scheduling for the fall

It looks like next semester will be at least a little less stressful than this semester. I meet with Dr. Price tomorrow to talk about my schedule, but here's what it's looking like so far:

Mon 3:30-6:20 Leadership Development
Tues 12:30-1:45 History & Systems (psychology)
6:30-8:30 American Sign Language
Wed 11-12:15 Leadership Development
Thurs 12:30-1:45 History & Systems
8-9 Percussion Ensemble

Possibly Research in Perception Tues/Thurs 11-12:15, but I'm looking into doing an Independent Study instead since perception really does not interest me at all. That would give me an independent research project as well as finishing my thesis, so a lot of research, but more free time to work on it. I'm also hoping that in having a lot of open time I can get sexual assault hotline training and certification at the YWCA, something I wanted to do last year, but did not have time for because I think it's Tues & Thurs afternoons.

I really want a more relaxed schedule next semester because I'm feeling incredibly overwhelmed this semester and want to be able to focus on my thesis and research.

Another thing I'm looking into is a winter break trip to Thailand. I went to the informational meeting today, and it looks like a good trip. We'd be going to Bangkok and Chiang Mai (northern Thailand) for about 2 weeks, Dec 27-Jan 10. We'd be touring some of the more famous sites as well as visiting students at Thammasat University to see what college is like in Thailand, a "monk chat" program at a temple where we learn about Buddhism and the lives of monks, we'd spend a day at an orphanage, an elephant training facility, and possibly an agency dealing with sex trafficking. It's about $2400 plus most lunches & dinners and spending money. I'd like to go, but really can't afford it, so I'm praying about it. A friend of mine knows someone who works at a sex trafficking agency and might go on her own to help out there. I think a more hands-on trip would be more of what I want to experience, so we'll see what happens.

quick update

I just got back from a meeting with the honor's director for my thesis prep class, and she suggested presenting my thesis at the National Collegiate Honors Conference in November. (I presented research at this conference in New Orleans sophomore year) Their registration form definately needs to be improved. You need to register in March, and they want a presentation content description for the program and visual elements description. I haven't even started researching yet. How the heck do I know what's going to be involved? And even what I intend to research now could drastically change over the next 8 months. They should ask those types of questions in September or October. Oh well. I'll just make something up.

spring break

break was good. i hung out with kim a lot which was really nice even though we were just doing homework together most of the time. (yes, i spend half my break doing homework) i almost caught up on my reading for one of my classes where getting the reading done on time really doesn't matter, and did a lot of research on my thesis. alice came over one afternoon and we scrapbooked together which is always good fun. friday i went to amanda's house in nj to meet up with her and dimitri (our friend from greece who was visiting for the week) we then went to northern nj to meet up with sara and catch a bus into nyc where we met courtney. we just wandered around for a couple hours, pretty much times square, rockefellar center, central park (near the zoo), and all the designer stores. we even saw something (tv show? movie?) being filmed which was cool. it was a really fun day and of course wonderful to see dimitri again. here's some pics:

Sara & I on the bus


Sara, Amanda, & Dimitri walking down the street


me, Sara, Courtney, Dimitri, Amanda in front of the Rockefellar Center


Sara & I in front of the Rockefellar Center


Dimitri & Amanda in front of the Rockefellar Center


Sara & I in front of Tiffany's (Sara showing off her Tiffany's bracelet)


Dimitri & Amanda on the bus


Sat night I went to a St. Patrick's Day party which was a lot of fun. It was nice seeing people I haven't seen since New Years. We all just kinda sat around and chilled all night =)

Matt & Lauren's son Dylan


Lauren & I


Me, Amanda, Steph, Matt



this week is another crazy week with too much work and not enough time (i had to stop reading tonight b/c the centers of my visual field were getting gray and blurry) don't worry, it'll all get done somehow, and i'll try to take care of myself a little too. thursday afternoon i head to baltimore for the Eastern Psychological Association conference. if no one wants to meet up sat evening to go salsa dancing, i'll probably head back to etown to see the mr. etown contest since joe is in it, then head home for gretchen's bridal shower =)
so that's what's going on in my crazy life. hope everyone's doing well.
<3

2 more days until spring break

life is pretty hectic...here's my schedule for today
9 breakfast
9:30-10:50 theories of personalitly
11-12 ireland meeting - presentations & working on lesson plan
turn in scholarship application
breathe
1-1:30 working the emotion table for shoutouts in the program
1:30-2 study
2-3:20 thesis prep
breathe/get changed for dance practice
4:30-6 band
6-7 dinner/study
7-9 psych club movie & discussion: kinsey
9-10 dance practice
10:15 floor meeting
10:20 - 11 watching the rest of rent w/ amanda & mel
11- 12+ study for neuro midterm

spring break will be a lot of research, reading, and paper writing, especially since michelle will have the car some days. tuesday i'm probably scrapbooking with alice, and thursday or friday i'll probably be in nj. give me a call if you want to do something.

an update

not much to say. i'm going to the Eastern Psychological Association (EPA) conference march 16-19 in baltimore. i'm excited for that. mr. etown is that sat night, and i'm going to miss it. that makes me sad since joe is in it this year. oh well. that sunday is gretchen's bridal shower (jeff is finally getting married!) so i'm going to try to come straight home early sunday morning to go to that then head back to school mon morning so i can go to the bridge sunday night and see kim and whoever else is there. i might see if liz wants to meet me in baltimore fri or sat night so we can hit up the latin palace for some dancing. we'll see.
one more week of school then i'll be home for spring break. i'm probably going to go to nj for a day b/c dimetrios is coming from greece to see amanda, and i want to see him!!!!!

<3

the percussion ensemble conert

is no longer april 9, it's now monday the 24 at 7:30 in zug

Valentine's Day...

...was lots of fun. I got candy from Tom, mom & dad, and my friend Jills. Roses from mom & dad.
Then Amanda, Sara, Jills, Mel, & I had a glass of wine while watching American Idol and the olympics, then watched just like heaven and ate a ton of snack food.


Amanda, Me, Sara & our sangria while watching American Idol


Sara, Me, Jills...ready with our popcorn for a nice chick flick















Sara, Mel, Me, Jills

important dates as of right now

Emotion Show - March 31 & April 1
Percussion Ensemble Concert - April 9
My 21st Birthday - April 21
Band Concert - April 30

update

so...what's been going on in the life of me lately...

*i performed brain surgery last week
(and by brain surgery i mean dissected a sheep's brain)
that was kinda cool once i got past being really grossed out

classes are going well so far. for the most part they're pretty interesting.

all my honor's stuff is going to kill me. i need 4 credits for my honors thesis/honors in the discipline thesis. the psych program doesn't have a course for a senior thesis unlike most departments. so i'm contracting my research course for this semester to do extended research into next semester, which means i'll most likely take an incomplete for this semester and finish next semester since i have until october to complete an incomplete. after finishing the extended research portion of my thesis, i'll have another month and a half or so to finish the thesis which needs to be formally presented before finals in december...yeah that's a little scary. my thesis also needs to be judged excellent/honors quality by at least half of the faculty in my department. the formal presentation aspect is just an honors program requirement, not honors in the discipline req. my prof for my research class seems pretty cool so i'm kinda looking forward to working with her. i'm looking to combine positive psychology with developmental psychology since my research course is in developmental psych, fortunately, they go together pretty well. also, while talking to the honors program director, also the prof directing my thesis prep seminar, she suggested getting in contact with dr. seligman, the founder of positive psychology, about possibly meeting him and visiting his lab since he's a prof at upenn. i'll have to look into that.

dance is going well. i really like the number i'm in although it's a little rough on my knee. my water aerobics class was cancelled for this week b/c my instructor had to go to a funeral then this weekend is MACs, some big final competition thing for the swim team, so i got to the gym monday and hopefully will tomorrow if i have any free time during the day.

i think that's about it for now.

<3

pics from the semester

Me & Bethany


Amanda & Sara

Sara & I


I was hungry...


Kristi

i'm a postcard addict

i brought back some stuff to decorate a little since our walls were so bare

it's about 4'x4' at the moment and that's maybe half my postcard collection i also have a couple small paintings from my world painting collection near my bed...1 from new orleans, 1 from santorini, and 1 from rome. my one from france is at home, i'll have to bring that back to add to a wall.

ps. feel free to send me more =)

military ball

I had a lot of fun last night =)
and I'm sure this is what you all really want...
Tom & I


me and my lovely little sister =)

my 1st week and a half

well, let's see. the 2 things i've learned so far...FYI:
the word hysteria comes from the greek word for uterus. originally used to descripe what are essentially the symptoms of pms, maybe hysteria too, b/c they thought the uterus could wander around your body then they later learned it's not an animal, it's a body part.

chicken pox is caused by the herpes virus.

anyways, classes are going well. they're going to be a lot of work, but should be interesting. i really enjoy my water aerobics class. it's a nice way to start off my day.
for emotion (the dance club) i'm doing a jazz # to the techno remix of o fortuna from carmina burana. so far, i really like the choreography, so that'll be fun...and a good work out.

probably the most stressful thing this semester and next will be my senior thesis. i'm supposed to come up with at least the beginnings of a proposal by spring break (the 1st week of march). as a psych major, my senior thesis/honor's thesis/honor's in the discipline project is an original research project, which will be evaluated by the members of the department, and for the honor's program, i need to formal presentation open to the campus and local communities. i have no clue what i want to do so i'm researching potential ideas for that. i'll probably do something with positive psychology.

grad school...looking at liberty for my masters in counselling. not sure about that yet. and getting licensed as a school psychologist requires at least a masters before you can get certified as well as lots of hours of fieldwork. one of the founders of positive psychology is a professor at upenn so i'm looking into that. they don't have a masters program though, just a doctoral program. and they only accept about 10 out of 500 applicants so i have almost no chance of getting into that program. on the plus side, they give you at least $20,000 a year for the 1st 4 years so you can focus on your studies and research.

lets see...fun stuff in my life...saturday night liz (my roomie from last year), elise, bill, jurgen, garry, and i hung out at liz's apartment and played taboo. that was a lot of fun. amanda (my new roomie), sara, and kristi having been hanging out a lot watching sex in the city and movies. last night we watched moulin rouge...great movie. i loved it. go watch it. (it's kinda random and pretty artsy so don't watch it if you don't like that kind of thing)
this friday night i'm going to a military ball in downingtown with tom (he graduated last year and we were in band and percussion ensemble together). i'm really excited about that. (anyone around p-ville, i'll be home sat if you want to hang out, but i won't have a car b/c it'll be getting repaired...call me if you want to meet up) i'm going back to etown saturday night b/c i work sunday morning.

well, i hope you're all doing well.
<3

scheduling makes my life very difficult

I just found out today that my honors leadership seminar is cancelled for the semester. On the plus side, I can now take band and get one of my social work reqs out of the way. I guess there really isn't a downside unless they don't offer such a course in the fall...which hopefully they will since they cancelled it for the spring. Here's the updated schedule.

Mondays: band 4:30-6
Tuesdays: water aerobics 9:30-10:20
neuroscience 11-12:15
research in developmental psych 12:30-1:45
abnormal psych 2-3:15
Wednesdays: theories of personality 9:30-10:45
honors thesis prep 2-3:20
band 4:30-6
Thursdays: water aerobics 9:30-10:20
neuroscience 11-12:15
research in developmental psych 12:30-1:45
abnormal psych 2-3:15
percussion ensemble 8-9:15
Fridays: theories of personality 9:30-10:45


This semester's going to be insanely busy/hard. And I'm almost positive I have to take the GREs in April or June or something so if anyone wants to get me a GRE prep book, that would be fantastic.

pictures

Pictures from my last days in Greece, Amsterdam, and Paris are all up under the 1st picture link. Enjoy.

my last adventures

amsterdam is a very lovely city. i wish i would've had more than 24 hours there. we went to the van gogh museum wednesday morning which was pretty spiffy. then they had this "kids" exhibit downstairs about animals. they had this thing where you could draw your own virtual sea creature then send it to this virtual pool and they would eat each other and grow and have babies and die...it was pretty awesome! then we went to the anne frank house. that was interesting. there was really a lot more room in their secret hiding place than i'd always imagined. at the end of the exhibit they had this room and they presented different controversial topics then specific examples and then you could vote for whether it should be allowed or not and it showed you the % of people in the room and total % of what people thought. there was stuff like the patriot act, should irish protestants be allowed to march through catholic neighborhoods, should the japanese government be allowed to make a directory of all citizens names/age/sex/etc, all kinds of stuff. i wish we'd had more time to see more of the issues. it was really interesting and well done. they had this cartoon character at the beginning of each overall topic that was pretty funny too. unfortunately...or fortunately...not really sure, we didn't have time to check out the red light district. although we walked down this one street toward the outskirts of the city that had a couple store fronts with hookers in the windows. they were just chillin in their underwear, looking pretty bored. no, we didn't even go into a cafe. didn't have time for that either. one of them had a sign that said you had to be 18 to enter then it said "and don't fuck around" i thought that was pretty funny

ok, paris...that was amazing. thursday we spend 7 hours at the louvre. amazing. that's all i can say. friday we did the sacre coeur - beautiful cathedral, arc de triumphe...that was cool. we saw a couple other famous buildings there too - the trocodero, hotel des invalides, some other ones. then the eiffel tower. went to the top, which was pretty scary. it was cool though b/c they had the distances to major cities all over the world. then they had free ice skating on the 1st level. that was pretty awesome. i iceskated on the eiffel tower. then we went to the rodin museum. (rodin is my favorite sculptor) but it closed before we could go through the whole thing. i think that's about it for friday. saturday we went to notre dame. that was amazing. it's such a beautiful cathedral. the gargoyles are awesome. loved those. it's 422 steps to the top of the tower. we saw esmerelda's room from the hunchback of notre dame and the bell quasimodo rang. that was cool. then we spent a few hours at the centre pompidou, one of the modern art museums. they had an exhibit on dada (an art movement) which was interesting. the building itself was pretty spiffy although it's very controversial b/c of it's incredibly modern architecture in the midst of all the older buildings. then we went lingerie shopping. =P
saturday night we went out for a really nice dinner. it was kinda funny. friday i had roast duck for lunch and it was amazing. so they had some duck thing on the menu, of course it was all in french so i wasn't sure exactly what it was but i was like duck was good yesterday, i'll get it again since i never have it at home. so the waiter brings out my plate and it's 2 pink squares of meat. i was like courtney, please just tell me i'm not eating raw meat...please...and she's like no and i was like courtney, are you lying to me and she said she really didn't know. so she asked her mom when she called her parents that night and...i ate duck liver! it was gross. i foreced myself to eat part of it then i just couldn't anymore. EEWWW!!

anyways...i've done the ninja turtule art tour - leonardo, michaelangelo, raphael, and donatello, and seen probably every major artist in the world which is pretty awesome. (yeah, i'm an art museum nerd)


just in case you need a last minute christmas present idea: gift certificate to michael's so i can get scrapbooking supplies, scrapbooking supplies, money to get prints of pictures, etc.

Say Goodbye

My finals are done. I have a presentation in an hour, then I'm done for the semester! Woohoo!
Tonight our whole group is going out for one last dinner together. That'll be nice =)
I'll be home in 10 days, so see you all hopefully that week. (Steele City 2 weeks from today!)
I don't know if I'll get online any more before I get home, so if not, have a wondeful next 10 days and I'll update when I get home.

<3

let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears

friday i bought a much needed winter coat, and wonderful sweater that was really cheap. at the store i bought the coat from, you got a rose for shopping there. that made me very happy. saturday i took at least an hour long bubble bath and listened to norah jones. *delightful* then we had breakfast for dinner and it was yummy.
sunday was a good day. i went to church for the 1st time since i've been here which was nice...although i still really miss my church. then i sat on the couch for about 5 hours and read a book, listened to music and sang. then amanda's bf demetrios came over and told us we were all going out. so he took us out for coffee, then courtney and i walked arm in arm almost the entire way back. it was fun. then we all had dinner together, then sat around and took a zillion pics of him and amanda that are adorable. then we started talking about art cuz courtney's an art major so then she drew my portrait which was cool. it was a very delightful evening. and thanks demetrios for making us leave our apartment. lol.

tonight is going to kinda suck. i have an 8-10 page paper to write, and a ton of greek hw to do since i skipped class. yuck. i have 1 1/2 finals tomorrow, 1 wednesday, and 1/2 a final and a presentation thursday. (our greek final is split between tues and thurs)...it's going to be a fun week

*the italy pics are all posted now*

13 days til i get home

Italy

Rome was great, despite a cold rainy start to the weekend. The highlight of my weekend was definately seeing the Sistine Chapel and the Pieta. I also saw the Colosseum and a ton of other beautiful fountains, statues, buildings, etc. I of course had some pizza and some really good pasta. I started putting some pictures up. I'll get the rest up next week. I deleted all the pictures from the beginning of the trip, so the ones from Italy should be under the first link.

Thanksgiving

Dad and Michelle got here yesterday. We haven't done too much yet b/c it's been pouring the entire time. We walked through the National Gardens, saw the Parliament Building and the tomb of the unknown soldier with the guards, and walked around some of the city.
This morning we had a ton of people over for a big Thanksgiving breakfast. It turned out really well. I got up around 7 and made pancakes for about an hour. We also had french toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, pumpkin bread, some kinda pastry type thing, and baklava (yeah, i know, it's a dessert, but who cares)Today we're going to some art museum with my Humanities class then are having Thanksgiving dinner at Aphrodite's. We'll probably go to bed early since we have to get up rediculously early to go to Rome in the morning.
I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Be back next week.