Snow Storm!!!

The view from my window right now!

We're having a pretty big storm here in Vermont right now...check out Drew's blog for his video of the quickly falling snow!! I was supposed to go to my internship today, but since it is quite a drive for me, they called this morning and encouraged me not to come in because of how slow the roads are. As a native Vermonter, I consider myself a competent winter driver, but with everyone being cautious and driving slowly, I would have had a pretty long and slow commute down to EatingWell. The storm didn't start in full force until mid morning, so I was able to go to Jazzercise with no problem. Walking home from my 10:25 class was a little blinding because it was snowing so hard, but I love the quiet calm that snow brings - it's so relaxing to listen to the silence!

I am about to head off to my 4:30 class and then to intramural yoga; as you can see, campus doesn't shut down for a snow storm! We are expecting 10-18 inches, but since everyone lives on campus, it isn't hard to get to class....it is going to be an adventure digging out my car tomorrow morning though!!

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Now playing: Dave Matthews Band - Too Much
via FoxyTunes

Internship Round 2

You might remember that I did an internship at the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Vermont last semester and that I mentioned my internship for this semester at EatingWell Media Group in Charlotte, VT. Well, I had my first day at EatingWell on Friday! I really enjoyed myself and have very high hopes for this semester.

There are a total of five interns this semester at EatingWell; one other person from Saint Mike's, Sarah. I have known Sarah since freshman year, but I got to know her especially well when we traveled to Pontigny, France together for a summer study abroad. Sarah and I headed down to the EatingWell offices on Thursday for the intern orientation, which was super helpful and informative. I went down by myself on Friday for my first official day. My site supervisor, Wendy, have me working with proofs for the March/April issue of the magazine, one of the assistant editors, Brierley, asked me to help with some introductory research and another assistant editor, Carolyn, was especially interested in working with me because of my experience with blogging.

One major perk about interning at EatingWell is the fact that they have a test kitchen where they test all of their recipes...and everyday at 12:30 they put out any leftovers to supplement everyone's lunch! The atmosphere at EatingWell is really fun and educational, and I am really happy to have the opportunity to intern there. Even though it is a bit of a commute (Charlotte is about 25 minutes south of Colchester, where SMC is located), it is going to be completely worth it!

One Week Down...

Last week was a great start to the semester; I really liked all of my classes, I got to spend time with my roommates and other friends, attended a spa party at my friend's Mal's house and went to a show at the Flynn Theater on the Cultural Pass.

My favorite class thus far is my Magazines and Feature Writing class. It is an upper level journalism course and despite my lack of journalism experience, it is going really well. I have always loved magazines and because I also really like writing, this class seems like it will be perfect for me! Our major project for the semester is to create our own magazine; I'll keep you posted on that!

I also really enjoyed my Fiction Writing course. This is my last English requirement and is very different from other courses that I've taken. Our major project for the semester will be to write a fictional story; we'll see how that goes! Our assignment for this week was to work on 20 pages of autobiography in the third person to get us started on creating a character voice while writing about familiar events. It's hard to write about myself, but I am enjoying this exercise. We also had to read three short stories from our textbook "The Best American Short Stories 2008." I just finished reading them; I liked them a lot! Now I have to write a short response paper about which story I liked best and why.

Advanced Dance and African Drumming also went well. African Drumming is going to be really hard! We are going to be learning a lot of rhythms and instruments throughout the semester...neither of which I have any experience with!

I have a few others things that will get under way this week...I am going to be the assistant in the same two Jazz I classes as last semester (same class, new students), which will start tomorrow. My internship will also begin this week on Thursday. I am SUPER excited to get started down at EatingWell! I am also giving my first tour of the semester tomorrow at 11.

As always, thanks for reading my blog. Comments are always welcome!

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Now playing: The Beatles - Blackbird
via FoxyTunes

And it begins...

...the beginning of the end. I'm officially back at SMC for my final semester - it feels pretty weird! As I was driving back tonight it really hit me that it was the last time that I would begin a new semester here at SMC. Don't get me wrong, I'm SUPER excited to graduate and try my hand at the real world, but I'm also apprehensive about leaving a place that I've truly come to love over the past four years...

I have the makings of a great semester coming up; awesome classes (Fiction Writing II, Feature Writing: Magazines, Editorial Internship at EatingWell Media Group, African Drumming and Advanced Dance), another semester with my great roommates (we welcomed our new roommate, Becky, today because Gil graduated in December), lots of great Cultural Pass shows (David Newmann Dance this Friday and the Vermont Youth Orchestra's Video Games Live on Saturday!), skiing, my trip to the Dominican Republic and fun with friends, both old and (hopefully!) new.

I'm ready!!

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Now playing: Kenny Chesney with Mac McAnally - Down The Road
via FoxyTunes

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2009!

2008 was a year filled with lots of firsts, many traditions and time with friends, both new and old. I can't believe that 2009 marks the year that I will graduate from SMC - it seems like I just began my freshman year!

The early months of 2008 brought a lot of skiing and the start of a great semester, March brought me to Kentucky for a fantastic service trip with a great group of SMCers, April marked my first LEAP team experience and a phenomenal SMC sponsored Wyclef Jean concert, and May brought the graduation of two of my best friends at SMC (thankfully they are both still at SMC - Mallory is an Admissions Counselor and Em is a Resident Director and Graduate student!).

The summer was filled with more SMC events as I worked for the Admissions office for the third and final summer giving tours and was a student leader on POW (Pre-Orientation Weekend). It was also a summer filled with roadtrips for concerts; I saw Kanye West and Rihanna in Montreal with Kristin, my best friend from home, Akon and Wyclef Jean in Montreal with Mallory and had an SMC reunion with my friend Heather and a new SMC friend, Katie at the Maroon 5 and Counting Crows concert in Mansfield, MA.

September marked the beginning of my senior year at SMC; I also moved into a townhouse on campus and worked hard as the Support Rector for LEAP. The end of the year was filled with writing my most important academic paper thus far (my thesis), my internship at Make-A-Wish, a roadtrip with my roommate Kendra to see the Celtics in Boston and a year-ending trip to NYC. What a great year!

2009 will bring more change that I can imagine to my life - I will be graduating from SMC in May and beginning my "real" life. I can't even begin to predict what this year will hold, but I hope that it will be as much fun as 2008. I will be searching for post graduation employment, completing my dream internship at EatingWell Media Group, serving others in the Dominican Republic on a service trip and living my last semester at SMC. It should be a whirwind year!

Happy New Year to you and your family; as always, contact me with questions, comments or anything else. Happy 2009!

NYC!

Mom, me, Emily, Brittany and Linda

Brittany, Emily and me in Times Square!

Emily and me in front of the Statue of Liberty (she's that little dot over Emily's right shoulder!)

I just returned from a fabulous trip to NYC! On Saturday I traveled down to Hampstead, NH with my mom and sister, Emily to spend the night at my mom's best friend Linda's house; she and her daughter, Brittany, were joining us for our trip!

We all got up early on Sunday morning and took off for NYC! We stayed at a hotel in New Jersey (the Chicago Bulls were also staying there...we saw some famous players at breakfast on Monday!) and took a NJ Transit bus to and from the city each day. We saw the site of the World Trade Center, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, the Brooklyn Bridge, Times Square, Central Park, NBC, ABC & CBS studios, Fifth Avenue, Grand Central Station plus beautiful Christmas decorations at Macy's, Lord & Taylor, Saks Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center and the Tavern on the Green in Central Park. We saw the Christmas Spectacular show at Radio City Music Hall (featuring the Rockettes, my IDOLS!) and took two double decker bus tours of Manhattan, one during the day and a Holiday Lights tour at night! It was a lot of traveling (we were in six states in four days!) but it was totally worth it!