Homecoming

Dear Readers, Homecoming week has passed and what a good time I had. This past week was full of awesome activities. I got to participate in the homecoming parade by riding around in a corvette, I was able to perform a skit in front of the entire student body, but most of all I got to enjoy time with African American Alumni. This year was the largest return of Black Alums at Coe since the beginning of time and it was great to be here for that. Besides enjoying the game and dance I don't think homecoming would be special without having students and faculty of the past returning to see what their school is up to. Other than homecoming this past week has been pretty typical. I have been working on my new ceramics project and I am happy to say it is almost complete. I have also been able to come up with some pretty neat poems. The most exciting part about my academic week was the fact I was able to get my independent study paper all wrapped up and sent in to my professor. With the whole paper thing sort of behind me I am now once again looking forward at graduate school. I have been checking and rechecking deadlines to make sure I can get all my paperwork in on time. This has been a pretty good week and I look forward to what the rest of this week has in store for me. Thank you for your time, Charles E. Cotton III

Homecoming Week!

Dear Readers, It is now homecoming week at Coe College. This is always an exciting time for everyone. Students are looking forward to the events later in the week, like the pep rally, the Football game, the dance and etc. This year homecoming is a little more special for me, not only will it be my last homecoming but I also got selected to be on Homecoming Court this year. I know it shocked me too. I don't know how much more excited I could be about this week, I am starting a new ceramics project, gave out bids to students who my chapter thought would be a good addition to our fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha, I have stayed on top of all my poetry assignments and also I am in the final stages of my independent study project. On top of all that we will be having a very huge Alumni gathering this year at homecoming and I will be in attendance at many of those events as well. I can't wait to see what the rest of the week brings. As far as other things go, as soon as this week wraps up I will be back on the graduate school train, filling out applications and writing personal statements. I am happy to say that I feel very prepared for the future. Thank you Coe College! Thank you for your time, Charles E. Cotton III

Another Day, Another Story to Tell

Dear Readers, As the weather changes so does my objectives. What remains consistent is my dedication to my school work and family. However what changes is some of my short term goals. What I mean by this is that it is time to look at the future by reflecting on the past. I have seen what I have done over the last 3 years and can say that I am truly proud of what I got out of my education. However looking at the future I see graduate school and now I must create a resume that places all these things I have accomplished and feel good about on 1 piece of paper. That is just plain crazy! Luckily for me here at Coe our Career Services provides resume writing assistance to anyone regardless of your year in school, so I can safely say I at least have my foundation in place however it is important that in the near future I revisit Career Services and formulate a plan of action for my "resume upgrade" as I would like to call it. Other than starting to look at the future I have gone about acting on my future in a proactive way. I have began making graduate school visits and thus far I am happy to say that my experiences here at Coe have worked to set me a part from several other students. I have been able to share experience that were unheard of for some of the people I talked with and all that does is reinforce why I am so happy to call myself a Kohawk! Thank you for your time, Charles E. Cotton III

Guess School is Really Here!

Dear Readers, Do you ever have that feeling that after that first week of school that you are somehow not in school yet still? I am unsure if it is due to all of the syllabi that professors or teachers hand out or if it is somehow related to the fact that you don't receive much homework in that first week. Well I have went the majority of my life coasting through that first week of school with out learning much more than the names of my classmates and getting some sort of outline for when all of my assignments and projects will be due throughout the year. Well I am happy to inform you hear at Coe you don't typically have that problem, from day one my professors engaged the class with in-depth conversations about the subject material, I received homework which directly applied to class discussion. I knew that I was not just wasting a week of my life but that I would be learning and expanding my mind on different subject matter surrounding the world, and the greatest thing about it is that I didn't have to wait until after Labor Day. Other than that the semester is starting to roll along. The first year students seem to be very comfortable on campus and so does everyone else. I am looking forward to this fall weather that is soon to come and hope that the school year continues to be as wonderful as it has already been. Thank you for your time, Charles E. Cotton III

Dear Readers, It has been a long time since we last spoke. I am happy to say that I have had a great summer. I spent the entire summer at Coe College working for Academic Computing. It was nice being around this summer since a lot of my close friends happened to be in town. Between finding time to grill out, head to the beach, work on my independent study project, and play some soccer I found that the summer was blazing by. It is now the second week of school and Labor Day just passed. I can't believe I just started my senior year of college. It still feels like I was just a first year student moving into Coe for the first time. Well other than that I am glad to say that I am enjoying the classes I signed up for. Other than that I am so excited for what this semester has in store. There is a new wave of first years on campus and I found myself surrounded by tons of energy and excitement everyday. I have to at some point find time to fill out graduate school applications and figure out my internship for Washington D.C. term through Coe next semester. One of the nice things about Coe is they offer more than just Study abroad opportunities but they also provide study domestic terms where students can go to places like Washington D.C., New York, Chicago, and others for a semester and gain a completely different experiences than they would have received staying on campus for that semester. All in all I am glad to be back and blogging and letting you all know about how my school year is going. I have long anticipated my senior year it is just so weird that it is now here. I look forward to letting you know what interesting and exciting things I encounter this semester. Thank you for your time, Charles E. Cotton III

To Much Fun in Cedar Rapids

Dear Readers,

I come to you today with tons of updates. First off, school is going well minus the fact I have two papers to work on this week that I am not looking forward to. Secondly I have found two new hobbies; Cedar Rapids hockey games and paintball. I had no clue that there are a few paintball courses in Cedar Rapids and after a little bit of research I was able to find a pretty sweet one that me and a few of my buddies went to check out this past weekend.

Besides getting all bruised up from paintball I was able to go to my first ever hockey game. Even though I am from right outside Detroit I have never been to a Red wings game so this was an experience to remember. The cool thing about it was that I got to go to the game with two of my bosses from academic computing on campus. We decide to start off the night with a trip to Buffalo Wild Wings ( which happened to be a great idea) and devour as many wings as possible. After stuffing my face we headed to the Roughriders hockey game were I was given a free shirt and also got to sit 1st row!!! Not second or third but first row right next to the goalie.

To put a proper ending to my long and exciting weekend I decided to take some friends out to the movies to see Cabin in the Woods. Overall the movie was pretty funny and glad I was able to put aside a couple hours to go and check it out. Only bad decision of the night was purchasing the $12 drink and nachos combo (way to expensive). Is it just me or does nachos at the movie theater always taste good even though its nothing special about them besides the price? Well who knows but I do know the movie was great and so was my weekend.

I am looking forward to an exciting week as well that I can't wait to fill you all in on!

Thank you for your time,
Charles E. Cotton III

The Weekend is near and Easter is almost Here!

Dear Readers,

It comes a time in a students college experience when you begin to notice just how fast everything has went by. It is almost Easter weekend of my Junior year meaning I only have like 3 more weeks left before I'm a senior(Crazy I know)! I have already been working on my summer plans and have just finished filling out my application to study off-campus for next year second semester. Don't get me wrong it is very exciting know that I am only 8classes away from receiving that little piece of paper that will allow me to accomplish so many more things in life but at the same time I know it will be bitter sweet.

While at Coe I have had the opportunity to attend 2 graduations thus far and both of those were a great experience. Being able to see some of my good buddies graduate and head off into the workforce or graduate school was pretty cool. The one thing that I never really thought of until now is that this will be me someday walking across this stage shaking the hand of infamous President Phifer, looking off into the crowd attempting to find the familiar faces of my family and friends in attendance. It is sort of mind blowing, but enough of all the sad stuff, I got tons of good news as well. The weather has been great, my car comes down this weekend, I can feel a small roadtrip coming, and also I was selected for the lead role in a play this upcoming fall!

Along with all of this stuff intramural sports have kicked into high gear. I am on a competitive and non-competitive basketball team, and a co-ed soccer team. Hopefully we can follow up this year with another soccer championship accompanied by a basketball one as well. I will keep you all updated on how the season goes.

Other than that stuff this week has been a good one, pretty relaxing and full of poetry as well as interesting articles in my African American Studies class. I am looking forward to next week and I can't wait to give you all updates.

Thank you for your time,
Charles E. Cotton III