i love D.C.!

Last week I went to D.C. with all of the sophomore Teaching Fellows! It was so much fun! I love D.C. and want to live there. Ok not for long but I do love it!

the Cannon House Office Building where we met our tour person and also where we saw war protestors dressed all in pink

the Capitol Building

me and the Supreme Court Building

me and the Captitol Building

the old Supreme Court room in the Capitol

the dome ceiling in the Capitol

fresco art in the dome

fish in the Baltimore aquarium

a puffin!!!

my roomie Ashley on the phone

Ashley downtown

at Starbucks

the White House!!!!

us four girls ate at the Cheesecake Factory in Baltimore...the boys didn't want to eat there but they had no problem scarfing down our leftovers!

sting ray!

anemone!

a picture of a scary fish

the Lincoln Memorial!!!

an engraving of India at the Korean War Memorial

excited about India!!

the booth where Lincoln was shot at Ford's theatre

a coconut popsicle!!!! yum!

me and Tay on the bus on the way to a school

roomie love!

Lincoln Memorial

Favorite Secret

There is a website that I found through a friend called Post Secret. People mail in all kinds of secrets and then the best ones are chosen to be put on the website every Sunday night. Most of them are depressing but every now and then there are some ones that make me smile or laugh.

This one made me laugh. Sadly I am not addicted to Diet Coke these days for financial and convenience reasons. I may have one out to eat or rarely in the Cafeteria but since it's not caffeine free it's just not the same. I know. I am weird. I love Caffeine Free Diet Coke. Too bad they won't have that in India.........

Exciting Updates

I have some exciting news..... I AM GOING TO INDIA THIS SUMMER!
I just found out this afternoon and am super stoked! Check out the Trip Information to find out some more.
Please be praying as this is the beginning of a long journey. But I am SO EXCITED!

I should have worn ski goggles

I should have worn ski goggles to class today. After a drought of snow, it CAME DOWN today. I had heard rumors of flurries today but didn't think much of it. So I did my usual go to class - wore my pink pea coat cause it was like 50 degrees this morning. On the way to Geology I noticed a couple flakes but they were small. Geology is in a class that has no windows. When we all came out of class into the stairwell we looked outside and were shocked - it was completely white EVERYWHERE! And it was coming down! Pouring down snow! Needless to say I was VERY unprepared - I froze walking to class and had to look down the whole down as the snow was coming at me in little bullets.
Ashley and I went out and played for a little bit tonight. Super fun! We discovered that if we went in the courtyard we could find people's rooms that we know and throw snowballs at them. It was hilarious! Then we made snow angels and had a bit of a snowball fight. It is thick snow and is still coming down. I love snow! Maybe I"ll get to play in it more tomorrow with the kids at work!

Merry Christmas!

Aaah Christmas Eve. This day is one of my favorite days of the year. I think I even prefer it over Christmas day. I love Christmastime, even though it seems that as I get older it is easier to get caught up in other things. Last week I was babysitting an adorable 2 year old. As I was getting him dressed for the day I asked him what was happening next week (this is a Christian family, keep in mind). His face lit up and he threw his hands in the air and exclaimed "it's Jesus's Birthday!". What a sweet reminder that was to me that the real joy for the season is Christ. Caught in the eyes of a precious little one was the true meaning of Christmas.

Who Are These People?

So there they are, my celeberity look alikes. I haven't heard of most of them. Shows how culturally inept I am. Oh well it was kind of fun to do.

Pictoral Posting

Roommates at our Mocktail party!

Family at Thanksgiving plus Keith's friend Ian

Amy & LB at Game night

Shem & a banana at Game night

we love the game of Life!

they gave away Appalachian cokes at Homecoming!

my friend Jerry went to Ireland over thanksgiving. I told him to take a picture with a sheep. Being the jokey that he is he took a picture of a sheep and said that it was me.

some of the girls at Metamorphosis...our church's youth retreat

enjoying some beautiful weather at meta!

Natalie, Me and LB at Providence's College Fall Retreat

My life in living blogness

Let's see:
- I am home. I got home Wednesday evening.
- Getting home was no easy feat. As I drove home on highway 421, in the middle of nowhere, my car decided to make a horrible squeaky, shrilling, loud, ratchety noise. I was 2 miles away from the closest exit. I prayed my entire way to that exit and was greeted by NOTHING. No gas station, no fast food, no businesses, just some houses and a bunch of grass. I pulled over on a little strip of grass across from a house and got out to have a look. No visible damage, the tire was fine. So here I am in the middle of the Boonedocks, blonde and quite unsure what is wrong with my car. I finally got a hold of my dad who was in Pennsylvania on business. He told me to check my temperature gauge when it was running - the temp was normal, not overheating. So I was told to drive cautiously home. I drove 60mph the entire way. Any slowing, stopping, turning, speeding up or sudden moves made horrible noises. And there was a weird ratchety noise the entire drive home so there was no music, just horrible ratchety noise. The car went to the shop first thing on Thursday and it is now better. It was a pulley on the belt. A pulley on the belt? What the heck? I really need to learn car language.
- I have been quite lazy since being home. Lots of sleep, reading, and spending time with the parents. And going to the gym when it's open.
-I am doing some babysitting this week - I get to see my favorite 2 year old ever! Yay!

Well it has been a while since I have posted. It's been busy busy busy for me.
My dorm has a problem. Someone likes to light bulletin boards on fire in the middle of the night. It started last year during the spring semester. We had a total of 3 fires last year. Then this year, it has started again. Each time it is late, we're talking 10pm or later, and we all have to evacuate the building. Then the fire department has to come. It takes forever.
The second time it happened this semester it was 2am the night before I had a major Chemistry test! Not fun at all! Our alarm is so loud and noisy and scares me when I am asleep. Ashley and joke that all we say when it goes off is "shoes and coat, shoes and coat". These are the only items we worry about getting before we leave.
Well Saturday night one of Ashley's friends came over and we all watched some TV together before Emily left at about 10:30. Ashley and I were just sitting around being lazy when we heard it - the dreaded fire alarm. It's sad that when we hear it we respond with such urgency because we know that it is most likely a real fire, not just a drill. So we grabbed our shoes and coats (i had some trouble locating my shoes) and then ran outside. Sure enough we smelled smoke on the second floor.
Luckily our building has two parts - the academic wing and the residential wing (sounds fancy huh? it is a castle!). The two are not attached to eachother so when we have a fire (or on the rare chance that it's actually just a drill) we can go sit in the Great Hall, a large room in the academic wing. That keeps us from freezing in the cold Boone Weather.
So on Saturday night went over to the Great Hall and literally sat there for 3 hours! The firemen had to come and they had to inspect every single room. For some reason they think that whoever is doing this is lighting the bulletin board on fire and then hiding in a room. Apparently they also wrote a bunch of citations for illegal things in people's room. Ashley and I realized that our coffepot was still sitting out and started to worry. We asked one of the RAs what people were getting citations for and she says "well dont worry as long as your beer and wine bottles are hidden away under something you'll be fine" and we told her that no, that's not what we were worried about, we have a coffeepot out and some extension cords. She laughed and said that we were "cute".
To make a long store short, we sat in there FOREVER and finally got to go back in at about 2am. I was exhausted. They told us all that we have to take everything off our doors - no more cute letters and pictures! Our dorm looks so completely bare now. And today I just saw some maintenance people taking all of the bulletin boards down. This is very very sad.
This is a picture of the bulletin board that was torched on Saturday night. Not cool people, not cool.

Boone is cold. Really cold. It is supposed to be in the 30's today with a wind chill in the 20's. Burr. But it's the Furman game! Black Saturday - a tradition where you are supposed to wear all black to the game to support App. Problem is, it's too cold for anything you actually wear to be seen underneath many layers and coats. So it doesn't matter what shirt I wear. Though I still am wearing my grey and Appalachian pink ASU shirt. Gotta represent somehow.
Life has been good but hectic. Here's a typical day in the life.

Monday/Wedesday
7:30 am - Wake up and hit snooze many times. Finally get up and get dressed.
8:00 am - Chemistry :( but much better than physics
9:00 am - How Children Move - worst class ever, all about teaching pe in elementary school even though I will not be a pe specialist
BREAK- back to the room, breakfast, or Crusade meeting in the Student Union
11:30-1:30 - Work at the ASU Child Development Center with my favorite little four year olds - I love my job so much, I think it's probably the best job ever to have as a student. The kids are adorable and so precious and the teacher that I work with and the director are so amazingly sweet. My teacher is so cute, she told me that when it starts to snow heavily in the winter that I had better call her and she'll come pick me up - even though I live less than 1/4 mile away.
BREAK - back to the room to check e-mail, do a little homework
2:30-5 Riding over to Blowing Rock School for 5th Dimension. This is my practicum/lab for my introductory teaching class. Each college student has a elementary school mentee. We play board games, computer games, make crafts and play outside. It's fun but loooong
BREAK - back to the room to do homework
Mondays - my bible study with friends at some apartments - don't get back till about 9:30/10:00
Wednesdays - the bible study that Ashley and I lead in our room with freshmen girls.

As you can see those days are busy busy busy. So are tuesday/thursdays. Also on thursday I have chemistry lab. Since physics was a half semester class we just started chem about two weeks ago. Our first lab was last thursday. Our instructor was talking to us about the lab room we are using and how there is a balance room connecting two labs that we will share with a higher-level chemistry class. She told us to not use their side of the balance room as they were going to be using highly dangerous some sort of acid chemical. We asked what we were going to be using and the answer was SALT. Hahaha. Lauren looked at me and told me that she now knows what it's like to be a special needs student. We are the slow class. But hey I am perfectly okay with that.

Last night I went to an awesome halloween party. It was at Lauren, Taylor and Katie's apartment. There was a lot of people there and we had a blast eating yummy food, dancing to the monster mash song haha, playing twister, and checking out everyone's cool costumes. I went as a bubblegum machine. It was hilarious.
Taylor was Miss America, Katie was a flapper, there's me, and Lauren was a cowgirl.

After the party I went to some other friend's apartment to join their party - I know I'm such a party hopper haha. They were watching The Omen, a scary movie about satan being a five year old child. Now anyone who knows me knows that I don't do scary. It wasn't horrifying but there were a couple scenes in which I was screaming. I had to drive back to my room down a dark, scary, windy backroad so I called LaBranda and talked to her the whole way. Thankfully Ashley was awake when I got back so we chatted and she distracted me from the previous scariness.

Oh fall break was last weekend and it was amazing. I was home from Wed-Fri and then I went on the Providence College Fall Retreat. It was so much fun and awesome. I met some amazingly cool people and got to see some old friends like Natalie, LaBranda and Shem.

Well I'm off to tailgate with some friends and go to the game. Uncle Phil and Aunt Carolyn are coming up with their church from Greenville so I get to see them as well. Yay!

Fall Break starts TOMORROW!!!
okay so I have my educational practicum tll 5...but then I will be going HOME!
can you tell that I am EXCITED?!!!

Fall Pictures

Fall Retreat - Me with Hannah & Becky, two Staffers

At the homecoming lipsync with some of the Bible Study Girls

Amanda, Rachel, Mandi, Me at Fall Retreat - We call this our Family Portrait

the fearless navigator

the ride to Fall Retreat in Ashley's Minivan- sweet

Rachel teaching me how to knit

Taylor and I rocking the recorder in music class.

the girls on Taylor's Birthday

Amanda is my teaching fellows mentee and in our Bible Study....she's so sweet!

0ut to eat for Taylor's Birthday

we like to party

marble slab creamery cake

me and la

pretending to be an elephant for a skit in music

before CRU

football fanfare

before CRU and after Lauren cut my hair

yay for 308-310 girls!