Monday, February 23, 2009

Shine On SMC Swimming

Hi again everyone!

So this weekend was the Women's NEISDA Swimming and Diving Championships (aka New Englands, or Champs) down at UMass Dartmouth. We left for the meet on Thursday afternoon and it started on Friday with our warm up bright and early at 7:30. The meet was prelims/finals, so everyone swam their events in the morning and the top 18 finishers came back at night to swim again to determine final scores. Diving took place between these sessions.

It was an AMAZING time, so say the least. Everyone had at least one best time, and some girls swam all personal or season bests. We had a ton of fun with bus ride dance parties and wearing silly tights, and at the final session last night we got our "team song," Shine On, to play on the loud speaker and we danced and sang for the entire thing (a full 8 minutes).

We ended up finishing 3rd at the meet, which is HUGE for us! Honestly there's no words to describe how amazing it felt or how excited we were. We topped the 4th place team by only 2 points, so every race mattered and we are so proud of everyone. In addition, we won the meet award for team sportsmanship, which is reallya great thing for us, coach, and the program.

We spent the entire weekend swimming fast, dancing crazy, and cheering hard, and it definitely paid off. The season's over now and it's very bittersweet. I love swimming, even when it gets crazy and hard, so I always miss it in the off season. I'm especially sad since I won't be around for the first half next year when I go abroad, but I already can't wait to be back to having fun with the team, my mini family. However, it is really nice to have a break now. We got in at 2:30 this morning from the meet, so I took a huge nap after classes, and it's nice to have the time to do that and still be able to get my work done. We're very thankful for the break.

Men's Champs is this weekend coming up, so that's where I'll be, cheering them on. We'll see if they can do as well as the women did, and I hope they do. I'll try to get you some pictures from our meet when my friends get them out online, so check back for those.

In other news, today was an Accepted Student Day, and I helped out with that. This afternoon I picked up one of the accepted students visiting and he, his mom, and I ate lunch with a few of my friends while talking about how great SMC is and answering any questions they had. I also took them around campus to buildings they didn't get to see much of on their tour. I had a good time (and I hope they did too). I think it's great that students are able to meet with accepted students and connect with them the way we can, so that we're not just statistics on paper or impressive credentials. The blogs and virtual open houses help with that tremendously and it's awesome, but of course nothing beats a visit to campus and a meeting with an actual student. I DEFINITELY suggest coming to campus whether it's for a recruiting trip with a team or a day visit with admissions. To arrange it, go to http://www.smcvt.edu/admission/. You can get put with a random student or if you know someone you can request to spend the day with them if they're available (I'd LOVE to meet with anyone that comes and wants to know more about SMC from my perspective)

Anyway I think that's all for now. I'm definitely on a high from the energy of this weekend, so I've got to go make use of it by cleaning my room or something else constructive. Keep checking back and, as always, emails and comments are welcome and appreciated.

Shine On,
Christine

Monday, February 16, 2009

an adventurous weekend

Hello again!
Hope everyone enjoyed their Valentine's day, no matter what they did. I took the boy downtown on Friday night for fondue at The Skinny Pancake. It was delicious and we had a lovely time. We spent the morning together Saturday with Dunkin Donuts and a movie, and then I ditched and hopped on the bus to go downtown with my other valentines (swimmers, since we're all up here for this 4 day weekend). We spent the afternoon shopping for ourselves and ate dinner at the Church Street Tavern. It was delicious. After we got back we hung out, ate cake, and then headed off to the movie theater to see "He's Just Not that Into You." It was definitely good! A little long but we all loved it.

Yesterday was probably the most fun I've had all semester. The women's team all met a little before 12 and headed into Burlington to one of our teammate's houses for a delicious brunch of chocolate chip pancakes, bacon, and fruit salad. She lives right on the lake and so we went down to the shore and played on the ice (don't tell my mom). We skated around and even her dog came out with us. On our way back to campus (our car took a wrong turn and went the scenic way haha) we decided it was too nice to spend the day inside. Since the buses don't run on Sundays, we recruited a car to borrow and headed off to Williston to I-party and The Christmas Tree Shop. While there, we decided to buy a present for the guy who's car we borrowed...so we dressed it up like a bunny. See:

He obviously loved it when we brought it back (with a large pizza too). After we were done in Williston, we drove down to the waterfront and hopped out near the echo. We had no idea that the ice was going to be so frozen there, but people were walking out so far! So, we did too. Here's some pictures of us slipping and sliding around on the ice. It was so fun.







We got pretty cold after a while, and headed back up into town for some pizza before returning to campus in the bunnymobile. Later that night the girl's team got together for ice cream and a movie as a relaxing conclusion to a great day.

We've got practice again tonight and tomorrow, though both days there's no class. After practice tonight the whole team is going to Pizza Put for laser tag and unlimited pizza, so we know that'll be fun. The women are leaving Thursday afternoon for UMass Dartmouth for our championship meet. After that, the season's over for us and the men have one more week. It's been a great season and we're so excited for champs.

That's all for now. As always, keep the questions and comment coming here and through email to camoresano@smcvt.edu. I love hearing from everyone!

Peaceeee...Christine

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

lovermont

Hi there!

So I’ve been pretty busy since the last time I wrote. The Virtual Open House went really well last week! A lot of you logged in and asked us all kinds of questions. Remember, if you have any more questions, no matter how trivial or “easy” ask away! If you don’t want to post them up here you can email me at camoresano@smcvt.edu. I love answering them and getting in touch with people who read my stuff. Also, keeping visiting the SMC bloggers group on facebook, as well as the Class of 2013 group, we get a lot of questions there and give a lot of answers. We’re also all on knightspace too, if you want to contact us there. (I’m a psych major and on the swim team, as a reminder, so if you have questions about that I can DEFINITELY answer those, as well as others).

The team traveled down to MIT on Friday and Saturday for an invitational meet. There were a lot of teams there, so it was crowded, but we had a good time and a lot of people did really well. We even had some broken program records! We’re in the home stretch now, with 7 more practices and a little less than two weeks until champs is finished (next weekend), but who’s counting? We’ve got a long weekend coming up (we have Monday and Tuesday off from class) so a lot of students are going home, but the team is sticking around so that should be fun and relaxing. I got to see my parents and my little sister too (before she left for Honduras on a service trip, which is so cool). Overall it was a good time and the season is wrapping up nicely.

In other news, I GOT ACCEPTED TO STUDY ABROAD! I was super excited to get a letter in the mail today telling me I was good to go with SMC study abroad. I then mailed my application to my program, so I’ll keep everyone posted on how that goes, but SMC is the hardest part, so I hear, so that’s exciting. Friends of mine are getting the same letters too so we’re getting very excited for our travels next fall.

As promised, I have some pictures, but it’s been warm here so there’s not as much snow in them as we had during the snow storm. I do suggest taking a look at Drew’s blog; he’s got a video on there of him outside in the storm. In addition to the snow pictures, I’ve got some from the full moon snowshoe hike I went on last night. I had an amazing time and it was absolutely beautiful the whole way up the mountain and at the top. We didn’t need lamps because the moon was so bright, and I didn’t even get cold, which is perfection. The picture I took at the top is very dark since it was night time and I only had my little digital camera, so I’m also posting a picture of what the view looks like in the day time (without snow though, sorry I couldn’t find any with snow). We hiked up a place called Snake Mountain; it’s about 40 minutes or so south of here. Overall it was a great time and I’d love to go again!


A view of the mountains across the street, just to remind everyone of how beautiful it is here

More mountains in the distance. I loved seeing the snow on the top on this clear day.

Here's a view of campus from the church looking out. The snow has been melting and freezing lately, so there's grass in this picture!


Here's my friends and I with a snowman we built in the middle of the walkway by Founders. Yeah, we're obnoxious. Here's a shot of the moon through the woods from my snowshoe hike. I tried to get some good ones, but with a flash you couldn't see the moon and without one it was too dark. This is a shot of the view. I know it's really dark but I wanted to put it in there in case someone could see the outline of the towns and stuff.


This is what the view looks like in the day time (and in the summer obviously). I know it's not the same but it's the best I could get. As you can see, it;s GORGEOUS

That’s all for now. I’ll be back in a few days with some new material. Until then!
-Christine

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Virtual Open House

Hiiiii everyone,

So almost another week down since the last time I wrote, and tomorrow’s Thursday which means one more day until Friday! Oh yay.

Since the housing meeting I have acquired a place to live when I return to campus in the spring, as well as a basic knowledge of who my roommates will be, and I am quite satisfied. These things always work out fine, even when we all stress about them for a while.

In swimming news, 18 days remain. 5 of racing. 2 of those are coming up this Friday and Saturday when we head down to MIT for an invitational with a bunch of teams. I’m excited for another sleep over meet, and for some home cooked dinner on Saturday night at one of the girl’s houses. We’ll return back to campus after that, so we’ll probably get in late and head right to bed. Therefore Sunday will either be spent on homework or sleep mostly, I’ve got to catch up on both.

The main purpose of today’s entry is to tell everyone about the Virtual Open House tomorrow night from 7-9. I’m sure all you accepted students have already been notified about it, so this is me telling you too check it out! Basically you log on and chat with us (the bloggers) and other accepted students about anything and everything you could ask us about Saint Mike’s. You can also chat with us 1 on 1 with specific questions you want answered. Everyone should swing by the chat room for a little and check it out!

I’ve been really productive today, so I’m going to get back to my work before getting to bed, but I’ll check back soon, probably after the weekend. Keep it real.

-Christine