Hey everyone!

Well, this is it! The last blog before school is out.  This year went so quick.  In fact, after this week, I’m going to be half way done with my college career.  That’s pretty weird to think about.  I don’t feel like that’s the case at all.  These first two years flew by!

Anyway, I thought I’d talk about the exams, since they seem to be on everyone’s minds this time of year.  Myself, I’m not too worried or stressed. I’m usually a good test taker and a few tests don’t hold a candle to the papers and projects I’ve had to complete these past few weeks. 

The way the exams work is pretty simple. You can search “exam schedule” on inside.msj.edu to find our schedule.  The schedule is listed by the time of day the course usually meets.  Then, it lists what day the respective exam will take place and what time. For example, my Age of Ideology class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:00.  The exam takes place on Thursday at about 1:15 till 3:05.  After that, I’m done with the course (which is a pretty tough course, just for future reference).

You will also find that some classes don’t meet for the exam.  One of my classes has an optional exam, only if you need the extra points to boost your grade. I have an A in the class, so I don’t really need the points, so I opted out of taking the exam.  Out of 5 classes, I only have to meet for 3 exams, and they are all on different days.  This laid back scheduling helps ease any stress students feel when faced with the exams and definitely helps me feel more comfortable with them. 

So when faced with the final exams, just relax, use the free time created through the exam schedule to study as much as you can, and just take the tests. There isn’t much more you can do, so relax, do your best, then go enjoy your summer! A lot of people get over-stressed, but there really is no reason to. By this point, you will have been working for 10 weeks for a good grade, one week isn’t going to kill ya.

If you’re in college, push through these last weeks, and if your in high school, enjoy the time you have left.  Then enjoy the summer time!

I’ll try to post up a few blogs over the course of the summer break, just to let you guys know what’s goin on.

See ya!

>Eric M.

Hey guys.

So, as predicted, this past week was insane. Many late nights and a lot of typing.  But most of the hard parts are behind me.  I have a few things for next week, but they aren’t anything to worry too much about.

One thing that has been on my mind that I thought I’d share with you is issue of summer classes.  Summer classes are a great way to earn college credit in a low pressure setting.  Just taking one or two classes can really help you catch up, lighten your schedule during the regular school year, or, as in my case, get the extra classes you need for a minor. 

When I first came to the Mount, I came in as a psychology major.  I changed to a history education major after my first semester.  I didn’t change because I didn’t like the program, I actually love psychology.  But I learned I couldn’t get an education license in psychology, it’s not an option.  So I found out I could teach Psych with a Social Studies license, so I made the choice to take the History route, which isn’t bad because I like history a lot too. 

But, completing all those psychology classes left me pretty close to earning a minor in psychology, and I didn’t even know it! My old advisor, Dr. Bodle, told me about it last semester.  So now, I’m thinking about taking the remainder of the classes I need for the minor program during the next summer or two.

The problem is (and I think it is a problem for a lot of people) that a lot of the summer classes are during the day, times that I will need for my summer job.  So I’m going to have to balance out my options and make a decision in the next week or so. 

>Eric M.

Three more weeks left in the year! But as classes start to wrap up and the freedom offered with summer break is in sight, the papers, projects, and final tests are piling up.  Some people think that the last week, exam week, is the hardest and most stressful part of the semester. But I believe the few weeks leading up to exams are the toughest.  Every professor wants to get that last big paper or test in before the final exams.  I’ve had about 3 papers and two tests just in the past week!  And to make things worse, my AYA 365 class ends two weeks early.

The AYA course is the Distant Learning course I am taking that I told you guys about earlier in the semester.   There are a lot of independent projects involved that have had some technical problems that have just recently been fixed that I’ll need to catch up on and an observation portfolio that I have been working on for a few weeks.  The portfolio consists of a 15 hour observation practicum at Oak Hills High School, a summary of the lesson plans I observed, and a review of experiences I had observed.  I also have a final paper to write up.  All this is due this upcoming Thursday! So I’m going to be pretty busy this next week, finishing up the work for that AYA course, while taking care of all the other papers and tests I have for the rest of my classes. 

So all the plans I have for the summer, no matter how close it seems, need to just wait a few more weeks because I still have a lot of work to get done! I just have to muster up enough motivation to make sure I stay organized and on top of all the assignments.  It’s hard to stay focused after such a long year!

I’ll let ya know how it’s all going next week!

>Eric M.

Hey guys.

I wanted to take the opportunity of this blog to talk to you about community here in Cincinnati.  I’ve never really had proof at how close-knit this community is, until this past week. 

Now, I don’t know if you have heard, some of you most likely did, but there was a fire last Friday, April 4^th that took the lives of two Colerain Township firefighters. Colerain Township is a township within 20 minutes of school and the township I live in.  The firefighters were 37 year old Captain Robin Zang-Broxterman, a 17-year veteran, and 29 year old Brian Schira.

Those are the facts, now let me tell you my story. It’s lengthy, but worth it.

I got out of my class around 9:50 a.m. and headed down to the wrestling lounge to finish a homework project that was due in two hours.  When I was down there, I received a phone call from one of my high school wrestling coaches.  He asked me if I had heard about the fire that morning, which at that time, I hadn’t.  He then told me that they hadn’t released any names yet, but he knew that one of the two firefighters killed was my high school (Oak Hills H.S.) head wrestling coach’s sister (Robin Zang-Broxterman). 

I felt terrible.  Coach Zang is like a father to me and I also knew one of his brothers and his father as well. I couldn’t imagine the pain they had to have been feeling at the time.  About five minute later, my mom called me and asked if I had heard about Zang’s sister.  I told her that I had and then asked her how she knew (the names still hadn’t been released).  She told me that my aunt works with one of Zang’s other sister and she found out through the grapevine at work.  My mom also told me that she was at Home Depot and knew someone working.  When my mom saw her, she asked what was wrong and found out that the other firefighter who had been killed was Brian Schira, who was a Home Depot employee.  I felt even worse.  My girlfriend, Jordan, works at that Home Depot. 

I called up Jordan and relayed the bad news.  She told me that Home Depot has a lot of  part-time employees and that she only had seen Schira a few times and never really talked to him, but she still felt the loss.  And she wasn’t alone.

As the Friday progressed, I saw a few fire departments around the area lowering their flags to half-mast and hanging up the black and purple mourning shrouds.  The names were finally released later that day and it seemed as if the whole community went into mourning.  American flags hung at half-mast on every flag pole I saw and everyone was talking about how terrible it was.  I called up Coach Zang to let him know I was thinking about him, but as I figured, he didn’t pick up. I left my condolences on his voicemail and stayed in contact with the rest of the coaching staff over at Oak Hills. 

The weekend passed and I received news on the funeral information.  The visitation was scheduled to take place on Tuesday and the funeral was scheduled for the next day.  One of the Oak Hills wrestler’s parents decided that it would be nice if we all met up at Oak Hills and drove down to the visitation together. 

So on Tuesday, I took my parents’ full size van and drove up to Oak Hills, expecting like 10-15 people to be there.  When I pulled into the parking lot, there were close to 50 wrestlers, ex-wrestlers, parents, and teachers standing in a group.  It was pretty cool to see all those people there to support Zang and his family.  I packed as many people as I could into my van and we caravanned down to the funeral home.  When we reached the funeral home, we saw thousands of people pouring out of the funeral home into the sidewalks and parking lot.  We all got in line and saw a few more people we all knew.  After about ten minutes, we saw Coach Zang making his way up the line and talking to a few people here and there.  When he reached us, he was smiling and gave each person a hug.  I was happy to see that we cheered him up a little.

Zang eventually had to go back inside the funeral home.  None of us left, we all stayed in line.  The line took us up to the funeral home and into the room where Schira lay.  I was able to talk to Brian’s mother and tell her I was praying for her and her family.  She then gave me a hug and the memory of that hug will last in my mind forever.

The line then took us through a few empty rooms and hallways and into the room where Robin and her family were.  Robin’s mother came out and, as Coach Zang had done, hugged everyone and managed to smile.  Nobody wants to think about facing a mourning mother, and at that point, I had faced two, with nothing to consul them but a few words and a hug.  The line continued and Coach Zang, his father, two brothers, and two sisters greeted us and said how unbelievable it was to see all of us there supporting them. Coach Zang was at the end of the line and it pulled him aside for a minute and joked with him about shaving his beard and told him we needed to go to Wing Night at Wild Mike’s when everything settled down.  Then we paid our respects to Robin.  When made our way out of the funeral home and towards the van, we realized we spent just under 4 and a half hours in line.  I was proud of the wrestlers and their families for how much respect they showed for Coach Zang and his family. A lot of them had to be at work and school in the morning and it was getting pretty late.  But none of them said a word about leaving, even though they saw Zang earlier in the evening.  They all wanted to show their respect for the Schira family and the rest of the Zang family.  So did about 7 THOUSAND other community members! It was amazing to see so many firefighters, police officers, rangers, and civilians standing in line to show how much they respected and honored the two fallen heroes.

The funeral was the next day and I decided not to go, considering they were estimating around 10 thousand people to be there and I wouldn’t get a chance to see Coach Zang or his family.  The Zang family gave permission for Channel 12 to broadcast the mass and the graveside memorial, so I watched the entire event, which started at 11:00 a.m. and lasted about five hours.  I was astonished at how many people packed into the Cathedral and even overflowed out into the streets and blocks surrounding.  There were speakers set up in the streets and the big screen down at Fountain Square aired the mass live.  There were fire trucks lined up everywhere in the streets. 

After the mass, the funeral procession moved from the Cathedral to the cemetery.  The 10 minute drive took about an hour and a half to two hours due to the massive amounts of people.  The thousands of people filtered into the cemetery. It was amazing; almost ten thousand people were there and you couldn’t hear a word! The entire population was so respectful.

The rest of the ceremony was very touching, I didn’t see a dry eye in attendance.  The most touching part was when the Hamilton County Dispatch made a final call over the firefighter radio for Cpt. Robin Zang-Broxterman and firefighter Brian Schira.  It was incredible to see how many people were touched by this. 

The point of this whole story is to show how much the community here in Cincinnati respects its service members, as well as the rest of the people around them.  Seeing so many people caring about the fallen firefighters and their families gave me a newfound faith in mankind.  Everyone really came together when they were needed. I live in an amazing city!

My Prayers to the Zang and Schira Family.

Rest in Peace Robin and Brian!

Inside the St. Peter in Chains Cathedral

Robin and Brian prepare for their procession to Spring Grove Cemetery.

  Cpt. Robin Zang-Broxterman preparing for the Procession to the Cemetery.  Thousands of Firefighters, Police, and EMT's salute out of respect.

 The Zang Family

This weekend I had the opportunity to see the College of Mount St. Joseph’s production of Oklahoma!.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with the play, Oklahoma!  is a musical written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, two big names in the musical world.  They have written many well known musicals such as Carousel, The King and I, The Sound of Music, and South Pacific.  I’m fairly familiar with most of these because my Grandmother used to watch the VHS version of these musicals constantly.  She would watch me before my afternoon kindergarten class and I always remember some musical playing on her big screen television. 

So, when I heard the Mount was presenting Oklahoma!, I figured it would be cool to go and see the play and relive the old days over at my Grandmother’s house when I was little. (I also seized the opportunity to trick my girlfriend into thinking I’m cultured and invited her to see the play with me.  We made a little date out of it.) 

The tickets were pretty cheap, it only cost ten bucks total for Jordan and I to get in.  When we found our seats and settled in, the play had just started.  I honestly was sort of skeptical of the performance at first.  I had never seen a play at the Mount and didn’t really know the quality of past productions.  And I have only seen the play performed by professional actors and actresses.  So I wasn’t sure if the Mount performers were up to the task of meeting my high expectations. 

But, I’m glad to say, I was dead wrong.  The performers were great.  I had known some of the performers from my classes and I was amazed at their ability to sing and perform!  The main characters, Laurey, Ado Annie, Curly, Aunt Eller, Will Parker, and Jud Fry were amazing at fulfilling their parts.  The rest of the cast was great too. The level of performance definitely exceeded my expectations.  I am still amazed at the performance and singing abilities of a few of the main characters.  They, in my mind, were easily comparable to the professionals I’m used to seeing playing the parts. 

If the rest of the performances at Mount St. Joseph are as good as Oklahoma! was, I highly recommend going.  And you’ll most likely see me there because I’m definitely going to the next production!

>Eric M.

Hey guys. 

This blog is running a little late. I apologize for that, I just got over the flu and had a pretty tough week last week.  But anyway, I wanted to tell you guys about the event I had the opportunity to take part in this past week.  I was a representative for the College of Mount St. Joseph on a nation wide virtual college fair.  It was pretty cool. 

The whole event took place on the website www.collegeweeklive.com and I participated at two days of the event.  The first day, I was set up to receive instant message from students visiting our virtual booth and answer any questions they might have.  But unfortunately, the website had a few technical difficulties and I wasn’t able to interact with anybody.

The following day I was supposed to be live on webcam and answer questions sent in by instant message from students.  After the first day’s troubles, I was a little worried I wouldn’t be able to accomplish that, but the staff at College Week Live was on top of things and assured me everything would run smoothly.  And it did! At around 6pm on Wednesday, I went live on the webcam and had an hour to interact with students visiting the site from all over.  They had some interesting questions and it was pretty fun.  The only bad thing was I was running a 102 fever during the event, but I was loaded up on Tylenol and I think I handled it okay.

I’m not sure if the event is happening again soon, but if I get some info on it, I’ll be sure to post in on here. I think it was a very valuable experience for me and any prospective students visiting the site.  It was also nice to share some insight about the school I attend and hopefully help make the tough decision of choosing a college a little easier.

> Eric M.

Hope you had a Happy Easter!

And with Easter comes spring break for most schools. I am actually just returning back to class from the College of Mount St. Joseph’s spring break.  A bunch of people around campus had big plans to head down to Florida on one of those little road trips I was tellin ya about earlier.  A few people went on cruises. Man, do I wish I were them!  I’ve never been on a cruise and I think it would be a blast.

So, while all these people had big plans, I was left in good ol’ Cincinnati because I was out of cash and had gotten swamped with school work. Luckily for me though, most people didn’t leave until after St. Patrick’s Day.  This allowed for at least a little chill time. 

The rest of the week, however, was spent dodging the Great Flood we had in the Cincinnati Area and tryin to get some of my work done.  The flood was pretty exciting, there’s a river (The Little Miami River) right down the hill from my house that rose 10 feet above flood stage and did a lot of damage. Thankfully, there was no damage to my family’s property because of our location on top of a big hill. 

Other than the flood, there really was no big excitement around here. This actually turned out to be for the best.  I spent some much needed time with my girlfriend, Jordan, and hung out with my family.  I also ran across some old friends from middle school, which was pretty cool.

And then of course Easter rolled around to finish off the break.  The weekend flew, as do most holiday weekends do, and was packed with family events from Jordan’s family and my own. 

Overall, I really don’t regret not having any big trips planned for spring break. It would have been cool to get away, don’t get me wrong, but the time I spent with my family and girlfriend was very relaxing and recharged me to take on the rest of the semester.

If you had your spring break already, I hope it was fun and relaxing. And if you are currently on spring break or it’s still on the horizon, make good use of your time!

>Eric M.

After talking about the things that you can do at and around the Mount, I forgot to mention alternative things to do.  Something my friends and I like to do is take big road trips.  Most recently, myself, three friends, and one of my wrestling coaches all piled in a 1991 Toyota Corolla and headed out to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  Although most road trips don’t really need a purpose, the inspiration for this one was to watch our teammate, Elliott Spence, wrestle out at the NCAA Div. III National Tournament.

Keep in mind: five guys, tiny car, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa is 8 hours away.  

To make the trip even more interesting, we decided to leave at midnight on a Thursday night so that we wouldn’t have to stay an extra night in Iowa. 

After packing everyone in the car in Delhi, we set off for Iowa.  Shortly after, our coach fell asleep and didn’t move for hours.  Along the way we saw all kinds of cool stuff, including a forest fire, an over turned tractor trailer, and the Mississippi River.  Not to mention the World’s Largest Truck Stop out on I-80. 

Out in Iowa, we met up with Elliott and the rest of the coaching staff who had arrived a few days earlier.  We watched Elliott wrestle a great tournament.  He made it to the National Finals and ended up taking 2^nd place, which is pretty cool.  And of course, with the end of the tournament came the return trip home.  We luckily played off our coach into the car with the rest of the coaches and only had four guys in the tiny Corolla.

The trip home wasn’t as interesting as the trip out, but it was still fun. 

Road trips are always fun, just watch the gas prices because they can get expensive!

> Eric M.

Hey guys!

Have you ever thought about what the social life of a Mount student might be like?  A lot of people think that since MSJ is a smaller college, there isn’t much to do and the social scene would be pretty dull.

Wrong.

True, the College of Mount St. Joseph might be smaller than some other colleges or universities, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t know how to have fun! 

Let’s start with on-campus activities.  Other than the athletic events (which are always fun to attend), there are many events, from concerts performed by the MSJ bands and guest artists, to comedy shows from celebrity comedians.  Just recently, we had a comedian who performs on Comedy Central come in and do a show for us.  I couldn’t attend because of a wrestling tournament, but I heard he was pretty funny.  The various clubs on campus also have a wide array of events planned throughout the school year.  They brought in a relationship doctor to offer dating advice and tips around Valentine’s Day, as a kind of real life “Hitch”.  And I can’t forget Music Fest.  Music Fest takes place towards the end of the spring term and hosts many well known artists.  It’s a blast and you also can get a free t-shirt! There is also the formal dances and homecoming which is always something fun to take part in.

Along with all the cool activities on campus, you can also venture out and do something off campus.  MSJ is about 5 minutes from downtown Cincinnati and there is always something going on around the area.  You can take a date up to the top of the Carew Tower (the tallest building in the city) and check out the city from a bird’s eye view, take a carriage ride through the city, or visit one of the parks over looking the city like Eden Park or Devoe Park in Kentucky.  There are also the bars and clubs (if you’re of age) in Clifton just minutes away.  Just across the river is Newport, which offers many things to do, from the AMC Theatre to Gameworks arcade.  If you’re into music, Cincinnati’s Music Hall is a great place to see the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops, two world renowned orchestras that are very good.  Cincinnati also offers sporting events-Reds baseball and Bengals football games, Cyclones hockey and Jungle Kats arena football games, and plenty of places to take part in your own activities, such as biking, Disc golf, regular golf, baseball, soccer, football, etc. 

So if you’re thinking there is nothing to do around here, think again! If not enough is happening around campus, there is ALWAYS something nearby that will interest you.

>Eric M.