Hannukah! Formal Dance! Exams! OH MY!

Whew…first semester is over! It feels so weird to have literally NOTHING that I need to do except relax! I finished up exams last week, and I flew home Sunday. Exam time was definitely intense, but I got through it without stressing too much. I was lucky…I only had two finals and one final paper to do, and they were all spread out nicely so I was able to study for each one separately. Lots of different student groups and offices within U of M put on study breaks, often featuring food, and those were a really nice way to take a break from studying!

Let me go back a few weeks to talk about some AWESOME things I did before finals season hit!

First off, Hannukah was two weeks ago, and I was really bummed to not be home with my parents to light the candles. Well, lucky for me, Hillel had a menorah lighting right in the diag on the first night! They brought a huge menorah and we all lit the candles in the cold night! Then we had latkes! The dining hall also had a phenomenal holiday meal, complete with Christmas-dinner type foods and more latkes!

Another highlight of the last few weeks was the Taylor House Formal, a dance that my Residence Hall’s student government put on for everyone on our floor. I’m the president of my house (“Taylor House” is the floor I live on within South Quadrangle…we have events for everyone in South Quad and others specifically for residents in our “house”). Samantha and I along with other members of the student government organized the dance, and a lot of people from our dorm came! It was a real blast…everyone got all dressed up, and we danced for several hours in the lounge/party room in the basement of our dorm. Here's some pictures from that:

The dance floor

Me with my RA, Daniil

This past Saturday was a really awesome day…after a fun day at the mall with my friend Andrew and dinner out, we met our friend at a coffee shop on South University to hang out. Somehow, we launched into a really intense conversation about global warming, and even though it was really late and everyone was tired from exams, we really got into it! It’s so weird that something which seems like the kind of conversation you would only have in a class actually can happen late on a Saturday night in a café. That’s one of my favorite things about college…the different viewpoints and the general interest that the people around me have in discussing important things. I’m always up for some meaningless banter or gossip, but it’s the real discussions that stay with you longer after they happen.

After our discussion, we headed over to Oxford(another residence hall for students) to watch a movie, and eventually I got back to South Quad…I had to walk through some intense snow, but it was really peaceful and nice outside, so it was actually fun! There were several inches of snow on the ground, so it was great to get inside once I got back home. I was just about to go to sleep around 1AM when the fire alarm went off, and I grudgingly got my boots and coat on and trudged outside. Once everyone from South Quad was out front, we realized that West Quad (across the street from South Quad) also had their fire alarm going off, and all of sudden everyone knew what was about to happen…the annual South Quad/West Quad snowball fight! The police came to block off the street so no cars would go by and interfere with our fight, and everyone grabbed some snow and started lobbing it across the street at the West Quad residents. It lasted about an hour, and by the end I was completely freezing and tired – but it was still amazing!

It was a fantastic ending to an awesome semester, and I’m looking forward to a nice long break until next semester, when I start 5 brand new classes! It'll be great to get back and see all my friends, and while I'm going to enjoy my break, I'll be happy to be back at U of M!

Happy Holidays, and GO BLUE!