So last week end was the Lavender Jazz weekend. Goshen College's big band, Lavender Jazz performed at their semesterly big concert titled "Into Action" at the Sauder Concert Hall.

I was the drummer was the band this semester and it was the biggest jazz gig I've got involved in. I had and awesome time performing 11 solid tunes, a drum solo in between 'take five" and an encore.

The next day (Sunday) the Miller 2 floor of 2007/2008 had a reunion. The reunion took place in Kenwood House, down 8th street, which is a college owned house. We all met at around lunch time, ate pizza, played sports, gossiped and chilled out. It with the folks who I lived with my freshman year

Yesterday (Saturday the 7th of March) was the ISC Coffeehouse.

Each year the International Students Club organizes the Coffeehouse. This is an evening where students from all over the world at GC, share their culture with each other.

There are two events take place during this day. The Coffeehouse Dinner and then the coffeehouse show. The dinner consists dishes from various countries, cooked by GC's very own students. The food does not just range from Chinese to Mexican, but also does include, Ethiopian, Indian, Kenyan, German, Nepali, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, and many more.

After everyone fills their tummies with this delicious food, follows the Coffeehouse show. This where the student demonstrate the culture of their country through various dance, music, etc.

I myself was engaged at the Coffeehouse event. I performed at 2 musical events. It was an awesome night which was experiencing and consisting loads of joy and laughter.

Spring Break, the time to go have fun under the sun! Plenty of student here at Goshen College packed up bags and went many places with friends & family. According to what I hear, many of them went down to Florida.

Since I had the opportunity to get away to the tropics during winter break, I ended up staying behind in Goshen and working at the college's very own Recreation & Fitness Center. It was a good time to make some hot $. I worked 43 hours. There were a few other students who I worked with so it was pretty fun. Some of my other friends who sticked around also would come chill out for a bit while came to work out.

One of y biggest goals during break was to go take my drivers test. Turned out I passes. It felt great to have an American drivers' license besides my Sri Lankan drivers license :-) Yesterday set of on my first journey out of town as a legal driver.

The place I went from Fremont Indiana. There some thing crazy happened. I got the car stuck on a mud pit. y girl friend Rachael and I gave a big effort get the car out of the pit. After a half an hour we had luck. Now don't think i'm a bad driver ;-p

Anyways school starts again in 2 days. I have some work to catch up with so g2 run. Till my next blog take care. I know most of you reading this now are still waiting for your spring break. Wish you an awesome one! Cheers.

This christmas break I decided to go back to my homeland, Sri Lanka. Soon after I finished my finals on the 12th of Dec, I took the 13th off to pack up and I flew home on the 14th. My flight path was Chicago - London - Colombo. It was an approximately 24 hours of flight in order to reach my end of the world which is basically the furthest end from the United States.

Once I touched down at Colombo Bandaranayake International Airport, the feeling, 'Its good to be home" began to run through my body. My dad was there to pick me up from the air port, and as I saw him it was nothing but tears of joy streaming down his face, to see me return home after 18 months.

Most had changed a lot ever since I left. Specially the economy. The civil war was still in process and the economy was still crashing. There had been a huge inflationary change witch shocked me. For and example, I used to by a loaf of bread for 15Rs, but these days is contains a value of 60Rs. However what hadn't changed was the weather. Sri Lanka is a country located just above the equator. In other words, it's always summer for the pearl of the Indiana Ocean. My body made no hesitation to sweat ever since I walked out to the hot weather.

Once I arrived at home my family was there to welcome me. Since it was about 7am, we all had "Milk Rice", an authentic Sri Lanka breakfast dish prepared in order to celebrate a happy moment. I was tired and going through jet lag but how ever i managed to stay up and hit the sack at around 6 in the evening.

I got up the next day and began to do thing. Meeting up with family and friends, spending time out doors, playing cricket in the rain, etc. It was a superb time. All these started to fill me up with sweet memories.

At this moment it is becoming a bit hard to explain everything I did within the 2 weeks, but I must add that I went through an unhealthy situation due to climate change.

My visit to Sri Lanka was amazing. Coming back to the US was a heartbreaker, but you and I both know, time flies so fast it will once again be time for me to fly back to the pearl of the Indian Ocean.

So it started snowing (in a decent way) and the place is once again starting to look different. I should add that the campus looks pretty at ALL times. Not just during the summer/fall when school starts again but also during the winter. I took a couple of pictures few minutes back and you should take a look at them.

So according to weather reports, yesterday was the last day Goshen, IN had NICE weather. It was around 68 F and its just felt awesome to spend time outside. The trees are starting to loose its color and the home of the Maple Leafs is starting to get colder. One by one, we are seeing leaves with colors Orange, Yellow & Red covering the grounds of Goshen College.

Any ways its been awhile since I posted my last blog. The past few weeks have been the most busiest I should add.

I am going to start off with fall break. I had a pretty simple fall break. All I did was go downtown Chicago and chill out with my friends. This was an International Students Club event. Each fall the ISC organizes for students to go and spend time, doing what ever they want, at the closes big city to Goshen. Its always awesome to go hang out with friends in huge cities.

I must add, just before fall break I started working at the Rec Fitness Center. Its so much fun working here. As a front desk worker I get to communicate not just with college students but also with community members and past alumni. However I can guarantee you that its not just the Rec. Fit but working anywhere on-campus here at GC is a amazing. You can ask my friends!

I just about to go for First Fridays. It is an even which takes place downtown Goshen. Shops are open late and everybody is there. Its a great chance to mix and interact with the community, make friends, laugh and have plenty of super fun!

Any ways thats all for now. Hope all you folks are having good times and feeling good about reading my blog.

It was last Sunday, the 21st of Sep when I last of all went to the Dunes. This was an ISC (International Students Club) event. We left GC at around 1130 am. There were around twenty of us going and the journey was extra fun.

Once we got to the Dunes, park authority didn't not let us take our van right inside, and said that we had to walk a mile in order to get to the beach. Anyways, since we had so much baggage ( food, drinks, etc..) we decided to have out little picnic session in the parking lot it self and then head towards the beach. 2/3rd of the one mile was beach sand. The walk was a bit tiring but it was fun. Once we got to the beach it was nothing but all smiles on out happy GC faces. We didn't wait one more second to do that thing we do. Racing towards the water, building sand castles, sun bathing (which I don't need at all, lol) beach soccer and etc, got of to a super start. We had a gala time until we decided to leave back to Goshen because many kids had to get back to the cafeteria to eat dinner at 5.

The trip was a remarkable one. It has been 3 years since previously went to the dunes and the journey gave me not just super fun, but also plenty of awesome memories.

Summer hols are over and it feels great to be back in college. I'm now a sophomore and is very excited about this year. We have plenty of new faces on campus, not just students but also faculty and staff. The feeling going through me right now is "fresh". You know, when you feel everything new and you are sorta getting a fresh start. Alright never mind. Anyways I welcome all new faces to Goshen College.

speaking about the summer, don't you think it went by very fast??? or maybe not. This summer I was working for the Goshen College Physical Plant, full-time. It was pretty fun excepts for the fact I had to wake up at 6am, eerrrrggg! But still, its all about the big bucks eh!?!? other than work it was pretty basic. After I get off work at 230pm all I did was play tennis or play drums. I lived in coffman 3 and roomed with Bruck Mulat, my home boy from Addis Ababa!

Any-hoo since school has started, Its great to see all my friends again too. Tennis season started last week, and we have been practicing morning and evening with getting ready to kick some major glasses this fall! haha. We play our first game today vs Spring Arbor University. How ever last weekend, the top four of us in the team went and played at the Blueberry Fest Tennis Tournament. It was so tiring but super fun. We would leave early morning at around 630am and get back by 8pm. One of my teammates, Sashi, Managed to get in to the final of the Men's Open singles and in the double he and I managed to get in to the finals. For more info visit www.goleafs.net/tennis_mens/.

Well this year is gonna be good. Registration happened yesterday and classes began today, and its good to see GC back in action!

May term is almost done and that means the academic year 2007/2008 is almost done!

May term was awesome. Lots of sun shine and lots of fun.I took Comm Across Cultures and the class was amazing.

Today was a very special day for my floor M2 because it was our final floor activity. It was a cook out.We engaged our selves in playing football, frisby while the food was cooked (BBQ). It was nice to sit down as a floor and have dinner again. Our RA Ben Bowman made a great RA which made my stay at M2 a rocker one and I would continue to stay in M2 next year.

It is time for our seniors to say good bye and the new freshman to enter the boat. If you are by any chance among the lucky class of 12' next fall, I would like to warmly welcome you to Goshen College!

Ok so my plans for yesterday ended up in a bit of an upside down situation. In other words I was prepared to do one thing, but I ended up doing something else. My original plan was to go to Chicago with some buddies but I ended up staying in school and watching some other buddies of mine show their colors at the Goshen Invitational Track & Field Meet.

The meet started off at 11:30am with a field event. The track events started at arount 12:30pm. I was glad to see a few of my buddies do great. Specially mentioning a few, my RA Mr.Ben Bowman and his twin brother Nick Bowman got 3rd & 6th places respectly in the 5k run. Basketball star Kyle Laker proved more of his athletic talents by winnning the high jump competition. Rachael Baker unfortunately dropped to 2nd place in her 800m after having an amazing lead throughout and Penina Acayo managed to white wash the womens long and triple jump events.

Apart from the meet, it was another lovely day for a session of tennis. We had a few prospectives stay over this weekend. One of them was Jacob Gencay from Knoxille TN, a tennis player. So a few of us in the team managed to play with him which was pretty fun.

For once I don't have homework for this weekend. So it's time for me to go celebrate the last bit of it :-)

Ok so I'm not going to write about spring break because 1: Almost all the other blog entries talk about spring break, 2:I didn't do anything during spring break but work! I worked 40 hours and made lots of $$$,so yeah come lets partaaayyy! hahaha ;p

The week went of pretty well, had a few papers to write thats all. This week end was HUGE! We had prospectives come over, a mini carnival and last but not least the International Students Club (ISC) coffee house.

It was great to have the prospectives around. I met a few who were from Lancaster PA, Forte Wayne IN, Toronto, ON, and more. By chance if you happen to be any of them, it was great meeting you'll! Hope to see you'll at Goshen College, trust me you won't regret coming here. I was talking with some friends today and I got to know that one Goshen College student had to flip a coin in order to choose weather to come to Goshen or Yale (LOL I'M SERIOUS!!!!)

The mini carnival was pretty sweet too. There were some games which was fun, DJ music, food and drink (I LOVE CHIPS AND HOT CHEESE SAUCE).

The ISC coffe house took place yesterday evening. First the dinner took place at 5pm in the college church which was followed by the show which took place at 7pm in the beautiful Saunder Concert Hall. The dinner was awesome. They had many dishes from many countries. The folks spent time cooking for this event since morning. The food was so good that I had a tough time choose which was best! The show was first class! It was almost a full house, and the event was filled with dance, skits and music. I took part in a band item which performed a Spanish fusion song from Argentina, I was the drummer.They also showed a few power point slides on some countries represented by the international students here at GC. Overall the night was a blast.

Couple of interesting things took place at GC during the last couple of days. We had the valentines day dance which took place on the 15th of this month, some tight basketball games and more. But right now we at Goshen are stuck with papers, mid terms, speeches, and all that!lol. Just cant wait till spring break. The funny think is that though I'm excited about break, I'm going no where for spring break. I'll be chilling in G-town yo!!! lol. Will be working and making some money too. How ever loads of people are going to loads of places. The baseball team is going down to Florida and some of my other friends are going down Tennessee camping.

School is going pretty smooth. Work is getting a bit harder but the fun keeps increasing day by day.

These days my friends and I spend time till way past mid night doing home work, watching the oc, friends, and some crazy videos on youtube and more. Last week end was pretty tight too. A couple of my friends and I hung out in my room listening to music in quite a high volume and the best thing...trying out to be rock stars!!! it was wicked!

Not forgetting Kick Off is just around the corner. For those of you who don't know what it is, it is the big talent show GC has every semester. Its is organized by the Campus Activities Council (also known as "CAC"). Students would get up onstage, act, dance and entertain you in various ways. We also have some tight rock bands and rap performances, it is sweet! The auditions were on last Tuesday and they all went great! Two of my friends, Kaleem Kheshgi, Michael Ruth and I are hoping to take part in one of the rock band performances. This led us to some jamming sessions in the music room, it was mcRocking!!!!!!

Holidays are over and every one is back in school. Looks like the new year is off to a great start and I'm already beginning to enjoy it .

When I got back to my dorm on the 7th I felt so happy. It was great to see all my dorm mates and friends.We all had some great moments sharing each others Christmas experience which was pretty awesome.However when I got back into my room it was a terrible mess. It took me around 3-4 hours to clear it up but still the hard work was worth it!

During the first few days of school I managed to go ice skating for the first time and trust me I was pretty much the most horrible ice skater amongst all. At first I couldn't stand still but then later on I sort of managed on my own. However it was super fun and my friends and I had a jolly time.

Another sweet moment was when my dorm mates and I were skateboarding in the hallways. We were just cruising around and doing some tricks (no damages caused) lol. Its was tight!

21 days in Indianapolis and I'm finally back in Goshen. Seems like the days flew very fast but the times I had in Indy were amazing.

I went down to Indy on the 7th of this month. Since then I've been making new friends, hanging out, watching tons of movies, getting addicted to football and becoming a fan of the Indianapolis Colts , working out, etc... It was fun!

This Christmas was no ordinary one. It was different than the rest because it was the first time I spent it away from my home and family. I missed celebrating Christmas at home but celebrating it here in the United States was quite an experience. It was pretty warm down in Indianapolis so it wasn't a total white Christmas, but overall it was great.

Well another year has come and gone so let us kiss 2007 good bye. I wish you all a joyous new year!

Cheers!!!

So there we go, seeing snow fall down from the white skies here at Goshen, taking us to the typical winter in Northern Indiana. Man, it's going to be so much fun.

We have been having a great time in the snow, with lots of people engaging themselves in snow fights and some building snowmen. The last couple of nights have been so sweet. Plenty of snow fighting followed by plenty of clothing to be dried after going back to our dorms rooms,Lol.

I have to say, we've had several accidents too. I saw a friend of mine driving and bumping into another car from behind since the roads were very slippery early this week and then last night another friend of mine getting a huge snow ball in his face and that was wicked! haha

Anyways, exams are also over and it's sad to see my fist semester come to an end. One by one the kids are starting to go home for Christmas. I'll be heading down to Indianapolis for a week or two with a very close buddy of mine and then be back in Goshen.

Even though we are on break for only a month, I'll miss school, all my friends and the amazing times we are having here at Goshen.

I'm Chanuk, a first-year student here at Goshen College, hoping to major in Communications.

I come from Sri Lanka. For those you who haven't heard of it (sad, I should say ;p) , it is the little island below India, a.k.a "Pearl of the Indian Ocean." It's been almost 4 months since I've been here and trust me Goshen has given me a superb first impression about American College education.

I'm living on Miller 2 (the most happening floor I should add), and I'm rooming with Sashivarnan (ok ok, just call him Sashi!). He is also from Sri Lanka and I've been knowing him for around 7 years and we both play for the Goshen mens tennis team. Life here is amazing, every one is very friendly and my dorm mates are like my brothers (from different mothers of course) and even the entire campus as a whole. Everybody is there for you with big smiles and widely opened arms to help your life go in a sweetly fashion.

I'm glad that I came to Goshen College. It's one place you want to be!