Mother's Day Pictures

Mother's Day happened to be the day after graduation, so everyone headed over to my grandmother's house after being together at ISU for the weekend. Sadly my cousin Annmarie and Doug couldn't join us since they had finals coming up! But, unlike Easter, the group was a bit bigger! We had the two youngin cousins along with Megan, Tommy, and me!

We took some time before dinner to take pictures outside in the sun since it was way toooo chilly the day before!

With my diploma cover... cant wait to get my actual diploma!

My baby cousins! Jack even wanted to dress up with me!

My other baby cousins! Megan will be a Redbird next year! :)

My godparents! Uncle Matt is a Redbird, too!

My Aunt Jean and Uncle Brian!

Grandma and grandpa! :)

Oh yeah! Who can forget my parents! The two that supported me emotionally,
spiritually, and of course financially for the past four years!

Luckily the weather was much better and we had most of the family together for Mother's Day! We have about a million family parties/get togethers this summer, so this was really the start of a busy summer! Every weekend between now and July is jam packed... I'm excited!

Post Graduation

After graduation, I had wanted to take at ton of pictures all over the quad and around ISU... except it was about FREEZING... so we had to skip all the photo ops. Good thing Mother's Day was the next day so we could get plenty of pictures with family! Here are a few we did get!

Doug and I snuck off to take a few pictures in front of the greenhouse I worked at!

Then off in front of one of my favorite trees!

Doug is one artsy fellow!

Gazing off at the quad for the last time!

After we snuck in a few pictures, we met up with my parents and grandparents at a restaurant in town. Since Shannon's graduation was late in the evening, we did separate meals but still went to each other's ceremonies. It was a little funny, her family was leaving the restaurant as mine was arriving! This place is one of my favorite Italian places in town, so it was VERY yummy!

My grandparents gave me a beautiful Precious Moments statue for graduation!

My parents gave me a digital picture frame! I have always wanted one!!!!

My family also had flowers delivered to the restaurant. So beautiful!

Dinner and quick pictures were definitely a fun way to wrap up graduating! I had a good time with family, and it sure was hard to believe that was my last ISU event ever!!!

Pomp and Circumstance

Oh yeah, I graduated!

On May 8th, 2010 I walked up to the stage and received the honor of graduating with a Bachelors of Science - Agribusiness: Horticulture, and a minor in Business Administration.

Whew!

It was a pretty much a blurry/amazing day. Let's start from the beginning!

I started going to ISU on August 17th, 2006 and moved into Walker Hall with my high school friend/roommate, Shannon....

Ok, that is sort of far back, huh? Let's go ahead and get to the actual DAY of graduation and getting ready to move out.

My parents and grandparents drove down to Normal on Friday afternoon. Shannon and I woke up early to finish packing and cleaning. The plan was to move all of our stuff out Friday night, but still sleep in the residence hall Friday night to Saturday. Shannon's dad came around the same time to do the same for her. Within an hour, our room was cleaned out except for bedding, graduation clothes, and the TV so we could watch our last favorite TV show together. Talk about a crazy looking room! But here are a few pictures with how it looked before we got it cleared out.

Mass craziness on my side of the room!

Shannon clearing out her closet and packing up boxes!

Friday night we had dinner with my grandparents, parents, Shannon's dad, and her grandma. It was quite the crowd! After dinner, Shannon and I decided to be the ones to go pick up my brother from the U of I train station. We had a fun ride, bonding, and talking about it being the end of the end. Oh, and we may have gotten a liiiiittlleeee lost trying to find the train station... hehe oops! The three of us drove back to Normal and had some fun telling stories and catching up. Shannon, Doug, and I usually have a lot of fun together, so it was great!

We dropped Doug off at the hotel with my parents and Shannon and I headed back to our room. But we just couldn't end our night quite that way! We decided to pick up a few of our good friends and go on a legendary "Shannon and Amy Graveyard Drive." We had told them a bit about it and they didn't believe how fun it is.

**Ok, let's pause here. I'm sure there are a few people who think we are creepy and crazy. We know. But we accidentally drove into a graveyard last fall and we go back when we're bored and need a good scare. This cemetery is the Bloomington historical center and many of the headstones are people who have buildings at ISU named after them. We don't get out of the car or do anything weird. Just be scared and have fun**

We ended up driving around our cemetery for over an hour, had a few good screams, and convinced Angel and Amelia that we aren't totally crazy. It was so fun to laugh, scream, and share one of our favorite random things to do with two people who will be at ISU next year. I wonder if they will ever go back...?

Well, that little field trip got Shannon and I home around 12:30am. We showered, painted nails, watched some TV, and got all jittery. It was our last night! Unbelievable!!!!! Early Saturday morning, Shannon's dad brings us breakfast (how awesome!!) and we got ready for graduation. She left with her family to go back to the hotel and hang out before her ceremony at 7pm.

My ceremony was at 12:30pm. My family met me at my residence hall, moved the rest of my stuff out, and I checked Shannon and I out... for good and for ever. To not cry, I focused on the rest of the afternoon!

We drove over to the arena, where my college was graduating. I studied in the College of Applied Sciences and Technology and we are the 2nd biggest college! I went to check in and my family went for seats. For over an hour, I waited with people from my department and college for the ceremony to start. Talk about nerve wracking... and warm!! Before long, we were asked to line up and get ready to march in.

Something awesome with being an agriculture major - we were first. :) So I was near the front of the ceremony and had a pretty good seat! Want to see some pictures? There's quite a few of them!

Marching into the arena, can you see me??

Me! Sitting down after marching in. I could see my dad, brother, and Shannon from my seat!

Walking up to the stage!

That's me, shaking the department chair's hand!

After getting my diploma cover, the VP of Student Affairs pulled me aside and gave me a big hug. It was amazing and touching and it made me cry!!! I was the only one in the ceremony!

That's me shaking the hand of the president of the university! (Guy in red!)

I did it! I got up to the stage, shook appropriate hands, and sat down without falling!!! Haha, or more importantly, I did it - I graduated from four years of college at ISU. What a great four years!!! Since this post is meaty, I will post pictures from dinner and with family later! I am so excited!!!!!

Now, to find a job.... ;-)

Agriculture Awards

Some times I forget that I am in the agriculture department. Well, it's hard to forget when the guy I sit next to smells like cow manure, or when the group in the back of the room is trading snuff with each other, or when I take a class called "Biotechnology and Plant Breeding." I mean its hard to remember when my extra circular activities are not agriculture related! All of my free time went to residence hall government from freshman year on, and this took away from opportunities to be active in the ag department.

For some reason, however, I was nominated for Senior of the Year in the department! I was stunned when I got the letter. I tried to be active in my own way by being an undergraduate teaching assistant and volunteering with the ISU horticulturist. But none of that compared to the other seniors nominated!

It was an honor and I accepted and went to the ceremony. I think one thing I had going for me was my GPA and the professors I got close with for the past four years. Even though I had no chance to win, it was fun to see other peers get recognized for their hard word. I sort of realized what it felt like for someone who is only partially active in ARH or Housing to sit through our award ceremonies! Nonetheless it was fun!

Senior of the Year was the second to last portion of the program, but my lovely roommate agreed to join me so I wasn't alone! We giggled at how most of the farmer boys still looked like... farmers, even when they were being nominated for big awards! I can thank her for the pictures!

This is a picture of the chair of the department! He is a really nice guy and was always there for me if I needed something!

The group of us who were nominated! I love how bright we look! :) The girl second to the left won and the guy on the way left won the most prestigious award in the department! I was certainly in good company for sure!

Receiving my certificate for my work in the department!

All things considered, it was a really great honor! This was the Sunday of Spring Retreat, so Shannon and I were wiped out and I was certainly not as qualified as the rest of the nominees, but it was definitely fun.

Speaking of which, I need to go unpack some more and find that certificate and hang it up! :)

Spring Retreat

When I went to the statewide conference, IRHA, back in March, I bid for hosting a retreat called Spring Retreat. This means that I wanted ISU to host a miniature business meeting for the IRHA group. It would mean that all of the communication coordinators from around the state would come to ISU for their meeting.

I have never hosted personally, but I have helped! In 2008, I volunteered during IRHA's Winter Business meeting, as well as volunteering during ISRAA (the RA conference) conference in 2008. Then in 2008, I helped Shannon and her co-chair Julie host the Semi-Business conference at ISU. In 2009, they hosted the state wide conference, IRHA. Whew, lots of hosting going on! But Shannon, Nicole, and I wanted to try for hosting Spring Retreat and try it out.

A few things about Spring Retreat:

• It's not exactly a "Business meeting," its more of a transition weekend. Many schools don't want to spend money on something like that - which makes this a very small meeting!
• Money is tight at all Illinois schools, so many groups were looking for an inexpensive meeting
• Spring Retreat took place after our terms were over, so it was weird not being an actual part of ARH and hosting something sponsored by ARH!
  

Beyond the struggles of the conference its self, we experienced many issues:

• 3 co-chairs was faaaar too hectic. We all wanted to do it, but there were many times were someone felt left out :(
• We had about 1009238 problems with our invoices. Wrong figures, wrong schools, people dropping out, wrong taxes - ahh! It was so frustrating! Because of that, they were sent out sooooo late.
  
• The hotel we chose... well, they were a bunch of losers! They had no customer service and did not care to see if were satisfied or not. Amy will never be staying there again!
  
• Many other little bumps along the way that hopefully we were able to manage!
  

It was a GREAT learning experience, and I do have to say I am glad I was able to do it. Some time next week I am going to type up stuff to pass on to anyone else who is interested in hosting a conference and send it to ARH people and IRHA people to keep on file. If there were things we knew about hosting ahead of time, we could have avoided some of our troubles! (There's nothing like waking up on the Friday of the conference realizing we never made name tags!)

Putting that aside, we asked for some volunteers to help make sure things flowed smoothly. We were in East Campus as well as the hotel, so we made sure to have people in both places when necessary. But a lot of the time, while the group was doing business, we sat around. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast with our co-chairs and volunteers and advisors! Here are some pictures of us goofing around during our off times. Everything looks so fun here - but in between these down times, I was so so stressed out!

Friday

One of the first things we had to do on Friday was set up the hotel for check-in and entertainment. This is a 100% staged photo, but we DID work hard!

Shannon was in charge of making cute door decs for the conference people to know where their rooms were! They were so creative and pretty!

Setting up entertainment was easy, we had board games and guitar hero for night time activities. Here Shannon and Angel are getting everything plugged in!

After dinner and check-in, business started... and that's when we hung out in an adjacent room until we were needed. Lots of card games and Uno!

Then, after business, we moved back to the hotel for "entertainment." This group of volunteers and I had a blast playing lots of Apples to Apples! Personally, I think we needed to amp up our entertainment options and this is something to consider for next time! But we had fun at least!

Saturday

Saturday was a 7am wake up call to get to the hotel for breakfast and set up the business room for day 2! Sadly for Angel he had a roommate conflict and had to sleep on Shannon and my floor for the night! He had an even earlier wake up call cuz we were co-chairs! At least he looks comfortable?

Here's a picture of the communication coordinators who were present at the retreat. This is the room they did a lot of their business in

Meanwhile, our group played more card games, drew pretty pictures, and even did each other's nails!

It was a blast to hang out with ARH people for essentially the last time, as well as learn how to host something. I wish I had tried this earlier, but it was still a good experience. Our evaluations were decent, but I still feel like we could have done better. Own worse critic, huh? Sunday morning came quickly when Shannon and I had to check people out of the hotel... from 7:30-10am. We were hungry, tired, and in need of a shower, especially when we got back to our room aroudn 3am! We came home and slept until 2pm, we were so tired!

I love that this was my last conference experience! Good times with ARH and definitely many lessons learned!

End of ARH Events

Even though my term has come to an end, that doesn't mean the fun ended! There were QUITE a few events that our administration had planned and were required to fulfill before we could be "done" for good.

Random Acts of Homosexuality and Day of Silence
Nicole, our outgoing RA Liaison, and ARH have been putting on a program to honor Day of Silence and the LGBTQ community. This year we had a two day event, the first a program called "Random Acts of Homosexuality" and another called "Day of Silence" Here are some pictures!

During Random Acts, we set up a spot in our largest residence hall and had a group of volunteers just hang out and do random things. Some of us are straight, some of us are gay, some of us are bisexual. But can you tell when we are hanging out?

Here is a shot of our group playing a heated game of Uno! Can you spot who is gay in this picture?

Playing Uno was getting REALLY intense! But the point was to raise awareness that we are all human! We attracted a LOT of attention and it was GREAT!

On Wednesday, we met up again and passed out materials for the Day of Silence on Friday. We had hundreds of free t-shirts, thousands of free buttons, and informational papers

It wasn't long before all the t-shirts were gone and we just had buttons left! It was so cool to know we gave out EVERY t-shirt and most of the buttons. On Friday, the National Day of Silence, we saw hundreds of people wearing buttons and t-shirts that we passed out!!

Relay for Life
For three years at ISU, I have participated in Relay for Life, and in high school, I walked as well. It is such a powerful event and I love sharing it with people at school who want to make a difference as well. There are just TOO many people in my life who have been affected directly or indirectly!

This is the survivor lap and they release the balloons to signify releasing the stresses of cancer! This was so cool to watch!

This was the ARH Relay for Life team... what a FUN group to walk with all night!

One of my favorite parts is the Luminaria lap. Bags just like this can be purchased for people who have survived, who are fighting, or who lost the fight against cancer. The bags are set up around the perimeter of the event and glow sticks are placed inside. It's the most powerful hour ever!

The big hope sign that sits on the quad. I purchased a pinwheel for one of our family friends who is currently fighting his fight!

Student Involvement Center Awards
Each spring, the Student Involvement Center has an awards ceremony to recognize Registered Student Organizations and individuals for their service during the year. ARH decided to put in a few programs for consideration for awards and a few individuals from ARH were also nominated for awards! It was really exciting and my last award ceremony as an undergrad!

As many of you know, this is VP of Student Affairs, Steve Adams... one of my favorite people! He said some nice words at the ceremony.

Angel won First Year Student and he is apart of ARH! We were SOOOO proud!

There is a group of people who are selected to be in the category of "Who's Who" and its a nation wide recognition. There may be someone you recognize all the way to the left in the blue ;-)

This is a shot of all the award winners from the day! The three people standing in the back row all the way to the right are ARH people. :D

This huge group of people represents the four organizations that organized and planned an event called Pig Out with the Prez. I was on the planning committee with three other people this year! We won collaborative program of the year!!! Oh - and I am standing next to the ISU President. Booya! Haha!

Here are the two awards we won for our programs: Suicide Prevention Awareness and Pig Out with the President... and they're hanging out in our award corner of the ARH office! So proud!!!

Earth Day
One of the events that the ARH sustainability chair and his committee planned before our term was over was an Earth Day reception. It was sort of a kick off to Earth Day and it featured a guest speaker, yummy organic (and non organic for picky people) food, and booths from "green" student groups on campus. It was fun and the guest speaker was really funny!

People such as the ISU sustainability coordinator, the ARH sustainability chair, and others spoke to greet people to the event

The centerpieces. Ok, obviously they are not amazing or anything... but my ARH friends understand why I took a picture of them. I did pick them out and help with them! Not quite my taste tho! :P

The guy on the left is the guest speaker. He was HILARIOUS! I basically developed a huge crush on him. You should see the amount of pictures I took. I am so creepy! I heard he's single...

The speaker, Chad, is known for cleaning up rivers from garbage and other pollutants, and he is also a big advocate of making the world greener. He presented ISU with a free Oak Tree. I really DO love this guy! The man on the left is the head of grounds, guy in the middle ARH's sustainability chair, and then, of course, Chad.

Something that is also AWESOME (Dad, that was for you) was he brought 100 free TREES to give out to people. I was SO EXCITED. Shannon and I each took one (and somehow hers ended up coming home with me!). They are Eastern Redbuds. Next goal: convincing my dad to let me plant in the backyard. The other tree went to Stephanie for her new house with Adam. I cant wait to help them plan their landscaping!

Talk about a busy end, even while I am not in the organization anymore! It was definitely fun going to programs... and even more fun not to have to plan them or be worried about them. :) I got to see the other side of things for once, it was pretty cool. I am proud of ARH for what we were able to accomplish, even during a busy time of transition. These memories will stick out to me as much as the past two years have!