Hello Lakers! It is us, the peer eds, for our last welcome back to our podcast. We are hoping that you're preparing for a restful summer while also staying strong for the end of this semester. It can definitely be tough when the weather is sometimes getting warmer, it depends. Definitely looking forward to new adventures during the summer, so we are just going to go around and introduce ourselves for the last time and also a surprise for this last episode. Again just me Bella, pronouns she/her, psychology major graduating and going to Graduate School for public health. Yay!

 

My name is Emily and I'm a senior at GVSU, my pronouns are she/her, and I'm also graduating in the same day as Bella and I'm taking a gap ear and then I'm going to try to apply to some psych programs.

 

Hello Lakers it is me again Katie, pronouns she/hers, and I'm also a psych major entering my senior year of college and I will be back here next year with you guys and I'm very excited to continue this journey with you all. 

 

Hi everyone it's Keegan again I am a senior psychology major. I will not be graduating in a couple weeks but I will be graduating in December so you might still catch me on campus. But we have a little bit of a surprise today for everybody because we are welcoming our new peer eds. So our first one she was unable to make it today but we still want to give her a little bit of a shout out, we have our one of our new peer eds is Emma, she is a social work major and we are super excited to see what she’s going to add to the group.

 

I'm Lexi, I am a sophomore here at Grand Valley, I'm a psychology major and a sociology minor and I'm super excited to be a part of the team. 

 

Hi guys my name is also Katie but I am a freshman, my pronouns are she/her, I am a biomedical science major and I'm excited to be here with you guys. 

 

You can never have too many Katies on a team. Alright so as we are wrapping up this semester I'm sure we are all getting ready for final exams, studying, finishing up all those last assignments, but rather than stress about that I thought it would be a great idea to talk about all of our summer plans, think about something more warm, even though it's kind of cold right now which I mean last week I was in tank top and shorts I don't know about you guys but now I'm like shivering as I'm walking outside. Yeah literally, it's like I woke up on Monday and there's snow on the ground what is this like I was literally outside. But for me I am very excited in a couple weeks I will be studying abroad in Sevilla, going to Spain, I am so excited. Just traveling with a bunch of people from Grand Valley, taking classes, I'm also taking a side trip to Italy while I’m there. I honestly just plan on traveling, hiking, doing as much as I can in the short amount of time I am there. When I return just working as much as I can because I'm sure I will spend a lot of money and yeah that is my summer plans and I am just so excited to get to Spain.

Yeah I already told Katie that I'd be watching her Snapchat story yeah living through her. 

Oh yes be prepared I will be lost in Europe.

 

Well my summer plans aren’t as exciting as that, but I'm going to be working probably two jobs working at a restaurant for Olgas, some of our members love Olgas, and also working as a camp counselor so just making some money. 

 

I was a camp counselor! Have you ever done it before? 

 

Yes yes. 

 

Awesome. 

 

Is it like overnight or day camp?

 

No no I I need break. I need to go home at the end of the day, yeah, I'm still very excited to go back. 

 

Very exciting in that same vein of going back and returning I am super excited to be, well sad, to be concluding my time at Grand Valley but excited for the future. I'll be going back home to Chicago, living with my folks and picking between two grad schools I'm not sure which yet I won't disclose them. I'm getting excited to be back in the city, public transport just be in my routines again it makes me happy. 

 

Yeah I don't have very much like set plans for the summer but I do know I'm going to continue my job, I work at Pine Rest, and I'm just going to try to spend some time with friends, also look into graduate schools because I'm applying in the fall so I actually need to make a decision of where I want to apply to. Yeah that's pretty much it I probably will go camping a few times too.

 

Where do you go camping at?

 

Oh we go to Rifle River, it's kind of like up on the east side, we've been, I don't know a lot of state parks around Michigan too like Ludington, yeah we go there we've been to Silver Lake which is over on this side, yeah all different types. 

 

What are new peer eds plans for this summer? 

 

I will be working not one, not two, but three jobs. One at Pine Rest, one at an ice cream shop which is just paid fun, and then at the University of Michigan hospital with my mom, so very excited for that. 

 

That's so fun. 

 

I also will be working three jobs. I’ll be serving at two different restaurants and then I'm hoping to start working at Hope Network in some type of psych capacity, but lots of camping hopefully between working and hanging out with my dog.

 

Oh I felt that I love my dog so yes.

 

Well it definitely sounds like we have some exciting plans but they could also get really stressful, three jobs wow. I know I am still doing unpaid internship which we don't know how. In the spirit of all that we’re balancing our fun with our work, what are some summer routines that we can try to stick to and keep ourselves grounded through the changing season? I know mind is going to be getting back on walking, it always just made me feel better, some of my alone time, where I can listen to a podcast or just listen to nothing and clear my head for a little bit.

 

I definitely need to spend time outside. I feel like especially these last couple weeks I’ve been in my house, not going out anywhere, dealing with finals and all the assignments so I need to really make an effort to go outside, maybe get off my phone, things like that.

 

I agree with that, unplugging. This is going to be the first summer, well, the month of July where I don’t have a summer class, which I think will be really refreshing since COVID, and I really want to get back into like reading just for leisure, I did that a lot last summer, but I kind of have fallen out of it in the past couple of months and it kinda helps me take my mind off things, just like de-stress, sitting outside, in a chair in the sun, just reading and I really want to get back into that. Helps me unplug from social media, everything that’s going on online and in the world and I just I really have a I have a huge list of books that I want to read and I really want to get into that so that is my plan to kind of take care of myself and get into a routine for the summer. 

 

I like that, I want to read some more books too. I like your walking too Bella cause I really love to walk so I wanna get back into walking and then as we know I'm an avid dance class. 

 

Walking and audio books. 

 

Oh I love audiobooks, that’s good.

 

But yeah I'm hoping to maybe continue taking you know some of the Zumba classes this summer. 

 

Do they have them at GV in the summer? 

 

They have them for like the first like six weeks after the semester but like I think they have at home.

 

I'm gonna try to join you. 

 

Wait are you here in the summer? 

 

No. 

 

Oh, well I'll do it myself, I'll do it myself at GVSU and we'll talk about it. Send me videos. So I want to do that and then I also just want to make sure I have like that work life balance with like as you guys talked about like with the multiple jobs like you gotta make sure you also make time for friends and stuff so and sunshine. 

 

I agree also like seeing people that you don't normally get to see like during the school year like I realized how much I miss people like I see so many people in the summer all the time and then like throughout the school year I'm like wait like I haven't talked to you in like 6 months and I saw you all summer like how are you? So making sure to reconnect with those relationships and people that you might not have seen is also important to me and like to everyone I think to especially like with your family who you might not see as often if you are going home but yeah.

 

Our new peer eds, do you have a peer ed pick for the week? Your summer routine? 

 

Yeah actually I really want to get back into the gym. I used to go to the gym a lot but I've been so stressed out the past few months that that's what I put off that's and that shouldn't be what I put off because working out is really good for my mental health and that was the wrong thing to put off.

 

It happens because remember Kee and I used to see each other at the gym we like hey hey and it's like oh. 

 

This will be my first summer being that's really exciting but independent yeah independent to be on your own yeah I'm excited to hang out with friends and work on work life balance. I really like the audiobook walking idea because I walk my dog like a freak so it would be nice to listen to something while doing that.  

 

Getting back to what you said about working out I miss working out so much like I keep thinking like I work out we all just need to get in a workout class together honestly it'd be so fun. 

 

We could do the Zumba to the audiobook. 

 

Oh we're just we're just there you can't see anything but just imagine. I did just finish a Pilates class if it was a hundred class and I could get registered to be a Pilates instructor so. 

 

Peer ed Pilates. 

 

Have you as a guest Pilates instructor next year. 

 

I would love that. I love how everything comes back to that.

 

Alright, well with that and getting back to the rest of our podcast I think it is time that we get back to studying and focusing back on finals, graduation, summer plans, and getting back into what we should probably be focusing on which is finishing off the semester strong. I know. I am so glad that we got to introduce all of our new peer ads to you guys and I'm so excited to get to work with them next year. But with that I also want to thank all of the peer eds that I got to work with this year you guys were wonderful I learned so much from you guys and it was honestly truly great working with you getting to know you and have you guys to have my back when things weren’t always easy so shout out to you guys you guys were great. I hope you all have a great rest of your semester and have a good summer. Bye guys!