Lewis University Navigator Blogs

Being in NYC for the holdiays, the next holiday event to look like a tourist was the lighting of the Rockefeller Christmas Tree!! I met up with Stephanie right after work, and we headed downtown to try and get as close to the tree as possible! Arriving at 4:15, and knowing that we would have to wait until 7 for the night to start, we thought we had pretty good spots standing about a block away! Once the program started, a very nice NYPD allowed us to get even closer, thus putting us about 500 feet away from the tree! It was an awesome experience, plus all of the performers, and seeing that tree never gets old to me, it is so beautiful!

Cee-Lo Green

Neil Diamond (this one’s for you mom!)

The Biebs

Michael Buble

Radio City Music Hall Rockettes!!

THE TREE!!

That weekend, I participated in one of the most exciting weekends I’ve had since moving out to New York; Kairos 6 with the Loughlin community of students. Kairos is a spiritual retreat that helps students further find their relationship with God, themselves, and classmates. The weekend was filled with laughter, tears, moments of happiness, and moments of sadness, but all focusing around the same theme of “Discovering who you were, who you are, and who you want to be!” Though a giant lack of sleep, I can honestly say the students went into the retreat with an open-mind and came out with so much more!

This past week, I had Thursday off because of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and man was it needed. I was able to sleep-in until almost noon, and then was able to get the day “started” by going down to the Upper East Side, and walking down 5th Avenue, looking at all of the beautiful Christmas windows on display outside the big name stores (Tiffany & Co., Armani Exchange, Chanel, Burberry, etc.). Stephanie and I walked all the way down until we made it to 34th Street and went inside the ever so famous Macy’s department store and experienced our own “Miracle on 34th Street”. While inside, we browsed for a bit, then went on an excursion to find Santa. After reaching Santaland, we waited patiently with all the children to get our picture taken and then headed back downstairs to drop off our letters to Santa in his special “Macy’s Believe” mailbox!! Reliving the younger years was definitely an added excitement to the beginning of this holiday season!

This past weekend brought lots more holiday activities, including picking out our Christmas tree and hanging up other decorations! I look forward to being home in just a mere 10 days and spending time with my family and friends!

The stockings all hung at Bedford Park Community with care…

Finals week is here and as everyone knows that means that stress levels are high, hours of sleep are low, and anxiety is through the roof. It’s amazing that anyone can survive this awful week, but we do… Somehow. For me, finals are probably the most nerve wracking thing to exist. I mean, a test on something we learned just last week is fine and all… But testing me on stuff from the beginning days of the class and that new material? Now that just isn’t nice!
But one thing I’ve come to appreciate in this stressful time are the study guides. All of my professors told me at the beginning that our finals were cumulative. And as finals week slowly crept up on us, they started telling us that we would have a study guide, and everything on the study guide would be on the final! PLUS some of my professors let us have sheets of paper with equations and formulas, a safety net of sorts for our comfort. And boy do those come in handy! You will be amazed at how small you can write when you have an insane amount of equations to put on one side of a sheet of computer paper. And with those, the cumulative finals aren’t nearly as scary anymore.

A good part of finals week is the teacher’s increased willingness to help you in any way they can. Some will have study sessions before the final, others will extend their office hours. And still some others will answer those late night emails you might send regarding how to work out one of the problems from an old test. The professors here want you to succeed and they are dedicated to helping you in any way possible… Even if that means spending a couple more hours explaining a topic to you or reviewing that old exam that you didn’t do so hot on.

Finally, the library is open 24 hours right now. So this means that (if you’re one of those last minute cram session types of people) you can cram as much knowledge from the semester into an Amp-filled, sleep deprived, and (with the right amount of lack of sleep) hilarious nights with other people from your class. I didn’t have to have one of those sessions this year, but I don’t doubt that I will have one in the future! So when you can’t study in your room because the season finale of your show or the big game is in and your final is over things that you can’t quite remember learning, change the pace and head over to the library! I guarantee you’ll find people in the same scenario as yourself

Well I’m off to go study some more for my last final tomorrow! Hope you all have a safe and wonderful holiday and see you in the new year! -Emily

Just some of the seniors from the Class of 2012 on Spirit Day; we display our Loughlin “L” quite proudly!!

Happy Thanksgiving

My favorite balloon of the whole parade!

SANTA!!

The parade was awesom…this was truly a Thanksgiving to remember!

Live Jesus in our hearts.  FOREVER!

Alright…I know its been forever and a day since I have updated this blog, but after reading all that has been happening, you will understand where I have had no time to update. With the days getting longer and longer (because of sunlight, or lack there of…), I have been getting more and more tired when the work day is complete. It was told to me when I arrived that you are not a true New Yorker until you are able to fall asleep on the subway, and wake-up either before or just as the train is pulling into your stop. Thankfully, it has taken me many train rides and countless times sleeping through my stops to finally be able to call myself a true New Yorker, and wake myself up the stop before I have to get off the train!! In my book, that is a huge accomplishment!! .

Now, onto all the exciting things that have held me back from updating (please bear with the short novel you are about to enjoy):

When we last left off, I had just completed running a half-marathon! It is still hard for me to believe some days that I actually still completed it, and sometimes wonder if I just dreamt it, but then see my medal and race number, and realize I didn’t. With the fun had that weekend, I wasn’t sure how it could get any better, but the following weekend proved it would! I made a surprise return trip to good ol’ Romeoville, IL to visit some friends and share in some wonderful experiences shared by others. . I was so excited to be able to pull off such a huge surprise, and I am pretty sure I can vouch for my friends that it was just as exciting. I never imagined how much I would miss people until I moved away and was able to return! Though the weekend was extremely short, I loved and soaked in every minute of it!

It was then back to New York to begin another week at work but one that proved to be nothing less than exciting. I received a text on Monday morning from my boss alerting me she would be staying home with her daughter who was sick. I immediately became nervous and anxious for work that day because I would be in the office by myself hoping nothing would go wrong. One day turned to two and then three. I can honestly say I learned that I am an extreme people person from this experience; I began to turn on music in the office, look at pictures of friends on facebook, just to remember what it was like to be around people! It’s sad to admit, but honestly, there’s no surprise in knowing I need to be around people and their high energy!

Though it was different being in the office by myself, I was also able to learn a lot about my responsibility and ability to create tasks for myself when someone is not present. I also got the experience of running one of our freshman retreats all by myself (with the teacher and 2 guidance counselors in the room…). Needless to say, that retreat will forever live in my mind, as a good (and bad) experience!

The week was short, having Friday off for Veteran’s Day, yet I went into work late morning for our Lasallian Youth day retreat! This retreat was planned by our Exec. Board Senior students on Lasallian Youth for the rest of the LY students. This year’s theme focused around the idea of cyber-bullying. As all participants learned, cyber-bulling is an up-and-coming force that is destroying the lives of so many young middle and high school students. I believe the students did a fantastic job planning and executing the retreat, and for once, it was nice to be a participant vs. leader.

As the days were growing closer and closer to Thanksgiving, Bishop Loughlin’s Canned Food Drive was getting closer and closer to ending. As you well know by now, the house system at Loughlin is central to all activities/competitions we partake in throughout the school day. I believe the canned food drive is one of the two largest competitions (aside from the Penny Drive). This year, we set a goal, hoping to beat last year’s total of 4,000-ish non-perishable food items. Now, if you are asking yourself why it’s called a CANNED food drive, yet other food was donated, that’s a good question. After last year’s drive, the food pantry we donated to got an infestation of pantry moths and had to close down. All of the food found in boxes/bags had to be thrown away, and thus causing the pantry to no longer accept ANY food donations. The thought of not providing meals to needy families during the holidays was heart-breaking, and the pantry began to accept donations again from us under one condition; ONLY CANNED ITEMS WOULD BE ACCEPTED! This put a lot of pressure onto the school for breaking last year’s record, but the students rose to the challenge.

The total number of cans brought in this year was 3,126. Though knowing this is less than last year’s, we took into consideration the fact that almost 25% of last year’s donated items were Ramon and packages of boxed noodle meals. For my first year running a canned food drive, and I was very please with the students full participation!   As a part of the food display above, we had a giant revealing to the school at our Thanksgiving Assembly.

Well as we all know the semester is just about through. Classes are winding down and winter break is near. With the library open 24/7, a good number of my friends are looking a little sleep deprived. This semester it looks like the finals won’t be too rough.   The only one I am really concerned with is Instrument Ground School. It is pretty exciting though how the classes are slowing down. Today being Thursday, I only have 3 classes Tomorrow: Intro to Human Communication, which there is a presentation from a group speaking, Flight lab (when I go flying) which I thoroughly enjoy, so it doesn’t feel like a class, and Air Transportation, which I have a final in. Needless to say, Winter Break is  upon us!

With winter break almost here, all of my friends are talking and making plans for winter break. It’s real exciting to hear from friends who go to other schools. Thanksgiving break offers a taste of what’s to come for winter break, and it’s not that I have huge plans for break, it’s just going to be exciting not having to worry about studying for that test coming up or writing that essay.

Anyway, I have some Instrument coursework to study so take it easy all!

Hello Again,

The semester is finally just about over and finals are set to begin in just 1 week, oh the excitement. Fortunately for me I only have 1 test on Monday and I think I’m done right after that. My next week and a half won’t be as hectic as some of my fellow peers, and the studying will be not as bad. I will be going home to the beautiful Bay Area, California, on the 21st after an extended visit in Illinois/ Ohio. For this I can’t wait another minute. There won’t be any sunshine back in Cali. most likely, but there’s no place like home.

These last 4 or so months have been an adventure since the very start and it only contributes to the great memories at Lewis. It’s always difficult to leave the friends you’ve made, although only for about a month. The New Year should bring some pretty chill stuff; 5 business classes await me with a full 18 credit hour schedule. It shouldn’t be too bad and I figure since they aren’t general education classes, I’m set up for success!

Well it has been great telling you all about my first semester sophomore year, and I look forward to telling you more about my second semester. Until then, Happy Holidays, oh and Happy Studying!

I can’t believe we are down to the last few weeks of the semester! This past week has been anything but relaxing.

The common phrases of the week? “I don’t have time to do all of this!” “The project is due when?!” “I guess me and my bed aren’t hanging out tonight.” “I’m going to lose my mind” From now until the end of the semester, I have something due every single day. And it’s not really small, busywork assignments either. Suddenly, big projects that professors forgot to assign at the beginning of the semester are showing up and due soon! As a college student, it’s really common to feel stressed and overwhelmed by the time the holidays roll around. It’s like a seasonal change; everything is calm, and one the weather starts getting gross, the work starts piling on. The best way to keep everything in order AND remain calm? Two words: TIME MANAGEMENT. (or DAILY PLANNER. that one works too for me )

Managing time and breaking big projects down into smaller pieces makes everything better. The huge, terrifying projects suddenly don’t look nearly as bad when you only have to do one or two pages of a paper or a slide or two in a Powerpoint presentation. Over time, the project gets done, and you keep your sanity!

And with finals coming up so soon, studying has become my new hobby. The super study has started in the library, and I can guarantee you that I will probably be there until the early hours of the morning, studying and reviewing information I learned at the beginning of the semester (which I might not be able to remember at this moment….). Take advantage of the library, it’s every college student’s best friend.

Well, I’m off to study! See you again soon!