Lindsey Jones

Hello all,

I know it’s been awhile since my last post, but this semester turned insanely busy after spring break. We have a little less than three weeks left of classes, and less than four weeks until graduation. I cannot believe how fast this semester has gone. I’m excited, but also starting to get really nervous. I still have a lot of work to do on my senior capstone project, plus making sure I stay caught up with everything in all of my other classes. We’re doing a really cool simulation in place of other work for my capstone class. We divided the class up into two teams, persecution and defense, and are going to simulate a court case where we try President Bush in an international court on crimes against humanity for waterboarding during the Iraq War.

I have a bunch of activities coming up within the next couple weeks. Tomorrow night, I have my Senior Honors Banquet, which is a banquet for those seniors who made it through the SNC honors program. Friday night, I’m participating in a charity fashion show. A few of my friends are running it, and they essentially forced me to do it, so this should be an interesting experience. Next Tuesday, the Study Abroad office is holding an information session to try to encourage students to go on non-traditional study abroad programs like my trip to Morocco. Two of my friends (one went to Uganda, the other to Jordan) and I are going to show pictures and talk to students about our experiences. Hopefully that goes well. I also found out I won an award for the International Studies program, so next Tuesday I get to go to the Academic Awards Dinner, and then Wednesday is cap and gown pick-up.

Things are moving quickly! I hope everything is going well for everyone else!

Until next time…

Hello all,

I know it’s been a while since my last post, but this semester turned insanely busy after spring break.  We have little less than three weeks left of classes, and less than four weeks until graduation.  I cannot believe how fast this semester has gone.  I’m excited, but also starting to get really nervous.  I still have a lot of work to do on my senior capstone project, plus making sure I stay caught up with everything in all of my other classes.  We’re doing a really cool simulation in place of other work for my capstone class.  We divided the class up into two teams, persecution and defense, and are going to simulate a court case where we try President Bush in an international court on crimes against humanity for waterboarding during the Iraq War.

I have a bunch of activities coming up within the next couple weeks.  Tomorrow night, I have my Senior Honors Banquet, which is a banquet for those seniors who made it through the SNC honors program.  Friday night, I’m participating in a charity fashion show.  A few of my friends are running it, and they essentially forced me to do it, so this should be an interesting experience.  Next Tuesday, the Study Abroad office is holding an information session to try to encourage students to go on non-traditional study abroad programs like my trip to Morocco.  Two of my friends (one went to Uganda, the other to Jordan) and I are going to show pictures and talk to students about our experiences.  Hopefully that goes well.  I also found out I won an award for the International Studies program, so next Tuesday I get to go to the Academic Awards Dinner, and then Wednesday is cap and gown pick-up.

Things are moving quickly!  I hope everything is going well for everyone else!

Until next time…

The Soul Food Dinner was a great success. I know I had a great time, and I’m pretty sure everyone else who attended also had a great time. I opened the program with a welcome from the Black History Month committee, and then introduced our masters of ceremony, Drs. Chris and Ty Meidl from the education department. The rest of the event went the same way it always does. We had a short introduction to what Black History Month is about, dinner (which was delicious), our keynote speaker, entertainment, and closing remarks. It all ran fairly smoothly, so I was glad for that.
Our keynote speaker was Dr. Clark-Pujara from UW-Madison. Her talk about why history matters was really interesting. It was more of a motivational speech about the importance of learning about the implications of the past, rather than a strictly educational speech. The UW-Whitewater step group had a really fun performance after dinner. They decided that they were going to teach some of the audience members how to do one of their step routines, so they got President Kunkel on the dance floor. It was extremely entertaining. After the main parts of the program, Bridgit and Vanessa (they head Multicultural Student Services) paid special tribute to the only two seniors on the Black History Month committee – my friend Mo and me. They gave us flowers and special sashes and medals to wear for graduation. It was really nice but I almost cried while I was standing up there. Overall, the event was great. I’m really glad it turned out so well.
This week was just classes as usual, and I’m going to be spending my weekend on homework. Spring break starts next weekend so I have a lot of school work to get through before I head down to Florida!

I hope everyone’s week has been going well!!

Until next time…

Hello all,

This week has been completely full of events. Wednesday was the second lecture of the Great Decisions Lecture Series at SNC. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s typically an 8-week lecture series that features prominent figures in the international and national political scene. Last week we had an ex-ambassador give a talk on promoting democracy. This week’s was a cyber security expert who spoke on the changes facing the world in terms of both communication and national/international security because of the nature of cyberspace. I was able to go to dinner with the speaker before this week’s lecture (one of the perks of being in the IS capstone class). He was really interesting to speak with and talked a lot about the challenges we’ll face in the future as the “rules of the game” in cyberspace change.
Tomorrow is the Soul Food Dinner! I’m extremely excited about it. We’ve worked really hard putting together this year’s program, and hopefully it will be just as great as every other year. We have a professor on Afro-American studies from UW-Madison delivering the keynote address, and a step group coming from UW-Whitewater as our after dinner entertainment. This weekend is also my birthday, so my friends are making me dinner tonight and throwing me a birthday party tomorrow night! It should be a great weekend so I’m really looking forward to it!!

Until next time…

Hello all,

SNC’s Black History Month celebration is off to a great start. Wednesday, we had a high school gospel choir from Milwaukee perform during Sacred Hour. Their performance was amazing and I think everyone who was there had a great time. After the performance, the students got to have lunch in the new cafeteria (which they all seemed to enjoy), then had a tour of the school. Next week we’re showing the film American Experience:  Freedom Riders, and following it with a discussion with two women who attended college during the Civil Rights era. It should be really interesting so I’m hoping we get a good turnout for that. Planning for the Soul Food Dinner is coming along nicely. I’m just waiting to hear back from a couple of our speakers, and hopefully everything for that will be all set.

Other than the things for Black History Month, the semester is going along pretty much the same as always. My International Studies capstone is going well. Our class is tiny (7 people, I think) so there is a lot of interaction between everyone in the class and the professor. Our focus is on population, migration, and development. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about rural-urban migration in developing nations and how that impacts the way urban areas grow, a country’s economic structure, family structure, etc. All in all, not a bad start to the semester.

Until next time…

Hello all,

I hope everyone had a fun and safe winter break and a great start to the New Year. My break was fairly busy, but it was nice to be home for a few weeks. I spent a lot of time catching up with friends and family, and the spent the rest of my time working. Overall, it was a fun break, but I’m glad to be back at school.

I can’t believe my last semester at SNC has officially started. I haven’t decided how I feel about this yet. While I’m excited to graduate, it would be a lot better if I knew what I was going to do when I finish in May. I’ll have to spend some time picking my advisor’s brain for some ideas. For now, I’m just going to focus on getting through my classes and enjoying my last semester.

I have my International Studies Senior Capstone class this semester, and it’s going to take up a lot of my time. Dr. Scattergood is essentially using it to prepare us for graduate work if that’s the direction we decide to take. I’m also taking Latin American Politics, which I need to finish up my major requirements, and Great American Novels, which is just for fun and to finish up my credit hours.

There are a bunch of events coming up this semester. Next week is the Senior Wine Tasting, as well as the Board of Trustees Scholarship Luncheon. We also have our Black History Month events beginning, which are always great. If you’re interested in any of them, check out the events page for more information.

http://www.snc.edu/multicultural/events.html

Hope the new semester is starting off well for everyone!

Until next time…

So I’m extremely excited that classes for this semester are officially OVER!  All in all, I’d say they went pretty well but it was just a long and busy semester.  This past week alone I had several big papers due and two presentations – one in my International Relations course and one in my Social Inequalities course.  The Social Inequalities course was actually really interesting to put together.  We had to come up with some sort of advocacy project and do research on it plus find some way to become advocates for the cause.  My group focused on mental illnesses so one of the girls did an interview with her sister on the effects of mental illness and we put together posters and brochures on mental illness, stress, and some things to do for stress relief that go along with the end of the semester/ finals week.

I’m taking a break tonight to blow off some steam.  My friends and I are doing our Christmas tonight – so exchanging presents, making Christmas cookies, and watching all of the holiday shows and movies.  It should be fun but relaxing.  The rest of the weekend will be spent gearing up for finals week.  I have three finals and several papers that are still due next week.  Then it’s home sweet home for the holidays!

For those of you who also have finals coming up, good luck!

Until next time…

Hello all,

I hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday last week. I can’t believe how quickly the semester is flying by – only 2 weeks left, one of class and one of finals, then it’s winter break! Things have been extremely busy since I got back on Sunday. The last few weeks are crunch time so it’s all papers, presentations, and exams. This coming week alone I have 3 papers due and two presentations to finish preparing. I’m also on the committee that plans Black History Month and the Soul Food Dinner, so I have a few things to get done for that before the semester is over.

Tonight is the Festival of Christmas. It’s SNC’s big Christmas show where we have all of the different music ensembles – bands, choirs, etc. – performing, and there’s a big reception afterwards. My parents are coming up for the concert (the first and only time they’ve come up other than to drop me off and pick me up) so I’m pretty excited. After the concert I’m going to a dance with my friend Janessa. She’s in the Kappa sorority and their big dinner dance is tonight (I got suckered into being her date). The rest of the weekend will most likely be spent in the mountain of work I have to get done.

Until next time…

Happy (early) Turkey Day!

So, last weekend was a lot of fun. As I said, my friends from home came to visit me. They had a great time and totally fell in love with the campus, especially once I took them down by the Fox River. We just hung around my apartment for most of the weekend – I tried to take them to Lambeau Field, but my friend Sara refused (not that I blame her since she’s a Bears fan).
This week went by pretty quickly. I didn’t have any big papers or exams, so I’ve just been trying to get myself on track so I don’t have too much going on over the holiday. Yesterday we had a guest speaker in my International Relations class. He’s an Iranian doctor who’s been living the U.S. since the 1970s. He talked about the current political climate in Iran, the Green Movement (which is the movement that has been pushing for civil liberties and women’s rights), and how Iran’s announcement that it is pursuing nuclear weapons is going to affect U.S. foreign policy and relations with the country. It was really interesting to see an Iranian perspective on the topics, especially since I went to the dinner with the Iranian embassy back in September.
Next week is Thanksgiving break. I’m heading home on Tuesday so hopefully I’ll beat the holiday traffic. Fall break wasn’t that long ago, but I’m looking forward to seeing my family.

I hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday!

Until next time…

Hello all,

This week was absolutely brutal. I had advisement on Wednesday, only to find out that some of my credits didn’t transfer correctly or weren’t listed the right way so it looked like I was way behind on finishing everything for graduation. Fortunately, after an hour of going back and forth between the registrar and my adviser, we got everything straightened out. As long as I don’t have a freak accident and fail everything, I’ll be graduating on time. I registered for classes this morning. There were only two classes that I still had to take, my International Studies capstone and another political science class, so I had trouble deciding on two other classes for the semester. I’m taking Evolution of Jazz and Great American Novels; hopefully those will be interesting classes. I also had two papers plus a book review and an outline due this week. Needless to say, it’s been an exhausting week.

I am extremely excited for this weekend because two of my best friends, Sam and Sara, from home are coming to visit me!!! Sam came to visit freshman year during parent’s weekend, so she’s been here before. Sara, however, has never been here so I’m extremely excited to show her around the campus and the Green Bay area. I’m thinking about taking her to Lambeau Field just to show her how much better it is than Soldier Field in Chicago. It should be a great weekend and a lot of fun!!

Until next time…