FINALS Have FINALLY come

At the end of the semester no matter what year you are in school, everybody seems to just relax and kick back... even though school is still going on.

After Thanksgiving break I honestly was ready to just ride out the last two weeks until exams. I figured that I would have PLENTY of time the weekend before exams and the week of exams to study... after all it is not like we even had classes that week and my exams were spread pretty far apart.....

Needless to say I am VERY glad that I kept the pedal to the metal, and cruised through those last few weeks of class. I kept up with all the assignments my teachers gave out and I printed off the final study guides. I tried to do everything that my professors recommended...

I stayed up to the wee hours of the morning cranking out notecard after notecard. I ended up with stacks of color coded notecards that even I did not understand!!

In the end it all paid off. The best advice that I got while preparing for finals was to START STUDYING EARLY!!!! As much as I hate to admit it... it was indeed my mother who gave me that advice. I rolled my eyes and thought she was just being a mom, but when it got to "crunch time" for most people... I was ready to take the exam!!!!

A couple tips that I learned with taking my exams.

#1. Get LOTS of sleep - it may seem like a dorky thing to do... to go to bed at 9 or 9:30 but when you are well rested you will not only keep yourself from getting sick, but you will also keep yourself from falling asleep when you should be studying.... or worse, during your exam

#2. Make sure that you start studying ahead of time - this also may seem dorky, but you won't realize until exam week comes around how EXHAUSTED you are... I know I was glad that I had time to relax since I had already been preparing for my exams.

#3. Make sure you know where your exam room is - lots of professors end up giving their final in a different room... finding the correct building amongst thousands of two story brick buildings is like trying to find a needle in a haystack for us freshmen.

#4. If you are going to go to the library you are going to need a tent so you can camp outside the doors until someone leaves... if you are going to try and get a cubicle you need to get to the library at the crack of dawn!

I tried to do all of these things, and in addition to hours and hours of studying, it did pay off! First semester not only allowed me to meet new people, but it also led me to believe that I CAN AND WILL SUCCEED IN COLLEGE!!

Second Semester Scheduling

I woke up at 6:50 ... am ... not pm. Moaned and turned my light on. I heard Julie groan, and her pillow slam on top of her face since light now flooded our room.

I put on my shower shoes and walked down to the bathoom, washed my face and brushed my teeth. I didn't even bother putting my contacts in. I was going back to bed the second I got done with registering for my second semester classes.

At 7:00 I was patiently seated in front of my computer. I didn't open Facebook ... I didn't finish up a paper that was due later on that day ... I just sat there and stared at the "registration/change of schedule" link on the Miami website.

When 7:10 rolled around I quickly logged on and entered all the CRNs (course registration numbers) that were needed to register for particular classes ...

A few weeks before I had gone to see my academic advisor. We figured out the classes that best suited my schedule. I still needed to take a few Miami plan classes, so I fit those into my schedule, plus I needed a couple more classes that were specifically required for my major. Since I still had a couple hours free I decided to take a Leadership class that would help me in becoming a well-rounded person ... which is part of my goal for my four years of college.

As a freshman, we all have an advisor who helps us plan for our second semester classes. I thought that this was very helpful since I had forgotten how to register since I hadn't registered since summer orientation.

After my meeting I used one of the greatest gifts I had ever received from Miami ... well a TANGIBLE gift ... "The Miami Bulletin" The insides were jam packed full of every class that Miami offered. It gives a brief description of the class, the CRN, if the class counted as a Miami plan class, and the number of credits. Plus, as students progress and move on through college, the Bulletin contains all the classes that are necessary to graduate with a specific major.

After I found all the classes I wanted to register for I looked up times and teachers on the web. Since freshman are the "lowest of the low" I had to look up many different options, since I knew I would get closed out of most of the classes I wanted. Those 11 am, noon, and 1 pm classes go as quick as candy in a first grade classroom.

As a business school professor explained at freshman orientation "freshmen get the eight am classes, the six pm classes, and the Saturday classes." He paused and let the realization sink in that we were fresh meat, and then he clarified "no, there are no Saturday classes, but if there were ... freshmen would get stuck in those too."

I wrote down the CRN of many different times of the classes that I wanted to take. I knew that I probably wouldn't get my ideal classes, but if I didn't find alternatives then I would probably get stuck in 8 ams every morning ... HAHAHAHA I still did get stuck in 8 ams ever morning (except Fridays).

I am really happy how prepared I was to register. I had all my CRNs put into the slots and submitted them at 7:15 am. I did get closed out of two classes, but all I did was enter my alternative CRN and ended up getting the same class at a different time.

The four 8 ams are going to be rough ... but I know I can do it. After all, what is the main reason for going to college in the first place? EDUCATION!

FOOD!!!

When kids go off to college they often end up complaining about the terrible food that their school serves. It's greasy, and they serve the same thing night after night. About halfway through the year they prepare to eat paper or lick those scented markers to get a change of taste in their mouth.

This whole summer I was mentally preparing myself for the horrors of the food situation I had heard about. I would hoard all the good food like potato chips, fresh fruit, and chocolate under my bed... I inhaled my mom's HOMEMADE dinner meals... and I enjoyed my city's specialties that I would not be able to enjoy when I made my way to Oxford.

However, when I arrived I was in for a very VERY pleasant surprise. OUR FOOD WAS ACTUALLY DELICIOUS!!! And, we have dining halls with different food scattered all over campus.

Much to my pleasant surprise I was informed that Miami doesn't only have dining halls... they also have restaurants ANDDD markets!!! Some dining halls are all-you-can-eat buffets, while others are pay per item. This is convenient because if you are not terribly hungry you could drop in and buy a candy bar or a drink, or a healthy salad... but on the other hand... if you could eat a mountain if you were allowed the all-you-can-eat buffets are the place you'll want to go!

There are 20 restaurants, markets and dining halls! You will NEVER get sick of the food served at Miami!

If you are craving fresh salad and fruit head over to Alexander Dining Hall where they are known for their healthy meals! Attached to Alexander is The Greystone. I go here on Tuesday and Thursday each week because I have class from 11 until 2 and I never have time for actual sit down style lunch, so I order one of their delicious, deli, fresh sandwiches (usually tuna or turkey).

The guys that work at Greystone know me... I'm proud to admit. Each day they ask "tuna or turkey?" I tell them. They know the rest... no matter what type of meat I have I always have "wheat bread, lettuce, 1 slice of American cheese, a LITTTTTTLE mayo, and can I have it toasted please?" [insert smile here]

Bell Tower is a Miami favorite because of their wide variety of food, and the new business school just opened Dividends and it is quickly becoming a school-wide favorite.

If you need to quench that craving you have for greasy... DELICIOUS... food head over to Erickson.

Miami also has walk-in restaurants. They are amazing!! La Mia Cucina serves Italian dishes that are made to order. They have a cute, Tuscan-style eating area. Panache is Miami's upscale, trendy restaurant. It serves a wide variety of appetizers, soups, entrees and desserts.

I went to La Mia Cucina tonight with a couple of my friends. The food was great! I ordered spaghetti and meatballs, and all entrees come with a warm breadstick. It was nice to get a rich tasting Italiano meal every once and a while.

The nice thing about the markets is that they usually have longer hours than the dining halls. Dining halls have specific hours of operation, but I don't know about you... but I'm a stress eater... a "I'm bored so let's eat" eater... and a snacker. So as you can probably imagine I need places that I can get my fix of food after the dining halls' hours of operation.

The markets sell frozen meals, ice cream, cereal, snack food, healthy food, drinks, candy... basically anything you could make in a microwave or store in your mini-refrigerator.

Another nice thing about Miami's food service is that they have a link on our Blackboard webpage where the students can look at the different food places around campus and see the menu for the day. I know lots of kids do this if they are craving something in particular. It is a good way to not walk into a meal blind sighted that you might end up getting something you don't want!! (If you would like to see the link: http://www.hdg.muohio.edu/EatingAtMiami/)

Now, I'm sure you're wondering why I'm so excited with food. Let me let you in on a little secret about the chemistry of Megan... two things NEVER get old for me. The first is boys. I love boys... The second is my LOVE for food... coming to Miami I was worried my taste buds were going to wither and die... THEY DIDN'T!!!

Oh, and a tip for you incoming freshmen who are sweets fans like me... King Cafe serves the BEST cookies (please please PLEASE try their peanut butter cookie... it is pure heaven (and a couple whole sticks of butter...). You seriously haven't LIVED until you've tasted their peanut butter cookie... I just drooled on the floor thinking about them.

Homecoming

Once again... another great weekend put on by CAC!

This weekend was homecoming... the weather was a little dreary but that did not dampen the students' spirits. There was so much activity that went on ... Miami alumni came into town to go to the big, or not so big, football game.

Although we all know that the reason why they were back on such a cold and rainy weekend was because they missed Miami so much that they couldn't fathom the idea of not coming back to cheer on their alma mater ... even though all the cheering from the fan section hasn't been able to shake Miami's football record of 0 wins and 8 losses.

Friday night was the homecoming parade. An hour before the parade was supposed to start the skies turned a dark grey and the rain came pouring down. Since I'm on Spirit Board (which is a branch of CAC) we decided to enter a float into the parade.

Our Spirit Board was hard at work the days before the parade perfecting our car float. The night before and morning of the parade it was raining cats and dogs. Unfortunately our float got torn apart and we had to start fresh. We made-do with what we had, and the float turned out not so shabby!

The football game on Saturday was freezing. Julie, Kara, and I walked to the game. We were meeting a couple of our friends there. We left the dorm figuring that if we wore a long shirt and a sweatshirt we'd be fine .... WRONG ... oh so wrong.

Walking out the back door the wind hit me, hard. Of course, I was too lazy to walk back up ALL the steps to my room, so I ignored the goosebumps on my arms and walked to Yager ... which is so far from my dorm!

When we got inside the stadium we noticed that the student section was lacking in attendance, however, the alumni made up for though. The game was a blow out in the beginning ... we played Northern Illinois University (NIU).

Julie, Kara and I got so cold that we ended up leaving after the first half. Miami was trailing ... they ended up catching up to NIU, but they still lost 27 - 22.

I must say, the football team is getting better and better. They are close to victory ... they can smell it, they can see it, now all they need to do is reach out and grab it!

Friday and Saturday night the hockey team played. Since it was the homecoming games the arena was more crowded than usual. Miami played Michigan State and won Friday night (2-1) but unfortunately lost in over time on Saturday night (3-2).

It was an unfortunate and disappointing weekend for the Redhawks, but no worries ... there are promising days ahead for the two teams. The Redhawks are aiming for their first win of the season, and the hockey team is hoping to return to the National Championships to claim their hard-earned victory!

Fall Break and Classes

Fall break weekend was a nice decompresser from the hustle and bustle of college. It came right at the opportune time ... right after week 8 (if you don't know what week 8 is i'll give you a hint: two words ... MID and TERM).

I stayed caught up with my classes, so midterm wasn't terrible, but I know for a fact that I still have a couple breakout patches on my face from the stress. The teachers did a great job at calming us down (especially us freshman), and some of my classes scheduled their midterms for a couple weeks before week 8, so it wasn't too terrible.

My Business 101 professor broke our course up into thirds, so we had our first "midterm" two weeks ago. My Jazz professor gives us 4 exams throughout the semester, so we did not have a midterm for her last week, and I have my second math exam tomorrow!!!!! (I'm taking a study break ... if you can't tell).

What is really cool about my English 113 class is that it is more based around writing than it is about reading assignments. My English professor is so neat because he lets us write basically about whatever we want in our OWN style (I know many high school students get bored of writing in the typical five paragraph essay format ... so being able to write creatively makes writing exciting!) We wrote an paper on the essay "The Dreamer Did Not Exist," and we were allowed to write the paper however we wanted as long as we were effectively able to inform our readers.

My microbiology course is a sprint course. I had no idea what a sprint course was when I signed up for the class, nor did I after I signed up. It wasn't until I got to the class the first day of class and received the syllabus that I learned that I would be finishing with the class in the beginning of NOVEMBER (!!!!!!!!!) I cannot tell you how excited I was ... NO SCIENCE for an entire month and a half!! I was elated ... I'm pretty sure I danced all the way back to my dorm...

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I cannot believe I'm admitting this now, but my microbiology class turned out to be SUCH an interesting class. I am almost a little upset that it is ending. It was formatted different than other science courses that I've taken, and so I was able to interact with people in my class once a week. We were given Critical Thinking Assignments (CTAs) each week which we completed for 5 completion points. When we would come to class the following day we would get into our small groups which were comprised of about 14 or 15 people and we discussed our answers and usually got another CTA that was similar to the one we had just completed. We would write a group response that was 10 points.

Nevertheless, I was so excited for my mom to pick me up Thursday after my classes! I love Miami, but I missed my city. I missed my comfortable bed in my quiet bedroom, and I missed my cat. I also missed my brothers and my mom and dad. Even though I had only been gone for about 6 weeks (since I went home for a day over Labor Day) I felt like my life at home was completely different ... I felt out of the loop ... and I didn't like it AT ALL.

My mom emailed me earlier in the week because she wanted to know what I wanted for dinner. It was easy: Chili, Grandma's Soup, and Steak. The food at Miami is excellent (and my friends who have come from other schools to visit said that it is way better than theirs) but I missed my mom's homecookin'.

I must admit ... after the weekend I was decompressed and revved up to start the second half of first semester. Freshman year is absolutely FLYING. I'm scared to see how fast college is going to go. As my dad says, "[life] just keeps getting faster ... ENJOY IT!"

Family Weekend

They couldn't have picked a better weekend for family weekend. It was just after finishing up our sixth week of school ... we were in the thick of things and really missed the familiar faces who always lovingly told us they "believed in us" and we "will be successful!"

Being away at school, and only being able to see them through a Skype screen did not allow us to get the full effects of our loving homes ... many people even became disconnected from their parents.

Reuniting with them was such a great experience! It was only a month and a half before that they lugged all of our things up the stairs to our dorm room, hugged us goodbye, and left us alone!! We were to decide when we ate, when we showered, when we went to bed, when we cleaned our room, when we did our homework .... it was the first time we decided everything in our lives, and it was SCARY. We were petrified, but we knew deep down in our hearts that they knew we would have a great time ... and that we would power through school, form friendships that would last a lifetime, and successfully set up the rest of our lives.

Now they were coming back for the weekend, and we were going to proudly show off our school, our dorm rooms (although some of us were not so proud about the state of our rooms), and introduce them to our friends.

Campus Activities Council did a fabulous job at setting up family weekend. It is no easy task to prepare for mother and fathers, brothers and sisters of different ages ... and also account for the college students. They planned tirelessly for the weekend that laid ahead...

Friday night there was a concert uptown where 8 Days a Week (a Beatles tribute band) and a piano player performed for a large audience, and just down the street at the bar, Skippers, free food was being given away. Uptown was hopping Friday night!

Saturday cars lined the streets entering Oxford (a very funny sight for the residents and the students) Walking to breakfast I could hardly get across the street... it was bumper to bumper traffic! This could have also been due to the University of Cincinnati vs. Miami football game that was going down at Yager Stadium...

Since my family lived very close to Oxford they came up Saturday afternoon halfway through the football game. I put all my Miami gear on and ventured over to Yager where I watched a very intense game.

MIAMI HAD THEM!!!! They had the University of Cincinnati in the palm of their hands ... they had the win .... but it was like the twilight zone ... the University of Cincinnati stole it out of their hands (in slow motion ... no joke)

I'm kidding. Miami played a great game, and they had the University of Cincinnati fans biting their nails on the edge of the seat for a couple plays. The stadium was packed, and I'm sure that got the Miami players excited.

If you weren't a football fan there was a crop walk that benefits an overseas project, and lots of people ended up staying at the tailgate eating their food (not a bad idea... you could hear the dim roar of the crowd and imagine Miami crushing UC... from the comfort of lawn chair outside your car.

After the game my family and I headed uptown to get some food... we went to wait in line at a restaurant. I thought I heard the waitress tell the family in front of me that it was a half-hour wait.... I was wrong, oh so wrong, it was a TWO AND A HALF HOUR WAIT. We wandered up and down the street like a bunch of homeless puppies until we finally decided to buy a pizza and take it back to my dorm room.

I wished I would have taken advantage of what campus offered ... families could eat with their students at different dining halls around the campus. They could purchase the tickets for dinner through the box office and then they wouldn't have to wait in such long lines uptown. Next year I am taking FULL advantage of this opportunity.

Around 7:30 we headed up to Millett Hall (the basketball arena) to watch a special performance by Bill Cosby! He was absolutely hilarious! He performed a routine of his experience with his daughter going to college ... I think that Miami parents, after hearing the ... challenges ... that he had to go through with his daughter, hugged their children extra tight and were grateful to have such ambitious children.

Parents weekend was such a wonderful weekend. Miami was lit up in red and white, and seeing whole families together was such a treat. I miss my family so much, and I call my mom and dad often to tell them about what is going on in my life, but it's not the same as being able to share the experiences firsthand.

Showing them the campus helped them to visualize where my classes were, where I studied, who my friends were, where I ate dinner and went to hang out. Reconnecting with my family was great ... and I'd be getting to see them a few weeks later for FALL BREAK!!!

"The Feel"

The moment that I started looking at colleges I heard all about "the feel" and finding the "right fit" to me and my personality.

I nodded my head and smiled, but I had NO idea what I was supposed to be looking for. Since I was a boy crazy teenager I would boy hunt when I went on college visits... the higher the number of cute boys the higher the school was on my list.

As I got to the start of my senior year I started to buckle down and look at the school's reputation. I wanted a school that had a prestigious reputation, but I also would have to be able to do well in the classes. I started to get anxious about leaving my high school friends so I started to lean towards the colleges that they were looking at.

It wasn't until January, and after my 5th or 6th visit to Miami that I really realized what these people meant about "feel".

"Feel" is the shivers that you get when you walk on campus, or the excitement you feel at a sports game. Feel is the crave that you get when you hear about the stellar academics or the commitment you suddenly develop for a club that sounds like fun. It is the way that you feel comfortable and at home when you are on your campus tour, and the way that you can bond with the college students that already go to Miami.

I got the "feel' for Miami on my tour in January. I knew the second I walked out to the car with my mom that I would soon be calling Miami my new home.

It was a blustery and very ugly winter day, but the campus was still beautiful to me. The students walked around bundled up in their coats, scarves, sweatpants, and boots. They still wore warm smiles on their faces.

I felt like I belonged at Miami. When I walked through the rec I could see myself running the track or lifting weights in the weight room. I could see myself studying in the library and hanging out in Shriver. I could see myself connecting with these people.

This is MY college experience, and my parents let me make the decision for myself. It was one of the hardest things that I had to do, but when I finally made the decision: MIAMI. I was happy I did.

As I am almost at the half-way mark through my first semester at Miami I can't help but to be happy that I chose Miami. I feel like I'm already home.