Hello Readers!

It’s been a rather great week. The weather’s been nice and sunny. I’ve had class outside twice, I’m not even mad that I’m having one of my classes that usually a two day a week class three times this week. We had our end of the year party for The Patriot this afternoon at the park.

It’s been a pretty swell week so far. I’ve went almost two weeks without skipping a class (:P), which this late in the game is something I call a success and knocking out assignments left and right and keep on I’m continuing to strive on finishing the semester strong.

With all that being said I don’t have a huge blog for you guys this week but I wanted to leave you with a tip. Surround yourself with the right people and a nice variety of people. Trust me, you’ll get worn out real quick hanging out with the same bunch all the time. Be around people who want good things for themselves and you. I know it may seem hard to find, but look to the person who should be your dearest and closest friend to talk to about it – God. If I’ve learned anything from UC  and my UC family, it’s to be patient with him and I’m sure he’ll give you the answers, people, strength and courage you need.

Thanks for reading!

-Tasha

Hello readers!

It’s actually starting to look a lot like Spring across campus. Cherry blossom trees are in full bloom, fresh foul-smelling mulch has been planted and they’ve even filled the fountain up with water again (though it’s not been turned on completely it have water sitting in it).

The countdown to Summer break has started. We have four weeks to go and after Friday it will be only three! My favorite parts of college has been the calender structure of it, my siblings just had their spring break this week and have two months of school left while I’ve got less than a month. I get out a month earlier and start school about three weeks after they do – Ahh it’s victorious!

So I’ve been making list of my final projects and assignments, counting the days and registering for classes, even reserved my dorm for next year! I’ll be living in Asher Hall in a suite with my new roommate though my two roommates will be next door in the room beside me. I’m pretty excited for next year but I’m even more excited for a break from school.

But I can already tell I’m gonna miss campus sooooo much this summer.

- Tasha

Hey ya there.

This week’s blog is about something I’ve been wanting to write about for a while but never got around to. So, ya know how you hear about haunted buildings and college’s often have myths of haunted dormitories? Well guess what? UC does too. Some of you may have even heard of our Gillespie Ghost already. But if you haven’t, you’re in luck because I happen to live in Gillespie Hall.

Now I should give you some back story first, Gillespie Hall is a girls dormitory that houses freshmen girls, with the exception of the RA’s and RD (Resident assistants and Resident Director), other than that it’s all freshmen. The building itself is one of the oldest buildings on campus – I believe it’s the second oldest one. The only one older than it is Moss Hall, which was orginally the college itself back when it was called the Williamsburg Institute. Gillespie was built in 1894 and was a originally a mansion! It has been renovated many times in the past years and used to be called Johnson Hall.

During my summer orientation insights session, a student told us about the supposed ghost that lives on the 3rd floor of the dorm. The story has it that back in the sixties a girl named Henrietta got pregnant and was dumped by her boyfriend so she hung herself in her room. They say her spirit lingers to cause trouble for the girls of Gillespie and she has been known to throw away gifts from from boyfriends or hide engagement/promise rings because she is bitter. Even if you believe this story is phony, the unmarked , door-knob-less , padlocked door on the third floor doesn’t help rumors.

Now the response I’ve noticed from my fellow freshmen classmates is a mixed. I know some girls who live on the 3rd floor, beside or right underneath her room say they haven’t had any weird events happen to them to give them any reason to believe the dorm is haunted.

But then you have people living on the second floor, such as myself who have had a number of strange things happen to them over the school year.I personally have seen my fan turn off then back on for no reason what so ever, my closet dorm has opened several time with neither me or my roommates opening it, my fan was sitting on the chest beside my desk and somehow fell over onto me one day, music coming from nowhere playing in the middle of the night that gets louder and quieter but is definitely coming from somewhere inside our room. The creepiest of my personal experiences have to be the night I had a dream that somebody kept writing the same scribble on my notebook, I couldn’t see the face but I keep erasing and trying to make them stop to which they never did. The next morning both of my roommates and I found the same scribble written on our marker board and once again none of us had put it on there. There have been other stories from people living on the second floor, the girls that live down the hall from us came back one weekend to a broken mirror that was laying in a completely different way than it should have been, had it fallen off the wall. That has actually happened several times.

Believe what you want – I moved into Gillespie knowing the story, but not really believing it and honestly after living here, I can’t deny that some strange things happen in these halls! If you want more information, a few years back some students made a documentary on the ghost, Henrietta. Check it out if you want to know. Don’t let any of this scare you, though! I’ve never been spooked out enough for it to really bother me, but it sure does give me some good stories to tell when I go home !

-Tasha

Hello!

Spring Break is over, the first day of Spring is here and preparations for next semester have begun. So far this week I have met with my advisor to plan out my (tentative) schedule for next year. I’m pretty excited about it, even though I’ll be in class on Tuesdays/ Thursdays from pretty much 12-4:30, I won’t have class on Fridays which will give me time to work on the newspaper and catch up on homework on those days which I think will be nice.

Tomorrow I plan on being up at the crack of dawn to go wait in line for room reservations for next year. Apparently people line up super early for this to make sure they get their choice of the best dorms/rooms. I was advised to show up around 8 a.m. since my first class starts at 10:50 on Thursdays.

As exciting as planning for next year is, getting back in to the flow of school and homework after a week off has been a little tough. However, it hasn’t been so bad and the weather’s warming up outside so here’s to a great rest of the week!

-Tasha

Hey there!

Spring Break is finally here and I am finally finished with all my classes that I had to take incompletes for last semester. I passed all my classes from last semester and got my midterm grades in, everything looked really good except for one class which I’ve spoken to the professor of that class and explained how tied up I had been finishing up assignments from last semester and she assured me I had plenty of opportunities to turn that grade around.

So this break from school has been very much needed as well as enjoyable now that I’ve got all that out of the way. Since I had to take all I’s during the last week of classes last semester due to the extreme family crisis, I got put on academic probation due to my GPA being a 0, because I’s are equivalents to F’s. My GPA is now high enough to get that probation revoked (even though they won’t till the end of the semester when they review all enrolled students GPA’s). Having that all finished and behind me is such a huge relief, now that I have 8 weeks left of my freshmen year. Last week I turned in my last article for the paper’s last issue, and now that I’ve got that knocked out I’m looking forward to doing plenty of layout and more management in the office for this last issue. These last two months are looking both promising and enjoyable .

It’s insane to believe how fast this school year has gone by, yet so much has happened in that time. I’ve changed so much and I don’t even really notice how much I’ve changed till I’m back in my hometown talking with old friends that I notice the difference within myself. Moving away to college has definitely been a changing and growing experience that has been awesome! Even though I’m excited for summer break I’m sure I’ll miss freshman year. I look forward to learning more and more from my professors and student body around me.

I hope your spring is starting as smoothly as mine.

-Tasha

Hello Readers.

It has been a rough couple of weeks. I’ve had a hardy amount of homework, exams, and clumsiness and this crazy weather hasn’t helped a thing.

In the past week we’ve had nice breezy sunshine, super windy rain storms and last night we had snow, some of which that is still on the ground along with a wintry mix coming down on us.

This week has pretty much been crunch time for last minute assignments in before everybody leaves for a week! It’s Wednesday and I only have one class left, my 10:50 on Thursday. You may think I’m getting off easy but, I still have an exam, an 8-page paper due Thursday afternoon (8 page is the minimum you can have), a 2-page paper due before 2:00 p.m. on Friday and I have an article to read and some questions to answer Thursday morning before I’m officially on Spring Break. So it’s not as simple as it sounds.

My article for the last issue of the year was due this week and we got March’s issue in and I’m really happy and excited with the turnout. I’m approximately 48 hours away from 3/4 of my freshmen year of college being over. It’s so hard to believe and though I look forward to summer vacation now, its gonna be really weird moving out for the summer. I’ve become so accustomed to life here and being away from my roommates and coworkers that not seeing them every day is gonna be kinda sad.

For you readers that are still in high school or even just a couple months from graduation, make sure you use the time you have, even if you don’t have much time left. Once it’s gone it’s not coming back. So don’t let it pass you by!

I wish you all the best!

- Tasha

Hello again.

Campus is buzzing! It’s midterm week along with The Spotlight becoming more and more competitive with every round. The Spotlight’s a singing competition that happens during the spring semester. This is the first year with its new name, in previous years the competition was called Cumberland Idol. It’s really interesting and fun, getting to see people you know and see everyday show off talents you might not of otherwise known of. It has a panel of UC faculty and staff as the judges. It’s a lot of fun watching and definitely makes your twitter feed a little louder. I didn’t go watch the first round but I had an idea of what was going on because everyone tweeted about it online.

Now back to the important topic – Midterms. Midterms are this week and its actually been pretty laid back and chill, which is great considering I’m in the process of finishing up my last class from last semester that I had to take an “Incomplete” for. But so far my grades look good, except for one class that was a little disappointing but I know I can turn things around. I just gotta make a little more time to apply myself for that course more.

Though I must admit, it’s quite hard to stay focused when Spring Break is so close, yet so far away. It’s not like in high school where you can just force yourself to get past so many days till you get a rewarding break. With the anticipation of that break, you know you have plenty of hard work keeping you from it. But it’s always rewarding in the end to know you did the best you could do.

Now I must get back to the super fast pace. I wish all of you seniors making your preparations for College luck and thanks for reading.

-Tasha

Hello readers. I have been super busy (and super sick) lately so I’ve been wondering how to give you the best blog possible without blabbering too much about how stressed I’ve been lately. I also take a bunch of pictures that hardly ever make it into my blogs because of no relevance… So I decided I would do a photo post so you U can C what my life sometimes consists of. (The fun stuff, aside from all the homework and class stuff )

Hello again.

For all my high school senior readers I imagine you’re as busy as I am these days. You’re at a very exciting time in your life. You have the world in front of you. But before you get super excited over prom and senior trip and graduation, make sure your taking the time to invest and get answers about your future.

So today I’ve decided to make a list of questions that you should be asking about what college you are planing to go to.

Question 1:

What majors do they offer that you are interested in?

If you go to a school that doesn’t even offer the education you will need to make a career out of, then you’re wasting everyone’s time and money.

Question 2:

Tuition price? And to go along with this question, what scholarships or grants do you offer and how much of your student population receives financial aid?

These are super important and don’t get freaked out when you hear the tuition price – trust me it will be high no matter where you go. But many schools including UC have great scholarship opportunities or grants available to help students pay for school.

Most of their scholarships/grants you will hear about when you get your award letter after filing your FAFSA. If you didn’t put the school you are interested in on your FAFSA, you need to speak with somebody in Financial Aid right away about getting that fixed.

Question 3:

Residential campus? What are there rules or policies?

Make sure the environment will be safe and secure for the best educational experience possible.

Question 4:

Do want to live on campus – or ask about commuting policies?

You’re gonna want to know things such as where you can and can’t park on campus and how close will it be to your classes and other guidelines you may have to follow.

Question 5:

Student population?

How big will your school be? Will you get caught up in the huge crowd, or would a bigger school be your preference? Trust me these things matter!

Question 6:

Classroom size?

How many students will you be put in a class with? Will it be hard to get assistance if you need help or get lost on something? Make sure you ask.

Good Luck

-Tasha

Hello reader!

The title in this blog is a phrase that has seem to be slapping me in the face this week. It’s been a rough week. So much to do and I have to finish my last two classes of last semester that I had to take incompletes for. It’s a tad overwhelming so instead of rambling I’m just gonna tell you some goods and bads of this college students life this week!

Good:

Only having 1 class Wednesday due to Junior standardized testing, and the class at 1 so I got to sleep in!

Bad:

I couldn’t sleep very well

Good:

I was given a key to the office! Meaning if there’s something I need to work on I can come in after everybody else leaves and locks up.

Bad:

My coworkers and I stayed until well after 11:00 Tuesday night to work on layout and had leave around 11:30 because it was time for the building to close!

And I had to run down this creepy hallway to clock out.

Bad:

Having a math test first thing Monday morning!

Good:

Believing I did pretty well on it and not having homework that night!

Good:

Having plenty of time to get ready in the morning.

Bad:

……and still almost being late.

Oh and The Patriot got some big news recently.

We are now an award winning newspaper

and another random picture from work!

Interview ready!

Hope you and enjoyed and the next Campus Discovery Day is in a couple weeks , you can reserve your spot here : http://www.ucumberlands.edu/admissions/discovery/ .

The bloggers will have a booth at this one just like we did the previous, so if you’re reading this and you come, make sure to stop by and say hi – we’ll have candy!

-Tasha