All We Wanted Was a Sandwich...

Hi Everyone!

I wasn't sure about what to blog about this week, but here's an amusing story about my friends and I that I think you'll not only enjoy, but will probably find helpful about life at the 'hurst...

So my friends and I were hanging out and decided that we were going to go out for dinner because we were hungry.  Let me tell you, trying to get three people to agree on a place to go is more difficult than you'd expect!  My one friend Joe wanted Chinese take out, but my friend Sarah and I don't like Chinese food, so we were against that idea.  Joe didn't want pizza or subs, so that was out of the question too. Not to mention, we didn't want to spend a lot of money, we've been living off of pasta (or if you're my friend Sarah, dry toast), and we were pretty hungry so we wanted something quick. 

We eventually decided on what I consider the holy grail of restaurants, Panera Bread.  So my two friends, and then three additional friends, and myself, all pile into a car and head to Panera Bread, which is about 10-15 minutes away on Peach Street, while bickering over what radio station to listen to and singing obnoxiously to songs we knew we could annoy each other with... yep, we're mature. 

We get to Panera Bread and I kid you not, the entire city of Erie must have decided that they wanted Panera Bread too.  Mind you, we probably didn't make the wisest decision to go to Panera Bread at 6:30PM on a Saturday night, but we still couldn't believe it.  We then all piled in the car, sang even louder, and drove along Peach St. to try and find a restaurant that wasn't packed.  Something to consider the next time you want to eat out on the weekend in Erie-- restaurants are always packed!  Eventually we went to Perkins (yay me for the recommendation!) and I ate a delicious omlette, homefries, and muffin.  It wasn't a sandwich from Panera, but I guess there's always next time =)

So that's my story and I hope you enjoyed it... I'm off to bed to hopefully get a good night's sleep to prepare for early mornings and late nights working on my projects and papers due!

Hoping I make it out alive in one piece ;)

Sarah

This Week's Agenda

so many books, so little time!

Hi Everyone!

I'm hoping you find humor in the picture that I had my roommate Chelsea take for me when we both should have been doing research on our papers.  Pictured to the left is a stack of all of the library books that I've checked out of our library and would ideally like to get through for my History research paper.

I found it kind of funny that my room has slowly been turning into a mini library and that the stack of books are getting taller and taller.  However, that's not to say that my life has been all about books.  Last night was the Super Bowl and although I'm not a football follower, the game was an excellent excuse to step away from the academics to hang out and snack on pizza, chips-n-dip, and brownies with my friends.

As for this week's agenda, I will be tie-dyeing in my Textiles class, since we learned about different dyeing methods, eating lunch and talking with prospective students who might come to our school (I would encourage anyone who is looking at Mercyhurst to take advantage of these programs, they're really helpful and informative!), and choreographing a dance routine with my classmates for my Dance Appreciation class (we're dancing to Gloria Miranda's "Conga," it should be fun!), just to name a few things.  Needless to say, I'll be very busy and hopefully very productive!


Here's to a productive, fun week!

A Jam Packed 7 Days

Hi Everyone!

So I'm writing this Sunday morning in my pajamas (and by morning, I mean 11:30AM) before I head off to  the library.  Looking back on the week, I've realized that it has been quite eventful, to say the least!  This past school week has been insane... I had a paper, project, movie to watch/response paper, and exam so I literally lived in the library this week.  I haven't received any of the grades yet, but I feel pretty confident that all things considered, I made it out alive =)

This week was also registration for Spring Term classes, which is really exciting, but crazy at the same time.  My next term is going to be crazy; I'll be taking European History Since the Renaissance, Religious Persons and Traditions, Stats-- all three are core classes, which means it's a school requirement (you do get some choice as to what core classes you take though), and I'll also be taking Apparel II for my Fashion Merchandising major.

My roommates and I proudly wearing green =)

Now for the weekend.  On Friday, my friends and I had a huge board game and movie night, which was really fun because I think we were all wiped out from the week and wanted to hang out and relax.

Dave and his cheer section

And then on Saturday, my roommate's parents were in town for the weekend, so after a long day at the library, my roommate Kylie and I went to a local sub place and got subs with Chelsea, my other roommate and her parents.

After subs at the apartment, we all made signs, changed into our Mercyhurst gear, and went to a club hockey game to support our friend Dave, since it was senior night and the seniors' last home game.  We played Penn State Beherend, which is one of our Erie rival schools, and beat them 5-0!  After anxiously awaiting for Dave (the one with the "Dave be on some Nonsense" sign) to come out of the locker room so we could get pictures and congratulate him, I went over to spend time with my friends from Friday night and we all just hung out again, playing Wii and what not.

Well, unfortunately I think it's about that time to change out of my pajamas, pack my backpack, make a PB&J to bring while I work, and get ready for another fun-filled day in the Hammermill Library.

Stretching $10 and Still Having Fun!

Hi Everyone!

So for this week's blog post, I'd like to not only blog about another fun weekend on campus, but also how by doing so, I only spent $10! I felt like this weekend is proof that you don't need to spend a lot of money to have a great time, especially when you're on the notorious "college student budget."  Here are some things that I did this weekend that don't break the bank too hard and are guaranteed to be fun =)

One great way to have a lot of fun on campus for FREE (yes, free!), is the Student Activities Council (SAC) Friday and Saturday events. This Friday, SAC held a Top Chef Pizza Making Contest, which corresponded with the Mercyhurst Student Government (MSG) Distinguished Speaker Series.  Our distinguished speaker Chef Domenica, is a famous chef who has been a judge on Top Chef and who has also cooked for celebrities like Oprah!

After she spoke, Chef Domenica was really generous and actually participated as one of the judges for the pizza making contest. There were eight teams that registered and we had all these ingredients to choose from to make our pizza, Iron Chef competition style, of course...

For our first pizza, my friends and I ended up making an alfredo pizza with tomatoes, cheese, and herbs, and it was DELICIOUS; Chef Domenica even told us how awesome it was!  We came in second place for our round, so that meant we got to move on to the final four, which was really exciting.

For the final four, all teams had to incorporate "the secret ingredient," which ended up being ranch dressing.  We were all really surprised and immediately had to come up with a game plan of what we were going to make.  My friends and I ended up making a ranch and pesto spread with chicken, eggplant, tomatoes, herbs, and cheese, which was delicious, but unfortunately didn't win it for us.  However, it was still a ton of fun and I'll definitely be talking about it for a while =)

Here's some footage from pizza night.  HurstTV was going around and filming the night and they did a really good job at capturing the event... my friends and I are even in it a few times! =) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzwa5YRWeqU 

On Saturday night, a bunch of my friends and I decided to go Glow Bowling.  We all bought the $10 Saturday pass, which mean that from 12-2 AM, we could bowl and rent shoes for $10... pretty good deal!

The bowling alley had the lights turned off with cool, special effects lights on, while playing music videos on a large screen.  Again, a great way to have fun with friends, without spending too much money.

Time to get back to homework, yuck!  Unfortunately, I'll be busy with projects, papers, and a test all week, but I guess that means next weekend will be that much sweeter =)  Until then, Sarah

Long Birthday Weekend =)

Hi Everyone!

Let's just say that this has probably been on of my favorite and most memorable weekends on campus so far as a college student.  After a stressful two weeks with midterms and a long weekend to cap off the week with my birthday sandwiched in between, it was guaranteed to be a great time... and it most certainly was =)

Here's a breakdown of my weekend:

FRIDAY: I went over to my friends' apartment and hung out. I told my friend Jeremy and some of the other boys over in that apartment that Friday night, I'd make them a giant cupcake because I got this giant cupcake mold for Christmas and I really wanted to try it out...

To the left is me after the cupcake molds were put in the oven and below is a picture of my friend Jeremy, who is clearly really excited about this giant cupcake... he later told me that he doesn't really like cake, but made an exception to eat some tonight :)

"Let them eat cake!"

Lately, I've been baking over at their place... there's always a lot of people over there, and who doesn't like brownies and cake?! But I always tell the boys that there are three reasons why I bake for them... 

1) If I bake for them, then I'm not stuck with a bunch of sweets, but I can snack on one or two when it's for a big group/an apartment full of guys. 2) One of the boys will always walk me home once it gets dark, so baking is the least I can do to return the favor-- one thing I've learned in college is that you can win anyone's heart with baked goods ;) and 3) I get to lick the bowl clean of the batter, which is the best (but also unfortunately, the most unhealthy) part! =)

SATURDAY: Some of the girls and I went out to Red Lobster/Coldstone for a night of nice clothes-- it's always exciting to get dressed up and girly!, good food-- hello cheesy biscuits and seafood!?, and of course, good times with great people! After, the girls and I came back to my apartment and we took some pictures... some serious, some funny...

 

SUNDAY: My friends from Friday night (who are notorious for planning birthday parties) planned a party for me Sunday night, since we had no school on Monday. Needless to say, it was another great night with the college birthday budget staples: pizza, sweets, chips, and of course, birthday cake!

"You can never let go of the kid inside of you.  

You see, it's the kid inside of us that keeps us all from going crazy." --Scrubs

Let's all hope this four day week goes by quick so that there's more time for fun!
=) Sarah

"Crazy..." It's All Relative.

Hi Everyone!

I regret to say that I don't have any pictures from this week.  I guess with just a week into school and the madness it's brought, I haven't been mindful about getting any.  But hopefully I'll be able to explain in words how crazy (both good crazy and bad crazy, hence my blog title) it was.

Let's start with the bad crazy... so work-wise, I thought that this week wouldn't be bad and I'd get to ease into Midterm Week, which is this coming week.  But that was definitely not the case.  Although I didn't have that much actual homework, I had a lot of studying that I was doing to prepare for this Wednesday's midterm in History and unit exam in Textiles, which is also on Wednesday.  So this week's been pretty loco to say the least.  But enough of this...

...Let's get to the good crazy.  Not really knowing what I wanted to do besides hopefully having a good weekend with my friends, I wasn't really aware of what we were doing to accomplish this. 

Friday afternoon, I had a MSG winter retreat, which was actually a lot more fun than I expected.  We planned some goals, followed up on some projects, ate Chipotle, and had some fun in between.  We iceskated, but even better, some of the guys brought their hockey sticks and pucks and a bunch of us got to actually skate and "play hockey" on the Mercyhurst Ice Rink.  Mind you that when I say I "played hockey," I merely just held a hockey stick and passed/received the puck while struggling to stay standing, but that's not the point ;)

After the retreat, I was so tired (probably from a cold that I had all week), but didn't want to "waste" a weekend, so I went over to my friends' apartment and a bunch of us hung out and watched dvds.  I can proudly say that I convinced four of my guy friends to watch Project Runway, with some How I Met Your Mother (also a great show) and a little bit of Mean Girls in between.

Saturday was also lots of fun... minus the whole afternoon in the library to study for midterms part of my day.  Unfortunately, I have so much to do, that I didn't get to everything that I wanted to do, so needless to say today (Sunday) is gonna be fun (haha not).  But Saturday night was also fun; I went over to the same apartment to hang out with my friends and we literally just hung out with True Blood playing all night.  But last night's events also included a late night run to CVS (a classic Mercyhurst past time), baking brownies just for the heck of it, and just laughing/making fun of each other for all the stupid things that occur throughout the night... all of these silly things always end up being some of my favorite nights here on campus.

Sunday's finally come, which means I'm that much closer to Wednesday.  But I'm also that much closer to Wednesday being OVER =) I hate wishing days away, but once Wednesday's over, my week will literally be that much better, knowing that my tests are over and a long weekend (and my birthday!) are approaching.

Until then,

Sarah

1st Blog Post of the New Year

Hi Everyone!

So today is kind of bittersweet because I'm lying on the floor of my room with all my stuff mostly packed up and in the process of being ready to go back to Erie.  BUT, it's also the beginning of a new year, not to mention I get to look back at how awesome 2010 was and also how awesome Christmas Break was!

I had a week of reaxing at the house and spending time with the family, then Christmas Day (which never disappoints!), and then the following day, I flew to Florida for 5 days to see my roommate, flying home yesterday to a house full of New Year's Eve festivities with family friends (which includes my best friend from high school), which brings me to today.

Getting our tan on at the beach

Just a typical December day...

I told my roommate Kylie that if I ever made it to Florida to visit her, that she didn't have to feel obligated to do any touristy things because quite honestly, some sunshine, a beach, and a killer tan is really all I need to be happy.  So that was what we did and it was awesome.

A movie poster, seemed appropriate!

I also got to meet her famous "crazy Greek family" which was a lot of fun... I even caught her grandma cleaning the counter with Windex, just like in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which I thought was hysterical.

We went to a lot of movies and I got to eat what Kylie claims to be "the best chicken ceasar wrap in the entire world" (and it totally was!).

First 2011 pic of the year

New Years Eve was also a lot of fun.  I got to see my friend Carrissa and we hung out with the adults while our brothers played video games.  Our families like to play cards and board games, with "the girls," "the moms" and "the dads" on teams.  Dinner was delicious and it was a great night of catching up, playing games, eating good food, and cracking the occasional joke on the parents.

That's about it here... I'm waking up early tomorrow to head back to the hurst, hopefully getting there by the early afternoon.  Here's to a great 2010 and an even better 2011! =)