As William James said: “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another”

What ever you do: DON'T STRESS OUT! One of the many nights where I did not live by this mantra.

I’m sitting here in the library, taking a long break from studying for the last 3 or so hours. These past couple of days have been full of re-writing notes for my Psych 101 final, which is kind of sad, seeing as I really enjoyed that class this year. But I have some tips for finals week:

1. Use all four days that are given to you for reading period. Classes end the Wednesday before finals week, giving us two extra days just for studying.

2. That being said, make sure you take breaks. It’s good to study everyday, but still go out at night. Go to dinner, to a friend’s house, or even just for a walk. I haven’t been extremely stressed because I haven’t fully engulfed myself in finals. I think that it’s important to keep your sanity by putting aside even two hours for yourself at night after a day of studying. Also, when you’re hanging out with people, try not to talk about finals. It just makes you stress out even more because then you feel bad for not studying at 11 p.m. 3 days before your first final, and that can make you go insane.

3. Work where you are comfortable. As I type this, my friends are scattered around campus, but that’s okay because I need to focus on Freud and psychological disorders rather than what my friends are up to. I’m not in the SUB with my housemates because it’s too dark for me, so I’m in the library where I know that I’ll get work done.

4. Sleep and eat. After all nighters and stressing right before a class, I’ve found that it’s important to sleep and then jump into studying. You think clearer if you have been well rested and well fed.

Those are my tips so far, but now it’s time to keep writing notes! Tomorrow will be one final paper and final exam down and two more to go and then WINTER BREAK!

Don’t let finals get you down!

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Hey

Just an interesting holiday song that my housemate showed me last night. Enjoy!

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Simple

Just a quick video I made while inspired by one of my favorite things about Washington: the rain. Enjoy!

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Turning it Down…For Now

I’m writing at 1:40 in the am from the KUPS booth here in the SUB. Andrea and I are playing our last show for the fall semester, and the feelings are a bit mixed right now. We’re both tired, but by how hard it was to pick songs for tonight, I know that we’re excited for a possible come back next semester.

We’re playing a sort of “Greatest Hits”, using our first show as the framework, which we both agree was one of our best shows this term. We played veterans like Salt N Pepa, Lauryn Hill, and Missy Elliot, and newbies like Azealia Banks, Le1f, and Gavlyn. But I can’t forget to mention our last song, Forrest Gump by Frank Ocean. We made a tradition of playing his soft, soulful voice at the very end of every show as a nice way to sign off. We chose this specific song because our house loves it and for weeks we would sing it over and over.

Right before we signed on, our good friends Jordan and Travis signed off for the semester, who also had a hip hop show. And as with every other show we’ve done, we gave each other shout outs and then danced for a while together in the booth until the boys called it quits for the night.

It’s been a great first semester here on Tacoma 90.1 The Sound and I’m planning on being part of the crew next semester, so watch out for that!

Keep it locked!

Travis "MC Fresher" Shetter, Jordan "DJ Dolemite" Moeller, Andrea "DJ Beanie Baby" and Me, Olivia "DJ OCP" Perry, all '15 between our final shows

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A Capella Extravaganza

I recently attended the Fall 2012 A Capella Extravaganza, the concert put on by the three student A Capella groups on campus. The show was awesome! I managed to capture a few of my favorite parts. Enjoy!! (They look/sound best in high quality!)

Underground Sound – Some awesome beatboxing by Austen Harrison ’15!

What She Said – The Cell Block Tango

Garden Level – Haven’t Met You Yet

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TURKEY TURKEY

Being from Phoenix and having Winter break so close after Thanksgiving, I like to spend Turkey Day in the beautiful Northwest for many different reasons.

  1. It’s cheaper
  2. It’s actually Fall here
  3. I have the greatest second family here!

The train ride from Tacoma to Portland

Tuesday afternoon, right after class, I hopped on an Amtrak train to Portland where I was going to meet my friend, Kelly Van Patten, ’15, for Thanksgiving with her family. I spent last year there and it’s so nice to be with friends when you can’t be at home. At Puget Sound, many people are from the Pac-NW, so it’s always an option to travel or stay in Tacoma and have a feast with friends.

Kelly and her family are from McMinnville, a cute little town an hour south of Portland. With vineyards and Christmas tree farms and beautiful parks, this town is the epitome of holiday cheer! We were joined by her older sisters, Caitlin, ’11, Erin, ’12, friend Jorden, ’12. Being around Loggers for the season helped me feel comfortable and at home.

Even though I missed my family a lot, the nice thing about staying up here is that you don’t have to fill people in on things going on in your life (“No, no, not Pugget Sound, Puget Sound) and you are able to just relax without family holiday drama (“WHY IS THE TURKEY ON FIRE!?”).

During my time there, I worked on a scarf I’m knitting, I saw Silver Lining Playbook (very good film), I went to someone’s 25th wedding anniversary (everyone was very confused by my presence, seeing that I didn’t know ANYONE), and ate a lot of Burgerville. We went to Airport Park with the Van Patten’s four dogs and walked through the wooded paths which was the perfect spot for a photo op.

What I’m getting at in this post is that I think it’s important to have a Thanksgiving feast in college, whether it’s at home with your own family or with friends that you care about. I was very thankful that the Van Patten’s took me in for the holiday weekend and fed me until I literally almost bursted.

Happy Holidays!

A couple more photos from my break:

Walking into Airport Park with the dogs

In a mushroom inside the park with dogs Toby and Jasmine

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How to Have Fun in College

These are my friends. And this is what we do on a Friday.

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Français à l’automne

Since freshman year of high school I have been in French classes, minus a break last year. Now being a part of the French department, I have been introduced to the Fall French Festival. This includes screenings of the films La Guerre est Declarée (The Declaration of War) and Chats Perchés (The Case of the Grinning Cat), crêpe night at the French house, a variety/talent show, and a trip to Seattle to see a play. Seeing as French is a fun and beautiful language, I thought that I’d share some videos with you to maybe help those trying to figure out what language they want to take =)

This is one of the cutest videos that anyone who doesn’t speak French can still enjoy!

And this is a pretty accurate depiction of what a cat’s thoughts would be if their lives were a French film

Jouir!

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Pho-EVER!!!

Tonight was a big night for me. I took one step forward into becoming a true Washingtonian: I had Pho for the first time. Why is this such a big deal? Well, let me tell you, for someone to live here for a year without ever eating Pho is a bit hard to do. There are pho restaurants everywhere! I don’t know why I never tried the Vietnamese soup, I guess I was just never around the moments in freshman year people could obtain a car for long enough to go off campus for a pho run.

Tonight, though, my housemates and I were out and about, running errands, when we found ourselves in the same parking lot as Pho 38th. We decided that we didn’t want to cook and that I should try this delicacy that is ever present in the whole of Washington.

We went into the very lit restaurant and were seated and handed menus. My housemates were pretty annoyed with all of my questions because I thought that it was going to be a process, that there was a right way to eat this. But, I learned that you can eat pho however you want, as long as you can enjoy it. So, I chose a pretty standard dish, Pho Thai Chin Nac, which is raw beef and brisket with the noodles and cilantro and onions. When they say raw, that just means they cook the beef in the soup, so it wasn’t beef tar tar in soup or anything.

The verdict: Pretty good. It was super filling and I really liked the noodles and the cilantro and the meat. I have to admit, I was a bit nervous because I’ve never had Vietnamese food, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. But I was very happy with it, although it did make me sleepy because it was filling. I’m excited to go back to Pho 38th to try their other food, because they seem to have an array of dishes other than just Pho. When visiting Tacoma or Seattle and you don’t know what to do, I suggest hitting up a pho restaurant because I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Literally, my first bite of pho ever.

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In light of the recent elections

I am obsessed with this video…

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