#stayed up Tuesday bc i had literally no other time to study than after 7

[verystressedcollegestudent]

when you probably failed your IEA exam, took an accidental nap bc you were literally working from 8am-3am the day before except dinner BUT wake up from said accidental nap just in time to make your 2pm class

[sometimes-legal-blonde]

University of California, Riverside- hacks

so, when I first sent in my SIR to UC Riverside- I had not a clue what to expect from coming to this school. I didn’t hear a lot about their theatre department, I was nervous about greek life, I was anxious about finding a job, finding my way finding roommates, etc, etc. 

I scoured the internet, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit(which was honestly the best source) for real student opinions of what it’s like to go here. and I didn’t find much.

Since I am finishing my first year at UCR, I figure I will write out ALL the essentials and pass them down to you, reader, to be able to conquer UCR, make a solid college choice, and know what to expect. 

ORIENTATION

so highlander orientation is a mandatory thing. It’s a good thing too- you really start to understand the school and the people and the vibe. you learn the campus and how to get around. you meet really dope people. 

~You need to register for the earliest one you can find~

I am saying this because you register for classes at orientation. I went to the last orientation and didn’t even get into a major related LC. It sucked. 

You also need to take placement tests BEFORE you go to orientation so you know WHAT to register for. Spanish? Math? English? find a UC and take your test to get it done. It’s super helpful. 

It is HOT. Bring water. Bring good shoes (i walked 10 miles one day!). Bring a portable charger. 

MOVE IN.

it’s hard. + exhausting. +scary. + exciting. I’m from the bay so i had a long way to go with tons of stuff and it sucked. It was also super emotional for my family and so that’s draining. Just be ready for that. Get there EARLY. If your move in says 2pm, honestly you could get there at 1. Get the good closet + dresser + bed. snooze ya lose. 

GREEK LIFE

So I knew before coming to UCR i wanted to rush a sorority. It has honestly been such a great thing for me. Greek life at UCR isn’t everything. It doesn't define your life if you do/don’t rush- you can still be in a social scene without it. BUT- it IS really amazing if you do choose to rush. 

If you are considering rushing~

- bring cute clothes! you need like cute outfits for all the days of rush + things that make you look cute and happy and make you feel good about yourself. 

- follow the sororities on Instagram and get a little familiar with them. so when you go to the houses you kindof know what you’re getting into. 

- do NOT feel pressured to go to a certain house because of a reputation or because of a friend you’re rushing with. Find YOUR home, somewhere YOU love and that you feel like you’ll be so happy at. These are the girls you’ll have sleepovers with and cry about boys but also go to dances and banquets and parties with. find your right spot.

when you rush

get INVOLVED in your CHAPTER. Getting involved immediately made me feel more at home with the girls. Do the bake sales, go to LETTERS!! play moonball, anchor splash, do your volunteer hours with them. It makes it so much more fun and you love the girls so much more. 

Theatre, Film, and Digital Production

so my major is TFDP with an emphasis in acting and directing. I always loved stage and it is where I see my success but this program is really versatile and has you work on both. It’s a GREAT department. I LOVE the staff, people, and opportunities. GET INVOLVED. If you are a theatre major you NEED to be auditioning, working crew, meeting professors, going to coffee with the fourth years, and learning all you can from one another, There are SO many resources on campus. here are a few that helped me:

- R’ Shorts (a film club on campus! audition for their stuff)

- ALL THAT JAZZ MUSICAL THEATRE (I founded this club, we do musical theatre stuff and masterclasses, its GREAT)

- Latina Play Project/Model Minority (both theatre groups that work so hard and do great shows!)

-GLUCK (get paid to do IMPROV)

- and honestly just auditioning for everything on campus!! The department itself does fall play, winter musical/winter film, and a spring production as well. Also, there are a lot of other ways to get involved in the department- there is ALWAYS something going on. 

In my experience, getting involved with people in the theatre department was the best thing I did for myself because everyone is SO kind and generous and wants you to succeed. 

CONCERTS

UCR throws amazing- AMAZING concerts. The lineups are great, the food is great, the photo opps are great, the pregames/after parties are GREAT. Just go, have a great time, and enjoy yourself. 

CLASSES

so like usually college is where we go to do school and stuff- and classes are HARD(for certain majors). I’m TFDP/Dance but I still have to take breadth and do the whooole shebang so here are a few tips to boost your GPA (even tho C’s get degrees).

1. RATE MY PROFESSOR! LISTEN TO IT!! DO NOT TAKE POORLY RATED CLASSES! SRLSLY

2. Taking a class C/NC is not the end of the world. If it is going to tank your GPA- DONT DO IT FOR A LETTER GRADE. there is a form online that allows you to CNC until i think week 8?

3. take a dance practice class for an EASY A and a GPA boost. My first quarter I took 2 dance practices before I declared dance and bc I literally SHOWED UP i got an A. People who don’t dance take these classes! Take beginning ballet or beginning hip hop. or spanish dance. literally any beginning course will be easy and fun. 

4. Study rooms are orbach are coveted during finals week. reserve in ADVANCE. 

5. 1st floor orbach- loud. 2nd floor orbach- silent. 3rd floor orbach- greek. 

6. if youre desperate- go on reddit and make a post about a certain class. reddit has saved me a few times honestly. hidden gem. 

7. GO TO OFFICE HOURS FOR YOUR TA’s. THEY ARE THE ONES GRADING YOU, SO IF YOU NEED SOMETHING AND THEY KNOW YOU- YOU’LL GET IT. I always had my Hist TA look at my papers before turning them in and one time my paper got submitted wrong and she let me resubmit and saved my ass. Literally just because I asked questions and was on her good side. 

RIVERSIDE THINGS

+back to the grind coffehouse in downtown is open really late, good coffee, and it’s cute. it’s cash only tho. 

+iced coffee from Lee’s sandwiches works better than adderall sometimes. it’s cheap and amazing. 

+$1 tacos at the taco place on university next to asian fusion/walgreens

+ding tea is supreme, roasting waters is shitty boba(but good smoothies) with cool, reusable, glasses, boba tea house is the closest walk to campus, but Ten Ren’s is the BEST for studying. 

+ontario airport is closest to UCR. 

+everyone raves. so EDM is huge. 

+you don’t need a bike to get around campus. I walked everywhere. It was great. it takes 15 minutes TOPS to get from one side to the other. 

+taps works harder than the devil

+inkhouse tattoos in moreno valley is $35 tattoos on Tuesdays and 1/2 off piercings. 

+riverside is pretty sketchy in some parts. Make sure you stay with people if you’re exploring at night.

+THE SRC HAS FREE MASSAGES SOME DAYS.

+UCR is in the shape of a circle. if you get lost, go to the belltower and work from there. people are really helpful. 

+if you have to take an 8am, take it your first year when you live on campus. and take it your first quarter. after winter, you lose your will to LIVE...

+if you get shitty classes, try to register again 2nd pass. It’s worth a shot!!!!

+if you can’t get any classes you need, SHOW UP TO THE LECTURE AND ASK TO BE ADDED. 

[itsjayyyy]

September 18, 2018 4:53 pm

wow since it’s been a few days since an update, I had a lot of things to open this entry with, but of course only one topic can be the first i talk about. so, the most recent one: I was just laying in bed thinking about how I need to study for my bio exam tomorrow and also complete the next two modules for econ, but then I realized it’s tuesday and econ hw is due monday nights, and freaked out. I literally went through all five stages of grief, before I was like “it’s okay, it’s only the homework, the exam will pull my grade up” and opened my laptop to start reading for bio. but then I checked econ and apparently because there’s an exam this week, there wasn’t any homework due so HOLLA.

so this past weekend has been annoying, as always. I was at ioa for friday, but we only had three workers total (we normally have 6) for closing, so it was hell trying to close on time. and then saturday I went to usf, which is always hell. not to mention, hhn started so we had to spend an hour cleaning so the night crew would be set. and at the end of my shift, the usf manager has the nerve to say to me that she wants me to pick up some shifts this week. I tell her that I have four exams, and I’ll have to check my schedule, but she says “oh but your availability says you’re free after 4 on tuesdays, thursdays, and fridays” what the fuck!!!!!! don’t go looking at my availability when I’m not your employee!!!!!!! so I kept saying I had to study, I had to see, two of my exams are online, etc and she kept pushing for me to at least take shifts on friday afternoon and saturday, since I should be done with exams by then. I took the saturday shift because by this point my shift ended a minute ago and I wanted to leave, and told her I’d call her to let her know if I can take friday (I won’t.) SO SUNDAY I walk in to ioa (home sweet home), and we have a new coworker!!! And by new I mean he used to work at usf but transferred here permanently. What. “Oh jay we send you to usf because they’re understaffed and we’re overstaffed.” Okay. So I tell my manager that they’re stupid for accepting MORE workers when we have that issue, and she has the audacity to say to my face “oh it’s more than that, he didn’t like it at usf” as if I haven’t spent the last two months telling both ioa and usf managers that I hate usf. Okay. So Sunday, when I next work at ioa, I’m going to speak to my highest manager and tell her that she either tells the scheduler that I am not to work at usf again, or I quit. I have enough money in my savings account to last me a while.

wow. rose deadass drank 6 apple juice boxes out of the 8-pack we had. this bitch clearly doesn’t care if I starve huh.

so yesterday I met up with heather after class in the student union. did I mention how much I love cafe bustelo? I really love it. a good cafe con leche really warms me up. we talked for a while, then I walked her to class. In our conversation, our birthdays came up at some point (I think I said something along the lines of “you didn’t get me anything for my birthday this year! and she said “you didn’t get me anything either!”) and I was like “I bet you don’t even know my birthday” and she said april 22nd. and then later she was like yea well I bet you don’t know mine and i immediately said march 19, so she said she’d buy me starbucks today to make up for it.

today’s morning was really gr8 and also really un-gr8. like, I woke up at 7 thinking I had to leave the house at 8:30 for my ortho appt, and laid in bed for a while before finally getting up and showering. but when I stepped out of the shower and saw the time was 8, I realized that I didn’t leave the house at 8:30, my appointment was at 8:30. cue getting dressed while still partially damp, forgetting heather’s gov’t textbook, and going 75 in a 45 zone. I thank the gods daily that motorcycles don’t get red light tickets.

while driving down the main road leading to my university, I had this white car weaving between traffic. at one point he was behind me, but then when I slowed down in a turn he switched to the right, which ended up being right behind a campus shuttle (you know, the ones that drive 5 mph under the speed limit at all times and you can barely see around. and they’re diesel, ugh!). as he saw me speed up at the end of the curve, he switched back to behind me and sped up too, but as soon as I reached level with the front of the shuttle (and the pickup on the other side of me), I slammed on my brakes so he couldn’t try to go around. Definitely risked getting run the fuck over, but it was so worth it seeing the look of frustration on his face.

I got nearly instant karma, though, because he entered the university through the first turn, when I went for the second a little ways up since it’s closer to my garage. but the traffic light was down, so I had to merge into one lane with everyone else, and then they wouldn’t even allow left turns because it’s too complex for the person directing traffic, so I had to make a right then a u-turn. But it was made up for by the fact that the trike that normally parks in my spot was probably also deterred by the traffic, and I got to claim my righteous spot.

so when I got on campus, I went to heather’s class, or rather, the building it was in since I couldn’t find room 106 exactly. I remembered that my annoying coworker said that her classes were in that building + the one next to it also on tuesdays, but I thought that there was no way I’d actually bump into her considering there are over 60,000 students and the buildings are pretty large, plus I didn’t know what time her classes are.

well, now I know that her class gets out at the same time + same building as heather. we walked towards the starbucks (which is near her next class), and I introduced her to heather, we talked about how it was to work at universal, the sort. and then she was like “well I gotta go to class now, bye!” and i was like bye and smiled and when she was more than 20 feet away I turned to heather and said “that’s the coworker I told you that I hate.”

I love pumpkin spice season!!!!!!!! got a frappuccino tho, because it’s never truly fall in florida. heather got a mango dragonfruit refresher bc I recommended it to her, and it’s funny because the person ordering before us was also named heather and also ordered a mango dragonfruit. As a barista, that’s like my worst nightmare. Luckily they were able to tell it apart because the other heather got a grande. We sat in the starbucks for a while, I explained how weed is a lot more safe than cigarettes, talked about pine hills’ reputation, and how samantha’s mom is so damn disrespectful. This woman drove heather home one day when picking up samantha, and the whole ride was bragging about how samantha was going to be so successful because she’s majoring in some type of psychology and will be making over 90k a year. and then she turned the conversation to how teachers don’t make that much money, and she asks heather how she could do that, just take such a low-paying job. and lemme tell ya how MY GIRL HEATHER FUCKIN SNAPPED. she done said she tired of people saying teachers don’t make a lot of money yall. she said to samantha’s mom, “I don’t know how you’re looking down on my salary when you have three children from three different men with only a salary of $30k.” Y’ALL. the point that heather was trying to make the point that “people from working-class families act as if a salary less than 100k is unacceptable even for an unmarried, childless young adult despite working class families often having a household income of 50k while supporting children just fine,” but damn she really went there. goin off on this good catholic woman for having baby daddies. well samantha’s mom and samantha became very upset. and they told heather’s dad who would not leave her alone until she apologized. as in, he was banging on her door telling her she had to apologize. I said put headphones in and ignore it, she was like “girl you don’t understand haitian parents. my dad literally opened my door with a knife when I locked it.” so she had to apologize :/ but she also made it clear that she didn’t like the way samantha’s mom disrespected her. she tried to make it seem relatable, and be like, “oh what if i said that to your mom, wouldn’t you tell me to apologize” and I’m like???? no???? I would make my mom apologize for being disrespectful first the hell??? then I reminded her about how I literally lived on the streets for 3 weeks because my mom was disrespectful to me.

today after class I decided to take the city bus home, for 4 reasons: I wanted to stay humble and remember where I came from, I wanted time to be able to finish this book, not walking the last half-mile home every day this semester has caused some weight gain, and I really wanted to hold my parking spot against that damn trike, and it seems he comes too early in the morning for me, so I just left my bike there overnight. yea I’m petty.

The book was really good. It’s definitely a hard read, for sure. In the sense that it really will make you cry. At the end, it listed all of the school shooting victims since columbine, plus a small snippet about them (it was like 20 pages long). The one that really got me was an 8 year old, whose text read “shoot me first,” as he wanted to take a bullet so it wouldn’t be used against his classmates. Then, below that entry, a seven year old, who said “shoot me next.” Just typing that is making my eyes water again.

The walk home was super tiring. I’m super out of shape, it was hard for me to even imagine that I did this every single day the entire first semester of college. And I have to do it tomorrow morning again, ugh. Can you believe heather wakes up at 5:30 am???? I’m never seen out of bed before 7, and even then it’s only for things like appointments. But I guess I really should start waking up earlier, because whenever I get on campus around 8 I feel great because I have so much time to study and stuff. but that means I have to buy a coffee on campus, and I don’t know if I want to commit to that expense.

edit: so I originally posted this to my main, and when I saw that I copied it, then deleted it, then tried to paste it into a new post, but I guess I didn’t press ctrl hard enough because it didn’t copy. and I was about to cry bc this is close to 2k words, but then I realized I had a tab of my main open that still had the original post showing, so I copied from there.

[junker-town]

BC’s Martin Jarmond explains what it’s actually like to be a brand new athletic director

You’d better be versatile, and I hope you aren’t attached to checking your email.

BOSTON — Martin Jarmond is learning to be comfortable in his new chair, although perhaps not literally. He’s just moved from one sofa in the corner of his office to another.

Jarmond, 37, became the youngest athletic director in the Power 5 in April. He officially started in June as the CEO of a program with 31 sports. That means he’s got decisions to make both large and small. On this day, he wasn’t sure what to wear to work: a golf shirt, or a suit and tie?

On BC’s recent staff retreat, he told people to dress casually, but he showed up in a suit. People worried about if they’d dressed right, and that’s not what he’d had in mind. That’s the impact you have when you sit in the No. 1 chair.

Jarmond was Deputy AD at Ohio State, as well as Chief Of Staff, learning from and working with Gene Smith, whom Jarmond says is the best AD in the country. Jarmond came close to two Power 5 AD jobs in the last two years, but was content in Columbus for a bit. Then at the 2017 Big Ten basketball tournament, he got a phone call.

BC is a unique outpost, squarely in the middle of perhaps the most tribal professional sports cultures in America.

Jarmond, a former college basketball player, is versed in the hottest Boston sports topic of the day.

“I like that Kyrie’s betting on himself,” Jarmond told SB Nation. “I mean, that’s a dude right there. I love when somebody bets on himself. That brotha can go, I mean we’ve seen that. So it’s like, [Boston] got the best player in the deal. I always like getting the best player in the deal.”

BC is a Jesuit Catholic school with an enrollment of just over 14,000, a far cry from the 66,000 at Ohio State. Jarmond is Southern Baptist. His wife, Jessica, was raised Catholic.

“I said, ‘Just so you know, I’m not Catholic,’” he recalled. “I’ve gone to Mass. My wife grew up that way, but we’re trying to figure it out for our daughter. That’s part of the appeal here. A lot of kids here are trying to figure it out. So I kinda fit into that because we’re trying to figure out just exactly how we want to raise her.”

Courtesy to Boston College athletics.

When it comes to raising money, Jarmond is adept, and two-year-old Scarlett played a part at Ohio State. Jessica picked the name because she liked it, but he didn’t exactly tell the scarlet-and-gray folks in Columbus that.

“I’d be like, ‘And my daughter’s Scarlett. I love it,’” he said. “And everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, go Bucks.’ But no, technically we just liked the name. But if you were from Ohio State asking me that, it would be a different answer.”

He won’t be able to use that line at BC, but he’ll be just fine on the donor circuit.

The school needs an infusion of passion. In the last two seasons, the Eagles’ football and men’s basketball teams have combined to win four games in ACC play.

Boston College is a private school and doesn’t have to release financial details. But a reported operating budget of $69 million in 2016 would put the program around the bottom half of the ACC.

Before getting to Ohio State in 2009, Jarmond spent seven years at Michigan State as Assistant AD for Development and Director of Regional Giving. Under his watch, the Spartan Fund set records each year. During a university-wide fundraising campaign which has now totaled nearly $1.5 billion, he helped raised $126 million for athletics. At Ohio State, he led a team that raised $120 million in three years.

“I enjoy it,” Jarmond said. “I love connecting with people. I’m very intrigued by people, and everybody’s different. I have this thing that I say in my mind, ‘Everybody has a story, and deep down they’re dying to tell it.’ And it’s on me to listen and connect, that story with what our vision, and what that passion and what that need, is.”

His age is one of the first things that gets brought up.

His skill at fundraising placed him on Sports Business Journal’s Forty under 40 list, right as he was taking the BC job.

The Eagles offered on a Monday, and he flew to California to accept the award on Tuesday. One pesky hotel fax machine and a wonky PDF system later, Jarmond was BC’s man by Thursday. A reception for the award included an announcement about his new gig.

He’d met with Smith to weigh pros and cons. In the end, BC’s new commitment to facility improvement swayed him.

“We both looked at each other, and it was a crazy moment, I’ll never forget it,” Jarmond said. “We both looked at each other and I said, ‘I think I gotta do this.’ And he said, ‘I think you do.’ And — I’m getting goosebumps — that’s that moment when I knew I was leaving the nest.”

Jarmond’s typical day starts around 5:30 a.m., because it has to.

He has two hours of me time, something he says he’s talked about with other ADs. He used to exercise five days a week.

“I have not [practiced], and I’m a big yoga person,” Jarmond said. “I did yoga twice a week when I was in Columbus. That’s the biggest challenge that I gotta correct quickly for my mind is to get back in the groove to where I do yoga at least once a week.”

There’s a studio he’s supposed to try. For now, to mellow out, he plays jazz in his office. And to stay energized, he drinks three cups of Oolong tea per day.

Richard Johnson / SB Nation

“You don’t have an idea of how many people are coming at you with demands of your time and mental energy,” Jarmond said. “That’s the first thing I didn’t have an appreciation for. Wow, I just went all day, and I didn’t even think about my email because i’m boom, boom.”

He runs through the day’s schedule:

He had breakfast with both a prominent alum and a donor prospect.

He met with the academic resource staff for the first time.

He went through a feasibility study for a facilities project in the works, 90 minutes of it spent figuring out where the new building can go.

By then it was noon, and time to grab lunch, right? Well, his associate AD needed to talk over the coming ACC Network. BC needs to build out some facilities for that too, and there’s a deadline.

Another 10 minutes gone because of a student-athlete issue. There was just enough time for him to grab a 30-minute lunch.

He sat with SB Nation shortly after 1 p.m. and hadn’t checked his email yet: “I can’t even reach everybody, and I pride myself in getting back with people on email. I got a pile of letters that people have written me since I got the job, and I still haven’t written back.”

He’ll meet with the university’s CFO for the first time to understand how athletics fits into the school’s budget.

Then a meeting with HR, for some org restructuring work.

He’ll end his day with BC’s president, the Rev. William P. Leahy.

If there are more meetings at the end of the day his calendar can stretch until 8 o’clock. And this is the calm part of the calendar. Men’s and women’s soccer along with volleyball and field hockey are the only teams in season.

“Scarlett’s all over me,” he said. “Cause she doesn’t know what you did today. She just knows she hasn’t seen you since last night when you went to bed. And yeah, you try to find that time where I can put my phone down. That’s usually only like an hour. I had to make a call last night about the ACC Network. It’s a 24/7 type of deal.”

Life is just different now, but that’s what happens when you’re no longer No. 2.

He’s not delegating well enough yet, and he knows it.

“I’m getting better at it. It’s trust,” he said. “You’re used to doing things yourself and — I read this earlier this week, it’s funny you asked me that — I read something that said that your primary job as a CEO of an organization is learning how to get things done through other people.”

He could give advice to Smith on a big decision, but then go home and play with his daughter.

It hit him right before his first press conference at BC, when he met with all the coaches.

“I remember a couple people walked in the room, and we exchanged some pleasantries and then everybody was quiet just looking at me,” Jarmond said. “That was my first moment when I was like, this is me. These are my coaches now.”

Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

Often with a new AD, there’s a perceived mandate to clean house.

Jarmond will ask a coach realistically how they think the upcoming season will go. From there, he can set expectations. That’s different for every team.

Coming from Ohio State, Jarmond knows the importance of football. BC hasn’t won more than seven games or finished higher than third in its division since 2009. Coach Steve Addazio enters his fifth season with concerns about whether or not his offense will have a pulse. If it doesn’t, seven wins will be tough to get to.

Jarmond is giving Addazio as much of a blank slate as possible. He didn’t talk to Ohio State coach Urban Meyer about Addazio. Meyer and Addazio coached for years at Florida. Addazzio’s son, Louis, is a graduate assistant under Meyer. Jarmond didn’t want Meyer’s opinion to influence his own.

“Some of the support guys, I asked them, and they said, ‘Ahh Steve, he’s passionate,’” Jarmond said. “And he is, and I love his passion. Great passion. I’m a passionate guy, that’s one of the first thing I talk about in my press conference.”

Just in case Jarmond forgets how big his job is, he walks past a plaque dedicated to William Flynn right next to his door.

Flynn was BC’s AD from 1957 to 1990, and his name hangs in the rafters at BC’s Conte Forum. Flynn is an “institution,” per Jarmond, who sees himself as a steward.

“I could never have the legacy that he had. He did so much and so early in this institution’s career and trajectory,” Jarmond said. “I can only hope that I can make a contribution and keep this thing going in the right direction and in an upward trajectory, and that’s my goal. But it’s humbling and it’s an honor to be associated with the same chair that he sat in. It’s cool.”