Christmas Break

I can't begin to tell you how completely relaxing this break has been for me! It started out awesome and is continuing that way. Christen, Suneeta, Iris, Karmi and I traversed VERY ICY roads to Denny and MaryAnn's house. It's amazing we made it there alive. In the beginning, we had planned to visit Sadie in Peoria, but only made it to MaryAnn's before deciding that we'd never get there driving 40mph. And,40mph was pretty risky...you have no idea. Turned out that we had an awesome night taking pointless pictures in thick darkness after the electricity went out during the ice storm. We also watched a movie titled Bounce. Doesn't that sound like a happy movie title...it wasn't. The main character's husband dies in a plane crash (I wouldn't recommend this movie for Jenny)and it was sad. But, we managed...the rest of the night we were smiling despite the tears shed during the movie. :)

I know you are all wondering...how could such fun girls get together and not have a dance party? Don't worry, we definitely did have a crazy dance party. :)
"shimmy shake to the right and shimmy shake to the left!"

Here are a few pictures we took during the power-outage:








These following pictures are the next morning before we took off.

There are only two days of school this week due to thanksgiving break! How wonderful. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the three days off. I MUST get most of my ENT 105 book project done. This could turn out to take a lot of time too...kinda stressful. I'm planning to get together with my global connect partner over the break, which will be great. I was thinking I could take her to Indy or something. I also want to visit Homer IL Thursday or Friday maybe.

Sarena, Janessa, and I want to plan something for the girl cousins before our get-together on Saturday. That could turn out to be a pretty fun time with some girls I don't get to see often. I really do hope that we can all be real with each other. Sometimes it's hard to get past the formalities with people you haven't been with for a long time. And then there's the complexity of trying not to offend someone else becuase your convictions are a little different...that can be hard. I'm sure it'll be good, especially if I put forth the effort to make it so. :)

So I have a funny story...it makes me look pretty dumb too. You'd better all feel sorry for me!
Saturday night I was with Sadie at a foreign exchange dinner and we were playing games and stuff. Well, someone asked if any of us could do the splits. It just so happens that I can! I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to showcase such an impressive ability! This is where it get bad...no stretching and not easing into it at all. I went straight into the splits and there was a pretty loud tearing in the back of my thigh. I was pretty far away from the group so no one heard it but me. so I acted like nothing happened and stiffly sat back down on my chair. Yeah. I just sat there not moving for quite a while...wondering if I could actually stand up while feeling a burning pain shooting through my leg. Not cool at all. so I'm waiting for one of my doctor relatives to take a look. Oh and, Christen just convinced me to sign up for the mini-marathon. This leg better cooperate and heal before then!
Happy Thanksgiving! I can't wait to gain ten pounds this weekend. :)

Tagged post!

1.) I'm realizing with many tears how much of a perfectionist(based on my pride of course) I am. It's probably one of the harder things I've had to learn this far...I guess I've been learning it through each diff. stage of my life. Let's just say Purdue is givin' me a run for my money and I'm sure it's good for me!

2.) I very much like to dance and I very much like African-American culture! Both of those are very known facts so I paired them.

3.) As a little girl, I carried the responsibility of every animal/pet upon my back. And now I pretty much don't want anything to do with them as a result. I don't like animals very much...I used up all of my positive regard for them long ago. Maybe it was due to the fact that I had a grey cat that was possessed...yes. he was! Ask my family for the gory details.

4.) I love chewable vitamin C...you could probably classify it as an addiction. I like to think of it as the one candy I don't feel a single bit of guilt eating.

5.) I love old architecture and anything dealing with old time-periods. Reading novels set back in the 1800's or anything like that is the best thing in the world. I secretly wish I could completely deck myself out in the latest 1800's fashion and attend a ball...similar to the Pride and Prejudice type. And then return home to my large manor. Sigh....how perfect...and how dorky that I'm confessing this to you!:)

6.) I really want to travel to Brazil before I die. It would be awesome to visit Ygui(our foreighn exchange student when I was a Junior in HighSchool). And, I'm sure my spanish will be astounding by then so I'll be able to understand some Portuguese...not likely.

7.) I don't prefer saxophones or electrc guitars....I'm not sure why. I do like most other instraments a lot though.

Ready for Fall break!

I'm so glad for this week to be over(it's seemed really long). I have five book reviews that I need to finish today and I also need to turn in my book plan for a children's book in Entemology class. For a 100 level class it's turning out to be a lot of work. I have to do my own illustrations for this book too(which I think will be pretty fun)...it's about a bug of my choice. I also have to make a bug costume that's due in a couple weeks. I'm hoping mom will help me with some of this...she's quite the wizard with her sewing-needle wand! Today, I had the nices librarian help me. He was so helful and considerate of my plight to find books about bugs. It made me realize how important it is to treat other people like they really do matter...it makes a difference!

Sunday night Leah and Emily decided to watch Emma! It happens to be one of my favorite movies of all time. I had a little bit of studying to do and I was feeling stressed with the thought of the two hard exams I was going to take Monday and Tuesday. After taking a refreshing shower I could hear familliar sounds coming from the living room...I got the best warm and fuzzy feeling when I saw that they were watching Emma. It was the perfect thing to relieve stress, and the after-shower clean feeling only magnified the wonderfulness of it all! It's one of those movies that I associate really good memories with and it made me feel completely relaxed and happy(which is quite contrary to how I would normally feel the night before exams). I love the music, characters, and storyline of it...not to mention the coolness of Mr. Knightly.

I haven't quite decided what I'm going to do with my fall break. Mom extended the invitation of going with her, Aunt Joyce, and Aunt Connie to the Covered Bridge festival. That could be quite the adventure and my aunts are pretty cool. I'm planning to go to the Taylor Invite this weekend too. For some reason, I'm just not as excited about it as I should be. I'm sure it will turn out to be a great time. The five hour drive just doesn't sound the best.

Ok...I need to get those book reviews done!

Prayin' For You

Sadie introduced this to me a couple weeks ago and I thought it'd be cool to post.

A word about IDIS 376

I just gave a small presentation thing with a partner in my African American class. Basically, we had to summarize a chapter from a book we're reading in class. It wasn't a big deal at all...type up a paper with bullet points about the chapter and talk for like five minutes about it to the class. I usually don't mind this sort of thing at all...but in this class it's just a little bit different. The book is titled: "The Assasinataion of the Black Male Image." Not an easy to talk about topic. Since most of the class is made up of African Americans, including Mr. Tillis(my teacher), It feels different to talk about these issues. The chapter we had to present was one of the longer ones and had so much information...some of which I thought would be uncomfortable to talk about(how the African American male is viewed as sex-crazed and lots of other explicit things along those lines). The teacher chose our partners and, strangely enough, I was paired with another white kid named Ben(he plays baseball for Purdue and is a nice kid). I don't even think that was intentional on the teacher's part...I'm pretty sure he picked at random.

So, the presentation went good and I actually enjoyed standing up there to talk. I really like Mr. Tillis...he's a cool guy! Ben typed up the bullet points and when I was reading over it in class I noticed typo errors...annoying! So I mentioned it to my teacher after class. I warned him that there were typos and that it bothered me and he said I could re-type it if I wanted becuase he's that kind of person too. I guess most perfectionists do kinda understand each other...band together perfectionists!

Then while I was looking for Ashton outside of Beering after my class, I saw Mr Tillis walking by and he told me I did a nice job...which was good to hear because I was pretty sure it probably sounded scattered. We talked for a little bit. I'd say I'm getting to know my teacher well. I love teachers...and he's one of the cooler ones I have. I'm pretty sure this class is going to stretch me in some good ways.

Purdue

I'm very tired at the moment...beware!...this may be a borring post as a result!

I'm excited for my African American Male class tomorrow. And, I have tons of reading to do. Probably should be doing it now. I've been doing homework all day, though, and now I just want to write. My first week of classes went pretty well. After freaking out about my Spanish class to various people that would listen, I've decided that I can probably handle it. Most of my frustration was due to the fact that it was very late last night when I sat down to look at my assignments...porbably English wouldn't have even made sense to me. I think I'm getting plugged in to the idea of School. I guess I don't really have a choice, huh? Plug in or fail!
What crazy things should I share with you?-

My weekend was awesome. I spent it in IL(Denny and Mary Ann's of course) with Sadie, Christen, Ash, Bryan, and Kurt. Monday, the Steffen boys(Quinn and Justin) came out to hang with us. We had some great conversations out on the pontoon boat. It was cool to re-connect with them after kinda growing up together and stuff. Sadie and Christen were awesome as always, and I was so glad Ash and Bryan were there. It was a great weekend with lots of food and fun. I needed it too after my first week at Purdue.

OK. For now that's all I can think to post about. I'm planning to go on a bugwalk tonight for my Entemology class...if I can figure out where to meet. It's for extra credit, which I'm sure I'll need! Have a great day everyone! It poured rain today! It's funny to see people arrive to class in a puddle of water. I was able to stay dry thankfully.