Wednesday nights for me are solely dedicated to Rambler production nights. These nights putting together the paper are usually pretty eventful, but the week before spring break became particularly interesting.
Our (incredibly awesome) adviser, Terri, received a call from her daughter-in-law that she had found a tiny puppy that needed rescuing. The Rambler team went into action. We brought the pretty little girl into our office and began making phone calls to parents and friends to see if anyone wanted her.

Little Rambler! (Ignore me in my pajamas. It's spring break!)

Unfortunately, most of our calls didn’t show any promise of finding her a home, so I decided that I would keep her with me at my apartment until we could find someone.
We named her Rambler after the place where she spent most of her first night. I had her a week. I taught her to sit. I took her on walks. I desperately wanted to keep her, but I knew that it wouldn’t be fair to keep her locked up in my apartment (which is pretty much the size of a cage) while I was away at school and work.

Sleepy Rambler!

Sometimes in college, you’ll have to choose between the responsible thing to do and what you want to do. I am happy to say, though, that after about a week, Rambler has found a home with a huge yard, 3 little boys and another dog to play with! We will miss her, but at least we have a little Transy legacy running around Lexington now.

Poetry workshop

Speaking of the arts, I have had the absolute privilege to work with some of my fellow classmates and the former Kentucky Poet Laureate, Richard Taylor in a poetry workshop this semester!
I know I have mentioned before how tough it can be to keep up with creative writing in college, because analytical writing receives most of the emphasis, but Transy has had the honor of having Richard Taylor on our campus for a few years now as our writer in residence, and he has played a major role in allowing creative writing students on this campus to keep up with their writing.

Dr. Richard Taylor!

Transy has no official creative writing program, but more and more creative classes are being offered now. And boy is there talent here! My classmates have often left me gaping with awe after reading their work, and my own work has improved immensely since beginning the workshop.
We have not only gotten to work with and learn from Richard and each other, but we have also had the pleasure of having numerous guests in our classes, well-known and successful KY poets like Kathleen Driskell, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, and Jeff Worley
Here’s one of the poems I have written since beginning the class:

Language Barrier

We have just landed in Beijing after 24 hours.
Across the aisle, my classmate,
Who has endured 14 silent
Hours next to a native’s pungent
Snacks of dried fish and boiled eggs,
His newspaper filled with indistinguishable
Glyphs, is fumbling
Her suitcase from the overhead bin,
When, as if carried by some ancient
Impulse, her neighbor places a stabilizing hand
On her back, saves
The toppling bag, and, cradling it,
As an infant, perhaps, of their own creation,
Settles it in her arms.

She would later tell me
She had said
‘thank you,’ but
I remember only her lingering
Hand on his forearm, his slow, smiling
Bow, as they parted
Less foreign
Than either had imagined.

By: Amanda Holt

Transy Arts

Now that I’ve thoroughly depressed you with my sob story, let me lift you up by talking about Transy’s vibrant arts community!

In high school, my family finally convinced me that I would love theatre. I played Mrs. Dubose in To Kill a Mockingbird for my first role and had my first lead role by junior year. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to participate in Transylvania’s wonderful theatre program due to my crazy schedule, but I do get to enjoy almost every performance they put together.

That's me as Mrs. Dubose in high school.

The latest production that I attended was Aloha Say the Pretty Girls, and I was fascinated! It’s fragmented plot left some confused, but I loved how it commented on how people tend to drift in and out of our lives almost randomly. It wasn’t a very hopeful play at the end, but it was intellectual and beautifully performed. It definitely left me with plenty to think about afterwards, which I always appreciate.

During the performance of Aloha Say the Pretty Girls

Here is a review that our student newspaper published about the production: http://transyrambler.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/%E2%80%98aloha%E2%80%99-complex-but-enjoyable/
I’m always impressed with our theatre department’s productions, which are largely student driven. It’s always a good and cheap way to spend a Friday evening!
Also, while I haven’t actually been in a theatre department production, I did recently have a role in a student led production of The Vagina Monologues! One of my friends and sorority sisters, Abby Adams (you can check out her blog on here, too!) had the idea to perform these monologues as a way to raise money for the Bluegrass Rape Crisis Center and the V-Day Campaign, which raises money for the prevention of violence against women and girls.

The posters for The Vagina Monologues performance!

Being a part of the production was one of the most rewarding experiences of my college career. We ended up raising over 900 dollars in just two nights, all of which was donated directly to the Bluegrass Rape Crisis Center!

The arts community here isn’t just limited to theatre; we’ve recently had professors and students exhibiting visual art, publishing creative writing and putting on beautiful musical performances. Let’s just say that arts is becoming increasingly salient at Transy, and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

A beautiful performance by our a capella group!

Okay! It’s spring break, so I’m going to catch up on all the blogs I said I would get to!
First, let me take you back to February. The reason I had to neglect my blog so much can be summed up with two words: graduate school. I found out in late January that I had made it to the top 6 finalists for my top choice graduate school, UNC Chapel Hill. The department flew me down to interview and find out more about their program. Let’s just say I fell in love. They had the faculty and students I wanted to work with, and they were located smack dab in the middle of a gorgeous progressive city that fit my personality to a T.
My visit went exceptionally well. I had a great time, and I felt like I connected with the faculty and students. Unfortunately, I got an e-mail later that week saying that they would love to have me in their department, but that the school did not have enough money to fund me.
Needless to say, it was the biggest heartbreak I had experienced in my entire college career, and maybe beyond that. I had worked so hard to get there.
I had to take a couple days off school to recover, but my professors were understanding and let me make everything up.
I wanted to share this semi-embarrassing story because I think it’s important to know that sometimes the things you will work for throughout your entire college career may not work out. We are living in a struggling economy, and it’s becoming harder and harder for even the most qualified students to achieve their dream job or dream school immediately.
I never expected it to happen to me, but that’s life. It WILL happen to you at some point. Maybe you don’t get that scholarship you want. Maybe your sports team loses in the championship game. The important thing is to surround yourself with people who are going to help you put the pieces back together. You get that at Transy. I am setting up meetings next week with the education department to see about teacher certification. I have professors looking for potential job opportunities to hold me over for the next year until I can reapply for grad school or find something else to do with my life. I’ve said it a million times on here, but the people at Transy actually care about my future and my success. I don’t know if I could have handled this heartbreak without my Transy family.
Make sure, in your college search, ask yourself this—will this school be able to help me when things don’t go my way, or will they leave me to figure it all out on my own? I guarantee that you want to be able to answer with the former, and you’ll definitely get that at Transy.

Okay, so I’ve been blog-slacking again. I’m sorry. I have had the busiest month that I’ve had in a long time. Two major things have happened that have prevented me from dedicating a whole lot of time to blogging:

-My parents’ divorce was finalized

-I had my graduate school interview at UNC Chapel Hill

So I have spent a lot of time dealing with both of those things. There have been good and bad things happen, which I will get to in future blogs, but my friends here at Transy have helped me through them all.

Also, I have found time to do some fun and interesting things on campus during all this. I have been writing lots of poetry as part of my poetry workshop; I attended Transylvania’s production of “Aloha Say the Pretty Girls,” which was incredible; I am developing a proposal to improve the behavioral science lab here at Transy, and this week is Greek Week!

I’ll get to the other things in future blogs, but I’d like to talk just briefly about Greek Week. “We know, WE KNOW that Transy has a large Greek population,” you say! Well, let me explain an incredible part of Greek Week in which the whole campus and outside community members are participating.

Yeah we have fun events for Greeks like Don’t Forget the Lyrics and Greek Family Feud, but really this week is all about philanthropy. This year, we chose to collectively support Collin’s Classic for Children with Cancer http://www.collinsclassic.org/index.html , a philanthropic organization that assists children with cancer financially and emotionally.

This week, I saw the Transy Greek community band together to help this organization raise the money it needed to fully fund 3 children’s trip to a camp for children with cancer. We were challenged by an anonymous donor to get as many people to ‘like’ Collin’s Classic on Facebook as we could—for every 1200 likes, he or she would fund 1 camper. Collectively, we were able to spread the word about this fantastic organization to help them reach 2500 “likes” and send 2 children to camp. Through our own personal donations, we were able to send another.

It’s really easy to stereotype Greek life. I hope this helps show why Transy’s Greek life stands out in so many ways. We have our priorities straight, and I’m proud to be a part of it.

Things that happend over break: a photo diary

I got to hang out with these awesome fellas. My nephews are the greatest, mostly because they let me get away with still playing Legos at the age of 21.

I got to see this handsome dude--my big brother!

I got my wisdom teeth removed (finally). Sock full of ice saved my life.


I got my nose pierced. (Thankfully I have a very open minded place of employment and the field I'm entering is also an open minded one.)

I WON A 9000 DOLLAR JACKPOT AT THE CASINO. OH MY GOODNESS! (Unluckily, it will all be going to graduate school, haha.)

Hi all! Wow! The school year returned after break with a bang, and I owe you some blog posts! First, I’ll tell you about my first official dinner party ever at my tiny apartment!
This Christmas was a “kitchen christmas” for me. You know you’re getting old when you start getting really excited about receiving kitchen supplies for holiday gifts. Anyways, armed with some awesome knives and new cookware, I began planning my dinner party!
I planned the party around some other exciting news, which I don’t think I mentioned last semester—Transy now has an official chapter of the international English honorary Sigma Tau Delta, and I am among the founding members! The English department tends to stay pretty close, so of course I wanted my first dinner to be a gathering of the new Sigma Tau Delta members and a few other literature lovers .
I managed to cram 9 people into my teeny tiny apartment, and we feasted on a meal of mushroom and cheese stuffed eggs, quinoa and corn salad with feta and mint, vegetarian chili and garlic and chive fried bread.
I love feeling close enough to my classmates to be comfortable stuffing my apartment full of different personalities. I do believe I will have a hard time topping this party!