VideODU

So ODU has had some less-than-favorable commercials made in the last year or so.  They got a lot of negative feedback from current students and this eventually lead to an initiative to get more input from students and faculty.  After many meetings and surveys and conversations, etc., Student Senate ended up hosting the very first VideODU film festival this year.  ODU students and staff were able to make videos to compete for prizes and a film festival was held to show all of the videos.  I made a video just as filler and it got 8th place out of 8 submissions haha, but here are some of my favorite videos that were entered: :)

I'm a Senior and I still LOVE ODU A LOT! :)

I can't believe it's more than 25% into my senior year!  I am not ready to graduate!  The thought is so sad and scary!  I have had such an awesome experience at ODU and everyday, it just gets better and better and more and more I am grateful for my education and relationships I have here.  I can't imagine life anywhere else.  Ohio Dominican has definitely become my home.  I keep joking about just not graduating, because leaving makes me too sad.  But don't worry, I am not that financially irresponsible :P.  I am really hoping to at least stay in the Columbus area so that I can visit ODU often even after I graduate.  The DREAM though is to eventually end up back here working in Admissions or maybe even as a professor of Theology somewhere very far down the line :). 
I feel like ODU just gets better and better every year!  And I do not want to miss seeing it as it grows into an ever greater university!  And I am not even paid anymore to write these blogs, so this is all me on my own time speaking right from my heart :). 
I feel bad that I haven't written in a while, but I have been super busy!  This year, I am working as a student ambassador and a phonathon caller again, but I am also an RA which is very time-consuming.  Also, the 3-credit switch has left me with a lot of homework and little free time :(.  I am also walking onto the track team with my sister who I managed to recruit here with my sweet ambassador skills :).  I am also trying to be more involved on campus in general and I am trying to spend as much time with friends as possible before we all go our separate ways in May :(.  Tonight, I am going to One Gospel at OSU through SPO and I am so excited to see a lot of my friends who have graduated or go to OSU or just live off campus.  We all might also go bowling afterward which might be fun!  Oh, I actually need to go get ready, because that is happening in 20 minutes haha.  But thanks for reading!  I love you! :)

You can still see my old ODU blog posts!

To see the blogs that I was paid to write last semester, you can click on this link! 

lainey's professional blog

I was really excited to find that it is still hidden in the internet somewhere even though there is no way to find it on ODU's new revamped website.

What's Good for the Goose is Good for the Panther

So I just wanted to give a mini shout-out to the adorable geese that have been hanging around ODU's campus for the month or so.  I keep seeing them while I'm on tour and they seem to really enjoy hanging around Sansbury Hall where I work and will be an RA next year! (Also where our main chapel, Christ the King, is!)  Today though, as I was walking to the library, one was sleeping while the other was walking around the sleeping one honking.  In my mind, my first assumption was that the one sleeping was a female and the one honking was her lover making sure she was able to sleep safely while he protected her with intimidating honks circling her little napping spot in the grass. My boyfriend who is an avid bird watcher was with me, and he assured me that I was probably right.  I asked if geese mate for life and he said they almost always do.  It always makes me so happy  when animals have life mates, because it makes all the more sense then for us humans to devote ourselves entirely to one person for the rest of our lives.  It was just a really beautiful moment I had thinking about how wonderful these geese are to each other and how much better we would all be if we treated each other like geese lovers do.  I hope that I am able to find a good husband who will protect me even if it means walking around in the rain and circling me while I sleep in the grass at ODU and honking at potential predators :)

Busy Busy Busy

One of the perks of living on campus at ODU is that there is a variety of jobs for students right here on campus.  One can get job placement through financial aid rewards or get a regular job through various departments on campus.  I have taken advantage of these opportunities to both my delight and displeasure.  For whatever reason, I decided that having two jobs at the same time on top of being a full-time student was a great idea.  I slowly learned that though it is great for my bank account, it is not fun at all.

I originally started my freshman year with a seasonal job working 2-4 nights a week for only a few weeks each semester as a Phonathon caller.  This was not a difficult job or a time- consuming one at that, so it was a perfect job for my freshman year.  Then, my sophomore year, I decided to take on a job that would last the entire school year, so that my paydays would be more frequent and thus, my financial situation more stable.  I got a job working at the Information Desk in our Student Center through Financial Aid in the Work Study program.  I made a little more than minimum wage and my boss was very laid back.  I was only scheduled to work 3 times a week for 2-3 hours at a time.  It was a nice and easy job though it did get really boring, but it was nice being able to basically get paid for sitting at a desk and just working on school work while I waited to assist visitors to our Student Center.

At the end of my Sophomore year, the school got rid of the Concierge position in the Student Center and so my boss offered me a job as an ambassador which would still be through the Admissions department and could still qualify as a work-study position and would pay a little more money as a level 3 position.  I was hired as soon as I said 'yes' without applying or anything.  My boss also encourage me to apply to be a student blogger which I did and so again, I had two jobs, but these two jobs required a lot more of me than the phonathon and information desk.  I had to be trained for both and they each required a tight shedule and a lot of  committment.  It was a good way to start off my Junior year though.  It kept me busy so I wasn't bored and helped me prepare for the kinds of jobs I might have when I graduate and go out into the real world.

The blogger position was eliminated after only one semester of me working as a blogger.  I was worried that I wouldn't be making as much money as I had gotten used to with two pretty well-paying jobs, so I applied at the library and got that position, but for the first time, I was not working between 2 and 4 days a week varying by week, but rather, I was working every single morning Monday-Friday for the entire semester.  It was the shift the library most desperately needed a worker for and I would be getting a decent amount of hours, so I took it in addition to my ambassador position and since they are both level 3 jobs, I am making a really decent amount of  money, but I am exhausted from working so often without any large amount of time in between to recooperate.  At least my Saturday class is over now and tomorrow is the last Visitation Day of the year, so I will have my Saturdays free to rest now and my Cofirmation class should be over after Sunday, so my Sundays will be freed up pretty soon as well which will be a big help especially when finals roll around in just a month and a half!

I think that having a job and pushing yourself to build a good work ethic and self-motivation is a really big part of growing up and I think college is a great time to begin working on skills like this that will help you in the future especially in your career.  ODU definitely makes it easy for students to find their own spot in the workplace right here on campus.  I think every student should try to take advantage of the good fortune of ODU and make that transition into the workforce right here on campus if possible, but remember not to overwork yourself or take on more than you can handle.

Lent

Well, Ash Wednesday is tomorrow.  It's weird that Lent and Easter are so late this year, but yet, they still manage to sneak up on me.  It's weird having Ash Wednesday be during Spring Break.  I also completely forgot about Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday which is fine, because I am super sick anyway and probably would not have been up for too much fattening up haha.  Apparently, Ash Wednesday is not a holy day of obligation in the Catholic Church.  It is a Mass more heavily attended by Catholics than Christmas Mass though which is very odd.  I'd still like to make it to Mass tomorrow, but I am glad it is not an obligation day since it is very hard for me to get to Mass when I'm at home and there isn't a chapel conveniently located across the parking lot from me. 

I still haven't finalized my lenten promises for this year, but after viewing my bank statement tonight, I think I'm definitely going to cut back on personal spending for Lent and try not to buy myself anything I don't need for a while since I just took myself out on a hundred dollar shopping spree which was a terrible decision.  Luckily, I get paid Friday and I don't think I should be needing to buy much for a while.  I also think it would be great to dedicate some extra time to prayer since I am in preparation for getting confirmed and I think prayer would definitely help me in readying myself to receive this sacrament.  In addition to prayer, I think I'm also going to try to study the lives of some saints to help me in choosing a name to be my confirmation name.

 Last year, I also made myself read some amount of Bible verses each day for Lent and I think that was a really great idea, so I may try doing that again this year.  I usually try to do some combination of things to help myself in my faith life, so hopefully, I'll find a good mix of things to give up and take on this lenten season.  I thought about giving up facebook like many of my peers, but I tried that last year and it was rough at first, but by the end of Lent, I didn't really miss it and now, I can go days without checking my facebook, so I feel like giving it up wouldn't do much for me at this point in my life.  I will probably also force myself to write or blog every day during Lent just because it is something I want to do more of and just haven't gotten myself to make a habit of yet, so hopefully, these next 40 days will be filled with more blog posts for you all to read! 

If anyone has any good ideas that maybe you've tried in the past or are doing this year for Lent that you'd like to share, I'd love to hear suggestions or just help you stay accountable during this Lenten season.  Good luck and God bless!

Little Sibs Weekend 2011

       As some of you may have noticed, I was able to finally cross out one of my goals for this semester: to have my little siblings come to ODU for Little Sibs Weekend!  It was even more fun than I imagined it would be.  I am so very blessed to have such wonderful little siblings!  I was more than excited to show off my sweet little sibs to all of my friends :) and everyone seemed to love them as much as I do!  My little sister (who is 7) made so many new friends and she was so excited to go home and tell everyone how awesome her weekend with her favorite sister was! 
      For those of you readers who are not familiar with ODU's Little Sibs Weekend, I am very happy to tell you all about it.  In a nutshell, this is a weekend where students get to have their little siblings stay in the dorms with them and participate in a bunch of different and fun activities around campus including an indoor carnival, a movie night, a pancake breakfast, and many other super fun events.  Every year, there are different events and everyone seems to have a lot of fun.
      This year was my first Little Sibs Weekend on campus, so I was really excited that my siblings were able to come down for it.  This year, Student Activities had a Kinect video game session right after registration followed by a Karaoke night the first night.  Then, on Saturday, Little Sibs were invited to go see a Children's musician, but since I was in class, one of my wonderful suitemates took my sibs with hers to see the musician and apparently, they loved it!  After that, I had my siblings come to my class to meet my teacher and have some snacks at our last day of class party.  Sister Fatula was so happy to have them!  Then, we all went to lunch together and headed to the Carnival in the student center.  The carnival was probably the best part of the whole weekend especially for the kids.  There was so much free stuff!  My brother must have eaten at least 4 or 5 cotton candys!  They had face-painting, an inflatable obstacle course, balloon animals, sand art, decorate-yourself cookies and coffee mugs, free popcorn, candy jewelry making, a raffle, cupcakes, musical chairs, snow cones, a caricature artist, and a free photo booth!  My little sister won a huge pack of plato in the raffle and I won a shirt that I gave to my 17yearold sister who didn't make it to ODU this weekend since she had work and a test and whatnot.
     There was also an ice cream social, a comedic juggler, and a movie night.  We ended up watching a movie in my friend Katie's room though instead of going to the official movie night, but we did get to see the juggler and he was really talented and hilarious!  My little siblings definitely loved his act a lot!  My sister even got to go up and perform a trick with him!
      Even though it was really exhausting babysitting for an entire weekend, I was really happy to get to see my siblings and I had a lot of fun with them.  I am really glad that ODU has such fun events for our wonderful little sibs and I cannot wait for next year!  :)

March for Life

Last weekend, I went on my second March for Life trip with ODU.  It was a lot more relaxing than it was last year, because I've already done it before, so I wasn't as obsessed with making sure I got to see every building in D.C.  I am sad that I didn't take as many pictures since I was so cold and tired most of the trip.  It was still a really awesome experience though. 

We stayed at a high school in Maryland near Washington DC again sleeping on the floors of the teachers' conference rooms.  Girls were in one room and boys in the other.  It was like a 40person slumber party and it was awesome.  I made some really great memories and met some new friends and got to grow closer with my friend Alli as we shared late night pillow talk underneath some tables. 

The first night (Saturday) we just stayed at the high school, ate, got ready for bed, hung out, played card games, etc.  I played my first game of Go Ninja Go and did not get out on the first round as I had expected! 

The second day (Sunday) was dedicated to exploring the Washington DC area.  We began our day by attending mass at the National Shrine (Basilica).  It is a beautiful church and I strongly encourage anyone who is planning to be in the Washington DC area to try and at least spend a half hour there.  It really is an amazing place.  After mass, we split up into small groups and took the metro into town.  Our group stopped by the Catholic University of America's center for Dominican studies first (being the great little Dominicans we are) and our friend Nicole who spent a year in Nashville with some sisters during her discernment process got to meet up with some of those sisters again at the university!  We took some pretty awesome pictures in front of the building with our group which I will add once I am in my room and have access to my pictures, but I am currently writing this from ODU's wonderful library where I spend most of my days :)

My boyfriend, James, and I split from the group and got me some coffee at Union Station (the mall) before site-seeing and spent most of our site-seeing time in museums.  The Smithsonian museums are amazing!  There is some really neat stuff in those buildings.  I actually learned a lot about some pretty random things during our visit!  We also finally got to see the Lincoln Memorial which is much bigger in person than I imagined!  It reminded me a lot of the scene in Disney's Hercules where Hercules goes to the temple of Zeus.  That was the first thing I thought of when we walked up the stairs and then, the Hercules song got stuck in my head. 

Once we got back to the high school, we had some more hanging out time and pizza.  I also finally got a picture with my friend Amber with whom I had no pictures until that very night.  Then, I was asked to walk on multiple backs and heard plenty of cracks and only wished I had had someone there willing to walk on my back :(

The last day was the day of the march (Monday).  My day began at 3am as I volunteered for the hour between 3 and 4am for Eucharistic adoration.  It was a very peaceful place to be at 3 in the morning after only getting 2 hours of sleep.  Being up early did give me an advantage as I was able to beat everyone to the one shower that all of us girls had to share :).  We had a quick breakfast and got to the armory around 7am for a concert/rally/mass.  It was pretty intense.  There were about 10, 000 people (mostly youths) in the room where we were and another 10- 20 thousand in the Verizon Center next to us.  We were there for quite some time, but it was really awesome to see so many teenagers and college students as well as seminarians and women religious all in the same room advocating the same cause.  I am usually not a huge fan of this sort of gathering, but it was a very moving experience especially the procession of all of the priests, bishops, and archbishops who celebrated the mass. 

I am sad to say that I did not participate in the march for very long as it was very cold and we were not allowed to march for some reason for a while.  We ended up standing on the sidewalk waiting to march until we met up with my friend Alli and her boyfriend Eric and then, we decided to just walk up the sidewalk and try and find out what was going on and we ended up just walking to the supreme court house which was a very short walk from where we were standing and once we got there, we found out we weren't actually even in the real march and were asked to make room for the marchers.  Then, we just went to Union Station again and I got coffee and we all got Chipotle for dinner as we waited for the rest of our group to get there to prepare to depart back to Columbus.

We ended up not getting home until almost 3am and I was amazed to find that almost everyone still got up for their classes the next morning (some for classes at 8am!).  We have some pretty awesome people at ODU and I am really lucky to be a part of this community and to have gotten the chance to go on this March for Life trip again this year.

Beginning of a New Year

It is the official first day of classes for most full time students at ODU.  My roommate and I are taking a Saturday class this year though which started a few days ago, so we had class before many of our fellow peers.  This is the first weekend class I have taken, so it's a very new experience for me especially going from class only 4 days a week to 6.  The class is about 4 hours long and meets every Saturday for the first 8 or 9 weeks of the semester, so it's a long class, but it is a fast way to get four of the credits I need for my major.  In the long run, I think it'll be a smart decision on my part.  In the short run, I am going to regret this decision every Saturday I have to wake up at 6am.
To be honest, I am not as excited about this semester as I would like to be.  On top of taking classes 6 days a week, I also work 3 days a week and I am applying for a second job as well since the blogger job has been eliminated, and I might even consider a third job depending on how the beginning of the semester goes.  I really want to be more involved and improve on my work ethic and time management though and I think that I can handle a lot on my plate right now.  I don't want to waste my time at ODU.  I really want to let this time prepare me for life after college in every way.  Ohio Dominican is all about guiding and helping students in every aspect of their lives (spiritually, mentally, physically, socially, academically, etc.) and I have slowly come to the realization that I need to take full advantage of all this school has to offer!
So this semester is definitely going to be tough, but if I can make it through and accomplish all the goals, I know I will come out a better person for it and that will be worth it!  I just pray that I have the motivation to stick with it and give this semester my all!
Some pseudo-goals I have for this semester are:
to get my temps and eventually my driver's license and a car
to get at least 2 As and nothing lower than a B in my classes
to blog, journal, or write down my thoughts in some way shape or form at least once a week
to go to the school chapel for quiet prayer and reflection time at least once a week
to get confirmed
to have my siblings attend Little Sibs weekend
to be ambassador of the month at least once
to start working out on a regular basis (I haven't decided how often it's going to be and how it will fit in my schedule)
I am sure there are more goals to come which I may add later.  For now though, those will be my main focus for the semester to help me in all aspects of my life at ODU.
Hopefully, this will be a good semester! :)
For those of you who have not read my blog before, or would simply like to read more about me and ODU from my old school blog, the link is here.  I don't know how long those blogs will be up though before the website is completely re-vamped, so I will probably post those on here later just for some background and to help you all get to know me and the school better.
I hope everyone is enjoying the New Year so far and let's all pray 2011 is a good year for everyone!