Play that Funky Music...

Wow! There's always so much to talk about here, especially in the spring; when the weather goes nuts, people emerge from their winter-sleepwalking, every group on campus seems to have events going on, professors basking in all this forget to give as much work as usual, and on and on! But, it's Easter break, I'm relaxing at home, and I'll keep this one quick.

So, there always seems to be something going on through the music department, and I usually completely overlook many of the smaller, solo-performance artists they bring into the Irish Room (a beautiful performance hall used for performances in Gasson Hall).

Thankfully, my music professor told us not to miss Mana Tokuno's performances this week. A professional pianist, she came in to do a recital performing a piece one of my old professors composed just for her, Tokuno Toccata, but while she was here, she also played Beethoven, Schumann, and another entire recital dedicated to Chopin.

I'm not usually one to gush over small ensemble or solo pieces, but I have to say her Chopin recital was probably one of the most beautiful musical performances I've ever seen or heard. I'm definitely going to pay more attention to the Arts Calendar from now on, especially since all these concerts are completely free!

Also, did I mention that this performance was a rehearsal for her main recital coming up at Carnegie Hall? I feel very special now.

That's all I wanted to share for now, but happy Spring! The rain's finally stopped here in the Northeast, and it's gorgeous outside!

As always, feel free to comment or email: mahonjc@bc.edu

~Joe M

Video Games!

Hey! So, this year, I'm living in an 8-man suite in Walsh Hall on Lower Campus, which is the center of everything awesome about upperclassman:

• Lower Dining Hall and Addie's
• Hillside Cafe
• Edmond's residence hall (where true friends use kitchens to cook for all their friends)
• Vandy and 90, two of the nicest sophomore housing buildings
• the seniors' on-campus townhouses
• the Mods (which are, coincidentally, hilarious to watch from above in Walsh or Edmond's on weekend nights)
• the Plex (Flynn Recreation Complex)
• Alumni Stadium and Conte Forum (and the band room!)
• St. Ignatius' church
• and, most wonderful of all, the Million Dollar Stairs!!

Oh, the joys of those wonderful stairs at 9AM every Monday, Wednesday and Friday...

Anyway, living in a suite with 8 guys, video games get pretty overwhelmingly common. Awesome, but too common - as in, Rock Band has been on more than off in the past month. Now, however, our XBox is on a little vacation cooling down while my roommate nurses it back to health. This means my video game cravings need to be satisfied in other ways. Why not, I think to myself in fancy italic lettering, seeing as I am in a Computer Science course now, make my own video games?

....Oh. Right. I have no idea how to do so - so I keep content with writing little programs I need to make for homework, like the fish tank screen-saver, or an interactive on-screen stock ticker. Now, I know, they don't exactly measure up to Super Smash Brothers, but still, the actual process of creating these little programs is pretty amazing to me - as close as my life will come to taking place in Hogwarts. So, this is what keeps me video-game content for now.

Happy travels!
~Joe
mahonjc@bc.edu

A Day in the Life of a Math Major

Monday, December 1

• 8:57AM- My alarm goes off. I hit snooze after exactly one second of "Accidentally in Love" by Counting Crows.
• 9:06AM- My alarm goes off again. I hit snooze again.
• 9:11AM- I finally roll out of bed, wrap myself in my blanket, turn off my alarm, and sit at my computer.
• 9:23AM- I realize I should probably stop Facebooking and start getting ready for the day. I grab some clothes and hop in the shower.
• 9:36AM- I'm back at my computer again. Whoops!
• 9:42AM- I head out of my building, across the parking lot and up through the parking garage elevator. I'm just not feeling the Million Dollar Stairs today.
• 9:58AM- I arrive in Fulton for my Abstract Algebra class just in time to get back the exam we had before Thanksgiving break, and then settle in for some note-taking.
• 10:52AM- My roommate and I arrive in Hillside, snatch a table (surprisingly, there are some empty ones today!) and get in line for sandwiches. One of my friends who works there makes me a fantastic chicken club with lots of honey mustard, and I take an extra side to go with my frips (fries+chips=...). Honey mustard is heaven, but I could seriously live off of honey mustard with frips.
• 11:28AM- Realize I didn’t finish my Probability homework. Take out said homework, realize I actually had finished it after all, and put it away again.
• 11:47AM- Roomie and I arrive in our Probability classroom to get our ideal seats, and also start taking down the notes the professor has already put on the boards while discussing the He Said/She Said column of The Heights.
• 12:53PM- Head over to Carney to tutor in the Math Lab for a couple hours, and spend some time grading math homework for Calc 2 when no one needs tutoring.
• 3:00PM- Run back to Edmond’s to grab my ID and blood donor card so I can go to the blood drive.
• 3:30PM- Check in at the blood drive in Gasson, work on a paper while I wait, then donate blood, eat some cookies and drink some juice. For some reason, cookies at blood drives are fantastic. Maybe it’s the lack of blood.
• 5:00PM- Meet up with my aunt for a while, have some nice conversations.
• 5:50PM- Meet up with a classmate to work on our Psychology project. Spend an hour or so analyzing our data and talking. Her room in 90 is fantastic, I’m very jealous of her bay windows.
• 7:54PM- Arrive back in my room, and start trying to read for my Psych exam I have on Thursday. One of my friends comes by to show me the BC Men’s Ice Hockey poster, and point out where we are on it. We look at the poster for a good fifteen minutes or so, discussing how cheesy and poorly photo shopped it is, but how much we enjoy it anyways.
• 8:11PM- She leaves and I start reading again.
• 8:23PM- Another friend comes in to talk about Christmas present ideas. We finally figure out what she should get, and I finish my last page of reading.
• 8:49PM- I head next door to Walsh to do some work and hang out with two of my sophomore friends. One of them puts in a load of laundry, and we go back to her room to talk and look over the script proposals for the CCE's next murder mystery comedy show. Very little work is accomplished.
• 11:18PM- We realize the laundry has been left in the washing machine for at least an hour extra, and run down to put it in the drier. I make her use her Eagle card to buy me some Reeses Cups. Go back upstairs and proceed to spend an hour watching youtube videos, including Disney Sing-along Songs. We keep an eye on her laundry this time using LaundryView on the UGBC website.
• 12:40AM- When my friend goes down to get her laundry, I decide I should head home and go to bed. Arrive back in my room to find a note from my roommate on my desk saying "I like your face." Leave her a note that says "I like your face more," and go to bed.

Sparknoting the Basics

Hey everyone! My name is Emily, and I'm from Maine. So I live in an igloo and can ride a moose.

Okay, not really. But you would be surprised at the number of people that actually believe that. It's pretty fantastic.

More seriously, though, BC is only two and a half hours or so from my home, so I can see my family pretty frequently. Or not. It's really up to me. And a very major plus side is that BC is actually consistently ten degrees warmer than home!

I'm a Math major with a French minor in the class of 2010. My current residence is Edmond's Hall down on lower campus, though I was on Upper my freshman year. Edmond's is pretty fantastic for me since it has kitchens, which allows me to bake excessive amounts. It definitely is a great de-stresser for me, and I guess for my friends who benefit from the brownies and cookies and cupcakes generated by my roommate and yours truly.

I'm involved in the Dance Organization of BC- I choreographed a number for our February show last year, and performed in it both freshman and sophomore years. This year I'll be teaching some studio classes, since I'm preparing to go abroad in January (London! I'm so excited). I've done some theater shows and I also joined a group last semester called "The CCE" ("The Committee for Creative Enactments," we've been calling it "The Committee" as of late. We do murder mystery shows- sort've like the movie Clue, only student written- and improv comedy). I also volunteer with the Student Admissions Program. I like to play Frisbee in the middle of the night, find swing sets and act like I’m five years old again, and go on random “field trips” with my friends (which often result in burritos or ice cream).

So that's the very brief version of my life at Boston College thus far! Now it's time for bed since I have to get up in ummm... far too short a time, at any rate.

Welcome!

Thank you for visiting the Boston College Student Admission Program blogs! This blog is maintained by undergraduates in the College of Arts & Sciences who have or are interested in Science majors.

If you are a prospective student who is interested in applying to one of BC's science programs, look no further! Here we try to give you a window into the life of Boston College students, who will be posting about what daily life is like on the Heights. Bookmark this page and keep coming back for more; this blog will be updated regularly by one of many of our Student Admission Program volunteers! We all have stories to share that we hope will help you determine if BC is right for you.

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Good luck!

Sam Lipscomb
SAP Technology Coordinator '08-'09
Boston College A&S '10
lipscoms@bc.edu