Happy Holidays from Rutgers Newark!

The university will be closed from tomorrow until Mon, Jan 5th, so I'll be taking a break from this blog as well... feel free to continue to send photos and/or videos and I'll check them when I get back.
In the meantime, have a great holiday season and see you next year!

DeStress Fest: Drumming Circle

The DeStress Fest that happens at the end of every semester always includes a lot of fun activities to take the edge off all that cramming for exams, and this year was no different. One of the activities this year was a drumming circle that took place last week in the Robeson Campus Center.

Check out this video taken by student Ronak Patel, who was nice enough to let me repost it here after I saw it on his personal page.

Norman the Campus Snake

Biology Professor Claus Holzapfel sent this photo to us today along with these comments:

New addition to our urban biodiversity: Norman

We know by now that our urban campus is host to quite a number of wild migratory birds; our list topped 100 species a while ago. But who would have thought that we also share our space with reptiles? On this unseasonably mild Monday we found a small snake struggling with a wintering Hermit Thrush just outside Boyden Hall on Norman Samuels Plaza. The bird seems to have mistaken the snake for an earthworm. I initially thought the same, but I have never seen an earthworm putting up such a fight. I identified the snake as a northern brown snake (Storeria dekayi), a small snake species that used to be quite common even in urban environments. The advance of pollution and increased use of pesticides changed that and one has to be quite lucky to observe one today. We took the snake into our care and called it Norman (obviously). We hope tiny Norman, only about 7 inches long, gets settled into his new winter home and that we can release him (it) in spring. You can visit Norman, our one and only Rutgers Newark snake in Boyden Hall if you want.

End of the Semester

It's hard to believe it's already that time of year again...

Luis Rosado sent me this photo yesterday of his friend Ed Wilkes right before taking an exam. He said: This is a photo of a part-time MBA student seconds before taking his Accounting final. You can see the joy in his eyes :)

I don't have finals this semester, thankfully, but I have been there and totally sympathize with that feeling.

For all you other stressed out students, DeStress Fest is going on all over campus this week and I believe tomorrow during free period they will have free massages, giveaways, and food at the Robeson Center... check out the full schedule.

Newark as 1950s Chicago for Cadillac Records

For a few days in April, part of Halsey Street was transformed into 1950s Chicago for the movie Cadillac Records, which is opening this week and has gotten some good press so far. The movie is about the rise of Chess Records and the lives of its musicians, including Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Etta James and Chuck Berry.

Of course us common folk were not allowed anywhere near the stars, but with the help of a zoom lens I did get some photos of the street, the film crew, a few extras, and the cool cars.

Sorry, no Beyonce or Adrian Brody. I know, I was disappointed too.

Below is a photo of the huge film crew hanging out off to the side on New Street with all their equipment.
Below you can see all the signs that were hung over the existing shops and businesses, including the Chess Records label (right below the "Lucky's Mens Shop" sign)