Well, it's still below freezing here in Pittsburgh, but it's not below zero at least. Not too much exciting going on. I'm mostly busy with school. I went to a gallery crawl downtown with Chris, Becky and Cristian, and we met up with Tommy and his roommate and and another of their friends this past Friday night. We went to a bunch of art galleries and had a lot of fun.

Trivial Pursuit/Movie Night at Tommy's

out after the gallery crawl

It currently feels like -9 degrees here in Pittsburgh...

Well, I've survived my first two weeks of classes. I've decided not to do EMT clinicals. It was just going to be way too much with everything else. Classes are pretty interesting. I had my first consulting class last night and our clients gave brief presentations about their organizations and what they need. I'm in a group of 6 and we're going to be working with the Sexual Assault Response Team of Allegheny County on board development and leadership issues. That should be pretty interesting, although like a 2nd part time job. I think it will be a really good experience.

I have still managed to find some time for fun.

Oh, just realized I never posted about New Years. One of my neighbors...actually, a friend of theirs, but he's always around...owns a recording studio downtown, so we hung out there for a bit, had some sandwiches, had a nerf gun war, then went outside to watch the fireworks. We then came back to our house where Sarah was having a party. It was quite fun.

Sarah & I

Nerf Gun War

We had a game night the other night to play the new game mom got me for Christmas, Partini.

Cristian Brian, Me, & Sarah

Anyways, back to more recently...one of my other neighbors needed a date for some dinner last weekend. He's a musician and accompanies Alcoa's choral group and they had their annual dinner at Le Mont, which is this really nice restaurant up on Mount Washington with a fantastic view of the city (except it was foggy Sat night). The food was excellent, and it was a lot of fun.

Brian & I at Le Mont

Then Wednesday night, my friend Tommy took me out to dinner at Dave & Busters. We had a lot of fun playing games and stuff.

Tommy & I playing skee ball

so much for an easy semester...

i'm already overwhelmed! if i pretty much disappear for the next 4 months, this is why. Here's a brief summary of my classes.

EMT training: 6 hours of class a week; 3 hours of lab; i'm also looking into EMT clinicals...if i ever hear back from the secretary...which would involve 36 hours in an emergency room and 36 hours on an ambulance. I will get certified as an EMT at the end of the semester.

Global Information Systems (GIS): looks like a really interesting course. however, incredibly time consuming. 1 assignment could take 15-20 hours and we have one due every week.

Consulting for Non-profits: haven't had this yet b/c the prof (also my boss) had back surgery the week before Christmas and is still recovering. We're starting next Thursday. We're dividing the class into 3 groups and doing consulting work for 3 non-profits in the area. I'm hopefully going to be working with the Sexual Assault Response Team on board development and other governance/management issues. This also involves hours of outside work, visiting the organization, meetings, research, etc.

Micropolitics: NGOs, Development, and Civil Society: looks ok. i have a paper due a week from Monday already. not too excited about this course, but it's required and it's the first time it's been offered. hopefully it won't be too bad. other people seem excited about it.

Case Studies in Responses to Emergency Situations/NGO Responses to Humanitarian Disasters (there are multiple titles for this course): half semester course which thankfully was switched to the first half of the semester so that'll be out of the way by the end of February. Seems like it's going to be a very interesting course. The last 2 classes are a role play of applying what we've learned to what's going on in Darfur, so that should be kinda fun.

So yeah, my plan for an easy semester so I had time for job hunting seems to have turned into an 80hr/week semester somehow and I still need to fit in the job hunting. I'll figure it out though. Always do =)

Hope everyone's doing well. I'll talk to you all in May...haha. Oh yeah...I'm also going to train for a half marathon somewhere in there with Sarah. The Pittsburgh Marathon is May 3, and they have a half marathon option that we're going to do. Yay for running 13+ miles.

Picture Post

Elementary School Reunion Dinner

Camping trip to French Creek State Park

Random sign in Spanish on the trail to Hopewell Furnace

Playing games

Christmas

Ari & Cristian's wedding

Ari & I
Sarah & I
Gary & I
Our table

Grades

I got my grades today. I did really well. 4 As, an A-, and a B+. My GPA is now a 3.7, which is up a bit from last year. I'm pretty happy about that.

I head home tomorrow, for a busy break. Somewhere in between everything I have planned I have stuff to do for work, and I want to start looking for jobs.

I'm sure I'll see most of you while I'm home, so I'm not going to ramble on here. If I don't see you, have a great holiday!

I survived...

This semester is finally over! I've written 4 papers, done 3 presentations, and taken 1 final in the past week. I slept in 2-4 hour shifts whenever I couldn't function anymore. Thursday night I got home and crashed for about 13 hours. Everyone I know says this is the hardest semester they've ever hard, which is a bit odd since we all took some different classes. I'm just glad it's finally over. Last night I hung out with some of our neighbors. We went out and played pool for a while, then started to watch Mystery Science Theater 3000, but we were all falling asleep so I came home and went to bed. I feel much better after catching up on sleep and finally not being stressed or having school work hanging over my head.
I plan on just relaxing the next couple days and cleaning a bit. Mike has finals tilThursday, so I'm going to pick him up after his final on Thursday and head home. Break is going to be pretty busy. Next weekend, a bunch of us are going camping (we're getting a cabin, not tents), the following weekend, I'm going away for the weekend for a wedding. I may head back to Pittsburgh after that. I haven't decided what I'm doing for new years yet.
Here's a few pictures from the past couple weeks. Not too much exciting happened since I was doing work the whole time. We did have a bachelorette party for my friend whose wedding I'm going to. We just hung out here at our house and had a Sex and the City theme - stilettos, crazy flowers, & martinis.
Sandra headed back to Zimbabwe at the beginning of the week to see her family.


Gary visiting

Ari's Bachelorette Party
Sandra & I

Ari & I

last post of the semester

I think I have my schedule all set for next semester. I'm taking the following:

EMT training
Global Information Systems (GIS)
Micropolitics: NGOs and Development in Civil Society
NGOs & Humanitarian Disasters
Consulting for NGOs

That should keep me busy. The EMT training is 9 hours a week.

Anyways, 2 more weeks til the end of the semester. I have 5 papers, 3 presentations, and 1 final I think, so if I disappear til mid December, that's why.

Thanksgiving was nice. Michelle & Renato came over, and had dinner with Sandra and I. Sandra and I did a lot of shopping Friday and today. I think I'm done with my Christmas shopping =) Last weekend, we had our potluck Thanksgiving dinner with our friends from school. I think there were about 16 of us for that. Gary (a friend I met in Uganda, who's living in Delaware at the moment) also came out to visit for a couple days. It was really nice to see him.

God's Promise

This song is so beautiful. If this link doesn't work, look it up on youtube. [hint hint - someone can buy me this cd (the speed of trees) for Christmas]

Ellis Paul - God's Promise

God's Promise

(lyrics by Woody Guthrie, sung by Ellis Paul)

I didn't promise you skies painted blue
Not all colored flowers all your days through
I didn't promise you, sun with no rain
Joys without sorrows, peace without pain.

All that I promise is strength for this day,
Rest for my worker, and light on your way.
I give you truth when you need it, my help from above,
Undying friendship, my unfailing love.

I never did promise you crowns without trials,
Food with no hard sweat, your tears without smiles,
Hot sunny days without cold wintry snows,
No vict'ry without fightin', no laughs without woes.

All that I promise is strength for this day,
Rest for my, worker, my light on your way,
I give you truth when you need it, my help from above,
Undying friendship, my unfailing love.

I sure didn't say I'd give you heaven on earth,
A life with no labor no struggles no deaths,
No earthquakes no dryspells, no fire flames no droughts,
No slaving no hungers, no blizzards no blights.

All that I promise is strength for this day,
Rest for my worker, my light on your way,
I give you truth when you need it, my help from above,
Undying friendship, my unfailing love.

I promise you power, this minute this hour,
The power you need when you fall down to bleed,
I give you my peace, and my strength to pull home
My love for all races all creeds and all kinds.

My flavors my saviors my creeds of all kinds,
My love for my saviors, all colors all kinds,
My love for my races all creeders all kinds,
My saviors my flavors my dancers all kinds,
My dancers my prancers my singers all kinds,
My flavors my saviors my dancers all kinds.

Schedule Changes & Pictures

I've decided to take another capstone course next semester in addition to the other courses I signed up for. My boss is teaching a course on consulting for nonprofits, and we're actually going to do consulting work for some local organizations. So much for an easy semester. haha.

Here are some pictures.

Group picture from the Nigerian Leadership Conference we ran a couple weeks ago.
A picture of the cathedral of learning during light up pittsburgh month
Liz, Lisa, and I at the PA Renaissance Faire
All of us, except for James (he took the picture) at the Ren Faire
Halloween Happy Hour
The awesome pumpkin I carved for Halloween.

A Song for You

we'll go with salsa...Marc Anthony - Preciosa

I registered for classes for next semester today. I'm only going to take 3 1/2 unless something amazing comes up.
Global Information Systems
Micropolitics: NGOs and Development in Civil Society (my last required course)
Women, International Developments, and Global Health
NGOs & Humanitarian Disasters (a half semester course)

I may continue working on my capstone paper to get that published if that goes well this semester.
I may sit in on a French class to brush up on that.
I also want to look into getting EMT certified...it can't hurt to have some medical skills, and I've heard Pitt has a course that's fairly easy.

Anyways, the light courseload is so that I have some time to work on job applications, interviews, etc.


Work:
I'm working on a proposal for the dean for starting up a leadership portfolio/certification program.
We're going through candidates for our new Exemplary Leadership Award. We're looking for this person to come do a lecture or something in the spring, so that'll be cool. I'll get to meet another someone important =)


School:
School's going well. Lots of work as usual. Nothing too exciting.


Fun & Fitness:
I go salsa dancing at least once a week, sometimes twice. It gets expensive if you go too often =( I also swim about twice a week. I'm up to 25 laps (I did 12 the first time) (ok, I take some breaks in there but still...). My goal is to be able to 25 with no laps by Christmas, and 50 by the end of the school year. Now that we turned on the heat and the house isn't a freezer anymore, I'm going to try to start doing pilates again. I'll have to use my laptop though b/c Sydney chewed up the remote so now we can't switch the tv to dvd.

Some Pictures

Here are some pictures from the past month or so.

Courtney's gallery opening in Harrisburg


checking out some of the other gallieries during Harrisburgh's gallery walk

Ari's (2nd from left) bridal shower

roomie picture at the bridal shower
' I cut my hair stuck in traffic after the gala (next pic)

hard at work volunteering at a charity gala/silent auction to benefit this orgnaization that works with stroke survivors