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!

Crimson Christmas

A week ago today, I got to participate in one of my favorite Transy events. Every year around the beginning of December, the Transy community teams up with Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Lexington to host “Crimson Christmas.”

Prior to the event, the residence life staff collects money from their residents to purchase gifts for a particular child in the program. Then they shop for gifts according to the child’s wish-list, so they for sure get items they want and need.

The day of the event, several organizations, including most of the Greek organizations on campus, set up booths for the children to come do crafts or play games for prizes. This year there was face painting, gift box making, pin the red nose on Rudolf, and I worked the cornhole game!

Santa visits Transy!

I can’t believe how much fun these kids had. Every one of them had a smile on their face the whole day! After games were played and pictures were taken with Santa, it was time for them to open their big gifts! It felt so incredible to know that the Transy community gave these kids an awesome Christmas, especially since some of them wouldn’t get to have Christmas otherwise. I’ll never forget how one little girl jumped up and down when she opened her Justin Beiber poster and then promptly began to show it off! Two little twin boys had a basketball and football among their gifts and started up a game of catch with some other children and transy students.

This event always reminds me that Transy is a very special community in itself, but we never forget that we are part of a larger community. You can see the dedication to helping that larger community here, and that’s something I’m incredibly proud of.

A photo recap of recent fun things!

A quick photo update on fun things that have happened recently:

I made it to my concert in Cleveland, Ohio a couple of weekends ago! It was absolutely incredible, and it was just what I needed to do for myself to keep myself motivated for the end of the semester. I got to be in the front row! The lead singer of the first band tossed me his water bottle after the show, because I knew all the words to all their songs (they are one of my favorite bands, and they broke up 5 years ago, so not many people in the crowd knew them). The drummer from my favorite band threw me his broken drumstick, and the lead guitarist from the main act gave me his guitar pick! It was so worth the 5.5 hour drive!

Anthony Green- Lead vocalist for Circa Survive!

THE MAN aka Colin Frangicetto- Lead Guitarist for Circa Survive. I was RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM!

My loot!

Phi Mu had a Masquerade Ball on Friday night. All the other sororities also had their winter formals this weekend. It was a lot of fun to hang around and dance with friends, and I had so much fun making my mask!

The members of the new Sigma Tau Delta chapter on campus (that’s the international English honorary, by the way), met for brunch this morning to chat and discuss our upcoming charity event! Doodles is an amazing local breakfast and lunch restaurant, and it is quickly becoming a Transy tradition. Every time I go there I see at least 3 or 4 other Transy groups there.

It's that time again

It’s that time of the semester again! Finals are coming up, papers are coming due, and everyone is getting excited about the holidays. For me, this semester has been eye opening. I have realized that I am about to enter my last semester of college. I have had to juggle my school work, my job and applying for grad school, but it’s all about over. Oh my. Really, this is about how I feel right now:

Exhausted in the Rambler Office

You’ll hit these points throughout your college career, where you’ve done so much, that all you really want to do is just rest for a while. Completely veg out and do something mindless. Remember, though, that something will always come back to encourage you to keep going with school. You’ll read something really interesting in one of your classes (like the book “The Known World” for me in my 20^th Century American Literature class right now) and you’ll be back in the game.

READ THIS BOOK. Really.

I’ve found that the best way to stay motivated is find a way to incorporate your school work into other things you find enjoyable. Take your articles down to Third Street Stuff or Cuppa or Common Grounds (local coffee shops) one night instead of cooping yourself up in the library or your room; take your textbooks home for the weekend and study while around your family; I am about to go run a bath and read there. Take breaks when you want to (not too many); take naps (not too many); and listen to your body when it tells you it’s had enough (but make sure that’s what it is actually saying).

Around the Holidays it’s easy to want to quit, but ya gotta stick with it. It’ll pay off; I promise! I’m walking proof.

Remember yourself!

In college, it’s easy to forget what makes you, you. If you value your education, you could develop a tendency to become a productive, homework-completing, excessive reading, studying machine and forget to indulge in those things that make you unique, those things that make you sane.

My first few years of college, I fell into that. Now, I’m not saying that academic productivity and a deep-valuing of education is in anyway a bad thing, but during that time, I tended to justify denying myself things I enjoyed because “school was more important.” This year, I have allowed myself to enjoy the other things I’m passionate about in my life in addition to school, and I can tell you, I am a lot more psychologically well-off than in previous year.

This week serves as a perfect example. I was faced with an intense literature paper, another paper proposal, my senior seminar research paper and a collaborative project. Luckily, I got an extension on one assignment, but the workload this week has been taxing to say the least.

And yet, this week, I also vowed to engage in activities that had nothing to do with school but which genuinely made me happy. Yesterday, for example, I attended a poetry workshop with several other students and Kentucky poet Bianca Spriggs. Writing poetry is something I genuinely enjoy and find import. In the past few years, though, I have not been able to devote much time to it because of school. The experience last night was simultaneously depressing and inspiring. I realized just how much I had neglected a true passion, but I gained the hope that I can make time for it, even during a week when everything seems to be due for class. I had a fabulous time, and left with the beginnings of several new poems!

Bianca Spriggs performing one of her poems!

I am also allowing myself two more pleasures this week! Tonight at midnight, I will join the masses at the movie theatre for the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1. The Harry Potter series was an integral part of my childhood, and so I am allowing myself to take a break from research to go enjoy this event with sold-out crowds.

What I am most excited about, though, is my trip to Cleveland, Ohio this weekend, to see three of my favorite bands perform in concert! Music is also a huge passion of mine, and has been for years. In college, however, I did not have time to keep up with it like I used to, and I even went whole days without listening to any music because I had too much work. Honestly, that shouldn’t be an excuse! That’s why I’m allowing myself to make the 6 hour drive to see my dream concert! No more –always- passing on valuable non-academic experiences in favor of work.

It is possible to be completely dedicated to your education while still enjoying those other things that make you happy. So, when you come to college, don’t forget yourself!

Newspaper Conference!

A couple of Saturdays ago, Transy funded my trip to the Student Media Advisor’s conference at the Galt house in Louisville, KY. I went to represent our newspaper, The Rambler, which I have rambled about before (It’s late. Forgive a terrible play on words).

Now, at Transy, we don’t yet have an official journalism program, so everything we do at the Rambler is completely volunteer and everything we learn about Journalism, we have to teach ourselves or learn from our WONDERFUL advisor, Terri McLean. Needless to say, I was pretty stoked to go to this conference free of charge to learn more about the practice of journalism.

I arrived bright and early at 8:00am to drive around Louisville and to find parking, and I arrived at registration at 8:30. So some people might think I’m crazy for getting up that early on a Saturday to go to a conference, but I can actually say it was invigorating, inspiring and informative! I loved it. The first session I attended was called “First Amendment Reality Shows” during which I learned all about the rights of the student press and networked with some lawyers that could help us out if we ever ran into conflicts.

The Galt House Hotel in Louisville! It was so nice!

I also attended other energizing sessions that gave me all kinds of cool ideas to the paper. I attended a session about writing sex columns, a session about Nelly Bly and her ground breaking journalistic techniques, and a session about “Where to Find News.” I was so happy to bring all of these ideas back to my fellow staff members so that we can keep improving our paper. No doubt, with continued support like that which I received to attend this conference, student media on Transy’s campus will continue to flourish!

A lot of know what we want to major in even before we come into college. A lot of us, however, do not. On Tuesday, I worked the Psychology table at Transy’s annual Major/Minor fair, just one of the many ways Transy tries to give you as many opportunities as possible to explore your options!

I had so much fun, I thought I’d tell you about it! Generally, some seniors and juniors from each major get together to work the tables. There is food, candy, science experiments, music, mini theatrical performances, cool artifacts, and even people in costume!
At the Psychology table, we had an actual operant chamber (aka “Skinner Box”) at the table, optical illusion cards, a mirror maze, and some other awesome gadgets we frequently use or study in the department! First years and undecided sophomores could not only get information about the major, but interact with current majors and participate in hands on activities that we sometimes do in class. They can also talk to recent alumni to see what kinds of opportunities exist for each major after graduation.

Me, proud of my psychology table

Psychology wasn’t the only table to have neat stuff like this, though. Nearly every program had something unique at their table! Religion had pictures and stories from people who had studied abroad in Israel, Anthropology had artifacts, Latin American Studies even made cupcakes!
I remember when I attended this even my first year. I thought for sure that I had decided on a Biochemistry major, but at this event I remember talking to some passionate English students, and it eventually contributed to my decision to switch.

Bottom line is—if you think you might have varying interests at all (which, if you’re at or considering a school like Transy, you should), attend as many of these events as possible. Talk to as many students in different departments as you can about their experiences! Even if you don’t change your mind about what to study like I did, you can at least meet some pretty cool folks and learn a thing or two about something you might not have known anything about previously.

Weekend of Service!

Community service is something that is incredibly important to me, though I often don’t get a chance to do it because of my crazy school and work schedule.

Last weekend, though, I was able to participate in not just one awesome service project, but TWO, and other members of the Transy community were at my side for both.

On Saturday, Psi Chi (The Psychology Honorary), had a craft day at The Florence Crittenton Home, which is about a 5 minute walk from campus. It is a mostly a home for teenage girls who are pregnant or have children. We hung out with the girls and some of their precious babies for a couple hours making picture frames and thank you cards, eating cookies and chatting. They were so appreciative, and their crafts turned out incredible! On the way back to campus, something equally cool happened. We passed one of the neighborhood houses, and 3 children were running around the yard. They spied our picture frames, and began asking questions. We were able to not only give the girls at the home a fun day, but also to make the day of these neighborhood children by giving them the rest of our picture frames. What a cool experience to make so many people smile in a day!

Team Phi Mu at the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer 5k

Sunday was even more humbling. It was the 2010 Making Strides Against Breast Cancer 5k. Every year Transy has a strong team that participates in the walk and raises money for breast cancer research. It’s an issue that’s close to me and my family, and I had not been able to participate in previous years, so I was super excited to get the opportunity this year. I raised 165.00, walked/ran with some beautiful and inspiring people—survivors of breast cancer, their families, and those who were just generally supportive. I don’t even have words to describe the emotions I felt being a part of this event. It was AWESOME! People gave each other high fives after turning the first corner; smiles were abundant; it truly made me proud to be a part of the Transy and Lexington community.

If service is something that you hold close to your heart, then you can always find a way to get involved at Transy. Check out our office for community service and civic engagement: http://www.transy.edu/campus/comm_service.htm

When you think about a class, you might think of a typical set up—you come to class, take notes, discuss readings, write papers, and take tests. All of this will mostly take place in the same class room with the same people every day, but one of my classes at Transy this semester is challenging tradition.My 20th century American Literature class examines American literature after 1945 while considering the historical and cultural context. We spend a lot of time thinking about what it means to be an American presently and throughout the time period. To help us consider this more deeply, our class has paired with the Photography 1 class in the art department to do a creative project, which will define America.
Now I know what you must be thinking—it’s exactly what I thought when I heard about the project: “Why on earth would an English class work with a photography class, and how is that going to help us better understand the literature we’re reading.” The answer is that it inspires collaborative thinking, something that many classrooms don’t allow for. Having the perspective of the art students helps us better explore the meaning of America, which gives insight into the texts we read.
We just completed our first collaborative project yesterday. We had to spend 5 hours with our partner, getting to know him or her in order to produce a photographic and narrative portrait of one another. Honestly, I was dreading it at first. I barely have enough time to spend 5 extra hours with myself, let alone with someone else. In the end, though, it was an incredibly cool project. I got to learn about the values, priorities and history of someone I didn’t know very well before hand, and as it turns out, we’re pretty similar.

The portrait my partner took of me! Supposed to revel something about me you couldn't gather from a short conversation.

Our photographs turned out really well, and the narratives we wrote accurately portrayed us both.
Even in my senior year, I’m still constantly surprised by the ability of Transy professors to come up with new ways to approach education. It keeps me engaged and fuels the passion I already have for learning. Not to mention, the chance to be creative is super refreshing in the midst of strictly academic research.

So, funny story, I actually wrote this blog last week and when I went to post this week’s, I realized that I wrote it, but didn’t actually post it. Chalk it up to a disorder I like to call “senior scatter brain.” Anyways, here it is:

I’m not going to lie, when I was still on the meal plan at Transy, it was a little tough when it came to eating healthy and finding vegetarian things to munch on. The quality of the food wasn’t bad, but there weren’t a whole lot of vegetarian choices and it was hard to keep track of your caloric intake.
I am happy to write today, though, that Transy has since become 100 times better in both arenas. I even find myself walking over to campus to eat on days when I don’t feel like cooking!
Here are some of the biggest and best changes I’ve noticed:

1.) The 1780 café, our late night diner, used to serve all kinds of awesome but bad-for-you items. Consuming a ton of calories super late at night has frequently been cited as a reason for weight gain, and certainly the 1780 contributed to many Transy students’ freshman 15. This year, though, the 1780 has been updated! Not only do they serve healthier (and still equally satisfying) items, but they also list the calories of each item right there on the menu! I was so excited to see this change, because it gives me more control over my diet. Even though I may want that 700 calorie flat bread pizza at midnight, I can opt for the healthier 400 calorie wrap if I so choose.

2.) MORE VEGETARIAN OPTIONS! It used to be that I would go to the cafeteria and have the choice of salad bar, pasta, or cheese pizza for dinner and lunch every day. The options for vegetarians were limited to say the least. We might occasionally get a tofu dish, but it would not be the best. This year, though, the food service staff has made a ton of progress toward offering a more diverse array of meat-free options, and they’re great about identifying which dishes do and do contain meat! A couple weeks ago, I had a fantastic Mediterranean pita pocket with eggplant and other veggies and just the other day I had a DELICIOUS vegetarian Reuben sandwich!

3.) The staff is completely open to suggestions. I have seen more food service surveys go out this year than in previous years. They actively seek to bring us the best dining experience possible and constantly work toward improvement.

Needless to say, the food and dining experience at Transy is the best that it has ever been!

A great week!

Hi, friends! SO much has happened in the past week or so! I’ll try to keep the run-down as short as possible, but it’s all exciting stuff!

First and foremost—I AM DONE WITH THE GRE. For those of you who have no clue what the GRE is, good—you shouldn’t have to worry about it yet. However, when you too get to be a senior in college, you may find yourself to be crazy enough to want to enter graduate school. The GRE stands for the Graduate Record Examination, the standardized test required for entry into most graduate programs. Imagine the SAT on steroids. It’s about a 3 ½ hour test consisting of two writing sections, a verbal section and a quantitative section. I studied for this test all summer, and on my first try, I think I got a score good enough to get me in to the schools I want (at least, I hope!)

Aside from that, though, the World Equestrian Games have come to Kentucky, and with it, downtown Lexington has been hopping! The beauty of being at Transy at such a time is—we are literally a 5 minute walk from it all! On Saturday, some of my friends and I headed out to one of my favorite local restaurants, Natasha’s Café, to enjoy some dinner. After dinner (a pesto pizza with no meat, but extra mushrooms!) we walked around and looked at some of the art being showcased around town during the games. Later that night, a band called Here Come the Mummies played in a park downtown. While they were mildly inappropriate, I found them humorous, fun and incredibly talented. I can’t wait for more events next weekend!
Friends and I (I'm in the brown) at Natasha's Cafe!

This is a terrible picture, but you can kind of see that the band were dressed as mummies!

While the weekend was a blast, the fun has continued into this week as well. In fact, I just got back from an incredible poetry reading at one of my favorite places in the city--The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning, which is right across the street from campus! The reading was completely free (including free food!) and I got to hear some of Kentucky’s most notable poets read their work and even meet with them afterward! Transy’s location really offers endless opportunities to entertain yourself—it’s pretty hard to become bored around here if you get to know what’s within walking distance!

Bianca Spriggs reads her work

Transy Professor Dr. Paden reads his poetry!

This week is off to a great start!

I never actually got to talk about my May Term trip from last year, and a couple of days ago, one of my classmates posted a video from the trip that made me pine for the jungle again.

At a beach in Guyana

I have to say that the trip was hands down the most exciting, taxing, and eye-opening one of my life. Suriname and Guyana are two relatively unknown countries in the U.S.--some of my family thought that I was going to Africa instead of South America, which is really strange considering how much of an impact the U.S. has on these two countries politically, financially, and culturally.
Unlike most of Latin America, these weren’t Spanish speaking countries. Guyana in particular, was English-speaking for the most part, which made it easy to converse with the people there and listen to their opinions about the racial, political and cultural dynamic there. I can’t even begin to describe how much knowledge I gained just talking to the locals and walking around observing. It was fascinating being able to have open dialogues with the locals about their history and the history of their people in the area.

We even got to know the local wildlife

One of my favorite parts of the trip was getting to visit a Bush-Negro (that’s what they call themselves) village in Suriname. The Bush-Negros were the former slaves who, before the abolition of slavery in the area, escaped into the jungle to live in isolation. They also called themselves “freedom fighters” because they often attacked plantations to free more slaves to join them. (Interestingly, they still like to be referred to as freedom fighters.) At the village, we got to see how modern technology has affected these people who have lived in the jungle for two centuries. They now have electricity, running water, cell phones, etc. But they still maintain their cultural identity and a strong sense of their culture’s history. I’ve never been more enlightened by a group of people. They even took us on our first jungle tour!

The children at the Bush-Negro village were fascinated by "the white people."

Our last 6 days of the trip, we hiked through the jungle and up a mountain to get to one of the largest single-drop water falls in the world-- Kaieteur Falls. I have to say, this was the most taxing but unbelievable part of the trip. May is rainy season in Guyana, and we were in the rainforest, so you can imagine our experience, right? We were wet and miserable, trying to hike on slippery moss-covered rocks in the pouring rain. I took a couple nasty spills, got bruised and scraped and cut, but nothing will ever quite compare to reaching the top of the mountain and seeing the incredible power of that waterfall.

Kaieteur Falls

I could write about this trip forever. I almost filled up an entire journal while I was there. In the end, I am just thankful that Transy and my professors who planned the trip offered me one of the most unique and greatest experiences in my life. If I hadn’t come here, there’s no way I would have gotten such an opportunity.

Some of the group hiking through the jungle

Aaaaaannnnd We're Back!

Yesterday marked the beginning of another orientation weekend. As a member of Omicron Delta Kappa (a leadership honorary), I was able to help the new first years move their stuff into their dorms all day (my calves and thighs send a huge thank you, by the way). What a good looking and level headed group of Transy newcomers! We get lucky every single year, I tell you! I had a great time meeting the first years and parents and getting to hear (and hopefully help ease) some of their concerns about starting college.

I can’t tell you how stoked I am to be starting another year at Transy! Although, I have to tell you, like many of the first years, I’m pretty terrified myself. It’s all come full circle. You come into college a nervous wreck, wondering what the next 4 years are going to bring. Well, now that I’m a Senior, I’m back to being scared to death. I’m finally at the point where I have to decide what to do with this college education, and it’s daunting.
This year you will hear of the pains of taking the GRE, applying to graduate school, taking on my first big and legitimate independent research project, and wrapping up my final year.

As always, I look forward to sharing the whole process with you!

First years moved in yesterday!

Crazy last couple of weeks!

Okay! So I officially stink at time management. This past month has been killer. I’ve been preparing for my trip to the Jungle for May Term, picking up extra hours at work, and all my huge assignments for my classes happened in the past two weeks. Needless to say, I have barely had time to sleep or eat, let alone blog. I’m so sorry! I missed being able to actually put my thought down.
I’ll give you a run down of the exciting things that happened!

1) I conducted my first official Psychology experiment, and more than that, found my first statistically significant result! I was researching the effect of familiarity with narrative content on “transportation into literature,” which is basically “getting lost in a story.” This is what I’m hoping to research in graduate school—this “transportation into literature” stuff. It’s awesome! Basically, it has been found that a higher degree of transportation leads to a higher degree of story-consistent attitude and belief change. It’s like a perfect combination of English and Psychology! Needless to say, I poured my heart and time into the study for a while, hoping to find something. I found that English majors have a significantly higher degree of transportation than Science majors, which makes sense in hindsight, but I can only speculate as to the reason why. One possible reason is that people who are more highly transported into literature just choose to become English majors, or it could be that transportation could be trained, so to speak! I can’t wait to do a whole semester of independent research on it next year!

2) I acted as the main organizer of a huge service event for Psi Chi National Psychology Honorary here at Transy. Basically, we organized a day of review for local high school students to help them prepare for the AP Psychology test coming up in May. We all organized and led sessions that included lots of fun review games and question and answer sessions. It was incredibly successful, and at the end of the day, the students said it helped them a lot, so I was pretty proud! Here are some pictures!

Nick and Seth teach kids about the biological bases of behavior.

Hillary shows the kids Sniffy the Virtual Rat to review the concepts of learning.

The kids learn about the History of Psychology by playing a speed dating game and guessing which important figure in psychology each of them represented!

I (that's me standing) lead my kids in a matching game competition to review important concepts in Social Psychology, Motivation and Personality!

3) I turned 21! I don’t feel any differently, really, and I couldn’t do much to celebrate because I turned 21 on reading day, which is the first day of finals week here a Transy. It does, however, feel pretty cool to be officially an adult.

Be expecting at least one more post from me this week before I head out to Suriname and Guyana for May term! Ahhhhh! The jungle! I’m so excited! Wish me luck! =D