pictures from this semester

I love my roommate!The Best Roommates Ever

Homecoming PartyLobbying CongressEtown goes to DC: At the Washington MonumentSara & I destressing with a good old bow & arrow fightSome of the girls from my freshman seminar

Being crazy with the roommates

Out at the bar

Change of Plans

I visited UPitt about a week and a half ago with my former roommate, Liz. I really liked it. The professors I met were incredibly nice and caring and seemed really great. Pittsburgh is also not very 'big city' ish, which I love. There are all these residential neighborhood like areas around it that are nice to live in and fairly inexpensive.
That being said, I've decided not to go to grad school in January. I've felt so overwhelmed by the whole idea and yesterday and today were the worst. UPitt starts Jan 3, so I would have about 2 weeks transition time. I would also have to take out a whole lot of loans. I looked at job openings on the chester county intermediate unit site and on monster.com and found a school called the malvern school. (www.malvernschool.com) I'm going to apply for a teaching assistant position working with infants or preschoolers. As of right now, I'm planning on going to grad school in the fall, but we'll see what happens. The Malvern School offers tuition reimbursement and professional development, so if I really love it, I might go for early education certification, and put off grad school for a few more years.
So that's the major stuff that's been going on with me, other than an insane amount of work.
Don't worry, I still have time for a little fun. Lisa and Nate came up Saturday to visit, which was really nice. Wednesday night Liz and I are going to meet at a coffeehouse and do work together just b/c we haven't seen each other in forever. Then this weekend, Alicia, my roommate in Greece from Kansas, is flying out to see us. That will be really nice. Friday I'm working a huge fancy schmancy Board of Trustees dinner in Lancaster all day, which will be fun even though it's work.

Northern Uganda Lobby Day & conference

The Northern Uganda Lobby Day & conference was amazing. I learned SO much. Monday was panels and discussions about what's currently going on in Northern Uganda, then Tuesday we went and lobbied senators and represenatives for the US to actively support peace talks in Juba and to dedicate much more humanitarian aid. It was definately a great learning experience. I actually talked to aides of our representatives! and I am so uncomfortable doing things like that. I was really proud of myself. I think the 2 biggest things I got out of this experience are 1: the people organizing the event and a lot of the grassroots humanitarian organizations are like 25. These people are just a few years older than I am and doing so much. It was really inspiring. The other thing was that even actresses are terrified of public speaking. One of the people lobbying for PA was Melissa Fitzgerald, from the West Wing. She is such a nice person and has done a lot of advocacy for Uganda, but she said she is terrified of public speaking. Made me feel so much better. lol.
I think our funny story from the trip was we went to speak with Michelle Hart's aid and asked him what her position was on what's going on in Northern Uganda and how she feels about the issue. He told us he was not at liberty to disclose that information. We were like that's funny. She's a publicly elected official, that should be public knowledge.
Another really awesome part of the trip was hearing Betty Bigombe speak. She's been the primary person leading peace negotiations for almost 20 years, so that was really awesome.