Learning to Snowboard at Smugg's

Hope everyone is having a good week! I'm having a fun but slightly stressful week. Right now I'm busy preparing for the "Free Enterprise Olympics" on Friday as well as juggling homework and various meeting.

After Falling On the Bunny Slope

But, on an unrelated note, last weekend I learned how to snowboard at Smuggler's Notch! I've talked before about the $30 season pass Saint Mike's students can get through our wilderness program. It's a pretty amazing deal (it costs less than a normal half day pass!) and I've enjoyed skiing a lot this winter.

My roommate, Cait, has been wanting to teach me to snowboard for a while, and I always thought snowboarding looked so cool. One of the shuttle drivers, Dragon, lent me his daughter's snowboard, and I already have a helmet and giant ski jacket, so all I had to do was rent boots. Our SMC Smugg's pass also gets us discounts on rentals so it was pretty cheap to rent boots for a half day!

Cait had so much fun narrating this video

This is the funniest video because the little girl

snowboards right around me

So after gearing up, Cait brought me to the bunny slope and tried to teach me how to snowboard. The first couple runs I was horrible! I fell a lot and I was so grumpy, but after I stopped falling on my butt so much I had some fun. Cait took a video (and narrated it) of my oh-so-graceful snowboarding skills.

Last run of the day after some minor improvements

The day after snowboarding my arms were so sore from having to pick myself off so many times. But, all in all, I had a fun day! This weekend I plan on skiing with my friend Lindy, but hopefully I'll try snowboarding again soon!

Feel free to email me with any questions!

Exciting Events in the Business Department!

Happy Sunday! Hope everyone's had a fun weekend!


Last weekend I got to go home to see my parents then had a pretty busy week back at SMC with lots of tests and class projects.


I've also been gearing up for the "Free Enterprise Olympics" at SUNY Plattsburgh which will be this Friday! I got to meet my teammates last week and I'll be getting together with them this Wednesday to practice again. The team consists of three senior business majors; they all seem super nice. Then, on Friday, we'll be gone all day at the competition! This weekend I've been editing my speech a bit and I'll be practicing that all week in anticipation of the speak off finals Friday morning.


Now some more exciting news - last post I mentioned that I was busy writing a case study analysis. Every year the Saint Michael's Business Department puts on a "Business Ethics Case Competition" in which business students can receive an ethics case to analyze. Six schools compete, and each school chooses a top paper to submit. Then, three outside judges choose the three best papers to be presented. While I don't yet have a lot of experience in analyzing case studies, I competed in this challenge last year and again this year with a friend of mine, Tim, who's a business and religious studies double major. This year's case was about Facebook and Greenpeace and was a lot of fun to write. And the super exciting news, Tim and I won best case analysis at SMC!

Disappointingly, our paper wasn't chosen to be presented, but I'm so excited that we won at SMC! The top three schools will be presenting at Saint Mike's this Tuesday and I'm looking forward to hearing their arguments.


Besides that, I gave several tours this week and participated in a Parent Knight Chat on Wednesday. I love talking with prospective students and parents so it was fun to get back into tours! Plus, Knight Chats are always fun because I get to hang out with a bunch of the bloggers and parents always have great questions.


So now I'm off to work on a massive amount of homework (I have a huge test Monday for my marketing class - wish me luck!). As always, if you have questions shoot me an email!

Snow, Speech Contest, & Weekend Relaxing

Happy Sunday!

I've had a crazy week (I meant to blog but I just didn't have time!) but I've had a fun, relaxing weekend and I'm ready to get a lot done this week. I have another busy week coming up (a project, test , group work, and case study analysis all due this week) but we have Friday off so I'm going home to see my parents for the weekend which will be awesome!


So about my week...

Nothing too exciting early in the week, I just a bunch of homework to do. I also worked on my speech all week for the speech contest on free enterprise and entrepreneurship on Friday. On Wednesday I essentially re-wrote the speech after realizing that the majority of it didn't make sense, then I practiced like crazy on Wednesday and Thursday night.

All week we heard about the massive snow storm that was coming our way and on Thursday night it started to snow...then didn't stop until Friday evening. It didn't snow TOO much but I was worried the speech contest might get cancelled!

Campus looks gorgeous with all the snow!

Finally on Friday I got ready for the speech contest, which started at 4:30. Two of the three judges ended up being unable to attend due to the snow, but several professors were there (including the business department chairperson, Professor Letovsky, and my advisor, Professor Popovich). I also had a couple friends come to cheer me on!

Now the good news...I won the speak off! After we gave our speeches the judge and professors discussed for a bit and then announced the winners. I was SO EXCITED because, not only did the winner get a cash prize, but also got the chance to attend the 'Free Enterprise Olympics,' a contest held at SUNY Plattsburgh in March between seven schools. Saint Mike's already has a team of seniors attending the contest, but now I get to join the team! The contest will happen on a Friday next month and the day will begin with the speak-off winners giving their speeches again in the final round of the speech contest. After that the teams will have the day to participate in a creativity contest. While the details of the contest are unknown, essentially we'll be solving some type of business problem. I'm beyond excited that I get to go to SUNY Plattsburgh for this contest; I can't wait!

Besides speak-off fun, I've had a pretty mellow weekend. I've mostly been getting some homework done, sleeping in, watching TV, and catching up on some other work, like applying for internships and working on my study abroad application. Like I said, we have a short week coming up, then I'll be going home for the long weekend to see my parents and chill at home.

In a few weeks I'll start giving more tours, which is so fun! I love giving tours, especially during spring semester. I love when students have gotten accepted to Saint Mike's and are getting excited about college. It's great because the long, hard application process is over and now students just get to pick which school they want to attend (which is hopefully SMC!).

Anyway, I am off to do some more homework! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask! Email me or shoot me a tweet!

Vlog Update

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! Hope you all had a great weekend!


I ran out of time this weekend to do a longer written post (and I may or may not be trying to be more like Lauren Kopchik) so here's a quick vlog update about the first couple weeks of the semester!

Always choosing the best frame to freeze on...

Hopefully I'll find time to blog later this week, but either way be sure to email me, send me a Facebook message, or tweet at me with questions!