Life at Bucknell

Dancing Holliday Turkey

2007-11-17T10:27:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone!!!

So I warned you that I might slow down on these blog posts, but I am still sorry that I've been so negligent to tell you all what I'm up to. Holly is up here with me right now and so are Courtney and Aunt Leslie. They came up for a Bucknell learn about crew day. They came up this morning at 9am and I went to bed around 4 am, so I'm a little tired. But thats okay because I get to hang out with them all day.

School's been going really well. I was really busy last week working on an English essay and studying for a calc test that were a day apart, but now everything is slowing down. I have a physics test the day I leave for Thanksgiving break, but I will be looking forward to going home so it won't be that bad.

I applied for a job at admissions a few weeks ago. Even though I didn't get it, I learned about the email program Bucknell has for prospective students to ask questions.

I've been having a great time with people on my hall and around campus. I am watching Charmed for the fifth time with Britt and Brian. I had been watching Lost with Eric, Garrett, and Andrew, but we watched the season 3 finale last Sunday and we have to wait until February to watch the new season if the writers strike finally ends.

Since we finished Lost the guys on my hall have really begun to show their geeky side by playing video games non stop. Its a little boring for us non gamers (ie the girls).

I've been watching a few movies lately too. Hairspray was showing for $1 at the student center, and Allie and I went to see it. I don't think I stopped laughing for very long in it. I also watched the Prestige last night and it is unbelievably good. I definitely recommend both of them.

I hope all is well with you!
Love,
Steph

How We Operate

2007-09-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

Hi All!

First off, to explain the title of my blogs from now on. I've decided to name them after song titles. All of the Grey's Anatomy episodes are named that way too, which is how I got the idea. Grey's is starting this Thursday and I am really excited! The song for this blog "How we operate" was played in an episode of Grey's.

Well in my last post I told you about my first college essay. This week I had my first college exam times 3. I had a calc, physics, and engineering exam this past week. It was pretty stressful to say the least. I managed to do really well on my calc exam, scoring the highest grade in the class. And in physics I pulled off a 95. I haven't gotten my engineering test back yet, but I am cautiously optimistic. I hope the rest of the semester goes as smoothly because I have a feeling that I need to get really good grades this year to counteract junior year, which should be really difficult. I don't want to brag by saying all this, so I'll show you why I have no reason to brag. The other day my hallmates and I were discussing heritage and I said that you couldn't be 1/3 Irish, but you could be 1/3 British. Here is my embarrassing explanation for how that is possible: "If your grandmother on your mother's side is German and her husband is English, and your grandmother on your father's side is Northern Irish and her husband is Scottish, then you can be 1/3 British" Right after I finished saying that I realized that I had just explained how you could be 3/4 British, not 1/3. And for all of you wondering if it is possible to be 1/3 anything...its not.

Well I need to do laundry and go to Breakfast, so I will post again soon.

Love,
Steph (The Blonde)

The First Essay

2007-09-11T12:45:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!

So sorry its been so long since my last post. I had my first real college essay due yesterday at 7pm, so I was spending a lot of time working on it to make sure I got it right. I've been keeping busy with all my school work including that essay. Classes are going well, but I have to keep on top of the work to keep it that way.

Labor Day was fun. Webers, Holly and Mom came up to take me to Applebees and WalMart. The rest of the week passed with classes, homework, some meetings (including a BioMedical Engineering Society meeting), hanging out with my hall-mates watching TV (Lost is a really good show). My friend, Brittany, and I went out on Friday with some girls from a different dorm and that was a lot of fun. Saturday, our hall went to the first home football game of the season. I was expecting great things since the Bison's had just beaten Dusquene the previous week, but we lost miserably. In fact, we decided to leave early and walk to the Freeze, which is this little ice cream shack off campus that has the best ice cream ever! After the Freeze we went to see a touring improv group that was really funny. We left a few minutes early from that to go to the prescreening of Ocean's 13. It was pretty funny, but I definitely liked 11 and 12 better. Sunday and Monday were spent entirely doing work, so I'm relaxing a bit right now.

Hope all is well with you.

Love,
Steph

End of a Full Week

2007-08-31T15:20:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!

Well I've finished my first full week of college! My classes went pretty well. I had a Physics lab at 8am on Monday (Not such a great start to my week), but it got better from there. Since this is my third time learning physics, that class is pretty easy. Calculus is hard, but I'm keeping on top of my work and everything is coming back to me. (The last time I had calculus was junior year) Engineering was very boring this week as every discipline of engineering explained what they did. Right now I am in a class with every other freshman engineer, but we are splitting up into different seminars next week. We will have 3 seminars this semester, so that we can try out 3 different disciplines. I am hoping to do the biomedical engineering seminar which is on drug delivery. I also want to get into a chemical and an electrical seminar because both of those will be useful in my future classes. My English class is very interesting. It's called Writing About Film, and we are currently learning about the job of a cinematographer and all the different elements of a film that make the screenplay seem real. I really like it.

I went to a Society of Women in Engineering (SWE) meeting this week and joined that group. They have a lot of fairs for internships and jobs, which will be really useful later on. I also signed up for a group on campus that goes to local animal shelters and stables to help take care of the dogs, cats, and horses. The first trip is to the cat shelter, so I'm going to sit that one out because I am allergic to some cat hair. I am also talking with the music chair at the campus chapel about forming a group that will perform at some worship services, and it sounds a lot like what I did at St. John's.

In addition to class and activities, I'm spending a lot of time with the people in my hall. They are all really nice, and we hang out all the time. We watch movies and TV shows. (My new favorite is "Weeds"-the TV show...its really funny)

Well I started writing this on Friday, and now its Saturday and I've been to the gym and now I need to get my work done so that I won't have things to do on Monday when I get some visitors from home. : )

Love,
Steph

Monday came so fast

2007-08-26T20:52:00.000-07:00

Hi all!

So it's Sunday night, the end of my first real weekend at Bucknell. Tomorrow I have to get up for an 8am class (physics lab). The weekend was fun and my classes are pretty good too. I love being able to run to the 7th street cafe at 4am to get a raspberry lemonade. That's what a girl on my hall and I did early Sunday morning. We watched a pre-screening of "Knocked Up" with our entire hall before that, and sat around talking for a few hours. Then at 4am Brittany and I decided to go to a cafe that is right next to our dorm for a late night/early morning coffee or smoothie. It was a great plan until it started raining and we had to run to the cafe. After sipping our raspberry lemonades for a few minutes 3 more people from our hall showed up. We had a lot of fun, but I wouldn't recommend going to bed at 5:30 in the morning.

All good things must come to an end as I learned today when I woke up at noon. I had to clean my room, do laundry, and do a lot of homework that had been put off on friday and saturday. The work wasn't that bad though, and the laundry was fun because we watched a little TV in between. I fit it all in plus I managed to watch a good portion of the Steelers-Eagles game where we dominated 27-13! Go Steelers!!!!

I have to go get some sleep.

Love,
Steph

First Day of Classes

2007-08-22T21:42:00.000-07:00

I've officially stopped counting the days that I've been here because now I must fill my head with more important information like where I need to go for all the classes on my schedule. Today was the first day of class at Bucknell, and it wasn't as bad as I anticipated. I was nervous about tremendous amounts of work right off the bat, but everything seems to be manageable for now. I am confused in calc 2 because I forget a lot of what was covered in calc 1, but both classes use the same book. I can do a lot of reviewing before my first quiz on tuesday.

I have a lot of the same classes as the people on my hall because about half of us are engineers. We were frantically working on calculus homework tonight, but stopped to watch a TV show. I made sure to get a few hours of studying in this afternoon too. Things might get tougher, but I have a hall full of study helpers and my professors seem to be really helpful and approachable.

Another piece of good news: we got a working microfridge today. The first one the company sent us didn't work, but we got it replaced today!

I have a 9:30 class this morning, so that's all for now.

Love,
Steph : )

Day 4

2007-08-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!

I just got back from a spirit rally; it was unbelievable! We learned the alma matter and some great Bison cheers. There were balloons, facepaint, and tons of orange and blue! If only the weather would cooperate. Its been raining almost non stop. I had my biomedical engineering meeting today which was really great. I learned that I will never have to take pchem with a lab like the chem majors! I went to the bookstore with a couple other biomed majors and bought all my books. Amazingly the price wasn't all that bad. In the afternoon I went downtown in the pouring rain for the Lewisburg street fair. There were a lot of cute shops. (hint to anyone who comes up to visit) Yesterday was great too, but the evening activities were pretty lame. Line dancing was so boring and everyone opted out early to go have ice cream instead. I'm off in a little while to go see my orientation assistant and his improv group, We Brake for Nobody, perform. Then we're going to find something else to do or maybe come back to the dorm. Tomorrow I am going to try out for Rooke choir, but after yelling myself hoarse tonight that might not go so great. We'll see :)

Love,
Steph

Day 2

2007-08-18T16:30:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!

Its Day 2 here at Bucknell and I thought I'd start blogging my journey through this fine institution. There will not be a blog everyday and they will probably become less detailed and might even end before my journey is complete, but for now I'd like to try to keep you, my friends, in the loop with what is going on here in Lewisburg.

So today started off in typical summer fashion as I slept in til 11. Only engineers got to do that. Probably because they know we wont be sleeping for the rest of the semester once classes start. I had a little homesickness waiting around for everyone else to come back at noon when we would go off to lunch or in my case breakfast together. After lunch I finally got fully connected to the internet in time to go play color games with the rest of the freshmen. They were pretty fun once I realized that there was no point to any of it. The slip in slide was especially fun if not painful as well. I now have a pretty decent sized bruise on my leg and my tailbone hurt so badly that I had to take tylenol. After washing all that beautiful color off our bodies and out of our hair we had a multicultural dinner. I actually tried almost everything and found that I liked chick peas and curry. I also found out my schedule for this semester today. Yikes! 7 hours a week of engineering and physics. Math and English too! Although I got a pretty cool english course, Writing about Film. Well we're off soon for a seminar and then theres a carnival tonight and a wal-mart run and maybe even eggs and pancakes at 1am. Tomorrow I will finally get my computer problems sorted out and hopefully get my dorm phone line working properly. Then there's an orientation service at Rooke Chapel at 11.

Day 2 has been a blast so far can't wait to see what the rest of my 4 years will bring.

Love,
Steph