I give thanks...

First of all I would like to say that Erin taught me how to post things in the future... and I am just so pumped. Apologies for the posts that have been coming up on the same day!

But anywho, I wanted to post about Thanksgiving. This year the family was healthy enough to travel, so we went to Cleveland, Ohio to see my mom's parents. (I know right, so tropical!) I had friends going to Florida, California... but I had no problem traveling to Ohio to see my grandparents. It had been more than a year for me!

We left Tuesday morning of break and were on the road around 7am. (Not too bad, but dont forget my dad had said "6:30am" the night before.) Anyway, we got on the road, and I promptly fell asleep after a few texts to friends who had class still. :-P I woke up somewhere around the end of Indiana and dozed on and off in Ohio. I had no idea where we were until I started seeing landmarks that were familiar... At this point we had been in the car straight for 7 hours - and my dad did not stop for lunch.

Did not stop for LUNCH?

Cardinal rule: not feeding Amy results in bad news bears.

We pulled into my grandparent's driveway and I was as cranky as can be. Dad claims no one answered him when he asked about stopping - although I know he probably never asked. ;-) We settled into the house and I quickly downed 1/4 of the banana bread my mom baked for my grandparents. Haha hey, I had to do something or heads were going to roll!

Anyway, the trip was fantastic. My grandmother is a FABULOUS cook, and my grandpa had fun catching up with my dad and us kids. Doug and I took a lot of time to relax and decompress before finals started, it was really nice. We played our traditional game of Shanghii - and Doug won!!!! (This normally never happens.) I think we ruined Grandma's winning streak.

I was itchy to be active, however. So I hounded and begged for information about the arboretum and greenhouse they have in their area. Cant keep me away from the plants - even in November! I think everyone felt bad for me, so my dad came with me to the arboretum on Wednesday. Here a few fun pictures:

Dad and I walked around the Visitor Center and the skies opened up. I stood looking out the window like a sad puppy while we waited for it to clear up. This shot was from the window of the Center

It took Dad and me like 15 minutes to find the path we wanted to take... but we saw this on our way. I realized it was a reflecting pool, and I got excited. :)

I have no interest in conifers, so I took dad on a traditional woodlands path. This was sort of dumb because all the trees were bare... but along the path, we saw this little guy. All bright green and with leaves! We both stopped and admired its burst of color.

Dad was joking around about visiting Blueberry Pond (he loves blueberries). We luckily were able to pass it on our walk. It was breathtaking on the gloomy day to see the burning bush with a little yellow and some evergreen. We enjoyed that peaceful moment. :)

At the end of the trip - the sun came out and we read about redwood forests. I wanted to compare my height to this 200 year old tree. :) Too bad I didnt notice the bird poop until after we left :-P

I loved going out hiking with Dad, it was fun to hang out with him, doing something I really love - being outside with trees! We went back to the Center to return our umbrellas and he bought me a hat. I love that hat and every time I wear it, I think about our afternoon together. (Especially when we got lost on the way home hehe)

On Thursday, Thanksgiving!, my mom and grandpa went with me to a greenhouse!!! What a treat! It was completely free and beautiful. I was excited to go some place with Grandpa... and my mom knows my nutty passion for plants. They had themed rooms, so here a few pictures of the time there:

There was a whole room dedicated to orhcids!! Mom and I foudn these spider-y ones very interesting!

The next room is usually something else, but starting on Thanksgiving they transform it into a Pointsettia room! It was breathtaking to see so many beautiful flowers.

Another room was all cacti! I was so enthralled in all the different kinds all at once. Nice and tropical for a really cool day!

My grandpa recalled that there was a small garden outside. I ran ahead (like a kid in a candy store) and discovered a Sensory Garden for the blind and a cute pathway. I found an American Beech and took a picture for my dad. My plan is to get this tree in our yard by the time I move out ;-)

Thanksgiving dinner was AMAZINGLY delicious as always when Grandma cooks. I absolutely ate too much. I think I had enough saurkraut to last me until next year! We enjoyed some stories and laughter before wrapping up the night with some pie and icecream. We hit the road on Friday morning around 9am. I was really choked up with emotion... I certainly do not want to wait another year to see them again. It made me so happy when Grandpa hugged me - he said, "Come back in summer and we'll bring you back to Holden's [arboretum] and Rockefeller's [greenhouse]. You'll love it summer."

I think that means he'll join me :) And that makes me so excited!!!!

GLACURH Pt. 2

I eluded to something in my previous GLACURH related entry... that we were required to give a presentation about something at the conference. (In front of what seemed like hundreds of people, but really... it wasn't.)

ISU had decided to "bid" for the Student Award for Leadership Training (SALT). This included a 20 page bid, or paper with pictures and stuff. We submitted that to the Regional Board of Directors and waited to hear if we made the finals. We did! That was SO exciting!!! We were up against 2 other schools for the award.

What was next for us was a 10 minute presentation and a 5 minute Q & A session. The 10 minute presentation was required for us to showcase our retreat and bid.... and was completely open-ended. That really worried me... an open-ended presentation was giving us a TON of right to be creative - and let's just say that I was NOT feeling creative during the 2 weeks beforehand!

Our delegtion had come up with the idea to do a movie. Well, that proved almost impossible because we had decided that 5 days before the conference... and there was NO way that me, with my meger editing skills, would be able to throw something respectable together. Shannon and I brainstormed the idea that we should take video clips and put them in a powerpoint, to make it interactive.

So in 2 days I gathered 12 testimonials from members of ARH and started to assemble the presentation. I think I spent over 36 hours straight on that powerpoint!!! It was a little tiring, but after a lot of testing, practicing, and reading Microsoft tutorials online, I got the videos to work on any computer I wanted! :)

Shannon, a delegation member, Robert, and I went to present the powerpoint. We practiced for over 2 hours.... as our presentation time kept getting pushed back. We went in there - and I'd like to say... we rocked it. :)

The three of us before our presentation!

Did we win? Well, we had to wait ALL day to find out! We went to the last 2 programming sessions, and then back to the hotel to relax and prepare for dinner and the banquet. Let's just say, that was the longest wait ever! Once we got to the banquet, we took a ton of pictures and I was basically nervous the entire time!

Our delegation, all matching in green, before dinner!

I had a delcious pasta meal, and texted my heart out to one of my friends across the room from UIC. He used to be on the Regional Board of Directors, so he was pretty comforting as I was having an corinary about whether or not we won. Of course the SALT bid announcment was in the middle of the ceremony... I cant even really tell you who else won the other awards, my heart was beating too loud.

Well the moment came! The SALT award announcement....

Do you think we won? Either that's me sneezing while Shannon is taking a picture or, I'm getting ready to stand up and accept the award. :)

Oh I'm sure you guessed it! We won the award!!! Here it is! It is in our office, waiting to be hung proudly after break. :)

It was a very emotional weekend.... very tiring, away from school, anxious from the presentation, a presentation delegate change at the last minute.... but it was all worth it. I was able to work with people who I know very well and care about very much, as well as get to work with brand new conference go-ers. It was a great weekend!!! :)

Now, an exciting thing - we decided to bid nationally! Now, when we bid for Large School of the Year, for some reason I was like 10432% more confident about winning. I spruced up our bid and submitted it last Monday along with a million pieces of paperwork. After I sent it in, I stared at my email for about 1 hour waiting for a confirmation. The hour turned into 2, as I fell asleep next to my computer. It turns out that my wait was completely unwarranted... the email came 4 days later saying the application and paperwork was received. Now we just wait to hear if our bid is eligible or not. The suspense!

Once I find out, I'll keep you posted! If we are, then we move into the stage where they narrow down to the finalists! *Crosses fingers*

Now THIS wait is the worst!

Finals? What Finals?

Next week marks the beginning of finals, and I really have no desire to start studying! As you probably have noticed, I have done a fantastically horrible job updating this. :( I'm hoping to use this as a good break between studying during the next few days.

I am currently sitting in my room listening to Christmas music, enjoying our 3 ft Christmas tree, and listening to our yule log DVD crackle. But before I get into all of that, below is my floral design final. We were told that we would be tested on 1 of 5 different floral arrangement designs: Symmetrical, Asymetrical, Centerpiece, Contemporary, and Round. I spent a week studying the rules and intracacies of each. I was able to draw out the different planes and discuss placement on all of them... except the contemporary design. For some reason I was just not grasping it. Part of the problem may have come in when the contemporary design we did in class was in a vase, and our final was in a bowl!

I know right? Complain, complain. I understand that was the point of the final - to challenge us and to encourage us to use what we've learned in the final. Either way, the arrangements were split among the class. Our professor had put the designs in a hat and we had to choose our fate, if you will.

When my professor got to me, I was closing my eyes, crossing my fingers, and chanting "not contemporary, not contemporary...." as I reached my hand into the hat. Guess what I picked?

A centerpiece!!!

Haha yeah right. What would be the point of all that set up if I picked something I could actually make?! Of course I picked contemporary out of the hat. As I read the word, my heart sank! My professor leaned over to me and said, "good luck!" Oh comforting!

Well, here it is. Sort of... I transported it home for break and the Oasis foam split. I ended up having to completely reconstruct it. But this is what I was graded on:

So I was given the 5 Birds of Paradise, the 2 Ti leaves, and the 3 Curly Willows... the rest was up to us to figure out. This was especially hard for me because I used Orchids for the in-class contemporary unit. (Here) There were 4 of us who were "lucky" enough to have selected this style. The 2 boys in our group just shoved flowers and leaves in all willy-nilly and were done in like 5 minutes. The girl next to me would not stop talking to me about random fun facts about her life. Meanwhile, I'm like SWEATING and freaking out about how I'm going to do this.

I probably took the whole time to do this piece, then I had to wait for the professor to come over and grade. It was sort of funny, I couldn't stop fidgeting with it. When she finally came over, I got a few compliments like, "You have a very relaxed eye. I have not seen Birds of Paradise used this tall successfully before." and "I enjoy the color you chose for your focal point, its a great compliment." However, I did receive the comment, "You arrangment is not incredibly sturdy." Hmm what to know why? I couldn't stop fidgeting!!! Dangit!

While I was bummed about that, I received an 87%. Ok, that bummed me out, too. My professor could tell, though. She whispered to me, "You got the highest grade out of the group - be proud of that."

I am! At least I know that I need to study this style a lot more before attempting to do something like it again!

Give me a long lake! *SUPERIOR*

As I have mentioned about 100000 times.... ISU attended the regional residence hall conference, called GLACURH from November 13-15th. (GLACURH = Great Lakes Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls.) ISU brought 9 students and 2 advisors to Central Michigan University (Mt. Pleasent, MI) for a weekend. We met up with students from all around Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Ontario. It's always amazing to meet SO MANY people from all around the region to compare and learn. :D

ISU decided on a sub-theme of Star Wars... yeah!!! I love Star Wars!!! :) So we had all of our school stuff around that theme... our tag line was "Return of the Redbirds: Never Underestimate the Power of Leadership!" It was super cute. Our roll call (skit at the beginning of the conference), t-shirts, banner, and display all had this theme.

This was our banner. :) Shannon planned it all out: drew a templete, transfered to the fabric, and painted. We were on the same committee, and I did not really do a lot to help because let's admit it.... I am sooooo not artistic. But I did paint here and there. :)

This is a shot of our display. Both of these are important components for the conference... its a chance to showcase our school and be creative. :)

Other than that, our delegation had a BLAST during the conference. It was a little rough because of the time that Shannon, Robert, and I had to spend in the business room. We were three of the returner delegates, so it was a little hard to motivate and answer questions. Normally our communications coordinator sits in business the entire time while the rest of the delegation goes to programming sessions to learn from other students. Well, this time the three of us joined our communications coordinator because we had to do a presentation.

A presentation? Yeah... in front of all the communications coordinators from all around the region! Why did we have to give a presentation? Maybe I'll let you know in my next post. ;-)

The delegation at roll call, waiting for all the skits to start! Fear the Bird!

Bad blogger

Ok, ok ok... I know..

I am a bad, bad blogger... I am so far behind!

Lately I have been working hard with school, work, conference stuff, and just getting by! From the last entry, I attended the regional resiedence hall conference, turned in a 40 page weed id project, and prepared for Thanksgiving break! But I am currently on a week long break from school, so I am hoping to really catch up! I dont know where to start, I have so many pictures/stories! But....

I'm going to start with an entry about my floral design from 2 weeks ago. I never uploaded it!

Here is the original centerpiece that I came home with. I was not thrilled with having to put peppers in for a width component.. so I changed it up a bit...


And I totally removed them! Haha, but I did add some leatherleaf to the bottom border to fill it out a bit. I like it a little better :)

When I brought it home for break, I found some extra wire from my contemporary piece and added it in around the candle. I'll try to add a picture of that little addition later!

Bear with me as I add in many smaller entries!

Bouquet

Two weeks ago, we were given the task of creating a bouquets. Let's just say I had quite the hard time with it! I know where my work will be if I continue on with this field!

Here is a rather poor example of a small hand bouquet. :) I'm still working on those skills! It was fun to learn about it, but I am not very satisfied with the outcome!

School of the Year

I think I mentioned this at the beginning of my blog, but ARH won the NATIONAL School of the Year award this summer in Tucson Arizona. I was lucky enough to be chosen on the ISU delegation to represent ISU. It was a GREAT experience and I will never forget the feeling our delegation had when they called out our name.

Well, we didnt have the opportunity to properly celebrate with ISU and its administrators in May, so our advisors created a celebration for us in October. That way we could invite people to learn about it and understand what award we actually won.

It was a great get together - we were able to see old friends, teach new members, and celebrate with administrators. Here are a few pictures of the event. :)

There was a table set up with all of our awards from the State, Region, and Nation! We also got to show off some of our new promotionals and beautiful flowers!


The Vice President of Student Affairs came to speak and congratulate ARH on their achievement!


This is Ted, one of Shannon and my best friends we met through working in ARH!


Finally, a picture of the ARH executive board (with the cake!) at the event! What a great year it has been so far!