Wonderful Weekend

I would like to take this time to share with you all the wonderful weekend I had!

On Friday, my roommate from freshman year, Ben, and I went to see The Drowsy Chaperone at the University Theatre.  IT…. WAS…. AWESOME!!!!  If you have any time at all this weekend, you MUST go see it!!  After that, we went back to my room to watch a movie.  However, when we got back to DeHo, we saw that our Goodwill Prom, a combo dance and cold weather drive, was happening.  To my surprise, when they announced who won Prom King, they called my name!!  That’s right:  I am the reigning DeHo Goodwill Prom King!  Impressive, right?

Well, on Saturday, some friends and I got together and made pizza and then I went over to Ben’s to hang out.

Finally, my co-RA, Hannah, and I got to make dinner for our staff members on Sunday, which was a lot of fun!  We made mushroom risotto and homemade rosemary and cheese focaccia!  Yum!

How was your weekend?  Did you do anything exciting?

Have a great week!

Happy New Year!!

So, along with about 90% of the rest of the world, I have a few resolutions I will be trying my hand at this year and thought I’d take some time and share them with you!

First, I have resolved to become more physically fit this semester.  As you can imagine, exercising is a big part of that.  Today, I got up early, did a little stretching, and headed downstairs to my building’s workout room, which is so wonderfully close!!  I’ll be doing 20 minutes on the elliptical machine on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’ll be doing strength training, including weight lifting and abdominal exercises.

I think it’s really important to both plan and be realistic with your goals and to plan rewards for yourself along the way.  For example, along with my exercising, I’m going to try and be conscientious of what I’m eating.  So, every month I’m going to completely cut out one unhealthy food from my diet.  This month, especially after watching this video, I have decided to obliterate soda!

So what are your New Year’s Resolutions?  How are they going so far?

Anyway, have a great first week of classes and enjoy the new theme!!

My Kinda-Christmas List

So, with it being the end of the semester, I’ve been feeling sentimental.  I know a lot of my blogs this semester have been about how stressed I was or how much school was brining me down.  It’s come to my mind recently that we could all use a little bit more positivity in our lives so here’s my attempt.

What follows is kinda like a Christmas list, but instead of what I want this year, it’s a list of what I got this year!

1.     A brand new set of beautiful residents who are so kind and supportive and who help me feel like I make a difference in the lives of my fellow man.

2.     A strengthened bond with some of my best friends, Juli and Amberly.

3.     A job where I feel appreciated with bosses who understand and recognize my strengths and abilities.

4.     Time at home with my family and my dog.

5.     Time to do things that I love, including playing the piano and baking peanut butter brownies.

So that’s just some of the great things that happened to me this year.  What are you thankful for this year?

Making the Most of It

Hello friends!!  I would like to dedicate this blog to being happy at college.  Sounds easy enough, right?  Well, for some people this isn’t as easy as it sounds.

I think that with all the freedom you get when you come to college comes a little bit of a challenge.  At least in my experience, high school kinda forced you to be involved.  I was in choir, which led naturally to being in the musicals, which led naturally to being in theatre.  I was in Student Council, which led to NHS…they cycle continues!!

However, in college, you have to pave your own way.  A lot of my friends and residents over the years have told me they’re not happy and that they want to get involved in some way, but don’t really know how.  The answer to this is really simple:  just do it!

If you’re not happy, it’s time to make a change.  Surprisingly enough, this is actually pretty easy to do in college.  There are literally hundreds of people around you who share your major, your interests and your passions.  All you have to do is find them!!

So, the moral of the story is if you’re unhappy, find a way to change your reality to something better.  Join a club, find somewhere to volunteer, get involved in Hall Council, do research with a professor.  Whatever it is, be happy!

On With the Show!

I’ve always loved live theatre so I decided to dedicate a blog post to just that!  Last week, I was fortunate enough to get to go see Disney’s Beauty and the Beast in Emens Auditorium, the first of many shows I’ll hopefully be seeing this school year.

One thing that I really love about Ball State is that they bring popular Broadway shows to Muncie and then present them free-of-charge to students.  As a poor college student, I know that if Ball State didn’t provide this service to us, I would never get to see a show!!  And what’s more, they don’t just bring no-names or uninteresting plays.  This year, in addition to Beauty and the Beast, they’re bringing “In the Heights” and “Young Frankenstein,” both of which I’m really excited to see!!

Additionally, the BSU theatre department always has some pretty awesome shows going on.  They even wrote and performed a show earlier this semester.  I’m not studying theatre, but I imagine that if I were, Ball State would be an awesome place to come!  Between the acting opportunities and the clinicians they bring in, there’s a lot of ways opportunities to learn!

Free at Last!!

Hello friends!

As you may or may not remember, GLACURH was this past weekend and it was a huge success!!  With that out of the way, my stress level has dropped tremendously!  As the volunteer chair, I got to meet a ton of new people from Ball State and also from across our region, including some highly-spirited Canadians from the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario.  They were giving out posters, t-shits, and even socks to people.  (They also really liked giving attack-style group hugs that, truth be told, kinda made me feel uncomfortable!)

Anyway, as of 30 minutes ago, I’m also finally finished with midterms!!  I can’t tell you how great it feels to know you’re done with tests for a little while.

As a whole, I cannot believe how fast this semester’s gone!  We’re now only two weeks away from Thanksgiving and once we get back from that, there’s only two weeks left of classes, finals week, and then the semester’s over!  I’m really looking forward to a break and a little change-of-pace!

Have a great week!

Phew! Fall Break

Holy smokes!!  I don’t think I’ve ever been more ready for break in my entire life!!  We’ve reached the much-dreaded part of the semester when every class feels the need to have an exam.  Not only that, but the conference I’m helping with is creeping ever closer and I still have a lot of work to do.  To make matters even more interesting, there’s recently been some – how should I put this – drama in one of my classes; all I’m going to say is that my previous professor is no longer employed by Ball State University!

Just when things were at their worst, Fall Break arrived!!  I got to go home, spend time with family and friends, and have an overall wonderful time!  I even got to do an observation for my teaching class and I applied to be a substitute teacher this winter and next summer.  I came back to Muncie refreshed and ready to face school again.

So here’s the bottom line, even if you can’t get the university to give you a few days off, it’s really important to find time for yourself, even if that means locking yourself in your room, turning off your phone, and just watching some TV.

Have a great week and stay stress free!!

Getting to Know You

Hello! I hope you’re having a good start to your week! I decided to try something new this week, so I made a video blog. Enjoy!

Out and About

One thing I really like about Muncie is its proximity to fun and interesting things to do.

If you like shopping, there’s the Muncie Mall, Hamilton Town Center, and Indy’s only about an hour away.  If you like eating, there are nice restaurants here (like the Cammack Station) and all around the surrounding area (if you’re at all adventurous or have a taste for Mediterranean cuisine, you must try The Nile, an Egyptian restaurant in Anderson.  I recommend the Koshary Dinner!).

There are also a lot fun festivals around.  A really fun one is held at Cornerstone Center for the Arts and is a Christmas festival for children.  They can play games, see Santa Clause and, of course, consume their weight in sugar.  However, of all of them, my favorite is Mississinewa 1812.  It’s kinda like a Renaissance Faire, but rather than 16^th century England, the people here portray the year 1812.  With vendors, food shops, battles, and some awesome people watching, it makes for a really fun day!  My friends and I get up semi-early on Sunday (the last day of the festival and, therefore, the best day to find bargains!), go to breakfast, then hit the road.  It takes about an hour (or an hour and a half if I’m driving) to get there.  Once there we can pass the day shopping, eating, and just walking about, talking to the people in costume and learning about 19^th century life.  As you can imagine, since I work at a living history museum in the summer time, this sort of thing is right up my alley!

If you ever get a chance, you should check it out!  We’re heading there tomorrow, so look for pictures to come soon!

AHHHH!!!

Do you ever get stressed?  Stupid question, I know!

I can’t lie; college is stressful!  With classes, homework, friends and everything else we have to deal with, life can sometimes feel overwhelming.  Believe me, I know!  This semester has already been one of the busiest and most stressful times of my life!  I’m taking 17 hours, I’m in charge of finding volunteers for an organization called GLACURH that takes at least 4 hours of my time each week, I work as an RA, and I work 5 hours at the desk each week.  In short, I keep busy!

To make matters worse, I have to take physics ALL YEAR!  You may be thinking to yourself, “Jamie, aren’t you a science major?”  Yes, yes I am.  However, I’m a life science person; you know, biology, anatomy, physiology, and all that jazz.  I don’t like physics.  I don’t understand physics.  This class is basically my worst nightmare!!

However, I’m really lucky; I’ve learned a lot of stress management techniques along the way.  For example, I try to make time every day to watch at least half an hour of TV.  It’s brainless and gets my mind off my work, even if only for a little while.  If you’re not a TV person, you could read, color, or whatever else you find calming.  I find cooking and baking to be relaxing as well; if I don’t make it to the kitchen at least once a week I fall into deep depression!!

Also, every night before I go to bed, I list 10 good things that happened to me during the day.  From seeing a friend, to learning something exciting in class, to having a really good lunch, every bit of positivity helps!

What helps you keep your spirits up?  Respond in the comments section with any tips you want to share!