For the longest time Vanderbilt has been known as a smart school who doesn't have a very strong athletic program.  However, this is the year that the reputation changed. 

First came football season.  Vanderbilt came so close to winning almost every football game, but seemed to fall short too many times.  They missed a kick, an earlier fieldgoal, or a touchdown that they should have made.  This has been the pattern for years, but finally they weren't losing by 10 or 20, instead in four of the eight lost games the scores were within 7 points of each other!  This difference would have meant a bowl game and a winning record.  However, Vanderbilt DID beat UGA at their homecoming game.  As a cheerleader, this was the most exciting game of the season.  I had never been to a UGA game before, but to hear the crowd go silent after the final field goal kick, is a memory I will never forget.  Vanderbilt has been the underdog for so long that every team we play thinks they will come in and stomp all over us...then they discover that they were wrong.

The basketball teams had amazing runs as well.  The women's team won the SEC tournament right here in Atlanta beating LSU.  This was a wild game!  Everyone thought that it would come down to UT and UGA (#1 and 2 seed) in the final, but had no idea that UT would get knocked out by LSU one round early.  During the season, Vandy lost to LSU at their gym, but beat them at Memorial Gym.  Everyone knew it was going to be a great game!  And boy, the game came too close for comfort 51-45!  LSU had the #1 defense and Vandy came in with the #1 offense.  In the last minute, Vanderbilt pulled ahead and shot some amazing baskets.

The mens' basketball team got to the sweet 16!  They were up during the first half, but then Georgetown came back strong in the second half and Vanderbilt made too many little mistakes and weren't hitting their shots like they did during the first half.  This game was a heartbreaker as Vandy lost by one point and on a bad call none the less.  It ended up that a Georgetown player traveled on the last shot of the game--and the winning point.  However, Kevin Stallings and the team never said anything bad about Georgetown or the referees, but instead took the loss with stride and said that there were many times that they could have scored and didn't.  During the season, Vanderbilt beat #1 ranked Florida and all of the students rushed the court, along with Chancellor Gordon Gee, and suffered at $25,000 charge as a result.  In addition to beating Florida, UT, South Carolina, UGA, and Kentucky were all amazing wins.  After Alan Metcalf got hurt during the beginning of the season, Stallings changed how the Commodores were going to play the game.  This ended up being one of the best decisions he made.

The women's bowling team secured Vanderbilt's first NCAA title.

The baseball team won their first SEC tournament.  After losing the first game, they came back to win the next five.  They are ranked #1 in the country and have a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament.  I can't wait to see how far they go!  The first regionals are at Hawkin's field this weekend.

What amazes me more than how far Vanderbilt athletics has come as a whole, are what all of the athletes say about their teams and why they have come so far.  I sat through the women's basketball senior ceremony and listened to the men's basketball and baseball interviews online at www.vucommodores.com.  All of the athletes said that they won so many games because of the team chemistry.  In addition to supporting each teammate, the phrase "we play with heart" continuously chimes throughout the interviews.  I have discovered that you can go so far if you believe in yourself and your team.  After going into the bottom of the 10th inning against Ole Miss in the semi-finals with a losing score of 6-3, it didn't look good for the Commodores.  However, they came back to win 6-7 with 0 outs in the bottom of the 10th.  When asked later about how they won, the players said that they went into the game thinking "we're going to win," and when faced with the situation in the bottom of the 10th, they went into the dugout saying "how are we going to win?"  It's not a matter of if they're going to win or not, but how they are going to do it.  With this winning attitude, they have the possibility to make anything possible.

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Senior pranks started out being funny and harmless.  Now, it's a way to gain prestige.  It's all about who can have the biggest and best prank.  There are even whole shows on MTV devoted to how pranks went bad.  You can google 'senior pranks' and get ideas and also look up what pranks have been done at other schools.  Pranks range from drawing male genitles on football fields and front lawns of schools with materials that kill the grass, to putting cars on roofs to putting marijuana in muffins.  Pranks are funny until someone gets hurt.  Teachers had to go to the hospital after they ate a marijuana muffin and at another school, a teacher was hurt when she slipped on baby oil that was spread across the floor. 

I remember as an underclassman, pranks can be annoying.  One year books were thrown from all of the unlocked lockers around finals time, which caused students to lose their books and notes, and resulted in them being unable to study.  Another year, stink bombs were thrown into the hallways.  And my sophomore year the locker combinations were painted grey so that you couldn't see the numbers to open the lockers.

However, pranks can also be funny.  My junior year, all of the seniors brought their dogs to school and they also went around and took all of the 'For Sale' signs out of yards and put them on Alumni Lawn.  In addition, Marist had a creative prank this year (2007).  The seniors wrote on the juniors' cars to go find their license plates.  All of the liscence plates were taken off of the cars and lined up on the soccer field in country order.  The bad news was that many students did not know their liscence plate number so they had to stand in a long line waiting to find out what their number was before they could leave to go home.

I remember there was always talk about bringing cows into the school and up the steps.  Cows cannot walk down stairs, only up and they are too heavy too big to put on some elevators. 

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"And the winner of American Idol 2007 is..." (insert 10 minute long dramatic pause) "...Jordin Sparks!!"

I was really happy to hear the results of American Idol last night- I thought Jordin was completely deserving of the title. But something I heard on the radio the other day has been bugging me. I tuned into the Steve and Vicki Morning Show on Star94 on my way to work to hear a "healthcare professional" saying that Jordin should NOT be the next American Idol. But what got me was her reason why. It wasn't because Blake is a better entertainer, or Melinda is more consistant.

It was because Jordin is "fat".

The woman claimed that American kids don't need an overweight idol to look up to. Jordin would be promoting obesity in children. I was absolutely shocked. Jordin has more talent in her little finger then many people have in their whole body. So why shouldn't we embrace that fact that no, she is no 85-pound Nicole Richie. But wouldn't we rather focus on people that are talented even though they may have imperfections then people who just make you feel bad about yourself?

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I'd like to get your prospective on Face Book and My Space.  My 14 year old son has a profile on both.  He has given me his password so that I can monitor what's going on, but I want to know if you think this is too young to be on these websites and what is the difference in the two?  It all seems pretty harmless from what I can see; mostly just sharing what's been going on.  However, I hear all of the bad stuff through the media about what can happen and it worries me.  He tells me that his profiles are private, but can others access his information?  Is one site better than the other?  Thanks for enlightening an uninformed mom!

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I know I'm really excited about Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and have been talking to many of my friends who cannot wait for it to come out!  Along with Spider Man 3 and Harry Potter, this is going to be one of the biggest movies of the summer.  I think the obsession with Pirates started because of Johnny Depp, but after he got people to the theaters, everyone realized how good of a movie it was.  The first one was so good that it hooked people into seeing the 2nd and now the 3rd.  Even though I thought that the first movie was better than the second movie, I can't wait for the third!  The plot is set up and I've watched the trailers to realize how exciting it is going to be.

My brother even said, "I don't know why everyone is obsessed with Johnny Depp."  I don't know either, but all I know is that the casting crew picked an all star cast that draws teens to the theater--Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley , and Orlando Bloom. 

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I just want to start of by saying- and this is completely unrelated to the rest of my blog- but how in the WORLD did Paris Hilton get her jail sentenced reduced already? And for "good behavior"?? I thought you had to, oh I don't know, BE IN JAIL in order to get a reduced sentence for good behavior. Absolutely ridiculous. Those darn law-breaking socialites. They just can't play by the rules.

The other night my dad said something that got me thinking. We were talking about a college friend of mine and my dad asked where she was from. I replied that I didn't remember, to which he said "I don't understand your generation- you have all the information at your fingerstips yet you aren't interested in finding out the most basic things."

This really struck a note with me. It's a topic that I have heard a lot lately- the youth today are apathetic and uninterested in what is going on in the world around them. Though I hate such blanket statements, I can kind of see where it is coming from.

I'll look at myself specifically: I don't tend to watch the news or read the newspaper. I couldn't tell you the state of the War In Iraq. I couldn't say where the presidential candidates stand on what issues. I consider myself ignorant to a lot.

But then I take a look at why. Yes, my generation has access to all the information in the world. But when we are constantly bombarded with it, it becomes so hard to filter out what is important and what is "fluff". Our minds simply cannot process all of the information we are presented with. So we resort to seeking out the things that pertain to us and leaving the rest alone. And I don't know what we should do about it.

I just want to know what people think about this issue- what issues do you care about? Is staying informed something that is important to you? I want some other views on this because it is hard to defend my generation when I can see people's point about us being ignorant.

Thanks!

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I feel like my parents have become stalkers. I love them dearly, and I really am happy to be home for the summer after my first year at UGA. But the funny thing is it seems that my parents have been calling me more since I have been home then when I was at school. Every few hours my cell phone rings and without even looking I can almost instantly identify who it is going to be- Mom Cell, Dad cell, Home. For instance, I went to see some college friends yesterday and when my phone kept ringing they were under the impression that I must have some kind of fabulous social life. On the contrary, almost every call was from one of my parents asking me if in the 20 minutes since I had talked to them last I had figured out what time I would be home. I understand that the rules are different when I am under their roof, but it is getting a little frustrating. But I am being patient because I realize that just as it is my first summer to be home after living away, it is their first time having a kid come back after living away. So hopefully we will reach some sort of happy medium as the summer wears on that will please both parties. Wish me luck! 

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Summer is here!  It's a very exciting time as well as a sad time.  It's exciting because there's no more school work or required reading.  I get to spend time at home with the family and sleeping in my own bed.  But at the same time, I have to spend 4 MONTHS away from my beloved friends.  The people that I've met while at Vanderbilt have become friends that I will cherish for a lifetime.  Even though we've only known each other for 8 months, it seems like it's been a lot longer.  When thinking back about how I met certain friends, it's hard to recall the exact date and time because it seems like I had known them at least since the beginning of the school year, if not longer.  As we parted for the summer, we all said that we would keep in touch.  However, it's difficult to do as we live across the country.  As I tell my friends from high school about my first year at college, it's hard to explain the events because they don't understand the people I'm talking about.  I try my best, but all the while I keep thinking that I wish I was surrounded by my newfound best friends!

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