President Ross and the New Blog Squad
Today had a very unusual lunch. I had lunch with President Ross of Lynn University along with all the bloggers. It was our first chance as bloggers to all sit down together to meet each other in our new roles. It is fun to see who I will be working side by side with online for the school year. I knew some already on a personal note.
It was a little strange to meet everyone while meeting the president of our university. No pressure or anything! I have heard President Ross speak many times over the last two years at school and he is a wonderful speaker. I personally think that his age and dreams for Lynn work for him. Who cares if the other universities have guys in their 70’s, when they were in college, our parents weren’t even alive, so what do they know about today’s generation? He told us about his college years while asking us about how ours were going, even if it was only really day 5 for one of us, Kerri. President Ross has a great gift to walk into a room and make everyone feel comfortable. I found out just a few days ago, he risked embrassment and put on his dancing shoes for a good cause, scholarships for college students. Aparently, he’s willing to do things out of his norm infront of 500 people or get twitter (after Jason, our boss creates it for him and teaches him how to use it.) for his students. I wonder what he will be twittering about? Hmm, I guess that might mean I would have to create a twitter acount myself.
When I first got the email that the president wanted to have lunch with the bloggers, I laughed at the email, not believing it. I read it over again and thought about it. A man that is so busy, a student has to request a meeting weeks in advance is openly asking the bloggers to lunch? Plus, he was a huge fan of bloggers? I was shocked, then I was nervous, what was I going to wear!? lol. I just couldn’t believe he wanted to meet with the bloggers.
I was on my way to his office when he was heading towards me with other students, which one kept saying “Christines” over and over again, which to me ment the coffee shop, not thinking about the Christines meeting room, so I was wondering why I needed to follow Dr. Ross as he got coffee when we were supposed to be meeting upstairs in his conference room. (Later, I found the text message that was supposed to inform me of that, my phone was already on silent by this point.)
The food was great, but it seemed hardly any of us touched it from trying to keep up with the conversation. I know that was my reason, that and I didn’t want to drop food on myself from not fully paying attention since I saw Jason was fully prepared with his camera in the back of the room.
After tons of questions about our lives, where we were all from, what we wanted from Lynn, what he wanted from Lynn, I could finally see why this man is paid the big bucks. He really wants the best for Lynn University. I think if he had more time, he would spend more time just sitting around, listening to students and personally letting us in on his vision for Lynn. Just listening to him talk about everything that is planned for this school year explained a lot of why half the school looks like its being dug up. The tennis courts are being moved as well as the outside basketball courts. New lights are being put in. There are just so many small to large projects happening across the campus.
At the end of the day, I am excited that we have such a cool university president. Dr. Kevin Ross just wants to be open to change, ideas, and standing out from other universities. He has only been at this for 4 years at Lynn, which I was shocked to learn. Aparently I was informed this my freshmen year, but honestly, my thoughts weren’t on how long the president had been at the university or his plans, more like, so where is this class again and how much is the textbook??? By the way President Ross, if you are reading this, is there anything you could do about those biology book prices? I’ve also heard the business degree books are up there as well…. just a thought.
The formal lunch may have ended at 12:20, but that didn’t stop the bloggers from talking at mad speed for another hour. No one seemed to hold back their questions for each other, most being new at the school blogging gig. I got to meet Natalie, the soccer player, plus new blogger. I was really excited to meet her since I love soccer and love watching the games. Last year when we were talking about adding more bloggers, one being an athlete, I was praying it was a sport that I liked so I would actually read it. Aftering meeting Natalie, and walking over to the gym with her in the heavy rain, I am every excited to read her blog! She is really cool, fun, and an awsome soccer player. I met Kerri the newest to Lynn and the new youngest on the blog squad. Yes! Its not me anymore! No more teasing… at least about that. Gene will find something by the next meeting. ( I dont’ mind, just happy he’s healthy! Read his blog about his scary summer health issue.) Then there was JD, who has been talking about blogging for a while, now he’s up and online! Writing in spanish, so I have no clue what he’s saying. lol. I got to sit next to my sister Steph, who is now a blogger, here,there, everywhere! She is busy promoting disablity awareness month next month that she has created at Lynn. (She started planning it her freshmen year! She thinks big.) I talked to the two Ryan’s and Kevin for a few minutes before they ran to class due to the rain.
I am looking forward to working side by side with the new blog squad as well as reading what they have to say. Check us all out at http://blogs.lynn.edu/.
The First 24
I have been back in Florida for a little more than 24 hours now and I’m so excited but extremely tired! I could hardly sleep last night after I landed and arrived at the Marriott. My car was waiting for me in the parking lot with a loving note that she was taken cared of over the summer. I rushed to drop off my stuff in my room and came up with a lame excuse to drive my own car. lol. Yes, I’m weird. I drove to store and to my storage unit just for the fun of it. Man, when I opened my storage unit, I didn’t remember it that way! It some how had gotten a heck of a lot neater in my head over the months.
At about 8:45 am, I arrived at Lynn, already checked out of my hotel room, ready to check into school. I had checked in online the first day the school loaded it on mylynn, and so all I had to do was pick up my new parking decal. With the old ones removed from the previous two years, I happy slapped on the new one and was ready to check out my new room.
I opened the door to the new wing in Freiburger that has been changed to singles and noticed the new paint job. Signs and colors were splashed everywhere by my RA and classmate Wideline. (An awsome combo by the way, my RA and my classmate, we can study when she’s on duty and bored out of her mind…. or watch TV…) My room used to be a twin in an all guys wing. Now its a single on the girls floor, which in this case, happens to be the bottom floor. I’m not so sure how I feel about that at the moment, I’m just counting my blessings that I didn’t have to carry anything up the stairs!
I’m all moved in in one day! Thats never happened before! I’m in shock. haha. My boyfriends mom helped me move in since he couldn’t get time off of work. She laughed at our three day plan, slowly moving the stuff in. Within three hours, all my stuff was out of the storage unit, I had closed my account there and was heading back to school with the last half of my stuff, while his mom went home to relax, still laughing at our three day plan. Mothers have mad skills at packing and moving! After dinner at their house, the no longer working muscle came over and helped take the really heavy stuff into the room. I love this system. It took only a third of the time and half the energy. I have already put a lot away, my bed is set up, along with my laptop. Containers are in their places, and my sink looks like I’ve been here for days already. The only down side to the extreme move in, sun burn and a very sore body.
I love my room. I think I called my mom 5 times today to just tell her how much I love my room and how greatful I am to have it. I have so many ideas for my new room, my mind can’t keep up. So much to do to make it a place where I can really focus and relax when I need to during the rough weeks to come.
After two years under my belt, I feel like I’m finally getting the hang of this college life.
Now, I am going to force myself to go to sleep so that I don’t over to it today and try and unpack my room in one night. I just feel like I am on a roll and its hard to get off! There is always tomorrow between meetings… ah! Another meeting and it will only be day two!
Last night at home
Tonight is my last night at home and I’m sad but excited to leave. I can’t wait to start school. Even though I know I am going to be extremely busy for the first few weeks, I know it will all be worth it. I’m looking forward to moving in on friday as well as meetings for Black Student Union, Recruitment for Sigma Sigma Sigma, oh and, class.
I may still coach youth soccer again this year at night. I’m hoping to get a part time job during the morning at a vet clinic to get some practice. Its going to be a busy year and I love it! All I can say is, bring it on!
It is sad to leave home, say good bye to my mom. She’s almost near tears, repeating over and over again that I am going off to college. I keep trying to inform her that it isn’t the first time. She really seemed to enjoy having a few weeks with me home. I think its because she could use me as a maid to clean the house to her liking, (one of the perks of living in a small dorm room, small space to clean.) and that we got a chance to go see a few movies together.
Well, its off to bed for me. I only have a few hours left to get everything packed away and say good bye to my mom tonight since she’ll be at work when I leave.
Too excited to sleep
It is almost 1 am and I am to excited to sleep. I am looking forward to school to start in a few days. Yes, I’m the nerdy kid who loves the first day of school. I am using the Tri Sigma mentality, always moving forward. I’m looking forward, and enjoying what is yet to come. I am looking forward to moving into my dorm room! Finally, a single! All to myself, from the start. I have so many ideas for the room design, my mother is scared and has recently and oh so convenitly “lost” her wallet.
Black Student Union is going to be up and running this school year, ya! New exciting programs to come up with and new people to meet. Sigma Sigma Sigma recruitment, making new friends, loving new sisters. I am looking forward to continue with the ideas that I started last year and to see how they have grown over the summer to make them even better for the sorority. This year, I really want to take the time and get to know all the great women I call my sisters. I feel like I missed out on getting to know some of the ones that graduated last year and now they are gone becoming wonderful women in their fields.
Then there are the new labs, new ways to try and blow up our lab experiments. 
Just joking Professor Ahmed!
This is the year where I have to find a job in my future field. I am going to the career center soon as I get back so they can help me make sure that I get the right job that meets the requirments that I need to get into a veterinarian school.
It is going to be a very busy year this year, but I am very excited to jump into it and get started! I have a feeling I may have over booked myself, but I’m not worried. I am looking forward to seeing what I learn about myself this year and the great adventures I find myself in over time. I feel like junior year is my year to shine. Freshmen year was the year to adapt to my new life, sophomore year was the year to work hard and focus on my grades and what made me happy, now it’s my year to come out of my shell and make my mark.
The best software for all college students
Recently, I was playing with my cell phone and was trying to get the contacts off my of it. I have a sidekick and its easy to put the contacts in, but almost impossible to get it off. I had to download a software, from my service provider and then they were all on my laptop. Great, but I couldn’t open them without Microsoft Outlook.
I had never used the software Outlook before. It has been 4 days now, and I have no idea how I survived in school without it! Outlook is a software that pretty much creates a daily planner, holds all of your contacts, and has a space to write down all the tasks at hand.
I now have all my appointments, class schedule, and plans for the next 4 months on my laptop, ipod, and phone. Now, each time I plug in my ipod to update it, my calendar updates as well. Since I use my laptop in a few of my classes, it makes it easy to type in the assignment name under the date its due, add some notes about it and place a reminder that it is coming up. I have assigned colors for different things, purple for Sigma Sigma Sigma, Red for exam week, yellow for when I am in class, orange for when I am in Lab, etc. I feel so organized!
No longer will my day planner be written in multiple pen colors with tons of correction marks. It only took me about an hour to figure out a bunch of different functions. It is easy to make corrections and I can print out the whole month and put it on my wall, or carry it in my note books if I wanted to.
Microsoft Outlook has made my life so much easier in just a few short days. I’m looking forward to using it at school and seeing how it changes my life during the school year. The first month back is so busy and full of events, now I’m sure I won’t miss a single one because I’ll be so organized!
I used to think that Outlook was for business people. I just never felt young people friendly I guess. At least, thats the way it felt for me. I think that since I use my ipod so much and I now figured out how to make the most of it, connecting it to my laptop for new functions that suit me so well in my daily life. I started messing around with the program for a while, and now I love all the pretty colors and pop up reminders that tell me where I need to be and what needs to be done when.
My advice, just try it out for 60 days. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. I know I’ve tried many different forms of keeping track of my daily life plus my assignments and for me, this has been the best system by far.
A shiny new uncle
I just found out my aunt eloped and so now I have a shiny new uncle. Our family total is like now 7. We have a small family and it only took an hour for everyone to find out and call her to say congrats and welcome her new husband to the family.
I’m crossing my fingers for cousins. I’ve had enough of being the only grandchild. We need a new ancle bitter for my grandparents to play with!
Parents leaving
I was asked a question today about when do parents leave when it comes to dropping off their freshmen.
I have been informed from Lynn staff that parents are not required to leave that friday, but are encouraged to leave. That is what they say.
As a student, I say, LEAVE! lol. I’m not saying this to be mean, yes your little prince or princess is all on their own, but they won’t make it if they don’t socialize, makes friends, get to know their new home on their own, during the LEAST STRESSFUL days they will have that first week. They only have 48 hours to get to know the campus and meet just the other freshmen before it becomes a maze full of upper classmen who know where their going and have stuff to do. Move them in, and say good bye. There are tons of events planned for the freshmen to get to know the staff and each other those first few days, let them! If parents are around, students feel like they are pressured to reassure their parents that they will be fine and they are less likely to be themselves while trying to make friends that they really want to get to know, rather than who mom and dad think will be a great match for their son or daughter… don’t lie, you guys totally still do that.
So to answer the question, parents do not have to leave that friday night, but it is encouraged by the Lynn staff, upper classmen who’ve been there, and your overly excited freshmen who just made it to college.
Mothers
Over the last two years of college, I’ve learned a lot from my mom. Even out of the house, she still gives great advice. Now, I don’t want to sound like only mothers can give great advice, I was just raised to a single parent, so I am just explaining from my point of view.
She taught me lessons indirectly which is great because what does every young person hate? Being lectured.
When I first got to college, I had a hard time adjusting to college life. I had been raised over seas for most of my life and could hardly remember living in the US. I was used to a different culture all together and suddenly found myself learning my own from scratch when I thought it was something I was “born” knowing. My mother had to explain to me how things worked in the US and how it was ok to have a hard time, a lot of diplomat children had a hard time adjusting to their own home country. Everyone at the embassies always told me it was going to be hard to adapt to American life but I didn’t understand until I got to college.
I had finally gotten the hang of things by sophomore year, when my mother was assigned to Iraq, I had to make another adjustment. Life with a parent in a war zone, and not just any parent, my sole parent. There was no second parent to go to for advice. I then had to wait hours to call my mother to ask her for advice or to tell her something was wrong. I then started to get worried when things made a turn for the worst in Iraq and diplomats started dying in high numbers. The attacks were getting closer and closer to where my mother lived. People screaming for cover and alarms blasting through the phone to hide from the bombs started becoming part of my phone conversations. I started to get a new perspective on life and started to see what was important.
Even when my mom was having a rough time at work, she still took the time to listen to what was going on through my life. Here I was worried sick about my mothers safety and she’s taking time out of her day to calm me down from roommate drama, but on the side saying “I might have to go, they’ve been attacking a lot today.”
I learned how important my mother is to me my sophomore year. What would happen to me if anything happened to her? I wasn’t raised around the rest of my family for 15 years, only during the summers. She was my closest connection to my family. She was the person who raised me for 15 years, all on her own. I had friends who just didn’t seem to understand what I was going through and weren’t supportive. Some how, the fact that my mother was in a war zone, where people around her were dying every day, was some how, not important. I learned who was important and who was part of my support group. My mom started to tell me to look around and see who was healthy in my life and cut out those who weren’t. I started to notice that family was more important than half the drama that was going on in my life and did my best to cut it out or get rid of what ever was causing it.
Then I had to notice that other peoples drama was taking over too much of my life. I started to notice most of my stress that was really causing me sleepless nights, weren’t even my problems! I couldn’t believe how that happened. I never was in drama in high school, (but then again, I hung out with mostly boys and they just wanted to skateboard into trash cans… don’t ask.) it started in college. I was taking on too much of my friends problems on a daily bases and it was actually making me sick. I was starting to get anxiety attacks over my friends issues, couldn’t sleep because friends were having a hard time in their lives and it carried over into my sleep pattern (possibly due to me being woken up at night). Every day, there seemed to be a new problem every single day, and I had run out of fuel. I had no answers left, I had no support life, I was drained. Then my mother asked, well, are they your problems? Are you missing important things to you reguarly? Is it effecting your other relationships? I had to say yes to everything finally and see that some relationships had just become toxic. I couldn’t go on living that way, in fear for my already decreasing health.
I say all of this to help future students. Just because your are out of the house, doesn’t mean that you say good bye to asking your parents for help. I’ve learned more from my mother the last two years, than I ever thought I did living at home for prob the last 10 of them. (Just, don’t tell her I said that.) Parents know you the best sometimes out of everyone on the planet. Their roles change in our lives and suddenly, they become this amazing bank of advice and knowlage that well, we can actually use! I also write this as a warning to pick good friends who are a great support group. Sometimes great friendships end in a toxic blast of an ending. I’m terribly sad that I had to cut some people out of my life, but honestly, I have been healthier, happier, and stress free ever since.
We only have one shot at this so called life, surround yourself with love, family, and great friends. Oh and, mom and dad might know a thing or two. 
Pressure
In college, there is a lot of pressure. Pressure to excel. Pressure to be the best. Pressure to balence everything in life and make it look easy. Sometimes, it can be hard to tell when the pressure is to much for a student one week to another.
There are student athletes, scholarship students, first in the family to go to college, the over achivers, its endless. For what ever reason, college students have a lot on their plates. It is always good to know that there is a support network out there, willing to be there for you 100% when you really need some one to talk to or to lean on, even if it is just for a day or through a tough week.
It is really important for parents to be there for their kids during college… BUT… that doesn’t mean keep treating them like little kids that they were when they were living at home. Finding the right balance to letting the little kid who used to try and stick their fingers in all the sockets in the house go to seeing the young adult that may need a little guidence from mom and dad every once in a while. College is a new chapter, not just for the student, but also for the family. Sometimes the pressure for mom and dad to let go can be harder than expected which can cause some tention between parents and students. My advice to parents, let go of the reigns and let your kid come to you. Its amazing how often your kid will start calling soon as they think you aren’t controling their life.
Pressure comes from everywhere in college. Its a new pressure, no one there to tell you when to go to bed, do your homework, clean your room, not to say stupid stuff, check your bank account. Grades become more important than ever for some, while others could hardly care what they get. Living with a person who is pretty much a stranger can be hard. Trying to always be the perfect roommate can the tiresome after… a week. Professors that forget that students have other classes can really be frustrating.
I feel for the athletes. Always traveling or on the field praticing. It’s endless for them. Trying to do homework on a bus. Studying in between class and pratice. Then the students on full scholarships. Most of the time, their parents are on them about the grades. Constantly checking up on their assignments, reminding them that they have scholarships to keep.
I’ve been saying for the last two years, college is easy, its everything else that makes it hard. Sometimes blowing off some steam is the best option. Skip a day of classes to sleep in and catch up on some much needed sleep. Go out for a night on the town and not worry about being a little extra sleepy in class. It may be hard to explain to parents and professors, sometimes even friends, but know yourself. Know what you need as student is so important. Taking a break can do a lot of good for the mind, body, and soul. Now, I’m not saying a break every other day, I’m just saying that knowing when to take a break can help in the long run. College doesn’t get any easier after freshmen year, its best to learn how to deal with the stress right away. For some, its simply asking the parents to chill on the lectures, for others its a day planner and a special treat at the end of the week/month. Sometimes just talking about it to friends can really be a relief… just as long as your friends are willing to listen and take you seriously… but thats another post.
The only advice I have is, find what works for you when you are stressed your freshmen year and you don’t have to be perfect. Just do your best and remember, you are supposed to ENJOY college. What do adults always tell me, something about it is supposed to be the best time of your life…
Mini Vacations
Right now, I am in Florida! During a heat wave. Boo… lol. I’m here to see some friends and enjoy the sun and beaches. I’ve been waiting for these four days in the sun for a while now. I spent yestorday at the beach and visiting the zoo.
It feels strange to be back in Boca Raton when I’m not at Lynn. I feel like a tourist but I know where I am going. I’ve been really enjoying the time I can now take to learn about this amazing part of Florida that I spend 8 months in and hardly ever have time out of the lab to see it all.
I’m surprised that Florida seems so peaceful and quiet just days after the 4th of July. Maybe it’s because it is so hot outside.
On a sad note, I’m sorry to say that I got an email from Lynn Universities president, that a student at Lynn, a sophomore named Wyatt, passed away on July 4th. Even during the summer, Lynn University is making sure that if its students need grief counseling that they can call Lynns counseling center. The staff are on duty even during the summer.
I hope everyone is having a safe summer. Sun block is a must even if you are not at the beach. Don’t forget to make sure all of your paperwork is in at the school. It is as easy as a single phone call to 561-237-7184.
(Hint hint moms and dads great summer sales on dorm stuff going on now!)
