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Who Wants to Rush Oozma Kappa?

September 24, 2013 / / Comments Off on Who Wants to Rush Oozma Kappa?

In light of recent events surrounding the UD campus life, many people have been asking me what I like to do to spend my time on the weekends.   To be honest, I personally have a wide range of interest of things I like to do.  From going to see plays, to grabbing dinner on Main Street, I try to spend my weekends with not just my books studying for my classes next week, but instead I choose to have some fun with my friends and see what is going on around campus.

As if you didn’t already know, many RSOs have different events on the weekends for students to go out and partake in.  However, my favorite RSO that is a pro at putting on weekend activities is SCPAB: the Student Centers Programming Advisory Board.  They are the people that are bringing everyone’s favorite red-headed singer, Ed Sheeran, to the Bob this Wednesday, and made my dreams come true by letting me meet the amazing Harry Shum, Jr. from Glee last semester.  Besides this, SCPAB is also in charge of showing films in the Trabant Theater every Wednesday and every weekend.

Each semester they also try to put on an outdoor movie event on the North Green, which just so happened to have been on September 13.  The movie shown was Monsters University, the prequel to Monsters, Inc. and one of my favorite new movies.  So, when I saw that it was playing this weekend I was so excited to go and begged my roommates to come see it with me even more when I found out it was being played outside under the stars!  I assumed there was going to be somewhat of a crowd, but the actual turnout was unlike anything I had ever seen.  At one point during the movie, I turned around to see and the green was packed.  It looked like one of the pictures from the Freshman Twilight Induction Ceremony where the green was swarmed with all of the freshmen.  The place was just a sea of blankets, people and popcorn!

Regardless of what had happened around campus earlier in the week, by Friday night, a vast majority of the school had gathered outside to watch and laugh along to a Disney movie. It almost makes me wish UD offered an Oozma Kappa fraternity, the one Mike and Sully must join to compete in the Scare Games in the film, where watching Disney movies was the only requirement! Yet, it still made me super proud and excited that even though part of our student body image may have been tainted a bit, it showed me that many of us still love to bring out our inner child, especially when Disney is concerned.

Hopefully, something similar to this can happen every weekend with the SCPAB Film Series. I know I can’t wait to see Despicable Me 2 when it comes on October 4th and 5th.  Who knows? Maybe a similar experience to Monsters University will result, too!

Hannah Tattersall

Welcome to the Trabant Jungle

September 23, 2013 / / Comments Off on Welcome to the Trabant Jungle

After class on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays I always meet up with my friends for lunch at Trabant at 12:05. All throughout my 11:15 class my mind wanders to eating my signature wheat wrap (complete with spinach, apples, grapes, edamame, avocado, feta, and balsamic dressing) from Greens to Go of course to debriefing the morning’s shenanigans with my friends. There’s just one problem: the amount of people waiting on line for lunch at Trabant is comparable to the worst traffic jam you’ve ever been in.

Whoever gets out of class first always sends the same text message in our group chat – “I’ll try to snag a table.” By snag a table we mean casually pace around the seating area until it looks as if someone is about to get up. When that happens, we briskly walk over to the soon-to-be-available table and pretend that we’re not about to throw our backpack onto the chair the second the current occupant stands up. Then comes the inevitable “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to rush you…” conversation, and we’re in.

Once we’ve finally secured a place to sit, we have to venture into the tangled mess of lines in order to satisfy our now grumbling stomachs. Sushi is by far the easiest option because you just grab it and get on line to pay, but we can’t do that every day. Waiting on line for a burger or a wrap is almost as bad as waiting in line at the DMV. Of course you can always count on making awkward eye contact with that one person who you were hoping you wouldn’t see, but that’s all part of the fun of waiting for lunch at Trabant.

While I can’t blame the massive lunch crowd at Trabant for having the same break as my friends and I or for wanting to eat at the best place on campus, it would be nice to stroll in and just sit wherever we please. On the other hand, the hunt for a table and the struggle to get our food before our break is over always gives us something to laugh about while eating. Although we haven’t quite mastered the system yet, I’m sure we’ll be experts at table-snagging by the end of this semester.

Where in the World: London

September 20, 2013 / / Comments Off on Where in the World: London

In case you missed the clue from last week’s post, I said I would write about a city that was in the news a lot this summer (royal baby George) and last summer as well (the Olympics).

This is another one of my absolute favorite cities. I visited London about four years ago, after my junior year in high school – I hadn’t even turned 17 yet. A teacher at my school was setting up a trip with EF Tours and opened the 12-day trip to interested students. After begging for approval from my parents, I took off on my first trip to Europe.

Nervous doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt. We took a few different flights to get to London. Our first flight from Philadelphia to Washington D.C. lasted only 30 minutes. We were barely able to turn on our electronics before we had to turn them off again. On our second flight to Heathrow, I sat next to a man who worked as an Ambassador to England, who was currently living in London with his family. (He calmed me down more than once when the turbulence was frightening).

When we arrived in London, we dropped our things off at our hotel and set out to explore the city (without napping). Let me tell you, the city was absolutely beautiful and trendy. Here are some of my favorite things about London:

  1. Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre

    You can’t take a step anywhere without seeing a famous piece of architecture. Whether it be Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, or the London Eye, this city is chock-full of remarkable and distinguished sites. One of my favorites might have been Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, or the Millenium Bridge. Actually, I don’t think I could pick one, because they’re all so beautiful!

  2. Millenium Bridge with St. Paul’s in the background.

    London is close to so many famous places including Shakespeare’s birthplace and Oxford University. Stanford (where Shakespeare grew up) was full of street performers and vendors (clearly this was a big tourist attraction), but it was a lot of fun! We went to Oxford as well, which reminded me of a scene out of Harry Potter. The students wear robes to class and look so prestigious. Plus, the architecture was grandiose and beautiful.

  3. You can be a tourist, because everyone else is. It’s a bit different from San Francisco in that about 50% of the people, especially in the summertime, are tourists. So don’t feel bad about jumping into the signature phone booth, or posing with a guard, because everyone else is doing it.

There are so many wonderful things about London and the cities on the outskirts, but I don’t have room to explain it all to you here. Have you ever been? What are some of your favorite sights to see there?

Jessica and I with a guard.

Next week, I’ll take you to the land of good beer, breathtaking scenery and a city that appeared in this season of The Bachelorette. Where in the world?

Cheers,

Chelsey Rodowicz

The Girl Who Dreamed

September 20, 2013 / / Comments Off on The Girl Who Dreamed

“J.K. Rowling Announces New Harry Potter Universe Film Series.” That headline, courtesy of Buzzfeed, completely and totally made my Thursday.

I was just minding my own business, checking out Yahoo! News and Buzzfeed before leaving for my 12:30 p.m. class, looking for slightly less serious stories and not expecting to find anything earth-shattering. BUT then I discovered that something fantastic will be happening in the not-too-distant future, which involves J.K. Rowling and the wizarding world she created (*cue excitement*). Personally, I love that this upcoming movie series exists in the same universe as HP, but is set in New York seventy years earlier with a new main character: Newt Scamander, author of Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them, whose grandson ultimately marries character Luna Lovegood.

I think the world can be divided into two types of people: Harry Potter fans and non-Potter fans, also known as individuals who either (a) tried reading the first book but didn’t like it or finish it, (b) saw one of the movies at a friend’s birthday party one time (5? 4? 6? the one with the dragon and the maze?) but had no idea what was going on, or (c) were never exposed to the source material at all.

I fall into the first category. Since I have a handful of friends who don’t, though, I try not to judge. Some people just prefer reality to fantasy, and I definitely understand that.

But, as a fan, I’m ridiculously excited over this recent, real, J.K.-approved announcement with the promise of more wizard-related material to come. I mean, I re-read all the books several times, saw all the movies in theaters, eagerly waited in line for most of the midnight premiers – sans costume, at least – and am currently registered on Pottermore. Speaking of J.K. Rowling’s interactive Harry Potter-themed website, I decided to retake the Pottermore sorting quiz online this week, since the complete quiz is available via Google. The last time I took the test was during my sophomore year of college, and I felt that 1.5-ish years was a significant amount of time to allow for a house change…and was upgraded to Ravenclaw! Life complete. (I was previously Hufflepuff and don’t really want to talk about it.)

Anyway, J.K. Rowling is one of my idols. I’ve even watched old YouTube videos of her being interviewed about the Harry Potter series before it became such a worldwide phenomenon; that’s how much I admire her. Since my goal is to someday publish a book series, it’s almost impossible not to feel a strange mixture of appreciation/fascination/mild jealousy for the woman who utterly realized that dream. I also wrote a college essay about it; it was for one of those “Who do you admire and why?” type prompts.

This week, I saw the following chart, based on the famous psychology personality chart proposed by Jung and Briggs-Myers but with Harry Potter characters:image06

 I took the psychology test for the first time and found out that I’m INFP, which corresponds with Luna Lovegood. I clicked on a link following my results to “See what famous people share your type!” and found out that J.K. Rowling shares the same INFP personality. Maybe it’s a sign.

 

 

Still UD

September 14, 2013 / / Comments Off on Still UD

Originally, I was… speechless, about the events that took place on campus Monday night. Living on North campus and having most, if not all, of my time taken up that night by choir and homework, I wasn’t even aware something had happened until the next morning, when everything really broke loose.

There’s no use ignoring it. Monday night happened. The slew of Facebook messages and tweets happened, too; people asking what on Earth was going on at my school, paired with my absolute inability to fathom it myself.

But the more I heard, the more I thought that while we shouldn’t ignore what had happened, the amazing community of the University of Delaware and the city of Newark shouldn’t let it drag us down either. The group of students involved in the events of Monday night was a small number of the talented, compassionate campus we have at this school. And as the chatter started, and continued, what I found was that almost everyone I spoke with was feeling the same: disappointed, embarrassed, but, more than anything else, determined.

Let me put this in context. This week, I started my internship with the Office of Communications and Marketing, and my first assignment was covering and posting about the 9/11 Blood Drive held at Trabant on Wednesday.

And the number of students I saw, and heard about, was incredible. There were groups of students waiting to donate in almost every seat, and I was in Trabant at lunch. The woman running the event mentioned that that morning, there had been lines, and that there probably would be again that afternoon. Standing there, taking pictures for my post, I felt more than reassured.

Last week, the blog team here at 186 wrote about why we chose UD, and I explained that I hadn’t been sure about coming here. And that’s still true. But I also mentioned that I have come to love UD, and this week, even with all its challenges, is one of the reasons why.

We – UD, as a whole – we’re better than this. This campus is full of considerate, thoughtful people. People who take time out of their days to give blood in honour of 9/11 victims. People who hold fundraisers for children with cancer (seen outside Perkins this very same week, I might add). People who care.

Again: Monday night happened. It was an event, and we at UD are probably going to be hearing about it for a while. But it isn’t UD, and it will blow over. And when it does, what will still be standing is the campus, and the community, for which people love this university.

 

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