Walking in a winter wonderland.

You can't deny it: MSU's campus is probably the most beautiful after the first snowfall of the year. Granted, I love this campus 100% of the time, it's just that there's something about blankets of crystalized water covering trees, buildings, and sidewalks that really gets me. :] And after 48 hours of freezing rain, sleet, and hail, I think we deserved a little beauty.

This is the view from outside my window on the top floor of Wilson Hall. I love the way the snow lays on top of the individual branches of the pine trees in the South Complex courtyard. It makes me want to walk around and take pictures of everything before it melts or turns to slush. Too bad I have class..

Oh! I forgot about these photos too! Remember that random blizzard we got in the middle of November? My suitemate and I were trying to to catch the HUGE snowflakes on our tongues. :]

The snow didn't really stick then...

I got distracted from writing this blog, so I have new pictures to show! This is from my walk from Wilson to the Engineering late this morning. 

That last photo is my favorite from the day. It reminds me of why I love photography so much.

Also, people do some crazy things on the first snowfall.. Several of my friends went outside at night to build snowmen and throw snowballs at each other, but unfortunate me had to do homework and study all night long. :[ I think all of the people that went to play outside felt sorry for all of the others who stayed in, or at least the people featured in this online video blog from an MSU student..

Like I said, we do some crazy things. :p

And I'll keep wonderin', when will my life begin?

There's an upside and a downside to the end of regular season college football, or at least for me.

The downside: no more football. No more tailgating, no more sunburned (or windburned) faces and screaming at the top of our lungs for the Spartans to dominate the field. No more reveling over amazing game-winning and turning-point plays like "The Rocket" and "Little Giant." Football season is honestly one of my favorite times of the year. Ever since going to a Big Ten university where football is a major weekend event of the fall season, I've fallen in love with the sport. I love the atmosphere before, during, and after the games as well as the strategy and skill involved in beating the other teams, especially our rivals down the street (FOUR YEARS IN A ROW!) I've even started watching NFL games just because I've finally learned (almost) all the rules and regulations to the game. :]

The upside: I'M FINALLY DONE WITH MY JOB. I've probably mentioned this before, but another one of my glamourous jobs is working for the Police Department under the Special Events/Traffic division. Every home football game day I've worked from 2am until whenever the game starts allowing certain traffic to pass through my designated intersection and then helping an officer directing pedestrians safely across the street toward the stadium. I love that I get paid for this and the work isn't terribly grueling, but it completely messes up my sleep/homework/social schedule. My shift BEGINS at 2am, so in order to get an adequate amount of sleep I should go to bed before 10pm the night before. This is normally impossible due to my continuous work load and the fact that it is a Friday night on a college campus. Most of my homework is done on the internet or utilizes the computer in some shape or form so I can't do much when I'm sitting in a car in the middle of Wilson Road for ten or more hours with no power. Also, since I'm trying to rest the night before and the working all up until the game, I don't get to spend time with my friends or boyfriend on Friday nights nor do I get to tailgate with them Saturday mornings. And after my work and the game are finished for the weekend, I'm completely exhausted from lack of sleep and then it's time to start on homework for the weekend, so Saturday fun is out of the question as well. So now that the season is over, I can finally enjoy my weekends and maybe actually catch up on all the homework that's behind me..

And speaking of football, did I mention I'm going to the Big Ten Championship in Indy early December? My wonderful boyfriend is taking me there with a few of our friends, and we're in row 16 of the designated MSU student section. I'm so excited! GO GREEN! :D

Now I'm feelin' so fly like it's Quidditch.

This past weekend was, once again, my favorite of the year. Why, you may ask? Because it's the weekend of the QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP in NEW YORK CITY. It was my second year attending this event, and it was just as fantastic as the first.

The Michigan State University Spartan Spitfires traveled via bus with the University of Michigan Quidditch team to Randall's Island, New York to participate in the fifth annual Quidditch World Cup. This year, over 100 high school, collegiate, and community teams signed up. There were even teams out of country, from Canada and Finland! With about 25 people on each roster and local friends, family, and fans, there were well over 3000 people on the island that weekend! This is the most participation the IQA (International Quidditch Association) has seen in it's early age, and the numbers just keep on growing. A representative of Central Michigan University actually recently contacted me about starting a team in Mount Pleasant, so you can see just how popular this sport is becoming. :]

Back to the weekend though, our team was having a blast. We went 3-1 in pool play on Saturday, the first day of games, beating Villanova, Virginia Tech, and Stoneybrook, while losing to the University of Minnesota. There were a few unfortunate mishaps though. One of our best beaters collided head-on with a player on the Villanova team and suffered a grade 3 concussion during the third game, so he missed out on the final games of the weekend. The doctors said that our player sustained the worst injury since about 9 or 10 players had been rushed to the ER throughout the day. He's been doing much better since though, thank goodness. I can't wait to see him back on the Quidditch pitch!


Sunday began the single-game elimination rounds. MSU was seeded 12th overall after the first day's games , which is AWESOME considering it's out of 100 teams! We eat Marquette by a snitch catch then lost our next game to UCLA. Even though we lost, I think that game was my favorite. It was the hardest and most challenging game of the weekend, but I was proud of my team and how well we played despite the loss. Like I said, this is my favorite weekend of the year, because it's a wonderful way to bond with my teammates and become closer as a family. I love them all so much!

After our final game, we headed over to the stadium to watch the final games on the weekend, where the defending champions, Middlebury College, won the cup AGAIN for the fifth straight year in a row. Congratulations to them, but I'm hoping their reign will end sooner rather than later. ;] The only team to beat Middlebury in their entire quidditch career was this year when the University of Michigan quidditch team defeated them on a snitch catch in pool play. I'm so proud of Michigan, considering they're such a new team and this was their first year at the World Cup! I know, I know, you're thinking," WHY IS SHE CHEERING FOR MICHIGAN?!" It's because it's BTQ, or Big Ten Quidditch. Six of the twelve Big Ten universities have quidditch teams, whether as student organizations, or club sports, so we have kind of banded together to support each other when facing teams in the eastern, wester, and southern leagues. The University of Minnesota actually made it all the way to semi-finals, so proud of them, too!

Besides quidditch, our team did get to do a little sight-seeing! Friday night, a couple of us took the train into the city, and had dinner and went shopping in Times Square, and a few people got to go to Ground Zero and the Statue of Liberty over the next couple of days as well. It is such a beautiful city, full of life and hustle and bustle. :] I can't wait to go back next year! QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP VI 2013!!!

PS. This last picture is of Alex Benepe, the current commissioner and one of the founders of Muggle Quidditch, and I at the tournament. He is just SO COOL. :D

This, right here, is my swag.

So there's this contest on Facebook to see which college hockey goalie can get the most votes for his mask. It's sponsored by the CCHA fan page, but you can vote on College Hockey, Inc.'s picture. If you go to "Photos" or just scroll down on the wall, comment on the picture that you want Drew Palmisano (Michigan State's starting goalie) to win! He's made it all the way down to quarter finals, but we want Palmisano to go for the win! Here's a description and photo of the two different masks:


"An all-CCHA quarterfinal between Scott Greenham's Alaska mask and Drew Palmisano's MSU mask. Greenham bases his mask on his personal motto, "Believe," and we'll let him take it from there: "I have the Humble Bumble on my right side walking through the mountains, and Yukon Cornelius wandering on the other side looking for the Humble Bumble. ... I then have the Misfit Toys castle from the same carto...on tucked in the upper left hand corner with foot prints from Santa and Rudolph leading away from the castle." Palmisano pays tribute to Sparty and the last MSU goalie to win a national title - Jeff Lerg - on his mask. Let us know in the comments which you prefer - we'll close the polls Tuesday at 2 pm ET and the winner advances to the next round."

So go vote for Palmisano! And tell all of your friends! It doesn't matter if you like hockey or not, it's all for supporting Michigan State University athletics! :D

Just from worrying if the wedding is on or off, a person can develop a cough.

It's that time of year again.. when the wind whips through all of the buildings on campus and the sky is constantly overcast.. in other words, my least favorite time of the year. :/ Don't get me wrong, I love Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, bonfires, the scent of pine and cookies in the oven, it's just the weather that always gets to me. I thrive in the sun and warm air, and the lack of it during half the year simply sucks.

It's also the easiest time of year to get sick! I feel like I may be developing a little bit of a cold, too. :[ College students just can't afford to get sick! I have a three exams over the next two weeks, two labs, a lot of work shifts, and I'll be traveling to New York next weekend for the Quidditch World Cup. I think I'm going to drink A LOT of orange juice over the next couple of days and make sure that I stay out of the yucky weather..

In case, you do get sick to the point of needing medical attention, Olin Health Center is conveniently RIGHT on campus in East Circle Drive up by Grand River. MSU students are allowed a courtesy prepaid three visit limit for simple services like obtaining a doctor's note and prescribing medicine for illness. They offer a variety of other services including flu and allergy immunization, drug abuse and health clinics, distribution of birth control and sex education, and just general health information. They even have transportation services via courtesy van or cab if the issue is that serious! But if Olin isn't the place you're looking for, there's Lansing Urgent Care and Sparrow Hospital in Lansing as well. You can check out all that information here.

So moral of the story.. don't get sick! Stay safe and health conscious and you won't have to worry about any of this. :] Happy November!

Small town Homecoming Queen.

First of all, THIS IS MY 100TH POST!

So I just wanted to thank my employers/readers/friends for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts and experiences from MSU with you all. I have very much enjoyed being able to show everyone all of the cool things that I've seen or been involved with on this campus. It has driven me to be do more and more each day, just so I have the fortune to share my pictures and views with all of you. So once again, thank you!

As most of you may know, it was Michigan State's Homecoming celebration all last week with the inspiring theme of "Glow Green, Go White." I really liked this one considering I'm a huge believer in recycling and power and energy saving equipment. Unfortunately, my schedule was incredibly hectic so I was not able to participate in as many activities as I would have liked to. I DID skip my Calculus class on Friday though to get FREE DAIRY STORE ICE CREAM at the rock. Don't worry, my Graphic Communications professor said it was alright to skip, and it was definitely worth it (and I didn't even miss anything important in class.. win!). :D The MSU Quidditch team, the Spartan Spitfires, were also represented in the annual parade up on Grand River! Once again, I had conflicting events so I was not able to play alongside my team members, but I heard that they had a blast! One of my friends told me that a bunch of the younger kids, about elementary level, were ecstatic to see one of their favorite reading books come alive before their lives. She gave us the idea to host an event called "Kidditch" where a bunch of elementary students learn how to play a much toned-down level of the game, but can still run around with a broom between their legs throwing dodge balls at each other and volleyballs through plastic hula hoops. I just want to see their faces light up once they play. :]

Then there was... the football game. That was, and will probably remain, the greatest sports game I have attended at MSU. I had previously worked 18 hours for my Special Events/Parking job and I was thinking about skipping out on the game considering State was slated to lose, but I decided to stay and sit with my boyfriend and our friends in the top of the blue student section. That was the BEST decision I've made in a while. Luckily for me, I didn't get in to the stadium until after Wisconsin scored those initial, brutal points so I missed everything bad about that game. As soon as we got settled in our seats, MSU went for a safety, made it, and scored a touchdown all on the same play. I could tell that it was going to be a good game. Blocked punts and field goals, fumble recoveries, no penalties, complete passes, and a Hail Mary "Rocket" play at the end? I think everything that COULD happen in a football game, DID happen. The student section just erupted with elation when the refs made that final call with 00:00 left IN THE GAME. It was SO GREAT to be a part of that, MSU pride. :]

Our football team rushing the field to celebrate with the student section - October 22, 2011 :D

Apart from all of the Homecoming festivities this weekend, my friends and I went to the pumpkin patch on Sunday! It was a little but of a drive and we were all very squashed in the car, but it was fun all the same. We had decided to rent out the public kitchen in Holden so we could carve pumpkins and make a home cooked meal. I hadn't picked pumpkins in years, and I had almost forgotten how much I love Cider Mills. I bought an apple cider slushie while I was there, and a .5 peck of honeycrisp apples to take home, since they're my absolute favorite. :] It was wonderful to spend so much time with what I call my "Floor Family" since I hadn't seen most of them in a month and a half due to homework, work, and life. I'm still in the process of carving my pumpkin, but it is going to be AWESOME when I finish it. Also, the home cooked meal was delicious, thank you to Shannon's mother's recipe, and I loved cooking a huge meal with everyone else. :]

Picking apples from the trees.

Floor family and our pumpkins :]

Purchases from the Uncle John's Cider Mill!

Carving pumpkins in the East Holden kitchen.

Home-cooked meal with Floor Family! <3

Dinner was delicious, the weather was gorgeous, I didn't have ANY homework to do; I couldn't have asked for a more perfect Homecoming weekend at MSU. <3

Smash right through that line of blue!

I think one of my favorite Michigan State traditions is Sparty Watch. It happens every year in the week leading up to the MSU vs. UMich football game, no matter if we're home or away. It started out with just the band, but it has expanded to a university wide week-long event. There's even a Facebook event page!

The goal? Guard Sparty. The Spartan, nicknamed "Sparty", is iconic. It's a full circle thing too: freshman take photos with him when they first come to MSU, and graduates snap a picture with him in their caps and gowns when they receive their diplomas. Newlywed, particularly alumni who met at MSU, commonly take  pictures with Sparty if they get married in the Chapel on campus.

So what would the Walmart Wolverines try to do to demoralize us? Ruin our icon. Every year they plan a siege on our beloved statue, but we defend it. We're classy so we don't defend with force, but with strength in numbers. There's also this guy nicknamed Johnny Spirit who guards the statue 24/7. You all know who he is: that crazy guy who bikes around campus painted green with a giant white Spartan "S"on his chest. He brings a cot and everything. It had to be pretty cold at night this past week, I hope he was able to stay warm!

I wasn't able to attend this year due to work and classes, but my friend Jon took this awesome picture!

I hope everyone enjoys the game tomorrow! Remember be safe, make good life decisions, and BLEED GREEN! 

GO GREEN! GO WHITE!

All I do is win, win, win, no matter what.

So you know when you enter those silly contests where you have to "like" a Facebook page and you'll win something totally cool? Well, I did just that, and I won!

The CCHA: Central Collegiate Hockey Association Facebook page decided to hold a contest to get more "likes", so they posted to all their fans to pass the page around to friends and after a couple of weeks, one lucky fan would win a limited edition "Hockey in the D" jersey. One of my friends posted the link on her status, so I decided why not? I AM a fan of the CCHA anyway, considering I love Michigan State hockey. So all I had to do was click on the little "like" button at the top of the page and BAM! I won a sweet new jersey. :]

To be honest, I didn't even know that I had one. One of my other hockey friends posted on my wall wishing me congratulations for winning a jersey, and I had to go to the CCHA fan page to see the official post:

Unless there's another Aerin Klump that exists in the world who is one of 5,008 people who are a fan of CCHA on Facebook, I'm pretty sure that's me. :] This is what the jersey looks like too!

I have never won a contest before, so this is just tooooooo cool! :D I can't wait to see it in person! My goal is to have all of the Detroit Red Wings sign it, too. Great idea, huh? :]

Math is a really cool thing so get off your act, let's do some math!

You need to hear about the debacle that was my first Calculus IV exam of the semester.

First of all, my professor decided a while ago that he wanted to have us take proctored online exams because he thought it would be easier for the students to take, we'd get instant feedback on our grades, and it would save on a TON of paper and time on grading for the TA's. It was to be through a website called WeBWorK, the one many math professors use for their students to acquire and submit the answers to their homework problems for a grade. But that's just what the website it: a problem. It frequently crashes at the worst possible times, especially when students are trying to get their homework done before the due dates. So obviously, this is a sign that one of the three EXAMS, which weigh heavier on your overall grade than homework does, for the class should NOT be taken on a malfunctioning website.

The night of the scheduled exam, all of the students were assigned to different labs across campus since the exam had to be taken on a computer with a proctor overseeing that cheating didn't occur. I was unlucky enough to be in South Kedzie's lab, while some of my other friends from Wilson only had to go to Case Hall, right next door to us.

So I biked over to Kedzie pretty early since I was really prepared for this test, and found the lab in a maze of hallways and offices. I sat down, logged in to WeBWorK, and got ready for the proctor to give us the signal to start. As 5:30pm rolled around, or proctor as well as about ten or twelve others, allowed their students to start the exam, and guess what happens when 400+ students try to log on to a faulty website at one time? It's going to crash, duh. Three students from my section were able to get in and begin the exam, but the rest of us stared at the login screen and the progress bar on the bottom of the browser window. We waited patiently for about 20-30 minutes before our proctor called our professor, who proceeded to tell us to shut down the log in pages because he was going to open up each lab section individually.This seemed like a pretty good idea until about 6:30pm when our exam still wasn't open and the exam would be closed in an hour. So after another phone call, we were told our exams had been canceled and a solution would be devised and we would be notified later in the evening.

Now, I was already pretty upset because I was so well prepared for this exam and then we couldn't take it at our scheduled time. Plus, I had oodles of homework to finish and it just had felt like I completed wasted two hours of life. Let's just say I was rather frustrated for the rest of the day.

The solution our professor came up with made it all better, though. He initially wanted us to take paper exams the following week's recitation (8 days after the scheduled exam!), but I believe many students emailed him expressing their concern for learning a week's worth of new material before being tested on the old stuff. He then proposed to make the exam the following day during recitation, but then assumed that students who wouldn't read their email between then and exam time would not be prepared to take the exam in a shorter amount of time (a 50 minute recitation instead of a 2 hour exam). His final decision was his best, and our favorite, choice. He made the exam available on WeBWorK to be taken, unproctored, any time from late Wednesday night until tonight (Sunday) at 11:59 pm. It would be our responsibilities to follow the MSU Engineering Code Of Conduct and respect the Academic Honesty Policy. I was so amped up for the exam already, that I just decided to get it over with that night. It took me about 30 minutes and I aced it after 3 attempts (we're only allowed 4 grade submissions before that becomes your final grade.)

I was just so happy to be done with that exam that I celebrated by going to bed at a decent hour instead of doing any more homework. :] Hopefully this will not happen again this semester, it was way to stressful to deal with in one night!

Just a day, just an ordinary day.

Well it's been a blah kind of weekend. I did homework the majority of Friday afternoon and night, then watched movies with friends the rest of the night.

Saturday was.. interesting. About 80% of my floor, and the rest of campus, went home this weekend because we didn't have a home football game, so it was really quiet all day long. And then there was.. the football game, or lack there of. I was so psyched for our game against Notre Dame because they lost to Michigan last weekend, and we are expected to beat Michigan when we play them in October, so we should have won, right? Wrong. If you didn't happen to watch the game, Notre Dame scored a touchdown right off the bat, and just stayed ahead of us the whole game. Besides the numerous interceptions and incomplete passes, there were SO many penalties and flags, so it just made for an overall bad game, at least to watch. Ugh. I'm prayin' for a win against Central this weekend. *fingers crossed*

Sunday was filled with, you guessed it, more homework. I was able to take a break for two hours to attend quidditch practice on Dem Field. It was such a great practice too! My legs are STILL sore from running so much. We had about 40 new students show up to this practice where we taught them the general rules and ins and outs of the game. There's so many enthusiastic people that want to join the club as well! I think it's going to be a good year for us. :]

I think this week is pretty busy for everyone though. While the majority of my friends have 2-4 exams this week, I lucked out with one, so I've been studying for that all day. It's only Monday and I'm already counting down toward the weekend.. let's do this! Good luck on exams/papers/projects everyone! :]