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Ashley Briglia '12

March 30, 2012

Ready for the beach? 

... Well how about an ocean in a bottle instead? This week, many students participated in the homegrown event: Ocean in a Bottle and Rice Necklaces. So what is an ocean in a bottle exactly? The craft is simple to make; all that is involved is filling a bottle with water, a few drops of blue food coloring, some baby oil, and shells. Shake the concoction together and you have a wavy ocean form right before your eyes.

However, the rice necklaces were a bit more intricate to assemble. Basically, you think of one word you would like on a necklace (most choose their name); then a professional inscribes that word on a piece of  rice, which is strung onto a necklace. I am always amazed how the artists manage to get an entire word on one grain of rice! Overall, the event was a hit!

Another event that was a success was the Katie Armiger concert on  Friday night! She's an up and coming country singer with a music style similar to Taylor Swift and Miranda Lambert. If her name sounds familiar to you, you may have heard her song "Scream" on the radio. Some of her other songs include: "The Best Song Ever," "Nice Girl," and "Leaving Home." Each of her songs has a message that any person can relate to at some point in their lives! 

Be sure to keep checking in for updates, especially since Blue Jay Fest (BJF) starts in 13 days! Hope everyone is excited!

February 21, 2012

Mystery Blue Jay Fest Performer Revealed!

The talk around the SJC campus for the past month has revolved around the Blue Jay Fest performer who was not revealed to students until last week. Many of the students were bombarding the SPEC E-board members with questions to see if we would give out any hints or provide special information to some. To those people our response was "Come to America's Got Talent Bingo to find out." 

The much anticipated day finally came on February 16th! Students promptly arrived in the dining hall either to enjoy a competitive game of bingo or just to hear details about the Blue Jay Fest concert. The students who came for bingo had the chance to win some pretty awesome prizes such as gift cards, a karaoke machine, board games, a Razor scooter, hand and feet warmers, and brain teasers!

However, we saved the best prize for last-a gift basket with clues to reveal our big performer. In the basket, there was a poster, an Itunes gift card, a DVD of the Fantastic Four, and The Hills (Season 6). Any guesses yet? 

The student, who won the basket, was invited up on stage to announce the performer and to show the audience the poster. Here's your chance to take one more guess. The performer we will be having at Blue Jay Fest is... Ryan Cabrera! You may know some of his more popular songs: "On the Way Down," "True," "Take it All Away," and "Say." The concert will be held outside on McGovern Quad on April 12th from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Also, each student who attends this event will receive a fabulous pair of colored sun glasses. Check in for more details each week!

February 2, 2012

SPEC Presents: America's Got Talent!

Have you ever wanted to see Miley Cyrus, Christina Aguilera, and Justin Bieber perform all in one night? Well, I did last night-actually I saw someone even better! Comedy impressionist Melissa Villasenor graced the SJC stage. For those of you who are America's Got Talent (AGT) fans, then this performer should be quite familiar to you. Melissa was actually a semi-finalist on season 6 of AGT!                                                                           

What makes Melissa stand out from any other comedian is her fabulous, comedic impressions of celebrities, musicians, cartoon characters, and even her own family members. My personal favorites were her spoof of Miley Cyrus and Christina Aguilera's unforgettable performance of the Star Spangled Banner. Throughout the entire show, Melissa had the audience of SJC students laughing so hard that I even saw tears coming from some students! To top off the whole performance, she stayed after the show and took requests from the audience to do certain impressions. We even found out about her experience on AGT!

Melissa was also the start of our live acts where refreshments will be served. At this event, SPEC made delicious soda floats in our new splatter paint cups! We didn't paint the cups ourselves, but the cups are still completely awesome. The design on them looks like different colored paints were literally splattered on the cups. The colors range from purple and yellow to red and blue-which ever design you choose there's something for everyone!

If you missed the chance to get your cup at this event, the cups will be given out again at our other live acts throughout the semester. Also, if you missed this hilarious comedy impressionist, be sure to check out Melissa Villasenor on Youtube! Check in for more updates about events soon!

January 26, 2012

Ringing in 2012!

Happy New Year and welcome back everyone! I hope all of you have had a fantastic first week of classes! As most of you know, SPEC kicks off the start of each semester with some awesome events. To start the new year off the right way, last week our featured events were our Airbrush Extravaganza night and the hilarious comedian Josh Rabinowitz. 

So, you may be asking yourselves what exactly is included in an Airbrush Extravaganza? Well, you came to the right place! We had a variety of items that students could airbrush, such as winter hats, fanny packs, trucker hats, t-shirts, and boxers. This was a huge hit with the students-I mean who wouldn't want free, airbrushed apparel? Most of the students had their names airbrushed on the items with bright green, blue, purple, and pink paint. SPEC even got involved in the fun and ordered winter hats with each of our names and nicknames brushed on in blue, purple, and green. In case you are wondering, mine had Louis on the front...

A few days later, we had our first comedian of the semester Josh Rabinowitz! Ever prank called a friend and just meowed for weeks until the friend figured out the mystery caller was you? No? Well, this comedian has! That was one of the many bits he did, which all had the audience laughing! He also brought an opener along, Steve, who is an up and comer to the comedy scene. All in all, Josh put on a fantastic show-is anyone inspired to go make some prank calls now?

The main event this week was our Wii, Kinect, and YouTube night, which took place last night! This event included a television, which had the Kinect, and two projector screens, which had the Wii and YouTube videos. Most of the people who came to the event danced the night away with the Just Dance games made for Wii and Kinect. I was quite impressed by the students' dancing skills considering that I am one of the most uncoordinated people ever! We also showed some of the students' favorite YouTube videos from the year. Some of my favorites that you must check out are Eharmony video bio, Kittens 

Inspired by Kittens, Muffins, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, and You Forgot the Blueberries. Trust me you will get hooked in just as easily as I did! 

Make sure to stay tuned for exciting announcements about Blue Jay Fest and our upcoming events! See you all at Comedian / Impressionist Melissa Villasenor and the SPEC Social next week! 

October 14, 2011

Guess who?

Who-done-it? Based on the evidence presented, the murderer was...Hannah Homemaker! Don't panic, there wasn't really murder at SJC, but there was a Murder Mystery Dinner that happened a few nights ago. The theme of the dinner was Bachelorettes and Bullets, which pretty much means the theme of the dinner was a bachelorette party.

All of the guests of the dinner party came dressed for the occasion with everything from cocktail dresses to a CIA uniform (more details to follow on that). As each guest arrived, they were given an envelope that included the particular role they would be playing and a name tag with their character's name. Some of unforgettable characters were: Mindy Mintjulius (the bride), Linda Legal (the family's attorney), Little Lizzy, and Hannah Homemaker (the murderer).

Based on the role descriptions, each of the wonderful actresses were instructed on who to talk with and the information to reveal at the party. While the guests mingled, they were served delicious hors d'oeuvres such as barbecued chicken wings and jalapeno poppers. To add even more sophistication to the night there was sparkling blood orange soda served. Yum! 

 As the night drew quickly to a close, the guests made their final guesses and the evidence was collected by the lovely undercover CIA agent who attended the party. The evidence included everything from the content of purses to incriminating notes...this was definitely a hard case to crack! Nancy Drew may have even struggled!

All the guests casted their final votes for who they thought the murder  was, but alas no one was able to bring this case to a close! Although no one found the murderer, there were two awesome gift cards given away for "Best Dressed" and "Best Actress." All in all, this was a fun night full of mystery and mayhem for all!

October 7, 2011

Butts, Bamboo, and a Comedian...Oh My

As you may have guessed by the title, this past week we've had 2 great events: Butt First and Lucky Bamboo and the comedian Drew Thomas!

So let's start from the beginning...making Butt First shorts is one of the only times you'll have to design exactly what you want on your apparel. What makes this even better is that you get to have the saying of  your choice on the back of your shorts! Some of the designs students chose ranged from their name to property of (insert person, place, or thing here) to "Cab's Here!" Pretty much anything you can think of ended up on someone's shorts.

The second part of this event was Lucky Bamboo, which also gave students a chance to get in touch with their creative side. Students were able to pick out a bamboo stalk, a glass vase, and multicolored stones to make their bamboo unique. Besides the bamboo bringing luck to students right around midterms (perfect timing!), the plants make a great decoration for any room or home.

Last but certainly not least, we had the comedian Drew Thomas perform last night! Drew was originally from the Bronx, but then he moved all the way down to Atlanta, Georgia. Besides performing at SJC, he's been featured on "The Late Show " (so cool!) and he's performed in many other popular comedy clubs in Atlanta. What the audience seemed to love most about him was his relaxed personality and his sense of humor about relationships. To accompany this great performance, we also had delicious milkshakes blended by our very own milkshake professionals (a.k.a. SPEC E-Board members). There's nothing better than a shake and a show!

September 23, 2011

Ultimate SPEC Backstage Pass

Last night, we had an awesome performer come out and experience SJC first hand! So you may be asking yourself, "Who was this performer?" Well…he was Corey Balsamo , a 19 year-old singer / songwriter hailing from New York. Before even meeting him or watching him perform I was blown away by the fact that he was only 19! I mean when I was 19 I was just worrying about my sophomore year of college, let alone having a full blown-out singing career!

As if having a successful music career isn't enough, Corey has played at venues such as "The Space" in Hamden, CT alongside Ryan Cabrera. And yes, I did mean that Ryan Cabrera. Besides working with other talented artists, Corey said a lot of his music was influenced by John Mayer and Dave Matthews.

Now, let's get back to the show. Corey played acoustic guitar while singing many of his original songs. He even brought along one of his friends for back-up on acoustic guitar-such a great addition to the show! Towards the end of the show Corey took a few suggestions of cover songs the audience wanted to hear. Of course having an audience of all girls there were some loud requests for Taylor Swift songs. Being the good sport that he is, Corey agreed to play "Dear John," but he didn't let the audience get off that easy. He turned the 2 microphones to the audience and made us sing the words while he played the music. However, most of the audience members weren't as avid Taylor Swift fans as Corey thought since only a handful of girls knew all of the words of the song. Mercifully, Corey switched the song up to "On the Way Down" by Ryan Cabrera and everyone started singing along with him. I felt like Ryan had actually walked on stage-simply amazing!

To add to the fun, we had a roaring bonfire going on outside with s'mores. This wasn't an easy feat to accomplish though…good thing we had a couple certified Girl Scouts amongst us to get the fire going! All in all everyone had a great night!

September 16, 2011

Get the Inside Scoop with SPEC

So you may be reading this, thinking to yourself "What exactly is SPEC?" Well you've come to the right place! SPEC is the Student Programming and Events Council which provides entertaining events such as musicians, comedians, and novelty items to the students on campus. Sounds fun right? Right! 

Now that you know what SPEC is, I'm going to take you on a behind the scenes tour of all the fantastic events that are happening throughout the year.

So let's take a trip back to last week...we had our first ever Ben and Jerry's Scoop Night over in West Hartford Center. This event was a bit different than our typical outings because it was an event and a fundraiser. The way the Scoop Night worked was 20% of the proceeds that were made at the Ben and Jerry's Scoop Shop that night were donated to SPEC so we could have a little extra money to chip in towards the second annual Blue Jay Fest (stay tuned for more information about that in the Spring). To make this fundraiser even better, the employees at Ben and Jerry's let some SPEC members actually scoop the ice cream! For about 3 hours we were official "scoopers!" I don't know about you, but in my book that's the definition of a successful night!

Our night wouldn't have been complete without the help of our fantastic celebrity scoopers. The star scoopers of the night were some faces you might recognize from campus: Dr. Cheryl Barnard, Bill Cardarelli , Sister Beth Fischer, Tracy Lake, Sarah McInnis , Darren Sweeney (meteorologist from NBC), and Dr. Vozzola. The SJC Blue Jay even stopped by to support the students, greet community members, and pose for pictures! Without the help of these people and support of so many others this night wouldn't have been possible.

Fast forwarding to this week...we had our first Cupcake Boss competition! This was a mix between the two television shows "Cake Boss" and "Cupcake Wars" with a little dash of SJC spirit. The rules of the competition were pretty simple; contestants needed to decorate a cupcake based on the theme "What do you want to see at SJC?" A lot of people interpreted the theme in different ways in order to make some unique creations. One student entered in a plain, vanilla cupcake with a description that read, "The ladies of SJC are beautiful just the way they are...they don't need any frosting." Doesn't that make you just want to say " Awww ?" Another student entered in a beautifully decorated cupcake that was entitled "Friends are Sweet." The description of this cupcake mentioned how the student's favorite part of SJC was her friends because even though they're all different they became united at SJC. There was also a double- decker cupcake entered that represented a new dance building that should be constructed on campus. The student who took the cake in this competition was one who created a sushi roll cupcake! I guess SJC better think about bringing back the sushi!