I am sitting in Newark, NJ airport waiting to fly into Burlington, VT. I haven’t been here too long, but I just got off of a red-eye from San Fransisco, CA. So it has been a very long night and a hard adjustment to the time difference. I went to CA for a National Board meeting for the sorority that I have been apart of. Now…I know what your thinking. Sorority? Yes. However, it is a professional agricultural sorority. Most of our chapters do not have chapter houses, we are not allowed to drink at all at any function, and most of our chapters are not Greek. It was a good board meeting, but very long. I am glad to be heading back to VT, but I know that there will definitely be more humidity than there was in CA. I can already feel it in this airport. Well we are about to board…
Archive for the 'MSEL Blog Page' Category
Summer session started on Monday bright and early at 9am. The day was very long with taking two classes from 9-4pm. It reminds me of elementary school when I would actually went to school all day long with very few breaks. Overall, I enjoyed both my Clean Water Act and Ocean & Coastal Law and Policy courses. However, now that I am a few days in I am finding that there is at least 200 pages of reading a night and that my free time is limited to sleeping, eating and driving. I really like the content of the courses and the professors instruction on both topics. I am learning a lot, but in a very short time period that is jam packed with information and 3 hour lectures. I look forward to the last 5 classes and what I still have to learn within them.
So after Graduation and working for about a week and a half in the Dean’s Office, I decided to go home for a break for first term summer classes. I decided to do this becuase I am taking two classes for Term 2 which is only two weeks long. So I figured it would be a ton of work and to get away for a few weeks to see family and friends plus my sister graduated from high school. Going home was great, but as always a long drive and it still cost less than flying even though gas prices ranged from $3.99 to 4.25 per gallon along the way. Since I am back in Vermont though, I have been doing last minute details and wrapping up stuff before classes start Monday since I’ve been told by many who are just taking one class during this first term that I won’t have time for a lot of things. So I am hoping to get most errands and projects finished this weekend. Besides doing this, I have been preparing for one of the classes since school ended which I think will help me in the long run. But I guess we will see… Well back to reading and outlining.
I’m done with finals and just had the May Graduation Ceremony for the MSEL/JDs. There are two graduation ceremonies for the MSELs, but I couldn’t make it to the July Graduation so I decided to go to the one this weekend. Itwas a great experience. My mom flew in from Michigan and hung out with me for the weekend. We didn’t do too much besides relax around the house while I was reading and summarizing for summer classes. I think it was fun for her to see what I go through on a daily basis or something similar. Even though I am not officially done with my MSEL until August classes end, I had a great time at graduation and celebrating my hard work thus far in the academic year. I am really excited for my summer classes. I am taking Clean Water Act and Ocean and Coastal Law during Term 2 and Mediation of Land Use, Water and Marine Conflicts during Term 4. There is also several conferences going on around campus along with a summer speaker series. I think these extra presentations enhance the education I am recieving at VLS because they bring real-life scenrios to our attention and help us understand how to apply the concepts and tools we are learning everyday to these scenarios. Two summers ago, I was at the Michigan State University Kellogg Biological Station taking courses and attended their summer speaker series and learned alot about many different topics, networked with faculty, staff and community members, and learned how to apply the knowledge from my summer courses. Overall, I am very excited for this summer and cannot wait until classes start!
So I am in finals mode finally, but am finding it really hard to concentrate on studying. I have a final on Friday and another one on the next Tuesday along with a take home final. I am pretty nervous about my Administrative Law final since it is my first closed book exam. Plus I haven’t checked out my ExamSoft to make sure it works. That is software that you use to complete your exams if you don’t want to use the bluebooks. I used it last semester and had no problems, but some people have lost their entire exams. So I am worried about losing my exam one of these days. Well wish me luck!
This is my final week of spring semester classes. Needless to say, this semester has flown by and I am not sure where it went. Since last Friday, it has been in the mid-70s, the moon is shining bright, and the frogs are out all night. It is finally spring and I can feel summer is coming. This makes it hard to sit in a classroom or library all day reading, studying and outlining for finals. I know I will get though this week and finals, but it is so hard with all the outside weather temptations.
Spring is in full swing in VT. The bird are chripping, the rivers banks are full to the brim, and students are studying 24/7. Since I live a little out of town, I get to see how the river has been progressively filling. Last night driving home, the road was shut down to one lane becuase the other lane was covered with water! I couldn’t believe it. I have never seen so much water in my life, and the all the snow isn’t even gone yet. So there is more flooding to come I am pretty sure. I think this is why they call it “Mud Season,” but I haven’t had to bring out my mud boots just yet.
Being involved in NAELS and Solutions since September, it has finally come! Everything is going on in Burlington today and then in South Royalton tomorrow. I hope that it all goes well especially with the ‘white out’ traveling conditions. I am sure it will. Quite a few VLS students, almost half of the conference registrants, are not here yet, so we are hoping that as the classes down at VLS get finished that they start to trickle up to Burlington for the two afternoon panels. Wish us luck with this large event!
I am done with traveling at least for about the next two weeks. I have noticed that I am in my usual routine, but my sleep schedule is really off. I have been going to bed so early and waking up really early too, and it seems pretty lame for my age. But I find myself, being this far into the winter, getting really tired early in the evening. I think it is because Vermont, I heard, has the fewest amount of sunny days out of any of the states. Therefore, by not having too many sunny days, I am getting tired and feeling deary and gloomy just like the weather usually is. So I would recommend finding an outdoor or indoor hobby that just gets you pumped up and excited to be in Vermont. I went to yoga last night at a studio in Pittsfield with a couple of friends. We had a great ride to the studio and a great session that relieved all of our stress that we had built up. I felt great afterwards and ended up staying up later getting more of my homework done. So when you are in Vermont, get in the habit of getting out and about at all times of year to keep your mind clear, stress down, and to keep a smile on your face 
