This week I found out about a scholarship/award opportunity that I could take advantage of. It is the Bud Collins Creativing Writing Award. It is available only to seniors, of any discipline, but since it is a creative writing award you need to submit a lot of different creative works of your own. This is where my English major comes in handy

I’ve been taking some time to review some of my favorite papers, essays, and creative works I’ve done for classes, as well as some personal pieces that I could submit. While I still have a little bit of revising to do, I going to submit my works. It’d be amazing if I won, and if not, at least I applied, right? The winner is announced at Honors Day later this spring. Honors Day is SO exciting. If you might win something or were nominated, you get kind of an ominuous letter telling you to come, but they don’t say if you’ll win or what you were nominated for. So, the suspense is incredible and it is always amazing to see the kind of talent and achievements other students accomplish and are able to get recognition for.

Anyways, the thing that has kind of slowed my scholarship process has been my work with academic assignments. Which, I’m happy to report, both of my papers are written and complete. I just need to print them out and turn them in tomorrow. I worked hard and got it all done, so now I can focus on the scholarship

Just like that, when I was still settling from the new schedule and knowing where I need to be and when, I already have papers due! I have been having reading assignments since day one of the semester, but I guess I just thought the first few papers and projects wouldn’t be for a little bit yet. However, much to my surprise at the fact that we’re already in the 3rd week of the semester, I have two papers due.

One of the assignments is pretty big. It’s a five page paper analyzing some aspect of Abraham Maslow’s view on humanity and all that affects human nature (yes, it’s as heavy and psychological as it sounds). I’ve done my research, organized my supporting citations, and tonight I’m hoping to take my “set up” and write the paper in one sitting (we’ll see how that goes). The other assignment isn’t as big. I have to read an early piece of Literature (1700-1800’s) and write a “letter” to that author. The letter can be written in any kind of style, even pretending that I am someone else (real or fictionalized), but the letter must question, support, or analyze the author’s writing. I’m hoping this one will be a fun assignment, but in order to do it, I have to read ahead for that class, while also reading the current assignments, so that I can know WHAT to question or include in my letter.

I’m also busy with meetings, grad school stuff, and like Robin, working out and trying to stay healthy. I’ll update you later this week with my hopeful progress.

I had a decent weekend, partly because we figured out a new thing to do with ourselves. Sunday me and two roommates and two girls from upstairs all went iceskating… something I haven’t done since I was way younger. It was nice though, and I still had the old skills and within minutes of warming up I was zooming around the place. We went to the one in Strongsville, and that’s supposed to be a really nice rink. So, for like 8 bucks we rented skates and just did that for an hour or so and had some innocent old-fashioned good times. I definitely would do that again, and it’s a little something to cure the weekend-day blues when we have nothing else to do.

Last night I went to see some friends play intramural basketball… it was mostly soccer kids and I went for my roommate and friend next door. I really shouldn’t bring up the score, but it really wasn’t pretty. Hopefully the following games will go better than that one, and I plan to watch them every now and then. Other than that, word on the street is that Midnight Madness is tobogganing this Thursday. I can’t say I’ve been to midnight madness, but I just might have to go on this one. I love sledding, and this is just a more hardcore version of it. I’m pretty pumped to be doing any sledding, I don’t know of any hills around here, and maybe after this we’ll have a hill to go to more consistently. But sledding is just a precursor to what I really want to do soon- snowboarding. I’ve only been like once, but it’s definitely something I want to get better at and do more often. We’ll see how that goes, I know people here who want to do it, and I have friends from home who would go too. I hope the tobogganing is fun though. We’ll see.

On Saturday night our new Conservatory Director, Peter Landgren, performed at BW for the first time. Until he came to BW he was the assistant principle horn of the Baltimore Symphony. Obviously for me as a horn player it was pretty exciting to know we were getting a horn player director, but it’s something the whole Conservatory seems to love, having a leading musician as the director. The last piece on the concert was the Brahms Horn Trio, which my roommate Valerie and I are playing on my recital. I completely fell in love with the piece over Christmas when I started really working on it, so I was really excited to hear them play it. It was really good, but also a little scary to see how it was challenging for them too. Hopefully we too can pull it off in a couple weeks!
This week also begins the interviews for candidates for the choral music ed faculty position. A really cool part of the hiring of college faculty is that students always have input. Last year when Mr. Landgren was interviewing for the director position, I got to be a part of the student group that got to have lunch with the candidates. Last night I also got to attend the student Q & A session for the first choral candidate. It’s very interesting to see the variety of candidates and hear the ideas that people from different schools bring. It’s also insightful now for me as I prepare to take job interviews, to see someone else go through it.
Have a great day

Tonight starts the first night of intermural basketball and I am so excited! Our team consists of a bunch of former women’s basketball players so we are hoping we can still rely on some of our skills from the previous years of play to help us out. I am sure it will take a bit of time for us to get back into the groove, but I am still excited to play again. Intermural basketball is probably the most popular of the intermural sports at B-W, since a lot of boys and girls get involved. Also it is indoors so we don’t have to worry about the elements! I am glad I have somewhat of an outlet because with school this semester, I have had a pretty large work load and this will allow me to get my mind off it and have some fun with my friends. Wish us luck! = )

This semester my classes are
Personality Psychology- Covers how personalities develop in people. Last week covered the different reasons why people Lie or deny responsibility Interesting class it has a lot of discussion which is always fun.

Adolescent Development-Pretty self explanatory right? It covers from the start of Adolescence to Young Adulthood. We watched the breakfast club the first day of class as a prelude to some of the issues we will be looking at. My first project is different parenting styles and how families perceive other families styles.

History of Africa (sub Saharan)- History of Africa covers bellow the Sahara from early civilization to the present. Its gunna be a fun class because I don’t know anything about Africa.

International Politics- my favorite class this semester. It’s taught by an awesome professor and covers how different countries interact with each other. The one thing I’ve experienced at BW is the fact that everyone has a different view on the world. In high school everyone grew up in the same city and the same schools. When you’re in college you have people from all over the state, different states and even different counties.

I am off to a Committee meeting for Resident Assistant Selection.

So this weekend I have come to a realization. I have never been anywhere where people love Disney as much as here at BW. I live in Carmel and have one roommate and two suitemates. Both of my suitemates are Disney addicts (old and new movies). I’m pretty sure every movie they own is made by Disney. Then this weekend I was hanging out with a different group of people, and they all wanted to watch Disney movies! Now, I like most of their movies, but not to the point where I know all the words as both my suitemates and the other group of people I was with knew. However, I think this is a good aspect of BW, which most people don’t normally think about (and yes there are people who don’t like Disney here too).
Then last night we also went to go see the 24 hour theater production which was very good. The writers began writing precisely 24 hours before the 6 one-act plays were set to be performed. During the night and following day, the actors and other stage people had workshops until the plays were finished and they could start memorizing their lines. All of them were comedies and very good. I think my favorite was the one-act about dungeons and dragons. Then Friday night there was a symphony concert which my roommate went to, so if you look for things to do at BW, there are always plenty of opportunities.

Well, there is a problem being a college student, especially at Baldwin Wallace: weight. The freshman fifteen and the such. Just puttin on the pounds in general. But, i have been struggling to fight it like to other. At the end of last summer i realized that i had added about thirty pounds since day one of college. So, i’m battling the unhealthy food and life style of a college man. I just eat less (not healthier, just smaller) and i take advantage of the gym. My roommate is also dieting and what not. He works out about two hours a day. The reason this blog is called 50 days is because in 50 days he will have been keeping up his routine for a year. He’s lost about fifty pounds, which is pretty good if i do say so.

Here are my tips for keeping off weight if you want/need to:
1- eat less. only eat this you are no longer hungry, not til you’re full
2-find a buddy to workout with/ keep you in line on your dieting routine.
3-no dessert or soda pop

thats all i’ve been doing and i have trimmed down. just keep these in mind if the freshman fifteen doesnt sound desirable for you.

Due to the lack of eventful things happening in my life, I decided to do a photo blog and give you a tour of the Conservatory of Music…

Welcome to the Con!

This is the Jones Music Library. It’s not a library in the usual sense. It’s usually quite full and loud. It’s a great resource though.

Here is the door to the brass studio. Lots of Cleveland Orchestra members! This is where we have lessons.

This is a practice room. There are two hallways of them, but they’re often full.

This is Gamble auditorium where ensembles rehearse and perform. And where I will be giving my senior recital soon!!

There are only five real classrooms in the Con and this is the room where I’ve had everything from conducting to general music methods to music history.

So there you go! The Conservatory is actually two buildings joined together. At one time the front building was a dorm. Mr. Brndiar, the trumpet professor and BW alumni, sometimes tells the story that his dorm room used to be what is now the classroom where we have solfege. The building really is quite old though and there’s just not enough space anymore. The music therapy and music education offices already had to be moved out of the Con. Just within the past couple of months though, BW purchased the church next to the Conservatory and the Con is going to expand into that building as well. There were different possibilities for Con expansion, including building a completely new Conservatory, but I’m glad they’re going to keep what is already there. I want to be able to come back in several years and have it still feel like the same place where I went to college.

A lot of the great things about college are often the things that are difficult to explain or for people to relate to. Last night I visited a friend of mine in one of the residence halls, and stayed in his room talking about how things were going for him from 11pm-2am. The entire time, we had a fun, meaningful, engaging, and intellectual discussion on just about everything going on in each of our lives. While we see each other on a regular basis, this was just “one of those nights” that students credit as some of the lasting memories they’ll take away from their college experience.

Though I was a little slower to wake up this morning, I knew my staying up late last night was well-spent and worth the extra exhaustion I feel today. One large advantage to living on campus is the fact that you have access to your friends here just about any time - day or night - which is something very unique and different from high school or previous friendships you may have had. Anyone can expound upon the opportunities, organizations, academics, etc. about a school, but some of the hidden treasures of the college experience come from simple things like late-night conversations, sharing a meal with friends you don’t have class with this semester, and many other things.