Being a resident on the East Coast of the United States, particularly in New Jersey, many people along with me have been dealing with the disastrous consequences of Hurricane Sandy.  I was fortunate enough not to have had to deal with any major damage as a result of this storm, but many, many people were not as fortunate as I was.  Of course I had seen the videos and pictures of the destruction on the news, but I never really realized how bad this hurricane was until Operation Blessing.

Operation Blessing is a volunteer organization run out of the Lighthouse Alliance Church in Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey.   I was given the opportunity to volunteer with this organization through Water Watch here at Stockton.  I had a strong interest in helping directly with Sandy victims in a way other than donating needed items, and this was the perfect opportunity.  I have gone several times now with students from Stockton to volunteer with Operation Blessing, and it has been the most rewarding experience I have ever had.

In the times I have volunteered, I have gone to three homes in the Little Egg Harbor area to work. Going to houses means that the volunteers will be doing laborious work because basically, the entire house needs to be gutted and everything wet needs to be thrown out.  That includes refrigerators, doors, walls, food, ovens, tables, chairs, fences, etc.  The list goes on and on, but I think it would be easiest to explain it as imagining everything you own being thrown out onto your front lawn for trash and all of the walls of your house being torn down.  Until I went and actually saw for myself and participated in helping to clean up the damage, I had no idea how serious this hurricane had been.

The most amazing thing about volunteering is seeing how these homeowners, who have lost everything and are watching us tear down and throw out their lives, still manage to be in good spirits and are so thankful that we are there to help them.  Every homeowner I have met will laugh and joke around with us despite the devastation that has brought us all together.  I am very happy I was able to have this opportunity through Operation Blessing and help out the victims of Hurricane Sandy.

On October 25 the Water Watch club held a campus clean up.  We were divided into teams and cleaned up different areas of the college campus.  My group had to clean the trails in the woods that run around Lake Fred.  We found tons of glass bottles and aluminum cans to recycle.  We found a lot of cigarette butts too.  We also found tons of weird things.  We found a deer antler separate from the rest of the deer.  We found some socks and a hat.  We found a plastic sand bucket by the side of the lake. We found a razor blade.  We even found a truck’s mud flap!  We also found a metal sign pulled out of the ground.  We found so many interesting things and had so much fun while cleaning up the campus.  It was a fun and easy way to help make our beautiful campus look even more beautiful.  I would love to help out the next time a campus clean up is held.

Written by the one and only Horace Leung.

“Oh, hai

I’m that guy

Built so fly in a silk bow tie

Don’t know why I’m built so fly

But I am no lie”

–         George Watsky

What can be a better combination than a FREE dinner and a show by Stockton Entertainment Team? With over fifteen million hits on his video, “Pale Kid Raps Fast”, George Watsky has and performing his poems to colleges all around the United States. Lucky for us, we were able to see him from beyond the videos that he makes. George Watsky is a poet and rapper and his inspiration comes from the frustrations of modern life and politics.

Even though the food was spectacular and could have been the event, having George Watsky recite his poems was just a nice bonus. Of course, he recited “Letter to My 16-Year-Old Self” and sang “Pale Kid Raps Fast,” however, he also recited original poems that have not been posted on YouTube. He brought to light the issues of global warming, heat, and the ambiguity of religion. His poems were insightful, impressive, and straight-out funny.

All in all, it was very interesting to see George Watsky and hear him give his perspective on various issues. He is a talent that should not be ignored. Nonetheless, this event appeals to everyone. If you are a fan of George Watsky to liking free catered dinners when you are running out of meal swipes due to the fact you’ve been over eating at the Campus Center, then these are opportunities here at Stockton for YOU. However, if this event will never happen again, I suggest you watch his videos on Youtube to see what everyone is talking about.

            On Tuesday, September 18, 2012, around 7:50pm, my roommate and I were headed to the cafeteria in the Campus Center for a bit of a late dinner. While we were walking, two students came up to us and asked if we liked free food. Being broke college freshmen, we both eagerly responded with a resounding, “yes!”. The two students then informed us about Dinner and a Show.  This program was being presented by SET, which is short for Stockton Entertainment Team. They told us that the event was being held in the Campus Center Event Room and that there would be food and music, both of which were being provided to Stockton students free of charge. My roommate and I went just to see what it was about, and we ended up having a great time.

            Upon entering the Event Room we were greeted by the smiling faces of many members of SET. They directed us toward to the two buffet style tables that were filled with food. We grabbed plates and filled them with chicken parmesan, pasta, and salad. The food tasted great, and we even got to go up for seconds.  We sat at a table with some other people that we didn’t know prior to attending the event, but we introduced ourselves and had made some new friends by the end of the night.    

            While we were eating, we were introduced to the night’s musical guest named Matt Wade. He was a singer and accompanied himself on the piano. There was a small stage set up in the front of the event room where he preformed and was equipped with a keyboard and a microphone. He sang some original songs that were very catchy and well written, and he also sang some familiar songs that got almost everyone singing along. I’m a singer and I love music, so I found being able to attend this event to hear music and even get to sing a little to be so much fun. While the students in the room were enjoying the music, members of SET came around and took pictures of all the tables. These pictures made their way onto the SET facebook page, making us all a little famous. Also, even though we were all so full from all of the food we had consumed, many of us found room for some of the cake that was provided.

            I found this event completely on accident, and was just lucky enough to have wandered into the Campus Center at the perfect time that Tuesday night. I was able to have some great food, be entertained by a talented musician, and meet some new people, all at no expense to me. SET did a great job with the event and everything ran very smoothly. I am very happy that I was able to attend the program and become aware of SET, because now I will be sure to take advantage of more of the awesome things that they make available to students, such as Dinner and a Show, or one of my new favorites, the cupcake bar!

To all my fellow honors kids out there who have not yet registered for classes. Here’s some advice. Get all the CRN numbers for the classes you want. When you first click on register, a banner comes on and you have to have the CRN numbers ready if you don’t want to waste time looking through the catalog again. Let me warn you…IT WILL BE STRESSFUL. I was personally freaking out! Like my hands were shaking…and I agree that’s a little overdoing it but I cant help it when I’m stressed…so have your stuff ready to go.
I cant repeat this enough, and I’m sure you’ve all heard it a bazillion times: but make back up schedules and have those ready to go too. Make sure you visit the website and see how the seats are filling up the morning of the your registration day at least so you have the most updated information and keep looking until your time to register comes. Make sure you get that secret website from Widjaja just in case the network crashes. It’s even a good idea to register in the honors center so that you have some honors kids there helping you out. Don’t use the wireless connection, its more likely to crash…have a wire connecting your computer to the internet.
Make sure there are no holds on your account and that you have all the POIs (Permission of Instructor) if you need them. Talk to the professor you want to take the class with to get the POI, send them an email AND visit them….it gets you brownie points and its more professional.
Make sure you have access to a computer at least one hour before you have to register just in case there is a problem in the system again and you can register early. It would totally suck if you lost your chance to get in early when everyone else is doing it so be prepared. And that’s all that I can think of…except for one thing: DON’T FORGET TO BREATHE.
Luv ya all! 🙂
<3 Kimia

The show was nothing like what I thought it would be. I figured it would be letters from one soldier in the three stages of his military career but instead there was 15 or so soldiers just recalling the letters from their career. There was one mother also talking about the letters she wrote and about her sons who were in the war.
I loved the beginning of it. All the performers run on to the stage and just say random things. Everyone is left confused until after a few of them step into the spot light and recall the letter. Then you realize, the random things they were saying was just the beginning of the letter. The soldiers were all very different and so it was a great way to get to see different perspectives on the military life and the challenges they had to face. The one solider that I was rooting for the entire time was a father. His wife and had just given birth to their daughter and he could not wait to see her. He had been deployed only days after his daughter was born and in his letter he kept talking about how much he missed her and how proud of her she was and how much he couldn’t wait to see her again. He felt sorry that he had to miss out on even part of her childhood and was telling her how he knew she’d grow up to be a wonderful person. Out of all the other letters, I feel like his was the most touching to me. Then for his last letter, he was saying happy birthday to his daughter on her first birthday. It had been a year since he had seen her and was expressing how he could not wait to see her soon. Then a slide came on that said he died only two days after his daughter’s first birthday. The part really hit me hard and I felt extremely upset. I feel like it was a good play because even though I’ve never had anyone close to me be in the military and I have been lucky enough to have my father in my life through every stage of my childhood, the play still managed to move me. It let me relate to someone I had nothing in common with and feel upset about losing him, even though I had only gotten to know his character for about an hour and half.
The letters were actually from real soldiers and in the end they showed the pictures of the true soldiers. Most of them died but few survived the war and are busy doing other things today. I wish more honors kids had came because it was actually really good and I enjoyed it.

Amazing, fascinating, electrifying, energetic, upbeat, stunning, surprising and  unbelievable are just a few words to describe the performance of Tap Dogs, a dance group that put on a marvelous show at Stockton on September 22^nd. A group of about eight talented men graced the Performing Arts Center’s stage with their impeccable tap dancing ability. I was in awe of their talents from the moment the show began to the end of their third encore.  The talent of each and every one of the men was out of this world, and the stunts they pulled were insane, yet utterly incredible.

The beginning of the show consisted of each dancer allowing the audience to become familiar with their unique talent. The dancers would then unite as one and perform a group dance. These group dances were phenomenal to say the least. If I closed my eyes, it sounded as if there was one person dancing on the stage, when in reality there were eight. They were so uniform and in sync with one another that it blew the audience members away. The men were upbeat and made the whole experience really enjoyable.

I must say that I was in shock and horror for the second half of the performance. The men started performing crazy stunts that could have easily injured them. One man tapped upside down on a metal board overheard while his fellow dancers held him in that position by only rope. It was thrilling to watch and kept the performance suspenseful and most definitely unique. The dancers also jumped on and off of ladders tapping intensely and in rhythm, which was pure genus. It was amazing to watch, for the choreography was simply breathtaking. There was also a dance routine to the sounds of firearms which was frightening but exhilarating all at the same time. The things they could do with their feet were at times truly awe inspiring. Tap dances were performed on a variety of unusual surfaces throughout the entire show including water, metal and steel. The metal and steel created unique and majestic sounds and spiced up the performance.

Water was indeed the most creative surface though. In fact, my favorite part of the whole show was when the dancers all arrived on stage wearing rain boots. I became very confused due to the fact that it is practically impossible to get any other sound out of a rain boot other than a squeak, let alone an impressive tap. I was wrong. They all sat down on a bench with a large container of water in front of them and began stepping in and out of the water simultaneously, creating an interesting yet appealing sound. It was one of the coolest moments of the show. This whole scene was choreographed and the stage became soaked with water. It was extremely creative and quickly became my favorite scene.

Once they changed out of the boots and back into their beloved tap shoes, they danced around and tapped in the water still left on the stage, splashing the rows of people in the front. It was extremely amusing and the guys were nothing short of entertaining and hilarious. They received four standing ovations from the audience and myself and performed three encores that were absolutely fantastic and adequately portrayed the amount of talent this spectacular dance troupe contained.

I am so glad I was able to go see this amazing show. I tried to describe what I saw to the best of my abilities so those of you who could not attend can get a sense of the magnificent talent gracing the stage. If they happen to come to Stockton again in the future I suggest to everyone that they buy a ticket right away. Tap Dogs is a must see show and a truly spectacular performance that simply cannot be missed.

I am 18 years old, but enjoyed that show. Maybe it was filled with jokes directed towards older women, (and no I did not understand some of them), but that didn’t stop me from laughing anyway. I’m sure I’ll understand in due time. What did enjoy was that these four ladies were just full of charm. You couldn’t help but to love them and the music they played was happy and cheerful. It made me smile even though I was having a really bad day. They sing about real life things. About teenagers, and chocolate and personal problems, but they have a good sense of humor about it.
That’s the way we should be I think. I think life is too short for us to take it seriously and the four bitchin’ babes just confirmed it for me. The stuff they sing about, is stuff that every woman has to deal with. Sometimes it can get frustrating not being as young as they used to but, it is what it is. That’s when you have to start laughing at life and enjoying it more instead of feeling upset over things and getting all angry and having wrinkles show up on your face.
This is the type of show I would take my mother and grandmother to see. It’s a great thing for women, I wouldn’t suggest to men, but if you want to go, I do recall seeing a few male heads from my seat all the way in the back. They also sell their books and CDs. I have to admit I was very tempted to buy a book. It has a page in it, dedicated to gum. You know how sometimes you want to throw out your gum, but you cant find anything to wrap around it? Well they had pre-cut pieces of paper that you could rip right out of the book dedicated to helping you throw out your gum when you need to. Because it is at times like these when the four bitchin’ babes can be there for you. This is the charming and awesome sense of humor that ran through the entire show. And I have to say, I actually enjoyed myself.