Reading Days

Hello again!  I would just like to inform everyone that Reading Days are the most fantastic thing ever and I need a few more of them right now.  They’re like our fall break and technically they’re a good time to study, but most of my midterms finished up the day before, so I didn’t have too much studying to do.  I went home for dinner on Wednesday night, and then spent Thursday afternoon to Saturday afternoon visiting friends at UVA.  It was so refreshing to get off campus for a little bit and spend time with people I really miss and haven’t seen in a while.  I even ran into some other W&L students while we were up there doing the same thing!  

When I got back, campus was pretty quiet, and it was kind of nice to have a laid-back day or two before school started up again.  About half of my hallmates stayed here the entire time, and they said they enjoyed the peace and quiet too–and some of them were actually productive with their time.  But now school has started again and everyone is back to their hectic schedules.   

I will just say really quickly that going to UVA made me realize some of the things that are really exceptional about W&L.  For one thing, our campus is so much smaller!  It took me twenty minutes to get places at UVA, and a lot of time we had to wait in the cold for buses.  And while the UVA students were all really friendly, nothing compares to the Speaking Tradition here.  It really creates a sense of community that can’t be found anywhere else.  So reading days were not only a good way to take a break and get off campus, they also made me appreciate coming home to W&L.  And now I have to go study for my Spanish midterm.

Pizza

Hi!  I know it’s been forever since I’ve posted, and I was starting to feel guilty.  Also, the admissions office had our group of first-year bloggers over for pizza and hang-out time, and it was really nice and I felt guilty for never posting.  :)

Life is crazy!!  so busy.  For some reason, I thought it would be a really good idea to take the challenging math and science courses even though I’m not pre-med and I’m not sure that’s what I want to study.  Hm.  But I actually do really enjoy my classes, although I think my professors think I’m a slacker because I fall asleep in class a lot.  I can’t help it; the rooms are just so warm and some of the chairs are really comfortable!!  But then in the evenings I make sure to catch up on whatever I may have missed while I looked like a bobble-head.  :)

This weekend is homecoming, so that’s pretty much the topic of conversation as the weekend approaches.  I think it’s going to be really fun!  My weekend will be a little different from a lot of people’s because the tennis team is sending people to an ODAC tournament.  So we’ll be playing tennis from 9am to 6pm on Saturday and Sunday.  I’ll have to make sure to post again next week to let everybody know how it goes.  Maybe I’ll even test my technology skills and try to post a photo or two!

The 7th

It’s now Monday the 7th, so we’re about two days into orientation week.  So far everything is going really well!  My pre-orientation trip was really fun.  We had a pretty large group:  24 entering freshmen and around 7 leaders, but we got to know each other so much better as the week progressed.  Everyone was incredibly nice and I still hang out with lots of the friends I made and we all say hi to everybody on the trip when we see them.  I feel so much more settled on campus knowing that I already know a group of people.  The trip itself was a combination of bonding and service work with TAP.  The service work we did with TAP was eye-opening as well as fun.  We split into smaller groups in the morning and worked with different TAP programs, then met back and talked about what we did before moving on to large-group activity or project.  I got to work with HeadStart, and education program for the children of low-income families.  Basically, I had 3-year-olds using me as a jungle gym for several hours.  But I learned a lot about the lifestyles of some of the children and saw how the program helps them and their families with so many of the difficulties and decisions involved in raising a healthy, educated child.  I would totally recommend a pre-o trip to everybody; it’s such a great way to meet people and to be exposed to an entirely new perspective on the lives of people who don’t have the advantages and privileges that I do.

That all sounded very formal and impersonal [even though the writing was bad ] but really, go on a pre-o trip.  It’s great.  Hopefully I can put some pictures of our group up later.  ok, bye for now!

Let's get started already!

OK.  Here’s the deal:  it’s time for school to start already.  Almost all of my friends have left, and I am stuck at home for another week packing and waiting to get on campus.  And I’m one of the lucky ones, because I’m doing a pre-orientation trip, which means I get to move in on the 30th instead of waiting until September 5th.  I’m really excited for the pre-orientation trip, by the way.  I’m going on a Volunteer Venture trip to Roanoke, where our group will be working with Total Action against Poverty (TAP) for a week and getting to know each other as well.   I’ve heard really good things about the pre-orientation trips, so I can’t wait!  Come on August 30th!

Hey everyone!!

Hi!  I’m Elise.  I’ve never really blogged before, so I was kind of nervous when I got an email asking me to blog about my life for a year.  I was even more nervous when I got an email from wordpress.com that greeted me with “Howdy!”  But W&L admissions people are pretty cool, so I’m going to trust them on this one.  :)

I live in Lexington, not far from the W&L campus.  Apparently, this makes me a “townie”.    It feels a little strange to talk about leaving for college when home will still be ten minutes away.  When I first started applying to colleges, I didn’t take W&L that seriously because I wanted to get much further away from home.  But then I realized W&L has a lot of things for me that other schools don’t–besides the threat of my parents lurking around campus.  Because W&L is a Division III school, I have the chance to play on the tennis team, which would be impossible for me at a big school like UVA or Duke.  And since it is a liberal arts school, I can explore a lot of different subjects like literature or physics without committing to an engineering school or a purely liberal arts program.  Last but not least, I received a scholarship, so college suddenly became very affordable.  I’m really excited about going to W&L; it’s a great school and Lexington really is a beautiful place that I love very much.  Plus, I already know where the best restaurants and coffee shops are!!  Uh, I guess that’s all for now…later, everyone!

summer is starting to end…

Well, so far it’s been a good summer, but now I’m starting to deal with friends leaving for school and wondering what to pack.  I’ve found out about my room assignment and my roommate, so that’s made me a lot more excited to start school!  I pre-registered for classes sometime last week; basically I learned what the registration process will be like and I had to look closely at the different  classes w&l offers.  Hopefully I’ll be able to take some of the classes I listed, but there are so many things I want to take that it won’t really matter if I get my first choice or not.

Here’s today’s tip from the Lexington insider:  none of the cute little stores in town sell laptop covers/cases.  Buy them elsewhere, like online or in your hometown.

Bye for now!

Welcome

Welcome to Elise’s blog!