Teaching College Students - Harder Than It Looks

This May Term I was lucky enough to get the chance to work with Dr. Jeremy Paden in a different way than I have before, not as a student in a class, but we worked together to teach his Spanish III May Term course while helping me prepare to be a Spanish Teacher next year in Memphis.

I invested in a Theory of Second Language Instruction book and Dr. Paden slowly worked with me to help me develop my skills as an instructor and as a speaker and writer in the Spanish Language.  We took it slowly at first but by the second week of class I was completely in charge of a test review and the administration of a test. I've taught lessons and lead discussions and felt pretty teacher-like in general, but I've learned that college students kind of lack the interest and creativity that they once had in their earlier years.

I've worked extensively with Middle School and High School students and even if their enthusiasm is misplaced and they don't always behave as they should, they are still excited about being in class (even if they're only excited because their best friend is there.)  So here is my challenge to you, whether a perspective student, Transy Alumn, parent, or friend: find a reason to be excited about learning, to be passionate about the things that you're doing whether or not they're required by your university, school, or job, be excited and be willing to learn!

*Stepping off my soapbox*

The cool thing about Transy is that students have the ability to do these kind of things, to work independently with professors on mutually interesting topics.

Hope you're having a great May!

The Great Inauguration

In case you hadn't heard, Transy has a new president this year, Dr. R. Owen Williams. And last week, which started on Wednesday due to May Term Break, President Williams, or Owen as I hear he likes to be called and how I usually refer to him, was inaugurated into our great university.  It was a great hurray that last three days and three nights and the students got to be fairly involved.

The first night there was a barbecue with live music and entertainment.

We had walking tours through campus and had a Civil War Expert Panel

Yale professor David Blight examined the war's legacy in American popular culture, particularly in the writings of Kentuckian Robert Penn Warren.

There was a fine-arts showcase featuring individuals and student groups

Members of ImpropTU, the improv group, and Formally Known As, the accapella group, collaborated 

The President was inauguration Friday Morning on the Steps of Old Morrison

For some reason, he got a brand new mace

The ceremonies crossed into the Crimson Affair, our Homecoming Dance of Sorts where we crown Miss Transylvania and Mr. Pioneer

Seniors Holly Milburn, a basketball player, and Matt Elmore, Vocal Performance Major were crowned

**All Pictures were taken from the Transylvania University Facebook Group**

Transy Gets Down with Philanthropies

Last semester was a big one for fundraising for our local philanthropies.  Along with my production of The Vagina Monologues, there were events that benefited Collin's Classic for Children with Cancer, God's Pantry, Children's Miracle Network Hospitals, Reforest the Bluegrass, Walk a Mile in Her Shoes, Hole in the Wall Gang Camps, and many others.

Chi Omega's Campus Sing, on of the biggest events of the year, benefits God's Pantry by collecting cans and food items to donate which earns different organizations points to win the can collecting competition. Contrary to the name actually is more of a dance competition than a singing competition, the winners this year were the Independent Women and the brothers of Delta Sigma Phi.

The Indy Women rocking out.

The Sig's doing their thing

Delta Delta Delta's Water Wars benefits Collin's Classic is an aquatics competition with everything from raft relay races to belly flop contests.  The Delta's collect change and have a raffle to raise money.

Footage of the Belly Flop Contest

Phi Mu's Hoop-a-paluza benefits Children's Miracle Network Hospitals and is a free throw competition where the free-thrower gathers sponsors for each basket they make.  The event featured a game between the Female All-Star Basketball team and the Devastors, a F league fraternity basketball team. 

Delta Sigma Phi helps plant trees to Reforest the Bluegrass and Phi Kappa Tau competitively eat their way into donating money to the Hole in the Wall Gang.  The Whole Campus get involved on the Martin Luther King Day of Service and the men of the Kappa Alpha Order lead the men on campus in Walk a Mile in her Shoes.  The Brothers of Pi Kappa Alpha play in their Nintendothon to raise money and the sisters of Alpha Omicron Pi Bowl for Kid's Sake. 

KA's strut their stuff in heels

There's never a shortage of service opportunities, in fact we have a whole office, The Office of Community Service and Civic Engagement, dedicated to helping students find ways to serve the community. 

Fit for Life!

I'm not sure how much you've looked into the curriculum requirements for graduation but at Transy one of the classes that every single student with hopes of graduating must take is Lifetime Fitness.   The university says it's important because it,  "underscores the University's belief that a sound body is the natural complement to a sound mind. The class emphasizes that physical activity leads to improved cardiovascular fitness, flexibility, strength, and endurance for everyone. Proper nutrition, stress management, and other wellness concepts are also key to this program."  Or in other words, it's kind of like a health class and a PE class all rolled into one.

At the beginning of the semester you take pretests in both your cardiovascular health (1.5 Mile run) and your muscular health (a variety of weight lifting, push-ups, etc.) the pretest is supposed to show you where you need improvement and allow you the ability to reflect on the progress you made at the end of the semester when you take your post-tests in the same areas.  In my case, I was not surprised that I felt like death after my run and I couldn't hardly bench press 10 pounds, I scored among the very low on the proficiency scale in my weight lifting ability and was in the slow part of the class on my run.  Now, don't get me wrong, I use to be an active athlete in high school and has intended to swim at Transy but as it goes so often with the best intentions, I didn't swim and my activity was limited to walking around campus, walking downtown to work, and dancing on the weekends.  The idea of a post-test is what motivated me to get my butt in shape and to work hard to become more fit (well that and the fact that my sister is getting married in June.)

At the beginning of the semester I was, no joke, afraid of the weigh machines; I though I would hate every minute spent on them but I soon found that I got to move up in weights when I got strong enough and it became a competitive game for me.  I got to focus on the muscle groups that I wanted to tone (my arms for the strapless bride's maids dresses) and was set free to work on my own pace.  The professor monitored our activity through fitness journals so I also wanted to show him that I was making advances so that was another motivator to do well.  I enjoyed the weights but still loathe cardio, thankfully the Beck Fitness Center has an amazing assortment of machines to work out on so I got to use the elliptical (or the stationary bike if I had some homework to catch up on) and got to avoid running until our post test.

We had lecture once or twice a week and covered topics from cancer to STI's to cardiovascular health to nutrition.  Our professor, Don Lane, was the basketball coach at Transy for many years and had a lot of interesting stories as well as a lot of practical knowledge both in the gym and in the classroom.  After my post-test run, I was having a lot of trouble breathing and he hypothesized I was having an asthma attack and helped me regain the ability to breathe and sent me to the nurse who confirmed his diagnosis of exercise induced asthma (something I had thought was a possibility since my swimming days in HS but had never had checked out.)

I had put off taking Lifetime for sometime but I'm glad I took it when I did because it really did get me back into the shape I was when I was a high school athlete, I lost 5 lbs and two pant sizes, gained a lot of muscle, feel much better about myself.  It's a class that a lot of students think is unnecessary but for the .5 credits and pass/fail grade it was worth it for me.

Senior Projects Take Over the World!

Hello dear blogosphere!

I hope that you're enjoying your spring, we've been experiencing monsoon season here in Lexington but we've had a couple glimmers of beautiful weather.

My last entry left you all a couple of months ago in the middle of winter semester.  While I was only taking 3.5 credits (classes), last semester was definitely was the busiest I've ever had.  This was due mostly in part to my second senior seminar, my Computer Science Senior Project.

A part of every major on campus, senior seminar allows students to complete a final and culminating work in their major field of study.  Most majors produce a major research paper, like I did in my Spanish Senior Sem, but there are some that do project based learning, like my computer science course.  Don't get me wrong, we had to write, oh we had to write; we ended up writing over 20+ pages of technical documents and proposals in addition to a final research paper and we also produced a final project.  A unique trait to the CS senior project is that we all worked in pairs to complete most of the work for the course except for personal reflections and the final paper.  The idea is that there is seldom a time in the CS field that you'll work on a project on your own without collaboration with at least one peer.

My partner and I created a interview tutorial and simulator targeted at the first time interviewer; I worked on the webdesign and the collection of information and population of the tutorial and my partner did the simulator.  We worked with Michael Cronk from Career Development and Gary Deaton, the director of the Writing, Rhetoric, and Communication program to bridge both information on how to conduct yourself verbally and nonverbally in an interview.

A screen shot of our web interface

If you're interested in checking it out, you can find it at the KING Interview Tutorial and Simulator.

Some of the other projects that were done include a spider identification project (SPIDA), a class scheduler, a work scheduling system, an interactive genetics tutorial program, and a couple of other neat things.  If you're interested in Computer Science at Transy feel free to email me or leave a comment here if you want to know more about our senior projects. 

A different V-Day

This year I've taken on a new adventure, I've become part of the V-Day Campaign and by doing so I'm producing a reading of "The Vagina Monologues" on campus as a part of the V-Day season.  V-Day is a campaign to end violence against women.  The V in V-Day stands for Violence, Vagina, and Valentine's (because the V-Day season starts in February and ends in March) and as a part of the campaign they give the rights to several show to V-Day Organizers for Free as long as they (we) promise to follow a set of rules and we donate all the profits to a local beneficiary.

Our production stars eleven beautiful woman from all parts of campus, we have 3 of the 4 sororities represented as well as independents and 3 bloggers!  We have women from all sorts of different backgrounds and comfort levels in talking about vaginas. I'm excited to be able to bring this to campus and bring a new learning experience to the community. The shows are this Thursday and Friday at 7:30 in Back Cafe (in Forrer Hall) on campus and our local beneficiary, The Bluegrasss Rape Crisis Center, will be there both nights with information on what they do for our community.

"You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me." CS Lewis

Hello beautiful people!

The weather's been dreary today, it's rained, it's snowed, and it's rained-snowed.  Incidentally I had the chance to have lunch and tea with some friends for lunch today and it was marvelous!  The place is called, cuppa: a tea café, and it's slogan is tea for everyone and it was splendid.  Two of my good friends, Erica and Alex, work for the school paper, The Rambler, Erica is the editor and Alex writes a food column and his column this week is all about Cuppa.  It's a couple of blocks from Transy at Jefferson and Short and I had never heard of it, but it's time the world knows all about this wonderful downtown find.

This was my lunch, an egg salad sandwich and a small pot of Mandarin Silk tea. 

As soon as we stumbled out of the wet wintery-mix that had been coming down all morning and into cuppa we were instantly transported to a tranquil, trendy oasis filled by the smell of steeping tea and we were surrounded by the natural light from all the windows which somehow transformed the blizzard outside into a real life snow globe.  Yeah, it was that awesome.  They have a larger tea collection than I could ever imagine and lunch was delicious too.

This is where we sat, very cool and cozy. 

The awesome thing about Lexington is that even as a senior I'm finding new things all the time because the city is growing and as it grows it's attracting all sorts of new businesses, restaurants, and the like.  I know I've talked about how much I love Lexington for its perfect size and accessibility, it never ceases to provide something new for me to get excited about.

Whoomp! There It Is

Dearest blogging world,

I would like for you all to know that I, Abby, have a concrete plan for the next two years of my life. Yes, that's right, your very own friendly, neighborhood blogger was offered a position as a middle school Spanish teacher in Memphis, TN.  Can I take this opportunity to tell you how excited I am? Well, I am so ridiculously excited but that doesn't make senior year any less busy. I have homework every night and social events that vie for my attention as well.

I'm taking my senior seminar in Spanish this semester which culminates with a 15-20 page paper (in Spanish) related to our topic.  The topic this year is the work of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, focusing on Canto General.  My paper is going to explore Neruda's use and depiction of woman and the feminine image in contrast with another Chilean poet, Gabriella Mistral. I'm deep in the throws of research right now and I'm starting to hash out my ideas to try to make them all fit together.

I've also really been enjoying my photography course, it's allowed me to look at coursework from a different perspective.  Recently we can to collaborate with an English class to create a page on what America means to us based off of a graphic novel we read, "Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth." I'm pretty proud of what my partner and I accomplished doing something neither of us had ever done before.

You can click on the image to make it bigger so you can read the captions.

We also have been busy making portraits of ourselves and others.  Our next and final assignment is to create a book of our photography that focuses on something of our choosing. I'm excited for that too. 

I don't have much else right now. Hope you're enjoying your fall! If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment or email me!

Hey, I want to Teach For America.

Ok beautiful blogging world, I promised it to you and now you're going to get it! This blog will be dedicated to my application to Teach For America. TFA's mission is this: to eliminate education inequity by enlisting our nation's most promising future leaders in the effort. What is education inequity you ask? According to their site, educational inequity is the reality that where a child is born determines the quality of his or her education and life prospects. One of the reasons I'm really passionate about getting involved with this organization is that I witnessed, first hand how this occurs as I grew up in a school district where nearly half of all high school students drop out by their senior year. I also have worked with at-risk, middle school girls in my time at Transy and I know that I'd like to continue working with youth in an educational capacity.

The TFA application process is a long and arduous journey. It all started back this summer when I meet with Michael Cronk in the Career Development Center to change my computer science resume to a teaching resume, highlighting the experiences I've had that would be pertinent to teaching . After a massive resume overhaul, I started working on the first part of the online application. This included a letter of intent, my resume, personal information, academic and professional information, interview information, and some other supplemental information. The hardest part of this section was the letter of intent because it was all about me and how I would really rock out in their organization, it's comparable to a personal statement for grad schools.

I found out in September that I made it through to the next step in the process, which was a thirty minute phone interview and an online written activity. The online written activity wasn't too long but involved responding to a series of questions over the reading and responding to a hypothetical situation that could arise in a school, it asks you to look at the situation from a couple of different view points; nothing to really stress about.

 I found out in early October that I had moved on to the final leg of the application process, a final, in-person interview. The final interview stage also included a bunch more information that they wanted online, including transcript information and two recommendations.

I had my final interview on Tuesday in my hometown of Indianapolis at IUPUI campus. The interview was a most of the day kind of thing, it started at 9 AM and ended whenever you had your one-on-one interview in the afternoon. It was a busy day that started with group activities in the the morning: everyone (there were 13 people at the session) taught a five-minute lesson, then we discussed issues in education in smaller groups of 6 or 7 people, learned more about our program, and complete a written problem solving activity. During the morning session, we split up into our two groups all signed up for times for our one-on-one interviews with one of the two interviewers. Seeing as I was driving the farthest, all the way back to Lexington, that afternoon the other people in my group let me sign up for the first slot and I was done with everything by 1:30 PM. I really enjoyed getting to talk with my interviewer and it was nice knowing that I wasn't competing against the other people in my interview because as the two interviewers said, they wanted us all to be invited to join the corps.

So now I wait. I find out on November 9th (my 22nd birthday) whether or not I was selected. :) Send positive thoughts my way!

Me? Busy? No...

Hello dearly beloved blogging world! I hope all is going well for all of you, especially you high school seniors that are starting the last daunting year of your high school careers. I hope that if you're coming to visit this here blog you're interested in Transy as a possible choice for the next four years of your life. If you have questions about pretty much anything, I'd be more than happy to answer anything that I can and if I can't answer it for you, I'll find the answer out or find someone that can! Feel absolutely free to email at adadams11@transy.edu or leave a comment on one of my posts and I'll try to get back to you as fast as I can!

As I'm sure all of you are keeping busy in the various things you go about doing every day, I have been impossibly busy. Between recruitment, class, clubs, RA stuff, and future plans for next year I haven't had very much time to do much of anything very leisurely. I'll do the rundown of events that have transpired since I last updated. Take a deep breath, there's a lot to cover!

Recruitment

My fellow blogger, Emily, recently had a really good update of what the process of recruitment is like for a Potential New Member (PNM) going through the process. My part this year was different from that and different from what I experienced last year as an active member (my thoughts on Greek Life last year can be found here.) As a Recruitment Counselor I got the chance to bond with a group of PNM's and with the group of women that were unaffiliated with me. It really brought to light what I think the best part of Greek Life is, the chance for women of all backgrounds, beliefs, and groups to come together to work towards bettering life for both the collegiate woman and her world at large.

Some of my Rho Gamma group and me after they got their bids

Transy Night Out at GattiTown and Other RA stuff

As a member of the Residence Life staff, I'm expected to participate on a committee and this year I was asked to chair the committee for the fall all-campus activity. I gladly accepted this role and we easily decided to plan a "night out" for Transy students. The way it works is we contact someone, like GattiTown (think a little bit more mature Chucky Cheese,) and set up a sign-in sheet so that the first 100 or so students to get to the event get to get in free. There was a great turn out and everything went really smoothly. Plus I got to hang out with my friends and have free pizza, does it get much better than that?

Besides my committee, I've already been on duty eight times this semester, six of those days were in the first two weeks of class. How much is that you ask? Well I'm on staff in the building with the most RA's so I'm not on duty nearly as much as someone in another area, but I only have three more duty days this semester. Now, I did that to myself because I know that at the end of the semester I'll have important things like senior seminar papers to work on. But still, a girl can get tired.

Another RA responsibility I have is to conduct interviews with each of my residents, which I have completed all but three! They're due on Friday so here's hoping I can catch the slippery ones that keep wriggling away.

Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing

One of the coolest things I've gotten to experience in my time at Transy, was getting to go with three other senior women in the computer science department and our fabulous division chair, Dr. Tylene Garrett, to Atlanta, GA to get to participate in this conference for women. I'm not a strictly CS kind of girl, I have a lot of diverse interests but the women at this conference open my eyes to the opportunities I have to make a difference for women in this field. There was Girl Power, Nerd Power, and just a lot of all around awesomeness. I sat in on sessions on everything from using Twitter in a classroom to how to ace a technical interview. I left this conference feeling confident in my abilities as a computer scientist and the impact that women have in a field that is so highly masculine. If you're interested in knowing more, e-mail me and I'll gush for ages.

Me, Amanda J., Dr. Garrett, Nadia, and Amanda F. at the Museum of High Art in Atlanta

Teach For America

I don't think that I've talked about my commitment to domestic service, especially urban schools in the United States, but it's kind of ridiculous. I'm going to commit a whole post to this later, but I'll let you know, I've made my way all the way to the final interview!

The World Equestrian Games and Keeneland

I don't know if you've heard this before, but people in Kentucky are kind of crazy about horses and people in Central Kentucky are super crazy about them. Lexington had the honor to hold the World Equestrian Games this fall, there's been people from all of the world shuffling around town and a lot of really cool horse stuff going on everywhere. There's been a concert or some kind of event everyday downtown and Transy hasn't been left out. There were two free college days at the games, I didn't get a chance to go but a lot of my friends did they said it was pretty darn cool.

The paddock at Keeneland

Another Central Kentucky tradition is Keeneland Fall Racing and everyone who is anyone at Transy, UK, and pretty much all of Lexington goes to watch. Until Friday, I had never been. This warranted many gasps of surprise from my classmates, but it had never been something that had interested me but two of my girlfriends decided to go and asked me to join, I went more to spend time with my friends but ended up pleased with the decision. After my foray into horse racing at the Kentucky Derby last spring, I wasn't sure what to expect but Keeneland far exceeded any expectations I had. The grounds are lovely and clean and you can see the races even with general admission passes.

Veronica, Callie, and me in front of the track at Keeneland

That's all I have for now, look for an update about my Teach For America adventure coming soon!

Wake me up when September ends, but really...

Have you ever looked at your calendar and said a little prayer, hoping that you'll make it through the month? We'll just put it this way, I've been praying regularly. I've been moving at the speed of light since the end of August. So far I've survived 10 days of RA training, 4 days of orientation, 11 days of class, 5 nights on RA duty, hours of recruitment counselor training and meetings, and I've already managed to have quite a bit of fun with my friends to start our SENIOR year off with a bang.

A photo of me in the office for my photography class

Project on Shadows and Reflections

Classes started last Tuesday and are going well, although I've already managed to rack up some absences. Mostly because I like to keep thing interesting, I was up half of Tuesday night and woke up feeling extremely uncomfortable and when my go-to pick-me-up of a long shower did nothing to help I knew something was wrong. I went to Student Health to see the wonderful nurse, Laina, and we discussed my symptoms and she told me I should probably get to a doctor asap. I roped in my wonderful friend, Kevin, to take me to the urgent care center and another friend, Emily, took me to get a abdominal CT scan and to my chagrin I had a Kidney Stone blocking my ureter. The next day I went to the urologist thanks to my friend Callie and he gave me a strainer to find the little bugger. I spent several days very uncomfortable and under the influence of some painkillers and finally passed the stone on Monday. I've got an appointment with a Urologist tomorrow morning and hopefully he'll give me suggestions on how not to have another one. The one nice thing about getting sick at school is although you don't have your mom there to, well, be a mom, you do see how willing friends are to help with whatever they can.

I'm exhausted and tonight kicks off the real beginning of the recruitment madness and the best part of recruitment (for me,) I get to meet my Rho Gamma group! Yeah, I know, that's going down that whole #1 Greek Scene thing, but as a recruitment counselor I'm known as a Rho Gamma. The idea is that all of the counselors gave up their chapter's letters to help the potential new members find their own chapter so we get some "stand-in" letters. Anyway, I'll be guiding a group of young women through the recruitment process and I get to meet them all tonight for recruitment orientation. The rest of the exciting recruitment process is Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and to add to the excitement the whole recruitment team is moved off campus.

Friends and Forrer Hall (Women's Dorm)

That's all I have for you lovely folks right now, as you might imagine I have approx 1 million things to accomplish before recruitment orientation tonight.

Hope all's well with you!

There are only 10 kinds of people in this world: those who know binary and those who don’t.

I'm giggling to myself about the nerdy joke in the title of today's blog, if you get it I applaud your nerdy-ness and if you don't get it, good for you, you're probably leading a normal life. How is your summer? Over already? That's too bad, classes for us don't start till September 7th. :)

My favorite artist, Jack Johnson, came to Indy. You better believe I was there!

I'm working on my last week as a full-time intern at my office before I take two weeks off for a (very short) trip home and RA training. I've had plenty of time this summer to perfect my nerdom and for that, I entitled my entry. It's been a interesting couple of months playing grown-up in a real office in a real office building with real live, working adults. I took a week off in July to volunteer my time for a middle school church camp in Liberty Co., went on a fourth of July trip to Tennessee to visit my boyfriend and his family, and I've taken assorted trips to visit friends and even a four day stay at home in Indy. But besides that this summer's been about working and learning what it's like to be a programmer.

Chi Rho II at Camp WaKon Da Ho

The dynamics in our office and interesting, we have a fair amount of Transy Alumni, a scattering of Centre folks, and a decent showing from UK and other bigger schools. The other intern, Josh, is a UK student and we have had some fun comparing the programs at our respective schools. At UK, the computer science department is in the College of Engineering so Josh has to take a lot more courses in math and other sciences, his schedule was basically laid out for him except for the introductory courses he got to take in the beginning. Transy's coursework is not so cut and dry. True, we do have to take up to Calculus I (and we're encouraged to take as much math as we can) and a natural science course but in my comparisons with Josh, I've noticed that I get to take a lot of courses that I'm really interested to take that may not be traditionally thought to have much to do with computer science.

I'm really excited for my course load this year because I only have two more cs and three more Spanish courses to take to complete my majors so I have quite a bit of wiggle room to take courses outside of my requirements. Prime example? I get to take my first visual art class since elementary school, Photography! I was jabbering about it and why I thought it was important to take the course to Josh and he said, (and I quote) "You're such a liberal arts student." That made me smile from ear to ear; mission accomplished, operation college = success.

If you've researched very much about Transy, you may understand my excitement and if you haven't you should check out our Mission and Goals. My favorite part is "[Transy] encourages the free search for knowledge and understanding drawn from the natural and social sciences, the humanities, and the arts. By so doing, the College strives to empower students to develop lifelong habits of learning and intelligent, respectful discussion." Some people go to college looking for vocational training and kudos to them, but I know in my college search I was being a little more selfish. You see, I'm addicted to learning, not any one subject or school of thought but any and everything. When I found out that I could major in physics but take upper-level classes in communication, sing in the choir and still have time to hang out with friends, I was so excited. Don't get me wrong, it's not for everyone but for those knowledge junkies out there, step on up.

Right off the bat Transy hits you with something different, your first year you (and all of the other students in your class) take a course called "Foundations of Liberal Arts" (FLA, pronounced"flaw.") The website has a really good description of both sections but the importance to your Transy career is that it sets the expectations that the faculty have for in-depth discussions, no matter what kind of course you're in from chemistry to theater, you're expected to be able to analyse and bring original thoughts to class discussions and projects. It sure made my calculus classes interesting when we were assigned writing assignments and asked to discuss why certain theorems are accepted.

A really cute picture of me and my dear FLA I Book, it's specially made by the faculty to include all sorts of different authors, perspectives and writing styles.

I'll leave you with this, at Transy you don't learn things in only one way. You get the opportunity to explore all sorts of different worlds of knowledge in all sorts of different manners. You're not lectured at by your professors but you're in constant dialog with them.

Summa, Summa, Summa Time

Hello good folk of the blogging world! I hope you're enjoying your summer, I know I have been. This is the second summer I've spent on campus and the fifth building I've lived in on campus. How many buildings to live in are there, you ask? There are seven residential building on campus (plus several campus sponsored houses in the neighborhood.) I lived in Forrer my first year, as all first year women do, then I moved to the Rosenthal Apartment Complex my sophomore year, then last summer I moved over to Hazelrigg Hall, or as we loving refer to it as, the Rigg and I stayed with the computer science camps in Poole Residence Center. This last year, I moved back to Forrer as an RA and this summer they have all of the students working and taking classes at Transy staying in Clay Hall. Clay is traditionally the first-year men's hall so there are some differences from a strictly women's dorm like Forrer or unisex rooms in Poole and Rosenthal. I enjoy being on campus during the summer because you're reminded that although you connect Transy with all of the students, it continues to exist even when most people have gone home and it exists at a much slower pace.

While I moonlight as an RA on campus, my main source of income, entertainment, and place of employment is Dell-Perot Services in downtown Lexington. Back in the fall I heard about an opportunity for an internship with this company through the fabulous Dr. Tylene Garrett (who is also on facebook if there are any computer science interested students out there with questions) and along with several other students in my class, I applied and interviewed for the internship. Through a series events, I got the internship and I started working after class Winter Term. I only came in for a few hours each week and didn't get much accomplished during that time, but the part-time internship turned into a full-time opportunity for the summer. With a place to stay because of RAing, I was able to continue my work with the company. I'm amazed at how much I've learned and I continue to learn new things literally every day, the group treats me like a member of the team and have high expectations of my work.

Me, taking a break at work - way up in the sky, 25th floor!

Luckily for the environment, Transy is so close to downtown that I can get to work faster walking than I could driving and parking. Thankfully, I work all day so I miss the hottest parts to walk through, but there hasn't been any shortage of heat this summer, that's for sure.

I have lots of other adventures going on this summer, I'll get back to ya.

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!