hayley's blog...

Here are some fun snippets of things I have been doing throughout winter session! Playing with puppies, cooking gourmet meals, skiing, and exploring Philadelphia!

This winter session I am here on campus in Newark, DE! I am taking two online courses, Anthropology101, and Statistics 2. The reason why I chose to take online courses for this break is to have more flexibility in my daily schedule. This allows me to sleep in later, take my classes when it is most convenient for me, and travel during the week, and weekends! I have also been able to make time for a bit of work, I have been giving tours on campus to perspective students which let’s me meet a lot of some of our future Blue Hens, and make a little bit of money on the side!

Last night I went in to Boston with my friends to see the Celtics play the Cleveland Cavaliers at the TD Garden! It had been years since I’ve seen the Celtics play at the Garden instead of the Wells Fargo Center in Philly so it felt great to be surrounded by some fellow fans. We paid $12 for our tickets, and snuck our way to much closer seats. It was a great game, with Paul Pierce scoring 40 points. We couldn’t have asked for a better night!

Two weeks ago I was elected to be the next President of my sorority, Chi Omega! It was such a wonderful honor, and I could not be more excited about the challenge, and position that lies ahead of me. I have personally found Greek Life to be a great outlet to take on leadership experiences since I have been at college; I have learned so much about working as a group, with different personalities, and even about my own personal work ethic. It’s an experience that you put in a lot of work for a big reward but I couldn’t be more optimistic and happy.

So looking back about 4 years ago now, I was just finishing up submitting all of my college applications. While I had all of my grades up to par, my resume filled out, and my common app ready to go I procrastinated the final component of my application; my college essay. I have always considered myself to be a strong writer, as I always got nearly perfect grades on my papers, (and hence why I’m a blogger for UD now of course!) But when it came to pick that imperative topic; the one that would admit or reject me from my next big step in life, i drew a blank. This time during my senior year,  my teacher assigned my 12th grade English class an assignment to mirror a college essay about a memory-an essay that would paint a visual in someone’s mind. At the time I was just getting back to school from summer, envious of all of my older friends who were away at college, and focused on three specific days of my summer that still to this day I proclaim as one of my biggest adventures thus far. While the topic was risky, and a bold move on my behalf I wrote an essay about a trip that I took with some of my best friends to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. While my teacher, and the admissions staff were not able to deduce that this was a trip in which I went behind my mother’s back and snuck off for a few days-I painted the picture of my moment of clarity. I had a moment of maturity, self discovery, and morals all which were summed up in a splendid vacation for myself. The essay’s original purpose was  to only serve as just an assignment for my English class. But after getting back a flawless remark, and glowing recommendations from my teacher it seemed like the pieces fell into place for it to become my college essay. My advice to all of the college applicants out there, is as a decisive and worrying person myself, college is a process that you have to let the pieces fall into place. Sometimes one of your favorite stories is your best story-even if it doesn’t cover the same topic of a typical college essay, as that is the essay that will set you apart from the rest and show your true personality.

While I applied to colleges nearly three years ago, it is still one of the most vivid moments of my life. Having a younger brother who is currently applying to schools, and interviewing lots of prospective UD students about their college application process brings back feelings of nervousness, panic, and looming stress that I could not wait to end.  I remember I analyzed every word I wrote down stressing as to whether or not my personal statements were just right, or if my extra-curricular activities were worded well enough. 

But once I finally finished the common application and pressed submit, life was still not quite back to normal. The stress shifted from concerns over a deadline, to the threatening idea that maybe none of the colleges that I applied to would admit me. I had nightmares thinking that I did not see one acceptance letter. Afterwards my feelings were a series of mixed emotions of stress, relief and excitement knowing that in a year from the day I clicked submit on my college application I would be living my life at college. As a decisive person who likes immediate answers, hitting the submit button increased my worries as I did not know what lay ahead of me and j what the future had in store.

Here at Delaware we love to show our Blue Hen pride, and especially near and dear to our hearts is our mascots, YouDee and Baby Blue. You may ask what the difference is, and really it’s the difference between our big Blue Hen mascot, and the little blue hen. Personally I have a special place in my heart for Baby Blue. While YouDee may be the official mascot, there’s something so cute about the petite baby blue, his smaller size, and appearance that makes me like him a little bit more. Plus, I’ve gotta give it to Baby Blue that wins hands down for better tricks over YouDee. It’s a tough choice which is better but hands down I love Baby Blue!

So Junior year thus far hasn’t been quite as hectic as I had pictured. Usually I find that my school work is overwhelming and extremely stressful. I don’t want to jinx myself but I think since I have been getting more involved in the core curriculum of my classes that the workload has been more manageable, and less stressful. It could be from a few factors that 1. I now have my time management and school strategy mastered, 2. that my math classes and prerequisites will be entirely done by this semester, and 3. that I’m truly interested in my coursework. So far, it’s been a great transition into the second half of my college career. Everyone seems to have come back with an agenda-and seems more mature. It’s weird in a way, as I think that I’m in complete denial about my age for once in my life and really dreading the next step into the real world but also slightly refreshing.

This past weekend I finally got a chance to visit my best friend from home at Penn State. After 3 years, and her visiting me freshman year I finally booked my 8 hours Greyhound trip (3.5 hour car ride) to State College. Our visit was great, and it was really fun to finally hang out with her friends that I had been skyping for three years now. Penn State was a great experience, but I still would not take back my decision to go to Delaware. The school was a bit too big, and too much in the middle of nowhere for me.

Some Pictures from the Semester thus Far!

This Labor Day weekend, I traveled home for the first time. I went back up North to Boston to work the PGA Tour’s Championship, and the TPC Boston, where I worked all summer long. I wanted to see the tournament in full swing, earn some bill$, and also see out the work I had over the summer. It ended up being an exhausting weekend putting in lots of work hours, but all in all, very cool to be behind the scenes of the tournament. I don’t particularly consider myself a huge golf fan, but I did get the opportunity to serve Rickie Fowler which I will say, was very cool. Now I’m currently blogging from the Amtrak train as I took a red eye from providence to make it back bright and early at 6 AM on Tuesday morning for classes. Labor Day is the weekend that really marks the end of my summer, so I’m ready for a week with my work-load in full swing and to hopefully achieve my goal of making Dean’s List this summer. Fingers Crossed!

So as summer is starting to wrap up I’m ecstatic to get back to school and stop working but also going to miss my beach day, $$ in my bank account, and stress free life. I’ve been exceptionally busy working around 50 hours a week at my internship, the TPC Boston, PGA tour golf course waitressing, babysitting and scooping ice cream. Last week I took some time off to enjoy some relaxing time on Martha’s Vineyard and move into school. While it was a hurried week off, and a bit hectic I was able to set up my new room in my apartment at school, and build all of my new furniature. And it looks pretty chic if I do say so myself. So 10 days until I say goodbye to Massachusetts but for now I’m awfully excited to head back down to school again.

This past week I spent in Phoenix, Arizona where I flew out from Boston to meet up with the rest of the leaders in my sorority, Chi Omega from across the nation. While the flight was a bit of a trip from my house, it was such a great new experience for my as it has been years since I have been to Arizona. It was beautiful, as we stayed in a canyon with mountains around us, and the heat was comfortable rather than unbearable. We spent the first day by the pool, but the rest of the days we focused on ways to strengthen the sisterhood of our chapter. Overall it was a great experience and we learned a lot. I can’t say that I’ll be heading to live in Arizona any time soon, but I would definitely love to go back with some more free time and get the chance to explore more!

For my Junior Year I decided to officially move away from off-campus housing. While my housing situation has been a transition to this from living in my dorm in Rodney, to the on campus apartments in the Christiana Towers I don’t think that myself, or my roommates entirely thought through all of the responsibilities with renting out own unit. We knew that we would be responsible for our rent, and furniture but never expected to deal with some of the situations that we had to. From an unsympathetic landlord, paying excessive unforeseen fees for damage, and dealing with the hassle of acquiring large furniture pieces such as couches and storing them has been a bit of a nightmare for  us all. While my new place next year is a beautiful, 4 year old condo on Choate Street (just near Klondike Kate’s), a lesson that we learned from our experience thus far is that we should have investigated things more, and spoke with the landlord more about the issues as we would have never rented from them after learning some of their hidden agendas. So all in all, for perspective students if you consider moving off campus for your sophomore year, when you begin to look into apartments in the fall make sure you do your research about your landlord, exact rental unit, and know what you’re getting yourself into so you don’t get yourself into a predicament like we did.