“I passed through the seven levels of the Candy Cane forest, through the sea of swirly twirly gum drops, and then I walked through the Lincoln Tunnel.”

Well, almost.

This past week, I ventured through the Mid-Atlantic to visit some of my friends from Holy Cross. My first stop was Wethersfield, CT where I visited my roommate Kyle. After taking a 2 hour bus from Providence into Hartford, I ate a wonderful meal and stayed the night and then Kyle and I left for Carmel, NY the next morning. We arrived at my friend Dave’s house and “chilled” with him and his friends all day and got what Dave called “Carmel experience.” However I still do not know what exactly that was. If the “Carmel experience” was awkwardly sitting around Dave and his friends while  not being able to pick up on any inside jokes then sure, I got the Carmel experience

The most eventful part of my stay in Carmel happened at 4:30 in the morning when Kyle’s car alarm went off outside Dave’s house unexpectedly. Dave woke up and tried to find Kyle’s  car keys, however without any luck, he had to succumb to waking up Kyle. After living with Kyle for a semester I learned that he is not a morning person, and sometimes it takes a full effort on my part to get him to come to breakfast at Kimball, so when Dave woke Kyle up at 4:30, Kyle’s reaction was similar to this. Watching Kyle wake up and comprehend what Dave was telling him was nothing short of hilarious.

Despite the car troubles from the night before, Dave, Kyle, and I were off to Berkeley Heights, NJ  for my friend Andrew’s birthday. Similar to Buddy the Elf, we did travel through New York City, but not a sea of swirly twirly gum drops. After fighting the snow and slush, we arrived at Andrew’s where his mom treated us to classic sub sandwiches. After a night of meeting Andrew’s friends, I woke up the next morning and completed my trip by making the 5 hour trip back to Rhode Island.

As fun as it was to see all of my friends for the first time in 3 weeks, the transportation part of the trip made things more difficult then it had to be. Whether it was a bus ride that took twice as long as a normal car ride would, a car alarm going off at 4:30 in the morning, fighting slush on the New Jersey Turnpike, and a 5 hour trip back home, the transportation aspect of the trip was the only thing that I’d change.

If only I took the trip via iceberg…

One of my all time favorites. Rudolph. "Herbie wants to be a dentist."

Finishing a week of finals is very bittersweet.

For instance, finishing a week’s worth of final papers and tests is very relieving especially after all the work that I put into all of my assignments.  Last week was very stressful for me especially because all my finals and papers were due earlier in the week as opposed to some students who had later finals. For my 4 classes, I had 2 papers and 2 tests to prepare for and during that span of studying, writing, and stressing. This song could properly display my mood during that span. I was in study mode and  needed quiet music to get me through the home stretch, with Christmas not really on my mind.

Once I finished my finals week, you could say that I felt like this. I guess the feeling made me want to dance around a piano with all my pals and my pooch. In all honesty though, finishing a hard stretch of work and being home for the holidays is phenomenal. Similarly to Buddy the Elf, I have a whole list of stuff I want to do written on my Etch-a-Sketch now that I’m home with so much time on my hands.

However leaving Holy Cross was the “bittersweet” of my earlier metaphor. Although school is out for the winter, I’m not going to see any of my pals for 5 weeks. 5 weeks! Sure being home is great, but Holy Cross has been my home for the past 4 months so it’s almost like the first day of college all over again when I had to say goodbye to everyone in my home town. I’m starting to feel like a nomad.

Despite the hole in my heart caused by my absence from Holy Cross for the next 5 weeks (I still can’t believe it’s 5 weeks) it is good to be home, especially with Christmas just 8 days away. And you all know what that means…

Last week I celebrated my first birthday away from home, which was very different. Last year I was accepted into Holy Cross on my birthday, so I knew this birthday would be a little less uneventful.

Until I got the Nerf guns.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Crusader

My neighbor back in Rhode Island works for Hasbro, who helps manufacture and sell Nerf products. So last week I was happily surprised when I found a birthday “parcel” waiting for me in the mail room. Once I retrieved my “parcel” from the mail room and brought it back to my room, I opened it and reacted not as enthusiastic as this kid, but kind of close…

One Nerf gun and one Super Soaker. Even though Super Soakers aren’t very dorm friendly, I still used it as a status symbol while walking around the halls of my dorm.

Although these “child’s play things” are fun to play with, they are a great stress reliever as finals are approaching. There is such a rewarding feeling of pulling the trigger of the orange and blue plastic gun and successfully pelting your target of a doorknob from across the room during any study break

In my Tik-Tok Turkey Day post, I talked about how I had alot of work to finish before the Thanksgiving Break. However now I have finals,  in all of my classes. Next week commences finals week, however many students have been given a final paper or project instead of a final in-class test. Personally, I would much rather write a paper instead of taking a test. I guess that’s my English major hormones taking over…

Duel-Wielding

Luckily for me (I think), I have 2 papers and 2 tests, all of which will take a good amount of my time because they are summation of everything the class has covered throughout the year. It is important for me to do well on these because they have a larger impact on my grade, as opposed to some high school finals that I have taken in the past. Thank goodness for my stress ball (AKA Nerf toys) that will help get me through finals week…

Clementine. My favorite snack is back. After my much relaxing Thanksgiving break, I made sure to stock up on over a dozen tiny Vitamin-C packed morsels for my dorm room. Throughout high school clementines were a staple to my everyday school lunch while they were “in season” of course.

Now, at college, I have (a limited amount of) clementines sitting behind me on my bookshelf, ready to be eaten and enjoyed.

With 3 weeks of the semester left, I am currently part of my first ever “crunch time” period at HC. Crunch time at Holy Cross consists of  classes coming to a close, which means teachers will assign final projects and students will begin to study for finals. These next few weeks are not only very busy, but extremely important for all students. All the work put in by everyone throughout the semester will hopefully pay off. However without being healthy, it will be nearly impossible to successfully complete my first ever crunch time.

Here is my formula for how my newly acquired clementines will not only benefit my taste buds, but also my performance at school…

Clementines=Vitamin C

Vitamin C=Health-this has been common knowledge for us all since we were taking Flinstone vitamins back in our hayday

So…by the transitive property, my clementines will give me a healthy immune system that will allow me to capably study, and complete all assignments successfully during my “crunch time.” Studying or working on any school project while sick is never fun, nor is it easy.

I know that I may not be able to crunch into a soft clementine, unlike someone who is able to snap into a slim jim, but these cute clementines will hopefully keep me healthy for the rest of the semester which will hopefully allow me to study and complete all my work during this infamous “crunch time,” successfully.

I have been playing basketball since I was four year old. I played all throughout middle school, as well as high school. Basketball has been part of my life for as long as I can remember, except now at Holy Cross. I wasn’t big, fast, strong, and (probably) talented enough to play for the varsity team here, so as a result I am left without playing organized basketball for the first time in 15 years of my life (*tear*).

So instead of wallowing in my “glory days,” of my “infamous” basketball career, (notice the sarcasm inbetween the quotation marks) 2 of my friends an I played in a 3 on 3 tournament last Sunday night. The tournament was sponsored by Holy Cross’  Beverly Connection. The Beverly Connection is an organization established in 2008 that helps raise money and awareness for the Beverly School in Kenya. Since 2008 various fundraisers have been hosted by students at  Holy Cross to raise money for the school.

So when Sunday night rolled around, my friends and I made our way to the fieldhouse for the start of the tournament. After a half hour of warming up, followed by 15 minutes of standing around awkwardly in the field house, we were told the rules as well as who we were playing. Our first game was against a team who had a player who was helping organize the tournament, so we knew the game would not be easy. Since the tournament format was single elimination, the games were all extremely competitive.

After succumbing an early lead, the shooting of my friend Brian led us back into the game. He hit 4 3-pointers in a row to give us the lead. Then after a loose ball recovered by yours truly, I recovered, set my feet and hit the game winning shot just shy of the 3-point line.  Ok, so it wasn’t as dramatic but still. It felt good to get the first one.

In the second game, we fell behind again. And once again Brian salvaged our team by hitting 4 more 3-pointers (his back must have hurt by the end of the game for figuritively “carrying” my friend Jon and I). Once again I stepped up again and hit the game winning shot.

Are we sensing a theme here?

Our third game played was the semi-final game and it was against the crew team. Coming from a smaller public school, I never saw what type of “men” were on the crew team. Any conceptions of them being scrawny and thin is entirely false. The game looked alot like this. We were just outmatched by these guys who were a whole head taller than us, not to mention having at least 20 pounds on all of us. Game over.

After suffering the treacherous defeat, I knew the event was well worth it. I got to lace up the high-tops and play basketball again, but most of all simple fundraisers sponsored by Holy Cross students, like a 3 on 3 basketball tournament, allow less fortunate kids in Kenya to go to school.

Enjoy the rest of your week. I’ll be back next week!

If Ke$ha ever showed up to my family Thanksgiving, the integrity of the holiday would be ruined. Unfortunately her “smashing summer hit” has been stuck in my head for the week and I needed a theme to this blog post, so I went with a Ke$ha song…don’t ask questions.

Holy Cross has been AMAZING for me two and a half months in. My grades are better than they were in high school, I have a great group of friends, and Kimball’s all-you-can-eat setup has been awesome. However, I can’t wait to go home and celebrate turkey day with my family. Thanksgiving is easily my favorite holiday- football, food, and family what more do you need?  Because Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching, I have been counting down the days until I can wake up in my own bed, walk around the kitchen in search of appetizers to eat, play football with my cousins, then eat more with the family.

However, I have to get there first.  This is a busy week for me at Holy Cross. I have a paper due Friday as well as a test and quiz Friday, and finally a quiz tomorrow.  Thanksgiving won’t taste as good if I knew in the back of my mind that I could’ve done better on my paper, or studied a little longer for my tests and quizzes. So I’m afraid I have to cut this post a little short because of all the work I have going on.

Sorry I don’t have too much to say this week, not too much is going on for me except my school work. Check back in next week and I’ll try to have something a little more exciting…maybe I’ll throw in a couple pictures too.

School of Rock is one of my all time favorite movies. Cuurently at Holy Cross I’m having withdrawals because I want to see the movie, however I forgot it at home, and I’m not brave enough to venture onto one of the illegal movie websites to watch it. So what do I do to fufill my music fix?

I play the piano.

In my first semester at Holy Cross, I am enrolled in a class called Fundamentals of Music. In the class students are required to take piano tutorials, or lessons, every 3 weeks with our teacher. Then, a week or two later, we are quizzed by playing a selected song/tune/melody for our teacher.  However, none of us have ever played the piano before. The curriculum for Fundamentals of Music teaches students the basics, or skeleton, of music such as notes, scales, and chords, and with the information we learn in class we have to apply it in our piano tutorials and then quizzes.

Currently, I am facing one of my biggest obstacles since being at Holy Cross and that is playing the song “Andantino” by Igor Stravinsky (believe me I know, without even seeing the song it sounds hard because of the composer’s name).

 After spending extra time practicing for this song for my upcoming piano quiz, I have a new innate appreciation for anyone that can play the piano. Anyone who can fluidly move their left and right hands to play different notes at the same time, while simultaneously looking at the music has earned my respect.

My "Everest" at Holy Cross

However, as hard as this song is, I have developed an interest in the piano. As hard as playing the piano might be for me, nothing feels better than playing a measure (or the music contained between two bar lines for all you non-Fundamentals of Music experts) successfully after practicing it repeatedly. Isolating myself in a room with a piano has become relaxing, shockingly. Playing the piano has allowed me to clear my head from any other stress I have at Holy Cross, even if I’m not very good at it.

If you have seen School of Rock before, you should know the line where Jack Black’s character tells Joan Cusack’s character that “the kids are dyin’ to hear some Mozart,” in his attempt to sneak away from the school with his class to have them play at the “Battle of the Bands.” So although my piano skills are nothing like those of Mozart, isolating myself by playing the piano has given me a way to relax, and free myself of stress, even if I sometimes play the piano as well as this guy.

#17 for the Holy Cross Crusaders

Hello everyone and welcome to my admissions blog for the College of the Holy Cross. Hopefully you’ve read my bio and noticed that my name is not Bob Cousy and that I did not lead Holy Cross to 26 consecutive wins during the 1949-50 season.

However, my name is Ted Cullinane, and I am a first year student English major from East Greenwich, RI. Ever since I was accepted for early decision on my birthday (yes, that’s right) in early December of 2009, I had been awaiting attending Holy Cross. I applied early decision because Holy Cross had been my dream school since my freshman year of high school. Since then, I was constantly informed about the great things about the school from various alumni I knew as well as current students: “Great students, great professors, great campus, great community,” were among the commalities that seemed to sum up HC for me. 

All I had heard before coming to Holy Cross was that everyone at the school was happy. I did all my homework by spending hours memorizing the “Holy Cross” Princeton Review page like it was the Rosetta Stone. When I arrived at Holy Cross at the end of August, I wanted to prove the Princeton Review’s perception of Holy Cross’s happiness wrong (no “wrong” was not a typo, I’m an English major so I’m supposed to proofread my work at least 3 times…right?). I wanted to prove the Princeton Review wrong because I didn’t want to be attending a school where EVERYONE was constantly smiling and walking around smiling and giggling about abominable things like  thunderstorms and hurricanes.

There needed to be a happy medium for me (pun intended, excuse the humor this is only my first post). Of course I wanted to attend a school where I felt happy, safe, and comfortable but I also wanted to attend a competitive school where the students were focused and driven on success and receiving a degree. I wanted the professors to be tough enough to push me to achieve my potential, but at the same time not assigning too much work. But nobody’s perfect right?

The last two months I have spent at HC have been everything I hoped it would be. Great students, great professors, great campus, and a great community. Even my Statistics professor seems happy when he teaches our confused class about various summations, regression lines, and standard deviations for the first time. 

After two months spent on campus, I have realized that the Princeton Review‘s explanation about Holy Cross is correct. The Holy Cross community is happy, but not in the overt sense maybe one would see on Playhouse Disney, but over the last two months it is clear that students have constantly been pushing themselves, with the help of their professors in their respective classes, thus making all students’ along with my own pursuit of happiness obtainable.