Amanda's Blog

This week was much more exciting than the last! It was the last week for the first session of summer classes, so my friend was scrambling to finish all of her class work.  She needed to take the very scenic self-guided walking tour of our university Arboretum.  It’s pretty surprising that I’ve been here for almost a whole year now and have just now made my way around it.  She needed to answer questions about the different plant species and wildlife, so it took us three hours to finish the tour.  It was a beautiful day outside and I was so glad to get out of the dorms for so long.  I definitely learned a lot of new information about all of our plants on campus.  Later in the week, I went hiking around the Manasquan Reservoir.  The reservoir has beautiful environmental centers that talk about the wildlife in the area and even have some animals inside! As we finished our hike we found an osprey nest with the osprey inside and the newly fledged bald eagles! It was quite a day for bird watching! J  I had a really enjoyable time and can’t wait for my next outdoors excursion! 

This week was pretty uneventful; I mostly just worked the week away.  I did have an adventure with my friend Felicia going to the grocery store though.  As you know, none of us on campus have cars, so we have mastered getting our way around town through public transportation (mostly).  We were lucky enough to get a ride to the store – Stop and Shop which is much cheaper than Shoprite – and do all of our shopping.  We had a lovely time inside of Barnes and Noble, trying to choose what books to actually buy and finally having real coffee again.  When we tried to make our way back to the university, however, we got caught in a downpour and missed our bus by mere seconds! I had promised my grandma I would make her homemade bread, so we had the bad idea of walking back with a sack of flour and sugar.  My arms were killing me by the time we got back to campus! It was all worth it though, because we gathered up all the girls in the hall and made a fantastic Spanish dinner.  I also worked the wedding on weekend.  It was packed so unfortunately I didn’t stick around for the wedding, but it was nice helping them prepare for and set up for the wedding.  They were a very friendly couple which was a relief to me, since this is the first time I’ve helped out at a wedding.

            Another piece of good news, my dad is back from China! He traveled all around China, visiting interesting places such as the Great Wall, the Terra Cotta Soldiers, the site of the Olympics, etc.  I really want to go to China too, but it’s going to have to wait  until the future.  He did bring me back gifts, however, and he wouldn’t tell me what they were! He’s sending them to me and I absolutely can’t wait to see what he brought back.  We’ll see in next week’s blog! Enjoy your week! Hopefully it’s more exciting than my week has been! J

It’s the end of another long week here, and I’m glad to be relaxing this weekend.  I got my first summer paycheck this week, and it was pretty depressing.  It was also the first paycheck that I’ve had money taken out for federal taxes, state taxes, social security, etc.  This list goes on.  I’m trying to save all the money I make this summer to finance my travels when I spend the spring semester abroad in Ireland.  At this rate, I won’t be traveling too far outside of Ireland! At this point, all I can ask is “Don’t they understand?!” Clearly the state of NJ doesn’t care about my plight, but it’s ok, because I will just work really hard this summer! Work is going well and I’m having a lot of fun on campus.  This week I’m going to be learning how to drive the golf carts around campus. How exciting!! I’ve been dying (almost) to get to drive the golf carts around.  Also, the Office of Campus Ministry handles all the weddings that take place on campus, and as their summer student worker, I get to help out.  I’ve never been to a wedding before, and I can’t wait until the first one, just two weeks away!

This is the third weekend in a row that I’ve traveled away from GCU! It’s my last for a while though.  I went with the university again to Washington DC.  We stayed at Georgetown University, which is absolutely gorgeous, but I must say can’t compare to GCU! This trip was for the National Convention for College Women Student Leaders, quite a mouthful, right? Women from across the U.S. gathered together to learn how they can improve their ability to lead their campuses.  After sitting through the first 1 ½ hour keynote address (lecture actually), the conference recovered very nicely.  There were awards for four women of distinction.  The most interesting was the story of a Brigadier General who was the first women to command at the Company, Battalion, and Brigade level.  She has certainly led a very interesting life, and I really want to bring her to GCU to speak.  I went to workshops about including diversity into leadership, great grassroots methods of working with the media and elected officials, and incorporating technology into planning for guerilla marketing.  I learned some interesting facts and had a lot of fun with the people I went with. Unfortunately we weren’t able to tour the city too much, but we did go out to eat Friday night.  We went to an excellent Thai place and decided to be very adventurous.  I don’t even know what it was that I ate, but it accompanied the sushi, and my friend Sandrine and I decided we’d try it together.  It was THE SPICIEST thing I’ve ever ate in my entire life.  My eyes watered for a good 15 minutes after that I had to immediately drink my entire Dr. Pepper.  The whole table laughed at the two of us, but we gave ourselves credit for being rather daring.  After that, we stuck to more normal things like tofu and curry, which didn’t permanently damage our taste buds! J  We drove back (a decent 5 hour drive) and spent my first Sunday in a while here on campus, just relaxing.

I just got back from Chicago again! I flew with six other people from the university into Midway airport.  I was finally able to buy a caramel macchiato (100% fairly traded from Starbucks!) at the airport and then we headed to St. Xavier University.  This conference was the first attempt ever at uniting all the Mercy universities and colleges to network and share ideas to bring back to our campuses.  They hosted seminars in three tracks: hunger/poverty, women’s empowerment, and earth sustainability.  I went to one that discussed CEDAW (the Convention to End all forms of Discrimination Against Women), human trafficking, and immigration because of poverty.  We gave a presentation about how peers can end violence against women, and we were able to push the Juarez femicide agenda more.  On Saturday night we got to hang out on Navy Pier for four hours, shop and enjoy the beautiful scenery of Lake Michigan.  We started off eating dinner together at Bubba Gump’s, named after one of my favorite movies, Forrest Gump.  Saturday morning, we went to Mass and then flew home.  All in all, it was a really fun trip; I had excellent company.  I found out that my sister was accepted to GCU and she’ll be living in my building next year!! Congrats to her! J She’s going to become a GCU activist, and she doesn’t quite know it yet.  On another really exciting note, Representative Chris Smith (R) of New Jersey’s 4^th district wrote to the House of Representatives concerning the femicides, and he directly mentioned GCU! He wrote:

“The situation in Juarez has gone of for so long, and is so terrible, that it has drawn world-wide attention. In 2006 this House passed a resolution pointing up the Mexican prosecutor’s evidence that the Juarez police have been negligent in investigating these horrific crimes.  Last week, I am proud to say, students at Georgian Court University, which is in my district, not only held a prayer service for the murder victims and a march to urge Mexican authorities to redouble their investigative efforts, but in March five Georgian Court students, accompanied by Sr. Tina Geiger, traveled to the border area, where they observed the situation firsthand.”

We are making so much progress in such a short period of time!

I’m writing now from my family’s place in the suburbs of Chicago.  I’ve had the most amazing weekend so far! It started off when I flew into Louisville, Kentucky and drove with my dad up to my aunt’s place in Chicago, a nice little road trip for a Friday morning.  We visited an awesome art museum that was part of a university campus in Louisville that had a pretty impressive collection.  Yesterday, my family members (who I hadn’t seen in five whole months!) and I went to a Gaelic fair and road all the typical carnival rides. Thank God we didn’t get too sick of the whirling tea cups this time! We also listened to a great Scottish band live and tasted the traditional foods of Ireland and Scotland.  Today, Sunday, I became the godmother of my three adorable cousins.  It’s my first time being a godmother and I’m pretty excited about it.  We had to rush right out of the church to get to my sister’s graduation.  She walked up the aisle with my cousin and it was a nice ceremony.  She’s applying for admission here at GCU, and we can’t wait to see if she’ll be joining me here.  Tomorrow I’ll be heading back to my dad’s place and visiting with some other relatives in Indiana that I haven’t seen for a year now. 

I apologize for how long it’s been since I’ve last blogged! I have lot of interesting things to report though.  Over the last month I went with the university to see no one less than the Pope himself! We took a bus up to Yonkers, NY to see him and spent the whole day there.  Kelly Clarkson even made a guest appearance, which was a nice surprise.  The next day I went again with the university to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  It was quite an experience for me, since members of my own family came through Ellis Island. They had many awesome displays showing immigration patterns globally and historically.  I also saw Battery Park for the first time and one of the surviving statues that had been previously displayed in the World Trade Center. Following that, I spent a whole week in NYC again participating in the National Model United Nations.  A group of students from Georgian Court represented the Bahamas in a sort of mock UN conference.  I learned about the issues facing the Pan-American Health Organization and met with several students from across the entire world.  At the end of the conference, I earned an award for being the “Most Diplomatic Delegate” of our committee.  Success!!  I then headed back to the university for a week of finals review, and then the dreaded finals.  Ugh.  It was one week of intense studying and paper writing, but it was well worth it. Now that finals are over and I did well in all my classes, I’m feeling pretty satisfied. 

I earned the position of RA that I had mentioned earlier, and was also elected as President of the Class of 2010 for our Student Government Association.  I can see that this upcoming year will be just as busy as this one.  I went with Professor DasGupta (you’ll love her when you get here) and a fellow student to an event called “Take Back the Night” where we celebrated women’s fight against violence, and domestic violence in particular.  It was a very moving event and I certainly learned more about the issue.  This Monday I gave a presentation to Harrogate about our trip with Sister Tina and my fellow student Marcela, who also went with me to the border.  You will all have to work with Sister Tina at one point or another at GCU and you’ll love her as well.  The audience was so receptive, and I think we’re making some headway on raising awareness! We organized a march on campus to raise awareness about the femicides we learned about in Juarez and we’re starting to get some attention from our representatives! 

All of our amazing seniors graduated last Friday and I was so excited to celebrate with them.  The school year is officially over, however, and so it’s back to work.  I’m working for the summer in the Office of Admissions and Campus Ministry.  I’m spending my spring semester abroad in Ireland, and so I need to save up some serious money this summer to go! That is essentially the goal of my summer, which I imagine is the goal of a lot of people’s summers.  We’ll have some interesting entertainment along the way though, so it won’t get boring! J

What a few weeks it has been!  We had spring break of course, during which time I traveled with a group of students to the Mexican-American border on the Border Awareness Experience (BAE). The goal of the trip was to learn about the issues effecting the border and then educate people here in New Jersey about what we witnessed first hand.  It was quite an experience: at times heartbreaking and tragic while also being inspirational, uplifting, and humbling.  It was somewhat of a tough transition coming back from that trip to the daily grind here at the university, but I'm happy now that I'm back.  There's so much to do! Last week we had another overnight event, and as usual my guest Alexandria was an awesome roommate for the night. I found out the results of all of my midterms as well.  As you can imagine, I was pretty nervous before I left for break, but you'll be glad to know that I'm more than passing all of my classes! :)

We also had a WILD event to network with alumni and professionals in the area in our respective career fields.  I met a lot of interesting and intelligent people at the event and it was a lot of fun to mingle with them as well as my fellow students.  Tonight we will be having a movie night and food, which is always nice in the middle of the week.  It helps to break up the constant flow of homework and spend some quality time with my dormmates.  As the semester draws nearer to an end, papers pile up and I'm willing to engage in distractions!

I'm also applying for the Resident Assistant (RA) position on campus.  You're probably familiar with RAs, but for those of you who are not, they assist the head of Residence Life with students in the dorm.  They plan programs for the residents (such as tonight's movie night) and enforce the policies and procedures of the dorms.  I have an interview tomorrow, so wish me luck!

My passport finally arrived this week, which means that I'm all set for Mexico! I have just four more days to go until I'll be on a plane to the Mexican-American border.  In the meantime, this week is midterm week, so I have so many papers to write and tests to study for! These are the times that I seriously wonder why I torture myself with school.  On Friday, I'll remember again.  I didn't do too much this week, other than homework and more homework.  That's the way the week before midterms usually is, though.  Last week was Women's Empowerment Week on campus though, and so the university had a special guest for Tuesday to talk to us about trying to live in a man's world.  You might recognize her: Debbye Turner, a former Miss America.  A few students and myself had the chance to meet with her over dinner before she formally gave her talk to the university.  She has some very insightful things to offer to us about growing up as a woman and the obstacles we face.

Tomorrow is finally the big day for Diversifest.  We're going to have international food, dance, art, and music to celebrate diversity and learn more about Fair Trade.  You might have heard me mention Fair Trade before on my blog, and hopefully, you're curious about it.  Fair Trade is an organization through Catholic Relief Services that helps global coffee and chocolate farmers recieve fair wages and working conditions.  Right now, we're really trying to educate the campus about it, and tomorrow we'll be doing it through our big fiesta! We're also dressing up, so tomorrow I'll have a chance to pull out my saree (a traditional Indian outfit) and wear it! :) Two of my friends from Massachussettes and New York are going to come down and visit me on Wednesday, so they can see what my beautiful campus looks like.  We've been hoping to visit with each other for a while.  Aren't they lucky they're friends with a tour guide who can show them around properly?  That's what I'm going to tell them anyways!

This week was made extra special because I hosted a student overnight on Wednesday!  I took her around to all my classes and clubs, etc.  Beth you're awesome! We played a rocking game of Bingo and had a raffle.  Together we went to a WILD (Women in Leadership Development) event and learned all about business etiquette.  We learned how to present ourselves in appropriate business attire and which side of the plate the fork goes on.  We also went to a Mercy presentation about why Sisters of Mercy become sisters and the Mercy Corps Volunteers.  It was pretty interesting and they served some very good pizza, courtesy of Chartwells.  On Saturday I went with Campus Ministry to visit the homeless population on Lakewood.  We delivered coats, clothes, and food that we had collected from the students and faculty and helped to distribute them.  We also had a chance to talk to a few of the people we were trying to help and learned just a little bit about what it means to be homeless.  Today we held an Open House, where prospective and accepted students can come visit the university and meet with the faculty.  Since I'm a Student Ambassador I answered student's questions and gave tours around the campus.  I got a test back, and I did well, which always makes me happy!  I still have two more tests to study for, but only two weeks left to go until Spring Break!  I've had so many papers due in the last two weeks that this break is badly needed!  I have finally firmed up my plans for the break: I'm heading to the Texas-Mexican border for the first half of break, which I already knew.  For the second half, I'm going to be visiting my friends from Bryant University.  I'll finally have a chance to relax and catch up on some sleep for the second half of the break!