Mar 30, 2020 | Archives, Sports |
Samantha LeBeau Contributing Writer
The UMF Softball season took a hard hit as the university ordered spring sport cancellations in an attempt to restrict the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19). The women’s softball team was excited to travel to Florida over spring break to kick off their season.
The annual trip to Florida is typically an exciting and challenging week for the softball team, as they play a third of their season (consisting of ten countable season games) within the course of their visit. Head Coach Katherine McKay said in an email interview, “If the season wasn’t cancelled we would be ten games into our season, having competed in all of the games in Florida.”
However, this year the trip was cancelled along with the entirety of spring sports, in an attempt to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. University athletes and fans were left disappointed as they heard the verdict of this decision. While many are not affected by this decision, the senior athletes especially, were left devastated, confused and heartbroken.
McKay would have been coaching her third season this year at UMF. “To say the least, it’s been a difficult transition and a hard reality to accept,” she said.“I know how much it broke my heart to look my three seniors in the eye and tell them they had no senior season.”
Coach McKay was just as disappointed as the players to hear the news regarding the season. “This was a complete surprise. We knew things were getting bad, but it was like a wave hit, starting in the South and continuing up the coast,” she said. “I don’t think anyone believed it would get to this point, but it did, and as devastating as it is, the important thing is the health and wellbeing of the student-athletes and their families.”
Despite this season’s cancellation, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is trying to figure out a way for seniors to have an option for a last season. “The NCAA is figuring out next season what this means for this year’s current seniors and how to give them the option for another season,” McKay said. “The plan is to start next year as if this spring didn’t happen. We will have fall ball as normal and hopefully a healthy 2021 season.”
Prior to the intended Florida trip, the women’s team devoted much of their time to training. Spending up to six days a week practicing in the UMF gym, along with two to three days a week working on strength and conditioning drills. The team planned the trip to Florida from March 14 to 24 for the first portion of their season.
Senior Captain Karen Flaherty was shocked by the news she received. “I was completely surprised that the whole season was cancelled. I knew that our spring training trip in Florida would be cancelled, but to also find out that our entire season was cancelled and to not get one last chance to play softball took me by surprise,” she said. “I was not at all expecting for the whole season to be cancelled.”
Flaherty, who would have been playing her third season at UMF said, “I do not plan on attending UMF for another year to play a final season. I had already taken an extra semester of schooling to finish my senior season this spring, but unfortunately the season got cancelled.” Flaherty was deeply saddened by the news of the season saying, “The cancellation of the season made me feel heartbroken. My heart felt like it just sunk into my chest. It still doesn’t seem real.”
Despite these trying and difficult times due to COVID-19, Flaherty leaves a bit of senior advice to underclassmen athletes, “As a captain, advice that I would give to underclassmen is to play each game like it’s your last because you never know when that game may be your last.”
Mar 30, 2020 | News |
Dear Farmington Flyer Readers,
I write to you from my home in central New Jersey, where I have been careful to distance myself from others as the cases of and deaths from COVID-19 in my home state skyrocket. As all University of Maine System (UMS) campuses have closed for the remainder of the semester and some of the Flyer staff, such as myself, have had to leave Farmington, we are moving the remaining Flyer issues for this spring to be solely online.
Some of our stories are going to look different as well, due to the move from print to a solely digital platform. As we rely on our contributing writers for the majority of our content, some of our coverage will be less UMF centered than what we typically run as many of our contributors are scattered across Maine and the U.S. The pandemic touches everyone and everything, and we are choosing to acknowledge that in our stories as we cannot write as if any one place or person is isolated and unaffected by the virus.
We still plan to run our fifth and final issue of the semester which should be posted Monday, April 20. Our staff remains diligent in tracking any and all UMF campus updates and we will be reporting on them as they happen.
As editor in chief, I grieve for the loss of my final semester in the position, for not being able to see out the final months of my UMF journalistic career on campus with my friends and my staff, and for not being able to hold a hard copy of my last Flyer issue in my hands. Some of you may have seen me in the student center during the last week on campus, soberly handing out our third print issue and bemoaning it being the last print issue of my undergraduate work as a journalist. I often say, “We’re a two-bit peasant student paper and we know it,” but it is said with the utmost affection for a paper and a staff that I cherish. It’s said with pride and appreciation for the people behind the publication that have spent hours hunched over laptops and scattered papers in the Flyer office, slaving over meticulous edits and hunting down more sources and information to round out a story for the best possible coverage for our readers, until ultimately, we fall asleep on our creaky, old futon.
I’ve been known to refer to the Flyer as my baby, and though it may be a strange choice of words, there is truth in the sentiment. This is a project that was passed down to me with trust and confidence that I would work to do right by the paper and readers. And I hope that I have done right. It’s a project into which I’ve channeled so much of my time and myself with love for the work and craft of reporting. Working on the Flyer has been integral to my growth not just as a writer and aspiring reporter, but as a person.
There have certainly been mistakes: wrong dates, misspelled names, articles pulled back at the last minute. And I thank my staff for catching those mistakes and swiftly correcting them. Though, I know I will never live down misspelling the name of my friend and WUMF e-board member Syl Schulze as “Sly.”
And I know that none of our work on the Flyer could be accomplished without you, dear readers. You are the ones who even allow us to have stories to run in the first place, by donating your time and voices, and letting us into a story when you could’ve said no, as many do. Our work only exists because of the simple fact that you agreed to talk to us. For that, we cannot properly express our gratitude. Please keep using your voices and using them loudly in a time when free speech and a free press are more integral to society than ever.
Goodnight and Good News,
Darby Murnane, Editor in Chief
Mar 13, 2020 | Bite Me Beaver, Exclusive |
Want to hear from Bite and get some (not so) DAM GOOD ADVICE? Write in to umfdearbeaver@gmail.com for a chance to hear back from a beaver that learned to type!
Dear Bite,
The Rocky Horror table in the student center keeps trying to sell me edible dicks and vaginas. I really want to buy one but it makes me a little uncomfortable. How do I overcome my uncomfortableness?
-Scared Dickless
Dear Scared Dickless,
Oh, you sweet summer child. Of course, you’re uncomfortable- instinctually you have to know that with one lick of those lollipops it’s all over for you. You think you’re just buying candy but before you know it, you’re not just back for more, but you look down to pull change from your pockets and you’re wearing fishnets and heels, and you can’t remember where you got them. You can’t run away because now you can only strut and shake that ass with every step. All you know is absolute pleasure. It’s called a cult classic for a reason. But seriously, buy the damn candy and give us money because we’re very poor and won’t know what to do with our weird, kinky selves if we don’t have a show.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dear Bite,
My e-board underling quit out of nowhere without any word of warning and none of us have heard from them since. Do you think they’re dead? And if not, should I arrange that?
-One of Many Dying Clubs
Dear Dying,
I too struggle with object permanence and assume that once I can’t see my staff, they must be dead, because where else would they rather be than at my meetings with me yelling at them? I’d suggest starting a search party, but you might want to go straight for the funeral. You might think you’ll see them charging in, yelling, “I’m not dead!” but given the campus’s haunted reputation, it’s probably a ghost. If you throw a crucifix at them hard enough, the spirit should quiet down.
Dearest Readers,
I know you probably picked this up just to read the back page and then toss this paper somewhere (like multiple people have told me to my face. You know who you are), and that’s cool, I can’t force you open the paper and read the amazing stories inside that we spent literally hours on. But have you ever thought of maybe contributing to the supply that you demand and I don’t know… SENDING ME QUESTIONS? The email is RIGHT. THERE. Please. I don’t make this stuff up. Help a mean beaver out.
Mar 13, 2020 | Exclusive |
Finding ways to make your funds stretch throughout a semester can be very challenging as a college student.
The weight of balancing a social life, paying for tuition, textbooks, phone bills, groceries and car expenses can be almost too much to handle at times. Isiaah Boria, FinLit Peer Educator in his fourth year, has made a list of some of the ways he saves money and stretches his funds.
After a tough first semester of college, Isiaah realized textbooks cost a lot more than he had expected. He now uses Sluggbooks.com, this website looks for the best textbook prices across multiple platforms like Chegg, Abcbooks and Amazon. This website saves him money and time hunting for the best price.
The Dollar Tree is a place where Isiaah buys some of his basic needs. This can oftentimes be an overlooked store where students can save money. Remember to pay attention to unit prices, sometimes you may be paying more than you would at another store. Some items are a great deal and sometimes the packaging is small enough that a dollar is rip-off! Entertainment can be expensive so take advantage of events like Dollar Movie Night and programs like Mainely Outdoors that offer free excursions. Student Life also promotes trips to professional sports games, Broadway shows and much more.
Keeping an eye out for these resources around campus can help you save a lot of money and have a lot of fun. Isiaah’s last big tip is to use budgeting apps. This helps him keep track of his expenses and also budget ahead of time so he can save money each week.
Mar 13, 2020 | Feature |
Andrea Swiedom Staff Reporter
When people ask senior Samantha Rose Aloba Melgar where she’s from, they’re rarely satisfied with her initial response of the Gardiner/Augusta area. Often, they ask her again with an emphasis on from. “I feel like I have to explain because I don’t belong to one place. To me, where you are from is such a heavy question,” Aloba Melgar said. “I assume they’re asking where you are originally from and I don’t know. I am just used to telling people the Philippines-Maine-Texas-Maine story.”
Aloba Melgar moved to Augusta with her mother and older brother from Cebu City, Cebu, Philippines when she was nine years old. Her mother had remarried a man from Maine and they arrived during a Jan. snowstorm. “It was my first experience of snow because in the Philippines there’s only a wet and dry season, and I was just looking around really fascinated,” Aloba Melgar said.
While she’s still fascinated by snow, she admitted that that’s about as far as her appreciation goes for Maine winters. “I like it when it first initially snows,” Aloba Melgar said with her fingers dancing in mid-air to mimic snow falling. “But the cold that comes with it and when it gets dirty…” she trailed off shaking her head in discomfort.
She experienced a short break from New England winters when she was 11 years old after her mother’s divorce led the family to move to El Paso, Texas where they reconnected with extended family members. For the first time since living in the United States, Aloba Melgar was amongst Filipino Americans. “There is a community here in Maine, but we’re not really a part of it. It was nice in Texas to get to know them and not have it be as scattered as it is here in Maine,” she said.
Exposure to Filipino culture in Texas brought back nostalgic memories of Aloba Melgar’s early childhood in Cebu where large family gatherings consistently took place several times throughout the month. “I do miss the physical gathering of us together,” she said. “Sometimes we would go to the beach. Mostly, we would either go to someone’s house or go to a restaurant together.”
Samantha Melgar. Photo Courtesy of Samantha Melgar.
Aloba Melgar’s face lit up as she described the strong tradition surrounding food at family reunions and one of the dishes her mom still makes regularly at home called pancit, a noodle dish similar to chow mein that is quickly fried with vegetables and seasoned with soy sauce.
“Food is a big thing in the Philippines, we love to share food. We just love food, and I think that transcends beyond any language,” Aloba Melgar said. Although, she admitted that she has struggled to carry on her culture’s culinary traditions in an attempt to avoid washing dishes.
While in El Paso, Aloba Melgar joined a Christian church and was baptized in the Protestant faith while her mother remained Roman Catholic, the primary religion in the Philippines. While this was not a dramatic change, it does demonstrate how Aloba Melgar’s identity often reflects her dual origins of the United States and the Philippines.
“There are views that formed while I grew up here, and there are views that stayed with me that I learned from the Philippines. I’ve noticed in Western culture, you guys like independence very much and by the time you’re 18, you’re expected to go off,” she said. “Usually in the Philippines, for my family anyway, you stay with the family and usually the older sibling takes care of the parents.”
Aloba Melgar considers herself Generation 1.5, which refers to immigrants who moved to the U.S. as adolescents. “You’re not really a generation one, and you’re not a generation two; you didn’t entirely grow up in the States,” she said. “So you are both, battling with two identities.”
Aloba Melgar still has vivid memories of her childhood in the Philippines and how certain aspects were ironically unaffected by place. She played with Bratz dolls and princess Barbies and binge-watched Disney movies.
But she also reflected on aspects of her childhood that were unique to the society and culture in the Philippines. “We would play hide-and-go-seek in the woods with a lot of bugs or go into abandoned houses,” she said. “I could say, ‘Mom, I’m gonna be gone and I will come back later,’ and it was usually fine. I don’t think it was dangerous, there was never an idea that there was a dangerous situation.”
Aloba Melgar also remembered the cost of education and the strain it had on her mother who was determined to keep her and her older brother in school.
“We were a middle class family in the Philippines, but there was a time when my mom’s salary was not enough, and my mom had to pick between me and my brother,” she said. “My mother sat me down once and told me that I might have to stop school, and I started crying. Luckily that didn’t happen. My mom moved me to a different school that was cheaper.”
Aloba Melgar’s family spent a short year and a half in El Paso before returning to Maine which seemed to be beckoning them back. “I think we just met the right people, and that really contributed to why we came back and stayed here.”
After graduating from Cony High School in Augusta, Aloba Melgar enrolled at UMF to pursue psychology after breaking the news to her mother that she would not be going to school for nursing. “I was going to go to USM, but then out of nowhere, I realized that I didn’t want to become a nurse because that is more of what my mom pushed me to do. Nursing is actually a Filipino stereotype,” she said, chuckling.
Samantha Melgar as a kid in the Philippines. Photo Courtesy of Samantha Melgar.
Her mother supported her interest in counseling, but as Aloba Melgar studied psychology she found herself more drawn to social work. She also realized that her mother had imprinted some career ideas on her that were still intriguing such as working for the United Nations or the Peace Corps.
When Aloba Melgar was still considering nursing in high school, she always imagined traveling for work. She started exploring international social work options and that’s when she learned that the Peace Corps was essentially just that. “I wanted more experience before going into grad school and I was just exhausted with academia.”
Aloba Melgar applied to the Peace Corps last semester and will be returning to the Philippines in early July for the first time since she was nine years old to work as a youth development facilitator.
“I am going to be working with elementary age to even up to college age people, just helping them with education, to access resources, with positive identity and vocational skills, with critical thinking and healthy lifestyle activities, with mentoring and workshops.”
For the next two years, Aloba Melgar will be reintroducing herself to a place that she considers to be a significant part of her identity. “I want to explore and go back to where I started. I just want to see the changes,” she said. “I want to make connections again with the culture and see how I will react to it now that I’ve spent more than half my life here in the U.S.”
