Halloween

I must have had the lamest Halloween ever because I just stayed at home and did homework all day. I needed to do that so it is a good thing. Besides I had plenty of fun Friday night to make up for it!

St. Thomas Relays

I had to get up way too early to go to St. Kate's for the St. Thomas Relays. The bus was full so I rode down with the coach, Kathy. I spent the entire day taking 50 yard splits for all sorts of realys. Not to mention getting splashed everytime someone went in the water in lane 8. We watched Van Helsing on the bus on the way back to St. Ben's. The swim team is a lot of fun! I met the guys team today and they are really cool too. Then I took a 6 hour nap, woke up and watched a movie with Ashley, since she was home from her party already. Then Cassie, Angie and their friend Chase came over and had a snack before we all when to bed.

Haunted Watab Hike

After the long 'work' week was over we had to set-up and run the Haunted Watab Hike for the school. It was raining so we waited in the art building for it to let-up. Then we headed out to the island to start to set things up, but we thought we were going to have to cancel it because it was still dripping, threatening weather, and the wood for the bonfire was soaked! We deceided to wait a little longer before canceling. We were able to pull everything together, get the fire started and get the hot apple cider out to the bonfire before people started to arrive. We had a blast scaring people and running around the SJU woods, not to mention that the weather ended up being perfect! We think that about 150 people were there over the course of the evening. Then Heather, Amy, Angie, Chelsea, and I got ready for the frat's costume party in the bathroom of the art building. I was Karen from Will & Grace and pulled it off to a tee! I had the business suit, pointy heals, pearls, K monographed and jeweled broach, a huge purse, a martini glass in the purse, and pill bottles filled with tic-tacs that I could 'take' all night. Chelsea was the hottest ladybug I've ever seen, Heather and Amy were angles, and Angie was a cowgirl. I had one of the best costumes there and everyone else thought so too! I did stomach bumps with all sorts of people danced with Chelsea and Molly until the wee hours of the morning as well as leared how to shake my ass like Shakira! Another great AKS party for the history records!

Costume Shopping

After class and work I ran into St. Cloud to find the missing pieces to my Halloween costume! You would think that with all the stores that St. Cloud has I would be able to find everything right away, wrong. I ended up finding everything at the mall, imagine that! Needless to say Karen Walker lives! You know, Karen from Will & Grace!

Registration

In between classes today I ambushed my uncle, the professor, so that I could register for classes when I wanted to. His office is in Simons Hall at SJU. I got everything I wanted and when I wanted! History of Ireland, History Thesis, Social Stats, Intro to Modern Dance, and Theory of Football with the one and only Gagliardi! Then I had another movie for class, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, I think Tombstone is better! After that we had another planning meeting for Haunted Watab Hike that is this weekend!

Decorating for Dummies

After class and work today I went to a Life Skills 411 program called Decorating for Dummies about decorating apartments either on campus or after graduation. It was pretty interesting and informative, plus there was free cookies, lemonaide, and picture frames to decorate! I also had an AKS Clothing Committee meeting to finalize the options for clothes to be ordered next week.

AKS Clothes

I didn't do a whole heck of a lot today besides research clothes options for the sorority! I found all sorts of options for shorts, pants, sweatsuits, yoga suits, zipped hooded sweatshirts, kangaroo hooded sweatshirts, long sleeved t-shirts, baseball t-shirts, hats, and other misc. stuff. But the good news is it all seems to be reasonably priced!

Canterbury and Clearwater

I had to get up at 8:30 to go to work at Canterbury Park. I've started working there everyother weekend, because I'm really strapped for cash. On the way home I met my parents in Clearwater for dinner because they were returning from closing up the cabin for the winter. Yeah for free food! Then it was home to the awaiting homework.

SCSU and Theatre Party

I got up at 6 and drove the guys back to St. John's, I WAS sober. Chelsea and I had to leave to vounteer at St. Cloud State's Homecoming 5K run. It was tons of fun, but we were dead tired and it was a little cold. We had a dance party at the finish line, I don't think some of the runners liked that too much. After we got back I passed out big time and sleep for about 6 hours! When I woke-up I showered and got ready for the Theatre party being hosted at Placid. This going out three nights in a row stuff is hard work! It was more of a hodge podge gathering of misc. people who all seemed to know one another. I was fun because I hadn't seen many of these people in quite a while. Heather and I had a great time together being silly and dancing. I like dancing! I also ran into some long-time family friends Mary and John Gonzalez. We talked for quite a while and got caught up on everything. We also found Jello shots at John's place that we brought back to the party. After that excitement I started hanging out with this cool freshman, James, he was in the 24 Hr. Play Festival too! The night ended well.

Frat Sandwich - AKS Frat Initiation

Needless to say I dont' remember when I got up, but I didn't have a hangover or anything. I went to work for a while and then headed on over to the HCC. I have signed-up to be an International Friend to a student who is here from another country. My friend is Mubera and she is from Bosnia and Herzegovina. She wasn't there tonight so I will e-mail her later. After that I got ready for the AKS Frat Initiation. A bunch of the AKS Sorority board members were invited over to help celebrate. We had to wait outside for a while in the cold mist, not very brother-like, guys! Anyways, once we got inside it was a blast! The pledges all seemed really cool, a little roudy, but cool. Introductions took forever because stories of involvements in the past kept coming up! Indiana Rob with Heather and Amy! There were two Maple Grove guys pledging so we were close most of the night. A bunch of them left after a while but Chels and I kept on partying. Frat Sandwich was initiated as well. Poor Mike getting sandwich by two seniors and getting 'pants'ed about 50 times, life's rough isn't it? Chelsea got into one of the pledges scavenger hunt bras and what not, the sad part is Mike could too! Not so much me, I'm a wee bit bigger than that. There was drunked volleyball played at 1 in the morning in Mike's ginormus clothes! Then Chelsea, Mike, and I took the last bus home in Mike's clothes, our designer European shoes, and purses. We must have looked like freaks! We then walked back to the Projects in the rain barefoot thorugh the park and ordered Gary's. We (Me, Mike, Chelsea, Juan, and Moie) all passed out on the pull-out couch around 4, I think. I'd say that was a successful initiation!

McClure Power Hour

Not going to practice, cause it was been permantly cancelled due to darkness. What other sport can say that? HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! I had my interview for the Dominican Republic ASB trip this afternoon. I really want to go on this trip because I've only been to the Caribbean once before, I know that sounds really snotty, but dude I travel all the time! I love it! I think the interview went well, I'll find out next week if I'm going or not. Then it was the first History Club Movie Night and we watched Braveheart. I've never seen it before but I have been the Sterling Castle in Scotland where it takes place. I like it even though it is so not acurate at all! After that it was off the Sal's for the McClure's (Nick and Steph's) Birthday. It actually is there birthday today, they had too much to do to go out last night. I think Nick had 18 or 19 shots during the night and was plenty drunk and left the bar around midnight, don't worry it was his roommate who was with him. After that I went to The La with Heather and Lisa cause Heather was looking for this boy, needless to say he wasn't there and then we headed for home. Heather and I were sidetracked into the Midi because my friend Chelsea was in there. I met a bunch of cool townies in there! The Midi isn't so bad! Chelsea and I even had Jag Bombs bought for us! When Heather and I finally left we chatted outside our apartments for a long time before finally going to bed around 2. I don't have any classes tomorrow, so don't worry.

Watab and Hodge Podge

We got to practice and decided that it was just too dark to row, so we went back to bed. Then Jared, Kiersten, and I worked on the advertisments for our Hauted Watab Hike. They turned me onto the best program ever, Microsoft Publisher! After work I went to a Drama Club meeting were they cast the shows for the Hodge Podge coming up in November. I really wanted to be in this one show, but was not cast, but that is probably for the better considering that I don't really have the rehearsal time right now. Then it was time for homework since I know my rec crewbies didn't show up.

Ghosts and Kittens

At crew practice we actually decided that we could go out on the water even though is was so black and sort of misting out. I took my boat half way to the Stella Maris Chapel and could see either the chapel or the boat house light, so I decided in the best interest of everyone that we were going to go back in, that was just too scary to be out in! We spent the day in the library for Reformation today working on our historical debate characters, much better than lecture class. After work, my roommates and I decided to get a kitten, so while I was off at AKS, they went and picked her out. We have a baby girl kitten that we named Roxi Ann. She's so cute!!!

Mid-Term

I got back up to school and unpacked, sort of. I quickly crammed for a mid-term before I went to dance class. We ended up watching a movie in there since the prof. wasn't feeling well, but I ended up falling asleep because I was tired. Needless to say I don't think I did too hot on my mid-term, but I'll have to wait and see. After work I attacked the paper pile that I had failed to do when I was at home. It is amazing how much more space you have when things are organized and clean! After that I had a planning meeting for the Haunted Watab Hike which AKS Frat and Sorority are putting on. We walked out to Watab, looked around, and decided on committees and tasks.

Long Weekend!

I'm so glad that it is finally Lond Weekend, a chance to go home, relax, earn some money, and catch-up on homework!

Wednesday - I got home and my dad and I went to California Pizza Kitchen for a late lunch. I kind of like having him home all the time, although I know that is bad for our financial situation. Then I spent time arranging my pictures onto a CD so that I could go to Sam's Club and have them printed so I could continue with my scrapbook. The CD didn't read at Sam's Club, so we went to Wal-Mart to see if it would read there and that didn't work either! We'll try another CD tomorrow because I would like to have these pictures for Friday. Then we watched Starksy and Hutch, which none of us had seen before, although we did walk past the premiere to it in London when they were over visiting me! It was a good movie.

Thursday - I slept in and then me and my mom went to Hollywood Video to rent my movie and some other fun ones too and we went to Sam's Club again, still not working! Then we burned a different CD from our friend Laurie's computer, but that didn't work either, so we went over to Target and had the pictures printed there. We had dinner and went back to Target to get the pictures. That night I went with my mom and we played Bunco (a dice game) with the neighbor ladies which was fun becasue most of them have not spoken with me in quite a while and wanted to know about school and my time overseas this spring.

Friday - I got up ridiculusly early and went to coffee with my dad and his friend Gordy. I don't know what possessed me to do this, but I went and got caffinated for the day. Then my mom and I headed to her college friend Kathy's house because she is a Creative Memories consultant and lets us come over and use her stuff to scrapbook. I was able to finish up and tie all loose ends on pages that were related to Norway and France. I actually had a lot of France left to do, so that was most of my dad. We had lunch at Ruby Tuesdays because my mom really likes their salad bar. When we got home we had a light dinner and then watch another movie that we had rented call I'll Be There and it's about a Welsh girl and her mother and the girl's quest to find and befriend her Scottish Rock God father that doesn't know about her. I really liked it. After that I watch High Noon again.

Saturday - When I got up I wrote the review for High Noon, we had lunch, and then we went shopping. We went to JC Penny because I needed jeans desperatly because I had destroyed second to last pair in Rockford and my last pair I couldn't breath in if I sat down. We also went to Cub and got me stocked up on food, yeah! I stayed in, wathced TV, and put old pictures into the album.

Sunday - I worked at Canterbury for the first time since school started and had a decent day. After that I went to McDonald's to do an observational assignment for anthropology class. My friend Rachel from school met me there. We went back to my house and watch David on TV for the last time, he didn't get the job and the guy who did was a total ass! I know I talked to Kristen, David's sister and my best friend, on the way to the movies that night! Rachel and I went and saw Raise Your Voice with Hillary Duff and Oliver James, cute movie! Then I visited Rachel's kitten, Treble, and went home. I typed up my paper for the McDonald's assignment and went to bed. I had decided not to go back to school tonight because the conditions were bad and I didn't really need to be there until 1 tomorrow afternoon.

Heading for Home

I had decided to skip crew practice this week because I had been to almost all of them and needed a break and it was only a three day week because of long weekend. I only had one class today and no work, so I packed up my stuff (man was there a lot of it!) and headed for home!

Team Pictures

I slept in, because of dropping Latin, and then went to dance class. We had the team pictures today for swimming and diving, so we all had to be dressed up. We took them outside of the Main Building on some stairs and by a beautiful tree. Our head shots were literally in a bush near the enterance to the building. It was all good because I was getting paid for this! I was not selected to be a co-leader for an ASB trip so I went to the informational meeting for regulat participants since I really want to do an international trip this year. Then it was off the the SJU library to watch High Noon, the old version, for class. Unfortunatly I feel a sleep and will have to watch it again during Long Weekend. Then back to St. Ben's for an AKS meeting.

Monday Shmunday

I was extremely tired from my long weekend away, at least 16 hours in a mini-bus in two days will do that to you. It was painful for me to stay awake through all of my clasees, but some how I managed. Went to work and did homework, nothing exciting to report today.

Head of the Rock Regatta - Rockford, IL

We took the St. Ben's mini-bus to the regatta. Saturday we were going as far as Madison, WI were Jess lives and where we are spending the night. During the bus ride down to Madison we made up questions to ask on another to bond and learn about each other more. We got into Madison around 4 or 4:30, unloaded our stuff. Jess's mom was kind enough to make all of us dinner along with providing snacks. We gorged ourselves on spagetti, lazanga, and salad. Then we headed into town. We parked in a ramp near the capitol building, walked down State Street, met my sister (she goes to Madison,) wandered around Memorial Union, and then headed home (Jess's house.) In the parking ramp we actually hit an air conditioning duct which scrapped some paint off of the roof of the bus, but we hope that the school won't check to the roof when we return it. Back at Jess's we had some ice cream and went sleeping bad sliding down the stairs before we went to bed around 10. We got up at 4:45 and headed out at 5:30 because we still had to get to Rockford which was over an hour and a half away. When we got there we found the State trailer and unloaded our boats. My race was the second of the three we had entered in the regatta. There were all almost at the same time as well. I had the Men's Open 4 with Jon, Sam, Brian, and Jason. We didn't know if we could row because we were missing a seat and couldn't find a replacement until the very last minute! We practically ran onto the dock and hurried up to the start. That was the worst traffic jam I had ever been in! During the race the boat was very heavy becasue the guys were not listening to what I told them to do except for Jon who looked like he was about to die by the end of the race. I still had not been thrown in for coxing my first race, but thank goodness it didn't happen here! I'm pretty sure that they have given up on it. I still had not been thrown in for coxing my first race but I'm really glad that it didn't happen here! I think that they have given up on it because it is getting cold and what not. Then we got our new trailer! It's so pretty, shiny, and new! It will hold 12 boats including 4 8s. We own 7 boats so we are in no danger of filling the trailer anytime soon. We loaded up and headed back to school. We stopped in Tomah, WI for dinner, which I think is a requirement for anyone who is driving through Wisconsin. Then when we stopped for gas two of the girls stole a beer sign, silly girls! This was a great regatta and bus trip with some really awsome people! We got back to school really late at night Sunday night and then crashed! When I did get home I watched David battle it out one last time for In Search of the Partridge Family on VH1. The winner will be announced next week, I'm so excited for him!!!

Free Day!

I slept in becasue I could! Everyother Friday I do not have any classes anymore because I dropped Latin and my dance class does not meet on Fridays, this is going to be very nice. My first thing for the day was work at 4! After work we loaded the boats onto the St. Cloud State trailer because they are bringing our boats to Rockford because we are getting our new trailer there, no more crappy trailer for us! Ol' Blue no more! That night we watched Shrek 2 as a team as part of our 48 hr. rule again. JEC was showing it on the big screen. Early to bed again since we are leaving in the morning.

Theatre Thursday

I was really productive today, crew practice, both classes plus a make-up dance class since I had missed a few already. That class is a little longer and more advanced with their movements and routines. I checked in with the set designer, Mark, about working on one of the shows this semester. I would like to me the Prop Mistress for Ghost Sonata, which is the smaller show in Decemeber. Mark says that this is fine and will e-mail me with details later. He was wondering if I could come in and work tonight and I don't have class tomorrow, so I agreed. Then it was off to work for a while. After a quick bit to eat I went into the shop and worked on the set for The Oresteia, I had nothing better to do so I stayed for quite a while.

No More Latin

I have decided to drop Latin because I do not need it and it is taking too much time away from my other classes that are much more important. I don't feel bad about it at all because my grades will be much better without it. This means that now only have one class on these days and it doesn't start until 1 PM, yeah! I'm catching up from missing all of those classes last week, things are looking better all the time.

Calling All AKS Sisters

I spent most of my free time arranging things for our first meeting with all of the sisters, not that the pledges had been initiated. There always seems to be so much more to do than people realize. I seem to being doing an awful extra work considering I'm the Spring Daze and Judical Board Chair, but ok.

Swim Practice Starts

We took the boats off of the trailer and started to re-rig them for practice tomorrow. After classes I went to work and today was the first day that the girls had swim practice. They had two practices, 3-5 and 5-7, and they can go to whichever they want to. I seems that I will be working longer hours now that practice has started and there is a lot more to do, especially around the office.

London Reunion

I spent the morning at home doing homework and other misc. things before driving back up to school. Then it was time for my London reunion! We were having dinner at Dr. Joe's house in St. Cloud. It was so good to see everyone again! We had great food and decided that we are going to order long-sleeved t-shirts with the top 10 London memories on them so that they will live forever! Everyone's pictures brought back so many memories as well. We all miss London so much and want to go back ASAP! Then I had to hurry back to St. Ben's because we were having our initiation ceremony for the pledges. It was a basic ceremony with no frills but got the job done. Then on to more homework.

Head of the Miss Regatta - Minneapolis, MN

We left for Minneapolis at 5:30 in the morning. We had to wait for a while before our boats got there since Susan's dad was pulling them. Then we got them ready and I went to the cox meeting. I was super nervious because these were going to be my first races ever!!! That also means that I should be thrown in the river today as well, so that's also keeping me on pins and needles. After my parents got there it was time for my first race, the Women's Open 4. We launched on time and headed up river. It is a lot harder to stear in a river but I got the hang of it after a while. We got to the start with plenty of time and headed for the starting line, and then we were off! The girls did a good job of staying together and keeping the boat set (very important for a crew boat.) It was a beautiful day and I was actually quite hot will all of the layers I had on. The girls finished the race strong and then we got the boat back into the shore. My next race was suppose to be the Men's Open 8, but we had a broken boat so we couldn't race two 8s at the same time so I was coxing a Novice Mixed 8 in the Men's race. I was suppose to launch almost right away so I ducted behind an SUV and got rid of all of my extra layers and went down to my uniform and jacket, much better in the head! This was going to be an interesting race because six of my eight rowers had never rowed in a race before let alone all 8 during practice, so that was interesting. Aaron was my stroke seat which helped because he could tell me what to do since he has rowed a lot before and even with Boston College. My cox box actually went out before the race started which could have been a huge problem, but it was working again just in time. These guys did pretty well too, but didn't react to my commands and comments as well as the girls did, which sort of because a problem because we were getting a lot closer to bouys in the river than we should have. Needless to say that we didn't hit any of the bouys and finished the race. They were a lot more tired than the girls and I felt bad for Aaron for having to row with them since is he definatly an open rower. It was only 2 or so, but everyone was exhausted! Ok, so here's the deal, when a cox coxes their first race there are suppose to be thrown in by their crew after the race but, I was not thrown in the river here because it was really gross and people were busy putting away everything, but I think it might be coming sometime this week at practice. Then I headed home with my parents and we ate out at Houlihan's, which was really good! Then I spent the night at home.

Finally Friday

This week I only went to 3 of my classes, I should have had 10, my situation just wasn't condussive to learning this week after all of that bad news. Things will be better! After my classes and work, we loaded boats onto the trailer (that some how miracelously fixed itself in a week!) After that we, the crew team, went to Aaron place and watched Wet Hot American Summer and had frozen pizzas as a team. It helps all of us follow our 48 hr. rule for no drinking. It was fun and then time for bed since we have to leave incrediably early tomorrow morning.