Make New Friends, But Keep the Old

I never thought that I would make so many friends during my college experience. I am not even done with first semester and I already have the most amazing friends. I hate to say it, but I feel as if I am losing my old friends to my new ones. My new friends are the most loyal people I have ever met and we are incredibly close. It could be because we live together, but I know that I will have these people around for a while.

Every year, I have Halloween and Christmas parties for my friends at my house. It is tradition and I absolutely love it. This year has been a little different. Now I'm having the get together in my dorm room primarily with my college friends. Some of my old friends are considering coming. It is amazing how things can change within a matter of months.

I am not trying to make it seem as if any of these people are bad people; I have just lost touch with most of my high school friends. People I never thought I would lose are now gone. It is a sore subject with me. During this holiday break, I was going through my Youtube videos and found a video I made for all of my friends within the past year. It was hard to watch considering I have lost a few of those friends to drugs and alcohol. I am straight edge, meaning I do not drink, smoke, or do drugs. It is something I strongly believe in and I do not like to surround myself with people that drink or do drugs. These people were like family to me for so long, and as soon as I left they turned to drugs. It kills me, but there is not much more I can do. I offered my helping hand, but it was not accepted. (Here is the video of my old friends, unfortunately the audio was taken out).

My college friends aren't like my high school friends. These people will do anything for me, and I could not love them any more.

Beauty and the Beast- The Real World Edition

Since Beauty and the Beast is being re released in the theaters as a 3D movie on January 13, 2012, I figured this would bring the perfect opportunity to explain the truth... Beauty and the Beast is based on my life. Well, not exactly, but there are numerous similarities between my life and this movie (and its characters). Everyone jokes that the movie really is my life, but to me it is a serious matter.

The main character is Belle. Belle is a French bookworm that was known for her incredible beauty. Everyone thought it was such a shame that Belle was such a bookworm since she could just live off of her looks. Belle was a strong girl that was not afraid to show it. She had idiotic boys that fell all over her, but she told them off. Her father, Maurice, was a hardworking inventor that everyone thought was insane. She defended him and encouraged him no matter what. When Maurice went to bring his invention somewhere, he got lost and ended up being held captive by the Beast. Belle went searching and sacrificed herself for her father. Belle hated the Beast at first and was afraid, but once she got to know him and understand him, she fell in love with him.

Oddly enough, I happen to be a lot like Belle. I have always been an extreme bookworm. I bring a book every where I go, just in case I get a moment of free time. Some people used to think I read too much and should be more social, but that was not me. I have always been very opinionated and I could always see right through people. My grandfather definitely represents Maurice (we will get to that later), but he is inventive and a little out there. I also happened to fall in love with someone that could be considered a "Beast."

The Beast is almost exactly like my boyfriend. Almost five years ago, when I began dating my boyfriend, he was intimidating and scary to everyone (even to me). He had a blue mohawk, dressed gothic, and overall had a different personality than most people. He has many of the same personality traits as the Beast. However, the more I got to know him, the more I understood him and the more I fell in love with him.

As for Maurice, he is my Papa. Not only are they both inventive and a little out there, but they look very similar. I love my Papa as much as Belle loved hers. It is always so funny to watch Beauty and the Beast because everyone says that the movie is my life. I love it!



Thanksgiving in the Land of the Pilgrims

Living in Plymouth, Massachusetts my entire life, I know much more than I need to know about Thanksgiving. From kindergarten until eighth grade, a major part of the curriculum is Plymouth history, also known as history of the Pilgrims.

The Pilgrims came from England to the United States in 1620. It is said that they landed in Plymouth and built their settlements here. The Pilgrims came over on the Mayflower, a ship that held too many people considering the amount of room on the ship. Most of the people died en route to the new land. Once the Pilgrims got here, they were faced with many challenges. The befriended a Native American name Squanto who helped them through. After a year of being in Plymouth, the Pilgrims had a huge feast to show how thankful they were for surviving a year in the new land. This feast is now celebrated as Thanksgiving.

Plymouth is still focused on celebrating this feast. We have the 2nd highest rated Thanksgiving parade in the nation (right after the Macy's parade). The parade features marching bands, floats, balloons, and a lot of history. It is a tradition to go to the parade and then go to the waterfront for food and to continue the fun.

I love the culture of Plymouth. I am an off the boat Pilgrim. I am an Eaton and a Howland, which are some of the best known Pilgrims. I could not ask for a better hometown. You can never truly appreciate Thanksgiving without knowing the background.

Getting Sick In College

Being sick in college is MUCH different than being sick in grade school. In grade school, your mom stays home to take care of you and get you whatever you need. You can go to your pediatrician to get checked out and then your mom goes to the pharmacy to get your medicine to make you feel better. Before you know it, you are all better and can go back to school.

College is a completely different story. You still go to class, dragging of course. Health services does not fit into your schedule, so you just do not go to get checked out. There is no medicine other than Tylenol and Emergen-C. Then your roommate gets sick and the cycle just keeps repeating itself.

I have been sick for three weeks and it just keeps getting worse. My asthma is starting to get affected. My roommate and I both have fevers and all of the same symptoms. It is not fun. I cannot get to health services because I have class and do not want to miss any more class. I continue to suffer. Now my mother wants to take me home and bring me to the doctor. I want to do that, but what about my "independence?" I need to learn to take care of myself, but sometimes you just need mother's help. Maybe I will go home. But until then, I will keep on trucking!

The Haunting in Room 328

You hear rumors all the time about ghosts and hauntings in rooms. Generally it is just the upperclassmen trying to scare the poor little freshmen. I would have expected that to be the case for my room, if anyone had warned me. However, no one knew that my room was haunted. I was the lucky one to discover it.

The hauntings started back at the beginning of the semester when I had my first roommate. Our ceiling tiles in the bathroom kept lifting and moving and our medicine cabinet doors kept slamming shut randomly. Things kept going missing and being moved and it was abnormally confusing.

When my new roommate moved in, things got worse. We both had the same image of what this spirit looked like. We pictured a young male, kind of tall, with coke bottle glasses. Then we heard humming noises coming from the shower, our closet doors kept opening and closing and our clothes kept moving, there were scratch marks on the bathroom door, the list goes on.

We went and saw the ghost hunter the night we lost power and talked to him. He said we were definitely dealing with a negative entity and had to deal with it. He told us to talk to it nicely and try to lure it out. He said it might make it worse, and it did. We could not even sleep in our own room it was so scary, and we had other witnesses. During the power outage, we stocked up on rosemary and sage, got things to make shrines, got holy water, and everything else to get this ghost out.

About a week later and we are having much less occurrences. We are both still petrified, but we can now sleep a little more peacefully.

Freak Snow Storms (and the Aftermath)

Only in New England can you get a snow storm during October. A little snow is understandable. The light fluffy snow flakes that do not stick are to be expected.

However, when you have a snow storm that comes with terrible wind that knocks out your power for a week in October, it is a problem. Towns had to cancel Halloween (my favorite holiday) and the school was evacuated. It was either go home/to someone else's house, or sleep on the dining hall floor.

Me and a group of friends decided to house hop. We started in Medway and ended up to my house in Plymouth, where we stayed a majority of the time. I always forget that not everyone knows as much about the Pilgrims as I do. Up until seventh grade that is all we learned in history class. So, I got to give a little history lesson of my own. I love it, I am an off the boat Pilgrim. My mom's side includes the Eatons and the Howlands, which are some of the original Mayflower new-comers.

Other than that, we had our own little Halloween party and played video games. It was an overall good time. We all got to bond much closer. The only bad thing now is that we have a messed up final schedule that none of us like. Just call us the class of random disasters.

Me and my roommate (from Virginia) getting ready for the snow!

Being a Disabled College Student

When people look at me, they see what appears to be a normal college student just trying to get by. I struggle with my books after I stumble and people laugh. No one knows that the stumble was caused by my disability.

In eighth grade, my life changed drastically. As an avid dancer, my hopes and dreams were set on majoring in dance in college. One day, in ballet, we were doing strenuous exercises across the floor when I felt a pop in my foot. I am pretty accident prone. To me it was just a random  pain. I continued to dance through the night, another five hours.

I ended up having to go to the doctor because the pain was terrible, but no doctor could figure out what was wrong with me. Five doctors later, I was diagnosed with a condition called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. The doctor told me I would never walk again. I would definitely never dance again. I was devastated, but somehow I was blessed enough to be able to walk a majority of the time.

Now, I am in and out of a wheelchair, as the condition has spread from my ankle to all the way up my back on the left side of the body. I am considered disabled/handicapped. People do not understand what they do not know. I constantly have to explain my condition to people, and they just do not understand.

My fear going into college was that I was going to still be the "freak" that I was in high school because of my condition. I was afraid that the professors would not care that I was disabled. I was proved wrong. I have my issues and my flare ups of my conditions, but everyone is so understanding and helpful. It makes me extremely happy. For once, I feel as if I belong. I know that I am different than other people, but it is what makes me unique. I cannot let it define me.

I have trained all of my new friends on what to do if I cannot move. They know all the procedures and have even had to put them into action. But no one gets afraid of me. To the disabled people out there, you have to realize that people are not all bad. Someone will understand you!

This video explains the every day life of an RSD sufferer. Even though people do not see me suffering daily, I do.

Musicians...

In one of my previous blogs, I wrote about my favorite local bands. The reason I love local bands so much is that they have so much more passion and creativity when it comes to music. They also tend to have less drama because they are not in it for the money, but for the art itself.

I was just informed that one of my favorite local bands, Stay, is basically falling apart. They started to become more mainstream and someone sold them out (one of their friends from another band). That caused a lot of inner band drama, causing the drummer to leave. It literally broke my heart. I know these guys personally and they all used to be so into the music. Once they signed with a Japanese record label, things just went downhill. That happens with a lot of local bands in Boston- they sign with a Japanese record label and then problems happen. It is almost like a curse.

I feel so bad for the drummer. This band started when he was in high school (only a couple years ago). It was a little bit of a reminder to me that nothing is forever and we do not always know what is going on behind the scenes. People look at musicians like they're invincible, but they are people too.

Here's the last music video from this band. This was the band before all of the new people came in, when they swore they would never sign to a label.

Technology + Sammie

Technology and I have a love/hate relationship. I could not live without it (especially since I am a college student away from home) but living with it is not exactly working in my benefit either.

Whether it is my iPod or my cell phone, everything has its place and its importance to me. There is not a day that I do not use every technological gadget that I own. Everything still continues to give me problems. I have been through five Droid cellphones in the past year because of malfunctions, 5 iPods over the years because of malfunctions, and two laptops. Maybe I should not have thrown all of these away after they broke, because I felt the wrath of all of them last Tuesday.
For some strange reason, my laptop decided to take the plunge off of my desk and onto my right foot. I thought the pain I felt was temporary, but after twenty minutes of being unable to move off of the floor because of pain, I knew something was wrong. Of course, this had to happen 10 minutes after the nurse left. I found that out after using crutches I brought from home to cart myself to her office. I then went to public safety, but that was mainly after I saw my toe was gushing blood.

Since I have a rare nerve condition and any injury can be a disaster, I was able to go via ambulance to the emergency room. My foot was too swollen for the x-rays to get through, but the doctors are convinced my foot was fractured. But of course they called it a contusion, which it is not. Almost a week later and my foot is worse if anything. I am still on crutches, it is still swollen, and now I cannot move it in the slightest.

Lesson for all the Bison out there... beware of laptops.

Sammie B. for VP!

"When you know what you want,and you want it badly enough,you'll find a way to get it."- Jim Rohn

It's official! I am a candidate for vice president of the class of 2015! Student council took up a vast majority of my time during high school. I loved every moment of it! Hopefully, I am able to become the vice president for the freshmen class.

I am starting to do my campaign now. The slogan is obviously "Sammie B. for VP," which happens to be the same slogan I used my freshmen year of high school. Everyone suggested that to me for this year; what the people want, the people get! These slogans are going to go on t-shirts that have the slogan on the front, along with a picture of me. On the back, the shirts will say "Team Sammie" and each shirt will have a different number. I'm trying to have about 15 people wear these shirts since we are the class of 2015. I thought it was clever. As cliche as I am being, I am also making buttons that say my slogan along with all of the different posters. I am so amped up, but so nervous at the same time.

I really feel as if I have learned a lot from all of my years on both school and student council. I always went to different workshops to help become a better leader. Another cliche, but I want what the people want. I will help get people's voices heard and make sure our class is the best it can be. Elections are next week, I have to start moving! Here we go!

Sammie B. For VP!!

What's Good in Local Music?

So, just a bit of information about me: I am a concert planner and promoter. I started my own series of concerts in order to raise money for a cure for a nerve condition that I have that limits my mobility and occasionally puts me in a wheelchair. I'm on my forth year of doing these concerts, so I tend to know local music pretty well. I look through a bunch of different websites such as Purevolume, Facebook, and occasionally I even go back to Myspace. (If you think you have/know a band you think would be fitting for my concert email me!) I decided that some of these bands really deserve some great recognition; what better than to write about them here! (Here's my top favorites!)


The John Chebator Group

As he is generally called JohnnyC or "Fingaz" by his band mates, John Chebator is the front man of this band. Backed by a bass player and a drummer, his EP has just been released and the music world better be ready. Chebator shreds up the guitar like you have never heard before, I guarantee it! All members of this band have been playing together in local cover bands for multiple years, so the connection is there and the musicality is incredible. Be sure to check out The John Chebator Group's website and order the CD!
Life on Hold

Talk about power! Life on Hold is an absolutely INCREDIBLE group, both live and recorded. For all of you looking for a band with a powerhouse female singer, this is your band. Ally Mahoney shocks you with her incredible voice- you'd never expect that voice out of that tiny girl! She's that girl you don't want to mess with. You can feel every bit of emotion from all of the band members in each of the songs. Yes, they all sing, even the ones that play instruments. Now that's something that's hard to come by today! If you want to just get a taste of this band, check out their song (Honey) I Blame You. It is an absolutely crazy song and made me fall in love with this band. Plus, it helps that all of them are complete sweethearts! Check them out on Facebook!

Stay

Stay is definitely a band that you have to see if you're ever in the Boston area (or if they're ever on tour). Over the years, this band went from a four piece group to the six piece masterpiece that they have become. Lead singer Anthony Rainville goes from sweetheart to heartbreaker with the powerful lyrics and incredible musical support. I'm still a sucker for their original music, so check out Maddie Kthx from their Games with Girls album (available on iTunes). Also check out their newest CD American Cherry Bomb, also on iTunes. Go ahead and look at their band page on Facebook, they love local support. By the way, never be afraid to ask the drummer for a drum solo!

Leaving One Den, Entering Another

College is a mix of emotions for most people. Some people are scared because they are leaving what they were familiar with and heading towards completely new territory. Some are excited because it is a brand new start and a chance to gain Independence. Others are sad about leaving their friends, family, and significant others behind. Of course, there is that select group of people that have just one thing on their minds: party.


For one reason or another, we all get overwhelmed at some point. I was one of those special people that started getting overwhelmed right after the graduation ceremony was over (granted I am one to stress). As an only child who had been sick for a vast majority of childhood, I was in no way prepared to leave my den at home yet. So many questions ran through my mind. Will my old friends forget me? Who will watch out for my mom? How am I going to manage to live with a stranger? How is my boyfriend going to handle this? What about my dog? The list was endless. What I did know is that I had to do this for myself and my future.

I packed my life away into one too many boxes (or shall I say my mom packed while I cried), said good-bye see you later to the people closest to my heart, and made the two hour and some odd minute voyage to Nichols College to become a Bison.


As much as I hate to admit it, everyone was right- I love college! My roommate and I had an instant connection. Thank God for social networking or we would not have known each other. Not only did I manage to connect with her, but with a solid group of about thirteen kids called the "Awwwww Crew." We are such a tight group of friends, I would not have it any other way. We have all helped each other through some of the homesickness, even though there is definitely more to come. Whatever happens, we can all support each other.


So I end this epic blog saying this: bring it on freshmen year...

I AM A BISON!