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Hello Everyone!

 First, let me extend my apologies for my recent lack of writing.  I am going to make a better effort to write more often-now that things have died down (in a relative sense) for the next week or so, I am getting back into a more balanced schedule.

 School has certainly started off with a bang!  Over the past few weeks I have been immersing myself in academics, co-curricular and social life.  I guess the best way to update everyone is to go through each of these one by one.

 Academic Life:

I love my course schedule this semester!  My professors are wonderful as usual, and my schedule provides me with a good amount of time to do things outside of the classroom.  I am particularly enjoying my Introduction to Women's Studies class because we have very lively and engaged discussion, which keeps me attentive and excited about the material.  We are also relating a lot of the material to our own lives and situations, which helps us learn about ourselves as well as each other.  I have also been really challenged in my drawing course.  We meet once a week, and I feel as though I am learning such a great deal each time we're there.  Our professor is very good at making us find things that our brains don't always tell us that we are seeing, and I am learning how to be more observant than ever.  I am also working on an independent study with my advisor this year.  It's exciting to see the pices finally start to come together.  Right now, I am working on writing a proposal for the study, which will involve looking at children's facial and emotional processing.  Doing this independent study has also challenged me to budget my time, as there is no set "homework" and no set "class" time, although I am receiving credit hours.

 Co-curricular Life:

Besides class, my time has been taken up by meetings, meetings, meetings!  As the Junior Class President, I have been scheduling and running Junior Class Board meetings as well as attending weekly Student Government Association meetings.  Our class board has already successfully put together a family reception for our class during Family Weekend as well as executed the school's traditional Junior Class Ring Ceremony.  Both events were exciting and I was glad to see that our Board's hard work paid off.  We have a very dedicated group of Juniors serving on the Board this year, and our next hope is to work towards creating a class service project and hosting open forum's for input from our class regarding Senior Townhouse Apartment selection for next year.  SGA has been working diligently, and has already held an open forum about the newly implemented cost of printing in the Library and other computer labs on campus.  We were glad to see a good amount of students come out with questions and concerns.  We are also looking closely and our SGA constitution and making important and necessary changes to it.

I am working as a mentor and tutor in the Higgins Academic Center again this year.  We have a wonderful staff and I am excited to see that many students are taking advantage of the many resources we have available.  I love that Randolph-Macon supports its students academically and truly wants everyone to succeed.  I am looking forward to working with more students as a mentor to help them gain study habits, time management skills, etc.

My sorority had a successful fall recruitment, and we were happy to have 7 women accept bids from Kappa Alpha Theta!  We are also looking forward to our upcoming dodgeball tournament, which will benefit our philanthropy CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates).  The tournament will wrap up this year's Greek Fallfest, so hopefully we will have a good amount of participation from not only the Greek Community, but the entire community.

 This year I am also working on two college committees: The FYE Advisory Board and the Quality Enhancement Plan committee.  Both are faculty/staff committees that have a few student representatives.  It is wonderful to know that I can represent the student body and have a say in the way many things are done on campus. 

 Social Life:

After a long week of work, I have definitely been taking advantage of the weekend to relax.  Our Campus Activities Board has already hosted a hugely successful event with comedian Josh Blue (who won NBC's Last Comic Standing).  Our basketball gym was completely packed, and I was glad to see so many students come out for a campus event-and of course, he was hilarious!  This upcoming Friday they are also sponsoring a visit/talk from the Real World's Randy and Ruthie.  I'm sure that a lot of students will be interested to see the MTV stars!

It has also be nice to relax in my apartments!  My roommates and I are enjoying having a kitchen and are practicing our cooking skills when we have the time. And of course, we have all been enjoying numerous different parties on the weekends.  After we have all put in so much hard work during the week, it' good to get together with friends and relax!

So, as you can tell, it has been a busy past month (of course, I'm trying to fit a whole month into one entry!!)!  I hope everyone has a great Monday, and I'll try to write again soon!

Posted by caugustine | Permanent Link

After a wonderful orientation, I'm definitely ready to get into class and start getting used to my schedule. The new students entered R-MC this past week along with Tropical Depression Ernesto.Unfortunately, Ernesto was not as friendly to us as our new students, leaving in his path many power outages, fallen trees, and a huge amount of rain. I'm happy to be able to say that everyone is fine, all the power has been restored, debris is being cleaned up, and we are ready to start class!This semester should prove to be a jam-packed one, with plenty to do! I am really excited about all my classes, one of which is an independent study. I can't wait to start my research and learn more about facial processing in children. I am also taking Statistics, Intro to Women's Studies, Neurocognition, and Drawing. Along with that, I'm completing one of my two P.E. credits with Step Aerobics! Hopefully this will keep me in shape throughout the semester.I'll also be busy with everything I do outside of class-which includes working as a mentor and tutor and serving as the Junior Class President among other things. I can't wait to start working on different projects and really get into everything.That is all I have for now-I'm sure class will provide me with many more entertaining stories-so I will be writing again soon!

Posted by caugustine | Permanent Link

Hello Everyone!It certainly has been a while since I have last written. I had a busy end of the summer with camp and moving into my apartment soon after I came home. My roommates and I moved into our apartment a little over a week ago, and we are adjusting well to life "on our own." We've been learning a lot about dealing with cable and internet service, buying groceries, cleaning up after ourselves (we love washing dishing, mopping, and vacuuming!), and trying to keep our electricity bill low. Suffice it to say, we are getting a lot of very valuable life lessons already.Since we've been here, I have been keeping myself busy working at the R-MC Bookstore. We have a lot of great new R-MC gear and, of course, we have been getting in tons of books for the beginning of the year. Right now it is what we like to call "the calm before the storm," as there aren't many people coming in right now, but we know it will be a crazy rush when students arrive next week.I have also been keeping myself busy with Orientation Leader Training. We are so looking forward to having the new students (all 450 of you!) arrive on Wednesday. We have so many fun and informative activities planned-I just can't wait. The OLs are a great group of students and we are staying entertained between important meetings. Along with training, we actually got to go play Laser Tag yesterday. We competed against the Resident Assistants and there really was a lot of intense competition. Another nice treat for us will be tomorrow night when we are all invited to eat dinner at President Lindgren's house. I am really looking forward to this very nice treat.It's really hard to believe that I am already back at R-MC and getting re-oriented with everything again. It feels like I never left, but at the same time I am really wondering: Where did summer go'!Alright, it's off to another fun session of Orientation Training! More to come later...

Posted by caugustine | Permanent Link

That's right...I'm trying to get everything squared away for the upcoming year just like many of the incoming freshmen are right now. Two of my friends and I are living in an off-campus apartment across Route 1 and are very excited at the thought of life "on our own." I haven't been writing often because I have been busy relaxing and reading on the beach (poor me, I know). But now I'm back in Richmond packing so that I can leave tomorrow for the most wonderful place on Earth--Camp Lachlan. For a little over three weeks I will be a counselor there with some of my very best friends. Needless to say, I am beyond excited and can't wait to get up to see the beautiful mountains of Rockbridge County, Virginia. However, only a few short weeks ago I realized that this meant when I get home I will have less than a week before we move in to get everything together for the apartment when I get back.I feel like a lot of you that are coming to R-MC in the fall feel! I'm sure you are starting to get rooming assignments and are very anxious to get to school. Thankfully I know my roommates and the size of our apartment but I want to get everything for it right now! My advice to you is to be patient and wait to get some things when you get to Ashland on August 30 (I should take my own advice-I've gone crazy buying little knick-knacks for us).I wish my summer life was more exciting and that I had more to report, but I try to keep it as simple as possible! I can't wait to get to Ashland in a month so I'll have more to talk about! For now-have a great rest of the week!

Posted by caugustine | Permanent Link

It has certainly been a while since I have written anything. I think I was ready to get away from the work for school for a while, so I let writing slip my mind. Since I've been home for about a month I have been both bored and busy. Coming home from school brings many mixed emotions for me--while it's nice to have no homework and be with family, I also miss always having someone around! I am spending my summer doing many different things. So far, I have been busy nannying, and have been lucky enough to spend some time at the beach. My family is preparing for a yard sale, so I have also been helping my mom clean out our attic (Not the most fun thing to do!). Other than that, I have been enjoying the warm weather and am looking forward to getting back to the beach in early July.Yesterday one of my good friends was up at RMC, so I met up with her. It was nice to get back to school and to see her. I will say that RMC on a summer weekend is also a bit creepy because it seems so empty! Even though summer school is in session and SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows) is there, it just wasn't quite the same. I have to say that I hate to wish away summer, but there is also a big part of me that can't wait to get back!I know for everyone that will be coming to RMC as a Freshman next year this is a really exciting time. I can remember so well how excited and NERVOUS I was getting ready to come to school! Being the girl that I am, I picked out my comforter first : ). It was really important for me to stay in touch with my roommate--I think you find out for sure who your roommate is in July. As much as I wanted to get anything and everything for a dorm room as soon as I knew where I was going to school, I'm really glad that my Mom made me wait. It's hard to be patient when you are so excited!I'll try to update my blog more often, but until then, I hope you're having a great a summer as I am!

Posted by caugustine | Permanent Link