I’m free! It’s all over! No more exams. No more classes. The only thing I have left to do is walk across the stage when they call my name Sunday. I’m ready. My family is coming down tomorrow for graduation so I have some cleaning cleaning to do, but otherwise I’m just counting down the hours.

I hear people talk about how they’re nervous or even scared about the next step…but I’m just excited. I’ve really enjoyed the last few years and I can honestly say I’m ready for the next stage of my life. I’m ready to make a little money too! I’m still not sure what I’ll end up doing. I’m keeping my fingers crossed on a few job opportunities. Who knows what tomorrow might bring. Anyways, I guess this will be my last post. It’s time to go throw my cap!

My answer. . . well, it wasn’t a perfectly good airplane.

I must have heard this question at least twenty times in the week leading up to my skydiving trip with the Campus Recreation Department. In fact, the plane ride up to 14,000 feet was probably the scariest part of the whole experience.

Miles Ledford, our campus recreation director, put together the trip for 25 or so UTC students and staff and on Sunday, April 6^th, we headed to Rockmart, GA .We arrived at Sky Dive the Farm around 12:00 on Sunday and there wasn’t a patch of blue in the sky. This meant that we would have to wait for the clouds to clear before we could even think about going up in plane.

After waiting for two hours I started thinking that maybe God was trying to tell me something. Maybe the overcast skies were God’s way of telling me to not voluntarily jump out of a plane. The longer I waited, the more anxious I became.

However, when the skies cleared a bit and the sun started to peek out from behind the clouds, I was ready to go. My name was called announcing that I would be jumping tandem in the first plane to go up for the day.

My tandem instructor was Big Steve and he ran through the events that were about to occur, giving me detailed instructions as he tightened my harness and got me ready to go. Soon we were on a bus to the airport, and ten minutes later, I was on a plane.

Ten of us crammed into the small aircraft, each with our tandem instructors, and three seasoned jumpers joined us as well – 23 in all. The engines started and soon I was looking down at farms and clouds as we zoomed higher into the air. I watched the altimeter as we flew up – 6,000 feet, 8,000, 10,000, — at 14,000 feet they opened the door, sending the rushing wind into the cabin. The experienced divers jumped out nonchalantly with a smile on their face, waving and giving a thumbs-up to the nervous rookies.

I watched my roommate go out of the plane door, strapped to her tandem instructor, and as she flipped through the air I caught a glimpse of her face – absolutely priceless. It was a look of shock, fright, and amazement; I wish I’d had my camera.

A few people jumped before me, and finally it was my turn. I looked down, leaning outside of the plane, as my tandem instructor got ready. I thought, “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” And before I knew, it I was looking up at the underside of the plane, and I was falling 120 mph through the air.

It was hard to breathe as the air rushed into my face. Big Steve said to scream if that happened in order to push the air out of the lungs and to begin breathing properly again. When I screamed the sound was lost into the air, only sounding like a small whistle in my head. We fell 8,000 feet in one minute before the parachute was released. Suddenly everything seemed silent compared to the noisy rush of air when we were free-falling. We floated in and out of clouds for the remaining 6,000 feet, and I even got to steer our parachute for a while. It was so calm in the sky, and I wished I could have stayed up longer. As we came in to land, I lifted my feet and we slid across the ground. My rear end became soaked from the muddy, wet ground.

The whole experience was great! I was ready to get back on the airplane and jump again. There is another trip planned for October, and you can bet that I’ll be going.

It’s only 13 days until the Big Show. You may ask, “what show are you talking about?” I am talking about the Early Bird Orientation on April 17th. I am so excited about orientation! I just love the job. I don’t think of it as my job, but more of my regular lifestyle. The enjoyment of meeting new students and their parents, interacting with people from different areas of Tennessee, and helping people get acquainted with the university makes me feel like a useful individual.

This weekend is going to be filled with great basketball games. The final four teams are going head to head starting at 4 pm on Saturday, which is awesome because I’ll have something to do while I am on duty. How fun…RA duty! Have a great weekend!

I’m rested, re-energized, and ready to finish up the end of the school year! Last week was Spring Break and it couldn’t have come at a better time. The weather has been warmer, the days have been longer, and I have to admit that I had been suffering from a bad case of Spring Fever. That being said, what did I do for the break? Snowboarding. I guess when most people think of Spring Break they think about the Beach at some exotic location. Not me…snowboarding. I went with a few friends and stayed the week in North Carolina near Sugar Mountain Ski Resort. It was great! The coverage was alright, the snow was slush, and it was about 50 degrees, but the company was good and we made the most of it.

It’s good to be back at school though. Time always moves faster after Spring Break. We really only have a few weeks left. The big day is getting closer by the minute…graduation that is. I picked up my cap and gown last week and it hit me for the first time that this is actually it. May 4th here I come!

As some of you may already know, you can now sign up for Orientation online. Orientation is required for all new students, freshman and transfer, and takes place during various dates for the summer. You can go ahead and sign up as long as you have your UTC ID and have been accepted to the university. In order to sign up, visit the orientation website at http://www.utc.edu/Administration/Orientation and click the “Register for Orientation” link.

I do suggest going to the earliest orientation possible. Since the classes at UTC are limited to a certain number of students, if you sign up for an early orientation you will have a better chance of getting that ideal schedule for the fall!

It has been a while since I have been able to write in my blog, but for good reason! I have been busy! Last week was Spring Break at UTC and while our students are enjoying the time off the employees have to keep on working. However, this year I got to go to Colorado with my best friend to see one of our friends from high school who I have known since the 7th grade. I spent 5 days in Denver and did my best to try out everything it had to offer. I went snowboarding, had an amazing steak, ate a buffalo burger, went sightseeing, and most importantly, went to Red Rocks national park.

Click the picture for a more viewable copy.

That picture was taken at Red Rocks national park, roughly 6800 ft above sea level. And yes, I did have to jump a guard rail and climb a little bit to get out there. Shhhhh! That will be our little secret.

This was my first vacation in 6 years and next month I will be heading to Anaheim for a conference. After it’s over I will be driving down the PCH, catching interstate 5 and going to San Diego to spend some time with a friend. I’m really looking forward to it!

I went to talk to a coordinator at the Children’s Advocacy Center today for a project that I am doing in my “Families, Home, & School Partnerships” (I know, a really long name for a very simple class). The Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) is a non-profit organization that works with children and families of reported abuse cases.

For the project my group members and I have to find out about different programs that they offer, statistics about child abuse, and things of that nature. It really amazed me that 1 in 4 children are abused in their lifetime and 90% of abuse cases that they see at CAC are sexual abuse cases. It broke my heart to hear these statistics.

From here, we have to take the information that we learned, and present it to the rest of our class. In addition, we have to create and perform a role-play where a teacher suspects abuse or violence in the home and has to tell the parent. It should be really interesting to see what other information different groups have found and chose to present to the class.

This project is a good example of the amount of learning is done outside of the classroom. It has helped me to realize that there are many different programs that I may have to utilize as a teacher and the types of situations that I may have to deal with when I have my own classroom.

It’s all but March and it seems like there is still so much work to do. This morning I attended the annual University Planning and Resource Advisory Council’s (UPRAC) budget presentations. Our Student Government President, Bill Staley, gave our presentation and did a great job! He addressed several major issues that effect our student body including campus accessibility (especially at night), programming, and the current use of our Student Activity Fee. Again, I think that Bill and SGA did a great job representing the students. Hopefully we will see some good changes in the next few years.

This weekend is the first weekend that I will be staying in Chattanooga in a while. Between retreats, meetings out of town, and Valentine’s Day I have been all over. The rest and relaxation are much needed. It’s good that classes haven’t been very hard, too. It has enabled me to give extra time to other things. Time management is definitely, a skill I have developed while here at UTC. There’s just never enough time…thank goodness it’s leap year!

Hello everyone! It’s been a long time since I wrote a blog and a lot has happened since then. There have been assignments, tests, research, plenty of studying, and activities that have occupied my time.

For the first time, I participated in the Mocs Mentor Days that we have for the high school seniors that live in Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis. The university sends a bus to pick up students to come enjoy the downtown area of Chattanooga and attend classes with a mentor. I, personally, had a blast with the students. They had a wonderful time here in the scenic city of Chattanooga. I’m looking forward to seeing them again at Orientation!

Well, that was a look at the past, but it’s time to get ready for the future. One of the largest rivalry games in college basketball, #1 Memphis vs #2 Tennessee, will be on air tomorrow night. That’s a must watch game for everyone across the state! As soon as the game is over, I have to study because midterm exams are next week with research papers due before the break! Then there’s the most exciting part of the spring semester, which is spring break! I am going to the Southeastern Regional Orientation Workshop in Columbus, GA! That’s my hometown and I’m so excited!

For me basketball season is more than watching the Mocs play, it is also my time to perform. As captain of the Sugar Mocs Dance Team it has been stressful at times, but despite the added responsibility, this year has been one of my favorites so far! I have jumped in as one of the choreographers this year, creating a jazz dance to a mix of “Tainted Love” and “SOS”. But my dance was nothing compared to a hip-hop dance that we did at the Furman game two Saturdays ago, that two of our sophomores choreographed. Being a ballet-trained dancer, this was no easy feat for me, but I had so much fun dancing to “Low” and “Juke” in front of our Mocs fans. The students and fans in the crowd were singing and moving along to the music while we danced. It’s always great to dance to a song that everyone knows and loves because we can feel their energy and excitement while performing.

On top of all that, the game was an exciting one. The Mocs had not been playing their best, and pulled off an amazing win, with the final score of 66-63! We will finish our home season on February 23^rd when we take on Wofford, and then head to the Southern Conference Tournament, where we will hopefully capture the title.

GO MOCS!