Maura Twiggs

September 10 2015

Freshman ’15 Blog

Welcome Week: Building Wars

We stared the other team down across the picnic table. Things were getting serious. Each team had put forth their champion to part take in the highest honor of Welcome Week even Building Wars: the Watermelon Eating Contest. Earlier, when our RA Nancy (Mom as we adoring call her on our floor) told us the morning and afternoon would be filled with different events in which we would compete against other freshman dorm buildings, I’ll admit I was weary. However, right from the start the positive attitudes of the other RA’s, SET team members, and workers who brought equipment to the quad for the day, were infectious and I couldn’t help but be completely immersed in the action. Each building was assigned a color to wear. D Building was lime green, and even though its not a color in most people’s wardrobe, everyone had a piece of green to wear. At the sign up table, SET members had colored strips of fabric corresponded with each building. Some kids wore them as headbands, others as ankle or arm bands. This small and seemingly simple idea unified us as a team. From challenge to challenge, it didn’t matter if we won or lost (although we dominated), what mattered most was spending time with each other, getting to know our building better and also meeting other freshman. Some of the people I went toe to toe with that day remain close, I couldn’t be more pleased I attended this event. It not only made me get out there and meet people, it also had activities for a range of skills. There was Stockton trivia, athletic games, ice breakers, scavenger hunts, and my personal favorite, food eating contests. So, here we stand, undefeated green team, our chorus of “D building- YOU BETTER BE LEAF IT” up in the air, ready to face off the grey team in a watermelon eating contest. RA Anthony Thawley tells the eaters to be at the ready-set-go, and a ruckus of egging on and encouragement echoed from both teams. It was both my favorite moment of Building Wars, and a Welcome Week event I will never forget.

On Friday, April 17, Stockton’s Entertainment Team (SET) hosted the fifth annual “Woodstockton”, an event where a chosen band or performer, depending on who gets the most student votes, visits Stockton and performs a student concert in Big Blue Gymnasium. This year, Panic! At the Disco was chosen over many other famous performers, such as 21 Pilots and Jesse McCartney, to perform. Being I had never been to a concert before, I was really glad that a band I particularly like was chosen for my first concert. Two of my friends from back home are also huge fans of the band, so they came and visited Stockton for a night and saw the concert with me.
Panic! At the Disco were opened for by two bands. First, the student band, My Life in Film, winners of Battle of the Band a few weeks ago, performed a few songs, some of their own and some covers of well-known songs. Overall, they were clearly very talented and got the audience excited for the performance to come. The second opener, a guitarist and singer named Clark Kelly, performed a few songs by himself and engaged himself with the audience by speaking in between songs and getting the crowd even more excited. Finally, after the last set change, Panic! At the Disco made their appearance and began playing immediately, during which the audience all began singing along and dancing. Luckily, my friends and I decided to stay in the standing area so we could have just as much of a good time.
Panic! performed many of their well-known songs, as well as some I was less familiar with but others knew by heart. They also covered the song, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which is a song that almost everyone seems to know. Overall, we spent the whole time dancing and enjoying the concert as a whole. The performers of Panic! most definitely really enjoy what they do, as one could tell watching them perform live. Considering it was my first concert, I can surely say it was great experience and I would love to go to another concert in the near future.

Earlier tonight, my RA Julie Eller hosted our final program. During it, we were each given a small flower pot, a plethora of paints, and paintbrushes; we were then given the freedom to paint them as we wished, followed by filling them with soil and a plant of our choice. The point of the program was to have it as a final program as a floor for the semester and to reflect on our favorite times during our freshman year. Many people shared stories from throughout the year and laughed at each other’s favorite memories.
My first year at Stockton has been full of amazing memories that I will always remember and take time to reflect on when I am older. I have met some of the most amazing people in classes and the honors residence hall that I am also proud to call my honors family. We have all laughed, cried, had fun together, studied for exams, gone out for birthday dinners, and have done many more fun things. Everyone in my residence hall has provided me with reassurance in my already existing notion that there is good in everyone as long as you look for it; in fact, they proved this to be true and more.
Next semester, I will be an honors resident assistant, along with current honors RA’s Julie and Anthony. I am thrilled, honored, and humbled to be joining the staff, especially in the honors community. I have enjoyed every moment I have been in the honors program so far, and cannot wait to mentor a floor of incoming honors girls and show them what family has meant to me during my time at Stockton. I am truly grateful for Julie and Anthony and the leadership and caring they have shown their residents through their friendly attitudes and fun programming throughout this year. I can only hope to follow their footsteps and provide my residents with such guidance.

On April 15, I attended the Somers Point Jazz Society Education Concert hosted in the Stockton Performing Arts Center. Many students from different elementary schools who were young musicians attended, as well as other Stockton students and some community members. Tickets were free and seating was very informal, which made for convenience in entering the performance. The jazz group consisted of a piano player, bass, drums, guitar, trumpet, and saxophone, some of the musicians being adjunct members of Stockton’s faculty. There were plenty of different sounds from the instruments that made for a well-balanced concert.
Studying for a music minor at Stockton and previously being a member of my high school’s jazz band, I appreciated the way the group went about their performance. The leader of the group, the saxophonist, talked in between pieces and explained the style of the jazz music they were about to perform, as well as giving background information about the composers of each. He also arranged their performance in such a way that the music was chronological in style as the jazz era progressed from the early 1900s on. My favorite piece that they played, St. Thomas, composed by Sonny Rollins, was a piece that my jazz band had once performed, therefore it is also close to my heart.
Although I am doing classical music studies here at Stockton, jazz performance will always be something I enjoy very much. I am always surprised by musicians’ ability to improvise in jazz music, as this concert was very much based by playing melodies in synch, followed by improvised solos from each of the musicians. Improvisation is especially hard because one must keep to the key signature of the piece, as well as follow the main melody, with a personal twist. Personally, I have much difficulty with this as a musician, and luckily classical music does not include this difficult task too often. I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing this in concert and learned about a lot of jazz composers, some of which I had not yet heard of.

On Friday, March 27, my friends and I attended the weekly Billiards Club meeting, which we are frequent members of. While I am no billiards expert, I definitely have improved my game since coming to Stockton. My other friends in the club have a bit more experience than I do, and are actually pretty good. This week, all of the members were put into brackets in a singles tournament, where we played a race to three, and the winner of each would move on to the next round. I happened to be randomly chosen to play first, against one of my best friends, Ryan, who is probably the best pool player of my friends. While I put up the best fight I could, Ryan ended up winning, thus knocking me out of the tournament. Over all, he ended up winning the entire tournament of that week, defeating even the president of the club, who is also very talented.
Billiards club, while small, has been a fun and rewarding club I am a part of at Stockton. I have made new friends from joining, who have been a part of the club since they were freshmen as well. I also have gotten a lot better at billiards, since the last I had played since coming to Stockton was probably about five years ago! My friends and I look forward to Fridays because of pool club, but we do not let that stop us from playing during the rest of the week. At least once a day, everyday, whether it is during a lunch break or when we need a break from studying, my friends and I will head over to the Campus Center and play pool, sometimes for one game, or other times for ten games, depending on what we play. Billiards has proved to be a relaxing way to get our minds off studying or class when we can afford to, and I am extremely glad that it is offered in the Campus Center Game Room.

On Friday September 23rd, I went to the Atlantic City Rescue Mission with Stockon University’s Circle K Club. The Atlantic City Rescue Mission was founded in 1964, and today provides shelter, programs, and hot meals to homeless people in the area. They also provide meals to the general public suffering from poverty.
On my way there with three other girls from Circle K, I wasn’t very sure what to expect. It was my first time volunteering at a homeless shelter. When we got inside the Atlantic City Rescue Mission, I was immediately impressed. The staff was extremely welcoming and put us to work right away. They started us off by having us make a salad to go along with dinner that night. Two of us cut peppers, and the other two cut up lettuce. It was the biggest salad bowl I had ever seen! Once we were done preparing the salad, we were sent up to the front of the kitchen to get ready to serve meals.
Dinner that Friday night was rice, chicken, and gravy. Along with this was our salad sides. The Rescue Mission also had pastries and other snacks for the tenants and general public to grab as well. We made the plates together, in an assembly line fashion. First, the male residents were served, then the female residents, and then dinner was open to the general public.
One thing that stood out to me were the miss matched plates and bowls the meals were served on. All of the different dishes donated just showed to me how many people put this amazing center together and contributed to helping feed so many people. Stockton’s participation at the Atlantic City Rescue Mission is something that I am looking forward to doing again!

On Precepting Day, March 24, Resident Assistants from the Freshman Housing Staff hosted Crafts for a Cause in the TRLC, where people were welcomed to come and go as they pleased to make cards, coloring books, and teddy bears for sick children. In addition, there were jars collecting donations for Stockton’s upcoming Relay for Life event, each with a building’s letter on them as incentive to collect the most change for our buildings. A few of my friends and I went to the event at 2:00, and as it was scheduled to run until 4:00, we ended up spending the whole two hours there, each stitching a teddy bear. I had never sown or done any sort of project like this, so learning to stitch was kind of difficult at first. However, after cutting the fabric with tiny owls that I chose, and starting the first stitch, I eventually got the hang of it to a beginner’s degree. After two hours, the table full of people I was sitting with each had made one (or in some cases, more than one) teddy bear to donate. Meanwhile, others made coloring books and warming cards to donate as well.
I had a great time at this event because while we were learning how to do something new, we were also helping others who would not have received these bears, books, and cards from us without the program. Unfortunately, it often goes unnoticed that there are so many children that are lacking any sort of warm wishes or toys due to being sick or very poor. Even after making a small bear, I hope that I can impact a child in even the slightest way by them receiving the bear. At the end of the program, 18 bears, 75 cards, and 86 coloring books were made for children in Atlantic Care hospital and the Stanley Home Homework Completion program. In addition, my building, D, happened to raise the most amount of money for Relay for Life! I thoroughly enjoyed going to this program and had a great time with my friends and learning to make a teddy bear.

On February 27, Stockton’s men’s basketball team fought in Big Blue for the NJAC Championship title against William Paterson University. Being from North Jersey, seeing the good amount of fans from William Paterson made me appreciate their dedication in driving all that way to Galloway. However, the student side of the gym overflowed with Ospreys, as we were excited and ready for the “Black out” game. My friends and I even made sure to be of the first fifty to enter the game, and got free shirts and admission. Some were even prepared with streamers that were thrown across the stands each time a three-point shot was scored. Being that Stockton was the first seed in the tournament and William Paterson was second, we knew the game was going to be intense.
The score of the game was overall throughout, as each team gained the lead back and forth. We made sure to hold up our hands for luck as our team made foul shots, and, of course in a matter of good sportsmanship, were loud while William Paterson attempted shots. In the end of the game, the Ospreys pulled through by gaining a lead, and won 65-61, close enough to make it the intense game it was expected to be. At the final buzzer, almost every Osprey ran onto the court and celebrated together. While I only made it halfway onto the court because of the amount of fans, I thought it was awesome to see the spirit we all had as we came together.
Although I had a great time at the game and love playing basketball for fun myself, my only regret is that I did not go to more basketball games during the season. Now that I know how much fun it is to bring friends to these games, I will definitely be attending more sports events at Stockton in the future.

Mike Heine

Professor Rodriguez

Having been involved in community service since the sixth grade, attending the Stockton Day of Service hosted by the Office of Student Development on 9/10/16 was an easy choice. I was able to make the community a better place and I got a free t-shirt at the end of the day. The morning started off with an activity designed to increase voting awareness called Text, Talk, Vote. We answered a variety of questions about prominent social issues and learned about the importance of voting. At first, I didn’t understand how this helped, but I soon realized that being politically involved and well informed is a great way to improve your community. The next activity involved making cards and bracelets for children in the hospital. I have done similar projects in the past, so I understood the impact of what we were doing. It felt good knowing that the card or bracelet I made could brighten a sick child’s entire day. The final activity we participated in was run by Stop Hunger Now and involved creating meal packets for people in third world countries. Each packet contained rice, soy, vegetables, and sauce and could feed six people. During high school, I volunteered at a foodbank and proposed a food drive as a service project for a club. Making sure that people have enough food has always been important to me, so this activity was special. During the reflection session, I made sure I mentioned that. Day of Service is a good way to get involved at Stockton and in the greater community. The people running the events are very nice and willing to answer any questions. It’s great that Stockton brings these organizations into the school to work with students and faculty and I hope they continue this tradition.

Earlier this semester, my friend Ryan and I volunteered at the Red Cross Blood Drive in Big Blue. The event ran for two days, both of which had many volunteers that consisted of students, faculty, and community members. While I wish I could have donated, but could not at the particular time, being even a small part of the event was a good overall experience.
As volunteers, we first stayed at the table where donors were given snacks and drinks and made sure they were able to talk normally without feeling dizzy or weak. At one point, someone did almost faint, but they were immediately assisted by a Red Cross worker. I wished that we were more equipped with knowledge as to how to help in situations by these, but we did our best in our task to bring the donors snacks. Also, later we sat at the front table to sign people in as well as give them paperwork with things to be aware of before donating. Interestingly enough, I learned about many more countries than I had imagined that, if one had visited them recently, prohibited certain individuals from donating at all.
Being that people young and old are in need of blood donations every day, I feel it is a great opportunity for blood drives to be held at college campuses, being that so many people are there each day. I feel that for all who are able and willing, it is a great chance to take advantage and be able to help one or more people, depending on how it is being used. Next time there is a blood drive, given that I am able to, I definitely plan on donating blood for the benefit of someone who will need it more than I do.