Money is Kinda Lame Sauce

As we all know the economy’s been pretty lame and that’s been affecting several major industries, including the housing industry. Well, as I’ve shared before, my dad is a Real Estate Agent, and that means over the time I’ve been at Transy his income has greatly decreased. In the last month the company he was working, where he was also the Manager of the office, closed and he was out of a job. And as we all know, that sucks, a lot. So, my family decided that we had to make an appeal to the finical aid office to see if there was any more money available for me and I set off to get a job.

I applied and interviewed at a couple different places and ended up working at The Gap. Now, don’t get me wrong, but retail is so very wrong for me. The monotony of folding the same sweater 8 times within a half an hour is enough to drive me completely up the wall, so I continued my job search. The next interview I got was at a Tennis Center, where, Carlos, a friend of mine works. As soon as I had snagged an interview, I called and quit my job at the Gap, just in time to receive my first and last pay check. Well I interviewed at the Tennis Center and was basically hired on the spot. Now, I’ve only worked twice and it’s pretty boring, BUT I can do my homework while I work which is always a bonus.

Anyway, while all my job hunting was going on my dad was busy communicating with Dave Cecil, the Director of the Finical Aid Department, and they worked some stuff out. I went to meet with Dave Wednesday to sign the agreement for my revised finical plan and found out that I was now eligible for work study. Which is great, but it also meant that I wouldn’t be able to work weekdays at the Tennis Center, so Thursday I had to go in (to my first real day of work) and tell my Manager that my availability had been cut in half, thankfully, he was very understanding about the whole situation and even let me know that if I was too overwhelmed with working at both places that we would understand if I needed to quit there, but I hope I don’t have to because I’m trying to get as much moneys as I can getst to go on the Choir Tour in May Term (To ITALY!) and to study abroad… at a date to be decided at a later time.

But anyway, I have a conference with our pledge director for the sororiety and I got a package at the back desk! (It’s always exciting to get mail and the bigger, the better)

Hasta luego!

Fall Break

Whew. It’s been a long, busy stretch and a lot has happened. I’ve had a ton of reading, a few tests, a couple of programs, and fall break. Fall break was defiantly the highlight in there though.

Let’s just start off by saying, I love Transy; I love my friends at Transy; I love living in Lexington, but I love my family just as much or more than all of those other things and I love to just be at home with them, so that’s where I went for my break. Now, I know that a lot of our perspective students are from Kentucky, but I’m sure there are some of you out there who aren’t and I’m in that same boat. Personally, I love being this distance from home. I’m close enough that, if I want, I can just go home for a weekend and not spend half of that time driving, but I’m far enough away that I can learn to rely on myself and not run home every time something goes wrong or I don’t feel well or even if I need to do laundry. I feel that I have grown up immensely in the year or so I’ve lived in Lexington. Not to mention, my parents can’t just drop by anytime and tell me I need to make my bed either.

Anyway, I went home for break and for the first time in my life, I voted for the next president of the United States of America!!! Let me tell you, if there’s anything good about turning 18, it’s not being able to play the lottery or buy tobacco; it’s getting the chance to give your input on how the country should be lead. I know voting early’s not quite as climactic as going to the polls on Election Day, but it’s all the same as and the sticker they gave me at the Clerk’s Office says, “I Vote, I Count.”

It’s really interesting to see the effects on the Transy campus from the election as well. Last year, before the primary, Bill Clinton was scheduled to come to campaign for Hillary, but we soon found out that was canceled and instead both of them came to talk in our own little Beck Center. It was pretty intense, and there were rumors that Bill was supposed to come back to support Obama this time, but I haven’t heard anything else about that. Regardless of your political affiliation though, there’s defiantly groups for everyone. We’ve got the Campus Republicans, the Campus Democrats, Transy Students for Obama, and we’ve even got a group of Ron Paul supporters running around somewhere.

Well, I think that’s all for now. Until next time, goodnight and good luck.

Recruitment

So, sorority recruitment – over.

It was interesting experiencing a year later than most of my friends my first official rendezvous with the Greek Organizations on campus. Everyone was so nice. Like the nice that kinda freaks some people out because we are so use to living in a world where our existence is usually ignored by the majority, but not during recruitment, oh no. Even that girl who you pass every day on your way to class, you know the one that you try not to make eye contact with, even she wants to know about you. It’s a little strange especially after being on campus for a year, that all of a sudden these people want to know everything about you and want you to ask them about their own experiences with Greek life, but after you get past that initial (cynical) reaction is really cool.

(<-- Pref Night you get all dressed up) The first night was really intense; you visit all of the sorority halls. (Because that’s how we roll at Transy, we have Greek halls in the dorms, not off campus houses.) But you visit all of the halls and talk to a girl or girl in the sorority about their Greek experience. After that you go to a presentation put on by all of the sororities that kind of overviews what their chapter is about. It’s fun, but really exhausting. The second night is community involvement night where you get invited back to at the most 3 chapters and you learn about their philanthropy and so forth. This night is a lot shorter and a lot less stressful. Then the third and final night is Preference night, which is where you get all dressed up and go to 2 different chapters, tops, where they share some of the more special stories of their own recruitment and how Greek life has changed them. Pref night was a lot of fun and totally made up my mind for me. I had a lot of very close friends in one of the sororities and the first thing that that sorority did was to give a letter written by one of the members to each of the girls that attended. A sophomore friend of mine, Elizabeth, wrote me one of the best notes I’ve ever gotten, it was an amazing night and made me pretty glad that I had waited, otherwise I don’t think that I would have gotten that kind of experience out of Rush, it was pretty amazing. The next day was awful; it was a day of strict silence and I couldn’t talk to any of my affiliated friends until we ran out to meet them, after that it was all downhill: a lot of hanging out and snackin on junk food. Since then, it’s been pretty good, except that a lot of the meetings and so forth, including our formal pledging on Thursday, overlap with my tutoring in the library. Lame-city.

(My friends and I on our way to meet our sorority!)

Anyway, the thing that hit me about all of the different sororities, or women’s fraternities as it may be, after the whole recruitment process is that there is a whole big group of different girls that come together and bond in a sisterhood so strong. Now don’t get me wrong, I know that Greek life isn’t a bed of roses, and that everyone in every sorority aren’t always the best of friends, but they are able to put differences aside and to come together as sisters sometimes do (I’d know I have two of them myself) in a bond of love and understanding. It’s this kind of “love no matter what” support system I miss when I’m not home. That same thing that kind of makes up the fourth dimension of Transy life, whether you get it from a sports team, or musical group, or the Greek community, there’s no doubt that we’ve got it goin’ on here. Our cup runeth over. :)

Hello World

Hello World!

Ya, I know such a wide greeting seems pretty lame, but hey, most of the time the first kind of program a computer science major will write will print out to the masses, “Hello World!” So we’re starting off in a like manor for this here blog about my life at Transy. Pretty obviously, I am a Computer Science major, but before you put on your judging hats, pause for un momento por favor. Not only am I a lowly CS major but tambien I am a Spanish major. Yes, yes I know two things that are seemingly unrelated, but you’ve never been inside my head and there these two walk together hand and hand. To go along with those two I also like to stir in music, drama, politics, and religion to my life busy, exciting, and balanced.

Ok, so how about I back it up a little… I’m from Indianapolis, where I’ve lived my entire life; when I’m there I live with my mom, my dad, and either one or both of my sisters. I’m the middle child and we have seven cats, a dog, and we board two horses, aka we moved out of the city and now live in an old farm house, so don’t let that fool you. I’m 100% an inner-city kid. Transy is my first affair with private education, and don’t

tell public I said this, but I think I’ve fallen in love.

(Oh Hot Darn, That's our Barn! ->)

Transy is everything that I was looking for in a school and more. Little school, meets big(ish) city, meets liberal arts; I’ve died and gone to heaven. I can major in Spanish and Computer Science while I continue my passion for music in choir and stay active in campus political groups and stay sane with help from the Disciples on Campus. It sure feels good to be a gangsta. And this coming weekend I’m going to try to broaden my juggling act by going through Girl’s Recruitment for Greek Life. Eek!

As long as I can remember, I’ve always said I’d never been in a sorority, but somehow, Transy seems different. Last year, as the bull headed First year I was, I refused to take part in recruitment and have regretted the decision since my roommate came back the first night. Now don’t get me wrong, Independent life was cool and it didn’t stop me from getting an amazing group of both affiliated and non-affiliated friends, but I felt like I was missing that fourth dimension of campus life. So this year, I’m going to dive right in to it and hope I float. I guess we’ll see this weekend!

I think that I’ve exposed just enough of my brain for now, and hopefully I’ll get to share some more.

So until next time,

Abby D