Dos!

Today is a pretty relaxed day for me: I have classes until noon, then I lunch-host a volleyball recruit, then this afternoon I have to meet with a professor, work on designing the planner for next year, and stop into the Career Development office to discuss possible summer opportunities and internships. After I do all that the weekend is mine.

Tonight there's a home swim meet, the first one in five years or something ridiculous like that, so I think I might try and go to that. Then tomorrow is my two month anniversary with Nick, so we're going to DOS Gringos, a mexican reataurant downtown. I thought Dos would be appropriate for our dos meses! Can you tell I planned that? I love corny stuff like that! :) And I think after dinner we might see what's playing at the Campus Cinema and maybe catch a movie! I think campus will be pretty quiet this weekend; it's the first weekend after all the fall sports are over and a lot of people are going home. But I'm not going to mind at all! I am looking forward to a weekend of quiet and relaxation! And since my homework for Chemistry is not to get sick, I think a weekend like that is just what the doctor ordered! :)

--Christy

Aerobics again :)

I am so excited for my second EVER aerobics class today. :) I can't believe I never went to these last year! I think it's one of the underappreciated things of Ripon College. In fact, I don't want you to miss out on any of these things while at Ripon College:

*The PRAIRIE
*Sunday morning brunch
*OMELETS
*Breakfast in General
*Sledding on Sadhoff
*Innnertube water polo
*The Mulit-cultural lounge
*Joyce to the World
*Aerobics
*Midnight Breakfast
*Springfest
*Racquetball
*Dirt Cake

That should be a good start. Once you have experienced all those things, you will be loving life at Ripon College. :)

I am loving life today. I have one class. Beautiful. And after that nothing to do. I will probably end up putting my laundry away, doing dishes, cleaning my room, then most likely taking a nap. Then aerobics. Maybe I can even talk Nick into going to aerobics... :)

--Christy

Snow?!

It's only the second week of November and it's already starting to snow a little?! Sometimes I wonder why I stayed in the midwest. But I figure if it's going to be cold, we might as well have snow, and the 38° right now is pretty darn cold!

After work today, I am going to go downtown with Nick and look for a birthday present for my mom. There are a lot of cute little shops downtown, the only problem is a lot of them close pretty early, so we're going to go now! Then the rest of tonight will be getting my study ready for testing next week and then going to the Panel Discussion featuring President Joyce, Dean Ogle, and Josh DeWar from 8-10 p.m. The discussion is going to be held in Great Hall, but I don't know if there'll be enough room, a LOT of students are going to be there. But I think that's a good thing. We care about our campus and what goes on here.

Stay warm!

--Christy

Off-season begins

This past weekend was our conference tournament at Carroll College, where we lost in the semi-finals. Our first match of the tournament was against Beloit, who we had lost to in five games during the regular season, but improved and were able to beat them in three games: 30-15, 30-28, 30-26. After beating Beloit, we went on to play Carroll, who wanted revenge after we tarnished their 8-0 record in conference. We just couldn't keep up with Carroll, who stepped up thier game from last weekend, and ended up losing in three games: 14-30, 25-30, 27-30.

At this tournament, especially against Beloit, I think we played our best volleyball of the season. After this weekend, I am so excited for next year! We lost three seniors this year, but we have a lot of talent and a lot of experience coming back. I think we will do very well. But I am definitely going to enjoy the extra free time I have now that we don't have practice and tournaments all the time. I have two exams this week, so I will definitely use that time toward studying!

--Christy

Last practice!

Today is our last practice of the season! It's hard to believe it's almost over; it seems like we were just playing our first conference match of the season, and now we're headed to the conference tournament tomorrow! The top six teams go to the tournament, which will be played at Carroll, since they finished number one in conference. We will open tomorrow night against Beloit at 4 p.m., which will be a very exciting game. We're after some revenge after they came to Ripon two weeks ago and beat us in five close games. But we've done a lot of things since that match, including beating the number one team in conference and giving them their first and only loss. We are fired up to go in there and show what we've got!!

After practice tonight, I am going with Jess to see "Much Ado About Nothing," one of Shakespeare's best-loved romantic comedies. I'm so glad we got tickets! The tickets are free, but you have to reserve them, and they've sold out for some of the performances already! But I've heard nothing but good things about it, so I'm really excited to see it for myself!

--Christy

Happy Halloweeeen!

What a beautiful day for my favorite holiday of the year! Today has been a good day so far...and not only because I am wearing orange and black striped tights! I had class this morning, work, and even a Spanish quiz, but I am getting a lot of things done! I have two exams coming up on Monday: Spanish and Chemistry, but I am getting a head-start on studying, so hopefully I will be able to do well on BOTH exams! :)

This is the last week of practice for a lot of the fall sports and some are already done. We have two more practices: today and tomorrow, and then Friday is the conference tournament at Carroll College down in Waukesha. Besides conference this weekend, there are also some costume parties for Halloween, so it will be really nice to get ahead on the studying. But as much as I want to get ahead on the studying, I feel that I can't sacrifice too much sleep because once I fall behind I won't be very productive at all. I just need to find a happy medium!

--Christy

Almost Halloween!

Today is just beautiful outside! I am always in a better mood when the sun is shining, and is it ever today! I'm also in a good mood because I read ahead in Latin, so the readings I had prepared today we didn't even go over, and I also met my Chemistry tutor for the first time today. We begin meeting tonight! So that takes a lot of pressure off! :)

Today I also have a Research Design and Statistics exam, but after the review session that Dr. Hatcher held last night, I feel ready for it! ...It could have been the review session or the staying up until 1 a.m. studying... :) Either way i'm all set! I reviewed a bit more after my 10 a.m. class was finished, but I felt good about the material and was even able to squeeze in a little nap! How exciting is that?

After my exam, I have practice from 4:15-6, then tutoring from 6:45-7:45, then a SMAC meeting at 8 p.m. I think after that I can finally relax. And by relax I mean sit and study for a Spanish quiz tomorrow, do some chem problems, and the practice test for chem. What a night!

At least it's almost HaLLoWEEEEN!

--Christy

Going through the motions on a Monday...

Another Monday.
The homework and studying continues...
At least the weekend was nice. Friday night I stayed in and worked on homework. Saturday morning we left for our last conference match against Carroll College in Waukesha. Coming in, Carroll was undefeated in conference, but we took it to them and handed them their first loss! We beat them in four: 29-31, 30-21, 30-24, 30-26. My parents came to the game, so that was really nice! Now I won't see them again until Thanksgiving, which can't come soon enough! :)

But as much as I am ready for Thanksgiving break (a week after we get back from Fall Break... ;) ), I absolutely love Halloween! This weekend was the first chance to dress up. I went to a Heaven/Hell party at one of the fraternities with Emily (a volleyball player) and my roommate, Jess. It was a lot of fun; I love to just look at all the costumes! But that's not the only Halloween party I plan on going to! I plan on dressing up two more times! On Halloween, I am going to dress up as a librarian, and on Saturday I am going to dress up as a toothfairy and Nick is going to be a dentist! I can't wait! My mom and his mom are both nurses so he is going to be all decked out in scrubs, goggles, gloves, a mask, and of course carry around a pliers! It should be pretty funny!

...Almost as funny as these Halloween jokes:

Why did the vampire go to the orthodontist?
To improve his bite...

Why do vampires need mouthwash?
They have bat breath...



--Christy

TGIF! :)

Thank goodness it's Friday! But this weekend is going to be a busy one! I have an exam in Stats on Tuesday that I need to study for, and I also want to spend a little time on my project and get things finalized to run it! I need to study and make flashcards for Spanish and Chemistry, and also read some Latin. Good thing my boyfriend and the rest of the football team are out of town! I will have no excuses not to do my homework! :) And hopefully I can be very productive!

We have our last conference match of the season tomorrow against Carroll, the number one team in conference, but I hope to play well and end the season on a good note. After tomorrow it's just the Conference Tournament left, and that's next Saturday, November 3rd. I can't believe how fast the season has flown by...and the semester! We are half done already! I wish I could take time to enjoy it, but it seems I don't have hardly any spare time anymore! It'll be better once volleyball is over, I will have a lot more time to devote to my studies, but I hope to get ahead this weekend so I can cruise through next week!

--Christy

Just what the doctor ordered!

Today couldn't have come soon enough! I only had one class and work for two hours today, but I've been busy organizing a dinner date for a bunch of friends tonight. We're going out to Roadhouse after practice for a little get-together, so I'm really looking forward to that!

Until then, I have to meet with a few professors and my advisor about scheduling for next semester. I'm not sure what I want to take! I know I want to major in psychology for sure and I'll have a minor in Latin after one more Latin or classics course; but I'm debating whether or not I want to major in Spanish or just minor, or what I want to do after college. I've thought about medical school for a long time, but I don't know if that's what I really want. In high school I tutored refugee students and I found that to be very rewarding. I know I want to have a job where I am helping people and working with people of diferent cultures and backgrounds, but I'm not sure what aspect I will focus on. Everyone says there's plenty of time to figure it out, but I'm not very patient! :)

--Christy

Rest? What's that?

Today is SUCH a busy day for me. Class from 8-9, work 9-10, class from 10-11 and then 11-12, then I'm lunch hosting a prospective student at noon, working from 1-3 in the Admission Office, and then we depart for St. Norbert's at 4 for our 7 p.m. match in De Pere. I have zero free time until after my game and I can tell you right now that all I'm going to want to do after my game is sleep. Who am I kidding...all I want to do right now is sleep...

I think it's going to be a long day...

And I'm still trying to get over a little virus that I had last week, so sleep would probably be a good idea, but I just have no time for sleep! How sad.

But in other news...our smoothie night went well last night! We had almost 40 people show up! And Nick was there the whole time! What an AWESOME boyfriend. :)

zzzzz,
Christy

Thinking Pink...

Tonight my Living Group, Think Pink, is hosting a movie night! We'll be watching "What Women Want" and drinking fruit smoothies! Our living group;s goal is to raise awareness about women's health issues and promote healthy living, especially at college. Here is the recipe we'll be using for our smoothies:

Strawberry Banana Smoothie

1 banana

4 strawberries

1/2 cup skim milk

1/2 cup apple juice

Strawberry Lemonade Smoothie

1/2 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup cold water

1/4 cup sugar

3 cups strawberries, sliced and partially frozen

2 1/4 cups ice chips

My mouth is watering already! I am done with class for the day and my afternoon lab was cancelled, so all I'll just do a little homework, clean up my room, go to practice, then it'll be time for smoothies!! :)

--Christy

Back to Class

It was so hard to get up this morning when my alarm went off at 6:46...fall break is over, no more sleeping in until 11 and lounging around all day. :(

I spent most of my fall break on campus, along with many of the other athletes. We had a tournament at Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa the first Friday-Saturday of break, then the team had off of practice Sunday and Monday. So over our days off, I went home with my boyfriend, Nick, a football player, to Germantown (north of Milwaukee, so about an hour from here), which is a lot better than driving 3 hours home to Minnesota! It was great to meet his family and enjoy some home-cooked meals! :) But we both had practice on Tuesday, so we headed back Tuesday afternoon.

From Tuesday on, we had practice everyday until our game against Beloit, which we lost in 5 heart-wrenching games, 15-30, 25-30, 33-31, 30-28, 17-19. Then Saturday I was able to go to Nick's football game at St. Norbert (the first and only game I can make it to this year!). They lost, but it was a beautiful day for the game.

The conclusion of Fall break means that the semester is half over! Hard to believe! Today we got our registration packets for next semester; it's hard to believe it's already time to start thinking about registering for classes again! I am a psychology major, with a Latin minor, and I am considering majoring in Spanish instead of just minoring...but we'll see what happens!

--Christy

Un día más...

One more day until fall break!
...But that also means only 24 more hours to study for my Chemistry exam! :(
I think I'm going to get together with a few friends tonight to study.

Mañana también tengo un examen en español, pero pienso este examen será más facil que química. Entonces haré bueno en eso examen y estaré feliz.

Lo siento, quiero practicar mi español un poco. :)

So the plan for today is Organic Chemistry discussion 8-9, work 9-10, Latin 10-noon, then go talk to my chemistry professor and have him explain some things for the test tomorrow. I have practice at 4:15, but other than that, my day will be spent studying and finishing up my psychology research proposal.

Cuidate,
Christy

48 hours...

It is now officially 48 hours until Fall Break. I'm not at all excited...can you tell?

But I am going to pack so much studying into these 48 hours...I took a look at the Chemistry practice exam that was in the library, and that test is going to be TOUGH! I'm going to have to camp-out in the library with my tutor! :) But I'll surely get hungry, so it's a good thing SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) is grilling out tonight! They are selling brats in the Quads for $1 tonight from 9-midnight! What a deal! Plus my boyfriend is in SIFE...so I'll just have to eat a delicious brat! PLUS today is also Brett Favre's birthday!

Brats + Brett's B-day + my boyfriend = a winning combination! :)

--Christy

Mid-term Madness

Mid-terms week has begun.

I am in constant shock and amazement at all the things I have to do this week and how I somehow am still managing to sleep and eat too.

Yesterday was a running start to the week: Organic Chemistry 8-8:55 a.m., work 9-10, walk a prospective student to class, Spanish 10:10-11, Research Design and Statistics 11:15-12, lunch host a prospective volleyball player, Andrea, Chemistry Lab 1-4 p.m., Volleyball Practice 4:30-5:45...then dinner and a night of studying. My boyfriend stopped over for a little while after a meeting, but this week is a busy one for him too. It's just good to take a break and see him once and a while, it makes the days go a little easier.

I have two exams this week, both on Friday, and I also have my proposal due for my Psychology Study due Friday. The exams are in Organic Chem and Spanish, but right now O-Chem is more of a foreign language than Spanish.

Today I had Latin from 8-10 a.m., Spanish from 10:10-11, a two hour break, work from 1-2, Stats lab from 2-4, then we are leaving at 5 for our game at Marion College tonight!

How I would love to stop, smell the roses and play in the leaves...but I gotta run! I need Starbucks before class...

--Christy

Lake Forest is cut off in five!

Last night we played Lake Forest College and won...improving to 9-7 overall and 4-1 in the Midwest Conference! It was a great match and I'm really proud of all of my teammates! We came out strong in the first game, winning 30-22, but then lost the second and third games 18-30 and 23-30. But we fought back in the fourth game, wimming 33-31 and took the fifth, 15-10. It was such an exciting, roller-coaster of a match! And I am SO glad we pulled it off! Today we'll just have a light practice and then we travel to Lawrence University in Appleton tomorrow!

Today is a light day of classes for me, but the beginning of a weekend heavy with homework. Next week are mid-terms, so I will be spending a great number of hours with my head in a book this weekend. But since my boyfriend and I each have a game tomorrow, tonight will be a homework party for both of us. The last thing I want to do on a Friday night is homework, but I know if I don't I won't have enough time the rest of the weekend! We might just have to take a break to go to the New Found Flavor reggae concert at 8:30. It's a benefit concert sponsored by Sigma Chi and the Blue Mountain Project to help the hurricane-devastated town of Hagley Gap, Jamaica.

My family is coming for my game tomorrow, so I will probably spend some time with them after the game. Then tomorrow night, Phi Kappi Pi (Merriman) is hosting Toga Party in the Lower Union, so I have to find/make something to wear to that! But I figure Toga Party is just embracing the Roman Culture...afterall, I am a student of Latin! :) But Toga should be fun, I wasn't able to go last year, so I'm really looking forward to it. There's a live band and everything, so it'll be awesome!

--Christy

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my Dad's birthday, so I had to dedicate the title to him! :)

Yesterday was a gorgeous day! I swear it felt like 80 degrees outside! I didn't get to spend much time outside, but when I was in the library I sat in the window seat (my favorite spot!) and pretended I was outside! :) I actaually finished my homework before 9 o'clock and was able to get to bed early! I got EIGHT hours of sleep!!! I am just going to be bouncing off the walls today!

But that's a good thing, because we have a game tonight against Lake Forest, so we'll see if we can keep our 3-game winning streak going! Today I only have one class, Latin, from 10-noon, then it's lunch, work, a few hours for homework, and then game time!

--Christy

Autumn is Falling Upon Us!

I think Fall is here to stay. Yesterday walking to class, the wind was blowing through the trees and the leaves were just dropping off! They are beautiful, and oh so fun to play in! :) But I'm not sure when I'll have time to play in the leaves...

Today I have classes from 8 a.m. until noon, then I am off until practice at 4:15...and by off I mean doing homework and studying like crazy! Next week are mid-terms; I have two exams and my reasearch project proposal due all next Friday, so it will be a long week. At least our game is close to home this weekend; we are at Lawrence University in Appleton, and tomorrow we play host to Lake Forest College.

--Christy

Catch-up day

Today my Latin class from 8-10 a.m. was cancelled, so I got to sleep in this morning! I also didn't have much homework last night, so I got to bed early too! Early bedtime + sleeping in = catching up on sleep (the perfect beginning to a day!) Last night my friends and I went out to dinner to celebrate one of my friend Peter's birthday. Monday nights are "All You Can Eat Wings" at Pastimes, Downtown. So it's a pretty popular place among college boys, but it's fun because you always know someone when you go there!

After dinner, I worked on some homework and unpacked my things from the weekend while my boyfriend had his night class. When his class was over, around 9:30, we watched the Bachelor and caught a little of the Monday Night Football game.

Today I only had Spanish from 10:10-11 a.m. and then I have a Statisics lab from 2:10-4, followed by practice at 4:15. During my break between class and lab, I swung by the library to get a few last-minute journal articles for my research project and then continued unpacking and cleaning up my room...and I'm still not done! But I'll have time to finish tonight. The only committment I have tonight is a S.M.A.C. meeting at 8 p.m., the rest of the night will be spent cleaning, organizing, and doing homework!

--Christy