The End

I think that this semester in English class was very interesting because we had to keep a blog and write in it every week and before this class I have never read a blog before in my life. It was kind of fun to keep a blog and see what people thought of the stories I wrote, but I probably won’t continue to write on my blog after this because I just do not have the time to keep up with it and I probably would not know what to write about on it. I have learned that it is kind of fun to keep a blog and tell people that I have a blog, haha. I think that if a person really wanted to keep a blog they should but I think that they should keep up with it at least weekly.
I really am not a big fan of writing because I can never get things from my head to paper it just comes out wrong and I am dissatisfied with the paper, but writing a blog it really did not matter too much. I did not worry about it a lot because I knew that it was not for a grade, it was just for “fun”. I could write whatever I want to write about just as long as it went along with the general topic. In which they were not very hard because they were very general topics and very easy to write about. My favorite topic, besides the free writes, would probably have to be if I received the amount of money for four years of college at Illinois State University but I could not spend it on school what would I do with it. I really liked this one because it made me excited because I said I wanted to travel and I cannot wait until I do go travel around the world someday. I love to have new adventures and traveling would definitely give me more adventures. Blogging helps you write things down and keep them in mind so you can always look back at them.

The Town of Bloomington-Normal

When I think of Bloomington-Normal I think of Illinois State University. So if I had to set up a tour for someone who wasn’t from around here it would go a little something like this:
The best time of year to visit Bloomington-Normal is either in the fall or spring because the quad of ISU looks absolutely gorgeous. I know that when I walk around the quad it makes me feel at home, in a way. You should just take a god amount of time walking around the quad and looking at the many different trees in the quad. There is no tree in there that is the same type as another one. After you walk around the quad for a while another place that makes me feel at home is the Newman Center, right next to Avanti’s. Right now it is under construction because we are getting a new chapel, but even though it is under construction it is a home away from home. You can enter through the back and see the gorgeous paintings of different saints that are in progress. While you are in there I suggest that you talk to Fr. Dittmer and Fr. Victor, they are the two priests that we have at the center and they are probably two of the most interesting people that I know. They have so many stories between the two of them you can never get bored, and they love to talk. After you spend a good amount of time there, my guess is that you are probably hungry. You should go next door to Avanti’s, but u have to get there when it is not that crowded otherwise it takes forever to get a table. Once you get seated you start off with the most amazing bread ever! But while you are munching on you bread don’t fill up just on that, but order the pizza bread for dinner, it is my favorite dish from there. After you are done with dinner you probably just want to chill for a little bit, I would suggest that you go for coffee at Fusion Brew, the local coffee shop off of Hovey. It is a great place to just sit down and relax form an eventful day, and they have delicious coffee. Once you’re done with your cup of coffee your day is done! It flew by so fast you barely remember what you did. But I hope that you enjoyed Bloomington-Normal just as much as I do.

friends

This past weekend I went home and I realized that my life has changed so much in this past year. See a lot of my friends are still in high school, because when I was in my youth group in high school a lot of the kids just happened to be younger than me. I still have my college friends but as everyone knows not everyone is going to be home the same weekend you are going to be home. But last weekend one of my college friends from my youth group was home so I hung out with her for most of the weekend and we were talking about how we are almost done with our freshman year of college and how it was crazy that we were so scared of it during the summer. It was so nice because we went through almost eh exact same experience because we were the only ones from our youth group going to public universities in Illinois, and that scared us a lot because we really didn’t know a ton of people, but we made it through. After I hung out with her she had to leave to go back to school, because she was on spring break, I hung out with some of my younger friends and that just really showed how much different high school is than college. High school is filled with drama and gossip and I just felt that I was over it and I didn’t care about whatever was going on. But I think that it’s so weird because two of my best friends are in high school and it just seems so different. I love them to death but I think that it’s weird that we are so close because we are in two different worlds. I mean they will soon be in the “world” I’m in and it really won’t make a difference a couple years can make. I think that people who say that you are too old to hang out with a person are wrong, no matter how much the age difference is it is about how well the person gets you and is willing to try to understand you and listens to you and vice versa.

Koinonia!

This past year I have attended many events that are worthwhile here at ISU. Some have been on campus and some have been off campus, most of the activities that I have participated in have been good, but one really changed my life and that was when I went on a retreat with the Newman Center, it was an off campus activity. It was the retreat was called Koinonia. The retreat was an entire weekend in the fall and it was amazing. I met so many more people at Newman and I am so glad that I decided to go on it. The retreat was filled with talks and team bonding and it was probably one of the best weekends of my life. I can’t really go into detail about it because I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who wants to go on the trip, but what I can say is that it was lead by college students who had been on the retreat before and they gave talks about their life experiences that and also on topics that others may have questions on. The whole retreat wasn’t just talks though we have a lot of free time in which we could pretty much do whatever we wanted to do: play football, go in and explore the corn field, go in the chapel, hang in the gym, and much more. Also another thing that I really enjoyed was the fact that you really didn’t have to worry or the distractions of the “outside” world. You did not have to keep track of the time or worry about being late to anything because everything we did was at the place we were staying at. I know a lot of people say that they have amazing retreats and that may be true, all retreats are good in their own way, but I honestly think that, that weekend was the best retreat that I have participated in. I cannot wait to be able to help lead the retreat so it can be a great retreat for others just like it was for me.

Spring Break 2009!!!

This past spring break I traveled to Oklahoma. Why Oklahoma, you may ask. I went on Alternative Spring Break, or ASB, with people from Illinois State University. ASB is an organization in which college students go places where they believe that people may need help. This is an organization that takes place around colleges across the country. At ISU we have 180 college students and some faculty staff travel to Boston, Florida, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. Each location that we travel to has a different issue: Mississippi dealt with Hurricane relief, Boston dealt with hunger and homelessness, Florida dealt with environment issues, and Oklahoma dealt with Native American issues.
In Oklahoma my team got to go to a program called Head Start. Here we help children the youngest being 4 months old and the oldest probably being around 5 years old. In the classroom we help the teachers with whatever they may need to get done, but we also got to play with the children and we hung out with them. I was in a room that was full of infants, the youngest being 4 months and the oldest being 8 months. They were adorable children and even though they could not talk we still made a strong connection with all of them. They were so cute, just like most infants are. But I did not just make connections with them, but the people that I went to Oklahoma with. I was the site facilitator, so that kind of meant that I was in charge of a group. I did have a co leader as well and I think that we clicked so well and got along very well. I went with a bunch of people that I did not know at all in the beginning of the trip, but at the end I can call them my friends and I know that when I see them on the quad I can just go up to any of them and have a random conversation with them. This spring break was one I will never forget. I had so much fun with everything that we did and I will most definitely do it again, no doubt.

What would I do....

I love to travel. So I think if I was given the amount of money for the four years of college, I would do a lot of traveling. I would grab a bunch of my friends together and we would go wherever but I know the places that I want to go and I will list a couple for you. I think the first place I would go to would be New Orleans, because I traveled there this past summer and I fell in love with everything there, the people, the city itself, everything. I would also travel to Disneyworld, because I want to go back so bad and love Disney things it makes me feel like a little kid again. The next place I would want to go would be New York, and see a couple of Broadway plays. Then I would probably travel overseas to Ireland because I am Irish and I would love to see where my relatives came from. Then I would go and travel to Poland because I am also Polish and I think it would be very interesting what it would be like to live there. Then I think that I would travel to Greece, specifically Santorini, because it is absolutely gorgeous there and I fell in love. I would also take a cruise throughout the Mediterranean Sea. The water is so blue and gorgeous. Probably after I was done with all of my site seeing and buying a bunch of things for my friends and family I would go somewhere where the money is absolutely needed and go there and help and offer anything I could so that I could make their lives easier in any way possible. I always feel bad about having things that other people do not have.
Throughout this adventure I think I would have great times and tons of new stories to tell. I also think that you have to travel with people so you can share those experiences with everyone you can. I hope that I will be able to do this someday but that’s a shot in the dark.

Dear Freshman

Dear Freshman,
Picking a college is one of the hardest things to do. I know for me is was difficult because not a lot of my friends were looking at the same colleges as me, so I had a different experience than them. One thing that I looked as was the type of education that the school was excellent at. Illinois State is known for their education programs. Since I am an education major it was a good choice. Other programs are here are very good as well, but ISU is known for their education programs. It looks very good for getting a job after you graduate for college. Another thing that I looked for was the size of the school. ISU is a very large school, but it does not seem that big. Maybe it’s the way that the campus is set up because it is in the shape of a square so it does not seem as big as say U of I. or maybe it is the small campus feel of activities going on every day. There is always something going on and everyone wants everyone to get involved. Another thing I looked at was some of the other activities I would like to get involved in during my years at college. So I decided to check out their Catholic Newman Center, because back home I was very involved with my youth group and I wanted to continue something like it when I traveled off to college. When it was time to look at the booths during Preview I went straight there and met our pastor and everyone at the booth was so nice and friendly and welcoming which I loved.
To sum it all up I would say look at what the academics are like for what you want to study, the size you are looking for, and what you want to get involved in during your four very short years of college.

One Tree Hill

Two brothers, living in the same town but on totally different sides of it. One lives just with his mom, the other lives with both of his parents. They never really knew each other; they just knew that they hated the other. Lucas Scott grew up living only with his mother, Karen, in a small house in Tree Hill, North Carolina, and not really knowing his father at all. While on the other side of Tree Hill Nathan Scott grew up with both of his parents in a huge house-like mansion. They both live totally separate lives, but they share one common interest: basketball. And basketball is what brings these two brothers together. Lucas grew up only knowing the games at the River court, and just played for fun with Skills, Junk, and Fergie. They would always just play pickup games whenever they could, which was usually every day. Nathan played in the gym every chance he could, he was the star of the Tree Hill Ravens high school team, with a very gorgeous cheerleader girlfriend, Peyton. The whole story starts when Lucas gets asked to play on the team Nathan leads, and that’s when the drama begins. I started watching this show when I was in my freshman year of high school when I started watching the show. I just randomly tuned on the TV and I fell in love with the show. I didn’t even know the name of the show when I was watching it, then the next day at school girls were talking about it and I was like “I just watched that show” and then we all just started talking about the show and we would talk about it every week when it was a new show. The show has developed into a huge phenomenon and has gone on for six seasons. Even thought they have graduated it still grabs your attention because it deals with things after high school and college. I will definitely watch this show until it ends and I think that you should too.

Advertisements

These days there are so many different types of advertisements that people see every day. I think everyone, unless they do not go outside and they do not have internet or a television see at least one advertisement. These days I do not watch a lot of television mainly because I do not have a television in my room so I either watch my shows online or in a friend’s room, but commercials are not the only type of advertisements. Before the T.V was invented people would just use posters or billboards to advertise whatever they were trying to sell. Probably the most resent advertisement that I saw, and remember is the Subway posters because that is what I had for lunch today. I remember it because it was in very bright colors and it was in a good location because it was like in your face so u had to look at it. It was placed usually where the menu is for the different types of sandwiches. I do think it was very effective because everyone looks up at the sandwiches. I actually did purchase what they were selling after looking at it. I think is adequately persuaded me because I was really hungry cause I had not eaten all day and I was starving and it stated that all foot long sandwiches were all five dollars. So I didn’t really have to worry about paying a lot more for the sandwich that I wanted that always cost a lot more to get the foot long. The poster said five dollar foot longs and had a picture of a foot long sub sandwich with meat overflowing out of the bread, and underneath the sandwich it said for all sandwiches for a limited time only. The colors were also very nice because it was like a bright orangish color in the background and bright yellow letters pop out of it. So in this case the advertisement caught my attention and I bought the product and most advertisements do catch my attention, but I usually do not have any money so I can’t get the thing that they are advertising even though I might really want it.

The "New" Me

This past summer I traveled to New Orleans on a mission trip with my youth group and it changed my life entirely. Before this trip I had gone on two mission trips before, and on those two I was kind a just the girl in the background. No one really noticed me, some of my good friends today do not even remember me going on the first one I ever went on, that‘s how bad it was. But after my second one I got more involved with my youth group and started talking to people in the youth group. After that trip I became a religious education teacher, Eucharist minister, and I absolutely loved getting involved interacting with kids my age about what we all have in common. When I became involved other people acknowledge it too. Toward the end of the school yea my senior year, my youth minster recognized me, and two of my friends, with St. Timothy awards. This just pretty much recognizes us with our involvement in the church. When I received it I wasn’t expecting it at all, I was just doing what I wanted to do, and I wasn’t expecting anything in return. That also showed me that I was on the right path in my life. I was so excited to go to New Orleans and be one that people look to for help or guidance. But that really didn’t happen all too much cause I was one asking a lot of the questions to people who had been to New Orleans before cause the city was new to me. This time around I was noticed more and I made more friends that I never would have made if I was that quiet girl who went on the first two mission trips. This trip definitely made me more prepared for coming to school. I was so nervous and still was until the day I got here. But on these trips I made friends that had been in my position last year and I could talk to them about what was going on and stuff. I also made friends that were going through the exact thing I was going through, at the exact same time and it helped me so much with just being able to talk to them about anything going on in my mind.

One of the Best Days Ever

This past Friday after all classes my friends and I went to this Christian concert in Peoria. We knew it was going to be an adventure we just didn’t know how big of an adventure it was going to be. We left Watterson Towers at 5:40 in Katie’s boat of a car. We were driving along and I was the navigator riding shotgun. We were driving on I-55 as fast as Katie could go without getting caught by the cops. We drive past the sign that says Peoria. I said that the directions said that we were supposed to stay on the highway for a while longer, so we drove on for a while then we realized that we were supposed to turn at the sign that says Peoria. So we made a U turn and traveled back the way we came. After our little side adventure we finally made it to the Peoria Civic Center. We were all so very excited to see the bands we ran like cheetahs into the building, not just because we were so excited-and late- but because it was freezing cold outside. We made it into the building and found some of our friends who were saving some seats for us. You could hear the erupting music filling the arena, but we couldn’t really see the band too well so we went to find some new seats so we could at least see the bands. So we found some nose bleed seats, but at least we could see the bands and have fun. We saw some bands and had some fun dancing. Then it was intermission and we traveled around and looked at all the different booths and we heard the band start to play. So we rushed in and found some better standing seats up close on the main floor, like 10 rows away from the stage! The band playing at the time was The Afters, not too many people know who they are but I was ecstatic to see them. We were able to stay up that close for their set only, then we had to return to our seats. After that their were a couple of more bands and then the concert was over and we were all filling out so we could get some autographs from one of the bands, Hawk Nelson, and then we left to get some food at Steak n’ Shake. The place was absolutely packed when we arrived and it took forever to get our as well. But it was all worth it because when we were almost done eating we saw The Afters come in to the Steak n’ Shake!!!!! Me and my friends, Karen and Maggie saw them and were like “wait a second; hold on, those are The Afters!!!!!!!!” We really wanted to go meet them but we didn’t want to intrude on their dinner. But my friends Morgan and Katie went over to them to see if they could take a picture and they said “YES!” So they waved us over and each one of the band members shook our hands and introduced themselves to us and they were so nice they took pictures with us and talked with us for a while. Then we left the restaurant and got into Katie’s car and screamed until our lungs hurt. It was amazing and we couldn’t believe that this actually happened to us. It was by far one of the best days of my life.

Inauguration Day 2009

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 I rolled out of bed like any other day. I went to my math 131 class at 9:35 like every other Tuesday or Thursday. I knew it was an important day in our countries history because we inaugurated our first African American President. I honestly didn’t have any major plans to watch the inauguration; I knew I would hear about all the major things that I needed to know from my peers or the news. So while the new president was getting inaugurated I was just going around, doing my normal day to day activities. After my math 131 class, I went to go get some lunch. I walked up the endless stairs to the Watterson Food Court, to get my lunch to go of course, because I had to get ready for the day. I still had to shower and finish some of the homework I didn’t do. After I finished showering and finishing my homework I had to go to my next class which was politics. I was definitely not looking forward to that class cause when I went to the first class I didn’t see anyone that I knew, but when I arrived in Schroeder I saw my friend David and it turns out he was in the same class as me and our friend Steve was also in the class. So now I was actually looking forward to the class now. Even though it was a very long class it was nice sitting with people that I knew. After the longest class ever I had to go to one of my more interesting classes, Special Education 101. I actually find this class very interesting so I was tired but excited to go to this interesting class. But on that day it would have seemed that the class dragged on for longer than a two episodes of 60 minutes. It went by super slow. But it finally ended and I was done for the day at 4:50pm I was done. Now what was I supposed to do? I went back up to my dorm room and went on my computer to check my facebook and email. Then after a little while on that I went to the Newman center to go hangout with my friends there. We hung out for about an hour or so and after that I had t walk back to my dorm and it seemed like a mile away, but only a 5 minute walk. After my walk back I went on the computer again and then my day was officially done, SLEEP!!!

This is me.

Hey I’m Carolyn and I’m a freshman at Illinois State University. I’m from a suburb of Chicago called Crystal Lake. I am the middle child of three: my older brother, David, just graduated from NIU and my younger sister, Rachel, is a freshman in high school. I have a huge extended family and they all pretty much live near me. My mom is 1 of 7 and my dad is 1 of 4. I went to school with about seven of my cousins at one point. Back home I am very involved in my youth group and my church. I have on three mission trips with them traveling to West Virginia, Denver, and New Orleans. This summer I will be going on my fourth mission trip traveling back to New Orleans. I absolutely love my friends back home and they will always be a major part of my life. They have been there with me through thick and thin. I met my best friends through my youth group. Moving so far away from home was very hard for me because most of my friends are still at home. I have never in my life have gotten homesick until I got to ISU. But after going to the Newman Center here, I found a new group of friends and I became less homesick. My friends are pretty much my life no matter where they are, I will do anything for them and I know that they would do anything for me.