One Week.

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind. When you hit spring of senior year you realize how little time you really do have left. You also realize how incredible this place really is. The class of 2012 graduates one week from today. I get all kinds of emotional thinking about leaving St. Mike's for good. The end of the year is usually really exciting since the end of exams means summer. Then at the end of the summer you get just as excited to be back at SMC. I can't believe that won't be happening this year.

So, because the year has been winding down and our SMC family is about to go off in all kinds of directions, we've been making the very best of what's left. It's exhausting, but I've had an incredible time with incredible people.

Our last real Thursday night
Sam, Hannah, Tori, me, Coligs, Gabby

Our P-Day shirts: LET'S DO THIS ONE LAST TIME 

P-Day 2012! 

With Coligny...as the girl behind us gets absolutely
rocked by the bull

Ski girls: Em, Chlo, me, Juli, Balls

Silke, Chlo, me, and Emery before Block M dinner

Coligs on our stair slide

SMC Kentucky Derby

Senior girls Derby-ing

Bucket List

A few weeks ago my roommate, Coligny, and I realized we really didn't have all that much time left here at SMC. We have even less time now...we graduate a month from Saturday. Gross.

To make sure that we accomplish everything we want to in our last few weeks here we made a bucket list!

Sam and Colig's Bucket List:

To be completed:

• Watch the P-Day sunrise 
• Eat a Vermonster (20 scoops of ice cream, 10 scoops of walnuts, 4 ladles of hot fudge, 4 bananas, 3 chocolate chip cookies, 2 scoops of 4 toppings, 1 giant fudge brownie and whipped cream. Purchase this at Ben and Jerry's. - Urban Dictionary)
• See a pretty Waterfront sunset
• Coligs and Juliette enter Hodson for the first time ever
• Summer/fall jobs all around
• Go to Red Rocks
• Go to the Whale Tails
• Have a math party with the math majors
• Take more pictures of senior year
• Do a Winooski Circle Pub Crawl

Completed so far:

• Coligny attempts long boarding
• Coligs and Martell successfully body traverse (See 1:10-1:30. Yeah. We did that.)

Starting to accomplish "take more pictures"
Carly, Emily, Greta, Lauren, me, and Abby on Saturday

We clearly have a long way to go. I have been taking more pictures and we're working on the math party so soon we'll be able to check a few more things off! I can't believe we only have a month left. We're definitely making senior spring count and I guarantee we'll accomplish at least the majority of our list by that terrible, terrible day when we're forced out of our magnificent townhouse and out into the real world.

The Best Week Ever

St. Albans Bay sunset on Monday night

This past week was unbelievably warm for March in VT. Like completely out of this world hot. I happened to have basically no work. This meant that I got to spend the 80 degree days outside in the sunshine! If I wasn't already in love with SMC this week would have done it for me.

Outline:
Monday - Spending all of my spare time in the sun with friends. Went home to gather shorts and tank tops to prepare for the amazing week ahead and watched The Voice with my lovely friend Brittany. (I'm OBSESSED with The Voice.)

Tuesday - Had one small assignment due marking the last day that I'd have any work at all for the rest of the week. That night my house got together with friends from the rugby team and played wiffle ball and glow in the dark frisbee in the 3's field.

Wednesday - Yet another gorgeous day spending all of my time between classes outside on the field lounging in the sun. Played a second round of night time wiffle ball in the field.

With Coligny sunbathing on Thursday afternoon

Thursday - Literally the best day ever. I have no classes Thursdays, so my day was wide open. Thursday also happened to be the warmest day of them all. I was outside with friends the entire morning sunbathing and playing games. That night we went down the block in the 3's and barbecued, which was delicious. That night all of the 3's were out on the sidewalk and field hanging out. It was really awesome to have so much of the senior class in one place spending time together. I never want to leave the 3's!

With Gab before the formal

Friday - Once I got through my one and only class I went downtown with the lovely Gabbi and ate and shopped on Church Street. That night we got together for a ski team formal where we all got dressed up, put aside the awkward ski room encounters, and spent time together as a full alpine/nordic team.


Saturday - It's hard to believe that such a stress-free week could be so exhausting, but by yesterday I was SO worn out! I spent Saturday with Emery (from the ski team) relaxing and as a grand finale went to see The Hunger Games, which was, as expected, completely amazing!

Three of my best friends in the entire world
Balls, Rizzy, me, and Emery

So here I am on Sunday. The nice weather is gone and we're back to March. This past week has been absolutely amazing! It was like a second spring break and I never wanted it to end. Now that it has I suppose I have to get back to real life and actually do some school work for a change.

P-Day, Part 3

On Sunday P-Day had come and gone. However, the weekend wasn't over yet and Sunday was an absolutely glorious day full of sunshine. Andrea, Erin, Lauren, and I decided that we had just enough energy left for a few activities.

After laying out on the Canterbury front lawn in the sun we made our way to the Essex Family Fun & Entertainment Center. We played a round of mini golf. I'm happy to inform you that I was the definite winner with a pretty solid lead. Andrea was the only hole in one for the day so I have to give her credit for her incredible shot.

Group shot. Looking mighty professional.

After golf we made our way over to the batting cage where Andrea and Lauren played slow pitch. Lauren played one round of fast pitch and hit one solid pitch, which I thought was very impressive.

Once we had enough of the fun and games we decided we could use a little refreshment. We went to Duke's Creemee Stand in Milton where my best friend from home works. They have like 79 flavors, which is absolutely incredible. (Here is the time where I'd like to point out that in VT we do call them "creemees" not "soft serve." Andrea is just coming to terms with this fact, although my roommate Dachelle still yells at me for saying it because "it sounds gross." If you're in VT you've got to accept it sometime...)

Oreo Mint. YUM.

The creemees were absolutely delicious and exactly what we needed on such a nice, sunny, warm day. Lauren took the scenic route back and we drove along the lake. Glorious.

As soon as I got back I had to run up to The Ranch to meet my math friends Coligny and Eric along with Coligs' roommate Jordan to head to a BBQ. Some quick background information about this BBQ: Every semester one of the math professors, George Ashline, has an end of the semester party at his house. In the winter it's a Christmas party and in the spring it's a BBQ. He invites every single person in every one of his classes to come. Coligny and I had been quite sad that we weren't able to go since we didn't take a class with him this semester. THEN WE GOT THE GREATEST NEWS EVER. Jordan works in financial aid with Mrs. Ashline. The Ashlines wanted to invite Jordan to the BBQ, but were afraid she wouldn't know anyone. SO, they specifically asked Coligny and I if we'd like to go with Jordan. SO EXCITING!

So to finish off a wonderful P-Day weekend I made my way to the Ashline residence. We played volleyball (I only played one game...I figured I was better off as a cheerleader...) and ate delicious food. This delicious food included the always incredible George Ashline cheesecake. SO. GOOD.

I love P-Day weekend.

P-Day 2011, Part 2

P-Day.

In the suite upstairs (The Ranch) we began a paper chain to count down the days to P-Day. We started at 80 days. It's hard to believe everyone's favorite day of the year has come and gone. It's harder (and scarier) to believe that as a junior I only have one left. Only 362 days!

But I shouldn't get ahead of myself. Instead I should describe my overwhelmingly fantastic day. This is going to be easier to do by describing the general schedule.

8 a.m. Wake up, get dressed in my Cants Touch This tee and neon zebra spandex, walk to Dunkin' Donuts for some breakfast and a coffee.
9:00 Head to the XC captain, Sarah's house for an XC breakfast. Eat pancakes and then dance, dance, dance.
10:30 Back to the suite for some more dancing and singing and loving of life.
11:00 Trike race starts in the Alliot Circle.
11:30 Change into my Ranch attire and head to the 1's for some Ranch time in the sunshine.
1 p.m. Change back into my Cants Touch This outfit and head for the 3's field.
1:10 Go directly to the food tent and eat pizza, Skinny Pancake crepes, Chinese, and chicken fingers.
2:00 Erin, Andrea, and I spend some quality time in the photo booth (nice touch, SMC.)
2:15 Get in line for face paint where Erin and Andrea become cats and I gain a Harry Potter lightning bolt.
3:00 Inflatables: bungee run, bounce house, obstacle course, etc.
4:00 More crepes. Nutella is the favorite.
5:00 Cants 102 nap time.
6:30 Chill time. Generally hanging out and chatting with a quick trip to Cumbie's.
8:00 Dance party commences.
9:30 Back into my Ranch attire for some quality time at The Ranch (Canterbury 305.)
10:30 Back downstairs, back into my Cants Touch This tee
11:00 Late Knight Breakfast in Alliot, full of chanting, table hopping, and general chatter.

P-Day is a big, long, fun, exhausting day. Even at late at night it was hard to see it end knowing that it only comes once a year. I can't even fully describe the fun that was had. I'll leave you with the slide show below so you can get a better idea of all that happened! Check back again in a couple of days for Part 3 because, even though P-Day ended, the weekend wasn't over yet!!

P-Day 2011, Part I

This weekend was P-Day. This is the greatest day EVER on SMC campus and only happens once a year. Everyone gets dressed up, eats lots of food, plays on inflatables, and has just an overall incredible day.

So, since P-Day weekend is packed with SO MUCH FUN, it was too overwhelming to write just one blog post about the fabulousness of the weekend. For this reason I'm going to do it in parts, which will give me EVEN MORE to do instead of doing my homework for the last week of classes. Perfect.

I would say that the fun of P-Day weekend started for me on Wednesday. This was the day of the Aca Bellas concert. The Aca Bellas are a female a capella group on campus. They had their final concert of the year and the lovely K-Beatz of the nordic team sang her little heart out. Rizzle, Gabby, and I went to support her and had a fabulous time.

Jenn, our SMC Vlogger, got some great clips from the show, which you can check out HERE. The Bellas start at 2:34 or so.

Friday was the first official day of P-Day weekend. In the afternoon there were rugby games on the 3's field and a BBQ for dinner.

My roommate this and next year, Juliette, is #9

Bellas at the talent show.
Photo courtesy of Gabbi Hall.

Around 6:30 doors opened for the talen show, which featured many SMC students. The Aca Bellas performed once again, my fellow blogger, Gabbi sang a solo, and my math friend, Eric teamed up with a few friends to form the rap group "Purple Drank" and perform an original smash hit. The video of Purple Drank's performance has hit facebook, but I'm waiting on the YouTube upload, which is sure to go viral. I'll be sure to include it in my next post as it's absolutely hysterical. Until then you should definitely check out Eric's video "Why Mike's" which won a vid contest earlier in the year!

On Friday I also put the finishing touches on my P-Day outfits. Yes, this is plural. I wore the black shirt (with neon zebra spandex) for one part of the day to match my suitemates and the jersey for another part to match the Ranchers in a suite upstairs. So fun.

That's all the P-Day review I'm going to give for now! Check back in within the next couple of days to read about P-Day itself and see a TON of pictures from my day. Spoiler: Erin got her face painted like a cat. Now tell me you won't be coming back to see a picture of THAT!

A Week of Ben & Jerry's in Burlington

First of all, sorry for the weird layout of this post. I was really struggs with the pictures. Anyway...last week was absolutely fabulous. For the first time EVER at SMC I had no homework all week. Incredible. In addition to doing absolutely nothing every night I had some fun activities to keep me busy. In hindsight I now realize that they all involved Ben & Jerry's ice cream in some way. Yikes. I'll write this blog post and then do some crunches to counteract all of the delicious fatty ice cream I've eaten in the last week.

Fun Activity 1: Free Cone Day

Every year B&J have a Free Cone Day across the world where you literally just walk into the shop, ask them for any flavor, and leave with free ice cream. If you've never heard of this you are truly missing out. This year FCD was last Tuesday. Dachelle and i made our way into Burlington, stood in a ridiculously long line, came out of B&J two very happy girls with one Chocolate Therapy and one Clusterfluff. We then made our way down to the Waterfront, sat on a swing, and stared out at the water on a beautiful spring day. Glorious.

Incredible day on the Waterfront.

Fun Activity 2: Big Purple in B-Town

Happiness.

Since ski season has ended it's been quite sad not to see my Big Purple girls every single day. For this reason we planned a Friday afternoon adventure to Burlington. We bee-lined for B&J where I then got yet another Chocolate Therapy ice cream and was quite happy with life. We then wandered Church Street and ran into the lovely Leanna from the XC team who took a fabulous group pic.

Love.

Fun Activity 3: Earth Day

Every year there's an Earth Week on Campus. Events include Meatless Monday, a Green Career Fair, and a Local Food Night in Alliot. Sunday was the kick off in Ross. We had Barefoot Truth back playing, which was good once again. In addition we had free Ben & Jerry's ice cream (seeing the trend yet?), delicious burgers (meat and veggie) from a local farm, and bike powered smoothies, among many other things. It was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Barefoot Truth
Picture by Andi Nelson, my fabulous XC teammate

It was a wonderful week full of delicious ice cream. I should probably take a step back and rethink my diet choices while I'm not really running at all, but it was COMPLETELY worth it.

Big Purple Cereal Off

So here we are on the first of April and it's snowing. Just the worst. We were attempting to April Fools our roommate Lauren last night by taping Saran Wrap to the outside of her door, but the attack was postponed to the morning and eventually called off due to Lauren's random schedule. Definitely a good thing since we had a fire alarm somewhere around 4 a.m. this morning. That would have been quite a situation. The day is just beginning, so there's still hope for more attacks.

On Tuesday Big Purple had our annual Cereal Off. The goal is to eat as much cereal as possible. Sounds like a good idea until you're like five bowls in and ready to die.

The rules are as follows:
1. Alliot has a row of eight cereals. You must eat them in order.
2. One bowl of cereal consists of an Alliot cup to the line at the top with cereal and half a cup of liquid.
3. Eat until you can't eat any more.
4. No excuses, play like a champion.

Last year I ate eight bowls, which was the whole line. This year I only did six. The kicker was the granola. Last year it was the first bowl and we all just powered through it. This year it was number four and it was brutal.

We started the event at 6 p.m. and stayed until Alliot closed at 8. We had quite a few participants and a few observers. Overall, while afterward you feel like someone's punching you in the stomach over and over, it's a lot of fun. I swear. Though I'm not 100% sure I'll do it next year. Two years miiiiight be enough for me.

Josh and Rizzle. Excitement early in the challenge.

Not everyone is as happy as Rizzle.

Gab is giving up.

CHAMPION. Silke took the win.

It's Spring...I Think...

Yesterday was the first official day of spring and we've had snow coming down all morning. There are a lot of complaints, but I don't know what people really expect living in Vermont. It's still March. Hopefully April shows us some nicer weather.

It's been quite a while since the last post. This is mostly because since skiing ended my life has slowed down a lot and I didn't think anyone cared to read about all of the math I've been doing. It's also because SMC just had Spring Break and I spent the whole time relaxing and spending time with friends from home.

I wish I could say I went somewhere exciting like two of my roommates who went to Ireland to visit one of our roommates from last semester who's abroad or at least somewhere warm like Florida. Luckily, the past week in Vermont was absolutely gorgeous and gave us a little teaser for what spring will be like once Vermont remembers that it isn't supposed to snow this time of year.

This is what Galway would look like if I were there.
Thank you, Erin for this stolen picture.

This isn't to say that sitting around doing nothing with no work to worry about was a terrible way to spend the week. I had a good time watching too many movies and too much tv. On Thursday a group of us went up to Montreal for St. Patrick's Day. A lot of people go from St. Mike's for something to do every so often, but for whatever reason, even though I live EVEN CLOSER to Canada when I'm at home, I haven't been since I was little. I had a lot of fun wandering the city and it was nice to get out and go somewhere, even if it was only for the night.

me and Hallie during a quick pitstop to
take a pic with the big man

Mikki, me, Hallie
This is me pretending to be even a little bit Irish.

It's nice to be back at school, but I'm not looking forward to this whole homework thing I'll have to do tonight. Ah, well...only six more weeks of school. Craziness. We do housing on Wednesday for SENIOR YEAR (WHOOO LOTTERY NUMBER 17!!!) which is absolutely terrifying. I can't even imagine only having one year left. Sad. On a happier note, 40 days until P-Day!!

Lib Series, Part II: "Is My Life for Real Right Now?"

Following my amazing weekend there have been a couple of crazy days. Yesterday was the peak of my ridiculousness. I, my friends, am officially the epitome of procrastination. My facebook status as of 2:08 pm yesterday was

"10 page paper. 1/2 a page in. due in 23 hours. in the lib dungeon. while it snows outside. is my life for real right now?"

Let's examine this.

"10 pager due in less than 24 hours" Terrifying. I ended up spending about 10 hours in the lib yesterday. Not the most fun. In my defense, I thought the paper was due Friday rather than today.

Helpful Hint for College #1: Keep a planner.

Helpful Hint for College #2: When you write things in your planner make sure you look at them every so often to make sure things are not due two days before you thought they were.

"In the lib dungeon." That's right. Picture time. What I've deemed "the dungeon", as I'm sure many of other SMC students may have also done, is the basement of the lib. For a lot people this is a regular study spot. There are many little cubbies and secluded mini-rooms for those that like complete silence and no distractions while working. I'm not one of these people and the basement scares me a little, so most of the time you would not find me down here. However, this is what my life had come to. I hid myself away in a little cubby with my headphones and my computer and got down to business.

For me and many other procrastinators this is the perfect place to come when you just need to sit down and get things done. Like a 10 page paper due at 1 pm the next day. I'm just glad it wasn't extreme enough to need to hide away in a room.

"while it snows outside." That's right. You're not reading dates wrong or getting confused. Yesterday was in fact April 27. It snowed ALL DAY LONG. Sometimes Vermont likes to throw curve balls and really freak people out. A couple years ago it snowed sometime around October 10th. There's really no telling what will happen. Don't worry though, the weather is already getting nicer and it's supposed to be sunny and 75 on Saturday. Thank you Vermont, for keeping us on our toes. Check out the view from the lib. (The only place I went yesterday aside from class and my dinner break in Alliot)

"is my life for real right now?" When you're in the lib for just a little too long sometimes things get a little crazy. Luckily I wasn't all by myself the whole time. I had a little math to do so I migrated to a small table with Liane (who was also working on the paper) and Coligny (who I do math with constantly). This doesn't mean I avoided the crazy. You've got to have a little fun sometime! (Fun is relative when you're on hour 8 of 10 or so in the lib.)

Coligny goes a little nuts organizing her M&M's. She eats them bottom up in case you were wondering...

Liane loves writing papers. She really really does.

Now that I've completed my big paper and have handed in my math assignment I'm looking forward to a nice night of the missed Glee episode in the Liane and Coligny Ranch. That's the nice thing about having more work than you can handle. Afterwards you enjoy having nothing to do just that much more!

Can We Just Put This Weekend on Repeat?

What an amazing weekend. I can't believe it's Monday night already. It went by so fast. This may be a long post. Be ready.

Friday was dinner with my family. I got to hear all about my brother's trip to Sweden. It was nice to have all four of us together. I almost never see Evan since he goes to Burke Mountain Academy and our schedules rarely match up. I wish I could put a picture from Sweden up, but he's not much of a picture taker.

Then there was Saturday. Oh. My. God. I wish that I could rewind my life and go to St. Mike's to begin with just for P-Day. Never could another day be more fun. I should probably throw more of a description in here than "the best day known to man, in my life, ever." P-Day is a day when the whole school comes together and just chills in the 3's field. By "just chills" I don't mean just sits in the field. Oh no. I mean there are countless inflatables, a food tent with places like Skinny Pancake (AMAZING), Papa Frank's, PK Cafe, and others, and other activities. Let me give you the schedule as it happened in my life:

Fun Event 1: XC captains make a delicious brunch which we followed up with playing with chalk and dancing around. The XC team has always loved a dance party!

Fun Event 2: Trike race near Alliot. Hilarious.

Fun Events 3, 4, and 5: More food than any human being could possibly handle, playing on inflatables as if I were 10 years old, and overall frolicking in the gorgeous sun.

Necessary Event 1: Naptime. That sun can really kill you!

Fun Event 6: Midnight Breakfast in Alliot. What could a person possibly want more at 11 pm? So good. And I've never seen Alliot so packed! It was like everyone I could possibly know was there. AND they had Captain Crunch WITH Crunch Berries. Delicious.

There were so many other things to do that for whatever reason I never made it to. There were people running around with fun spray on tattoos, henna, and face paint. I also never made my way to the rock wall. This will definitely happen next year. But it doesn't really matter what I did. The best part was just being out there with the ENTIRE school. It felt like such a community. Check out the slide show at the bottom of the post for pictures from my day and others stolen from my lovely friend Coligny for a view into P-Day 2010!

Sunday was a great day too. It was a lazy one, which was exactly what I needed after all of the excitement the day before. It was also the day of the math BBQ at my professor, George Ashline's house. I haven't heard of any other school where you can call your professor "George" and go to his house to play volleyball, eat burgers, and devour the most delicious cheesecake I have ever had.

To top things off I finished my Sunday night by watching Anastasia in "The Ranch" aka Coligny's room in Alumni.

Happiest weekend ever.

P-Day Slide Show:

Ahh, Spring...

Can I just go ahead and throw it out there that I absolutely love this place? Alright, yeah, I totally do. Especially now that the ridiculous amount of work that sucked up my life last week is done. I've actually had time to enjoy myself and soak up all that is spring at SMC. This week has flown right by just because I've had so much going on and have been having so much fun the whole time!

What does such a wonderful springy week consist of? Well, I'm oh so glad you asked!

Monday: It was nice out, but I guess Monday was my not so fun day. I had a huge paper due Tuesday morning. I took a fabulous nap though!

Tuesday: This was a happy day. I gave my very first official tour! YAY YAY YAY! So exciting. And I rocked it out, if I do say so myself. I also went for a great run with some of the XC girls. There's a great path down across the road from North Campus that is beautiful running - just for future reference if you're into that kind of thing. THEN GLEE WAS ON, which is enough to make any average day a great day. ("You want to come out so we can talk? Or sing about it?" I love Glee.)

Wednesday: The weather was absolutely glorious! There were so many people out on the grass on the quad and in front of the library! So fun to see everyone out of the dorms and enjoying the sun! (It doesn't look like a lot of people were out from the pictures. There were quite a few. You can definitely tell it was a beautiful day though!)

A view of the library

St. Ed's and McCarthy

In the afternoon I went for a run with mi padre, which is always great, even when he's dragging me along. Just saying though, no 50-something should be pulling along a 19 year-old girl. My dad is insane.

This was also the P-Day shirt decorating fiesta. We tie-dyed last week and they were finally

ready to be painted! I'm so proud of how mine came out!

More to come on P-Day...details of one of the greatest Saturdays at SMC will be posted soon, but I'll give a short explanation to give you an idea:

The condensed P-Day explanation: the school sponsors a day before finals including inflatables, tug-o-war, more food that you could possibly eat, bands, a comedian, midnight breakfast, sunshine (hopefully!), and overall happiness. I will most definitely be posting about what a

wonderful time I'm sure to have, so I'll give more details then.

Thursday: (Today) More P-Day shirt decorating and then an epic trip my two friends would prefer I don't tell people about. (But they don't read my blog so they'll never know...) While they would like to pretend we went to Alliot tonight for a light salad or something healthy and respectable like that we actually went to the University Mall (one of two malls in Burlington) for Taco Bell and Ben & Jerry's. So delicious I could explode. Mmmmm!

I love always having something to do, especially in beautiful weather! In the spring there really are countless things going on. AND this week promises to only be getting better! Tomorrow night I'm going out to dinner with my family as my brother just got in from Sweden (he goes to a ski academy and they do this thing where they don't go to school for extended periods of time...he's livin' the life) and then Saturday is P-Day! Ah, spring, I love you.