It has been a while since I wrote a blog post, which goes to show how busy college has made me.
Balancing school and other activities and prioritizing everything was a difficult transition. I’ve been trying to use my resources. For example, I go to the QR Center for math tutoring. They really are life savers.
Although college gets tough, I have great friends to lean on. I recently joined the pep band, which plays at basketball games. I really enjoy doing it. The games are fun, and it gvies me something to look forward to.
Longwood’s pep band revs up the crowd at basketball games.
There are a couple of weeks left until Christmas break, and I honestly can’t wait.
Yannick is one of those people who dreams big. She’s already thinking about moving to New York City and starting a YouTube channel—not necessarily in that order.
She’s a music lover, and she definitely didn’t leave home without her clarinet when she headed to Longwood. It has a special place in her residence hall room as well as in her heart. It’s no surprise that one of her favorite classes at Nottoway High school was band. During the fall semester of her senior year, she was out there on the football field Friday nights with the rest of the group. She also enjoyed U.S. history.
Yannick is a special education major and hopes to work with elementary-level special needs children when she graduates.
I am in awe of how quickly my first semester at Longwood has gone by. I always remember hearing that college would go by more quickly than high school, and I honestly did not believe it until now‑-but it is so true.
The most wonderful time of the year has begun, and so have the holiday festivities!
The traditional Thanksgiving dinner includes turkey and all the trimmings, plus our famous baked Alaska for dessert!
At Longwood, there is a tradition of having a Thanksgiving dinner the Thursday before Thanksgiving. At the dinner, D-Hall staff prepare all of the traditional Thanksgiving dishes, including ham and turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and stuffing. For dessert, they had baked Alaska. It was such a fun time seeing the students come together for a special time!
Recently the city of Farmville had their annual Christmas Tree Lighting! At the event, the bands from Prince Edward, Fuqua and Cumberland schools played everyone’s favorite holiday tunes. The mayor of Farmville invited kids on the stage who were children of faculty at Longwood.Two of the kids were our very own President Reveley’s children! It was so cool to see the residents of Farmville and the students of Longwood come together to celebrate!
Kara would like to go back to fourth grade—as a teacher when she graduates from Longwood with her degree in liberal studies, which is the major for aspiring elementary school teachers.
She is the fourth and final person in her family to attend Longwood. Her dad graduated in 1985, her mom in 1986 and her sister in 2017. Longwood is definitely a family affair for the Parrs. A graduate of Tabb High School, Kara was in the Key Club, National Honor Society, Bowling Club and the National Beta Club. But her favorite thing by far was singing. She was in the Girls’ Ensemble, serving as its president when she was a senior, and Jazz Choir, and she participated in school musicals.
When she’s on the listening end of music, it has to be country: “I’m a big fan,” she says. And she’s a big fan of dogs, as well: “I LOVE dogs.” She has a cockapoo named Sophie and a cocker spaniel named Henry.
The semester so far has been going better than I thought it would be around this time. I’ve gotten a bit more used to the campus and its ins and outs, along with developing better time-management skills/planning that make doing work a lot easier.
The biggest thing I have learned so far from my experiences here—and from my older friends—is to have assignments and activities written out in a planner or even on your phone. Making sure that you have time to do your work as well as down time is key.
This system really came in handy when I was buckling down to get ready for crunch time at finals.
Socially things have been about the same—including still meeting new people each week, which is always enjoyable.
I am ready to finish out the rest of this semester and have Christmas break, but I have made sure that I remember not to rush it.
So much that the most memorable part of a high-school trip to Senegal was playing soccer with a group of children there. So much that on any given afternoon you might see him catching a long football pass in front of his residence hall. So much that he’s signed up for the Longwood men’s basketball team’s rigorous practice and game schedule—as a walk-on point guard.
Phil attended Christchurch School, a private, college-prep school in Saluda, Virginia, where he boarded all four years and his favorite classes were psychology and English. When asked about his favorite book, he named not a novel but instead We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, which is a collection of essays originally published in The Atlantic magazine over the course of the Barack Obama administration. He also played basketball and lacrosse in high school.
Phil is currently keeping his options open about a major at Longwood because “there are so many options here.” Meanwhile, he’ll be enjoying the pancakes in D-hall: Breakfast is his favorite meal of the day, and pancakes are his go-to breakfast.
