North Campus: Living the Life

As you may have noticed by looking at the other bloggers pages, we have all taken different parts of St. Mike's campus to show you and personally tell you why we love these areas.  I chose to talk about North Campus.
"North Campus?" you ask. "What is this mystical place that you speak of?"
Only one of the coolest places at St. Mikes!  North Campus is less than a mile up the road (north...I'm sure you never would have guessed that!). We have a shuttle that is always running to take us back and forth from North Campus to Main Campus.  On North, we have three dorm style buildings (double rooms as well as some singles, adding up to about 60 people per building) and four apartment style buildings (four people per apartment, two rooms in each apartment, four apartments in each building). Given all those facts, there are about 300 students who live on this part of campus, all of which are either Sophomores, Juniors, or Seniors.

The Ethan Allen Apartments

Hamel Hall (where I live now)

The St. Mike's North Campus buildings

Purtil Hall (Dorm)

Linnehan Hall (Dorm)

An appropriate name for a cross road

The shuttle! (I love talking with the drivers, they're so nice!)

 Along with our housing buildings, we have Sloan!  Sloan is a building that has two parts: art and food.  On one half, they have all the art classrooms and students work hanging.  On the other half is a restaurant style dining option that is included in the meal plan.  To go to dinner at Sloan, you simply call on Tuesday (at 2pm sharp!) and make a reservation for you and your friends either that night, Wednesday, or Thursday night.  On your day and time, you show up and are served just like a restaurant! I think the food is a step up from our normal cafeteria, so it's REALLY good!!

Sloan Hall

Bike rack outside of Sloan

And what's great about North is that the CCTA bus (that takes us to Burlington) goes right past all of our buildings so it's easy to jump on!

Bus stop on North Campus

Bus stop on North Campus

North is a bit quieter since it is away from everything else, but the rooms are a bit bigger (bonus!) and you form a little community up here.  Everyone is very respectful of each other (typical St. Mikes kids) and it's definitely a fun experience living up here.  Hopefully you have the chance to explore North when you come!

And check out the campus map to see where everything is!

Spring Break: Dominican Republic Service Trip

Hello! I hope everyone's spring vacations were relaxing and enjoyable.
I had the most amazing trip to the Dominican Republic with a group of 7 other students and 2 professors from St. Mikes!
We went for a week to the San Jose de Ocoa region helping a family in a rural village build a brand new home.  Along with members of the community and the organization we work with (ADESJO), we were able to make amazing progress in just a week!  Each community gathers and votes on who should get the next house from ADESJO based off of the needs of the community members. We were working on a site that was right next to an onion field, overlooking the beautiful mountains.
I thought the best way to try and fit everything in to the blogging format would be to break the week up into two parts and talk about all the different things we did.
The first day we got to our village, Los Almendros, we unloaded all of our stuff, chose bunk mates, and explored the area.  At first, we were just visiting the different animals that were living on the lower part of the hill that was located behind the house we were staying.  But then we ended up being led to the top of the mountain by local kids and the man whose house we were staying in (and basically our Dominican leader) Richard.  The view was stunning and absolutely took my breath away, I couldn't believe I was going to work there for the next week.
The first day on site, it was a bit rainy, but that didn't stop us or the community members.  The space was just flat dirt, so we dug trenches to fill with rebar and cement.  Once that was layed, we let it dry and the next days were focused on putting the bricks up.

Walt and I with our coconuts that we picked up on the ride to San Jose de Ocoa

Martin, the neighbors dog!

Our house for the week

View of the area

A family peeling guandule beans

One of the houses on the walk to our work site

The walk down

First day on the work site



When we left, all that they needed to put up was the roof, doors and windows, and pour the cement floor. It was so amazing to be able to work side by side with the people of the community and the family who would be recieving the house.