Thursday, October 31, 2013

Stuff

We just had Haunted Hospers in my dorm.  They turn the whole building into a haunted house and it was truly impressive.  Our floor was like an abandoned cityscape, so the walls were covered in crumpled newspaper, the doors and ceiling in black trash bags, litter was all over, it was really dark.  You couldn't even tell it was a dorm floor.  It was literally creepy to walk to the bathroom at night.

I begged God to give me the ambition to stay off the internets this week and get school done, which all climaxed at the anatomy quiz today.  He helped me do that, and now I get to enjoy a visit from Mom on Saturday.  I'm going to feed her fro yo, maybe we'll go on a hike at Oak Grove, watch Netflix in her hotel room, we'll go to church together, eat at some yummy place, I'll show her the cute main street park.  Yep, it'll be great.

Here are some pix of the "haunting".






Peace out, corn dogs :)
(I feel like that could be a gangsta Iowa saying or something.  P.S.  It's 11:30 p.m.)


Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Some Tuesday Morning Views at NWMSU

Today before I left for breakfast, I grabbed my camera and took it with me around campus. Here's some views from around campus. (It's homecoming week here at Northwest Missouri State, so most of these are homecoming-related.)

This is Centennial Garden. It's outside South Complex. That thing
in in the middle is a fountain. It's actually a pretty area. The shade is
making it look a bit funky.
This is the view from a 2nd story stairwell in South. This is part of the Lab
School and the playground. I walk by it every day and there are always lots
of cute kids outside!
This was my lunch today. Aside from the curly fries, it was good.
(Cheese grits, Mac 'n Cheese, and honeydew melon. Also milk. I love milk.)
The rest of these are pictures of some of the banners made by the sororities and fraternities. This is not even half of all of them. There were enough to hang them on all sides of the student union. I took pictures of especially impressive ones, creative ones, and Disney ones. (The theme this year is "Rollin' Out the '90s" which I find odd, since I was born in the '90s, but whatever.)
Power Rangers
Lion King






Candy Land
Spongebob
Dragonball Z (?)
Powerpuff Girls

Toy Story

Star Wars

These last two pictures demonstrate some of the can art that the sororities and fraternities do. They buy groceries, build things with them, and after the competition, all of the food is donated to the food pantry. Again, this is just a couple. These snaked all the way though the second floor of the Union.
Barbie's Dream House, Mr. Potato Head (my personal favorite!),
and some sort of helmet.

A Furby! This one made me happy!


Tuesday, October 15, 2013

My Bad Boyfriend

Okay. So I've been enjoying myself here at college far more than I thought was possible. I like most of my classes, and I'm fine tolerating the classes I don't much care for.

Like my Language and Formal Reasoning course. It counts as a quantitative reasoning credit, which is great, because that means I don't need to take any statistics. It's a beautiful thing. LFR is my favorite class this semester. It's challenging. Because even though it is a "language" class, it involves a lot of . . . math.

A lot of math. I mean, it's not real math, but it might as well be. The "language" is so jacked up on crack, it thinks it's math. It's ridiculous. There are proofs in this class. PROOFS. AS IN, THE KIND OF THING THAT MAKES YOU WANT TO MAKE THE WALL BLOODY FROM POUNDING YOUR HEAD AGAINST IT IN FRUSTRATION.

Because really, what other kind of proof is there? I'm an English major for a reason. I don't do proofs. I hate proofs. Proofs should go step on a Lego.

But it's so fascinating. The way my professor talks, I can see how multiplication was eventually invented, along with division, in a sense. It's way cool to see how everything with subsets and members and absolute complements all work together smoothly.

But that's only if you know what you're doing.

Which has lead me to believe that my Language and Formal Reasoning class is like a bad boyfriend.

I love it. Possibly more than I should, and all it does to me is make me question myself. It's a challenge I want to overcome, but it makes me prove ITS problems.

I think that this is probably not the relationship I need right now, so I will have to break it off sometime. Maybe before Christmas.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

A Day in the Life. . .

Wednesday was  interesting. Here's what happened. This is pretty typical as far as my days go around here.
7:00 a.m.-Alarm goes off. I accidentally turn it off.
7:48- I wake up and freak out. And then promptly get a nose bleed. Greeaaattt... I promptly proceed to throw on whatever is lying around, pop a piece of gum in my mouth and run out the door, all while dealing with this nosebleed. Halfway to my 8 'o clock class, I realize that I don't have the rubric I need, so I hurry like a mad woman back to my dorm, up the three flights of stairs, down the hall, around the corner, and back to my room. I grab the folder and rush back.
8:01- I get to my class, still kind dealing with a nosebleed, but it's minimal. And I'm late, but not too late. In class, I finished an assignment and worked on extra credit.
8:50- I head to the Union to acquire some food. I nosh on a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch while reviewing for my Mass Media mid-term.
9:10- I get back to my dorm room and breathe a sigh of relief. I don't have a class until 10. I put on real people clothes (and deodorant) and generally get ready for the day. I also make a list of things that must get accomplished today and a shopping list. So far: toothbrush, cookie mix, and
9:40- I slap some Nutella on a piece of bread, fill up my water bottle (I'm guessing the nosebleed stems from lack of water), and head to class.
10:00- Arrive at my Mass Media class. Take mid-term. Feel confident. Leave.
10:20- Leave Mass Media class and head to Administration building.
10:25- Talk to the HR people and set up direct deposit for my new job.
10:35- Head to Union to grab some mini muffins and start to type this post. The mini muffins were yummy!
11:00-Accelerated Comp. class. We talked about types of fallacies.
11:45- Head to the Union once again, this time for lunch. I decide on mac 'n cheese, carrots, a corn bread muffin, and milk. I sit down, eat, and then type some more on this. Also, I look at Facebook. And Pinterest.
12:10- Head back to my room to rotate my books out and get the stuff I need for my 1 'o clock class. I also check my mail. Alas, my daily dose of disappointment!
12:15-Hang out in my room looking up classical piano music. It's what I do.
12:45-Head to Stats. Woo hoo.
1:00-Stats. Anti-climatic
1:50-Head back to my room to fill out forms for my job and watch Netflix. And also eat a snack.
3:20-Head to the Union to grab a sandwich and fruit for a very early lunch. I eat it on the way to band.
3:40- Grab my bass drum and continue snarfing down my sandwich. The drum line boys offer me a ride up to the practice lot. I finish my sandwich.
4:10-Band practice. More of the same old same old. Marching, counting, getting a killer calf workout. . .
5:20-Load back up the drums in Wil's truck. Drive back to Fine Arts. Nels offers to put my drum away so I
That's Nels. I'm the one with the littlest bass drum. He's the one
with with biggest. And yes, our hats are on backwards. That's
band for ya.
can run to work.
5:25-I head to the Alumni House. I had computer training for 30 minutes before my job started. What is this job, you ask? Well, I am a "Cat Caller", which basically means that I am part of a phone-a-thon. I call alumni, update their information, and ask them for donations. Those of you who know me well know that my two least favorite things to do are calling people and asking people for money. However, after last night, I am a bit more comfortable with it. It was kinda like trial by fire, actually. Last night I made 156 phone call attempts and I'd say that 89% of those calls ended with answering machine, wrong number, busy signal, and more. But just like Russian Roulette, you never know if the next call will have a person on the other end. I got more comfortable as my 3 hour shift progressed, and I even managed to raise some money for the University! It's definitely a God thing that I got through that shift without a complete freak-out!
9:00-I head back to the Union and get my second supper; this time, Reese's Puffs and fruit. Back to my room I go!
9:10- Give Mom/Kell a call to unwind from my evening. Talk for a while. It was much needed.
9:50- Began working on finishing my Freshman Seminar paper about the differences between high school and college.
11:30-Actually finish the paper. Miranda and I were busy in between trying to untag ourselves from a post on Facebook and generally talking.about all sorts of things.
12:00-Crawl into bed. Watch some Melissa & Joey and nod off. (P.S. Melissa & Joey is hilarious!!!)

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Eliza Learns a Lesson (and other news)

Don't do this.
Don't overbook yourself.

Being in the RUSH Dance Show at Northwestern is pretty cool and at times pretty fun, and it's great to do something out of my comfort zone... but it was probably not a good idea.
I'm getting a C+ in anatomy and my grades are just a little sketchy considering I need a B- average to even GET INTO the nursing program.

I won't be taking any more shifts for people at the Hub either, I don't think.  I worked five shifts this week and have been sleepy and stressed out.  At one point I broke down and bawled in front of my RUSH dance leaders.  Then I got angry for over committing myself.

As a nursing student, you aren't just keeping up good grades to impress your parents and keep your scholarships.  It's do good or go home, really.  Sometimes people don't really know what that's like.  It's okay to tell them "nope, not overbooking myself again.  Not gonna do it."

This reminds me of in VeggieTales when Bob asks Larry to play the tuba during the theme song, and Larry's like "nope, not gonna do it."  Anywayyy...

                                                (See how stressed out Larry looks?  He shouldn't be playing the tuba.)



In other news:
My super fantastically awesome girls dorm?  I don't get to live here next year.
They're turning it into a boys dorm cuz one of those is being torn down.

Out tight-knit, adorable community of only 50 girls are going to turn into dinosaurs.  We are the last of the Hospers girls.  Who knows where we'll all live next year.  Hopefully we can stick together.  I'm just thankful to have gotten to spend my freshman year here, cuz it is pretty darn utopian, let me tell you.

Good night :)