Today is the day that five years of hard work and determination pay off, the day I get to walk across the stage and graduate with my two degrees from Saint Leo University. Graduation starts at 2:30 pm however my day started at 7 am. I had a breakfest meeting with one of Saint Leo's Board of Trustee members Don Tapia. After meeting him for breakfast I got back to my room and relaxed a little bit while I waited for my parents to get here so they could load up my stuff and then get ready for graduation. At 1:45 pm all the graduating seniors had to meet in the library and arrange ourselves so we would walk out to graduation. We ordered ourselves according to what school we were a part of. Since I was graduating with a BSW degree I was close to the front of the line. After all this we walked in formation to the gym where our graduation ceremony was held. The guest speaker for our class was Joseph Garagiola, a famous baseball player and baseball broadcaster. Once everyone was done walking across the stage we left the gym to see everyone one last time. Families wanted pictures taken, friends wanted pictures of each other taken - it was a pretty crazy time. Once I was done saying my goodbyes and farewells to everyone I left to go have dinner with my family.

Graduation week is finaly here for all of us seniors here at Saint Leo. This is the time for all of us to have last week together before we all head our seperate ways. The week started off with the traditional faculty and staff vs student softball game. Last year the students lost and it was the same thing this year, but we only lost by three runs which is better then last years team did. On Tuesday we had a pool party with salsa lessons, although i was unable to make it to the event i heard it was a success. On Wednesday we had a bowling night down at the local bowlig ally here is Zephyrhills. The school provided the transportation and covered the cost of bowling and the seniors just had to show up. Thursday night we went to a place called Howl at the Moon, it is a piano bar in Ybor city. Its a pretty cool place that lets you play with the band and also has two pianos there so people can duel each other at them. Today's event is a bingo day with the big prize being a new desktop computer.

Well its that time of the year when Saint Leo holds its annual Spring Fling weekend. This is a time when students take a break from studying and academics to enjoy their college experience. It is also a time for the families of these students to come and enjoy the festivities with them. This years spring fling was the biggest so far. Saint Leo brought in a famous and well known band to play. That band is called Lonestar. They played a concert here strictly for the Saint Leo University community.They did not jus play but also had crowd interactation and meet with various Saint Leo students. They even had backstage passes that select individuals were able to recieve.

Lonestar on stage	Lead singer Cody Collins

I am close to half-way through my final senior year and I have several concerns. The most prominent one is what will happen after I graduate. I have applied to three graduate schools in the area and will hopefully hear back from them soon. I have applied for the Masters in Social Work program and the University of Central Florida, The University of South Florida, and Florida Gulf Coast University. I am also looking for jobs in the social work field, in case I am not able to get into a graduate program right away. Another plus to getting a job first is that they might pay for my graduate degree. I am also looking into applying for jobs at Saint Leo University, and going here for my Masters in Business. One thing i have yet to look into would be apartments to live in and how that is going to work. First I want to make sure I am going to be staying in the area. Then I will worry about the living situation. Another concern of mine is keeping in contact with the friends and my fraternity that are here. This is part of the reason that I am trying to stay in the area.

Lunch with the crew

My final winter break of my undergraduate career has finally come and gone. This break was pretty similar to most of my other breaks. I started back at work for Publix a few days after I got back, so I would have money to buy all those Christmas gifts for my family. I also enjoyed being able to see my family and spend time with them without having to worry about dealing with papers, test or midterms. I did have one thing to worry about and that was my internship. I was working on setting it up before I went home but things didn’t work out as planned. Over the break I was in contact with Benet Bondi, Assistant Director of Internships, about getting my placement set up. She helped me to write my resume and to get it out to various companies. I am currently looking for an internship in a Human Resource Department. As of right now though I don’t have an internship lined up yet.

It’s the start of my last semester and things are in full swing. It was great to see all my friends and TKE brothers again. But things just seemed to happen right away. I still didn’t have my internship set up. A lot of the places that I applied were not currently taking any interns, so I was beginning to get frustrated. Thankfully things did work out and I was able to get my internship here on the Saint Leo University campus, in the Human Resources Department. This works out good because I can save gas money and a possible job once I graduate. The other big thing going on now is Fraternity Recruitment. Since I am the current Recruitment Chair I have a whole week of activites and late nights ahead of me. There is a whole week of events that have been planned out for each fraternity; these include interactive activities like a video game night, brag tables, and preference parties. At the end of the week my fraternity votes on how many bids we are going to hand out. We handed out a total of seven bids and all seven accepted, so TKE has a pledge class of seven people.

Me and my brothers at a recuritment party

So that time of the year that all college students fear is finally here...FINALS WEEKS. However for me it is not that bad this year. I only have 2 finals to take and an accounting project to do. This is sooo much better then my past years where I have had 5 finals. The way my finals schedule looks this year is much better - one final on Tuesday and my last one on Thursday. Once these are done, I will be going home for the winter break. Saint Leo realizes that this is a a stressful time for students and does what it can to help out. One way is with an event called Midnight Breakfast. The week before finals the cafe serves breakfast to the students from 10pm-midnight on a certain day. Different faculty and staff from Saint Leo are the servers and it is free and open to all the student body. They also provide you with a care pacakge that has different snacks to help get you through the nite and also a Monster energy drink. Aside from finals the only other thing I have to worry about is my schedule for next year. Trying to make sure that I have the right classes so I can graduate on time can be a headache sometimes. But so far things have gone well on that end. Now I'm just trying to get my internship all set up for next semester.

Working out some exam stress with volleyball!

So it's that time of the year when we go home to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday with your family. I am excited to go home because its my first time going home this this semester. The thing I am most looking forward to is seeing my family, and of course the home cooked meal is going to be amazing too. But unfortunately it's not all going to be fun, because I have to work and have plenty of HW to keep me busy. I will be working at Publix for most of the week since the Thanksgiving holiday is a busy time for us.

THANKSGIVING DAY

My sister and her friend

The actual day of Thanksgiving was great. I had dinner with my grandparents and my cousins and some extended family that I haven't seen in awhile. Thanksgiving break for college has a completely different feel then when I had off for high school. The biggest difference is because I am away for college, and am going back home. Even though they are my family, I feel a little out of place because I realized that my family was able to move on and continue with their lives even though I was gone for several months. But it was also nice to know that I was able to continue on with my life too even though I am several hundred miles away from them.

It is Halloween week here at Saint Leo and the campus is getting ready. There are various events that occur at this time of the year here. One of the biggest is the trips the school provides to both Halloween Horror Nites at Universal Studios, and Hallowscream at Busch Gardens. Both of these events only cost five dollars to attend. Another big thing is the hall decorating contest. In the freshmen residence halls they have a competition to see which floor can decorate the best. The winning floor gets a free dinner at Applebees this year.

On a different note, some organizations give back to the community this time of the year. Tau Kappa Epsilon, my fraternity, hosts a Halloween party for foster kids. We have face painting, a costume contest and they even wrap up some of the brothers in toilet paper to make them into mummies. And we can't forget the Halloween parties. Gamma Upsilon, a sorority on campus, is having their second annual "Original Sin" party and Tau Kappa Epsilon is having a Trick-or-TKE Halloween party.

This past weekend a traditonal Saint Leo event took place. That event is called Fall Family Festival. It is a weekend dedicated to both parents and students enjoying various events that go on around campus. The event that kicked off the weekend was a talent show. It featured Saint Leo students demonstrating their various talents and hobbies. The entertainment ranged from poetry, to dancing, singing, and even some rapping. The main events took place on Saturday. This was when the actual festival took place. All the different clubs and organizations on campus have tables and booths for people to come over and enjoy the activites. Some of the tables were a dream interpretation station, a bell-dancing area, and gladiator ring, and obstacle course.