let me just tell you about one of the most exhilarating weekends ever!! [please?] every year, rhsa hosts one of our biggest events all year: spirit weekend.  it’s similar to homecoming in high school…only bigger. and way more awesome. and minus the football.  the actual event begins on friday afternoon and lasts until sunday night, but preparation for it goes back as far as two or three weeks.  the whole point of spirit weekend is to build community through friendly competition between the residence halls and to give residents and staff within a hall an opportunity to share ideas, express creativity, and establish a strong bond with each other to hopefully last through the whole year, and perhaps a lifetime. this year, our theme was building our future to reflect all the construction going on around us that is transforming our campus into the future of new paltz.

we kicked off spirit weekend on friday afternoon by taking over hasbrouck dining hall with some sweet music and lots and lots of prizes including rhsa shirts, gift certificates to a whole bunch of restaurants in town, and a $50 grand prize gift card to the bookstore. later that night we hosted our bi-weekly buzz karaoke in lenape hall, which brought in a record-breaking 203 participants and served as a great build-up to spirit weekend!!  luckily, our advisor jenn picked up enough sweet treats to feed everyone!!  we also has a special guest performance by the shades step team.  they are so talented and very entertaining. everyone seemed to really enjoy their performance of both their routine, and karaoke version of single ladies!

terri and jen raffling off some awesome prizes!

one of our enthusiastic karaoke performances.

the time warp.

spirit weekend consists of five main events: penny wars, the scavenger hunt, field events, banner competition, and lip sync competition. [for those of you who are unaware, new paltz is hugeeeeee on lip syncs. they're just about new paltz's favorite thing in the world. and i'm a pretty big fan as well.]   each of our thirteen residence halls compete with each other for the title of “most spirited hall.”  this year, we included the off-campus student union as a sort of fourteenth residence hall.  it was really awesome to invite them into our community of on campus residents and get to know them as well.

the penny wars battle is introduced about three weeks before spirit weekend and the money raised is always donated to a great cause.  this year, we’re donating the $663.67 we raised to neacurh’s focus project to buy school supplies for children.  neacurh is the north east affiliate of college and university residence halls, and is [put very simply] a giant rhsa to all of the rhsa’s in the north east region of america.  every residence hall is encouraged to collect pennies for their hall and nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollars for other halls.  every penny is worth one point, and every other coin or dollar is worth its negative value. so a dime would be negative ten points, a dollar is negative one hundred points, etcetera.  at rhsa events, we give halls the chance to sabotage each other by putting everything but pennies in their collection jars.  after all the money was due, the rhsa eboard had quite a challenge ahead of us.  terri, our unbelievable secretary came up with formulas in an excel spreadsheet that calculated the points awarded to each hall as well as the money raised by each hall.  so all we had to do was count the money.  it was still time consuming and tedious, but we all worked really hard together to get the job done efficiently.  needless to say, none of us want to see pennies for quite a while. and we washed our hands perhaps a little too often that night.

the scavenger hunt list was released at our kick-off at 5:00pm sharp and each residence hall had exactly 24 hours to complete it.  i should clarify, our scavenger hunt is actually a photo scavenger hunt.  instead of bringing us the items they’ve collected, we send them on missions to take [hopefully creative and fun] photos of places and activities across the campus.  it’s so much fun to see everyone’s different interpretations of our list, and it also gives them a chance to become more familiar with our campus.  in order to see their photos and determine the winners, we created an account on webshots.com for every residence hall and then changed the passwords when time was up.  going through all the photos to determine points was pretty amusing, i must say.  we all had a great time looking at the silly photo ideas everyone came up with!

off campus student union with the rhsa eboard!

sunday was the big day: field events, banner competition, and lip sync competition.  first, representatives from each hall come to turn in their banner for the competition and pick up bagels for their hall’s participants provided by rhsa.  hopefully the complex carbohydrates [as jen calls them] would give them enough energy to get through field events.

our first field event was the potato sack race.  one of the classics. and always comical.  next we had the wheelbarrow relay race.  one team member runs to the other side of the field and then “wheelbarrows” with a partner back to the starting line.  in case you’ve never seen this before, human wheelbarrowing is where one person walks with their hands while another stands behind them holding their feet.  if this sounds ridiculous, you’re probably picturing it correctly.  and in case you haven’t noticed, rhsa is big on fun.  next we had a less messy rendition of the “egg on a spoon” relay race.  we substituted the egg for a golf ball to avoid the mess.  this next event was new to me, but competitors had to balance a golf ball between their forearms without dropping it.  sounds easy…apparently more difficult.  after that we took a break from the events involving running so everyone could catch their breath.  each hall had ten minutes to figure out twenty riddles.  i have to say…there were some pretty clever riddles in there, very tricky.  after those brain-teasers, we were supposed to have the sponge relay race, where a team member squeezes water into a sponge, passes it down a line of five people, and the last person in the line wrings the water from the sponge into a bucket. after a time limit, the team with the most water wins.  unfortunately, the rain decided to attend yet another of rhsa’s events and we were forced to hold our field events inside, so we omitted this event so as not to get water all over the gym floor.  so we continued on with the hula hoop contest.  new paltz has some pretty talented hula hoopers, let me tell you…  finally, we had the tug of war.  quite an epic event in any field day, i think.  for our demonstration, we had the rhsa eboard team up against the student association eboard.  allow me to let you in on a little secret.  let’s just say there are a few rhsa eboard members who could pass for middle school students if we tried hard enough.  and that’s not quite the case with the sa eboard.  rhsa expected it to be a quick and brutal defeat, but we held our own for quite a while before sa took the victory.  after all the halls competed in the tug of war, we all took a break for a few hours to eat, relax, and prepare for the lip sync competition.

most of the rhsa eboard:

chris, terri, myself, kyle, janine, kris, jen, [and kristyn got cut out! /= ]

preparing for the inevitable…

later that evening, everyone returned to the gym for the banner and lip sync competitions.  they were both judged by five administrators and/or former members of the rhsa eboard based on requirements and various attributes, including relation to the theme, building our future.  rhsa also created a lip sync and performed as an opening act.  we had so much fun weaving each of our ideas into a cohesive storyline that reflected our daily lives on campus.  every hall seemed to take a unique spin on our theme and it was so interesting to see how they incorporated it into their banners and lip syncs.  i have to say, the halls this year came out with the most impressive lip syncs and banners i’ve seen in all the three years i’ve participated in spirit weekend. everyone was working so hard and really channeled their creativity superbly.  i was so glad i didn’t have to judge, because that would have been one of the most difficult decisions ever.  shortly after all the performances, we revealed the top three winners of all the events as well as the top three most spirited halls.  before we all knew it, spirit weekend was over!  weeks and weeks of planning, preparing, practicing [hey look! alliteration!] and then it was all over.  luckily, we had monday off for yom kippur, so most of us got a chance to recover.

npblogger chris performing in esopus’s lip sync!

although this weekend had the potential to be an incredibly stressful one, the rhsa eboard managed to get through everything we needed to and still remembered to have fun.  i can honestly say that i could never ask for a better eboard to work with.  they are all so dedicated to everything they do and so supportive of everyone they work with. i am truly lucky to work with such a fantastic group of students. [=

i know i promised i wouldn’t ever write this much again, but i think it’s safe to say spirit weekend deserves about three blogs on its own, so can we let this one slide?? [=

title: we are the champions. -queen.

-kyleen!

so far, september has been full of exciting events, demanding assignments, and most fun of all, birthdays!!  in the same week, my friends and i celebrated both npblogger christina’s and my roommate jen’s birthdays! i hope you’ve gotten a chance to read christina’s blog to hear all about her birthday on 09-09-09, how fantastic is that!? but if you didn’t, you should check it out. we all had a great time.

two days later, rhsa [residence hall student association] hosted another buzz karaoke, this time in my residence hall, scudder.  instead of offering pizza like we normally do, we gave out barbeque and buffalo wings, and of course had a veggie platter for our friends that prefer not to eat meat.  we had the greatest turnout i think i’ve ever seen at a buzz karaoke, it was such a success! and we all had a blast singing silly songs in groups of excellent friends.  at every karaoke, the executive board of rhsa kicks off the evening with a performance of their own.  this year, our e-board has decided to match our song to the shirt we wear, since we all had the opportunity to design a shirt for the 2009-2010 year.  for this buzz, we wore the shirt i designed, which has a f-r-i-e-n-d-s [the tv show] theme. unfortunately, our karaoke collection didn’t have the theme song “i’ll be there for you” by the rembrandts, but we substituted it with “i’ll be there” by the jackson 5.

here’s a little secret: claudette, [one of rhsa's wonderful advisors, and in the picture the other designated microphone holder] and i listened to this song about 4 times and practiced in the hallway before we debuted it. and despite our best efforts, we still didn’t give our most solid performance. but it was tons of fun either way, so no worries!

within a few hours after our karaoke night came to an end, it was jennifer’s birthday!! [= so the next morning i drove jen, myself and our friend rafaela up around mohonk mountain to the mohonk preserve, where we set out to hike a mountain trail.  at the information center, a gentleman showed us a couple of options for the type of hike we wanted to take, and we decided to go with a two and a half mile [each way] hike to a waterfall.

once we got to the start of the trail, we were ready for our adventure. we had our map, water bottles, and a box of cheez-its.  it was the first time i had been in such a natural setting in quite a while, so i enjoyed just being able to experience it all. the temperature was perfect: not cold, but warm enough with a bit of a chill to keep me cool.  jennifer seemed to be taking it all in, too…

being her usual silly self, she climbed up part of the trail side mountain.  but then had to figure out how to get back down…

after that miniature excursion, we continued on our way toward the waterfalls.  since we all had quite an exhausting week, and i had been up until 5:00am night hosting, we didn’t quite have the energy we wish we did to finish the trail. we turned back before reaching the real waterfall, but we did get to see some small ones along the trail.

the sound of the water hitting the stones was so relaxing, i just wanted to stand there and watch and listen all day. but my legs and eyelids had some other ideas… so we headed back to the parking lot and then back to campus.

after a much needed and delightful nap, i got myself ready for a birthday dinner extravaganza!  a few friends and i joined jen for dinner at a nearby restaurant in town, p&g’s.  i had eaten there during my first year at new paltz, but for some reason, hadn’t been back since.  i guess i didn’t realize what i was missing!  i had the most delicious burger with bacon, cheddar, and barbeque sauce.  and of course perfectly seasoned waffle fries on the side.  and the price was so reasonable!  we all had a great time laughing and telling stories and enjoying the festive atmosphere.

jen, rafaela, and kristin!

colleen, christina, and kris!

later that night, jen and i went to go see a few of our friends perform at their a capella show on campus.  absolut a capella and male call, two of the three a capella groups on campus were performing at the terrace and we got to see a great show with great people for free!!  a few of my friends who graduated came back to visit their former co-performers, so i got to have a wonderful surprise reunion with them, too!!

every time i turn around, something else exciting is going on.  whether it’s a birthday, or a fun event, or just a great conversation, i am constantly being presented with great experiences!

title: birthday. -thebeatles.

-kyleen!

oh hey!

i’ve had quite the adventure since my last post…i feel like someone pressed the fast forward button on my life!!  this week has flown by, and now everything seems like such a blur.  my classes started out at full throttle, demanding a lot of attention and effort right away.  i’m okay with that, though, because i like being intrigued and pushed early on so i don’t get bored or used to a light workload. [haha i say "light workload" like i know what it means or something...]

what am i taking?  currently, i’m taking four courses for my major: foundations of algebra, linear algebra, intro to literacy for diverse learners, and foundations in seminar for secondary education math.  and i’m also taking two courses to fulfill general education requirements: the bible [GE3-west] and religions of the world [GE3-world], in case you were interested.

so far, i’m a fan of all of my classes, which is excellent.  [forgive me if i get excited about math once in a while...you'll soon find out i'm probably the biggest nerd you'll ever meet.]   foundations of algebra is on the proof and theory side of the math spectrum, as opposed to calculus and applied mathematics.  right now we’re working on set theory and logic, which i really have a lot of fun with.  actually, i have a little story about my set theory homework that all of my anti-math friends might appreciate.  i was sitting at my desk working on some homework the other night, and i got to problem 9.  well you know when you read a problem and it looks like a novel?  okay, that’s what happened.  and i thought it was going to be this ridiculous problem that would take me about a decade to finish.  [okay fine, by a decade, i mean a few solid hours.]  anyway, uncharacteristically, i avoided answering this problem like the plague.  and i think i edited and re-ordered my to-do list another three or four times.  so finally i said to my roommate jen, “can you please come look at this?”  now, being a french and anthropology double major, jen wasn’t quite familiar with the territory of this problem, so i knew she would get a kick of how terrifying it looked. well. apparently, jen actually has a mind of mathematical brilliance.  [and by that i mean she's a clever character.]  i also decided to apply my own perspective on this particular problem as well.  take a look at our innovative approach to my homework:

set theory. redefined.

it turns out, it was actually one of the simplest problems of my entire assignment.  it was just long because it showed an example first.  at least we got a good laugh out of it, right?  i guess that’s about as exciting as foundations of algebra gets for anyone besides math majors…

on to linear algebra.  we started with solving systems of equations, which is going to be a fundamental aspect of all the methods we use in the rest of the course.  i was very confused and easily frustrated by it after the first two classes.  but after a few days and a lot of patience, i started to realize the concept and how it worked.  we had a test on friday, and i’m pretty sure i aced it.  [=  i guess i'm going to find out...

along with the math part of my major, i also have courses required for my education certification.  this semester i have intro to literacy for diverse learners, which challenges me with every reading, every class, and every assignment.  my professor expects a lot from her students, and i like how she pushes us to learn.  we've only had a few classes and i already feel like i've learned so much.  it's very demanding, and sometimes draining, but at the same time, the feeling of accomplishment is so rewarding.  my seminar course only meets six times this semester, so we've only had one session so far.  but i got a really great impression from the first class, so i'm looking forward to more.  right now, i'm trying to figure out how to represent the way math affects my life in a creative way.  i'm thinking either a proof or a venn diagram...or something math-related.  we'll see what i come up with, it's still in the works...  we're going to be looking at the curriculum for secondary math sequences and seeing how math teachers expect to deliver the information and how they feel about certain changes in curriculum.  this will be my first glimpse into the school world from the teacher's view instead of the student's, besides observing my high school mentor's math classes.

so my general education courses: the bible, and religions of the world.  i like taking courses that have some sort of connection [almost like a semester theme]  so i can take a little bit more from both classes together than i would have by themselves.  my course on the bible is a literary analysis, you could say.  and religions of the world is pretty self-explanatory: we’re exploring the philosophies and histories of select religions.  both seem interesting, and hopefully i’ll be able to explain them better a little later…

i promised i would write less! i’m under by six words. [=

title: allstar. -smashmouth. [1999, do you remember that!?]

-kyleen!

why hello there!! [=

so whose blog are you reading??

i'm kyleen! [= i'm a junior at new paltz, majoring in secondary education with a concentration in mathematics and a minor in theatre arts. i'm from patchogue, long island. it's on the south shore in suffolk county, if you're really interested. my greatest passion in the world is tap dancing. i've been wearing tap shoes for somewhere close to seventeen years, now. i also have a very strong affinity for post-its and ribbons. [i have way too many of both, and they're organized in rainbow order in my room!] and i’m not a fan of capital letters, maybe you’ve noticed?

i’m sure you’ll learn more about me on this journey, if you’re interested in continuing. [= i'm always up for meeting people and striking up conversations, so feel free to leave a comment and say hi or ask a question, if you have one. i'll do my best to answer, but i make no guarantees, just in case. [i would rather not promise at all than break one.]

so the title is the theme of this post. i’m mainly referring to the end of summer and the beginning of a new semester at new paltz. it’s been quite a blur these last few weeks. time seemed to fly right out the window, and the next thing i knew, i was sitting in my foundations of algebra class slowly remembering the properties of set theory. it feels like just yesterday that i came home and had less than twenty-four hours to pack for a floridian adventure with three of my friends! [and by adventure i mean laying on a beach and doing not much else...] the whole eight weeks that i worked in the wardrobe department of the john w. engeman theatre at northport on a show called crazy for you now feels more like eight minutes. was it just me? or did this summer disappear for everyone else, too??

new paltz sort of popped up out of nowhere with a whole lot of new adjustments to be made and opportunities to take! for one thing, i moved into a new residence hall this year. for the past two years, i’ve lived in esopus, and decided that a change of scenery and a new experience on campus would be very good for me. so here i am in scudder, with a fantastic resident assistant [what's up npblogger christina!?] and an excellent roommate [oh hey, jen!].

jen is a fellow executive board member of mine in an organization called the residence hall student association. our main goal is to foster community among resident students through programs, events, and opportunities to improve residence life. some of these programs and events include an ice cream social, a welcome back barbeque, and a performance by hypnotist erick kand that we hosted this past weekend.

ice cream social!

we all got quite the workout scooping all the ice cream for our kick-off event of welcome weekend!

welcome back barbeque!

everyone seemed to have been enjoying the music, activities, free give-aways and prizes, and cotton candy…

until it started raining! and by raining, i actually mean down-pouring!! after a few drizzling drops, all of a sudden, the skies opened up and nearly flooded us! six of our e-board members ran to help move all the food for the barbeque inside while two stayed with our karaoke and cotton candy machines. i had never been so drenched in my entire life! i couldn’t even see past the water pouring down my face, it was crazy! so after we moved all the food inside, terri and jen went puddle-jumping…and the rest of our e-board followed…

puddle jumping fun!

we have quite a collection of characters on this executive board…we’re a wild bunch! [=

shortly after these shenanigans, we were hosting a hypnotist event. so we had to eat, shower, and change real quick before that adventure could begin...

hypnotized!?

erick kand had twenty new paltz students, including RHSA’s very own secreterri, convinced that their noses were rubber, and challenged them to pull their noses as far away from their face as they could. it was quite a sight!

after a busy [and amusing] welcome weekend, classes started [not too bright and early, thank goodness] on monday morning. to start the year correctly, i grabbed breakfast in hasbrouck with meredith, one of my closest friends from new paltz and home. then it was off to the bible, foundations of algebra, lunch, and then literacy for diverse learners. i’m looking forward to getting more acclimated to my new courses and professors, and can’t wait to share all of my experiences with you!

but i’ll save them for next time. and i’ll try real hard not to write a blog this long ever again. it’s just been such a busy end and beginning and everything in between!! thanks for reading! please say hello, i’d love to hear from you!!

for those of you starting a semester with me, i wish you the best of luck and all the fun it can bring! and for those of you just interested in reading or curious about new paltz, feel free to ask questions or share concerns. [=

title: closingtime. -semisonic.

always,

kyleen!