I heard there were a lot of service and wilderness program opportunities during breaks. Could you name some examples, and what else do students usually do?

There are a lot of chances to do something fun during school breaks.

Over columbus day break and winter break there are chances for activities with the wilderness program to whitewater raft, whitewayer kayak, and sea kayak. One year they even went to Ecuador for kayaking.

For winter break, February break, and spring break MOVE leads extended service trips to various locations across the country doing different service projects. After you've gone on a domestic trip, you have the chance to apply for a international trip in the summer. Historically there have been two of those: 10 days in the DR and 3 weeks in India.

Other than that, students go home and spend time with family, go on trips with their athletics teams (swimming goes to Puerto Rico in the winter and Baseball goes to Florida in the spring,) or go on vacations with their friends.

:]

What do you want to know about SMC?

why do they call it allio and not alliot?

I think I answered this a few questions ago, but it's a matter of pronunciation. It's a French word, because the Edmundites are from France, and Alliot was someone's last name.

What do you want to know about SMC?

Who are your favorite professors?

I haven't had every professor, by any means, so it's hard to pick an overall favorite. I like each of them for different reasons. Some a amazing teachers, some are great for discussion based classes, and some are super helpful when it comes to things beyond the classroom. I LOVE the psych department, and have also enjoyed every interaction with the English department.

What do you want to know about SMC?

Where in the world...

Oh heyyyy.

So as suggested in the title of this post, you all might be wondering WHERE IS CHRISTINE? Seeing as I've been almost completely relying on my formspring questions (which I LOVE by the way, keep them coming) to keep my blog afloat, I felt you all deserved some explanation. In truth, in my real life too (as opposed to my online life) I'm almost always MIA. My friends just expect that I will sometimes be a treat to contact, and my housemates are used to me coming home and leaving minutes later. It's actually inspired me to consider being Carmen Sandiego for Halloween (my favorite holiday!) So, where have I been?

Townhouse 220: That's right, I'm a big bad senior now living in the 200's. They're the townhouse community near the back of campus, at the end of the line of suites. Pros: it's quieter, the people here are awesome, and we're SO close to Dunkin Donuts. Cons: it's "far" from class and the gym...aka 10 minutes and I'm lazy. But we've got new posters on the walls and it's starting to look like a real little home :]

St. Ed's, Jeanmarie, and Cheray: ok so I don't have any classes in Cheray Science hall (no surprise there) but I do go in to the computer lab there a lot to check my email and print. [sidenote, we've got cool new enviro friendly printers, still free, now color. AND we can copy for free too!]. I'm really loving my classes so far. I'm taking Adolescent Development, Epic and Heroic Tradition, Marketing, and Practicum for Psych (definitely more updates to come on this one). Now that I'm a senior, I'm 2 classes from completing my major and finished with my LSRs, so I can just take whatever I want. It sounds great, but it's actually pretty hard to choose classes I like that fit...and it's terrifying to think I'm running out of time to take them.

Hoehl Welcome Center: Founder's Society activities are back into full swing and the year is off to a great start for us. Tours are up and running, our newly renovated SMC blogs page is FULL of new bloggers (both students and faculty!) I'm heading a project to get a blog up and running with all of our athletic teams represented, so be on the look out for that in the next month (I'm really excited to get it started). We had our Welcome Back Bash last week, and got almost 90 people, half of whom were first year students! The new first years are so involved already, it's awesome.

The Gym: In case you haven't heard (or weren't keeping up with the SMC news) the swim team has a new head coach. Our coach Jim Donoghue retired this year, after a 16 year period of coaching and developing the swim program. I was the student rep on the search committee and while it was a learning experience, I'm glad it's over. It took a good amount of time, but we're finally welcoming Eileen Hall (one of our former assistant coaches) as our head coach. In fact, practice started today. Needless to say, it hurts me just to lift my fingers to the keys right now.

The Chapel: So we haven't spent too much time in the chapel, but I will be there at least once a week outside of mass time to meet with the LEAP retreat team, which I'm SO EXCITED to be a part of. After making my first LEAP last March, I knew it was something I wanted to stay involved with. I applied and got chosen to be a part of the support team for this November's LEAP. I can't wait to get started with all there is to do and to get pumped for the candidates to be chosen.

Other things:
I mentioned Practicum earlier, and I'll have a a lot more to say once I get further into my internship experience, but for now I'll let you all know I will be working with Spectrum youth and family services for this academic year and I couldn't be more excited.

Last Sunday I got up early and went with some other members of the Student Association (SA) to the Rockpoint School in Burlington. Rockpoint is an alternative school for kids from all over who, for one reason or another, aren't able to do well in their old school system. We didn't meet too many of the students but they seemed great. We were there to do some volunteer yard work, and we got right to it. I'm telling you, my mom wouldn't believe her eyes if she saw me weeding and digging up dead roots. We even took down an entire bush...and not a little one, a BIG one. It was tiring, but what made it so awesome was how excited and appreciative the people there were for what we were doing for them. I LOVED it.

A year ago today: I would have run 7 miles for marathon training, seen a Fiorentina soccer game, visited Pisa and the Cinque Terre, and walked in the Corre La Vita (a cancer walk in Florence). I actually like to be reminded of what I was doing this time last year in Italy. It's definitely sad, don't get me wrong. I've been itching to go back for months, if only for a sandwich. But I also think it's cool to look at myself then and see myself now and realize how much I've grown and changed. Ok that's enough nostalgia.

BY THE WAAAAAY. If you want to check out some of the places I've been around here, you need look no further than the new SMC Video Tour! Check it out, surreously. P.S. I'm in it...duh. AND it's interactive.

I think that's it for now. Like I said, my arms can only stay up near the keyboard for so long.

Things to look forward to: apple picking AND going to the cider mill, Columbus day weekend at home, the ND vs. NAVY game...yup, and lots of other fun fall treats. I'll be back soon.

-Christine

What's up with alumni weekend?

Alumni weekend is one of the best weekends at SMC! (I think so anyway). It was combined this year with New Student Family weekend, so there were a lot of people on campus both new to SMC and old pros.

There were a few games to watch, such as soccer and rugby, and both parents and alumni had the opportunity to attend classes with either their children or some of their favorite professors. There are a handful of other activities that happened as well, such as a pannel about how you can continue to volunteer after college.

Basically it's a great chance for alumni to return to SMC, see some of their old friends who they graduated with, and visit with the current students they might know. I loved seeing some of my old friends, especially the SMC Swimming and Diving Alumni.

What do you want to know about SMC?

I read that you're a psychology major. I was looking at the requirements and saw that there are two Research Methods courses. Although I understand how these courses are integral to the major, they just sound really boring. What was your experience?

I'm not sure what 2 courses you are talking about, but Research Methods is a required course to take almost every 300 level class, and many 200 level classes as well.

It's actually a really interesting course, and it would be hard to continue to do anything in other classes (especially write psychology papers) without it.

We spent the semester learning about the different kinds and methods of research, and creating and implemeting our own research project, which we presented at the conclusion of the semester.

What do you want to know about SMC?

why smc?

Oh wow, big question.

Well, to tell the truth SMC wasn't always my first choice. I applied Early Decision (binding) to another school, but was pushed to the regular applicant pool and then wait listed. It was during this time that I started to look at the other schools I had been accepted to, just in case I never made it off the wait list.

During this entire experience, and since I had met with my SMC admission counselor at my high school and visited later that year, I had gotten a ton of mail from here. I got phone calls and emails from the swim team and coach, viewbooks and information on the psychology program, and even a birthday card. I started to feel like while I was looking one way, asking the other school to "pick me," SMC was looking at me and saying "pick us."

Ultimately it was how much SMC made me feel like I was welcome and wanted here that led me to resign from the wait list at my other school and send in my deposit for SMC.

best. decision. ever. obviously.

What do you want to know about SMC?

Is there anything you wish you knew as a freshman?

I wish I knew how quickly these years were going to go. I don't think knowing everything that was going to happen would have been good, but looking back I don't have regrets, I just wish I had 4 more years to spend here. SMC, and college, really is the best time ever.

What do you want to know about SMC?

What's the most interesting course you've taken?

This is a tough one.

I loved my first year seminar, Looking at Art. It wasn't my first choice and it sounds boring so I was nervous about it, but we ended up learning about all kinds of cool art. We talked about the art around campus, went downtown to the South End Art Hop, and my final paper was about the inner and deeper meaning of a pair of my slippers, so it was really cool.

I also loved sports psychology and biology of exercise. Both of those were cool because I'm an athlete so I was able to apply them to things I was experiencing or actually knew about.

What do you want to know about SMC?

You were talking about parietals which dictate when girls and guys need to be out of eachother's rooms. What are these regulations exactly? Is it possible to sleep over in the dorm of the opposite sex?

The parietals are 1am on weeknights and 2am on weekend nights. All dorms are co-ed, so you'll always have people of both sexes there. However, male guests must be registered with a male, and females with a female. We're all adults here, and the RAs are not going to come around and check your room to see if your friend of the opposite sex is sleeping on your futon or something, but you DO have to make sure it's ok with your roommate first, that's very important.

What do you want to know about SMC?

A Quick Catch-Up

Hello friends,

I'm running around here on SMC campus like a chicken without a head lately, but I wanted to check in with you and provide a fun slideshow of some photos from Orientation 2010 activities with the O-Leaders and my O-Group. Enjoy and I hope to be back in full swing soon!