Spring Break

The pictures below are from Kalidaquiz- a 26 hour radio contest that is a BIG deal for Anders. A new question is given every six minutes (an example would be, "What was the sign outside of the hotel after Penelope escaped"), and there are various challenges (like crocheting a cat sweater in two hours), scavenger hunts (like finding a wedding dress and wearing it to the radio station), traveling scavenger hunts (this time it was to Chicago), and various other activities that brought our house closer together and realize sleep is for people that don't want to win. An example of this would be getting up at 4:30 in the morning to help put together a choreographed dance that we had to perform in front of the radio station judges. Ours turned out pretty sweet. I definitely incorporated some show choir stuff!

Whoo. . . it is spring break. Yay! And, no, I am not sitting on a warm, sandy beach right now, nor am I doing something really charitable like building houses with Habitat for Humanity. I am in Guthrie Center, and despite the fact that it is not one of the more exotic places to go during this time of year, it is nonetheless where I want to be. After half a semester of classes, tests, and art projects, I am ready for a break- even if this break includes studying for three exams and a Spanish presentation when I return to school. Oh, well. I just won't think about that right now as I enjoy this moment of being able to sit on a couch. A couch- not a desk chair, not a fold-up lawn chair- but a real couch. I have missed comfortable couches that don't smell like college boys. I've also missed beds that don't require a ladder and don't have a ceiling so close to my head that I have to hunch over when I wake up in the morning. There have been tons of little things I've missed from home. However, by the end of the break, I know there will be lots of little things from my life in Ames I will start to miss, and I will be ready to return, carrying with me with clean sheets and new socks.

Since I don't have a job to worry about this week, I've been helping out my parents, seeing some high school friends, and planning a birthday for someone turning 50 (don't worry, Mom; you don't look over 40.) This week, I also plan on going to some track practices to get ready for the Dam to Dam 20K in Des Moines this summer, and on Wednesday, I will be talking to the Spanish 3 class at GCHS about taking Spanish courses in college and give my presentation about Spanish cinema in preparation for when I go back to school.

Spring is in the air! I hope you can go out sometime and enjoy it.

Wow, this month has flown by. I'm trying to think about all that has happened since my last blog, but it is kind of a blur. It seems like most of my time for the past several weeks has been consumed by a huge art project. The drawing is a scanned image of one of my scarves, a purple lantern, and some beaded jewelry from Africa from a South American country. We needed to have a theme, and I just grabbed some stuff from my room and headed down to copy works to create a black and white image on a scanner. Turned out to be all from other countries that had been given to me by Sarah or the Blessman family! I'm using ink with a bottle and nib and the technique of informal cross hatching for the first time. The drawing looks really cool because there is so much detail (I even used tiny dashes to show the weaving of the scarf's fabric,) but it was stressful and very time consuming.

Now that we have finished that project, we get to start a new one. Sigh, no breaks, I guess. Besides drawing, I've had a lot of tests, but they have been going well.

I received one of the 75 FHP leadership positions for next year, and this past week I received confirmation that I will be a Destination Iowa State leader for next fall's freshman. I also attended a lecture with some people about evolution and religion. It was pretty sweet because there were a bunch of posters on display to look at afterward, showing evolutionary research done by various professors at ISU. There were several posters with my mentor program professor's research, and it had my logo on it! There was also one about clams from the research my bio. prof. has been working on with river clams found here in Iowa.

This past week I scheduled a hair appointment with the Salon Professional Academy here in Ames for Wednesday evening. I haven't used the bus system much this year, but I was able to catch a bus out to city hall and get onto a new line to take me close to the facility. I made it there on time, didn't have any troubles with the bus, had a nice haircut that was super cheap. However, getting back was kind of an adventure! The hair cut took longer than I had expected because the students there don't want to make any mistakes (which is good), and I realized there was only one other bus coming out for the evening and I wasn't really sure where the bus stop was since the bus driver had let me off at the drive for S.P.A. instead of the bus stop. So there I was- cold, hungry, carrying my little backpack, frantically cutting through the parking lot of Lowe's under the dingy street lights (but with a very nice hair) when suddenly I saw the bus parked at the stop. And then I saw it head out onto the highway! I did not want to walk 7 miles all the way back to campus! I started running towards the bus, hoping he would stop. The door creaked open, and I jumped very gracefully on board. Fortunately, it was the same bus driver who had dropped me off and said he would take me back to my dorm even though he was finished with his route.

This weekend I am going up to Wartburg to see Ryan run in the conference indoor track meet, and then it is just two more weeks until spring break! Woot woot! Have a great weekend!

Oh, and by the way, my roommate and I have two pet rats, Cookie and Sheba. They provide a lot of entertainment!

Protists, Apples, and Football

The ice is melting and the people are rejoicing- no joke. The past two weeks have been going really well. I'm still really busy with homework and studying, but it seems better than last semester because I can anticipate the work load better and stay ahead of it. I have already had two tests and an art project due, and this week I will have a biology exam.

My art project was a still-life in graphite pencils of some lilies, leaves, and porcelain pot. With the hours in and out of class, I spent around 17 hours on the drawing. It wasn't like I was being pokey! In fact, I was one of the first ones done with the project. Our teacher is just very particular. When I decided what I wanted to draw off of the display our teacher had placed in the middle of the room, I thought organic shapes would give me some leniency, that I wouldn't have to have every little curve of the petal correct or the distance between two stems exact. I was wrong. It amazed me how I could spend an hour drawing a leaf, believing I had drawn it accurately before my teacher came by and within two seconds could point out a flaw. I shouldn't be complaining, though. This is going to make me a more critical drawer and able to create better pieces for my portfolio.

I was quite surprised this week when I found myself fascinated by prokaryotes and protists! My regular biology professor has been on a trip to Venezuela so his wife has actually been subbing in, and she is hilarious and awesome! She relates everything to real life either through an a weird belly button analogy of horizontal gene transfer or a quick look at how something like oomycetes caused the Irish potato famine which brought over a lot of immigrants which ended up changing the social/ethnic fabric of our nation. And it was all because of a protist. Crazy crazy. . .

Ahh, so besides school- I made some pretty sweet apple pies for an apple party (apple pie and the game apples to apples) last Saturday for the Anders house. It was a lot of fun, and people liked the pies. Sorry, Kelsey. I stole your idea. :p Instead of buying a sack of apples, I designated people from the house to collect them from the dining center over a week span. I had so many apples sitting on my desk with their sweet aroma tempting me while I worked at my computer.

This Sunday was the house Superbowl party. I borrowed a projector from the communications building so we could project the game on the wall in our kitchen/den, and everyone chipped in to bring some food for an array of classic American food- chips, chili, cookies, and pie. Don't worry, I brought some carrots and broccoli to expand the venue. haha

Have a happy Monday, and enjoy the Superbowl commercials!

Iowa State; Only the Tough Survive

I thought I knew what cold was. I thought I knew until I had to experience walking across campus in -30 degrees (not including wind chill)! Despite multiple layers and a scarf wrapped around my head, it felt like knives were being jabbed into my legs as my fingers, toes, and nose fell off. One of my friends even had her eyelashes freeze together. My refuge during the week turned out to be the heater in the girls' bathroom where I could sit and dream of summer.

Ok, enough complaining. It is back to 25 above freezing, and my first week of classes is complete. We have today off for Martin Luther King Jr. day which makes it much easier to get back into the routine of school and recover from frostbite. With 18 credits this spring, I'll be pretty busy, but I am glad to have new classes. As of right now, my favorite class is Spanish conversation. We meet twice a week and do a variety of activities that are much more interesting than those of my previous Spanish class. The professor is also more organized, and we are using an interesting text book with short movies to go along with each chapter.

Besides Spanish, I am also taking Biol., bio. lab, stats., stats. lab, music listening, drawing 2, and I am receiving a credit for my work with Professor Valenzuela and her turtle research. I will be designing a logo for ITA (Iowa Turtle Army), illustrations to go along with text, and possibly a poster. It will be great because I will have so much creative freedom and can work on the drawings at my own pace. Besides classes, I am involved in Salt Company (church service for college students on Thursday nights), a connection group, Cornerstone Church, and Spanish club. Claire, my roommate, and I have also been attending a yoga class, and I am the house's girl social chair for this semester.


This past weekend included attempted rock climbing (we had to leave because of a fire alarm and since I was in gym shorts, I decided I didn't want to wait very long out in the cold), craft night at the MU with some friends, and a free concert with the Dirty Little Rabbits in the M. Shop. I was so excited! Unfortunately, the first hour was taken up by an intro. band that was awful! The lead singer just basically screamed into the microphone with no pitch at all, and my friends and I were right by the speakers. The rest of the concert was good, and our hearing came back in about an hour after the show. My boyfriend Ryan also came to visit and the rest of the weekend has been relaxing with Anders friends and working on some homework or drawing for drawing 2.

Have a capital week!