This past week was the last time that I had to register for classes!!!  I will soon be a second semester senior at the College of Mount St.Joseph.    My goal is to graduate with honors which are graduating with a GPA of 3.5 or higher.    The registration process at the Mount is actually pretty easy and user friendly.  My advisor usually sends an email stating that registration advising will begin in one week and we should sign up for a time to meet with them.  In between that time I have to pick up a college catalog which are located everywhere around campus, and look through and find what classes I need to take and some classes that I would like to take for electives.  Luckily this coming semester I am only taking 12 credit hours.  I will be taking my Interior Design thesis class, Art History of Design, Digital Illustration and I will also be co-oping.  Well I must get back to work.  Talk to you soon.    

The Importance of Voting!

I am really excited about the upcoming election, I never really was interested in politics until I realized the importance of being educated and informed about the candidates.  That is the most important thing you need to do before an election, educate yourself on all candidates.  You need to consider the issues and then see what each candidate’s platform is on that particular issue.  I personally try to not pay attention to the commercials on TV. because all they are doing is bad mouthing the other candidate.  I have realized how important it is to exercise my right to vote, because women didn’t always have this right.  I am very proud to be an informed, responsible and educated woman voter.  The Mount is also really trying to promote voter registration.  This week at the Mount, SGA is sponsoring voter registration week.  All week SGA representative such as myself will be helping students around campus to become registered voters.  I think this program is such a wonderful tool; people who might not have registered because they didn’t know how, can easily sign up!  If you want your voice to be heard you have to take the appropriate steps in making it happen!  I guess you could kind of consider me a political geek, I watched both the Democrat and Republican conventions on CSPAN.  I promise you I am not a boring person, I just like to be informed and hear what both parties say!  Enough political talk, I must get back to work!

Some new and exciting things are happening at the Mount this year.  When the students came back from summer break, the library had a new roof.  Now that doesn’t sound too exciting except for the fact it is a Green Roof!  The Mount is now the first local college to have a Green Roof on a significant building.  This is only one of the steps that the Mount has taken toward energy conservation.  Last year the Mount officially started their recycling program.  Each dorm room is equipped with a personal recycling basket.  Also around campus you will also find recycling receptacles along with a list of acceptable items to be recycled.  And the newest addition to our steps toward energy conservation is the trayless dining hall.  After the first or second week of classes the dining hall went trayless.  This cuts back on the amount of water that is used to clean all of the trays.  The Mount is truly “Going Green!”

Well what a busy and exciting weekend!!

            This weekend I went up to Indianapolis and Chicago with my Modern Art class.  We loaded up the twelve passenger College of Mount St. Joseph vans and headed up to the windy city.  We first stopped at the Indianapolis Art Museum and stayed there from 11am-4pm.  And let me tell you that was not enough time to look at everything that they had.  It was also a gorgeous facility with 3 floors of nothing but wonderful artwork and tempting giftshops.  A really neat exhibit that was at the Indianapolis Museum was a fashion exhibit.  It was really interesting to see how the styles of clothing have progressed and how some styles mimic each other.  From Indianapolis we headed to Chicago.  We arrived at about 7:15pm and everyone got settled.  We then had free time for the rest of the evening.  My friends and I decided to get dressed up and go out to dinner.  After walking, walking and more walking we decided to go to Rosebuds, at least I think that is the name.  It was an expensive Italian restaurant, we sat outside and ate, and it was such a wonderful time.  The next morning we headed to the Chicago Institute of Art.  That was really an enjoyable time seeing such famous paintings by Monet and so many others.  The really awesome part about the trip is that when I was looking at the art I knew who a lot of the artists were before I even read their names.  Our Modern Art teacher Shawnee has taught us well.  If you ever get a chance to take an art history course at MSJ try to get Shawnee as your teacher, she really makes learning so enjoyable and understandable.  Well I should finish up my homework…talk to you later.     

So it’s SPRING BREAK!!!  This is a time when you are supposed to relax and kick your shoes off and sleep till noon, right?  Well not for me.  This week is being filled with full time work at my Co-Op and preparing for exams and final projects.  And I have worked in quite a bit of time for fun!!  I also have been planning for my final Environmental technologies project; we have to build our own light fixture from scratch.  Everything has to be handmade.  Well this is going to be a challenge for me, so I have recruited my dad to help me with the technical aspects of building my light fixture.  What a great dad!!  I have also been keeping up with my Boutique Hotel project, always sketching and continually revising my floor plans.  As I realize that next year I will be a senior I am starting to really think about thesis.  I know what I want to do and am very excited about the challenge ahead.  I never thought that I would have an interest in healthcare design; I always thought that I wanted to work in the hospitality end of design.  Well the summer going into my junior year my grandma passed away from cancer.  She lived at home until she went into hospice.  We were with her everyday sitting by her side, and slept in her room in a recliner.  This was one of the most amazing and hardest experiences of my life.  Hospice is an institution that sees the transition from our human life to our eternal life on a daily basis.  But there were many components that were missing on the design aspect.  As I talked to my professor Elizabeth about this, I told her the story and she was like “design this space as if it was for your grandmother.”  This of all the things that would ease the patient’s pain, down to the minuscule details.  So I think my thesis will be designing a hospice facility and I would also like to do a holistic care center.  I know this will be an immense amount of work, but as Alex Noble said it is our spirit that helps us continue on and do what we love.