The Prom I Never Had

Here is a fun fact about me. I didn't go to a normal high school. I went to a charter school, which means I did independent study my junior and senior year. My senior year I was on-campus for school maybe 10 times. I was pretty much on my own as far doing my homework and learning the material.

Here's Ke$ha (me) and a pumpkin (Ashley)

That may sounds pretty awesome. 10 days of actual school a year and traveling around the world skiing... okay... it was pretty awesome. I'm really lucky. However, I missed out on the social aspects of regular high school like homecoming and prom.

I think I've said this before but I have a personal joke (as in I am the only one who thinks it's funny) that the highlighter dance at SMC is my version of the homecoming dance and the Halloween dance is my prom. Ya, it's not the same time of year, but I get dressed up for Halloween just like most of you get dressed up for prom.

Halloween here is also an entire weekend. There are things going on all weekend on-campus and in Burlington. Many of my friends went to "Nightmare in Vermont" and there was a Haunted House in the upstairs of Alliot of Friday night.

There is Sam, Nicole, and Ashley

Saturday is the big night of campus, though. Every year there is a Halloween dance and it's so much fun. It goes from 10 pm to 1 am and most of the school goes. Now, I love to dance. I would do it all the time. If I am with friends, it is typical for me to be the only once dancing. They love me for it.

While at the dance, I saw several other Ke$ha's at the dance as well as many Lady Gagas. I also saw a lot of hunters and bumble bees. I mean I saw A LOT of hunters. A LOT of fluorescent orange. So typical of VT kids tho. "What is an easy costume? Well, I own a lot of flannel... I can be a hunter and/or outdoorsman/woman." That is what my friend Jules did.   I think in college it's not always about the fanciest costume. It's about the wittiest or funniest thing you can put together with things you have or with things you can find at good will. It's about having a good time and just being someone else for the night. And that is why I love this holiday. I can be goofy and no one can say anything about it.
On another note, this weekend I met two girls who said they knew me because they read my blog all summer before they came to school. They actually said ,"Hey, I know you." I'm glad that they felt that they knew me. I guess that means that I'm doing my job well. :-D So I'm really happy about that.
Alright, I have to go. 6 am stair workout tomorrow. I have to get some sleep.
xoxo

Gabbi

Politics, Sports, and My Ski Team Family

Today was a good day. The sun was shining and the trees are very pretty colors. I literally didn't stop from 6:45 am until 9 pm today. I'm exhausted, but it was good day.

This is the Durick Library

I took this photo as I was heading to Music Theory class in McCarthy Arts Center. I purposely walked across the grass to walk across the crunchy leaves. The weather was more beautiful than I expected and warm enough for sandals.


Earlier in the day in my Writing for Media class, we had a guest speaker. He currently works at UVM, but he has worked on several political campaigns and he came in to discuss the relationship between candidates and the media. It was really conversational class discussing different scenarios when dealing with candidates. We also talked about how to cover political ads and press conferences. Did you know Tuesdays are big news days and weekends aren't? I didn't, but apparently that's why many press conferences are on Mondays.

Also today I had voice lessons as I do every Thursday afternoon and I've started working on two new pieces. One is "Come Rain or Come Shine," the jazz standard and "Defying Gravity" from the Broadway show Wicked. After these pieces, I am going to do something a little more R&B and Pop. The actual song is to be decided.

Then this afternoon I had to get van certified so that I can drive with the team to and from the hill if I have to. Most of the team gets certified and then people don't have to drive too often. It's a pretty easy thing to do and we all have to be team players. After that, I headed over to my second Defender meeting to get my next article assignment. I switched into the Sports section this week and I'll be writing about the Women's Ice Hockey Team and there upcoming season.

Ashley, Kerstin, Nicole and Kelsey

After all that, the Alpine Ski Team (Follow us on Twitter!) headed over to our coach's house for a delicious Mexican food dinner. I finally got to meet my coach's new baby. He's so adorable!! OMG. I'm totally in love with him. :-P About 18 athletes (that's alot of mouths to feed) chowed down on chicken enchiladas, chili, salad, cornbread, and lots of Gatorade. At the meeting, Jules and I talked to the team about our community service idea, a Susan G. Komen Ski Race for the Cure. People were really on board and had some fabulous suggestions! I think things could really come together on this!! :-D



So I'm going to post a few more pictures up below so that you can see what the team looks like and was up to! I'm so happy it's Halloween weekend! It should be fabulous! :-) Can't wait to tell you all about it!
xoxo
Gabbi

Me with the baby, Not a great photo of me.... They made me laugh... But the baby was so cute!

Checking out the Ice Hockey game

Yup, that's her cute face :-P

Going Pink

It's a popular symbol. The twisted pink ribbon. We see it on magnets, t-shirts, and pins. It's everywhere. Whether we know someone with breast cancer or not, we know the symbol.

Well, the ski team is going to be doing community service this year and one of the freshman girls, Julia, suggested putting on a Susan G. Komen Ski Race for the Cure,  much like the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cures that are generally running. As ski racers though, the ski race sounded fun and different.

Last night, Jules and I spent at least two hours outlining what we wanted to do. We did everything from talk about the venue to what supplies we needed to potential prizes. We drafted up some potential sponsors to help us run the event. We wrote up a standard email and talked about what would go on the flyers. (If this happens, the flyers will be awesome because I'll be designing them. Thank you, New Media!)

Thursday, we have a ski team dinner where we plan to pitch the idea to the team. We even have a fun sheet with the pink ribbon watermarked in the background. It's legit. Then after we get the team on board, we have to pitch it to the Athletics Department to get it cleared. And even with those two hurdles, I AM SO EXCITED for the potential of the event. It could be so fun and it would be for such a wonderful and important cause!

I'm so excited I had to write a real quick blog about it! :-P
xoxo
Gabbu

Harvest Fest, UVM Hockey, and the Skinny Pancake

The weekend is coming to a close. *tear* Even the sky is crying, but we had beautiful weather yesterday! To go along with the beautiful weather, Green Up, a club focused on saving the environment, hosted Harvest Fest. They brought in the band, Dirty Paris, who are awesome and also, there was free food like apples, soup, bread, and donuts.
To be honest, there wasn't a huge turnout, but I enjoyed myself and it was a great excuse to get outside and appreciate the sunshine. After hanging there for a while, I went to the Women's Rugby game. They were playing Tufts, and they won. Again. They are undefeated. That's pretty cool. There was quite the crowd watching and from what I saw it was super aggressive.
After the game, I met up with my friend, Kelsey, for dinner and another UVM hockey game. We went to City Market, which is like Trader Joes, and they have all kinds of delicious foods. I love the Smoked Salmon sandwich on sour dough. :-D Yum.
At the UVM game, I ran into my friend, Sean, and finally got my jacket back from my trip to New Zealand. I also got my favorite scarf back. :-D Yay. Anyways, we got pretty good seats and we sat right next to the student section which was really fun. The UVM kids are crazy! The game was really intense and went into overtime. It ended tied at 2-2. I'm turning into a ice hockey fan. It's a really fun game to watch when the guys are slamming each other against walls. It was also a great way to spend the night off campus.
Then today I went to breakfast with Kate and Sarah. We went to the Skinny Pancake and I finally used the gift certificate I got in a Green Up raffle last December. I got a Noah's Ark (picture above) which has eggs, bacon, and two scrambled crepe things with cinnamon, sugar, and VT maple syrup. I also had some VT Apple Cider! It was delicious. I love that place. SO MANY OPTIONS. I need to go back like a million more times to try everything. If you are in the area though, I really recommend going!
And lastly, we headed over the Burton Headquarters because Sarah got a new snowboard, but no boots or bindings. While she browsed the store for those, I took photos of things I liked and texted them to my mom. My text message read: "If you are having trouble shopping for this holiday season, this is a very cute jacket.. in black... size Large." or "These leopard print long underwear will make me REALLY fast this season." That one usually works pretty well because the parents want me to ski fast. :-D
Now, I have to go. I have a tour at 1:30 pm!
xoxo
Gabbi

I'm Guilty

 



I'm so guilty...
of shamelessly telling everyone to read the on-campus newspaper and particularly this week's page 7....
Why? Because my first published article is in there. 

Here's a little intro to The Defender. This is our on-campus, student-run newspaper that comes out every Tuesday. You can also view it online. This week, I wrote in it for my Writing For Media class. I have to write 3 more times this semester, so I'll continue to post those here as they come, but there won't be another for 2 weeks.

Left Half

Check it out!  Titled "Under the Weather and Out of the Country," it's all about two students who have been sick during study abroad.

I'm really happy with the way it turned out. At the bottom is a globe. The dark spots are on Ghana and Peru where the students were studying.

Right Half

 On the right is a side bar with "Tips for Travel." I came up with 4 of them and my editor (I assume) added 2.
I'm happy to say that the paper kept most of my original work. Editors have the freedom to change titles and move some things around in the article. Most of the changes they made were attributions and some word rearranging in the intro.












So now that I have shamelessly promoted my article, :-P I will tell you about the article I am currently working on. The topic is: Women in the Weight Room. The idea is that women need to spend more time in the weight room instead of all their time on the treadmill or elliptical.
It's my final project and we have to have a "goal magazine" for publication. Mine is Women's Health. The story will be about 1,500 to 2,000 words long.
Because I want to publish in such a big publication, I have to get "Big Fish" to interview. I actually already have to interview set up with some Ph.D's and I am waiting to hear back from professional athletes like Olympic gold medalist, Lindsey Vonn. I know you are sitting there thinking, "Olympic Gold medalist? No way you can get an interview." Luckily she's a ski racer and I'm a ski racer and I'm really hoping she'll help me out. I've also emailed soccer players and I'm deciding on a few gymnasts to email.  I really want a lot of different female athletes, so you have endurance athletes and sprint athletes.
Essentially, I have big dreams for this article. :-D

That's all for now!
xoxo

Gabbi

Don't forget: There is a "Knight Chat" tomorrow night at 7:30 EST with some of the bloggers! You can come talk to other applicants and current students. Come for the whole hour and a half or just stop by for a few minutes.  It's a great opportunity to get any info you need before applying!

Forget about being in 3 places at once...

I was in 3 seasons today! It was crazy.
If you haven't read my blog previously, here's a quick background to this story. My friends and I have been trying to hike a bunch this fall including Mt. Mansfield (Stowe) and Camel's Hump (Just outside Richmond, VT).
My friend, Sarah, and I decided we wanted to go hiking this weekend, but with recent weather we were unsure if that would actually happen. Lucky for us, we woke to a cloudy morning without precipitation. We left school at 8 am and headed to On the Rise bakery in Richmond. It's about a 15 min drive from school. Its delicious. We grabbed some breakfast and coffee before heading out on the hike. We also invested in delicious scones to snack on at the top.

The Trail

When we drove up to the trail head, Sarah screamed "Snow!" It was true, there were small patches of snow along the road. I knew it had snowed, but I didn't expect to see it so low! Still we started our hike in "Fall" with beautiful colors.
Then about an hour into our hike, I looked up to see pine trees and a winter wonderland. I'm not kidding. It looked so different than we hiked it a few weeks ago and if I didn't know any better I'd have said it was January.  We didn't see any people for quite some time.
Sarah was wearing a tank top because she was hot from hiking and when we finally saw people they gave her the funniest looks. I guess snow and tank tops don't mix? Oh well. Luckily we brought layers.

Sarah ready to trek up the rest of the way!

Let me tell you, we couldn't have been more happy to have arrived at the clearing which means .3 miles to the top. There we put on our jackets and extra layers because the few people we saw said it was very windy at the top.

As you can see, this is WINTER!!! There was at least 6 in of snow, probably a foot in some places! I was very tempted to make a snow angel, but that might have been a little cold on the hike down!

At the top :-D

It was great to finally make it to the top, but we didn't stay their long because it was really cold and I couldn't fully enjoy my motivational scone up there! So we snapped a few pics as proof and went on our way!

The last season is Spring. As we were heading down, it had warmed up which meant a lot of mud. I mean A LOT. We were covered and stepping in giant mud puddles and after a while we gave up trying to stay clean and just booked it down the mountain to the warm car. (My heated seats never felt so good as after this hike.)

It's a little sad since that'll be the last hike of the season, but I'm so happy we did it! We felt so good after and it was new and fun!

Now I have to go do some homework... so typical. But keep praying for snow! I want to be able to ski on Halloween!!

Also, remember you can email me anytime or ask me questions on my Formspring! You can even just leave a comment here!
xoxo

Gabbi

Columbus Day weekend and then back to reality...

Quick video update on what I've doing. Nothing super thrilling, but a Church St adventure, fun international treats, and my religion mid-term....

One Class Can Make All the Difference

So recently in New Media 2 (one of my journalism electives) we have been working on animations using Adobe Flash. I just finished my first big animation about 5 minutes ago :-D and I'm proud of it. For someone is AWFUL at drawing on computers, I think it looks fantastic.
I had originally planned to record "If I Die Young" by the Band Perry with my friend Jazz (We're on Myspace.) but scheduling didn't work out this week, so I used the original.
The video which is 2 min and a LOT of keyframes is about cyberbullying. It turns out this month is "National Bullying Prevention Month" which makes my video conveniently relevant.



So what do you think? The only part I don't like is my own voice. I REALLY don't like the way my voice sounds recorded, but it had to be done.

I am also currently working on my first story for the Defender. My editor is Lily, who was in my Intro to Writing course last year and is a fabulous writer. She will be a great person to work with. My topic is "Illness while Abroad" and I will be talking about happens when someone is studying abroad and they need medical help. So I'm lining up my sources and trying to get it all together. When it's done, I'll scan it for the blog. :-D

xo

Gabbi

Getting Off Campus

    There is one question that I can expect on every tour. "Do students stay on campus all the time? What do you do for fun?"
    The answer to the first question is: Yes, most students stay on campus on the weekends, but for things to do, many people will venture into Burlington. Freshman aren't allowed to have cars on campus, so they use the easy and free CCTA bus system. Students simply head to the bus stop by Ross Sports Center and hop on the number 2. It'll drop students off right on Church St. It's pretty awesome.

A beautiful Fall day outside Pontigny

    In Burlington, students grab food and places like Boloco or the Skinny Pancake who accept the Knight Card (Our student ID card that doubles as a debit card). Go shopping at the mall or hang out at Lake Champlain (when the weather is warm). I personally like to attend concerts at Higher Ground. The tickets are reasonable, the venue is really small, and there is a great mix of big names and local up-and-comers.

The warm-up at the UVM vs UNB ice hockey game

   Today, I did the unspeakable. I went to a UVM sporting event. *Gasp* My friend is a big ice hockey fan and wanted to see a game. I'm the first to admit that I really don't know anything except that there are 3 20-minute periods and the boys smash each other against the barrier. It's intense and I'll also admit that I'm falling in love with it. They are totally hardcore. UVM also has a stellar hockey team
and they were playing the University of New Brunswick in Canada and it was... Oh, it was really cool.
    Kelsey and I got tickets right at the rink and it seemed like we were the only two not in Catamount gear. I've never been to a sporting event at a large college and even though this wasn't a big game, it was a very cool experience. Just for a minute, I thought "Maybe a big school could have been the place for me." Then I thought, "Nope, I like walking around campus and always seeing people I know." I considered the possibility of being at a big school and meeting a person and then not seeing them for 4 years. No, I definitely prefer the small, comfortable community of SMC.
  After the game, we headed to Church St. to have some Japanese food, which was of course delicious and a wonderful way to end the weekend. After dinner we grabbed Pumpkin Spice Lattes at Starbucks which were so delicious and totally made my evening.
Now, I'm back in the dorm taking a mini-break from my religion paper that isn't writing itself... It's so sad when you actually have to do homework. Time to hit the books again!
Remember that if you have any questions, you can ask me through my FormSpring. You can ask anonymously so don't be embarrassed or shy!

xo
Gabbi