On Spring Break!

I am about halfway through my Spring break and have really enjoyed my relaxation time.  I've gotten well over 8 hours of sleep each night and have had a lot of time to journal and blog which is fantastic!  I should actually be working on homework and my Track workouts a lot more though :/ but there's still time for that!  As much as I love being at home, I miss ODU more than I can put into words corny as that sounds.  I wish I had gone on one of the Spring Break trips to Detroit or El Salvador or Columbus to do some service work.  That would have been a much better way to spend my time.  I could've been helping make the world a better place while spending time with ODU folks and growing in my faith and becoming a better person.  One of my favorite friends is on the El Salvador trip and even though I miss him dearly, I am extremely jealous of the experiences he is having over there right now.  I have been following their blog and reading about all the amazing things they're doing and being a part of and it just touches my heart and makes me want to cry, it's so beautiful!  I really wish I had taken advantage now of all the wonderful travel opportunities ODU offers to its students.  If you are a student or are going to be a student, I highly recommend that you at least look into the programs through the International office and see if there are any trips you might be interested in.  And if you want to join me in following the El Salvador trip to learn a little bit more about the mission trip and our students over there now, here's a link to the blog:   http://oduelsalvador.blogspot.com/

bOwl-D-U!

Last night was college bowling night at HP Lanes on Innis.  So a whole group of us from ODU went and bowled for $1 per game, $1 shoe rental, and had some drinks which were a really great deal too!  I was a little sad that it was my first time at a bowling alley since I turned 21 and I couldn't drink with everyone since I gave up alcohol for Lent, but I still had a blast.  Seeing my friends have fun was enough fun for me!  And HP does this every Thursday night I guess, so if you go to college in the Columbus area and ever want to get off campus, it's a really good deal and it's super fun!  I ended up only spending $4.50 after being at the bowling alley for a little over 2 hours.  Not bad. 

Also, Easton Town Center does college ID movie nights on Thursdays and I believe tickets are discounted down to $6.50 instead of the usual $9.50, so that's not a bad deal either if you'd rather see a movie.

Basically, going to college in Columbus, Ohio is awesome!  There is so much to do in the city and there are sweet deals for college students all the time since it is quite a college-town in general.

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.