ANOTHER SIDE OF UC

Hey everyone! I just wanted to get you caught up in what’s going on in the UC community. I am a very active member in the club SMAC (Student Movement Against Cancer) and every spring we participate in the Relay for Life at Scotch Plains High School. We do a number of different fundraisers to raise money towards our funds for the relay. We recently had one of our fundraisers.

Every spring we have a fundraiser called “Quarters for Cancer”. How it works is you walk into the cafeteria, which is decorated, and you give a donation (Example: $20), and they ask you how many tickets you want. The tickets are used to get your food, and each ticket represents a quarter. Every scoop of a dish or a dessert is a quarter. So if you want ten tickets, you can get ten things of food. It’s a great event and everyone has a great time. When I got there and saw all the food I was amazed. It was great to see everyone come together and donate all that food. It was also great because all of the sports teams had just come from either practice or a game, and they were all starving. I sure was, and I ate a ton of food.

At the end of the event everyone went over to the Auditorium for the Mr. UC pageant. I went and saw my brother perform. It was really funny see all of those guys get up on stage and dance. My friends and I were all hysterically laughing the whole night. My brother performed well and placed second. He was a little disappointed, but he had a great time doing it and that’s all that mattered.

The next day we all found out that the “Quarters” dinner raised $618!! The dinner was a huge success, and it was our best year ever. We are all excited for the Relay for Life coming up in two weeks! I’ll let you know how it goes.

AMBASSADOR ACCEPTANCE...LOCK-IN

A couple of days ago the new ambassadors were chosen and I was lucky enough to be one of those people. My fellow blogger DJ was also chosen as one. An ambassador is a leader of the school who is always at the out of school events that UC runs and is seen as the face of the UC. I’m very grateful that I was chosen for this spot because it’s a very high leadership position here at UC. I’m glad that I get to work with my classmates and people of older classes in helping younger students and parents to see how great a school Union Catholic is.

One of the perks of being an ambassador is getting to work events like the Lock-In that we held last Friday for the class of 2012. Incoming freshman come to UC from 7 until 11 at night. We split them into about 10 groups and have them do different activities with each other, so that people can meet each other. My brother was one of those incoming freshman and he said it was good to meet some of his classmates so he didn’t feel like he was going into the year not knowing anyone at all. Some of the activities that the kids did was play guitar hero, kickball, basketball, musical chairs and they had to go on a scavenger hunt to find people that liked the same things that they did. This was a good icebreaker and it helped kids who didn’t speak that much start to talk to some of their soon to be classmates. It was a fun night working with my friends and seeing all of the kids that are going to soon be my new schoolmates in a couple of months. It’s been great to update you guys again and don’t forget on April 22 which is a Tuesday night UC is having their spring open house and I would strongly advise that if you have the time that you come and see what a great community UC is.

Ambassador or Peer Ministry?

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven’t been blogging for a while, but let me catch you up on all the news in UC. As you know it’s the start of the spring season, and everyone has some spring fever. The weather is getting nicer, and all of the sports teams are in full swing. Our Track team is running well, and our Baseball team is off to a 2-0 start.

Spring is also the time when applications for leadership positions for clubs and activities are due for the upcoming year. I decided that I wanted to apply to the Ambassador, Big Brother/Big Sister and Peer Ministry programs. I was selected to be interviewed to be an Ambassador, and I had to make a decision between Ambassador and Peer Ministry. Ambassadors work open houses and visit grammar schools to talk about UC to prospective students and their families. Peer Ministry works more with the kids in our school. They help spread their faith in God to others in the school, run our Days of Recollection and school masses. I evaluated all aspects of both clubs and decided to try and go for Ambassador. I chose that because Peer Ministry holds most of their meetings right after school, and with my track schedule I wouldn’t be able to make most of the meetings. Ambassador events normally take place at night so it worked better with my crazy schedule. However, I also felt I my talents and abilities fit the Ambassador Program more than they would in Peer Ministry.

Well I had my interview on Monday, and I thought it went very well. Two days later there was an announcement calling a few students who were interviewed down to the Admissions Office. Mr. Luciano (Head of the Ambassador program), and Mrs. Thornton (Director of Admissions, and fellow blogger) told us that we were selected to become Ambassadors. I was really excited, and I can’t wait to start training.

I have a track meet today at Governor Livingston. I’ll let you know how it goes in my next blog as well as how the rest of the spring sports are going.

SPRING BREAK AND BASEBALL

For those of you who don’t know last week was spring break here at Union Catholic. We were lucky enough to get 8 days off from school which is always good because everyone needs a break. Over those days I had the lucky opportunity of going to Arizona to visit my aunt and uncle who I haven’t seen in a year. It was a great experience to be out there and see how much life is different. First of all, I was three hours behind of everyone back here so for the first couple of days it was hard for my body to get used to it. It was beautiful weather out there. Almost everyday it was around 90 degrees, but it wasn’t humid so it felt amazing and getting to swim in my uncle’s pool made it even more amazing. Later in the week we visited the Grand Canyon. It was amazing to see how water, weather, and time can shape such a huge thing into one of the world’s most famous wonders. It was cool to look all the way down and see a river flowing through all the twists and turns and know that it formed because of the canyon. The beautiful part had to be the sunset though. We watched the sun set over the Grand Canyon and when it was nearly about to disappear was probably one of the most beautiful places ever.

This week is opening week for our spring sports season. On Wednesday our varsity baseball team opened up against New Providence and won in decisive fashion 5-0. It was a great way to open up the season and gave all the players a lot of confidence for the games that are coming up. I am on JV and we hope to open up today if the weather permits against JP Stevens and it looks to be a good game. I can’t wait to get out there because playing baseball is one of my favorite things to do. I will keep you updated during the season on how the JV and varsity teams are doing. That’s all for now hope everyone has a great week and I’ll be back soon =].