A lot of people are astonished when I tell them I'm from Pennsylvania.
"Like in the woods?"
Yes.
"Are there bears?"
Yes.
That's probably the biggest question I get. For some reason, it always shocks me. Bears don't. I've grown accustomed to seeing garbage strewn all over the lawn by a bear's effort to find food. I've seen bears run across the street while I'm driving or running through the woods while my friends are having a bonfire.
I'm not afraid of bears, I don't know why anyone would be. What people aren't afraid of that they should be are people.
In the concrete jungle of New York City, there are no bears to maul you, but that doesn't suggest you won't be mauled. There's always that person on the subway that sits a little too close or stares a little too much. There are thousands of people in the city as tourists every day, and on special events there's double plus many of the people who actually live here.
People should be scared of each other, not animals.
Bears won't bother you unless you give them reason to. Sadly, people aren't like that. They're rationality isn't always fully there and that's when they become more dangerous than animals.
Living in fear all the time isn't the way to go, though. People need to be able to ride in crowded subways and accept the fact that they're all doing the same thing; trying to live in an overpopulated jungle. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't always be alert.
Whether you're in the concrete jungle or the wilderness, the world will eat you up if you let it. But everyone should be open to the experience of both wild habitats and embrace them. It's the only way to live.
When we are assigned to dorm rooms our freshman year, we never know what will happen.
Prime example: when I received a letter stating that I would have five suitemates instead of one roommate, I was already surprised. It wasn’t much of a stretch. I always lived with five other people in my family, but these were people totally different from me with totally different backgrounds.
When I got there on the first day, there were only two girls already there: an Italian girl from Long Island and a Hispanic girl from Miami. We were still waiting on three other suitemates and already we displayed an insanely diverse room.
Much like the Tri-State Area,
the "DMV" refers to DC, Maryland, and Virginia.
Turns out two suitemates dropped out, but my roommate came back to the room: a black girl from Washington DC.
As we started to make friends and fill in the room as the semester went on, we welcomed another girl from DC and a girl a town not so far from mine in Pennsylvania.
But the changes didn’t end there. One roommate moved out (back to Long Island) and we welcomed my blonde friend from New Jersey into the suite.
After a first semester of exhaustion, I made it a new routine to go to bed by 12 AM every-night. Three other girls in the suite, not to mention the girl that lives across the hall, stayed up for hours later, laughing and joking and carrying on.
Somehow, I slept through it.
My suitemates would order pizza to the room at least twice a week. I made it a point to eat the best food I could find in the dining hall.
They listened to music I had never heard before.
Sometimes, when my roommate talked to me, I had to ask her to repeat herself two or three times. Her DC accent was so thick I couldn’t understand it.
When you’re thrown into situations like this, living with strangers, you never know what you’re going to get. I, in a sense, got a tour of the whole country. I got to see different types of ways people live their daily lives that are so different from the way I always did at home.
And I grew accustomed to it.
Now, when I go home, I find it strange. When my parents go to bed at 10 or 11 at night and I’m left in the quietness, it is almost creepy. I moved to St. John’s and developed a whole new daily routine. And at the end of it, I’ll have to get myself comfortable again with how I always lived prior to this.
People are not difficult to mold. There is a difference between molding and changing and that is what I learned through dorm life. I didn’t change, and clearly my suitemates didn’t either. We all just molded our lives around each other. And we will all have to do it again this summer, and next year, and many times to follow.
my final is titled "...So Far" as in... the biggest disappointments of the year so far. It is a half hour minutes highlighting the top ten disappointments from celebrities and songs to laws.
When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices; when the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy. Proverbs 11:10
Who else but college students would be up late on a Sunday night to hear the news of Bin Laden's death? As the news flooded in through social networking sites and was screamed down the street, students were elated by the fact that a man we knew to fear had finally met his end.
Penn State's main campus, where several of my friends go to school, had thousands of students rejoicing in the street. I watched my twitter timeline as my friend from Fordham updated me and his other followers of how Fordham rejoiced in the news, tweeting things like "you know you're a d*** when your death brings a nation to celebration." Harsh, but true.
New Yorkers rejoiced in the news as it unfolded late Sunday night. source: NYTimes
Boston Common was bustling with excitement much like that of which was occurring outside the White House and at Ground Zero, where people showered the streets in champagne. The game against the Mets at Citizen's Bank Park in Philadelphia announced to spectators that the evil mastermind was dead, bringing the crowd together in jubilation.
There is no doubt that in these points of interest and scores of other places around the country, the nation is celebrating.
What more appropriate way for me to represent relocation and unity? This country has seen it before, 10 years ago when the country mourned for 9/11 victims. Last night, and today, we join together again to know that, as President Obama said, justice has been done.
This is a day for us, as Americans, to know how strong we are. We are strong in so many ways because we stand together. Being at St. John's last night proved that to me so much more. I heard the Star Spangled Banner playing like it was a brand new Wiz Khalifa party anthem. I heard my fellow students chanting "USA, USA" much similarly to the how we chant "Red Storm." I watched my Facebook newsfeed update, where my friends asked who wanted to join them to Ground Zero.
A joke played on the political situation that
made the country rejoice. source: tumblr.com
Our generation is expressing our jubilation mildly differently than the older. While the older generation is most likely watching the news and hoping to get more information, we are taking to social media, creating jokes about it and making light of a situation that has brought our country into a massive party overnight.
All of this is history that I am witnessing first hand. All of this is making me realize that I can move around in the country, and I may tour the world, but America is always the place that will be my home. I'm proud to say that every day.
Hopstop can only help you so much as to get you to the general vicinity. The rest is up to you.
Yesterday afternoon, this was me. I had an appointment to be at by 5 PM, but wanted to get there by 4 PM. It was for a tattoo, so I wanted to be there first to make sure I was attended to. That meant getting on the bus in Queens by 3 PM.
A man attempts to entertain the hurried train riders.
This is the type of commute that hundreds of thousands of people do every single day. They do this during rush hour, in packed trains where it is easy to get irritable. They do this when they have a very imperative objective: be there on time. There is not time to stare and laugh at silly (or talented) performers, and there is no safety assurance in reaching in your pocket to give a bum a dollar.
It is no wonder they are so jaded.
I was expecting to walk straight into the parlor from street level, but instead had to get buzzed into a second story apartment to find it.
I spoke to the receptionist, to assure me that 5 o’clock was a good time to come back. My friend and I walked two blocks to Union Square Park after grabbing a Subway sandwich, and enjoyed the beautiful weather, just as so many other New Yorkers were doing.
We ate and “people-watched.” We watched people, and they could have watched us too. As a bum walked by singing Christina Aguilera, my friend and I watched and laughed. Some others did, and some others didn’t.
It’s years and years of seeing this everyday, of knowing that this sometimes needs to be ignored because there is a more important things about the day, that makes people simply disinterested.
Union Square Park is a very popular place on sunny days. source: http://islandwoo.com
I’m still young and can still appreciate it. But as Baz Luhrmann said in his famous commencement speech “Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.”
This is a beautiful, fruitful, unique city. Residents eventually learn that it is too normal to be exciting. People focus in the annoying tourists, the loud horns, the hours of traffic, the garbage, the high prices. All of these things cloud the dream city, making it more like Gotham.
The idea of having to be buzzed upstairs to get to a tattoo parlor alone is amazing. The space in New York City is unbelievably limited, yet we just keep building up and up and up to reach the sky.
It scares me to think that there are people who don’t soak in life, especially in this legendary city, every single day. It is such a unique experience to live here, and after too long, it gets mundane.
It may be an option to move west, but Luhrmann also warned against staying there to long because it will “make you soft.”
The truth is that this city is anything but mundane. People may not realize it while they're here, but the endless options of pizza shops and hours of stand still traffic are things you will miss when you leave.
New York officials are worried for our kids’ safety, and now it has nothing to do with drugs or obesity.
Be prepared to see No Playing in Playground signs right next to No Smoking soon throughout New York since our officials have deemed sports such as wiffle ball, kickball, dodgeball, and freeze tag unsafe.
I can remember back to my happy-go-lucky childhood days, which are merely in the early 90s, and remember recreational activities such as these played daily in school and at summer camp… and I’m still kicking.
The age of kids using or experimenting with drugs is getting lower every year, and the number of kids doing it is higher. It is becoming harder for kids to be kids and now the state wants to give them more reason to put aside their fun and get into trouble.
A ban such as this seems completely un-American, unless we consider George Orwell somewhat of a Nostradamus, predicting completely unjustifiable rules imposed by our officials. These bans are being implemented because allegedly kids are more “brutal.” Take away the energy outlet of kickball and now where do you think they will express their brutality?
To add to the factor of outrageousness, the state put kickball and tag in the same category as archery and scuba diving, but not sack races or tug-of-war. Kids cannot play a game of mock baseball with air-light balls but can pull a rope as hard as they can until the opposing party falls into a pit of mud.
There is no way that someone who truly thought this rule through could agree with it. It’s not a matter of being “wimpy,” it’s a matter of being irrational. Kids should not be left to the option of sitting, eating, and playing violent video games that fuel their aggression. They need to go outside and play without the restriction of straight jackets.
The new rule also wants to include a requirement for medical assistants to be present at summer camps. That would be fine, if the parents weren’t required to pay $200 for it. Kids need a place to go, more now than ever. By making it more difficult for them to play with peers, the state is only asking for an increase in troubled youth. Perhaps a more productive way to go about this is to have parents individually sign off on whether or not they personally find it endangering to their children to engage in tag, because I know if I were a parent, I would much rather prefer my child playing tag than singing kumbaya.
State officials are asking for a more violent youth by attempting to create a tamer one. I don’t think any of us can imagine a warm summer day at camp where children want to lie on the blacktop and meditate rather than running around with their friends. If that is what our society is coming to, then I can only hope that Nostradamus was right about 2012.
17 year old high school student Caroline Trezza of Roslyn High School won second place for her research on procrastination. This topic seems so trivial, but has a huge affect on people everyday.
In her study, she found that stress is “more than just a bad habit” and it could be psychologically stressful. I almost feel that this is so obvious that $35,000 should not have been awarded for it.
There was an accompanying procedure though. A total of 89 juniors and 79 sophomores were surveyed to measure their levels of procrastination involving school work, fear of failure, and drive for perfection. That makes mores sense than just stating that procrastination causes stress.
She found that kids who do have a greater desire for perfection and more confidence for success are less likely to procrastinate which is undeniable. It’s gratification. It’s the idea that you worked hard for what you achieve. Every human being knows that easy come, easy go, and nothing that comes easy is worth having.
Put it this way. If every person who picked up a guitar could play like Slash, then would Slash’s lightning fast fingers and unimaginable chords sound so good? Definitely not. Everything worth having takes hard work. Hard work requires a lot of time. Often, there isn’t enough time in the day to do everything, so one must sort out what is most important, and work with the 24 hours to fill enough time for each.
Trezza’s mother Cathy stated to the newspaper “[students] are so involved in so many things – yearbook deadlines and quarterly exams.” Her daughter is yearbook editor as well as finalist for this competition.
“I don’t know that it’s so much procrastination, as trying to do it all,” her mother explained.
Her daughter admitted that she sometimes struggles to get started on assignments. That is called fatigue due to hard work, and is completely natural. Yes, it is admirable that she is doing research and still being involved. These things are not too much though. People do it every single day. Though it is stressful, it is rewarding and teaches worth and character to individuals looking to improve themselves. The choice to do so many things and do them well is part of her personal character, and not everyone is like that.
I disagree with her mother, that her daughter and her classmates “carry workloads that would stagger adults.” It is all very doable, it just takes a certain type of person to do it.
Trezza’s research is correct. Those who have the motivation and are willing to do the work for the rewarding results know when and how to do it. Those who do not have a firm grasp on the importance of work and don’t covet its payoff will procrastinate and experience more stress when the reality hits that it had no reward.
No one understands the idea of relocation quite like a baseball player. They, if they have talent, become part of a team where they learn the values of teamwork and of rivalry. Once they know that, they are often uprooted from their club family and forced into a new one.
Johnny Damon as Boston's "Caveman."
photo credit: Steve Senne, AP
A prime example is the rivalry between New York and Boston. Johnny Damon was an outfielder at Fenway Park for four years, including the year that broke the Curse of the Bambino. When his contract there was up he said, "There's no way I can go play for the Yankees, but I know they are going to come after me hard."
He ended up at Yankee Stadium the following season with a 5 year contract.
With new turf (and new fans) came a new look. The Yankees clean-cut values required that Damon rid himself of the famous "cave man" look; he cut his trademark long hair and shaved his beard so he may look up to par in his pinstripes.
Though Damon claimed that the "top dollar which the Yankees are going to offer" was not the most important thing, he spent 5 years in the Bronx and earned a ring with the New York emblem on it.
Damon earned praise in Boston's Cathedral, ridicule for joining the rival, a great deal of money.
But where is he now? Replaced.
Damon left Boston, where he and his unruly hair were heralded. Today a Tampa Bay Ray, Damon's name is still spoken at Fenway, but in comparison to Jacoby Ellsbury who they hope to be their star hitter.
Damon is still earning recognition. Especially considering he just recently passed Reggie Jackson on the hit list (Reggie Jackson's record being 2,584 during his career). The intensity of the rivalry and the die-hard Red Sox fans would have, if you ask me as a Yankees fan, made this landmark much more monumental.
Derek Jeter, approaching his 3,000th hit, will be greatly celebrated when he hits it in the pinstripes he's been wearing for his entire career, with his devoted fans in the stands.
I have a pair of sneakers that I refuse to get rid of. I got them when I was a freshman in high school, and four years later they look as though they were worn in battle during Vietnam. Appropriately named "prison sneakers" by the Vans Company itself, they're white sneakers with three velcro straps in place of laces. I find them the most adorable, comfortable, and convenient shoe I own. My mom sees it differently
My torn up, faded, beat Vans prison sneakers.
I have too many pairs of shoes, some that never see the daylight because I'd much rather slip into my Vans. They match everything, and I don't have to be wary of puddles because any dirt or tears because making them worse only makes them better for me. My mom, willing to buy me any new pair of shoes I desire, doesn't understand why I still wear them or why I can't throw them away.
It's simple: the memories. These shoes have been with me through hurried day, lazy days, adventurous days, and lucky days. I guess you can say they've got true character and bring me luck. I've got lucky pennies that I've found on the floor strapped into the third strap. I have holes in them that I only hope get larger so I can compete with the holes in my best friend's pair of Vans.
My brand new All-Star Converse.
Coming to college, I brought them with me. There was no way that I'd be able to get to 7:30 AM classes without their quick and convenient help. I know that college being such a big change called for another new change. That's why I sucked it up and got myself a new pair of convenience sneakers: a white pair of low-top Chuck Taylors.
They too go with everything, but there are some days where I just want to know that I've got on my feet something that have trekked with me through some of the best years of my young life. I have both sneakers lying in my door room, waiting for their turn to stomp around campus.
My shoes are staying, both pairs. In with the new, and to the side with the old, but never for long. Sneakers are very personal things. In the long run, I want to either look back on my sneakers and think of all the days I spent in them. Maybe, if one day I make it big writing a novel or reporting for CNN, I'll sell them on eBay like Justin Bieber did for $1,425.
The youth of my generation have been enthralled by social networking since Myspace really exploded, and possibly even before with AIM Buddy Profiles (does anyone remember those?). Facebook seems to really have taken center stage and stolen the show.
Does this site really live up to all of the praise? The answer varies from person to person. I think that there would, at the very least, be an overwhelming agreement that whoever has it would have great difficulty parting with it. It has become somewhat of a scrapbook; pictures, posts, and videos from several years can be accessed at ease for a trip down memory lane.
Aside from the the memories and friendships that are preserved, Facebook is just a virtual breeding ground for opinions, gossip, and trouble. There are things posted on Facebook that bring out the ugliness in people we call "friends." Most recently, teen girls from Pennsylvania were tagged in a video of a fight that landed them in court. When CBS reported the story, they cleverly began it with "Be careful what you put on Facebook...in case you hadn't noticed!"
But social networking isn't all mirror shots and indirect attacks on "friends." There's a refuge for people simply looking to learn, share, and connect. That place is Twitter.
photo credit: chaaps.com
I've once saw a tweet in my timeline that said "Facebook makes you hate people you know and Twitter makes you love people you don't know." How very true this has become, especially for me. I have found that people who I thought I needed to stay in contact with from high school, via Facebook, are people I contemplate deleting contact with. I don't have quite an interest in browsing through pages of similar-looking photos with insignificant poses.
Twitter is a different territory. With people to follow like Perez Hilton to dish all the juicy Hollywood details, CNN breaking news to give you real-time news updates as they're released, and Lady Gaga who tweets straight from her personal Blackberry to all her little monster fans, you can't help but to re-tweet and reply to the abundance of great chatter that's "tweeted." Well, at least I can't.
Still, Facebook remains a charming site that everyone wants to waste value homework time on. Personally, I'd rather the little Twitter bird keep me posted with trending topics that sometimes tip me off to new events I would have otherwise missed and follow people that are innocently looking for an audience. I'm still building my own audience up, but rather than friend requesting acquaintances, I'd rather have followers interested in what I tweet.
Temple University announced an optional evacuation of students studying at the Tokyo campus due to concerns over radiation leaks from Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.
According to Temple’s website, the university transported students from Tokyo to Hong Kong where they would be flown home starting March 20.
Students of the University will not lose credit for their
studies completed in Japan.
The New York Times reported Thursday that of the 325 American students at the Tokyo campus, 115 had already left. The remaining students will have arrangements made to fly home if they choose.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that International SOS has been working to arrange commercial flights to transport the students to their respective homes.
About 30 of the originally anticipated 200 left the country March 20 on such arranged flights. 160 others departed by their own, according to Temple officials.
Temple spokesman Hillel Hoffman told the Inquirer that 120 students have chosen to stay in Japan.
The university rented a bus to transport students from the directly effected Tokyo to Osako, said The Temple News.
The United States Embassy released that The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recommends to US citizen living within 50 miles of the power plant to evacuate or stay in-doors if “departure is not probable.”
The Fukushima radiation plant was threatening cities
within a several mile radius
The campus had anticipated power outages and limited transportation service. Their website had posted a schedule of student services that was set to have normal operations resume normal hours for student centers by March 28 for the students who have chosen to remain.
The dean of Temple’s Japan campus posted a message on the website Tuesday afternoon concerning plans for continuation of the semester. April 4 is the new tentative start date, but the final decision is “conditional on advice from foreign embassy and Japanese government.”
The graduate program has a separate schedule and the start date has not yet been announced.
Previously, the university had set the start date at March 28, but was forced to push it back due to the continuing issues with the nuclear plant.
Students are concerned that occurance of the disaster will cause them to lose credit for the part of the semester that they had already completed. Hoffman told the Inquirer that "No matter where the students end up…Temple will work with the students to finish their semester."
Print/Newspaper. Relocated Chronicles:
Temple University’s students studying in Japan were advised to leave due to the recent earthquake and nuclear concerns.
After the catastrophic 9.0 quake on March 11, Japan is dealing with the repercussions of destruction and threat of Dai-ichi nuclear plant’s leakage. Temple’s students studying in Japan were offered transportation to Hong Kong where they would be flown safely back to the United States.
Of the 325 students who were studying abroad, 120 have chosen to stay, according to Temple spokesman Hillel Hoffman . The dean of the college also remained behind, feeling that he is obligated to continue overseeing the campus, accommodate the students who remained, and updating the Philadelphia-based University of the progress in the Pacific.
The United States Embassy released that The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recommends to US citizens living within 50 miles of the power plant to evacuate or stay in-doors if “departure is not probable.” Students on the Tokyo campus will be transported by bus to Osako as safety precaution during the time of nuclear threat.
The university had set the start date at March 28, but was forced to extend it to April 4. This date is also tentative and “conditional on advice from foreign embassy and Japanese government.”
Students were assured by the administration that if they left the country, they will still be able to complete the credits they had begun in Tokyo.
radio broadcast:
Temple’s study abroad students have returned early from Tokyo. Students abroad were advised to leave due to the threat of radiation poisoning from the Fukushima power plant. There are students who opted to remain in Japan to complete the semester. The students who left will have opportunities to complete their credits for the interrupted semester here in the States.
College dorms have a lot of rules. It is almost too many...
No toasters or toaster ovens. No plastic standing lamps. And worst of all: no pets.
Of course, this rule is only appropriate. Having college students all showing up to school with dogs, cats, gerbils, birds, or any other domestic (or non-domestic) animal presents unbelievably complicated concerns. Feeding, grooming, caring, and restraining, all of which students can sometimes hardly handle to do for themselves, would be insanely overwhelming to do for pets as well.
It is in the college setting that sometimes people may find themselves very lonely. It is a big transition of relocating which involves making new friends, getting used to sharing a room, having a new bed, eating new food, etc. Sometimes, when you don't want the company of a friend or a roommate, the one thing you may miss, even more than siblings or parents, are your pets.
Me outside of my house with my dog Nala.
I was always used to having my cat cuddle up with me in the middle of the night, my dog waking me up from naps on the couch by nudging my hand, and having them great my at the door when I come home.
When I walk into my college dorm, I am greeted by the stench of the garbage can, music blaring from speakers, and room occupied by someone else.
By that description, dorm life may sound worse than it truly is. But there are very few things that can replace the company of lovable animals when you really need them. Some colleges have actually gone as far to recognize this and permit pets to accompany students to college.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, "Eckerd College, a private school in St. Petersburg, has had pet-friendly
dorms for years. So has Stephens College, a private school in Missouri."
As for St. John's, I'm positive the idea of allowing pets is as far-fetched as a course on Scientology. I don't find this to be a bad decision, because so many people is sometimes disastrous itself; add pets to the mix and it will be a jungle. I just know whenever I go home, I'm excited to be welcomed by my pets. In the meantime, I do my best to make my bed as loving as my pets do for me at home.
My door room bed, complete with alligator, teddy bear, and unicorn
to help cope with longing for my pets.
Lou Carnesecca in the old Alumni Hall which has
now been named, to commemorate his achievements,
Carnesecca Arena.
Running into Lou Carnesecca got me so starstruck. To me, he was a superstar; our arena was named after him, he appeared on YES Network's Center Stage, and he led the St. John's basketball team to more championships than I thought existed. He spoke to me the same way he would on television in front of millions of viewers, and his story stayed the same.
The first time he said to me was: There's a lot of history here.
And how very true it was. His office is like the St. John's basketball Hall Of Fame. He took the time to explain as much of it as I was able to soak in.
Above all, he spoke with such pride in St. John's basketball, then and now. It is clear for all who, read and hear, why he became such a success even though, as he told both me and Michael Kay, he was "an observer."
Lou Carnesecca talks with Michael Kay on Center Stage
about his career and how he got to that point
Like Michael Kay pointed out, Carnesecca's father wanted him to be a doctor.
I asked: That wasn't you?
His response: No, thank God.
It is clear that a career at St. John's is something that has always and will always be a huge pride in his life. Even now, watching Steve Lavin lead the team to the Big East Championships, he finds that the school is "rejuvenated."
"To have this spark, it lightens everybody. Everybody. I walk down the street, down Union Turnpike, 'Hey Coach! The team is doing great!' It's not only the people at St. John's but the city of New York, because we've been a big New York team for so long."
For so long we have been, and we still are. Lou Carnesecca, the legend of St. John's basketball, is still on this campus to remind us of how wonderful of a community we have, and how successful of a team the Red Storm is.
You can listen to my full interview with Lou Carnesecca here.
Small town living is, in many ways, a lot like the way it is portrayed on TV. I graduated with a class of less than 200 kids. I knew everyone in my school: the quarterback was in my Spanish class, my English partner ran the morning announcements, the saxophonist for the band had a locker across from mine, and the janitor helped me hang my Homecoming posters. It was a community within a community.
This is a video created by my english partner featuring a full tour of the school led by three classmates and our friendly janitor, Doug.
St. John's is very similar. I have found last semester that I see faces daily and never match a name or voice to it. This semester, some of those faces ended up in my classes or even a floor below me.
Recently, during the time I was around campus working on my Capture the Storm project, I ran into a face that matched a name I had heard. I entered the elevator in the library as a man in a khaki trench coat said, referring to a man at the coffee counter, "that's Carnesecca."
Just like my town, who everyone recognized the name Jim Thorpe as a famous athlete, St. John's all recognizes the name Carnesecca as the legendary basketball coach.
I knew the name and the story behind this legendary name, but there, at the familiar library Seattle's Best, was the face. In this small little St. John's town, I had finally run into the superstar who is commemorated by the arena I had been in more times than I could count.
I immediately rode the elevator back down. I had to meet him. Not only did I meet him, I asked for an interview. He looked at me sternly and said "I only talk to students inside the classroom." It didn't take many moments after my stunned expression that he laughed and asked if he could just have his coffee and then have me meet him in his office.
This was a man who had learned all about fame and success and was still willing to feed the curiosity and shake hands with students of his alma mater. He did this knowing he would reap no benefits other than making an aspiring reporter's day.
People like Mr. Carnesecca are the types of people who make small town living have it's positive energy. He is someone who is around the campus for other reasons than because he has to be.
Him talking in the interview, in my next post, will prove that further.
School wide competition (and class project) presented now, on the eve of Spring Break. To all readers, I present a short idea as to what St. John's is to real residents and how we really are all linked to each other in the fury of the Red Storm.
Sunday is a sacred day for two reasons: the Sabbath and spaghetti. I was brought up with home-cooked meals every day, but Sunday was the day that dad slaved away in the kitchen for the weekly spaghetti (or whichever macaroni we had on hand) and meatballs.
Being at school strips me of a lot of the satisfaction of Sunday dinner. Instead of daily regimented meals, I'm at liberty to go to the dining hall whenever I'd like to eat whatever may be available. There are days in which I am pleasantly surprised at what is offered, yet there are many days where I settle for a salad, sandwich, or even just fruit.
Aside from the decrease in delectability in the food, the one thing I had not realized until I left home was the whole idea of the family dinner. When we sat down at our family table, we were closed off from the world. There was no TV nor answering of the telephones and when we were finished eating we waited for dad to finish and then asked to be excused.
Here at school, we enter a busy dining hall with TVs blaring the latest hip-hop or alternative music videos and choose one of any available table to sit the group we entered with. This is not exactly the scene in which I'm used to sitting down, but I try to make it work.
The one thing I have asked of my dinner partner, which is ritually the same friend and roommate, is that dinner time be respected as it was in my house in the sense that once you sit down at the table, the concentration is on conversation with each other. Though I am myself guilty of cellphone dependence, it was ingrained into my mind that the dinner table was no place for it.
My friend, on the other hand, was initially less than formal about it. Texts were sent and answered and Facebook was checked and updated. This continued until I finally reached a level of comfort in which I could express my overwhelming aversion to this practice.
My "family dinners" at school will never be as they were at the original family dinner table. The food is still less than what qualifies as my dad's delicious cuisine and the ruckus of the dining hall is on a much larger scale of noise than my family's naturally rambunctious voices. But with the commotion of the dining comes the chance for me and my friend to recap the day, discuss plans for tomorrow, or discuss whatever it is we want to get off our chest in the fashion I'm accustomed to. My friend makes sure her last text is sent before she even takes her seat, and the phones are done until we are.
In the college setting, which notoriously lacks privacy and compatibility, something as simple as a hidden cellphone during a meal makes St. John's that much more of a comfortable place. Delayed gratification comes in the form of pasta whenever I return home.
St John's is known most widely for its diversity and every day here that becomes more apparent. After an interview with classmate Sohyun Park, I saw a little deeper into the diversity.
Tara: Why was it that you traveled to Korea?
Sohyun: First of all, I was born there. I have my mom's side that still lives there and I recently traveled there last summer for a graduation present and the night life is really interesting there.
T: So you speak Korean fluently?
S: Somewhat, not all the time. To my mom, not to my dad.
T: Is there a lot of English speaking people in Korea or is it just that you can get around, conversationally?
S: I can get around perfectly fine with the amount of Korean I speak but there are other places, like certain cities that are international so there are some people who speak just English.
T: Any other languages that you speak?
S: A really little Spanish.
As the Beatles say "I get by with a little help from my friends."
Coming to Queens and leaving my friends behind was something that was very difficult. I knew they would always be there for me, it was just a strange thought that we wouldn't be doing everything and sharing every memory together.We would all have to spread out and find a new group of friends.
The point of leaving the woods for the concrete jungle was to open doors, expand horizons, and meet new people. That is just what I've been doing and have to admit I've been doing it well. I've found people who I enjoy being around and on top of that, I can rely on them. I did this on my own, by making friends that bring me to meet other friends and networking in class.
Some people seem to have more trouble gathering a group of friends, and the easiest way to solve this is the spring Greek life rush.
Undoubtedly, there is somewhat of a bond between "sisters" of a sorority and "brothers" of a fraternity. Quite frankly, it all seems very fabricated. You get "bid on" as if you're an item at an auction, then you must pledge and basically make the members or leaders like you by doing whatever they want, or allowing them to do whatever they want to you.
For many people, this is an enjoyable time. You earn the privilege to wear Greek letters and go to specially hosted parties and events. But after being hazed, what is the attraction to this? Though it may help you make friends, it could also bring unwanted and inescapable acquaintances. Just because you share the same sorority does not mean you and whomever else is in it will certainly be friends. After being ridiculed and tested by these girls, how is it that you can look at them and call them your friends?
So what is true friendship? Having sorority sisters who you pledge to be friends with, or friends who have no obligation to you but willingly spend time and do favors? I would personally favor friends who I choose myself and care for me rather than those who test me to see if I am up to standards.
That's what I have found in both my friends at home and the new one I have found here. We have no obligation to each other except true love and care, and that's what holds friendships together, not foreign letters. Both the old gold friends and the new silver ones are friends I know I are strong and worth holding onto.
New York City has countless mascots. The Yankees are the pride of baseball, with the Mets being another figure (didn't mean to insult anyone). There are TWO football teams. Aside from that, the plethora of bridges are all named after someone important: George Washington, Giovanni da Verrazano, RFK, etc. There are so many people credited with building part of this city.
As I mentioned my previous post, my town is named after one man who most people have never heard about. Jim Thorpe is just some Joe Schmo with no credibility. As easy as it'd be to say that, it is wrong.
Two years ago I took a trip to Washington DC for a Media and Journalism Conference. One speaker, creator of C-Span network, asked students to come to the stage and say where they are from. I told him I am from Jim Thorpe. He promptly questioned if I knew who that was and I assured him I did. He and the entire crowd were shocked to hear me explain:
Jim Thorpe was an Olympic athlete deemed by King Gustav V of Sweden to be "the greatest athlete in the world" after having won the decathlon and pentathlon in the Stockholm Olympics of 1912. His athleticism didn't end there, as he went on the play professional football and had a past in Minor League Baseball. These careers, however, stripped him of his gold medals seeing as Olympians are not permitted to play in any professional sports for payment. His gold medals were returned back to his family 30 years after his death.
So how did he end up named after a town in Pennsylvania, one in which he never stepped foot? His real home was Oklahoma. Long story short, his family wanted him memorialized, and the small coal-mining town of Mauch Chunk Pennsylvania was willing to do that.
Thus, I am a graduate of Jim Thorpe High School and former Jim Thorpe Olympian. Now, I am part of St. John's Red Storm here in New York where Jim Thorpe is rarely spoken of. If we're going to talk about sports stars, we might as well talk about Babe Ruth, whose birthday is today, and who needs no introduction. Are there any notable similarities between the two sports stars? If nothing else, they both made an appearance on the Wheaties box.
I'm Tara, and St John's University is my heaven on Earth. I'm from a little town in the Poconos of Pennsylvania called Jim Thorpe. Most people stare blankly when I explain that, never having heard of anything like it. Truth of the matter is I am never shocked at that reaction. Nothing happens there, and no one important goes there. In such a fast-paced world, there is little relevance for it. That, however, is the exact reason I live there.
Both of my parents are retired NYPD and, to raise three girls, they wanted somewhere peaceful. That is exactly what they found in Jim Thorpe. Silence. To this day, there is little to report about the town other than the increasing influx of people fleeing the city in search of silence.
News happens everywhere. The difference is, there are things people care about, things that excite people, and things that are just practice and time fillers. Here is an ideal example: the newspaper read in Jim Thorpe is the Times News. Today's top story was about a local boy looking for donations of rubber bands so that he can assemble the world's largest rubber band ball. In New York, the Daily News' top local story was addressing the robbery of a man's snow blower that he used to help dig out New Yorkers buried under inches of snow from the recent storm. After the robbery, there is a story of a triple stabbing. In Jim Thorpe, after the story of rubber band ambitions, was a man retiring from a bank after having worked there 50 years and local students who achieved Dean's List.
It is slightly scary to me. New York is a news and media haven that is very concerned with its people and the world in which we live. Jim Thorpe. and countless other small towns around the country are so unaware of things happening in our world. On the other hand, people in big cities often are only very concerned with the big picture and forget to read the small footnotes.
That is why St. John's is such a wonderful place to be. All the news of New York City is a concern to us, but our university has concerns of its own. It's a perfect blend of big and small. There are days where there are few stories floating around campus that are really very exciting. Then there are days, especially like today, where St John's beats Duke and the whole campus is buzzing with excitement about what happened at Madison Square Garden.
I'm not yet sure if being here is transitional into something bigger, or if it is just me finding the perfect blend. The one thing I know is that when I step into the Residence Village, I am home.
