Hey Sydney!) It was fun experience especially since I couldn’t of even been considered for the scholarship (I was a late applier).

Besides that, last week was "Greek Week" which is a time where the Greek community bands together to do some cool things, from a pep rally to a blood drive to a letter writing campaign for St. Jude's and a bunch of other fun activities ending in the Greek Awards the recognize accomplishments made by each chapter in the preceding year. It was a busy time, so I snuck back home to Indianapolis for the weekend and it was really nice to just be at home with my family and to see some old friends.

I hope you all have stayed dry today! Good luck wrapping up the college search, if you have any questions just leave a comment or shoot me an email!