WOW this week flew on by. It’s exciting because Wednesday is my last day of classes. However, just because classes end doesn’t mean all responsibilities melt away and you have everlasting free time. AH…if only. Once classes are ka-put that means all those final projects and written finals are aroooound the corner. I feel like I have so much work ahead of me and so little time to do it. Plus, I won’t even be around this weekend. Oh bother (inspiration from that honey-loving bear.)
Now, yesterday morning I had my Western Drama 1 class at 8am. However, instead of sitting in the classroom going through PowerPoint slides, we went into McKenna theatre and watched three performances. The final project is to pick a play written by anyone during the time periods we’ve been studying, and either do a performance, director notes, lighting design or costumes along with our written concept. Four students chose to do performances, and here are the clips! Observe!
The first clip is Renee Levine’s choreography of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
This next clip is Othello directed by Kathleen Bulman.
This last clip is Nick Melillo performing a monologue from Henry V.
Also, I must add that yesterday was my best friend’s birthday! Renee Levine turned 21 yesterday! AWW yeah! Sooo with that I have some pictures of a birthday lunch that approximately 10 of us went to. It was at the restaurant P & G’s in town. So we celebrated with some food and some laughs!
Well that’s all folks. I have to trek on over to McKenna theatre to see Once on this Island put on by the Miami Theatre players. It’s free! Then there’s Midnight Theatre. OO Boy. I hope to blog about those performances and other events that’ll take place this weekend! I can’t wait…I’m seeing my brother at UAlbany tomorrow night!
Anyway, have a lovely weekend all! I’ll chat with ya soon.
Because I’m studying abroad next semester, I need to start looking at internships now. Last summer, I worked in retail and needless to say (I think ll of you understand if you’ve ever worked it), I don’t really want to do it again. My co-workers were fun and my bosses were nice, but I was in Customer Service, and I feel like there are only so many times you can be yelled at for things out of your control before you become bitter.
Therefore, I am applying for internships and the amount of offers for apprentices or helpers in anything involving sculpture is almost non-existent. Sometimes, I really wonder if I should have just declared as a graphic design major. However I want to stand strong in my decision and not change my concentration just to get a better job.
I want an internship, where I can do something connected to the arts, even if its not pertaining to the fine arts, working in advertising or helping with non-profit organizations. I find it difficult sometimes to find jobs or internships that don’t require experience, but how do I get any experience if no one will give me a chance! Luckily through the career resource center on campus, they have eRecruiting, which allows you to look at internships specific to majors or interests and based on locations also! I find myself searching through their website at least once everyday and putting things in my “interesting jobs” folder I want to apply to. So wish me luck! I hope the last week of finals are going well for everyone!
Well, as the title indicates, this blog will be about RA/RM/CDA/PA Appreciation Day In Esopus Hall! RA Stephanie, RA Shannon, RM Diana, CDA Matt V., PA Felipe, RA Kim, RM Tiff, RA Chris, RA Lorraine, RM Matt (that’s me) and RA Matt M. were all joyfully appreciated! To be fair, it was excellent -RD Kristen did a fantastic job of surprising all of us with signs, goodie bags and D-lish food on Tuesday, December 2nd! For breakfast, we all delighted in some scrumpdidilyumptious blueberry muffins and cinnamon buns -excellent way to start off any day. Apparently, Esopus Hall Government and the S.A.U.S. Staff also worked very hard to pull together this extravaganza. We all got signs that were wonderfully decorated and posted outside our doors, gift cards to Starbucks (Cinnamon Swirl Crumb Cake: HERE I COME!!!) and a special recognition moment at night.
All, in all, it really made me feel very warm and fuzzy on the inside to know that people appreciate what we do and show it -not just by celebrating, but in the extent that we were all appreciated.
If only there was a way to repay the favor… Oh well, I have pictures for all to see.
Other than being appreciated, I stayed up until 3:52A on Wednesday morn, finishing to LARGE drawings for Drawing II with Cheryl Wheat (<Amazing!!!). And I know, I know, I’m the old man of the group and I would never be up so late on a normal basis. Well, to tell the truth (I love the truth -it shall set you free) RA Christina in Scudder talked me into it. The time was 11:16P on Tuesday night, when I asked a select few -that of which Christina was a part of- whether or not I should finish my drawings and go to bed crizzazy late, or to go to bed early, and wake even earlier to draw before class. Well at that moment Christina said that once I went to bed, I would’nt be stressing over whether or not it would be finished in time. The rest is history, and that is the latest I have stayed up (for good cause) in months!
Interestingly enough, that will be one of the last exciting Tuesdays of this semester being that it is coming to a RAPID AND FRIGHTENING close in approx nineteen days (for me).
It most certainly is the most wonderful time of the year. Before I tell you about my Thanksgiving break, I have something very exciting to share! In October, Robin Cohen-La Valle, Associate Dean of Students and role-model and inspiration to me and many individuals on this campus, nominated me for a fellowship to attend “The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition.” Quite honored, I filled out the extensive application. Then, yesterday morning, two months later, I returned back to my room from Thanksgiving @ 11:30 am, to find an e-mail stating that I was chosen as one of the five recipients of the 2009 Annual Conference Undergraduate Fellowship from the staff of the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition. So, pretty much, I was smiling all day and I am SO excited. I have spent the past few days feeling uber (ha!) thankful, and this was just icing (very chocolatey icing, might I add!) on the cake! Woo! So, stay tuned until February, when I attend the conference in Orlando, Florida, and blog all about it!
I always had a hard time adjusting to high school, and my mom always told me that things would “click” for me. It was hard for me to understand this until it actually happened. Since I have gotten to New Paltz, my life has changed drastically. From the moment that I participated in my first ice-breaker with Jenay and the students in Group 2 at Orientation, to interacting with residents in the living-learning community, the First-Year Initiative, to getting involved with RHSA, to being academically stimulated in the classroom, to fostering relationships with countless unique individuals in the New Paltz community, I am so very thankful to be here!
So, I guess now would be an appropriate time to tell you about my Thanksgiving break!
On Wednesday, I had so much fun hanging out with my mom! We walked to Starbucks and quilted all day! It was perfect! Thursday, Thanksgiving, I watched the Macy*s Day Parade with my family, while baking Pumpkin Apple Muffins.. yum! Later in the afternoon, we went to my grandparent’s house, and it was lovely! Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it is so great to just spend quality time with family. There was SO much food, and it was all delicious! On Friday, I went on my dad’s tandem bicycle with him, and then headed over to my other grandparent’s house for dinner. After dinner, I went to Starbucks with my two very best friends, Hannah and Tracy! We have been best friends since middle school, and it is always wonderful to have the chance to catch up! As we sipped our Gingerbread Lattes, and discussed school; it felt like we hadn’t even been away from each other for practically an entire semester! On Saturday, I rode the bike with my dad again, and then met up with my Wantagh Park friends. We went out to eat and then hung out at my house.. a special shout out to Nabil, due to request, but really, a shout out to Katalia, Allie Thallie, M.Bull, and Nabil, because you guys are awesome and I am so lucky to have such awesome friends!
On Saturday, my family went to see the Cirque du Soleil, “Wintuk!” The costumes, scenery, and acrobatics were AMAZING..And, snowflakes kept falling on us
Then, we headed over to Macy*s in Herald Square, and it was soooooooooooooooo much fun! I have never been there during Christmas, and it was just soooo amazing!
The wooden escalator that my dad remembers riding with his grandparents when he was a kid!
The New Year’s Eve Ball!!!
MACY*S STARBUCKS DECORATED FOR CHRISTMAS!
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The location of the performances during the Thanksgiving Day Parade!
(above and below) The Macys*s Windows!
And to end on a sweet note, perfume display!
I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving, and are looking forward to the most wonderful time of the year! Enjoy! -Jessie
So after the Goldie Locks Adventure at the Preschool, soooo much has happened! So so SOO much! I wanted to make a little video about the events. I DID make a video in fact before Thanksgiving break, but somehow it didn’t get downloaded. Such a darn bummer. Therefore, I guess I’ll just have to write about what I did. However, I have some videos for your visual stimuli satisfaction. SAH-WEET!
So let’s go back to 2 Wednesday’s ago. That’s right…come back with me to Wednesday, November 19th. So later that day, I went to a lecture on Internships! I’m so up in the air about internships. I want to do one this summer, because they really REALLY give you connections in the theatre world. Nonetheless, I have a couple jobs at home during the summer, and I want to travel, and I want to see my home friends, and GOLLY GEE so much.
Ready….set….watch!
Then Thursday I was interested in attending something called Interfaith Dinner. I’m not a very religious person. It was just the way I was raised. However, I am a spiritual person and so I wanted to experience this dinner where all different religious groups on campus came together and to share their faiths with some good food. I was thankfully invited to sit at the Hillel table to eat with my friend Renee. I’m just happy something like this exists on campus; a celebration of accepting all different religions. It was a free, loving Thanksgiving dinner, a week early.
Here are videos of 4 different religious groups on campus in action at the Interfaith Dinner.
OH and plus, I went to see the midnight showing of Twilight in Poughkeepsie that night, which is about 25 minutes away. I never read the Twilight books, and I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to follow along. Uh…it’s a human and a vampire falling in love. How difficult did I think it was going to be? But ya know what? I LOVED the movie. I heard mixed feelings about the movie from Twilight fans, but I just fell in love with the story…and oh…Robert Pattinson! UH… DREAMY! I thought they did a great job of taking a fantastical concept and converting it into believable, beautifully awkward moments. I asked my mom and dad for all of the Twilight books for Christmas, probably like every other thirteen-year-old girl, but I DON’T CARE!! I will be having a lovely time this winter break reading up on Edward Cullen and Bella Swan’s love story…and juuust being a romantic mush.
Here’s a bunch of us seeing Twilight at the midnight showing!
Friday was loads of fun. I have a lot of classes that day, which ISN’T fun, however, I had a group project due in my English Lit 1 class. We had to summarize a canto from Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, point out and research the allegories represented in the canto, and do a close reading of a couple of stanzas. My group and I had to teach the class what happened in Canto 10. To help the class comprehend this difficult canto, my group and I had the idea to make a skit incorporated with modernized language. That way, the class could laugh, have fun, AND understand it for that tricky final coming up. We asked for volunteers from our classmates to read parts and they really had a blast with it! They loved our references to things such as Twilight, Charlie the Unicorn, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Fellow pupils (that’s right, I actually used that out-of-date word for students) came up to us and said how good our presentation was and…WOW…it was such a wonderful, rewarding feeling!
Here’s a picture of my group and I, after the class was over!
Saturday was a nonstop day! Didn’t even get to sleep in! But hey- I made some dough, so why should I be complaining? I went in at 10am to work in the Admissions building to help with all the mail we’ve been getting this year! WHOA so many applying to New Paltz, it’s insane in the membrane!
All the Student Ambassadors who came in that day had a lot of laughs, eating bagels in the morning, pizza for lunch, and just opening mail or working at the computers (like I did.) I worked until 3pm and then at 4pm I met up with a friend who graduated last year. Her name is Lizz Guzzman and she has a heart of gold with a brain of gold to match (I think I just made up a new expression?) At any rate, we sat at the Plaza Diner, which is right in the Stop N Shop shopping center in New Paltz, for 2 ½ hours because we just had so much to share. She’s so inspiring and bright, and just one of those people that is so relatable. She double majored in Theatre Arts and English last year, and last year she won the “Outstanding Undergraduate Award.” Here, check it out… http://www.newpaltz.edu/english/workscitedvol1issue5.pdf
After having such a lovely time with her, I had to race over to get ready for Our Sexy Pitch performance at 60 Main. The Sexy Pitches is an all girls a cappella group. We opened for fellow New Paltz student Sophia Wortzel, who was my suitemate freshman year! This is her myspace: http://www.myspace.com/sophiawortzel Here check out some of these videos I took.
Sorry, it was kinda dark in there!
Oh and hey, the Sexy Pitches debuted our new song that we arranged: Killin Me Softly with His Song. Check it out! I got it on Viiiiiiideo! Boo ya!
So thanks for playin a little catch-me-up with me! I hope you enjoyed the aplethora of videos and such! Have a not-too hectic Tuesday!
I wasn’t sure if I was going to put this up on here because it’s really random and it basically just shows me being weird, but I decided why not? EVERYONE’S weird…
so it’s basically just random clips that include:::in no particular order::: Me asking my staff what superpower they would have if they had the choice, me dancing to MJ’s “Beat It” with an actual beet, RA Christina admitting a dirty little secret of hers, a portion of my room, and a really embarrassing lip sync to the cuppy cake song (NOTE: this is not original and I totally copied it from someone else on youtube).
I hope that this video does not make anyone rethink being friends with me, nor will it sacrifice my future friendships for that matter.
So…………
……….what superpower would you have if you could have anything?………..
Youtube is certainly a marvelous invention; to allow people of all walks of life to post skippits of personal life on the internet for all to see is truly a gift of the 21st century that I -in light if the holidays- am very thankful for. Now, understandable this video that I have provided a link to is ages old, which can be made plain by the feathered haircut, however, this video still incorporates a fantastic message into an adorable video!
This video is scarcely two and a half minutes long, but is truly remarkable in what happens. Now, I don’t want to give it away, so I’ll just let you get to the link.
The Birthday girl ordered her first glass of wine. “What wine would you suggest with a Turkey Burger?” (A real quote.)
Renee taking some time to smell the flowers.
Renee Levine, Kathleen Bulman, Chris Lavin smiling for a group shot at P&G’s.
Discussion time between Emily Kurland, Lauren Kennedy and Paul Rigano.
Nick Melillo and Tommy Rossati indulging on fries and stealing Jess’s nachos.
LK pointing fingers!
Studley smirk.
Look what a little kid drew!
Meg DiMaggio pointing out the lovely center piece of gords. 
Chowin’ down at the Hillel table!
Renee Levine has knife and fork in hand.
Delicious!
Director of Hillel: Ellen, in the pink. 
Ginormous Turkey!
Some of the prayers.
Some music even!
Liz, me and Joanna!
