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!

Oh hai thar!

Fancy seeing you here, have you noticed how beautiful it is outside? Well, erm, at the moment it's kind of raining and not entirely pleasant but the tree's are gorgeous! The trees of Transy were a major selling point for me, I mean I enjoy walking around and feeling like I'm in a park, and a lot of our campus seems to be just that. There's families that bring their children/dogs to walk around campus and in fair weather students linger outside, less recently in the past couple of weeks but we all enjoy the beautiful views of campus throughout the different seasons.

I unfortunately have not gotten a lot of opportunities to enjoy trees this fall expect for when I'm hurrying across campus for class or on my way to work on Sundays (I work in a nursery at a local church.) I've done a lot of fun things that I haven't gotten a chance to blog about so I'll do the rundown. :)

Fall Break!

Fall Break was a couple of last Monday and Tuesday, so I got to go home for the first time since RA training and it was glorious. I got to spend four days with my family, four nights in my (full size) bed, four days with my pets, and two extra days without classes. Now don't let that lead you to believe that I was without work for those four blissful days, I had a program to finish for my Theory of Programming Languages class and a test to study for and a book to read for my Gender and Communication class. It wasn't easy to make myself work during break, but I did and was thankful for it because as soon as class started Wednesday the professors were on their A game and I haven't stopped running.

I snapped this picture in Indiana on my way home, yay trees!

A Halloween Dance!
My sorority throws a "informal" (dance) for our pledges, where they get to decide the theme and then a group of active members sets them up with on a "Blind Date" from a list of names the pledges give the active members, the "date" usually ends up being a group outing with the active members, their dates, and the blind date. This year, opposed to taking my non-dancing boyfriend I opted for my ex-roommate and best friend, Erica and we dressed up as Cat Woman and Poison Ivy. It was a lot of fun, but I had been on RA duty the night before and I was exhausted and she had been up since 6:30 for a speech and debate tournament in Berea so we didn't stay very long but we had a lot of fun.

Me as Cat Woman and Erica as Poison Ivy

Midterms
Midterms as in test have been happening and quickly approaching (if I wear a costume to class for my midterm on Friday I get 10 extra credit points!) The report we get is reminiscent of elementary school, with the only possible outcome is either a "S" for Satisfactory of a "U" for Unsatisfactory. It's all S's for me! :)

I hope you all enjoying the trees more than I am!

You are beautiful in every single way...

Hello there! I hope you all have been doing well since we last talked, I know I've been crazy busy. It turns out that as time goes by it doesn't get any easy to juggle all the things you do in college because you typically get roped into more and more things.

One of the new and really cool things that I'm doing this year is working with groups of middle school girls from LTMS on their views of beauty and how they can learn to see themselves as beautiful. I had planned on doing this as an after school program, but working with the school psychologist I'm going to be doing sessions during the day. I went over to LTMS after class this morning and worked on mailing out permission forms and hopefully I'll get to start working with the girls in two weeks.

This whole program has grown from a series of workshops I did two summers ago that were inspired by the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty and I was motivated to get involved in this type of community service by the Phillips University Legacy Fund, which is an outside scholarship I recieve that requires all of its recipients to complete a service project where we take on a leadership role. The Phillips University Legacy Fund is a unique scholarship because it's a fund create by the alumni of Phillips University, a university that went bankrupt and had to close but since then has paid off all of their debts, and is given only to students who attend Disciples of Christ affiliated universities and colleges. Every year they send us somewhere new and exciting, my first year we were outside of Santa Fe, NM, last year we were in Davis, OK and this year we're going to a Ranch in Van, TX.

The other Transy students at the Conference in OK.

I know that Transy isn't known for its religous affiliation but that affiliation did play a major role in my college decision, as a Disciple I had a special Disciple admissions counselor and I became eligable for outside, Disciples scholarships. Now don't get it wrong, Transy may have a good core group of Disciples students but the affiliation doesn't require you to go to worship everyday or anything, it's just a little friendliness between the university and the church. If YOU'RE a Disciple and you're interested in finding out more about the Transy DOC connection, shoot Betsy Pigg and email at bpigg@transy.edu, she's really awesome and can answer pretty much all of your questions.

Find some time to enjoy the fall!