Swimming with dolphins

By Ashley Malloy on May 16, 2013

One of my friends wearing her Cabo Dolphins shirt after swimming with dolphins!

One of my friends wearing her Cabo Dolphins shirt after swimming with dolphins!

One thing I will never forget is my freshman year spring break. Going to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, was an unforgettable experience; something I might not ever do again. In my previous post, I wrote about my first time bungee jumping, but another first for me was swimming with dolphins!

When my friends and I arrived at Cabo Dolphins, I was a little shaky about the whole idea. I had been on a dolphin cruise and even saw a dolphin jumped out of the water while I was on the beach, but I had never been close enough to touch one, let along swim with one.

I was excited and nervous all at the same time. We walked up to the salt water arena, put on our life jackets and received instructions on how to handle the dolphins. I thought the dolphins might harm me, but it was interesting to hear about ways I could cause potential harm to the dolphins.

The instructors were not concerned with our safety, because the dolphins were strictly trained, but they were more concerned about what we could do wrong to the dolphins.  Just by putting my hand on the dolphin using my nails, I could harm them.

Grabbing onto their fins the wrong way could harm them while we were swimming. Touching them above their blowhole is harmful as well.  These are just a few of the things the instructors taught us.

Once we were educated on dolphin safety, we were ready to swim with the dolphins. Before I grabbed onto the fin, the dolphin kissed me on the cheek — it was the perfect Kodak moment! After the dolphins kissed us all, they took us for a ride around the arena.

They did all the work; we just held on to their fins while swimming along with them. On the first trip, the dolphin swam on its stomach and we held on for dear life. The second ride, the dolphin swam on its back, while we held on to their lower fins.

It was a great experience, and I would definitely do it again. I’m so thankful I had the opportunity to go on this vacation and to experience it with my wonderful friends. I would do it again in a heartbeat!

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Field trips make academics fun

By Twisha Balasubramanian on May 13, 2013

The Madison Power Plant!

The IKE power plant

So, I know I’ve been off the blogging scene for awhile, but hey I’m back! (To those of you who missed me). You’ve probably heard ample stories of how May Term is so much fun, with all the intramural sports (IMs), wiffleball, Derby Days and all that bliss that has to go with extra-curriculars.

I have no doubt that even if you’re not a Hanover College student yet, this will be the semester you will look forward to most. Something you should also look forward to is the one class you take during this semester.

Yes, that one class can either be the easiest class you’ve taken throughout your student years or it can be the longest. Either way, it will be fun, and trust me, learning will be a compulsory element on your agenda.

I’m enrolled in the Issues in Environmental Geology class this semester, and it is a longer kind of class. It begins at 9 a.m. and ends at noon Monday to Friday. In addition, I have lab on Tuesday, which goes from 1-4 p.m.

While it sounds like a taxing schedule and fixing work in there in the ambassadors office makes it sound worse, it really isn’t! One thing apart from the extra-curriculars that keeps me going are the field trips offered in this course.

My classmates and I recently visited the IKE coal-fired power plant, not very far away from Hanover’s campus. It was great to see for ourselves how the process of generating coal fired energy, worked. We even spent two weeks discussing how it was actually done.

That’s one thing about a liberal arts education at Hanover, your professors are not all talk and no game. They try their best to involve their students in application based learning and taking us on field trips to various places. This not only makes learning more fun, but we also grasp concepts better!

So, would you much rather stay in a cramped up room with 100 other students, trying not to fall asleep while you’re professor talks about how coal is mined and used to produce electricity, or would you rather have 14 other classmates who all get a personal tour from the personnel at a power plant visually showing you how the process works? Yes, it is way more fun to stand near those boilers and experience for yourself that 107 degree environment 20-feet below the ground!

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Getting down and derby

By Dakota McCoy on May 13, 2013

Spring Term is a blast, and I’m a little upset that I’m already halfway done with it. Around every corner something is happening during Spring Term.

The first week was Sigma Chi’s Derby Days, which is our annual competitive fundraiser. All four sororities on campus come over each day of the week, and we hold various competitions and raise money for philanthropy. In addition to the events, we also sell shirts, which make the majority of what we raise.

The first event was the tug of war. I was nervous, because as the Derby Days coordinator, the success or failure of the events would fall upon my shoulders. I sent out our “Derby Daddies” (They go out and hype up the sororities and bring them to our events), and they all came through for me.

All four sororities came out in full force, and the tug of war went over really well. Day two was the volleyball tournament, which went off without a hitch. Our Greek Adviser even came by to see the event.

On day three, we held a water balloon fight between the sororities. It took hours for us to fill them up, but within thirty minutes the girls burned through more than 1,000 water balloons, it was quite the wet mess. The balloons we bought were biodegradable, so luckily there was no need to pick up the shards.

Day four was Catch a Sig. For this event, our fastest runners grease up with vegetable oil, and we time the sororities to see who can catch them first. It usually takes a few minutes until the guys get tired and get caught, but one of the sororities sent out a rugby player who got him in under 30 seconds!

Our final event was the bike race on Friday. It was 100 laps around the mall behind our chapter house. It took a very long time, and the girls had to switch their racers every now and again to avoid fatigue, but overall it was a lot of fun. We ended up raising more than $1,000 for our charity, the Huntsman Cancer Institute.

This week I’m looking forward to the opening of the SAC, after it being closed all year for renovations. I’ll be playing music at the opening ceremony on Saturday, so it should be fun!

The Student Activity Center is nearing completion!

The Student Activity Center is nearing completion!

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Seriously Shakespeare

By Kylie Miller on May 13, 2013

The Hamlet set before the actors took the stage. This version of Hamlet took place in a fencing school, which was a very interesting portrayal.

The Hamlet set before the actors took the stage. This version of Hamlet took place in a fencing school, which was a very interesting portrayal.

Quickly, while I have a moment, let me tell you more about my week in Stratford, England. Since you last heard from me, I had seen three Shakespeare productions: “The Taming of the Shrew,” “Hamlet” and “As You Like It.”

“Hamlet” is my favorite Shakespearean work of all time, so this has been my favorite moment of the trip so far. The production was amazing, the actor playing Hamlet performed magnificently — bringing my favorite character to life right before my eyes!

I also made my debut acting performance with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Shakespeare’s birthplace, playing in a snippet from one of Shakespeare’s tragedies. Yours truly was selected from the crowd to play one half of a pair of star crossed lovers and ended up laying on the ground after finding my love dead.

Oh is my life! In a very good way, though. And the best thing? Tomorrow we are going to tour two castles. The medieval loving part of me (which is all of me) will have trouble falling asleep tonight.

 

Waiting for As You Like It to begin, we had the great fortune to have Pippa Nixon (aka Rosalind) come speak to our class the day after we watched this play.

Waiting for “As You Like It” to begin, we had the great fortune to have Pippa Nixon (aka Rosalind) come speak to our class the day after we watched this play.

 

Ice-cream can be purchased for three pounds during intermission. This is a theatre tradition at the RST so naturally I was game!

Ice-cream can be purchased for three pounds during intermission. This is a theatre tradition at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, so naturally I was game.

 

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Summer jobs and internships

By Jackson Pollock on May 13, 2013

Nothing Stops This Train Cast

Nothing Stops This Train Cast

As the school year wraps up for most high schools and Hanover, there’s only one thing on everyone’s mind. Summer. With it, summer brings the ever-illustrious summer jobs. This is true for college students, too.

While many high schoolers and college-age students may wind up working in fast food, retail or other hometown business opportunities, Hanover actually has a lot to offer for the summer between classes.

There’s not a ton happening on campus during this time, but Hanover students are busy putting themselves out there and gaining experience in areas that interest them through internships and study abroad opportunities.

Now, internships are a lot easier to find than you might think, and it’s quite easy to find paid opportunities as well. Through the Office of Experiential Learning, headed by David Harden, students at Hanover can find internships in every field from medicine to theatre, computer science to museums.

And the best part about many internships is that you can actually earn course credit for doing them without any additional cost in tuition. With a little extra paper work, most internships can easily become academic internships.

While I am not partaking in an academic internship this year, I do have an internship with the Rivers Institute Traveling Theatre for the summer. It’s a paid position, and it’s doing something I love doing: acting. This internship will give me some experience in a traveling group and give me a taste of what professional acting is all about.

We’ll perform shows all summer throughout Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Illinois, so look for “Nothing Stops This Train”; we might be coming to a theatre near you. And since it’s based around campus, I get to stay here this summer and enjoy its natural beauty.

Internships are a great way to spend a summer doing something you enjoy and getting some experience in a field you’re interested in. I know a few other current students who plan to study abroad for the summer and a few others spending their summer going on mission trips.

Overall the goal for many students at Hanover isn’t to just sit idly by while others get ahead. Many of us take advantage of our summers to experience life and learn a little as we go. And what ever way you look at it, any internship beats working at McDonald’s.

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Whoever invented air conditioning should get a medal

By Matt Loria on May 10, 2013

Would it be weird to sleep with this makeshift ice pack headband on? In a strange way, I'm kind of really proud of this. How do I go about patenting and manufacturing?

Would it be weird to sleep with this makeshift ice pack headband on? In a strange way, I’m kind of really proud of this. How do I go about patenting and manufacturing?

So, here’s the dilemma, folks. (Wow —  folks — there’s a word I don’t use often.) I have serious environmental allergies and now it’s spring. Actually, that’s not really the dilemma.

The dilemma is that it’s getting hot out (more specifically in my room), so I broke out the ole box fan and plopped it in the window. Now my room is nice and cool. However, it is most likely filled with pollen, and I get to wake up in the morning with itchy (sometimes puffy and swollen, gross? I know…) eyes and a scratchy throat.

Ergo (fancy eh?), I take the fan out of my window, and nope, allergies are still bad in the mornings. So, I take one last shot at allergy freedom, and I shut the window. Aha! Relief!

But wait! Not really! Because! I’m sorry I’ll stop using exclamation points! Or will I!? I will.

Anyhow, I shut the window, and I’m left with an 82-degree room, and a restless and uncomfortable sleep.

Hence, my dilemma: do I sleep well and wake up miserable, and possibly dead because of my throat swelling shut (can you wake up dead? Can allergies kill you? These are the important questions I need answered this spring term. Thankfully, there’s wikiAnswers…), or do I sleep terribly and wake up tired but alive?

Logic says to sleep terribly and wake up alive, but my ridiculously hot room says otherwise.

I suppose I only have — let me count — 14 days left without air conditioning (oh sweet, blessed air conditioning, which would solve all of my current problems). And the great news for next year is that I get to live in Blythe Hall (the freshmen air conditioned dorm).

I suppose I should add that I’ll be a resident assistant (RA) in Blythe, and not just living in there as an upper class student. That would be weird.

So, let my misery be a lesson to anyone who is coming to or returning to Hanover, and get your medical information form thing turned in (the optional form that requires your doctor’s explanation on why air conditioning is essential for your condition).

This form doesn’t guarantee you will get into an air conditioned dorm, but it does give you a better chance. Especially, if you’re like me and have to get allergy shots each week because your body thinks it would be hilarious to make you decide between a box fan and a sweaty nap.

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The joys of May Term

By Ashley Malloy on May 9, 2013

There are many fun activities that come with the whole atmosphere of May Term. For those who may have never heard of it, it is one class for the entire month of May; some classes meet daily for two hours.

My class is Nutrition, which meets three days a week, for four hours each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The class is really interesting, but it’s definitely not an easy one. I have devoted many hours to studying and put forth a lot of effort.

While most of my friends are at wiffleball (a fun activity a fraternity puts on), intramural soccer, sand volleyball or a 3-on-3 basketball tournament, my roommate Kelsey (who is also taking Nutrition) and I are in our dorm room studying away.

Obviously, this is not how we intended to spend our May Term — both of us would rather be outside enjoying the spring weather at Hanover College with our friends, but I tell myself that in the next few years, I will be glad I took this hard class so early.

The wiffleball field!

The wiffleball field on Hanover’s campus

Getting this hard class finished early will be beneficial, since taking harder classes early allows students a more laid back spring term class during the senior year. I continue to remind myself that I will only be going through this hard class for a month.

Nutrition has been my hardest class since arriving at Hanover College, but at least it is only for one month.

I decided to join a couple of wiffleball games as a stress reliever from studying.  It was awesome to compete against teammates and battle alongside peers.  My basketball team put together a wiffleball team, and it was nice to have some fun without being too competitive.

I can’t wait for our next one, since it will be a good study break, and I will get to join in on one of the many fun experiences of May Term!

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Ten Days!

By Careen Turner on May 7, 2013

Ten days. That is all I have left before I leave the country for three months to work at Space Camp in Izmir, Turkey. I am really excited because this will be my first time leaving the country, but I am still a little worried since I am going with four strangers. I am sure we will become very well acquainted during our 11-hour (ish) flight, but the idea of it is still a little scary.

Space_Camp_Turkey

Space Camp Turkey logo

I am really not quite sure what to expect but I know that no matter what, I am going to have the time of my life, meet so many wonderful people and leave a better person than I was when I arrived.

To prepare for my three-month adventure at Space Camp in Turkey, I have taken all the necessary steps:

  1. Borrowed a book to read up on Turkish culture
  2. Downloaded an app that will help me learn a few Turkish terms and phrases (So far, I know how to say thank you, and my name is Careen.)
  3. Using my wonderful Hanover network I have been chatting with Hanover alum, Moana Kanel, to learn about her experience and what to expect during my three-month stay
  4. And last, but not least, utilizing the convenient Facebook page that was set up by our hiring manager to provide us with information and to help us to get to know who we will work with at camp.

These necessary steps have been more than helpful in preparing me for my trip, and I have really benefited from each of them. I am so excited for this experience, and I can’t wait to hop on a plane, learn more about space, rockets and another culture in a different part of the world.

This experience will definitely be one for the books, and I am so ready to get going and start with this new exciting chapter in my life!

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Cheers!

By Kylie Miller on May 6, 2013

During the May Day festivities at Mary Arden's farm, we were able to craft these wreathes. We also got to witness the abilities of this magnificent owl.

During the May Day festivities at Mary Arden’s farm, we were able to craft these wreathes. We also got to witness the abilities of this magnificent owl.

Means “thank you,” which I had no idea until I heard it about 75 times during my first day in Stratford. This trip is amazing, though I must admit it was rough goings at first, running on no sleep and what have you for what felt like years and then crashing.

So far, we have been here for three days and man, have we seen a lot of stuff. A falconry demonstration, Mary Arden’s home (Shakespeare’s mother) and Holy Trinity Church (his place of worship).

I also learned how to properly celebrate May Day, and zillions of other things. Tomorrow morning classes begin properly, and I can’t wait to hear some guest lecturers. Then Tuesday evening we have our first play to attend as a group.

I have never had so much delicious food and been offered so many cups of yummy teas in my life. This place could win me over easily, and already I find myself hoping that time will slow down.

I have so much to see in two weeks, and while I have already done a bit, there are more platters of fish and chips to be tasted and tons more medieval locations for me to scope out.

This evening was a perfect Sunday in Stratford: we had class in a tea garden and took turns reading/performing sonnets of our choice. With two very knowledgeable professors giving us feedback, we all were successful in bringing the sonnets to life. We finished just in the nick of time too, just as my last classmate finished her lines, the sun set.

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Spring term and Derby Days

By Jackson Pollock on May 6, 2013

Just some Derby Days fun!

Just some Derby Days fun!

As other schools are getting out for the summer, Hanover’s getting right back into the swing of things for spring term. While spring break was a great time, anticipation was on the rise to get back to school for the campus’s most fun and interesting semester.

During spring term, I have three hours of class a day (yes, only three hours) and only one class to worry about. However, I’ve been far from bored. Lambda Chi Alpha has started their annual wiffleball tournament. This tournament lasts all spring term and provides some good entertainment during the week.

This past week has also been Sigma Chi’s annual Derby Days. This is the staple philanthropy event of the fraternity internationally. It typically lasts a week long and involves competitions among the campus’ sororities.

We started off the week with a simple tug-of-war. This quick match sparked interest across campus again and brought out many people for the second day, a six-on-six volleyball tournament.

Each sorority brought out more than enough people and racked up some points for themselves and donated some to Sig’s preferred charity, the Huntsman Cancer Foundation. The next two days followed much in suit with a water balloon fight, much needed in the heat of the week, and the Catch-a-Sig competition where sororities chased down vegetable oil-covered brothers.

Friday should prove to be fun with the last event of the week, the 100 laps of doom. Sororities will send one member on a bike around a loop behind the Sig chapter house. They can trade off as much as they want but the first sorority with 100 laps completed wins. The winning sorority gets a cookout put on by the men of Sigma Chi and gets some bragging rights in the Greek community.

I have to say, being new to the Greek world, it’s pretty cool to see an event where chapters can come together, put aside their petty quarrels for awhile and just have some good, old-fashioned, friendly competition. Having only experienced a week of spring term I can already say it’s been, without a doubt, the best part to top off an already amazing year.

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