BCC Student Honored

September 28, 2009

On September 28, 2009, Broome Community College was awarded with a plaque and a trophy by the Binghamton chapter of the American Red Cross to recognize an outstanding increase in blood donations on campus in the past year. In 2008-09, the BCC community donated 182 pints of blood, a 152% improvement over the previous year. Presenting the awards were District Director Brandon Gordon and Account Manager Theresa Blank to Interim President Dr. John Deans.

Also in attendance to the award presentation were the medical assisting students of BCC, Public Affairs Officer Rich David, and local media. However, Senior Medical Assisting student Sabrina Wilson stole the limelight when she was award a $1,000.00 scholarship by the Red Cross for her participation and active recruitment in blood donations. An overwhelmed and grateful Sabrina said she was “surprised” by hearing she was receiving such an award. When asked “What do you believe the importance is of blood donation?” Sabrina replied, “I know people who give blood a lot and I know a lot of people in need of blood and transfusions.”

This week, BCC held another blood drive in the Baldwin gymnasium. Those who could not make it but want to make a blood donation can call 1-800-GIVELIFE or log onto USAREDCROSS.ORG to schedule an appointment.

The Buzz Promo Video

The Buzz Promo Video

_________________ Have you heard?

_________________ Have you heard?

_________________ Have you heard about The Buzz?

_________________ Uhhh… No.

_________________ WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

_________________ The new BCC newspaper is up and running. This isn’t just any paper. This is for the students—

_________________ By the students.

_________________ Want to know about

_________________ The presidential search?

_________________ The smoking situation?

_________________ The parking situation?

_________________ Or even who the coolest band is on campus?

_________________ We are professional enough to find out about the BCC Debit Card

_________________ But not too professional to talk about the goose poop.

_________________ Getting you the information about BCC is important and now it is accessible.

_________________ Want in on this? Join us for a meeting on Thursdays at 11 am in Titchner 107.

_________________ This is “Where it all begins.”

Pick-Me-Up

September 23, 2009

This being the last semester before I graduate in December from Broome Community College with a degree in Communications, I have always considered myself a stereotypical college student. With my thought of a college student being broke, being tired, being overloaded with homework and eating the only things they can afford on their budget: Ramen Noodles.

This morning however, I felt even more like a college student. I rolled out of bed and raced around getting things together realizing that I was more tired than usual. This trait, I generally hear in other conversations as I pass by at BCC. The two stories I hear are that students are tired because of the late night studying or the late night-early morning partying. Of course, I did spend my night studying but I contributed my sleepiness to my three-year-old daughter whom is a firecracker. She is a ball of energy and generally never stops.

So my night, last night consisted of a game of tag where we run in a circle around an object (generally her rocking chair), fighting her to eat her dinner rather than a cookie, playing hide and go seek until we were blue in the face, and then fighting her to go to bed. Ahhh, the joys having to put a child to bed who consistently says she is not tired. I hate when 9 p.m. rolls in. I know that I will have to get her to the bathroom and wrestle her to use the potty and brush her teeth, tackle her to get her day-clothes off and her pajamas on, and then try to make her stay still while I tuck her in- hoping for the life of me that the games play just an hour before hand made her tired enough to fall right asleep, but knowing they probably didn’t because I categorize her as a night owl. Therefore I know that for next half-hour after getting her to bed, I will be called into her room to give her kiss, after kiss, after kiss, after kiss, for a sip of water, then she has to use the potty (again and again and again), then she wants to clean her room then, she can’t find her favorite sleeping toy, then… then… then… it feels like it never ends.

Thus, this morning I was just about as tired as a dead man. So I ruffled through my purse and book bag trying to accumulate enough change for a nice hot chocolate from McDonald’s hoping that by the time my first class ended and my creamy, delicious, caffeine-filled drink was completely consumed, that I would be nice and awake for the following classes.

Furthermore, as I exited my vehicle and head towards the building of my Communicating about Ideas class, I realized I was not the only one with a drink in tow. Everyone had something; an iced coffee or cappuccino from the Starbuck’s across the street, an unidentified mug filled with who-knows-what or a Dunkin Donuts Styrofoam cup with their “pick-me-up” drinks inside.

Thus, there I was… becoming a stereotypical college student again; this time, just with a drink.

Goodbye Guiding Light

September 18, 2009

For the most part, everyone’s life could be turned into a soap opera. There are always those instances where it seems like our lives are turning into daytime dramas. SO the question is, with our lives practically writing themselves for a 5 star rated show, how come we are so drawn to shows like Young and the Restless, One Life to Live, The Bold and the Beautiful and Guiding Light? Do we not have enough going on with ourselves that we have to be entranced by something else such as more drama?

However, this week we lost the longest running soap opera in history. Guiding Light said goodbye and farewell with its last episode airing on September 18, 2009 on CBS. Beginning on January 25, 1937, Guiding Light hit the radio airwaves, than transitioned to television June 30, 1952. Guiding Light has seen many great times and even had some well-known actors pass through, with names like Kevin Bacon, Hayden Panettiere, John Wesley Shipp and Calista Flockhart.

1983 brought some of the longest running actor/actresses to Guiding Light that made it all the way from 26 years ago until the last and final episode. Kim Zimmer (Reva Shayne), Michael O’Leary (Rick Bauer), Jordan Clarke (Billy Lewis), Grant Aleksander (Phillip Granville Spaulding), and Tina Sloan (Lillian Raines) all have been crucial in the making of this drama.

We have seen it all here on our precious GL, weddings, affairs, funerals, back stabbings, kid’s births, kid’s growing up (unusually sprouting from 8 years old one week to being a high school student the next), and kid’s deaths. We have laughed, we have cried, we have felt it all with this show.

No matter how much we do or do not watch the shows and no matter how much we admit we watch them, we can usually always find a character to relate with; whether it was the pregnant Daisy who decided to have an abortion, the rich and selfish ruler Alan Spaulding, Cassie who lost her only daughter to a murder, the star crossed lovers Reva and Josh or one of the Lewis’s or Bauer’s.

Not one has become more apart of television life than Guiding Light. That is probably why it seems so hard to say our adieus.

Nevertheless, we bid Guiding Light a farewell. In hopes that this one-hour a day program changed the lives of the cast, and that in finding new jobs the Light of the show always stays with them. I know it will stay with me, no matter how crazy it sounds. “The End.”

Edwin Black Speaks to BCC Students

September 15, 2009

The buzz on campus the week September 14, 2009 was all about an upcoming speaker. The communication students of BCC had their professors telling them that this was the opportunity of a lifetime. Edwin Black, an investigative journalist, was going to talk to all the students and faculty that wanted to hear him at 11 am in Applied Technology 200. He was willing to have a question and answer part and then was prepared to meet with those who wanted to have lunch with him in the cafeteria for a more intimate discussion.

Black, who is intriguing and dynamic, talked about the holocaust and how IBM of New York was involved with the Nazi’s. Three ear-catching topics came about: The Rockefeller Foundation and its role in eugenics: “The Rockefeller Foundation financed the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and the work of its central racial scientists. Once WWII began, Nazi eugenics turned from mass sterilization and euthanasia to genocidal murder. One of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute doctors in the program financed by the Rockefeller Foundation was Josef Mengele who continued his research in Auschwitz, making daily eugenic reports on twins. After the world recoiled from Nazi atrocities, the American eugenics movement — its institutions and leading scientists — renamed and regrouped under the banner of an enlightened science called human genetics.”

His words, which are also available in printed books, rang true. However, truth is all we would expect from this man. Esquire Magazine says, “Edwin Black is a dangerous man. He tells us things we don’t want to hear.”

Other said about Black, “[He] seeks the truth no matter if it embarrasses the people or the institution.”

When asked, how come the book was published in 2001 the school still bares Watson Research name? Black answered, “How many organizations bare the name Rockefeller? It is money. It is namesake, based upon international binary with the Nazis. Nazi Germany saved IBM.”

If you missed him at Broome Community College, he also was speaking at Binghamton University and Endicott Interconnect on September 15, 2009. He will however have 6-7 events from Binghamton to Elmira. For a copy of one of his eight books, you can head to Barnes and Nobel in Vestal, where you can find such titles as IBM and the Holocaust, The Transfer Agreement, War Against the Weak, Banking on Baghdad, Internal Combustion, The Plan, and Nazi Nexus.

“Please Don’t Wake Me…”

It hadn’t been 2 hours yet, but she missed him already with a passion that made her want to throw up. Then again, she couldn’t really remember if seeing him that night was real or just a dream. She thought for sure it had to be real; her breath still smelled of the salty fries and tasted like the spicy chicken. And them more she liked her lips, the more she tasted the Diet Coke that lingered there. She hated diet sodas ever since her father wrote that article on aspartame. However, she didn’t have Diet Coke anyway, he did. She had her Pibb xtra even though she was trying to cut soda out of her diet all together. She knew that taste on her lips must have been from his kiss. She loved that last kiss, the taste of the coke and the coldness that danced on her bottom lip from his recent sip.

She missed him. The night was perfect. Technically it didn’t go slow, the first time they looked at the time they expected not too long before she turned back into a pumpkin. Yet, it was barely 9:30. Hardly an hour passed since they first laid down under the stars on that old blanket.

They hadn’t seen each other in, honestly… years. Probably almost five. So for them to be there together, didn’t seem possible. Nevertheless, she ran through the details of the night just to make sure she knew that this would stay real to her. She didn’t want it to slip into her mind’s filing cabinet and unknowingly become something she would remember as a dream.

There they laid. His hands wrapped around her as the autumn made its way into town with the cooling of the nights. Her jacket wasn’t much and wasn’t doing its job keeping her warm. Then again, she only had a tank top on underneath and she was wearing her faithful flip flops, that by the end of the night were filled with grass clippings since no one racked them out of the park and the dew had begun to set on to the grass and made things wet and sticky. But at that moment in time, she didn’t care if she caught pneumonia from the cold she was feeling. She was just happy to be in his arms and looking in his eyes.

She hadn’t felt this way for a very long time and she was so glad she was able to be feeling it was with him. She missed him like crazy over those years and thought she would be nuts to say it aloud- especially if he didn’t feel the same way.

There they laid, his arm around her and the stars dancing in their eyes. Her nervousness hadn’t worn off and continued throughout the night. She loved him and there was no doubt about it.

Things were complicated in her life and there just seemed to be too many road blocks holding them apart, accept that night. On that night, they were able to let loose, be in each other’s company and arms and tell each other how they felt. With the stars hanging delicately over head, that is exactly what they did. They told each other what they have wanted to say for awhile.

I love you.

Lying by him and being in his presence with his arms tightly wrapped around her and their bodies warming each other’s up, she knew this one of those moments with him. He had written a song for her many years before and this moment fit the description well. This was considered one her “Please Don’t Wake Me…” moments. This one of those times with him where she just wanted time to stay still and she would be able to be there with him forever- however, there never is suck luck. (No matter how many wishes she made on the first star of the night or the time when the clock was all one number.)

Maybe they only had a few minutes left before the night ended and they weren’t sure when they would see each other again, but in those moments a kiss was able to say they would see each other again sometime.

Fortunately, they had the moments of the night and the picture of themselves to hold them over until the next “Please Don’t Wake Me” moment that would happen to them.

So for now, just please don’t wake me, because I would love to replay that night in my head, until I can be with him again.