The hills are alive with the Sound of Music!

Dear, dear readers. I do hope that you've had an enjoyable start to your new year, my own has been fairly eventful.

Let's see, during the last week of break the Transylvania Choir, of which I am a member of, had a "Continental Tour" aka we all piled on a charter bus and roamed about Kentucky and Indiana. Because the tour is conveniently situated in the middle of winter, our stop in Bloomington, IL was canceled due to snow and we skipped it after our show in Ashland, KY and we took a night off in Lexington and then the next day we got to travel to my hometown of Indianapolis.

We got there in the afternoon and had the opportunity, well I made the opportunity, for us to stop off at my high school, Arsenal Technical HS, and we got to share some of our music with them, they shared some with us and we sang a little together. That night we performed at my home church, Downey Avenue Christian Church, and the choir stayed with host families from my congregation, I got to stay at home and pick up some of the things I forgot. It was pretty amazing to be able to fill the sanctuary I grew up in with music from the place where I'm continuing my "growing up" process.

The next day we drove back to Covington, KY after lunch in Bloomington, IN and that night we had a mixer with some alumn's and a prospective student, I had lots of fun talking to the strangers because I'm wierd like that, but at the end we got to share a few of our songs. The next morning we participated in a worship service in Covington and then came back to Transy. I was quite a journey but fun was had by all.

Some of my choir friends and I at the mixer in Covington, KY

Since then classes have started and that's all a completely different story I'll update you all on at a later time, but for now have fun and stay dry!

Finals: A through F

I left you all before finals which is always an interesting time of the semester. I don't think that I (or any of my fellow bloggers) have explained about finals weeks at Transy.

Classes end one week before you're really done and the next weeks is Finals Week. You might have read about "Reading Day" this is always on Monday of Finals Week, it adds to the weekend to give a small reprieve to do some last minute studying for your finals on Thursday-Friday. Then each day is carefully planned out to provide a separate time for each final. For example, if you have a 9:30 MWF class you have your final at 3 on Monday and your finals for a 1:30 TTh is at 9AM on Thursday. This way you don't have to worry about overlapping finals and they usually work out to be fairly spread out.

I know this is a little late, but if you have any questions about finals or ANYTHING else about Transy just let me know! Comment or email me. Have a great day!

New Year, New Outlook?

Happy 2010 everyone! The beginning of a new year is always an exciting time because you suddenly recognize this whole new chunk of space of your calendar that you get to recognize and start planning for. Some of you are going to graduate from high school and start college this year, some of us will continue our college careers, some will graduate from college and start a new chapter, and others will continue in their current paths.

As always, my mom asked about our New Years Resolutions today at lunch- my dad had a list that included drinking more water and being happier everyday, my little sister opted for graduating from high school and toning her stomach (she keeps trying to get me to go to the YMCA with her to exercise, that's not really my things though,) my mom didn't really have any and I didn't have any when she asked but I figure it might be a good idea to come up with some.

1. Update my blog more - I know as lame as it sounds, I have a link to this here blog on my facebook profile in attempt to remind myself to update it as much as I'm on facebook but if that were true I'd have about a billion blogs opposed to the handful you've been given. I see this blog as a tremendous opportunity to reach out to those of you prospective students who can't get to campus to learn about the everyday life of a "typical" Transy student and I'd like to do more.
2. Eat better and less - You know the deal, same old, same old.
   
3. Exercise some - Like I said, this isn't really my thing; I've got bad knees that bother me when I do too much, but I'm going to try to start swimming some laps and maybe try to make it to yoga classes.
   
4. Start dating - Well... my boyfriend and I broke up during finals weeks and I haven't been single since Freshman year so I'd like to go out with some different guys and enjoy being single some... we'll see. :)

I spend the last week visiting relatives outside of Wichita, Kansas and spent my New Year's Eve there with my mom, grandmother, aunts, and assorted other relatives which was a different and enjoyable way to ring in the New Year.

One of my aunts is an artist, and I stole this photo of a wind-farm near their house.

Enough about me, I hope that you all have set up some good goals for your New Year and I wish you the best of luck in all of your endeavors in the coming year.

like a chicken with its head cut off...

Yeah, so I'm kind of running around like a chicken with its head cut off; it's just what the end of the semester always seems to look like for me. I have all my class stuff, projects, papers, tests and so forth and then I have my counseling at the middle school and tutoring and don't forget my RA duties.

One of the coolest things that the RA's get to do all year long is plan/participate in a program called Crimson Christmas that works in conjunction with Big Brothers/Big Sisters to sponsor a Christmas for a child in need. While I'm not on the committee that plans the event my hall does get to sponsor a little girl, so I'm in charge of collecting the donations from my girls getting her presents (we get a list of things that she wants and needs from BB/BS) and hosting her at the event. In the past, I've participated as a student host both my freshman and sophomore years. You meet the kid and you get to play games, eat lunch, meet Santa, and open presents with them and even though it falls on the Sunday before Finals Week it's a really nice way to start a hectic time by really setting out to do something good for a child who really needs and appreciates it.

A girl and her sponser doing crafts at Crimson Christmas in the past.

While that is a break from finals, most people are only thinking about finals and my residents are starting to freak out because these are there first finals in college. At our last CBA we talked about effective habbits, study and otherwise, for these last two weeks before break and although at the time they didn't really seem to care a few of them have already talked about some of the things I had mentioned. I'll give the girls of Forrer Fourth Front a shout out here, "You can do it girls!"

To all you perspective students out there, keep your nose to the grindstone, it'll pay off when you get your acceptance letters!

So... I broke an arrow with my neck...

Did you see that guys? I broke a real life archery arrow placed in the soft part of my neck by simply taking one step forward.

Step 1: Place the arrow properly on your neck

Step 2: Take a step forward

Step 3: Shatter Arrow
Photos courtesy of Paulina Bryant

This took place at the scholarship conference I went to last weekend in Van, TX. And was an exercise in confidence building, because if you were confident and took a strong step forward then you break your arrow, but if you take a timid step the arrow slides up your throat and leaves a big old red red mark, so you have to have confidence in yourself and your abilities to be able to accomplish the task.

My Small Group for Team Building Exercises
Photo Courtesy of Nancy Phillips

The conference is always an interesting experience and this year was not exception. Unfortunately I had to miss two days of class to attend the conference, we left early Thursday (Shout out to my Boyfriend, Townsend, for driving me to the airport at 6 AM) and didn't get back until late Sunday night so we missed out on both classes and homework time, fortunately I had been able to warn my professors in the beginning of the semester and we were able to work out plans for me missing class on Thursday and Friday. That's one really, really nice thing about Transy is that you can work with your professors for conflicts and they know who you are, even in Intro classes like my Preparing to Act course.

The whole group of students and alumni from across the country for the Phillips University Legacy Scholarship.

I'm trying to catch up on all that I missed out on and I'm doing an ok job, except for the program I have to write for Theory of Programming languages that I'm ignoring while I write this blog. :)

I hope that your college search is going well! TTYL.

Room for One, please!

As I started to look at schools, the thing that interested me the most was getting my own room to decorate the way I wanted, I mean your dorm room functions as your bed room, study, living room, game room, and even your kitchen some times. So to help out with your imagination I would like to share some pictures of my room, granted I'm an RA and I have my own room, for various reasons, but you can at least get the idea.

Each Forrer room comes with two closets and two sets of drawers

Two People Forrer Rooms have two desks, some have a little bookshelf for above your desk

Since I don't have a roommate, I have plenty of room for a couch, but if you bunked your beds so could you!

All beds on campus are Extra-Long twins, my dad and I made the canopy last year for my room in Rosenthal.

The nice thing about living in Forrer is that you can have a really good community on your hall. The bad (for me) is that you share a bathroom with all the people on your hall. Just say yes to shower shoes!

Familia!

Well hello to all you boys and girls! I hope you're been having a great fall so far, I know its college visit madness right about now, my little sister Maggie is working on hers I know, so good luck to those of you who doing the same!

So, this pleasantly warm weekend is Family Weekend, a wonderful time of the year when the families of all the students are invited to come hang out on campus with their kids. There's plenty of things to do, like checking out my fellow blogger Cory, or CoCo as I like to call him, in the play - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, or checking out the Art show by senior Kathleen Burke or coming to the Family Weekend Concert with all of the musical groups, including me in the Transylvania Choir!

My parents came up, like they always do, not because they want to come strictly for Family Weekend, but because it's always situated the weekend before my birthday! That's right folks, this here blogger turns 21 tomorrow! I'm not planning anything to big or crazy, but some of my friends and I are going to go out to eat for some delicious Mexican Cuisine.

Moving right along, registration is right around the corner and being an upper level student now, next semester I'll be taking two computer science courses, with the same professor, and two Spanish courses, with the same professor. So, needless to say, it's going to be an interesting couple of months, three of the courses are also situated on Tuesday/Thursdays so through one of the CS professors, I sent in my resume for an internship next semester, a paid internship. Here's hoping I get it. :)

PS My boyfriend's familia has season tickets for UK football so last weekend I got to go watch the game! Up close and personal!