Birthday Greetings, from the Dining Hall Staff
Happy Birthday to me! So that makes me feel kind of selfish, but I feel rather special right now. I have made some amazing friends this year, and as the year gets closer and closer to being over, it just seems so fitting to get nostalgic for a moment. My friends threw me a SURPRISE barbeque yesterday at the park, and we played volleyball and Frisbee and ate cake and had an amazing time. I was totally chocked and totally honored
.
On top of that, my roommate and our friend and I went to din din in the dinning hall, and we mentioned to a few of the staff people that it was my birthday, just for fun. See now, we have been going into the D-hall all year and sort of bonded with the amazing staff that works there. Well, all of a sudden while we were enjoying some dinner the ENTIRE staff came out and sang happy birthday to me and gave me some cake with a candle!! Special feeling, again.
For Whom the Bell Tolls....in Rwanda
I just saw the most amazing thing. See now, I am an international studies student so this is my bag of chips, but either way, I truly think it is important, interesting, and epic to all of Pacific. The President Paul Kagame of Rwanda came to our school with his wife, First Lady Janet Kagame, and received an honorary degree from Pacific. He talked to the assembly in the Spanos Center after receiving the degree and answered questions presented by some students. He is a hero who saved many people from dying and gives us all an example of how to pull an entire nation out of chaos by giving them hope. The people of Rwanda themselves, with their forgiveness and strength to keep rebuilding, are examples for the global peace we all claim to care so much about.
I think the biggest reason I feel so moved to tell you all about this is so that you too can learn about the genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994, killing a million people in 100 days. The civil rivalry within the nation was halted by the troops of Paul Kagame who came in when the United Nations would not stop the massacre.
Of course there are two sides to every story, and it would be unfair of me not to mention the protestors who stood outside the Spanos Center. They were from/ for the Congo and although I know little of their argument, they disagree with the current stance Kagame takes against the Rwandan refugees who fled to the Congo.
An awesome side note: Pacific signed an accord to be the FIRST American university to have an official exchange program with Rwanda! Here’s to international awareness.
Studying to Save the World
AHHHHH!! Studying for finals is making me crazy.
You know what the hardest part about studying is? GETTING STARTED. Even when you get started one day, it is hard to pick it up again the next day. You think, “Oh, I’ve started, I’m cool, I’m doing ok.” But then you get going again and realize how many breaks you really took yesterday and how much more information there is to get down.
I really want to know this stuff too. I think a lot of it will be necessary when my peers and I do our part in saving the world. In that sense, studying isn’t so bad. It can also be distracting too because I get too interested in one small piece of information and not the broad-based knowledge we need to know. I’m obviously procrastinating again…I better get back to work. See you soon, Summer!
Running
I think I should mention an important thing about myself. I run. I have been waking up at 6:00 AM for the past month on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to run with two of my good friends, Colin and Hans. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we run with the “Running for Health” class in which I am enrolled. We decided to get into running to prepare for and complete a half-marathon. We chose the Bidwell Classic Half-Marathon in Chico on March 5th.
Throughout the course of our training, we have all become better in tune with ourselves and with each other. Several other people have joined our running group as we talked more about it like Andrew, Roberto, and Jim, to name a few.
Last weekend was racing time. With the support of our friends and old running partners, Colin and I left Stockton at night and headed to Chico. Yes, we were the only two to actually sign up for the race out of the whole group, but there is always next year.
Colin and I both had great runs and completed the race extremely satisfied. I even saw my old high school running coach to whom I owe so much of my love of the sport. After the finish-line and a good amount of water we went back to my house and slept for the rest of the day. When we woke up, we ate dinner with my folks and headed back into town to hang out with some of my old high school buddies. Well, that only lasted several hours and then we went back to sleep. To our surprise, we woke up nicely recovered and returned to campus feeling great!
I have now joined Pacific’s cross-country team and started to get into running more seriously. Pacific only has a women’s team so Colin and the guys were left out and they still give me a hard time for ditching them… SORRY GUYS! GO TIGERS!
Chai and Chat
So there is this really cool event that happens on campus about once a month called “Chai and Chat.” It is held at the Bechtel International Center on campus and the International Club makes a whole bunch of chai tea and fabulous foreign deserts, and then sets up tables for different languages. There are quite a few international students here, and so it gives the rest of us a chance to kind of swoop in to test out our different language skills on some native speakers.
I had such a blast at the last one!! There was a table for Chinese, Spanish, German, Japanese, Hungarian, French, and I’m probably forgetting some, but you get the point—total coolness! I am in the International Relations and Global Studies program through Pacific’s School of International Studies, so this generally is my cup of tea, no pun intended. I personally was able to practice my latest Japanese skills that Cipris Sensei has been teaching our class with the very sweet Japanese students, Aki, Kaori, Miya, Natsuko, to name a few. It was almost like being back in Japan with my host family and friends again…
Snowman Stud
FINALS! I’m glad that I have such an awesome study group! We have fun and study, but it seems like the information is endless. I can’t seem to remember where I put my pen—every five minutes, I’m looking for it. How am I supposed to remember what years the Russo-Japanese War took place? It’s ok, I know we’ll all be fine. We have been working hard all semester.
It’s the holiday season and even though we all hate the commercialization, we deal with it. KPAC, the campus radio and television station put on a “door decorating contest” to celebrate the holidays. The first place prize was $150, and I’m very pleased to say that my roommate and I each have $75 of it in our possession now. Yep, winners, right here!
It all started as a funny competition with about four other doors in our hall, but our cleverly crafted cotton ball snowman proved to be quite the stud. Apparently some of the other residence halls put up quite a display. I wish we had gotten a chance to examine all of the competition throughout campus. Whatever, we still have $75.
Someone Should Tell Us to Sleep
I got offered an editor position for the newspaper! I am the new Sports Editor for this year! I am now working for the Phone-a-thon, the Pacific Outdoor Connection, and the
Pacifican. I think I got too freaked out about not getting a job on campus and filled out like EVERY application. I didn’t get some of the jobs, but I am excited about the ones I’ve been selected for. The thing is ─ all that homework I was talking about still exists. I am going to have to cut something out. They tell us to get involved; but someone should tell us to sleep!
I am going on a retreat this weekend with the Pacific Christian Fellowship. We are going to an old hotel in the boonies that is pretty much only used for retreats and conferences. I hope it is fun and peaceful. There’s a bonus for me too—it is only about 10 minutes outside my hometown so my boyfriend is going to come see me! Awww, I know.
Where Should I Sit?
I have officially completed my first entire week of college. I went to all of my classes, met all of my teachers, and now it is time to, what? Go play? Watch TV? Not even close—I have to do my homework. I have officially learned my first lesson outside of the classroom ─ college homework is a lot harder than high school homework.
Some other issues faced by freshmen include the dinning hall and the residence halls. We all fear sitting alone in the dinning hall, but we don’t know who to sit with, and the people you do recognize you don’t always want to eat with them ─ right? Do they even remember you? Well, I think they do. Since we are all trying to meet new people and pretend like we are still as comfortable as we were in high school, I think it would be safe to assume that all of the other freshmen wandering aimlessly around the dining hall feel the same way.
Living in the residence halls has already been quite an experience! Luckily, my roommate, Kelly, and I have started out great. Granted we are still pretty colloquial, but bonds are definitely being made. The girls who live next door totally rock and there are some cute guys on the other side—not that I’m looking, but when you have to walk down the hall in a towel to get to the shower, people are going to look…
E-mail
Jen
