My Week in Review

So, it's been a long week and I have to take you back to last Friday to get the whole picture. Last Friday I spent my time between class, errands, and work. This was all followed by one of the greatest traditions of Coe College--the Presidential Ball! Here Coe students, faculty, staff and alumni all dress to the nines and meet in the transformed Eby Fieldhouse gymnasium complete with a live jazz band. President Phifer could be seen strolling around amongst the tables of food and groups of dancing students. It is by far one of my favorite second semester activities! So I spent the night dancing away to wake up to my parents in town! They drove 11 hours to spend the weekend with me! I really enjoyed the time we were able to spend shopping and hanging out. And they were able to be here on Sunday for the end of the year show for dance team. Sunday was the

second annual Dance Team Showcase featuring solo, small group and team performances. I was in 6 total dances and honored at the end as the only senior on the team. The pictures below are from the show. That night (Valentine's Day night) I had to serve at the restaurant I work at...it was so busy!

The rest of the week has been spent recovering from my eventful weekend in terms of homework and sleep. I have also spent countless hours working on my senior thesis.

The dance team during our state performance.

My parents and I!

Andrew and I!

Semester Outlook

So, here it is almost three weeks into the semester and I have failed to inform you about my classes this semester, much less how they are going! Fail.

This semester I feel like I have it pretty easy. I am taking my last, final credit for my majors: business finance. Beyond this I am enrolled in 2 art classes and my last credit is dedicated to my thesis. Business finance is like an accounting nightmare. All of those ratios I used to know freshman year are all back to haunt me. It is a lot of number-crunching...not what I have been used to lately. My art classes have been great so far this semester. I'm taking Graphic Design: Typography and Printmaking. In graphic design we just had our first critique. We have been working exclusively with fonts and how the font of a word can alter its implications. Eventually we will do ad layouts and such. Pretty exciting! The professor is also really laid back and cool.

When I enrolled in Printmaking, I was not exactly sure what I signed myself up for. I know now...it's a lot of work! The art of printmaking is traditionally misunderstood. A print is not a copy of a famous piece of art as so many people use the term...that is a poster. A print is an original work of art. The process involves either etching or chemically transferring an image to a plate. There are a number of techniques that can then be used to ink the plate. Finally, the plate is run through a press with a piece of paper resulting in a print on the paper. We have spent the last couple weeks learning the basics. It is fairly complicated, so I'll discontinue with my description and spare you the pain. :)

As mentioned above, I am not exactly taking a fourth class, but using my work on my thesis as a fourth credit. My thesis involves a content analysis of past and present environmental advertisements to look for trends and such. I am currently in the process of collecting my data. This unfortunately involves driving down to Iowa City to use the back magazine collection there. The Cedar Rapids library lost all of their back collections a few summers ago in the flood. I was in Iowa City for an evening this past week and am about 1/5 of the way done with my collection.

Ok, ok, enough about my boring life!

Saving Lives!

That's what the Dance Team did today; or helped do anyways. We hosted another blood drive today and had one of our best turnouts ever! We're just finishing up the all-day affair. Eventually we will go out to eat as a team. I'm excited...I'm so hungry! Dance team has been taking up quite a bit of time lately. We have had tough practices everyday [it hurts to take my coat on and off, I'm so sore!] preparing for upcoming performances. Tomorrow we are performing twice at the halftimes of the men's and women's basketball games. Anyone can check out our performances on our Facebook fan page! Just search: Coe College Dance Team!

MLK Day of Service

Classes have commenced though not today. Today classes were canceled to honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In the spirit of this day, the Service Learning Department hosted a service opportunity for students on campus. I thought it sounded fun, so I went. I ended up being one of nearly 60 students who spend 2 hours bagging almost 7000 meals to be sent to Haiti. There was originally only enough money raised by students to produce 4800 meals, but a couple of different departments on campus chipped in part of their budget to help cover the rest. It was really cool doing something to help the victims of the Haiti earthquake. My job this morning was to add the rice to the bags of food. The rest of my day has been spent catching up with friends and getting ready for the dance team performance at the men's basketball game tonight!

Back to Coe I Go

Well, I feel as if my winter break is over. I am heading back on Wednesday though classes do not start until the 13th. There is quite a bit of work to be done on my honor's thesis before the semester gets started.

My time at home has passed quickly with lots of adventures. We had three days of Christmas seeing both sides of the family. I spent several days fighting a cold. New Year's was spent at home with a few good friends. I also spent a weekend in Denver visiting an old friend and a day shopping with my mom. Little has been completed on my list of things to do so I will spend the next two days scrabbling.

Then back to Coe for my last semester!

It's that time of year...Christmas cookies!!!

My brother and I have both been on our winter breaks since Saturday [I was done Tuesday]. Sleep and TV kept us entertained for awhile, but they both soon lost their luster. After putting up the Christmas tree and wrapping all of our presents, the only thing left to do was to make Christmas cookies!! I made my all-time favorite sugar cookies. Kayler made his first attempt at gingerbread men! He even had to make his own cookie cutter since we have failed to add a gingerbread man cut-out to our collection. They turned out pretty...big, lol. We both frosted them and I must say--they look good! Dad already taste tested them for us!

All of our cookies!! And Kayler decorating :)

Each of us with one of our cookies!

Kali and Kayler with the Christmas tree [never mind our pajamas!]

Done & Headed West

Whew! I survived one more finals week and am now packed and ready to head home for the holidays. It is an 11 hour drive :/. I am pretty sad leaving my apartment and roommates for so long. To celebrate before we left, we got together with another apartment full of friends and had a Christmas feast. We had an entire turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, veggies, jello, rolls...you name it. Following our meal we had a secret Santa gift exchange. It was a lot of fun! I can't wait to get back next semester. I will be done (hopefully) applying to grad schools, have an easier schedule, and will be able to spend lots of time with my friends. Gotta soak it up--it will be my last semester! Anyways, the open road is calling my name :)