The Beginning of the End

It is Day 14 of my last semester at Stonehill, and I am in disbelief that I have already been back on campus for that long! Out of all my semesters at Stonehill, the transition back to campus this semester has been easier for me than any other transition back to school. Unfortunately, it's a little too late since it's the last one! But in any case, I seem to have been able to jump right in on all my reading, which I have plenty of with three English classes, one of which is my Senior Capstone! Although, it's a little early for papers, so I will get back to you on how the transition from writing lesson plans to writing papers for college goes!

I have already been doing a lot of work, but I've had some good times with friends too! Last weekend was the Welcome Back Weekend for the spring semester, so we had a comedian in The Hill on Friday night, and then on Saturday there was the Whiteout Ball - which was the annual campus-wide semi-formal dance in the Sports Complex. Unfortunately, I didn't get to go to this dance because I had previous plans, but I heard from a lot of friends that it was a great time...complete with balloons!


So what did I do if I didn't go to the dance? Well, at the end of last semester, the girls in my suite planned a night out in Boston for our friend Alexia's 22nd birthday, which we were all so excited for! But unfortunately it ended up coinciding with the dance, nonetheless, we had a really fun girls' night out! Here are a couple pictures of us all dressed up before our big night out!

From left to right we have Alexia's friend from home Maria, and my suite-mates Kari-Ann, Carrie, Alexia, me, and Melissa. Don't we all look classy? :)

As of this Christmas break, I am also dating someone new! He is actually a really close friend from high school, in fact, we have known each other practically forever! We were even in the same third and fourth grade classes! It was quite a surprise to me to come home for Christmas break and to recognize this for the first time. But we are both very happy and have a lot to look forward to over the next several months!

I then spent a hectic week settling into the semester. I had lots of reading for my classes. This semester I am taking: Postcolonial London Literature, The City in American Literature, Fallen Women and Typewriter Girls (which is my senior seminar and looks at the constructs of the female gender in mostly Victorian literature), Mathematical Reasoning for Educators, and Honors Environmental Science. It is quite a course load because every one of these classes are fulfilling my last five requirements for graduation! I'm just so happy I was able to fit all the requirements in nicely...and with some very interesting topics!

This week I also settled into some of the extra activities I do on campus, such as my role with the Student Ambassador/Tour Guide program, Kappa Delta Pi (which is the Education Honor Society), and I have also set up a work study job in the Office of Student Activities, which I have done a lot of work with in my four years at Stonehill and just generally love to be a part of! :)

For now there's more reading calling my name, but I am looking forward to blogging to all of you about all of the exciting, scary, emotional, happy, sad, intimidating, thrilling, and just plain fun things that will be going on during my last semester!

Final Round at the Hill

I am currently in a state of disbelief and denial that I am beginning my final semester at Stonehill. Not only have I absolutely loved my four years at Stonehill and I am not ready for them to be over, I am not sure I am ready for everything "extra" - applying for jobs and preparing for the real world - that comes with the final semester of college. Part of me is looking forward to the next stage in my life; I think that I will like the working world and being able to settle down. I hate packing and moving, so while it is nice to have two homes, I will like being settled in one place again for a while!

My plan right now is to apply this semester for teaching jobs close to home so I can live at home, save money, and dedicate myself to my first classroom! Then after a year, maybe two, I plan to go back to school for my Master's, somewhere in the field of education. I need some more time before I decide what I will want to get my Master's in! As of now, for this semester, my goal is to find a teaching job! I have done some things over this Christmas break to start that process, but a lot of my time this semester will be dedicated to the job search! There's a long way to go, and I won't feel relaxed until I have a job!

This semester I have my final five classes needed for my two majors and general education requirements. I will be taking three English classes, one of which is my senior capstone seminar. Those classes are Postcolonial London, The City in American Literature, and my seminar is The Fallen Women. My other two classes are Honors Principles of Environmental Science and Mathematical Reasoning for Educators. I am looking forward to these classes, and it will be nice to have a change with the science and math classes since I haven't had any of either yet at Stonehill!

As of now, I am all packed...despite the fact that I am, as always, over-packed! It always seems that my things seem to multiply each time I move back to school. I hope when I am unpacking tomorrow I will be able to fit everything in my room!

Right now, I can't wait to get back to campus and catch up with all of my friends! It will be an exciting semester, with lots of senior activities and job searching - I am sure I will taking advantage of everything Stonehill has to offer one last time!

Home for the Holidays

I love Christmas, and I love getting to be home for Christmas! Putting up the Christmas tree, playing Christmas music, seeing Christmas lights everywhere, and baking Christmas cookies are some of my favorite sights, sounds, and smells of the season that I don't think I could live without! But one of the very best things about Christmas, especially after being away from home for a semester, is getting to spend lots of time with family and friends! The house pictured here is just down the street from my own house. Every year they cover their house and front yard with Christmas lights and decorations and they put on a light show with the lights coordinated to Christmas music that passersby can tune their stations to as they drive by! It is a popular sight to visit in my hometown during the Christmas season!

Every year, for ten years now, my friend, Kate, from high school has been hosting an annual Christmas party! At first, in middle school, it was just the girls. But then, once we discovered boys, it became co-ed. Now, I am so glad that we continue the tradition because it is the best way to get ALL of our high school friends together again! I do still see a lot of my hometown friends, and I have been able to spend a lot of time with them all this break. But we are all so busy and have such very different schedules that it is hard to get everyone together often. Some of my friends are working full-time, some are taking college classes still, and one of my friends is even engaged and getting married Labor Day weekend this year!!! (I am still adjusting to this getting older thing!) But for this year's Christmas party most of us all had a great time playing board games and eating all of our favorite junk food snacks! Especially, Kate's famous calzone and my brownies - favorites since high school!

My friend Brandon (aka "Dobes" - my friends have a lot of nicknames!) and I at Kate's Christmas party.

My friends and I also celebrated together on New Year's Eve at my friend Brennan's house. Here I am with girlfriends Tessa and Kate.

Then, when Christmas rolled around, I celebrated with not one, but FOUR Christmases! My immediate family and I celebrated Christmas Eve with some of my dad's side of the family with dinner at our house. Then on Christmas Day, after opening presents from Santa of course, we went to my gramma's house to celebrate with my mom's side of the family. But now that I have had cousins who have gotten married, and we don't get to see my mom's cousins often, we always hold more Christmas gatherings so we get to see all of the family who we didn't get to see on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day! I always enjoy these parties because they are more casual than Christmas and we get to play with new Christmas presents!

My family at our house on Christmas Eve.

My sister, Lindsay, and cousins Liz and Emily at my gramma's house on Christmas Day.

The day after Christmas, all the siblings and cousins on my dad's side got together over my aunt's house. It was exciting because we got to see Cameron, my cousin's 7 month old baby, and the newest addition to our family! We ordered Chinese food and did a Yankee Swap (re-gifting encouraged!) I ended up with a great number, and the gift I received was a bottle of wine! We also played Telestrations, a game that my sister received for Christmas from my aunt. It is basically telephone but with pictures.

Cameron is an excellent gift-unwrapper! And of course his puppy, Simon, wanted to help!

Playing Telestrations!

Then just this past weekend, we finally had our fourth Christmas, which had been postponed because of last weekend's snowstorm. We went out to Methuen, MA to my mom's cousin's house to see the second cousins on my mom's side of the family who we don't get to see too often. It was another fun day...although very disappointing because the Patriots lost badly.

I really enjoyed this year's holiday season with my family and friends. It was enjoyable and relaxing. I was reflecting during the holiday that it was just one Christmas ago that I returned from my semester abroad. Last Christmas I was jet-lagged and going through re-entry, and this year I was resting up from a very busy semester of student teaching! Both Christmas breaks were very welcome vacations!