Blog 3: Suitemates

            I have been having a hard time coming up with a topic for this week’s blog post and when I asked my suitemates if they knew a good blog topic I could write about. They were willing to let me write about them and some of the fun times we have had.
           
            When I moved to Knoxville at the beginning of last semester I was not sure who I would be sharing a bathroom with. I knew that I would be rooming with Sara, a girl who I went to high school with. Sara requests that tell you she is a pirate and has scurvy. She is not really a pirate though, nor does she have scurvy. She does play clarinet and eat a lot of soup. Sara and I are suitemates with Mindy and Lisa.

Mindy is from Cincinnati and enjoys animal crackers. She usually works out every day and sometimes convinces me to go to the gym with her. I am not the athlete she is but I do enjoy riding the stationary bikes while watching whatever they have on TV that day. She usually brings her nook and reads while using the elliptical machine. She attended a cycling class at the gym today and looks kind of worn out. She says the class was a little more intense than she expected.

 Lisa would like me to tell you that she is a ninja who often does battle with Sara, the pirate. Lisa is not really a ninja she just wishes she were super stealthy. Lisa has hopes of one day being an orthodontist. Lisa tried to teach me how to “wobble” but whenever I try to dance I feel like a flailing chicken and I imagine I probably look like a flailing chicken as well.

            The girls I live with are a ton of fun and I am glad I got to meet them. From the midnight dancing lessons to the hot cocoa parties (complete with marshmallows, whipped cream, and different kinds of hot cocoa), they always have something fun to do when we get bored.

Blog 2: Living Somewhere That Gets Snow

            As I have mentioned in previous blog entries, I moved frequently as a child. I was born in Fort Carson, Colorado and moved to Mount Carmel, Tennessee almost three years later. This was only a few months after my little brother was born. He is named Hobert after my father, but I will probably refer to him as Jr in future posts. We lived in Mount Carmel until the Christmas break during my first grade year. It was at this time that we picked up and moved to Manhattan, Kansas while my father was stationed in Fort Riley.

            The day we arrived in Kansas I remember thinking that Kansas must be in a different world from Tennessee. The mountains and hills were replaced by flatness with the occasional lump, and there was more snow on the ground than I had ever seen before. Snow is not an oddity in Kansas. We got snow often in the winter and there was enough to make snowmen, igloos, and “forts” to hide behind during a snowball fight. I soon learned what kind of snow made good snow balls and what kind of snow just fell apart flakily whenever you tried to turn it into anything. When it snowed, we still had school and recess became giant igloo building 101 where the older kids showed us younger kids how to make an igloo big enough that we could play inside. When one recess period ended and another began the new comers would pick up where the last group of children left off. I can’t remember ever seeing the completed igloo but in theory the process should have resulted in an igloo big enough for a couple of small children to occupy.

Blog 1: Introduction

Hello! My name is Samantha Stapleton. My favorite holiday is Halloween. My favorite color is green. I do not like the color pink. I like to listen to the rain and drink hot cocoa. I do not like sugar cookies. My family currently lives in Surgoinsville, Tennessee but we have also lived in Colorado, Kansas, and West Virginia. My father was a tanker in the United States Army and we moved about every three years. I have an older sister who is twenty six and a younger brother who is fifteen. I participated in band through middle school and high school but decided not to continue into college for fear of not having enough time. I played French horn and mellophone. In high school I also participated in FBLA, Mu Alpha Theta, Beta Club, and the Science Bowl team. I also decided to drop these activities upon starting college. I am eighteen years old and a freshman at UT. I am majoring in Biomedical Engineering, and I am very happy with my choice of major. I enjoy math and science very much. I like to read, but unfortunately have a bad habit of procrastinating when it comes to writing. I often find myself doing homework in advance for my chemistry or physics classes instead of starting my papers, but once I actually start writing my paper it doesn't take long for me to finish it. I am aware that my procrastination is a problem and I am willing to admit that I need help. Hopefully this class will help me face my fear of writing.