Whether warming up by the fire at grandma’s house or baking cookies and trimming the tree in your own homes, Christmas is a time of reunion and celebration, but imagine literally being halfway around the world from the place you call home. One of my favorite songs has to be “I’ll be Home for Christmas,” but this simple task is a lot to ask someone whose home is in Nigeria or Ghana.

ORU is a vastly diverse campus, and we know how many countries make up the student body by heart… that’s 70, in case you forgot.

The Internet Café and the Fishbowl were where clusters of students awaited the outcome of the presidential election on Tuesday night, Nov. 6.

President Barack Obama’s supporters cheered loudly while some Mitt Romney fans were upset at the results.

“Optimally, I would have liked to see Romney win, but (I am) not disheartened,” said John Richards, a junior studying biomedical chemistry. He added that he was not 100 percent for either candidate.

The election was neck and neck during the last several hours before polls closed, but Obama won with 303 electoral votes over Romney’s 206. (The race was still too close to call Wednesday in Florida.).

Hurricane Sandy’s shock can be felt all the way to the ORU campus, where many students’ families were affected by the East Coast storm.

States affected by Sandy include: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island and West Virginia. More than 113 deaths in the U.S. have been attributed to Sandy, with the toll still rising as bodies are discovered among the demolished streets.

“A lot of the houses are completely gone,” senior Deanna Smeragliuolo said. “It’s just weird because that’s your childhood.”

ORU Theatre’s latest undertaking is the Russian classic “The Seagull,” written by Anton Chekhov, a playwright acclaimed worlds over for his work involving art, love and loss.