Vacation all I ever wanted Vacation had to get away Vacation meant to be spent alone.. lalalalalalala

Although it may not seem like it, we are nearing the end of the semester. And some of you (mainly everyone) can’t wait to be on summer vacation. I know I can’t wait to sleep in, get to the beach, and get a nice tan. But before all that can happen we need to focus on what is going on right now, which is classes and work. It may seem very overwhelming doing paper after paper and studying all night for the big exams but remember in about 45 days, it will all be over. So here are some tips to get you through the rest of the semester:

1. FOCUS! I know its hard to stop texting for 50 mins and pay attention to your professor’s lecture but keep this in mind: the more you learn in class, the less time you’ll have to pay studying the material later. Also, when you are trying to study, really try. Turn off the tv, phone, and music so you have no distractions. The quicker you get in the zone when you are studying, the quicker you’ll be done and get to go see your friends. So really focus when your books are open (even though it can be hard), it will save you time in the long run.

2. EXERCISE! Get to the gym and get that heart beating. I know some people think you don’t have any spare time and the little spare time you have is spent studying (or sleeping). But the truth is, exercising for only 20 mins can greatly impact your life. Exercise has been proven to increase brain capacity and allow you to focus easier when you are studying. In fact, after exercising is the best time for you to study because exercise creates new brain cells that are eager to be fulled with information. So if you study at that time, your brain is more likely to retain the information. You know those nights when you toss and turn all night and can’t fall asleep? Exercise can help with that too! Your body will feel tired a couple hours after exercising so it can make it easier to fall asleep at night. And plus, exercise can tone your body so you look extra good on the beach!

3. HAVE “YOU” TIME! You need to take time to yourself every day to recharge your battery. It doesn’t matter what you do, it can be going to get a coffee, watching a movie, or taking a nap. “You time” allows you to unwind and forget about the stress of class and drama that might be going on with friends.

4. SLEEP! I know everyone says that you need to sleep about 8 hours a night to be at your full potential during the day, but it is true. Sleeping 4 hours a night can lead you to sleep in class or take naps during the day, when you could be doing something else. It may be hard but you should try to get at least 7 hours of sleep a night.

5. EAT RIGHT! Greasy, fatty foods are everywhere and are what most people crave when they are stressed but they aren’t good for you in large amounts. Greasy food can weigh you down and leave you feeling sluggish and tired. Try to get fruits and vegetables in to all of your meals, they can greatly impact your mood. Fruits have antioxidants that helps you feel awake and can keep you from getting sick. Not only is peanut butter delicious it is also good for you. It has a lot of iron and protein which can keep you feeling full longer and keep you focused in class.

I hope you all have enough strength to get through the rest of the year. I know it’s hard, but you can do it!
– Meg

Contact Information:

RSVP to Jacqueline_Ledoux@uml.edu or 978-934-2236

Students were sent an  email a few weeks back, asking if they had any ideas of what to put in the new time capsule. So if you were involved in that whole process, it would be a really good idea to go to the event. You would be a huge part of UMass Lowells history.

Here are some of the pictures of last years Ground Breaking ceremony. You can see how fast the construction is going for yourself! You might even some familiar faces. 😉

-Daisy

Hey All!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s that time of year where you meet with your advisior. Here are some quick tips on how to go about it:

1. GO EARLY!!!!!!!!!!!! Don’t leave it to the last minute, your advisor is very busy and your not the only student that has to see them

2. Go in with a list of classes you are going to take, questions you might have for the summertime. It’s easy on the advisior and you.

3. When it comes to signing up for classes, put all your classes in your shopping cart, and MAKE SURE you don’t have ANY HOLDS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don’t get stuck with a schedule that you don’t like.

Happy Advising!!!!!!!!!!!!

~Stef

Steps to the Cure

1. Realize you are delaying something unnecessarily.
2. Discover the real reasons for your delay. List them.
3. Dispute those real reasons and overcome them. Be vigorous.
4. Begin the task.

1. Twenty percent of people identify themselves as chronic procrastinators. For them procrastination is a lifestyle, albeit a maladaptive one. And it cuts across all domains of their life. They don’t pay bills on time. They miss opportunities for buying tickets to concerts. They don’t cash gift certificates or checks. They file income tax returns late. They leave their Christmas shopping until Christmas eve.
2. It’s not trivial, although as a culture we don’t take it seriously as a problem. It represents a profound problem of self-regulation. And there may be more of it in the U.S. than in other countries because we are so nice; we don’t call people on their excuses (“my grandmother died last week”) even when we don’t believe them.
3. Procrastination is not a problem of time management or of planning. Procrastinators are not different in their ability to estimate time, although they are more optimistic than others. “Telling someone who procrastinates to buy a weekly planner is like telling someone with chronic depression to just cheer up,” insists Dr. Ferrari.
4. Procrastinators are made not born. Procrastination is learned in the family milieu, but not directly. It is one response to an authoritarian parenting style. Having a harsh, controlling father keeps children from developing the ability to regulate themselves, from internalizing their own intentions and then learning to act on them. Procrastination can even be a form of rebellion, one of the few forms available under such circumstances. What’s more, under those household conditions, procrastinators turn more to friends than to parents for support, and their friends may reinforce procrastination because they tend to be tolerant of their excuses.
5. Procrastination predicts higher levels of consumption of alcoholamong those people who drink. Procrastinators drink more than they intend to—a manifestation of generalized problems in self-regulation. That is over and above the effect of avoidant coping styles that underlie procrastination and lead to disengagement via substance abuse.
6. Procrastinators tell lies to themselves. Such as, “I’ll feel more like doing this tomorrow.” Or “I work best under pressure.” But in fact they do not get the urge the next day or work best under pressure. In addition, they protect their sense of self by saying “this isn’t important.” Another big lie procrastinators indulge is that time pressure makes them more creative. Unfortunately they do not turn out to be more creative; they only feel that way. They squander their resources.
7. Procrastinators actively look for distractions, particularly ones that don’t take a lot of commitment on their part. Checking e-mail is almost perfect for this purpose. They distract themselves as a way of regulating their emotions such as fear of failure.
8. There’s more than one flavor of procrastination. People procrastinate for different reasons. Dr. Ferrari identifies three basic types of procrastinators:
   
   • arousal types, or thrill-seekers, who wait to the last minute for the euphoric rush.
   • avoiders, who may be avoiding fear of failure or even fear of success, but in either case are very concerned with what others think of them; they would rather have others think they lack effort than ability.
   • decisional procrastinators, who cannot make a decision. Not making a decision absolves procrastinators of responsibility for the outcome of events.
9. There are big costs to procrastination. Health is one. Just over the course of a single academic term, procrastinating college students had such evidence of compromised immune systems as more colds and flu, more gastrointestinal problems. And they had insomnia. In addition, procrastination has a high cost to others as well as oneself; it shifts the burden of responsibilities onto others, who become resentful. Procrastination destroys teamwork in theworkplace and private relationships.
10. Procrastinators can change their behavior—but doing so consumes a lot of psychic energy. And it doesn’t necessarily mean one feels transformed internally. It can be done with highly structured cognitive behavioral therapy.

Hey All!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s that time of year where midterms are over and your in the final stretch of the school year. Advising is going to be starting monday! If you are thinking/have to take a summer class…here’s what to do….

1. Figure out what class you HAVE to take to stay on track.

2. Talk to your advisior, ask them their recommendations on what you should do. Ask them these questions: Can I take it during the fall semester? Will it allow me to move on with other classes? The most important… Do you recommend I take it during the summertime instead of next year?

3. Once you have picked your class talked to your advisor the next step is signing up for the class….IMPORTANT you DON’T have to take the class HERE you can take the class at another college or community college. As long as the class equals the same class you are retaking/taking….

4. IF you are taking it at another college/community college….go to THIS website: http://www.uml.edu/registrar/transfer/ to check if the course you are taking equals the class you have/retaking.

5. Last but not least don’t take a summer class unless you HAVE to

REMEMBER summer classes are just as expensive as buying lunch from subway, coffee from dunkin dounts, and driving from here to new york everyday for the last year. It can get costly depending on if it is online or not.

Just to get you through this week…and this snowy day:

~Stef

 Here is the link to sign up as a free agent or for individual tournaments: http://www.uml.edu/campusrecreation/Intramurals/Free-Agent-Form.html 

The Umass Lowell Off-Broadway Players Proudly Present:

Come see the Off-Broadway Players Annual spring musical, RENT! RENT is a story of love, loss, living with aids, and living life as if there were “No Day But Today”. RENT is loosely based on Puccini’s famous opera “La Boheme”, and takes place in the East Village of New York City in the mid 1990’s, during which there was a large AIDS scare amongst the bohemians and artists. Book, Music, and Lyrics by, Jonathan Larson

Directed by: Mary Plant-Thomas
Musical Direction: Emily Roos
Choreography: Rose Abramoff
SHOW DATES!:

March 31st: 7:30pm, doors at 7:00pm (STUDENT TICKETS ONLY ONE DOLLAR ON OPENING NIGHT!!!)
April 1st: 7:30pm, doors at 7:00pm
April 2nd: 7:30pm, doors at 7:00pm
April 3rd: 2:00pm (Matinee), doors at 1:30pm
April 8th: 7:30pm, doors at 7:00pm
April 9th, 7:30pm, doors at 7:00pm
April 10th, 2:00pm (Matinee), doors at 1:30pm.

TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE IN THE MCGAUVRAN STUDENT UNION’S STUDENT INFORMATION CENTER NOW! 
Tickets can also be purchased day of show at the box office in the lobby of the Comley-Lane Theatre, Mahoney Hall, South Campus.

TICKETS ARE $5 FOR STUDENTS/SENIORS AND $10 FOR ADULTS

OPENING NIGHT TICKETS ARE ONLY $1 FOR STUDENTS!
Cast:
Mark Cohen- Ben Nguyen
Roger Davis- Alex B
Mimi Marquez- Stephanie Bates
Tom Collins – Shawn Marengo
Angel Dumott Shunard – Dano Knobel
Maureen Johnson – Olivia Stiling
Joanne Jefferson – Ashley Tello
Benjamin Coffin III – Jacob Hajja

March 29th at 7:30 is a big night for all of you Jazz lovers out there. In your very own DURGIN HALL will be a night full of jazz, and performing will be not only your fellow UML music majors, but professional jazz musicians as well. The best about all of this is that it is 100% FREE. So come on down, listen to some really good live music, and lets fill the house!

~James (don’t mean a thing if you aint got that swing)

As you might have noticed, for those of you live in the Residence Halls, that you received a handy dandy packet when you returned to your room. It’s that time of the year where students must let Residence Life know whether or not they are planning on living on campus next year. Let’s talk about how this works, shall we?

The packet does a pretty good job of explaining how the whole process works. It’s similar to the way you first applied to live in housing. There is a contract and a two hundred dollar deposit. The contract asks you for basic information like your name, address, etc. Then it proceeds to ask if you are a current resident or a list of other things. If you don’t know the answer to that question, then don’t worry. Just ask! There is no such thing as a stupid question. Then it will ask if you’ve been convicted of a felony and how many credits you have. These are ALL important questions, so don’t skip one. They can decide whether or not you’re given a room. There are few terms of agreement that you SHOULD look at before signing your John Hancock! It’s a contract, don’t forget. The words aren’t there just for decoration. Make sure to give them a good look over. If you’re under 18 then it also asks for your parents signature.

When you’re done with THAT all you have to do is pay the deposit. You can pay this with cash, check, or credit card.

Now here’s the super important part, so i’m going to write it in big red letters.

MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE TO TURN IN YOUR DEPOSIT BEFORE APRIL 8TH 2011.*

That’s pretty much all about the housing contract. Once you’re done with that, you can go on the Online Housing Gateway and choose where you want to live. It’s easy as ABC.

Feel free to shoot us any questions you might have, we’re always willing to help!

Daisy!

* Author is willing to retract this statement if the information is wrong. But she’s pretty sure it’s not…so there.

P.S. Here’s a copy of the Housing Contract if you DIDN’T receive it, but want it. 

P.P.S Check out the new virtual tour videos of the different Residence Halls the University has to offer! 

I’m done now…I swear.

Okay, maybe ONE more thing. It’s Monday, Monday. Hanging with Voldemort on Monday! Kind of irrelevant but…we all need a bit of a laugh on this snowy day.

Hey All,

How was your spring break? Did you do anything fun? Did you go anywhere tropical? OR were you a couch potatoe like me 🙂 My break was amazing, it consisted of me sleeping, cooking, eating, and the oh so dreadful homework (tried to avoid it but couldn’t). Over spring break I took my FIRST EVER cooking class, which was extremely exciting. I know how to cook but it was nice to see someone else do it and have the hands on expereince. Instead of watching the food network and just watching it. Do any of your know how to cook? Easy Mac, ramen, and pasta don’t count. Sorry guys 🙁 Heres some daily cartoons about stuff

Let me know how your spring break was, Remember only 43 days left of the semester, and advising starts NEXT week!!!!!!!!!!! SOOOOOO sign up early so there it isn’t a hold on your account!!

~Stef

P.S what do you think of this song??? This is the BEST song ever!!!!!!!!!! and yes she is better then Justin Bieber Friday!