Sunday seems to be that one day that most college students spend procrastinating. Although it’s not recommended to do your homework so late in the week, the good thing is that we can all get our work done on time most of the time. It’s almost a social thing to do your homework so late because you mostly want to spend the weekend with your friends and hang out and share memories and all. I feel like I procrastinate for this reason most of the time besides special occasions like being sick and just being straight lazy. Sometimes within my laziness, I find myself reading and following up on trends I tend to follow up on through Facebook and Twitter; things I don’t usually do. I don’t know exactly why I don’t always read up on news articles but to me it seems like I can trust to find things out from my friends. Whether I hear rumors or not, I always look things up for whatever news I hear from friends.

Usually on Sundays I look forward to eating brunch with my friends, the best meal in my opinion. I mean who wouldn’t want pizza along with their cinnamon toast?  It’s unique and not really a meal you have everyday which is what I like about the dining halls. I could get used to eating the same food three times a day every day as long as there’s Saturday and Sunday to mix it up a little.  I feel like now that I’m writing about Sunday, I see that I actually do more than I thought I usually do. Whenever I look back to a Sunday, I always have in mind: “Oh I didn’t do anything besides procrastinate hah.” I would either think this or tell it to my friends whenever they ask: “how’s your day going? “ Or ironically if someone specifically asks: “how was your Sunday?”  

Recently I’m recovering from my cold still and I almost can’t wait to feel completely recovered. It really is sad spending a week sick especially when I got it by pretty much asking for it. What happened was that after participating in an Insanity workout event at Oneida Hall on a Monday, I travelled back to Cayuga walking as fast as possible without a scarf on. I learned my lesson, but usually I always tell myself I learn my lesson when I consider the different ways I get sick. I almost always get sick in some unique matter, and I hope I won’t have to find out any more new ways to get sick first hand. I hope you guys don’t take this campus’s windy and cold weather for granted. Stay warm, stay safe, and enjoy your Sundays procrastinating!

The cold never bothered me anyway

                Hello all, I just felt like addressing the weather here in Oswego. It’s practically bipolar as most of us know, but to those new incoming freshmen who come to read up on our blogs, guess what, it can be pretty warm after a while here in Oswego! Honestly I think it all depends on where you live and how long you live in Oswego until you get to really judge what cold really is to you. This may be confusing, but let me break it down. We all start off by attending events in Oswego before our freshman first semester. Whether it’s Orientation or Acceptance Student’s Day, we notice the weather is quite warm and beautiful, reflecting an amazing image in your head that you will love it here. Trust me you will enjoy it more when you experience the first snowfall or whiteout here on campus. I know the first time there was a whiteout, I was surprised and quite frankly, I found it pretty cool as long as I was indoors of course.

Weather-wise, you’re better off not bringing an umbrella to SUNY Oswego. I STRONGLY suggest you don’t invest in one for your time here. Why? Well we have this lake, Lake Ontario, and it loves to send northbound Canadian wind southwards towards us, creating these wind tunnels that will either simply have rain/snow hit you sideways or break your umbrella/have you flying. Overall the weather is a pretty sight to look at sometimes, especially from the new Shineman Center. When living in west campus, I can only recall there being a wind tunnel in front of Onondaga and in between Seneca and Cayuga Halls. I’m not completely sure of any other wind tunnels to look out for. The real “danger” to look out for is when all the snow covering the ground by a foot or two start to turn to ice.  It’s difficult to walk through and I usually go through a shortcut to west campus located south from the quad near Hewitt union heading towards Tyler Hall. This is a shortcut most people, and more than likely, you, will be used to taking throughout those warm spring and autumn days. However in the winter, I’d rather go around it or challenge myself to go through the shortcut.

When it comes to the temperature, you do feel it being a little cold over time and it does get chillier. Considering your first semester however, the more time you spend here, the more accustomed you are to the gradual decrease in the average temperature throughout your first semester. You, or a handful of people, start getting a sort of superiority complex when you go back to visit in your vacations usually only if you are from NYC or some other southern city. For example, you go about eaves dropping on your friends complaining about how cold it is and you go and chuckle in their face saying the weather there is nothing compared to Oswego. Well… Oswego kind of bites you back again when you travel back to prepare for the beginning of your second semester. You realize just how cold it really is where every day feels like the temperature is in the single digits, sometimes at subzero.

If you think about it, these kinds of temperatures can be considered as “decent” to those living off campus within the city of Oswego. Why is it all of sudden like a reset? Where it’s like you never felt real cold before? This is because you got accustomed to the temperatures from back home so quickly. The reason why I bring this up is because I experienced this first hand and was shocked seeing people in shorts as I was travelling back to Oswego from a Greyhound bus transferring to a Centro bus. I was pretty much cocooned in my winter coat while I see a couple of people walking by in a lot less attire.

All I can suggest is make sure to be prepared guys. Bring boots for the snow, not for show. Grab a warm coat and enjoy your time here in SUNY Oswego. It’s a new experience for all of us.

My Valentine’s Day spent sick

          Being sick really ruins a lot of plans. I mention this because lately I’ve had a strong cold throughout this week, or Valentine’s week. Hope everyone had an amazing Valentine’s Day whether it was spent with your significant other or with your friends. People who were pretty sick, well, I feel for you. I didn’t know what to do without risking myself getting sicker if I had gone with my friends ice skating or travelled back to NYC to meet with my significant other. Instead, all I felt I could do is decline the fun in ice skating (even though I can’t skate and would probably be engulfed from embarrassment whenever I’d fall) and go stay in my dorm to have a Skype call with my girlfriend. For me, it’s more deserving taking care of my health in which I had to think thoroughly about with the help of my best friend. She told me I should just go to the Mary Walker health center, but at first I had refused the chance to go because it would be my first time going. It always feels weird to me going somewhere the first time. On Valentine’s Day, my fourth day being sick, I chose to go and my doctor recommended I take Zyrtec and so far, I’ve been feeling better since then.

This week hasn’t been anything I would have looked forward to, but I am happy to take care of my health in the end. I hope everyone had a safe Valentine’s night and best of luck for all of you that started your relationships. Love forever.

Winter Break

                I hope everyone is as happy as I am that Finals week is over. I know some feel even more accomplished for going through their first semester at SUNY Oswego. It’s a great feeling to get to know people and also get to know some who live around the same area as you do. Everyone should spend time with friends, but most importantly your families. Spend the holidays with care and I hope everyone gets home and arrive back to the campus safely in January. I’m happy to figure out how huge of a break we have; even though I sometimes worry if I’ll forget certain course material needed for those classes requiring knowledge from previous classes. I think it would help for everyone to not get too carried away by doing nothing related to studying. The more information we keep stored in our minds the better our performance. Good luck to everyone and I hope you all have a great vacation. Enjoy!

Stay clean

                Hello Oswegonians, I’m here to request a favor to ourselves to always keep our hands clean. We are all paying for our classes, and it would really be a problem to get sick if it’s due to someone else’s spreading of the sickness. On that note, we all are respectful enough on a daily basis, so why not be slightly more respectful by being considerate of everyone especially yourself. You could get yourself sick rubbing your eyes, even though we all know that from our past, and it would be horrible to figure that you happen to have gotten sick from shaking hands with someone after a hello or after you meet someone new and shake on it. Be considerate, make sure you always tell the friend you’re communicating with that you are sick or feel like you’re getting sick.

Personally I’m still slipping through from getting sick by sticking to my workout, which really helps nullify a stuffy nose. Also any time that I feel a cold really trying to affect me, I would stay in my room and take a night time medicine and sleep early on it. It is super effective to me, and it could be as effective for you. I suggest finding a cardio workout to do that keeps you breathing in and out your nose then mouth to feel better breathing normal afterwards without the runny nose. The medicine should be the last thing on your mind if you live in this campus full of so much space to run and so much time to spend in the gym!

Go out there and be clean and help yourself while respecting others. You will be loved by yours truly and make sure to feel good about keeping yourself clean. Make it a habit! It’s going to be a long winter with occasional temperature changes. Let’s enjoy the experience we have always wanted and expected out of moving out here to Oswego.

The Insanity workout

This workout has been previously known to be one of the hardest workouts to ever been put out on DVD. Although this deems to have been true, it is still possible to do and accept this challenge. We should feel comfortable with challenging our bodies as long as it’s safe and we can get a positive outcome out of it. Who wouldn’t want to feel good and be fit? We all do, but some of us choose many different options to get the same outcome. This option in particular, the Insanity workout, is an option where the work you put in is exactly what you get without the use of special equipment. Better yet, there are no sit ups or crunches!

Shaun Thompson or “Shaun T” is the choreographer and fitness specialist who made this workout follow a certain routine that is designed to help you get the maxed results in a short period of time. His routine is the opposite of the traditional interval training routine. In interval training, you work out for 30 seconds and rest for 3 to 4 minutes. Shaun’s Insanity workout instead has you working out for 3 to 4 minutes and resting for a water break for 30 seconds. The results are amazing and every person that I know of who has done this workout for a considerable amount of time have all seen a convenient change in their bodies. The workout is indeed helpful since it gives you the maximum results in only 60 days (give or take 3 or 4 days).

I asked some friends about their experience with Insanity whether they lasted from a day to 5 Insanity cycles (1 Cycle = 2 months):

“It’s repetitive, tiring, and there’s a lot of sweat involved” –Erin Fanini

“Well after ten minutes I was already sweating bullets. Then all my muscles started burning, but at the same time, I was energized. Overall, I think it’s a very good workout and it’s very effective.”

–Marcileni Baldera

“I really enjoyed it! I felt like it worked every muscle in my body and made me feel better about myself! It didn’t take up too much time so I was able to do other things either before or after! Most of the time I did it right when I woke up so it was a great way for me to start my day on a good note!”

-Rachel Treiling

In my opinion, Insanity feels like it nullifies the chances of getting nose congestion/getting sick from flu-like symptoms. It’s probably because you are only so busy breathing within the workout that your body maybe listens to that over whatever causes you to get sick. The fact of the matter is, I’m still not sick after just seeing so many friends get sick for days while my workout buddy and I endure the challenge that is Insanity. A great thing to think about is that it fights the myth of “freshman 15”.

Don’t Procrastinate

              Procrastination is something all of us have a habit of. I have a personal interest in the word only because I know from Latin what the word actually means. When you break it apart you have the word “cras” which means tomorrow. So when you think about it, is tomorrow worth delaying your work for? When you’re in college, we are almost forced to wake up and speed up on getting our work done. We are obviously paying for our studies, so why do we slow down to the very last minute of crunch time or maybe even not do the work at all? Simple, it’s easier. Procrastinating is so easy and it is because we love pursuing the easiness.

Our lives shouldn’t be delayed, but only you can decide the factor of procrastinating. It’s either do the hard work or take the lazier approach and not do the work. Although it helps to be under pressure with a shorter allotted time, it’s still a risky decision to go about that. The workload can only get harder the longer you wait, so you can only thank your professors for probably giving you more time than you should have to complete your papers/projects. There are techniques out there that may sound cheesy but could really help. One of which is one I learned from my Principles of Programming class: The Pomodoro Technique.

–          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH-z5kmVhzU

There is also the ability to keep a time schedule by actually writing one down rather than keeping one in your head. You have a higher chance of forgetting things you don’t write down than things you do write down. Our brains are very distracted as I learned from Psychology where we can remember what we just learned, but if we were to get tested for it a few hours later, we won’t remember it as well without really studying it over time. Also don’t assume you have the time for everything in a whole day when it comes to hanging with friends, playing tennis for a few hours with your roommate, or spending time on your phone playing games or texting. You shouldn’t assume you’ll have enough time to study after so many activities crunched in a single day before a quiz, exam, or when a paper is due! Be realistic and know what you need to do to change your plans and make space for studying for a good amount of time in your day.

Prepare for the Finals!

                Finals week may be a while away, however, I hope everyone starts studying now. I’m a little nervous myself to how my first semester finals would be like. Before and after the Thanksgiving break should be a time everyone should support studying for those finals. It may be a pain, I’m sure, but you can seriously thank yourself later by having that course material stuck in your head. All the time put into studying will be worth it. I completely support people who give the effort early and not so much those who don’t care and rather drink the day before the final.

Thankfully the dorms have quiet hours extended throughout the whole week and everyone should take great advantage of that. I’d rather stay in my room and study than walk to the library because of a noisy hallway. I hope everyone who tries and puts in the effort does a really great job in the finals! Studying is certainly better than procrastinating even though some people work better under pressure. I personally don’t think that’s good for anyone but whatever helps you to pass is alright in my book. There’s lots of stress that can be placed on you because of how many tests there are, but I believe we can take 5 hour energies and live through it. Just kidding, study and you’ll do great.

I hope to manage these exams even though I’m severely struggling with one course. I will find a friend to study with since I found out it really helped boost my score on the last exam. Everyone should try to do the same if you haven’t already. Forming study groups or just studying with a good friend/note taker does help your chances of getting through to your classes. The General Education classes may not be in our favor, but that’s what our friends are here to help with. Friends help build bonds and they become lifetime friends of whom could even help build great connections to the outside world. Everything builds up from studying when you think of it. This is pretty optimistic and it keeps a person feeling better since stress only seems to make you age faster. Hope you guys all study and wish you the best of luck! Don’t procrastinate!

Humans vs. Zombies

          The Campus wide game that consisted of about 150 students this past week was full of thrill and a good relief from school-related stress. With humans using Nerf guns and the zombies using two hands to capture humans, this game was intense. I’ve written short daily messages to myself on Facebook describing how my days had gone throughout the game as a human until I suffered the slightly shocking fate of getting caught by a zombie because I forgot to watch my back. Overall this game was fun, especially when becoming a zombie because you can play with a human’s mind since they are more afraid of not surviving until the week is over. This is how the days went by for Humans vs. Zombies:

Monday: The day after sign up day, I personally forgot to sign up and wished I would have joined. Instead, I participated in the unique mission the game had at 8pm. It was an hour long and it was a mission where we had to find a bucket in 3 locations. From what I remember, 2 of the 3 locations were the Shineman Center and the Glimmerglass Lagoon. The zombies were released to go to these locations first, and then the humans had to wait 5 minutes before heading out in 3 small groups (The lagoon group being the largest since most of the zombies were spotted going that way). The area was very dark and circling the lagoon was a large task to find a white bucket. To the humans’ unlucky turnout, the zombies found the bucket first and were defending it. With the loss of some humans and the addition of a few reinforcements from the other small groups that had finished collecting their buckets, humans succeeded in this mission in the allotted time. The savior of the mission who collected the bucket by the lagoon was Cody who later turned to a zombie as we were running towards Hewitt Union (the location where we had to return from where we started). Since I wasn’t signed up, I was allowed to be around the humans during the mission, the funny part was that I was running with the humans and a zombie assumed I was one of them. Turned out I was a good decoy!

Tuesday: This was the day I finally signed up at 8pm. Luckily, signups were still allowed for this last day only and since I didn’t have a Nerf gun, I was safe to be a human the next day whether I became a zombie during this mission or not. Me and my friend Fernando went and signed up only to figure out we had to pay for a donation to sign up, but thankfully Fernando helped me out and paid for me. I told him I’d pay him back and stay human as long as possible. This mission, however, turned out to be a survival of the fittest mission. Humans had to make groups of 10 by the Quad and had to go through to the end of the corridor between the Penfield Library and Lanigan. In that corridor, we had to fight through hordes of zombies. Since there were about 60 humans in this mission, the first two groups both had ten people. However, because those first two groups almost completely failed, the last couple of groups had to combine to 2 more big groups of 20 humans. The first two groups failed pretty badly with an average of 2 to 3 humans surviving each of them. The third group was very successful with having most of the humans survive. I was in the fourth group with Fernando, and since most of the humans that failed in the earlier groups turned to zombies for this mission; we had to deal with the largest horde of zombies. For our group, we had four decoys, me, Fernando, Kinsey, and this one guy with a blue coat. Two of us survived, that being me and Kinsey. The whole group had us decoys in the front, walking by the wall of the Penfield Library. Zombies jumped at us from the front and from hidden locations like the windows. By the time we had gotten rid of the zombies patrolling the area in front of the library, we confronted all the rest that were relaxing in the corridor. There were a huge number of them and it finally ended with us humans running it and hoping to get to the end. A quarter of us made it especially me and Kinsey as we bolted through the grass, going around the zombie and human crowd. This was a thrilling mission overall with the goal of not getting touched with two hands by a zombie. My first night as a human was successful despite the fact it wouldn’t have mattered if I had turned on that day or not. I went to my dorm and wrote on Facebook:

         “Day 2 9:50pm… joined late as a Human in Oswego’s humans vs. zombies event. I’m officially in the game and surviving a night. Tonight’s mission was completely suicidal but I survived it >:) till tomorrow and every other day!!!”

I also had supportive comments from a friend named Devon who was also a human at the time:

         “Just follow your instincts and survive. You’ll find a way!” – Devon

Even later that day when I left to Oneida, I had to come back to Cayuga and spotted some zombies relaxing in the front entrance for a couple minutes. I thought I was going to be tagged; however there was a rule that as long as a human or zombie is within 5 feet from a building, they cannot be turned, so therefore I walked by the grass and to the front door. I reminded them about the rule and they were sad and went back inside. When I got back into my dorm I went on Facebook once more and posted:

         “Made it back to my dorm safe… tomorrow is going to be fun”

I even had friends who weren’t supportive by posting:

         “I was hoping you would get caught” – Bree

Wednesday: This day was probably the most intense one ever. Before the mission at 8pm, a floor mate named Mario wondered if I’d like to go along with him and his roommate to pick up a friend at Mahar and escort her to the library. So we went around the parking lot towards the lake and went along the road towards the back of Mahar and picked up Dominique. Along the way we did see a few red headbands [indicating that person was a zombie] and luckily had no confrontations. We all got to our locations safe and sound until the 8pm mission. Also known as Mission Impossible, we had to escort a person from the Quad to the lagoon and then back into Hewitt, and if we failed, the humans had to face a nuke that would go off by Friday and thus spell doom for the humans. As we heard this, me, Mario, Kinsey, Shawn, and Ian all huddled and previously decided that if this mission at some point turned out to be far too much to handle, we would run away from the mission and save ourselves by running to Cayuga. Sadly, we had to go with this decision by the time we escorted the person to the lagoon because too many zombies were surrounding and jumping at us. We saw our numbers dwindling until it was only us 5 left and Kinsey reminded us about our earlier plan. She ran alone towards the Quad having zombies run after her while me and Mario ran bolting through the back of Seneca and around the wind tunnel and into Cayuga. I had the image in my mind that this was seriously an intense mission we really couldn’t have managed on our own. When I arrived to my room, I was out of breath and as I was catching it I wrote this on my Facebook wall:

         “I’m still aliveeee!”

I was then filled with comments on that post with questions about how am I still alive. People assumed I was tagged because what spectators saw were zombies pretty much annihilating the humans in that mission. People who were zombies commented saying I will get tagged by them and that really can make someone paranoid, but overall thrilling to have gone so far.

Thursday: This was the end of my reign. I had to go to class and went through the Quad and past the Campus Center until the last exit toward the Shineman Center where a zombie was hiding by the door. I was walking along with my friend Fernando and got caught from the back hearing the words “Gotcha!” and I looked back and saw this guy with a mask. I remembered this was Halloween and so I was sort of freaked out. After class, I changed my headband from blue to red and posted on Facebook:

         “Humans… You all are screwed now. I got turned.”

Of course I received some laughs from friends, especially Bree. However, it was actually so much more fun being a Zombie. I found a fellow zombie player and we grouped up with a couple others then found humans getting ready to leave Mahar. It was Mario and Ian and they saw me. They were surprised I was tagged and since I was with a group of zombies, we attempted to go for a tag. This is when we had a chase from Mahar and through the back of Seneca into the parking lot where they were safe. Zombies and humans couldn’t be in combat in parking lots. Mario had a Nerf shotgun so it was intimidating. This is when we gave up and went back home while I posted on Facebook:

         “Day 4: At 10AM marked my 38th hour as a late-joined human…I got tagged right outside of campus center as I ran to Shineman. So close. Red headband time…”

This is when Tim commented with the idea of coming up with an interesting blog about this campus wide game. Thankfully I went about it and enjoyed writing about it. The mission for today was a full day mission where humans had to find bright orange rocks marked “HvZ” hidden throughout the campus and bring them to the campus center before 6pm.  There were 26 rocks total which equaled the amount of humans left. However, only 4 rocks were returned by the humans while the zombies returned most of the ones left over. Humans failed two missions in a row and zombies therefore won the general game. I also heard an interesting story about how two friends were tagged. Their names were Bageot and Mohammed and they were surrounded by friends who were turned into zombies. When one of the zombies turned Mohammed into a zombie, Bageot didn’t think twice about realizing that every zombie was stunned except for Mohammed. Therefore Mohammed tagged him and he sadly turned to a zombie. This was pretty humorous and he was out of luck at that point.

Friday: This was the last day of the HvZ event. Humans had until 12pm, but because of the failure of Wednesday’s mission, zombies won according to the moderators of the game. Later in the day, there was a just-for-fun mission that was pretty much a send-off mission. It was at 6pm and anyone could be a zombie or a human if they chose. We were left with an even amount of zombies and humans for this event, with 12 of each as we started. The mission was that humans had to defend the doors to Hewitt Union from the waves of zombies that came in every time all 12 zombies were stunned. There were many waves approaching the humans and the only goal the zombies had was to turn all the humans into zombies rather than reach the doors. The zombies’ goal was fulfilled and we won. I was lucky enough to be the only zombie to tag Mario, Shawn, and Kinsey—the same group of people that I ran with from Wednesday’s mission. When the mission was done, the moderators congratulated us and we were sent off until next time…

I encourage everyone to try out this event. It is very thrilling, exciting, and of course it can make a human paranoid. I hope you all come to enjoy it as much as we all did because I’m sure we are going to see the same faces again from the last game.

The Asian Student Association is one of many very fun clubs you will find in SUNY Oswego. President Thomi Kamilla leads the club with his Executive Boards who are alongside him to help ensure everyone gets to know one another while experiencing engaging events happening throughout your time here at SUNY Oswego!

The ASA welcomes every person of all kinds of ethnicity.  The purpose of the club is to go about informing and educating others about the Asian culture. Get to know us because we want to get to know you. I am proud already to be a part of this club after our first general meeting. Speaking of meetings, they are bi-weekly on Thursdays at the Campus Center in room 210 at 8:00 pm. There are plenty of programs Thomi and the Eboards have planned for every meeting ranging from games, movies, foods, and also community services! According to the Lakerlife website description of the club, “We act as a bridge of connection for others to connect through cultural experiences”. There’s even an event for those of you, including myself who miss or crave Bubble Tea! Members of the ASA enjoy meeting new people and learning other cultures and interests.

Personally, I love having an already good amount of friends made just after the first general meeting, I can’t wait for the next one and many more. Thomi and the Eboards did such great work having us step out of our comfort zone in a fun way that made us get to know at least one thing about everyone attending the meeting. So come join us and most importantly have fun!

-Javier Fernandez