Mixed Feelings

As Winter Term begins a lot of things have not changed at all. Classes are still the same and you see the same people everyday, but what has changed is the Mercyhurst atmosphere. I came back to school with mixed feelings about how I was feeling. As most of you viewers might have heard, one of our own students, Jenni-Lyn Watson, unfortunately did not come back to school with us as planned. After she was missing for a week, her body was found in a marsh. It was a complete shock to everyone that someone would do such a thing to a girl that didn't deserve that at all. Jenni-Lyn was the first person that I met when I came to Mercyhurst at our Laker Live-In that we do every year for accepted students that have decided to come to Mercyhurst. She was really really nice and I remember her telling me that she was a dancer and she was definitely excited about her future here. Even though we did not remain close friends I always did see her around campus and in the dance space and I always thought that she was amazing at what she did. A vigil was held for her last night and it was truly outstanding to see the crowd that came to pay their respects. We really are a family here at Mercyhurst and it really goes to show how far students can go to support their fellow students. Jenni-Lyn will surely not ever be forgotten and will remain in the hearts of many.

On a brighter note, classes had gone quite well today and I'm excited about Behavior Modification! I love behavior and I'm really looking forward to learning more about it and being more hands on. There are so many things going on in the next few weeks. A couple of them are Christmas On Campus and Winter Fest. Every year we hold a Christmas event for the clubs and organizations that children are involved in all over Erie, such as the YMCA, and students volunteer as buddies to these children and walk around the Union playing games and making crafts that they can bring home. We also give them a gift and Santa and Mrs. Clause comes to read the Night Before Christmas to them. Everything is run by the students and is sponsored by the Leadership Development and Engagement Office. It's a great opportunity and so much fun! This year I'm Gifts Co-Chair and I'm in charge of wrapping all the gifts and giving them to the kids. It's also a lot of hard work, but it pays off definitely in the end.
Winterfest also is an event that goes on for students as well. SAC and MSG combine to give students a great winter experience with things like horse drawn carriage rides, snowmen building contests and lots and lots of free food!

I'm looking forward to a great term, but definitely not the snow. It actually snowed last Friday night and I woke up Saturday appalled. It's not that I hate snow, but I've been around it my entire life and it's nothing too exciting to me anymore. But I love Christmas!! And I love the holiday season!

It's Getting Down to the Nitty Gritty

Well I've made it! Theres 2 days until finals officially start and I'm so excited to go home and spend some time with my family! So here is how I'm spending my Friday night: Sitting on my couch, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on the TV, and doing my Psych Stats final. It's a take home final and I'm so very excited that it's one last final that I have to do in class and I work at my own pace. I spent 6 hours in the library today studying for my Personality final which is Monday at 10:30am. I finished a 12 page paper last night along with a 5 page one as well. My stress levels been brought down a bit because of it, but not much. I am not on duty tonight and I'm very happy about it! But I'll most likely be up just as late as a weekend duty would be going to.
My last program went on last night at my apartment and we made root beer floats and did some finger painting to relieve some finals stress. Hannah (my building partner) and I had about 10 people show up and it went very well! I plan on being in the library the rest of the weekend preparing for the rest of my finals. One good word of advice, when you want to really study and have no distractions whatsoever, study in the Reading Room because it is the quietest room in the entire library and I guarantee you will get A LOT of studying done and no one will ever bother you.

Have a great weekend everyone and a fabulous Thanksgiving!
Carpe Diem!

It's Narrowing Down to the End

The stress of the term has begun to be more than I can handle lately. If you would really like to get inside a college student's head then you must read this blog.
For an example, this is what my schedule looked like this week, and most of it is not even over yet:/ Highlighted is what I've completed so far...ahhh.

I've also been sick this week as well. It started out for me just not feeling well, and it's slowly progressed to some sort of flu. I'm feeling better than I did, but now I just have stomach pains and I feel very weak...and the bad part is that this is the worst week it could possibly happen.

But as I fought through today as best as I could, I managed to complete my first research study timeslot today and I think I did very well! I've never had a liking for research up until this point in my college career. I should like it considering what I will be doing this winter conducting my own study! I hope everything turns out the way that it should! You will be hearing about it as winter term quickly approaches faster and faster. Since I'm sharing with all of you what the end of the term is really like, I thought I would share my things to do agenda. These are things that have to be completed in order to leave campus Wednesday November 17th when finals end!!

Abnormal Psychology- Final Exam (4 chapters + short answer questions)
                                      1 last portfolio
Personality- James Pennebaker 3rd project
                    Future Self Paper
                    Final Exam (4 chapters + short answer questions)
Biopsychology-12 page paper on topics since the midterm (as take home part of my exam)
                          2 more quizzes
                          one last portfolio
                          Final Exam
Statistics For Psychology- finish last homework assignment
                                          1 more quiz over ANOVA
                                          Final Exam (which might be take home :) )
So this is what I'm working on this weekend. Papers, papers, papers. There is nothing wrong with papers if you don't have a problem with doing them. I don't but I don't like big one's like the 12 page that must be handed in before my class final. But don't let this discourage you, I quickly adapted my freshman year !

Who is not ready for snow?! I'M NOT! I would be very happy if we lived without snow, but obviously it will never be that way in Erie, Pennsylvania...believe me! You have not seen snow until you've come to Erie. Tomorrow is the last Open House and I am giving a group tour at 11am! I'm also mingling with families in Egan Cafeteria right after and that completes my Saturday morning/afternoon.

Well that's all I have for now, I must get on those papers! Have a great weekend:)

Marleah

" 'Cause This is Thriller, Thriller Night..."

Halloween is Sunday! One of my favorite days of the year! The atmosphere just has an eerie feeling and that's what I love most about it! Does anyone love to watch the 13 Nights of Halloween on ABC Family? If you do, then we have this in common!

Since it is that spooky time of the year, I thought I'd share with you all a few ghost stories that have said to have happened here in the past. Including one of my own that I've had...

Well, it is said that Taylor Little Theatre is haunted (for reasons I don't really specifically know off of the top of my head). The library Great Room sits on top of that theatre and one Friday afternoon I was working on a project for a class that I could only work on in the library on their computers. When I walked in I knew that there were people in the Great Room and I was in 1 room over on the computers. I had my headphones on, but I could hear people and they sounded close. About 5 minutes later I was done and was getting ready to leave. Then I suddenly felt like someone ran right past to me and was really close to where I was sitting. Immediately it startled me and I looked around and no one was there. I got up to leave and no one was in the Great Room either. I didn't know what had just happened, but I got a bad feeling and ran out of there. This was my experience, but a lot of other people have experienced ghostly occurrences as well!

One ghost story that it is pretty popular is that of the young sister that had unfortunately taken her life in the 1940's. A young girl named Dorothy was going here when Mercyhurst was still an all girls college. She had met a young man named Tom and they soon fell in love and planned on getting married. But WW2 broke out and he was drafted over seas. She prayed and prayed that he would return home so they could make a life together, but one day she got a letter while still at school that he was tragically killed in battle. She decided she would never love again and gave her life to the lord and became a sister of Mercy. One day, a stranger approached her in soldier attire and she had realized that it was her long lost love and explained to her that the letter was a mistake and he was missing in action all that time he was gone. He begged her to give up her new life and fulfill her life with him. Shocked and confused, the young girl didn't know what to do and it is said that she couldn't handle anything anymore and went crazy. She placed her engagement on the finger of baby Jesus in the chapel and was locked away in O'Neil Tower for the sake of hurting others if she was left to roam the halls freely. Eventually, the other sisters discovered her one day and it is said that she had hung herself. Now sometimes people say that they see strange shadows at night in the windows of the tower in Old Main. And they think it is the ghost of Dorothy looking down on them.
Some years later after her death another young girl was going here and was hoping that her long time boyfriend was going to propose to her. So, it is said that she took the ring from the baby Jesus statue and got in the car and drove home to see her boyfriend. Along the way she got into a terrible car accident and was killed. People say that it is the ghost of Dorothy that caused the accident because she took her ring. The ring is buried somewhere on the school grounds, but no one knows where, so it could never be found.

One last story that I've always heard is that there was a horrific fire some time ago on the third floor of Egan and a lot of girls lost their belongings as well as their rooms for awhile. But one young girl was said to have been caught in the fire and was seriously burned. When she saw herself in the mirror she screamed in terror and went insane from her burns and broke the mirror. Now a lot of girls have said that their mirror just mysteriously would break on their own. Also, a specific room is haunted for sure. There is a video on youtube if you look up Mercyhurst ghosts. There's like a mist that forms on a girls webcam and you can clearly see it. She also said that her shoes were moved around a lot, things went missing and things ended up on the other side of the room when she knew that she didn't put them there. This is the most creepiest story I've heard and I avoid going on the third and fourth floors of Egan at all costs during night. The day time I sometimes have to because that's where Residence Life is located and my AD's office is up there.

So these are a few stories to get you in the mood for Halloween! And remember, when you come to Mercyhurst, ask your tour guide about some ghost stories and they will surely give you a treat!

Pumpkins that my sister and I carved while I was home! Mine is on the bottom.

Have a great Happy Halloween!

Carpe Diem,
Marleah :)

Update at the Hurst

So I haven't written in awhile and I think that it's vital I need to talk about what's going on here at the Hurst lately!
Yesterday was our first Open House of the year and it was a great turn out. My job was to take our prospective students into the Baldwin Hall Residence Hall, which is all girls by the way, and show them around. This is an all girls dorm and I lived there when I was a freshman two years ago. To me, it has a great homey feeling and I met a lot of my friends there. It's an older dorm so it's not nearly as close to how great Warde Hall is, our newest dormitory to college, but it gave me a great experience when I was living on the third floor. I had so many interesting families and it's great getting to know the people that could be on campus with me next year.
It was also another home football game yesterday as well! It was an unforgettable game as we won against No. 3 California U with a score of 31-21!
You can read all about on our sports website! http://hurstathletics.com/index.aspx?tab=football&path=football
As the weeks come closer and closer to finals, my schedule is not getting any easier. This week I'm studying for my third Abnormal Psychology exam on Wednesday, a paper in my Personality class due tomorrow, and tons and tons of meetings. Sometimes it's difficult to even sit down and watch an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, my favorite reality show.
Today is the South Lewis All Area Program as well! This is when all the RA's in my area come together and form a program for all of our residents. This term it is a Half Time Fallfest Party. We're having donuts and apple cidar and carmel apples. We're also collecting canned goods for Hunger and Homeless Week. So, you can always expect a good time from your RA's because we're here to make our residents' happy!
If my schedule permits, I will be writing again this week.
Carpe Diem everyone!
Marleah

Fall Break Is So Close I Can Taste It

Hi everyone!
Midterms are officially done! Well, for me at least and I'm very happy about it. So, it's about that time in the term that registration for the next term starts. I picked out all my classes today and have decided on 3. Here at Mercyhurst we're on a trimester system and because of that we don't have to take a huge amount of classes like you might have to at a school that is on semesters. I think it's a great quality of the college because for me I don't have to be overloaded with homework so much at a time and it balances everything else out that I have going on at school. So for winter term I've decided on:
Behavior Modification
Research Methods 1 (which is a required course for anyone in the psychology major)
British Classics (a distribution core class)

I'm looking forward to starting behavior modification because I love behavior! My least favorite would probably have to be research because I've been dreading this year to come for awhile and conducting my own research is going to be very difficult. Tomorrow starts our Fall Break! I won't be going home until Thursday morning because Wednesday is my usual duty night and I have to stay for that. But I'm very excited that I get to go home. The thing I'm most looking forward to is seeing my puppy, Shiloh. She really isn't a puppy anymore, but she likes to think so. Every time I come home she's the one who is most excited and follows me around for the remainder of the time that I'm home. I know she misses me and I miss her too! We have off until Sunday and I plan on carving a pumpkin with my boyfriend and going to my local apple farm to get apple cidar and doughnuts. And of course spending time with my family.

Have a great week!
Carpe Diem, Marleah

Long Distance Makes the Heart Grow Stronger

My boyfriend and I have been together since the beginning of my college career. I have plenty of experience with long distance relationships, and believe me they are not easy. 
I met my boyfriend, Evan, while I was working as a Sales Associate at an American Greetings store. His best friend was my co-worker's boyfriend and he came with him in the store one day during the summer of 2008. I had just graduated and was getting ready to leave to come to Erie! Evan was just 16 and starting his junior year of high school. Even though we knew it was not going to be easy, we started dating...and the rest is history! NOT!
I wish that I could end the story like this, but everything can't be THAT simple. 
If you are someone that is coming to school in a relationship there has to be a lot commitment, trust and patience, because if not it is going to fail. Evan and I went strong for about a year and a half before things started to get really hard on us. We separated for about 2 1/2 months before one day we got back together and we knew that if we were really worth it then we would do whatever it took to stay together. I know that this might sound corny, but you really do learn from your mistakes and realize that certain people in your life are worth taking the plunge for no matter what the situation. We've been together for a little over 2 years and still going strong. 

This is a picture of Evan and I on my birthday at the restaurant he works at. He bought me the huge chocolate cake! :D

Evan drives to Erie every Sunday to spend time together and I know it's hard on him, especially when I don't have a car to get to him. But I'm grateful everyday for having him there when I need the support and doing what he does for me every week. So my advice to anyone that will be soon in a long distance relationship is to make sure that there is communication, care, support, trust and commitment. There is hope for the future, so don't think that it will automatically fail. There are ways to pull through and I'm a firm believer in that. 

Carpe Diem everyone!
Have a great weekend:)