Stevens Admissions: Trinity

Fencing and Chinese

    We have just gotten back to school and Linda isn't letting the team miss a beat. We had to come back this past Saturday to start our rigorous practice schedule again. Even though I was sad that break was over so soon I was glad to get back and see all the girls. Though, I thought that I was going to be poorly out of shape after all the turkey, mash potatoes, cake and so much more the work that I had done on the side paid off. We were all in good shape and only had a few things to work on for our Army match this coming weekend. But, I think our main motivation was that as a tradition our first practice after Winter break we have a Chinese dinner afterwards. Chinese is my favorite so I was pretty pumped too. It’s also a great time to sit and chat about how everyone’s break went. One of my teammates Krystal was gone all first semester because she was studying abroad in France. We asked her to tell any and every story she had gained during her time there. From her Facebook I could tell that she had traveled to so many other places other than just staying in France. The short time we had dinner together wasn’t enough, she had too much to tell. Luckily, we have plenty of more dinners and road trips left so she will be able to finish. Once we had finished our dinner a couple of us went to the men’s basketball game. A lot of people were there. It was a nice reunion after Winter break; everyone was so excited to see each other.  It feels good to be back on campus. 

The Group

Yummm!

The Christmas Break

    Welcome Back Stevens! It’s been a couple of weeks since my last entry but we have all been on break and I’ve been busy visiting friends and family. It was great to get to see everyone that I had not since in months. My sister Jaimee who I hadn’t seen since last Christmas came back for the holidays. I was so excited to see her again. We had so much to catch up on.

      Like every Christmas when I was younger my parents, my sister, and I went to Toby’s Dinner Theater. For Jaimee’s birthday we go to Toby’s in Silver Spring for their holiday show. This year they put on White Christmas. I look forward to going every year because the dinner is delicious and I enjoy the show. Also it is a great experience to share with my family. The show ended with the characters finally getting their Christmas snowfall they had been waiting for, but when we left the theater it was only pouring rain because the weather has been so warm lately.

    

    The next afternoon we continued another tradition we have by going down to North Carolina to visit even more family. All of my relatives live a while away from me so I cherish getting to see them the one time during the year. We all gather in my Grandma’s small house, which is really a task because my Grandma had six children and all her children had children, plus some of her sister’s children. Needless to say it’s a full house. A special fact about my family is that we don’t open our presents till after Christmas dinner. Everyone has to wait in anticipation till about 8 at night. Earlier in the year three children and one family are picked at random for every family to give presents to. This year Uncle Bruno was our Santa Clause. It was hilarious because most of the presents he couldn’t read the name tags or find the person it belonged to even if they were sitting right in front of him. Someone should have given him glasses as a gift. Once all the presents were unwrapped we all had some dessert and caught up with each other. The best thing about family is no matter how long you’re apart once you see each other it’s like you were never away. And that is why I truly love Christmas. 

 

Celebrating the End of the School Year

I’m finally home for break, but I’m still busy with plenty of things to do. Since I was occupied with finals I didn’t have time to get gifts for anyone so I’ve been doing some last minute shopping. Also, my best friend Monica is graduating, so I had to go to her ceremony. Monica is graduating from University of Maryland early. All of her family and other friends where so proud of her for graduating early that we really wanted to show her our support by attending both ceremonies and throwing her a surprise graduation party. On Wednesday was the big ceremony with all the majors in the Comcast center, where they host all of their basketball games. It was cool to get to see a division one university gymnasium. It was ridiculously huge. But today it was decorated for the graduation. I thought that it was going to be small since it was the winter graduating class, but I think that there were still more students there than there is in our graduating class. It was a nice ceremony the guest speaker was astronaut Richard R. "Ricky" Arnold II. He gave a great, inspirational speech that the graduates will remember as they pass on into their new phase in life. Before we knew it the President was telling the students to change their tassels from right to left and welcoming them into the alumni association.

            Once the ceremony was over Katie, Sarah, and I snuck out to put together Monica’s surprise party. Her mom had been planning with us to help throw Monica’s party. She never even saw it coming, even though we were completely unorganized and obvious. She was truly surprised. A few of us gathered to celebrate and eat. It was a wonderful time and the cake was delicious. The next day was the smaller ceremony of just her major in the school’s chapel. When they called Monica’s name and she walked across the stage it was bittersweet. We are all growing up and moving on to a new chapter of our lives. I feel like it was yesterday that I was just moving in to Davis. At the end of this semester when even more of my friends are graduating it’s going to be so much harder to say goodbye. These four years have been exciting and I’ve met so many good people.  It’ll be hard to say goodbye, but Stevens has prepared us well for the real world. 

One more year till I'm sitting for Stevens graduation!

Hello Kitty cake!

 

Take a break!

One of my two favorite events during the year is the Women’s Program De-stress Massages and Midnight Breakfast. They are my favorite because it’s something relaxing and fun during a stressful time. I do it every finals week. Tuesday I got my massage at the Lorel Center. They hire a couple of massage therapists and you get a free 10 minute massage. It’s a great deal and very necessary during finals. By the end of the year we are all so tense and ready for a break. By the end of the session I’m begging for more time. It’s a great way to start the holidays.

 Last night was the Midnight Breakfast. From 9pm to 12 Pierce is open and serving only breakfast food. There is a band and karaoke and more free massages! Every year it is packed because everyone enjoys a study break with omelets and pancakes. And then it’s back to studying! 

Me trying to sneak and bite of Lauren's French Toast

The lovely decorations by the food. 

Finals...finals...finals

As the first week of finals starts I want to wish everyone good luck! This is a stressful time and for the freshmen it’s their first time which makes it stressful and a bit scary. When I was a freshman I would have benefited from having a list of things to help better prepare for my tests.

1. Make a clear schedule of when all your tests are. That way there are no surprises and you can allot an appropriate amount of study time.
2. Gather all of your notes and study materials together in one place that way you can sit in one spot and stay focused.
3. Take a couple of breaks between long hauls of studying. It can help you recollect yourself and refresh your brain. Too much cramming can hurt as well.
4. Eat and sleep well. The body needs to be fit as well to do a good job on the test. And you don’t want to get sick during finals week, it is the worst.
5. Do whatever helps you get rid of negative energy. Going into a test thinking you’re going to do poorly only results in poor scores. If you have properly been studying it will reflect in your scores.

The most important thing to remember IT ALL BE OVER SOON! 

 

Hot Pot Night

    Tonight my roommates and I took a nice little break from all the work we have been doing to go to CSA and KSA’s hotpot night in Hyden Lounge. I had been getting emails and seeing posters about the event all week and was really interested in checking out what their hot pot night was all about. Past events with free food always get filled up quickly so we got there a bit earlier so that we could get a good spot. That was a wise decision because the tables filled up really quickly. There were tables spread out with little portable stoves and a big bowl in the middle of the table. Surrounding the pot was a wide selection of different Asian cuisine like, dumplings, meats, noodles and so much more. I was so excited to start. We started to boil the water and threw in a packet of broth and seasoning to help spice up the ingredients. We weren’t sure of the correct process like should we cook the meat first or the noodles, but we quickly learned that literally all you do is throw everything in and let them marinate together. There was so much stuff I wanted to try and it was all so good. There were fish balls that I was reluctant to try at first but they turned out to be delicious. I was completely stuffed once we were done. It was a lot of fun to get to make our own food and try new things. We ended up with full stomachs, a good memory, and new dinner ideas. 

There was so much food we couldn't even finish it all!

Christmas Invitational

    Yesterday was a really big day. The fencing team went to the annual Christmas Invitational in Jersey City. Qualified schools are invited to bring four of their best unrated starters to fence in competition. It is a long day with a lot of rigorous fencing. We checked in at 8am and I didn’t get back till 4pm. It is really important that we had been training so hard to keep our stamina because a lot of people lost because they weren’t in good enough shape to keep up their technique the entire day. I wasn’t tired during the fencing but once I got home I was so sore! We all were. I enjoy going to the Christmas Invitational because you fence good girls that are tough but beatable. Like Temple Open it is an individual competition with pools and different rounds, except there are no direct eliminations. They weed out competitors based on how they did the last round. This year we did really well. Every weapon got to the top twelve. Sienna even won the entire thing for her weapon! We were really excited about how well everyone has continually been doing. We are done for now until we come back for Spring semester so I hope everyone keeps up the good work over break so when we come back we can hit the ground running. 

Juliet and Krista with their medals

Here is the link to an article about the meet:

http://www.stevensducks.com/sports/wfencing/release.asp?release_id=6696

Christmas Activities

    Yesterday was a spectacular day! It was filled with fun activities. First I went to the Men’s basketball game, but had to leave early because I had to catch the bus to get into the city to see Christmas Spectacular. It was an Entertainment Committee event. They got really good seats for a cheaper price because of a group rate. I was so excited to finally get to see the famous Rockettes perform live. I had also heard that they had made a lot of changes to the show so everyone one anxious to see what it was going to be like. The show was amazing there were so many additions. For instance there was a 3D part to the show, so you felt like you were actually a part of the show. I grew up wanting to be on the Rockettes so finally getting to see them was dream come true. They were all so gorgeous and precise in their moves. And the costumes were so beautiful. It was truly fabulous.

    After the show ended we got a little turned around but it ended up for the best because we ended up walking past the Rockefeller Christmas tree. It was ridiculously crowed since it was the first Christmas weekend, but we still got a good look at it and took some pictures. After that we walked past Bryant Park and all of their holiday shops and we couldn’t resist we had to stop and look. There were free samples everywhere it was amazing. I tried a caramel chocolate covered almond that was to die for. A couple of us even found some nice Christmas gifts for friends and family. After all the shopping and show watching we were starved and tired, so we quickly made our way back into Hoboken and picked up our favorite sushi on the way home. A wonderful way to end a wonderful day.

The pretty decorations.

Music at Stevens

    My friend Brianna is a Music and Technology major so she always knows when there are music performances on campus. Tonight there were two events going on. One was a piano concert in the library by one of the professors at Stevens, Aysegul Durakoglu. She is a wonderful pianist that tours all over the world to spread her beautiful talents with everyone. Brianna was raving about her before we went so I was expecting a good show. She blew my expectations out of the water. It was remarkable. Her hands moved with such purpose and passion. I was truly mesmerized. While she played it was like she was in her own world, lost to the music. I was caught between trying to focus on her hands and getting swept away by my own imagination of what the music was portraying. As a former piano player this was a great experience. My fingers were itching to play and my ears where burning for more music every time she finished playing.

 

    After several encores Brianna, Krista, and I went to WCPR’s live band. Hood Internet was playing. I had never heard of them so I wasn’t sure what to expect. They turned out to be like DJ’s that mixed several popular songs to make an electric hit. They instantly had the crowd’s attention and had everyone dancing.  Between listening and dancing there was also free Pommes Frites, which is a local french-fry place on Washington. They were making the fries right there in Hyden so they were nice and fresh. They were delicious. After all the activities of the night all my senses were happily satisfied. 

 

A Night of Fun

    Tonight was an unexpected good time. Everything my roommates and I did tonight was a complete surprise. It started when Krista got a Twitter message that there was free Humus Bar in Hayden. It was a Residence Life event where you got to make a record bowl and eat some yummy humus. A record bowl is when you take records, like the one’s that play music and heat it in the oven. When the record is hot enough it can easily be molded into bowl. There was line so we decided to get out food first. I had been meaning to try Humus Bar but haven’t gotten around to it so it was nice that I would get to try it out first. There was a whole assortment of different types of humus, sauces, and toppings.  I couldn’t decide where to start there were so many options.  I ended up with a medley of things so I could test taste them all. It was all delicious I will for sure be going there on my own time. Once we got our record bowls and were heading home we heard some loud music and bright lights coming from Babbio so we went to check it out.

     It turned out to be a joined event with Dephie and WCPR. When we walked in we were completely shocked by how they had set up Babbio. It looked like an expensive night club in the city. They had all sorts of different lights everywhere, a few tables, food and drinks, and an awesome DJ. Even though we were pretty stuffed by the previous event we still made room for a slice of pizza. When we had finished our pizza we couldn’t resist dancing a bit to the DJ’s awesome music he was mixing. I really felt like I was out at a club the set up was so great. If I had known about the event in advance I would have invited more of my friends. There’s always next year!