On September 16th, and 17th Stockton held their club fair in the academic wing. This was an opportunity for people to become more aware of what Stockton has to offer. The University has diverse opportunities for students to get involved in whatever interests them. The clubs range from fraternity and sorority to the gaming club. The clubs that I went to were Chemistry Society, Physics Society, Admission Ambassador, and the community garden.
Going into the fair being a science major, I knew I was going to sign up for the science societies. Around every month they have a meeting where the club plays around with equipment and has study sessions. What I didn’t expect was that the Admission Ambassadors pulling me over. Ambassadors works with possible incoming freshman by helping them get to know what Stockton has to offer. The table of people were very welcoming and kind. They are trying to get more people involved with the position, especially men because the last graduating Ambassador class had a lot of men. Even though it takes some time to get trained to become an Ambassador, the role can be extremely rewarding, often Ambassadors receive internships and connections when they are working. It is important to find a persons individual voice, this can lead to leadership roles, which is good to put on transcripts. Another perk of joining is that eventually Ambassadors can get paid for helping people out.
The community garden is what a person might expect, growing fruits and vegetables for the school. The club might sound boring to some but I believe it is important for humans every so often to connect to our roots with nature. It is easy to get caught up with the hustle of school and constantly being surrounded by technology. It has been too often that we don’t stop to admire the simple things in life. Nature is so elegant in that it has a very simple look but can be so beautiful and intricate at the same time.
The Get Involved Fair showed me that there is something to offer for anyone. I am looking forward to applying for an Ambassador positon and a start to the different clubs that I signed up for.

On the evening of September 17th, Stockton hosted a course for Training for Intervention Procedures (TIPS). This course’s purpose is to try to prevent over intoxication, underage drinking, and driving drunk. I took this course to make myself more prepared for college drinking and to add TIPS certification to my résumé.
I learned how to properly identify a person who might be in a potentially dangerous situation (involving alcohol), and how to effectively use my people skills to get them to stop drinking. A lot of the class was self explanatory; for example, what is an indicator when a person is heavily intoxicated. But a proportion of the class made me re-evaluate the way I judge and deal with a potentially dangerous situation. One potentially dangerous scenario can be a couple of friends drinking Jell-O-shots in a short sitting when one friend has never drunk before. Another valuable tool to get a person to stop drinking is to distract the person with something they are interested in and slyfully take away their drink so the person can’t get even drunker.
I feel that I learned valuable information that can and will be applied in my lifetime. I am better prepared for scenarios when I am confronted with alcohol and will know when everyone is drinking safely. More people should take this course, for it will be practical information and will make students aware of unsafe/safe drinking conditions. Being certified in this course will save lives of people that have drunk to much.

On September 12, 2015 Stockton University held The Day of Service on campus. This was an event that acclimated the students to community services the school had to offer. One of Stockton’s main goals is to keep us (the students) involved in modern challenges and issues. Stockton had many stations to cycle throughout the day such as Civics, Hunger & Homelessness, along with others. Going to all of the events really showed what community service is really about. Progress in the community should not depend on primarily other people making a change, but should rely on the individual’s participation. As the key speaker Todd Bernstein said, “[The] government won’t help change the nation; it is up to us to make a difference”.
One of the stations that resonated with me was the Water Watch Club. As a child I thought that recycling was important, but it was perfectly OK for me to drink as many plastic water bottles as I wanted. The Water Watch made it clear that we have to reduce the amount of water bottles we use. Water Watch showed us that we (humans) are unintentionally making an island of pure trash because trash is thrown out into the sea and collects in spots. They also touched upon how much energy we are wasting for something that we do not need. It takes 50% of the energy they use to make the bottle and then 45% to transport it to local stores. Everyone nowadays talks about conserving gas and how global warming is a concerning issue. It would make sense that something so simple (switching to reusable water bottles) can help these problems. Tap water is checked more frequently for harmful bacteria then the bottled water companies, and the plastic bottles can contain BPA (that can cause cancer and other heath hazards). It is also much cheaper to use reusable bottles of water that costs pennies to fill up compared to buying a pack of water bottles. It doesn’t make cense to spend more money and waste more energy for something that is potentially more harmful for us.
Another station that surprised me was Join Together Atlantic County (JTAC). Its goal was to spread awareness of drug and alcohol use along with rehab. I knew that the state of New Jersey is generally a safe state, but I didn’t know that the biggest drug was heroin. As most people know, heroin is a very heard drug and would wonder why so many people would be using it. New Jersey has the cheapest and pure heroin in the country, making easy for people to get ahold of it. Trafficking the drug is very easy to do because of our location as a state. The scary fact about this drug is that the deaths of overdosing have tripled since 2010 and happen three times more often then homicides, suicides, and car accident deaths in the State. We all know how many accidents we see on TV but never really hear about people overdosing from this drug.
The Day of Service was really eye opening to me. It made me want to get involved and give back to my community. I am really excited to get involved and make a difference.

Hunger Games Trivia

On Tuesday, November 17^th, I attended a trivia event held in the Campus Center Event Room based on the Hunger Games movies and books. The event was held by SET, and was one of many trivia events that are held about various topics.

The night began with forming teams of five, who then shuffled into the Event Room and spread out across the room. A SET member handed out six small lined sheets of paper and a pen to each of five groups. Once everyone was settled, the rules were explained. Each team had six sheets of paper because they needed one for each round. Only one member of the group was required to write the answers down and turn in an answer sheet. Each round had a different theme, and some questions were worth more than others. Round one was based on characters, in which a slide was shown with a picture of a character from one of the movies, and the participants had to write down the name of the character. Round two was quotes from the books and movies, and players had to write down who said them. There was no extra time at the end of each round to go over your answers, making it more challenging. All of the rounds took about an hour to get through.

At the end of Round 6, SET members took a few minutes to tally up the results of each team as a song from one of the movies played in the background. The team who won first prize received tickets to the new Hunger Games movie for this Friday. Second place received Stockton University winter hats, and my team, coming in third, received SET water bottles.

Overall, Hunger Games Trivia was a great event for anyone interested in the books and/or movies. The timing of the event was perfect, given that the new movie comes out in theatres this Friday.

On November 6^th, Stockton hosted its first annual Sleep Out to raise funds for Covenant House. Covenant house is a nonprofit organization that provides care and services for homeless, abandoned, and abused youth who have no other place to go. Last month, I visited Covenant House for a class project and saw what an amazing place it was. When I heard about the sleep out I was more than willing to join. Sleep outs are hosted all over the US annually. They raise money to help combat homelessness and they help to show its participants what it is like to homeless by sleeping outside on a cold night.

Before attending the event, I heard horror stories of participants huddled together in their sleeping bags on a freezing, rainy night. Luckily for us, it was beautiful out all night. Most of the night, people were wearing jeans and t-shirts. I kind of felt like I was cheating because most nights aren’t this beautiful and people have to combat freezing cold weather. For the first half of the night, we played games and did other cheerful activities to get to know each other better. I almost forgot what we were doing it for. Around midnight, we went inside and there was a presentation. We were shown videos about people our own age who were struggling with homelessness and the positive impact Covenant House made in their lives. After the video, people I knew started getting up and sharing their own personal struggle with homelessness. After that, we went back outside and it was time to sleep. Most of us ended up pulling all-nighters because even though it was beautiful out it was much less comfortable then we were used to.

Before then, I always looked at homelessness as a faraway concept that affects people that I would never know. Now I know how prevalent homelessness is in my own community. The Sleep Out helped to open my eyes and now I am much more aware of a very important issue. About 20-30 people participated and we raised almost $1,000. I am excited to participate next year even though it might not be as beautiful out.

Stockton’s Sixties Concert is an event thrown by The Sixties class. John O’Hara teaches this class and was in charge of running this event. It took place in the Campus Center Theatre on Wednesday November 11^th. The concert started at 6:30pm and ended at 9:30pm. The purpose of the concert was to take the audience back through time to an era where people charged for peace not war. I not only attended this concert for my personal enjoyment, but because I was performing in it with Stockton’s American Sign Language club.

The night started off strong with Barry Bender & The Peace and Love Museum. The music was sensational and the audience was wild. As the night went on special acts performed on stage. Singers from Stockton’s choral groups performed to guitarists and they were out of this world. Students from The Sixties class then performed an original dance to a mash of hits from the sixties and it was phenomenal. The night ended strong with numerous songs played by The Stockton Faculty Band. The band was surprisingly really good and it was enjoyable.

I along with fifteen members of Stockton’s American Sign Language Club were patiently waiting, in our front row seats, for the Stockton Faculty Band to play “My Girl.” We had been practicing how to sign “My Girl” for weeks and we were both excited and nervous to finally be performing it. Amy the announcer, a student in The Sixties class, introduced our club and we proceeded to the stage. The lights blocked most of the audience, but my heart was still racing. I knew the signs and I had practiced a hundred times, but being on stage was somehow different. The music started and the rest is pretty much a blur. I left the stage feeling accomplished and when I could finally see the faces of others all I saw were smiles which made me feel successful. Overall the night was incredible and I really hope they hold another concert next year!

The final event I attended was David Sanger’s presentation on modern global politics. Sanger lectured about opinions, which were seemingly presented as facts, on the world and its problems and solutions. Sanger began as a journalist for the New York Times before he was named a Washington correspondent for the same publication. He covered global issues and governmental concerns directly from Washington, D.C. and around the world.
First, Sanger discussed America as the “world’s policemen.” He explained that he was with president Bush when the second plane hit the twin towers, and that we have maintained this role ever since. Then the Iraq War blossomed from this, which presented many problems for the United States regarding power. This, Sanger pointed out, would be the dilemma in deciding what to do today, regarding ISIS.
Sanger said that over fourteen years, America has come nowhere close to ending extreme Jihadism. He pointed out that sometimes, Americans want to be isolationists, and sometimes they do not. This is a fundamental problem in solving ISIS: we do not want to fight them, but we cannot ignore the present and ongoing tragedies. These conflicts lead to yet another concern of whether we would end up creating more terrorists if we fight ISIS. The concerns are endless.
In addition to ISIS, Americans face other problems. One problem is the post-Cold War threats of Vladimir Putin that remain adamant, although Russia would supposedly be an ally if we fight ISIS. Next, there is the threat of ISIS. Last but not least, cyber attacks remain the most threatening to America’s safety. There are many benefits to the cyber world, but many problems. Foreign hackers are considered to be the biggest threat to America, according to the head of the CIA and the National Threat Assessment. The lecture presented a scary picture of what America faces currently.
Finally, Sanger presented solutions. He discussed drone strikes, using Special Forces, and using a cyber attack against Iran. He proposed that there are easy steps we can follow to eliminate several threats to America and our homeland security, and ended the presentation on a positive note. The talk was informative, entertaining, and extremely interesting, especially for those interested in politics.

On October 17, 2015, about 30 students from Stockton studying Greek and Roman art, history, culture, and languages journeyed to New York City to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with a focus on their Cypriot collection. With monetary assistance from the Dean and Zoe Pappas Fund for Greek Art and Architecture, students, faculty, and members from the community spent the day amongst great pieces of Greco-Roman art and immersed themselves in the lives of the ancients. We traveled from the Cypriot Bronze Age, to Pre-Classical Greece, to High Classical Rome observing the artistic innovations of awe-inspiring times.

In the Cypriot art, we could see the Eastern influences of the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and later the Turks. We stopped and admired the great stone sarcophagi and the ornate scenes depicted along the sides. The Greek influence appeared in the mythological scenes on the sarcophagi and the statues of Herakles and Geryon, along with the “archaic Greek smile” that adorned the statues of unknown men. Most of the statues even still retained a few specks of their original paint, giving us an insight into how the statues may have originally appeared. Wandering afterwards from room to room, age to age, we circled funerary monuments made to celebrate the deaths of those who led the most lavish of lifestyles. Along the way we stumbled upon the smallest trinkets of everyday civilians sharing space with the armor of battle-worn soldiers. We stood alongside the likenesses of emperors, heroes, and gods, such as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Augustus, Alexander, Homer, Socrates, Hercules, Fortuna, Apollo, and the Graces. The Museum impressively uses its layout to intersperse many aspects of life to show the diversity of ancient culture. As students of Greco-Roman languages, we were particularly drawn to the various inscriptions in the galleries to test our mettle through translating these ancient texts.

After our visit to the ancient past, we ventured deeper into New York City to Ithaka Restaurant to experience an authentic Greek dinner. Over the expanse of three hours we enjoyed five courses of exquisite Greek cuisine, including stuffed grape leaves, tzatziki, taramosalata (Greek caviar), loukaniko (Greek sausage), pastitsio, and loukoumades (Greek donuts). Just as our cups and plates were never empty, so too did our eclectic conversations never cease. Sitting in such a festive and genuine atmosphere gave us a look into the modern lifestyle of the descendants of the people we came to know at the museum.

Ultimately, our trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened our eyes to the art and splendor of the past and our hearts to the culture and people of the present. We spent the day learning, teaching, and reveling in the glory of a past that will continue to inspire us and others for years to come.

On October 29^th, two days before Halloween, the Wellness Center and Drug and Alcohol Peer Educators hosted Lolla-No-Booza, a fun and informative event spreading awareness about the dangers and facts of drugs and alcohol. The event was held in the Campus Center Event room from 7:00pm-11:00pm and there was food, games, and a ton of prizes for students to win. This year’s theme was “Freakshow,” a perfect fit for the week of Halloween. Inside the room all those who were working the event were dressed as clowns and other circus-like characters in spirit of the theme. There was even someone walking around on stilts. Right outside the Event Room there were two people juggling bowling pins.

The attendees walked in, many dressed in costumes, to table after table of fun games for students to play: water pong, spinning wheels, knocking down cups with balls, and more. After each win, a student would get a raffle ticket and be entered to win one of the numerous prizes baskets donated by various vendors. The long table of prizes seemed endless. In addition to the multiple carnival-like games available to play there was bull riding as well as a photo booth for students to capture all of the night’s memories.

Even if students didn’t have much luck with the raffle, they still were able to get free things because as the event was coming to an end, students received plastic cups filled with coupons to nearby restaurants. No matter how the night turned out, everyone ended the event a winner.