Anatole France, a French novelist, once wrote: “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” I’m starting to realize how right he was.

It’s really that way about school this year. I do want the school year to end. I need a break! Finals and everything really wears you down by the time you get out. But, at the same time…I’ll miss so much about this place. After being so busy for so long, when I go home and have nothing but my summer job to do.

I’ll miss how much art I make during the school year, that’s for sure. I do assure you, I’ll be doing plenty of my own art over the summer! But I’m never as productive on my own as I am in a group setting. Thankfully I’ve found that my roommate, Jimmy, doesn’t live too far away from me! So I think we’ll probably be hanging out a bunch over the summer. Maybe I’ll get him to work on some art with me over the summer. Maybe we’ll both keep each other working!

I’m sitting in the art gallery now, working my last Saturday this year. And it’s a beautifully sunny day outside. I can see the quad from here, and everything’s in bloom. It all looks so beautiful! I wish I had time to walk about campus a few more times and take another look at all my favorite spots.  Living on campus is sort of like having a really big, really nice front yard. I’m going to miss the convenience of having room to throw a baseball right outside my door. I’m definitely going to miss being able to see the river from my window!

Also, the end of any school year always comes with goodbyes. Maria, my RA who has been so wonderful to us this entire year, is graduating. I don’t know how we’ll get by on the 6th floor without her. I know she’ll do wonderfully I whatever career she finds herself in. Good luck, Maria!

Also, our good friend Sarah is moving on to Bowling Green. She’s been with us all year, and I was so disappointed to hear that she was leaving. I know that she’ll do well though. Good luck, Sarah, we’ll miss you!

And all of our seniors that I’ve gotten to meet and work with this entire year, including a few of our bloggers! Good luck to EZ, Jodi, and Kristen. I know you guys will do well in whatever careers you find along your path in life. Good luck to each one of you. We’ll miss you here at the Mount.

But of course, with every ending there comes a beginning. We’ll have a brand new class of Freshman coming in this fall. And hopefully a few people reading this now will be joining us! I’m looking forward to starting our new clubs and organizations and performing in new plays and musicals along with newcomers from the incoming class. I know next year will be even better than this one.

And with that, I’ll leave you folks! Over this summer there’s a lot of work and preparation to be done…I’m already looking forward to next year!

I hope you all had a wonderful school year, and I hope you all have an even better summer. And I hope to see you all next year, right here at the College of Mount St. Joseph!

Hey everyone!

Man the semester went fast didn’t it? I’m pretty much done! I have two classes and a portfolio review during exam week, but I’ll be entirely done by Wednesday. This isn’t always true, but usually art classes won’t give exams, you’ll have a large final project instead. Which is great for me! I’d much rather work a couple hours each night on an art project than study frantically for an exam!

Now comes the biggest part of the end of the year for us residents in the dorms: Moving out.

Officially, I think you have to be out of the dorm completely by the Friday of exam week, but if (like me) you get finished early, it’s best to move out early! That way you don’t get caught up in all the traffic of everyone moving out at the same time. Lots of people that live here at the Mount actually live within an hour or so of the school. So these past couple of days, whenever I’ve had time, I run back to my house with a load of things from my dorm that I won’t be needing anymore. That way, when I finally am completely done, all I have to do is just move out the big stuff: our futon, TV, and mini-fridge.

Especially if you move out early, it really doesn’t even take that long! Which is saying something for me and Jim. We have a ton of junk!

If I had to give advice to the incoming freshmen of next year, it would be this: Go ahead and bring your stuff. People always tell students to be so frugal in what they bring to school, because of space. Well folks, especially if you live in Seton Center, like Jim and me do, go ahead and bring something if you think you’ll have a use for it.

Our room is cram packed! We got two fish tanks in our room, a tv connected to a play station 2, and xbox 360, an original xbox, an N64, an SNES, and an original NES. We’ve only played the older systems a few times, but we had a blast when we did! Jim and I have a giant art table in front of our pantry. It takes a minute to squeeze by it, but Jim and I used the heck out of it! I was talking drawing and Jim used it to work on his calligraphy class homework. Jim has an entire collection of screw drivers, ratchet sets, like 4 different sized wrenches and a few hammers. The bag of tools is heavy and gets in the way sometimes, but we were able to help so many of our friends fix things over the semester. Jim and I have a giant bookcase that makes our entry way look a lot smaller, but we both had our favorite books and manga to read all semester.

If you think you even might need something, go ahead and bring in to the dorm. You can always take it back home later if it’s just getting in the way. My point is, Jimmy and I share a room that might be crowded and a little messy, but it’s comfortable. I have about everything I want or need within arm’s reach!

Well, guys, I have to get back to packing up my stuff. I think I’m moving out most of my stuff on Saturday! Don’t worry, I’ll have another blog up before I leave for the year!

See you soon, guys! But before I go, here are a few pictures!

This is our art table, it's got paint on it from Jim and me working. We used it a ton! The pencil light makes it great for drawing.

 

 

And this is our bookcase! It's not really full of books anymore, because Jim and me have been taking our books back to our houses, but I can assure you, we used it! Jim and I both like to read very much. He had his entire collection of R.A. Salvatore books right there, and I had several Manga series, my Micheal Bergey books, and a few of my Brian Jacques collection. And we were reading all semester.

 So, bring your stuff if you want it guys! I think you'll end up using it!

Hey everybody! And Hello again from the Mount! I can’t stay to talk too long today, I’m working tonight at the thesis opening for the Interior Design majors. As an artist, it’s really wonderful to see what the older students are capable of doing, and it’s awesome to see the stuff they’ve put together!

It really is moving almost to see the displays. What these senior students are showing is the culmination of four years worth of hard work, and it’s a condensed project showing all the skills they’ve learned. And after this, they’ll be leaving us, out to either continue their education elsewhere or to move on to work in the real world. I wish them all the best of luck!

It’s coming to the end of the year! Just one more school week left, a few exams, and we’re outta here! Thankfully, as an art major, I have a lot of final projects, and a big portfolio review in design, but not too many exams. At least, not too many this semester. : D

At this time of the year, when I’m watching all the senior students working on their final work here at the Mount, I start looking forward to working on my own capstone.

The capstone program is something unique to the Mount. It’s a culmination of everything you’ve done here at the Mount. It’s not really supposed to focus on the core curriculum, but also not entirely on your major. It’s a complete representation of yourself as a person, and what you’ve learned here at the Mount.

The exact definition of what are capstone is can be found here. http://inside.msj.edu/departments/acad_affairs/ccep/capstone/

A capstone project is really versatile, it can be almost anything that a student thinks of, as long as the student can demonstrate how it integrates disciplines, and shows the learning outcomes of the college.

Brand new this year was the first phase of the recycling program here at the Mount. For the first time this year, the College has recycling receptacles in the Seton Center, and they’ve given a recycling bin to each of the rooms for the residents to use for recycling. This entire program was suggested in a presentation that one of the graduating seniors presented last spring. He laid out a several year plan for making the College a recycling campus. And so far, I think it’s worked well.

Well, most of us art majors won’t be creating recycling programs for the Mount. The art majors create a culmination of their art skills. But you’d be surprised if you come down to see what these art students have done, you’d be amazed at what the students come up with. I’m really looking forward to seeing the interior design majors’ work up tonight for the first time!

P.S. Folks! Just thought I’d add in a little extra! Here are some pictures I took at the Thesis opening on Friday night! The place was paaaaaaacked! We really filled it up with people. I was so glad to see so many people in our art gallery!
 

Hey all! And hello again from the Mount!

I think Spring has finally arrived here at the Mount! I was wondering if it was ever going to show up! But it’s finally warmed up this past week. My buddies and I were outside as much as we could manage last week, playing whiffle ball, football, and tossing a baseball around the quad. Boy it’s scary to toss baseball with my friend Ryan. He used to play, and he’s capable of throwing a baseball 100 yards! When he throws it at you, he throws it FAST.

You know, sports are a big part of the Mount. The Football season was really fun here at the Mount, and the Basketball season just finished up. Baseball is starting up, we’re all really excited for that. I’d have to say, I really am proud I go to a Division III school. Because we have a lot of athletes here that are really great at what they do on the field, and at the same time are high GPA students that are going into great careers. It’s fun to watch them on and off the field.

I remember when I was in my IDS 100 seminar, Professor Barkley said that like 65% of our undergraduates play a sport. That’s huge! More of our undergraduate students play a sport than those that do not!

I don’t play a sport… but that doesn’t mean that I won’t! We’ll have to see how things go! I have to say, I love watching. I got friends in my classes that play lacrosse, basketball, football, soccer, and wrestle. And they’re all taking classes in chemistry, physical therapy, and interior design.

And I never saw our football team lose this season!

Well, guys, I got to run! I have some work left to do. It’s almost crunch time here…exams are just around the corner! So the teacher’s are piling on the homework. I got a lot of stuff coming due in the next few weeks. Time to get to it!

I’ll see you all later on this week, I hope!

Hey there, everybody! Tom here… and musical’s finally done with! I hope a lot of you got to come out and see it. It turned out great! I always get mixed feelings when I close a show, because I do have all my free time back, but I don’t get to see the cast nearly enough after we close. A few of my good friends from the show actually came to perform with us, and they don’t even go to school here! So it’ll be awhile until I see them again. I didn't get to take any pictures of the musical.. because I was always on stage! But Andi, on of my fellow bloggers did. Run over to her page and check them out!

But all the world’s a stage, and Shakespeare had it right! My director, Mary Mazuk will shortly begin working on the next musical that will perform in the Spring of 2009. We have to think of it all this early! My good friend, Chad, who played with me in Oklahoma!, is the president of CPAC (The Creative and Performing Arts Club) and we’re starting to work on a play we’ll perform in the fall, if we manage to get it all together! I hope to see you all there. ;)

My friend had an interesting question for me the other day. I was boasting of me and Jim’s success in bringing in all my old stuff from home, namely an original NES, an SNES, and an N64! My friend laughed and said “I guess you guys don’t have much to do over there except playing videogames!”

I thought about it, and I replied “No, that’s really not true at all.”

I really couldn’t count how much stuff goes on campus, folks. It’s absolutely impossible to do every single thing! SGA and BSU clubs are always brining in shows, or playing games. We have Bingo a couple times a month, and we have intramural sports! Soccer, Volleyball, whiffle ball, football, and basketball can all be played in intramurals. We’re having our Spring Formal here in just a few days, for those of you that like to dress up nice and hit the dance floor! Clubs and Boards here on campus often bring in shows for us on Friday nights. We just had Laughter on the Hill a few nights ago, and a bunch of professional comedians came and performed for us!

And each individual floor in the residence hall does it’s own activities, too! My RA, Maria, really does some cool stuff for us. We’ll have pizza and movie nights, we all got together and made t-shirts at the beginning of the year. In just a couple nights here, we’re gonna have a poker night, no buy-ins and the winners will get prizes. :) I’m looking forward to that a lot.

Well, guys, I have to leave you now. But remember, Campus Concert Band performs on Sunday, April 20th, at 2 pm! Come out and give a listen, we got some really cool music this year. We’re playing a great mix of old classics, historical pieces, as well as a few songs that only a few bands have ever performed before!

Come on out, it’ll be a good show!

Hope to see you all there!

Hey Folks, and hello again from the art building of the Mount!

Right now up in the art building we’ve got the senior thesis show for the Graphic Design students. All you future Graphic Designers out there, you ought to stop by! You can see what the students here have managed to accomplish in their years here at the Mount. I have to say, I’m sitting out in the gallery, and I’m looking at the work now… and I’m very impressed. I look forward to when I get up to where these students are, and I can create displays like I see here!

I was gonna tell y’all about Oklahoma!, but I can see that my buddy Andi has that covered! We still got a few shows, tonight and tomorrow! You can come see Andi and I in action over in the college theater tonight and

Anyway, I’m here watching the gallery and I was working on my class schedule! I’m certain some of the other students have told you about class schedules, but any one out there coming to the college for art? I can tell you about that!

Everyone here in the college has an advisor, and it’ll usually be someone in your major. For me, as a Graphic Designer, my advisor is Professor Dan Mader, and he teaches 3-d Design here at the Mount. So he knows quite a bit about which classes I should take!

Every major here comes with a sheet of paper they give you when you begin, and it tells you what classes are recommended you take each semester, to keep you on track for graduating in four years. There are some classes you can trade around and take different semesters, and there are some that you really shouldn’t! For me, in my BFA in Graphic Design, I have to take a lot of Art History. I can move those classes around, though, and catch up with them later in my college career. I’m also hoping to take classes over the summer for one or two years. But I also have six Graphic Design classes. Graphic Design I all the way though Graphic Design VI! Now those I can’t switch around! If I skipped those, I’d never be able to graduate in four years!

There’s also extra classes I’d like to take, because I just love traditional art! I’m hoping to take a glass-working class next semester, but I’ll have to talk with my advisor. That’s an awful lot of credit hours if I do take it! I’m also really looking forward to taking Photography next semester! I’ve always wanted to take Photography in high school, but I never had time in my schedule. But now I finally get to take it! I’m looking forward to it very much!

Well, I gotta get back to arranging my classes and trying to make it all fit! And trying to make sure I don’t have to get up too early!

See you all next week!

Hey Folks! Hello again from the Mount!

I’ve just gotten back to the dorms after spending a nice week at home. Spring break was pretty nice! It was very timely as well, because I really needed a break! 

The first weekend of break I had a blast! My roommate, Jimmy, and I both stayed in town, so we decided to plan a big get-together! Jim used to live in Pennsylvania, and two of his buddies from his old paintball team drove down and we played paintball all Saturday! After we were done we came back to my house, and we all ate a giant turkey dinner that my family had cooked for us. After that we played cards for the rest of the night. It was a really good time! Not to mention our buddies loaned us enough paintball gear that we should be able to play anytime we want!

The rest of the break was really relaxing! My teachers were all actually pretty nice, and I had very little homework over the break! I finished that up early in the week, and I pretty much just hung out all week! Jimmy and I spent most the week playing old-school video games. We broke out my old NES and SNES and played those for awhile. Its good fun to play those games we played growing up. It makes me laugh even more because I’m not as good at Super Mario World now as I was when I was 6 years old! Ha! 

I used some free time over break to practice my sax for concert band, and that’s coming along very well! We also had a few small musical rehearsals during the week, to get our lines and characters down. Musical is going really well! I still hope you all can come out to see it!

Now we’re all back in the dorms, swapping pictures of Myrtle Beach and Tennessee… I’m just making sure I got everything in order before classes boot back up. Man, Jimmy and I left the dorm a mess! We’re trying to get the dorm a little cleaner before tomorrow. 

Speaking of cleaning the dorm, I gotta get back to that! I hope everyone had a lovely spring break! See you all next week. ; )

Hey everyone!

Man, school’s a lot of work right now, but it still seems to be going so fast! We’re already more than halfway through March! It seems like just yesterday it was Valentine’s Day! What happened to February? It went by so fast!

Anyway, I wanted to share something with you guys. My friend asked me a question the other night, and it’s a question that I get way more than I would have expected. We were playing cards and we were talking about where we all go to school, so I was describing the Mount and my friend interrupted me:

“Hey, Tom… You go to a Catholic school? Do you have to go to church?”

Perhaps some of you guys are wondering this, too?

No, as a student at the Mount, I am not required to go to Mass. What we mean when I say the Mount is a Catholic College is that we were founded by Catholics, and we are rooted in the Catholic faith. We care about a lot of the things that Catholics care about! We do our best to help many charities out during the school year, and our students do a great deal of service to help the community surrounding the Mount.

But don’t worry! We’re not required to do any of this. Just encouraged.

However, if you do wish to attend Mass, you can do so right here on campus! On one end of my floor of the door building, we have a really nice chapel, and we have Mass in there every Sunday, and several times during the week. So if your Parish is a little too far from the Mount to drive on Sunday, you can stay right here on campus!

My friend also asked me if you had to be Catholic to attend the Mount. The answer is no! There are plenty of people here that are not Catholic. We welcome all religions and all types at the Mount. The more the merrier!

There’s tons of cool stuff going on at the Mount right now! Keep an eye on the website! All of our music groups have performances coming up over the next few weeks. You can see me perform with the Mount Campus Concert Band coming up here soon. We’ve put together a pretty good show. I’m excited with how good it’s turning out.

And don’t forget! I’m playing the lead role in the Mount’s spring production of Oklahoma! I’ll be playing the part of Curly, and the production is turning out great! I can promise you a great show. You should all come over to take a look around campus, and then you can stick around for the show!

Well, friends, I have a rehearsal to run to! I’ll talk to you guys next week!

Hey all! Hello again from the Mount! I hope everyone survived our recent snow fiasco! A lot of the other dorm-folks and I had a fun day of it, throwing snow balls and making snow angels out in the quad. It was a good time!

 You know, that's one of the most important things about the Mount that I've never told you about! If you live an hour or more away from the Mount, I'd really reccomend you live on campus! Especially if you're a first year student. Living on campus, I've made far more friends than I ever would have if I had stayed at home. Not to mention if you're coming from the east side of town, you have to go through downtown Cincinnati traffic, which isn't very fun! Also if you live on campus, you're never more than five minutes away from class! I don't know about any of the rest of you, but I am a LATE LATE LATE sleeper! And I never have to get up more than 20 minutes before class to make it on time. It's pretty nice for morning classes!

 I love the dorms at the Mount! I've been to the dorms at UC, Xavier, and Thomas More College...trust me, the Mount's got waaaaay nicer dorms than the rest them!

 There are three types of rooms: Singles, Doubles, and Suites. The Doubles are what most people live in, and they're pretty awesome! They're what you expect when people say 'dorms', they're the one room with two beds, a sink, and a nice big wardrobe and drawers (all with locks! If your worried about your stuff for any reason, you can lock your stuff when you leave the dorm. :D  ). If you're worried about living with someone else, or you just like your space, you can get a single, which are pretty sweet too. My current roomate lived in a single before he moved in with me, and his room was pretty nifty! It's pretty much the same as a double, but not quite as big, and you get the whole thing to yourself. :D The big downside to these is that they have heat, but not air conditioning. So they can get pretty hot in august at the beginning of the school year. But it's only hot for a couple weeks at the beginning of the year, and I'm told if you keep a box fan in the window its not too bad. 

 Now, I live in one of the Seton Center Suites, which are the best of both worlds! My roomate, Jimmy, and I both have our own rooms. In our rooms is a bed (which you can loft if you need the extra space [and I do! ]), a desk, a wardrobe (for hanging clothes) and a dresser. Me and Jimmy both share a common room, where we keep our futon, TV, and fish tanks. :D We also have a large entry way and a pantry, with space for a minifridge. And the best part is we have a bathroom and shower all to ourselves! We also have heat and air conditioning, both of which we can control by ourselves. So you can set the exact temperature you want in your room. I love the suites, they're pretty awesome!

 Really, if anyone is coming here for college soon, I recommend living on campus! It takes away a lot of the hassels of Freshman year, and you get to meet a ton of new people. I've met so many good friends here that I'll keep with me for the rest of my life. 

 I hope you all still remember that the Mount's production of Oklahoma! is coming up really soon! It's April 3-6, right here on campus! If any of you stop by, I'd be glad to talk to you after the production!

 You can buy tickets to see me, as well as an amazing cast of Mount students, perform here on campus! If you wish to buy tickets online, you can do so through this link:

https://webreg.msj.edu/cgi-bin/public/ticketform.cgi

 

I hope to see all of you there!!! See you all! 

Hey Folks! Tom here again, this time from the Mount Art Gallery. I love writing in this place! We have the faculty art show up this week, and I have to say…All the teachers did a great job! There’s some really neat stuff in here! I know I’ve written about it before, but if you guys are thinking about going into art, you should stop by the gallery and look at all the artwork! We have some of Cincinnati’s best artists right here, teaching at the College.

 

My Saturdays are normally pretty relaxing, I go work in the gallery in the afternoon, which is actually pretty fun work! Then I normally go have dinner in the Food Court.

 

Wait, what’s the Food Court did you ask? A good question!

 

Food is actually one of the coolest things at the Mount. We have a nice group of people called the Sanese Food Service that cook for us three times a day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They always have a main meal, and very frequently have an alternate meal that you can have if you’re not a big fan of whatever the main course is that day! Still don’t like the alternate meal? That’s alright, too; the cafeteria serves soup, sandwiches, wraps, cereal and milk, and a great salad bar everyday. I love the sandwiches, that’s what I usually get!

 

And if you ask really nicely, the cooks will usually be willing to make something special just for you! If you have any digestive problems or food allergies, the cafeteria will happily make you something that you can eat.

 

If any of you are like me, you probably eat at odd hours. That’s no problem either! We have a smaller café we call the food court which you can eat at any time of day usually from 8 AM till 7:30 PM. It’s really great for people who need to grab a quick snack before or after class.

 

And you know what? It’s getting to be about dinner time here, so I think I’ll run to the food court now! I’ll see all of you guys later!