Since this is my last of 15 blogs I am going to tell you about what is going on next semester and the rest of my college life. So this past semester, it sounds so weird to say that, I have completed a lot of great achievements. First I was the treasurer for RHA. I had a lot of fun working with them on Building Battles, creating Game Nights, and hosting events like the Roommate Social. As treasurer I oversaw the budget and learned how to manage money and advise other people on how to spend their money. The next achievement I made was that I was elected Honors co-Director of Events. As Honors co-Director of events I organized the honors events with my counterpart. I ran events like Pizza and Pong and the Honors BBQ which is happening in this upcoming week. I learned here how to plan events and work with another person in the same position to be able to collaborate and exchange ideas about how to make the honors events more fun. Those were some of my biggest achievements and learning experience this last semester, but next semester I am looking forward to other great things. First over the summer I will be an Orientation Leader and a T.A.L.O.N. As an Orientation Leader I will be living here for a month over the summer helping the freshman learn about the campus and register for classes. As a T.A.L.O.N. I will move in early and go on the S.O.A.R. trip as well as facilitate Welcome Week Activities.  When the semester begins, however, I will no longer be treasurer for RHA as I am picking up a position as a Late Night Vice Chair for the S.E.T. team. I also will be a CARE peer mentor which is a volunteer position where I will be meeting with college students who are at risk of being kicked out of college. I will be meeting with them once a week to discuss their goals and how they can achieve their goals. I will be keeping my position as the Honors co-Director of Events and will continue to work diligently on the honors events. My school work will be harder next semester, but I am willing to put the effort forth to complete my goals and to get what I want out of college. Well I guess this is goodbye to whoever is reading. I hope that you have as fun as I did this year and will learn as much as I did too.

So this may not be your typical blog entry because it is not an event that happened on campus, but it is about college life in general. Last night my friends and I went driving around the area and we came across some pretty cool places. Our first stop was at an abandoned warehouse. We got out and walked around seeing the field in the back and trying to decide what used to be there. The next stop was a baseball and street hockey court that we want to come back to soon to play. There were two street hockey courts complete with nets and boxes for teams. There was a little league field, a high school field, and even a batting cage for those who have a machine to work with. It was a cute little field and we are willing to come back soon to see a game. The last stop we made, besides a wawa run, was a playground. Even as college students, we are never too old to visit a playground. We ran around in the dark trying to hide from each other and play jailbreak. There was a rock wall dome where you could slip inside between two bars or in a cutout hole. I got in through the bars, but tried to get out through the hole…I got stuck when I tried to fit my hips through. It was so much fun just fooling around like we were little again. In the end we ended up just looking up at the moon admiring the fact that we could see so many stars. That was all in one night. Other times we have driven down toward Atlantic City down the white horse pike, but before we got through the toll we turned around. There was an abandoned gas station on the side of the road that we parked at and we just spent our time looking out at the skyline. It was beautiful to see the skyline and to just enjoy the night. Other adventures we have taken include driving down to ocean city to go to the beach, driving down to my friend’s campground in new Gretna (if you don’t have a campground you can just drive down and around there just to see the trees and enjoy the night air), going to the Atlantic City Skate Zone to go ice skating, and so much more. All together I loved being here on campus and in this general area. I am excited for all the adventures that we will get into next semester as well.

SET team. Well, I am on the SET team here at Stockton and I absolutely love it! This past year I was just a general member, but I still got to help out with some of the events, got to attend any one I wanted, and had a lot of fun. Some of the events I helped out with were the homecoming float, the haunted walk, and planning for La La No Booza. For the homecoming parade each year a bunch of clubs decorate a golf cart with a specific theme. This year our theme was paradise. As a part of the special events committee which oversaw anything that happened during homecoming. When we were presented a theme everyone in our committee began brainstorming ideas of what we could put on this float and I designed the actual float. I drew up a diagram and it ended up being enacted! After this I became more confident and started helping out more often. The haunted walk was around Halloween before the hurricane when people would walk down dark path while others were trying to pop out and scare them while they were walking. Ultimately the group of walkers would end up at the Campus Center where there were different stations set up. Edible had a station and there was free food etc. My station was face painting. Since I had worked as a face painter previously, I volunteered to do it there as well and it was super fun. Anyone who came to my station walked away happy and I had a lot of fun seeing people’s reactions. This just goes to show you that even college kids can enjoy face painting. The rest of the semester was full of events that I have already written about and more including taco Tuesday, comedian Jay Black, Cupcake Wars etc. Next year, I am actually on the late night committee and will be in charge of anything happening from 8 to 10 at night. As a co-vice chair I am so excited to be getting more involved here at Stockton and I encourage anyone reading this to do the same. My passion turned out to be the SET team, but maybe yours is different. I suggest finding what you like on campus your first year and then pursuing a leadership role in that club. That way you get to do what you like and get to further your development as a leader and a student.

As a freshman, one thing you worry about is what to do when you get sick on campus. There’s no mom to take care of you. You are responsible for deciding if you are so sick that you cannot go to class, if you are sick enough to go to the doctor or if you are even sick enough to go home. When I got sick on campus the first thing I did was call home, which is a natural reaction. The next step was to go to the doctor. Fortunately, we have a place you can go to on campus that can be used with your insurance so you personally do not have to pay money to go in. This is the wellness center at West Quad. I went there when I had an awful rash on my knee. I had no idea what it was, but the knowledgeable people there knew that it was chiggers. Chiggers happen when a very tiny bug bites you and you have a reaction to it. It is a common thing to happen here at Stockton if you are out in the woods a lot. Anyway they are able to prescribe medication and can send it to any pharmacy where you can go and pick it up. They accept walk-ins and will evaluate what is wrong. If it is something not life-threatening then they will arrange an appointment with you to see the doctor that is on campus. In my experience, they are professional, courteous, and make the appointment as soon as possible to be able to help you. If, however, it is something that needs immediate attention, then there is always the hospital. Luckily, we have a hospital practically on campus. Atlanticare has seen many Stockton students and from what I have heard they take care of their patients very well. I personally have not had an experience there, and hopefully neither will you. Altogether the experience of being sick on campus is not fun, but there are friendly, helpful people surrounding you who are willing to help.

So… Hello again! I have news! I did a SET cupcake war event and won 3^rd out of 8! When I went to the event room I didn’t think that I would be competing, I thought I’d just be watching and eating some free cupcakes, but I got a partner and we were assigned a table. The way the game works was that the first round you and your teammate grab one cupcake flavor and ice it with another flavor of icing then decorate the cupcake using the icing, sprinkles, and fondant that was provided. The catch here was that you had to decorate your cupcake to fit the theme. The first theme was animals and my partner and I gravitated toward an elephant. We put together the elephant ears and trunk out of blue fondant and then covered the rest of the icing with blue sugar. We were given ten minutes and when the time was up, we presented our work to the judges. The judges based their decisions of the winner of four categories: taste, creativity, theme, and how it overall looks. In the first round four out of the eight people were illuminated. My teammate and I got third and then came the second round. The second round’s theme was sports. My teammate got the idea of making a baseball diamond. I cut the cupcake to make it look more like a diamond and used the excess cupcake to make bases. We used chocolate icing and pound cake and we put green sugar on top of the icing to make it look more like grass. I had another idea at the last second to take some of the extra cupcake and place it on the back to look like a stadium where the people would sit. For a final touch I put a bat on one side of the cut cupcake and a baseball on the other. The funniest comment I received on this cupcake was “Oh the judges already ate it?” Anyway we won first place, probably just for creativity.  So we made it to the next round and the category was holidays. My teammate and I chose to do a Christmas present. We cut the cupcake into a square and I decided to cut a hole in the middle of the cupcake and put rainbow sprinkles to symbolize the gift that would have been inside the box. We chose red velvet cake so the judges would see both red and green. We decorated the plate with a festive Merry Christmas and hoped for the best. This was the best cupcake we had done together so far, but we lost by 2 points. It was a great time and I had a lot of fun and at the end of the night we got to eat the leftover cupcakes!!

The Honors scavenger hunt was the second big event for this semester in the honors program. First I arrived ready with a group to go off and find the things assigned to us. Unfortunately my group was too big and so I opted to join a new group. This new group turned out to be a blast to work with! We first ran around the campus center searching for Argo stands, the offices, and then it was off to the main campus building. We had to get creative when it came to the schools. We had to find all of the schools on campus so instead of running through the main campus building going up and down the stairs, I decided to go out to the flags and take a picture of each flag with the school’s name on it. One adventure we had while running around was trying to go out to the entrances and take pictures with the signs. We hopped in the car, sped away and pulled over as close to the sign as we could get. We bolted out of the car ran over to the sign took the picture and ran back into the car. It was like we were robbers afraid of getting caught by the police running for the get-away car. We drove all around campus searching for everything from a police officer to the laundry rooms, to the plum and the rose (which I still cannot find). We only had an hour to try and get as many things pictured as we could and to get back to Dunkin Donuts so they could tally the scores. When we finally made it back the scores were tallied and we ended up in third place. We still got a nice candy prize while first place got a giftcard to the bookstore. Although we did not win, it was a lot of fun to go running around campus trying to get points. Hey, at least I got my exercise for the day! I hope that next year we can do this event again (and I think we will since I am the co-director of events).

This past week I participated in Building Battles. It was so much fun to go through with the people in my building and participate in the games. I however, got to see some of the background preparation for Building Battles considering that I am in RHA. During the preparation for the event we unfortunately had to reschedule twice. The original date was set for the fall so the freshman could get out and meet the other residents of their buildings. Unfortunately, this year the date had to be changed because the effects of Hurricane Sandy so the date was rescheduled for the spring so it would be warmer. Then again we had weather problems when it snowed the day before and the ground was too wet to put the inflatables on, so the date was finally changed to the last preceptor day. This finally worked out. The day began at 10 am with set up. We unloaded multitudes of bandanas, burgers, hot dogs, veggie burgers, chips, drinks, and then helped set up the games. First the inflatables came with attendants, were rolled out, and blown up. We had ordered an inflatable jousting ring and an obstacle course. After we set out the areas for the other games, we got to “test out” the inflatables which was so much fun and then the day began. It began when building “A” dressed all in red came down from their rooms and began to stretch. Pretty soon people started coming out and the games began. Each building had a specific station to go to so they could battle it out in a game. My station was called Butterfingers and 12345. Butterfingers is a relay race game where one person goes and grabs an item then runs back and gives it to their partner. Their partner then goes and picks up a second item. Eventually one person would end up carrying everything from a hula hoop to a pillow to an orange. This was such a fun game to play with the teams and anytime I was not running the game, I was participating with my building. The other games we played were musical pie in the face, pie eating, egg toss, flag tag, Stockton trivia, and volleyball. The day lasted from 12-4 and in the end my building won! It was such a fun day and it was a great way to meet and connect with the other people living in your building.