The beauty of living in a residence hall...

There are no words to describe how much I love living in a residence hall. Having at least 100 people at your fingertips, you're bound to find a friend (or two or ten or fifty :).

This Saturday we had a male beauty pageant, Mr. South Quad. Like I think I've written before, South Quad is broken up into 8 houses. Each sent a representative, along with a Mr. Hall Council and a Mr. Multicultural council. Being an emcee and a planner, I didn't think that ANYBODY was going to show up. Imagine my surprise when over 250 people came in through those basement doors! The pizza was gone in an instant, the heat was almost unbearable, but it was a blast. The boys had funny talents, from lip-syncing Kelly Clarkson to playing Rockband to dress in unitards and reading bedtime poems. We asked them really random questions, too, like how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. Overall, Mr. Huber house won, a guy that had been in South Quad and paid his dues that it was a perfect prize to send him out of South Quad on. Just look at the pictures above...res hall life doesn't get any better than this :)

Sunday was ResHall Feud. Basically it was all 16 teams competing against each other Family-Feud style. Between myself and three of my friends, we got a team together and showed up to West Quad to compete. After a seemingly lost first and second round, we pulled out narrow victory by one point. The questions were hilarious, everything from college vacation spots to country artists to food at a circus to famous georges. Once we got a fan club together (two of our friends came with a sign), we started to DOMINATE the competition, blowing the next two teams away and advancing to the finals!

The final round was so intense. We had really hard questions and it was neck and neck until the end. Thank goodness my friend Tony is a movie buff, because the question was the top 4 movie with sequels. He hit that button so fast, then named Star Wars. My friend Nieri gave Lord of the Rings, and Spencer gave Harry Potter. We still were missing the number 3 answer, and I was so torn between Shrek and Spiderman. I pulled out Spiderman though...and we swept the question! It was a perfect end to the competition.

My first campus day was yesterday too! For those of you that are starting to see my face, feel free to say hi and let me know you actually read this (motivation to continue writing crazy and interesting stories :)

Until next time...Keep it classy,

Samantha

Time flies when you're playing sports...

The word intramurals is probably the coolest word ever invented for college kids.

If you're reading this, I just want to mention that no matter wherever you end up for school, end up playing Intramural Sports.

This week we began our Winter Season. I am playing on an all girls team for Mini Soccer (which is kind of a culture shock seeing as it's 3-on-3 and I spent all fall playing with guys). I'm not going to lie that we got creamed (10-0), but it was so much fun. At one point, they scored on us in the first ten seconds of the second half, and the girls and I could do nothing but laugh.

Mini-soccer, however, is not my first sport. Yeah, I played fall soccer on a co-ed team. Actually, I started out refereeing soccer, and one of the refs I worked with offered me a ride back to my residence hall (five minute drive? twenty minute bus ride? you do the math). We were talking about playing, and he had formed a team with his fraternity but was short girls. Two days later, I was playing with his frat brothers (who I must say, I've still kept in touch with) and all of their friends. Making friends with juniors was a great way to start the year (Find friends with cars...you don't want one, but it's nice for someone to have access to one).

Post-Soccer, however...there was Flag Football! My friend Christine loves to use the word Creeper, and so our group of friends started a coed team and named ourselves...what else? The Creepers. We survived a couple of forfeits, but eventually we got to play! I was sick the first game we played, but our playoff game I was the quarterback. See, Michigan has this rule that evey other play must involve passing with a girl so that boys don't completely dominate.

I almost feel the need to set the stage as well. It is the Monday after Thanksgiving. There is an inch of snow falling. It is about 10 degrees outside. There is no grass on the fields anymore. Just mud. So half the team has cleats and the other half doesn't...making it even more slippery.

Long story short, we lost. But I got a touchdown and ran for three first downs! Back in Midland, if girls played football, it was tackle without pads (and basically a way to beat each other up). It was so awesome to have an opportunity to try a sport i'd always wanted to, and the opportunity to play with my friends was a blast!

I can't wait for our next mini-soccer game, and we'll be starting inner tube water polo soon! Can you tell I'm looking forward to it already?

Speaking of sports,I also got the opportunity to play basketball in Chrysler Arena!
(see above). Well, not actually. My friends are in a coed service fraternity and so we went to help clean up the arena. Let me tell you, I never believed that cleaning could be so much fun!

Not to mention the less-mentioned sports. One night my friend Andy and I missed a water polo game and passed by the volleyball courts, only to become so engrossed by the game we stayed for the entire thing! Everytime the girls score, their cheering section shouts in rhythm "point mi-chi-gan!". And there are two adults who are so die hard they have their own signs and are known for their love of the sport and this team (wchih won, by the way). I'm sad I discovered it so late but I am SO excited to go back!

So the point of this story is. Sports are amazing. Whether it's intramurals, going to a basketball game, or helping to clean up after a big sports game...not only are they a great way to meet people, but a great opportunity to avoid the freshman 15 (which yes...can be prevented).

Well, I'm off to class and another soccer game tonight...for those of you accepted here, I hope you're coming to Campus Day in the upcoming months (that way you can put a face to my blogging)! It's an awesome opportunity to discover what the University is truly about (and it's how I decided this was the Perfect place for me).

Until Next Time,

Sam

A new semester means a new mix of fun and learning...

I can't believe we're back here in Ann Arbor and beginning a new semester! It's so nice to be back here with all of my new friends, catching up.

So a new semester means new classes. After exactly one week of classes, I picked an awesome selection. First, I'm in statistics 35o, which is introductory stats. The nicest part of this is that half of my hall is taking this class, and we've already been busy sharing books, working together on homework, and just talking about what we like and don't like about the class. My professor is really interesting, and I love the smaller lab sections where we have an opportunity to use the computers to analyze the statistics.

Then, I'm in cultural anthropology 101, and my professor is crazy! Every morning when I walk into lecture, he's playing some kind of song with the word Anthropology in the title, and he always has some fascinating story to complement whatever definition he is teaching us. My discussion section is also nice. For every big lecture, there is a smaller discussion class of normally about 20 students. My discussion, though, has only 15 kids! Every Wednesday we meet and discuss either the book we've read (an ethnography of crack dealers) or some other aspect of anthropology that we all found interesting.

My next class is Great Books 192, a continuation of the Honors English classes that it is recommended that we take. I'm not sure I ever mentioned this, but my discussion leader (which we have twice a week) was a former member of the KGB (aka the Russian Mafia) and he always has crazy stories to tell, whether it deals with his adventures in Germany, his schooling in Russia, or just how much he dislikes local companies in Ann Arbor. For the first time in my life, I can proudly admit I have yet to fall asleep in his class, a true testament to how interesting he makes the class (I loathe English).

Last but not least is my favorite class, History 196: Deadly Disease in US Culture. It's a first year seminar (the Uof M offers over 75 of these seminars which are taught by a professor in class sizes of 20 or less) that looks at epidemics. Yesterday we read about smallpox and when the Europeans came over to convert the natives, then debated from the perspective of the natives (that maybe they should convert in order to stop the disease, or revert back to old rituals and maybe reverse the onset of the disease), and then from the Europeans (that the missionaries were not doing their best to convert the natives, as well as the guilt from recognizing smallpox and never informing the natives). Now, normally I'm not a fan of history (I'm defnitely a science girl), but class was so fascinating that I cannot wait until my next class!

The craziest part of my semester is that I know somebody in every single one of my classes. Whereas last semester I walked in and knew nobody, I've slowly made enough friends that even without planning, I've found people to hang with during discussion and lecture. Granted, I'm really excited to make new friends and get to know some acquaintances better, but it's exciting to think that in a school of 40,000+ students, the campus is still small in the sense that you've never out there alone on your own.

This week has also been a blast because it's "syllabus week", so while there's some assignments, it's a pretty light load of work. That means my friends and I have been able to hang out, work out, and just have a good time together before we have to start buckling down pretty hard. My friends and I are taking a Hip-Hop class through UMove, which is the department of kinesiology, and it's really fun and different. Even though we're not the best, we still have a blast because we're together. It's also a great opportunity to get a workout in a fun way. We're also on a mini-soccer team for intramurals which starts next week, and even if we lose every game, at least it'll be fun to play together.

As always, I'll keep you informed on classes, activities, sports, and the general happenings of dorm life! (I promise it's way more interesting and fun than it may seem...the food is even edible1)

Until next time,

Sam