Friday, January 21, 2011

School has begun

The rest of my trip went rather smoothly! I kept LiLi happy so Jessi could sleep; she definitely needed it.  I really did enjoy the warmth and comfort of a baby, but it was a reminder of, hey - you don't have time for a baby right now!  So, it was a nice kick in the butt that I should still wait.  Although, I'll keep hinting at Britton to get married :)  I want to celebrate my 25th wedding anniversary in my 40's like my parents! I think that is pretty special and I can't wait to celebrate it with them.

I got back late Friday night.  Britton picked me up :)  The strangest thing happened, there were three flights landing at the Fairbanks airport.  That was most definitely the most people I have ever seen in there.  We got home to find 5 fire trucks in our parking lot.  Fortunately, it had nothing to do with our specific apartment.  While we were getting my luggage out of the trunk, we heard sirens of another fire truck.  And then we saw the fire truck... but they missed the turn into our parking lot! Haha.. then we heard the screech of breaks and they turned around and made it into where they needed to be.  There isn't anything in the Newsminer, so it must not be too important.

Over the weekend, I started this quilt project: Roll Roll Cotton Boll.  I'm not allowed to buy new fabric, but I don't have enough scraps, so I've requested some from friends.  If anyone has fabric they don't know that they'll ever use - the amount doesn't really matter - send it my way and I'll work it into my quilt :)

I started my tomato plant in my aerogarden.  I was a little disappointed to learn that I only get to grow one plant in my little garden, but I can't wait til it has fruit! I think we're on day 6.  I need to order a new bulb though because they need to be replaced every 6 months or so to keep the best quality light on the plants.  I kind of want to buy a new garden too - one of the bigger ones and do starter plants for the garden out at Kenny and Jamie's place.

Spring New Student Orientation was on Wednesday!  It was super laid back and really easy!  I met some cool people and there weren't really any freak accidents.

This semester is off to a pretty good start.
Ecology shouldn't be as bad as I was anticipating.  The teacher seems pretty neat and gave the first lecture in a way that I was actually interested in the subject.  I've read the first chapter for the book and the case studies they talk about are also really neat!
Art/Mus/Thr 200x also should be a lot better than I was anticipating.  It's gonna be a lot of work, but I'm looking forward to it.  I've already completed the first 3 lessons!  But I've only submitted two, because that's the limit.  My plan is to get another assignment done this weekend, and another next week.  Then I'll be very far ahead and if I can keep up with that pattern, I'll be done early!  But some of my assignments depend on my classmates submitting their work.  But I can do all of my assignments that don't depend on them.
Early Sociological Thought is going to be just as dry and boring as I could imagine.  It's my least favorite teacher on my least favorite subject.  She did make a good point though, this class will tie in the works of every other class and it would have been helpful to take at the beginning.
I have yet to go to Capstone Seminar, since classes started on a Thursday and that class is only on Tuesdays.
I was talking to some music majors yesterday and found out that there is a seating audition for Wind Symphony and we'll not be having class until next Friday!  I was kind of surprised by the audition.  I haven't played anything except pep band music since the last time I was in wind symphony in Fall 2007. I brought my sax home from the pep band game last night and plan to practice this weekend.

I didn't make it to the gym today because I left my clothes at home :(  but I am going swimming with my little tonight! So, I decided that should make up for it.  Hooray swimming! I might go skiing this week with one of my brothers who transferred here this semester.  We'll see how cold it is.

My car is broken at the moment.  I didn't have Britton start it over break and now she is angry.  Hopefully the weather does what it says it will and gets above zero this weekend.  Then I'll go get her jumped and drive her around a whole bunch.  And I'll drive her every other day at least!

Monday, January 10, 2011

vacation!

So far I have had a wonderful vacation.  In addition to going to Atlanta, I hit up my parents in New Mexico!  Note to self: flying out of Atlanta (or probably any big city for that matter,) at 6 am on New Year's Day morning is a terrible idea.  It was extremely difficult to get a taxi.  I am however thankful that I didn't have to take the taxi to the airport by myself.  I had two other passengers, which made it about $15/person.   As soon as I got in line to check-in, I overheard that our flight was already being delayed by two hours! Apparently the pilots had to take mandated time off to sleep because they had been delayed so much the day before.  So of course this led me to miss my connection in Denver.  I got rebooked for the same day (thank goodness, because when Britton called the airline, they told him the afternoon flight was completely booked.)  I got on my flight at 3:30? but half way to Durango, we got turned around because of a non-hazardous mechanical error.  At this point, I just started crying.  I was extremely sleep deprived and I  just wanted to relax.  Airport floors don't make good beds.   Fortunately they had another plane that we were basically able to just change over too. And I made it to Durango about 10 hours after expected.

My parents had made me an air mattress to sleep on, but their two adorable kittens popped it! haha.  So, instead I slept in the living room, either on my dad's chair and the couch.  On Sunday, my mom and I went to Durango to check out the mall there, because neither of had been there.  We wandered through Bed, Bath and Beyond but didn't get anything there.  We went to all of the other stores, including a shop that was really cute, but didn't have anything in exactly my size.  However, it was pretty awesome because their plus sizes were 0, 1, 2, and 3. :) that was fun.  Then we drove back to Farmington to go buy new bras! I finally found one that is super cute! :) We went to a few other stores and then decided that we needed dinner.

On Monday, I woke up feeling pretty stiff, so Dad and I spent the whole day shopping for a bed.  We finally found one at the end of the day.  It was a lot of fun wandering around and testing out beds.  Dad almost bought a new Temperpedic, but they are REALLY expensive.  So, we just got a cheap mattress.

We didn't do a whole lot the rest of the week.  I lost some money at the casinos (though, I really lost Dad's money).  Those things seem like they'll just ruin your life.  On Friday, we bought the new table my mom has been looking at for so long! It's really pretty and I can't wait to go back and use it.

Saturday was filled with flying.  Uncle Rick and Aunt Cindy picked me up and took me out to lunch.  We ate at a pizza place called the Rock.  mmmm that was delicious.  I went back to their cute little house and while I waited for Kim to come pick me up.  After that, I went with Kim and Tim to 5 Guys and hung out.  

Yesterday, we went to the World Forestry Museum.  It was a lot of fun to look at all the different trees and foresting techniques that exist.  We had dinner at an amazing Indian place.  I really liked it and I really want to try more things in that cuisine.

Today we went to the Oregon Zoo.  The African Safari was mostly closed down, but overall it was still fun.  I forgot how much I love sea otters!  They are soooooooo cute!  We ended the zoo by buying some fudge and taking another trip to 5 Guys, since I wasn't able to have a burger last time.

That's up to where I am in my trip.  It's been super relaxing so far and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Monday, January 3, 2011

APO Convention 2010

I can't believe the 2010 Convention went by so quickly.  Here's what I can tell you! 

December 25, 2010: 
My roommate Morgan takes me to the airport to start my trip.

December 26, 2010: 
My flights both go smoothly. In fact, I managed to sleep for most of them.  I arrived into Atlanta just after 3pm local time.   I was able to claim my bags no issues.  The M.A.R.T.A. wasn't bad.  The workers were super helpful in figuring out how to get a card.  I didn't have to wait at all in the station and the ride to the hotel was easy.  On my last flight, I sat with this nice lady who has family in Atlanta, but now lives in Seattle.  I saw her again waiting for baggage, and then again getting our M.A.R.T.A. tickets and for the last time on train.  

Jesse met me at the hotel and I got checked in.  The check-in kiosks are pretty awesome and they even have desk attendants to assist with going through all the screens.  I took my bags upstairs and then went back down to the hotel restaurant for a chicken quesadilla.  Jesse and I met up with brothers from other chapters as we saw them.  

I got registered for the convention and got my gear for the week.  I spent some time wandering around the area near the hotel with Lisa and Cynthia from Gamma Alpha.  We didn't do much because it was about 9:30 pm on a Sunday night.  I know I was up for a few more hours, but I can't remember with who I was with or what I did lol.  

December 27, 2010:
I woke up early so I could get some breakfast - at the cafe across the street from the hotel - and go register for APO LEADS.  It turns out that APO LEADS was a first come first serve deal this convention.  So, I hung around for an hour and went to the Achieve course.  Despite not having all of the materials needed, we had a wonderful time and I learned a lot about team work.  
I'm pretty sure I had lunch before the voting delegates meeting at 1pm, but I can't remember what I had.  
The voting delegates meeting was a little helpful because it provided more insight on what was going to happen during legislation.  After that meeting, the reference committee members had a meeting.  This one was kind of pointless because at this point I felt that I knew pretty much everything I needed to.  But that's okay.  After that meeting, I met with Stella, my lead advisor and Tony, one of the "lesser" (though equally as awesome) advisors.  We talked about what I should expect and gave me some help deciding what needed to happen during each of the meetings.  
At this point, I was pretty hungry so I headed over to the food court and found Dairy Queen.  I ordered food for myself and Staci, because I knew she was due to get to the hotel any minute.  She called me in somewhat of a frantic state and I knew that I needed to go "rescue" her.  I asked Hollis to pick up our food and she graciously accepted.  Staci had accidentally gotten off at the wrong station, but after 20 minutes of searching, I found her!  We made it back to the hotel and got our food.  
At this point, we were ready to go to the Opening Ceremony.  It was fun to meet more brothers and get some insight for the week.  It was amazing how many people were in the ballroom at this point.  
After the ceremony, reference committees were dismissed and set to their quarters.  
I met 10 of the most amazing people in my committee.  Rachel, Tyler, Niki, Michelle, Jude, JD, Lawyrn, Janae, Kelly, Becky and I are now a pretty close group! We decided on questions to ask candidates, set up an interview schedule and talked to some of the then current board of directors to learn more about the positions we were seeking to fill.  This is the only night that we managed to get out close to on time... At 12:30am. I must have stayed up finalizing things because I only slept for 4 hours. 

Tuesday, December 28, 2010:
There was breakfast available in the region suite, so after a quick shower, I grabbed some food.  Then I had to find Jeremy Bingham to figure out what was going on with a request that I had had.  Our committee regrouped at 8 am.  I gave a quick schpeal about wanting to be there and understanding how important the job we were doing is to the fraternity.  Then we answered some questions.  Then the interviews started.  *note to self: ALWAYS HAVE MORE TIME THAN NECESSARY WHEN INTERVIEWING!!!!* We got behind with the first interview.  And only continued to fall behind with each one.  But, we were able to get everyone in in the morning that we needed to.  We had a quick discussion before we had to go to region meetings, this was just a quick talk to our respective regions to talk about what was going on in reference committees.  After the meeting it was back to the grind for awhile.  We had more interviews, this time, mostly with references.  This time we fell so far behind, we had to reschedule some to the night hours.  Some people told us things we really didn't want to hear.  I'm so not used to that.  We had an hour break before the fellowship banquet, but I used that to write subpoenas and other random tasks.  This left me with maybe 20 minutes to prepare for the banquet.  
The banquet was fun, there were lots of people and yummy food and fun entertainment.  But after every party, one has to get back to the grind.  
We got back into committee and started interviews again.  These seemed to go on for forever! We finally finished, just to realize that we needed to interview a few more people.  We sent subpoenas at 1 am. Got donuts at 2 am. And evacuated at 3 am!! That was hectic.  But once we got back into the grind, we were good to go.  Maggie brought us more food and coffee and we sent more subpoenas at 5 am. I think it was here that we had to establish that it was in fact Wednesday, December 29th.  We established our slate just before 7am and dismissed to get ready for legislation.  But of course being the chair, I didn't get done til 7:45.  I managed to get showered and to legislation on time at 8am.  Some of the legislation was really controversial, but we got through enough to be dismissed early.  I'm thankful for the floor services folks to be able to send/receive messages from the floor and others.  
We were dismissed for lunch in the middle of the legislation and I had lunch with the section 8 chair, Linda and a couple of my section/region brothers.  
I stayed awake for just a little longer and then went to sleep for 4 hours.  I woke up for maybe 2 hours to attend some of the Make-a-Wish fundraising carnival.  I didn't actually participate in anything, but was happy to attend something fun!  I went back to sleep after writing my nominations speech for the presidential position.  It was between 2 and 3am when I fell asleep.  

Thursday, December 30, 2010:
I got up just before 7 so that my committee and I could practice our speeches and get some feedback.  We went to legislation, and I was somewhat surprised that the NomComm had to present to the legislation first! Ahhh! INSERT MINOR PANIC ATTACK! haha.  I'd say we presented extremely well and a few surprises were tossed in to make for a good morning.  Our ENTIRE slate passed! Apparently this hasn't happened in an extremely long time, so, we were thrilled that the legislation accepted and trusted our decision.  There were a handful of other pieces of legislation, but we got out early :).  
Thursday afternoon, we had another region meeting to elect our region director.  That went smoothly.  We also selected the location for our next "local" conference.  That also went smoothly.  We had a little fun and then dismissed.  Staci, Jesse, Brittany, Louie and I went to the mall for just over an hour so we could escape the hotel.  We bought some shoes and things and then went back to the final banquet, the awards banquet.  I got to meet even more amazing people that have led the fraternity in the past.  That was awesome!  After the awards banquet, I went to the pajama party twice.  In between the first and second times, I had some champagne with my committee! haha.  I hung out with Tyler and the Delta chapter for a few more hours and then went to sleep. 

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Goals for 2011


Goals for 2011

1. Be 50 pounds lighter by December 31, 2011.
2. Run Beat Beethoven on April 16, 2011.
3. Take more pictures.
4. Do not post any "dirty laundry" on facebook.
5. Take timely action on any drama that needs to be addressed.
6. Post more to have written memory of my life.
7. Graduate!