My first mortar board meeting with new members is done!   Mortar board is a senior service group and I am the president for the upcoming year so it’s going to be a busy year.  Today we got a lot of stuff out of the way like t-shirt designs and committees.  We’ve got a good group of girls, I’m really looking forward to getting to know some of those who I haven’t gotten to know well with since I’ve been at Converse.  In July I’ll be attending the national mortar board conference in Ohio.

This is the last week of classes which means exams next week.  I’ve started on my research for the summer with Dr. McCoy, I entered data in the computer for about two hours today.  The last couple weeks have actually been really good.   It’s sad because a lot of my best friends are graduating or studying abroad next semester and since I’ll be traveling all summer this is the last time that I have to hang out with them for a long time.  Parker and I went to Chuck E. Cheese earlier today because he’s in the big brothers program and we took his little brothers.  I can’t remember the last time I went to Chuck E. Cheese, but it was so much fun.  It’s not so bad that we are in school so much later than everyone else either, because I have a lot of friends in Spartanburg so when they come home from college I get a chance to see them before I go off for a while.  I will be spending some time in Spartanburg this summer to work on research with Dr. McCoy, so this will be the first summer that I haven’t been at least 2000 miles away for 99% of the summer.  I’m looking forward to spending time with my family as well, I know my mom is excited that I’ll be home for more than 2 days this summer. 

Classes have been pretty fun lately as well.  We had group presentations in music and social change in the 1960’s and our group had rural eastern North Carolina so we all dressed up and performed a skit.  I wish we had taken pictures but unfortunately it slipped all of our minds.  I’m going to get some rest but I will update everyone with pictures very soon.

Spring break was amazing.  I went to the Caribbean with my twin sister to visit my aunt and uncle.  The plane ride was short (one of my favorite things since a trip out west takes about 4 hours and it only took 3 hours to get to the Caribbean).  Everything about the islands was amazing.  The water was crystal clear and the people were nice as can be. I woke up early every morning to go out on the beach, or to go sea kayaking.  The waves were really rough so my snorkeling adventure didn’t make it past testing my gear in the pool.  I actually read books for pleasure, which is something I don’t get to do much at school anymore because I’ve got so much going on.  The seafood was delicious, I got to eat conch and lobster that my uncle had caught himself.  We tried out many of the local restaurants which were also delicious.  The weather was so perfect that we ate outside everywhere we went, including at my aunt and uncle’s house. 

I flew home a couple of days early in order to drive to Spartanburg on Friday to ride down to Georgia with my professors and a couple of classmates in order to present our research at an undergraduate conference.  Coming home early from spring break was well worth it, just for that experience.  I’m not sure where else students travel with four of their department professors in a van and have as much fun as we had on the car ride alone.  We laughed the whole way there and played 21 questions to pass the time.  We stayed in a hotel Friday night and presented our research on Saturday morning.  I have terrible stage fright but I got through it and it wasn’t AS BAD as I thought it would be, ha.

I got to go home Saturday night and spent some time with my best friend Diana.  It was also good to see my mom and little brother (with his cast) even if it was brief.   I even flew in the day of my brother’s birthday so I got to celebrate that with him.  The first week back from spring break we had to turn in our 25 page thesis paper for senior seminar, which was SUCH a relief.   I had to present my research on last Thursday and had to answer questions from my classmates for 30 minutes, talk about nerve racking.  The weekend before this past one I went to Raleigh to one of my best friends formals in Richmond, Va.  It was so much fun.  We never see each other since we don’t go home much and he’s going to be in Raleigh all summer so it was nice to see him.  The formal was on a river boat, which was unlike any other dance I had ever been to before.

I better get some rest, I’ve been feeling sick for the past couple of days… hope I’m not coming down with anything.

Oh man.   I waited to write about this in my blog because I was really upset about it when it happened and I needed to stop worrying.  My mom called me on Sunday night and sounded distraught and told me that my 11 year old brother broke his leg.  Apparently he was at a roller skating party and fell and broke his tibia about 6 inches above his ankle.  Usually my mom is really calm about these types of things and I’m the one that worries, or she tries to hide it because she doesn’t want me to worry, but she sounded a lot more upset than she usually would.  I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal because children break bones all the time, but unfortunately due to my brothers condition it was a lot harder to deal with.  He was diagnosed with scleroderma when he was 8 years old, which is an autoimmune disease that causes hardening of tissues (mostly skin) due to an overproduction of collagen.  He goes to the doctor in Charleston once every couple of months to have checkups and takes a lot of medicine and goes to physical therapy which allow him to function normally, the only problem in the emergency room was administering pain medicine and putting an iv in his arms because his disease causes his veins to be hard and they broke/tore whenever they tried to stick the needles in.  They weren’t sure what to do but finally got some pain medicine into him after a couple of hours and kept him over night in order to keep an eye on him.  He has a cast now and is home safe and sound, just in a lot of pain, but it certainly was scary when it was happening.

Relay for life is coming up pretty soon (the week after spring break) so everyone has been trying to raise money for the cause.  I joined Mortar Board’s team to help raise money (my page) and have also been trying to participate in all of the other fundraisers on campus.  Last week several faculty and teachers volunteered to do some outrageous things and faculty and students put money in the cups of the teacher/faculty member that they wanted to have to do those things, and the top 3 had to.  So yesterday Eddie, one of the maintenance men, wore a purple dress with pantyhose, high heels, makeup, carried around a handbag and still went about his job like normal, it was hilarious!  Luckily I found him to take a picture and Sally and Donna from the President’s office got one too.  Dr. Mendez made her hair purple and styled it into a mohawk; I went looking for her to take a picture but unfortunately I couldn’t find her.  Today Dr. Baker was little bo peep and wore a purple dress and blonde wig (I think I may have spotted some sparkly lip gloss… but don’t quote me on that one ;)) Abby was dressed up as a sheep… adorable.

Everyone try to come out and purchase a chic-fil-a sandwich on Thursday around lunch time in Montgomery for $5 (and hopefully they’ll have the sweet cow costume again).  Also, if you come out to Mutt’s barbecue on Thursday night from 4 to 10, 10% of the proceeds will be going to relay for life as well as all the tips (Converse girls will be serving!).

Over the past few weeks I’ve been playing intramural volleyball, so far we’ve lost 2 games and won one game.  I’ve never played volleyball until now… but I really need some work… because I am terrified of the ball.  It’s a ton of fun though since we have t-shirts for the whole team (we’re the Trojan mini-horses) and Dr. Keen is on our team.  We took a team photo (I’m wearing my leprechaun headband for St. Patrick’s Day).

On the topic of reading, we have a psychology book club every semester and the teachers nominate the book fall semester and the students nominate the book in the spring.  (Since I’ve been here I’ve read “A Beautiful Mind,” “Girl, Interrupted,” and “A Whole New Mind” for the book club).  This semester I suggested that we read “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky.  The students voted and it won, so I’m extremely excited.  I read this book on the plane ride home from Arizona a couple of summers ago and it instantly became one of my favorite books.  I had to give it to all of my best friends and URGE them to read it as soon as they could because it was so incredibly moving.  The book was just so inspiring and one of the quotes from it really expressed how I felt in terms of the book (the main character writing is referring to music but this is how I feel about the book), "I hope the people who wrote those songs are happy.  I hope that they feel it's enough.  I really do because they've made me happy.  And I'm only one person."  The book is set up as a series of letters sent to an anonymous reader by a boy named Charlie, a freshman in high school who is struggling with many issues that adolescents have to face.  Many of the points made in the book seem so obvious but are things we never really stop to think about.  While I’m recommending books I also took a lot out of “The Little Prince” (it’s a short read and if you speak French you can practice your French by reading the original version… or just get the English one :P).  

Off the topic of reading, our wild Wednesday event last week was speed dating!  It was an absolute blast.   About 25 guys showed up to participate (from USC Upstate, Queens University in Charlotte, and Wofford).  We had somewhere around a hundred (I think even more than that) girls show up.  The guys sat around the tables and girls would rotate (sitting across from them) and talk to them for 1 minute and 30 seconds and then move to the next guy to have a short chat.  It was a good way to introduce people from different schools.  Most everyone told me that had a blast.

My twin sister, Baxter, came to visit me this weekend (the one that most people deny exists or refuse to believe we’re related when they do meet her).  She came down from Charlotte to go to the Black and Gold Ball at Wofford since she’s never stayed the night here and we hadn’t seen each other in ages.  Our cousin Amanda came from Columbia to see us and go to the dance as well.  The dance was a ton of fun and I’m so happy that she came down.

I must get back to my life of reading now, so farewell until next time! 

Nothing like feeling like you’re finally getting a hold of your work load and then catching the flu.  I thought I was in the clear considering most of my good friends had the flu weeks before now and I hadn’t shown any signs of it, but I was very wrong.  Sunday was when the symptoms were most apparent and yesterday they were certainly at their worst with my temperature reaching 101.5 and rising.  The worst part about the flu is it’s not like you can lie in your bed and get stuff done, the excruciating headache mixed with the intense heat (along with intense cold at the same time) make it impossible to concentrate on anything.  I always forget how miserable the flu really is until I actually have it.  I was finally able to get some work done tonight and I will hopefully be able to attend class tomorrow.  I hate missing class more than anything.

Valentine’s Day ended up going very nicely.  Allison, Jessica, Maggie, and I made cupcakes at our friend Parker’s apartment.  They were delicious!  Afterwards we saw “Definitely, maybe” which I highly recommend… I even cried during the movie which doesn’t happen very often.  I gave out pirate bobble head valentines for Valentine’s Day  and received some awesome cards from friends as well.  I was happy to be reminded of the fact that you can appreciate your friends on Valentine’s Day too.

I watched my first Rugby game ever.  That is an intense sport.  I don’t know what I would do if I had a boyfriend that played rugby… pray for his life every night, that’s for sure.  Coastal Carolina played Furman in Rugby on Saturday and my friend Allison has some friends that play for coastal so we went to Furman to watch the game. Every play we were like oh my gosh oh my gosh are they okay?  I don’t think I can claim that I have experienced any type of pain until I have played rugby.  Every time someone gets tackled with the ball it’s like a dog pile… faces are getting stomped on, arms are getting bent in ways they aren’t supposed to bend, it’s insane.  Furman ended up winning but it was a close game.

I better get rest now so that I can get rid of this awful flu.

Sooo… its almost Valentine’s day.  Blah… don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind not being in a relationship at all.  At this point in my life I know that focusing my time on my friends and school is a priority but something about Valentine’s day makes me feel like I’m going to be alone forever.  So Jessica (my roommate), Allison, maybe Mary-Linton, and I are going to see “Definitely, maybe” which comes out on Valentine’s day and we also bought heart shaped cupcake cups with funfetti cupcake mix and icing, mmm.  I’ve been listening to the new Jack Johnson c.d. (sleep through the static) a lot lately and I really do like it.  It’s a lot slower than I thought it would be but I love the lyrics in most of the songs.  I highly recommend it.

Tomorrow we have a comedian, Dan Cummins, coming for wild Wednesday.  From what I’ve seen and heard he’s pretty good so I’m looking forward to this event since our last few have been so much fun.  Last week we had a celebration for mardi gras and we had a mask making competition… I didn’t win but I had a fun time attempting to be crafty!

 January was the month for birthdays… I can’t count how many birthday celebrations we’ve had in the past 2 weeks.  We had a birthday celebration for my suitemate, Jenni, last Monday; we decorated the room and got cake for her… not to mention her mom made the most delicious chocolate cake ever.  Two days later we all went out for 2 of our other friend’s birthdays and celebrated the three of their birthdays.  Those were the most recent birthdays that I attended.

We’ve had student activity events out the wazoo… so I’ve been trying to attend them as much as I can.  My personal favorites this month have been trivia and $5 prom.  Unfortunately we didn’t get the turn out that we would have liked for the $5 prom but it was still a blast dressing up and going with friends.  For those of you that don’t know what $5 prom is, it’s a dance (well prom… yeah) and you buy something for $5 to wear to it (basically something really tacky).  We bought all of our outfits at goodwill… let me tell you, they have some pretty sweet dresses.  Trivia night had a pretty good turnout, our team didn’t win but we had a good time playing and to top off the night it started snowing during trivia!  After trivia was over a couple of our friends came over from Wofford and we went over to the hill next to the soccer field and slid on plastic bags in the snow for about an hour.  We had a snow day that next day, which I won’t lie, was a pretty pleasant surprise… an unexpected break can be very nice.

I played on my suitemates basketball team for intramurals, we were the magical marlins (my roommate has this thing for marlins… we’ve joked about it ever since we found out so the team name was only appropriate).  We lost our first game but won our last one with something like 24-4… (I apologize if I’m off on the score and not giving the other team credit) but it was nice considering the senior team demolished us.

Recently I’ve been obsessed with the baby rats that have been multiplying amongst our lab rats.  For psychology of learning we have to have lab rats, well I guess this year’s got a little out of hand and I believe there are somewhere around 70 baby rats in the rat room.  I keep taking my friends to show them the baby rats and I go on about them to everyone else but most of my friends just keep telling me they’re gross and not to talk about them anymore… but that doesn’t stop me, because I think they’re adorable.  You can be the judge of their adorableness…

The past two weekends I have gone to Columbia.  One of the big reasons that I went to Columbia the weekend before last was to visit some friends who just had a close friends pass away.  I met her a few times when she would visit mutual friends at Wofford, but I didn’t know her well.  She was studying abroad and was out running and had a heart attack and died.  Absolutely tragic.  I just can’t imagine.  My thoughts and prayers go out to all of her friends and family.  I really wanted to spend time with Amanda because I know what it’s like to lose a close friend and I wouldn’t wish that pain upon anyone.  Sorry to end on such a sad note, things like this just really bring on a whole new perspective to life.

Right before the break my roommate and suitemates all took a trip out to hollywild to see the holiday lights and play with the animals. First you drive through the zoo and look at all of the decorations and lights and then you get to drive through the deer park.. deer come up to your car and you feed them and a zebra even came up and stuck his head in the window!!

After the deer park we got to go to the petting zoo that has billy goats, camels, buffalo, cows, llamas, alpacas, and a few other awesome animals that we got to feed and play with.  

I’ve never been to such an awesome petting zoo.

Christmas break was so much fun. At the beginning of the break I went to the mountains with some friends from Wofford and some of their friends from Rock Hill. We went to pigeon forge and stayed in an amazing house.

It snowed a tiny bit on our way up the mountain but the snow didn’t last long. There was a game room with a pool table, foosball, and a video game machine that had pacman, frogger, galaga, and a few other games that I haven’t played in years. When we weren’t out venturing around the mountain we played catch phrase a lot. I spent about a week and a half at home, in charlotte, with my family. I got a chance to hang out with my twin sister a lot and make a gingerbread house with my little brother.

A lot of family came to town that I haven’t seen in a while it was nice to be able to hang out with them for so long, since I always spent so much time with them when I was younger and we’re all so busy now that we’re older.

I flew out to Arizona on the 28^th to visit some family, particularly my cousin home from the marines, for the new year. My dad lives out there so I’ve been traveling to Arizona and California every summer and Christmas since I was about 6. I’ve made some really good friends out there and I don’t get to see them for 6 months at a time so it’s always an exciting reunion. I spent new years eve with my cousins and my friends out there and it couldn’t have been better.

I always think to myself how I wish it was a road trip away because I miss everyone here so badly but I never want to leave them. I’m really grateful that I got to see them for the short time that I was out there though. I got back to charlotte the day I had to head back to school.

I spent a lot of time with my roommate and suitemates this weekend since Jessica is flying away on Wednesday. We went ice skating on Saturday night which didn’t end as planned.

I should explain, I LOVE LOVE LOVE ice skating. My cousins (out west) and I used to always go ice skating and we would joke around trying to do figure skating moves which of course we looked ridiculous doing.. (jumping, going under the legs, and spinning was about all I got down). So I joked with my roommates about my ice skating skills (blades of glory anyone?). So we got there and I did a few little jumps and pulled Jessica around while I skated pretty fast… the end of ice skating was nearing and I was going to go for a jump as high as I could (dumb I know) so I sped up and went to jump and my stopper hit the ice and I dove into it, with my hip bone hitting the ice first.

The hip was the worst pain, followed by the semi whip lash in my neck, followed by the pain it caused my head and then my knees hitting. All I could do was laugh and lay with ice shavings all over me… I got up and lifted my shirt to see that my hip was scraped up pretty badly and then it started bleeding which was the worst part because I have a hard time dealing with blood so Maggie got me a bandaid, Jessica took my skates off for me, and I got a slushie and was semi all better. My hip is looking pretty nasty and I woke up with a terrible pain in my neck but I didn’t cry! Haha. My ice skating career (hehe) is over… but I was being foolish so I learned my lesson.

I spent the weekend before thanksgiving in the mountains in Tennessee with a bunch of my friends.  Most of the fraternities at Wofford take a trip to the mountains every year, last year it was in Boone, this year it was in Butler, Tennessee.  Three of my good friends from Converse came along including: Mandie (my little sis), Elizabeth (who transferred from Clemson), and my friend Ariana, who’s dating one of my good friends that is in the fraternity.  

It was a lot less cold than we had expected, which was a pleasant surprise.  A light jacket was sufficient whenever we were outside.  Butler, Tennessee is a tiny town but it was absolutely breath taking.  The cabins were equally as beautiful, we stayed at a resort called “Sugar Hollow Retreat” and the main lodge housed most of the people on the trip.

 
(elizabeth and I pulled those rocking chairs out there to eat sunflower seeds, haha).

They rented another cabin a short ways up, at the top of the mountain, which is where Elizabeth and I stayed (in bunk beds! ha).  We got there at around 7:30 on Friday night and ate dinner, after dinner everyone just hung out and played a variety of games and went to bed pretty early.  Saturday morning we woke up at 8:30 and went out searching for a store to buy bacon and eggs, we ended up getting lost and turning around though (eventually we went back out and found a tiny convenient store... did I mention the nearest restaurant was 30 minutes away?) after making breakfast a bunch of us hung out on the porch and I played corn hole (which I'm AWFUL at) and some people played horse shoes.  Throughout the day we spotted several deer (and one doe!).  After lunch we went out on a trail, but I soon got scared and turned around due to several gun shots and various forms of wildlife I was afraid would come out... especially after the traumatizing experience from earlier (you may want to skip the next few lines if you’re not a fan of hunting).  Saturday morning when we were driving around looking for a store we stopped because there was an open field and a deer was running through it (towards us) so we rolled down the window and we were admiring the deer and our friend pointed out that it had antlers and then BAM it got shot.  I know that hunting is a common activity in the mountains but I wasn’t expecting that so it was kind of heartbreaking, not to mention scary that the gun shot was essentially coming towards us (since the deer was coming towards us) so I was frightened for a good portion of the rest of the trip, ha.  We woke up early Sunday morning to head back to Spartanburg because Elizabeth had to go to work and I had some school work to get done. 

In the past two weeks 3 of my good friends have had their birthdays-my suitemate, Maggie, one of my best friends, Katherine, and most recently my roommate, Jessica.

We decided to celebrate their birthdays the Monday we got back from Thanksgiving break by going out to a new restaurant in town called Brasserie-ecosse.  The food was excellent and afterwards we had a cookie cake (because everyone loves cookie cake). 

Currently I feel awful. I’ve been sick since the beginning of the week; it started off as what I just thought were my allergies acting up and has turned into an excruciating headache, earache, and sore throat. I went to the nurse today and she gave me some medicine to take which will hopefully work, although my head and ears are still killing me. I hate to miss class, especially during the last two weeks so I’m going to try to suck it up and attend. I’m going to try to get some rest now though, good night all.

A few Wednesdays ago we had a performer play in Loafers here at Converse.

His name is Nick Motil, he was awesome.  So anyway, the last wild Wednesday was the 80’s skate party, we rented out the skate palace and everyone got in for free.  Katherine made an 80’s playlist (with everything from Journey to Michael Jackson!... well and the hokey pokey and the chicken dance for the skating rink sake), there’s nothing I love more than 80’s music and skating.

We had 60 people show up to our event and so many people dressed in 80’s attire.  Mortar board (an organization on campus) even cancelled their meeting that night so that they could come to the skate party. Next wild wednesday will be the male auction!

Thanksgiving is coming up and I feel so much better about all of my classes at this point.  I had a test in history and philosophy that I studied so much for and when I took it I felt like I knew none of the answers.  I ended up getting an A on the test which was the high light of last week.  I got my moral relativism presentation over with and that went really well also.  I had a test in child abuse and neglect last week so I’ll probably be getting that back tomorrow.  I entered all of the data from the surveys for my research into the program designed for that type of stuff, now I’m just working on the actual paper and reading a million articles from psychology journals.

This past weekend I went to swamp water at Wofford.  A fraternity at Wofford (SAE) covers their entire house in kudzu

 (yes that is a house under all that kudzu) and everyone dresses in camo

and they have a band.  I went my freshmen year and some friends of mine really wanted to go this year so we went and had a blast.  On Saturday I went out to Greenville to watch the soccer players from Wofford play their last game against Furman.   Unfortunately they lost 2-0, but we cheered and froze, ha.  On Sunday I got a lot of work done and then my friend Parker came over and we played touch football with his little brothers and our friend Elizabeth.

For the first time in a long time I won’t have any tests or presentations this week (just one quiz on Thursday) so I’ll have a lot more free time (to write in my blog, haha).

I went to the play this weekend “some girl(s)” which I loved and it reminded me a lot of him, guess that’s why it’s been on my mind. The play is about this guy that is about to get married so he goes back to try to reconcile past relationships that he left on bad terms… but he still doesn’t give them the answers they had hoped for and all he has are his words.. which can’t equate to actions. I thought it was funny in the play that the character mentioned something about never saying much when he split because he’d rather have a clean break than a messy one but to me it seems as though the break is messy if you don’t talk about the reasons. I love the movie “little black book” and one of my favorite quotes from that movie is: "And who am I trying to kid, you know? A clean break is easier, you can reset it and it heals and you move on, but if you leave things messy or things don't get put right, then it just hurts... forever."

So where am I at now? I’m happy being single. My friends used to jokingly call me “asexual” because it never seems that I like anyone, I just like things the way they are. Being so busy with school I want to have time for my friends and I don’t think that I could give them that if I had a boyfriend right now. Eventually the right person will come along, until then I’m happy where I am.

I’ve mentioned my research several times but I haven’t really gotten into it. For the honors program I’m doing research this semester with Dr. McCoy. The subject of our research is mandated reporting for abused children. There are mandated reporting laws in every state and each state lists required mandated reporters. In this research we are interested in teachers’ knowledge of the law and their ability to recognize different types of abuse because teachers are some of the most likely to be exposed to abused children. We’re in the process of collecting data so hopefully I’ll be able to report back soon with more about my research!

This past weekend some of the organizations at Converse had a Halloween party at the alumni house and they had a haunted house upstairs. A bunch of us dressed up and went to the haunted house, which was a blast.

The rest of the weekend I just studied for a big test on Tuesday, worked on my moral relativism presentation, and went to the play like I mentioned earlier.

Last weekend I finally had time to go out of town. I went with my friend Elizabeth who transferred here from Clemson and is from Greenville. We went to her brother’s football game at Christ Church and then headed on to Clemson.

On Saturday we went to Clemson’s homecoming game against central Michigan and Clemson won! I should probably get back to studying now.

Another great thing about the concert is that Hanson is doing the “walk tour.”  They are promoting Tom’s shoes, which is quite the coincidence because if you look at my favorite links I have that one up there.  My friend moved out to L.A. this past summer to work for Tom’s shoes.  For each pair of Tom’s shoes that you buy another pair is given to a child in need.  The next shoe drop will be in Africa so it was a nice surprise to hear that Hanson is involved with this cause and will be joining tom’s shoes for the shoe drop in November.

We got to meet Hanson after the show and I told them how amazing it is that they are supporting this cause.  And we got autographs and a picture with Zac!

This past weekend was Wofford’s fall formal and a bunch of my friends and I went.

A lot of my friends were home from school for fall break so it was nice to see everyone.  It was a blast… I love to dance!!

It was also fall for Greenville, which is a festival in down town Greenville.   Katherine is from Greenville and she asked if I wanted to go with her because the Working Title was playing Saturday night (who also played for us at Converse!) and I was stoked. 

Chevelle, Katherine, and I all went together.

I’ve been to plenty of festivals in downtown Charlotte and none have been as amazing as this… as far as food goes.  They had everything from Mexican to Thai to Japanese.  Not to mention I had never seen the park in downtown Greenville until then and it is absolutely breath taking.

The last few days I’ve just been working on my research and reading and catching up on rest.  This weekend I’m going to Clemson for homecoming with Elizabeth who transferred here from Clemson.

I was on the phone with my mom earlier and I was telling her how busy I am this week… which reminded me that that is a common theme in my life lately… busy.  The weekend before last I attended the NACA (National Association for Campus Activities) in Charleston, South Carolina.  Because I am on the student activities committee I had the opportunity to attend this conference along with two other students and two staff members.  The conference consisted of educational sessions in which you can learn about many different aspects of the social environment at college.  After the educational sessions we attended “showcases” which were 15 minutes segments with acts ranging from musicians to magicians that performed for us.  After the showcases there was a marketplace that we attended at the end of the night (on both Friday and Saturday) where we could visit the booths of the performers as well as other booths set up with campus activities.  There were some amazing artists there; one lady drew a “butt sketch” for me,

Another woman cut out people’s silhouettes in less than two minutes!

Katie had her arm painted at one of the stands,

And there were so many other cool booths that offered these fun activities.  We watched some amazing performances and got the artists’ contact information so that we can possibly bring them to Converse to expand our campus activities.

We also got to meet Kyle Cease, the guy that played Bogie Lowenstein in “10 Things I hate about you” which is one of my all time favorite movies.

We even ran into Brenn, a band that we had at Converse for back to school bash, and we had a chance to hang out with them.

Last week Dr. McCoy and I finalized the surveys for our research and it was approved by the IRB, so we’re getting somewhere!

Last weekend was bid day at Wofford, this is when the fraternities give out their bids to the freshmen and others that decided to rush.  A bunch of friends from converse and I tie dyed t-shirts together and all went over to show our support.  I’ve been for the past three years and it has always been a blast (if you don’t mind a little mud).

I had a huge child abuse and neglect test today, I hope I did well… parts were a little bit more tough than I had imagined, but we’ll see… I never like to predict how well I think that I did on a test.  I also went to the children’s shelter for the first time today to help the children with homework and it was a wonderful experience.  I look forward to returning.

The rest of the week is going to be pretty busy, but tomorrow is kickball in the quad for wild Wednesday.  We paired up with the honor board for honor emphasis week and we’re having a kickball tournament from 5:45 until 7ish… I’m pretty pumped, I don’t know when the last time I played kickball was but I love it!

(one last note- everyone remember to vote for the new converse mascot!.. this is so suspenseful).

After dinner we hurried to the concert which was PACKED.  I have never seen as many people at Verizon wireless amphitheatre as I did that night.  We met up with some friends from Converse as well as some friends from Wofford while we were there.

We had lawn seats so Dave looked pretty small, but the music was amazing so it was all the same to us.  On the way back to Spartanburg we road next to a huge tour bus with the fire dancer on it and convinced ourselves that it was Dave Matthews’ van… that’s the closest thing we’ve got to meeting him, ha.

Big Sis/Little Sis week has come and gone.  Big Sis/Little Sis is a tradition we have at Converse in which the juniors form groups and are “big sisters” to the incoming freshmen class.  Our group was “Devils are a Girl’s Best Friend.”  Each night of the week has a different theme for gifts that the big sisters give to their little sisters.  Because our class year’s mascot is Richard the Devil the main color is red.  Sunday night was everything red (we give them their tails, devils horns, and t-shirts on this night), Monday was kitchen night, Tuesday was bath night, and Wednesday was school supply night.  We decorated the entire campus with red and white streamers, balloons, and we even forked the quad with red forks (and a huge sign that read “09/11” in the middle for our graduation years). Each of the big sister groups performed skits on Tuesday for the freshmen to watch…

Ours was a compilation of silly dances including an opening dance to the song “Best Friends” by Brandy, a dance for grease, an 80’s dance, the soulja boy dance, and last we concluded that “I’ll be there for you” was the best dance for our little sisters.

Thursday night was the revealing ceremony.  Our group had all of our little sisters get in a line and close their eyes and at the count of three they got to turn around and find out who their big sisters were.  Most of us gave our little sisters flowers.

My little sister is Mandie Elieff J.  She plays soccer here at Converse.

Have we really come this far?  This school year has come on full force… in a good way.  I can safely say that I have had zero time to be idle, and that’s how I like it.  I’ll have to rewind in order to even touch on the events that have occurred in the first few weeks back at Converse.

Jason Mraz, The Working Title, and Doug Jones performed at Converse this past weekend… no words can describe how pleased I am with the outcome of the concert.  I worked for the concert that we held last year, Better than Ezra and Ingram Hill, and loved it so I gladly worked for this year’s concert as well, and it really was a once in a life time experience… these events are intended to get people involved at Converse and to bring a diverse bunch of people together for a great time.  We hung fliers for the concert from Charleston to Charlotte to draw a crowd, and campus life as well as the many of the other staff members put in so much work and time to give us such an amazing an event… did I mention that The Working Title is one of my favorite bands?  I’m also a big fan of Jason Mraz thanks to my roommate my freshmen year who introduced me to Mr. A-Z.  I never dreamt that I would get to meet any of these people… but apparently hard work really pays off.

The concert this year was on back campus as opposed to last year where it was held in Twichell Auditorium.  We couldn’t have asked for a better day than the day of the concert.  We had been really concerned about rain but the weather ended up being perfect—sunny and 80’s.

 The students that signed up to work the concert got to work backstage for the event.  In order for everyone to get a chance to see the performance as well as behind the scenes we were all split up into three groups that rotated in about 45 minute intervals.   I had the privilege of riding with Rhonda Mingo to take Jason Mraz and his band back to the hotel where they had to stop and get a few things before heading back to Converse.  I was very intimidated by Jason Mraz at first… I never know what a celebrity is going to really be like… and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself because I tend to be a really friendly person, but I don’t take rejection well so I didn’t say much at first.. I actually started talking to the drummer on the ride to the hotel which made me feel more at ease and he told me that he was sure that Jason Mraz would gladly take a picture with me… which made me feel worlds better.

On the way back to the hotel I heard Dean Molly on the walkie talkie with Rhonda asking where I was because I was going to be introducing the next band, after my suite mate Maggie introduced Doug Jones.

This was one of those moments where you’re so excited but so nervous at the same time.. I have terrible stage fright but couldn’t pass up such an amazing opportunity.  Not only did I get to get on stage and introduce The Working Title, but Maggie and I got to get on stage together and introduce Jason Mraz!

The performances were all spectacular and the artists were equally agreeable.  A lot of my friends came out to support the concert...

As if the concert wasn’t good enough, the night before Converse held Casino night which was a huge hit.  Campus life turned the upstairs and downstairs of Phifer into a casino and we were given a certain amount of chips when we came in and we could cash them in for tickets at the end, for every one thousand dollars in chips you got a ticket and you could put the ticket in whichever raffle you wanted to be entered in, some of the prizes included a 15 inch flat screen tv, a Nintendo wii, an ipod shuffle and much more.  I didn’t win anything but it was well worth it.

Earlier in the week Sarah Schiff and I hosted Wild Wednesday—BINGO in Gee Dining Hall. 

The prizes weren’t quite as cool as a Nintendo wii but we still had a great time and a great turnout.

I could go on forever with events, my research, classes, and work but I’ll leave you with my fun filled week for now. J