I have been all over the world but I must say there really is nothing like the Chicago skyline.
And it looks great from all angles:
From the Field Museum
From Lincoln Park
From a reflection off the Trump Tower
From Grant Park
From the Lakeshore path
And from my freshman year bedroom in Mertz
One of the student organizations that I am involved with here at Loyola is UNICEF. 19,000 children die every day of preventable causes and UNICEF fights for this number to become zero. UNICEF has saved more young lives than any humanitarian organization in the world.
Loyola’s chapter of UNICEF meets every Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. for one hour. In these meetings we talk about some of the problems that we want to focus on and brainstorm ideas for how we, as a student organization, can fight them. Our main goals are to raise money and raise awareness. To do that, we organize many different projects throughout the year such as documentary nights, professional panels, Mr. Rambler pageants and many more.
Our first event of the year was our Believe In Zero flag. It was primarily to raise awareness for UNICEF and our mission. Our Believe In Zero project involved getting up at the crack of dawn and creating a big “0” out of little white UNICEF flags.
Each of the 600 flags represented 32 children in the world who would die that day from preventable causes. As you can see from the pictures below, it was a pretty powerful sight.
This was a great way to spread awareness for organization. We made the “0” in a place where many students passed it on their way to class or the library and many students stopped to see what it was about. We handed out fliers and put up signs around the flags explaining their meaning to help the students understanding.
Confession time. I have a problem. Or, more accurately, an addiction. An addiction to only the most delicious dessert and food item in the history of the world: CUPCAKES.
One of my favorite parts about Chicago is the plethora of places where you can pick up some of these delicious treats. In fact, last year, for an APO event, we had a “cupcake crawl,” where we consecutively went to three cupcake bakeries within 2 hours.
It might have been the best day in my entire life.
Inspired by that highlight of my existence as a human being, I thought I’d leave you with a list of some of my favorite cupcake places in the city to explore when you’re here! Enjoy!
Molly’s is located in Lincoln Park, and it is one of my absolute favorite places. The decor is funky and fun, and I could probably eat at least 10 of their birthday cake cupcakes in a single day. They taste a little like a combination of real birthday cake and unicorns and miracles.
Swirlz is also located in Lincoln Park. The shop is small, but they have an awesome selection of both regular sized and mini cupcakes. The minis are just as yummy and perfect for deluding yourself into thinking that 5 minis aren’t as bad as 1 big one. (Heehee…)
3. more
more is located downtown, by LUC’s Water Tower Campus. more’s cupcakes are not only delicious (like all cupcakes in the history of the world), but they have this awesome deal on Tuesdays, when more posts a picture of one of their cupcakes on Facebook. If one of your friends tags you in time, you get a COMPLETELY FREE NO STRINGS ATTACHED CUPCAKE. Considering the fact that the “poor college student” myth is actually not a myth, but a sad reality, getting tagged in a more cupcake is literally the highlight of many of my friends’ weeks.
Sorry this picture is so small! I actually took it on my cellphone last year when my APO Big and I had an exciting evening filled with sushi and cupcakes. A Taste of Heaven is within walking distance of the Lake Shore Campus, and their fancy cupcakes add class and sass to any event.
5. Sprinkles
Sprinkles, located close to the downtown campus, is a close second to my favorite cupcake place ever. During the aforementioned cupcake crawl, I may or may not have bought four cupcakes from Sprinkles, which may or may not have all been consumed within the next four hours. Sprinkles also has a fantastic cupcake ATM; no explanation is needed, since it’s exactly what it sounds like. My mouth is watering right now just thinking about it.
Anatomy of a Cupcake attributed to the Swirlz website.
more Facebook picture attributed to the more Facebook page.
Sprinkles Cupcake ATM picture attributed to the wonderful Elizabeth Mohs.
Fall break has come to an end, but the Halloween season is just beginning. On Monday, I carved my first pumpkin. He’s not the best, but he’s not the worst, but you guys can judge that:
(We tried to make him look half happy and half evil. I don’t think it really worked.)
Along with pumpkin carving, I also got a massage from Elements Therapeutic Massage out in Bloomingdale (they have several locations). It was a 55-minute session that helped me relieve some stress. The best thing that came out of this massage were the tips I got for relieving my tension headaches, which at this time of year are pretty common for college students. I’m definitely going to use my new found advice daily and I recommend that people check out this place.
The day was wrapped up with a big self-prepared dinner, and let me mention that using the entire stove-top while cooking leaves a lot of room for disaster. Somehow we miraculously managed to not burn, break or ruin anything, but the kitchen was filled with tension and preparing food for almost an hour.
This dinner was not for any special occasion, though I’ll continue to joke that it was for the Canadian Thanksgiving. For those who didn’t know, Monday was Turkey Day for Canadians and for people like me who used that as a reason to make a feast. For those of you who did know, you either broke out the pots and pans and joined the cooking party, or you are jealously waiting for the American Thanksgiving, which is still a month and a half away.
I started writing this blog yesterday as a break from doing my homework. This week may only be a half-week, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Thursday, I have my first Social Statistics test, followed by my first Management test on Friday.
Grades are starting to trickle in, so I’m slowly getting an idea of where I stand in my classes, and though I’m doing well, I want to step it up a notch to do even better. This semester has not been an easy one and tempers are getting hotter as the weather gets colder, but two things to be happy about are that the leaves on the trees look beautiful, and in two weeks, we’ll be halfway through the semester. Let’s keep on trucking.
PS: I started re-watching the Vampire Diaries from the beginning which reminds me to tell everyone what an awesome show it is. And Season 4 premieres this Thursday at 7PM. That’s all. 🙂
Hey everyone! My name is Susie Moskop and I’m excited to blog this semester. Just a little about me… I am from a small town about four hours south of Chicago in Peoria, Illinois. Growing up in this small town is what prompted me to take my college career to a big city like Chicago. I spent my freshman year here at Loyola visiting all the popular tourist attractions and learning how to make my way around this city. Coming into my sophomore year, I feel so much more confident about living in the big city and am starting to feel like a real Chicagoan. However, sophomores are often known as “wise fools”, so I am trying to remind myself that I have so much more to experience and learn both around the city and at Loyola.
After being ridiculously indecisive about my major last year,I finally feel like I have found the perfect areas of study that reflect what I am most interested in: journalism and visual communication. Throughout my life, writing has always been not only one of my strengths, but also one of my favorite past times. Furthermore, visual communication allows me to express my artistic side and add a creative spin to my writing. With these, I hope to one day work with a popular magazine or website, or maybe even write some original works for a publisher.
This year in particular, I am trying to get involved in activities that will give me experience in my areas of study. Aside from blogging, a huge part of my life is my position as assistant news editor for the Loyola Phoenix, the school’s student-run newspaper. I am also a member of the Loyola club tennis team. Aside from the work I do at Loyola, I tutor children in reading and writing at a local elementary school and am a registered volunteer at PAWS Chicago.
Throughout this blog, I hope to successfully contribute the Loyola Chicago experience the way I see it, while adding a variety of useful college tips for all readers. Enjoy!
Fall break has arrived and I am welcoming it with open arms and open books.
I kicked it off with a trip to the movies with a friend to see “The Perks of Being A Wallflower”. It was a truly wonderful movie with great acting. I read the book when I was in junior high, and as much as people have said that you should read the book before seeing it, I’m really glad that I didn’t remember a thing from the book. It was like a brand new experience, one that left me with a lot of food for thought.
Now that I have started fall break, the time has come to spend four straight days catching up on sleep and homework, and I’m actually fine with that. Tomorrow I will do neither, though, because I’m rising early to go to work. I’m excited for that for several reasons.
First off, this is going to be the first Saturday that I work at my job ever, and I’ve been working there for over a year now, so I’m really happy about that. Second, it’ll be a fair, and I’ve never actually worked a fair before so it’ll be a little different from what I usually do at work.
Third and finally, which is kind of my favorite reason, I’ll be working downtown at the Water Tower Campus, as opposed to at Lake Shore Campus, so though I’ll be seeing my coworkers working, we’ll be in a different environment than I’ve ever seen them in. That may sound weird, but to me its really cool. Having this workday be different from my usual will be a nice change, and I know that it’ll make me appreciate my job even more because I’ll be seeing it from a new light.
Sunday will be the day when I finally get to catch up on my sleep. I plan on unplugging all phones and other electronics in the house, putting my sleep mask on, and knocking out for a good 12 hours. Yes, that does sound crazy, but so does going day after day to school on 5 hours of sleep. I want half a day of uninterrupted shut-eye so I can dream in peace.
Once I do wake up, it’s a complete homework day from there. There are several chapters and assignments that I need to catch up on, and I hope to get everything done by the time midnight rolls around. Time to break out my school rules and get crankin’!
So for the past month, I have spent A LOT of time on the road and living out of a suitcase for fall travel, recruitment to various high schools and college fairs around Indiana & Illinois. This has led to quite a bit of reminiscing over my study abroad experience while I was a junior at Loyola University Chicago.
The summer before junior year, I traveled to Rome for a 2 week international 3 credit hour marketing course with a small group of students and one of my favorite professors, Stacy Neier. During our short-time abroad, we traveled throughout Rome, Florence, Lake Como, Milan and then we ended our trip in Paris. I started going through my photos from the trip and decided that the old saying is true, “a picture is worth a thousand words” so instead of writing about my experience, I’ve decided to share some of my photos!
-ROME-
-Florence-
-Lake Como-
-Milan-
-Paris-
Overall, it was an absolutely phenomenal experience, I’d definitely recommend that you consider making study abroad a part of your college experience. Loyola offers over 100 study abroad programs in over 55 countries, so you can definitely find the right location for you!
It’s Friday! And even better, it’s the Friday of Fall break!
Loyola gives its students a mid-semester break to help us relax and catch up on some sleep and school work. We have Monday and Tuesday off of class which makes this a four day weekend! I am headed home in a few hours via Amtrak train and couldn’t be more excited.
I’m excited because when I go home I get to see my best friend run her first half marathon! I also plan on doing some apple picking with my family.
It’s going to be a great little break from the stress of classes and midterms. Have a great weekend everyone!
Check out this canvas I made that was completely inspired by Pinterest. I had been searching for the perfect decorations that I could craft for my room, and this one is right up my alley. The quote is one of my favorites; it definitely sums up my traveling and foodie lifestyle!
I put stick on letters onto a blank canvas board, and sponge painted around it. My sister, who is extremely talented with projects like this, helped me fix it.
Here’s the final project, with my map of Rome poster in the background. (I miss the Eternal City more and more every day!)
This weekend was the only home meet for Loyola’s Cross Country team which meant I got to see two of my roommates run! The Sean Earl Invitational was held at Montrose Beach on Saturday. We couldn’t have asked for a better day, it was beautiful, sunny and 75 degrees.
We arrived at the meet and immediately sought out Mary and Alyvia, my roommates who are on the team. The girls 5k race started promptly at 11:45 and didn’t last long! It was a struggle for my friends and I to make it to different spots on the course in time to see the girls run because they were so fast. Before I knew it, we were watching the girls cross the finish line.
Mary ran a 19.31, which was 32 seconds faster than last year when she ran that course and Alyvia ran her personal record at 17:53! To top it all off, the Loyola girls team finished in second overall. It was a great day for the girls!
The boys race began at 12:15 and they did just as good as the girls team! At the end of the 8k, the boys finished fourth overall with Sam Penzenstadler in first for Loyola with a time of 25.02!
It was a great day and I had so much fun watching my friends run. Check out some of the pictures we got at the meet!
