Illinois Residence Hall Association

Oh boy!! I think it's pretty much a fact that I cannot stay away from conferences! As soon as a conference comes up, I have to apply to it. Luckily, I was accepted to this state-wide Residence Hall Conference - the Illinois Residence Hall Association (IRHA) conference!!!

We started having delegation meetings for the conference, and we decided on the sub theme "Reggie and the 7 Dwarfs." The overall theme of the conference was "Wonderful World of Disney" The delegation decided that we were going to dance in our roll call (which is a skit we do at the beginning of the conference. All the schools get to put one on!) When I say "we," I mean that I totally pressured the delegation into dancing hahhaa. They were great sports about my desire to pull out all the stops at my last conference :)

We had many practices for our dance. This is one at 8pm in the basement of one of the halls. We had a friend of ours choreograph it for us!

One of the delegation meetings we had was SUPER long and productive. This was a cute shot of everyone sitting at the table in the office. They were working on spirit items, roll call t-shirts, and talking about conferences!! It was so cute!!!!

This delegation was STELLAR!! Everyone put in a ton of effort to make the conference a success! And in a few days, I will post pictures from the actual conference!!! I love IRHA!!!

Wedding

Have I mentioned this? I am basically so FREAKING EXCITED about it, that I have to say SOMETHING!!!!

Last summer, Stephanie called me at some obscene hour. I was at ISU serving my 30 days on campus for my VP position. Well, don't give me too much credit, I wasn't doing work when she called me, I was definitely watching the George Lopez show. At the time, I was searching for a snack and fiddling with the AC in the room and my phone went off.

What the heck? It was almost 10pm.

I went over to look at the caller ID. Steph. OH CRAP, what happened?!?!

I picked up the phone, my heart was racing..... what happened to have her call me at this hour? I thought she was on a vacation?!?!?! "Hello.....?"

"Amy!!!! Do you have a minute?"
"... Yes...?"
"ADAM PROPOSED TO ME TONIGHT!"

Ok, there were more words involved in this conversation, but I cant remember them because I was internally screaming from excitement!!! FINALLY!!!!! I blurbed out about 10098340283 more questions and she answered all of them. I was on cloud nine! I love Adam and am SO GLAD he proposed to her!

The summer went on and I had about 1 million more questions about the wedding, I just wanted to know everything, this is so exciting! The last wedding I stood up in, I was 5 years old. :) And if you wanted to know, yes, I rocked that flower girl role!

However, I had no idea that Stephanie was planning something all along.... to ask me to be one of her bridesmaids! Here was my reaction:

"................."

Yeah, that indicates speechless-ness! I am SO honored to be apart of her big day. Let's face it, I was already ecstatic to be invited as a guest to her wedding, but to be apart of it in this way? It brought tears to my eyes. Looking back on it, I am especially amused because I was grilling her for hints on who her bridal party was going to be! She must have had a hard time changing the subject!

Here is the adorable puzzle she made for each of her bridesmaids to ask them to stand up in her wedding! It's hanging up in my room on my wall because I just love looking at it!!

Since then, I have been so excited to help with the planning. There have been Save the Dates, dress shopping, invitation making, bridal shower planning.... it's been so great!!! Stephanie likes to keep things under wraps about the wedding plans so people are surprised and in awe when they come. So, I would REALLY like to post a picture of the bridesmaid dresses or even describe the beautiful invitations, but I wont. :) Instead, here is all I can show you of what the wedding:

My feet. :) I picked out the shoes I want to wear for the wedding!!! Haha, so yes, just imagine the rest of the outfit - it's much classier than my rolled up jeans and chipped toe nail polish!!

I cannot wait for July 10th, because it's going to be one of the most beautiful days ever!!! :) I'm so excited!

March 1st Update

I am totally aware that its March 26th and this is 25 days late. :( Things just have been SO busy this month! This will be redundant when you see it again on April 1st, but here we go!

Below are the resolutions I came up with for 2010!

• Be more on time: I am not ALWAYS late or INCREDIBLY late, but I need to work on it in general. I'm known for breezing in just a few minutes late :\
  
• Shrug it off: As EVERYONE knows, I worry about everything-all the time-all day. I plan on letting the small things go. It'll help me so much to not worry so much!
• Swear less: I don't cuss like a sailor, but I do need to work on my language a little!
• Say no: I'm not sure how successful this one will be, but sometimes I get so stressed out because I cannot learn how to say no to people. This is my attempt to look out for myself a little more!

And here are my assessments as of March 1st of how I am doing!

• Be more on time: I was doing ok, but I started to have a few extra meetings this past month that required me to adjust my schedule temporarily. I was frequently late, and that made me sad. :\
  
• Shrug it off: Barely no progress on this during the month of February. :(
  
• Swear less: Not much progress. But I haven't fallen back at all!
  
• Say no: I haven't really had the opportunity to say no this past month, so I'd say not much has changed here, either!

Talk about a boring update!

Eeek!

Remember that one time that I actually updated my blog? Fail!

I think my last blog post was back on February 9th... today is March 9th! What in the world has gone on?

I'm sure you could imagine - a WHOLE lot! I am currently on Spring Break, so hopefully I can update a bunch each day to get caught up!

Thanks for bearing with me!

1st of the Month

My plan, on the 1st of every month, was to revisit my New Year's Resolutions to see how I'm doing! I was hoping it would be more of an encouragement to keep on track. :) The first of February had me sniffly and miserable, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to catch back up and visit them now. :)

Ok, so below are the resolutions I came up with for 2010!

• Be more on time: I am not ALWAYS late or INCREDIBLY late, but I need to work on it in general. I'm known for breezing in just a few minutes late :\
  
• Shrug it off: As EVERYONE knows, I worry about everything-all the time-all day. I plan on letting the small things go. It'll help me so much to not worry so much!
• Swear less: I don't cuss like a sailor, but I do need to work on my language a little!
• Say no: I'm not sure how successful this one will be, but sometimes I get so stressed out because I cannot learn how to say no to people. This is my attempt to look out for myself a little more!

And here are my assessments as of February 1st of how I am doing!

• Be more on time: I am doing really well with this one!! I haven't been late to class at all yet! And, on top of that, I have only been late to 1 meeting. And that was because I lost track of time at work. I need to keep a better eye on the time. Now, I hope I can start showing up EARLY instead of just "on time"
• Shrug it off: Hmmm, I think improvement on this one is a little (a lot) less than being more on time. There have been quite a few little things that have gone on this semester that have bothered me... but on the upside of things - there have been a few that I HAVE shrugged off. I need to a lot more work on this one!
• Swear less: Haha, I almost forgot I had this resolution. In every day business, I have done a little better. But when I am frustrated or pressed for time, I tend to drop a few unlady-like words. Need to keep this one in mind
• Say no: Fail. F. A. I. L. fail. FAIL. failfail. I am doing horribly with this one. Since January 11th, I have joined 3 new committees and picked up a second job. I need to figure out a new way to say no and work towards a little free time. :P Haha ohhhh boy!

This has been good! Now, my resolutions are in the front of my mind... let's hope March 1st brings some new improvements. :)

Getting Dirty

Oh, get your mind out of the gutter!!! I am referring to my new job, a greenhouse assistant. :)

At the beginning of the semester, my horticulture mentor, Don, told me had a position open for me if I was interested. Boy was I ever! I worked as his undergraduate teaching assistant last semester, and I had a blast, along with learning even more than I did when I took the class myself. Not only that, but I got to interact with students who were starting out in the horticulture major and help mentor them. Quite a few of them still send me messages this semester and ask me questions. I absolutely loved the experience and would have remained as their TA this semester (Don teaches a 2 semester class), but I had my own class conflict. :(

So in order to keep learning from Don outside of the classroom, I agreed to take a job as his greenhouse assistant. He oversees 2 of the 3 greenhouses on campus, and I was excited to get to work in them as opposed to tour them! I started my first shift on Jan 29th.... and it was amazing! Don had a tour group coming in the late afternoon and needed the Felmley greenhouse (see pictures below) cleaned up and some plants transplanted. For 3 hours, I got elbow deep in soil, water, and leaves. Talk about a stress reliever! I LOVE plants!

Here are some pictures I took this weekend just to show you what the Felmley greenhouse looks like. Hopefully I'll get a few shots of the Science Lab Greenhouse next week!

The outside of the greenhouse!

This greenhouse has 4 aisles of plants just like this! It feels like a rain forest when you walk inside :)

Everywhere you look, there are tropical and native plants!

There is a cacti experiment going on for a bio class, and Don asked me to move them from the floor to the table. Let's just say I had a few pricks afterward :P

There even are a few trees inside of the greenhouse

I love the orchids, too! So pretty

Don likes to display plants that are "fun." So needless to say, the venus fly traps always attract the attention of new greenhouse visitors. I love playing with them :P

After a few weeks, Don said I could even help with some experiments and give tours!!!!

That, in a nutshell, is what my second job entails. I can hardly call it a job because it's so fun! :) However, this past Friday, the 5th, I was still a little sick, but I was feeling better enough to go in to work. Little did I know that Don was preparing for a plant sale, and needed me to relocated plants from the Science Lab to Felmley. Typically, this wouldn't bother me too much, but it was blizzard-ing outside!

Yes! There were even deer on campus, it was so crazy.

Just kidding. :) But I had to trek from greenhouse to greenhouse with three full carts of plants in the snow, wind, and cold. By the time it was the end of my shift, I was completely exhausted! Don noticed how tired I was and goes, "Yeah, this time of year, there's a LOT of relocating!"

Oh boy! I may create some rippling muscles from this job by May. :)

My Amazing Cousin!

Now that I am back at school, I tend to devote one day to reading/updating/commenting on fellow blogs. (Ok, I know there's not many right now, but I am always looking for new reads!) Today, I caught up on Erin's blog from a few weeks of not reading. I stumbled upon this comment on her blog:

"Congratulations! You've been nominated for The Best Morocco Blog of 2010
in the category of personal blogs.
We encourage you to have your readers and friends vote for your blog at
http://www.moroccoblogs.com"

I thought it was so sweet that someone saw her blog and thought it was worthy to nominate for an award! I went to the website and came across many other Morocco themed blogs, it was fun to read a few of them! I encourage you to visit this website: http://moroccoblogs.com/ for a few reasons. First: Check out other people's stories about Morocco and see how they compare to Erin's. Second: If you haven't yet, go to Erin's blog and read about her journey with the Peace Corps. Third: If you feel so inclined, vote for Erin's blog in the "Personal Blogs" category. :)

I'm so proud of her!