Search results matching tags 'Greek life' and 'homework'

Race to the finish

ChristinaL — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 20:34:00 GMT

Hello everyone! What a CRAZY week it has been... I have alternated between nights of almost no sleep, trying to meet deadlines, and then nights when I slept for nine or even eleven hours straight, trying to catch up.

Here's is what's keeping me busy:

1) Course scheduling: I think this actually gets harder as an upperclassmen when I get to register first! The reason? SO many upper level classes are in the late afternoon/at night. Great for sleeping in. Not great for the fact that they overlap and I have to make tough choices about what to take.

As of right now, I am signed up for Philosophy of Feminism (requirement for my Gender Studies minor), American Women's Writing (my research seminar for English Lit), Hispanic Masterpieces (300-level survey course for my Spanish major) and Media & Cultural Criticism (will count for Gender Studies... but I'm mostly taking it because this is something I can see myself using in my writing career. For example, last night I went to a play downtown and I'm working on a review for it for my NUVO internship right now).

I know that's not a lot of classes (only 12 credit hours), but I can also get 3 credit hours for writing my honors thesis. I think it will be a good idea to block aside that time so I don't get too stressed writing my thesis! There is also a program I am considering where I could be a "writing fellow" and assist a professor with teaching their First Year Seminar class (part of the core curriculum) and help out the first year students with adapting to college writing. I already do this for my job as a Writer's Studio tutor, but it would be nice to get some classroom experience in case I decide to go to grad school and have to teach undergrads.

2) Volunteer work: takes up time... but is definitely the stress relief in my busy schedule.

For my Panhel position, I have been advising a group of new sorority members from all the houses called Junior Panhel. They have been hard at work planning a week of service projects and they went so well. We focused on helping different groups - on "Animal Day," sorority members went to the Humane Society and Animal Care & Control. On "Elderly Day" we went to nursing homes, and on "Kids Day" we went to after school programs. I volunteered for one of the nursing home projects and it was SO much fun! We did a craft with some elderly ladies and got to talk with them. They really love having activities scheduled in their days, and I like getting advice from people who have seen it all. My craft buddy, Pat, wants to tell all the women out there that it is VERY important to get a job with your own benefits - don't rely on a husband's benefits to support you in your retirement. Good advice! It was also so much fun to meet some Greek women from other sororities that I didn't know before. It was awesome that we could all come together and make new friends while supporting a great cause. Snaps to the freshman women who planned these excellent opportunities!

On Friday, several brothers from my band fraternity, Kappa Kappa Psi, spent the evening remodeling our band storage room in Hinkle Fieldhouse. We had to dismantle the old shelves, carry the heavy scrap wood a long way to the dumpster, and then build the new shelves that we had raised money to order. It was definitely a learning experience... we had three shelving units to assemble, and we did each of them in a different way! It took a while, but we were really proud to have finished this project - it will be a huge help for all the band and cheerleaders who use this room regularly. Here are some before and after shots:

3) HOMEWORK! There is so much to do!

I have spent a good chunk of this weekend (whenever I wasn't catching up on my sleep) reading and doing research. I am reading novels for two of my literature classes and a very dense history book. It is fascinating though, because it's about immigrant working women in New York who organized all the factory workers to demand unions and better wages and rights for working women. I am also in the middle of doing research on these women, because I'm writing a big paper about how these women contributed to the women's suffrage cause. They were very inspirational ladies! If this interests you, I recommend the book we're reading: Common Sense and a Little Fire, by Annelise Orleck.

So, these things have been keeping me busy, and I have a meeting and event packed week ahead of me. April at Butler is always crazy busy, but a good time. I hope I can keep a decent balance between work, fun and sleep this week/ For now, I'm going to get back to that theatre review, find some dinner and then more research/reading.

To my high school senior readers, I know that this can be a stressful time in your life, too, as you try to make a college decision, so if there are any questions I can answer for you, please send me a message or comment here. Good luck!

Junior year is eating my life.

ChristinaL — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 05:43:00 GMT

Hey everyone! Sorry that I haven't been posting as frequently as I usually do. We are starting to get into the busy portion of this semester and I am feeling a little overwhelmed. Hopefully I can write a long post for you soon about one of these topics, but here's what's up in my life....

1) INTERNSHIP! I love love love it, but it is pretty time-consuming. It's so much fun to have a "big kid" job... even if they don't pay me. You will definitely hear more about this asap.

2) Greek life. I am VP of Education for the Panhellenic Association, which oversees the sororities, and this has been taking up a lot of my time! Mostly because I see this position as a way to really leave my mark on the Greek community and try new things to show people that Greeks are so much more (and usually quite different) than the stereotypes. We had a very successful event promoting women's basketball a few weekends ago (It was Spice Girls themed and we called it Spice Up the Night! Girl Power for Women's Basketball - cute right?) and our exec board went to a Greek leadership conference with 2100 people in St. Louis last weekend.

At Pi Phi, we are also busy with the education process for our new members. Last night we revealed who their Big Sisters are and so I got to help my Little Sis Jackie welcome our newest member of the Moose family, Stephanie! What a fabulous fam : )

3) School! I have SO much reading. Like, I'm not actually sure it's possible for me to finish it all ever. I would estimate I have at least 500 pages a week assigned to me for my three hardest classes combined, and my reading pace is definitely slower because I try to take notes and synthesize it all for later paper writing or class discussions. I'm doing the best I can, but it's definitely taking a toll on my sleep. Don't take two heavy-reading lit classes AND a heavy-reading history class in one semester with an internship. This will not end well for your shut-eye...

4) Hmm... where does the rest of my time go? Probably trying to keep my closet organized and pick up the mess on my floor? This is a daily battle.

5) Occasionally I have some fun. This mostly takes the form of playing clarinet at the Basketball games and dancing like a fool. I was on ESPNU doing just that a few weeks ago.

6) Trying to plan the rest of my life. yeah this sounds kind of dramatic, but I have to make some big kid choices right now such as: do I want to live off-campus next year? Where do I want to spend my summer and what should I do? What should my Honors thesis be?! and then smaller crises like: What am I doing for spring break?

So, I hope to give you a more substantial post soon, but for now it's just about stayin alive! I have another conference this weekend for the Student Foundation at U of Cincinnati. It will be good to see some friends that I have met from other colleges, but I actually wish I had the weekend to do homework. When did my life become so lame? haha.

have a good week!

A YouTube Weekend

ChristinaL — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:34:00 GMT

Hey there friends! [Now that you've started commenting, I feel like we know each other ]

People on the forums are always wanting to know what a typical weekend at Butler is like, so I thought I'd give you a rundown of one AND use this opportunity to feature some of the videos I took around town with our exciting new blogger's Flip camera (extremely fun little camcorder).

The videos are actually from two weekends ago, but I'll give you the play-by-play of last weekend because that's easier to remember.

Friday

9 am - 1 pm: Class!

Yeah, I'm a loser. I have class on Fridays. But it's Modern Dance, Revolutionary Europe & Postmodernism, so not too bad.

2 pm - 6 pm Meijer Run & baking party at Schwitzer.

My sorority matches us each up with a different new member (our "Phi friend") every week so we can get to know the new class better. My Phi friend Michaela and I decided to go all out and bond by making our own fortune cookies for all the freshmen Pi Phis. We bought supplies at my fave grocery store, the 24 hour Meijer on 38th St and then cooked in the kitchenette in Michaela's dorm. I never knew you could make your own fortune cookies but they turned out really cool.

If you're curious about the other shopping and restaurants near Butler, I made a quick video tour of some of the places to eat and shop on 38th St, about 5 minutes away from campus and let you in on informal Kappa Kappa Psi bonding at Steak n Shake

[YouTube:gZ7HPB3-IV0]

6-7:30 pm Dinner at India Garden with my best friend.

Broad Ripple is a fun place about 8 minutes away from campus with TONS of restaurants... India Garden is great if you're looking to try something new - spicy, but tasty! I recommend it.

7:30 - ? Chillin at the house.

Our friend Bethy came to visit from IU, so my roommates and I hung out with her for a while. They wanted to go out to eat, but since I had already gone out and was really tired, I decided to chill at home and get caught up on my crazy life - so relaxing!

? - 3:30 am LOST Slumber party

My roommates and I have gotten hooked on the dvds of this TV show. We stayed up WAY too late finishing Season 1 and I fell asleep during episode one of Season 2.

Saturday, February 3rd

11:30 - 1:15 Honors Program Info Session

It was a Scholar's Forum weekend here at BU, so we had lots of prospective students visiting. (Any of you reading?) I helped out with the info sessions about the Honors Program, because I think it's way cool and every one who's eligible should apply!

1:15-4 pm Women's Basketball Game w/ Basketball Band

I love Butler Basketball, being in Hinkle Fieldhouse, and of course playing with the band.

Here's a video with clips I took during the Men's game vs. UIC on January 26th. Check it out to see how much fun game day at Hinkle is!

[YouTube:qrGfrka4AQU&feature=related]

4-6:45 pm Homework & getting ready to go out

6:45 - 8 pm Dinner at La Piedad Mexican restaurant with some KKPsi friends.

Back to Broad Ripple! It's kind of unusual for me to eat out in Broad Ripple twice in once weekend, but we were all dressed up so we decided to splurge.

8-10 pm Swing Night!

Kappa Kappa Psi, my band fraternity, hosted Swing Night as a fundraiser/event for the whole campus. We had swing dance lessons and then live music from the Butler Jazz Band. Ballroom Dance Club showed up and impressed us all with their crazy moves. I even convinced my friend Zak to give swing dance a try and he LOVED it (...you never know, boys!)

10 pm-1 am Phi Psi

My "little brother" from Kappa Kappa Psi just pledged a social fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi. I'd never actually been over to the house, so he gave us a tour and then we joined in on the dance party. No worries if you're like me and don't drink... I still have a good time talking with people or dancing (like a fool).

Sunday, February 4th

2 pm Time to wake up!

Oops... I must have been REALLY tired! I normally get up around 10 am on weekends to get things done, workout, etc. but I fell asleep before I even had a chance to set my alarm and slept for TWELVE straight hours... Not gonna lie, that's probably the latest I've ever slept in.

3-6 pm Work at the Writer's Studio

I have a job at Writer's Studio, which offers free peer writing tutoring for Butler students. Nobody came in on Sunday, though, so I caught up on some reading for history and my poetry class. and got paid for it : )

6-8 pm Dinner at home, hanging with my roomies, a little homework.

8-? pm Superbowl party at Lambda Chi Alpha

One of my friends invited me to watch the game with the men of Lambda... I assumed there would be more girls there but I was very much in the minority. Let me just say that football in a fraternity house = a MAJOR dose of masculinity! Not that I don't like football... I mean, how sweet was that game?? Of course we were all rooting for the Giants because of a) Manning #2 and b) the fact that they are not the Patriots. Yay for Colts country : )

For once I was actually done with all my Monday homework before Sunday night so I went to bed early! Good thing, too, because I decided to try out a 7:45 yoga class at the HRC the next day (great way to start the week, by the way.)

So, that's basically it! A peek into my weekend life. Every weekend here is different...usually I don't go out to eat or hang out at fraternities quite that much; sometimes I spend way more time studying; sometimes I go to lots of performances; sometimes I'm travelling or doing stuff around Indy and I'm not even at Butler that much. It just depends on the week! However, I hope you see that there is a lot to do here and we're always having a good time.

Until next weekend! : )