Indiana University East

just wanted to take a moment to congratulate our basketball team on winning their tournament this weekend… the student section was AMAZING and i hope they continue supporting the guys because i know they appreciate it soo very much. above is our new mascot who is quite the character. i hope you get a chance to make it out to the games to see him in action.

also congrats to our homecoming king Derrick and our homecoming queen Carri!

i’ll be back in a couple of days to update but until then i hope you enjoyed your weekend and that your week goes well. take care.

always, d

soo… it’s almost five o’clock in the morning and i’m officially exhausted and it’s the beginning of the week.  i wish that i could say that i’m up bright and early for monday but the truth is that i’m still awake from sunday. why??? because i just finished the dance team’s “howlerina” for the decorating contest. procrastination at it’s finest i guess… i am pretty excited about seeing what the other fifty wolves will look like that were a part of the contest. here’s a peek at our wolf!  

the only bad thing about decorating is that i feel like we have a cat or dog in the house because there is “wolf hair” all over the room that i decorated it in and it’s definitely on my clothes too so i’m sure it will be strung out all over the entire house. oh well.

our first home basketball game was on saturday. the red wolves won… ofcourse!!! haha, i’m only kidding as we shouldn’t be arrogant it’s just really nice to see the guys who have worked so hard come out with a win. congrats to them. our dance team had our first performance as well when we danced to michael jackson’s thriller after the game.  i love these ladies, we seem to be a good team and we’re getting along pretty well which is always nice. here’s a pic of us all decked out in our costumes.

and another of us in our uniforms…

here’s a sign that someone left at the game… i absolutely LOVE this!  (joe ramey played for us last year and took every shot that he could which made him the number one scorer in the nation within our division. i’m not sure who made the sign but it’ll be returning to the tiernan on friday. no offense to joe as he seemed like a nice guy, it’s just great to see some ongoing fans and spirit. )

hope you enjoyed the update. i’m not going to make this too lengthy considering i’m getting up in two and a half hours for work. hope you have a great week and that i’ll see you all at the homecoming festivities. if anything at all be sure to make it to the basketball games on friday at 9 and saturday at 3:30 or 5:30 (depending on if we win on friday.) until next time, take care!

always, dns

sorry, it seems as though my neglect of this blog has been quite ridiculous!!! i apologize soo very much for not keeping up with lately. i feel like i continuously am talking about how busy i am so i’m going to refrain from rambling on about that but again, my apologies on my lack of a recent post.

i want to share with you a little story…

the other day i had an IU all-campus meeting at IUPUI and after getting lost at the I-65/70 interchange (which I might add on my own defense: getting lost seldom ever happens to me.) i found the exit and realized that IUPUI posts absolutely terrible directions on their website for getting there from the east so beware if you’re ever visiting IUPUI and use mapquest instead! Regardless of my ridiculous journey to IUPUI I was amazed at the new conference center and was kind of caught off guard with one of the introductory comments that we had to make about ourselves. The question was: What is your proudest/most memorable moment at IU?!

So I’m curious… what is yours?

as for myself, i sat there pondering the question for a moment and listening to the responses of many others. i could think of many things that were memorable about my two years at IUE but nothing that was standing out about the rest. (one of my favorites was the first basketball game last year that was EXTREMELY close and went into overtime… the crowd was going insane and you couldn’t hardly find a seat in the bleachers that were pulled out at the the tiernan. it was excellent. another was “silent night” when we played taylor u which i can explain later. ) so i started thinking… what am i looking forward to most?!? and it dawned on me that there were a couple of things that were coming up that would probably be most memorable.

#1: graduation. simply because i’ll be graduating.

#2: homecoming. royalty, 50 silhouettes of a decorated wolf, bonfire, the basketball tournament and a new tradition… can you beat it? i guess what’s most exciting to me is the fact that we really haven’t devoted a week to doing an event like this. it screams traditional college lifestyle and i LOVE it. here’s the schedule incase you haven’t heard yet…

Monday, November 3rd

Noon: Homecoming Court announced in the Graf followed by a tour of the decorated wolves from building to building.

2pm: Judging of the Wolves

Tuesday, November 4th

Noon to 2pm: 70’s Day in the Graf

Wednesday, November 5th

Noon to 2pm: 80’s Day in the Graf

8pm: Mentalist Christopher Carter performing in Vivian Auditorium

Thursday, November 6th

Noon-2pm: 90’s Day in the Graf

7-9pm: Band, Bonfire and Crowning of the King and Queen behind Hayes Hall

Friday, November 7th

11:30 am: Second Annual Chili Cookoff in Whitewater Hall

9:00 pm: First Round of Men’s Basketball Holiday Inn Richmond Classic, IU East vs. OSU Lima at Richmond High School’s Tiernan Center

Saturday, November 8th

1 pm: Women’s Volleyball vs. Asbury College at the RHS Tiernan Center

2-5 pm: IU East Alumni Association Tailgate at the RHS Tiernan Center

3:30/5:30 respectively: Consolation and Championship Games of Men’s Basketball Holiday Inn Richmond Classic at the RHS Tiernan Center

So that’s Homecoming! [Back to proper capitilazation ] There will be t-shirts given out all week and if you missed the wolves on campus throughout the week then you can check them out at the game on Saturday because somehow I’m going to manage taking 50 decorated wolves to the Tiernan Center in my little compact car. If you see some random car filled with wolves just smile and wave please because it’ll probably be me.

I’ll try to keep you updated if I hear any more details on Homecoming (or anything else for that matter.) And I promise not to let it be a month before I update this next! Hope to see you around campus and until next time, take care!

always,

dns

i made the realization this morning that i need to start paying attention when they talk about applying for graduation.

i thought this day would never come.

hope you have a great day. i’ll post again soon but until then, take care.

always,

danielle

just thought i’d post a quick message to you before our dance team practice starts. things seem as though they’ve been crazily busy at school lately and i have absolutely no idea where the first part of this week went but i guess that i’m not complaining about the fact that there are only two more days until the weekend. working over thirty hours at one job and two days a week at another job and taking an overload of classes can start to take its toll on weeks such as this one but atleast when it’s all said and done we all know that we’re walking away with an IU degree, not much debt, and the odds are pretty good that we’ll be prepared for what folks like to call “the real world”. it makes me chuckle when i hear that i better appreciate how “easy” it is now because when i get to the “real world” it’ll be much harder. HA! i’ll be excited for a day when i can use this degree, get a job and when 5:00 rolls around then i’ll hit the door and not have five hours of homework to do on top of the 40 hours i’ve already put in. i’m blessed though, i’ve got a great support system and i’m thankful for that. we’ve got a lot of great things here on campus that seem to be typically underutilized such as tutorial services, great professors, and just the helpful students and staff in general. it’s nice to see those who believe in our generation and want us to do better. well, they believe in non-traditional students as well (ofcourse!) but i can only speak for myself. the chances are pretty good that if you’re reading this post then you’re either looking into a degree, you’re on your way to getting one, or you’ve already got one so i commend you. it’s funny to hear about retention problems on campus here and at many other places because to me getting a degree just seems like second nature no matter what it takes to get to that graduation ceremony. personally, i can’t wait to have another chance to flip that tassle to the other side and launch that ridiculous little hat into the air… it is why i stay up at all hours of the night trying to fit everything into this schedule and it is why i drag myself out of bed the next morning to go into school.

it is why i am here, and i wouldn’t have it any other way.

until the next post, take care.

dns

just wanted to take a moment to congratulate the volleyball team in their win at home against wilmington college last night. 

hope you all have a good day and that your classes go well. until next time, take care.

always, dns

my apologies for not writing since the second, things have been insanely busy recently and up until about an hour ago i couldn’t upload any pictures BUT thank goodness that i’m finally updating. a lot of things have happened on campus since the last time we talked so i’ll try to give you a quick update on everything without writing you a novel.

as noah has also reported, the welcome back block party turned out really well. i, too, met a lot of new students on campus and had a great time regardless of the fact that it felt like we were in an oven. the inflatables were great and the food was wonderful as well. here are some pics from the event (so that the people in them can stop giving me grief about uploading! haha)

we also had our first volleyball home opener (which noah has also told you about) and it was a great time even though it was unfortunate that marian came out ahead. it was cool to see all of the basketball players supporting the girls and the nasser (the chancellor) sitting in the middle of all of them checking out the game. my friend kelsey and i went just to see how they were doing and because, let’s be honest here, what better is there to do for free in richmond on a thursday night?! haha, no offense to all of you who are richmond advocates out there. it was neat to see some of the girls that played last year and even courtney flory who went to the same high school that i did playing for us. it was fun… you should definitely check it out sometime.

dance practices have started too. although i have no pictures of that it was definitely a good time getting the girls together for some conditioning. i feel as though i shouldn’t even consider it conditioning compared to some of the stuff our basketball guys have told me about from their practices but hey, it was good enough for us! we ended up jogging back through the woods, around the soybean field and to the reservoir. we had no clue that iue owned so much land and it was a run that ended at the playground. i guess we’re all kids at heart! we returned and did an ab workout and we plan on having another practice tonight. it’s been interesting to start a program from scratch, but i look forward to our performances at the basketball games. if dancing is something you are interested in you should certainly give me a call or shoot me an email. my office phone is 973-8480 and i check my voicemail (almost) daily or you can email me at dstraszh@indiana.edu or you could always stop by my office which is in the graf (102C).

also on campus we’ve been working on the second edition of the howler that should hit stands within the next couple of weeks. i hope you’ve been enjoying the first edition and look forward to any feedback that might be offered. we want to know what you think is good, bad or ugly so please don’t be shy!

aside from everything that i’ve mentioned above that’s been happening on campus it’s just been school and work on my agenda. whoever started referring to our campus as “iu easy” must not have been a full-time student here because from what i’ve experienced they aren’t just giving IU degrees away without requiring the work. i’ve been swamped with homework all weekend but trust me when i say i’d rather be doing a lot of homework and getting a reputable degree rather than doing the work and receiving a degree from “some community college”. that’s just me though! tonight’s the movie out on the quad so i hope to see you there at 8:30. until then, or the next post, i hope you enjoy your week and get your power back if you’ve lost it due to the storms. take care.

always,

dns

oh, and by the way… i know my lack of capitalization is gramattically incorrect but considering the amount of correct grammar i’ve had to use in the last three days, well… i guess you could say that i’m going on strike.

Soo I’m pretty excited about tomorrow and hoping that a lot of students get the chance to attend. I don’t have much time to fill you in on the details but I’m sure I’ll let you know how it goes. From what I hear there is going to be free lunch (bbq pulled pork), cornhole, basketball, inflatables, Ritter’s ice cream and a bunch of student organizations will be set up around the quad. You should definitely try to make it out there… it’s 11-2 and lunch is being served at 11:30 until it runs out. Hope to see you there!

WOW! I didn’t realize how quiet it was around campus this summer until everyone came back! My office is right outside of the Graf center and I honestly can’t recall ever seeing so many students hanging out in there. The endless games of ping-pong are back in action and I’ve got a feeling that by the end of the semester I’m going to be hearing ping-pong balls bouncing in my sleep. No complaints though, atleast it’s not a ghost town around here anymore. 

I guess there’s no real great story that I have for you in this post, I just wanted to take a moment to welcome you back because it’s fabulous to see everyone on campus again. My freshman year I was a bit apprehensive about going to classes, but now it just seems like getting to meet new people and see old friends makes it worthwhile to end the summer. Yes, I said it, it’s worth ending the summer for. Hope your classes are going well and you’re enjoying yourselves. I’m sure I’ll be posting again soon but until the next post, take care.

always, dns

Hello everyone! I hope you’re enjoying the first day of classes, or that you do enjoy your first day of classes if it doesn’t happen to be today. Personally, i’m kind of wondering where summer went but that’s probably because I’m one of those crazy students who took twelve hours of summer classes and got an amazingly short two week break. It could have been worse but luckily my classes were all pretty organized and mostly online so aside from the “lack of summer” aspect, I can’t complain much.

As for the rest of summer… it was GREAT. Fall through spring I usually work 25 hours at IUE in the marketing department and then teach dance two days a week with 15 credit hours on top of it so typically free time comes little and far between. It’s a pretty busy schedule but I’d be lying to you if I told you that I didn’t enjoy being busy constantly. This summer was pretty laid back though with only 25 hours of work and the online classes. There was even time to escape to Gatlinburg for a few days too so that was quite wonderful.

Speaking of Gatlinburg, I went on the Field Biology class in the Smokies back in May and had a great time. I highly recommend it to anyone who even remotely loves to be outdoors. I went into the class expecting to be tremendously unprepared, the most inexperienced hiker and waayyy out of shape but I didn’t end up being any of them. I can personally tell you that standing on the very peak of a mountain at an elevation of 5,000 was more than exhilirating and should be placed on your “bucket list” if you’ve got one. Most of us went into the class not knowing hardly anyone and by the end of the trip we were all sad to see eachother leave. Quite frankly, it seems nearly impossible to beat a class that has a great prof, offers you the chance to hike sixty miles in a week, provides complete hands-on biology (even for non-bio majors), makes yourself fifteen new friends, and wipes out three credit hours in seven days. You can definitely sign me back up any day.

Here are some of our pics…

Our Class

^Ramsey Cascades

^This was the first day and the trail that we took to Mt. Cammerer… I think at this point we were all wondering what exactly we had gotten ourselves into.

I’ll continue this on another day to avoid writing you a novel, but goodluck with classes and until the next post, take care.

Always,

dns