Jenny Penny 2009

Finishing up the semester!

2008-04-27T08:30:00.001-07:00

Well we finally had our first game of softball. We never played during the actual season. Our first four games were rained out and our last two were rescheduled, all for this past week. We played double-headers on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, which equals six games in three days. The first night we were destroyed by the other team. We lost by default, the score was something crazy like 17-1 and the second game was pretty much the same. On Thursday we kicked butt. We won both of our games. It came down to Friday to see if we would make it to the play-offs; we needed to win one of the two to continue on. And we did! We won the first game but lost the second. I have to go to a meeting today to see what day this week we play in the play-offs. I feel bad for our team, by Friday half of us were aching and sore.

This week is also our last week of classes. I can’t believe the semester is coming to a close! When I think back on the semester it’s been great. This is my last year living here at the main branch. Next year I’ll be doing my student teaching close to my parent’s home, to save money, I will be living with them for a year. I will be taking most of my classes at Kent Stark. I’m slowly saying good-bye to Kent Main! I will only be here in the fall semester on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It’s been a fun three years living on my own, I know it will be an adjustment moving back to having rules, but hey, my meals will be home-cooked and I won’t have to pay for the electric bill.

This year was a great junior year but I am looking forward to my senior and final year at Kent State. My college experience has been great!

New Activities

2008-04-14T17:23:00.001-07:00

Another exciting opportunity happened this past week. I was accepted into Kappa Delta Pi which is an international honors society in education. I filled out an application, which consisted of two signatures (one who is a member of KDP and the other being a staff/professor of Kent), a list of activities/ volunteer experiences/ hobbies, Grade Point Average, and other basic information. There is a $40.00 initiation fee that needs to be turned in with your application. They contacted me via e-mail and the induction ceremony will be on Sunday. My parents are coming up for the occasion and a “light” dinner will be severed for new inductees. Hopefully I will have pictures to upload.
Another highlight/some what of a bummer is our intramural softball team. We “play” for three weeks on Fridays at 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. We were suppose to play our first game two weeks ago but were rained out and last Friday the game was cancelled again. So we have yet to play one game. I’m not sure if this is a sign we are not going to do very well or if it’s just a case of bad luck. As of now Friday’s weather is suppose to be good, we’ll see what happens. Intramurals are put on by the Rec and there are all boy/girl teams along with coed teams. They run Monday through Friday with numerous time slots available to play. Wish us luck as we hopefully begin our short season this Friday. (This is another event I will hopefully have pictures to upload.)

Mortar Board

2008-04-02T13:53:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday I was initiated into Kent State’s Laurels Chapter of Mortar Board. I encourage all juniors to apply for this organization; it’s a national college senior honor society. It stands upon scholarship, leadership, and service. We had an informational meeting on Saturday. We met the other inductees and learned more about the organization. There are 50 of us who joined for the next year. Our responsibility is to do some sort of a service projext each month for the organization. For example on April 20, we’re hosting a Bowl-A-Thon. We’re also working with Pennies for Peace and helping with different projects involving literacy. This is a great resume builder and the experience will be great. I am very excited to see what this next year will bring. All the new members have wonderful ideas and are also ready to take on the new responsibilities. On Sunday for the induction ceremony, we received our pins for graduation and a certificate. Our families came for the event and it was very official. This is a great organization; again I encourage all juniors to apply for it next spring semester.

Taking our seats for the ceremony!

Highlights from the past few weeks!

2008-03-24T08:12:00.000-07:00

Monday, March 10, 2008
I am a secondary Education major and even though I prefer to work with high school students, I love interacting with younger children. My part-time job is being a nanny for two wonderful little youngsters. I spend twenty hours a week with the best, most well-behaved kids I have ever met. Even though the hours are long, I never feel as if I am working. Some Fridays I volunteer with the special education department at Streetsboro Elementary School. A few of their students venture over to the KSU Rec Center to go swimming in the pool. There are three girls (including myself) that help out with the swimming lessons. Each of us are assigned a student and during their time at the pool we work on different tasks, such as kicking their feet in the water and/or floating on their backs. There are only five times during the semester they come to Kent but the teachers encourage us to participate in other activities with the class and come visit them in the classroom. This is one of the most rewarding activities I am apart of; these students are truly special individuals with a whole lot of personality and excitement for life.

Friday, March 14, 2008
We just finished kicking butt in the Dive’s talent show. My roommate (Jill), our friend Gibby, and myself performed to a mix of different songs. All three of us are involved in Campus Crusade for Christ, a.k.a the Dive. There are over 200 members who come to our weekly meetings on Thursday nights at 9:00 p.m. in Bowman. This week we changed our meeting place to the KIVA. The meeting kicked off at 9 p.m. and a little after 10 p.m. the talent show kicked off. There were around twelve acts including ours. There were singers, comedians, dancers, and an awesome band who showed their talent. My family traveled up to Kent to watch this incredible show. Even though it lasted till midnight, it sure ended with a big bang. Jill, Gibby, and myself were the show closers. We started out with the lights off with strobe and black lights illuminating the stage. We were dressed in all black with white shoes, gloves, and masks; we danced to a song by Wade Robson “It Was All In Your Mind.” Then unfortunately we blew a fuse and our music went off, but luckily our wonderful staff managed to start it back up. The next song was by OneRepublic, “Apologize.” Gibby and Jill knocked the socks off of the audience; they did a lyrical piece, which is definitely not my forte. We ended our dance with Pitbull’s “Fuego.” This was a hip-hop dance that included flips and stunts; the song ended with an explosion. When we got up to walk off stage, the audience was in a standing ovation. Even with the technical difficulty we manage to still “woo” the audience. It was great!

(This is Jill and I setting up our special effects.)

Monday, March 17, 2008
I found out today that I will be moving to Houston for the summer. The beginning of this semester I applied for an internship with the organization Teach for America. The application process was simple. I attached a cover letter, resume, and an activity provided by the organization. A week later, I received and e-mail asking me for an interview. It was a phone interview, which was a bit awkward but the interviewee was very professional and made me feel comfortable. And today I found out I am one out of ten people in the country who will be working for the Houston Institute this summer. Teach for America is an organization who accepts teachers and trains them to teach in urban-school districts around the country. For six weeks in the summer they go through training at institutes around the country; there are six institutes around the United States. I am excited to set off on this adventure but I am extremely nervous because this is my first time away from home for a long period of time. I’m sure everything will work out fine but I am still in shock that they chose me!

Saturday, March 22, 2008
I just got back from an amazing spring break in Panama City Beach, Florida. I went with the Dive (Campus Crusade for Christ) and met with other college campuses around the country involved in the same activity. There were 850 of us, reaching out to others on the beach. The road trip down was fun yet tiring; we spent around 18 hours in the car. We have no room to talk though because other students we talked to spent 30 hours traveling to Florida. Campus Crusade provides college students with a spring break option called Big Break. Sunday we had a free day to hang out at the beach all day and relax. It sure was a different environment, laying on the beach with shorts and a swimsuit was quite a bit different then layering up to walk five minutes to class. Then Monday through Thursday we attended morning worship and meetings, went out sharing all day, had amazing dinners, and ended the night with another meeting and worship. Thursday night we had a dance party that was extremely fun. The week was relaxing but a bit tiring at the same time. There were 40 of us from the Dive who went down. These people became my family during the week, we had a blast together. My car decided to head home on Friday morning; five of us girls crammed all of our bags into the trunk and began our adventure. We were out to prove that girls can follow a map without help from boys. We hit a few curbs along the way and one turtle- to be exact. Then at 3:00 a.m. right outside of Columbus we got a flat tire. Out of nowhere two angels, dressed like old men, stopped, whipped out some power tools and changed our flat within twenty minutes. It was incredible. Even though it took us awhile to get home, we managed to end the adventure on a high note. This week is one of the great memories that will stick out in my mind when I reflect back on my college years.

(The host of Big Break with Jill and I.)

(The "Love Seat of Loooove" with our friend Shannon.)

(Our poor flat tire!)

Scheduling Classes

2008-02-19T18:56:00.000-08:00

Well it’s that time again; it’s time to look up classes that will fill my schedule for the next two semesters. Today I signed up for summer classes and looked up courses for this upcoming fall. Kent makes looking up classes easy for all users. One can find exact times or specific teachers within one click. All Kent State courses are listed on the same website. I need to take some classes at the Stark branch and within a few minutes I was registered. Kent’s flashline is a great source when scheduling classes, looking up classmates, or e-mailing professors. Many questions are easily answered when preparing for upcoming semesters. I spent only thirty minutes today scheduling both my summer and fall courses. O, and another helpful tool is a “schedule blocker.” With this utensil, the system doesn’t let a user schedule two classes at the same time. This device helped me in numerous situations when I overlooked times. Flashline is a great resource to all Kent State students, scheduling materials and questions are within a few clicks away!