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