Rowan’s Residence Hall Association (RHA) hosted its Sand Stories event on Monday night in the Student Center.

The event was held as a part of RHA’s new initiative, RHA Week, to help students relax from the stress of midterms and upcoming assignments. The first event was held right after spring break to relieve the anxieties of deadlines and due dates, as well as to center students’ minds before beginning the school week.

Sand Stories allowed students to put together tiny bottles of colored sand as a reminder to themselves to focus on what is most important. Each color of sand stood for something different, such as green for money, blue for friends and family, and orange for health.

Not only was each glass bottle filled with sand, but there were tiny scrolls of paper inside to reflect a message in a bottle. Each student could take a small scroll and write a positive, uplifting message on it to look back on and become centered.

Allison Mosley, RHA president and a sophomore biomedical art and visualization student, said that though some people make goals and resolutions for themselves at the beginning of January, it is best to do those types of things later in the year.

“Spring is actually the potent time for making new types of resolutions, so it’s really nice having it now coming back from spring break, so you can re-evaluate your goals for the semester,” Mosley said. “And if you want to improve and focus on more things, it’s a great way to start thinking about it.”

Though Sand Stories had the premise of making new goals for yourself, students could put whatever color of sand they wanted in their bottles.

Cami Watanabe, a junior mechanical engineering student, said that it was nice getting to take a break from her work to do arts and crafts.

“I think it’s great to take a minute to stop and do crafts, like kids in the old days again,” Watanabe said. “I think a lot of people lose sight of their childhood when they get to college. They kind of lose that, so I’m glad we’re bringing it back.”

Mosley emphasized her appreciation of the Student Center, which worked with them to put on this event, despite their wariness of things that are difficult to clean up.

“If you try to book an event and you have anything that could make even a possibility of a mess, the Student Center wants to know,” Mosley said. “But they’ve been really great working with us and making sure that we have all the materials we need.”

She also said that the event, which was planned by the RHA e-board, was the first of a week full of events, including a town hall meeting on Thursday and a basketball charity event on Friday.

“It’s a really awesome week that I’m really proud of my e-board for setting up because each individual member really took what they wanted to do and put a spin on it,” she said.

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