Panera, Shopping, and Rotary Lights!

Wow, my second post THIS WEEK! I'm on a roll.

Today was a good day. I meant to work out this morning, but alas this did not happen. Note that I am not entirely surprised. It's so easy to be lazy, and so enjoyable. Luckily, having a class that involves running next semester (yay half-marathon class!) I will have no excuse to be lazy!

I went to La Crosse to meet one of my friends from Ripon, a sorority sister who happens to live in La Crosse! I think it's quite ironic that I met her at Ripon (3 hours away) when we live in the same area (within 25 minutes). Granted, La Crosse isn't THAT small, but it is nice to find these little connections. It's nice to have someone who knows what I'm talking about when I talk about home.

So, we went to Panera for lunch. I love Panera, and now I have a "My Panera" rewards card--it's wonderful. Everytime (2 out of 2 times) I have bought something, I have gotten something free. Last time it was a pastry. Now I have a free espresso/smoothie that I can redeem. Exciting! Panera was absolutely packed, making it *nearly* impossible to find a seat. Shelby and I sat on "comfy" chairs that, although quite cozy, were not easy to eat on. We both really enjoyed people watching...and the battles for tables. Every time a table was cleared, we gathered up our belongings only to find that somebody else sat down while we had looked away. There was an older couple that really bothered me. They seemed really nice, but when someone asked to sit at their table, they said no. And they really took their time eating, and then sat and laughed for a while when they were done. It looked like they were done eating when Shelby and I got there...and they were still there when Shelby and I left. It was kind of obnoxious. It was obvious that there was an extreme lack of seating availability, and common courtesy would dictate that perhaps they should make room for others. But they didn't choose to do so, and I thought it was very rude.

After lunch, Shelby and I spent hours at the mall and nearby stores. I'm loving all the clearance that is everywhere. I bought a couple long-sleeved shirts at Macy's ($2.99 a shirt, BEFORE using my employee discount, etc), a clutch at Wet Seal ($3.15), a ring at Kohl's (somewhere around $9), etc. It was a lot of fun to shop around.

Finally, once our shopping was finished (around 5) we went downtown to the Rotary Lights. I go to the lights several times each Christmas season. It's so much fun to walk around looking at the displays and fun animations. The weather was quite warm, which meant there was a lot of melted snow/puddles--and although the melting snow is not my favorite, I think it was a fair trade for some nice weather. Shelby and I spent about 30 minutes walking through the lights, taking pictures and talking--random topics, of course, as was the theme of the day. We talked about how we both ended up at Ripon, how neither of us really knew/cared about greek life before Ripon (yet we both ended up joining Alpha Delta Pi sorority and LOVING every second of it), how nice it was to grow up in the La Crosse area (but how nice it also was to get out), etc.

Although I've enjoyed relaxing, reading, and doing hardly anything, I think today has been my favorite day of this break. It's so much fun to just TALK to people (as well as listen to the things they have to say). I'm big on talking and personal relationships...I think there wouldn't be much meaning to life otherwise.

I suppose that's all for now...hopefully I'll blog at least once more this week (you know, ease back into the whole blogging regularly thing).

Winter break!

Well, it's time for another long awaited update. Let's see...

The semester has ended. Surprisingly the end was not stressful...I had a fair amount of free time, which meant I watched Full House a few times a week, and actually hung out with friends. It was nice, but I'm so glad to be home. I finished my paper(s) and rocked my last test--I actually did the best on that test out of all the tests, which is good because although I studied more, I felt like I wasn't retaining anything.

More good news--I have been invited to interview at UW-Madison as well! I'll be at ISU on the 12th and 13th, and then at Madison on the 13th and 14th. It's a lot to pack in, really, but I'm kind of excited. Well, I'm really excited but also a little nervous. Interviewing days? How can they possibly have that many questions for me? There's no way I'll know all the answers. But, on the bright side, I really love talking to people therefore interviews usually go well. I'll just prepare (starting now, most likely) and check out what kinds of questions I might be asked. I can think of answers. Bah, this is like studying for a test. But wayyyy more important. I mean, these interviews are crucial...and they'll make a big difference on the REST of my LIFE. Getting in, or not getting in, determines where I will go and what I will do. While looking through potential questions, I stumbled upon this one, "What will you do if you don't get in?" and it's one I've been thinking of a lot. I've been telling people that the plan is to be a bum in Spain, but somehow I don't think that's an acceptable answer while interviewing. But what WILL I do?

Well, having been home, I've been doing a lot of relaxing that doesn't feel relaxing. I've been reading a lot of books, which I never have time for at Ripon. It feels like I haven't been doing anything (which, in reality, is mostly true). I've also been working at Macy's. I'm grateful for the hours, because I still need the money. Plus I get out of the house, which is nice. Instead of working the 4-5 hours shifts we worked this summer, we've been working 8-10 hour shifts (which is nuts!). We worked from 2 am on Sunday to 11:30 am. Most days, I am scheduled to work until 10 but am there until 1. 1:00! Today we were actually done EARLY, at 9, which made my day. I came home and napped (because I didn't go to bed Saturday night, and it's killing me).

Good news: Liss and Luke are home! That means we are celebrating family Christmas today!! Eric and I each opened three small presents on Christmas Eve, but we saved all the rest for when Liss and Luke were home--it just doesn't feel like Christmas without them.

I got (so far) new gloves, earmuffs, AND a new camera!! I was going to save up money and buy one after graduation, so my parents bought one for me. I love love love it, and cannot WAIT to use it.

Ok...that's enough for one update. I really, really want to get into the habit of blogging again. I just get busy and tired...but let's hope that I actually keep up with it!

Long-awaited updates!

Well, I meant to blog...probably a month ago. Now, it's almost finals week and things are winding down.

Sem = done. Ran my project (almost 90 participants). Wrote my paper. Presented.
D.O.N.E.

Ridiculous. This semester has been a lot of work. Sem took over my life, in addition to working on my child development class, my self and society class, and my independent study on scene memory in infancy. Overwhelming. Add that to work 24 hours a week--8 of which were in the lab, which counted for my independent study (plus the paper I had to write). I was really hoping for a nice easy semester. Maybe next semester? Except I'm already signed up for 17 credits--but I plan to audit 5 of those. I just want to learn stuff from psychopathology...I don't want to do the work. And I want to take the half marathon class, but I hurt my knee this summer and don't want to fail the class if I can't run. Either way, that equals a lot more class time...so I'll still probably be busy from 8 am to 5 pm. Bah.

For the rest of this semester (ie finals) I have one test--not cumulative--on Thursday from 10-11. I also have one paper, 6-12 pages, for my soc class. It's already 5 pages...I just need to write the method section. I don't really want to work on it, but I do want it to be done. Clearly it's not just going to magically finish itself...so that's my plan for tomorrow. I'm also supposed to head to Oshkosh or Fondy with my sister when she's done working. But we're also supposed to get roughly a FOOT of snow. I'm beyond excited for the snow...but it wouldn't make driving fun.

Today was a wonderful day. I got a Christmas gift from my boss in Financial Aid (candy, some card games, a mug and hot chocolate); a gift from my boss in the Dean of Students Office (candy in the cutest little penguin); a care package from my family (fruit, snacks, and candy); AND I got an e-mail...from a grad school! Illinois State University would like me to interview for their Doctoral program in school psychology!!! It's the first I've heard back from a grad school...and it's good news :) It doesn't guarantee anything...but it's much better than the rejection letter that I COULD have gotten!

So, to celebrate...we went to Dos Gringos after sem today! Happy Hour is from 3-6 pm, which means that margaritas were buy one, get one free. You can't have just one. The best past was that there were 5 people there from my sem, a few other random friends, and my psych professor/advisor. Only in Ripon would you go to Happy Hour with your professor. I do love it here.

Since then, I have been watching Criminal Minds nonstop...back-to-back episodes...I can't look away. I should probably go back to watching that, and hanging out with my friends. I promise to return to regular blogging...it's definitely therapeutic to write everything out. Hopefully I'll have lots of exciting stuff to blog about--like maybe eventually getting into graduate school?!?

Lexie = Worst biggest slacker (when it comes to blogging!)

So, it's been about a month since the last time I blogged. If anyone (i.e. Mom) thinks to check this, she'll be delighted to know that I finally decided to update my blog.

I've been busy, and tired. By the time my day ends, I usually just want to crawl into my bed. This whole blogging thing? Not as exciting when I'm not in Europe. But it's not like I don't have plenty to talk about!

Last week was fall break, and I loved it. I got to spend time with my family, and watch my brother play football. I got some homework done, and worked on grad school applications. In fact, I'm just finishing them up, and will be sending them out tomorrow. From this point on, I just need to remind my recommenders to send out their letters! It's actually a little bit MORE stressful now. I mean, I'm proud that my parts are done...but now I feel like I have to herd small children. It'd probably be overkill if I sent a reminder every day...but if my letters of recommendation don't get completed, I WON'T be accepted into grad school. My application would be considered incomplete, so they wouldn't look at it :/ Let's avoid that scenario.

Another part I loved about fall break was sleeping. I got plenty of sleep every night. I spoiled myself. Now I feel exhausted every morning, wishing I could get more sleep. Except I didn't ACTUALLY get that much sleep at home...my body wouldn't let me sleep past 8:30. I should not feel so tired.

Now that I'm back at school, it's time to buckle down. Soon all the "big" assignments will be assigned, and I'll have virtually no free time. I'm working on sem; we get to start running participants next week. A few weeks of collecting data, then we have to compile results, run tests, and find conclusions! I'm also working on my independent study in the Infant Cognition lab. I've been working with the scene memory study, in which infant view pictures on a screen, and then have their visual recognition tested via preferential looking. They are shown a series of pictures, usually the same picture side by side. But every so often, they see one picture they've already seen next to a picture they have never seen. If they recognize that they have seen one picture before, they look at that picture LESS because it's boring to them. Infants prefer novelties. However, sometimes infants do not look at the novel picture longer, especially if there is a large gap between the test trial, and the trial in which they originally saw the picture. This suggests that they do NOT remember that particular picture.

As adults, we have an infinite capacity to recognize pictures. Numerous studies have shown the nearly perfect recognition abilities of adults. Prof Kovack-Lesh has would like to determine at what age this capacity is fully available. So far, we've seen very promising results with ten month olds. We are currently testing ten month olds, as well as six month olds. We are going to be analyzing the data, and then, for my independent study, I will be proposing future research that could be derived from Prof KL's work. I'm very excited :)

Other than working on stuff, I'm also trying to be a little more social. I'd like to see my friends more...perhaps not work on homework EVERY night. Except this week, I don't think I've done homework once. Instead, I've been hanging out with friends. Tonight, I went to my sister's apartment and we carved pumpkins! They're pretty fantastic. I don't really enjoy cleaning out the pumpkins, but it wasn't as bad as I remembered. I'm also not very good at carving pumpkins. I did pick the "hardest" design in the book to do...it was a spider in a spider web! It looked pretty much awesome (and still somewhat awesome after I carved it).

Tomorrow is Friday, and it's Blind Bash! It's a sorority event where we get to bring a date...except we don't know who we are going with. We get to write three options on a piece of paper, and then trade with other sisters. Only it never really works out that way. I happen to know who my date is, and that's ok. We'll have lots of fun. We are going to a haunted woods nearby, which should be quite the adventure!

Also, this weekend is Halloween, which is always crazy. People really love dressing up. It's not my favorite, but I'll do it once a year. It's pretty fun to see everyone else's costumes--and I'll admit, I'll do a lot of judging. Many girls use Halloween as a chance to dress scandalously, since it's a chance to be something that you aren't. However, many girls really are that scandalous. They're just more open about it on Halloween. Ridiculous.

Ok, I've done my duty. It's off to bed for me...I work at 8 tomorrow, as I do most days. Thursdays I work at 9, so I kind of get to sleep in. Bah. Nights need to be longer!

Stress, sem, and migraine = not the best week.

Well, all I can say is that I'm SO glad it's Thursday. Honestly, my week started off terribly, and I was kind of concerned that it wouldn't get better.

Let's see. My sem proposal is due this week. It's a rough draft of my final paper, only I write it BEFORE I conduct the experiment. So I have to hypothesize the results and discussion. My partner and I decided to go first, but it gave us so much less time. It turns out that you have to turn in the paper 5 days before you presenet it to the class, which means TOMORROW. However, due to difficulty meeting up and the migraine I had last night, we got a short extension. I requested that it be due Friday at midnight rather than class time, since I am sure I could have it done (and done well) by then. We were given until Sunday at noon :) That means I get to sleep tonight! Though I do plan on working on sem most of the night anyway...

I set aside 6 hours to work on sem last night, but had a small migraine all day. I ended up feeling terribly sick (thanks migraine) and went to bed at 8. I set a few different alarms--one at 8 since I worked at 9, and one at 6, in case I felt like working on sem. I fully expected that I would wake up sometime, like 4 or 5, but I slept until my alarm went off. I wrote a few pages of sem this morning--it's going really well. I spent the last week reading about 20 articles and picking out stuff that I want to include in my paper. I'm about halfway done with my sources, and I have six full pages. I anticipated having about 8 pages when I was done, but now I think it'll be more like 11. It's kind of exciting, really. I get bored doing all the reading and stuff in sem, but I seriously enjoy writing papers for my psych classes.

I think the worst part about Ripon right now is the people stress. I know it sounds bad. But honestly, classes don't stress me out that badly--I enjoy going to class, and working on homework is a nice distraction from drama. I'm disappointed that people aren't more mature. As seniors in college, I would expect more from some people. Regardless, what will be will be. And there have been many positive parts to this week--I've been able to talk to my mom, dad, AND sister. I've had good talks with many of the younger Thetas. And also, I've gotten hugs from 5+ people in the last two days. I feel pretty loved, not gonna lie (that one is for you, Mom).

I think the week is slowly getting better. And this weather is FANTASTIC. This is the kind of weather that makes people fall in LOVE with fall. I would love nothing more than to walk around outside for hours. Unfortunately, it looks like I should eat dinner...and then work on sem some more!

How to go to graduate school...for free!

I figure a week is long enough to wait before blogging again. Hopefully I've accumulated enough interesting material. Last Saturday, Amanda and I spent the day in Appleton shopping and having fun. I had my hair dyed--it's about 3 shades darker, which some red. I absolutely love it. Some people say I hardly look different; in fact, some people don't notice at all. Other people are shocked, and tell me that I don't even look like the same person. The comments all tend to be positive, however. It seems that most people like it. Not that it matters, because I happen to like it. Ha.

Other than that, I've mostly been working on homework and trying to get ahead. I'm the first person to present my proposal for senior sem. My partner (Melisa, go figure) and I decided that we'd rather go first, so we can start actually conducting research as soon as possible. In theory, this is a great idea. However, even with only 12 credits, I'm swamped with stuff to do!

This weekend, we had a graduate school conference with SSS/McNair in Lake Geneva. The Abbey Resort is wonderful. Honestly, the bed was probably my favorite part. It was so comfortable...I loved sinking into the bed (and pillows). I wish I could take the bed home with me. The sessions about graduate school were also good, I guess. It was a lot of information to take in (and a lot of stuff that I already knew). I enjoyed it--Don Asher was the speaker. He's written a number of best-selling books on how to get into graduate school. Plus he's funny, and knows just what to say in every situation. He definitely knows what he is talking about, and I'm glad that I had this opportunity.

I had a lot of chances to think this weekend. I have a lot to be grateful for. I've had a lot of help here at Ripon, from all of my professors. They've all had helpful tips. Also, it was really great for Kovack-Lesh to give me a job. I mean, I just e-mailed her and asked her for one. I know I'm qualified, but I'm sure she also has a lot of interest from other students. She's also been giving me more responsibilities in lab, and teaching me to work with a variety of software that I might use in graduate school. K-L didn't have to do any of this, but I'm really glad she did.

I'm also really grateful for my family. They've been nothing but encouraging, every step of the way. No one has told me that I can't do what I want, or that I can't afford it. I did learn a whole bunch of tips this weekend, on how to go to graduate school for free. Mom will love it--in fact, I'm pretty sure she'd love all my notes from this weekend. I took, oh, 14 pages of notes. Ridiculous. A lot of it was stuff that I already know, or have already done, but I figured I could share this information with lots of people...like my sorority sisters, my little brother, any friends interested in grad school.

On that note, I'll have to end this little blog session. My bed is calling to me (though not nearly as much as the bed in Lake Geneva did!) and I'm really looking forward to sleeping. Tomorrow I have a long day of reading for senior sem, and working on grad school applications. Bah!

"There's no reason to do anything but fun!"

I know it's long past time for an update, which means nobody other than my mom is probably still checking this. That's ok. I can still post a lovely update.

I've somehow gotten really busy. That always happens, no matter how many or how few credits I have. I think I wouldn't know what to do if I wasn't busy. I only have 12 credits this semester, but 3 jobs (and I'm working at least 8 hours at each of those jobs).

Let's see. Major life updates....nada. Having my own room is nice, and it hasn't gotten too lonely. I always have my door open, which means I am literally never alone. I had to stop writing and come back, since I had about 8 girls in my room, hanging out for a few hours. That's probably my favorite part of living on the floor. I never have to be alone if I don't want to.

Tomorrow, I am spending the day in Appleton with Amanda. One of my sorority sisters left Ripon to go to cosmetology school--tomorrow she is giving Amanda a pedicure...and she is dying my hair :) Just a few shades darker, nothing too dramatic. But I'm crazy excited.

Next weekend, I will be gone all weekend for a conference on grad school. I'm ridiculously excited. I'll take all the help anyone can give me.

Oh, I've started up with Big Brothers Big Sisters again. My little is at a different school, though still in Ripon. So far we've been having fun--I brought him some pictures of my travels :) Also, we keep playing tag at recess. It's fun, but not so much fun when everyone wants to tag you. They think it's unfair because I'm bigger--and I pointed out that bigger doesn't mean faster. Except in this case, it does. My legs are about twice as long as theirs. Is it sad that I get satisfaction from being able to escape from 3rd graders? Because I do. It's exhausting though, and I tried to sit out for a little while last week. My little was very disappointed in me, and had some brief words of wisdom--I think they apply to every part of my life--"There's no reason to do anything but fun!" I think he's exactly right, too.

Baseball games & wedding dresses--summertime fun :)

I think it's time for another life update. Let's see what I've done this week...

On Monday, after work, I drove to Ripon to visit Lissa. Tuesday morning, we went shopping in Fond du Lac. I bought a shirt I didn't need...for 8 dollars. I've looked at the shirt a few times before, and this time I finally gave in. I think it's ok.

Tuesday night we went to a Brewer's game. It was me, Liss, her boyfriend Luke, his friend Troy, and Luke's mom, Petra. It was a lot of fun, even though the Brewer's lost. I loooove baseball, and wish I could go to more games. But Milwaukee is somewhat far from here, and I don't really have money. Ha. Someday.

On Wednesday, I drove back to La Crosse and met Becca. She is getting married in a year, and wants to get as many details worked out as possible before classes start. As a nursing major, she does get incredibly busy. So we went to cake places on Wednesday and tested cake. We also drove around and looked for possible wedding ceremony sites. She really wants an outdoor wedding in the La Crosse/Westby/Viroqua area, with a creek nearby. She's having quite a bit of trouble finding a place though :/ Oh and then Wednesday evening, we met up with her fiance Tim, and visited a caterer to test meals! What a wonderful day. We tried five meats: broiled cod, tenderloin tips (my fav), pork tenderloin, breaded chicken in white sauce, and chicken cordon bleu. It was all delicious.

Today, I went with Becca and 2 of the other 3 bridesmaids to look at wedding dresses. It was great, but stressful. There are SO many dresses, and Becca is hesitant to make a decision (which make sense...it IS a big decision). She picked out one favorite at Charlotte's Bridal, and two favorites at the Wedding Tree. She's going to go back next week, with her mom, to see if she can make a final decision. It's very exciting :)

In other news, running has been a fail for the past two weeks. I've started to get this pain in my knee, but ONLY when I run. It's on the outside of my left knee...and if I stop running, the pain goes away almost immediately. If I keep running despite the pain (as I did once last week) then I'm in terrible pain all day. I took a week off, and then tried today. It was bad. I'm not sure what to do. I've done a little bit of research, and it sounds like Iliotibial Band Syndrome. But I couldn't say for sure, At any rate, I'm really not sure about treatment. Stretching? It may be because of the hard ground that I am running on. Or maybe I run wrong? But I'm not sure why it would only start hurting after 6 months of regular running. I'm just going to rest until I get back to Ripon, and then try the elliptical machine. It's my favorite, because it feels so easy. And I know it'll be easier on my knee, which will hopefully make things all better :)

I have also had the same stupid headache for the past few days. It goes away briefly here and there, but keeps coming back. It's pretty painful, and I can't figure out what is causing it. I haven't been getting enough sleep, and my eating has been somewhat irregular because I've been busy. So maybe that's it. I'm sleeping in tomorrow, which should help, I hope.

As for now...I'm off to bed. Time to beat this headache.

Computer...fail!

I was ridiculously proud about the fact that I was able to replace a part in my computer. It worked really well...for about a week. Now the new fan doesn't work, and I'm beginning to think that the problem is bigger than just the fan. I've had a few friends and family (all "computer people") suggest that it's quite possibly something to do with the motherboard. I tune them out at the point (wayyy over my head) but listen enough to realize that fixing the computer would now cost more than buying a new computer. That seems completely illogical to me, and really stupid. I guess that's good for the computer industry, but kind of a waste (unless, of course, you have money just laying around, which I unfortunately do not).

So I've resigned myself to the death of my laptop, which makes things substantially harder. I'd really like to start my graduate school applications, but I can't exactly work on my personal statement in the living room. It will not work, that much I can guarantee.

Yesterday I convinced Mom and Dad to go look at new cell phones with me, finally. It looks like we'll be switching to Sprint (for real this time) because it's cheaper than any other provider we can find. I'll be getting my new phone in about a week...the Samsung Intercept. It's a smartphone, with the Android platform, and I'm quite excited. I really like Android phones, and I'm going to enjoy playing with my new phone when I get it.

Also, I had quite a nice surprise yesterday. Mom told me that Dad had to "pick up some stuff" at Best Buy, which turned out to mean that they were buying me a new laptop!!! I did not expect that, at all. Being without a laptop would make me have to work a little bit harder, but it wouldn't be the end of the world (not really, I guess). But this is really nice :) So I've spent last night and today playing with my lovely new laptop. It has an AMD processor which we are a little unsure of, considering we've only ever had Intel processors, but I doubt I'll ever notice a difference. As much as I'd love to be a "computer person," it's still a work in progress. And that's probably ok.

So now I can continue to blog (which I don't like doing in the living room, much like anything else) and on Monday, I will officially begin working on my personal statements. I'm somehow really stressed about it, but trying to remember that my applications are basically all due in DECEMBER. So I have time. But...I'm really concerned about making sure that my applications are high quality. I plan on putting a lot of work in...but I do also want to enjoy senior year. It's hard to find that balance, between making sure I get everything done (and done well) but also having fun. We'll see how it all goes--but I suspect that having a lovely new laptop will help!

Geek Squad member-to-be? You bet.

Whoa...sorry for the long delay in blogging. I've had some issues--the cooling fan in my computer stopped working, and my laptop has been out of commission for about a week and a half. So, to start at the begining...

Around the time my laptop stopped working, Mom and I were making plans to go to Ohio. Dad couldn't go anymore, because he had to work, but I convinced Mom to go with me. Uncle Ben made plans for me to tour the University of Dayton, so we decided that maybe I could visit other schools along the way.

It's funny how it all worked out--I'm considering two schools in Wisconsin (Milwaukee and Madison, because those are "near" home), one in Normal, IL (which happens to be on the way to Ohio), one in Indiana (which happens to be on the way to Ohio), and one in Dayton, which happened to be quite near our destination.

So, I e-mailed/called the directors of the various programs. Mom and I went to Illinois State University on Wednesday. We were able to meet with Mark Swerdlik, the school psychology program director. He was very nice, and answered all of my questions. I really appreciated him taking the time, on short notice, to meet with me. He told me that last year, they accepted 10 students: 4 into the doctoral program, and 6 into the EdS. Now Mom understands why I've been so worried about doing well on the GRE, etc. Anyway, he was very helpful, and I loved the campus, as well as the city of Normal. I think that Illinois State University may be my current favorite.

We spent the night in Anderson, IN, and then went to visit Ball State University the next morning. No one from Ball State was available to meet with me, but I did take an official tour (with a bunch of potential undergrads). It was a nice campus as well, but really big. REALLY big. And the city was bigger, which I actually don't like. I'm a fan of small cities, I guess. But it wasn't BAD--I did like the campus, and I could deal with the city.

After we were done at Ball State, we drove to Springfield to see my Ohio family!! It was so exciting. I've missed everyone. It was nice to see Sam and Ben, and their babies are SO BIG! Those girls are just adorable, for sure. Emmie is getting big, and she is crawling as well as pulling herself up so she can stand. And she smiles ALL THE TIME. She is incredibly content...unless she is hungry. Then she gets ANGRY, which is kind of hilarious. And Abbie? She knows her ABC's--she'll sing them in the car, again and again and again. She has them on her bedroom wall, and you can point to them in any order...she knows them. What a smart girl :) She still loves books, and will let you read to her ALL DAY. She's more chatty now, which I love. Also, she knows my name!!! It sounds kind of like "at-sy" so I don't always realize when she is speaking to me. But it's so cute! And sometimes I don't understand anything she says, so I just agree. But that turned out to be a problem. Sometimes I'd agree, and then she'd continue talking. But other times, after I agreed, she'd say "k" which meant I just agreed to either do something or give her something...but I never knew what. Whoops.

On Friday, Mom and I went to UD to meet one of Ben's coworkers, who would give us a tour. However, he went home sick from work that day. He did offer to come anyway, when I called him, but I told him not to worry about it. Mom and I can fend for ourselves. We walked around and checked it out. Mom talked to the crazy lady on the corner. Mom...holding a bright pink sign about hazing, had a giant red and white umbrella, and was wearing two pairs of sunglasses. She certainly didn't look sane. She told Mom that she had been in the doctoral engineering program at UD, and that they had tortured her, and tormented her, etc, etc. But she apparently stuck it out to get her degree, so I can't say I felt much sympathy for her. Why would you stay, if it was that bad? But now for the last 10 years, she drives out there once a week to hold up her sign. Yeah.

On Saturday, we went to swimming lessons with Samantha, Abbie, and Emmie. It was pretty fun. The girls really like the water. The instructor even had Abbie demonstrate something--Abbie must be a genious. She's so good at everything :) Then we hung out for a while, and had the Boss, Marion, and Hannah over for dinner. It was lots of fun, and we went to a winery after dinner for wine-tasting. I don't like wine, so I was the DD.

We left Sunday morning, and came home. Since then, I've: ordered my new computer fan, ordered my textbooks for next semester, and got my grades from Bangor. The ones that came straight from Bangor were kind of hard to understand, as they were the ECTS grades (European Credit Transfer System) which apparently isn't the same as US grades. I had two B's according to Bangor, and I definitely cried. Two B's would devastate my GPA. I've worked too hard for that! But it turns out, they are US A's. Wow. All that freaking out for nothing. Sweet life.

I've spent a lot of time with Becca this week. She is trying to pick out a site for her wedding ceremony, as well as her reception, because she is now ENGAGED. Another one of my best friends, engaged. And Bec and I have been friends since kindergarten, which is just so scary to think about. I get to be the maid of honor in her wedding too...I feel so popular. By the time I ever get married, I'm going to be a pro at the whole wedding thing. I drove all over with Bec and looked at reception halls, country clubs, etc. We narrowed down her list, which is nice because Tim doesn't exactly want to pick from 15 places. Ha. It's been quite an adventure but lots of fun. I wish I could say more, but I feel like this blog has gone on forever!

I should finish up with this: I have successfully made my computer work again! I printed out the disassembly instructions, which were relatively easy to find online. Dad basically took it all apart for me, but I put it back together all by myself (or almost all by myself...close enough). Becca was here, and we tried to figure it all out together. I tried to keep the screws all separate, but there were like 30 of them (literally) and it was so hard to know what went there. And then I got it together, but the touchpad didn't work. So I took it apart, and put it back together, and it worked...but then stopped. I must have taken it BACK apart 5 or 6 times. Dad finally explained, when he got home, that there was a certain way I needed to latch the wires. Right. Anyway, it works now :) And I'm SO SO happy.

Plans for the next few days: tomorrow, I am going with Bec to look at one more place (I think we're both getting a little tired of this) and then babysitting tomorrow night. After I get done babysitting (around midnight) I'll be driving all the way to Ripon. The next day I'll be going to a wake/funeral for one of my sorority sister's dads, who passed away unexpectedly. I didn't know him, but I want to support her, and I cried when I read the e-mail. It's such a terrible thing for anyone to have to deal with, and it makes me terrified for my own parents. I don't always tell them how much I appreciate them, but while they're reading this, I hope they know. I love them SO, SO, SO much, and have absolutely no idea what I would do without them. I can't imagine not having them around, and even the thought makes me cry. I have wonderful parents.

After the funeral, I'll be driving back home for Dani's bachelorette party. I know it'll be a lot of fun, but I don't really know that I'll be in the mood for a party. Hopefully it'll all work out alright.

And now, I'm going to read for a while and then go to bed. I'm so exhausted these days, I can never stay up past 10:30 anyway. Sweet life.

Adventures in Madison: Shopping, Sailing, and a Little Accidental Swimming

I've had a really good weekend so far. I work tomorrow morning at 5:30 am, so it feels like my weekend ends today. At any rate, it's been wonderful.

On Friday, I really wanted to sleep in. However, we're re-doing the roof and that started bright and early. BRIGHT and early. It woke me up at 6:50. Sad day. But I started this massive deep clean of my room. I want to be able to use my desk--I've never used it because I've always piled stuff in it. 21 years worth of stuff. I'm cleaning it out! I also helped clean up shingles that Dad and Chris tossed down. That was not fun--I really don't like shingles. At least I wasn't on the roof...so dang hot.

Friday night I babysat for a few hours. It was super easy--we played Monopoly for what seemed like forever, and then just chilled. I helped Meghan put some music on her iPod. Exciting stuff.

I woke up at 6 this morning, got dressed, and left for Madison at 6:30. I made it to Madison at about 8:45. Missy and I then wandered around--did some shopping, etc. We had an early lunch at about 10:30 (Buffalo Wild Wings...mmm!) and then we went sailing! Missy has been taking sailing lessons this summer, and she took me out on Lake Mendota. There wasn't a whole lot of wind...at all...but we had a good time. The weather was gorgeous, and it was really nice to just hang out and catch up with Missy. Well...for me it was hanging out...for Missy it was a lot of work. But it was still fun. Our only problem was when we needed to put the boat back. We got to the dock, but weren't sure where I should sit while Missy was taking everything down. We really struggled with tying the boat to the dock. Our boat almost tipped completely. I definitely ended up in the water, which felt pretty great actually. But then I couldn't get back on the boat, or the dock, so I had to swim to shore. I just about cried from laughing so hard--I'm pretty sure it was funny for everyone to watch too.

After sailing, we got ice cream and sat outside in the sun. It was wonderful--super relaxing, and not TOO hot. We went back to Missy's apartment, and I left for home around 3:15ish.

Now I can see that I am sunburned--it just showed up. Earlier Missy and I talked about the fact that she was clearly a little burned, and I looked fine. Not sure why my burn is always delayed, but it did show up. Oh well, it'll fade. And maybe I'll actually get tan? Ha.

All-in-all, it was a really great time. I'm exhausted, which is good because I have to go to bed in a few hours. I'm getting really tired of waking up early for work--going back to Ripon will be amazing. I'll be able to sleep in and everything--pretty sure my classes don't start until 10. That'll be great.

GRE = DONE

I am OFFICIALLY done with the GRE. Done. DONE!

I took it this morning at 10:30. At 7, I got up and went for a two mile run. I took my time getting ready. Had a dance party while doing my hair. I even put on makeup (it made me feel more confident--I would have worn skinny jeans and heels if it wasn't completely impractical).

They told me to arrive 30 minutes early, so I left around 9. I was there around 9:45--parked a few streets down to avoid parking tickets. I can never to go UWL without getting a parking ticket. However, I didn't get a ticket today :)

I was ridiculously nervous. But I think it went ok. I did the two writing sections, which didn't seem bad at all. The verbal seemed kind of scary, but I've done really well on verbal on the practice tests I've done. The quantitative section was not as scary as anticipated. It didn't seem EASY, don't get me wrong. But I didn't panic (like I did on the first few practice tests). And the research section, where they test out new questions? It was verbal, and seemed super easy. That section doesn't factor into my grade, though.

After I finished the test, it asked me if I wanted to view my scores...or cancel that screen. I sat there for a minute or two...I mean, it's kind of scary. What if I did terrible? But, I decided it really didn't matter. I can always take it again if necessary.

So...I got a 1320. 660 on the verbal, 660 on the quantitative. For the verbal, I'm pretty sure that's a good score. I've been getting around the same score on practice tests, and it puts me around the 90th percentile usually. For the quantitative, I don't think it's a GREAT score, but I think it's a little higher than average. I had been scoring around a 590 on practice tests, which put me in the 50th percentile.

In 10-15 days, I'll receive my official score results in the mail. They'll tell me the real percentiles, so it'll be much easier to interpret my scores. For now, I'm going to say that they are good enough, and just be happy. I'm done!

Now onto fun stuff--making fruit pizza, veggie pizza, and taco dip for the bridal shower I'm hosting tonight! And now my blogs won't be about boring things like studying :)

Reunited again: A weekend of good food, great movies, more good food, and one of my favorite people ever!

I've realized I miss blogging every day. It's really nice to look back on your day, and try to sum it all up nicely. We miss so much when we don't look back at things. I don't ever want to get so caught up that I fail to appreciate (or at least recognize) everything going on around me.

I had the BEST weekend with Lissa. After getting up terribly early on Friday, I worked for a few hours and then met Dad and Eric. We were supposed to look at cell phones at both Sprint and US Cellular. Dad and Eric were all done looking and figuring things out before I left work. Sad day. But it looks like we'll be switching to Sprint, and I've already picked out a phone. SUPER excited :)

I don't like the eye doctor, and I'm not sure why. It's not like the dentist, which is always miserable. Going to the eye doctor is completely painless. I just don't like it. Luckily, it went pretty quickly, and my eyes are exactly the same as they were last time :)

After visiting the eye doctor, Dad, Eric, and I went to Carlos O'Kelly's. Dad jokes that it's an Irish-ican restaurant. Or a Mex-ish. Ha. But really...it is. It's mostly Mexican. but they have Irish mashed potatoes. What?

Then I drove to Ripon--met up with Liss and Luke. Liss made chicken and dumplings for dinner, and she bought chocolate milk because we both love it :) After Luke left, Lissa and I watched movies on the Wii via Netflix! It was fun. We watched The Proposal, because we both love it (I should probably just buy that movie, but I'm still broke). And we watched some made-for-tv movie that was really terrible. But of course, we watched the entire thing because it was too funny.

We went to the bar to meet Kate' and her friend for a drink. It was PACKED. Ripon had this event thing, and then were so many people--both outside listening to the live band, and in the bar. Wow. We only stayed out for a drink...getting up at 4 am made me sleepy.

On Saturday, Liss and I decided to go to garage-sales before we went to the mall. It was a good choice. She wrote down addresses, and we programmed them into my GPS. However, the first few didn't actually exist, which was a little frustrating and definitely disappointing. It was, still, quite a bit of fun. We did end up finding some--ones that we knew about, and ones on random signs that we followed :) We bought some really random, miscellaneous things: a book about everyday life in Wisconsin (I'll probably give it to a sorority sister from another state); a really old, musty book of fairytales (for another friend); measuring cups (something Liss needed); and an end table. The end table was pretty great. It's a fairly small table, but very sturdy and nice. Plus it was only three dollars! Of course, after we bought it, we realized that it wouldn't fit in my trunk. And we couldn't put it in the backseat because the door didn't open wide enough. As it turns out, it fit nicely in the front seat. We decided to end our garage-sales adventures there, since Liss had to sit in the back for the rest of the day!

We went to lunch at Hu-Hot, the Mongolian Grill that is just awesome. And then we went to the mall. Macy's, Target, a cooking store, etc. It was pretty random, but a lot of fun. And just what I needed :) Oh, we also went to DSW to look at shoes, and on a wim, we explored the store next door--World Market. I'm in LOVE. It was quite similar to Pier 1, but so much better. There is a wonderful food/wine section, from all around the world. I FOUND MCVITTIE'S DIGESTIVES! I had them all the time in Wales, but couldn't find them anywhere here. But now I have, and I'm beyond happy :)

It did start pouring, which cut our shopping trip short. Liss had left the windows open back in Ripon! I made Liss stand at the mall doors with our stuff while I ran to get my car. I literally ran, and still got soaked. It was bad. I lost my shoe twice--it got suctioned to the ground :( And once, it got sucked into a little river of water flowing toward a drain. I had to CHASE my shoe--no doubt looked like an idiot. But it was all good in the end.

Liss and I ordered delivery from Roadhouse--pizza (canadian bacon and bacon, hahahaha) and broccoli bites. So good. We watched a couple movies--The Princess and the Frog (Liss was really excited, ok) and She's Out of My League, which was really funny! And then, since Lissa had to work at 7, we went to bed.

I slept like a rock on Lissa's futon, which is nice because I haven't been sleeping well here at all. Yet somehow, I'm exhausted again. I did study for a few hours this morning, since Lissa was at work and Luke wasn't back yet. I'm sure the math is getting easier, but it still sucks. Have I mentioned yet how much I HATE the GRE and will probably fail, and then have to be a bum for the rest of my life? Ok, so it's not quite the bad, and I'll still have a Bachelor's degree in a year, so that should count for something, somewhere.

And with that, I'm off to bed. I only work on Tuesday this week, which is good because I take the GRE on Thursday and then have Dani's bridal shower that evening :) I am NOT setting an alarm tomorrow. Here's to hoping I can sleep past 7!

"I got MAIL! But it's from a lawyer? Awkward.."

I'm so sick of studying.

Not even kidding. If I don't do well on the GRE, and have to re-take it, I might just boycott grad school. I could live on the streets back in Segovia, Spain. I'll admit, doing practice problems hasn't been too bad. I mean, it's really exciting when I get them right--especially if I didn't know how to do the problem before studying. But it's also really disappointing whenever I get one wrong. Bah. I would just like to be done.

I took a practice test a few days ago--I downloaded free GRE prep software from ETS (ETS administers the test) and it came with two practice exams. I got a 1240. Which is a decent score, I'd say. Not that I REALLY know. Trying to figure out what the average score is has been terrible. Different websites say different things--most say that for the quantitative, I should aim for a 700. 700! Each section is out of 800. Anyway, the software did give me percentiles, so that gives me a pretty good idea of where I am at. For the verbal, I got 650, which is in the 92nd percentile. That's pretty good, probably because studying vocab is much more fun than studying math. For the quantitative (ie math) my score was 590, which is in the 51st percentile. So, really average. It works, I suppose, but I want to do really well (hence even more studying). There is NO way I will get a 700 on the quantitative section, haha. But maybe a really good verbal section will make up for my stupid quant score? I can only hope!

I take the test a week from today! I'm not excited to take it--though to be honest, I'm not nervous yet either. I just want to get it over with, and then never have to worry about it again.

Other than studying, I've just been working at Macy's this week. Lots of work, super early in the morning. It makes me really tired, and I can't wait to be able to sleep in again. I've been getting mail, which is usually pretty exciting. But lately, I've been getting letters from lawyers, etc. They read in the police report (stalkers!) that I was in a car accident, and they are interested in representing me. However, I wasn't at fault for the accident, and insurance is paying for the minor repairs. Funny thing...although the damage seems pretty minor, fixing it will cost the insurance company almost $1500. Ridiculous!

The most recent letter was pretty amusing--it wasn't from a lawyer. It was from the Wellness Foundation in La Crosse. They "heard" that I was recently involved in a car accident. Haha. At any rate, they wanted to inform me of the importance of taking care of your body. Injuries from an accident may not appear for months, but they could be there. So, the Wellness Foundation is offering me a FREE "stress reducing, tension-alleviating, doctor-supervised massage." Which, actually, sounds pretty good, although I'm not sure why it has to be supervised? I just have to redeem it within 10 days. The normal value of the massage is $127. But I feel like a faker--let's be real, I DON'T have whiplash. Even my car is barely injured. I hope they sent a certificate for a free massage to the lady of the pale pink Mary Kay cadillac--not only did she get hit harder, but she seemed a little stressed about all of it!

Alright--this has been a nice study break, but back to studying it is. Once it gets a little cooler out, I'll go for a run. And then it'll be to bed early again, because I need to be up at 4:15 tomorrow. But, after work, I am going to the eye doctor, meeting Dad to look at new cell phones (!) and then driving to Ripon to visit LISSA!! It'll be a wonderful weekend, again :)

The beginning of my FAVORITE month.

Well, a lot has happened since the last time I blogged. I doubt I can remember it all, but let's see if I can sum it up.

I didn't get ANY hours at Macy's last week (which is ok, because this week I work about 16 hours). However, I did babysit since it's hay season. I love love LOVE babysitting, and sometimes I wonder why I stopped. I guess I got busy, and finding a "real" job seemed more important. But babysitting is pretty great. I watched these two boys, ages 6 and 8. We had tons of fun--they have five week old puppies! I may have fallen in love with every single puppy. Too bad I have nowhere to PUT a puppy. We also went to the pool AND the Children's Museum. They told their mom that I am the world's best babysitter. I'm pretty much awesome. Probably because I actually play with them. We rode bikes, and I learned about the "green machine" which is similar to the bike, kind of, but is low to the ground and made to do 180s. We spent quite a bit of time on the trampoline as well, and my entire body is STILL sore. Ouch.

Then on Friday, it was my 21st BIRTHDAY! My friend Melisa came to visit--she was in Wales with me, and is visiting until Monday :) Anyway, we met up with Becca in La Crosse and went to see the movie Grown-Ups. It was good, I guess, but not as great as I had hoped. My expectations were so high--I really love Adam Sandler movies. Lately I seem to be a bit of a movie critic...I didn't like the latest Twilight movie either. Dani and I went to the midnight premiere, with about 9382452 million preteens. We both agree--the acting is just terrible. But mightnight movies are fun, so it was alright.

Back to my birthday--after the movie, we went down to Riverfest for a while. Not quite as exciting as I remembered...but then again, I used to go more when I was a kid, and everything is more exciting then. It's bigger and better. We DID get some mini donuts, because those are amazing.

Then we drove to Westby, to Becca's apartment, and hung out until Tim got home from work, a little after 6. He was our wonderful DD for the night, and I can't thank him enough. Bec, Tim, Melisa, and I decided on dinner at Olive Garden since Melisa had never been there. We did, however, swing by American Eagle first because I only had shorts--but Becca bought me these heels I REALLY wanted, and we decided that I needed to wear them...which I couldn't do with shorts. I now own skinny jeans--something I thought I would NEVER wear. They are dark and skinny, and just awesome. Plus they were like $14. My birthday present to myself :)

Ashley, her boyfriend Eric, and her mom Rose met us at Olive Garden at 8. It was a late dinner, but it worked. And it was delicious...I love chicken alfredo. I had a strawberry daquiri, which was pretty good. Our waitress was really nice. She was one of the many people who wished me a happy birthday :)

After Olive Garden, we went downtown. We went to a number of different bars--most offered a free drink or shot for 21st birthdays. One required me to ride around on a stuffed horse first (which is funny because I didn't even want that shot--I gave it to Ashley) and another required me to run around ringing a bell, telling everyone that it was my birthday. Colby met up with us downtown, and I ran into another old friend, Kyle.

My friends made sure that I was properly outfitted. Tiara, sash, flashing button, and shot glass necklace. It was certainly an attention-getter. I had SO many people who noticed the button and wished me a happy birthday. One guy noticed the tiara and sash, and asked if someone was getting married. Haha. No. I'll stick with celebrating wonderful birthdays for a while.

I probably disappointed the bartender at the second-to-last bar, as I only consumed water. But he was a good sport, and water was probably a good choice. (Look Mom, I'm all responsible and stuff). Our last stop was Brothers, because if you run around ringing that silly bell, you get a birthday cup, and free beer in the cup. However, at that point, I really didn't want another drink--so I ran around, got my cup, and promptly dumped out the beer in the bathroom sink so I could go sleep. Ha.

Tim was the best DD ever, and he made sure that we all got back to their apartment. I'm feeling quite fine today, which is good. It was a ridiculously fun night. We had a fishbowl (which took forever to drink) at Who's on Third, and weren't sure if we could keep the bowl--but we wanted to, so Ashley snuck it out under her shirt. Typical Ashley, to be honest. I love it :)

I had a really good birthday, with my family early in the day, and my friends later. Mom made ice cream pie, which is my FAVORITE, and it was just an all-around great day. I'll be celebrating my birthday again next weekend, because I will be taking a trip to visit Liss in Ripon! I'm super excited, because it feels like forever since I've seen her. Not ok. It'll be another really great weekend.

To finish up this weekend, we'll be hanging out tomorrow and then going to fireworks at Riverside. I love this holiday!

Summer fun and misfortune.

Other than studying for the GRE, I've been having a lot of fun. Last week, my best friend Becca turned 21 and I went out for dinner with her. This week I'll be 21, and then we can go downtown together!

Then last Friday, Becca and I road-tripped to Six Flags Great America. It was a lovely 4-ish hour drive. We set my GPS to speak in a British accent, which turned out to be quite hilarious when we took a wrong turn on the way home (it tried to make us go down a gated road that allowed "no thru traffic." Overall the day was pretty great. We had Taco Bell before the rides. We wanted Subway, but my GPS took us to Rainforest Cafe instead, so we settled for Taco Bell. We spent about 9 hours going on rides, and somehow managed to avoid sunburn (and tans. hmm). I did, however, manage to lose a shoe.

Well, I didn't lose it precisely. It was replaced with another shoe...I had to take off my nice (cheap but great) Old Navy flip-flops for the Superman ride. When I got back off the ride, I only had one of my steely blue colored shoes. Rather than having another, I had a gray Old Navy flip-flop. Close, but no cigar.

The shoes had gotten all mixed together, and someone MUST have thought that one of my shoes was one of theirs. In reality, my shoe was a size bigger (but the difference was so tiny that you could barely notice) and a different color. At that point, what do you do? No WAY would I walk around Six Flags barefoot. So...I wore the stranger's shoe. Becca and I chased down all the girls who were on the ride with us--none of them had it. Fail. But it was kind of funny, really, and the shoes were so cheap that it didn't really matter. Plus Mom bought me two new pairs on Sunday...for $3.61, which is why I love Old Navy's flip-flops.

Today was also an interesting day--another fun story. Well, maybe fun isn't QUITE the right word. I met Dani for her first wedding dress fitting, which WAS quite fun. And then we got some ice cream at the Pearl and ate it down on Riverside. Then, I drove home. Or started to. You see, there was a bit of a delay when I got rear ended on West Ave.

I can't really blame the woman who was behind me. She got rear ended first, which led her to hitting me. I pulled up to the stoplight on West Ave, to turn onto Mormon Coulee. There were two cars in front of me, and I saw this woman pulling up behind me. I watched her pull up, trying to determine if her car was white, or a really pale pink. I had just decided that it was pink (and that she was going to stop--something I always wonder when people drive up behind me). She did stop--but the person behind her didn't.

She must have been right behind me. I heard a loud thump, and then I FELT a thump, and it scared the CRAP out of me. It took me a minute to figure out what happened, and then I got out of my car to look at the back. It looked almost fine, just some minor damage. And the other two people got out of their cars to look at their cars...but then got back in. I had NO idea what to do, so I got in my car. I couldn't stay there anyway, because no one would have been able to turn properly. I immediately called Mom, who made me call Dad. Dad made me go back to the accident--had to be recorded on the accident report, in case there was damage to my car that I hadn't noticed.

I parked across the street and went over to the two women outside. They clearly had no idea why I was there, and I had to explain that I had been hit too. I don't really think they believed me, until they looked at the front of the pink car. The lady of the pale pink Mary Kay caddy was not pleased. I can't really blame her--I was just the bearer of MORE bad news. But she could have been nicer. At any rate, I talked to the police officer, etc., and then Dad came to check things out.

I'm pretty lucky to have my parents so involved in my life. I'm sure they've gotten used to me calling them for everything. There is so much that I don't know, and I can always count on my parents to help. I've progressed from simple questions ("Mom, does chocolate stain?" to more complicated ones ("Why do guys suck?" and "I just got rear ended...what am I supposed to DO?!"). It's never-ending, really, but my parents have always been there to help me. Sometimes they just laugh--I suppose that's what I get for locking my keys in my car WHILE IT'S RUNNING (whoops...that was a while ago, really). But in the end, they always make me feel better--and help me figure things out.

I'd be so lost without my parents. I hope they know it too.

More studying = less confidence.

My life has slid into a nice little routine. I work 2-3 times a week. When I come home from work, I run. And then, I study for the GRE. Days when I don't work? I study for the GRE.

I'm actually studying now, not like when I was in Wales and I thought about studying, and occassionally did it. I've spent so much time studying already that it's not funny. But the sad part is this: the more I study and do practice tests, the less prepared I feel. WHAT IS THIS? This isn't fair.

I have been studying flash cards with vocab in whatever free time I can find. I actually have been learning words, and it's fun to use them when talking to people. It does make me feel smarter, to be able to recognize all these words that were previously unfamiliar to me. Posterity, perfidy, indefatigability, augery, and the list goes on. Some of the words on my flashcards are words that I know, but never use. I'm trying to fix that.

I checked out a book from the library, and have been going through it slowly. I've reviewed antonyms, analogies, sentence completion, and reading comprehension. I can do ok at all of it, but I'd really like to do well. The only part I am completely confident about is sentence completion. I like sentence completion...it's easy. The rest is alright--I think the problem with antonyms and analogies is that I don't know enough of the words to be able to maybe educated guesses. Time to study more vocab, I guess.

I'm not excited to review the math parts. I feel like I didn't learn much math in high school. It's the geometry that gets me, really. I hardly even remember the class--I just know everything was open book, so I didn't have to remember anything. I used to love math...when I had math classes and knew what was going on. Hopefully it'll get easier, or this test will not go well.

Speaking of the test itself, I'm taking it on July 15th. A Thursday. And then that evening, I am hosting a bridal shower for Dani--her wedding is very early in September, and I'm excited :)

I think I need to find something to do OTHER than work and study the GRE, because it's awfully depressing. Even running (which I've somehow still been doing) isn't that exciting. I need a hobby. Except I barely have time to read for fun--I've been too busy reading everything related to the GRE. Today, at least, I'm going to a party with my parents. And then we might have a little fire and maybe some s'mores. That might be my favorite part of summer :)

It's off to work I go...

I've been really enjoying my summer so far. Updates since the last time I blogged:

1) Melissa had her graduation party. It's always nice to have lots of people around, and I definitely enjoyed all the food we had. I did get a LITTLE bit tired of making small talk with people I don't know very well. But really, for the most part, I had a really good time. Played the wii for a little while, showed off wonderful pictures from WALES :) I like parties.

2) I've been working at Macy's for almost two weeks now. I really like it, except for the getting up part. I've been getting up at 3:45 am so that I can leave by 4:15 am. This week, I worked Mon-Wed mornings. Getting up becomes easier once I do it a few days in a row--which is nice, because getting up is never my favorite. I've been going to bed at 9...feel like a cool kid.

3) I wanted something quick to eat for breakfast. You know, like granola bars. I don't like the Quaker ones...too sweet, or something. I got some with real oats and honey. Except I don't really like honey. I can deal with it in small quantities. If I could cover these granola bars in a thin layer of chocolate, they'd probably be perfect.

4) Ralph Lauren makes some classy clothes. I'd know, I marked down about 28375920635283546 polos this morning. So if you need men's polos, go to Macy's. However, I would not buy pants from Ralph Lauren. They have some basic pants, that aren't too bad--I marked those down today. There was a style of pants that did not get marked down, but I'm thinking they will soon. They were not attractive--I'd laugh if I saw someone wearing them. The fabric is pretty hideous. I wouldn't even use if for curtains. Maybe a small decorative pillow--in moderation, it's probably not so bad. The colors are very muted and dull, very depressing. It's maroon and brown--PAISLEY. Quite the combination. These are mens' pants, mind you. I have to wonder what the designer was thinking, and what the buyers for Macy's were thinking when they agreed to sell the pants in our stores.

5) I have fun with the scanners at work. The new ones are wonderful--you can scan the barcode, and it prints you a nice little label. But they are hard to load, and there are only a few of them. There are a lot more of the old scanners. With those, you also have to carry around a mini-printer for labels. It's pretty sweet, having a printer hanging from your waste. Also, the old scanners are heavier and more challenging. I used one this morning, and I don't really know how to work it. I mean, I can SCAN stuff. But that's it, and I can't change the scanning mode. I also don't know how to MAKE it print if the price isn't really new. One last complaint--the old scanners don't display the time, so I have no concept of what time it is while I am working. I tried to gauge by the amount of sunlight streaming in the doors. I think I'm pretty accurate...but I could just be lying to myself. It's not like I could check the time to see if I estimated right. And let's be real--I'm a TERRIBLE estimator. Never trust any estimations I make, because they will not be the least bit accurate. Sad but true.

I think that's it for the exciting updates so far. I don't work any more this week, but I do have some fun plans :) I'll be doing dinner with an old friend (Colby) on Thursday, and then Becca and I will be hanging out on Friday! Not that I have money to do anything fun, ha. Oh well--I really just like to hang out with my friends and talk. It's something that I've really missed, and it's nice to be able to do that, now that I'm home!

Summer employment? Yes, please.

Well, it's been a pretty good week. I've spent most of my time at home, doing virtually nothing. Read a few books, watched "Dear John" online.

On Tuesday, I went with Becca to her brother's baseball game. He graduates this week, which is a little weird. Everyone in his class seems way too young to be graduating. I mean, they were just scrawny little kids last time I saw them. But I guess it was three years ago that I graduated. THREE YEARS? Wow. That's just ridiculous. I haven't been out of high school that long...have I? I've hardly done anything!

But I guess that's not true--I have been at Ripon for three years. And I've done plenty.  I joined a sorority (Alpha Delta Pi--the first, the finest, forever), volunteered for Big Brothers Big Sisters, planned events like Relay for Life on campus, and the list goes on. I even (as we all know) spent a semester abroad. I guess I have done a lot--but the time feels like it just flew by. It doesn't even feel real!

I had a job interview with Macy's this morning. They don't really hire many people for the summer anymore, so I wasn't overly optimistic. Buuuuut...I got a job! I really love interviewing. I've had a little bit of practice now, and I have answers ready for most questions. It was great. I'll be doing "pricing" work, which is apparently rather monotonous. And I start work tomorrow morning....at 6 am. I'll need to leave before 5:15 to be there on time--I wish the mall wasn't so far away. It looks like I'll be working mornings, monday-wednesday, usually from 5 or 6 to 10 or 11. So...plenty of time for another job if I'm able to find more work. Which, in all honesty, would be really nice. I'm a starving college student who has more students loans than I know what to do with. I do have two jobs lined up at Ripon for the fall, which will be nice.

So, I'll be going to bed early tonight so that I can work tomorrow. How exciting! And, speaking of exciting things happening this week, I got some pictures developed from my semester abroad--they arrived today. Having printed copies of pictures from my travels is just wonderful. I can't wait to display them; it makes it all seem more real. I really did go to all these places, I swear!

A return to blogging?

Well, it's been requested that I start blogging again. I can't say that my life is all that exciting, or that my blogs will be quite as interesting as they were when I was abroad, but I suppose I do have a lot that I could talk about. So far this summer:

1. I finished my final from Wales--it was emailed to me a few days ago. That's how I got to come home early! It was two essay questions, and I'm really just glad to be completely done.
2. Lissa graduated from college (whoa!) and moved into her new apartment. It's weird that we are old enough to do things like get an apartment. And it's really weird not having her at home. But at the same time, it's very exciting. She is looking for a part-time job, and then in the fall, she will complete her student-teaching in the Ripon area. Her apartment is in Ripon, which will be nice when I am back there. I'll have my own room next year, but I'm still looking forward to spending time in her grown-up apartment.
3. Mom graduated from college too! She graduated summa cum laude with a 3.9 GPA. Ridiculous, huh? Actually, it's very impressive, and she should be proud.
4. I bought a dress. I couldn't help myself. Becca convinced me to "just try it on" and, being as it fit perfectly and was on sale, I really couldn't resist.
5. I painted some walls in the house, painted the trim around some doors, and have been staining the deck. Pretty much the most exciting life ever. No really, I don't mind it. It's been a little...interesting, though. Mom's very concerned about keeping the new concrete perfectly clean, and I may have dumped over my white trim paint. About 45 minutes of panic, and scrubbing frantically with a scrub brush, it actually looks like new. Crisis averted.
6. My little brother made me dinner last night. Granted, it was basically a cheese burger (with much improvisation due to a lack of ingredients) but it was incredibly exciting. I mean, first of all, he is old enough that we can trust him to operate kitchen electronics. And second...I remember the days where he wouldn't even make himself food if he was starving. He offered to make food for me last night--like I'd say no to that!
7. I've completed my first attempt at making strawberry gelato. I'll be leaving it in the freezer overnight, and hoping it ends up alright. We don't have an ice cream maker, so for the last 4 hours or so, I've been taking it out of the freezer and stirring it by hand every 30 minutes. It tastes pretty much like strawberry ice cream, which is both bad and good. It's good because that means it tastes good. But it's bad because strawberry gelato is about 845962456 times better than ice cream. So, I'll probably try a different recipe next time.
8. I've applied to quite a few jobs now, and will continue to do so until I find something. I really need to work this summer, since I opted out of nannying so that I could be home with my family. I did have an interview with a temp agency, and hopefully that will lead to something. Wish me luck. And Lissa too--she had a summer job lined up, but somehow it was given to someone else, which is crap. But, we've both been applying to every job imagineable. I even applied at Harley-Davidson, since they were looking for someone to work in their clothing department.

I suppose that's all for now. I'm thinking that I'll blog again, early next week, hopefully with a few good stories. I do manage to stay busy somehow.

Apr 27, 2010--On the Road Again!

So I blogged earlier (on Tuesday) to say that Melisa & I were going out. But what we meant was that we were leaving Bangor. I've spent the past two days cleaning and packing. It was really exciting, but also sad.

Melisa and I had dinner together, then hung out until our train left. Kat and Lauren hung out too, and helped us carry our stuff to the train station. The train ride was kind of long, but it was easy. Melisa and I have a good time late at night. From Manchester Picadilly, we took a long bus ride to Manchester airport. It was sketchy, but totally hilarious. We're a little bit loud at 12:30 in the morning...we got a few funny looks.

Getting to the airport was easy, but tiring. By the check-in desks, there were literally no chairs, so we sat on the ground all night. There was a 24-hour convenience store that we took turns going to. I got a sandwich, a candy bar, and a soda--a meal. However, the machine would not process my credit card. It didn't "deny" it, but it would say "processing" and then freeze. I tried twice, then I stepped aside because a line had appeared behind me. I let about 10 people go, and then tried the third time. It was definitely the machine, and not my card, and the cashier definitely felt bad for me. I offered to use my other card, my debit card, but he just gave me the meal for free :) I get really lucky--strangers are nice to me.

We had quite a few hours until we could check in and go. We just hung out on the floor and tried to stay awake. We wandered around, and played with the pay phones. There were some girls that boarded a plane at 4 am to Alicante, Spain...and they were wearing neon colored tutus with matching leg-warmers and heels. What?! I was trying to figure out whether they were coming from somewhere where they had been wearing that, or going somewhere that required that attire. It was strange.

At around 6:30/7, we were able to check-in for our flight and go through security. Then we hung out on the other side, and filled out forms for customs. We had to go through extra security before boarding the plane--thanks American Airlines. I got patted down and thoroughly searched. Not exciting, but the lady was very nice, and she tried not to disturb everything in my bag while she searched.

The flight was a lovely 8 hours, after the 8 hours in the airport. We were able to watch "The Blind Side" but I opted to attempt to nap during that. They gave us some crackers and soda, then a hot lunch (beef stroganoff, which wasn't very good), and then another snack (ham sandwich, candy, etc). It was nice, and I got around 4-5 hours of sleep. It took us forever to get through immigration--we took turns being questioned about where we had been, and why, etc. Then we had to wait 30 minutes for our luggage...lame. Customs was a joke--I handed them my piece of paper and they waved me through.

My family was waiting there, and I started crying when I saw them. I was excited, but tired, and I missed them. We drove to Panera, where we ate lunch :) I have missed Panera! I love soup :) Then we drove to Madison, where we dropped Melisa off with her family, and my parents took me to my car.

I drove from Madison back to Ripon, where I had plans to meet Leslie and Melissa at Christiano's. Melissa had no idea that I was coming :) I asked Leslie to make dinner plans with her so that I could surprise her. I was supposed to meet them in the parking lot, but my GPS didn't know where Christiano's was, so I had to detour toward Ripon first. So, I ended up meeting them inside. They sat at a booth, with Leslie facing me and Melisa facing away. I slid into the booth next to Liss (crying, of course). She was shocked, but very happy to see me. We had a good dinner--mmm chicken alfredo :)

Then we hid at Cady's apartment for about an hour. I called a "candlelight" for my sorority. All the girls got together at 9 pm, but only Leslie, Lissa, Cady, and I knew why. The other girls had no idea what was going on, and were SHOCKED when I walked in. And then they all freaked out. It was amazing :)

Since then, I've just been hanging out in Ripon. I can't imagine that I will have anything else to blog about, but I'm going to miss blogging. So maybe I'll blog every so often about my summer adventures. I don't really have anything planned, but I'm still beyond excited!! Oh, if interested, check out Facebook for all of my lovely pictures. I can't wait to print some and hang them up!

Operation QEII

I wish today had been more exciting. However, it was still a pretty great day.

I woke up, showered, and went to class at 11. There were, again, only 6 people there. I didn't even want to go, since I've finished my paper, and I won't be tested on any of this. But I went because I feel like I should be there, plus I feel bad because no one goes! As it turns out, it really was a big waste of time. He didn't even have an actual lecture--instead he gave us a brief overview of next years Soc Theory class, and told us we should take it. We were only in class for 40 minutes.

After class, I decided I was both hungry and tired, so I went straight back to my room. I HAD planned on doing a little bit of stalking. The Queen came to Bangor today. I knew she was coming, but had NO idea why. I also knew where she would be--I got an email about which parking lots were off-limits, and when access to certain buildings would be restricted.

This morning, when Melisa went to her morning class, she learned the purpose of the Queen's visit...she was visiting her grandson HARRY who happens to LIVE NEARBY. Seriously? He's lived nearby (on the Isle of Anglesey) the entire time I've been here? I totally could have tried to meet him. Hahaha. Right. But seriously. He's been here?! Apparently the Queen chose to have her lunch in Bangor with some dignitaries, because she thinkgs Bangor is very pretty. I agree :) Look, I have something in common with the Queen.

Anyway, I didn't have much hope of actually seeing the Queen. There was security up and down the street, and I didn't feel like waiting outside the building for her. I'd be a terrible stalker, I'm much to lazy. One of the girls I've met (through Kat and Lauren) is from Germany but studying here, and she must have done a better job stalking than I, because I see she posted some pictures of the Queen in her car. Apparently a whole bunch of people lined up and down the street to see her? I didn't see those people when I was nearby, which makes me sad. I would have loved to see the Queen! But I've been pretty lucky anyway...I mean, I got to see the Pope last month.

At any rate, I met Melisa for lunch. We may have made a giant mess because we made buttered noodles, but dropped a bowl of noodles (and butter) all over the floor. We're not the most graceful girls, but it's ok :)

I took a nap, and cleaned some more today. My room looks beautiful :) After dinner, Melisa and I are going out. I don't plan on being back in time to blog tonight, so I'm posting my blog now. We're hoping to have lots of adventures tonight.

Bright, sunshiny days.

Surprisingly enough, having no class today made it...just like any other day. Hmm. I stayed up quite late last night, partially because I haven't been sleeping well, and partially because I knew I had no class, and I wanted to talk to everyone. I miss everyone!

I slept in until about 1:20...success :) I've been trying to sleep in lately, and just failing. I'm glad I was able to waste the early hours of the day sleeping :) Melisa and I had a late lunch, and then hung out until she had to go to class. Before her class, we went to the library to print our papers. I printed both my psych paper and my sociology paper. It took forever. Not kidding. It took me about 8 minutes to get the computer to log me in, and for everything to load. And then I couldn't get Internet Explorer to work. OMG. I am not a patient person, and waiting for the computer was painful. We had about 40 minutes to print stuff before Melisa's class started. She had to leave me because she had class, and I STILL WASN'T DONE. I did get it to work, though, and then I went and turned both of my papers in. It was quite exciting :)

It was SO nice out today. Sunny and warm. I keep forgetting my sunglasses when I go outside, because who really expects it to be super sunny in the UK? Definitely not me. I just wandered around squinting. I'm sure I looked funny, especially since I was feeling lazy today and I wore my sweatpants out. Ha. I think I've seen one person wearing sweatpants here, and she might have been an American. I find it kind of funny.

I spent the remainder of my afternoon REALLY cleaning my room. It makes me feel much better when my room is clean and organized. Then I went over to Melisa's room for dinner. We had pizza and watched some TV online.

After that, I just came back to my room and talked to people. I got to skype with Justine, and then my mom, which made me very happy :) I've been missing home a lot lately, but I know I'll miss Wales, so I've started a list of things that I will miss.

1) The mountains
2) The sea
3) Having my own room, with a private bathroom and shower.
4) Having endless amounts of free time.
5) Feeling very independent.
6) Drinking tea.
7) Making dinner each night (who knew I'd like that?)
8) Getting mail from home :) I get mail when I'm at Ripon, but it's not as great as the packages I've gotten while here.
9) Being able to hop on buses to just about anywhere, for just a few pounds.
10) Trivia nights!
11) The very moderate weather (which has been quite sunny as of late)

I'm sure there is more, but that's my list for today. I'm currently watching movies online, and I suppose I'll go to bed soon. I do have class tomorrow. Also, I'm hoping to see the Queen, because she'll be in Bangor. Details to come :)

Party in the USA?

I love doing nothing all day. It's quite nice. I got up around 11, and sat around. I looked over my two papers, and took a shower. Very mundane stuff, I know.

Melisa and I had lunch, and watched Coyote Ugly today. We mostly sat around and talked. I cleaned my room a little bit. It's been really messy, and it bothers me.

We also went to trivia tonight. Varsity has FREE trivia on Sunday nights. It was a lot of fun...Melisa, Kat, Lauren, Noelia, and I actually knew 22 answers...out of 70. Not the best, but we enjoyed it. I actually knew about 5 answers, which is very unusual for me. Some of the questions were about music, and some were about current movies, and I knew those :) Although, they played songs from this weeks UK top 40, and I waws highly disappointed in their top 40. Party in the USA? Still? AND...Killing in the Name of, by Rage Against the Machine. Those songs are not new, and I don't think they should still be in the TOP 40!

I might look over my papers one more time tonight...not like I have anything better to do. I'm going to print them both tomorrow...since I don't have class AT ALL. I guess it's like a continuation of the weekend, only Melisa has class so I'll just be...hanging out by myself. Exciting.

Dandelion and Burdock.

Today was a continuation of the dance movie marathon. It was pretty great! I woke up around 10:30...my body does not like sleeping any later than that, which is quite disappointing. I definitely wasted my morning online, and did nothing productive.

When Melisa woke up, we had lunch and watched Step Up. After that, we wandered down to the pier. It was SO nice out today, and I love going down to the pier. But the water is really low lately. In some spots, you can see the bottom 3/4 of the way across the strait. I'm not sure why--I will say that it hasn't rained (that I've noticed) since I've been back from break. And it didn't rain for three weeks before break either. The weather has been really strange.

After going to the pier, we decided to try to find some sheep. We went on a sheep-spotting mission. We found some benches along the road, and it was pretty so we hung out, watched sheep, and talked. It sounds so exciting, I know, but it was peaceful. It's really nice to just sit outside, but benches are hard to find. Apparently you need to walk along busy roads to find them?

Then, we watched Take the Lead, ran to the store, and had dinner. It's such a great life. We were told that we should try this soda--Dandelion and Burdock. They said it tastes like Dr. Pepper! But I smelled it, and it smelled like bubble gum. Melisa tried it (I really didn't think it was a good idea) and said it was like a mix between bubble gum and licorice. Not a good combination, actually, and she does not recommend it.

Other than watching movies and wandering around outside, it's been a very easy day. I still need to edit my papers, but I'm enjoying slacking. I guess I'll be doing that tomorrow, in between more dance movies ;)

Foucault fail.

Today was not an exciting day. I woke up with the same stupid headache I've had all week. Nothing makes it go away :( But other than that, things have been good.

I went to class from 11-12. I really didn't want to go. I knew there would only be a few people there, as always. And today we talked about Foucault. I don't know anything about Foucault, and I don't have the book. I never bought it, and I've done just fine without it. But the information that I found on Foucault was really...complicated. It was not easy to understand. So I kind of gave up trying to figure it out. Of course, there were THREE people in class, none of whom were supposed to present. Our TA asked us what we thought of Foucault, and I told him that I had been looking for information, but that it honestly made no sense. So he explained it all, which was nice. I can't say that his explanations made total sense either, but it made more sense than the info I found online. Oh, and I'm not excited to read about the next lecture, because apparently the theorist DELIBERATELY made his text as obscure and hard to read as possible. He thought that if it was too easy to interpret, it would just become a tool of society? I'm definitely not looking forward to reading that...

After class, I met Melisa for lunch, and then I napped. I have NOT been sleeping well at night, so I think I'm going to do a lot of napping this weekend. We don't have plans--Ireland was a bust last weekend, and we really aren't feeling motivated to try anything else. I'm looking forward to relaxing. We are having a movie watching weekend--and all the movies we are watching are dancing movies. We watched Dirty Dancing today, as well as Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights. I probably should have predicted how the second one would end, considering current relations between Cuba and the US. Kind of disappointing. Anyway, we've compiled a list of movies that we plan on watching this weekend. Between a few different online movie websites, and Youtube, I'm pretty sure we'll be able to watch all of them.

I do need to edit my two papers this weekend, but I'm not overly concerned. I don't have class Monday. In fact, I don't have my psych class for the last few weeks of the semester because he ran out of things to lecture about. I guess I'll enjoy my free time?

Oh, I also read Melissa's senior seminar paper today. I really enjoyed it, actually. It's about women during the Civil War. She got to analyze diaries of different women, which I think is pretty cool. It was way more interesting than any of the articles I read for my paper. Bah.

Other than that, today was a pretty laid-back day. My entire weekend will be like that, so don't expect particularly exciting blogs, although I'm sure I'll find something to write about ;)

An endless day of paper-writing and dance parties.

I set my alarm and got up around 10 to work on my paper. I finished reading my sources this morning. It was not exciting, and I spent an inordinate amount of time dancing around my room and listening to music, rather than working. I took a shower around noon, and went over to Melisa's for lunch.

After lunch, I came back and worked on my paper for a few hours. I started writing. As with my last paper, this one is taking forever because I take a break at least once or twice per paragraph. I KNOW I have plenty of time, which makes it really hard for me to focus. We had an early dinner, and I had a skype date with one of my best friends from home :)

I'm currently at 1811 words. I need "around 2500 words" and I think as long as I'm somewhere close, I won't care. I have another paragraph to write, and I can make a lovely, long conclusion full of bs. I really just don't care. On the bright side, this paper is turning out better than I thought I would. It's actually not a terrible paper, although it isn't very interesting.

We had quiz night tonight, which was exciting as always. I actually knew some answers this time. It made me feel smart. But I can never remember where I learned the answers. For example, "Which famous person in history had a horse named Marengo?" I knew that the answer as Napoleon. How do I know that? And why? Why are the only random facts I know about people like Napoleon?

I'll be up for a few more hours. I want to finish this paper, and maybe watch a movie. Why not? Tomorrow is Friday, and I only have one class. It's not like I can't NAP sometime.

The paper-writing never ends.

This is my attempt to blog before midnight (my time, of course).

I did very little today. I boycotted the gym (again) because I haven't been sleeping well. I keep trying to sleep in, and failing miserably. I think I might boycott the gym all week. I'm really trying to get these two papers done, but I have no motivation and they're kind of boring. It's not my fault--I don't have much freedom. At least I had options for my sociology paper, even if most of them were terrible choices. In order to get 2500 words, I think some sources are necessary. But some of the topics are very...theoretical, and stupid. Just stupid.

I did have lunch with Melisa. Her computer broke today...it's coming apart, at the section that connects the screen to the keyboard. It doesn't look good, although it still works. Her week really hasn't been getting better. Poor girl.

After lunch, I edited my psych paper a tiny bit. I'm going to do real editing this weekend, after Lissa checks it over. I figure I can edit both of my papers this weekend. Should be a really exciting weekend...

I went to my psych discussion class. We talked about the final exam, and went over a few questions from previous years. I'm really nervous about the final, because we covered quite a bit of information. But I have gone to class regularly, and I pay attention. Plus I'll have plenty of time to study before the exam. I also had to ask HOW and WHERE I turn in my psych paper--they tend to forget that this is the first and only paper I have to hand in for the psych department. But one of the girls from my class (a girl I've never seen before, mind you) took my down and explained everything to me. She was very nice :)

After class, Melisa and I hung out for a while. If her computer really does die, which it looks like it will, we'll probably be spending a lot more time in my room. You know, the one with a working computer. We did go back over to her room for dinner, since that is where all the food is. After dinner, I settled down to "work" on my paper. That means I've been kind of reading my articles for it, and finding useful information, while taking frequent breaks for Facebook, etc. I am very determined to finish this paper this week, though, so that I can edit both papers this weekend. I will get it done.

So...I'm on my fourth source for my sociology paper. Well, it's actually my fifth one. And I have SEVEN more. I was hoping to finish all the reading tonight. Bah. That probably won't happen. Maybe. I'm just so tired, and I've had this stupid headache all day. I'm contemplating staying up until I finish reading everything, and then sleeping in. But sleeping in has been a fail all week. I don't know. Maybe I'll pull an all-nighter, and then I can finish reading AND writing. It's not like I have class tomorrow...

I should probably blog before 12:30 the next morning :S

Today was very exciting. Well, ok, not that exciting. But I liked it :)

I went to class at 11. It was quite boring, and I'm not entirely sure why I still go. There isn't a final exam, and we've already covered the material that I'll be writing my paper about. But I feel like I SHOULD be there, and plus I feel bad for the professor. There were 6 people there today, and he actually said that it felt weird to lecture to six people. Poor guy. I guess I'll just keep going to class. It's not like I have anything better to do.

I skipped the gym again. I'm tired, and lazy. I figure it'll all be ok. I do want to go tomorrow though. I'll be productive, I promise.

I kept getting distracted today. I forgot to eat lunch, but instead snacked on a billion mini muffins today. Now those are gone :( But that's ok. I got to Skype with my mom and I loved it :) Someday I'll actually get to SEE her again, in person and all that. There might be a lot of crying. I miss my mom. But I suppose I'll see her soon(ish). I'm sure the time will fly by and all, like it has been. I just feel like I've been waiting forever!

I did some research today, and found about 10 articles that look like they should work for my sociology paper. That's what I'll be writing tomorrow--I am less than enthused. But I'm going to try to make it a good paper. I want to do well. It's frustrating though...I still don't know how I did on the last paper. Will I ever know? I wish I knew how things worked here!

I ALSO got to Skype with my lovely ADPi's today. I read a letter that I wrote to Angela, since she is a senior and all. I was successful at not crying, mostly. It was SO nice to see all my lovely ADPi's. I can't even explain how much I miss those girls. They've been so great the entire time that I've been done. Whenever I am lonely, or sad, or even happy, I know they want to hear all about it. They call me, and talk to me, and make me feel loved. I'm beyond excited to go back and hang out with them next semester!

There are so many things I am looking forward to. I have a little list:
1) Seeing my family and friends!
2) Eating and drinking stuff that they don't have here, like Twinkies, Mountain Dew and TACO BELL.
3) Being able to DRIVE myself places, and not hope that there is a bus that will take me near where I want to go.
4) Not having an accent.
5) Understanding everyone when they talk.
6) MY FRIEND DANI'S WEDDING (I'm her maid of honor this summer!)
7) Being able to spend money in DOLLARS instead of POUNDS. Ugh.
8) Sleeping in my own bed.
9) Being able to call and text everyone :)
10) Just being in the U.S. It's pretty fantastic, even in comparison to Europe.

Ok. That's probably good for now. I'm sure I've forgotten things, because I've just gone without them for so long! I guess it hasn't been too bad. Maybe tomorrow I will type up the list of things I'll miss, because there actually is one. Bangor really grew on me, and I know I'll miss it. Luckily I still have time to explore and enjoy it!

Good intentions...

Today was a randomly good day. I set my alarm so I could work out, but I woke up WAY early and my legs are still sore from my misadventures in Ireland. I went back to sleep instead, or tried to. Unfortunately, they like to clean the dorms on Monday mornings. Loudly. I'm surprised they didn't break any dishes in the kitchen. Maybe they did--they made enough noise.

I got up and had a lazy morning. I worked on the reference list for my psych paper. I went over to Melisa's for lunch, and hung out for a while. I got my stuff and went to class, but Melisa has been having a series of unfortunate events in her life lately, and I got a text saying she needed me. Class hadn't even started yet, so I got up and left. I got the notes though, because my professor prints them out for us. I'll read through them, no worries. I know he saw me leave, but it's ok--I haven't missed a class yet, and it was clear that I intended to be there.

So Melisa and I talked, and then decided we wanted to watch a "scary" movie. We couldn't pick a good one...so we picked a bad one. We watched the sequel to "The Ring" which was pretty terrible, but amusing. And it gave us something to do. Oh, we also went grocery shopping. We bought some miscellaneous food items, like scones and muffins. All necessary, really.

After hanging out and movie watching, we headed back over to Melisa's room for dinner. We made boxed macaroni and cheese (thanks family!) and it was great :) I did eventually come back to my room, and then I sat around and wasted time. I have been researching for my sociology paper. I'm trying to find sources--I figure that whatever topic I can find the most sources for is the one that I will do. But there is one topic that I think I like more than the others, so that's really the only one I've been researching. Ha. I've found about four articles. I figure I can check out the textbook from the library again, and I can cite lecture notes. So that's six, which isn't too bad. They don't really seem to care much here. But we'll see--I still don't know how I did on the last paper. I was told that no one failed, and that the papers had been passed on to the second grader. Maybe we'll get those back tomorrow? Bah. I might be too scared to look at it anyway :S

I need to get some work done tomorrow. I'd really like to get this second paper done, or at least partially done. I'm very impatient, but can't seem to settle down and start working. I guess I'll have to work on that!

Apr 19, 2010

Whoops. I got a little distracted yesterday, and was super tired...so I never posted my blog. But this was my day yesterday:

Considering that I didn't make it back until very early in the morning, I slept in. Melisa and I had lunch, and I wasted away my afternoon. I did absolutely nothing productive. I just didn't feel like it, after my incredibly long Saturday. So I talked to people all day :)

After dinner, I did finally work on my paper. 2757 words. I was told that I have 10% either way...so 2757 will be just fine :) I do need to finish my references, and I desperately need to edit the paper. I don't like it at all. It's going to need a lot of work. I'm not excited. But I'm SO relieved that I finished my draft. Now I can put it aside for a few days and write my sociology paper. Then I can edit both of them, and be done! Once my papers are done, all I have is one final to study for :)

I talked to my parents and my sister yesterday. I think they enjoyed my stories about Ireland. Well, maybe not. They weren't the best stories. I've decided that this week is going to go much better than last week. It helps that I only have to write one more paper--that doesn't seem like too much work. So I should have plenty of time to relax!