Seton Hall "Year in the Life..." '09

When I came to Seton Hall I didn’t plan on helping out at our radio station WSOU 89.5 FM. But then I found out about all the opportunities to get involved, and how easy it was to do so. I joined our Diplomacy program’s show called the Global Current, which is a weekly internationally focused news show that runs from 8:30AM to 9AM on Saturday mornings. (Fortunately for me, we record Friday nights, so I don’t have to wake up that early.)

I was surprised, I thought I would have to wait awhile before I was able to be on air, but they needed help the first day I walked in, so I read headlines on the air. It was pretty cool, and a little bit nerve racking, considering that our station reaches a potential audience of 8 million in the New York City, and New Jersey area. But I had a blast. Now I read and write headlines regularly for the show.

Right now I’m only a part of WSOU through the Global Current, hopefully next semester I’ll be able to join the station officially and do other work helping out. Everyone I’ve met there is cool, and the studio is amazing, state-of-the-art, everything you can imagine in a hip radio station. So I will definitely plan on spending more of my time there in the years to come.

On Halloween we had our first big event as Hall Council. We decided to throw a Halloween party. So we went down into the Pirate Cellar, a large lounge area in the basement of Boland Hall, and redid what was already a cool set up. We tried to have a night club/party like atmosphere. We made room for a dance floor, brought in a resident DJ, had snacks, and put on the Laker game on the HDTV on one of the walls.

It turned out to be more of a success than we thought it would be, considering a lot of people (myself included) had midterms coming up that week. Some people came to dance, some to hang out, some to show off their Halloween costumes, and many to watch the World Champion Lakers play tremendous basketball.

It was at least a good enough start to know that we can keep doing this sort of “Club Boland” thing in the months to come. Plus, now that we know what went wrong, what worked, and what didn’t work it will just keep getting better and better. Now that our first big event is out of the way, we can start looking ahead to keep making Boland Hall the best dorm on campus!

Last Friday was Seton Hall basketball’s first game of the season. It was a pretty awesome experience. I remember buying season tickets for $92 at the beginning of the year, only because I am a basketball fan, not because I was expecting a lot of accommodations or good seating or anything. But it turns out Seton Hall tried to make it as great an experience as possible. There were buses constantly picking people up from campus and taking them to the beautiful Prudential Center (where the New Jersey Devils play), about 15 minutes away from campus. The student sections are right behind the baskets, and right up onto the court. Did I mention we were at the Prudential Center, one of the nicest arenas around? It seems like everyone on campus went, like a mass migration was going on from South Orange to Newark, and a constant trail of blue dominated the roads.

Well, the game was a close one, Seton Hall won on a last second three pointer. When the game winning basket was made the crowd went crazy, I think I may have (well at least a friend may have) broken a couple of seats in celebration. It was nuts. But it also created a lot of school pride, at least for those few moments during and after the game.

All in all, it was a great time. My only complaint- the Prudential Center needs to lower the prices at the concessions stand. Seriously, $8.95 for chicken tenders and fries? My advice, eat ahead of time.

So, I know it has been a while since my last post, but now I have a lot to talk about! From my first collegiate Model United Nations conference, to midterms and then to Halloween. 

            First, my first conference with SHUNA.  The Model UN conference that we attended was held at Columbia, in New York City.  I was super excited because Model UN was one of my prerequisites for any school I was going to attend. I had done it all through high school and could not wait to go to a conference again.  The conference was also held over Fall Break which gave me something to do when all my friends went home.  For the conference, I was the Head of Interpol Mexico in a Mexican Underground Council.  It was so much fun!  My committee was charged with fighting the various drug cartels currently operating in Mexico.  As we were also a crisis council, we would get updates throughout the weekend about “events” that were happening in response to our plans.  As we were also an underground council, we were able to try to fix the problems extra legally.  The end of the last committee session culminated with one of the members being killed off and Texas succeeding from the United States to become the Republic of Texas.  It was a blast.  I had been worried that Model UN in college would be a lot different than in high school, but not so much.  It was a great way to spend my Fall Break…even if I occasionally had to be awake before 6 to get to conference on time.

            AHHHHHHH!  Midterms, the bane of every college student’s existence!  I must say that as my midterms drew nearer I was getting kind of concerned.  However, every year in high school I had made myself sick worrying and stressing about midterms…this year I DID NOT GET SICK!!  A major accomplishment for me.  And thus far I have not scored lower than a B+ on any of my tests! Once again I will pat myself on the back because I did not stress out like crazy and still managed to do well on them.  Moral of the story:  midterms are not the giant scary monsters that they appear to be. 

            BOO!  Did I scare you?  Ha!  Halloween was a ton of fun here.  I haven’t dressed up for Halloween since like 8^th grade and my friends and I decided we were going into the city for the Greenwich Halloween parade.  We went as girls from the 80s, and I as a 80s hot mess.  My makeup was out of this world.  Ha!  In the city, we met up with my friend from home who goes to St. John’s, who happened to be a zombie Jonas Brother.  He got some flak for that from me. Yeah, I am a JoBros fan, what are you going to do about it?! The parade was fun, at least until it started pouring rain.  We then went on an adventure to find a subway, which was difficult because a lot of the streets were blocked off for the parade.  By the time we got back to campus we all looked like hot messes…wet hair, running makeup, soaking clothes.  Yet we still had a great time. 

            Now we are starting to figure out which classes we need to take for next semester as registration starts this month and is the last thing before Thanksgiving break…which I can’t wait for, by the way.  But, I think I have my classes figured out and can’t wait to actually register for them.  I am a bit concerned about the actual registering process as technology and I tend not to get along, but as usual, how hard can it be?

 

This past week was extremely busy. It marked the end of a long string of midterms, culminating with the most difficult one- my Honors midterm. However, the fun and exciting parts of my week outweighed the onerous ones. I am a member of Newark Ka Noor, a South Asian dance team on campus, and we had our first performance early this week at the R.A.C.E. (Recognizing and Celebrating Ethnicities) cultural event. Aside from our performance, which incorporated Indian classical and Bollywood dance styles, there were many interesting acts, including a belly dancing routine and Haitian singing.

The Halloween festivities started on Thursday, when some friends and I went to the Haunted House at Theater in the Round, Seton Hall’s playhouse. It ended on Saturday, when we went to see the Halloween parade in downtown NYC. Even though we didn’t go trick-or-treating, we did plenty to get into the spirit of Halloween.

On Friday, our Honors class went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While part of the time was spent looking at the Greek and Roman sections of the museum in order to prepare for a paper on one of the pieces, we had the rest of the time to explore. I’ve been to the Met a number of times before, but its exhibits and the overall atmosphere never cease to enthrall me. I always enjoy visiting the Egyptian, Impressionist, and Medieval Art exhibits. This time I had a chance to explore new sections of the museum such as the Robert Frank exhibit, as well as spend more time in the Asian Art section. After the museum, a few friends and I stayed in the city and spent sometime around Greenwich Village.

In addition to the Halloween parade, I also went on a Scavenger hunt in the city on Saturday through the Freshman Leadership Council. We split up into groups and took pictures of sites ranging from the Statue of Liberty to the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park and to the Wall Street bull in the Financial District. The goal of the hunt was to get us used to the New York subway system, which can admittedly be quite intimidating at first. Thanks to the scavenger hunt, I am proud to say that I have officially conquered my fear.

FALL BREAK IS HEREEEEEE!!! So, fall break is here, and it seems like everything just flew by! Although I don’t have many plans, my number one thing is going be buying winter clothes. It started to get cold very soon this year and I need to prepare! My aunt and my cousin bought me things and now I feel like I could go through any winter! :-) As a diplomacy major I don’t have class on Fridays, so it doesn’t really give me much of a vacation anyway. Of course I will still enjoy it. After everything with midterms I feel like this is a much needed break and although I am not going home, I’m glad to just be able to sleep. Shopping here we go….
Another thing I wanted to mention is the movies that we have to watch for our Journey of Transformation class. I knoooooww they sound boring but they are some of the best movies I have ever seen! I have watched several. Not only these, but the films that different organizations show to demonstrate various issues and points of view, are amazing!
Till next time :-)

Midterms are here….and I am kinda sorta scared! The first question that comes to mind is, "how did I get to the middle of the semester so fast?" Where did this come from? It's amazing to think I am halfway done with my first semester as a freshman. I did have most of my exams before going on break. This is good because I can relax and not have to worry about it during the break. My diplomacy midterms were the hardest ones!

The library becomes your home during exams I find, and it's not only you but everyone who comes to Seton Hall! Can you believe out of probably a hundred study rooms, there weren’t any available? The study room in the library are awesome because you can rent them with your friends and you have a private space to just be able to stay the whole night. Another great thing about the library is that the second floor is open 24/5 which means you can do all nighters (which I probably shouldn’t be encouraging!). One of my favorite nights was the 1am chicken wings we got and devoured after hours of studying…and kept going until 4! I love college! So hopefully midterms will continue to be good.
See yaaaa :-)

Fall break was AMAZING! I ended up going to New York for break. I stayed with my friend who lives in the city and her apartment is amazing! She lives on the Upper East side where her balcony faces the East River. It's soooooooo pretty, especially at night.

We did alot of shopping and window shopping! We even went to the Christian Louboutin Bouttique on Madison Ave. They have the most beautiful shoes I have ever seen. Red soled shoes are the trademark of Christian Louboutin. They were VERY expensive. I wish I could afford a pair lol! Then we went downtown to SOHO. SOHO is deffinitely the best place to go shopping given that there are tons of stores to go to. I went to a boutique on Spring Street that had really nice boots, which I ended up buying. And since I'm from Atlanta I'm going to need boots that will keep me warm in the winter.

A lot of this weekend was spent studying for my Honors midterm on Tuesday. However, my Service on Saturdays (S.O.S.) excursion provided me with a chance to pick my head up from the books and experience a large-scale community service project with DOVE, the Division of Volunteer Efforts at Seton Hall. I deliberately went on my own so that I could meet people outside of my regular group.

            I was randomly assigned to a specific bus and its corresponding site. Our group was transported to Weequahic Park, which is located on the border of Elizabeth and Newark, for a park clean-up. Although it was raining, we ended up making a fun time out of the event. I got to meet people I had never interacted with before, and some members of our group ended up playing a pick-up basketball game with some local children. I come from a relatively rural area where there are plenty of safe outdoor, recreational activities.  I never even thought of the importance of such sites and how lucky I was to have them growing up. During the park clean-up, I realized how valuable sites like this park were to the development of a community in the midst of large urban areas like Newark and Elizabeth. By the end of the day, I felt like we had contributed to the park’s environment and helped, in our own small way, to make it a more appealing place for children and families in the area.

Yay! Its fall break already and I can’t believe it. I am halfway through my first semester of college and I still have all my hair and no bags under my eyes. This is a much needed break after weeks of continuous readings and writing papers. Not only am I excited to have a couple of days off without class and studying, I’m more excited to see my family! It’s almost been two months since I last saw my parents, sisters, nephew, niece, and pets and I can’t believe I’ve made it. This weekend I plan to just spend time with my family and go back to working. Even though I left my job for school; I’m so excited to go back to scooping ice cream at Friendly’s :-). This break is going to be the best and I’m so thankful that I can go home to my warm house and even warmer bed! Well, I’ll keep you posted! See you later South Orange, hello Sicklerville :-)

My Family!

 

Let me start off by saying, I never realized how much I missed my family until they left the second time.  Last weekend was family weekend and therefore my family came up to visit me.  I was super excited because my sister hadn’t been able to come and drop me off and I really wanted to her to meet my new friends and see where I lived now.  Of course, I couldn’t wait to see my parents either.

My family drove up on Friday and got to campus around 5:00 pm.  Then I took them to the Village Trot for dinner.  It is a pizza place right down the road from campus where you can get just about whatever you want on your pie.  I ordered a chicken finger and French fry pizza, while my sister decided to be boring and just have pepperoni.  My parents had tomato and sausage.  After dinner we went shopping at Livingston Mall…because you know it’s always nice to buy stuff with your parents’ money.  Then they took me back to campus for the night. 

Friends!

The next day my parents ran the 5k race on campus, and impressively both took home prizes.  My mom was quite excited about her trophy.  She was the third female overall and my dad won his age group and got a glass.  I was sad that I couldn’t run (I hurt my feet last year during cross country) but it was still fun to watch my parents.  After the race we ate breakfast in the caf and it was fun to be the one who knew how everything worked and was able to tell them sneaky secrets, like when to go get a chocolate chip cookie that is still warm and gooey.  I mean you have to time it just right.  Then my parents went back to the hotel to shower before we went into NYC.   My sister and I went to my room to chill and watch a movie.

Central Park, NYC

In the city we did some more shopping, wandered around Chinatown and managed to get asked if we were Canadian at dinner. We went to a Brazilian restaurant and I guess our Portuguese accent wasn’t very good…apparently not even American, but rather Canadian.

When we came back from the city, we met my friend in Penn Station.  She didn’t want to take the train back by herself (she had met her family in the city) so she rode back with us.  Then my parents dropped us, me, my sister, and my friend, back at campus while they went to the hotel for the night.  My sister was staying over in my dorm room.  It was fun, I introduced her to some of my friends and we hung out a bit in the common area on the floor. 

My Room!

Sunday morning we went to the Jazz Brunch as a family before my parents and sister headed back home.  It was yummy.  However, when they left it was harder than when they left me after move-in day.  I guess it’s one of those things, out of sight out of mind, you know?  I mean I usually talk to my family every day or so but actually seeing them made it harder to leave them.  But leave they did.  I spent the rest of Sunday hiding out by the baseball field trying to get homework done.  Why the baseball field, you ask?  Well, it was so sunny and nice out that I obviously had to be outside but I knew that if I sat on the green I wouldn’t get anything done so I hid in the bleachers by the baseball field.  No one could find me so I got work done and got to enjoy the sun.

The one bad thing about family weekend was because my family was here I didn’t get to do all my homework for the week ahead of time.  So last week was kind of stressful, trying to get my work done before class.  Not to mention I had my first “midterm.”  I put it in quotes because we actually have two midterms in that class so it is more like a “triterm.”  Ha, I’m making up words now.  Anyway, I was freaking out about that, so much so I almost started hyperventilating before class.  It actually did not seem to be too bad.  Just like an AP test, write everything you possibly can remember about the subject in the time you are given.  Now, I haven’t gotten my grade back yet, but I don’t think I did too badly.

All in all family weekend was great although it was difficult to leave my parents and I had a tough time getting all my work done.  But like always, how hard can it be?                                                    

I can’t believe we’re almost halfway through the semester. It seems like only a couple of weeks ago that we were all just getting to know each other, and now, all of a sudden, midterms have arrived

It’s definitely an interesting change to have so few grades in a class as opposed to the various projects and extra credit assignments of high school courses. I was happy to receive an A on my Arabic exam, my first test of the semester. Hopefully it will set a precedent for the rest of my midterms. I just took my first Spanish exam this past week and am anxiously awaiting the result. My International Relations midterm is this coming Wednesday, but the exam I am most concerned about is the Honors Classical Colloquium midterm. For many, Fall Break is a much-needed hiatus from an endless string of midterms. While I am lucky to have my midterms spread out, I will still be studying over Fall Break for my Honors midterm later, which is scheduled towards the end of the month. I have plans to visit my friend’s college over break, and I can just imagine lugging The Odyssey and Myths from Mesopotamia over there and studying by flashlight in the wee hours.

On the bright side, I think I’m finally starting to get accustomed to balancing my time between academics and extracurriculars. I am no longer overwhelmed with a dozen tempting meetings to go to in one night, and have instead been concentrated my efforts on Seton Hall’s Model UN organization, the Whitehead Envoy (the diplomacy newspaper), and Freshman Leadership Council. I just completed my first Whitehead Envoy article on the Japanese elections and am looking forward to October 14th, the date the paper will come out. For SHUMUN, the high school Model UN conference Seton Hall hosts each year, I am going to be vice-chairing the BOP Japan committee. I have gone on a variety of exciting excursions and done community service for Freshman Leadership Council. I am also involved in preparations for an Indian classical dance performance that we will be performing at a cultural event later this month. It feels nice to finally settle into some semblance of a routine at Seton Hall.

Speaking of routines, one part of my schedule I am finding it a bit difficult to attend to the sleep arena. Sometimes there’s just so much to do that it can be hard to go to bed at a reasonable hour.  The common area of our floor is filled late at night with people trying to get their work done. What with yet another Honors paper due and tests to study for, by this Thursday I was completely exhausted and not in the best mood. The blissful experience of getting nine hours of sleep that night and having so much more energy the next day made me realize that I definitely need to pencil sleep into my calendar.

Living in the freshman dormitory of Boland Hall has been great. From time to time, however a friend of mine and I would complain about certain things, whether things were broken or could be utilized better, etc., A few weeks ago we decided that we had done enough complaining and should try and do something about it. This was the reason that I decided to run for Hall Council President.

Running for Hall Council was an experience in and of itself. It was an amazing opportunity to meet a lot of new people, hear other people’s thoughts about the issues in Boland Hall, and become more familiar with the place I’ll be living in until June.  I ended up winning but it was a close race, and a fun race to say the least.

Being able to be in this position is really exciting, as its now my way to do something about the stuff I was complaining about earlier. With the help of the rest of the people on Hall Council, and the residents of Boland Hall we’ve been able to get exciting events and fundraisers planned to help make Boland Hall an enjoyable place to live (not that it isn’t already).

Now the interesting part will be to see how everything turns out. So far we’ve managed to get through the initial start-up phase, figuring out how we’re going to structure and organize everything for the rest of the year. Our first major events are later in October, including our big one for the month a Halloween party in the Pirate Cellar, many people in Hall Council, including our Program Coordinator (another elected position) and a couple of RAs are hard at work on that, so it’ll be interesting to see how that goes. I’m also in charge of fundraising; our first goal was to raise money to fix the pool cues in the cellar, so I’m trying to figure out how quickly we can get that done.

All in all, it has been a great year up to this point in the dorm, and hopefully it’ll become better as things start moving along.

This month has been really busy I Finally turned 18 on Sep. 10th! I'm finally legal and it feels GREAT! I feel like I can do anything, but honestly though i feel the same as I did when i was 17. The activities fair was overwhelming with so many clubs I think I signed up for everything. Classes have been pretty easy so far just trying to get into a schedule to do my homework. Doing homework is an adjustment because at first I was still in my senior mindset where I didn't do anything. I've also been trying to look for a job for my work study which has not been easy hopefully something will fall through soon.

On the weekends most of NY friends go home, so I seem to find myself in then every weekend. I think I should just get myself a monthly pass. Meet the Greeks was fun I'm still trying to figure out if I'm going to pledge or not. I love my roommate Symone! Me and her finally cleaned our messy room, we have clothes everywhere it was just very chaotic. We figured if we had a clean room it would clear our heads lol.

Last Sunday my roommate and I went to a church down South Orange, South Orange First Baptist Church and we loved it the people were sooooooo friendly it felt like home, I look forward to going back again. Fall break is coming up soon I'm excited for the break I'm going home with my roommate to Philadelphia, I can't wait because I've never been to Philly. Thanksgiving is around the corner and this will be a different Thanksgiving because I won't be going home because its only 4 days and i live 13 hours away in Atlanta. I'll be staying with a friend for Thanksgiving in New York which is great because I'll take any chance i have to be in New York!

Division Of Volunteer Efforts

First and most importantly, I'M GOING TO EL SALVADORRRRRRRRR!!!!!! Can you tell how excited I am? I am so excited to on the March El Salvador trip with DOVE. They told us by today we would know, so I spent my day checking my email on my phone, on my laptop, during class, eating….until finally I read…Congratulations! I started to jump up and down at Nathan’s and my just screamed out YES! The lady who was working just jumped up and then asked what happened, I told her and she just smiled and said she was extremely happy! :-) Not only am I happy because of the opportunity but because I really want to go and serve these people one on one, show them someone cares about them.

DOVE is a great opportunity to get involved not only in our community but in countries like El Salvador and Haiti, which have so many needs. Like Michelle, the director of DOVE, says, we make a difference to someone’s life and that’s what matters. On September 26, I also went to Service on Saturdays, an event sponsored by DOVE to help motivate Seton Hall students to serve. My bus went to a local park in Newark and we picked up garbage. Although this may not seem like a big deal, I realized that even if we didn’t pick up everything, we cleaned up for those children who just want a nice place to play and have fun.

That is one thing I love about Seton Hall, the fact that we are not here just to become better intellectuals or to make friends, but to be better individuals to the community and to the international society.

Wow, its only two weeks until midterms! I have been in college for a month now and I’m so excited. In this past month, I have wrote six essays, presented three PowerPoints’, and read well over a thousand pages (maybe not that much). College is truly an adventure of freedom and independence. The one thing I love about college is that unlike high school, you can take naps in between classes. For example, I have an eight am class and than a one pm class. In between that I can go back to sleep and wake up refreshed and fully awake for the rest of the day. Honestly, it’s hard trying to manage time. It takes a lot of dedication to choose writing a paper than hanging with your friends. However, the great thing about college is that no one goes to bed until well after midnight, so there’s plenty of time to hang out with your friends.  Also, I have joined the gospel choir and I love it. It s important that you join clubs and activities, not only to keep you from being bored, but also because you get to meet so many people. Gospel choir has allowed me to fellowship with other Christians and to become friends with people around campus. I’m living out my dream and I hope to never wake up. :-)

College life is all about the experiences and choice you make. Whether they be good or bad, life continues to progress. The one thing I have learned this far as a college freshman, is that the choices you make can either hinder your future or create a dynamic magazine of memories. Some students lose their values or sense of morality while trying to find who they are on campus. However, I have grown immensely in my spirituality and being away from home and my church family has made me a more mature Christian.

            Although I attend a faith-based and structured school, not all students, faculty, and staff are of religious decent or have a faith-based morale. Being here has made me question my beliefs and the ideas of who I really am as a Christian. The pressures of partying and drinking and flirting with the “others” seem to overrule the scriptures and religious foundation I had made. Instead of falling into the trap of pressures and impurity, it has made me more focused to my school work and even a more firm believer in Jesus Christ. Because I choose to pray rather than party, I can remember my college experiences and abstain from pressures that lead to failures in life.

Hello SHU!! Ok. So one thing I do have to say is that seeing everyone at the soccer game against Rutgers helped me become more school spirited. Between the face painting and the loud chants of the crowd kind of made me even more excited about being here. Also, it made me realize I have not purchased any school logo apparel, besides the million t shirts I have received from different campus events, so I will this week at the bookstore! Not only have I begun to appreciate Seton Hall and its many attributes, but the village of South Orange and also the surrounding villages like Maplewood and Elizabeth. For FLC (freshman leadership council) we had to attend a Jitney Tour, which is this bus that takes your around the cool places in this area. It was pretty amazing to see all the things to do outside of campus, like a hike on the reserve, going to the city from the train stations, eating in an exotic food restaurant down the street and even the good parks to go sledding in! On the down low, since I am Colombian I have been trying to find at least one good Colombian restaurant around here and it turns out Elizabeth is the most Colombian place here in the US I have been to. Can you believe the street markings are yellow, blue and red (the Colombian flag colors)?!?!?!!! That’s incredible, along with the food. I have learned to love this place more and more.
On a completely different page, these past two weeks have been very hectic! If it wasn’t for FLC and my friends, I don’t think I would have attended the events I mentioned above. Between classes and trying to have fun, I have joined MANY clubs. I know I’m going to sound like the typical freshman who wants to do everything, but that’s how I have been my whole life! Here comes the list: FLC, French club, amnesty international, Hall council, ONE, UDSA, Adelante and SHUNA. Besides all this I am gladly employed as a Hall Call representative. I know it sounds like a lot, but I have managed to get a schedule going to be able to do all of this. I love each and every one of these clubs because I don’t just want to be boring myself with school work and not have anytime to exercise my different interests.
P.S Next week I will tell you guys if I got accepted on the trip to EL SALVADOR with DOVE!!!

Ok  that’s it for now!

My intention was to write this blog after about a couple of weeks on campus. But this process and adventure has been so overwhelming that even the passage of time has seemed to have changed-probably for the best though, as if I had been counting the days it would have probably signified my boredom or lack of enjoyment, but fortunately my adventure here at Seton Hall has been nothing but the opposite.

Life at Seton Hall has been a blast. Any hesitations or fears that I may have had in the summer have quickly dissipated. My roommate is cool, I’ve met some good friends, and my professors and classes have been interesting and fun to this point.

Another reason for the delay in writing this blog is because I had intended to write it on the weekends, however, what I’ve come to learn is that I need to do my work before the weekend starts. Each weekend I’ve taken full advantage of South Orange. On Saturday I take advantage of South Orange’s proximity to New York City. I just walk down a hill to the train station, jump on, and for a $9.95 roundtrip ticket, I get a ride to Penn Station at Madison Square Garden. From there, the possibilities are endless, I’ve met up with friends from my high school who go to college in the city, I’ve basked in Central Park, and just enjoyed the sights and sounds of the city. On Sunday I take advantage of South Orange itself, some friends and I found a pizzeria that has a $9.95 unlimited wings and pizza deal during Sunday NFL football (which can turn out to be a bad thing if you don’t know your limits…or if your team causes you heartburn). Plus it’s the only place I know of where I can watch my Oakland Raiders play (even if it is on a small screen in the corner of the restaurant, it’s still there).

So, all in all, I guess its both a good and bad thing that it’s taken me so long to write this blog post. Good that I’ve fully realized the advantage of living in South Orange; bad on my wallet…and stomach.

I am now a couple weeks into my freshman year here at Seton Hall, and I must say that although it is occasionally overwhelming—like when you have an essay due the same day that you must have Bhagavad Gita finished—I am having a great time.  And really, though I do have the above scenario to deal with, I am sticking to my motto of “how hard can it be?” 

            The reason that I am still standing by my original motto is easy:  I love all the experiences I have had so far.  For example, a couple weekends ago I took a trip with some of my floor-mates into New York City.  I had only been into NYC once before so it was exciting to go back and see different parts of such a diverse and interesting city.  I also enjoyed it immensely because everyone relishes the chance to forget about classes and homework for awhile, no matter how brief that time might be.  In the city we visited Central Park and actually got to watch a free concert!  We also ate at a restaurant in Greenwich Village that is in the movie “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.” My floor-mates had watched it during “movie night” earlier that week and were dying to go try the food.  In addition to this restaurant in Greenwich Village, we also visited a rare book store and a street fair.  Here, I was proud to say that I budgeted my money appropriately for a college student.  I refrained from buying the, how should I say, pricey, copies of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  I mean, c’mon, as much as I would love to own a rare edition of either of these books, do I really need them in my possession?  No.  I have to say I did not do quite as well at the street fair.  I did succumb to buying a necklace, but it was only $6 so really not so bad, right? 

            Apart from visiting the city and having fun with my fellow SHU students, I have actually done some work.  I had my first quiz in Russian and am happy to say that I think it went well.  I am also expecting a quiz this coming week in my Writing for the Media course and have made plans to visit the professor of my Comparative Foreign Policy class during his office hours.  I mean I feel like I know what is going on in class but, man, those readings!?  I am not so confident that I understand those the way I should.  Overall, my classes are great.  Some can be difficult at times (I am on my third draft of my thesis for that essay I mentioned above, and still need to revise it) but they can also be tons of fun too ( like when one of my teachers suggested making flash cards so we could be “flashing” in the cafeteria during lunch.) 

            This last week I managed to become involved in several clubs.  I am now a member of SHUNA, Seton Hall United Nations Association, and hope to attend the first conference in October.  I am also going to be writing news for the official campus newspaper.  In addition to these two clubs, I am also in the midst of campaigning for Hall Council.  It is basically the equivalent of Student Council in a high school except for the dorm rather than the whole school.  I am running for the secretary position and two of my friends, Ricky and Bill, are running for president and vice president respectively.  We’re hoping that we all win, but if not that’s okay too, as we could still be representatives.

            I also attended a lecture for one of my classes last week and immediately after I called my Mom to tell her about it.  Operation Wallacea.  I had decided after hearing the presentation that I needed to go to Egypt and do conservation work this summer.  Can you imagine how that conversation went?   If not I’ll clue you in, “Jenna, you have a new plan of what you are going to do every week…let’s give it some time and see if you still want to do this in October.”  Well, I have to say she is very right on me having a new plan every week.  There is just so much to take in and consider here.  However, Operation Wallacea has thus far stuck in my head so I am doing more background research on it in an attempt to convince my parents that I should totally be in the middle of the desert next summer riding around on a camel and trying to save the environment.

            Basically, these beginning weeks of the semester have been jam-packed with classes, trips, clubs, and the like.  But, no matter how crazy it gets or how stressed I am trying to finish homework and do laundry on a Sunday afternoon; I try to remember,“really, how hard can it be?”