KTV’s page

Well, did I speak too soon or what yesterday!  Not a minute later than I submitted my post did it start down pouring and it just stopped now haha.  I can’t say that my opinion of the day changed because I don’t mind the rain.  Without rain, you can’t jump in puddles! And if we had sunshine every single day, then we wouldn’t look forward to the days that the sun is out and about!

So, yesterday was our first set of orientation group interviews and they were everything I hoped they would be. It is one thing to try and do teambuilders or icebreakers with a group of students who are attending orientation because they have to and it is another thing to do them with a group of students who share such a like passion and enthusiasm. The groups just really clicked. They felt comfortable and trusted each other.  Some shared personal stories and some shared embarressing stories.  The best part was how supportive everyone was in listening to each other and having a genuine interest in what people were saying.  Don’t get me wrong, I love doing teambuilders with my orientation groups and yes I have had some groups who have had a very similar dynamic as the group interviews, but I just think that as incoming first year students, they have also been a little hesitant. I believe that there were probably people who wanted to participate more but didn’t because of what others would think. All I have to say is that, an orientation group is just one small group in comparison to the entire Keene State population… so its okay to be a little goofy and be yourself and not worry about what others are thinking because  1.) there are 5,500 other students  at KSC 2.) students are too into their own worries, questions and insecurities and 3.) they are probably seeing that goofball and thinking, “I wish I had the courage to be myself too”…. and it might actually help lure people out of their shells!

ohhh boy… tangent… sorry… I just want everyone to get as much as they can out of any experience they participate in, whether it be an interview process or a college orientation!

Smile…live life to its fullest…and love the person you are!

KTV

You know, for such a grey day, it is actually really nice out! I enjoy being outdoors today! It’s not too cold at all. Perfect weather for a light sweater or jacket.  After my office hour in the residential life building today, I went for a walk to Rite Aid then to Shaw’s.  I love early morning walks and sometimes it just feels good to know you got off campus for a little bit, even if it is just an hour. I got snacks for our orientation group interviews tonight! I am beyond excited! I think that it will be a blast seeing all the people we have been interviewing for weeks, interacting with each other.

Other exciting news, one of my classes got cancelled. Not that I am happy that the class itself got cancelled, I am more relieved that I have a little extra time now to do some homework before tonight. 

 Another note, I shopped so much online this weekend it was crazy! It is a slight addiction of mine and I have been doing soooo good but this week, I splurged.  How could I not though! I found a pair of birkenstock sandels for 10$ on ebay…. TEN DOLLARS! what?! I know I didn’t believe it at first either. Then I found the most beautiful skirt I have ever laid eyes on, stuff for my room, beads, jewelry… you know all the good stuff.  I can’t wait to start getting packages in the mail! (What I am not excited about is doing all my tax stuff… yuck!)

 Okay, well I am off to class!  Enjoy the nice gloomy day

KTV

Wow! I can’t believe it is already March!!! That is crazy!!! Well to recap on my weekend, I have to start with snowshoeing! It was sooooooo insanely fun! Snowshoes definitely were not what I was thinking they were going to be. I was picturing old tennis racket type things, but these were legit! Like my teacher said, they are like giant flip flops. We played “ultaball” while wearing them. It was like ultimate frisbee but with a ball instead. Note to self: running backwards in snowshoes is nearly impossible and may result in snow down your pants. I can’t wait to do it again!

Let’s see, what else… well, a lot of my friends who graduated came up this weekend. That was a nice little reunion. I just wish that I didn’t have so much work to do but that’s over with now! Sunday was the Honors Convention. In the past, all the honor societies would just have their own convention, but this year they decided to have them all on sunday with a general reception inbetween. I actually really liked it. I wasn’t getting inducted into the English Honors Society, but I was there to support to newbies. I wish I could have attented Psi Chi, the Psychology Honors Society, because I am also a member of that but I had a conflict with the time. My view on honors societies is that it is really a gift for yourself to commit the time to be a part of an honors society if you have the grades and the passion. If you are putting so much time into a subject for it to be your major, then why not treat yourself to knowing that you put in that little extra and was able to have an honors certificate and cords at graduation (and it is a great way to just get involved on campus) I love my English honors society… we do such fun things!

I just got out of my MVP (Mentors in Violence Prevention) meeting. We just talked about upcoming programs that we are doing in classrooms and also about the “Walk A Mile in Her Shoes” event on April 12th. It is such an amazing walk that is being sponsored by a number of organizations around Keene. The focus is to have men (but women are of course welcomed and encouraged) to come wearing a pair of women’s heals, or shoes, and to walk the mile down main street in them. It is to raise money to end sexual violence. There will be prizes awarded to teams who raise the most money and for the best pair of heals worn. I wish I could go this year, but I have my Holloway RA staff retreat. That of course will be a blast, but I wish I could be a part of this too. You can only do so much though!

Well I am off to do some reading before our “Spring Break Safety” social!

tootles!
KTV

Hello, Hello! I am inbetween meetings right now so I am doing a quick office hour. I have a poetry slam meeting at 8 and then I am finally done for the day! woo hoo!!! Maybe… just MAYBE I will clean my room. Last week I did such a good job with putting everything in the right spot and I honestly don’t know what happened! It’s horrible! I have to legit jump on my coach to get to my bed and even then I crush everything that is piled on my couch haha…. oh the joys of a single. 

Snowshoeing tomorrow YAYYYYY!!!!

nighty night

KTV

I’d like to say that thursdays are my busiest day of the week, but then I feel like I would be repeating myself everyday… lets just say… its a busy semester.  Well, I just had a few more interviews and our weekly orientation meetings… both fun as always and now I am just waiting to have lunch with my friend Lilia who plays Rugby with me. I haven’t seen her all semester because she is student teaching  but this week her little kiddies have vacation! YAY! 

Speaking of… Rugby starts next week! It is probably the best sport I have ever played and there have been many. I guess most people at first don’t picture me as the “rugby type” but seriously… anyone who even goes to see a game gets sucked in… it is totally addicting.  The spring semester is the best time to learn too. We only have practices 2 times a week and our games are all just for fun. In the fall though, we have practices from 4:30-6:30 everyday and have games for about 6-8 saturdays.  I can’t fail to mention that I have made the most wonderful, amazing, life-long friends playing rugby too!

Tonight I have my weekly Sigma Tau Delta meeting (aka English Honors Society). We actually have inductions this weekend! I almost forgot!  I really like our honors society because we do so many activies and events. We have a poetry slam coming up and we have a panel of the most amazing judges EVER… one poet Lenelle Moise is just incredible. I was nearly speechless when I saw her perform here last year, and yayyyy she is coming back!

Well, I am off to lunch… hopefully they have a good soup of the day!

KTV

What a busy day today has been… but busy in a great way! After I posted my previous entry, my friend Patricia IMed me! She is in Spain right now studying abroad for the semester. Hopefully she will also be able to share her experience with everyone through blogging as well so you can get that whole new, incredible perspective.  It totally made my morning to hear that she is doing so well and is having a great time But I do miss her dearly!

Well, I just got back from my Randall Hall staff meeting.  Along with being the RA in Holloway, I am also the CA (or community assistant) in Randall Hall, one of the traditional freshman buildings on campus. I supervise 8 RA’s over there and assist the RD (resident director). It is a lot of fun, but a lot of work! The experience is by far the best part though.   We had a Scene It social with the Hall Council. They are a resident organized group who put on socials for the building once a month. This organization kind of preps you to see one of the aspects of being an RA.  They do a great job! The great thing about the that group is that it leads to so many different things! That is how I got started on all the organizations I do now!

Oh my goodness! I almost forgot to mention!!! The highlight of my day!!! Every monday, wednesday and friday I take a cardiovascular fitness class for an hour each day that counts as 1 credit and only goes half of the semester… anyways… when I got to class today, my teacher told us that we had to dress to go outside on friday. We all were kind of like, “what?! why?!” and thennnn he told us it was because we were going to be going SNOWSHOEING!!!! how cool?!?! I have wanted to try that ever since I saw it on some Alaskian special on the Discovery Channel. I guess that if you go to the Rec center, you can actually rent out snowshoes.  We are going to go to the fields and play ultimate frisbee in the snowshoes. I can’t even wait! I am so pumped!!! I will post more on how it goes on friday.

 Well I am off to finish up a paper! 

Tootles for now!

KTV

I just had to post this morning because when I opened my shades I actually paused and just looked outside for a bit. Usually it is too dark out when I am getting up to enjoy the day right away, but this morning the light was so perfectly sparkling off of the fresh powder from yesterdays snowfall. The trees are so full… so full of life because the snow replaced where the leaves once were, almost forming the shape of new buds growing in the spring. It is so fresh… so pure… so serene… SO captivating. Sometimes I really just wish that snow wasn’t cold so that you could lay in it, watch the stars at night, and sleep in all its fluffy goodness

Enjoy today, for it only comes once

KTV

Well, I had NO idea it was suppose to snow! I think I was definitely the last to know this time, but it is SO beautiful outside!!! The snowflakes are so white and thick and when they land on your sleeve you can’t help but try to catch every detail… it is by far my favorite kind of snow fall

Anyways, today was a wonderful day. I had a few more orientation staff interviews. It is so much fun to meet someone for the first time in an interview because you learn so much about them in such a short amount of time.

Last night Snoccer was totally a success I think. Sure we only had about 15 residents come over all, but those who came had a blast! There was that close encounter though of my fellow RA almost blinding me with the flourescent orange spray paint… but I guess you could say I was blessed with skewed eye sight, so my glasses saved me! Hooray! haha… My residents came in 2nd place though… not too shabby! (okay so there were only 2 teams, but it’s better than not coming at all right?)

Tomorrow I have my first Academic Excellence meeting… eek! The Academic Excellence Conference is held every year, usually at the end of March or early April and it is where students present on different topics they have researched and closely studied over the year or years. You work with a faculty member as well as sometimes other students. My group is myself, another student and my advisor and we are presenting on Virginia Woolf. It should be really fun and a great experience and it looks GREAT on your resume!

Okay well I am off to finish my office hours!

Keep Smiling!
KTV

Yayyyy today feels like spring! It is so beautiful out! I think this is the first time I have realized that spring is so close and winter is coming to an end.  I went snowboarding 2 days ago and it was just soo perfect. Fresh powder, sunshine, not too crowded and not really that sore afterwards! It can’t get any better than that… well and the fact that it was free was pretty cool (A friend of mine works at Sunapee so she gets a few freebies every year). 

Oh yes and I can’t forget… an update from last time!  I wish I posted sooner but I lost my password eek! but now we are back in action…. Sooo the Valentine’s day social was a HUGE success. The surprise was that a students father came home from Iraq and surprised her. She had absolutely no idea he was even in the country. The news was there and as soon as she turned around and saw him, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. It was just one of the most happy and amazing moments I have ever witnessed.

Well, tonight in my building we are having a cool social. It’s called Snoccer… it’s pretty much snow soccer and it should be really fun because we just got a lot of snow.  If it is anywhere as successful as our human foosball social last semester, it should be a blast!  I did tye-dying last night and had about 20 residents show up. Seriously… you just mention tye-dye and people go nuts.

Okay well I just got back from my cardiovascular fitness class and should really change and get ready for class…. More to come later! 

peace, love , and spring sunshine

KTV

Well, yesterday was a very pleasantly unexpected snowday… for me anyways.  I made cookies with a few of my fellow RA’s and used the contents of the vending machine to dazzle them.  They were so yummy. And I tried to catch up on some reading. I tried to also catch a re-run of the last episode of the Janice Dickenson Modeling Agency but of course whenever you want the show to be on, it never is… no one spoil it for me though! I will see it eventually.

Oh yeah! And Happy Valentine’s Day!!! Tonight in Holloway Hall (one of the first year buildings on campus) we are having a Valentine’s Day Dance! It’s formal so everyone will be dressed beautifully and we even got a DJ. The best part about the dance can not yet be revealed because it is a HUGE surprise for one of the resident’s.  I will post next time what it was and how excited he/she was :D   All I know is, I am so pumped that I get to be a part of this! oops! that reminds me, it is my nephews 6th birthday… I can’t forget to call him!

well… till next time…. stay warm and healthy!