Want to count down the seconds until summer, but don’t want the hassle of keeping track yourself? Check out the countdown time I made! It counts down the seconds until April 30 at 12 a.m., or essentially the last day any classes will have been giving exams.
Feel free to bookmark and reference this page to watch those seconds disappear!
This week, I finished my observation hours for my education class, and much to my surprise I became fairly upset when I realized that I wouldn’t be coming back anymore. I have been spending my time observing in the same kindergarten classroom at the Early Learning Center here in Alliance since the beginning of last semester. I have spent almost one whole school year with 21 kindergartners and really got a chance to see them grow. The time that I have spent with the kids at the Early Learning Center has really helped me to understand more of the kind of teacher I would like to be one day. I had such a great experience working with this class! The class consisted of nine boys and 11 girls, who were, for the most part, really well behaved. The cooperating teacher that I worked with could not have been a better mentor for me. Right away, I picked up on certain cues and methods she used in teaching the students and was able to also use them myself when working with the students. This gave the students more respect for me and helped me to establish a great relationship with them.
The day before my last day of observation, the students and teacher presented me with a gift. The gift was a book with a picture of the class on the front, and inside each child completed a page with a sentence entitled “Miss Farmerie and (their name)” as well as drawing of a picture of us together. They also gave me a travel coffee mug that they had each signed and drew on (the teacher caught on to my obsession with coffee)! The moment they gave me these gifts, I was speechless. I was so touched and thankful that they would think of me. I believe that, in that moment, I truly realized why I wanted to be a teacher so much. Not because of the gifts or any of that, but because I knew that I had impacted them, and helped them in some way because they were thanking me for it. I had established a bond with those 21 kindergartners as my first observation class, and I will never be able to replace that. As soon as I drove away from the school on that final day, reflecting upon everything I have done there, I realized how happy I am to be going into the field of education, and how excited I am to be a teacher!
Relay for Life was a success! The Black Student Union (BSU) won best banner at Relay. I’m super excited about it because my friend and I designed it!
The most common question when you’re getting to know someone is: “What’s one unique thing most people don’t know about you?” My answer always is: I am a certified baseball umpire.
It is pretty obvious by now that baseball is my passion, and when I was a freshmen in high school I decided that my summer job would be umpiring youth league baseball games. I have been an OHSAA certified umpire for six years, and for the last two, I have earned Class 1 rank, which is the highest umpire classification in Ohio. Most people ask why in the world I would ever consider such a job, but I feel like it is not even a job. I get paid to be involved with baseball.
I was only 15 when I umpired my first game … and yes I was nervous, but the key is to be confident. Some coaches now will even try to test me when they see a young umpire behind the plate. But, I am only young in age, as I have more umpire experience than umpires twice my age. Last summer, I umpired 75 baseball games that ranged from high school games to eight-year-old travel baseball games. I have even had the honor to umpire in Cooperstown, New York twice for weeklong national baseball tournaments. I would suggest that anyone who has a passion for baseball consider becoming an umpire.
Because of umpiring I have a lot of life experiences that I am able to draw upon later in life, and the major life skill I have learned is to be confident. I have not been able to umpire a lot of high school baseball games so far this year due to my internships, but this Tuesday I will be umpiring my first game of the season – a JV baseball game in the Canton area. I have always considered attempting to become a MLB umpire but this is an even more daunting task than attempting to become a MLB player. This summer, I will have the honor of being able to meet a MLB umpire who I have been connected with through a mutual friend. Since MLB does not disclose where umpires will be stationed prior to the beginning of each series, I unfortunately do not know when this opportunity will occur. However, I make sure to check out the umpires for every game at Progressive Field.
When I was in high school, I was highly involved in community service. I was in my school’s Key Club for four years and was the president of the club my senior year. We rang the bell to raise money for Salvation Army around Christmas time, cooked and served food to those in need at a local soup, held various canned food drives, had a clothes drive for people in the wintertime and so much more.
It’s a little sad to think that since I’ve came to Mount Union, I haven’t volunteered a whole lot in the community. I have certainly tried to as much as I can but it is just time that always seems to get in my way. The past few years I have volunteered with WRMU to hand out candy at Trunk-or-Treat. This is an event where kids from all over Alliance can come to receive candy on Halloween but it’s in the middle of the day so it’s light outside. This is just safer for kids than going door-to-door in the dark (although I bet a lot of kids do both!).
I have done a few more things here and there but nothing close to what I was doing in high school. Recently, for a class project, I visited the Alliance Community Pantry. This pantry serves so many people from the community every single day. Families can go receive food to make it through their week. The owner of the pantry said, “This food that our clients receive from us is ‘emergency food.’ It’s not going to be enough for them to survive on but it is enough to get them through.” This means that if they are having a rough week with money they can go to the pantry to receive food for their family until they get their next paycheck and are able to go to the grocery store themselves.
Volunteers at the pantry help the clients go through and pick up the food. Clients are only allowed a certain number of food items depending on the size of their family, so the volunteer also keeps track of that. Next semester, it is my goal to volunteer more and specifically to volunteer at the Community Pantry once a week.
Another volunteer opportunity that I’m excited (and a tiny bit scared) about is giving blood. I have never given blood in my life but have always wanted to. Both my mom and dad have given blood for as long as I can remember and I really look up to them for that. Giving blood is something that takes a half hour to an hour and helps save the lives of so many people across the world. I’m nervous about giving because it’s my first time but I think a friend of mine who has given blood before and I are going to go together, so hopefully that will make it a little better. :]
If you’re someone who’s really interested in volunteer work, Alpha Phi Omega is the service fraternity on campus. Although it’s called a fraternity, it is open to both males and females of all class ranks. These students focus heavily on community service and volunteer work in the community and also have social events to bring the group together. They seem like a great group of people and that is one thing I’d get involved with if I had more time.
Opportunities for volunteering are plentiful in the city and on campus. You just have to be willing to ask people if you can help. Most people would love to receive extra help, and it makes me really happy to think that I can at least be making a tiny bit of a difference.
-Shannon
Ok, first of all, how ’bout them Indians? A sweep against the Red Sox followed by a 12-3 W over the Mariners… The boys are on an awesome winning streak — let’s just hope they keep it up!
I finally worked my first game of the season on Wednesday against the BoSox. Gonna be honest, the Sox are second to the Tribe in my heart — always been a fan of both (shh!). The game was amazing… sure, the weather wasn’t the best baseball weather but hey, it was still fun. It gave me a little preview of what the summer is going to be like … let’s just say I can’t wait.
Relay For Life was last night here on campus. WRMU DJed the event and had a pretty good time doing so. Relay is such a great cause. At Mount Union, a bunch of campus organizations set up tables and had different ways of raising money. My favorite was the Sigma Nu Fraternity table — they raised money by waxing — yes, waxing — brothers. It was a funny, entertaining way to bring in the donations. A community organization also had put-put set up and my boyfriend and I gave it a shot (we tied). We stopped back around midnight and listened to some students sing karaoke. Overall, the event seemed to be a success. Everyone was having fun while helping the cause.
This morning was the debut of the documentary I mentioned a few blogs earlier. For our public relations class we were told to make a video about the city to be shown at a Poverty Summit… Well, the summit was today and we went up for the premiere! Everyone loved it!
Word on the street is that it is supposed to be 70 degrees tomorrow! Fingers crossed it continues and spring is here to stay!
-samantha
If you’ve read my last post, you know about the new social networking game, Foursquare. However, for those of us who aren’t as comfortable sharing our locations with our network, there is another game that seems to be taking over student cell phones everywhere.
The game I’m talking about is called Words With Friends (or just “Words” for short). Originally, when I first started playing, it seemed like a ripoff of the classic game Scrabble. But once you start playing, you realize that Words brings some unique features to the table that the average game of Scrabble just can’t compete with. Some of the coolest things about this app are:
The multiple-games-at-once concept might be difficult to grasp at first, but it’s actually pretty ingenious the way it implements this feature. Typically, the average Words game can take a day or two to finish. This is because moves are made at the player’s convenience, or in my case, when I get a break from homework or soccer practice. Because there can be a couple hours in between plays, Words lets you have multiple games going with different people to help make sure that things never get boring.
Those familiar with the game and rules of Scrabble will be comfortable firing up Words for the first time. But even new players can pick up on the concepts quickly. Words is available in both a free and a paid version. The only difference between the two is that the paid version removes all ads from the app and doesn’t show you ads in between turns. In reality, this isn’t as annoying as it may sound, and while I’ve got the paid version on my phone, I was really happy with the free one as well.
If you want to join in on the game, just search your app store for “Words With Friends” and you should find the app for your device. Feel free to start up a game with me by using my username: kyledreger.
Happy spelling!
What does one do on a boring day in Ketcham Hall? Break out the old putter and golf ball of course. The video that follows is taken on the long hallways on the 2nd floor of Ketcham. We get quite a crowd whenever we start up some hallway golfing and it can get competitive quickly.
Whenever someone asks me what college dorm life is like, I show this video.
He or she walk away impressed.
I feel like a lot of people that go to Mount think negatively about the city that we live in, Alliance. The city is pretty small and there isn’t a huge shopping mall here. We have a mall called “Carnation Mall” that has about seven stores inside of it. We have very few chain restaurants (and no coffee shops). However, I think that also makes the city very interesting. It definitely gives the city character and makes this college town different than a lot of others. I mean, obviously it’d be fun if we had huge shopping areas and tons of fancy dinner options, but I think it leaves us to explore the smaller places more.
There are so many cute little family-owned places in Alliance, and I have made it my mission to check out a majority of these before I graduate in December. For a class project last semester, we all had to go to a small business and do a presentation on how we would help the company in from a public relations perspective. I got assigned a small Italian restaurant called Anthony’s. It really is adorable and it is located on Main Street. They have really good food (try the sweet potato fries!!).
On Tuesday, the directors of WRMU had our monthly dinner at a place called Andrea’s Garden. Ohhhh my goodness is this place is sweet. It is on Union Avenue just right down the street from campus and it is all organic food. I had heard of the restaurant before but never tried it because … well, I’m not sure why. I guess I just assumed all of the food would be tofu. Complete misconception. Organic does not mean vegetarian or vegan. It simply means that all of their food products are made without chemicals and preservatives. They have sandwiches, salads, amazing smoothies, teas and so much more.
I had a chicken fajita, which was delicious. It came with a side of sea salt chips and I also had a strawberry banana smoothie. YUUM! The food all seems healthy (even if it really isn’t) and it’s not too pricy, so I want to tell everyone to check it out! On the dessert menu they had “Dominique’s Chocolate Chunk Cookie (and not one calorie!!).” And I know I’m very gullible, but I was like, “hey, this is an organic restaurant. And they do make pop without calories so maybe it’s possible??”
Even our station manager was intrigued, so he asked the server and she said that it is just a joke with the owner of the restaurant and of courrrssseee there are calories in it, and lots of them! So, my dreams were crushed because that would have made my life to know that there were cookies without calories :]
But all in all, Andrea’s Garden was delightful and you should check it out if you’re in the area. Try the other little places around here too. There’s Chive’s, Jalisco, Alliance Family Restaurant, Anthony’s, Burger Hut, Blue Fig, Tailgater’s and a bunch more! Happy exploring!! :]
-Shannon
A big challenge when preparing for college is deciding the necessities of a dorm room. The best way to decide what you need to buy for your dorm room is to contact your future roommate and come up with a plan of everything you already have and what you’re going to need. Splitting the cost of everything is what everyone usually does. While it’s difficult to know exactly what you’re going to need in your dorm and what your dorm can actually hold, there are two things every dorm room needs. Here are the dorm room essentials.
Futon – All of the dorm’s at Mount have enough room to hold a futon and this extra seating is a must have! Some of my friends have even found ways to have two futons in one room. A futon in the room makes your room more comfortable and gives you space to relax. Otherwise, without a futon the only place to sit is at your desk chair, which you will be spending enough time at. Last year, I lived in Cunningham and we had a futon. But this year with a little more room in Shields, we are able to have a futon and a recliner.
TV – This should actually be TVs. Having two televisions is a must. College is all about being able to multi-task and learning time management so being able to play my PS3 on one TV and watch SportsCenter on the other helps me conserve my time. Having two TVs is also helpful come March Madness and the NFL season so my friends and I can hang out and watch two games at once.
