Liz B

Spring Concerts

Almost every year we have two concerts here at SHU, usually one Fall and one Spring concert. This year we had The Goo Goo Dolls and The Spill Canvas come here for a concert in the Fall. My roommates and I all attended. It turned out to be a really great concert, I was really happy I decided to go. The Goo Goo Dolls really put on a good show. After that I was really excited to see who would be here for the Spring concert and to my surprise there are going to be two Spring concerts!

The first concert we heard about was Kid Cudi. I happen to really like Kid Cudi so I was pretty excited when I found out he was coming to Sacred Heart. The concert is in May and I am already counting down the days till he comes. 

For all of you who don't know who Kid Cudi is, here he is. 

 

Then about a week or so ago we received an e-mail that there was going to be another Spring concert. The other concert is going to be in March and the artist coming is Lee DeWyze American Idol Season 9 winner! This concert is going to be a little more low key then Kid Cudi and will be held in the Edgerton Theater rather then in the Pitt Center. Either way I'm excited for this concert as well. 

Here is Lee DeWyze. 

 

I have a feeling it is going to be a good Spring Semester! 

 

90 Days Left?

I just realized today that there are about only 90 days left in my undergraduate career! This semester is flying by, I can't believe that come May I'll be done with SHU.

I've looked at my years here in groups of three instead of in two semesters. There is cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track. All three seasons make up a part of the school year. Season number two is about to end and that just leaves season three, outdoor track (which is the shortest of the three). Last weekend my teammates and I went to compete in our NEC meet. The meet actually went really well and I must say it was one of the more exciting NEC meets that I've been to over my years here. The girls ended up coming in fourth place, while the boys came in second place by only five points. Both the girls and guys are now even more motivated then ever to win our outdoor track NEC meet. 

Indoor track is not over just yet though. I have one more meet to run in this weekend at Harvard. It is the USA T&F New England Meet. I'm very excited to compete, but sad because it's my last indoor meet. I'm doubling in the meet and running the mile and the 3k. I hope that all goes well and that maybe I can leave the meet with two new personal bests! 

Swimming, Donuts, and Pancakes!

    It's the second semester of my senior and by now I thought that I had done it all, but today I still managed to find something new to do. Two of my friends are on the swim team here at Sacred Heart. Most of their meets aren't very close by to school so I've never had an opportunity to go watch them swim. However, luckily today they had a meet as Western Connecticut State University and I had the chance to go watch them swim. Not only was it my first Sacred Heart Swim meet, but it was also the first swim meet I've ever been to! I have to say it was pretty exciting. I myself am not much of a swimmer, at least not at a competitive level, so it was neat to watch all the girls compete. Both of my friends did very well, along with the rest of the team. They came in first, great job to all the ladies who competed!! What was just as good as the meet was the food that followed. All of the swim moms brought tons and tons of snacks. My friends mom brought a donut cake! I've never had one before, it was delicious. Apparently it is a common snack in Rhode Island. I wish I could find it in CT because it is great!! 

These are the seniors with this coach! Good job ladies! :) 

Here is my friend Allison about to start the 50 fly! 

This is the donut cake! Soooo good! 

    After the meet a few of us decided to go to this pancake place in Orange, called Chips! They are said to have the best pancakes for miles. In my opinion I'd say it's true. The pancakes were great. I had banana and peanut butter pancakes and my friends had chocolate overloaded pancakes. It was a good dinner, well a good breakfast for dinner. It was a great day at Sacred Heart and a really fun way to spend my Saturday! 

Last Semester?

I didn't believe this day would ever come, but alas here it is- my last first day of school (at least as an underclassmen). I can't believe I am here, only one more semester to go at Sacred Heart. I must say it has been quite the ride. I am looking very forward to this semester and to see what comes next for me. 

Coming back to school is always exciting for me. I love getting to see all my friends and catching up with everyone. It's nice to share stories about all the exciting things everyone did over winter break. I actually had a very eventful break this year. I was able to see all of my friends from home whom before break I hadn't seen in a while. A close friend of mine always holds a Christmas gathering at the beginning of winter break. It is something I look forward to every year. It's the one time I know all of my friends from home will be able to get together. No matter how busy we are over break, we always make time for Kelly's get together. This year there was a bigger turn out then ever. I saw some people I hadn't seen since high school. Though we've all gotten older and done a lot since high school, it's nice to see that all of can pick up right where we left off. As much as I love being at home another part of break that I look forward to every year is preseason for winter track. 

Each year the members of the indoor track team get to come back to school about two weeks early and train for our upcoming season. Unfortunately this is my last preseason, but that being the case I just had to make the most of it! Plus it's a nice to come back to school and have people to train with. It can be a bit boring always having to do all my runs by myself at home. This year we had to two meets during preseason one at Army and one here in CT at Yale. 

This is right before the 5k went off at the Army meet. I'm all the way to the right getting ready to race! This turned out to be a great race for a bunch of girls on my team. In fact one of my teammates actually qualified for the ECAC meet in this race. 

Here is a bunch of us, just hanging out at the Army meet. Either waiting to compete or resting after an event. 

Finally here is me and one of my teammates after our meet at Yale. Glad to have run well that day. 

We have a few more meets coming up and then in February we have our NEC meet. The most important meet of the whole season. I hope the team can place in the top 3 again this year and hopefully maybe even come in first place! 

Until then I'll just be training and going to class. I had my first class today, abnormal psych. I was pretty excited for this class and turns out I was right, it is a very interesting class. The class flew by and I can't wait for next week to go back. Tomorrow I am off to Spanish 2, which I am also looking forward to. I think I've got a great last semester ahead of me. Last semester, time to make the most here at SHU!

Thanksgiving Break Already?

It seems like I was just moving onto campus last week and here we are the beginning of Thanksgiving break. This semester is almost over and that means I will soon be half way done with my senior year. It seems like many things are coming to an end for me. Just last weekend I competed in my last cross country race ever. The team competed in the ECAC/IC4A championships in the Bronx at Van Cortland Park. It is a course that I really enjoyed running on and thankfully I ended my season with a personal best for this specific course. I was very pleased with the way the meet went and I know all of my teammates were happy with how our season ended. 

Here is a picture of all the seniors on the team. All of us very happy to be done racing! 

It was a good day for all of us, but I think I speak for most of us, that we're all looking forward to indoor track. In fact we have our first meet coming up on Dec 5th at Yale University. It is a fun meet to open up the season with and very close to SHU. But in the meantime I'm very happy to be at home enjoying the holidays. I'll be heading to my grandparent's house on Thursday for a nice Thanksgiving dinner! I'm going to spend the break relaxing, then it's back to school to focus on finals. For now though it's all about hanging with the family. 

Back to School

Wow. Senior year. Where did the time go? I can't believe I am in the fall semester of my senior year of college. It seems just yesterday I was a nervous freshman coming into Sacred Heart. Well I can't say I'd have it any other way. Though I am coming to the end of an era, being here at SHU for the past three years has been amazing. I look forward to what this year has to bring. 

I am excited for all my new classes, but I can't forget what an amazing summer I had. I crammed as much in as possible this summer. Being my last year summer vacation I had a lot to do. 

As soon as school ended I went home for a few days, then on May 14th I set off for Ireland!! I participated in the SHU study abroad program and spend two weeks in Ireland. It was an amazing experience. I took the Irish Cinema class. Not only did I learn a bit about Irish Cinema, but I also had the opportunity to create my own cinema. As part of the class we got to create a personal video depicting a part of Ireland and as a class we made a documentary on Dingle where we stayed and the SHU program. The final results were amazing as a class we all worked really well together! 

Along the way I made many new friends on the trip! My good friend Kimmy went on the trip with me, but the two of us meet a lot of new people. I love trips like this because you are thrown into a new environment and forced to make new friends and discover new things. My friends and I learned a lot about Ireland, especially with the help of our guide Sean Pol. It was a sad day when I had to leave, I debated hiding in my room and staying the whole summer, but I had to get back for other adventures. Below are some pictures from my trip. 

This is a shot of the town we stayed in called Dingle. I loved all the colors of the buildings. It was beautiful. 

The top of the hill (mountain) climb. SO worth the walk. 

About to kiss the Blarney Stone.

 

When I got back from Ireland the fun didn't stop there. I came back to school to be an ORIENTATION LEADER! I was so excited when I found out I was picked to represent SHU as an orientation leader. After going to Ireland I didn't think anything could top that, but being an orientation leader definitely came close if not as fun. 

I was yet again thrown into a new environment, but this time I didn't know anyone. Immediately I became great friends with all the other OL's. We became a little family. I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to spend three weeks with. 

We did have a lot of work to do in order to get ready for the Freshman, but it was so much fun when the incoming freshman came to orientation. Our group names were based off of concerts that have been held here in the past. My two groups were Ne-Yo and the Black Eyed Peas. I had a blast with both of my groups. 

Now that we are back at school I have been seeing my orientees in the hallways. I get so excited to see them and hopefully they are happy to see me too! To everyone at SHU I would recommend applying to be an OL. It is a once and a life time experience and you should all go for it! 

A few of us waiting for the freshman to arrive. 

A whole group shot after one of the student socials. 

All dressed up for the group dinner at the end of orientation. 

 

After orientation my summer mellowed out a bit. I spent some time with my family and friends. It was nice to relax. I did my summer training in order to get ready for cross country pre season and worked at a running camp. I had a lot of fun at camp as always. When camp ended I had a week to prepare for school. I got all my supplies and on August 29th I headed off to school for PRESEASON. Which is one of my favorite times of the year (sad this was my last one). 

As always time is flying by. Preseason is over and now we're in full swing for school. My classes are going well and I am excited for my XC season. Our second meet is this weekend at Fairfield University. If anyone is around come on by and cheer us on!! 

Hey all! It's been a while, I have no idea where the time went! Check back soon though and I'll share some exciting stories and some not so thrilling spring break news!

One Week Down

We've been back to school for one week and I already have a ton of work! I don't mind though, I like to keep myself busy. It's great to have classes back in full swing. This semester I am taking a lot of production courses for media studies. One class in particular I am taking is digital film and video 1. After only one class we already had our first assignment with the camera. The assignment was to tell a story, but the catch was once we set the camera up we couldn't move it. We couldn't zoom, pan, or tilt-- it had to remain exactly where it was. For my project I showed the story of a guy proposing to his girlfriend. I had the camera focused on their hands and the hands in a way narrated the story. It came out pretty good. Next weeks project should be exciting too. Luckily I am done for the week, (I have Fridays off yay!) so now I'm just focusing on getting a head start on my homework. I have a meet tomorrow at Boston University, I'll be running the 5k. Hopefully it goes well, wish me luck. 

New Semester

I can't believe that winter break is already over, it flew right by! However, I did enjoy my time at home with my family. It was nice to see all of my family as well as my friends from home. I don't really get a chance to see my old friends much, but we all got together at a Christmas party, which was nice. We all participated in a secret santa it was a lot of fun! Speaking of Santa, I also had a great Christmas. I went to my uncles house for Christmas this year. I spent the whole day hanging out with my cousins and playing a lot of wii. Though my cousins are younger then me they still some tough competition in some of the wii sports games. I think one of the most exciting things I did this break was taking a trip down to New Jersey. My friend Kim's birthday is the day after Christmas so a bunch of us from school went down to her house to celebrate her birthday. It was nice to see my friends from school and to celebrate Kim's birthday. Her step dad made us the most incredible dinner. My friend Dana got this great game for Christmas called Just Dance. It is another game for the wii. She brought it to Kim's birthday and we stayed up late playing this game. It is one of the most fun games I've played in a while. Basically all you do is dance along to the screen, but it is non stop fun. There are a lot of good songs to choose from too. After that fun night, two of my friends and I decided to make a trip to Hoboken, New Jersey to go to Carlo's Bakery. Carlo's Bakery is the  Bakery from the hit TLC show Cake Boss. There were so many people lined up to just get inside the bakery. My friends and I lucked out and got right in. We bought some canoles and cupcakes. Everything was delicious and unfortunately we didn't get to meet Buddy the baker, but we did his mom and two of his sisters! It was a lot of fun and I would recommend that any fans of the show make the trip, it is definitely worth it!

I did have to end my break a little early this year. I had to be back at school on the 7th of January for Track pre-season. Although I would have liked for my break to go a little longer I was excited to get back to school and see all of my track friends! Pre-season was a lot of hard work, but it was also a lot of fun. We usually had practice twice a day, but during our free time everyone on the team hung out. One thing we liked to do during our free time was to play Just Dance. At first there were only a few of us who played, but we ended up getting a large number of people from the team to join in the fun. Some people thought the game was silly at first, but a few days later and everyone wanted to play! We had two meets over break, one at Yale and one at Boston University. I ran pretty well at both as did the rest of my teammates. Also during pre-season I had a chance to meet with someone in career development. I went to talk about possible career choices after college. If you have yet to go to career development I would highly recommend it. Everyone who works there is very nice and so helpful. I have a follow up appointment this week, so I hope it goes well. Pre-season went by a lot faster then I thought it would and now it's back to school. 

So far there have only been two days of classes, but I'm already excited. I have had 3 classes as of yet and each class seems like it is going to be great. On the down side I already have a ton of homework, but I guess that comes with the territory. I'm taking a communications class this semester called interpersonal communications. After only one class I'm in love with the course. My teacher is great and the material is not only practical but fun as well. I enjoyed class so much that the 2 hour block class felt more like 10 minutes to me. Besides my communications class I've had 2 media studies classes. I am enjoying both and can't wait to see what my 2 other classes bring. I wish everyone the best with this semester, let's get things off to a good start! 

So Busy!!

I can't believe how busy I have been lately. Unfortunately I haven't had much time to update my blog, so you've been missing out on a lot. Since my NEC meet for XC I've been doing a lot. The holidays have been a lot of fun!! I especially liked Thanksgiving, my friends and I all celebrated Thanksgiving a little early this year. We had a small Thanksgiving meal at school. We (or should I say my friends,  I'm not much of a cook) all made our favorite foods from home, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and sweet potatoes. It was so much fun and it was just like being at home, my friends here are like my second family.

 Here we are right before dinner. The food was so good!

This is the after shot, and dessert. Pumpkin pie my favorite! :D 

Thanksgiving at home was a lot of fun too. You can never have too much home cooking, especially Grandma's home cooking. When Thanksgiving ending though it was back to school and back to reality. Now we are winding down the semester and getting ready for finals. I can't believe how quick this semester went by, I felt like it was just yesterday that I was moving in. It seems like every year time goes by faster. Since the semester is just about to end, I've been working on some final projects. One project in particular that I am doing is for my photo class. I had to go around finding letters of the alphabet in everyday objects. For example a Christmas wreath was the "o" for my project. So far I've found every letter except for "z". I'm really hoping I can find the last letter, I feel so incomplete without it! I have a few things left to do for my radio production class, and then just a bunch of papers to write. A couple 10 page papers, BUT when I'm done with those, I'm done for the semester. I can't wait to go home and celebrate Christmas and not to mention my birthday is coming up as well. With all this work though, you can't forget to have a little fun.

This weekend my roommates and I decided to bake sugar cookies and decorate them for the holidays. We made about 6o sugar cookies and decorated them with red and green icing and some sprinkles. It was so much fun hanging out with the girls. We watched Elf while we decorated the cookies, which is one of my favorite Christmas movies. The cookies were delicious, it's only been one day and almost all of them are gone! They were so good you couldn't have just one, two, or three. Now it's back to homework and studying though. Good luck to everyone on their finals!! 

 So many cookies and so tasty! :D :D