Pictures below are from the 30th Des Moines 20K Dam to Dam with Nicole and Robert, friends from Anders House this past year. There are also some pics. from one of our cooking adventures in our apartment. Jealous? You should be. They were the most gourmet tacos I've ever had.

Apartment

A year ago I was graduating, and now I am living in my first apartment. I feel like a grown up- crazy! I am staying in Frederikson Court Apartments just north of campus with Katherine Frels from Guthrie Center and two of her college friends. We each have our own room and share a bathroom, kitchen, and living room which are furnished. The room is a little small since it is on the end of the building but perfectly fine with me, and I like all of the roommates. My summer classes start tomorrow. I'm not quite ready for the whole class and homework thing to start again, but it wont be too bad- I hope ;-)

Yesterday I went with some friends to the wedding of my connection group leader from the past school year, and on the ride back, we discussed all of the things we wanted to do this summer since we were all going to be here in Ames. We probably wont be able to get them all completed, but we plan on having a wall of sticky notes with our goals and another wall which we will use to move the sticky note along with a picture after completing the activity. One of these is to go camping- possibly on Central Campus if we can get away with it.

Yay, yay, yay, whoohoo!

My finals are complete, and although you are not here right now, I am doing a happy dance. To some societies, this is the crazy woman dance, but luckily my friends were not too alarmed since they have seen it throughout the year. Anyway, I have gone from a pitiful, stressed-out, jobless, sun-burnt, sick girlie to a care-free, still jobless, kind of tan, not so sick girlie.

The job area for this summer has been kind of rough. Since I am living in Ames and taking classes this summer, I have been searching for a part-time job.

I was not selected to be a guinea pig in a vitamin study to see if there is a correlation between carotene absorption and the amount of soy bean oil(kind of bummed but also a little relieved), and the two cafe jobs, Stomping Grounds and The Cafe, didn't work out were worth a try. The experience was also good because it forced me to finally put together a resume, and the manager from The Cafe with whom I had the interview with said to try again in a month or so to see if anything opened up. The Cafe is a really sweet restaurant, and it was cool just to talk to the manager about the business. He and the other owners really emphasize good quality food that is in season. They buy milk and meat from the Sheeder farms in Guthrie, change up their menu every couple of weeks, everything is made from scratch, and they specifically designed the restaurant to give the customers a sense of privacy to actually talk to the people they are with without being distracted by others.

Yesterday I applied to Panera Bread and JC Penny. Hopefully something works out, but for right now, I'm going to enjoy the time off and start packing up the stuff in my dorm.

Have a great weekend!

VEISHA

Beautiful weather, no homework, concerts, regurgitators, lumberjack shows. . . it was an awesome VEISHA. For those of you who don't know, VEISHA is a celebration of Iowa State University. From 1922 to today, it has become one of the biggest student-run events in the country with traditions and a events as diverse as the university itself. Unfortunately, a lot of these events and the food do cost money, but there was a lot of free stuff and my friends and I had fun just walking around campus- something that was a little difficult last year due to snow.

The concerts were pretty sweet. Friday night was battle of the bands and Saturday was Cartel, Jamey Johnson, Straylight Run, and Ludo. They were held out in the molecular biology parking lot, and despite a bunch of warnings about thunderstorms, it only rained for a little bit during the parade- and that was no biggy because my friends and I left after an hour and a half. Parades are nice, but the parade wasn't even half way done, and there are only so many trucks or cars with signs and waving people I don't know that I can take.

We also went to a talent show and saw a comedian, fire pixies, lumberjack show, and regurgiator. Ugh that was kind of gross! He swallowed goldfish, rings, a lightbulb. . . the weirdest thing was smoke which he then puffed into a soap bubble five minutes after he swallowed it. It was kind of cool, but gross at the same time. The lumberjacks had wood chopping contests, pole climbing contests, and all sorts of stuff crazy manly men like to do in plaid and suspenders. My friend Julia and I agreed they probably live in the mountains somewhere and come down during VEISHA each year in the spring to look for women folk to take back with them. very "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" without the ballet scene.

At midnight on Sat., some of us partook in a mad run from the steps of Beardshear to the Four Seasons Fountain. The first five people won t-shirts so the beginning was a little violent with people getting run into and knocked down. I was told there were some naked guys in the back of the pack, but I never saw them. My grandpa always asked if I was running after boys or I was running away from them in xc; I guess, this was one of those times I was running away from them- fast! The fire pixies were these four girls and this guy that kind of looked like a pirate that danced around with fire. It was entrancing for a while- probably because it was after 2:00 in the morning, and then I just got nervous because the crazy pirate guy kept running into the audience waving around his fire chain. Ahh. .. I just did not trust him.

So in conclusion, VEISHA was fun. I didn't get to do everything, but I'll know a little better what to expect for next year. The best part was just being able to hang out with friends and take a break from school. Oh, and I also learned that I do not want to be a traveling entertainer. But if my plans of becoming a biological illustrator don't turn out as expected, I always have the option to marry one of the lumberjack guys.