Christmas Time is the Best!

Happy Holidays!!

My family and I just arrived at Winter Park, Colorado (thank goodness for the free wireless)!! We will be spending a few days here skiing and boarding while we celebrate Christmas. This is our 5th or 6th year coming up here--we love it! My dad and mom ski about the slops while my little brother and I race down on our snowboards. We all meet up in the condo in the evening and hang out. We always open presents on Christmas eve while we have cheese, crackers, wine, etc. We will be heading home Friday to go to a wedding on Saturday, so it will be a busy rest of the week!

I can't wait to hit the slopes tomorrow! Wishing everyone well!

We Made It!!

Finals are over and everyone is now enjoying their winter break.

I finished my last final at 10 am on Wednesday. I spent the rest of the day finishing things I had been putting off since the beginning of finals. I finished my Christmas shopping, met with my adviser to talk about my senior thesis proposal, and things like that. I also brought lunch to my boyfriend in the library while he finished studying for his finals. We had Chinese food and watched an episode of the Office in a study room, lol.

As soon as he finished his final on Thursday we went snowboarding!! This was my first Iowa snowboarding experience. It was nothing compared to the Rocky Mountains, but it was definitely fun! More fun followed that night with a big group of friends in Iowa City.

Friday I finished my duties as an RA, packed up, and hit the road. I made it do Des Monies and stayed with a friend. The next day I drove the rest of the way to meet my family. Now I'm home, just hanging out. I've been doing a lot of sleeping--I call it catching up!

The Week of Doom

a.k.a finals week!

My first final is at 8 am tomorrow--it's Advertising. I'm getting ready to meet with Anya to go through our notes. We do it before every exam and it really helps!

I'm also preparing for my Research Methods exam on Tuesday and my Rhetorical Theory exam on Wednesday. My 5 page Spanish paper is due Tuesday afternoon. So basically I've been studying a lot.

Tonight is the late-night breakfast. It is always the Sunday before finals from 10pm-12am. Faculty and staff get together to make and serve breakfast to students as they are up late cramming before exams begin. So I'm looking forward to pancakes tonight!!

That's my quick update. Back to studying...

Oh no!

I became behind on posts again! :S

Well a few quick updates:


1.
I went to my first Iowa game!! The University of Iowa is just 30 minutes from here. Lots of Hawkeye fans here who are always talking about the games. Well, my boyfriend found some tickets and took me! It was freezing cold, but so much fun! We tailgated before the game eating brats, Scottish eggs, cookies, the works! We had great seats in the stadium--23rd row, 50ish yard line. At half time we watched the band and drank hot chocolate. AND the Hawkeyes beat Purdue!

The stadium!

Enjoyin the game! (Even if it was freezing)

2.
Thanksgiving!! I made my first trip home for the year! Ah! It was great. I took the Amtrak train (11ish hours). I spent my time at home helping my dad on the farm, spending time with my family, and trying not to get too far behind with my homework. The break was short, but I was able to see a lot of people and spend quality time at home!


3.
It's back to work now. This is our last week of classes before finals week. Scary! This week I have 2 final presentations, 1 project, and the state dance team competition. Next week I have three 8 a.m. finals and 1 final paper. Today has already been crazy, but I predict it will only get worse before it gets better. Wish me luck!

It's Late-ish & I'm Sick-ish

I am ready for bed, but wanted to post since it has been awhile. I am hoping a full nights sleep will help me get over my head cold.

I acquired this cold during a very long trip back to Coe. I was in North Carolina the past few days at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education Conference (AASHE) with a fellow member of the Environmental Club, Johanna. We went to look at what other colleges around the nation are doing to be more sustainable. In case you are unaware, Merriam Webster defines sustainability as: relating to a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged.

The conference was great!! Johanna and I would sit up late every night in our hotel room typing up ideas we came across throughout the day. We are hoping to start some big changes here at Coe. We would particularly like to move along the progress of the American Colleges and Universities Presidential Climate Commitment. President Phifer signed this commitment a year and a half ago meaning that Coe has to come up with a plan to become carbon neutral by next year.

Anyways, I am sick because we were up at 6 am to go to the last day of the conference, left at 5 pm and returned to Coe at 1:00 am. I woke up at 7 the next morning to study for a test I had at 9 and then prepared a presentation for my 2 o'clock Spanish class. It was intense! I spent tonight relaxing in my room. I finished a few projects and made snowflakes with some of the women on my floor. We decided we only have a few weeks left of class before Winter Break, so we started winter decorations today. Our floor will slowly accumulate snowflakes up to Winter Break--it should be fun!

Looking ahead, I have much work to do. Like I said, only a few more weeks left of the semester. This leaves me with 2 advertising projects, a Spanish paper and presentation, a rhetorical theory paper, a research methods project, and 4 finals in the next few weeks. Oh the joy, lol. We are also working hard on dance team to prepare for the State Competition on December 5---come cheer us on!

Halloween :)

It has been an entire week of Halloween celebrations!

Last weekend we had Haunted Hallways on campus. This is a tradition where a number of floors in the residence halls decorate and haunt their hallways as other members of campus walk through. My floor rocked!! We covered the ceiling and walls with black trash bags, had "bloody" sheets hanging from the ceiling, and spider webs everywhere! Our theme was originally IT but we ended up playing up the Coe story of Helen the ghost, too.

Way, way back in the day Voorhees (the all women's residence hall) was also home to the infirmary. Helen was the only Coe student to die in the infirmary and supposedly haunts Voorhees. She does things like clicking the heater or printer, or other random electronics on and off. There are also stories about how she does not like boys---this one boy was badmouthing Helen while he was in his girlfriends room. She walked him down to his car and came back to find all of the pictures of him on the ground. Spooky...

So in our hallway we had Helen in the bathroom and down at the end of the hall. It was pretty scary. We tied for first in the contest. We ended up leaving our decorations up all week.

Katie being scary!

Vanessa as Helen

A look down our hallway...

For Halloween I decided to be a pumpkin! I found this sweet costume at Good Will. I didn't do too much as far as celebrating Halloween. Last night I was the designated driver for some of my (21-year-old) friends who went to the bars in Iowa City. I had a lot of fun getting dressed up. Tonight I am on duty which means I'm stuck in the building all night...but as a pumpkin!

Mid-Week Report

So I just finished a floor meeting. Only a few of my residents showed up but we came up with great ideas for Haunted Hallways this Sunday. It is going really great! I'll have to post pictures. Our floor also received a pumpkin from the cafeteria--they are sponsoring a campus wide carving contest. The rest of my evening will be spent on homework and an NRHH meeting. Homework hasn't been as bad this week--no exams!! I do have an advertising exam coming up next Thursday along with 2 big projects in the class. Umm...that's all I can think of for now!

Fall Break: It was Wicked!

It is the last day of fall break--there have been no classes since Friday. I planned on spending the majority of my break recuperating from my round of mid-terms last week and preparing for my other mid-terms this coming week. Instead, I had quite the adventure!

Friday night I drove some friends to Iowa City where they went to the bars and I visited a friend from the summer. We caught up and watched Grey's Anatomy. Saturday morning I received a call from my friend Anya--we were going to Chicago!! We had both really wanted to go see Wicked on Broadway, so it was decided that we were just going to do it. By 1 pm we had the car loaded, our tickets bought, and were on the road. We arrived in Chicago just in time to get ready, pick up our tickets, and arrive at the show. It was AMAZING!!!!! Amazing. Really.

The day after the show: Me and a Wicked globe :)

Anya's turn!

After the show we grabbed some McDonalds and got on the train. We were staying with a friend who gradated from Coe last year. She had given us the keys to her apartment since she was not planning on returning before us. We thought we found the right building when the keys worked on the gate and the apartment building. We couldn't get them to open the apartment, so decided to wait in the stairwell for our friends return. An hour later our friend called to report that we were NOT on her stairwell!! Apparently her building was the identical building two doors down. Pretty embarrassing. We all laughed about it early into the morning while we ate Swedish Fish and Sour Patch Kids (only the two best kinds of candy ever!) Even though we were up late we woke up early. We spent the morning cruising around Chicago...we saw the bean and had delicious Chicago-style pizza. Anya and I then raced back to Cedar Rapids since I was on duty (as part of my job as a Resident Assistant) at 7.


Here we are having some fun with the bean!

My friends & the bean! (Note the sweet Chicago skyline)

I have spent the last to days of my break feebly attempting to do homework, watching movies with friends, and napping at least twice a day. It has been such a great time. Oh! I also did some intense recycling by emptying out the recycling closet on my floor. I am so not ready for class to begin again tomorrow--it is now time for me to seriously get things done. Even though this will be a short week, it is going to be rough. Friday I have a huge Spanish mid-term along with an exam in Research Methods in Psychology. This week in dance team we are going to start learning our state routine--aka long, intense practices from now on. I am also continuing my work with Environmental Club and NRHH. *Sigh* There's always something to be done. :)

Homecoming & beyond!

These last couple weeks have been crazy. It was the time when all the first tests hit. I know a few people who had 3 exams this last week! My schedule wasn't nearly as intense. I had an exam last Friday in my Research Methods class, a Spanish presentation on Monday, and an exam in Advertising on Tuesday. After Tuesday I took time to get ahead in some reading, go to dance team practice, and get ready for Homecoming!!!

The festivities started at the first of the week with decorating, powder puff football, men's sand volleyball, and such. Thursday night may have well been considered part of the weekend as it was the night of Homecoming Follies. Follies are basically a talent show full of ridiculousness--none of the acts are serious. It showcases the Homecoming court consisting of 5 queen candidates and 5 king candidates.

Friday night consisted of the Homecoming concert with all the bands and choirs. It was such a great concert! I had to drag a friend along & she probably ended up enjoying it more than I did. (I had 9 residents in the program, so it was really cool to see all of them!) The choir was directly followed by the bonfire. I didn't make it to the bonfire this year--we watched the Presidential Debate. At the bonfire the Homecoming Court is announced and all of the sports teams have representatives speak. I think that if there were smores at the bonfire, I definitely would have been there!

I was up early Saturday morning to get ready for the Homecoming parade. As President of the Environmental Club, I arranged for us to ride Coe Bikes in the parade. We decorated the bicycles with recyclables! They rocked! My favorite part were the cans dragging behind the bikes. The parade is pretty small, only circling the football field, but has quite a few participates from the Homecoming Court, to sororities and fraternities, to the cheerleaders. After the parade there are always brats by the field and the football game begins. We played Loras this year and were seconds away from beating them. It was 14-14 and they scored with 2 seconds left on the clock. Some are saying the clock ran out before they started the play, but who knows.

After the game I watched a movie with Sara and started getting ready for the dance!! A huge group of us went out the dinner at the Irish Democrat (pretty much a pub) and then came back to Coe to get ready. We took a shuttle to the dance; it is always in a ballroom at the Crown Plaza. It is simply the best time ever!! The room is packed and hot and sweaty and everyone is dancing and eating (there are always awesome food tables). Last night I ran into a ton of people I knew and we danced the entire night. I can back with my boyfriend and made pizza rolls at like 3 in the morning. Haha. It was fun. But, don't worry, I'm already up and starting homework. I have a paper due tomorrow, ugh.

Typical

I swear I never know where the weeks goes! It was a busy one, though pretty typical.

My classes are going well. I'm taking Rhetorical Theory & Practice, Hispanic Life & Culture in Europe, Advertising and Research Methods in Psychology. I love that my schedule is so diverse in subject matter though there is sometime awesome crossover. For example, at the beginning of the week, three of my classes began studying the Middle Ages. I was looking at the Roman conquest of Spain, the theories of Galileo, and the rhetoric of Socrates. Crazy!

Dance team also began practice last week. Between the mile run, ab and push-up workout, stretching, technique, and choreography we do every practice, I am very sore! I just have to keep remembering I will be in AWESOME shape. This year we opened dance team practices up to the entire campus. Now anyone can come to our practices to work out and learn our dances. I think it is really cool--dancing is so centering and fun, I love sharing it with others!

I was also busy working on projects for Environmental Club...we have a lot coming up these next few weeks. There were also my weekly Residence Life, Student Senate, and NRHH meetings. Ah...I'm always so busy!

It all caught up to me though. I spent the weekend on my cough with an awesome head cold :S I saw it as the perfect opportunity to do homework and enjoy some movies.

Watermelon!

We are just starting the third week of class. I am already wishing I had done more homework over the weekend. I had plenty of time Friday to do some, but decided to take some much needed me time. I took a nap, hung out with some friends, and had a craft night with smores! MMM! Saturday morning I found myself getting ready for the Watermelon Fest.
This was the 3rd annual Watermelon Fest put on by the Lambda Chi fraternity. I put a team together and we rocked! There was watermelon bowling, watermelon tossing, watermelon eating, and more. In the end we all ended up covered in watermelon! (check out this picture of my friends) It was sticky and gross, but oh the fun. I ended my day with a sweet cook out with some friends.
Sunday I finally woke up early to do some homework and eventually made my monthly trip to Target. In the evening there was an all hall meeting complete with nachos and a pinata!
Now it's time again for classes , homework, dance practice, and all the weekly adventures I have come to love.