“You’ve Got 10 Minutes!"

On February 2, 2003 (Ground Hogs Day) I woke up to the sound of the fire alarm.  I heard that the campus sometimes does random fire drills just to make sure that they obey the rules and regulations.  I remember looking at the clock just to see how early it was…it wasn’t that early, only 10 a.m.  It was like my brain shut off and I really didn’t think clearly on what I should grab just in case we were not allowed to return to the dorms right away.  I grabbed my phone, keys, my cougar card and my sweatshirt.  I went down the four flights of stairs because we were not allowed to even touch the elevator and went outside.  I remember looking for the familiar people like Megan, Angela, Izzy and Amber.  At this point Lauren was with Johannes and not around a lot.  I found Amber and decided to walk to wherever we were supposed to go with her.  

 Looking back at this, lots of people were half naked.  Many people were in their bathrobes, shorts, t-shirts and I believe there was even a kid in a towel.  That would suck to be in the middle of a shower or on the toilet when the alarm went off.  We were instructed to walk to the REC center; once we were there we would receive more instructions.  Volunteers were handing out blankets for the people who weren’t fully clothed.  We got to the REC center and put us all in the extra gym.  There, they told us that there was a bomb threat in the Streit-Perham dorm.  They did not know who called it in or if it was a hoax.  They were going to take three days to check every nook and cranny of each room until they declare it safe to enter.  Starting with 6^th floor of Streit, they let a group of people in to gather enough things for three days.  “You’ve got ten minutes!”  Literally.  I was the ninth group of people to go and gather things. 

It was an experience.  They provided food, beverages, t-shirts, bedding, internet, showers and entertainment while we lived in the REC center for three days.  Once every dorm room was gone through and declared safe we were allowed to go back and continue like nothing had happened.   Luckily, nothing bomb related was found.  However, some marijuana plants, tons of alcohol bottles and some interesting sex toys were found in the hunt…

 

None of us could really get our school work done.  This was the era of everything had to be typed out on the computer and we really did not have enough time to spend on going back and forth to the library to type out papers.  Our Gen Ed 111 professor (Amber, Lauren and I shared this class) allowed us to turn in our research assignment late if we could prove we were bomb threat victims.  He told us to write our dorm addresses on the cover sheet while we turned it in.  He was cool with it and we all did pretty well on the assignment even though we turned it in a week later than the rest of the class.

The next few days I collected newspapers of the incident and now every Ground Hogs Day I remember how weird this situation was and how funny it is now.

Freshman Seminar

When it was time to register for classes, I had no idea on how the procedure worked.  It was so different from how I did it in high school.  Before the actual sit down with an advisor, I talked to my mom about what I should take for my first semester of college.  She said I should take the freshman seminar because it would benefit me in the long run and she said it looked like a fun class to take since it was a pretty small class.  I took her up on that and when it was time to register I signed up for the class.

When I walked into the SALC (Student Academic Learning Center) area of the building, it looked like a friendly place to be.  I get to meet some new people, share some stories with them and even get to learn something new with a group of people.  The first assignment that we had was the first threaded discussion on the bridge.  I grew to hate the bridge as the year went on.  It was a great activity to do to on the first day to learn about the other people in class.  I enjoyed learning about the other people and what their favorite things were.  The other one I enjoyed also was when we found a picture and posted it, then someone would have to tell you what they think of the picture, then you would have to go back and tell them what the picture meant to you and why.  That activity also gave the opportunity to learn more about your classmates.    

When we got into choosing our research topic, it became a little scary.  I honestly didn’t care what we did as long as we picked it soon.  We finally got down to two controversial topics to do our research on:  body modification and feng shui.  There was a girl who would drop the class if her topic didn’t get picked.  We talked and argued about the two topics for about two classes.  You could feel the tension in the room.  I really didn’t want to be in there when all of the arguing and yelling.  We voted twice and we still couldn’t get a definite answer.  Karen and Francine, our peer facilitators, told us that we’ve better come up with a way to settle this dispute over the topics or we would do a coin flip.  When they left the room, we all looked at each other.  Hey, the coin flip idea doesn’t sound that bad.  So we did it.  It all came down to the coin flip to decide once and for all, body modification or feng shui.  Body modification won and the girl still dropped the class even though her topic was picked…how lame.

Once we found out what our topic was, we were assigned groups to be in.  I was in the body shaping group with Casey and Erin.  We all got along with each other and we all contributed information equally.  We took the time to get to know each other and where we came from.  There weren’t any huge problems, but some of our research was questionable, and we fixed it.  Our communication worked well, we got to where we needed to be and we got our work done on time.

From being in this group, I learned how to work with people I really don’t know that well and learning about them, how to communicate and arrange meetings to get our work done on time when it’s due and learning the whole process on how to create a web page.  I’m glad I took this class.  I learned so many useful things for my future classes such as looking on the internet library for books to do research on and learning how to use our huge Holland library.

The whole process with getting your work done and put into the web site did stress me out along with my group.  I was very relieved when the presentation finally came and we got to see all of the other groups’ projects being presented plus our own.  It was great to finally get it out of the way.  No more stress about it getting done.  That was the first time I ever had to dress up for a presentation.  We got an A on our project.

Overall I thought this class was very helpful.  All of the peer facilitators were friendly and if you needed help they were there to help no questions asked.  They made sure we understood what was asked of us.  I really liked it when they would write the up-coming information down on the white board to make sure everyone was up to date about everything that was due.  The other activity I thought was fun was every time at the beginning of class, our peer facilitators would think of a topic, tell a story about their experience, then ask us and we would tell the whole class.  It was a great way to start class.  Some of the stuff people said were hilarious.  I couldn’t believe some of the stuff people actually said or did.  It was very entertaining.  If I were to do it all again, I would have not taken this class.  I really did not get that much out of it but I did make some friends and learned a little bit about how to use the technology and information that was there for us to utilize.

My First Prank at WSU

I thought it would be funny to pull a prank on Lauren, so I guess this would be my first prank I pulled off at WSU.  I’ve been hearing alleged rumors about guys coming into the girls shower areas while they were taking a shower.  Well, I told Megan that I would help her post fliers for Homecoming (2002 USC) on every floor.  We started on Perham 6^th and ended on Streit 1^st.   

While we were on Perham 6^th, I thought it would be cool to stop by and say hey to Amber and Lauren.  We knocked on the door and Amber was half asleep lying on her bed.  “Hey Amber where’s Lauren?”  “In the shower…meh.”  Ok, we’ll we just wanted to stop by and say hey.  See ya.  I told Megan we have to make a pit stop.  She didn’t want anything to do with what I was going to do to Lauren.  Luckily, she was the only one in the shower and it was next to the wall, the closest one to the door.  I went in there quietly and hid myself from any view, that included being able to see feet if you looked down next to you.  Her shower caddie was right next to the stall I was in.  I grabbed it and slid it towards me slowly.  You could definitely tell that she made a gasping noise and stood there like a statue until she figured out what to do next.  She grabbed the caddy and slid it away from the stall I was in.  A few minutes went by and I did it again and she reacted about the same except she made a different noise.  That’s when I decided to leave and continue helping Megan.  We left as fast as we could as I snickered.  Lauren went back to her room and asked Amber if that was her in the shower.  Amber said no and continued napping.   

At this point Lauren was freaked out and had no idea who that was messing with her in the shower.  Before she left to go hang out with Johannes, Amber mentioned to her that Megan and I stopped by to say hi.  She knew instantly that it was me.  I finished posting fliers with Megan and walked back to Perham…as Lauren was on her way out.  She looked at me through the window with the “I know what you did” look.  I laughed at her and she told me that she was glad it was me because she thought it was a guy.  The first of many more pranks to come.