So this week has been quite an eventful one the country hasn't it? I heard on the news that 49 out of the 50 United States received some amount of snow in one way or another this week. Hawaii was the only one who didn't. I read somewhere that DC had, what, 39 inches of snow? My uncle who lives in the middle of Penn. said they got 27 inches on one day! And one cousin who goes to school in Maryland near DC said they ended up getting a snow week instead of a snow day! They had Friday the 5th off for the first wave and then just proceeded to get one day after another the next week until his school just shut down for the rest of the week! A pre-spring break break. Geez.... :)

Let's see, we had school last Friday but classes on Saturday were cancelled which, unfortunately, didn't benefit me at all but it was nice for those students who do dread Saturday classes. Then Monday we all crossed our fingers for snow and get a snow day and fortunately enough we did! Then Wednesday we weren't sure what would happen but we did get a delay until Noon so I got to miss four classes over that period and one practicum opportunity. Once we did get out onto the roads, they really weren't that bad and I was happy that we got a small break nonetheless.

Of course that meant bright and early on Thursday morning I had to get back into the swing of things and actually make an effort to try to get back to normal. Hard to do when you sat around doing nothing for almost 48 hours straight. I can only imagine how my cousin feels on his snow week. I also heard that we are supposed to get another 2-4 inches on Sunday night into Monday morning so maybe another snow day...? :) Wouldn't that just screw everything up. Most places are closed on Monday already for Presidents' Day but the Mount will be open for classes and whatnot so if we do get a snow day that'll benefit us but no one else really. lol :)

I started my practicum last Monday, before all the snow, and I had a great first experience there but then they had no school on Wednesday and they have no school for the holiday on Monday so I'm missing another two opportunities to go so I'm not sure at this rate if I'll get in my 50 hours or not. I'm sure I can find other times and dates to go but Mondays and Wednesdays just work best. But we'll see... It's just hard to have a routine down, get something introduced, then have weather interrupt everything everywhere, and then trying to get back into it. I really don't like. If the federal government can get a snow day, shouldn't the whole country get off as well? Thank you Ellen for that comment. :) Love that show! lol

But we have our Mid Semester break on this coming Friday and that'll be nice to have a scheduled break, not that we really need it considering the break we just had in the middle of the week. We'll see how it goes though. :) I really want to go visit a friend at UD either that weekend or the next when she has her mid break but I'm not sure when it'll work out, if it does at all. But I hope so. :)

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, or as Sam calls it "Singles Awareness Day." lol That's just when we need to put all the singles together and then they won't be single anymore! lol The guy I've been seeing has something planned that day for us but he won't tell me what it is so I'm in for a surprise. I'm not really into surprises so I'm not sure how I'll react. lol But to you all, Happy Valentine's Day in advance. :) Hope its a fun pink and white day! <3

having a snow day did end up turning in to me being sick so my week hasn't exactly been as productive as i'd prefer. however, today as the beginning of my weekend, i've read a lot of www.mlia.com pots and they have definitely given me some interesting ideas of how we college students can bring out the kid again whenever we're snowed in: and this is what i'm planning on doing tonight. build a dorm room fort. yes i said it. a fort. when is the last time you built a fort? that is my challenge tonight with my friends; to gather together as many blankets and pillows as possible and combine the furniture pieces to legit.  build a college dorm room fort. so this brings research. yea i'm still in college so i want to be educational on the matter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPDdws6-GMg

now the music in this video slightly brings back the style of the 90's but i'm expecting something more. i'm talking backstreet boys and nysnc and perhaps even the spice girls. don't judge! well off to my childhood adventure. i will venture back in the near future to share my fasinating tale :-D

so getting snow days in college is definitely worth experiencing. waking up on a tuesday (worst part of the week) at 7am to get ready for a full day of classes is never entertaining to me. however, waking up at 7am and discovering a text sent at 6am that the college is closed for a snow day is always entertaining!

so what did i do next? i went back to bed! only to wake up in time for some lunch with friends. it was then that we turned in to little kids again and started planning our schemes for the day [[snowmen, snow angels, igloos, sledding, snow ball fight, etc.]] unfortunately this didn't totally work out as i had hoped because my body decided it didn't like the cold and in turn give me a cough and cold. not fun! but that didn't take away from our indoor plans. the rest of the night, however, included a whole lot of disney [+dreamworks]. we watched shrek 1 and 2, played disney scene it, as well as put together my disney panorama puzzle.

successful day? i think so!

Hello there. First off want to say happy white-winter-wonderland day to everyone. As most everyone in the greater Cincinnati area is aware, the dreaded "WHITE DEATH" has struck our area again, giving us a break from classes for a day. It is kind of nice being off, but boring as well. What exactly does a college student do on their snow day? Well.......

There are quite a few options, but one of the most common ones is to catch up on sleep and homework that should have been done last night (hey, that's part of college, right?).  Of course I was thrilled when I got the automated phone message this morning at 5:56 AM saying that the college was closed for the day, but that was quickly wiped away by some panic. WHAT IF THE DINING HALL WASN'T OPEN?!?!  The thought of a snow day without food makes any college student cringe.  Luckily our devoted food services director Greg Kathman was there to save the day. I think there are very few times that I don't see him running around the dining hall getting things done for us, that includes weekends. Alright, that was a little off-topic and a small shameless plug but I had to stick it in nonetheless. There are so many people like Mr. Kathman around here who really work hard to make the residence life at MSJ move smoothly. Anyways, luckily we had hot food and despite the college technically being "closed", everything seemed to be normal around lunchtime. 

Now, once the hunger situation has been taken care of, the options of this "free day" really seem to open up. I sat with my roommate and pondered what ever could we do? I heard distant laughter and screams coming from outside the window, and when I went to take a peek I realized there was no other option. Sledding. Yes, sledding. Despite the fact that we are all adults who are busy with jobs and studying hard, snow days give us an opportunity to break out and let our inner-child(ren?) play for a day. Last year, as I remember, the dining hall was getting ready to go trayless, and during one of the snow days they handed out the plastic blue lunch trays to students to use as sleds. This was wildly popular all over campus.  Unfortunately I don't have my tray from last year, however my roommate has come prepared with sleds in the back of her car.

So, I thought I would just share with you all my admittance that yes, even in college snow days are a time for fun. 

This semester is quickly coming to a close and with only a month or so of classes left (and Thanksgiving Break in between) students are starting to get excited about break and anxious about exams.  In most of my classes the questions have already started popping up right and left during the class period : "When is our exam," "What will it cover," "Will we have a study guide," "Will we be preparing for it in class?"  Tension is high in the killer classes like psych and math, but with increased tension comes increased adrenaline... everybody is kind of on an exam high already and the high will last through to the end of exam week (at which point most of us will crash and sleep for two days straight).

However, on the flip side, in the dorms, around campus, and in the dining hall the questions take on a different tone...

Students are asking each other about what their plans are for the break and when they can get together and hang out.  I mean, seriously, going an entire month without seeing the friends you've been living with for the past four months is a little bit of a shock.  We will be hanging out and celebrating the holidays with family, but I can almost guarantee you that most of us will take some time out of the busy holiday schedule and catch up with our roomies and class buddies.  We're human... we can't help being social.

We've got some super events coming up on campus in the next few weeks.  MSJ Band will be having its holiday concert (always worth going out to see!! I know I'll be there), Shantytown will be gracing the quad again and I can't wait to actually participate this year, Dateline has a full issue coming out for the holiday season and it should be a great one (Be sure to look for my photo story on Shantytown), and the Giving Tree in back in Seton Lobby.  It's official, Christmas has hit the college... let's embrace it!

Don't stress about your exams, stay healthy and take a little bit of time every day to do something for you and you only... trust me it will keep you sane.  Don't put all of your studying off until the last minute, but do study hard... keep your eye on the goal, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it just happens to be wrapped in red paper with a big green bow...

OMG!!! It seems like just yesterday when I wrote my last blog and then I realized, no! Today is Tuesday- one week AFTER I wrote my blog! Wow...! Time has just flown by!

We're in our 5th week of classes already and I can't believe it! I'm so wrapped up in classes and papers- and now a huge project for my Art Ed. class that is due in 2 weeks and worth 20% of my grade for the semester. I've started on it but I'm not very far. It's 8 posters on the 7 elements of art (the 8th is an overview of all 7). It's a lot of work so far and I only have one done so far but this is my thing- arts and crafts and projects. This will be a ton of fun and I can't wait to really get some headway done on this project.

CAB is really eating up a lot of my time too. Our mission this semester is to have an event every single week so publicity for that is kicking my butt- trying to get it out, trying to get people to come, and keeping people aware of things around campus.  Tonight is Valentine's Extravaganza, tomorrow is Campus Fair, Thursday is Stuff a Bear, and next Thursday is Bowling. A lot. Fun, though.

The snow days, also, kind of put a crinkle in all the plans of the teachers. Tonight I'll be going to a class I've only ever been to twice because the snow cancelled it the last two weeks- same goes for my Wednesday morning class. We're are going to bust our butts for those classes and I'm not sure if I'm ready for that- not with the work load I already have so far... O geez... lol

And this weather thing is throwing me for a loop! Today it was 60 something degrees but Valentine's Day on Saturday will be like 39 degress. Only Cincinnati can manage to make the weather so wackadoodle like this.

Well, I gotta go get some more of this art project done so I'll keep you updated on life here at the Mount. :)

Hey guys….

Guess what? I’m snowed in….AGAIN! This past week has been crazy with our good ol’ Cincinnati weather. Last Monday we got his with our first big snow storm of the year. And it was a big one. It started with rain, which froze and then got covered with about 6 inches of snow. Then the next day it sleeted, which also froze, followed by another few inches of snow. It was crazy! I was shovelin my driveway and it was wild to see the layers of ice and snow piled up. On the down side, the ice made the snow a bear to shovel, it was heavy and just not fun to throw off to the side.

The snow came at a great time, because Tuesdays are my rough days. I start out with morning practice at 7 a.m. followed by four classes of an hour and fifteen minutes each at 8:30, 10:00, 12:45, and 2:15. Then I have afternoon practice from 3:30 to 5:30, then a three hour night class at 6:30. And last week in particular, I had a Friday weigh-in for a tournament so I had to get a third work out in after my night class to get my weight down. As you could imagine, I was not lookin forward to last Tuesday.  Thanks to the snow, the college was closed and all classes were cancelled, meaning I didn’t have to deal with it! And as an added bonus, Wednesday classes were called off as well as classes before 10 on Thursday.

The only bad thing about all this was the fact that my private drive I live on doesn’t get plowed or salted, so I was stuck at my house for the entire ordeal. And not getting out of my house means not getting on the mats to practice and I had a big tournament a few days away.  I was pretty stressed about that. And even though I was able to workout on my treadmill and stationary bike a few times a day, it’s just not the same as getting on the mats and drilling.

But all turned out okay. I was able to get down to weight, weigh in and wrestle, and I’m happy with my performance. We took 12th place as a team out of 30 something teams with half of our line up benched due to injuries, sickness, and discipline issues.

After all that chaos, things finally got back to normal. The roads have finally gotten cleaned up and my car lost the last bit of snow that was piled on it on Sunday. Then, today around 1:30 in the afternoon, the snow started fallin AGAIN and the college closed at 5:00 p.m. The good side to this is I’m trapped at school, not a half hour away at my house so I won’t miss any workouts. And I can get my blog done for all you to enjoy! Ha.

If any of you have been affected by this snow, which I think most of the country has, I hope you are stayin warm and safe and are able to make a snowman or two.

See ya!

>Eric M.

  The view off my back deck. All the trees were covered in ice!