Relaxation, Finally!

Well, things have been crazy here in Tampa and are just beginning to wind down. We had our huge event on September 26th, which ended on the 28th. We were able to have 77 amazing women join the chapter here on the 28th. Lauren and I continued to have meetings until today and got the number up to 108. We are very excited and proud of ourselves, but it was a lot of work. We work from the moment we wake up, until we go to bed. Through this job I have learned to work as hard as I need to get done what needs to get done. However, I am now excited for a bit of relaxation.

This past weekend Matt came to visit. It was a nice break for both of us. He had a tough week at law school and I had a hectic week with work. It was nice to just relax. We went to Haunted Horror Nights at Universal with Lauren and her boyfriend. It was fun and scary. They took Universal Studios and turned it into a haunted park with eight haunted houses. We expected more fear to be involved, but it was just people jumping out at us behind corners, etc. It was still fun. Then on Saturday we went to Oktoberfest. It was a craft beer festival. It was fun and interesting to see how many different types of beer there and to appreciate them all. The following day Matt and I explored Tampa, got a flat tire and had a nice dinner on the water. He left yesterday, but I get to come to NH on Friday, which is exciting!

Tomorrow we go to Indianapolis for a meeting at our headquarters. It will be nice to see the other ELCs that I work with, but I am looking forward to going home after. From here forward things will be very hectic in Tampa until Thanksgiving break. I am excited to go home then, because it will be a very nice break - finally!

That is all for now :)

The Land of Lightning

Well I am finally in Tampa and things are under way! It has been a great experience so far and we have finally seen a full day of sunshine, which is awesome! We arrived August 22nd and spent the first two nights in a hotel because we did not have furniture in our apartment (it was being delivered by a furniture company). We explored the area, but also got some other stuff done for our apartment (unpacking, etc). We live on the third floor and I think we ended up carrying about six 50 lb. boxes up the stairs and one 75 lb. box up. Our arms are feeling strong!

Our apartment is nice. It is good for two people, but with all of the boxes and stuff we have for our events it is a little crammed, but it works. I took the smaller room so I could have a view of the bay. It is very pretty and right next to our apartment. We do not overlook the bay, but through my window you can see it.

It has been wonderful being so close to water and in a tropical area. It rained for the first week, or so, but now it is better. It is because it is hurricane season, but it is supposed to end soon (we think?) We have been on campus a couple of times and every time I go I am in awe. They have a pool on campus for students to lounge around and the campus is right next to the bay. Our drive there is beautiful too. We drive along Bayshore Blvd. (picture) which is full of huge houses and right next to the water.

This past Sunday we had some free time and went to Clearwater beach. It was amazing. It was only 35 minutes away and beautiful! We laid out for a couple of hours, walked around the area and then just drove home! This is going to be great here. Oh and there is a pool right outside of apartment (right outside of my window) so when we get the chance we hope to enjoy the sunshine there too.

We have been busy with meetings and getting ready for events. Our first event was a tailgating event (picture). It seems that there is A LOT of interest here in our organization and women are hoping to join it, which is great! We are very excited and everyone has been so welcoming and open, so it has been a good transition. Tomorrow we start our first big event, a sorority fair, where Lauren and I will be the only representatives from our organization (while everyone else will have six), but that is okay!

I will keep you posted on the happenings here, so far so good!

(Oh and Tampa is the lightning city of the world! Crazy lightning!)

Indy 500!

What a weekend! This was a great, four-day, weekend. We had Friday off because it was Carboration Day in Indianapolis. I am not totally sure what this means, but there was a huge celebration at the Track. We didn't go, but it was nice to have the day off. We went to the movies Thursday night and then shopping at the outlets all day Friday. On Saturday some of us went to a local pool and laid out. It was really nice to be by a pool and enjoying the sunshine. Today we just hung around and watched movies. It is currently raining and has felt like it was going to all day.

But yesterday we went to the Indy 500! It was a great experience. I will admit I was sort of apprehensive about the whole thing because it just seemed like it was going to be a mad house, but it wasn't too bad.

We left our "apartment" at 8:30 a.m. and had a cooler full of bottled water, sandwiches and a bunch of snacks. We only hit a little traffic and ended up parking about a mile away (the closest we could get) and our spot was on someone's lawn. Everyone was out having people pay to park on their lawn. Apparently some people make so much by doing that for that one day that they can pay their mortgage payment for the month from it.

Then we started walking to the stadium. There were people everywhere, but it wasn't as crazy as we thought. We got into the stadium around 10 a.m. or so. We ended up getting a nice spot in the infield by the fourth turn. There were already some people there (apparently people get there at 4 a.m. for a spot) so we were fine with our area. You can either buy a general ticket (which is what we did) for the infield or you can buy a seat ticket (which are much more expensive and much hotter to sit through the entire race in!).

We hung out for a couple hours, but a couple of things happened sporadically to keep people entertained. They had a ton of trucks drive around with the armed forces on the back to honor them. Then a bunch of celebrities drove around on the back of convertible cars (we saw the Kardashian sisters!). They also had the "Indy Princesses" drive around (a big honor for college women).

Then the race began. It was really neat! Jewel sung the National Anthem but her mic didn't work (you think they would've figured that out before!). Then the announcer said Start Your Engines and they were off.

Within the first lap there was a crash and the caution flag went up! It was rather loud when they came around at full speed but not during caution. The race lasted for about three hours. It was fun to sit there and watch it but it was also more fun to take in the scenery around us. People were going crazy! We didn't drink while we were there (it was 95 degrees - the hottest race in history... and we made it through!) But the majority of people seemed to be there for the scene than the race. Three hours later in the sweltering heat, you could only imagine how people were acting. Nothing really happened next to us, but there were fights everywhere, a marachi band appeared and started playing the whole race on the lawn near us to make money, people were getting heat stroke everywhere - it was really crazy to watch everything happen.

Finally, the race was in the 199th lap. The track is 2.5 miles and they have to go 500 miles, so they go 200 laps. The last 20 laps were really exciting, especially the last few. A couple cars ran out of gas because they were trying to get away without a pit stop and make it - but they didn't. In the final lap, the craziest thing happened! One car went flying through the air, over a car that had no gas and into a wall. It was as the car was making it around the 4th turn (where we were) and heading to the final stretch to make it to the finish line. The car desintigrated into a million pieces, we were certain the driver died. They didn't show this on the big screen (which we were also near so we could hear and see everything) because the finisher crossed the line right after. However, due to the accident the race went under caution which meant that the cars cannot change positions but must slow down. So all of the cars ended up crossing the finish line going slowly - but it was still neat to see them win. The driver in the accident ended up breaking his leg (a miracle) but was air lifted out. You can find some video footage of it online - it was nuts!

We ended up making it back to the car and out of traffic about an hour and half later. It was great to have gone but also nice to have it end. I wouldn't do it again but I am glad I did it!

Summer in Indy :)

So it is my third full day in Indianapolis working here for the summer. So far things have been going well and I have done a lot!

We are currently living in our headquarters. We have two rooms (each have two pull out couches) and they are connected by a long bathroom. There are two showers and two sinks, which is great! We have been working every day, all day, but we get weekends off - which is new to me! Usually when we are on visits we were every single day. So when I did five visits in a row it was about two and a half to three weeks of back-to-back work days. You don't notice it too much, but it is nice to have weekends off now.

The first full day we were here, Tuesday, we all went and joined a gym. We have been going every day since. On Tuesday we tried a spinning class. I didn't think I was going to make it through the whole class, but I did and it was really fun.

We went grocery shopping and have been making our own meals. It is nice to not be eating at a restaurant all the time, like we do during training or on the road. We have also been making dinners for each other every night. There are four of us here, so each person has one night from Monday - Thursday where they make dinner for everyone. I have Tuesday and made a pasta dish for everyone. Yesterday, Alyssa made sweet and sour meatballs. We are compiling all of our recipes with a picture of the meal and we're going to make a cookbook at the end of the summer.

Also, at the end of each night we watch our favorite tv shows together. We don't have a tv here, so we are a day behind on our shows since we watch them online. However, it is really fun because we all sit in the board room (right outside our rooms) and pull down the projector/hook up our computer and watch them. It's been fun to see our shows on the "big screen".

Overall things have been going really well here. I will be seeing Matt tomorrow! He will be coming to Indy and staying until Tuesday for my birthday on Monday. Can't wait!



The picture here is a of the room that Justine and I are staying in.

Totals

Here are my totals for the past year:

Fall semester:
Flights: 41
Mileage: 26, 899

Spring semester:
Flights: 39
Mileage: 39,860

Totals:
Flights: 80
Mileage: 66,759

Just some perspective... it takes 24,901 miles to circle the earth at the equator. I have circled the earth 2.68 times!

Done!

Today I had my last day as an ELC for my first year on the road! I had my final meetings and ended this evening. It is so bizarre to think that my last visit of my first year is complete! I will depart from Chicago tomorrow morning and head to OWU for one night and then head home!

I am very excited and feel very satisfied that I completed my first year and am still intact. I plan to calculate how many planes I was on and how many miles I traveled in the coming weeks. What a great year!



This year I went to:

Schools:
Auburn University, Alabama (2x)
Purdue University, Indiana
Drake University, Iowa
Colorado College, Colorado
Penn State, Pennsylvania
Louisiana State, Louisiana
Eastern Kentucky University, Kentucky (2x)
Occidental College, Los Angeles (2x)
Butler University, Indianapolis
UC-San Diego, San Diego
Loyola Maramount University, Los Angeles
Cal Poly Tech, San Luis Obispo, California

Oregon State University, Oregon
Whitman College, Washington State (2x)
University of Puget Sound, Washington State (2x)
Princeton, New Jersey
University of Chicago, Chicago
Columbia, New York City
Quinnipiac, Connecticut
San Diego State, San Diego
Cornell University, New York
Conference, Dallas, TX
Washington & Lee, Virginia
Harvard, Cambridge, Mass

Other Places:
Tucson, AZ
Palm Springs, California
Vancouver, British Columbia
Seattle, Washington
Las Vegas, Nevada
Lexington, Kentucky
Indianapolis, Indiana
New Orleans, Louisiana

Vancouver

So since the last time I posted I went to University of Puget Sound and then went to Vancouver, Canada for a couple days and up to Whistler to ski for two days. Now I am in NYC. I will try to recap as best I can of the past week.

I met up with Matt prior to going to University of Puget Sound for Easter. We went to a UCC church in Seattle and it was really nice. We got up on stage and sang the Hallelujah chorus with the entire church at the end. I was kind of hesitant to do it (since it wasn't South Congo) but Matt knew how much I had missed doing that at home and made me get up and do it. He did it with me so we both sounded like idiots together on stage. We accidently ended up in the soprano section so we sounded even worse than we would've but it was really fun. After that we went to a restaurant in Pike's Place for brunch (he tried to find an egg's benedict place because he knows that I always eat that on Easter) so we had a mix assortment of food (salmon eggs benedict and pouteen?... very random).

Then we walked around Pike's Place and went to the Seattle Aquarium. It was really fun and we got to see the sea otters playing with each other. They ended up beating each other up and it was really funny to see.

Then I went to the University of Puget Sound. It was my second visit there so it was nice to see familiar faces and people (just like Whitman). It made it more relaxed. After my couple days there Matt and I went to Vancouver. He had a visit at UBC so while he worked I was able to get some of my work done. We stayed right near the Olympic torch and I was able to explore the city more. It was very fun.

After two days there we went up to Whistler to go skiing. Matt has a former consultant friend who is from Vancouver and had a place up in Whistler, so we went up with him and his girlfriend. It was really fun!! I didn't know what to expect and with Matt only having skiied once in his life before this (in KANSAS!) I didn't know how he would do. It ended up being a great time.

We both rented skies and started by going to the middle of the mountain. He was really funny at first and fell down the mountain with style. Eventually he got the hang of it and learned how to do the pie with his skies and stopped falling everywhere. Of course I love when people fall, so I was no help when he would fall down because I would just start laughing and fall over. He ended up stopping after that run for a little bit (it took about an hour and a half to get down that one run because the mountain was so huge!). So then the other Matt (his friend), myself and Matt's girlfriend (Lori) all went to the TOP of the mountain, to the glacier. Now I was terrified. I didn't know what to expect but it was like giant bowl (Tuckerman's Ravine) and you had to ski down it. It took us a LONG time to get up it. It involved three chair lifts, a t-bar and then some hiking to get to the top. We were above tree level, it was crazy. Also, there were signs to be aware of possible explosives that could be on the mountain (due to avalanches), let's just say I wasn't very settled by this at all.

Once we got to the top I looked over the edge and was terrified. Matt and Lori were really good skiers/snowboarders so I was a little scared I was going to die, to say the least. People were just jumping over the edge and skiing straight down this thing it was so scary. So I took the easy route and went slowly around the edge of it, back and forth. I probably looked like a total idiot but I was so scared, it took me forever. The wind was so crazy and was blowing the snow over me (like sand in a desert or sand dune) and the snow at some points were up to my knee because it was such fresh snow. It was crazy! We made it down and I didn't fall once!! I was so proud of myself and I can say that I skied where olympians have skied now!!

After the glacier I was totally exhausted and we all ate lunch. After lunch Matt and I decided to do one more big run down the mountain. We took the gondola all the way to the top and he was going to take it half way down (since it was too steep) and I was going to ski that half and we were going to meet and ski the rest of the way down. Well I am very bad at following directions and ended up skiing in the wrong direction on the mountain. We had decided to meet halfway and not have him leave halfway until we met up (my decision, which was an awful one). Well I ended up skiing all the way to the bottom on accident. It was a horrible run... I was exhausted, there were people everywhere, the mountain was now icy and I ended up falling and twisting my knee. I just wanted this to all be over and meet up with Matt. Well when I got to the bottom I was very upset because I had missed him and it was exactly 4:00 pm when the ski lifts closed. So I had no way of getting back up to him and we didn't have our cell phones because we were in Canada. All I could envision now was Matt standing there with skis, ready to go and waiting for me...

I waited and waited hoping he would come down on the gondola or ski down (which I was scared for him to do on his own but I knew he could do it). After 45 minutes went by I started to get really nervous that he had died on the mountain and I was never going to see him again. I ended up meeting up with our friends and we were all getting worried about Matt. They went to get in their car and drive to a half-way driving point to see if he was there while I waited for him. At this point they gave me one of their cell phones so we could communicate, smart idea. Finally, an hour later he ended up taking the gondola down. I was so relieved to see him with all of his limbs still intact and alive. He thought the same thing and thought I had died on the mountain since I never appeared. It was a horrible feeling that we thought the other person had been in an accident but we were safe and all was well.

The next day we drove back to Washington and I flew out the following morning (Monday) and am now in NYC at Columbia. I have been rather busy and have not had time to explore the campus/city but I have a couple of hours tomorrow where I plan to do so. I think I am going to walk around campus and then explore Central Park. It should be pretty since everything is blooming.

Well that is all for now. More updates to come...


***Picture Key***

1. Matt and I on the mountain
2. The glacier bowl that I went back and forth in
3. The drop off into the glacier on the right
4. The second-to-last chair lift up the mountain to the glacier

Pictures

Here are some pictures from my recent travels, but they uploaded backwards from the trips I went on.



This is part of the campus at Oregon State. As you can see it was very rainy the entire time.





I got a tour of the eating clubs when I was at Princeton. This is the library inside one of them.



This was after the belly dancing performance I went to. We are making a kite around one of the Thetas who was in the performance. We are in the hallway of their theatre.


This is a part of the Princeton campus. The buildings look similar to these all over campus.


This happened to be the only picture I took at Quinnipiac, but it was one of the nicest gift baskets I have been given upon my arrival.

Walla Walla Again

I am back in Walla Walla, Washington. I got here yesterday after a day of flying from Portland to Seattle to Walla Walla. It is nice to be back in a familiar place, although its raining and windy here.

This chapter has a smaller amount of officers to meet with, so I will have some more free time and it is a shorter visit. I will be leaving here tomorrow and then spending a night in Seattle for Easter. It will be nice to have a mini-break and then I start up again at University of Puget Sound for a second time.

I am currently on school four of seven in this trip. Hard to believe I am almost done and close to ending my first year! I will plan on posting some pictures soon of my travels!

It finally stopped raining!

I am currently at Oregon State in Corvallis, Oregon. I have been here since Sunday and will be leaving tomorrow for Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. I have already been to Whitman so it will be full of familiar faces and checking in on their progress.

This is my first time to Oregon and it has been enjoyable. It was raining for the first couple of days and would not stop! I got very tired due to the jet lag, but it seems to be wearing off. I have only been getting up at 6:30 am due to the time change instead of 4:30 a.m. so that's been good!

These visits have been flying by. It is hard to believe that I am on number three of seven that are left and about to do visit four! Hopefully I can keep up the energy. Time to go get coffee with some of the chapter women!

Princeton

So I arrived at Princeton yesterday afternoon. It was rather interesting getting here. I flew out of a very small airport, New Haven, which seemed to have its own idea of timing. My flight ended up leaving an hour after it was scheduled to. I was flying to Philly and then from Philly to Newark, with a 30 minute lay-over in Philly. Needless to say, I ended up landing at the time that my second flight was scheduled to depart. The next flight out was at 8 pm and all my one-on-one meetings had been scheduled for that afternoon. I ended up making it to my next flight because it was also delayed.

That flight was probably the worst flight I have ever taken. It was so bumpy due to the wind and it was like a roller coaster, up and down. The man behind me kept yelling that he was going to throw up and the flight attendant even got on the intercom to tell us where our sick bags were for the motion sickness. It was awful.

I finally landed and had a driver awaiting me. He picked me up and carried my luggage, it was a nice relief from the usual. The car he had was a really nice mercedes and he drove me to campus.

Today is my first day on campus. I have been enjoying my time and it is beautiful here. The flowers are beginning to bloom, the daffodils have already bloomed, but the trees are so pretty. I have more meetings today and then this evening I am going to see a belly-dancing group on campus. It should be pretty interesting!

QU!

I am currently at Quinnipiac Univ. in Hamden, CT. It has been a great visit! One of the ELCs went here, so the people are really welcoming and understand a lot about my position and how hard it can be. When I arrived I got a cute care package from them and have been taken care of very well throughout this whole visit. The president made me a blanket! It has been great.

The weather has been pretty rainy, which hasn't been so fun after the great weather we have had for the past week or so.

Tomorrow I go to Princeton. I have two flights, which is really a two hour drive but will take around five hours flying. That's okay though, it will help me transition from one school to the next. I am looking forward to it! Also, they have gotten me a limo service to bring me to their campus since it is about an hour away from the airport. I am excited about that!

That's all for now, not too much to report!

Back to Work

So I just had an amazing time in Seattle! I had never been to the city and explored with my Mom and it was great!

The first full day we walked around and explored Pike's Place (the local market). It was really neat and there was fresh produce and fish everywhere. I also got to see the first Starbucks ever, which was really neat!

The second day we decided to just take off and head to Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics. We went on a train, which took around three hours. The ride was really pretty and was all along the coast. Once we arrived, we found the Olympic village and walked around. It was so huge and really cool! We found the torch, which was also pretty awesome and exactly what I expected. Then we continued to walk around and found a place that was selling tickets to events. We ended up getting two tickets to the Women's Finals Hockey Game (Canada vs. US)!! It was so exciting and so unexpected! We began to walk to the stadium and it was a mad house, but so cool to be a part of. Once we got inside we realized our seats required an elevator to get to. As we boarded the elevator we noticed that it said Luxury Suite next to our number on the tickets. Turns out, we ended up in a Luxury Premiere Box that had around twenty people in it! It took up a quarter of the length of the rink and we had seats overlooking the end goalie area. It was an unobstructed view. Even crazier, they had free food and it was great! They had sushi and wonderful desserts... I couldn't believe our luck!

The US team ended up losing the game, which was too bad, but it was neat being in Canada when Canada won! Even more exciting, we were there for a gold medal event and they did the victory ceremony immediately following. I seriously couldn't believe we were there for all of that! We saw the ceremony, but had to leave right before the gave the gold medals to Canada. We got back to our train and headed back to Seattle. What a day!

The next day we got up and walked around Seattle. We headed to the space needle and went up. It was really neat to see the view from there, I had no idea Seattle was so diverse in it's landscape. Then we walked to Pioneer Village and had a great meal at the Metropolitan Grill. Finally, we headed back to Pike's Place (to get the best cheese ever made) and ended the day in the hotel.

It was a great trip and I am so glad it happened! Now it is back to the real world. I have two more visits before I am done with this round. I am feeling pretty exhausted, but also relaxed from a good vacation!

Off to Indy!

Today I left Walla Walla bright and early to head off to Indianapolis. I woke up at 5:00 a.m. Pacific Time and had my flight at 6:50 a.m. I am currently sitting in the Seattle airport waiting to board to go to Chicago and then on to Indianapolis this evening. It is a full day of traveling!

I had a great time at Whitman College and look forward to returning in April. It is currently dreary and raining outside (what I expected of Seattle) but the flight in was really neat. I was able to see Mt. Ranier in the distance it was very foggy everywhere, almost like a cauldron of boiling water fell onto the earth. It was really neat with the snowy mountains in the distance!

In Indianapolis I'll be seeing the other people I work with, which will be nice. We will be setting up everything for interviews and then on Sunday the candidates will all arrive. It is crazy to think that I was just doing this a year ago!

In Walla Walla!

After thirteen hours of traveling yesterday, I finally made it to Walla Walla, Washington. I am visiting Whitman College (1,300 students - a little smaller than OWU) and it is nice here. It is so warm (50 degrees) and not rainy, like I expected. Apparently the western side of the state rains but the eastern side isn't as rainy.

The chapter has a "section" of a dorm for the women to live in. The dorm feels like a bed and breakfast with rooms for the women. So it is really nice. I have my own room that conjoins with another chapter member, but I still have my privacy. It is pretty nice. Last night I went to bed so early, 10 p.m. here, while it was 1 a.m. EST so it was nice to just be able to go to sleep!

I have a lot of meetings today, but not as many as usual. This chapter is on the pilot program, which is a minimal officer structure. So instead of having 26 officers to meet with, I only have nine. There are still some committees I also have to meet with, but not as many as usual - so it is nice!

I am starting to feel more sick, which isn't fun. But it isn't horrible yet! Off to start the day...

I attached a picture of my time at Harvard. This is the building that I stayed in. The school rooms students by houses instead of by dorms, kind of like in Harry Potter. So every freshman writes down seven or so people she/he would like to live with and then they are given a spot in a house. There are twelve houses and every house has a dining hall, etc. so it is its own community within a community. I stayed in Lowell House, it was really pretty! I also attached a picture of the freshman's dining hall (the freshman live in the yard, they move into their house their sophomore year).

Rain Rain Rain

I am now in San Diego and got in late last night. I had a six hour flight on the way over and it was pretty crammed, so I was ready to get off the plane and start my visit! When I got out of the airport I looked up and there was lightning everywhere. It was pretty crazy. It has been raining ALL day long and it has even hailed a couple of times. It was hailing so hard at one point that someone outside screamed, "It's snowing!". Oh, California! The campus isn't prepared for this kind of whether and I was talking to someone today who said that their house is flooding because of it. She said that water was just coming through the walls because it was never made for this kind of weather, crazy!

My stay has been pretty great here so far, besides the rain. I am starting to get tired and feeling jet lagged. I have been in meetings since 9 a.m. and I have two more to go until I am done with my day. It feels good to be back on the road and feeling useful, even though I do miss New Hampshire!

More updates soon...

A new adventure

Well tomorrow I head out to San Diego for my first visit of the semester. I am very excited to start up again but it is all bittersweet that my full days of relaxation are over. However, I am only leaving for ten days and then I will be back again. Over the next week and a half I will go to: San Diego State University, Cornell University and then to Dallas, TX for a conference. After all of this I come home again! I am excited to begin again and have a smaller amount of visits than last semester.

I am all packed up and ready to go to sunny San Diego! It is nothing but snow here in NH! I will be sure to update my blog more this semester since I did not do a good job of it last semester.

That's all for now, more to come this week!