Lizzie shares what Spring Break in Florence is like!

Hello!

I’m back from spring break in Florence and I can’t believe my semester is half-way over! Eek. I wanted to keep everyone updated on what I did, because I have a lot of fun stories.

So I started my week in Venice with two of my friends Catherine and Taylor. We stayed in a cute hotel and shared one big room. After taking a train, vapporetto (water taxi), and cab we were exhausted. But we woke up the next morning to find ourselves in the midst of Carnevale, an annual celebration where everyone dresses up. We wore fun and colorful masks for three days straight and saw many intricate costumes that made people look like they were from the 17th century! We took an overpriced gondola ride throughout the city and hit all the major tourist traps for museums and churches. The most exciting thing were the outdoor parties. Literally, a dj station would be set up in the middle of the street and people would just start dancing outside. It felt very extravagant and crazy, but I felt so lucky to have been a part of it.

Then, we went to Madrid and stayed there for the rest of the week. We stayed with a friend who lives there and got to see the city through his eyes. We went to the major museum – El Prado – as well as a really fun zoo/aquarium! My favorite part was the Flamenco performance where we stayed for 4 hours watching, listening, and feeling the music and dance. I missed speaking Spanish, so it was nice to get the rust off and be able to communicate in another country. As much as I loved Spain, Italy is much more relaxed and laid back; it’s such an old, antique-like place and it feels good to be home. ☺

Kristen Checks in from campus!

Hello everybody!

So far, this semester has been going great. My schedule is awesome, I’m loving my classes, and I’m making sure that I stay on top of all my school work so that I don’t get stressed out. I try to keep my days busy so that I can have evenings and weekends to unwind and relax a little bit. So, here’s what a typical week in my life looks like: Every morning I’ll wake up at 8:00AM and get my day started. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I have a 9:00 AM class so I don’t really have time to drag around, but on Tuesdays and Thursdays, my first class isn’t until 11:00, so I’ll spend a little more time getting ready, and then go grab breakfast with a friend. One class that I’m really enjoying is a Sociology class called Social Problems. As the course title says, we discuss the social problems affecting American society today, and explore the causes of them and think of probable solutions for them. This is a topic that I’ve started to become really interested in, and I’m finding that I feel strongly about a lot of the issues we discuss. It makes me want to be a part of the solution to those problems in the future.

After I’m done with classes for the day, I’ll head to the gym to get in a work out, shower, and then head back to my dorm, where I will do homework or catch up on reading until dinner time. Since I try to do most of my homework during the day, my evenings are mostly spent pretending to do work while really just messing around on facebook or stumbleupon, hanging out with friends, watching movies, or catching up on TV shows.

On Wednesday nights, I release all of my stresses from the week by going to the ‘Sco with some friends. There’s usually good music, and there’s ALWAYS lots of dancing. I don’t even mind staying out late and having to wake up early the next morning because dancing never fails to put me in a great mood that will carry me through the rest of the week.

This semester, I decided to take the Rhythm Tap 101 ExCo. It meets on Sunday afternoons for two hours. I have never done any kind of organized dance but have always wanted to. When I found out that one of my hall mates was going to be teaching the class, I signed up immediately. I love it already. The first couple of weeks were frustrating because I was learning something totally new and I wasn’t good at it instantly. But, I’m learning quickly and I’ve gone from just making noise with my shoes to actually making music. A couple weeks ago, the class learned a new routine, and the rhythm has been echoing in my head ever since. I think that the amazing thing about ExCos is how passionate the instructors can be about what they’re teaching. It’s clear that my instructors genuinely love tap dance and want to spread it to others. If I ever want to practice outside of class, all I have to do is call them, and they’re ready to tap nearly any time of day.

Living in my own little Oberlin world, it’s easy to forget that there’s a world outside of this one. Last semester, I found that I was completely unaware of any major news, mostly because I never opened a newspaper or turned to a news channel. This semester, though, I promised myself I would try to stay updated on what was going on in the world, and Oberlin offers so many opportunities for doing that. There are always all kinds of speakers on campus who talk about major world events, historical events, and societal issues. Whenever I hear of one that I’m interested in, I try to make time to go listen to them. It’s a great way to learn about what’s going on without having to read the newspaper or something. This week, I listened to a talk about the 1960s, and how that decade has influenced social movements of today. And there are so many others! I’m going to try to go to as many as I can this semester because I find many of them fascinating.

So that’s my life so far. I’m excited to see what else Oberlin has to offer me. But more than anything, I’m excited for the warm weather that they promise me is coming, but I’m not sure when…

Wong checks in!

Hey there bloggers!
I cannot believe I’m already a second semester junior. Things have been sort of crazy since I returned from winter term. I thought I would walk you through a typical day in the life of me.
On Mondays, I wake up at 7:30am and head to the gym to do a combination of Insanity and p90x workouts with one of my friends. We workout ‘til about 9:00, then I head home and get ready for class. I have Gender, Sexuality, and the Law at 10:00am. This class is amazing! If you are into politics or the legal system, this is the class for you. It may be my favorite class thus far in my academic career here at Oberlin. From there, I head to my Philosophy of Mind class at 11:00. At noon, I run to DeCafe or Dascomb for some food (this is crucial for the rest of my day to work). As I eat lunch, I attempt to read for one of my classes but end up socializing with whomever wanders through the dining space. Once I’m done refueling, I head home to drop off my books and grab my psychology work. At 2:30pm, I’m ready for my psychology seminar. This is also a wonderfully engaging class. Psychology of Law is a very relaxing class and the material is fascinating. At 4:30, I head back to south studios for dance rehearsal. I’m rehearsing a new routine and have two weeks to get it down so those studios are my second home. I’ll leave South around 6:30pm to grab dinner and head home. By 7:00pm, I’m sitting at my laptop in my living room ready for my LSAT prep class on-line. Class ends around 10:15pm, so I grab a snack and then do any last minute reading I need to do before Tuesday.
…my Mondays are kind of crazy, huh?
I love being busy though and feeling accomplished. I love Oberlin and everything it has to offer me. With such a busy schedule, I really make it a point to take my time when getting from place to place…except when it’s cold haha. I can’t wait for spring season to start. I miss setting, playing, and being with my teammates. We have such a great group and even though we’re constantly busy, we still manage to remain a close-knit team.

Lizzie writes in From Italy!!!!

I’m currently sitting in a small trattoria near my house, where I just enjoyed a delicious risotto. This is my life for the spring. I wake up to real Italian coffee for breakfast, have a nice 20-minute walk to my school, go to classes, and then spend the entire afternoon exploring the streets of Florence. Being in Italy is so amazing, and so different from Oberlin and Manhattan, where I grew up. People are truly kind and friendly here. They are patient with Americans, who are just starting to familiarize themselves with the culture and the language, and are happy to have us here in their country. My schoolwork is very simple because professors know that the real lessons learned here are on the streets and outside the classroom.

I live with an 83-year-old woman, Loredana, and have an American roommate Taylor. Even though it’s just the three of us in this big, old, beautiful home, people are constantly coming in and out of the house. Friends, children, and grandchildren spontaneously show up for dinner or just to have a coffee. It’s a great family and I feel lucky to be a part of it.

I’ve done a lot of traveling so far and have plans to do more! I went to Switzerland last weekend. I don’t ski, so instead I just walked through the Alps with a friend and saw the most breathtaking views. I have lots of travel plans within Italy: Venice, Rome, Ferrara, Assisi, Ravenna, Bologna, Sicily…the list goes on.

Speaking different languages is a big passion of mine, and it’s really fun to really know another one well. Florence is a very touristy city, so there are a lot of Americans as well as Italians that speak English, but I definitely seek out those Italians who are willing to help me practice. At the dinner table we have long discussions about religion, politics (everyone hates Berlusconi!), and various philosophical concepts.

I’m working this semester at an elementary school, teaching 2nd, 3rd, and 5th grade English. I love being there every week because I get to interact with Italian kids and at the same time feel connected with the true Italian culture. It’s a great experience for me as a teacher as well as a student.

Going abroad is truly an amazing experience and I want to encourage everyone to go abroad if you have the chance! You learn things that you couldn’t possibly in the US because everything is new, everything is scary and yet you figure it out in the end. It would have been easier and safer if I had stayed at Oberlin this semester, but I feel so much stronger and wiser now – like a real adult.

LJ and Meredith share their Winter term with us!

"For winter term Meredith and I went to Costa Rica. We worked on an organic farm in Puriscal. It was mainly a dairy farm, but they also had chickens for eggs and a vegetable garden. In the morning we would pick lemons or oranges and make juice. We spent our time raking, working with animals, gardening, and building. On warm days we would hike to a waterfall and on rainy days we would read in the treehouse or doing ceramics. My favorite animals were the seven puppies that lived on the farm, Meredith's favorite was the baby goats. We left the farm early and travelled around Costa Rica.
Some of our adventures included going on suspension bridges in the cloud forest, visiting volcanos and going to the most beautiful beach. We loved going to the Manuel Antonio National Park where we saw so many animals including, two kinds of monkeys, two kinds of sloths, exotic birds, iguanas and cool insects. We also went on a zip-line tour over the cloud forest which was breath taking! The tour even included a Tarzan swing, a rappel that was 100 feet and the final zip-line was in a superman harness so it felt like flying! The forests were so beautiful it looked like it was right out of Avatar. One of my (Meredith) favorite things about the whole trip is that I got a chance to use all of my spanish with native speakers, who were overall so helpful and so nice.

Overall, our stay in Costa Rica was great, PURA VIDA!"

Kristen Checks in on winter term!

After a semester of almost constant homesickness, I was ready to be able to spend almost two months back in Atlanta. The first thing I noticed was the weather. When I got off the plane, it was like, sixty degrees, which, compared to Oberlin, is practically summer. It took everything I had not to put on shorts and flip flops.

I spent the first half of my break catching up on sleep, spending time with my family, and hanging out with all of my friends from high school that I’ve missed terribly. And, since I don’t have a TV at school I’ve also caught myself up on the latest seasons of Jersey Shore and Teen Mom, just in time for the new seasons of BOTH to start. But I’m not letting my brain totally rot just yet. There’s this great used book store right by my house, and so I bought like a million books that I probably should read at some point in my life. Classics like The Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, Catch-22, and stuff like that. So when my parents are at work and I’m still in bed, I’ll usually do some reading.

For my winter term project, I decided to find an internship here in Atlanta. This semester, I ended up in an Econ class by accident, tried to get out of it because I thought I had absolutely zero interest in econ, decided that I liked the professor and that the class was interesting enough, and actually enjoyed it a lot. So I found an internship that was sort of in the field.

I am interning at Ameriprise Financial for a financial planner there. I was supposed to start last Monday, but it seems like the winter weather is chasing me everywhere. Last week, Atlanta got a whopping six inches of snow, and on top of that, a sheet of ice that covered basically everything, including all the roads. In other words, the whole city was shut down for an entire week, and I mean it. Every single business in the city was closed. We couldn’t have left the house even if we tried because the cars were all stuck in ice in the driveway. So that kept me stuck in the house with my parents and my dog for an entire week, which was no fun. I managed to finish three books, beat Mario Kart and Guitar Hero, and average about 18 hours of sleep a night. It was insane. Luckily, all of the snow and ice melted over the weekend when the sixty degree weather came back, and I was able to start my internship on Monday. I’m basically shadowing this financial planner, meeting with his clients, and watching him invest their money in order for them to reach their personal financial goals for the future. It’s pretty interesting to see, if you’re into that kind of thing, and there’s something kind of exciting about getting to play with other people’s money and (hopefully) watching it pile up.

So that’s basically what I’m doing for the next two weeks until I pack my bags and head back to Oberlin. See y’all then!

Chinwe checks in on break!

Hey everyone! I’m writing to you from the University of Florida, in Gainesville. Last year I spent Winter Term at home with my family so I decided to do something way different this year. In case you’re new to the blog, over the summer I went to San Francisco to do research at the University of California. I enjoyed that so much, that I decided to see out another research position for Winter Term, and ta-da! Here I am!
My summer research consisted of working at a lab bench with mice and chemicals, so I decided I would try an alternative form of research. Although I’m a neuroscience major, I’m currently working in a neuropsychology lab. In this lab, I’m doing clinical research, meaning I’m working with people. Elderly people, more specifically.
I was lucky enough to get started right when my lab was beginning a new study, called The Vital Study. The aim of this study is to determine how cognitive training and physical exercise interact to improve the mental function of healthy elders. The physical exercise in this study consists of either walking on a treadmill or riding an exercise bike, depending on the physical ability of the participant. As for cognitive training, the participants will be playing different games on Wii Fit for the Nintendo Wii.
You have no idea how excited I am to be working video games, especially in this way. I love them, but I have zero skill whatsoever. To incorporate video games and science in one project (FOR SCHOOL CREDIT) is just so, so cool. Clinical research is a lot different than lab research, so I’m doing more paperwork and making more phone calls than ever; but, since the study is so video game heavy, I spent just as much time ‘testing’ games. A few days ago, I was instructed to go out, buy an Xbox 360 and play Dance Central until I got good at it (A future study is going to make use of the Xbox 360, Kinect so my supervisors wanted to check it out.).
Another fun aspect of my project is, since we’re working with elderly people the lab decided that it would be more convenient for them to not have to drive to testing sites. Instead, we’ve set up a testing site closer to the general community that our participants will come from. More specifically, the University of Florida has been given a condo in an assisted living community in which to run the study. I actually spend more time there than on campus, which is awesome because it’s so homey and quite opposite from the traditional lab setting.
Other than that, life’s a breeze. A lot of my friends from high school attend the University of Florida so when I’m not working, I’m just hanging out and catching up with people I haven’t been able to see in forever. As much fun as it is, I miss the team and am so excited to see everyone at the end of the month.

Lizzie teaching Tie Dye to Coach Haught

Lizzie took time out of her schedule to tie dye with Coach Haught. The team all knows how Coach Haught feels about tie dye (he is not a fan), but Lizzie offered to tie dye with him and it was a great success! The only thing is he could probably use a couple more practice rounds before letting anyone wear his tie dye.They both had a great time and are hoping to tie dye with the whole team during pre-season this summer!

Video from Banquet

Here is some of the video from our night. The clips are from our dinner, the seniors and their gifts that Coach Cavanaugh made for them and team awards!

More Pictures from Team Banquet!

OCVB end of the year banquet!

OCVB had their end of the year banquet on Friday December 10th and it was a great time! Laura Jessee was awarded MVP, Maggie Jacobson was awarded Best team player and Chinwe Okona was awarded Most Improved. Not only did these three get honored by their team, but walked away with some great gifts! LJ received an amazing Harry Potter calendar and Harry Potter wall art. Maggie got some great glow sticks to go with her unbelievable dance moves and a couple scarfs to accessories her great fashion style. Chinwe got a five pound gummy bear, because it's something she would take if she was stuck on an island and you never know what might happen. Along with that she received a Harry Potter journal to write down her wonderful thoughts. The team started out the night with a great dinner at Olive Garden. From there we headed back to Wong's house for awards, senior gifts, highlight tape and the team tradition t-shirt exchange.

Wong the beauty Queen of the team

Hey there bloggers!
As you may or may not know, I am the beauty queen on the team. I thought I would share with you my other life. I am an avid participant of the Miss America Organization. I know beauty pageants may seem as though they are filled with bimbos in nice dresses. However, as someone with first-hand experience it is quite the opposite. Preparation for pageants is actually quite extensive. Volleyball has helped me with prep for swimsuit, which I won last weekend! Interview skills come with basic practice. Oberlin has helped me to become more articulate and efficient when speaking both to a panel of judges and on-stage. My weekends typically consist of a pageant or of pageant prep of some kind. The other stereotype is that pageant girls don't eat...that is not TRUE! We eat probably more than most people...but we do want and strive for world peace ;) That's all for now!
-Liz

OCVB off the court!

Hello OCVB world!

Even though season's over, my teammates and I still spend lots of time together. On Monday Laura, Meredith and I (Lizzie) went into Columbus to see a Ben Folds concert. We had some trouble at first -- we went north on Route 58 instead of south, so we were 40 minutes late (eek!) but it didn't matter much. We made it in time to see the opening band, Lady Danville, which was really great. You should definitely look up their music! Two hours later, after the doors opened, Ben finally came on. I've seen him in concert twice before - once in Cleveland and once in New York -- but this was definitely the best he's ever been. He played a lot of new songs from his album Lonely Avenue and a lot of oldies that we recognized. He even covered a new Ke$ha song that was #1 on the charts for a while. We had such a great time, but were exhausted when we got back to Obieland around 2am. This is one of the few times I've been off campus this semester, because normally music groups come to us! Overall, we had such a blast!!

OC volleyball seniors have record breaking performances!

OC volleyball is coming off of a record breaking week! The Yeowomen set the tone of the week by coming back from two sets down to beat OWU. During the course of the victory over OWU senior Amanda Wysk became the kill leader at Oberlin breaking 1,00 kills! Under the leadership of Wysk, Frackman and Jacobson the Yeowomen beat Allegheny College in five sets on Sunday for the first time in school history! Anna Frackman had a stellar week, which led to her breaking the 1,000 dig mark and becoming 2nd in all-time kills with 882!! The leadership of the seniors this week has set the tone to round out the season. Jacobson, Wysk and Frackman have set the standards high in their four years at Oberlin.

Trip to Wisconsin!!!!!!

Hi everyone!

Anna here. This past weekend, our team had the opportunity to travel to Wisconsin (my home state!) to play some new teams and see a part of the country that many of us had not seen before. We drove through the night on Thursday and arrived on Friday morning. We had four matches between Friday and Saturday. Unfortunately, none of them went our way, although we definitely learned some important lessons and found some areas that we needed to work on in order to be ready to beat teams like the ones we saw this weekend.

On Saturday night, we had a rousing round of The Game of Things in the hotel, which none of us had ever played before. Sunday we got to go to beautiful Devil's Lake State park in Wisconsin and go canoeing on the lake and hiking up the surrounding bluffs. The weather was a bit chilly for swimming (though Meredith and Maggie braved the water) but it was great for canoeing and hiking. Later we went to Madison and got to have dinner at my house to celebrate my upcoming birthday (I turn 21 on Wednesday). It was great to be able to show my college friends around my neighborhood, and we had a good time eating homemade food and Culver's frozen custart, a real midwest treat, and buying wisconsin cheese to take back to Ohio. We arrived back to Ohio in the early hours of Monday morning, and we are all busily resting up and preparing for classes to start tomorrow! Hope everyone had a great Labor day weekend!

OC VB summer check in from Laura!

My family took a vacation to Egypt this summer! We started our vacation in Cairo. It was an adventure because our bags got lost and we didn't have them for two days! We toured the city visiting the Muhammad Ali mosque and experienced real Cairo driving. Drivers don't obey lines, run lights, and honk constantly-- quite an experience! We left Cairo on an overnight train where we met our bags. The individual compartments where very small and it made stops ALL night but the views out the window were amazing! We made it to Aswan the next day. We saw an unfinished obilisk, toured the Nassar Dam and the Philae Temple. We flew to Abu Smbel the next morning. This was my favorite temple! It was created by Ramses to show his Southern neighbors that his empire was powerful and to portray himself as a deity. We arrived on our cruise ship that night and begun our cruise down the nile! My favorite part of the cruise was the Egyptian night. Our group dressed up in Egyptian clothes and the workers played instruments and showed us how to dance. We toured a few more temples in Luxor and Edfu. On the last day of the cruise we toured the Valley of the Kings where all the pharaohs were buried in luxurious tombs. There were sixty two temples but we were only able to tour three. I remember that day was VERY hot, almost 125 degrees! We then toured a HUGE mortuary tomb for the only female pharaoh. Our last stop was the temple of Karnak which is the largest temple devoted to any deity in all history. We flew back to Cairo the next day to see the great pyramids. We went inside the second largest pyramid, the walk down was super steep and it was very humid! We saw the sphinx as well and went to the sound and light show.

The rest of my summer was far less exciting. Most days I hang out and play around with my friends and sisters. We go hiking often and spend days tubing and discovering new watering holes. But I also had two jobs, one at a nursery and one at an ice cream shop. And I volunteer at my local dog and cat shelter two or three times a week.

I visited Rosie last weekend! We made vegan fudge, went thrift shopping, and watched this crazy Japanese movie called Tampopo.

I can't wait to get back to school and see all yalls beautiful faces!

OC VB summer check in from Kristen!

Hey Guys!

This summer has been great so far. I’ve been working as a tennis instructor for kids at different YMCA summer camps all over Atlanta. Most of these kids have never been introduced to the sport, and it’s really exciting to be able to teach them something new. Some of the kids get really excited about it and are so eager to learn. Those are the ones that make my job fun. But in between dodging kids dangerously wielding tennis rackets and nursing bruises from misplaced tennis balls, I’ve been working out and hanging out with my friends. We’re all big music fans, so you can imagine our excitement when we saw a little impromptu jam session going on at the square in Downtown Decatur. It was a local band just kind of hanging out and having fun with whoever else happened to be there. It’s the kind of thing you see in movies and stuff, but it’s pretty magical to actually be a part of it. We liked them so much that we went to a show they were playing in the area. It was so much fun, and it reminded me how great local music can be.

This week has been the most exciting by far, though. I’ve been vacationing with my family in the beautiful US Virgin Islands. I’ve been taking this time to relax on the beach, soak up some sun, and hang out with my family. It is sooo beautiful here. The water is crystal clear and the sand is white. It’s impossible to not be happy here. I’ve most enjoyed the days when we went on sailing trips. We sailed to the British Virgin Islands and to different snorkeling spots. This was my first time snorkeling ever, and it’s really cool. I got to see all sorts of sea creatures. I am terribly afraid of critters in the land or sea, so I expected to not enjoy snorkeling too much. I thought I would just be a big scaredy cat. But once I started, I was mesmerized by the things that I saw. It was like swimming through my own little aquarium. I saw schools of fish and massive sting rays. I was really freaked out when I saw a huge shark lying on the ocean floor. Our boat’s captain told me that it was a nurse shark and it didn’t have any teeth and mostly slept during the day, but still, it was pretty frightening. Turtles are one of my favorite animals on the planet, so I was really excited when I spotted a sea turtle. I followed it around the reef until I got tired.

This has been a fabulous vacation, but I’m excited to be headed home soon. There’s only one more week before I load all of my stuff in the car and head up to Oberlin. I couldn’t be more excited. So I’ve got a week of packing up my life and saying goodbyes ahead of me. And then I’ll be saying hello to Oberlin and my new family there.

Hope everyone’s summer is going great!!!

OC VB summer check in from Maggie!

After a whirlwind semester studying abroad in France, a return trip involving a lost pass port and a lost wallet in two different cities, I made it home to Carefree, Arizona. Right away, I began working for my cousin doing data entry, which has been an awesome job that has taught me a lot. After three weeks of Arizona where I successfully re-adapted to American things like eating dinner before 9 o’clock, smiling at strangers and tipping at restaurants, I went to Michigan for two weeks to work at my cousin’s office. It was really cool because all of my extended family is in Michigan and I got to hang out with a lot of cousins.


After Michigan, I came back to Arizona for a few more weeks. Thanks to summer storms, I was able to take advantage of the landscape and do a lot of hiking and horse back riding. My favorite hiking story was at the Grand Canyon. A friend from France who spent a year at Oberlin was visiting the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley with some friends so I drove out there to hang out with her. We decided to hike for a few hours down into the Grand Canyon. When we stopped going down and started going back up it was 110 degrees and we thought we were going to die of sunstroke (not really, but that’s what it felt like). However, when we reached the top, a huge storm had come and the temperature dropped to about 60 degrees and it started pouring. We could not believe how we went from baking to freezing so fast.


Next week I will begin the three day, cross country adventure of driving from Arizona back to Oberlin. It should be a blast involving tourist traps, lot's of playlists and 1,500 miles of interstate 40.

OC VB summer check in from travelling Amanda

Hey all,
My summer is going great so far! I’ve been traveling a lot, hanging out with friends, and relaxing as much as I can before the busy school year starts. Here’s a quick recap of what I’ve done and what I still have left to do.

In June I went to Mansfield, Ohio to support Liz during Miss Ohio week. It was fun, intense, and crazy to see how much work all the girls put in. After that, I went home with Liz and spent a few weeks in Connecticut. We mostly just hung out, but the more exciting parts of the trip were attending the PGA Tournament and going to Cape Cod for the 4th of July weekend. While there we did lots of fun things like hitting up the beach, going whale watching, seeing fireworks, and some shopping.

I came back to Wisconsin around mid July, but right away went up north with friends. For those who don’t know, “up north” means that you stay in a cabin, cottage, or camp somewhere in Wisconsin north of where you actually live (I think the unofficial cut off is that you must be at least north of the Dells for it to count as up north, but that’s just my opinion). Since then I’ve had about a week’s worth of birthday celebrations because getting all of my friends together on one day is almost impossible due to where everybody lives and crazy work schedules.

Currently I’m coaching a volleyball camp and I don’t have any other big plans until August. I can’t wait though because in the span of a week I’m having a friend visit from Ohio and we’re seeing a concert, I’m going to Minnesota for a weekend, and I’ll be hitting up State Fair which is always a fun time. The only bad thing about this summer has been the severe weather. My area has seen two rounds of tornadoes and severe flooding. The first caused us to lose every tree but one and we needed a new roof put on, and the second caused unprecedented flooding in several counties that is still not all cleaned up yet (perhaps you saw on Yahoo or something about the sinkhole in Milwaukee that swallowed an SUV…not good).

All in all my summer has been amazing. I hope to have a great next 3 weeks free of scary weather and then I’ll be seeing everybody back on campus!

OC VB summer check in from Meredith in the exciting city of Rye

Hi all! My summer has been pretty busy thus far. Like some of the other girls I've attended my fair share of concerts including Carole King & James Taylor, Passion Pit and Tokyo Police Club, Jack Johnson and most recently Dave Matthews Band. I've been trying to take advantage of my proximity to both the beach and new york city.

My town, Rye, is right on the water and we also have a theme park here, Playland and the beaches attract people from all over. It's especially fun to go out to the beach on the weekend nights when Playland sets off fireworks! I've also spend some of my free time with my dog Cody, this is his first summer with my family since we adopted him in September. On milder days we'll walk down to the beach and along the pier. However it has been so hot lately he'll just accompany me on a lounge chair in the back yard. I've been going down to one of the private beach that I belong to almost every Saturday and Sunday. LI sound has been so nice I've gone swimming everyday in it... it could be that I'm paranoid I won't be able to if oil reaches New York!

Last week I met one of my friends after they got out of their job in NYC we went to Bryant Park for a picnic dinner and they had an outdoor yoga class going on, there must have been 200 people doing yoga it was funny to watch but we were tempted to join in...it was too bad I was wearing a skirt!

This is my second summer working as a camp counselor at one of the many country clubs in Rye it's been fun for the most part but definitely difficult on the 100 degree days. My group of girls are between 7 and 11. I'm most excited for tomorrow which is tie dye day! Today was fun even though it rained, we made up our own version of California Girls to sing at the closing ceremony and the girls are very excited to have our own original song to do.

Other than that Rye has been under Coyote watch, they've always been around in Rye because we're near the water and have lots of marsh land and small nature reservations where deer live. But recently the Coyotes have gotten more aggressive and bigger! They've attacked a couple kids in our town but the kids have all gotten by with stitches and rabies shots. This morning I even saw three deer in my neighbor's yard, and I live on a main street! And we have a saying in Rye
"where there are Deer the Coyotes will come". But after I saw the Eclipse movie, I'm hoping it will just turn out to be Jacob Black coming to hang out with me haha!

Overall I've had a pretty fun summer, it probably helps that now I'm feeling tan and fit! I can't wait to move in and get to see everyone again! Enjoy the sun!