College & Beyond

1 Year Later

2011-09-16T11:47:00.002-04:00

Sadly, I have taken a year long break from blogging. A post should be arriving within the next week, so stay tuned!

Wicked Quick, Wicked Fun, Here Come Fawl

2010-08-20T11:02:00.000-04:00

No I didn't spell Fall wrong accidentally, I was just giving you a hint of an accent that some people use out here. I realize I get lazy with my tongue and I start using those words, my friends are sure to make fun of me for it. haha.

So, unintentionally I have left my blog on a dusty bookshelf this summer. I feel its sense of abandonment. I enjoyed this summer, marking it as one of my better summer's of my life. I had a job this summer, which I typically don't have during the summer and thus go through stress and frustration of not having one. So that was a huge help.

So many changes hit this summer. Quick recap: I quit my job at the daycare, graduated from college, went to Maine with the parents, moved in with Rachel, went to the Colorado to see my brother, started working at Wheeler Summer Camp, went through multiple job interviews for Americorps, got Americorps job, Wheeler Summer Camp job ended, and throw in a bunch of random, fun shenanigans and there was my summer! So essentially, you can stop reading now, unless you are intrigued and want more details, haha.

So I'm going to start with my Colorado trip! I went for about 10 days. We ran around doing all sorts of fun things from the Denver Zoo, a Lariat Loop which is a scenic driving route, to Golden, CO to the Red Rocks to the Butterfly Pavilion to a Rockies Game and so many other fun things. My parents also came out to see us and we had some good family time together. My brother had the fine opportunity to have his work wine and dine us and he treated us to making our desserts for dinner that night. It was a great opportunity to see his work.

After that, I went back to Providence and started my new job! Here's how a typical day would go for me. Arrive at Wheeler School and pick up Mini Bus (aka the short bus!) and drive it to a shopping center about 25 minutes away, pick up a bunch of kids, take them to the Wheeler Summer Camp "Farm" which is about 30-35 minutes away from the shopping center where I pick the kids up at. Then I drop them and the bus off and I join my group of 2nd graders. I had 2 co-counselors and a group of kids aged 6-8. My group average size was 17-25 kids which isn't too bad with 3 people. We as counselors would take our kids from activity to activity. Activities ranged from Sports to Performing Arts to Art to Nature to Swimming Lessons. In the afternoons, we usually had free swim and free electives (where the counselors put on a bunch of activity options and it gave the kids a chance to pick their favorite choice). On Wednesdays, we typically had a special guest come out and put on a show for the kids whether it be reptiles, a band, dancers, storytellers, a talent show, etc. On Fridays, we usually had closing camp activities for the week. Each week had a theme and activities in general throughout the week would revolve around that theme then on Friday we would have a big activity for it to wrap it up. Our themes included Safari, Alice in Wonderland, International, Summer Survivor, Top Chef, Talent, Carnival and Heroes vs. Monsters. After a day of camp, I would then load up my bus kids and take them back to the shopping center, drop them off, then drop the bus off at Wheeler School. Overall, it was a fun experience.

So after almost 7 long months of searching and learning to patiently wait and trust in the Lord, I finally got an Americorps job. Amazing how after I tried out for so many opportunities that the one job I ended up with was a job that I can not only see myself doing but also enjoying. So I'm excited to start that opportunity. My job will be working for Head Start (a daycare center) as a Special Resources Assistant. I will be an Assistant to a Special Resource Coordinator and together we will screen all new incoming kids (aged birth to 5 years old). If they have special needs we will set them up with therapy and lessons to help them out. I'm excited this job starts in September and will be a year long commitment.

So some random shenanigans of mine include......

Rachel and I went camping in New Hampshire, conveniently though it was thundering and lightening and pouring rain when we went to go set things up. Luckily it slowed down enough for us to set up our tent then we cheated and went into town to find supper. In the morning, we went kayaking on this river which was so fun.

A bunch of us ranging from 2-5 people at a time exploring new beaches in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Although, things slowed down when beaches in Massachusetts started closing due to shark sitings haha.

A group of 6 of us headed to Maine to stay at a friend's mom's lake house. We went on a 4 mile hike straight up and straight down a mountain, then we went swimming and kayaking although we only had 2 kayaks and 6 of us, so some of us were hauling dead weight around haha, then we played tennis, went for a walk and then we decided to wrap that day up, whew. On the way home, it was so random, we had packed a picnic, uncertain where to stop, so the lead driver pulls into a Lowe's parking lot because they saw a hunk of weeds for us to eat lunch at, however, I sighted a picnic bench, so thank you Lowe's employees for letting us use your break bench for lunch haha.

Going to the Wickford Arts festival which was fun to see so many oil paintings. Then after eating supper, we went to Smith Castle, a wicked old house involved in the colonial wars located on a swamp. The facility was closed but the grounds were open and we were on a photography mission in southern RI. After we hit up Smith Castle, we went to some historic watermill then we took random photos of the bridges of RI such as the Jamestown bridge and the Newport bridge then we saw the Jamestown Windmill then we went to Beavertail State Park where they have a lighthouse and rocks that you can climb on. The sunset was absolutely gorgeous, one of the best I've seen in a long time. It was amusing, Rachel was out on the rocks taking photos, not paying full attention to the incoming waves and the tide changed on her and a big wave barreled over the top of her. Luckily, her and the camera were both safe and did not fall in.

Another Chapter Begins

2010-06-02T10:24:00.000-04:00

Yay! I finally graduated!!!! And it was 1 year early! Because we all know how much I dislike school ;) haha.

So the ultimate tricky question now is........What are you going to do NOW?!

Well! I moved out of my apartment and moved into a friend's apartment for the summer. This is the ultimate learning experience for me in some aspects......I do not have a door, haha, and I do not have a closet and did I mention that my room is essentially 8 x 10 and is the on the third floor with a bunch of eaves covering half my room. I do love how I have a skylight! I have it open and I can hear the birds in the morning and the sun comes shining in and wakes me up so I can have a nice early start to a hopefully productive day! I've been here not quite a week, I'm almost all the way moved in and I'm loving it. I have a new roomie who loves to bake and cook and experiment with different recipes with healthy foods. I think this summer will help me to become more organized and eat better!

I also live next to a wonderful, sprawling park with a small series of lakes that make it nice to walk around in the morning on a good street where everyone seems to know each other and hang out.

I have a summer job as a Head Counselor for 2nd graders. It is for a non profit private almost kind of prep school in the area that has a summer day camp program. It should provide me with new windows of opportunity and help my resume look better. I'm excited for it and it starts in the middle of June.

Knowing me and always keeping busy, I'm taking advantage of my free time (what free time? yes I quit my old job at the end of May to give myself some!) and flying to Denver to see my bro! I am so excited to see him! It's been over 6 months.

I have been applying to different jobs and Americorps programs that will start in the fall and I'm just waiting on God to show me where He wants me to go and what job I should do.

I had a wonderful graduation, my parents flew up for a week and we went up to Maine near Acadia National Park. I definitely recommend going there if you haven't already! It is so beautiful there and I feel like there is so much to see and do! My dad stepped out of his comfort zone and bought some live lobster right off the boat and then cooked/prepared them himself (we don't like to see them lobsters jumping around banging at the pot lid to get out in that deathly hot tub). We also ran around trying to get a glimpse of lighthouses out there and we also took a small boat tour which took us around various islands and a lighthouse. It was so much fun. It was a wonderful vacation and I had a fun time with my parents! Now I just have to figure out how to get them to move out here to join me on the East Coast! :D

Shoot! There Goes April!

2010-04-18T16:06:00.004-04:00

Wow! I feel that time just shoots by as the years blow by! It seems like sometimes, so many things are happening at once that you almost lose track of your priorities and then you have a heaping plate full of stuff to do and there never seems to be enough hours in a day!

I'm still working at the same place doing the same thing as a float and a school age person. I love floating around the rooms, getting to know all sorts of crazy, funny kids and all the random shenanigans that happen! I just have to discover some sort of way to not let it get boring (haha yes, boring) for me.

School is okay. It has been a rough trimester because my classes are difficult and require lots of thinking as any senior level class would expect, haha. I have a mixology class where we learn about all different sorts of alcohol, get to taste it, and then learn to make 40 common drinks. My midterm consisted of a multiple choice test, a blind tasting of 2 different drinks, doing an 1 1/2 oz free pour and a 3/4 free pour (instead of measuring it out, we had to get it to be exact) and also making 12 drinks in 12 minutes with the right garnish in the right glass all from memory. My other class is a whole different animal from that one. There is 17 students in my class and we have to run a restaurant with a lunchtime seating of 16-20 people. I'm assigned a partner, a menu theme, a menu date, and a service style. From there, we must find recipes from books, convert the recipes to the size we need them, cost them out, order the food, prep the food, set up the dining room to be a formal setting, get guests in to eat the food, and basically do everything A to Z of running a sit down place. It's hectic and time consuming! I'm also taking psychology and a career capstone class.

I'm now officially 1 class short of graduating this May however I'm praying that my 1 class worth of English Technical Writing from BSU in my high school days will be able to transfer over and take that missing spot!

I'm working on moving by the end of May into an apartment loaded with girls haha. I will live there for the summer until end of August. It should be a pretty amusing summer. I'm also trying to figure out where I am supposed to go and what I'm supposed to do with my life. For the time being, God hasn't told me exactly what and clearly He needs me to grow more with something and prepare me for whatever He needs me to do since He just hasn't shown me yet despite my stubborn ways of trying to know.

I feel a service calling to do something hands on with a community and possibly social service based dealing with kids. I just don't know what capacity God wants me in yet.

I had a wonderful birthday! Thanks to my friends for making it an unique one. My roommate made me breakfast and my friend Maria made me dinner that I had with her, her daughter and a friend.

Yes, Rhode Island was hit with some flooding. The biggest blow was to the Warwick Mall (a mere 2.5 miles from my apartment, I'm so blessed!). The Warwick Mall is near the sewer treatment center and they got overflowed and it shot over to the mall and caused a horrible mess and so all the inventory in the stores has to be trashed primarily and the all the stores have to be redone but there are rumors leaking around as if its really worth it to have the Warwick Mall redone when there's a vacant dead mall that didn't get hit by the flood that is a stone's throw from the Warwick Mall. Several areas got severely flooded and some people were deeply affected, some of our main roads and highways were closed for a few days due to flooding and it was an interesting experience for me.

Here Comes March

2010-03-05T09:49:00.002-05:00

Is it just me or is this year just flying by?!

I've been slacking at this, I guess once you get so enamored with the routine of life, you get stubborn and forget to do other things like updating blogs haha. I'm in the midst of my spring break after completing a difficult trimester of schooling. I'm headed into the last trimester of school for the year and God praying, will be the last trimester of school that I ever face! I'm trying to graduate early so I have a few tests that I have to do etc. to make up the two classes I'm missing, so I hope that goes well.

Nothing too terribly exotic has been happening in my amusing life, just working like a busy bee while doing school and going to church. Church has been amazing, I have been learning so much and I feel like my relationship with Christ is growing deeper.

I'm not entirely sure of my plans for after graduation if I make that milestone this year, I'm planning to keep God at the forefront and ask Him for His guidance with what happens next.

Work is going well, we are working on the summer camp program which should be highly entertaining hopefully. I have been assigned a group of 7-8 year olds of about 13 kids as mine for the summer. I had the fun experience of taking on a class of 6 kids aged 18 month to 30 month by myself as well for the day. I'm learning that it really doesn't matter how many kids you got, there is always going to be mayhem bumbling around, how you take it is how it is going to affect you!

Anyone else getting excited for spring? I hope the weather is nice, it hasn't been the best and I think last summer we only had like 2 weeks of shine the rest of rain.

Vroooom! It's February!

2010-02-02T23:35:00.003-05:00

Wow, I'm a slacker, I haven't updated my blog since November! My bad!

Where shall I start?

In came December and the start of cold weather. On the 16th, on my way to a delightful cookie exchange, I got the phone call. My grandmother died (dad's mother). She meant so much to me and was like one of the people I took for granted to be there in my life. I thought she'd have at least another 15-20 years left on her. Just shows you that you can't take things for granted and to be sure and cherish the things you have! So, I bumped up my flight and flew home on the 20th instead of the 22nd. Of course, RI got a huge storm on the 20th, so I was a little delayed coming out to ID but I made it! My parents, brother, Camden, and Scott were all waiting for me :D

The following morning on Monday, December 21st, we had the memorial service for my grandmother. One of our dear neighbors from the deli is a funeral home and they hosted us. Of course, they are like family to us so it was nice to know that Grandma was in safe hands! A family friend spoke the gospel, then my father spoke a few words about taking the time to love the people around you a little more. Then a few others spoke and shared their memories.

On Christmas Eve, Scott took me flying and we went flying over Kuna, Homedale and various other scenic Idaho. It was a humorous adventure since first, we had to de-ice the plane ourselves (it was a small plane that could seat like 2-4 people) then while we were flying, our radio went out, thus we lost control with the tower and they in turn, didn't know where we were since we didn't show up on the radar and that meant that other planes could hit us. So we kept our eyes peeled! Afterwards, we had a Christmas Eve party at my Aunt Rose's house! It was wonderful!

Christmas morning, my parents and I pulled out my dad's laptop and got my brother on the webcam and celebrated Christmas through that method, haha, it was weird though to not have my brother there. It was definitely a very unusual Christmas from not having Grandma and not having my brother. I enjoyed my time at home with my parents and the rest of my family.

With my luck, when I flew out on Dec 30th, it snowed a few inches in Boise and thus delayed travel plans while I was en route. So here's how my travel went for this day, I got to Boise airport at 5:45am, to my amusement, Southwest did not have anyone running their ticket counter until a smidgen after 6am. Then I flew out at 7:10am. I had a touch and go in Salt Lake City, then I landed in Phoenix. I was 1.5 hours late and had missed my flight. They re-booked me to go through Nashville then onwards to Providence and I would get in at 10:20pm instead of 6:00pm. Excited to go to Nashville (I like checking out random airports haha) I tooled around Phoenix killing time. Then I discovered the Nashville flight was overbooked and they were looking for volunteers. So I volunteered myself, got myself a hefty flight voucher (over $500 bucks yeah baby!) and flew to Las Vegas and onwards to Providence where lovely Maria was awaiting to get me at 12:30am!

On Dec 31st, for New Year's Eve, I got together with my friends and we went to Maria's house, where I made crepes (my specialty apparently these days haha) and watched a movie, then watched the ball drop. It was a nice and relaxing New Year's eve.

On January 1st, I had my bags packed again (like I ever unpacked from the first trip haha) and flew out to Atlanta, GA! I was going to the Passion 2010 conference which was a few day conference all about God with special speakers ranging from Louie Giglio, Francis Chan, Beth Moore, John Piper, Andy Stanley and some other wonderful people! Hillsong United also played as well as Chris Tomlin, David Crowder and a few others. WOW, what an eye opening life changing experience. The theme was Awaken and over 20,000 people attended. One of the most memorable parts was after John Piper spoke, Louie Giglio challenged us to go to our next spot without talking, so 20,000+ maneuvered about without speaking! This trip was also priceless in the fact that in my group that I went with of 25, with all the activities and events, we went nonstop from like 5 or 6am in the morning to 1 or 2 or 3am at night and we were slap happy silly or wicked cranky all the time and this made this trip truly memorable.

For the moment, I'll leave off here, and I will continue next week with more up to date stuff! :D Gotta love suspense hehe.

A Warm November

2009-11-23T00:41:00.003-05:00

I feel like this year has blown by! This November seems extremely mild weather wise! I don't remember the last time I ran around in shorts and a tank top in November in a 4 season climate!

I also feel like the flu season has hit harder this year though, oddly enough. I don't know if it's due to the H1N1 freak out or what. Even in Idaho, it seems rougher from what I hear. Also, me working at a daycare, I see how much it happens, and yes it finally hit me this past weekend, teach me for not getting a flu shot.

The trimester just ended and hopefully I only have two left until I am done! My classes went pretty smoothly and I'm feeling confident with things, a couple of my finals were tough but I think I will make it! This upcoming trimester should be interesting with most of my classes happening late afternoon/night, I typically have too much ADD around this time to concentrate, so I will see about focusing better haha!

Work is going great, I'm still loving it! I've been working with toddlers a lot more and I'm also a floater but I am still in charge of coming up with the activity curriculum and taking care of the paperwork for school age. Working with toddlers is pure mayhem at times but I still love it! Having up to 18 of them and 3 of us adds to the fun definitely. I think one of my most memorable days at work is when I had the worst diaper blowout ever, a 4 year old with a fever of 104, another sick 4 year old who vomited all across the room in route to the bathroom while I had to make sure my 12 other 3 & 4 years did not get in the mess during clean up, and being bitten by a toddler who was frustrated with me for not letting him attack another toddler. Toddlers are definitely one of my favorite age groups which is kind of surprising to me.

My brother came out on a day's notice for a short 4 day trip and we had a blast tearing up the sites. I took him to Newport to see the beaches and Purgatory Chasm as well as Ocean Drive and we toured the Breakers Mansion, holy cow what an awesome home, I cannot believe that they only used it for a summer residence! We went to Hilltop Steakhouse and had some yummy steak and ribs. I took him to Thayer Street and had him experience bubble tea, we went to Prospect Park and did some night photography of the statehouse. He ran off to Ikea (almost an hour away) while I was working, haha he doesn't like the driving out here, he tells me that RI/MA drivers are horrific. I said yep, we live up to our name of being the worst drivers in the country. I also dragged him along to babysit a 3 month old baby with me and I almost forgot how much joy kids bring to my brother, I haven't seen him smile like that in ages (well it'd help if I saw him more too haha). Of course, he flew into Boston, and he flew out of Boston at the crack of dawn so I got to drive him to the airport at 2:30 in the morning when I had a final at 7:10am. Haha, yeah I didn't make it to class on time but had a forgiving professor who let me make it up, thankfully!

Church and Bible studies are still going great! I've been journeying through the book of Psalms and wow, what an awesome book that is! However, any book I journey through is awesome! I'm seeing more and more the importance of spending time with God on a regular, daily basis. Reading the Bible and praying daily is spiritual food and your body needs it just as much as physical food!

A Happy Medium

2009-10-05T13:01:00.003-04:00

Wow, its October already, it feels like it was just January yesterday! I cannot believe how fast this year has flown by, it is amazing how fast time flies as you get older.

School is going great. I'm loving my classes this trimester! I got smart and let go of my work study job so I'd only have my daycare job and school which is a good schedule for me! I'm happy I'm not heaping my plate of life too high these days haha.

I'm loving work, it is one of my favorite jobs ever! Never thought I'd enjoy working with kids so much. Seems like God gave me some kind of gift with them, I just got to figure out how to use that. I typically work with school age kids in the afternoons but sometimes I bounce around classrooms and help out. I love the waddler/toddler age even though the group at my center is a rough and rowdy bunch! Holy cow, never thought I'd see three toddlers war it out with each other and throw each other down on the playground like that.

Summaries of some of my weekends since my last blog posting.............

One weekend....
I went to a BBQ in New Hampshire that was a Soulfest Reunion, it was a great time seeing old friends again! On Sunday, I went to a music festival with a chili competition mixed into it that was fun times and I also did some sightseeing in Massachusetts. I'm beginning to learn how many different things Massachusetts has that I didn't know about!

Another weekend....
I volunteered at a Skillet/Hawk Nelson concert with some other Soulfest buddies and of course it rained that night haha, because it always has to rain when we get together!

Another weekend....
I went to Springfield, Massachusetts to go to the Big E fair with a bunch of friends. It was an awesome fair that represented all 6 states of the New England Region. My favorite part of it was States Row, which had buildings representing each of the six states and each building was owned by that state so you could travel to six states in a matter of minutes! Inside each building were exhibits that were hosted by companies that we headquartered in that state or things that state was known for.

Another weekend....
My cousin and his wife came into town and I got to hang out with them! We went to dinner together one night and then on Sunday I dropped them off and picked them up at a Patriots' game and topped it off with dinner and hanging out afterwards.

Another weekend....
I went to a Newsboys concert in Massachusetts on a Friday night and helped out there (twas another rainy day hanging out with my Soulfest buddies haha). On Saturday, I went to a Voice of the Martyrs conference in Connecticut with a couple of friends which had some awesome speakers. On Sunday, I had church and a goodbye party for some dear friends that are moving an hour or so away because of a job promotion. On Monday (twas Columbus day) I hung out with Peter and went to an art festival in Scituate, RI.

I guess I like to pack it in, I seem to always be busy running around and seeing new things. I love exploring! I put something like 2000 miles or more on my car this past September. One wonderful thing about New England is the fall foliage, so many amazing bright beautiful colors makes a good bang before old man winter settles in!

A New Start

2009-09-07T16:36:00.002-04:00

The Lord has blessed me and I praise Him for all the storms we go through together, as I know the rainbow at the end of each storm will be glorious making each storm worthwhile despite the trials and tribulations it may have brought.

I just started a new job and the wait was so worth it! A friend of mine hooked me up with it and I love it! It has a great schedule, a good amount of hours, and it is something I love doing! I work at a daycare center in the school age classroom. I monitor children aged 5-12 and other age groups from time to time such as preschool and pre-K. I get to help them with homework and do activities with them. A majority of the children are inner city kids thus being very tough and coming from all walks of life. The people I work with are great as well and work can actually be fun sometimes!

School starts Tuesday September 8th! I'm trying my best to figure out all my classes and graduate a year early (this year yay!). I'm declaring a concentration in Entrepreneurship and a second one in Food & Beverage Management. A concentration is kind of like a minor or a specialized focus on an area thus making my school's degree programs more versatile. My classes that I am taking are Microeconomics, Business Plan, Dining Room Management, and Dynamics of Tourism.

I am still going to my Thursday night Bible study and we just started a focus on growing your faith in Christ. Church is going great as well, we just wrapped up an intensive and complete study on 1 Corinthians.

I also had the fine opportunity of camping in a tropical storm which can make camping very amusing from building a tarp structure over your tent using random stick poles and having to find shelter somewhere to make dinner. It poured the whole night!

I am excited for this upcoming weekend! There is going to be a volunteer reunion bbq in New Hampshire for the group of volunteers from Soulfest so I will get to see some good friends again! Praying for good weather, although no Soulfest event would be complete without rain I suppose haha.

Oops Where Did July Go?

2009-08-21T13:40:00.002-04:00

Uh-oh, August is almost gone already too! Where did the time go!?

I left off with end of June and now it is almost end of August! I've been applying to jobs like crazy all summer with random interviews and random things thrown in there! It's been crazy!

4th of July was great time hanging with friends, followed up by an amazing 45min long firework display in some hick town in Connecticut! To help with the no job scene I began pouring my time into the Rescue Mission and Parrot Sanctuary. The Parrot Sanctuary located about 40 min away from my house is a refuge for abandoned parrot types of birds and other funky animals such as porcupines, wallabies, rabbits, tortoises, frogs, geese, chickens, ducks, and others. I usually help with the food/water changing of dishes and reloading and cleaning cages.

July ended with my time at Soulfest which was wonderful! Soulfest is a 4 day festival jam packed with Christian music and booths of Christian ministries along with some Christian colleges. I went up on July 22nd to help with pre-festival for a week then the actual festival was July 29th to August 1st. It is located at a ski resort in New Hampshire, absolutely gorgeous up there! All the volunteers camped out on one of the ski slopes (volunteer hill!) and this made quite the adventure as it rained a vast majority of the time and a lot of people's tents got flooded or a mini river would form and shoot under tents! During setup, volunteers would report to breakfast at 7:30am and get their assignment(s) for the day. I usually bounced everywhere from kitchen duty, hauling stuff around, setting up artist reception areas, stapling drapes to the ceiling (oh fun times!), put up fence sections, digging trenches, running data cable, hanging up signs, and so many things! Our days usually ended with dinner at 6 and then sometimes I would help clean up the kitchen. We also had about 3-5 stages to build of various sizes that other volunteers helped build.

Overall, it was just intense and a lot of fun! During the festival, I was a runner meaning if an artist needed to be picked up or their driver or if they needed something, I'd get called to do it. It was kind of entertaining to do this!

Some of the artists/groups singing at Soulfest were Casting Crowns, Newsboys, Skillet, Third Day, Sanctus Reel, Thousand Foot Crutch, Phil Wickam and the list goes on! I also met this wonderful guy who was also volunteering up at Soulfest, his name is Peter and we have been dating for almost a month now. He is studying film and production type stuff in Massachusetts and is in his last year at college. He loves photography as well and takes gobs of pictures everywhere we go.

In August, I went camping up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It was great being in the mountains again and almost felt like being in the mountains of Idaho, even though I think Idaho's mountains are bigger. It cracked me up to see a site labeled "Boise Rock" which was this boulder the size of 2 living rooms that a man named Thomas Boise used for shelter in a horrible winter storm.

School begins again in September and so does my work study job! Happy to see though that end of my summer hasn't been as bad as the beginning of it, haha!

A Month Later

2009-06-29T22:58:00.002-04:00

Wow, a month of summer already gone! Where did it go?

I've been applying for jobs like crazy. I got accepted for one selling Nissans for a good dealership and went through training with them. I realized though that this job was not a good fit for me when I figured out that I would be working 50-80 hours a week and not necessarily make a lot of money. They also sent me home until July 1st (2 weeks time) because I went to Denver for a weekend. Needless to say I won't be returning back to that job.

I've applied to 50+ jobs and started taking different approaches to working because so many people are applying for jobs that you just have to have an edge and do things differently. I have a small pet sitting job taking care of 3 cats and cleaning their litter box. It pays the food bill and its a start. I'm also starting to work with temp agencies and posting to do various odd jobs. It has been an interesting process!

I went to Denver for 6 days and it was great! I had a fun time with my family and it was wonderful to see them. My brother had his portfolio to display where he came up with a restaurant concept and had food to sample to future employers who came to check him and his fellow classmates out. Afterwards, he graduated, I bet he is relieved to be done with school! Then the family headed up to the mountains along with Grandpa Jim and Jennifer. We stayed in a nice cabin for a few days and visited Estes Park. I also got to see a Connecticut friend of mine that is working in Estes Park for the summer.

This past weekend, my friend got married and it was a beautiful wedding. The rain was vicious though as we were in a national park and under a shelter. It being a low budget wedding (you could never tell though!), I happily stayed to help clean up. We had a good joke going when there was a lightening storm happening in the distance and us taking apart a metal event tent that was the size of a carport. After we had everything all packed up, it started raining buckets, it probably was some of the worst rain I've ever seen!

Church has been going wonderful, I know God is there for me even though this summer has been a really rough one, but I'm starting to understand that every summer I've had usually are rough haha. But on the bright side it is really making me put more trust and faith in God which is something I definitely need to do. He is amazing, unchanging and will never let you down!

Where Do I Start!?!

2009-06-01T20:03:00.004-04:00

Boy, it has been crazy around here!

I recently moved into my new apartment and am loving it! It is definitely the best place I've lived in Rhode Island thus far! Thank you so much Mom for helping us clean, pack, and move! Thanks also to the wonderful people that helped us move on moving day! Maybe I'll get some pictures up so you can see what it looks like ;)

I loved having my mom here and definitely am missing her! We went all over the place! We went to the casino where I had my internship, to Mystic (Connecticut) and a bunch of random places in Massachusetts! We made sure to also go to the beach one day and it was so peaceful with no one there to walk along the beach and talk to each other. I enjoyed the time spent with my mom so much, every moment is to be cherished since time is short!

Knowing full well how I love to cram as many things as I can into my life, as soon as I dropped off my mom at the airport, I drove off to Connecticut with Melissa to meet up with a few other people then the 5 of us hit the road! We headed to Kentucky to see the Creation Museum! Wow! What an amazing place! I highly recommend it! The website just does not give it enough justice. I went to workshops, planetarium shows, interactive shows, beautiful gardens, and an amazing 2-3 hour tour! It was about a 14ish hour drive from Connecticut with another 45 min to my apartment which isn't too terrible when you have a minivan and 5 people that all got along well! I can mark some more states off my list since we drove through New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky! By the way, Pennsylvania is a never ending state that just goes on and on for hours!

My summer job plans have fallen through and I'm seeking a new job, trusting in God that He will provide at the right moment, I just got to have patience! Well, I better get back to unpacking and cleaning up my new place to make it like home! By the way I do have a new address, so if you need it, please let me know! Thanks!

Patience!

2009-05-05T18:42:00.003-04:00

This year has flown by! I cannot believe that I have lived in an apartment for almost a year already! Time to pack up and start new again in a new place!

Well these past couple of weeks, there has been a song ringing in my head, the song Blessed Be Your Name by Matt Redman. There is a lyric, "you give and take away, my heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name!" It has been a confusing and changing time for me and some things are finally starting to make sense. But most importantly I know I need to be patient.

The Lord blessed me with an apartment only to take it away the next day, I was frusterated initially but knew much prayer had gone into it and that God had better plans for me! I think He more definitely did as the place that I'm currently working out the paperwork for is much better than I could ever imagine! This is one key example as well as a few other things that happened to me in the past couple of weeks.

Work has been going well for me, I'm enjoying it a lot and do not want it to end. I'm anxiously awaiting to hear news about my possible summer job that I may get and praying for the Lord's guidance on it. I recently did volunteered at an activity day called Read, Romp and Play. It brought 10 different children's storybooks to life using arts and crafts. It was an awesome free event and it made me miss my own family very much! It also made me take a trip down memory lane back when my mom was teaching me how to read!

I've been busy trying to wrap things up with school! I managed to get pretty sick right before the swine flu came in, so I think I got pretty lucky on that! My school actually was shut down a few days because they thought 3 students had gotten swine flu so that was somewhat humorous.

Church and Bible studies have been going great, we are almost ready to wrap up the study on Crazy Love and I highly recommend it! It has really changed me and my perspective on life and has helped me to start falling in love with God more and more! I also know how much some of my friends care about me and I know I have some Christian mentors and role models to help me grow in my spiritual journey and I praise God for that!

20 Years and Counting

2009-04-22T10:52:00.002-04:00

Well, it has been awhile since I last posted but I think I have a knack for making my 24 hour day consist of too many things!

So, I finally figured out an easy schedule for me! I think so anyhow haha. On Mondays/Wednesdays, I work about 3 hours at an elementary school tutoring 5th graders in general math skills. I love it and love working with the kids and see how they progress over time with their skills. On Tuesdays/Thursdays I assist a teacher in an after school program at a charter school. I usually work with the kindergartners and I love little kids! They totally crack me up and I love how some of them are absolute love bugs and do not want to stop hanging on you or wanting a hug or your attention. I was trying to figure out at what age do they usually begin to not be so lovey dovey and I think that is 2nd grade? On Fridays I work at a elementary school tutoring 4th graders in reading and 5th graders in math (it is the same school as Mondays/Wednesdays).

School is going okay for me. I have statistics which I have a good professor who helps break it down so its easier to understand. I have finance with one of the strictest professors and that class is definitely challenging me. I enjoy my marketing class because I learn funny quirks about the industry. Like did you know supposedly that rounder numbers such as 8,6,9 are more friendlier and people are more apt to purchase something that ends in those numbers because apparently numbers like 1 and 7 can be really spiky and a big no no!? Haha what a load of hooey, my professor is really funny in marketing and makes things easy to understand which is great. My other class, cost control, is going okay, my professor does not really seem to care though so it can make those class times really boring.

I just passed another CLEP test, this one was US History I and jeez do they ask a lot of random questions! I barely passed it but I was lucky! My next one is May 1st and it is psychology. I have high hopes and plans to graduate next year however I am struggling with my school to let me take a certain class even though I do not meet credit requirements just yet. I also plan on taking an online course at a community college in Connecticut this summer (for a class I know I would not be able to test out of haha) and I will be trying to test out of Spanish then I should be done with my testing out of classes, yay!

I had a great 20th birthday, thanks everyone for the cards and presents. Melissa and a good friend of ours went to Dave and Busters for my birthday. I had lots of fun and I am happy to have some good close friends! I am very excited about the new Bible my parents got me, it will be an excellent tool for me!

The apartment hunt is going strong, I have my roommate figured out this year, I just got to find a good place now to live! I think I have found a place, just waiting for the lady to call me back so I've been praying about that and if that is where God wants me to be.

What other random stuff have I been up to? Bible studies are going good and strong. I've been making more new friends there which is awesome for me. I went to an American Cancer Society Dinner which was entertaining especially since I sat at a table full of stuck up old money people who turned their nose at me (haha sorry if that's you!). A work retreat with a photo scavenger hunt of the local small town, my group and I got busted because we used my car to get to some of the really far out places but we had lots of fun doing that! Went to Newport with some friends and also to Colt State Park which is a beautiful park that follows the ocean line with a rocky beach! Great place to fly a kite, just don't get them stuck in a tree! My work advisor told me that a kite stuck in a tree is hope that is lost haha! Or how about volunteering at a church's Easter Extravaganza and helping to hide 3000-4000 eggs! Yeah!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention! I went to West Point, New York to a Third Day, Brandon Heath concert! I went alone (crazy I know), it was only a 3-4 hour drive depending on which way you take. I loved the drive though, it was so beautiful and there is a lot of beauty in that section of New York. I ended up sitting next to some wonderful ladies who attend a Calvary Chapel in New Jersey and they invited me to come see them sometime.

Yes, I know I live a crazy life, oh well, gotta love it!

Changes

2009-03-25T16:23:00.003-04:00

Well, today I believe this blog post will be a more personal close to heart one. After some searching and struggling with finding a proper church home, I believe God was testing me in where my faith lies. I think He is possibly setting me up for something and I am unsure of what and I am content with that, I just want to be where He wants me to be.

I had sent an email with a lot of my church confusions and frustrations to a dear friend and pastor who helped me realize some things and helped me see some things. I had understood and taken things the wrong way. A church is an important unit that is composed of many important parts to make it the unit that it is. This church is the church that helped me set up my Rhode Island roots, and yes even though it is going through some changes, I think it may be where I belong, even though I may not totally see eye to eye with it at the moment. I know that church got me through some really rough times for me and it was there for me. It is my Rhode Island foundation and it should be my ultimate Rhode Island "home" with all its loving supporting families and members.

I apologize for any thing I may have said to anyone that was offensive or confusing. Thank you to everyone at that church who patiently waited and lovingly prayed for me to figure this all out within myself. For my family and friends not near me, thank you for all your advice and patience as I went through this time.

For anyone that is not with God daily, I will pray for you to have a desire to seek Him more as I am praying for myself to have that desire. I realize after not reading my Bible daily and praying to God daily and talking to Him on a regular constant basis for about 2 weeks, I see the darkness in my life. I see how easily Satan tries to get a foothold in my life to discourage me and distract me from the ultimate goal of loving God and glorifying His name. God will be there for you, through every valley and mountain peak. I am not perfect and I still have my faults but that is okay, Jesus is there for me and He loves each and every one of us completely and entirely with body, soul, and mind. So my next goal is to work on falling completely and madly in love with the God that made this wonderful universe, because He will never leave me nor forsake me.

God definitely has been knocking on my door this past week, be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him! (Psalm 37:7)

Spring Break & Start of Being a Junior

2009-03-15T00:44:00.002-04:00

Spring break came and went. The snow fell and went again. Haha, yes the start of my spring break came with a foot of snow! It is more like freeze your butt off break! Once the snow mellowed out, I ventured out of the apartment.

I hung out with one of my friends a lot and one highlight was that we went to the park together and had a picnic in the snow! Never had a picnic before in the snow! After the picnic, we flew a spider man kite and got it up pretty high! There were people sledding in the park and it was funny as they all stopped to watch spider man fly around, probably thinking those morons have the wrong season for flying a kite. Oh well, it was fun!

Spring break was relaxing and it was kind of weird to not really have to do anything for a week. The next trimester of school started last Tuesday and it is my first trimester as a junior! I think if I get my stuff together, I should be able to graduate next year!

I have four classes that I am taking this trimester. They are Hospitality Strategic Marketing, Statistics, Cost Control (there is a fancy name for this class but I forgot it haha), and Hospitality Managerial Finance. Marketing is going to be interesting as we learn the ins and outs of marketing and also have to do a marketing business plan for a company we create. Cost control is about controlling the costs of restaurants primarily. I get to do a term project about analyzing a restaurant. And the finance class is about taking what we learned in accounting and applying it to our personal and business life.

I also am CLEP testing out of three classes-sociology, US History I, psychology. I took my first test last Friday for sociology and I passed it! Yay! So for about $115 bucks I saved myself the time it takes to go to a sociology class for a whole trimester as well as about $1,000 or so dollars, if not more.

I have been doing 2 Bible studies and I think I finally found a church. One Bible study is about finding time to spend with God with a really busy life. We are reading a book for it and use a teleconference format. It is unique but allows us a lot of flexibility! The book is "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World." The other Bible study is based on a book by Francis Chan called "Crazy Love" and that is about being crazy in loved with God! Both studies are amazing and from what I have read out of the books, I would definitely recommend them.

Other than that, not too much has been going for me other than hanging out with friends and studying for classes/tests. My work study job should start up again soon in the next couple of weeks. Plus, I think I have been battling a cold that may be a sinus infection/ear infection since all that happy garbage has been floating around the atmosphere. With all these people in one place and with the weather being 60 degrees one day and snowing the next, our bodies are like ughh what is going on! I cannot believe that March is almost halfway over! Where has the time gone?!

When One Door Closes Another Opens

2009-02-27T17:40:00.003-05:00

I have no idea where to start. I have not written in a really long time and I'm sorry. Life has been crazy busy and it has been a really interesting couple of months for me lately. I've been doing a lot of soul searching within myself trying to figure out who I am. I know a lot of people may think that is a bag of junk but I really am. I am working on strengthening my relationship with Jesus Christ and growing closer to Him!

I just finished my internship. It was an amazing experience. I think I will go back there to work this summer and I'm really excited. I had a hard time leaving there and everyone I had been working with declared they were sad to see me go and hoped I would come back soon! I spent the last month of my internship being a housekeeping supervisor and I had really started to connect with a lot of people there. Although it can be rough being a supervisor sometimes with dealing with cranky guests and rude guest room attendants, there is some bright days to it as well.

After putting over 10,000 miles on my car within a 6 month period, you can surely guess that I am always on the go and always up to something! I am so happy God blessed me with a car out here.

I'm in the midst of my spring break and have made a resolution to take a chill pill for the last three months of this 2008-2009 school year (amazing I know). I will be a junior this March and I am excited for that. I am going to keep my work study job and work about 10-15 hours a week with it. However, this may sound crazy, I am also working on testing out of three general education classes because testing out is a less expensive method and will save me about $6K in the long run if I succeed. I have resolved to pinch pennies and not get another job in order to relax, focus on school, enjoy life, and grow closer to God.

I have discovered some changes within myself lately and this has brought me to change churches. It is a huge thing I know and many question me why I am doing it. I appreciate prayers and concerns for me from those of you that are reading this and may be attending my old church in RI. I guess this is just part of something I need to do to discover who I am and everything.

I guess for lack of better words, I've been growing and experiencing various forms of growing pains. I have been very fortunate to have God bless me with some very loving, Christian women out here to help support me and guide me in the direction I need to go. I also am very appreciate of all the help and support my family has given me while I've been figuring things out with myself.

As for my spring break plans, I'm studying for my first test for sociology that I am testing out of, trying out new churches, relaxing, and possibly hitting up New York for a day with a good friend of mine. I will write again soon!

Time Flies Fast!

2009-01-19T11:53:00.003-05:00

Wow! Where did the time go?

Ok, so yes it has been over a month since I've last updated my blog. That just tells you how much trouble I've been getting into haha, just kidding!

I really do not even know where to begin! I just realized that I basically left off on the first week of December. I started my internship and had 2 days of orientation. I loved orientation because it made me realize how much the company cares about their employees and how much the company cares about the tribe's history (I work on an indian reservation). After orientation, I spent about a week being a hostess for 2 different restaurants as well as shadowing some restaurant managers. I loved doing that and am thinking/praying about adding on an associates in food and beverage management. After that week, I spent about a week working in the kitchen for 2 different restaurants. I think the day that I had the most fun or that was the most interesting was when I helped make 500 strombolis which are like calzones but different shaped.

Then we had a huge snow storm hit Providence dumping about a foot and a half of snow within 2 days. I had struggles getting my car into my driveway to my parking lot since I live on a hill and my driveway is a hill as well. I parked somewhere else and spent 2 hours digging my car out to get it into my parking lot. It was an interesting day to say the least. I flew to Idaho the next day in a clear weather window somehow. I was fortunate to pick a Sunday to fly because all flights had been cancelled the prior 2 days. Melissa flew with me to Idaho and we had a great time.

We got to see family and friends and hit up some sites in Boise and get some relaxation in. Melissa and I headed up to Hagerman, Idaho and went to a hot springs site and rented a private pool for a while with the rest of my family. My aunt's family was up from California and I was happy to get to see everybody again.

I headed back to Providence on New Year's Day and came back home to snow again! The day afterwards, a group of about 9 of us headed up to New Hampshire to take advantage of a ski special. For $36 you can get lift ticket, ski rental, ski instructor tips and tubing from 3pm to 10pm. Skiing can be quite brutal and I gave it a shot but I realized I could mess up my back really bad so I had to say no after my 5th fall. I still had a lot of fun though.

I just completed the housekeeping portion of my internship. It was 2 weeks long and I really enjoyed myself. I spent the first day shadowing shift managers and the director and attending various meetings of supervisors, guest room attendants and housemen. I also shadowed a houseman for a while as well as a runner. A houseman is in charge of 2 floors usually and in charge of keeping the hallways clean with the windows, vents, vacuuming, collecting linens from guest room attendants and all sorts of fun stuff like that. A runner is responsible for delivering things to guest rooms when guests request it such as a bath robe, a refrigerator, a microwave, etc.

On the 2nd and 3rd day, I was trained on how to be a guest room attendant. So I mastered how to make a bed hotel style and was capable of cleaning my own room. It was really interesting to see what all guest room attendants do to clean a room. After I did that for 2 days, I shadowed a floor supervisor for 3 days. A floor supervisor is responsible for 2-3 floors and has to inspect every room to make sure that the guest room attendants are doing their job properly and that the room is ready for new guests to arrive. I worked with this supervisor, Holly, who was really nice and apparently is one of the best. She has the higer floors with the supersuites and hopsitality suites so I was fortunate to get to see all the different types of rooms as well as get to learn how to inspect those rooms. After I shadowed and worked with Holly for 3 days, I got to be my own floor supervisor for about 4 days. I really enjoyed it! I forgot to mention that the hotel has about 36 floors and 1200 rooms.

On the weekends between all that I hung out with friends playing games and having movie nights. One of my good friends headed back to college in South Carolina as well so it has been weird to not have them with us. I also have managed to get snowed in twice now at a friend's house which has been quite funny. I cannot believe how much snow we have gotten this winter!

My next portion of internship is front desk so it should be interesting and I cannot wait to start another portion. It has been an exciting time trying out all these different areas. I'm off to go make lunch and run some errands! I hope everyone had a great weekend!

A New Chapter

2008-12-05T17:18:00.005-05:00

Well we all know that when one door closes another one opens right? That definitely has been the case for me!

I left Friday (Nov 21) for Denver. This was quite the entertaining day. I flew out of Boston but to get to Boston I took 2 buses, the commuter train and the subway! Then I took my flight to Cincinnati then onwards to Denver. I think I should make a new goal of attempting to go to as many US airports as possible since I always seem to be going to a different one every time I fly!

My brother picked me up from the airport and we grabbed some Chick Fil A dinner on our way home. Chick Fil A is a fast food type restaurant specializing in chicken! I got to spend the week with my brother which was fun because I haven't had a lot of time with him lately at all!

On Tuesday (Nov 25) I took the time to go see a friend from JWU Providence in Denver and we went to Boulder and had dinner together. It was fun times! On Wednesday (Nov 26) I was excited to have my parents arrive! It was great seeing them!

On good old Turkey Day, my family got our family picture for our annual Christmas card and we took a walk along a nature preserve together. Afterwards, we had dinner which was yummy! Prime rib, asparagus and wild rice and some good homemade chocolate cream pie! Afterwards, my family hung out and played games and caught up with each other.

Friday (Nov 27) I sadly had to leave the family in Denver on a bright and early flight. I got to fly to Atlanta this time around and was amazed to see that the garbage cans were electric as they compacted the trash every time someone threw something away (random tidbit of trivia? haha). Melissa picked me up from the airport which was great because I didn't have to play the public transportation game however it was funny because I got lost on the way home from the airport and made a 45 minute drive last an hour and a half! Oh well, good times hanging with my roomie! Once I got home, found some grub for the tummy, I was on my way again! I just don't know when to stop do I? I headed to a friend's Bible study in Connecticut which was a good time!

Saturday (Nov 28) I hung out with a good friend who was back home for the holiday break. She goes to college in Virginia and I had met her at a Bible study some point along the way (got to keep the good friends you collect close you know). After hanging out for awhile, we went and met up with some other friends and we all played some games.

On Sunday (Nov 30) I discovered that one of my friends that originally was away for the first trimester of school was back in Providence and I went and picked her up and we went to church together. After church, I took her shopping for some much needed cleaning supplies and groceries since when she moved into her apartment she was faced with the discovery that her apartment needed a lot of work! After that, I decided to show my crazy Idaho side by vacuuming my car out in the pouring rain (haha yes it was grand!). Then I picked up my friend from the airport and afterwards I went to a Bible study with some other friends. I love packing a bazillon things into my day!

On Monday (Dec 1) I had my JWU orientation for my internship. However, I first had to go get a culinary chef uniform from the JWU bookstore, I look quite amusing in one and will have to post pics up later haha.

On Tuesday (Dec 2) I started my week of community service. Through my internship, I am required to do a week of community service. For the first day, a group of us went to a middle school and put on a food demo for middle schoolers showing them how to make chili, salsa, quesadillas and fruit parfaits. Then on Wednesday (Dec 3) I went to a factory/medical diagnostics place and put on another food demo to the employees there on their lunch breaks.

On Thursday (Dec 4) I went to a local soup kitchen and helped make dinner for about 300 people then I helped serve it. Overall, my week of community service was awesome and I enjoyed the group of people that I spent it with. We had a lot of fun!

On Friday (Dec 5) I had my first day of internship orientation on site. Another fellow intern and myself car pooled together and met at the hotel. We went on a tour of the housekeeping and front office areas then we dined with some higher ups of the company at a gourmet restaurant (so happy I kind of know my manners haha). The restaurant had a yummy gourmet buffet and an even better dessert buffet. Afterwards, we did uniform fittings and I felt like it was career day since I had to get 4 different uniforms for 4 different areas that I will be working in.

Now I'm headed off to the movies with some friends and I'm ready to kick off my weekend!

The End of the Trimester!

2008-11-19T22:47:00.002-05:00

Wow, my life is crazy and random! So much has happened in the past week! Plus I found out today that I'm headed to Denver for a week to chill with my bro and have Thanksgiving with my parents. It is funny that plane tickets are so cheap with such little notice, you got to keep those sardine cans full!

After finishing working on the 10th, I've been quite shocked to find that life can be quite boring without work to do all the time! Although, these past two weeks have kind of been a blur!

Tuesday (the 11th), I found the kid in me again by seeing High School Musical 3 with a friend. It was a light, fun movie with good choreography and my friend and I joked about the movie all the way through. It was also a great way to finish a 3 month spell of work! I also was busy wrapping windows, haha yes, a New England thing to do with them old houses! I have some leaky windows (rather they are all leaky! grr) but I didn't let that stop me from attacking it with this plastic wrap stuff that you tape and blow dry in! It took a while for all of us roomies to figure out how to get the blinds adjusted so that we could still utilize the blinds during the winter and not be gremlins that cannot handle light haha.

On Friday (the 14th), I hung out with a friend and we made cookies together. Once we got them baked, we had a few more friends come over and we had a girls' night together watching a movie and eating pizza and just hanging out. It is great to have positive, Christian influencing women in my life!

On Saturday (the 15th), I went to a breakfast with my college aged group that was hosted at a friend's house. Yummy food and 30 people crammed into a college kid's apartment makes any morning bound to be amusing. Afterwards, Melissa and I as well as a couple other friends headed to Target to do Operation Christmas Child shopping. Operation Christmas Child is where you fill up a shoebox with stuff for kids in foreign countries matching up to a certain age category. These kids often do not know what it is like to experience Christmas and along with these boxes that they receive, they also receive a part of the gospel in their language, so it is a great way to show the tangible love of God.

Afterwards, I headed out to my old job to pick up my paycheck and drop off my uniform. However, I got sidetracked into going to a thrift store as well as heading to the Christian book store. I got a new CD (The Best of Passion So Far) which is sweet as well as a book by Beth Moore! Then Melissa and I met up with a friend of ours and we went to this nice restaurant on Thayer Street that reminded a lot of my parents' place in a few ways.

Then on Sunday, I went to church and did some laundry and took a nice nap. I'm still trying to catch up on all that sleep I've been missing out on! I also grabbed dinner with some friends later that night.

Monday and Tuesday were study days for finals and today was my last day of school for the trimester! I had all four finals today but I made it! This ends another chapter of my life here at JWU with 20.5 more credits done! YAY!

The First Half of November!

2008-11-11T02:35:00.002-05:00

Wow, when it rains it pours! So much stuff has been happening in my life lately, it has been crazy!

Well I left off at the end of October, I went to Hull, Massachusetts for the weekend with a bunch of other college students from Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Canada, and various other states. We went up on Friday, October 31st and stayed in a hotel right on the beach. It was a little cold but definitely beautiful. We had a great weekend of fellowship and had a great guest speaker that gave 4 messages. During our free time, a bunch of us went to Boston to explore. I ended up going to the aquarium which was sweet to see some of God's handiwork! I also saw an IMAX Dolphins and Whales movie which was amazing.

After my nice weekend, I had a busy week as usual ahead of me. Tuesday, I was lucky and blessed to enjoy a lunch with a good friend that I hadn't been able to catch up with in a while. Friday, I worked at the elementary school and I got to teach some 5th graders about leadership which was exciting. After work, my roomie, Melissa and I headed to our friends' house to play games and have pizza together.

Saturday, I relaxed mainly and slept most of the day away preparing for a busy weekend ahead of me. I was invited to a girl's night (girls from church mind you haha) and the girl that hosted it suggested we all have prayer partners so we could get to know each other better. I was excited for this opportunity to get to know someone better and I think it'll be a great way to put more prayer into your life!

Sunday, I went to church and we are studying about Mark which is an exciting book once you crack into it! Then, Melissa and I decided to go grocery shopping at places we hadn't been. For instance, a Trader Joes opened up near me and I was excited to check it out because I've always loved going there while being in California or Washington. After shopping, we hung out with friends and had a good evening. I was quite fortunate to stumble upon some decent boogie boards as well in a pile of trash on my way home from the evening, I found it to be a great find and wow, it has been awhile since I've trash picked haha.

So I worked Saturday, Sunday, and Monday at the hotel and these shifts are my last at this job. It has been a very interesting experience for me and definitely have learned a lot from corporate hotels. Although, knowing me and my ways, I had to go out with a bang of course! On Sunday night, I was doing laundry (this will be my excuse from now on to not do laundry haha) and something happened and smoke filled the laundry room. Much to my dismay, the fire alarm went off at 3:30am in the morning and I had quite the full house already so I had a bunch of guests on my hands. It definitely made my night interesting especially since the fire department came and I got to talk to all the firefighters and had to explain the situation to them. Apparently, the assistant general manager was proud of me in how I handled the situation because most front desk agents get too scared to do anything. So at least I didn't end things on a total bad note!

I have to say that due to some recent events over the past weekend, I've learned how important true friends are and how they will always be there for you through hell and back. I suppose there's a story that goes along with this but it must wait til next time!

The End of October

2008-10-28T02:46:00.002-04:00

Ok I think that October flew by the fastest this year for me. Even though I've been busy practically every weekend doing something nonstop, this month has been great.

This past weekend has been fun. On Friday, I worked at the elementary school and the students were doing a walk a thon fundraiser and I participated in that. I went to a Harvest Festival at a small church in Connecticut just over the border from Rhode Island that was just a great time for fellowship, food and fun.

On Saturday, I grabbed some friends and headed to Newport Naval Base to do some shopping which is about an hour away. One of my friends is the child of someone in the military, that's how we got in which was nice. We went shopping around there, grabbed some lunch together and just had a fun afternoon shopping.

On Sunday, I went to church and then did laundry and cleaned things up a bit around the apartment with the roomies. I did find time to crash after having worked the night before and schedule to work the next two nights. After my nap, I headed to a Bible study with some friends and then we all went out to dinner together afterwards and had a great time hanging out.

Monday was an okay day, work, naps and classes primarily but I did get to hang out at a friend's house. My weekdays can be pretty dull and are usually filled with homework, work, school, and sleeping. This next Tuesday shall be exciting since my TNT (Tuesday Night Truth) Bible study will be going to one of the school's dorms to clean up dorm rooms and pass out candy.

This weekend shall be fun as I will be going to be headed to somewhere in Massachusetts along with a group of college students for a weekend retreat to meet up with a bunch of other college students to learn about God and to have a fun filled weekend! Other than that, I hope to have a great rest of the week!

Oh Autumn, Please Stay Awhile Longer!

2008-10-23T01:01:00.003-04:00

Wow, New England has such pretty trees in the autumn! So many vibrant beautiful colors, I think autumn is the best season by far for New England! On all my crazy journeys, I've been truly blessed to see the wonderful handiwork of God.

Last Friday, I went to a Beth Moore women's conference somewhere in the depths of Connecticut about 2 hours away from Providence. The drive was amazing, the message was splendid and definitely something that a lot of us needed to hear and the fellowship afterwards was great as well. About 11 women total went from my church.

I also got my internship for next trimester set up and it should be happening at Mohegan Sun Hotel Casino Resort which is a 1200 room resort about an hour or so outside of Providence. I think it should be a great learning experience and I can't wait! That will be starting on December first, however I get to head out there next week to fill out paperwork!

On Sunday, I went to the Making Strides Breast Cancer Walk at 8:30am (yes I worked the night before, I was quite the entertainment for the group of walkers I was in because I had no sleep and was being crazy). We walked about 5-6 miles total then headed off to church. After church, I went home crashed for a while then met up with some friends and went to a corn maze scavenger hunt. There were about 8 of us and we paired up and ran off into the corn to see who could find all the pieces of the scavenger hunt first! My team won.....I won't rub it in anymore (haha). After the corn maze, we all headed off to a Bible study then dinner afterwards. I wrapped up my fun day with work.

Other than that, nothing too terribly exciting has happened, I think I have some weekend plans coming up ahead but you guys will just have to wait and see what happens first!

Oh October!

2008-10-13T02:36:00.003-04:00

Wow, if you really think about it now, this year has kind of flown by it seems. I know there was definitely some slow months but I think the year has flown by.

I'm learning to trust in God and to place all my faith in Him because all things are possible through Him!

Life has been crazy busy but I still manage to keep things interesting it seems. I do not know where I should start since it has been a couple weeks.

I'll start with my full time job. It has been going well, definitely an interesting position to hold because you'll never know what each night will hold in store for you. From weird guests, to random requests, to a mix up of rooms and other funny situations, it all can be oh so interesting! This job has been an awesome learning experience for me and definitely has given me more insight as to how a hotel runs. I do not think I'll be wanting a full time job to balance with the rest of my current life's schedule for the time being (haha). I'll be finishing this job on November 15th as finals will be taking place the following week and then the next trimester of school will start. I will have an internship at a hotel next trimester. My school is very specific on where I can do it at and I have an interview for it this Friday so that is definitely going to be interesting and I will be looking forward to learning more things! However the internship will contain a crazy schedule which will prohibit me from keeping a steady job which definitely has its downfalls.

Next, my part time job is at an elementary school. I supervise fellow college students that are doing community service hours and make sure they are staying on task. I do it in 2 programs, Globetrotters and a leadership one. The leadership one is to help 5th graders transistion from elementary school to middle school by learning how to deal with situations etc. The Globetrotters one is dealing with 3rd graders and there is 4 group of international college students that teach the elementary students about their home countries. It's all very fascinating.

School is going ok. I have no really exciting classes this trimester, just a bunch of boring ones that require lots of busy work which can make life entertaining.

Church is going well, I'm enjoying the college aged group and I think it is going to be a fun year! I have regular church Sunday mornings, a new Sunday evening short study, Tuesday night college aged group, and Thursday night Bible study. Yes, I know that seems like a lot of church but in this world out here, you need all the loving of Jesus you can get and all the fellowship and support of Christian brothers and sisters.

My living situation is going pretty well. We are all getting used to each other of course and all our crazy quirks and what not. We established chore schedules and actually maintain a pretty clean household a majority of the time. I love my roomies and they mean a lot to me and definitely help me out in this crazy world! I'm so happy I have their support!

I have an amazing group of friends in my life as well that are Christians and great to be around. Any night with them is almost guaranteed to be a wild (in a good way haha) and fun night. This weekend, we all went to see the movie, Fireproof, and then had dinner together afterwards. The movie, despite its low budget, was great and I definitely recommend it.

I think that is it for now! Can't wait to see what God has in store for me this week!

A Week in the Life

2008-09-22T01:22:00.004-04:00

Well, there is nothing too terribly exciting happening in my life other than me trying to make everyday be 32+ hours long rather than a mere 24!

Last Monday, I had my work study meeting for SLICE (Student Leader's in Community Engagement). I was excited to get my work placement at an elementary school. Apparently I'm going to be in charge of making sure some school programs are running and mentoring. I'm not entirely sure as I haven't had a day in the life yet. This job gets tied to Americorps where I will do 300 hours of community service and receive a scholarship! I think this job is going to be awesome for me, it should help brighten my week and make my life more interesting (haha like my life is dull!).

Tuesday, I had my Tuesday night college aged group Bible study. I am the missions leader for it so I usually always go and try to meet new people and make new friendships with new freshman to make them feel welcome etc.

Wednesday, I had a full day of classes as well as work which was hectic but I managed. I also had lunch with my old roommates from last year and I think we are going to make it a Wednesday ritual. I also had lunch with my friend Carrie. I'm blessed that her boyfriend works at the school dining hall and lets me eat for free on Wednesdays.

Thursday, I was excited to crash after such a long Wednesday. I had my accounting class on Thursday, it is a difficult class for me because the teacher is new and does not teach it the best. But I guess its a new style and perspective on things for me to learn how to deal with people like that later on. I also went to my Thursday night Bible study which is going through an exciting series right now. It is a great time of food, fellowship, fun, a message and some worship.

Friday, I had a leaders' meeting for church then directly afterwards, I had an orientation meeting for SLICE. I cannot wait to start my new job! Afterwards, later that evening, my roomie, Alissa and I grabbed some pizza and watched a movie together. We were super hungry when we ordered that pizza and we stuffed ourselves to the max that we went for a walk together. Ahh, good times and crazy adventures as always!

Saturday, one of my friends got married and it was a nice, small wedding. Melissa and I helped clean up afterwards as it was a potluck type of wedding. After the wedding, I slept for a good long while as I worked that night.

Sunday, I was bad and slept through church then I got up and did my laundry and went grocery shopping. Then I went to go hang with my friends that live on the border of Rhode Island and Connecticut. We went to these cliffs that overlooked a lake and a whole bunch of trees. It was amazing!

Yes, I am still working at the hotel, I work there 4 nights a week and it is going pretty well for me. I am done with training and I think I'm starting to get the hang of things.

The difficult thing for me right now is trying to find a balance for my days as I mainly nap and sleep 3 nights a week. It is hard to determine when I shower and when I do things that a normal person would do after waking up in the morning and before going to bed at night.

1st Week of School

2008-09-12T19:13:00.002-04:00

Yes, school has finally arrived. I have one jam packed schedule with some interesting classes.

First, I'll start with my new job. It is working out great for me! It is basically my first corporate full time job so that is something to get used to. I enjoy it a lot. I work Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday nights from 11pm to 7am as a night auditor. My duties include but are not limited to counting out the cash drawer, taking inventory of the "suite shop", doing security patrols/walks, completing any laundry and folding sheets (I like my new friend the "extra arm" sheet folder helper haha), doing the night audit process, delivering guest receipts and the newspaper, helping set up breakfast and various other duties.

School is going ok for me, I know I have several difficult classes with a lot of tedious projects. I do enjoy my math class though with my teacher. He is this hilarious, really old, French guy that makes so many jokes and he is a great teacher!

My living situation is going great as well. I love my roomies :D. Just the other night, Melissa and I went grocery shopping rather late and we were both in a funny mood and we were running around the store playing hide and seek with all the freight pallets (you know at night, they stock the shelves) and other games (yeah I know so mature! haha).

Things have been going fine. I just have been basically sleeping, working, schooling, eating and going to church, I kind of miss the lazy days, but don't we all?

Last Summer Fun!

2008-09-02T14:48:00.002-04:00

Well school starts a week from today oh boy! Today, I went in and finished all my paperwork for my hotel job and I start tomorrow which is exciting.

On Wednesday I picked up my friend Kim. Kim had been in Germany all summer pretty much. She is a fellow classmate and has not moved into her dorm yet. She came up to Providence for a few days for a leader's retreat then she headed back to Jersey on Saturday morning.

I went to a leader's retreat on Thursday. It was great fun, there were about 4 of us girls that were able to make it. We grabbed a picnic and then headed to Purgatory Chasm where we went hiking and rock climbing through this small canyon. It was so nice. Afterwards, we headed up to a lodge and brainstormed activities for the year for our college aged church group TNT. It was a great retreat overall.

Then after that, I've been taking it easy the past couple of days mainly. On Saturday, I went to a BBQ and there was a lot of us. We played some outdoor some indoor games. I had a great time hanging out with friends.

On Sunday, I got to help with the little kids at church which is interesting. Afterwards, Melissa and I headed to a friend's house where about 5 of us all headed to the beach. The beach was great fun and the 5 of us had a great time. After the beach we had dinner at a friend's house and just hung out together.

I can't believe that I start my new job tomorrow and then school on Tuesday! It's going to be a crazy year for me!

Mom! You have a package on your doorstep!

2008-08-26T17:15:00.003-04:00

Haha yeah, that is what I told my mom Tuesday night at midnight while I was standing on her doorstep awaiting for her to open the door!

What started off as a mere joke actually turned me into flying home for a week. I had been making the joke that with no job, I could be twiddling my thumbs in Idaho just as easily as Rhode Island. I made that joke with a friend and then we looked at airfare and found a really cheap window. My friend along with another friend offered to help pay my way home (thanks guys!). I have never done something so random as flying home with 12 hours notice before, it made for a lot of excitement for me!

Well, you know as luck would have it, right as I was getting on the plane to head to Idaho, a hotel that interviewed me about 2 weeks back called me and said they had changed their mind and wanted to hire me. Luckily, they were willing to wait for me to return.

Idaho was good times. I got to spend time with family and friends and it was just relaxing and pleasant to see everybody again. With my schedule ahead, I really do not know when I get to return back to Idaho, who knows what God has in store for me in that area!

I got back to Rhode Island on Monday and Melissa picked me up from the airport (how wonderful to be picked up by a warm smiling face!). Today, I went to the hotel and finished my background check and did a drug test. Then I headed to my friend Carrie's house and we hung out together. We had a great time catching up and playing some games.

Here's the scoop on the hotel, it is a Homewood Suites which is Hilton's version of an extended stay hotel. I am to be doing night audit there from 11pm to 7am, 4 shifts a week which should work out well with my schedule. It is full time and I get full benefits after 30 days and possible tuition assistance. This job should give me a lot of experience and I looking forward to it!

Also to add to my busy schedule, I have a part time job. It's a community work study job where I will get a placement most likely working at one of the area public schools helping/mentoring students. This job will also fit under Americorps which I love because they give you a scholarship if you hit a certain amount of hours. This job also has leadership training workshops as well as other leadership things.

I figured while I was at it, I would put my school schedule in here as well so you guys can know what classes I am taking (that is if you care haha, if not then you can stop reading now).

I don't usually take classes so late in the day like this so this shall be interesting for me.

My schedule (course descriptions listed after schedule):
Monday:
HOSP Human Resources 11:30am to 1:25pm
Leadership 3:50pm to 5:45pm

Tuesday:
HOSP Acct II 9:20am to 11:15am

Wednesday (probably not going to be a good day for me haha):
HOSP Acct II 9:20am to 11:15am
HOSP Human Resources 11:30am to 1:25pm
Leadership 3:50pm to 5:45pm
Math 6:00pm to 9:30pm

Thursday:
HOSP Acct II 9:20 to 11:15am

Course Descriptions:
Hospitality Accounting II
This course is based on the Uniform System of Accounts as approved by the American Hotel & Motel Association. Comprehensive coverage is given to revenue and expense accounting, the periodic inventory method, preparation of departmental and corporate financial statements for a hotel, ratio analysis, accounting for intangible assets, and selective topics in property and equipment accounting and hospitality payroll.

Hospitality Human Resource and Diversity Leadership
Operational and staff managers in today's hospitality-related businesses often manage a diverse group of employees and are responsible for compliance with employment laws and human resource policies. Therefore, managers must be knowledgeable about laws and best practices when working with their employees. This course helps students develop managerial knowledge and skills in several areas of human resource management including recruiting, interviewing, selection, orientation, training, performance evaluation and management, discipline, terminations, and employee and union relations.

Survey of College Mathematics
This course is designed to teach students the basic mathematical concepts and methods that will assist them in using mathematics in both their personal and professional lives. Topics include problem solving, sets, probability, statistics, and the rudiments of college algebra.

Foundations of Leadership Studies
This course draws upon a variety of researched-based theories and applications germane to the study of leadership. Theoretical paradigms of motivation are discussed and applied to communication styles, decision making, risk taking, team building, conflict resolution, negotiation, diversity and inclusion. Leadership traits, leadership styles and roles are examined in the context of ethics, power and social responsibility.

Mid-August Update!

2008-08-18T00:37:00.004-04:00

Well another week has gone by! The last few mingling weeks of summer are shooting by rapidly!

My other roomie moved in without any issues on Sunday night and I later hung out with some friends that evening. It was great, we played some games such as Bible pictionary and another game. I enjoy having great friends that we can play wholesome games and have good clean fun!

Monday, my roomie and I rearranged things in our room. Made our beds into bunk beds. I get the top bunk, there is no ladder, it makes things interesting for me as half the time I usually slide/fall down off the top but the interesting part of this is that the bunk beds are set upon 7" bed risers making it even higher off the floor! Ahh, yes life has to be interesting! Later, my roomies and I went to the store to get a few essentials and we also had to get a 4th peg that we were missing for the bunk bed. They apparently did not make the pegs or something similar to that anymore so we found a bolt and asked the guys in tool rental to cut it for us (they did, it worked out great!).

Thursday, I had my job interview at another company as the last interview fell through then later on, I picked up my pay check from Best Western only to find out that they shorted me on the hours. So on Monday, I plan to call the Department of Labor or do something as the manager is not returning my phone calls. After that, I went with Melissa to some dance lesson thing at Providence swings with some other friends. I watched the lesson, it was a similar form of belly dancing, it fun to watch. Afterwards, we all took a walk and got ice cream. I'm really enjoying this group of friends I have, we all support and care about each other and they are real people that do not act fake!

Friday, we had our friends invited over dinner and I was kind of in charge of dinner somehow. That made things interesting for me as I had to shop and plan it. Then Melissa was home from work to help me make it but I had decided to make it simple so we had Mexican style with nachos and a burrito bar with homemade guacamole and pico de gallo which turned out really good. After dinner, we all played Taboo and that was so much fun! It is a game where you have to describe words without using certain words. Then when they all left, Melissa and I went to go pick up Carrie from the airport. She had been in California practically all summer long. It was great seeing her again and we all played a game together even though it was late at night, but you can only live young once, right?

Saturday, I found a free couch on craigslist that was in awesome shape. Now as to how to move this couch, we rented a truck for Home Depot for about $19 bucks. Yay for a new couch that only cost $19 bucks! It was in great shape! God really does provide, just have patience and faith!

Today was great! I went to church then afterwards, I went to the beach with Melissa and met up with some friends and that turned into an awesome day! We went to dinner afterwards and then on the way home, our friend got a flat tire. It was kind of funny because we happened to pull into a gas station and there was a AAA guy there already. It was funny because we pulled up in 2 men in black, old fashioned black marquis and you almost would expect Will Smith to be popping out of the car.

I wonder what next week's adventures hold in store for me!

First Week of August Update!

2008-08-11T11:20:00.002-04:00

So I left off on the last Thursday of July......

Melissa returned home on Monday (Aug 4th) from Soulfest and was extremely exhausted (she was volunteering in a kitchen all day long).

Tuesday, I called up the people that I had 2 interviews with and they were like who are you? Oh that job? We filled the position. I was like great, thanks. Then like an hour after that I got a phone call from a hotel for an interview. God does keep these doors swinging open and closed. I think he's teaching me patience this year.

I went into the interview and it was the best interview that I've had all summer. The guy said he would call me back Friday but that never happened. So I called him and left him a message.

Thursday, I hung out with some great new friends then went to Thursday night Bible study. Friday, I hung out with friends and we played charades. I love having friends that are just able to play good wholesome games and not go out and do stupid crap.

Sunday, I went to church and then went shopping for a couple of things then my other roomie was moving in. That should make life interesting (haha). Then I went with Melissa and hung out with friends. We had a great time and these friends are great Christian brothers and sisters that seem to really support us in general.

As for today, I have no idea what is to be happening, I was going to go to the beach but it is raining so it just may be a rainy day in!

The last week of July!

2008-08-01T11:02:00.003-04:00

Knowing me with my luck, my life seems to hardly ever be dull. Monday, however, was a great chill day with nothing really huge happening in it. Tuesday, I went to the Providence Rescue Mission to help send out 4,000 mailings of support letters since the mission is going through a really tough time right now. I was there for about 9 hours having fun with church ladies. It is amazing the feeling you get after practically spending it talking to God and about God for a day.

During my time there, I received a phone call from a company for an interview for the next day. After spending time at the mission, I hung out with a friend of mine then headed home.

On Wednesday, I had my interview and I think it went smoothly. On my way to the interview, I was walking and this guy in an ice cream truck hollers out to me, "Hey! How are you?" I was not thinking straight and I responded. The guy then turns left into oncoming traffic all the while staring at me, luckily oncoming traffic responded with horns and not anything else. The guy pulled into a parking lot and I did not stick around to see what he had in mind. My day went pretty normal for me after that. It was Cheesecake Factory's 30th anniversary so they were celebrating $1.50 a slice day so a friend and I were headed to that but we never made it since we were stuffed from dinner.

Thursday was a little bit more interesting of a day. I had received a phone call the night before to come in for a 2nd interview. I've never had a 2nd interview before. I headed back into the place and the guy came from his office to get me. He merely said follow me, he did not shake my hand or anything. I followed him into his office admiring his fanny pack (haha not!) and he told me to have a seat. He sat down and started working on his computer. We then proceeded to make small talk for 20 minutes then right at the end he told me what I might be doing if I was hired there then he told me that he would call me. I walked away thinking wow that was odd but I figure it must have been a personality test.

Later on that day, I was taking a bus from downtown and it was my favorite bus driver. I was so excited to see her on my route for once. Right as the bus pulls away from the station, some guy pulls out his stinky fast food lunch and the smell just permeates the whole bus. There is no eating or drinking allowed on a bus. The bus driver asks him to put it away, he does not so then we have to call a supervisor to get this guy removed from the bus. The guy responds back by giving her threats and then the whole bus erupts in noise (it was a packed bus) about the bus driver and the guy. We had to wait 10-20 min for the supervisor to come.

Then later that night, I was taking a bus to Bible study and I get on and it is the same driver that I had when the bus' back door wouldn't close and we got stuck with the bus for 30 min. I should have guessed the next situation with that bus driver. Our back door would not work and we had handicap people on the bus meaning whenever we had to let them off we risked the chance of not be able to go again since the door might not shut.

Bible study was good, it was a mini concert and the guy had never gone public before. He had some great songs.

I'm not sure where my day is going to take me today or the rest of my weekend but I hope everyone has a great weekend :D

Changes Come Around Real Soon

2008-07-28T10:01:00.005-04:00

I should warn you that this is kind of a long one!

Did I ever have a work filled past weekend!!! I think I almost worked 50 hours this past week! I worked/got trained on Wednesday for the night shift, it was really slow but I learned what I needed to do and it was pretty uneventful. Thursday, I worked my other temporary job for 6 hours making shakes for this new cosmetic company coming out. The people I worked with on the first day were great and we all got along well.

After work on Thursday, I went to a get together at a friend's house who lives in the beautiful outskirts of Rhode Island/Connecticut border. We ate burgers then played some games. The first game was Mafia which is the game where you have townspeople, mafia, a cop and a doctor and the mafia try to kill the townspeople before the townspeople managed to get rid of all the mafia. It is fun and can be crazy! After that, we played 4 people on a couch. You get into 2 equal teams and then everyone puts their name on a piece of paper and puts it into a hat. Then you draw a new name and that is your new name for the game. The object is to get 4 people of your team on the couch through strategy without discussing how with your teammates. This game was lots of fun as well. Afterwards, we played Catch Phrase. Overall, it was a fun night.

Friday, I worked 4 1/2 hours at my temporary job then I slept before heading in to work at the Best Western. It was going to be my first shift alone. That meant the whole entire hotel was my responsibility from 11pm to 7am including maintenance and security. The first 2 hours were kind of hectic with a lot of requests for towels and blankets to be brought up along with a lot of people calling to request wake up calls as well as a few noise complaints since there was no vacancy that evening. I did laundry, folded towels and pillowcases (sheets get sent out to another company) and put towels away in the maid closet or in the pool room. I did night audit as well (for this hotel it is really simple) and I also set up breakfast which consisted of scrambled eggs, sausages, waffles, cereal, pastries, toast and some other things. Newspapers to be delivered to each room once they arrive. I also swept and mopped the lobby and on this particular night, I also cleaned up the meeting room for Saturday's events.

On Saturday, I went home and arrived back at the hotel at 2pm to drive a shuttle (a Ford E150 7 passenger minivan) to take people to a wedding in a little town called Bristol which was about 30-50 drive away. I was supposed to take 2 groups of people along with another shuttle & driver. The first group consisted of 10 groomsmen for the wedding. I got 6 of them in my shuttle. All 6 were on their 5th or 6th beer and were chugging some down while I was driving, it can be quite entertaining to have 6 buzzed/almost drunk men for that long of a drive. They requested to stop at a liquor store (I passed it already, haha) then they wanted to stop at a local bar before heading to the wedding location to do a round of shots (their tradition apparently). I told them I would stop only if they got the other shuttle to stop as well. That they accomplished and we went to the bar (haha I sat in the car thank you very much!). The men were quick as promised and I dropped them off. I rushed back to go pick up the girls but by the time I got back, the girls had already lost patience and decided to drive themselves to the wedding. The person at the front desk back at the hotel was alone and had a bunch of different jobs to do left by our manager who apparently rarely makes an appearance on the weekends but does plan to have a lot of events and stuff done by various people so we are usually left to make things up and do things on the fly for guests. I offered to stay but both me and the other person thought it best to not stay since I would be hitting overtime and this hotel does not prefer to pay its employees past overtime. I headed home and returned back at 10pm at the wedding to pick up whatever people needed a ride back to the wedding. I showed up at 10pm since it was requested of me but I actually did not manage to get my drunks packed up until 11:40pm since the wedding was still in full swing while I was there.

While I was waiting, I was in the catering area and one of the groomsmen came and found me, he wanted me to go "polish the dance floor" with him but I told him no. I am not a huge fan of dancing that particular way with a drunk guy. He got mad at me for it and made sure to let everyone know how upset he was with me that I would not dance with him (that's why I didn't get a tip but I don't care, my body isn't worth it). Once the wedding winded down, I loaded up my shuttle with 6 people (all of which were really drunk and in a very playful mood). I got the person riding shot gun to be DJ and the party was taken on the road!

I got back to the hotel at midnight and everyone in the shuttle were excited to find out that I was going to be their front desk associate for the night. My night was a little busier than the night before because the hotel was at full occupancy with 2 wedding parties and a softball team. Both wedding parties were pretty drunk and noisey. Earlier in the day prior to my shift was a few food functions at the hotel and the breakfast room was in poor shape with several dishes to be done. I did these along with my usual laundry and as soon as I started getting requests to bring things to people's room (you know, soap, coffee, toilet paper, towels, etc.) I discovered that I had no key to both of the maid closets. I tried every key I could possibly find and I was forced to ignore requests for things which was hard. The room above the front desk was having a full on party (luckily their neighbors were passed out) and I had to make sure nothing stupid was being done (yep they smoked, $500 fine for smoking at the hotel). I did the rest of my duties as best as I could, newspapers didn't arrive until it was too late so that didn't get done.

At 7am, I was ready to head home when I got a phone call from my manager. He asked me how I was feeling and what not, I answered and he's like ok do you think you are awake enough to take the next shift instead of working the 3rd shift on Sunday night? If I switched, that meant I would be working 16 hours straight on barely any sleep as well as not getting any breaks while working and handling any events/functions the manager had arranged for that day. I told him no and I also told him that I would be quitting. He was shocked and disappointed since he was down to like 2-3 people (a person usually works 5 shifts a week) to cover the week's 21 various front desk shifts. I also told him that I would not be working that evening, he was extra upset with me. I did not like the way this company treated its employees as cheap labor amongst various other things and with the support of my father, I agreed to quit this job even though I need the experience.

I had to stay there until someone came in to cover for the employee not coming to work. They didn't arrive until 7:30am and by then I had missed my bus back to downtown Providence. I had been bussing to work. I was upset that I missed the bus especially since the next one wasn't for another hour. I headed outside in the pouring rain. No other businesses were really open this fine Sunday morning so I headed to another bus stop about 1 1/2 miles away in the pouring rain (yes I was smart and forgot my umbrella). I hate to admit that I just was not a happy camper that morning but God definitely had other things in mind.

I was waiting under a bus stop shelter with a guy and I had about 50 minutes to wait. The other guy and I are started talking and making jokes etc which really helped the time go by. It's just not like me to talk to random people like that. Then I got on the bus to head back to Providence. I got on my next bus and I watched as other people trickled onto the bus. I was very suprised to see 2 morman missionaries getting on the bus. They were the first set of mormans I had seen out here and they were also the only mormans that I even knew of out here which can be a shocker. I was suprised to see them sit next to me on the bus and a bunch of questions flooded to my mind to ask them. I started talking to one of them and we had an interesting conversation, the guy even made a joke about mormans which cracked me up and it was nice to talk to him.

Once I got home, I changed out of my sopping wet clothes and hopped on a bus to head to church. The lady across the aisle from me started talking to me and we carried on a conversation all the way to downtown. I walked to church in a happy mood realizing how much happier I was then when I had first started this morning and that I was possibly turning into my mother with me talking to all these random strangers. It was also pleasant to be somewhat social with some people since Melissa had left last Friday afternoon to New Hampshire for a little longer than a week and I definitely miss her.

I went to church then I went to lunch with this one friend that I had not been getting along with. I decided that even though he can be a pain in my rear, I decided to be friends with him since there is no use in having enemies in your company of friends. Afterwards, I headed home where I talked to my mom about my crazy day then I passed out from sheer exhaustion around 3:30pm. I awoke hours later and saw that it was 1am and I continued to sleep. I finally pushed myself awake at 7:30am to get ready for my chiropractor appointment. Yes, I got 16 hours of sleep! Holy cow! I looked at my phone this morning and realized I had been texting people and making/receiving phone calls in my sleep, oh how entertaining of me!

I wonder what adventures await me this week. I do know that I am still tired and plan to head to bed again very soon, haha. I also do know that I need to find a job again. Can't wait to see what God has planned for me in that department!

My New Job

2008-07-22T19:25:00.002-04:00

I just got a job at the Best Western of Providence-Seekonk. I get to work the third shift for right now which is the 11pm to 7am shift. I am a front desk associate which means I check guests in and out, answer phones, do laundry, handle guest complaints, deliver stuff to rooms, clean the lobby, set up breakfast and keep that well stocked during breakfast hours, insert in reservations, and an assortment of other fun duties.

I was trained today for about 5 hours and then I will be trained again tomorrow at 11pm to 7am then I will supposedly get to run a shift on Friday and a shift on Saturday alone so it shall be interesting.

As well as that job, I also am working for a temporary staffing agency and get to help run a convention this weekend. I work on Thursday during the day and on Friday during the day as well. It is kind of funny how I went from no jobs to 2 jobs within a week and already having to juggle them and their times.

When school starts I'll have these two jobs (the temporary staffing agency one will be a gig by gig basis) as well as a work study job working with the community as well as being a missions leader at church, I think I'll have my hands pretty darn full. I praise God for blessing me with work to do!

Mid-July Weekend Update!

2008-07-20T14:05:00.002-04:00

I had a fun jam packed weekend! I thought I would share it all with you guys!

On Thursday night I went to a weekly Bible study which had a great message to it this week. Then on Friday, I had to go in to this temporary staffing agency to fill out some paperwork to get a temporary job for next weekend (at least it is some form of money right?) and then I went to go get drug tested (yay!). Afterwards, Melissa and I headed to Sam's Club to do some grocery shopping then later that evening we met up with some of our friend's from Thursday night Bible study. There was 7 of us for dinner @ Texas Roadhouse then 6 of us headed to go see Dark Knight. We came right as the movie was due to begin and there was no 6 seats together so we exchanged our tickets for a later showing and went for ice cream while we waited. Dark Knight was decent however it was really dark and twisted and it was the first batman movie that I can remember watching (I'm sure I've seen others, I just cannot remember them). The night was fun and it's great to get some new friends.

Saturday, Melissa headed to go work at a wedding in Newport all day and I headed over to my friend Rachel's house where she and another friend, Kat were hanging out. We played a junk food trivia game (wow I am so not a junk food junkie!). After we played the game we got into the car and headed to southern Rhode Island to go to a hot air balloon festival where they had 11 hot air balloons set up at dusk with glows going. After the balloons were packed up again, there was a firework display. It was a great evening. After the festival, we headed to Rachel's house for pie and ice cream.

As for today, I had church as usual which had a great message with it. As for the rest of my day, I do not know what all I am going to do but we will see!

Mid-July Update!

2008-07-16T22:27:00.003-04:00

Well I am starting to get better on updating my blog ;)

Yes, I have been busy, there seems to always be something to do that keeps me busy! On July 9th, early morning I flew to Los Angeles, California! My friend, Mauricio, picked me up from the airport and we hung out in Santa Monica and grabbed some In-n-Out Burger. He dropped off at my cousin's (Dimi) apartment. Dimi was getting married that weekend and had rented some guest suites in his apartment complex to accomdate incoming family. I crashed with Aunt Rose that night (it was fun, thanks Rosie :D). Thursday was fun as Tammy (Dimi's now wife) took me along with her sister to her office and then we went and picked up my parents from the airport.

Once my parents got in, my mom's family trickled in over the rest of the day and we all hung out together. Friday, my brother flew in early morning and then we got back to our place and my dad, bro and I took a walk to the beach. We lost track of time and arrived back 4 hours later much to our suprise that we had been walking for 4 hours! There were sting rays in the ocean which was fun and interesting (shuffle your feet!!) to swim around with as well as a fun assortment of shells and sand dollars! Later on Friday, my cousin had a rehearsal dinner during which we saw a few dolphins off his patio which was an awesome sight!

Saturday, my cousin got married and it was a lovely wedding! They got married on the rooftop of the Marriott in Marina Del Rey. What an amazing sight! Sunday was fun as well as about 20 of us went to brunch at a yummy restaurant. Then afterwards, the family hung out and wrapped things up as most of the Blumenschein clan was leaving on Sunday.

My parents and bro flew out first then I caught the 10:30pm redeye to Charlotte, North Carolina. I got in early to Charlotte (5:30am yay! right?) and found a rocking chair in hopes of catching a snooze in. Well, some lonely married business guy came and sat in the chair next to me and we talked for the next 2 1/2 hours about the United States, the gold rush, books, history, evolution/creation, and an assortment of other things. It was a great way to pass the time especially since when I fly, hardly any speaks to me because I usually end up with grump people on the plane to sit next to. I flew the last leg (Charlotte to Providence) and my loving roommate, Melissa came and picked me up.

I had about 3 hours of sleep but I told Melissa I was game for any adventure she had in store. We ended up going to a new swim spot that isn't too terribly far away along with 2 friends from a Thursday night Bible study that I usually go to. Afterwards, we went grocery shopping at Price Rite (where we buy most of our produce) then headed on home. Tuesday, I ran some errands downtown with Melissa and we ended up having lunch with Pastor Andy discussing our plans for next year as I am a missions leader and Melissa is a semester missionary. After that, we went grocery shopping (yes round two, because we get meat at a different store, crazy yes I know!).

That's it for now! I hope everyone is having a great summer so far!

Summer!

2008-07-05T15:54:00.003-04:00

Here it is July 5th and I just got internet in my apartment hence why I probably haven't written in a long while. May was an interesting month as I lived in 4 different places for that month. I was fortunate to move in May 31st.

Move in was interesting since my roommate and I got to rent a UHaul (I got to drive hehe). Why you may ask did us 2 girls rent a UHaul? Oh because we have a lot of stuff aparently including an assortment of furniture that I managed to collect with all my other friends moving. I was lucky to get a bunk bed set (it breaks into 2 separate twin beds yay!) and 2 dressers and my friend gave me his television to hold onto for the summer. My roommate, Melissa, (the other one is chilling in Buffalo, New York for the summer) had a couch (yay), a tv, a dining table, some chairs, a dresser, a desk, some end tables, a bookshelf and some other furniture. So we are fortunate to have a decently furnished apartment.

I flew back to Idaho for 3 weeks starting June 2nd and flew back to Rhode Island June 23rd. It was great to be in Idaho to see family and friends. I also was lucky to see my 2 friends graduate from high school. In week 2, my parents and I made a road trip down to Salt Lake city for a foodshow and then we drove up through eastern Idaho to Jackson Hole. We also decided to go to Yellowstone. It was great and it was a great time for me to hang with my parents. I enjoyed it a lot. In the last week of my time in Idaho, my brother flew home and I enjoyed seeing him again.

My time back in Rhode Island has been somewhat eventful. I've been busy searching for a job and have had an interview. I'm praying to have patience in seeking God's plan for what job He wants me to have. I've been making new friends as well and that has been fun. I have been going to church on Sundays as well as a Thursday night Bible study with a group of people from various churches in the area.

Here are some random interesting moments:
~Carrying a 6' by 9' rug home 1/4 a mile (while crossing a street people made sure to stop hehe)
~Getting stuck on a broken down bus for a 1/2 hour until the replacement came while being in the middle of 2 people in a fight (that was interesting!)
~Going to Newport and having fun playing in the waves

I am going to California this week (leaving Weds flying back Sunday night) to see my cousin get married. So I am really excited about that and also hope to see family while I'm down there.

Hope all is well for everyone! :D

WOW! Like TWO months later!!!!!

2008-05-25T22:54:00.002-04:00

Wow! So much has happened! I am sorry for not writing sooner! Life has been crazy busy!!!!!! Guess what!? I'm coming to Idaho June 2nd!

Yes, I fully know I left off on April 2nd! Things have finally started slowing down and I've managed to get the world to stop spinning for a minute! Here are pieces of my life!

April 4th-6th:
Went to Freedom, New Hampshire for a spring retreat with about 14 other people in my group. There were various churches there and about 100 people or so in attendence. It was very relaxing and at the same time a great way to come and take rest in God.

April 13th:
My birthday-my birthday was great! My parents found a local bakery that delivered a cake to me. Then Melissa took me out to lunch. Later, after hanging out with Melissa, we and several other friends headed to an Italian restaurant. I brought my cake with me and when I got to the restaurant they took the cake from me and put it in the refrigerator. After we were done eating, the people at the restaurant brought out my cake and sung me happy birthday, however my parents put one of my nicknames on the cake, one nickname that my RI friends did not know, so when the whole restaurant broke out in song for me through that nickname, we all burst out laughing. It was great!

Later on the next week, I found a car, a 1999 Honda Accord and bought it. Now I'm trying to figure out the whole registration scene for it. I think I have it down and should be registering it in the next week or so hopefully.

I also got the whole apartment scene figured out! God works in mysterious ways! I had found this 2 bedroom apartment on the 2nd floor in a good area. I put down a deposit on it and things went through and I was supposed to move in May 1st. I was working through an agent and at the last minute, the apartment was pulled out from under me. My agent was upset with the landlord for this and the landlord offered us his way nicer 1st floor and my agent managed to get the rent knocked down a tad. So I have a nice 2 bedroom apartment with 2 other fun loving roommates so things should be good! I get to hopefully move in May 27th! So excited! That's 2 days away! I've been staying at a friend's apartment as I moved out of the dorms on May 16th. Which closes the dorm chapter of my life!

School was a very difficult trimester for me with this past one. My classes all were very challenging for me. I had one class that had 40% of the grade be a project that we all each spent about 20-60 hours on and another 20% of that class' grade was the final. The project was first researching a city from a random state that we drew out of a hat (the professor threw Idaho out, I couldn't believe it!). I got Colorado and chose Denver as my destination city. Then we again drew out of a hat and got a corporation, association or non profit group to plan and organize a 3 night/4 day convention for in the city that we research. I got Boeing, which was great for me because I love airplanes. Another class that was difficult for me was macroeconomics just because I had a hard time grasping and memorizing concepts. I also was challenged in my advanced English class with having a teacher who disliked God and presented me with a lot of challenges/conflicts upon my own personal views.

My friends here are amazing! I have most definitely a wonderful family out here of all sorts of random people that manage to find me! I do not know what I would do without my friends here, they mean a lot to me and we all teach each other things everyday. It's amazing to see everyone's different managing styles and lifestyles. Because truly, we all having an amazing and unique story to share, of how we were brought up and how that in turn makes each of us very different!

I was also presented with the challenge of having chronic back pain. I have had consistent back pain everyday since mid-April and off and on from at least March. I did go to the hospital one night that it was so bad and they took x-rays and said nothing was wrong. They gave me a prescription to pain killers. With my luck, I was allergic to that and my whole body broke out in a rash (2 of my friends put me on a no scratch rule lol and me and another made the scratch club.....haha). I hunted around and found a back specialist who was 2 weeks out. I made the appointment and waited anxiously for it. As nothing was helping my pain at this point, not even vicaden (my friends love me on that because it makes me really talkative and takes me for a ride down memory lane). I had the appointment and the doctor was like well I do not really see anything wrong with the x-rays so you can do physical therapy or whatever treatment method and here's a prescription.....I was kind of frusterated and this was almost my breaking point with the pain....luckily the prescription helped with the pain and it has gone down a tad but I'm fearful that my body is getting used to it now.

Let's see, random fun times:
~Playing hand and foot (an awesome, crazy card game) or various other games with Carrie who is an awesome friend to have around. She is very understanding especially with me and all my crazy moods!

~Going on random adventures with Alissa (one of my future roomies) to who knows where! Which is always a blast! Alissa cracks me up, you never know what comment or random thing she's going to say or do next!

~Hanging out with Melissa...which is always fun! Melissa helps me out so much with so many things and she is like a sister to me! I can't wait to tear up the upcoming months with having her for a roomie.

~Haha! Running around downtown Providence from midnight on and ending up at a 24 hour IHOP only to get home at 3:30am/4am!

~Walking down the WRONG street on the WRONG side of town and almost getting picked up because some guy thought I was a hooker(yeppers, I learned my lesson) because I missed the bus by accident. Yeah, I was doing a church thing at the rescue mission and I missed the bus and decided to walk to the mission, whoops, not a smart idea!

~I know there are so many more.........haha I guess you'll have to wait and hear them from me!

Another cool/important things before I end....I am going to be a Missions Leader for the college aged church group that I am involved with. My job will be to present a general awareness of missions and mission needs including prayer for places around the world as well as helping to coordinate spring break mission trips.

Well, that about sums it up! I'll be seeing a lot of you come June 2nd! We can really tear things up then!

Life is crazy!

2008-04-03T00:11:00.002-04:00

Well, yes I know it's been forever since I've posted my last blog! I've somehow been crazy busy!

Classes are going okay for me this trimester, and I cannot believe that I only have like 5 more weeks of school left until summer!!! Speaking of summer, I just went to the summer job fair with my school, I turned in a few apps, had 1 interview, and I just recently got a job offer. Not sure how thing are going to pan out but we'll see, sometimes things just take patience although its difficult.

I just recently started trying to find a part time job to fit into my schedule now to keep me busy until summer hits. Not sure yet where I'll be working.

I'm working on getting over a whole yucky mess of sickness including yet not limited to a double ear infection and bronchitis. Never had bronchitis before so that was an adventure.

As most people know at this point but I'm including it for clarification, Corey and I broke up about a month ago. It was a great first relationship and I learned a lot of things in general for any future relationships I may have with people.

Other than that, I've just been running around, busy with school, finding a job, getting an apartment, being sick, going to church, growing in God's word, and being sick. This weekend, I'm looking forward to heading up to Freedom, New Hampshire for a spring retreat with college students from all over the New England area! It should be lots of fun!

Start of Week 3, 3rd Trimester!

2008-03-17T11:50:00.002-04:00

So I had a pretty good weekend, it was long though at times. On Thursday night, I hung out with my good friend, Carrie, we went shopping and played some board games. It was enjoyable and relaxing, a great way to take a load off the week!

Friday was Relay for Life! Relay for Life started at 6pm and ended at 6am. It is a 12 hour fundraising event for cancer and it was so long and at night because cancer never sleeps! It was located in the rec center at my school with almost 400 people, we walked laps around the gym all night and did various other activities. It was a lot of fun and I was team captain and managed to get 8 people on my team from Christian Student Fellowship and from school in general. Also, leading up to the event and during the event, luminaria bags could be purchased in honor or memory of someone then during the event the luminaria bags had glow sticks placed in them and were placed around the gym. Melissa gave her story of why she relays to the whole crowd then we walked laps around the luminaria bags. It was definitely a touching moment because everyone has been affected by cancer in a loved one of some way. After the event was over, I helped Melissa who was on the committee for it, clean up but I was definitely tired! I went to bed at 7am and woke up at noon then caught lunch with Melissa and together we went shopping and hung out. Then on Sunday, I had church and hung with friends then cleaned up my room.

Classes have been going well. They are just challenging and somewhat boring at the moment and I'm trying my best with them!

These are the classes I have:
Career Planning
This is the second course in a series of three career management courses that students will participate in at the University. Students will further enhance their knowledge of career management topics such as career planning strategies, industry/segment exploration, experiential education options, job search techniques and skill development. Students will continue to use the Best Fit Career Management System as a resource and guide as they explore their options and work toward Best Fit Employment.

Macroeconomics
This course is designated as the first of two courses serving as an introduction to economics. It is a survey course covering the foundations of economics and focusing on macroeconomic concepts and issues such as the features and goals of capitalism, the market system, national income, business cycles, macroeconomic theories, and monetary and fiscal policy.

Advanced Composition and Communication
This course is a continuation of ENG1020 English Composition. Building on the research and audience skills from ENG1020, students develop more complex and rhetorically advanced papers. All work, written and oral, is aimed at persuading an audience, and instruction begins with the essential components of a logically constructed and articulated argument. Critical thinking skills are reinforced throughout the course, as students develop, peer critique, and present projects to the class. Research and MLA skills are expected of students, and all projects require research from a variety of sources. At the end of the course, in addition to a final exam, students present a representative portfolio of their writing.

Hospitality Information Technology
This is an introductory course in information systems in the hospitality industry. This course focuses on property management systems, Internet/Intranet systems and other forms of technology.

Hospitality Sales and Meeting Management
This course familiarizes students with the scope of sales and meeting management within the hospitality industry. The reciprocal relationship between selling and service is presented within the context of hospitality marketing practices.

So those are my classes and I have 18.5 credits in all. I hope everyone has a great week!

RUSSIA & 3rd Trimester!!!!

2008-03-12T12:15:00.004-04:00

WHEW! It's been like forever since I've updated my blog! I'm sorry, I've been so busy with everything, life has been crazy busy!

So I'll start off with Russia, because I'm sure that's where everyone wants to me start ;)

Friday February 22nd (Day 1) of our trip, we wake up to a snow storm happening outside. This causes some issues due to the fact that we are departing from Boston and not Providence, so we rush to get everyone together and hop on a train from Providence to Boston instead of having people drive us to the airport. We get through security and everything fine and have a few hours to wait now at the airport. I believe we got there around 4pm and our flight left at 7pm. Lucky for me, I brought the game of Catch Phrase which we all played for a while (it sure does come in handy when traveling with groups of people, I must say!). Our flight was only delayed by like 45min so we all get on the plane. There are 8 of us, 6 girls, a guy and my pastor. On our first flight which was set up 2 by 4 by 2 seating in the rows, we got 2 sets of 4 for seating which was great but we ended up sitting on the tarmac for 2-3 hours waiting our turn to leave. Then our flight was 6 hours long or so and we got to Amsterdam and missed our connection. Thankfully, praise God! that another flight was headed towards Moscow in a half hour and we were lucky to catch it. Now, flying out of Amsterdam is crazy because you have to go through security again! We made it into Moscow, and headed through customs. You were not allowed to speak or smile when handing your passport to the Russian official, my roommate, Allison, and I were the only 2 out of 8 that had not been to Russia before. We get through customs and hurry off to go find our bags. Someone had already picked up one of ours that we had to go steal back and then of course, Pastor Andy's bag never left Amsterdam and he was assured that it would be put on the next flight to Nizhny Novogard which was our destination city. A tour guide and driver and van picked us up and took us to this nice restaurant for dinner. It was like family style and there was a wedding reception going on as well. By the way, at this point, it is officially Saturday evening because Moscow is 8 hours ahead of RI and for you Idahoans, thats 10 hours and for you Californians, thats 11 hours! After dinner, we headed to the train station and got on an overnight train. We had sleeping cars that slept 4 people each. We got in and everyone pretty much crashed.

Sunday morning around 7am, we arrive in Nizhny and get picked up by our host family with a van and car, much to everyone in the van's delight (teehee), the van had no seats in the back and instead had dining chairs that were not bolted to the ground. This provided much entertainment. The 8 of us were staying at a church dorm/hostel with the 6 girls in 1 room and the 2 guys in the other. Sunday mainly consisted of us going to 2 different church services and having fellowship with youth there. It was a great start to the week!

The rest of the week, we visited various schools and a dorm to give presentations on what life in America is like and what college life in America is like. At the end of the presentation, students were allowed to ask us various questions and that was quite entertaining. Then we invited the students to a church party that we were going to have that Friday. Our main focus for the week was to establish a relationship between the students and the few churches there. Our interpreter also taught an English class and we made 2 special visits to that class and did some exercises and interacting with the students like acting out popular Russian phrases and English phrases, picking apart the meanings of crazy sayings and other fun language activities.

On Thursday, we made a special trip to a nearby town about 1-2 hours away. This town, that starts with a Z and sounds like Zavuljah (def not spelled that way though), was the town that the past years mission team had stayed in and there was a special church family there that was in the process of building a church and it was amazing to see what progress they had done on it!

Another activity we did a lot was that we had about 50 4 x 6 cards with pictures on them of like various landscapes, people settings, and other various life applying things on them and we had students pick out cards in answer to our questions and had them explain. This activity is called Solarium and opens up people to deeper conversations and leads conversations to talking about God. So this activity was pretty fun.

One student/woman that was about 32 or so had invited us to her "flat" for lunch one afternoon. So part of our group went. She lived in a town about 1-2 hours away by bus. She had a lovely lunch laid out for us with various salads and amazing desserts. She also made her own wine and "juices" and had us try her gooseberry juice. I'll tell you one thing, it wasn't juice! We all laughed about that for a while and it was an amazing cultural experience to see how someone would live. This woman lived alone which is unusual and she had a garden and grew most of her vegetables and pickled/canned them for the winter months.

Some of the funny things about Russia....? Well, first toilets are quite entertaining over there! You never know what you are going to get to use! Plus, you often times have to pay about 50 cents to get about 1 square of toilet paper to go in a hole! That's right! A hole! Another thing, public transportation. We mainly used this method to get around (pictures to come) and we would get on a bus and it was jam packed!!! Wall to wall people, no use holding on, we were squeezed in tight enough there! Everyday we ate most of our meals in the church kitchen with a older Russian lady. Since it is winter, most of our meals consisted of soup and then something else such as barley and beef or pasta and chicken or a salad. However, with every meal we ate tons and tons of cabbage, by the end of the trip, we were all cabbaged out!

The weather was not too bad, actually it was the first time anyone in my group really saw the ground in Russia since the snow was melting. It made everything really icy and several of us made good habits of falling! Yes, that would include me with my amazing ability of having no balance! I enjoyed providing entertainment though to my fellow friends and Russians!

One little problem we encounted in the middle of our trip was that one of our team members encounted a kidney stone problem and got to experience a Russian hospital (oh fun!!).

Friday evening, we took the overnight train back to Moscow and spent Saturday touring around Moscow with 3 missionaries, 1 of whom was from El Paso, Texas and another was from Las Cruces, New Mexico, places that I had just visited last year! We spent Saturday night at Hotel Cosmos which was a hotel built in 1979 for the French for when the Olympics came. It was a nice hotel.

It was pretty smooth traveling heading home and we didn't really have any problems, thankfully. Overall, the trip was amazing and I had a blast and I definitely learned a lot about myself and got a deeper understanding of the European lifestyle. There really aren't enough words to describe all the feelings that I got out of Russia.

Jet lag was entertaining to experience and definitely took a few days to get used to. I'm already almost done with my second week of my 3rd trimester at school. Time is just flying by like crazy! In my next posting (which will be this weekend, promise), I'll tell what classes I'm in and other things that have been happening in my life!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Life is crazy but good, right?

2008-02-16T02:01:00.006-05:00

It has almost been 2 weeks since I have last updated, after talking to some people, most like a long version of the blog and a few like the short version, so here is a long version, if you want the short version, email me.

So I left off pretty much around superbowl weekend. I have been so busy with life and just working on trying to grow up to be the woman that God wants me to be!

First, there has been a huge addition and change in my life and that is my awesome friend, Jacqui, who means a lot to me even though we've only been friends for 2 weeks, I know she is going to be a lifelong friend, she means so much to me already! We get together every night and read the Bible together and discuss what we have just read and basically have our own little Bible study. We also talk about our days and making sure that the other is doing ok and not having any problems with anything. She lives in my dorm so its awesome to have her close by, haha not to mention we keep each other in line for all the crazy things we do and all that mischeif that we get into!

Life has been pretty busy for me. I am getting ready to head into a week of finals then on Friday I will be departing off to Russia. I will make sure and squeeze in another blog posting before I head off to Russia though.

Classes this trimester have been really difficult and I have started to become a little burned out feeling with my really full course load. I made sure to drop a class for next trimester so I can take things easy and possibly seek out a job!

A recap of my classes from 2nd trimester:
Hospitality Accounting-learned all the basic fundamentals of accounting with restaurants and hotels from doing daily cash reports, to creating various income statements and balance sheets, balancing a checkbook and knowing what to expect with errors on it, and various other fun things! This class has been difficult for me with all the stuff to memorize and all the right patterns and formulas.

Hospitality Law-there are so many things involved with running a hotel or restaurant, that it is crazy! There are so many technical terms and little details that it is really hard to remember all these things! This class was also a really difficult class for me!

Career Management-this class was a simple time consuming class where I created a version of my college resume and learned about job networking and other various career based things.

Marine Biology-this class was jam packed of lectures and lots of notes to be taken! Along with various nature films, some things were very fascinating to learn about and who knew that there was so much to be found in the ocean! This class was moderate for me and just challenged me when I had to learn all the special species names and phylum names for critters!

Front Office Operations-this class was all about how to operate a front desk of a hotel! I learned how to use one of the various check in/check out reservation computer programs, I learned how to do night audit (where a person closes all the accounts for the day and balances things out) and hotel forecasting (planning on how full your hotel will be and getting the best occupancy percentage possible) along with basic understanding of various areas in the hotel. This class contained a big project of creating your own full service hotel and creating a theme for it. I did mine based on a Jungle theme with exotic tree house rooms overlooking a jungle.

Guest Service Systems-this class was all about writing papers based off the teachers lectures. The teacher was a very colorful teacher and brought various teaching methods into his lectures which made things entertaining at times and you never knew what to expect from the teacher based upon all his various moods!

So other than taking those 6 classes, I also participated in a few clubs. I am in Club Manager's Association of America which deals with clubs such as country clubs, yacht clubs, art clubs etc. and I am co-secretary for this club.

I also am in Christian Student Fellowship and we have our weekly Tuesday Night Truth (TNT) meetings which are great since it is filled with worship, fellowship with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and an awesome message presented by Pastor Andy!

Other highlights of my weeks are going to church on Sunday mornings followed by lunch at the mall foodcourt! Also, group lunches on Tuesdays and Thursdays with Pastor Andy, Melissa, Dan, Corey and anyone else we can find that happens to be downtown at the right time!

Since I am so busy, I can hardly remember all the key things that have been happening but here are some key events from the past couple of weeks!

I was happen to be blessed with the opportunity to go to a monthly event called Mug and Muffin which is where all the ladies of my church gather together to go over a book of the Bible. For the month of January, we went over the book of 1 Peter. 1 Peter is an amazing book of the Bible and really touched me! I would highly recommend reading it and so far it is one of my favorite books of the Bible!

Another fun thing is when Melissa, Corey and I all get together and head to the store to buy dinner fixings then we head to someone's house and make dinner together then watch a movie together! It is great fun and quite entertaining!

Valentine's Day was great as this was my first Valentine's with a special someone! We went to dinner and the movies. We saw the movie Definitely Maybe which is a good chick flick presented from a guy's point of view. Corey got me flowers and chocolate. He is so good to me and it amazes me as how he always manages to know how to make me smile, he sure does know how to turn my bad days into good ones!

My roommate situation has worked out really well, I am starting to become good friends with Allison and we already have a lot of special memories of crazy things that we have done together! My other roommate have a real basic relationship which is fine.

I'm sure there are plenty of other things, but that is all for now and I'll be sure to post another update right before I head off to Russia! I hope everyone is doing great and I hope everyone has had a great month so far! Please, I would love to hear from you and to hear what's new with you and how things are going! Take care everyone & God bless!

Superbowl Weekend Update!

2008-02-04T00:34:00.000-05:00

Yep! The Pats just lost to the Giants. I just got home from a great superbowl party full of college age friends and other amazing people at my pastor's house. My pastor and his family are such wonderful people and I'm truly blessed to know them!

I have been so busy lately, I've barely had time to eat and sleep! There is only 2 weeks of classes left before finals, teachers are giving out big, fat projects that require a lot of work and research and often times a lot of work with groups.

I just got over being sick, at least everyone had it at once, apparently here in Providence for the public school system, they give the elementary school students a week off in February for the students to be separated and to let the schools air out because everyone gets so sick.

Some highlights from my week?

Spending time with my guy...hanging with great friends and taking crazy bus trips (what would I do without public transportation!?)...running around Wal-Mart trying to kill an hour because of bus schedules by chasing fellow friends with stuffed animals (haha who let 3 crazy girls loose)...getting lost in a tiny town of Middletown, Rhode Island....and so many more!

I hope everyone had a great week and I'll try to keep you guys updated!

The Last 10 Days or So

2008-01-27T02:36:00.000-05:00

Ok, I have been conflicting stories from people about the length of my blog. So I will start writing shorter blogs and if you want more details or more in depth info or a long version, just email me and I'll get back to ya!

So I left off waaayy back! I had a great 4 day weekend (thanks to Martin Luther King Day along with my usual Friday off). Saturday was fun with a game night at my friend's house, there were about 10 of us and we played Catch Phrase and Cranium, it was a great time for all of us to be together and just relax. Sunday was interesting because I had the opportunity to talk to Corey's parents and he got the same opportunity to talk to mine and we set up a time to meet his parents for the following week. His parents seemed like nice people and I was eager to meet them! Monday (no school), I hung out with Corey and then along with Dan too during the evening after he got off work. We had a great time playing Scrabble, I do not think I have really played that game before but it was fun!

Tuesday was a crazy day because my classes were following Monday's schedule so that took a moment to get used to, my Monday schedule is way more relaxed then my Tuesday's schedule so it was almost nice to have Mon-Wed-Thurs week of classes. It was definitely a tough week at school with several midterms and term papers along with a various mix of other lovely homework.

Friday was my friend's birthday (Melissa). A bunch of us threw together a surprise party for her and it was my job to bring her. I had struggles in getting Melissa to go to dinner with me which was understandable because she wanted to hang with more people but it worked and she was surprised! After dinner, 4 of us headed off to the movies to see 27 Dresses which was a great chick flick!

Saturday was kind of a big day for me as I was meeting Corey's parents. We met them at this nice little pizzeria on Federal Hill. They are really nice and funny people that are easy to get along with. It was a pleasant and humorous afternoon and I definitely enjoyed meeting them! After that, I headed to Carrie's house to hang out since both our guys were out at this wrestling event. I love hanging out with Carrie! I can be my complete crazy self around her!

Life has been crazy and jam packed and full of adventure and I'm trying to take it all one day at a time! So farewell until the next post!

My Not So Crazy Week!

2008-01-18T15:45:00.000-05:00

After having a 4 day weekend, I do have to admit that I was reluctant at starting my week! However, I do have to say that I'm sorry but this week may sound kind of dull so I'll make sure to make it short!

Tuesday's classes were normal and typical, I had a great lunch with friends, that always makes my day better. I had my college aged church as well on Tuesday night and one of my dear friends, Kendra, is moving away from Providence to go start a new job! Since Kendra was leaving, a group of us found reason to go out for a late night dinner and we did that. Which was was a lot fun!

I love Wednesdays because its the day I get to have lunch with Corey after my three classes and we always make lunch last a long time then we walk around downtown and run into friends.

Thursday was pretty much the same as every other Thursday, I had lunch with Dan and it was great talking to him and getting to know him better especially since Dan and Corey are attached at the hip usually. Then I hung out with Kendra and we looked at pictures and talked, it was great fun. She is a great friend of mine and she will be missed!

As for the weekend? Who knows what it is going to hold especially since we get Monday off since its a holiday! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

My Weekend

2008-01-14T21:11:00.000-05:00

This weekend was a nice, relaxing weekend to say the least!

I hung out with friends mostly through out the weekend. On Friday, me and one of my groups of friends made a little road trip up to Massachusetts to do some shopping. It was great fun.

Saturday, I took it easy and just relaxed. On Sunday, I watched some football and hung out with Corey. Then on Monday, we got a little bit of snow, just enough to make a snow day!! Which was a great added bonus to our weekend!

Yep, thats my weekend in a nutshell! It was just a nice and relaxing weekend! Hope everyone had a great weekend as well!

My Week!!!

2008-01-10T19:17:00.000-05:00

I figured that I better give you all an update before I hit the weekend, otherwise this blog will get to be too long to read!

So I've been so busy I cannot even remember what day I left you guys all at! Ok, so I left off on Sunday night! Oh boy, 4 days to catch everyone up on!!!!

SO! Monday, nothing too exciting happened during the day part of it that I can really remember. I do remember that I started off with a jam packed lesson in Marine Biology and then I had 2 classes right after that! When I was all done with school, I went home and had my group project partner and friend, Betsy, come over to work on it. Then I went downtown and ate dinner with Betsy and some other friends. Then I headed over to Melissa's house and together we headed off to the supermarket to pick up some soda to take to another friend's house where we had a party for the National Championship game of college football between OSU & LSU! One friend brought 18 pounds of chicken wings!!!! There were about a dozen of us all hanging out and having a great time.

Tuesday...I had accouting where we were learning all about debits and credits! Then I met up with my friends, Nicolette and Madeline for a late breakfast. Well, we sat there so long talking, that I was able to add lunch in with some other friends: Melissa, Dan, Corey and Pastor Andy without having to leave the dining hall! Then I took this extremely hard hospitality law test (I still wondering what I got on it) and then I had my other class. After that class, I grabbed dinner with Nicolette which was so much fun! Then I headed off to college age church. We had a special guest speaker, Randy Sprinkle, who was really great! Then after church, about 6 of us all headed off to a restaurant for a late night snack and a chance to hang out! I really packed that day in!!!!

On Wednesday, after classes, I grabbed a nice lunch with Corey then we walked to go meet Nicolette who was supposed to be on the 4th floor of this building. Corey and I are in this glass elevator and we see Nicolette and Madeline in the other one right as we reach the 4th floor! I didn't hop into their elevator in enough time and watched them shoot down to the bottom. I got back into my elevator with Corey and shot down to the bottom only to watch Nicolette and Madeline shoot back up. I finally got off the elevator and by the time Nicolette and Madeline joined us, all four of us were laughing so hard. I do not think that I have ever played elevator tag before! Then, after running around downtown for a while and bumping into random friends, I headed home. By the time I got home, I had to change and go to this "Snowed in by the Fireside" vegetarian banquet for my good friend, Carrie, who had to invite 3 people to it! She did not tell me who else was going so I reluctantly went, completly not knowing what to expect at all! Lucky for me, I found my friend, Seth, heading there and together we found our other friend, Megan! It has been a long while since I ate that many vegetables at once! Seth stated that he felt his stomach sprout from all the vegetables he ate! After that, I went back to my room and worked on some things then I took a nice 2 hour nap! Then I talked to the family and went right back to bed since I was so exhausted and caught up on some much needed sleep!

Finally! We are on Thursday! I generally eat breakfast before going to classes but since I knew I was getting out of my first class early, I thought I would wait. So with my spare time, I went off to see if I could find Nicolette. Also, Nicolette and I share an accounting book so even though we do not have any classes together we have to make a huge point to connect with each other 1-3 times a day, 4 days a week! That is a great way to save money and keep in touch with friends! I find Nicolette and she tell me she does not have any more classes for the day! So after my first class, I go and grab breakfast with her. Then I headed home in hopes of taking a nap (I know I had so much sleep the night before but I still wanted my nap!). That doesn't work but I head back downtown to catch lunch with Melissa and Dan which went great! Then I had my two classes after that. Then I caught dinner with my friend, Betsy, and originally it was supposed to be just the two of us but it turned out to be pretty much the whole group of friends from McNulty along with my old roommate who showed up halfway through dinner. There was only one seat left, next to me and she sat down and things still have not really changed to say the least but that is fine especially we have both gone our own separate ways at this point. So now, here I am sitting in my dorm room, I think I am going to go hang out with Nicolette and Madeline, but who knows what the weekend is going to hold!

1st Weekend Back In RI!

2008-01-06T19:27:00.000-05:00

I had a great and smooth day of flying, just long and tiring however. I was so happy to see a familiar face at the Providence Airport waiting to pick me up. Melissa, my amazing friend and sister in Christ, picked me up and took me to her apartment where we hung out and had a great night together!

Corey, my guy, picked me up on Friday to take me back to my dorm. Its been a tad bit hard getting back into the swing of things but I'm managing good and my pain from the sledding accident is getting better everyday. Friday night, I hung out with Melissa, had a great dinner together then we ran around downtown Providence exploring things. It was so much fun learning new things. Then I capped off my night by seeing the movie Alvin & The Chipmunks which was a really cute movie!

On Saturday, I worked on catching up on my sleep. Then I went with a group of friends from my hall, West Hall to go get my roommate, Allison, from the airport. The airline left her luggage behind at JFK airport so we reluctantly went home without it. Allison and I ordered pizza and grabbed another friend to play a board game together. It was great catching up with friends again!

On Sunday, I went to church and grabbed lunch with friends. Melissa dropped Allison and I off at our dorm where I worked on organizing and unpacking some more along with doing some homework. Then I went with Melissa to go pick up our other friend Carrie from the airport. While we were at the airport, instead of doing short term parking, we were sitting in the terminal where you are required to actively load passengers. Melissa left me with the car to go find Carrie. The cop monitoring things came over and was like move the car! I said I cannot it is my friends. Melissa was not answering her phone. The cop said you have 2 minutes to move it then he went to the front of the car and got the license plate and make/model of the car. As soon as he did that, I hopped into Melissa's car and took off. I finally got ahold of her and was like um, I have your car and I'm making a loop, be back shortly. It was quite funny to say the least. Afterwards, the three of us grabbed dinner together and had a great time catching up!

I'm going to call it a night for now! School is starting again tomorrow and I have to get back into the grind! I hope everyone had a Happy New Year!!

The Special Guy in My Life & Garden Valley, Idaho!

2008-01-02T18:41:00.000-05:00

Yes! I have a boyfriend and he's great! He's from Connecticut and we met at church, what a great place to meet someone special :) I know he reads my blog so I don't want him to go too crazy with all my compliments of him, so feel free to email me if you want!

This year for New Year's, my parents, brother, and I all headed up to the mountains where we had no cell or internet communication, so peaceful to be cut off from the world. It helped even more that Idaho Power had issues on January 1st and we pretty much had no power during that whole day and night, which made it so very nice to have no technology or anything, just a family of 4 sitting and chatting, passing the time!

We rented this beautiful cabin that came with its own private pool! The pool was outside and was heated geothermally with Idaho's great natural hot springs water!! The cabin was so accommodating for our family and can accommodate up to like 12 people, so we had tons of room!!!

Of course it got really chilly in Garden Valley but we had so much fun with all the snow and the pool! We rang in the new year drinking champagne and that night, temps fell below zero degrees!! BRRR!!!!

We did so many fun things!! Like taking fun walks around surrounding cabins and making our own sledding runs! I would have to say that if you plan on making your own sledding run or using a road for one, don't use one that has a bridge or one that has a lot of road signs along it! Yeah, we had a little accident, my dad and I were going down the road on a sled together, we picked up extreme speed (15-20mph) and slide off the bridge. We both thought that we were done for at that point but God was watching out for us and let us hit a speed limit sign instead. The sled hit the sign first and split down the middle and hit me next. Just some really bad bruises and issues with walking for the next couple of weeks, but life goes on!!

Now, I'm in Boise, packing up my stuff and getting ready for flying out tomorrow, bright and early!

My Time at Home

2007-12-29T14:16:00.000-05:00

I arrived back in Boise, Idaho very late on Thursday, Dec 20th!! I was so happy to see my parents!

On Friday, I went to lunch with my two of my good friends, Camden and Scott. Thanks Camden, by the way for buying Scott and me lunch! Then later on, my cousin and his girlfriend, Tammy, flew in from Los Angeles. I haven't seen them since July, so it was great seeing them again!!!

On Saturday, I relaxed at home with my family and went to church. We came out from church and found a winter wonderland!! It had snowed like 2 inches. My friend, Jeff, came and picked me up from church and we went to his house and hung out. He is a great driver in the snow!

On Sunday, my brother flew in and my family was a complete unit again! We had a great night with a little get together at my aunts house. It was great being with family and friends and just hanging out together.

On Monday, I went to the deli to help out and later my cousin Leena flew in (yes, thats a lot of visits to the airport). Then a whole bunch of us, 12 of us to be exact, went to church and then to my aunt's house for dinner. It was my great aunt and uncle, my cousins, my aunt, my grandparents, and my family.

On Tuesday, I had a great morning with my parents and brother. I got a nice array of gifts, thanks everybody! Then the whole rest of the family arrived for dinner. We had a great time together and everything went really smooth! Then later on, my friend, Jeff, called me asking me where he could a place that would deliver food on Christmas and I ended up bringing him some leftovers since he was stuck at work. He is a security guard for CITI.

On Wednesday, I said goodbye to my cousins, Dimi and Tammy. My parents, bro and I went shopping and then I went and grabbed coffee with my friend Gail. Then i went home, grabbed dinner and my parents, bro and I all went to the Idaho Botanical Gardens where they are having the gardens all lit up with Christmas lights. It was so nice!

On Thursday, I had lunch with my friend, Scott and then I headed downtown with my aunt, Rose, and cousin, Leena, to go see this child prodigy art exhibit! It was so amazing to see how talented a 13 year old girl could be! Then I went and saw P.S. I Love You with my mom and friends. After that, I hung out with Leena trying to figure out some pictures from our cruise that we took together in July.

On Friday, it was a jam packed day! I had breakfast with my friend, Gail and my brother. Then I had a dentist appointment which went fine. Then I met up with my godmother, Sandy and had a nice time talking with her. Then I had lunch later on with my friend, Kim. Then later on, I went to the movies and dinner with my two friends, Camden and Scott. It was a great day catching up with everyone!

Today, I had breakfast with the family along with Rose and my grandparents and then we all just sat back and relaxed. I plan on heading up to Garden Valley tomorrow to go to a cabin and have some nice relaxing time with my parents and brother. I'll be back home on Wednesday and then I leave Boise, bright and early on Thursday morning!

Update & I'm COMING HOME!!!!!

2007-12-19T23:11:00.000-05:00

WOW, it has been an interesting week to say the least!!!!

I'm going to start wayyyy back to last Thursday! So being silly me, I woke up late and rushed off to class, leaving my nice warm n toasty winter coat behind figuring I would come and get it later. I get to class and halfway through, my classmates and I discover that school has been cancelled starting after that class due to an impending snow storm! I went and grabbed some lunch and was thinking, I just can't wait for this so called snow storm!!! Since I'm from Idaho, we always think we are going to have a great, big snow storm that never comes! I go to lunch with Dan and Corey and we come out and the world is winter wonderland and its snowing quickly without ceasing! So, an hour rolls by and I realize, maybe I should head home before it gets any worse! I go to wait for the bus and the bus takes an hour to come!! I was freezing and illy prepared for my first big RI snow storm! The bus finally comes and it takes us 1 hour to go 3 or so miles!!! After that, I hibernated like a bear in my room! Just to give you some examples, an average 20 minute commute for some took 9 hours! School buses that left elementary schools at 1pm still were not home by 11pm and had to have law enforcement come and remove the children off the bus! Come to find out, Providence got TEN INCHES of snow!!

Friday, nothing too terribly exciting happened, however a group of friends from my dorm, West Hall, went out around 2am in the morning (so this would make it Saturday) to go play in the snow. I should have known what I was getting myself into! Simple play in the snow?! Heck no! We were tackling each other and white washing each other like crazy!! White washing, for those that do not know, is the act of rubbing someone's face into the snow or bringing snow to someone's face and rubbing it into their face. It was so much fun though!

Saturday, I had huge plans of being like a bear hibernating in its cave all day since the snow still had not really melted and the weather was definitely frightful! My good friend Melissa invited me to our Church Ladies' Cookie Exchange. I did not have any cookies to share and was hesistant about going but things turned out fine and I had a great time hanging with all the awesome ladies from church! Melissa and I always manage to find adventure whenever we are together whether that means getting lost or just encountering funny things thus we make quite the pair!

Sunday, I awoke to a few disappointing text messages stating that church and our church Christmas party was cancelled. I was really disappointed especially since the weather outside did not look all that intimadating, however, none of us knew if we were supposed to get any more snow later in the day or not. I decided to take some chances and go do some much needed Christmas shopping. I convinced Melissa to come and join me (we originally were being bears in a cave for the day). We met up and felt like ducks playing in the snow and rain. Providence was being a little slow with clearing things up. After a couple of hours of shopping, we met up with 2 other friends (my roommate, Allison and a great girl, Kim) and went out to dinner. Melissa had to do a paper dealing with casual themed restaurants so we killed two birds with one stone. Overall, Sunday was great!

Monday was the typical, dull and boring kind of day. Tuesday was fun because I got to have lunch with a group of friends from church and then I had dinner with 2 of my good friends. I bet it gets all really confusing keeping track of all my friends that I have, one of these days, I'll post a blog telling all about them!

I can't wait to come home on Thursday!!!! I hope to get to see a lot of my fellow Boise people over my break!

My Weekend!

2007-12-09T23:23:00.000-05:00

I had a great weekend this weekend and I hope everyone else did too! I'm coming back to Idaho on December 20th!!!!

On Friday night, I went out to dinner and then to a hockey game with my 2 guy friends, Dan and Corey. They are really funny guys that are part of my church group. The hockey game was great, it was Providence Bruins vs. Chicago Wolves and a few fights broke out on the ice!

On Saturday, I went out to lunch with some girls from church and then we went over to one of their houses and hung out for a while. It was so nice just to be with friends and relax!

On Sunday, I went to church and then out to lunch with some friends from church. Then one of my other friends treated me to a special jungle acrobat show at the Providence Performing Arts Center.

Overall, it was a great relaxing weekend! However, this week is going to be a long and busy one!

The Second Tri

2007-12-07T13:52:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the conclusion of the first two weeks of the second trimester. I would have to say socially wise, this trimester has been great however my classes are going to be very difficult and most likely give me a run for my money.

I am starting to make some new friends at my new dorm hall, West. And I'm getting along with both of my roommates which is great for me and things are really starting to look good in that aspect. Then a few friends from church have a similar school schedule as mine so we usually end up grabbing lunch together which always makes any bad day turn into a good one! It seems like I have a fun filled weekend ahead of me so I will be sure to put an update in at the end of it!

As far as classes go...I'm liking most of my professers. I have a very colorful professer that likes to talk about his glory days of working in restuarants and bars and his wild character always helps the class go by just a tad faster. I have a very formal professer that has been an attorney for 20 years or so and I think he also worked in the hospitality industry prior to that and he always puts in entertaining stories from his previous work. I have 4 other professers that I will fill you in about later on!

With my new school schedule and all my clubs it seems like my life is jam packed. Monday, I have three 2 hour classes in a row then I had a club meeting for Club Manager's Association of America. Tuesday, I had three 2 hour classes as well however I had a 2 hour break between them that I fill in with a great lunch with friends then afterwards I had college aged church called Tuesday Night Truth (TNT) with my great church! Wednesday I had three 2 hour classes in a row again and then I grabbed lunch afterwards. I thought I would be sneaky and grab a nice long nap but then one of my friends wasn't feeling too good and wanted someone to go with her to the hospital. The Rhode Island hospital isn't that great as it took 6 hours for the whole process and they couldn't find anything wrong.

I'll be sure to give you guys a weekend update! I'm going to a hockey game tonight so that should be exciting! Take care everyone and have a great weekend!

My New Home!

2007-12-01T00:41:00.001-05:00

I have included 3 pics of my new home. Each pic shows a side of the room, just so it gives you an idea about where I live now! I am starting to get everything under control with all my stuff and getting classes all figured out with my crazy schedule!

Classes are going to be even tougher this trimester. I am going to be back in Idaho on December 20th!!! Hope everyone is doing well and wouldn't you believe it! The year is almost over! Amazing how time flies!

Back in RI & Start of Winter Trimester

2007-11-27T22:12:00.000-05:00

I had a decent trip home with all the usual expected delays and what nots. I arrived home around midnight on Friday night. My roommate, Allison, was still up so we hung out for a while sharing about our Thanksgiving breaks. She had came back the day before which was Thanksgiving day itself. I had bought some board games in Idaho so when I pulled them out, she was excited and we stayed up til the wee hours playing them.

We slept in til about noon the next day (Saturday) and headed off to Target to snag any leftover sale deals. We grabbed a couple of movies, a tiny tree and a string of lights to decorate our room with. Allison who enjoys Christmas and its festivities oh so much has been playing Christmas music like crazy but I am used to it now.

Sunday, we headed off to church together then to the mall with some other friends from church. Then we topped off our day with dinner at our friend's Carrie house which was yummy lasagna and then we played lots of fun games.

Tuesday was the first today of Winter Trimester and I am taking a full 25 credits this trimester which is about 6 classes. I managed to finish last trimester with a 3.5 gpa which I was excited about.

Here are the classes that I am taking and their descriptions, I have 3 classes a day now.

LAW2010 HOSPITALITY LAW
This is an introductory course with emphasis placed on
hotel and restaurant issues. Topics include: sources of
law, court systems, jurisdiction, contracts, negligence,
the innkeeper-guest relationship, and liability arising
from the service of food and alcoholic beverages.
Quarter Credit Hours 4.5

FSM2040 GUEST SERVICE SYSTEMS
This introductory course is a study of guest services
within the hospitality industry. Emphasis is placed on
development of service standards, staffing requirements,
merchandising and fiscal accountability. Students will
take the Training for Intervention Procedures (T.I.P.S.)
certification examination as part of this course.
Prerequisites: FSM1001 or HOSP1001 or SEE1001 or
TRVL1001.
Quarter Credit Hours 4.5

SCI2040 MARINE BIOLOGY
This course is an introduction to the biological and
physical aspects of the marine environment, including
a survey of the organisms that inhabit the world’s
oceans, their ecology, species evolution and distribution,
and the human impact of commercial marinerelated
industries. Of particular interest are seafood,
shellfish, and marine plants as marine food sources,
as well as the shipping and maritime industries. (HO)
Quarter Credit Hours 4.5

ACCT1011 HOSPITALITY ACCOUNTING I AND LAB
This course is designed to combine the concepts of
accounting theory and practice with the specialized
requirements of the hospitality industry. The course
introduces the nature and purpose of accounting, the
double-entry system, hospitality accounting documents
and special journals, inventories, adjusting entries,
financial statements and the closing process. The student
will learn the accounting cycle for proprietorship
and corporate forms of business.
Quarter Credit Hours 5.5

CAR1003 INTRODUCTION TO CAREER MANAGEMENT
This is the first in a series of three career management
courses that students will participate in at the
University. Students will be introduced to various career
management topics to help form a solid foundation for
their success at the University and beyond. Emphasis
is placed on self assessment, establishing individual
career goals, identifying/researching career paths,
developing self-marketing documents and building
credentials in 10 major success categories. Students
learn how to effectively maximize their use of the Best
Fit Career Management System in finding Best Fit
Employment. (PT)
Quarter Credit Hours 1.5

FSM2040 GUEST SERVICE SYSTEMS
This introductory course is a study of guest services
within the hospitality industry. Emphasis is placed on
development of service standards, staffing requirements,
merchandising and fiscal accountability. Students will
take the Training for Intervention Procedures (T.I.P.S.)
certification examination as part of this course.
Prerequisites: FSM1001 or HOSP1001 or SEE1001 or
TRVL1001.
Quarter Credit Hours 4.5

As I take these classes and do other things, I'll be sure to keep everyone updated!

SUPRISE! I AM HOME!!!!!

2007-11-19T12:58:00.000-05:00

Guess who came knocking on their parents' doorstep at 10:30 at night?? ME!!!! I came home for break since I had the time off from school. My parents did not know I was coming and my 2 partner in crimes helped me out with my suprise.

My mom was screaming and jumping up and down with shock before she pulled me in for a big hug! Dad, however, did not seem so suprised which is ok, I got one parent out of the deal right?

Of course, I enjoy suprising people so I made sure to suprise my aunt Rose and grandparents and it worked well because I got 2 of the 3 to scream as well.

Yes, this was overwhelming a tad bit with me moving on Thursday night and then flying home Saturday but I managed just fine. I'll be in town until Friday morning, so if you want to hang out or anything just give me a call or shoot me an email!

I AM MOVING!!! YAY!

2007-11-14T09:31:00.000-05:00

Hello Everyone!!!!

I'm excited to bring you the joyous news that I am packing up and moving to another dorm. I am moving to the culinary side of campus which is not too far away from the business side. I am moving in with a great friend & sister in Christ from church along with another roommate. My new hall is called West Hall and so of course there will be a new address to come. I get to move starting today and I have until Sunday to move in!

West hall is standard housing meaning no private bathroom but I think I can manage that. It seems this year that I'm getting thrown stuff in the face that I just have to learn to adjust to but I'm managing I think.

I give much thanks to those who were praying for me and this whole move thing. It is such an immense blessing and I praise God for giving me this opportunity!

I cannot wait! I am so excited.

My Amazing Weekend!

2007-11-06T15:43:00.000-05:00

This past Friday, I met up with my collegiate church group known as CSF (Christian Student Fellowship) at 2pm. I was very excited, we were going away for the weekend to Vermont for an event called Fusion where other collegiate church groups were meeting for the weekend.

I arrive and two of my friends/group members approach me and ask if I can drive a car with a clutch and if I was comfortable doing so. I replied yes and was handed a set of car keys. Apparently, we had an extra car but no one was able to drive it because it was a clutch.

The drive up to Vermont was so beautiful with all the fall leaves on the trees, God's handiwork is so amazing. It was not too terribly long of a drive, about 4 1/2 hours or so.

The conference was happening in Burlington,Vermont which is practically on the border of Vermont and New York. We had 4 church sessions which were pretty amazing. We stayed in the Fairfield Inn which was a nice hotel that suprised us all when they provided us with an extra room for free (you just can't expect 4 guys to be willing to share a room with 2 beds).

There were the pastor, his wife, and their 2 kids, then their were 4 guys and 6 girls. Out of the whole group, there were only 2 freshman and me and the other freshman got along really well and I see a bright future friendship with her.

Some activities that we did:
First Night:
Bonfire after church with smores. The bonfire was so hot that we practically burned our eyebrows off trying to roast the marshmellows.

Saturday Afternoon:
Exploring downtown Burlington which happened to be called Church Street. Church Street is a mixture of 4 city blocks filled with shops and then also a 2 floor indoor mall with anchor store such as Macy's.

The drive home was amusing for me because I started to understand east coast driving and all its craziness. For instance, I was going about 20-25mph over the speed limit and I blew past several cops, at least one of them that I know of were clocking, I was shocked when the cops did not pull me over. I was following some other group from church and I was keeping up with traffic and yes I was being blown off the roads at times as well for when I dropped my speed way down.

Then to top off the weekend, 4 of us got together and had Sunday dinner together. Such a great ending!

This weekend was absolutely amazing and I thought that it was a really great way to start the week out!

The BIG Update!

2007-10-28T20:11:00.000-04:00

Here comes the big update!!!!!!!

What do you guys want to know? Everything?! Yeah! Thought so!

I'll start with when my parents came. Their flights got delayed so they did not arrive to my school until 1:30am on Friday morning, they were supposed to arrive around 10pm on Thursday night. This was amusing for me because from 1:00am to 2:00am in Gaebe Commons (the nice, large greenspace that is rectangular shaped and has Snowden Dormitory & Dining Hall on 1 side, McNulty Dormitory on another side, and the library/admissions building on the other side), from 1am to 2am in Gaebe Commons, is "sober hour" where everyone arrives back from the bars and clubbing and is drunk running around. There is a 7-11 Conveience Store across the street from Gaebe Commons and it so happened that right as my parent pulled up, a verbal fight was breaking out. My parents were so distracted by it that they almost didn't see me coming to them.

We were happy to see each other and piled back into the car and we drove to the cottage we rented which was an hour away. I had a lot of fun hanging out with my parents, even though we did not do a whole lot at times, it was enjoyable just sitting and talking to them and showing them all the parts of my life out here.

I thought I'd tell you guys what a normal day is like for me, maybe now you could put your "college" shoes back on ;)

Mondays/Wednesdays:
I awake between 5:45am and 6:10am. Once I awake, I call my friend Nicolette or she calls me, that way we can make sure that we are both up and kicking so we can get to class on time. I get ready to go then at 6:45am I go downstairs and wait for my friend Erika to come out, she's pretty punctual so usually I don't have to wait at all. This in turn helps me be on time so I strive to never be late.

Erika and I walk down the hall and we usually wait until we get outside before we say anything. I think this is because it gives us another minute to wake up and we also want to be quiet for the other people sleeping on the first floor.

Once we get outside, we see the trash from late night partiers and also these gigantic seagulls running through the grass searching for breakfast before all the pigeons come.

We walk together to the Marketplace Dining Hall, we each grab breakfast, which for me is usually eggs, ham or sausage or bacon, and some form of potato along with some sliced peaches.

At 7:05am or so, I head upstairs as the Marketplace Dining Hall is in the basement of one of the buildings that holds 1/2 of my classes for this term. On these days, I have English Communication Skills for my 1st period class.

I get to class, sit down usually in the same spot everyday which happens to be practically the exact middle of the classroom, I did not plan that, thats just how it worked out. The teacher passes out a attendence book that we have to sign then she tells us what we are going to be doing for the day. We usually take notes for about 15min to an hour or so depending on what we are doing then spend the rest of the class time working on our projects. Since this is a communication class, we do speeches and the class is made of 3 huge speeches.

When I do my speeches, we are allowed to have a partner so I have one and I've had the same one from the start. It's a guy named Dave who is a junior and is 25 years old. We work pretty well together most of the time and get things done. Right now, we just got done making a proposal on something to change at the school. We did a proposal on how we need a building for students to hang out in like a student union building.

After this class, I usually walk back towards my dorm and if I run into any of my friends, I'll walk with them to their classes. After all this is said and done, I head back to my room. I work on my homework or I clean up my room or I take a nap.

Then I grab lunch at some point before my next class and lunch usually consists of pizza, salad, some fruit, some hot bar entree or a hamburger. I've been eating lunch more often with my friend Nicolette and also my friend John who is a little person. We usually have so much fun eating lunch together that it usually lasts an hour if the three of us are together.

I leave my dorm around 1:25pm to 1:30pm to walk to my next class. On these two days (we're still on Monday/Wednesday haha), I have Intro to Literary Genres in room 321. Yes I usually take a hike up all those stairs because who wants to ride in a tiny old school jam packed elevator?

In this class, I sit towards one side with my friend Megan in the very front and over one row and another friend, Josh, who sits one row over from Megan in the front as well then I have my other two friends, Katie who sits behind me and Stephanie who sits in the next row by Katie. The teacher, Dr. Davis, a woman, usually lectures/talks for a majority of the period and if she isn't we are usually doing a group project. I generally work with Josh and Megan and group projects usually involve answering questions and drawing a visual that will be presented and discussed with the class.

After class, I head back to my dorm to do homework or laundry or anything else that needs to be done. I usually eat dinner at 6pm but I think we are moving it to 5:30pm with a group of girls, its generally the same girls every night and can range from 4 to 8 of us. It's usually a mix of these people: Betsy, Courtney, Taco (Sarah), Me, Amanda, Jackie, Rachel, & Lindsey.

After dinner, I usually work on more homework either at the library with a group of us or in my room. If I'm not doing homework or "chores" then there are several of us girls running the dorm checking on other friends and just hanging out together.

There! That's 2 normal days of a week for me! I'm also including in this really long blog a recap of the highlights from this past weekend ;)

On Friday night, a group of us from the 2nd floor decided to have fun and "camp out" in the hallway. We all grabbed our pillows and blankets and sat in the hallway. We blocked a small part of the hallway and we had a lot of fun just hanging out. It's a great way to meet new people and to get to know other people better. We did that from like 2am to 5:20am and then we all went to bed and crashed.

Sunday night, right after the Red Sox won the world series, 4 of my friends got this brilliant idea to go to Boston at 1am in the morning! 1 of them had a car so off they went. I stayed back since I had a huge test today that I did not want to screw up. I just thought it was really funny. What's even more funny, they never found Fenway park, because none of them got the bright idea to get directions.

I'll be sure to post another blog later this week!

Update!

2007-10-24T20:06:00.000-04:00

Wow! It's been forever since I have updated my blog! So much has been happening, I've been running around like crazy since there are only like 3 weeks left in this term and I have all those term papers and mid terms and finals all to get ready for.

I had a great time with my parents showing them the area. My dad doesn't like driving around here, he says its worse then driving in Mexico.

I signed up for my classes next term and this weekend, I'll post what classes I'll be taking for the next term which starts right after Thanksgiving.

Sorry for this being so short! I'll make a nice long one this weekend!

What an Amazing Weekend!!!!!

2007-10-10T17:36:00.000-04:00

Wow! This weekend was the best one yet in Rhode Island!

This weekend was wonderful! Plus I did not have school on Monday so that made it all the better! Friday, I got picked up by a girl from church named Melissa along with a few other girls and we all headed to Melissa's apartment. We made dinner (Yeah! It was like 11 bucks for dinner fixings for 7 people and leftovers!) and watched a couple of movies and hung out. It was a lot of fun. Half of us sleptover at Melissa's apartment, including me.

I did not get home until mid afternoon on Saturday and the whole thing was a blast. Then on Saturday night around 7pm about 10 of us got together from church and went to Waterfire (waterfire.org for more info). This Saturday was a special one for breast cancer awareness so there were a lot of other events going on and the capital building was changed to pink lights so it was pink instead of the usual light which was cool. It was hard to keep us all together with all those people but we managed and we had a lot of fun just hanging out.

On Sunday, I went to church (Grace Harbor Community Church) and the message was good. Afterwards, around 10 of us got together and carpooled to Woonsocket, Rhode Island to go to this Autumnfest which was basically like a little town fair. After that, we went to Melissa's apartment and watched a couple of movies.

I love my new church friends. They are so nice to be around and its comforting to be around some girls that have the love of God just pouring out of them and they are so supportive of me.

Then on Monday, I did not have school. I ate breakfast with my friend Nicolette from Boston who is fun to be with. Then I walked to the train station to greet Courtney, my friend from New Jersey. After I got home with Courtney, I worked on a couple of things and then went and met Betsy, my friend from New Jersey. Once Betsy got settled in, we, meaning Courtney, Betsy, and me all hung out in Courtney's room. We had "snack time" then "nap time" Nap time was hilarious, all three of us crammed into a twin bed and took a nap. While we were napping, Courtney's roommate and some friends came walking in and stared at us. We all popped out of the covers one by one and by the time I popped out, they were like oh my gosh there's another one!

Yes, my weekend was great and I cannot wait for the next one since my parents are coming!

Two Weeks of My Life in A Nutshell!!!!!!!

2007-09-29T20:39:00.000-04:00

Watch out this one is really long!!!

I'll start with yesterday and start rewinding my life from there!

Thursday, October 4, 2007:
I had my midterm in Foods One class and I think I did okay on it. Classes went well for the day. All my friends went home for the weekend so now I'm the loner for sure! I went to Stop & Shop after classes, just to get out a little bit. I choose Stop & Shop because the bus is the easiest and I did not want to hassle anything (Yep laziness at its finest!). Stop & Shop has a redbox which is a vending machine that vends DVDs so I rented a movie then went shopping. Stop & Shop is the typical grocery store by the way just in case of you were wondering what it is. I was so excited, I bought myself a Swifter! Now I can clean my floor better!

Wednesday, October 3, 2007:
My friend Erika and I both have early morning classes, so we have been starting to meet at 6:45am and then we walk to one of our dining halls together then we eat breakfast then go to classes. To me, this is a great way to start my day because Erika is going to be a great friend and I appreciate starting my day with someone. Classes went fine, I had speech and literature. In my literature class, we are going over poetry now and we had to go over this really wacky poem about an Aztec goddess. After classes, I worked on some homework then ate dinner with my friends. After dinner, I had a Best Buddies officier meeting with my friend Lindsey. (What's Best Buddies?? Keep reading and you'll see!) After that, I helped my other friend, Courtney, who just moved to my floor, tighten her bed. Then I went up to Betsy's room and we studied for our Foods I midterm and did our Foods I homework. Betsy and I are getting along great and I think we are going to be great friends, especially since we are the only two that stay home and do our homework!

Monday/Tuesday, October 1/2, 2007:
So with the problems of my living situation, I went to the resident director to request a new room. He got back to me on Tuesday with a list of 4 rooms. I was so excited about this. I went to the rooms and was dismayed to meet the people that lived in them. I finally realized that I would be better off in my living situation then moving in with one of them. So, I changed my attitude about my living situation and went for it.

My Living Situation:
I have a roommate, she has her half, I have my half. She has her shelf in the fridge, I have my shelf in the fridge, she has her shelf in the bathroom, I have mine. She doesn't talk to me and I don't talk to her. Why? Might you ask?

It's because my roommate hates me for whatever reason and one of her friends told her that I was talking trash about her. I'm willing and open to start talking with her again and have her tell me the things that I am doing that cause her to feel this way.

So now, I'm flipping gears and starting with Monday of last week!

Monday, September 24, 2007:
I had a meeting with my freshman advisor who was going to help me map out my next courses for the next term. I had written down all the classes I had wanted to take on a notecard much to my advisor's pleasure. My advisor was puzzled however that I was a SHARP student. For those that do not remember what that is, its that special program that you apply to be in to be able to take up to 25 credits for no charge. Apparently, freshman are not technically allowed to be SHARP students until their spring term. Somehow I snuck in.

I attended/checked out another club called Club Manager's Association of America (CMAA). CMAA covers clubs from golf, country, yacht, art, etc. and gives us club members an opportunity to get networked with clubs and possibilities of working with these clubs. Sounds like a great club to be in, I'm thinking about keeping it.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007:
My speech partner from my English Communication class, Dave, and I met up at the library to finish our informative speech then we went to stop n shop to pick up some of the Mayor's Own Marinara Sauce ~ this sauce has a special meaning to it. There was this guy called Buddy Cianci who helped change Providence from a trash hole to a nice little city. He uncovered the rivers and hid the rail road tracks and developed the city to be up in the times along with helping to preserve historic buildings worth saving. Buddy created and bottles his own marinara sauce (he's Italian if you couldn't tell) and part of the profit of it go to help Providence school children. Dave and I gave the informative speech about Buddy and it went pretty smoothly I think. I however missed my Tuesday Night Truth (TNT) meeting because of other homework I had to finish. I have high hopes and rearrangement of plans to make sure I go next Tuesday.

Wednesday, September 26th, 2007:
I attended an hour long morning workshop for test taking strategies which was good since it showed me some key words to look out for when taking true/false type of tests and multiple choice.

I also went to a club meeting, however, I have the problem where there are 4 clubs that I want to be in, however they all meet on Wednesday night. For this particular Wednesday, I chose to attend the Best Buddies Club. Best Buddies is basically like Big Brother/Big Sister however working with mentally handicapped people that are most likely also going to be college aged. This is exciting for me because we get assigned a buddy and we get to hang out with our buddy at least twice a month. Three of my other friends joined this club and together we are going to have a lot of Best Buddy moments, I am sure of it!

Thursday, September 27th, 2007:
Thursday, what a relief, as we never have school on Fridays unless you beg for it. I was going to attend another event which was church related, however, my cousin Leena flew in from Los Angeles, I would choose her over any event hands down since I love her so! Leena, my friends, and I all hung out together and checked out Thayer Street and Brown University and went out to dinner together. We all had a great time!

When we got back, one of my friends that stayed back on campus had smashed her hand somehow so a bunch of us headed over to the Harborside campus after Leena had gone to go to the nurse. That friend went to the hospital, they did not have room for anyone else so she had to go alone.

When the rest of us friends (4 of us) got back to Down City campus (JWU has 2 campuses in Providence/Cranston, RI, one mainly for culinary and one for everything else), Betsy and I went to our own rooms to make some calls and the other two, my roommate and the girl next door, went out.

When they came back, my roommate said not one word to me and started packing all her stuff up to me. She refused to talk to me and I told her that I was sorry for whatever I did. She packed everything up by the end of that night and was clearly given me the silent treatment. She mentioned for a moment that I was talking trash about her behind her back and she found out about it. I was not talking trash about her behind her back, I was only saying that I was thinking about moving soon since I could not take all the problems my roommate has.

Friday, September 28th, 2007:
My roommate & I continued this silent treatment thing throughout the day on Friday. I took her to the Resident Assistant to get the ball rolling on one of us moving out. We'll see how this goes.

After that, I realized that my church friends had gone out for dinner so I went out to try to find them as I did not have any of their phone numbers. I found them and they invited me to go see a movie together. I was happy to be with them for a couple of hours as they are such great people to know and be friends with.

Saturday, September 29th, 2007:
On Saturday, I had an open house program to attend/help out with from the Collegiate Ambassador Team which comprised of ushering incoming/prospective students to their seats for a presentation then shadowing someone giving a tour of the campus. My tour guide was a newbie too so we did some parts of the tour together. I met this girl named Erika that lives right below me on the 1st floor.

Sunday, September 30th, 2007:
I had a nice mellow day for the most part. I went to church and this one guy from my dorms that is somewhat creepy wanted to go with so I let him. That turned out fine after all and nothing too exciting happened on Sunday.

My Dorm Pics!

2007-09-29T20:27:00.001-04:00

Hey Everyone! Sorry I have not written much, there is a lot of turmoil going on in my life right now with my whole living situation and what not. So I am working hard to break through it and once I do, I will be sure to catch everyone up!

My Weekend, Church, & Friends

2007-09-23T22:49:00.000-04:00

This weekend by far has probably been the most dramatic, interesting weekend of my life. I am not going to go into detail too much on it but there were some extreme moments going on.

I found a great new friend named Betsy, she means a lot to me and I've only known her for a week. She is going to bring a lot of excitement to my life with her great sense of humor. We've practically hung out everyday except for the one day I was gone at the Patriots game. She is from New Jersey and is studying Hotel Management as well. We help each other out in all sorts and ways and she lives on the 3rd floor which isn't too far away.

I also made some church friends. On Friday night, I went out with my church group, Tuesday Night Truth aka TNT, and we went out to dinner and just socialized together and got to know each other. Through that, I got to know some TNT people better and one of them showed me where church was on the way home from dinner.

Since my usual Sunday workings at the Patriots game was cancelled due to lack of drivers, I went to church. It was wonderful although very small and you could definetely feel a sense of unity in this church family. After church, a huge part of the church went to lunch at the mall. I got to eat lunch with the Pastor and his family and got to know them better. I think I can finally say that they will always be there for me and will be a great support system for me!

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Somewhere to Belong

2007-09-19T11:58:00.000-04:00

I was checking my facebook (Facebook ~ like myspace with a little different format and allows networks of people to group up, for instance we have the network JWU Providence '11 that bundles up all the freshman), and I received an email from a guy named Andy talking about Christian Student Fellowship that happens on campus. He is the Pastor of it and had decided to search people out on the JWU facebook network to find new people for it. I decided to go as it was at a on campus location.

I went and everyone made me feel so welcomed, it practically made me feel like I was at home. These were the people I had been searching for. I was so happy to find them. I asked several of them where do they go to church and luckily for me, it's nearby me!

Sunday's Big Game!

2007-09-17T16:04:00.001-04:00

I volunteered to work at the Patriots verses the Chargers game with a group called something along the lines of Society for Advancement of Management, aka SAM. All SAM members were supposed to meet at the TACO (pronounced Tay Co not TACO :D) building.

I get there at the assigned time and no one was there. Two guys finally show up that I recognized from the SAM meeting and they said something about getting emails to meet at another lot. I hop in with them and we drive to the other lot where sure enough, one of our advisors were waiting. The others finally arrive and we pile 2 more people (guys meaning now I'm in a car full of guys, score!) into the car that I was in and we headed off. The guys of course were hungry so we thankfully stopped somewhere for brunch as it was nearing 2pm and thank goodness we did stop because we didn't end up eating until 9pm that night.

Our group has to get to the event 3-5 hours in advance just so the coordinators have a semi clue as to what is going on. My group was supposed to do ushering but we got stuck with ticket taking. The ticket lines were separated by male and female so we could see the gender ratio. I, of course, got the male express line (meaning no bags). I just love drunk guys! Hey baby! or Hey Darling or Hey Love etc. from them, but that was just the beginning.

After we chowed down we got re deployed out to work. This time we were separated. My new job was red line duty. What that means is that the stadium sells up to 5,000 standing room only tickets for about 50 bucks a pop. What a way to make money! So, there was certain areas they could not go, such as down the walkways and some walkways were created so seat ticket holders would have a place to walk. My job was to check those seat ticket holders' tickets and make sure nobody was on the wrong side of the line. That's when I got to experience drunk guys at a football game. Thankfully, I had a supervisor Mike with me pretty much the whole time so nothing too bad could happen.

Since the Patriots were so far ahead, people started pouring out during the 4th quarter and one of the guys from my group came to me. I do not know how to spell his name but this is how it sounds, Surall, and he is from Connecticut. Surall and I go down the huge ramps to where we had eaten to try to find our group. We of course were not supposed to go that way and we had to go back up the ramps to get to our final destination. However, everyone in the stadium were using these ramps to get out and we were like 2 fish going upstream. Surall leads the way and starts shouting, excuse me coming through (he most likely came from a big city because I do not think I would have thought to say that). We finally make it to where we need to be and find our group.

It was a great night and great learning experience, however, I didn't get to watch too much of the game, but I'm pretty sure we are are going to the game next week, I do not know if I am going to go since I didn't come home until 1:15am (someone dropped me off) and I had classes at 7:10am. We'll see how this goes!

Saturday Adventures!

2007-09-17T15:49:00.000-04:00

I awoke on Saturday morning expecting to head off to Target with Jackie when Jackie called to say that she wasn't feeling well. So, I hung back and made some other plans however I bumped into Dartainia (Dart) again so we were hanging out and decided that we would go to Target.

Dart & I find the right bus and we manage to get on even though the bus driver was a real class A JERK! But I won't go there. Dart and I had lots of fun shopping around and got back later that night where we hooked up with Sarah.

The three of us headed down for dinner then onwards to Waterfire. Providence has a river that runs through the downtown of it and Waterfire has these baskets that were made to have bonfires right on the water down the middle of it so boats go out there to stock the wood and there are gondola rides and dinner boats and music playing making it oh so romantic.

The three of us find a nice ledge to chill on and Dart wants to use her legs so she stands up and there are these 3 guys next to us. Dart, being ever so sociable, starts talking to one of them. They are attending the University of RI and had decided to come check out the Waterfire. We all exchange numbers and depart with hugs (yeah we really fast forward from strangers to friends there).

After that, we met up with my roommate, Amanda and the four of us walk around for a while before heading back to the dorm to watch a movie together. Afterwards, I was wheeling Dart back to her room which is on my floor also and I bump into a girl named Betsy from one of my classes. She grabs her friends and I grab mine and we all hung out for a while. It was a great night!

The Before Pics of My Dorm!

2007-09-15T12:11:00.001-04:00

Newport, RI!

2007-09-15T01:27:00.000-04:00

Today was a beautiful, bright, sunny, breezy day! My friend Sarah and I ate breakfast together then walked to the bus station to catch a bus. We took a bus to Newport, Rhode Island, which is about a little over an hour by bus. When we got to Newport, we walked around on the Wharfs as it is right on the ocean and the International Boat Show was happening. We did not go to the show as Sarah is on the sailing team and is going to go to it on Sunday. After that, we walked to the Cliff Walks and we went exploring on the coast line then we walked back into the main part of town and went shopping. Newport is really pretty and has a ton of history!

We caught the 4:30 bus back to Providence which was soon to be crowded with lots of college students from the colleges in Newport Area that were heading to Providence to catch trains to head home.

When I got back to the dorms, Sarah went to go grab dinner while I met up with a girl named Jackie that is from Ohio. We were walking back to my dorm when we bumped into a new friend! Jackie and I were heading down the hall when we saw Dartainia (who is in a wheelchair) trying to get out of the laundry room. I took her laundry and we headed off to her room where we proceeded to hang out and have lots of fun!

Tuesday's Crazy Adventure to Wal-Mart

2007-09-12T10:14:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, it rained and rained and rained, I had to wear 4-5 different outfits. I'm so getting a rain coat! And it only rained when I was going from class to class. How convenient!

By the night time, the rain had calmed and my roommate and I heard rumor that cars were broken into on the freshman parking lot. So we took the bus to the Harborside campus (we live on the Downcity Campus). Her car was safe and sound and we decided we would go to Wal-Mart fast to print some pictures. She and her friend who helped her move in, had went to Wal-Mart around here. She started driving and after a while, couldn't remember or really recognize where we were (no we weren't bright enough to print out a mapquest). We stop at a gas station where there were 2 cop cars (I don't know if anything was going down or not but one cop for sure was "chilling" inside). The cop mentioned 4 or 5 Wal-marts around and finally directed us to one. Of course, with our luck, the photo printing machine was broken! But we had decided to get some cleaning supplies and other life essentials for our dorm room. We bought a new shower curtain and a few rugs to spruce our blah dorm room. After our fun shopping at Wal-Mart, we headed out. Once again we got lost. My roommate calls her friend up who remembers practically everything even though he was only here for 3 days. He gets us close but we are still lost and a huge problem is that there are not any street signs and if there is, it is faded and unreadable. I get a hold of one of my friends back in Idaho to mapquest me home, and he finally figures out where we are and gives me directions. Well we missed the street and ended up in another city, so I call my friend again and he goes through the directions and follows a map street by street. Thanks for helping us by the way! We were getting so frustrated!

By the time we got home, it was really late and we had started our little adventure at 7pm. So both of us thought that was pretty funny especially with the fact that we could have just walked to the mall to print the pictures out and instead we drove all the way to Wal-Mart.

Plymouth, Massachusetts & Monday's Events!

2007-09-10T23:17:00.000-04:00

Sunday, my roommate and I headed out to Plymouth, Massachusetts. To do this, we had to catch a bus to the other JWU campus then find her car parked on Lot E. We did this quite smoothly and I had mapquest directions printed out for our destination. My roommate had needed to go to Sam's Club to get some new glasses/contacts. Plymouth is about an hour away from Providence but is a really pretty drive. We didn't see any of the big cities, but with the pleasant drive, it didn't matter much. So that whole trip made Sunday afternoon a nice day.

Monday, I had my classes~English Communication (Speech), Food Safety & Sanitation, & Literature. My speech class, I think anyhow, is going to be fun. Today we got into groups and I met some new people. Then there was Bingo going on over at the other campus so I hopped onto a JWU bus and went. It was free to get in and a large possibility of winning some decent prizes. Sure enough, I won the first bingo and the prize was a case of water and some crystal light juice powder packs to go. I was happy about that! Now I have a paper I have to finish up then I'm off to hit the hay!

OH MY! WHAT A NIGHT!

2007-09-09T20:23:00.000-04:00

Yesterday evening was interesting. Roommate & I meet these people at dinner that my roommate knew from summer orientation. These people say that they are going to the mall and going to buy a board game and go back to the dorm to play it. Sounds like good innocent fun? Yeah right! One person in the group had alcohol and they were making plans to drink in the dorms, which is not a good idea because who knows how some people act while drinking and if they are found drinking, they could be in serious trouble especially if they have alcohol with them. So once I realized this, I made a plan B to meet with some other friends. I scampered off to go meet my other friends at Starbucks.

We met up and walked to the waterfire which happens on various weekends throughout the summertime and early fall. There is a river that runs through Providence and they make bonfires on the river and have gondola rides. Oh so romantic and peaceful with lovely music. Afterwards, we walk around and hang out having a good time.

Later on, we say goodnight and part our separate ways towards our dorms. I get into my hallway and there is my roommate sprawled out on the floor drunk as can be. I watch her and 2 drunk friends for a few minutes before I confess to a drunk guy that she is my roommate, he was relieved and left. My roommate had no keys, she didn't know what she did with them. She was very much so homesick and called her family and friends. But she wanted to smoke so bad that I had to wait until her drunk look in her eyes disappeared so that when we went past security they wouldn't know she was drunk. We walked around the city (I think God had a safe city block set up for me since I had prayed to Him for help) more specifically we walked around this city block about 10-15 times. After a couple hours we finally head back to do the ultimate test~~to get back through security. I get her to open her eyes better (she was ready to fall asleep while standing) and get her to have her ID card ready and I have mine ready for security to buzz us in. I tell her to shush and we go. The security guard on duty seemed a little uptight and had his hands full with two drunk guys that wanted to pick a fight. He stared at us then at the clock then at us then at the two drunk guys. It was 3:11am by the way. He finally buzzes us through and we go in. Mind you, the next time my roommate comes home drunk, I'm not doing one thing to help her out, she had her one chance.

She woke up today not remembering a single thing. It was an interesting night to say the least.

Save the Bay!

2007-09-08T14:27:00.001-04:00

Today I went to do community service with Save the Bay. The event was International Coast Cleanup where people all over the world are cleaning up their bays/beaches. This however is a little more tedious because we had to tally how much we found of everything. Like my group found 185 candy/food wrappers, 27 cigarette butts, 24 straws, 85 pieces of glass, etc. They do this worldwide because they want to find what the main factor of pollution is. For example, they collected 1700 cigarette butts in the state of Rhode Island last year. Now they are banning smoking on the beaches. Things like that to help the environment because marine wildlife see the trash and thinks it is food and eat it and it hurts them.

I had that from about 9:30 to 12:30 and I met a cool girl there that lives not too far from Newport. So this morning was pretty good and exciting and now I'm off to hit the books!

Clubs, Friends, & Campus Life

2007-09-07T14:55:00.000-04:00

Hey All!!

How is everyone doing!? I miss everyone so much and am trying so hard to get plugged into life here. I have no school on Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays. So, Friday is going to be "chore" day which is going to involve studying, laundry, ironing, taking out the trash, and cleaning up.

There are so many clubs and activities going on here at JWU (Johnson & Wales). I signed up to be in the University Involvement Board (UIB) which plans student activities. Currently, we are planning for Freak Week which is going to land at the end of October and is going to have events geared towards Halloween. I also signed up to be a CAT which is the Collegiate Ambassador Team. JWU's mascot is a wildcat, hence the abbreviation to be a CAT. The CAT club are people that are tour guides to school visitors along with other programs such as the Shadow Program where visitors and a CAT member can work one on one and the visitor follows their CAT to all their classes for a day and basically experiences a day in the life of a college student at JWU. Those are the 2 clubs that I have involvement with so far, but I know there will be a lot more coming along.

Food is decent here. We have 6-9 different facilities to use. City Burger & Starbucks will be added to our meal plan here very soon. The main hall that I use is the Snowden which is ran mostly by students so of course the food gets better each day.

I am starting to make some friends, each day if I am alone and eating, I try hard to eat with someone different every day. Yesterday, for dinner, I sat down with a girl on the cell phone. I wasn't feeling the most sociable and there weren't any open tables so I thought this would be perfect. The girl ended her call and started talking to me. We hit it off almost immediately and made plans to hang out later that night as I had UIB (University Involvement Board) stuff to do. She seems like a keeper for me so far. My roommate and I are getting along great and I started to show her a glimpse of the crazy me (I hope I didn't scare her too bad). I made some other friends in my Foods I class, and a few others just dispersed here and there so now I'm getting to the point where if I wanted to, I could probably find someone to hang out with. It is so nice to have friends ;)

As for dorm living, someone got busted for coming home drunk and with alcohol in tow, so now all bags have to be searched for today at least. Also, there is a crazy guy on the first floor that runs around the halls and walks into people's room and starts using their computers, tvs, bathrooms, etc. My roommate bumped into him this morning and didn't know who he was until he asked her what room she was in, so now we keep our doors locked at all hours whereas if someone was in the room, it'd generally be unlocked. I still feel very safe but you just can't be too cautious or careful.

Day 1 of Classes/I Kissed Sleeping In Goodbye

2007-09-04T16:49:00.000-04:00

Today was a good day, I bought a majority of my books which sure do add up quickly in price. I had my Foods I class (I just got signed up for English Composition so I skipped it today by accident) and Foods I is claimed to be the horror class for all Hotel Management kids because they hate the restaurant aspect of the field but we all should know that us Hotel Management kids to know both sides and that is why companies keep coming back to us for Hotel Managers/Hotel Jobs is because they know that JWU teaches both sides. JWU by the way is ranked 6th in the country for hospitality studies. My other class was great too, it was the Intro to the Hospitality field and I have a feeling that is going to be a fun class!

Here's the scoop, because of my 3.55 GPA and all my activity in National Honor Society and possible Key Club during my high school years, I've been accepted into basically the Dean's list except we call it SHARP here. I get to take up to 25 credit hours every term. So with regular tuition, I was enrolled for 15.5 credit hours and with my SHARPness, I get to take 9.5 more credit hours! So I totally took advantaged of this free schooling.

So I picked on my general classes and added 2 more English classes to my pile of classes. Now, I have 3 English classes making it a total of 6 classes.

My 6 Classes:

Communication Skills
English Composition
Food Safety & Sanitation Management
Intro To Literary Genres
Foods I
Intro to the Hospitality Field

My New Schedule:
Monday:
7:10am to 9:05am ~ Communication Skills
11:30am to 1:25pm ~ Food Safety & Sanitation Management
1:40pm to 3:35pm ~ Intro To Literary Genres

Tuesday:
7:10am to 9:05am ~ English Composition
9:20am to 11:15am ~ Foods I
1:40pm to 3:35pm ~ Intro to the Hospitality Field

Wednesday:
7:10am to 9:05am ~ Communication Skills
1:40pm to 3:35pm ~ Intro To Literary Genres

Thursday:
7:10am to 9:05am ~ English Composition
9:20am to 11:15am ~ Foods I
1:40pm to 3:35pm ~ Intro to the Hospitality Field

Since my butt is getting sore from sitting on the hallway floor, I think I'll go for my midday day meal, then I think I might go to Target or Staples/Whole Foods (to get an internet cable so I can sit in my comfy new chair), just depends all on the bus schedules and locations. Lets hope I don't get lost or miss my bus!

My Starbucks Adventure with Big Mike

2007-09-03T21:32:00.001-04:00

God works in mysterious ways!

So, I'm at Starbucks and this is my second new blog. Feel free to read them in any order. But don't forget to read the other one titled "My New Life"

I get to Starbucks, order a coffee so I could be a good paying patron while using their internet. I set up my laptop and this big black guy comes over. By the way, I feel like a minority at times since the east coast has a way more diversed crowd of people. This black guy, who we will name Big Mike, was saying something that I could hardly hear. I was like speak up what do you want (I was nice about it!). He said he just returned from Europe, couldn't figure out his laptop and didn't want to hassle it. I said what do you need to access, he said his verizon account. I took a chance and since Starbucks was packed enough it seemed safe.

Big Mike logs into his account and doesn't know a whole lot about computers and is amazed at my skills. He has a pre paid verizon on the go cell account which is amazing and I almost feel like changing to it. If you really want to know all the goods about it let me know and I'll tell you about it, I don't want to put any more people to sleep tonight ;)

But this pre paid on the go thing is amazing and is great for people that are going to be international and so forth. So in that way, God was presenting an answer to me on something that I was worried about and that was how am I supposed to communicate with family while I'm overseas without spending a ton of money.

But we get done with that and Big Mike introduces himself and he says, my name is Big Mike but they all call me Tiny Bear. Then he shows me his arms and on one arm he has Big Mike tatooed into it in a nice writing. On his other arm, he has Tiny Bear tatooed onto it. Big Mike goes on to the say that he is running around downtown a lot so if I ever see him, I should feel free to say hi. To me, it almost gives me a sense of security to know someone that runs around the city because one day I might run into trouble and Big Mike might be there to help me. Who knows, God works in mysterious ways!

My New Life!!!

2007-09-03T21:11:00.001-04:00

Hey Everyone!!!

I was having some internet difficulties so I took a trip to starbucks and got onto to the internet so that way I could update ya'll!!! (Yeah my roommate is from Tennessee).

So flights/trip out on Friday was pretty uneventful, just long and tiring day. Do have to say that I wouldn't particulary want to fly into Newark, New Jersey again. However, my flight from Newark to Providence was the best for a few reasons. It was funny in the way I spent an hour on the runway and it only took us 30 minutes to fly to Providence. The flight was the best because of all the crazy people around me. That was a ton of fun! I arrived in Providence with a personal driver to greet me. He took me to my hotel, helped me get my stuff inside and waited to make sure I had reservations.

Now my hotel was pretty sweet. I'll be posting pics here of it soon. It was probably one of the nicest hotels I've ever stayed in. I was lucky to find it since it is so close to my dorms, I only had to walk 2 blocks to move my stuff in.

Saturday morning, I moved my stuff into my dorm. My roommate was scheduled to arrive on Sunday so I delayed in unpacking my stuff so that way if she wanted to move things around it wouldn't be a hassle. I had orientation all day on Saturday and I met a girl from India. If I happen to find her again somewhere on campus, I think we will be good friends. She is also studying hotel management. I made a few other friends throughout the course of the day as well. I went to a hypnotist show which was extremely funny.

Sunday, I ran into 2 friends from my April visit to the school and we went running around for awhile. Then I helped 2 people move in but they were so cranky and had so much stuff I let them be after a while. My roommate arrived at lunchtime and I went and met her. Have to say she is a really quiet person but I think we will work out fine. I had 2 more hours of orientation left so I made plans to meet up with my roommate later. We met back up and spent a couple hours rearranging the room until it was just right. Later that night, I went to a comedy show with two of my friends, David & Dom (short for Dominique) and after the show, there was a huge celebration celebrating the start of the school's new year.

Monday, I had a hospitality welcome meeting and then there was the convocation ceremony which was interesting yet a little drawn out in my opinion. Afterwards, I went shopping to Wal-Mart. I was suprised to see a Wal-Mart made of brick and was slightly dismayed with the store and mass quantities of people and the really empty shelves from all the back to schoolers. I bought some must haves and decided to wait on the others. Good thing I did because I had just the perfect amount of stuff to carry and messed up the bus system and it took me almost 2 hours to find a bus to take me home. I could have walked home in that amount of time but uncertainity of the safety of neighborhoods held me back. Although, the bus stop I did end up choosing was a little iffy since it was this huge high rise building with low rent housing and no AC so everyone was out on the front lawn in chairs just sitting there, so that was kind of awkard to see so many people just sitting there and doing nothing. After a quick dinner, I went to check out some of the clubs that JWU has to offer. All the clubs and greek life set up booths out on the court yard between my dorm hall, the school library, and another dorm all. This court yard is called the Gaebe commons and is a huge place for partying ;)

After checking out the clubs, I went shopping at the Providence Place Mall, more particulary, I wanted to go the Bed Bath & Beyond to get a new comfy dorm chair with a gift card that someone gave me (thanks by the way!). I ended up buying the chair, a mini ironing board, a surge protector power strip, and 24 hangers which was a mistake because I had a mile to walk. Well it doesn't help either when you walk the wrong way and get lost in a unfamiliar city and you have all this stuff to carry and its getting darker and darker by the minute and all these security cars are coming out of the woodwork. After several moments of wandering I finally walked in JWU territory where all the light poles have JWU signs and JWU buses were running around. Much relieved I hiked on home.

At home, in my concrete box, I was having internet issues so I took the journey to Starbucks which leads me into my next blog. I somehow find adventure everywhere I go.

Recent Weekend Adventures!

2007-08-26T22:52:00.000-04:00

Hey All!

This weekend was wonderful and it blows into the final week! It is now the final countdown for sure!

On Friday evening, my family and I did a father-daughter catering dinner at Calvary Chapel Boise. The catering went splendidly!

My family and I awoke at 6am to create 63 box lunches for another catering. After being busy bees, Dad and I went off to do some last minute shopping for my goodbye party. The party started at 2pm and was wonderful. Many family and friends showed up and thanks to everyone that did! I will miss all of you guys!!! To keep the festivities going, some of my friends and I headed off to the movies to catch one last movie together! We saw Rush Hour 3 which was funny.

On Sunday, my family and I went to the movies to see the Nanny Diaries, it was not so much a comedy but rather an insight into the lives of uppity people back east. Afterwards, we headed off for a lunch/dinner (Lunnar) at Texas Roadhouse. I would have to say that I do not recomend getting a caesar salad but the ribs were good! My caesar salad had some sand in it and made me chip my tooth :( I didn't let that bring down my day and my family headed off for a nice afternoon stroll at Kathryn Albertsons park. We then drove around town and looked at some of the old houses that we have lived in throughout my life, and guess what, my original house was for sell again! I guess I must have jinxed that house ;)

I'm happy that I get to spend time with my parents before I head off to Rhode Island. I'm going to be spending my final week getting packed up and saying goodbye to everyone! So if you want to hang out or see me, let me know and email me at blumenla@gmail.com. Sorry this blog was so long, I'll try to make them shorter ;)

What a Great Success!

2007-08-17T00:08:00.001-04:00

So the Deli George! 10th Anniversary Celebration was a great success! So many people brought in so much stuff and we got to see a lot of new faces come in for the first time! The Idaho Foodbank Lady came in and was shocked at all the food and donations that people brought. Thanks everyone for your generosity in supporting our community!

Check out my Slide Show!

2007-08-16T23:45:00.001-04:00

These are some pics from my cruise that my family took at the end of June to Alaska!

Deli George's 10th!!

2007-08-15T23:12:00.000-04:00

August 19th is Deli George's 10th Anniversary!!! To celebrate, this Thursday we are exchanging food for items to donate for the Idaho Foodbank & Rescue Mission. The IdahoStatesman wrote an article for us on the front page and 4th page of the Life Section for Wednesday, August 15th, 2007. You can find it at http://idahostatesman.com/life/story/133241.html. I am so proud of my parents for creating Deli George and I am proud to have grown up there as I have learned so many things from them and from the deli. I am luckier than most kids, I got to grow up with my parents both at home and in their workplace, that means I am extremely close to them and my brother and we are a unified family unit. I do not know what I would do without these people in my life. They mean everything to me! Thanks mom and dad for being such great parents through thick & thin our family can do anything especially with God at our side!!!

Class Schedule & More Grants!!

2007-08-07T14:37:00.000-04:00

I just found my class schedule on handy dandy uconnect which tells me all that I need to know from finances, to classes, to schedules, and so much more! I also discovered that I was awarded another grant of $750!!!!

So far, I'll be taking 4 classes:

FSM1070 FOODS I
This course is designed to introduce the students to
standard operating procedures used in the food service
industry. Emphasis is placed on food preparation
techniques, basic purchasing procedures, kitchen
equipment and products. Corequisite: FSM1060.
Quarter Credit Hours 4.5

FSM1060 FOOD SAFETY AND SANITATION
MANAGEMENT
Students will explore the fundamentals of food safety
and environmental sanitation. This course looks at the
origins of foodborne illness and the implementation of
HACCP. Students must pass a national sanitation exam
that is recognized by the Conference for Food Protection
to fulfill the graduation requirement. (HO)
Quarter Credit Hours 2.0

HOSP1001 THE HOSPITALITY FIELD
This course is an introduction to the various segments
within the hospitality industry (lodging; food service;
travel & tourism; and sports, entertainment & event
management). The course is intended to prepare the
student to apply sound management principles to the
challenges encountered within the industry. (CS)
Quarter Credit Hours 4.5

and my fourth class is "Intro to Literary Genres"

So here is my schedule
Monday:
11:30-1:25: Food Safety & Sanitation Management
1:40-3:35: Intro to Literary Genres

Tuesday:
9:20-11:15: Foods I
1:40-3:35: The Hospitality Field

Wednesday:
1:40-3:35: Intro to Literary Genres

Thursday:
9:20-11:15:Foods I
1:40-3:35: The Hospitality Field

PARTY!!!!!

2007-08-06T01:16:00.001-04:00

Hello Everyone!

I will be having a goodbye party on August 25th, 2007. If you are interested in going please email me at blumenla@gmail.com for info on the time & location.

My First Post!

2007-08-01T00:09:00.001-04:00

Hey Everyone!

I'm working on setting up my blog as my blog address was placed in my thank you notes! Be prepared to have regular blogs coming out towards the end of August! I'm just working on tying lose ends up here and if anyone wants to hang out or anything, just give me a comment or email me at blumenla@gmail.com and I will get back to ya to arrange a time for us! By the way, I'll be leaving bright and early at 8am on Friday, August 31st, to head off to Providence!