The Most Wonderful Time of The Year!

Campus is quieting down as we near the end of finals week! I just have one more exam to go and then it is home sweet home for three long weeks. While it will be nice to be at home with my friends and family, it was hard to say goodbye to my friends here and roommate. It was the last time we were together in 2011! I know we will keep in touch often over break and come back ready for a crazy 2012. One of my favorite things about this time of year is the exchange of cards and goodies. Every year my roommate and I make our own holiday card to mail out to our friends and families. It was fun to make cocoa, put on Finding Nemo and get to writing!

It is easy to get into the holiday spirit here as lights and decorations everywhere surround us. The tree in the campus center with EC ornaments is still standing tall from Holiday Weekend, which was a few weekends ago. This year’s theme for Holiday Weekend was Take Me To The Moon. The graduating class gave their annual gift at Holiday Banquet. Their gift of a nutcracker was so unique and adorable! Who knew purple and gold nutcrackers existed?! It is always heartwarming to see our campus community come together for our Thanksgiving meal with friends and families. While it was a bit odd to hear carols instead of the usual college songs, it put everyone in the holiday spirit. Holiday Ball took us to the moon on Saturday with lights, stars, and moons galore. It was a great celebration to wrap up the term and the year. Have a holiday and an astonishing new year!

Holiday Season Has Arrived!

The holiday cheer that started with Thanksgiving Break has carried back to campus! Break was a lot of fun but still seemed so short even though we had a full week off. It was nice to get to see all of my friends from home and visit my High School through EC Ambassadors to talk to students about EC. Thanksgiving was yummy and nice to spend with my family. While it was nice to sleep, it was great to be reunited with my friends. I can’t believe we had so much to share with each other after only being apart for one week!

While we were away, campus was magically decorated with purple lights on several of the trees around campus, trees and wreathes in the offices, and lights in many dorm rooms. Best of all, the huge tree went up in the Dining Hall! I can’t wait to see how the graduating class decorates it for Holiday Banquet on Friday. I wonder what new ornaments will be on it this year…

Tonight, the holiday celebrations started early as Hillel hosted the annual Dreidel Social. It was nice to catch up with friends and take a break from all of the homework we have. We ate latkes or potato pancakes (with applesauce of course), sufganiyot or jelly doughnuts, hot cocoa. It was fun to play my friends in dreidel. And what Hanukkah celebration would be complete without a little Adam Sandler as we watched Eight Crazy Nights.

I know these next few weeks will just fly by but it still seems like there is a lot to be done before this term can come to a close. This weekend will be a great break from work with Holiday Banquet and Holiday Ball!

Hoops Hysteria, Theme Dinner, and Orchesis! Oh my!

This past Thrusday was an event filled day here on campus. The evening of fun started off with our Founder’s Day Theme Dinner! This is one of few events on campus where colors other than purple or gold prevail on campus. This term’s theme was the 80’s! To get everyone like totally stoked to the max, throughout the week in Mackenzie’s they were playing classic 80’s movies like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. For the event, all of the Dining Services workers were dressed to theme and even formed an air guitar band to perform for us. We got lots of 80’s swag, candy, and funny photos from the photo station as gifts. And what Theme Dinner isn’t complete without our treasured Cowles Hall as a cake! To keep with our theme we also had a Pac Man cake and cookies. It was like totally rad!

Our night then continued with the Orchesis show! The dances were amazing! There were a variety of dances performed from lyrical to tap to hip-hop. It was great to see some boys up there as well. It was nice and felt a bit odd to be attending the performance and not have to worry about the Encore requirement anymore. I can’t wait to see what other dances Orchesis has in store for next term’s show. It definitely got me excited for our EC Tap Ensemble show next term as well.

The final event of the evening was Hoops Hysteria! It was nice to see so many members of the college community come out for our pep rally to support our basketball and cheer leading teams! Everyone was very excited for the free shirts and the chance to win a TV, futon, iPod, and other awesome prizes.

The whole evening was a great way to start ending the week! Just one more week of classes until Thanksgiving break!

EC Service

We may be a small college but the service projects we are involved in are quite large. Student Alumni Council recently celebrated Autism Awareness day where we lit up the archway of Tompkins Hall, an upperclassman dorm, blue and decorated with streamers and balloons. It caught everyone’s attention, not just because it was a foreign color to our purple bubble. Our photo won “Best Use of Decorations” through the national Autism Speaks U contest!

Yesterday, with Circle K, the collegiate chapter of Kiwanis, I lead a group of students back to Owego, New York to take part in Make A Difference Day, the largest national day of service. Our club partnered with the Charles H. Bassett Youth Foundation, a local organization that aides youth giving back, to clean up the area and recognize the work of those that have given up their time to help the community recover from the tragic floods that hit a month and a half ago. We raked leaves, picked up trash, cleaned the historic community fountain, and set the food up for the day. It was nice to recognize the community members for their dedication with certificates and ice cream : ) It was amazing and inspiring to see the number of young people who have volunteered. There were college students like us, high school students, middle school students, and even elementary school students. It just shows how easy people of any age can get involved. Especially with the hard times Owego and many other areas are facing, it was refreshing to let the community know that their good deeds have not gone unnoticed.

Mocktails + Puppies = Midterms?!

This week the library has been packed with tired and stressed students anxiously waiting for the week of tests, papers, and quizzes to end so that it can be break! With all of the craziness of classes, there has been a lot of fun as well. Last night our dorm had a mocktail party where we enjoyed some alcohol free apple fizzles, sea breezes, and bay breezes. We played games to get to know the dorm better as well. It was neat to see what you have in common with people and to learn more about your friends. It was a nice break in between studying!

Tug, Benson, Mona, and Levi joined us tonight at the Library. They are all therapy dogs in the area and came to help everyone de-stress for the last night of midterm week. They were all so cute and friendly! It was such a nice and much welcome distraction from my Health Psychology paper. Who wouldn’t want to come play with puppies for a bit?! They definitely lightened the mood and re-energized everyone. It also encouraged everyone to get their work done so it will be that much sooner that we will be reunited with our own pets : )

Elmira's Honored History

The end of my week involved a lot of recollecting. As the purple scaffolding indicates, there is a lot of renovation occurring on our campus to our beloved Cowles Hall. This building is honored with history, as Cowles Hall is the original Elmira College. It is the site that alumni cherish, as it was their dorm or classroom. I could not be more excited to enter the building for the first time when all of the construction is completed to better understand the roots of our college.

As a part of the renovations, the treasured octagon that topped the building was removed. When this occurred, campus was buzzing with the news. Everyone was shocked and felt like the heart of the college was damaged. Even though we knew that it just needed some surgery and would return, it just wasn’t the same.

Yesterday marked a significant milestone in the remodel, the final purple beams were ready to be installed to complete the new and improved octagon. A ceremony was held where members of the college community were invited to sign the final beams and watch as they were lifted in the air and secured in place. Everyone came out to make their mark, adding a touch of our legacy to the college. It felt good to see the final piece of the octagon put into place and to know that we were a part of it. Cowles Hall is naked no more : )

Watching the ceremony made me excited to come back to campus as an alumnus. Tonight I had the chance to connect with alumni as a member of the Student Alumni Council. It was a lot of fun to hear their tales of campus life and Cowles Hall at the Binghamton New York Area Alumni Event. I was pleasantly surprised to see some familiar faces from Reunion 2011! It is nice to see how others have taken what they learned at EC and put it into good use in their careers.

Sunny Days Sweepin' Across All EC

September is full of traditions, new and old, here at EC. This surprise long weekend started off with a group of us going to see the Lion King in 3D! I’m sure the other moviegoers appreciated our recitation and singing along with the entire movie. It’s interesting that we still know every word, and the voices, for this childhood favorite but do not have the vocabulary we need memorized for our classes down pat : )

The next morning we were up bright and early for Octagon Fair! There were a lot of different takes on this nautical theme and many pirates and sailors dressed up around campus. For Hillel, we brought the Dead Sea to EC with some mineral mud for people to try. At the Active Minds table, we had Swedish Fish for sale and a Name that Nautical Phobia game. Sadly, the 2013’s ran out of luck and were thrown into EC Jail. It was nice to have Alumni and future EC students on campus as Saturday was the first Open House of the Fall.

Sunday brought on the first and last night of singing as today was Mountain Day! This was the first ever Mountain Day on a Monday. It was a very unexpected surprise to wake up to those congratulatory papers slipped under the door. The day was great with many games, raft races, picnic lunch, a memorial service for alumni who have passed away, iris planting and more. It will be hard to face reality and classes again tomorrow….