Joe, Albert, and other randomness from the last month...

I don't really remember what order everything occurred in, but here's what's been going on.
I got the rest of my midterms back, and did very well on all of them. An A- and the rest As.
Work is the same as usual.
A couple weeks ago, we went out to Ligonier, which is beautiful in the fall. A friend's great aunt lives out there in this big gorgeous house from about 1900, on a farm in the mountains kind of. It was a very nice relaxing day. We went hiking, tried to fly a kite, there was a tree swing, and had some fresh picked apples. yum. Afterwards we stopped at some crazy bar in town that someone had told us about. Some really old guy named Joe owns it, and he used to go on all these safaris. There were I think 4 rooms of animals he had collected and stuffed from just about every continent...an elephant, giraffe, lion, crocodile, polar bear, kangaroo, and tons of other creatures, some that I've never heard of. It was pretty wild.
This past weekend was a lot of fun. Friday, I went downtown for light-up night, which is Pittsburgh's holiday season. It was really nice. There was live music, and Santa, and fireworks. Macy's does a holiday window display, so we also saw that unveiled. It was really pretty...scenes from Cinderella. Then my friend had game night, so we played board games all night.
Last weekend, Amanda and Courtney came to visit. That was so wonderful =) We went to the Greek store to get motion, and I showed them campus, and we went out both nights. It was such a great weekend =)
Yesterday, we had a Thanksgiving potluck dinner at our house. That was really nice, and the food was delicious. We had a 22lb. turkey, and there's very little left. (His name was Albert). Sandra video taped me preparing it, so if I can figure out how to put that on here sometime, I will. haha.

Pictures:
At Pamela's for breakfast before heading out to the country


At the top of the hill (we're wearing orange so we don't get mistaken for deer)


Jamey trying to fly a kite


Swinging


Sandra & Joe's elephant


Courtney, Amanda, & I (& some random guy)


Courtney & I


Amanda & I


The morning after


I haven't uploaded turkey dinner pics yet, but they're coming

Look at these photographs...

Quick overview of the past couple weeks:
A friend of ours' family friend organizes a Walk for Racial Harmony every year in Pittsburgh. This year it was at the zoo. Sandra, Julia, Jacky, Clayton, and I participated in that on the 13th. It was a lot of fun. We got to see a polar bear play fight.
Work is good. I sell slushies and sodas and candy bars at the snack bar in the new rec center in the student union, but I'm pretty much getting paid to do homework b/c it's not very busy. Best of all, I work the Wednesday shift during Artful Wednesdays (they bring in local performers), so I also get paid to be entertained.
I had midterms last week and this week. I did really well on my economics midterm, and haven't gotten anything else back yet, but I think I did ok.
Last weekend, I went home for Robin's wedding. It was so nice!

Ok, here are the pictures:
a bunch of the girls I'm friends with


at the zoo


hi-fiving the polar bear statue


Robin's Wedding









My kitty (aka the stray kitten that comes to see me when she wants a hug that I've semi-adopted)

no title

I got a job working at the new rec room in the student center in the snack bar or something. It opens next week. Sandra's working there too.

In other news, my roommates and I went to Phipps last week to see the Chihuly exhibit, which was quite awesome. Pictures are here

I think that was the highlight of last week. This coming weekend, a couple of us may go camping. I really want to do some hiking. Also white water rafting, but that will have to wait until summer as temperatures are supposed to drop quite a bit after tomorrow.

While we're young and beautiful

Classes are still good and interesting (except for stats, but that's to be expected). Honestly, even stats isn't too bad. The prof is really good.
I didn't get the research position, so I'm looking for something else. I'm going to check out some daycares around here.
I'm now on a soccer team, which makes me very happy. =) GSPIA (graduate school of public & international affairs) has an intramural team that plays Sunday nights. It's an indoor turf field, which is pretty cool. Sandra is playing too.
I'm considering joining Mediators Without Borders which is an international conflict resolution organization.
We had a big birthday party here last weekend for all our friends who have September birthdays. There were probably 30+ people here. It was a lot of fun. We grilled out, and of course had lots of dancing =)
There were salsa lessons Wednesday nights during September that I went to after class. That was a lot of fun. There was a petition going around this past week to continue the classes since it was the last one, so we'll see how that turns out.
For the most part, I'm pretty busy with school work. I have an insane amount of reading and studying to do, but so far it's going well =)

Job Interview

I have an interview on Tuesday for a research specialist position at the University's Department of Health and Community Systems.

Here's the job description:
Research Specialist: Collaborate with the Principal Investigator (PI) in the research responsibilities of this foundation funded project. Will coordinate and perform subject recruitment, screening and enrollment at data collection site. Will lead efforts to prepare the procedural manuals and Institutional Review Board materials. Will assume primary responsibility for data collection, data entry and data management. Will participate in preparing annual and final reports to the funding agency.

Wish me luck!

traveling dreams forming in time

Well, I survived 2 weeks in Pittsburgh. I guess that's a good sign =P
I found a 3rd roommate. Her name is Sandra. She's from Zimbabwe, and she's a grad student at Pitt, in my program. She's really sweet. The house is still in progress, but it's getting there. The upstairs is mostly done and clean. I think we're going to pain the bedrooms at least though. Cleaning the downstairs is the project for the weekend b/c we're having a labor day fiesta here. The basement is starting to look much better. It was filled with stuff left by the people that lived here 2 tenants ago. We threw that all away this week. Now we need to vacuum out all the cobwebs and other creepy crawlies and grossness, and I think with a fresh coat of paint, it'll look pretty decent. I really will get some pictures soon.
This week was my first week of classes. So far, they are all pretty interesting. The professors all seem very nice, though tough. They're interesting and explain things well. There was some scheduling confusion. Apparently my section of statistics was closed, but I never got the email, so I missed that class. Fortunately, I know someone in the class I should have gone to, and was able to copy the notes, and I've had enough stats in the past that I didn't miss anything I didn't already know or needed to review.
I'm also thinking about getting my certification in African studies. The university offers certifications in different area studies, and they just added Africa. I was leaning towards Latin America for a while, b/c I love the culture, but there are going to be a lot more job opportunities working in/with Africa because the focus in the development world is shifting away from Latin America. It would be cool if I could do both. The biggest concern with that is language requirements. I have to have 4 semesters of a language, and French is better for Africa, although I am trying (maybe a little too ambitiously) to become fluent in both. A friend of mine from Venezuela is giving me Spanish lessons, so maybe I can just take a language proficiency test if I get good enough. We'll see.
For fun, I've found the salsa dancing contingent in our program. A group of us have been going out about once a week. My roommates all love to dance, so we're going to turn our dining room into a dance studio. We decided that none of us will ever eat together, so there is no need for a kitchen table. Once we have a couch, we can just eat there and use a coffee table. The entire house has pretty nice wood floors - perfect for dancing =)

MOTION

so i was taking a stroll through my very Jewish neighborhood yesterday when I stumbled upon a little Greek store. I went in to look for cheese pies and lo and behold, I saw Motion! This amazing fruit juice, also known as "the elixer of life" to my other Greek roomies and I, is the best juice I have ever had in my life (it's apple, peach, orange, grape, pineapple, grapefruit, kiwi, passion fruit, and mango juice). Until yesterday, I had not seen it anywhere in any other country. I went in, bought some, and told the lady she just made Pittsburgh a better place for me. Unfortunately, she was not the Greek woman, and told me to come in another time to meet the owner. Also, they only had juice box sizes, granted a grown-up size juice box and not a kiddie size, but hey, I'll take what I can get. I'll have a little chat with the owner sometime to see if it's possible to get regular size cartons. Anyways, if you ever come visit me, I will take you to get some of the most wonderful juice on earth.

Pictures

Here are some ridiculously out of order pictures from the past several months.
I think they're of:
Michelle's graduation
Jaime's party at Whiskey Tango
camping at Rickett's Glen for my birthday
offroading
picnics
party boat in Philly
80s party
Longwood Gardens
etc.

it's been a while...

Quick recap of the past 2 months:
*I actually ended up enjoying my new job. I met a lot of really great people, most of them around my age. They were a lot of fun to work with. I also have pretty much gotten over my fear of talking to random people on the phone, although I still hate answering machines. I can probably order myself a pizza now though =P
*Fun...had lots. Highlights were probably going to the Family Values Tour (my boss is also part owner of a clothing company that does a lot of music festivals and stuff for bands and he had free tickets). The other highlight was that this past weekend I finally got to the beach. My old friend Melissa and her bf and some of their friends had a place for the week so Liz and I went for the weekend. It was the perfect weather for the beach =) Other than that, just been going out locally with people a lot.

In other news, Michelle and I head off to Pittsburgh on Friday. Here's a really rough floor plan of my place:

I have one roommate right now, named Sarah. She's an ER nurse at the children's hospital. She likes to go salsa dancing, so that should be fun. We've been talking to a couple people, so should have a 3rd person soon.
I'll take some pictures of the place after we move in and get them up here.

Orientation is next week and then classes start soon after that.
I'll send my new address out in an email or email me to get it. As always, presents are more than welcome...especially IKEA gift cards =P haha

life is a highway

I've been pretty horrible at updating lately. Sorry. Here is my life for the past couple months in a nutshell, then slightly expanded:
I work and am out with my friends whenever I'm not working.

*Grad school: I'm heading off to Pittsburgh in the fall with Michelle. I'm getting my masters in International Development and am specializing in Non-Profit Organizations and Civil Societies.

*Graduation: Graduation was good. It was nice to have the family together and see everyone. I also had a lot of fun with all my old Etown friends.
Pictures are HERE

*Work: I'm getting laid off for the summer b/c not enough kids stay during the summer for them to keep a full staff. I have a couple of job options. A friend of mine owns an advertising company that does publications for a variety of medical professionals, so I'm going to go in for a day and see what I think. I could also go work for my neighbor again. I'm leaning towards the advertising company b/c I think they have more of a need for me and it would be something new for me to learn about.

*Life: I fractured my finger about a month ago, slipping and falling on a wet floor. It's annoying and it hurts and makes latin dancing difficult. Other than that, nothing exciting is going on in my life...and that wasn't even exciting.

EPA Conference & JR/SR

This past weekend was pretty busy. The EPA conference went really well. There was a lot of interest in my research, which was cool.
Here I am with Tara, my professor who worked with me on it.



And here is a link to the photo album with pictures from the Jr/Sr...also a lot of fun =)
Jr/Sr Pics

Pittsburgh

I just got my acceptance letter =)
Now to wait for financial aid information.

I'm glad to be here...on this heavenly day

I guess the most exciting news for those of you reading this is that I got into the University of Denver's Graduate School of International Studies.
I should hear from Pittsburgh in the next 2 weeks, and I just completed the FAFSA this week, so hopefully I'll be hearing about financial aid fairly soon.
I'm leaning more towards Denver at this point. I emailed Bridgeway, the home for pregnant teens where I was a housemom 3 years ago, and they may be in need of a housemom, so I potentially have free housing.


Well, that's my big update of the week. I'll update again when I hear back from Pittsburgh.

Life as a college grad

lots of little updates i guess.
*i got my diploma. i have officially graduated cum laude from elizabethtown college, in the elizabethtown honors program, and honors in the psychology department with a final gpa of 3.65.

*i'm halfway through my second week of work at a child's place. i love it. i coteach a class of 5 12-24 month olds. they're all adorable. we're getting a new baby sometime in february who is turning one.

*my grad school applications are all done and submitted to the university of denver and the university of pittsburg.

*my conference presentation is at the sheraton in philadelphia march 24 from 11:30-12:50. nothing formal. it should be a good time. i'm probably going straight to etown as soon as i'm done b/c that's the date of the jr/sr forma,l and i'm going with amanda and sara.

*graduation date: May 19 at either 10am or 11am.

that's about it for my life these days. i work, go to the gym, and spend time with friends. it's exciting.

life after college

I spent my 1st 2 weeks hanging out with friends and having fun, and 1 job interview at a daycare in Devon to be a toddler teacher. They told me to come back after New Years and help out in a classroom for a while to see if I liked it. New Year's day, my neighbor called asking if I needed work, and said I could work in the office til I got another job. So I've been doing that all week. I went in to the daycare Wednesday and loved it. They offered me the job today. They don't have an official start date yet, but will let me know on Tuesday when I go in to fill out paperwork. They pay really well compared to other daycares and pay for a good portion of health insurance. I'm really happy about it =)
I also got an email today that my proposal was accepted for the Eastern Psychological Conference, which is going to be in Philly in March. I'm not sure the exact date I'm presenting yet though. That should be fun. I just hope I'm not presenting Saturday afternoon b/c that's Etown's Jr/Sr formal dinner/dance, and I'm going with my roommates.
Well, that's all the big news for me right now.