It is the time of the year again. The fastest team sport in the world is going to start again at Hope College. This year the Hope College Men’s Hockey Team has high expectations. With 10 incoming freshmen this year and more likely most of them being in the lineup, the team has a simple, but the hardest goal: win the National Championship! This year, Hope has a young team that wants to base their success of high pace game, with a lot of hits, block shots and goals, which means for the fans it that this type of hockey is fun hockey to watch.
Tomorrow, Friday, October 8, 2015, is the first game of the hockey season against Lake Superior State. This opponent is starting a new program this year, so there is not a lot of background information about Lake Superior State. Nevertheless, Hope College wants to make a statement right in the beginning of the season, so it is going to be a great game!
Please, come out and support Hope College HockeyTeam this Friday, on October 9th, at 7:30 PM, at the Ice Edge Arena. Keep in mind that the fans are the sixth player!
Welcome back from break and happy (almost) weekend! Golly, I feel like I could still use an additional week off… For some reason, I have yet to catch up on sleep. I’m one of those people that seems to be most productive during the wee hours of the night. I am always amazed by all that I can accomplish by 1 a.m.…
Anywho, I somehow managed to get some shut eye before midnight for a few of the days we had off, AND do some pretty fantabulous things with the fam when I was not found dozing off on the couch. Not only did I get to spend wonderful quality time with Grandma G (whom, by the way, singlehandedly made the trek to GR from Chi-town last weekend), but I was also blessed with the best b-day one could ask for. The list of amazing wishes that came true, are as follows: a surprise midnight doughnut (thanks, Ang! Seriously, how did I not know about these before?!) tea (AND a muffin) with my bud, a surprise ice-cream cone from my other bud, pizza with my two favorite people (thanks mom and dad!), and a divine chocolate cake. Noticing any pattern…? Okay, okay, maybe I indulged a little bit too much, but ’tis okay. Birthday calories don’t count. Oh yes, did I mention we also went apple picking the next day?! For reals, you would be amazed by one of the beauts I found (reference photo below). I ate that, too.
I am definitely not qualified to write a movie review, so naturally that is exactly what I’m going to attempt to do. Over my Fall Break, I spent one hundred and sixty four minutes of my approximately six thousand, four hundred and eighty minute break in the movie theatre watching the same motion picture twice. I can confidently say it was easily the best one hundred and sixty four minutes of my entire vacation! Although I am not very knowledgeable when it comes to the sciences, I am a real sucker for any science fiction movie. Last year, I saw Interstellar on the big screen during its premier week. My mind was completely blown. Despite the fact that the formulas and physics were way, way, way over my head, Interstellar easily took the top spot on my list of favorite flicks; and it remained in that position until this past weekend.
When I first saw previews for The Martian, I figured it would be close to an exact replica of Interstellar. With the same director and producer, I was positive The Martian would be equally as mind-blowing and astonishing. I was right in that aspect, but the two were very different in origin. Matt Damon, who plays the astronaut stranded on Mars, did an excellent job of portraying a quick-witted botanist, while still keeping his space-destined feet firmly planted firmly down to Earth. The majority of the scientific events that occurred throughout the film seemed plausible, but still kept me on the edge of my seat. Whereas, in Interstellar, some concepts seem so far-fetched that they are incredibly tough to relate to. In addition, unlike Interstellar’s more serious tone, amidst the drama that unfolds in The Martian, Matt Damon had many moments where he was able to provide much needed, and quite hilarious, comic relief.
I will not spoil the ending, of course. However, I will assure you that it is quite satisfactory. If you are looking for a space movie that does not fly straight over your head, The Martian would be a great place to start. That being said, if one is not enough, be sure to check out Interstellar, just be sure you are prepared for your mind to be sent on an emotional and intellectual roller coaster. At the end of the day, if any movie demands the complete attention of the Hope Men’s Soccer Team for more than two hours, it has to be a quality film.
I hope you have had a wonderful start to your week. Hope students, keep in mind it is already Thursday, only a day and a half until the weekend!
This Fall Break I had the privilege of introducing my best friend, Ashley, to my hometown: Pittsburgh. On Friday after class we set off and left campus behind us for a few days of fun times with my family.
The sun setting behind us somewhere in Ohio.
We arrived at my house in Wexford (a suburb just north of Pittsburgh) around 9:45 p.m. to be greeted by my parents, brother, and my dog Teddy.
Teddy loved Ashley from first sight.
Saturday we slept in, as is necessary on break, and then went to Soergel’s Orchard with a couple of my friends from high school that we also home. We visited Mabel and Clover, the resident goats, bought apples and looked at the multitude of pumpkins and gourds of all shapes and sizes. We wrapped up our outing with late lunch at good ol’ Eat’n Park, a Pittsburgh favorite restaurant chain.
Soergel’s Orchard
Kristen, Raka, and Ashley with Mabel and Clover
Mabel (left) and Clover (right) 🙂
On Sunday we introduced Ashley to downtown Pittsburgh. We started out exploring the Strip District, stopping at all the different stores and taking a picture with Bill the bear at Wholey’s Fish Market.
Our new friend, Bill the Wholey’s bear
A snap shot of a mural in the Strip District
Finally, we rode the Duquesne Incline (pronounced “du-cane” if you were curious) which rides up the side of Mt. Washington and has the best view of the entire city.
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For our last day of break that didn’t consist of the 6 hour drive back, we went to one of my favorite places by my house: North Park. This is where I go to run, kayak, play Ultimate Frisbee, bike, ice skate in the winter, basically anything and everything fun. So I was so excited to show Ashley this place I spend a lot of time in that I always tell her about. We hiked over to the Fountain of Youth, had a picnic lunch, threw around a frisbee, walked by the lake, and stopped to check out Marshall island. It was a beautiful day and just the best way to end our Fall Break PA explorations.
Pine Creek which we crossed to get to the Fountain of Youth
The Fountain of Youth. AKA an old stone building built around a natural spring.
Inside the grotto style building is a hole in the wall from where pipes used to channel the spring water before it was shut down.
Ashley on top of the world! (otherwsie known as the roof of the Fountain of Youth)
Blackrock Pavilion where we ate lunch
The Veterans Memorial
North Park Lake
A bench on Marshall Island
It was so fun to get to watch Ashley experience Pittsburgh for the first time and to show her around my hometown. And now we have a new list of other things to see and do when she makes the trip back to PA with me some day. Yay for breaks and fun hometown adventures!
Fall Break – the first return home of the year for most students, smacked right in the beginning of the pumpkin-spiced season we all call fall.
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What does one do on this Fall Break? Here are a few must’s.
Go apple/pumpkin picking.
This is clearly at the top of everyone’s to-do lists over break. Who doesn’t love donuts and cider from the farm they grew up going to?
Catch up on some Netflix. Maybe a season or three.
All I can say is I’m not exaggerating. I know people who have gone through entire seasons in just three short days. It’s nothing to worry about; all the exams and meetings from the past couple weeks haven’t allowed for adequate down time.
If you’re not a TV watcher, finally read those books you’ve been meaning to get to.
This is, unashamedly, me. I can’t watch more than three quarters of a 40-minute Netflix episode at a time. I can, however, read for hours at a time when I’m given it.
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Bake. Pumpkin bread, preferably.
There’s nothing better than warm baked goods in the fall. We all know that anything pumpkin flavored is in season right now. I checked this one off my list with some pumpkin pecan bread.
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Get a hair cut. Everyone does it. I did it last year.
I don’t know what it is about the fall in college the makes people want to chop off all their hair. It’s adorable, but I can’t figure out where the drive comes from. Maybe all the change in weather, leaf colors, and environment leads to it.
Family time, this includes pets.
You haven’t seen your dog or your mom in almost two months. Admit you’re deprived, that you didn’t love her as much as she deserved before you left, and remember how they run for you every time you come home.
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Enjoying some good home-cooked meals. Phelps just doesn’t cut it sometimes.
Phelps is a great place to eat in terms of variety at each meal, but sometimes it isn’t what you’re used to eating, and the repetition can get a little boring. At this point, you’ve had to start getting creative with quesadillas in the panini maker and you’ve sampled every cereal there is. You’re ready for mom’s cooking again.
Visit that one restaurant that Holland doesn’t have. Chipotle, I’m talking to you.
This is just my personal space to rant about how Holland doesn’t have a Chipotle. I have to drive all the way to Grand Rapids just to get a fresh, hand-made burrito? Outrageous. Okay, so there might be other more local restaurants and diners that you were thinking of, but for some reason Chipotle is always what comes to mind when I’m going home. Burritos are important.
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I hope everyone on campus or off campus had a great and relaxing Fall Break! It’s good to bed back at Hope, though. Feel free to add more Fall Break must’s if you’d like in the comments. I’m open to suggestions.
Fall Break lasts from Friday evening to Tuesday. Students who visit home often return on Tuesday, but until then the campus is completely barren and dead. Most club activities are called off, the Phelps Dining hours are cut short, and most students are huddled in their dorm finishing up Fall Break homework (supposedly). Although these four days are a bit lonely for dorms or cottages that are a bit emptier than others, it is great to to able to wind down and have a whole campus to yourself.
So without further ado, here’s a quick list of things to know about staying at Hope over Fall Break:
Netflix all-day, every day. No joke. Scott Hall played a grand total of 13 Disney/Dreamworks movies in the basement, roughly three to four every night. A few friends and I threw two mattresses together and enjoyed a horror movie marathon.
People sleep in, hardcore. The freedom fall break offers is intoxicating so students would often sleep at 1-5 a.m. and wake up at 12-4 p.m. In fact, the later one woke up, the more pride one has in bragging about it. (My personal record is 3 p.m.)
Phelps Dining food quality is not at its best. Do we get pitied because we aren’t jovially laughing around a dinner table with family and friends? Nope. There are certainly some exceptions (s/o to the french fry bar, t’was exquisite), but for the most part that’s okay because it gave us a chance to check out the dining options downtown.
There is a Meijer Run on Tuesday. Just a quick thing to add since a few people were unsure whether the shuttle was running that day or not. I had my first Meijer run yesterday! ( Follow me on Twitter @hopefrina19 for more riveting details about my life).
Work never gets done. We say we’ll do it, plan it all out, bring out all of our books and our materials, throw on that study music, but alas, it is impossible. The power of fall break procrastination is a force to be reckoned with.
People pamper themselves. Be prepared to see hair, eyebrows, nails, and makeup on point.
It’s too short. By the end of break, it’s exciting to see friends come back but, truth be told, we’re all looking forward to Thanksgiving break.
I hope you enjoyed your fall breaks! Leave a comment below about how your fall break went.
I walked out of the parking garage onto a sad stretch of wet concrete. Welcome to downtown Grand Rapids. ArtPrize is a three week event, and we picked the nastiest day.
I searched for art. A giant metal dragon, a Rube Goldberg machine and a confession booth sat in the courtyard in front of the county offices. A man in a big blue coat took pictures of the Rube Goldberg. A few couples and families scuttled from piece to piece. A girl pulled her chin into her fleece jacket and shoved her arms into the pockets, and she shivered as she ran off with her boyfriend, who pulled his hood up and hunched his shoulders.
Everyone was cold.
I walked a block or two and stood in line at the old art museum. It was the closest indoor exhibit. I fidgeted in the cold to keep the blood moving. A short lady gave me a free cold brew coffee sample, because I looked too warm, apparently. The line could have moved faster.
The volunteers kept me from going in just as I was about to enter. I stood at the door and waited. My eyes glazed over. ArtPrize felt pretty disappointing.
I went inside and entered the gallery. I passed a sculpture made of burned wood. I turned right and entered a hushed room full of people. Hundreds of ceramic plates hung on the wall from top to bottom. People whispered, and a crowd loomed over the Artist’s Statement.
see part 2
A crowd gathers at an Art Prize exhibit in Grand Rapids, MI.
This weekend over Fall Break I had the pleasure of spending a few hours at Lincoln Park Zoo. I hadn’t been there since my elementary school went on a field trip circa 2002. I actually remembered a few things about my last visit while I walked through the zoo, so it was cool to have those memories and to make new ones. I get really excited about animals, so I’m pretty sure I was freaking out most of the time (sea lions are SO COOL you guys!!!). I loved it.
However, after I left the zoo, in the midst of thinking of some really great animal puns, I realized something: college students are kind of like zoo animals. It’s pretty weird. But it’s also kind of accurate. Allow me to enlighten you:
College students are like flamingoes. You can often find us in large groups, but we aren’t always interacting with each other or we might not even realize that our friends are all within close proximity to us. You can observe this behavior most often at Van Wylen Library or Lemonjello’s; we are all there for similar reasons, but we are also all kind of in our own little worlds.
College students are like giraffes. Sometimes we just want to hang out, low-key, with a couple of our friends and eat food. Sometimes that food is in places that seem a little weird to outsiders at first, like a toy boat or at Applebee’s every night, but you get used to it after a while. Anything else would just feel wrong.
College students are like monkeys. We love to have fun together!
College students are like zebras. Sometimes we just need our alone time, even when there are two other zebras (or friends) hanging out around the corner.
College students are like chameleons. This guy was just hanging from one of his legs, not really looking like he was going to do anything, when suddenly his arms and legs started moving. It looked like he was dancing. In the same way, sometimes you can find us just hanging out, not doing too much, and then suddenly we come to life. At times, we even throw solo dance parties. Or group dance parties. Any kind of dance parties, really.
College students are also like lions (look closely at the photo to find them!). Sometimes all we want is a nap. After walking around the zoo for a few hours when this photo was taken, I think Larry and I were both definitely in lion moods.
Readers, this Fall Break was amazing – filled with family, friends, and birthday fun (October 1 was my birthday)! However, probably the biggest highlight of break for me wasn’t the birthday carrot cake my mom got me or that I got to see my Golden Retriever, it was that I cut my hair.
I really started to feel God weigh my hair on my heart at the beginning of this semester. Let me give you all a little background on the life of my hair: I was three years old the last time it was just below my ears, and my summer “haircut” every year consisted of getting 1/4th of an inch cut off for dead ends. I’ve always had long hair and I’ve always loved it. Truthfully, the thought of cutting it all off was terrifying until recently. Because, if there was one feature I could always rely on, it was my hair. My face may have sprouted a zillion pimples and my eyebrows might not have been combed down from the previous night’s sleep, but my hair always looked good. Even if I just rolled out of bed, I was blessed with good hair. Long good hair. And I was scared to lose that.
And so my hair became my security blanket. Unfortunately, because it was my security blanket, I grew an unhealthy attachment to it. It turned into something I put a lot of time into – time I should’ve spent doing other things. My hair became my beauty standard for myself. Every day I would look in the mirror and know that I had at least my hair to keep me looking good in candid photos, should any be taken. I’ve come to realize that’s how I wanted people to know me, and I was totally living into that. I don’t want people to know me for my faith or my passions or my smile, but my hair. How materialistic is that?
And so I decided to chop. More accurately, donate. I realized when the summer came to a close, I was so tired of worshiping my empty beauty standard, and decided to worship a God that was more fulfilling. He provides and filled me right up with His enduring word. I lost the attachment to my hair and haven’t given it a second thought since. I looked up hair donation agencies and decided to give my hair to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program. My 8-inch pony tail that I donated will join 8 others in making a wig for a cancer patient – 8 for 8 – and gives it to them absolutely free.
This was the length difference before and after my hair was cut. Crazy!
And this was how long the pony tail was! WOAH
It’s going to take some getting used to, but my new short hair has given someone with no hair hope, and that’s the best feeling.
Until next time readers!
Questions about what I wrote or want to talk about what I did? Check the bio and lets talk 🙂
Everyone has some song or tune that one absolutely hates. In my case it is the “Opening” by iPhone because it is the tune of my alarm clock. Today, Thursday, October 1st, the alarm clock wake me up at 7:15 am.
Like everyday, after I get off the bed, I take a morning shower and I brush my teeth. One of the advantages of morning showers is that it helps me to transition from being sleepy to fully thinking and functioning. Also, a shower is a place where I think about the day, what I will be dealing with and for what things like tests, hockey games, interviews or presentations I should prepare. The first class is at 9:30 a.m., so I have fairly a lot of time to dress, prepare for school and review some academic materials if I am having an assessment that day.
Every day I drink a vitamin shake.
Next up is breakfast! I love breakfast because I am a morning person. I love the feeling that the whole day is in front of me. Also, I think that Phelps Dining Hall server the best food during breakfast in regards of freshness, quality and health.
My first class is at 9:30 a.m. in Lubbers Hall, which is literally 30 seconds from the Phelps Dining Hall, so I start eat breakfast about when the clock hits 8:30 a.m. It is really nice to have a breakfast for 1 hour, but as you will get to know my day better, later in the post, this one hour of breakfast is my oasis of calm in the whole day.
Breakfast with friends
9:30 a.m. = English 101. As an international student, the process of learning English never ends, despite the fact that I lived in the United States for five years before enrolling into Hope College. Currently, in the English class we are working on the comparison/contrast essay. Since, I studied at private boarding school before, I know well how to write compassion/contrasts essay, but practice makes perfect!
English class
After the English class, which ends at 10:50 a.m., I and my friend Christian went to the Martha Miller Center to sign up for the Chicago Trip on Saturday, October 3. My next class is at 1:30 p.m., so I have about 2½ hours for myself, but not really. Since I am part of the Hope College men’s hockey team, I have to keep myself in shape, especially when the first game is in 8 days. I workout or run every day just for myself. Today the weather is truly spectacular, so I went for 30-minute run consisting of shorter sprints. After I came back, I took a quick shower and I start to review for a Philosophy Quiz at 1:30 p.m. This took me from 11:50 a.m. to 12:40 p.m. Lunch was next at 12:45 p.m.
Lunch in Phelps Dining Hall
Followed up by Philosophy class in the Chapel at 1:30 p.m.
Deep thinking during Philosophy class with a help from Socrates.
The class ends at 2:50 p.m., and right after I go back to my room to drop off my stuff. At 3:00 p.m. I have a meeting with my advisor about declaring a major next semester. We do not speak for very long because at 4:00 p.m. I have another meeting at Holland Rescue Mission in regards of 18 hours of community service. The 18 hours of community service is not mandatory for regular freshmen at Hope College, but I am part of the Phelps Scholars Program which requires the 18 hours of community service during my first semester at Hope. The Holland Rescue Mission is located about 15 minutes away by walk from the school campus, which is not far, but I have to leave in advance.
Holland Rescue Mission
At 4:50 p.m. I arrive back on campus and I go to my room to do my homework until 6:00 p.m. Right after, I go to dinner. On Thursdays, Hope College hockey team has late practices, so I have to eat something light and healthy.
At 6:45, we are heading to the Ice Edge Hockey Arena in Holland. The practice starts at 8:00 p.m., but we are having a Powerpoint presentation about the systems, power-plays and power-kills prior the actual skate. At exactly 8:00 p.m. I am hitting the ice for 90 minutes of high pace practice. After the practice, some of the players are continuing to Applebee´s for second dinner and I join them for this time.
Applebee’s with some hockey guys.
Around 10:45 pm, we are leaving Applebee’s and returning to Hope College. Most of the players still have to do a lot of work before they go to bed and I am not an exception.
One song to describe this picture: Never Ending Story by Limahl
I do not waste time and I walk to Library, to get an early start on my Philosophy Essay, which is due on Friday, October 9th.
Library at night.
Just about midnight, I complete the first two and the half paragraphs of the essay, so I come back to my room and I finish my assignments that I started in the afternoon. I quickly take a shower, brush my teeth and go to bed in:
12:59 pm.
Before I fall a sleep, I write few tweets about my day and set my alarm clock for 7:00 a.m., so in 6 hours. I am pretty exhausted, so I fall asleep quickly.
That is only one day of my life, and actually this Thursday is one of the easier days I had so far.
