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#ivy2ivy

Going Away Party: You’re Invited!!

Posted on 18 June 2013

www.illholiday.com #ivy2ivy Follow illholiday !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Order tickets via Eventbrite: http://ivy2ivy-efbevent.eventbrite.com Come Party With Casey One Last Time! Free Admission + Free Food For more information on Casey’s big move, visit www.gofundme/com/ivy-tech-to-ivy-league. Continue Reading

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#ivy2ivy, Community

#ivy2ivy: 5 things I did to get into the Ivy League

Posted on 14 June 2013

Tried and true techniques for breezing through community college written by: Casey Bridgeford Follow illholiday !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); 1) Start fresh: My high school years were over a long time ago. Even though I wasn’t the best student in high school, I had another chance to do things right. Community college was my fresh start and it could be yours if you let it. 2) Study: In high school my grade point average was 2.8. No elite school is actively recruiting students with a below B average. If you want to increase your gpa, study 3hours for every class session you have. (if a class meets more than once, then allot 3 hours for each session) 3) Grab a friend: If you are struggling in a class, people say to talk to the instructor. This works. But if you grab a classmate, you may get more help on your schedule. I always made friends with peers to get through material with people who were learning material at the same pace I was. My grades are proof that this worked 4) Don’t give up: Nobody sails through community college unscathed by personal drama or academic fatigue. When your crisis comes, don’t give up! Pressing on makes you a better student. I faced fatigue, boredom, and a declining work ethic all at the same time. Even though I earned the first D of my college career during that semester, I finished my community college career with a cumulative grade point average of 3.6. 5) Take a break: I don’t mean an academic break. I’ve seen many peers take a semester off that eventually turns into a year and on some occasions, a decade, off. To stay refreshed, skip a study session every now and then to take a long walk, enjoy a movie, or go to a live show. If you never do what you want to do, you’ll begin to despise the schooling process. I always felt refreshed after taking time to write a blog post. Casey Bridgeford is featured by Ivy Tech Magazine Casey Bridgeford has launched a fundraising campaign to help defray some of the costs of his move during his studies at UPenn. To learn more, visit http://www.gofundme.com/Ivy-Tech-to-Ivy-League. Continue Reading

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Community

iLL Eats: Iron Skillet [Indianapolis]

Posted on 19 March 2013

http://www.illholiday.com- Contributed by MalinaSimone Last Sunday, Steve said one of my favorite lines, “Wanna get something to eat?” I love it when we get to go out to dinner after church. So we tossed around ideas but I’d remembered that I wanted to try Iron Skillet, the large house looking restaurant on the hill at 30th street. Very close to Ritter High School. We pull up in the parking lot and Steve suggests I go in and look at the menu. Translation: make sure we can afford it and there’s something on the menu for the girls. I hop out of the truck and walk under the awning and into the mansion turned restaurant. It had a funny smell, gorgeous Christmas decorations and I only saw older white people. They were eating mashed potatoes and all kind of turned to look at me as I stood in the doorway not knowing what to do. There was no one to greet me and the smell was getting to me so I turned around and got back into the truck. “What’s the verdict?” Steve asked. “It smells funny, I didn’t see a menu and I only saw white people.” Steve does what he does best; got on his ipod touch and looked up reviews for the restaurant. “Yelp gave it good reviews, lets try it.” We carry the girls into the restaurant and enter the doors again, this time waiting to be greeted and seated. Two men approached us. One was much older, very small and I think he may have had a breathing tube in his nose, he walked by and sat down to rest. The other was gray haired with glasses and welcomed us with a huge smile. He talked to us, talked to the girls and was very, very friendly. He showed us to a table and promised we’d enjoy our stay. As we sat down we did see another black family and for whatever reason, it made us feel better. The menu appeared pricey, with meals between $18 and $26. However, all kids meals under 7 years old are $3 and with every adult meal you get an appetizer, soup, 3 sides, salad, drink and dessert. Our waitress came to the table and had on their standard uniform- a red prairie looking dress. They were all very conservative. I ordered fried chicken and Steve ordered the trio- shrimp, steak and fried chicken. You really only order your meat, the rest is standard. Once we ordered they brought us apple butter, cottage cheese, pickled beats, biscuits and salad. The girls got apple cider and loved it. I didn’t try the beats but Steve said they were good. I love cottage cheese and the salad was decent. Right after that we got our soup- it was a creamy onion soup with croutons, very good. Sydney loved this soup. Soon after, we received our meals. My fried chicken was perfectly cooked. I’ve been shying away from fried foods, with bones, but this chicken was soooo good. You get it with a GIANT pile of mashed potatoes, corn and green beans. The corn was amazing. It’s hard to mess up corn but it was perfectly buttered and salted. It was so good. The green beans were good. We seriously had no complaints. Steve’s meal was good and we were all stuffed. Once you finish the meal everyone gets an ice cream buffet. You’re served homemade ice cream with strawberry topping, chocolate, butterscotch and peppermint. Even the girls couldn’t finish their ice cream. Everything was very, very good. This is like the soul food restaurant that’s not soul food. Nothing was greasy but everything was really good and I have to note that all of the staff was extremely nice. They were patient and welcoming and just plain nice. We will go back there. I may have a group dinner there or something. Check out the image- its the heap of leftovers we got to take home. I fed myself and the girls dinner the next day with the LEFTOVERS from our meal. Check it out here, http://www.ironskillet.net/index.html. Continue Reading

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Africa, Community

Day 2 in Africa: So this is where I’m staying…

Posted on 04 January 2013

Your email: www.illholiday.com- Anytime you beg friends, family, and co-workers to give you thousands of dollars to go meet your estranged family members in a foreign country over 7,000 miles away, things are bound to get interesting. As interesting as things were at the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos, they didn’t prepare me for where I would be staying. My driver safely navigated through the streets of Lagos to deliver me to Lekki (Lekki Lagos Nigeria Peninsula is a developing suburb considered a prime real estate location). This trip was a 4-hour feat. That’s right it took four hours to travel to where I would be staying. Along the way we experienced a great cross-section of the diversity that is Lagos. A man selling watches caught my driver’s eye. His time pieces were stored away in pockets that had pockets. The street vendor walked alongside us displaying his watches while we crawled through traffic. His best pieces must have been tucked deep because he always had a better watch to show for each one that was rejected. About a half a mile and a dozen watches later we hit a wall [not literally]. My driver needed to make a decision and couldn’t chose between three different pieces. So, the plan was to get off the exit that was about a half mile up the road. The only thing that seemed like a catch was- traffic picked up and that meant we would leave the vendor in our dust. Much to my surprise he ran all the way to where we parked off of the exit, and was there as soon as we looked around for him. I knew that if my driver wasn’t going to buy a watch, I had to give something to the hardest working watch salesman I had ever seen. After the excitement over the newly purchased timepiece calmed down, we were now getting hungry. That was not a problem either. Along with mattresses, tires, cabinet sets, magazines, dresses, travel kits, and windshield wipers, there were several food items to be bought while in motion on Lagos roadways. Given my apprehension to eat any of the sliced fruit or unpackaged food, we settled on plantain chips. The chips did exactly what they were designed to do. The kept me from taking a bite out of my driver’s right arm. Soon, we were in the area where I would be staying. Some of the houses were huge, while others were literally shacks. It was interesting to see such wealth and poverty cohabiting literally feet from each other. One thing was sure, security was a major consideration. Each major estate was only visible above the 8-10 foot wall that guarded it from the outer world. I remembered seeing houses that were guarded like this, once before. The only houses that I had witness using this much security were the ones in Beverly Hills. We pulled up to the house about 7 or 8 and I yelled to the driver, “Yo Holmes! Smell ya Later”. No, seriously, it was like I had pulled right into a Bel-Air Estate. The one thing that would divert from that comparison, that I noticed right off the bat, was a distinct smell. It wasn’t ganja or anything crazy. It was actually something pretty good. I am at a loss of words for what fragrance it was but it was definitely African. I had smelled this smell at the poetry spots in the US. It was like a black soap/Nag Chompa/shea butter/non-european smell. I wish I could explain it better. Whatever the ingredients, it was both welcoming and fresh! The maid opened the door and ushered me upstairs to greet the owners of the home, the Desalu Family. I quickly learned that I had family in Nigeria that I didn’t even know about. The owners of the home are not related to me by blood, and yet they treated me as their long lost son. Therefore, they literally turned me into the Fresh Prince from our first conversation. This was the home that they toiled hard to build and I was enjoying the fruits of their labor with maids, drivers, cooks and all! When entering the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Desalu, the maid did a curtsey gesture. I first thought that this was done because she was a domestic servant and that it was expected of her. I later saw all people who were younger than the Desalu’s greeted them the same way, no matter their position or profession. That’s when it became evident to me that Africans have a very deliberate way that they pay respect to their elders. The respect that the maids showed to the Desalu family was indicative of their way of life. I liked that. Another thing that I liked, was the fact that I had my own wing of the house. The suite where I was staying was fully equipped with a frig, microwave, sitting room, bedroom, and bathroom. The walls were adorned with beautiful art and I had they key to the suite. This was dope! Every morning breakfast was delivered to me on a tray with linen’s and freshly squeezed orange juice. The only time it didn’t arrive, were days when we had to leave the house early. [And yes, they do have Aunt Jemima in Nigeria] Outside of my suite was the rest of the beautiful estate, which included: a living room, two sitting rooms, dining area, several bathrooms and bedrooms, an Olympic sized swimming pool, and a back yard with a view of the ocean. You could tell that ‘living’ had gone on in this home, good living. After the initial shock of the thought of staying with Affluent Africans, I began to see the real value that their home represented. It was a home that entertained guests, raised children into adulthood, housed relatives, and covered this family. It was anything but the empty mausoleums that we often see celebrities use to shield themselves from society. It was a real home of a real family that is doing really good in Africa. As you can see, I was involved in a lot of maxing and relaxing during my trip to Nigeria. Check back to hear more about the places I went, people I saw, and the things I did during my time in the Motherland! Your email: Click HERE to learn about my first day in Lagos, Nigeria. #gallery-1 { margin: auto; } #gallery-1 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-1 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-1 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } The Desalu’s took good care of me! Continue Reading

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