Time to Find Balance

My Resident Hall Director (RHD) who is basically my direct boss as a Resident Assistant (RA) had our staff come together and each one of us make a collage. It wasn’t just any collage though. She asked us to make it about our goals for the year and my goal was “to find balance”.

 Looking at what I had going this year, I had a lot on my plate. And by a lot I mean that the mashed potatoes were spilling on to the table and the gravy was overflowing onto the floor. I am an RA, a member of a sorority, a student, a girlfriend, a friend, and I am planning on getting a job as well.

I could devote all my time to just one of these separate parts of me and still not be at my full potential. This is a very frustrating way to look at it. Instead, I have to learn how to blend all of my different roles into one me. But the tricky part is that I can’t spread myself so thin that everything gets the bare minimum.

I already love my job as an RA. I love all of the people I’ve met in the program. Everyone is so welcoming and inclusive. I absolutely love my staff (the RAs who work in my area). We mesh so perfectly. And I love my residents. If you can’t tell, there’s a whole lot of love going around. Of course there are hard parts that come along with this job—like having to write up people who are blatantly breaking the rules. But the good definitely outweighs the bad.

As a friend, I can already feel the pressures of maintaining relationships and keeping up with work taking its toll—and I haven’t even gone to my first class! I’m so busy during the day, that when night rolls a round I’m exhausted. Of course, night is when everyone is done with class/work and you get to make that decision would you rather sacrifice homework or paperwork to have some fun with your friends, or would you rather sacrifice your friends to do some homework or paperwork. I try so hard to give equal time to both parts, but inevitably the responsible part in the back of my head takes over, and I default to homework.

Especially as a girlfriend, I’ve felt terrible when I’m busy the entire day up until the point when I go to bed. I make a quick phone call to see how my boyfriend is doing, but I need to go to sleep so it doesn’t last too long. However, I love that no matter how busy I get, we always make sure to call each other at least once a day—even if it is only for a few seconds. I have a feeling this year Skype dates will be essentials. Time management is an important skill, and being able to plan an actual time to talk will be helpful.

And since we all know how stressful just being a student is, that brings me to my last role: a sorority member. Last semester I was initiated into Alpha Chi Omega. It was a great semester and I met some of the most amazing people. After a hard debate of what part of me could give a little so I could devote more time to being a good RA, I have decided to leave Alpha Chi. There are many reasons that have gone into this decision, and I would be more than happy to sit down and explain them to all of my sisters and friends. The simplest reason is that I could not put Alpha Chi on the back burner to being an RA. To me, it was all or nothing. I realize this isn’t the most appropriate outlet to go about announcing this, but I thought it was at least a step above Facebook.

I will truly miss everything about Alpha Chi Omega, but I know that my decision does not change my relationship with any of the women I have met. I will continue to support the great things Alpha Chi does, it’s just hard to think that I won’t be able to be behind what they do. Keep up the great work ladies!

So with that starts a new chapter in my life. Today is the first day of classes and I am starting sophomore year with a new position as an RA. I am excited for this year and am certain that in the long run my decision to focus more on being an RA will make me the happiest.

Feeling More Like Home

Today marked the first official day of move-in. My hallway—along with the rest of campus—is starting to get populated. It’s so much fun to have my new residents and their parents buzzing around the hall.

And while they’ve been setting up shelves and putting everything away, I’ve been adding a few nice touches to my room. I put up pictures on my wall and put up some nice notes and drawings from my good friends. It’s nice to see my familiar pictures and things.

While I have been looking forward to move-in week, I can’t wait until it’s over and everything starts falling into place. I can see how my schedule works and when people are in the hall using the showers and what not. It’ll be an awesome few weeks.

Well, I have to run now and go help new freshmen move in. I’m excited to start writing my blog regularly again.

New Beginnings at an Old School

Hey everyone. So first of all, sorry for taking so long to wrap up our cross-country adventure! We did make it and I am so glad to be back at school (never thought I’d say those words!). I’d love to go back and recount all the trials and tribulations my mom and I went through to move me in—like having to rent an SUV to fit a huge 32-inch TV in, and then having 4 guys help me lift it onto my dresser—but I don’t have much time and it has been more than a week after it all happened.

So I’ll just start with what’s happening now. A lot of you have been asking to see pictures of my room, so here they are. I absolutely love my room, and I hope that everyone else does too because it’s perfect for hosting people for movie night or just to hang out. It’s huge! It definitely beats living with 3 other people in a room only double this one.

I’ve been very, very busy with Resident Assistant (RA) Training. For those of you who don’t know, an RA is someone who lives in the same hall or area of residents and is there as a resource, a mediator, and an enforcer of the school policy. That’s the job description in a nutshell, but I’ve been learning the in’s and out’s of the position for the past week. I’ve met a lot of great people and am really excited for my residents to move in on Thursday.

I’ll try to get better with posting blogs, I’ll just have to find a few minutes in each day because I really missed not writing. And oh, I have joined the craze and am now reading Eat Pray Love. I just started, but I’m already enjoying it.

Day 7: Aurora, OH to Parsippany, NJ

Today was not very exciting as far as the driving part goes. However, it was great to wake up and come downstairs to a wonderful breakfast prepared by the Browskie’s. We enjoyed this wonderful baked French toast and some fresh fruit. After breakfast, their son Jim and his daughter Allison came over with their dog Bailey. I wish I had taken a picture of Bailey because she was the sweetest, fluffiest dog I’ve ever seen.

After talking for a bit, we decided we should hit the road. We hit the road without knowing where we were going to stay that night. We didn’t want to go all the way to Connecticut, but we weren’t sure how far we wanted to go. In the end, we made it so we would stop in New Jersey so that I could visit my really good friend that lives there.



So with a destination in mind, we kept on driving through Pennsylvania. And drove some more. And some more. Pennsylvania is just so wide and there is so much construction happening on I-80. I tried to take a picture of the welcome sign, but my car got in the way…I also tried to take a picture of the sign when we were leaving PA, but it’s blurry and the back window got in the way. (See below)




It is very pretty and here's a picture as we passed through the Appalachain Mountains.



We had no fun stops in Pennsylvania, so that made it kind of boring. To break through the boringness was the sound of my mom biting her nails. All of her fake nails had broken off and some little OCD part in her was compelling her to bite her real ones. I kept yelling at her, but she just couldn't stop herself. Thankfully, we found a Wal Mart in Du Bois and while we're sitting in the parking lot, she's applying her new nails. This is also after I changed my shirt to long sleeves in the same parking lot. We just felt the need to add to the atmosphere of the store. We are now officially Wal-Martians.

Other than that, the only “big” thing that happened to us was that we hit 3,000 miles on our trip odometer! That was very exciting.




Right as you cross the New Jersey border, you also cross over the Delaware Water Gap. If it sounds familiar...that's because that's where George Washington crossed in that very famous panting. See the resemblance?




So once we crossed into New Jersey, we were ready for some food and a little bit of rest. We stopped at a Chili’s that was right down the street from our hotel. We had one of the weirdest waiters. He tried to be charismatic, but it just turned out to be creepy. He realized our table wasn’t wiped off, so he comes over and with the spray bottle, writes his name on the table, spelling it out for us. If that wasn’t bad enough, when I told my friend Alyssa about him, she totally knew who we were talking about!



Anyway, after relaxing in our hotel room for a couple hours, Alyssa was finally off work and she came to meet us at our hotel. She picked me up and gave me the grand tour of Parsippany as well as the grand tour of her house. It was fun to see where she lived, and see the room I’ve seen on Skype before! It’s so cool to be in her hometown after hearing so much about it. I then got to meet her group of high school friends. It was cool to meet these people I’ve heard so much about.



But it was late so she took me back so we both could get some sleep. Hopefully I’ll see here before we leave Jersey. But next stop is my school!

Day 6: Gurnee, IL to Aurora, OH

So yesterday was nice, but it was time to hit the road again today. We got up at “too-early” 7:30 and got out of the house by about 8:30. Because Loren had flew out to Denver to meet us in Casper, WY, we had to bring her to the airport to pick up her car. Luckily, it was on our way out, so it worked out perfectly. 40 minutes later we were at the airport and we said our goodbyes and watched Loren walk away.

Then we watched her walk back. We rolled down the window, and she said that she was focusing so hard on not forgetting the parking ticket, that she forgot her keys! We couldn’t believe it! But we did the only thing we could do, which was hop back in the car and go back to her house to get them and then come all the way back. I won’t lie, it sucked. But it wasn’t the biggest deal in the world and we were soon on our way again.



We drove right by Chicago. Last Thanksgiving we had actually went out and visited, so it wasn't a big deal that we didn't go into the city. I still snuck a few pictures of it, but it was a little smoggy. We also passed by the Chicago White Sox baseball stadium. I think it’d be fun one day to take a road trip to different baseball fields.



After that, we quickly came upon the lovely—heavy sarcasm—state of Indiana. Right from the get-go my mom and I did not like this state. The first thing we did was pass through the toll. It took forever. There was a line of like 10 cars and it was crawling by. Finally when we get close, we see what the hold up is. There isn’t an attendant taking your money, but a machine! And I have to add that there are no signs telling you how much money to have ready until you get right up to it.



So anyway, this older woman was in front of us. She must have been 80-years old judging by how much her hand was shaking. But here she is trying so hard to line up the dollar to put it in the little machine. And then she has to put in a couple of corners. My mom felt so bad she was ready to jump out of the car to help her.



Then it’s our turn. Of course we only have a $20 bill for the $1.50 toll. So we put it in and then we hear the clanking of coins. And would you believe it, but it gave us $18.50 in gold dollars and quarters!! I didn’t even know people still used those! However, we gladly gave most of these coins back to Indiana in all the different tolls we passed.



We stopped at a welcome center in Indiana and found out that we were only 15 minutes from South Bend. I didn't know the significance of this until today, but that meant we were very close to Notre Dame. Of course we went to visit and it was a very beautiful campus. The bookstore was huge and I decided to buy a shirt. I probably won't be there again, so it was definitely a cool stop.



East Indiana wasn’t very pretty, but once you hit Amish Country it was very pretty with tons of farms. I might add that Ohio is now the 4th state of corn. It’s amazing how much corn there is—but only about %12 of all the corn grown in the U.S. is actually eaten by people.

We went to this family style restaurant called Das Dutchman Essenhaus. Here’s the link to a site about it: http://www.essenhaus.com/. (Just as a side note, I think it’s weird that there are websites about the Amish Country. It kind of goes against everything they stand for). But anyway, this was some of the best food I’ve had. They served us amazing fried chicken, with mashed potatoes, stuffing, chicken noodles, and corn. Our waitress was very nice but it was really interesting overhearing her conversation with the man next to us. He asked her if the french fries were the best, and said that she liked them, but had never had anybody else’s fries before. It’s so interesting that there are these towns of people living a completely different life than the town right next to them. There really was no fine line between Amish Country and the rest of Indiana.



After dinner, we got to pick a piece of homemade pie. My mom picked banana cream pie and I picked Dutch apple pie. It was the most amazing apple pie I have ever had. I wish I could go back all the time, but sadly it’s in the middle of a state I really didn’t like. We did a little shopping of the touristy stuff they have, and then we had to hit the road again.



On our way out of Amish Country, we realized the highway was only a half a mile away from Michigan. So of course we stopped by to take a picture of the sign and say that we’ve been there. That was our last stop though before Aurora, Ohio.





We are so lucky to know people in Ohio. The parents of our long-time family friend have graciously opened their home (and kitchen) to us. It’s been so fun to see them in their beautiful house, instead of seeing them in California when they come to visit their daughter and grandkids.

We’ve decided that we’re going to stop again tomorrow before Connecticut so that we’re not rushing the whole day. Not sure where we’ll end up, but I’m glad we don’t have to leave here at the crack of dawn and instead we can enjoy a good breakfast with fun company.