I was a little surprised when I learned how big bingo was here at UNE– I always thought of it as an old person game, but a lot of the students take it VERY seriously. I had the pleasure of being able to attend a couple games during this semester. I remember move-in night vividly– after setting up my dorm and hopping from activity to activity, I met up with the small group of friends I had eaten lunch with earlier that day. We were exhausted, but we wanted to end the night by going to “Kinda-Big Bingo”. My roommates decided to join us, and I’m so glad they did, because they ended up introducing me to one of my closest friends now, Alexis. Although we didn’t win anything, it gave me a good sense of what the community was like at UNE and it opened up some unexpected doors. I feel like this event helped me feel more comfortable with stepping outside of my comfort zone.

One of my favorite on-campus activities was Glow-Night. Similarly to Bingo, the decision to attend was last minute, but I’m so glad I went. I met up with a new friend, Rosie, and we got to see all the little games and activities that were set up. She did end up accidentally hitting me with a golf club, but all in all, it was a blast. This was the first night that I acknowledged how homesick I felt. As the event was coming to a close, there was a live band performing. Rosie and I sat down with the sandwiches we had ordered from a food-truck and listened for a while. I forget the name of the band, but the genre of music they played reminded me a lot of the band my friends and I were in back at home. Music, as you know, is a big part of who I am, and I didn’t realize how much I missed not only my instruments, but the connections I’ve made through them until just then. I’d really like to see more music-related programs at UNE. Who knows, maybe I’ll start my own club at some point.

I feel as though my experience with my roommates was quite unique– since Eliza is on the women’s Rugby team, I was pumped to go to her games and cheer her on. I’m not a super huge sports fan, but this semester, I discovered that I LOVE rugby. Despite the fact that I knew very little about the sport, it was so cool to learn how it worked through observing everything from the crowd. By the end of the season, I was able to somewhat explain the rules of Rugby to some of my friends at the games. Initially, I was shocked by the crowd turnout, and how passionate people were about the sport. Back in High School, people didn’t show a lot of love for our women’s sports teams– It was a really nice change to see people supporting the UNE’s Rugby team.

I remember attending the Club Fair with Eliza– It was a great way of seeing what the school had to offer outside of classes, I was so excited to start getting involved in everything I possibly could. I signed up for so many different clubs, but as the semester progressed, I found that I only had time for a few of them. My courses took up a LOT of my time. The class that I was the most nervous about was Chemistry. Despite my biological dad being a chemist and the fact that I took honors chemistry in High School, this course was quite intimidating at first. I learned that I am a good note-taker, though I often forget to refer to them when I get confused. I found that I actually enjoy that course quite a bit– my lab partner and I are the perfect duo. She’s good at crunching numbers and checking equations, and I’m good at taking samples and being precise during the actual lab part.