We've reached the end...

I just had my last final exam for the semester today! It feels really good to be done with school considering I had 5 cumulative finals this time around. However, it is really sad to say goodbye to everyone for the summer. I am going to miss everyone so much, especially all the girls who lived in my cube and all the students who lived in Coate Hall in general. I am also going to miss tremendously the staff that I had the honor and privilege of working with this year.

I cannot believe how fast this year flew by! It seems like just yesterday, everyone was moving their stuff in to Coate Hall to start their college experience. Now, the hallways are once again filled with boxes but this time they are going to be leaving the building. Oh how the end of the year is always bittersweet (even more so this year for me). It is great to sit and ponder all the wonderful times we had this year, but it is also sad that things will never be the same again. I guess that's all part of this thing called life.

Signing off...
Sabrina :)

COATE BASH!

This Saturday Coate Hall is putting on an event called Coate Bash! It will be held on Coate Field (the field right next to Coate Hall) as well as in the volleyball sand pit next to the building. The theme for the event is Miami Night Life. It will kick off at 7:30pm with the band "Que Flavor" playing live music including latin music and reggae! There will also be salsa dance lessons as well as games such as the limbo and of course free food! After the band is done playing, we will be having a dance in the sand pit until midnight with music from an ipod. Who wouldn't want to come to this fantastic program?!

The event is being held in celebration of the spring semester classes being over and to have one last hurrah before finals week begins. It is sure to be great time and is always a fun event each year!

Augustana Concert!

Augustana is going to be performing a concert right here at UW-La Crosse!! It is going to be on Saturday, April 25th at 7:00pm in Valhalla in the Cartwright Center on campus. The price for a ticket is only $15.00 when you show your student ID. How cool is that?!?! A couple of their hit songs are "Boston" and "Sweet 'n' Low." It is sure to be a grand show that will be very exciting!!

There will also be karaoke in the basement of Coate Hall at 8:30pm on Saturday night as well. The students that live in Coate Hall this year are very talented singers and dancers so it will definitely be a very fun time!

Personally, I am also really excited for Friday because a bunch of my friends that live off campus are all getting together and we are going to have a picnic down by the river and then have a bonfire at someone's house. It is kind of like an end of the year party since people in our group of friends are going other places to do internships, graduate school, or transferring schools. It will be really nice to have one more get together before we all go our separate ways for a while. My weekend is going to be so much fun!! :)

National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR)

This Thursday through Saturday, UW-La Crosse is hosting the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR). This is quite an honor and the UW-L community feels privileged to have the opportunity to host such a prestigious event. The conference is bringing over 2,500 people to La Crosse with over 2,600 presentations and presenters from 298 universities and colleges from 34 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and three Canadian Provinces.

Personally, I attended four presentations today and am going to three more tomorrow. The presentations are on just about every topic from English to Mathematics to Astronomy and more. It is a great opportunity to see what other fellow undergraduate students from across North America are discovering.

CUBE WARS!!!

Cube Wars is going on right now and it is very exciting and intense!! It is a competition between the different cubes in Coate Hall. (Since the building is a made of three square towers and four floors high, Coate Hall is divided into 12 different cubes.) There are a bunch of different activities that are included in the competition. Some examples include: a cube cheer competition, trivia contest, picture scavenger hunt, iron chef for best dessert, water pong, egg hunt, a sports day, as well as penny wars throughout the entire competition with all proceeds going to the on-campus food pantry. This is something the students living in Coate Hall take very seriously. (Other halls have competitions like this as well, so don’t be worried if you aren’t going to live in Coate Hall…) We’ll just have to wait and see who wins these Cube Wars and is given the title of best cube in Coate Hall. I may be biased, but I think my cube is going to win! :)

St. Baldrick's!

This Saturday, April 4th, Coate Hall is putting on an event called St. Baldrick's with the theme "Shave to Save." The event is being held at the Recreational Eagle Center on campus from noon to 4pm and is open to the whole campus as well as the surrounding communities. St. Baldrick's is a worldwide organization where people can shave their heads or cut their hair to raise money for childhood cancer research. If someone's hair is long enough they can donate it to make wigs, but shorter hair can also be donated. Short hair is used to make mats to help clean up oil spills in the environment. In addition to the shaving and cutting, we will be having games, a raffle with really nice prizes, music, and of course fun! If you are interested in more information about this organization and/or our event, you can visit www.stbaldricks.org.

Other events going on this weekend are a Treasure Hunt sponsored by Reuter Hall and La Crosse's Largest Lightning Game. The Treasure Hunt will be all across campus and La Crosse's Largest Lightning Game is basically a series of lightning games where the winners of each game move on to the championship game for a chance to win sweet prizes. Again, there is always something fun to do at UW-L!!

Inner Beauty Pageant and 24 hour Video Games

This Saturday we are having an Inner Beauty Pageant in Coate Hall. It is starting at 1:00pm in the basement. We are having a speaker and a student who lives in Coate Hall is also performing a skit about her own inner beauty pride. All who attend will be able to make ribbons for themselves that describe what they are proud of as their inner beauty and then walk down the runway declaring their inner beauty to all. The whole program is designed to promote self expression, self awareness, and self confidence.

This weekend also includes a 24 hour Video Game Tournament. It starts at 1:00pm Friday and goes until 1:00pm on Saturday. It costs $3 to enter and all the proceeds are going to an organization that buys video games for children who are staying in hospitals. This weekend is going to be really fun and lots of people are already hyped up about the Inner Beauty Pageant and the 24 hour Video Game Tournament!

Spring Break!!!

Tomorrow is the official start of Spring Break for UW-L students!! I am excited to relax and take a break from school and all the stresses it brings. I am looking forward to catching up on some much needed sleep. This week has been pretty stressful for a lot of folks with midterms, projects, etc. all needing to be finished before break.

In the meantime, some people are scrambling to finish up their murals. A nice thing about living in the residence halls at UW-L is that you have the opportunity to paint murals on the walls in your living area. We had 6 murals that were painted in our area and they all look absolutely wonderful!! It is a really nice and unique way to leave your mark on one part of UW-L!

Vietnamese Night

Last night in Coate Hall, the Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) hosted a "Vietnamese Night" from 5-7pm. There were several displays with tons of information about Vietnam, its people, and their culture. It was a great opportunity to learn about a different culture and actually get to talk and interact with students from Vietnam that attend UW-L. I was very pleased with the large number of students that attended!

The night included traditional Vietnamese food that the VSA students prepared themselves as well as games. There was also a demonstration of the Vietnam Bamboo Dance that we all got to participate in as well! It was tons of fun! A trivia game took place and the prizes that were given out were actually items from Vietnam---this was extremely awesome! I was able to win a set of a little Vietnamese man and woman that were intricately painted magnets. Overall, the night was a great learning experience and I thoroughly enjoyed it and I think everyone else did too! :)

Fun-filled Weekend

This is sure to be a fun-filled weekend! Tonight, White Hall put on a version of "The Price is Right" for the whole campus. It was structured just like the real show and there were tons of sweet prizes. Over half of the people who attended were able to walk away with a prize!

Tomorrow night, Coate Hall is holding a "Connect 4" Tournament in the basement. There will be a normal game bracket as well as a trivia style version of the game. There are sure to be snacks and prizes to go around. Then on Saturday night, Coate Hall will be having a showing of the movie "Wall-E" followed by a discussion about the social and political underlying themes that the movie presents. There will also be organic snacks and 'regular-ganic' drinks provided.

Also on Saturday, a Dodgeball Tournament is being put on by UW-L's Habitat for Humanity chapter on Saturday in Mitchell Hall. The money raised from the event will go towards the chapter's spring break service trip to Alabama. Again, always something fun to do at UW-L! :)

Spring Leadership Conference

Tomorrow is the annual Spring Leadership Conference at UW-L. It is hosted by the Office of Residence Life and is sure to be a great time! The conference is from 9:00am to 4:00pm at the Cartwright Center on campus. There will be student and staff presenters for different sessions as well as a professional keynote speaker. It will be a great learning opportunity for all who attend.

Also, last night was a program called Rock, Paper, Scissors Shenanigans put on by the Leadership Team of Trowbridge Hall. The event included a rock, paper, scissors tournament as well as various activities with rocks, paper, and scissors. Some of the activities that went on included pet rock making, oragami, paper airplanes, and much more. As usual, there is always something to do on the UW-L campus!

First Round of Tests

Well, the first round of tests is coming up next week so that means I have a lot of studying to do this weekend (and next week). Keeping things in perspective and time management are important in order to survive the stress in college. I am also on duty this weekend as part of being a Resident Assistant (RA) so that means I go around the residence hall with two other RAs and make sure that everything is safe and secure. Nevertheless, it will involve late nights.

Another interesting thing that I wanted to tell you all about has to do with my U.S. Healthcare class. We are actually creating a blog for our group/team as part of the class. We have to post different proposals for improvement/reform in certain healthcare aspects and topics. So this class is a bit of a "blended learning" class. We are incorporating technology as well as face-to-face interactions. Sometimes we have class online and other times we have class in the classroom. It's actually quite interesting to mix it up a little. :)

Relay For Life!!!

This weekend is Relay For Life of La Crosse Colleges! The event starts tonight at 6pm and goes until tomorrow morning at 6am. It is being held in the Recreational Eagle Center (REC) on the UW-L campus. We have a team of ladies from our cube that will be taking part in this wonderful event.

Relay For Life is sponsored by the American Cancer Society and helps raise money for the fight against cancer. Participants on each team take turns walking around the indoor track for the 12 hours that the event is going on. There are tons of other activities to take advantage of when you are not walking around the track. There will be live music and a radio broadcast, a photo booth, haircuts, massages, rock wall climbing, dance and aerobic classes, sports tournaments, and much more! It is sure to be a night filled with lots of fun and memories! :)

Welcome Back!

Welcome back everyone! The first week of classes for the spring semester is officially finished! The winter break was nice and relaxing for me. I came back a week before classes started for RA training which was fun! It's nice to see everyone again after the long break. This should be a busy semester for me as always, but I like the way my class schedule is set up. I have started out this week fairly productive and managing my time well which is a very nice feeling. Hopefully, I'll be able to carry it through the rest of the semester.

Another piece of exciting news for today is that Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle visited the UW-L campus. He came and gave a speech about the current budget deficit and how it will impact the state and UW-L. A bunch of students got to stand behind the Governor while he addressed the audience and I was one of them! I will probably be on the local news tonight! I also got a picture with him and was able to talk with him a little bit. It was very exciting!!

Anyway, I am also excited for all that this semester holds!! I hope you are too! :)