Clark Diaries

           Before we get into the more entertaining news, I wanted to tell you guys about the community service that the Athletic Department does.  For the past two semesters we have being doing community service at the Jacob Hiatt school down the street. We go into the school, sit through lunch with the kids, and then we join them in recess. Each student goes once a week, and is assigned to the same class. Sometimes the kids get a little crazy, but for the most part it is an easy thing to do and the kids enjoy our company. 

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FALL FAIR

On Saturday and just because it was Halloween Clark Social Entrepreneurship Club organized the Fall Fun Fair at Tilton Hall. This fun fair was one of CSEC’s biggest fundraising events of the year, were students collaborated with various other student organizations on campus. Student groups and different clubs tabled. Some were playing games or selling other goods for fundraising or promotion. The admission fee was $1 and tickets were used to play games or for food. Moreover, games and food weren’t everything; there were also amazing performances from Clark’s singing and hip hop dance groups. They did a great job!
The fair was a lot of fun. I was actually going around from table to table and getting to know more about the different groups that took part in the event. UNICEF, Dance Society and LASO had all tables, so I found myself jumping around and tabling for all three of them. In the LASO table we had Latin desserts from Brazil and they were sold at $0.75 each. These were homemade ( in fact one of my roommates cooked them they were delicious). For the UNICEF table we had a “trick-or-treat” activity, people could come and donate in exchange of a bag full of ten candies of their choice: snickers, m&m’s, reese’s, lollipops, etc.
Finally, for Dance Society we decided on buying some pumpkins and because it was Halloween carve them with scary and fun designs. This might be shocking for some of you but I’ve never carved a pumpkin before. Pumpkin carving is effectively an American tradition and in El Salvador people do not take Halloween as serious as they do here. So, it was at the fall fair that I carved my first pumpkin and it came out really nice after all!

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As I promised you in my previous post this time I have lots of wonderful pictures. The event of Dance Society and Women Surviving the Storm was amazing. Five of us members of Dance Society went to the India Center located at, 152 Main Street in Shrewsbury, where the fundraising dinner was taking place. It was a short drive and we were all excited about our performance. Two of the dancers from the group had choreographed an empowering routine to the songs “Walk Away” and “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera. In my opinion both songs were perfect, they definitively fitted with what the ladies from Women Surviving the Storm needed. Both songs talk about how different struggles in life cannot bring your hopes down. They are inspiring songs about how everyone should try hard to believe in themselves.

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This fall Clark Athletics has had a lot to be proud of both on and off the field. The Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) has been planning and participating in different events that engage the community, campus and athletes. SAAC organized the first ever Fall Sports team Pasta dinner that brought together the Women’s and Men’s soccer, Women’s and men’s Cross country, Women’s and Men’s rowing, Field Hockey, Women’s tennis and women’s Volleyball. A few out of season athletes helped cook the food while the fall athletes enjoyed socializing, eating and decorating cookies with ‘pump up’ messages. The pasta dinner had a great turnout and was a fun time, so SAAC is planning to have another one for the winter sports.

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Another busy week in the life of a Clark student!

I’m taking a graphic design class, which has turned out to be really challenging but also so rewarding. As an international development major, I’m not used to taking classes which have studio hours and lots of independent, creative visual work, so it is a welcome change! The goal of the course, since it is intro-level, its to get students to begin thinking like designers; in small ways, I see this shift starting to occur within me. This week, we’re working on our biggest project yet – an image-making focused piece that will culminate in an artist’s book. Below is a photo of my tablemates in the class this past Tuesday, adding pages to what will become their final books.

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                            For those trying to get a better understanding of the work schedule here at Clark (and probably a lot of schools), there is an unofficial, but typical mountain and valley pattern of workflow. There are usually two to three weeks of normal homework assignments and the occasional quiz (the valley period). Then, there is one week where all of your professors conspire against you by giving you larger homework assignments, all of your exams, quizzes, projects, and papers while simultaneously stealing your sleep, fun, and peaceful state of mind, hence the term “hell week” commonly used here. This week was one of the “hell weeks” of the semester, and I am not happy, but I survived due to the fact that my exam was open book, open notes, and on the internet (thank you Professor O’Brien). The next hell week is definitely going to be in two weeks, the last week before Thanksgiving break. In fact, if this week were the bunny slope, that week will be Mt. Everest completed with avalanches, rockslide, subzero temperatures, hail the size of bowling balls, and your worst enemy standing at the top laughing at you throughout the whole ascent. However, if you survive and reach the top (get through the week without failing any assignments) you get the incredible satisfaction of throwing your enemy into a downhill body slam and then you can ride his/her face like a snowboard down the mountain. Fortunately, these slopes and valleys don’t always exist throughout a semester, and sometimes they don’t exist at all. From a more optimistic view, some people get lucky and end up with professors that work on different schedules so that there is not a lot of conflict in your assignments. Even if you aren’t so lucky, “hell weeks” are doable, so long as you put your armor on and prepare for academic war.
                             Now that I have vented and have you scared in your seats for what the future might hold, let’s get on to the fun stuff. First I would like to toot my own horn by saying that I delivered an absolute slaughter to my roommate Pete somewhere around 8 times in a row, giving me an undefeated night in Halo 3. The last match I beat him 25 to 8. Oh, and Jeff got 5 (ppftt, sad). Pete was very angry, and I tried not to laugh (he’s gonna hate me for writing this, but I just had to for all the trash talking he’s been delivering this year). If you want to do some competitive gaming, you come here and battle with the cougars.

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Hey soon-to-be Clarkies, Clarkies and all of the above! I hope you’re as excited as I am, as we both embark on this journey together. I hope you enjoy my first post.  Any questions, comments or suggestions,  are welcomed. I look forward to hearing from you!

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