School is out, now I can go home

Hello Everyone,

I don't know if this will be my last post for the summer or if I will be able to keep up with this throughout the summer, but you and I will just have to wait and see.

School has been done since last Wednesday, but I have to be here as an RA until today. Most of my residents left on Wednesday, but graduation was this past weekend so that is the main reason we have to stick around.

On Saturday I will officially begin my adventure and head for Williamsburg. I am both excited and nervous, but its only 12 weeks and shouldn't be too bad. Here I come Water Country USA.

Just a final shout out for the 2010-11 school year. I would like to thank my professor Meghan for all of the support throughout the year, Molly, my Hall Diector, for her patience and understanding as I asked so many questions, and most of all for my residents. My floor this year has been amazing and everyday that I am here alone makes me sad because of all of the empty space of where they once were. McAuley is a great place and don't let anyone tell you differently.

It has been an amazing year here at Mercyhurst. I have seized the year and I am so thankful for all of the opportunities I have been granted.

Seniors, enjoy whats left of proms, graduation and all the parties. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to meet you in the fall. Juniors, as always let me know if you have questions or comments. Mercyhurst is a great place, and while I am biased, I truly believe that the opportunities are endless here. :-) I'm done lecturing.

HAVE A GREAT SUMMER ALL!

Thanks for reading,
Joe

Duathlon - Mercyhurst Green Team

Hello Everyone,

As I have mentioned in the past, this past weekend I competed in the first ever, Mercyhurst College Green Team sponsored, Duathlon. The theme this year, as you can see above, was Pedal for the Planet. For those of you who don't know, a duathlon is a run-bite-run event, in this casing being a 5K run, 20K bike and 5K run.

To answer the question you probably have in your mind, they were raising money for bike racks both on campus and throughout the City of Erie. The name supports the fact that they are trying to get people to use bicycles as an alternative to cars, which would be supported by a good infrastructure of bike racks for people to store their bikes.

Originally it was just my friend Alaina and me who were going to do this, but we ended up getting a third person at the last second. She ran the first leg, I biked and Mark ran the final leg. We ended up placing 24th overall and were the first relay team to finish, which says more about the 23 individual people who did the whole event and beat us.

In an unexpected twist, we won and all received medals for winning the three person relay team category. The twist was the $25 gift card that came with it. They gave out a ton of free shirts and had plenty of food and good music after the event. I'm not sure how much they raised, but the turnout was good and it can only get better as they expand the event.


The duathlon was great and something I look forward to doing again next year! (Maybe all by myself though... hmmm)

Thanks for reading,
Joe

Spring Fest - Plain White T's

Hello Everyone,

Spring Fest was here and now gone, but there are no regrets as the weekend was a blast!

Friday night was giant as Mercyhurst welcomed five bands, count them, FIVE!  The Romantic Era, Andy Grammer, You Hang Up featuring Frankie Muniz, Parachute and The Plain White T's.            

I missed the Romantic Era, but I have only heard raving reviews. The Romantic Era is actually a local band comprised of at least one Mercyhurst College student, but I think with such success in having a local band it will become a tradition to host a local band.

Andy Grammer was also amazing. He is really well known for his hit, Keep Your Head Up, which you can see here. I think Andy was generally the surprise of the night as many people don't know his name, but his music was great.

You Hang Up featuring Frankie Muniz was cool, but that was soley because of Frankie. The band overall was... blah, but it was cool to see Frankie. Frankie even ended up going to the local bar after the show, which I guess created a lot of stir. 

Parachute was pretty cool, but the lead singer was obviously obsessed with himself. Their music was great, but you know when the lead singer spends more time in the audience then on stage that he enjoys his fans touching him just a little too much. Maybe I'm being harsh, but I'm holding to my opinion here.

Finally, the Plain White T's were an amazing headlining group. They really picked their songs up more than I expected as most of their songs seem to be slower. We were relatively close to the front when everything went dark and suddenly the lead singer was standing on the sound board in the back of the athletic center where he sung "Hey There Delilah", but then I realized that the band was coming back out so I pushed my group to the front and center right along the rail, which was were we stayed until the end of the show. It was great!

Overall, all of the performers were great and came out to sign autographs after the show. They were very friendly and down to earth.

Spring Fest also includes Saturday afternoon events, which were all held in the athletic center. There were a lot of things going on, but mostly there were really cool Hawaiian dancers, who probably weren't even Hawaiian, but they did stunts with knives and flaming torches, so how could you not like that.

The weekend was amazing, and that still doesn't include my adventures for the duathlon. Stay tuned for the next post.

Thanks for reading,
Joe

So close! Relay for Life Recap

Hello Everyone,

My sincere apologies for the extended absence. These weeks have been crazy with club work and school work all crashing together.

So I have a few updates to provide to you including Relay for Life, Spring Fest and the Duathlon.

 Relay for Life was an amazing event that took place back on April 30th. The event ran from 1 pm til 1 am with different things happening every hour. It was open to all groups, majors and organizations, but as a new event, things are still growing, but we were proud to be a part of it.

As you can see from the picture on the left, our team was small be we were strong. I know that I personally walked about 9 of the 12 hours, but it wasn't just walking. The social time that we had with each other, the activities, music and games made it a great day. We even had t-shirts made :-)

We ended up raising over $17,000 for the American Cancer Society. The walk included a survivors lap and, while I don't remember the technical name, a candle lit walk of silence.

Overall, the event was beautiful, beneficial and successful.

Thanks for reading, (Keep reading for the other updates)
Joe