It’s February already!

Hey gang,

It’s been a while, sorry! I don’t even know the last time I wrote, but it’s now about two weeks into second semester, and things are soo busy already. I think I forgot how busy college really is while I was on break — which was perfection by the way. Break was so long, as usual — almost 5 weeks — but it was soo wonderful for that very reason. After a few days upon arriving home, my family and I left for a cruise. I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but we went down to Miami, where the ship departed from, then headed to Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten.  I can’t believe I was in 90 degree weather less than a month ago. It went by way too fast, but it was really fun!

Anyway, it’s back to school. I feel like I’ve been here for ages already, but really it’s only been about two and half weeks or so I think. This semester, I WILL go to a basketball game! I have been wanting to go for so long but my schedule never really allows it, so I already found two games on days that I can go, and I’m going no matter what! I’m sad we lost to ISU the second time we played them this past weekend, but at least we beat them the first time we played them this season and broke their winning streak! Bradley is known for their basketball team, among other things, so it’s a must that I go enjoy this wonderful aspect of my school. 

Let me fill you in on my new class load this semester. Brace yourself. So first I have Bio 122, Life Science, which is the final class to fulfill my science requirements (thank goodness, I am NOT a science person..), then Spanish 325, which is an intro to hispanic literature class. This one’s fun, because I have one of my favorite teachers, Profesora Portocarrero. She’s from Peru, and she’s so fun and interesting to listen to in class. I’ve had her for all four of my spanish classes so far. My spanish classes always give me a solid chunk of my total homework, but I’m used to it. That’s how you have to learn a foreign language if you want to be fluent. Then I have Political Science 205, which is a comparative politics class. This one’s interesting, because I’m learning about all the governmental systems of other countries of the world. I guess I never knew that other countries had such different functioning systems than the United States’. Those are all my during-the-day classes, then at night, I have a Com 215 class, which is basic reporting — pretty similar to the last journalism class I took. We’re learning how to write, report, edit, all that journalism stuff. Then I am in Com 345, which is Photojournalism and documentary photography. This class is crazy! Crazy in that it’s just so different from any class I’ve taken here. All of our homework, assignments, and projects, are photography assignments. And it’s not just “oh go take a picture of some pretty flowers;” no, we have to have people in every shot. So far, I’ve met a bunch of new people from doing my shoots. I have to approach strangers (no college students, friends, or family) and take lots of pictures of them in their natural setting, which is what documentary photography is, capturing the world and its people as they are. So this one is challenging in a different way — not because we have to study for hours on end, but because we go out and explore the world, searching for a good photo opportunity. Then we spend lots of time on that subject, taking lots of photos, and making sure we get a good shot. Lastly, my 21st century film seminar. I love this one. It’s only a 1 credit class, and it’s part of the honors college (which I’m enrolled in, I don’t think you can take these seminars if you’re not in the Honors college). We watch a movie every class, which meets once a week for three hours, and we discuss the movie in detail afterwards. The first film we’ve watched so far I absolutely loved, so I’m excited to see what we watch tonight! I think that’s enough class info for now!

- Kristin

Last day of classes!

Hey guys,

So today, Tuesday, is the LAST day of classes of the semester! Tomorrow is study day, where there are no classes and no finals so that we are able to.. study.. and then Thursday is the start of finals. I have two finals Thursday, one Friday, had one yesterday already, and then one take-home final consisting of a bunch of separate but con-jointed essays on philosophical ideas of Nietzsche and Plato. The take home final will be really hard I think, but I will start worrying about that once I’m done with all my other finals on Friday. 

But enough about what’s coming up, I’ll fill you in on what’s been happening these past several days. Well this last weekend was really fun for me! There was a “holiday” party at my friend’s house on Friday which was really fun, and then Saturday, there was a ‘formal’ on the floor where all my friends live. It’s actually really funny, because usually only fraternities and sororities host formal dances and semi-formals, but the floor just decided they wanted to  have their own formal dance, so they did. It wasn’t extremely formal, but we all dressed up, there was a DJ (one of our friends), and food and drinks. It was a fun weekend. 

On Sunday, something really cool happened that is pretty special for Bradley. One of our grads, Brad Cohen, had a Hallmark movie made about his life that featured on CBS this past Sunday evening at 8 p.m. Brad went to school here at Bradley, and has Turret’s syndrome. The movie is about living his life with this ’sickness,’ and how he came to become the teacher he is today. It was a pretty special movie. I couldn’t stay and watch the whole thing because I had to study for a final, but I watched the first 40 minutes and it was really good. I really wanted to stay and watch it! It was an eye-opening movie because I guess I didn’t really know all that much about Turret’s. The movie was really sad actually to see all the people who had made Brad’s life so difficult because he had to deal with this sickness. It’s something that can’t be cured unfortunately, but it can be managed. I think it’s great that he has persevered and became the teacher he always wish he had. It truly is a great story of his life, and I am so proud that we attended Bradley!

On Sunday evening, they hosted a viewing of the movie in Lydia’s lounge, and there was pizza, drinks and cookies to eat while watching. The cool thing is that there were some well known actors in the movie too! It felt pretty cool to have a big movie made about a Bradley grad. Here are some pics from the event!

Thanksgiving has passed, on to the rest of the holidays!

Hey everyone!

So I just got back from Thanksgiving break on Sunday evening after a really long car ride! There was so much traffic because of the snowy weather, and there were a few crashes :/. But we made it safely after about 4 hours. The break was just what I needed! Although, I did have a huge spanish paper due the day I came back, that was kind of my own fault. I could have turned it in before break but I didn’t have time to do it so I had to write the whole thing — a 9 page business paper in spanish, yikes — starting on Thanksgiving day, how sad. But oh well! I turned it in yesterday and it was fabulous. I’m kind of glad I had the extra time to work on it anyway. 

I had two Thanksgivings in a row this year! My family had one on Wednesday, and my mom and I drove up to Wisconsin on Thursday to have another one with some relatives. Sadly though, my brother or sister couldn’t come up to WI with us, so that was unfortunate not to have my whole family there. But at least we had a Thanksgiving on our own a day early. 

I learned how to knit while I was up at our cabin! My grandma taught me (for the second time, I forgot before) I am terrible still, but I will keep trying to practice. We also went out into the woods and cut down some greens from coniferous trees to use for homemade garland at home. AND I tried duck and goose while I was there; my cousin Ben shot them (sorry, not a nice way to put it) so I figured I should try it, I mean when else do you get to try local duck and goose? My family is really into self-sufficiency and living off the land. My aunt brought homemade cranberry juice from some cranberries they picked up there a month or so ago. I love all that homemade stuff. My cousin Ben also brings us all honey from his beehives. 

Anyway, as you can tell, I’m still really excited and happy about break! But now we just have about 2 weeks until we’re done! I can’t believe it’s so soon. But lots of work to do until I can say I’m done still.

Kristin

Thanksgiving is almost here!… kinda..

Hey everyone,

So today’s Tuesday, that means I have exactly one week until I’ll be on my way home for Thanksgiving break! That’s really exciting. I’m going up north with my mom to my family’s cabin in northern Wisconsin, I’m so excited — it’s my favorite place ever. Unfortunately my brother and sister and dad can’t come, but I’ll at least be with all my other relatives. My sister works in a hospital, and as we all can guess Thanksgiving and the holidays in general are the busiest times for hospitals. I’ll try to take some pictures while I’m there. Thanksgiving is really one of my top two favorite times of year, so I’m really excited. And after that’s over with you get to start listening to Christmas music and getting ready for my other favorite holiday — Xmas! yayy. 

Anyway, until I leave, I’m kind of busy, but at least this time I have enough time to do everything so it’s not that bad. The only extra things I have to do are a spanish presentation Friday on Argentina, and then I have a spanish test Monday and our big spanish essay due then too — it’s 10% of our grade. Thankfully my teacher is letting us have until after Thanksgiving break too to finish the essay, which I will definitely be using seeing as I haven’t started it yet.. oops! Although I don’t want to have to do work over the holidays, I’d much rather have some extra time to finish it than have to cram it in before I go and not do a good job on it. Then after all that’s done, it’s just finals! Then that’s it! I can’t believe it.

Counting down until Thanksgiving!

- Kristin

November :) lots of pics in this one!

Hey ya’ll. 

It’s been November for almost 2 weeks now but today is just so beautiful! It’s kind of warm (but not too warm) and sunny and gorgeous :). But anyway I haven’t written in a while because this time of year is so so busy! But my really busy time is finally over and I can finally breathe. Now it’s just a few big assignments before Thanksgiving break, then Thanksgiving ( - my favorite! ) and then when we get back it’s pretty much just preparing for finals! Man, this semester went by so fast! 

I had another volleyball tournament this last weekend at Eastern Illinois University. It was much smaller so we didn’t get to play as many games, which was kind of sad because we spent over 2 hours driving there at 5 in the morning! But that’s ok, it was our last tournament of the semester.

Also, during my busy busy time when I wasn’t able to blog, I went to an etiquette dinner hosted by one of Bradley’s alumna, Robin Thompson, who’s also corporate consultant and owner of Etiquette-Network Inc. It was an interesting event! I definitely learned some great things that I know will be useful soon enough. Who knew that you’re supposed to eat soup by scooping it away from you then bringing it up to your mouth? Everyone always just does it towards your mouth, which makes sense, but I guess it is the proper way to scoop away and then back to the mouth. I learned a bunch of useful tips like this that I know I will use someday during a business lunch/dinner or interview! I took a couple pictures too while I was there. 

Also, oh gosh! I just remembered all this stuff that I’ve done since last time I wrote! Well my floor went horseback riding — which was awesome! It was a place in Pekin that was really really beautiful. And also, on Halloween, Bradley has this great late night BU event at the Markin Center that had free food and games and activities and a lot of cool, fun stuff to do on Halloween. I went there and it was actually really fun, there were a LOT of people there too which was great to see! I think I’ll try to find some pics of all those things to show you. Take a look!