Hey, this is awesome. I can't believe I get to have my own blog here. I really appreciate the way you guys have allowed me to be a part of the community. I'm not sure what I should post about so I'll just start with a little bit about myself. I'm working down here in the New Orleans area doing a lot of water damage repair and black mould removal. I swear, it seems like this work is never going to end.

I look forward to posting more as soon as I get a chance to become better aquainted with the site :)

Hi, my name is Camil and I'm a senior in high school in Southern California. I am doing a research report on Farifiled University and I wanted to learn more about it by asking actual students. I thought posting a blog would be the best way to do this. So here goes:

What makes Fairfield such a great place institutionally and/or socially?

Is Fairfield known for anything famous or infamous at that?

That's all for now. Please get back to me as soon as you can.

Thank You.

Fellow Stags,

I hope everyone enjoyed their weekends and is ready for a great week ahead! I know I had an action-packed weekend full of exciting FUSA events and reflective Loyola community builders!

Thursday night started my weekend off right. A bunch of my girlfriends and I bought discounted tickets through FUSA to see Mama Mia on Broadway. A Stag-coach bus brought us from the University into New York City, dropping us off right in front of the theater. We had a bit of time before the show, so we grabbed some dinner at a local restaurant that included singing waiters and waitresses. The food was great, the entertainment was phenomenal, and the Broadway show was spectacular! I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend my Thursday evening!

Then, Friday night was Fairfield University’s 5^th Annual Presidential Ball. Father Von Arx invited all Fairfield students to join him on Bellarmine Lawn to dance, sing, and mingle. Over 1300 students attended the event! It was a blast to dress up in fancy apparel and dance the night away with my closest friends!

Then, for the rest of the weekend, I attended Loyola’s fall overnight retreat. We went to Iroquois Springs Camp in Rock Hill, New York. It was a great opportunity to help us build community for the year with the 200 residents of the program, our Ignatian mentors, and the RA staff. We heard from mentors and alumni about the benefits of participating in the program, and had some time for reflection and fun too. It was both an enjoyable and meaningful experience.

Now that I have returned from a hectic weekend, it is time for some homework!

I hope everyone has a great Monday, and check back next week for some new updates!

Our house is great! It's located at the top of a hill in the middle of Ciudad Colón, about 500 meters from the center of town. I worked with the housing office at La Universidad para la Paz (UPEACE) in order to find housing, which can be difficult for a lot of Fulbrighters. Since I'm affiliated with, and auditing classes at UPEACE, the faculty and staff are treating me like one of their regular students - something I'm grateful for. Many Fulbrighters arrive in country and stay at a hotel for a few days while they search for housing options. I was very fortunate in this sense, since I knew were I was living a few weeks before leaving.

The house has a living room, full kitchen, two bedrooms, one guest/storage room and a bathroom. I have one roomate named Katja. She is originally from Norway, although she attended college in the United States. She's here as a student at UPEACE working towards a degree in Media, Peace and Conflict Studies. After unpacking and getting settled, Alex (our landlord) took us to the local grocery store, Supermora, to pick up some groceries for the house. We were both surprised at how small the store was, and how little they had to offer. The prices for food in Costa Rica are expensive. Katja bought a box of Muesli cereal, and later discovered that it cost seven US dollars! This brings me to another topic: COLONES (the currency of Costa Rica). The exchange rate for colones to US dollar is about 580 colones to 1 US dollar. It was really difficult at first for us to make such rapid exchanges in our heads. It's pretty scary when you look at a bill and see a total of 50,000 colones. It's almost like Monopoly money!

We picked up some groceries that we needed from Supermora, but the next day we decided to take a trip to the Multiplaza in Escazú. The Multiplaza is the equivalent of a typical mall in the US. It has brand name stores, a food court, beauty salons, and a much bigger grocery store called Auto Mercado. Auto Mercado is more like a Stop&Shop in the US and has a much greater variety of food and household items. We were able to get a lot of shopping done there, but got quite a few stares and giggles from the locals when we walked out of the Multiplaza with all of our groceries and cleaning supplies!

My name is Jessica Randall and I just graduated from Fairfield in May 2009. Currently, I'm living in Ciudad Colón, Costa Rica on a Fulbright Grant. Ciudad Colón is a small town located about twenty minutes outside of San José (the capital of Costa Rica). I applied for Fulbright grant in the fall of my senior year to come to Costa Rica to research the role of small women's cooperatives that are using ecotourism in responsible and eco-friendly ways in order to sustain their communities and create an atmosphere of gender equity. Currently, I'm auditing classes at La Universidad para la Paz (UPEACE) in El Rodeo, a small, rural town right outside of Ciudad Colón. UPEACE is a charter school of the United Nations, and provides graduate degrees in different topics, all centered around the ideas of sustainability, peace-building, and conflict prevention. After gaining some more background information, I'll begin interviews of local women's cooperatives to research their role in sustainable ecotourism and gender building. I arrived in Costa Rica on August 16, 2009 and will be living here until June 16, 2010.

I'm very interested in staying connected with the Fairfield University community during the next stage of my academic career and especially during my time abroad. I want to give current students and potential Fulbright applicants an idea of what it's like to be abroad on a Fulbright research grant. As a freshman, I was inspired by a Fulbright grantee to apply for a Fulbright during my senior year, and I'm hoping that the information in my blog will also inspire others to apply for the grant. It's a tremendous opportunity! I'll be making a post weekly to give readers an idea of what I've been up to. Stay posted for updates!

Hello Fairfield Stags and welcome back to campus! I hope all of you enjoyed your first week back in the “Fairest of Fields”. I know the first week can sometimes be a bit hectic, but it was definitely great seeing everyone and catching up on how everyone’s summer went.

It was also fun welcoming the Class of 2013 to Fairfield. I hope all of you are finally adjusted to college life, and are finding all of your classes pretty easily.  I know I learned the hard way last year that it takes much longer than 7 minutes to get down to the Dolan School of Business from my dorm room. So make sure you keep that in mind! :)

But as for how my week went, it was actually a lot of fun. All of my business courses are really interesting, and I’m really enjoying meeting my new professors and classmates. I’m looking forward to a great Sophomore year!

There were also a lot of activities going on around campus to welcome everyone back to school. There was a comedian, as well as karaoke during the week for nighttime entertainment. On Friday, we had the Activities Fair in which all of the clubs and organizations on campus set up tables and information desks in the Oak Room to attract new members and regain returning interest. (I know I was encouraging freshman in the Business School to join the Accounting club, so if anyone is interested, please do not hesitate to let me know!) At night, the Men’s Soccer Team played a great game against Monmouth, and there was free food after the game for Late Night at the Stag. This weekend we also had a Pool Party in the Quad with musical and dancing entertainment, and the Highland Rovers Band played some of their music at the Levee at night.

There was so much going on this weekend that it was great to see everyone outside, enjoying the beautiful weather, and getting acclimated to life at Fairfield!

Again, I want to welcome everyone back to campus, and I hope all of you continue to enjoy the rest of your week!

Stay tuned for more updates in the days to come!

Stopped by the WVOF studios earlier this afternoon. Dan and Trish are working hard updating and organizing the WVOF library.

If you haven't seen the high-tech radio studios of WVOF 88.5 FM, they are located on the ground floor of the Barone Campus Center. You can't miss them: see-through windows and great music and talk shows playing on the speaker outside.

Peace,

Joe Kelley

Hey everybody. Finally got to a coffee shop here in Keystone S.D. We are on Day 7 of this epic trip and we have filmed three of those days. Our producer (Bridget Lake) is currently harrassing me to leave the parking lot outside the closed coffee shop so I will put up some pictures and put a video up later on this week.

Keep checking every few days for more.

Well HEY.

My name is Dan Dunn and I'm actually filming the Behind the Scenes Documentary of this project "Remnants of a Western" (it's a working title). Since you're just tuning in to this blog (duh it just started) about "Remnants of a Western" (working title) I will give you a little bit of background information about what we are up to. About 20 of us (students, faculty, and talent) are DRIVING out to South Dakota to film a western. The film is actually made up of 4 short films that all follow the evolution (rise and fall) of a gang. We will be spending the next three weeks (from June 1st-the 21st) making these 4 films. As of today the crew is finally all here for the most part and packing everything up. Checking and re-checking and re-re-checking all of the gear and meeting about all of the various jobs that are involved in a production like this. However with packing comes the realization that we will not be able to fit all of the gear into one van like we had thought. Luckily we just so happen to have another van handy to take out there. Nonetheless the next two days of traveling shall be interesting and hopefully I'll be able to keep you up to date about what is going on with the production.