Lazy Saturday

Today I really should be spending all my time reading and writing about color-blind racism for my Multicultural Issues in Student Affairs class. But I’m not. Instead I’m…

1. Recovering from an awesome lock-in retreat for my fabulous AOLP students. I love them, but sleeping for approximately 3 hours on a love seat while listening to them go on about A&M debut in the SEC next year left me tuckered out! When I got home this morning, I slept from 7:30 until 1…

2011-2012 AOLP Execs

Execs and OLMs from the Blue Toad team skitting it up last night

2. Catching up on my John & Hank Green videos. These YouTube celebs make vlogs about random observations, but have also recently branched off into a few other YouTube channels about trivia, world history & biology, and general science. Watching them reminds me of my childhood days of Bill Nye on PBS. I just always feel smarter after a marathon of Green Brothers’ videos!

Plus these guys have awesome taste and lead you to great new internet discoveries, such as this mini-documentary about the Salton Sea in Califonia.

3. Watching some MU/ku hoops. It’s the final scheduled match-up between Mizzou and our rivals, Kansas. Go Tigers! (It was 44-32 at half time. Largest half-time deficit in 5 years at Kansas!)

4. Getting mentally prepared to cover myself in blue paint and get some free Blue Baker for dinner! Looking forward to tonight’s homegroup hangout.

Racism can wait until tomorrow.

Reflecting back: 1-year anniversary of interviewing at A&M

This week marks the one year anniversary of my SAAHE interview conference (when I came and interviewed for grad school).

It’s weird to think back to a year ago and the emotions I was facing. I was so nervous and unsure. I wanted to get into A&M so badly.

The interview conference was stressful and intimidating, though also fun. I thought I was hot student-affairs-stuff when I came to the conference, but it turned out so was everyone else. I left the interview feeling good but also nervous.

And then there was the whole plane fiasco on the way home, which perfectly embodies Texas Monthly’s over story for March:

I luv Southwest!

And then there was the day I found out what I would be doing for the next two years. The day it snowed. The opening day of True/False 2011. The day Amanda Craven watched me jump around my basement apartment with excitement. The day Kelli told me, “You impressed the pants off of us,” and “We were able to match your #1 choice with New Student Programs, and you were their #1 choice.” The day I told Kelli, “I accept! Yes, right now!” Best day.

My "life deciding party" after accepting my offer to A&M

And now we’re here, a year later. I’m nearly 3/8 done with grad school. I’m working in what I considered at the time to be my “dream assistantship” (it has been pretty great…). I’m hosting two of my own SAAHE candidates. It wasn’t that long ago that I was in their shoes.  It makes me wonder where I’ll be in a year! (Job searching, most likely. Yikes!)

PS: Fun side fact! When I interviewed at A&M, we took a campus tour lead by a student named Gabe. He is now one of the primary students I advise! Yay!

Texas is jealous of my love for Missouri

So remember that time I moved away from Mizzou back to Texas and how excited I was about that? Remember how I craved Texas? Remember how I obsessed about Texas A&M? WELL THE HONEYMOON PERIOD IS OVER, Y’ALL.

I mean, not really. I honestly do love Texas and wouldn’t trade being here for the world, but seriously, Texas is getting a little jealous and territorial, and I’m feeling a little smothered. IT WON’T LET ME CONNECT WITH MISSOURI. Some examples:

1. Homecoming
This year was Mizzou’s 100th Homecoming, and it was a big, freaking deal. I was trying to make every plan to go back to Missouri for the occasion, but it never came through, and the cherry on top was the fact that I had to work New Family Welcome that weekend. The fates did not want me to return to CoMO.

2. Mizzou vs. A&M (football)
The Tigers came to town at the end of October to play the Aggies. Along with the team came some of my good friends from Mizzou. Did I get to go to that game? Was I even in town that weekend? NO. Again for work, though this time it was for an all-expenses-paid trip to New Orleans, so I can only complain so much.

3. Mizzou vs. A&M (basketball)
The #3 ranked Missouri Tigers are coming to town to face off  against A&M this weekend. And I had the opportunity to go for free because I signed up for The Big Event. I, however, will be in Oklahoma City. For work. CRUEL WORLD.

4. Mizzou vs. A&M (baseball)
Our homegroup could possibly be going to Austin that weekend. This is just getting ridiculous.

5. Spring Break
I have the time off, but because Columbia is 2 hours from an airport and I don’t want to pay for a shuttle/spend my entire week there, I’m not going to visit. Besides, all my friends would be in school because we have different spring breaks. Womp womp.

But we haven’t even gotten to the pièce de résistance yet. Oh no. That’s what went down tonight. It’s a little different because it isn’t necessarily Texas keeping me away from Missouri… I mean in a way it is, but it’s almost like Missouri is trying to entice me and Texas is rubbing it in my face that I can’t make it work. Rude.

6. The Rocket Summer
I love The Rocket Summer. Everyone knows Bryce Avery is my favorite artist ever. I count him among the influential people in my life. I’m a little obsessed. Despite this fact, I have never seen a honest-to-goodness TRS headlining show. I’ve seen Bryce twice: once when he opened for One Republic at Harding University and once when he played a solo show in Dallas. I can’t count the number of times I have missed Dallas headlining shows because I lived in Missouri at the time.

WELL NOW THE TABLES HAVE TURNED. SORT OF.
I found out tonight that The Rocket Summer and Switchfoot (another one of my faves) are touring together in April & May. Guess where they’re playing on April 26. COLUMBIA FREAKING MISSOURI. Whyyyyy, Bryce and Jon, whyyyyyy? I waited patiently for four years for you to come, and you never did. I literally talked to Bryce about The Blue Note when I met him in Arkansas. This is just cruel. I mean, it’s still not a headlining show, but seeing two awesome bands within walking distance of where I lived in MO would have been so awesome. Thankfully they’re stopping in Frisco. And even though that’s kind of far away I WILL be at that show, dangit.

So Texas, honey, I promise to stay faithful to you. I am not going anywhere. If you let me see Missouri or some Tigers, I won’t run back to Mizzou with them. Seriously. I’m here for the long haul. Can you just lighten up a little?

 

Where have I been? Where will I be?

Well hello.

It’s been a while. A long while.

My apologies for the silence. It’s been a really long past few 6 weeks or so.

I promise to give you some updates on what I’ve been up to (being sick, going to Ohio, starting my “sophomore year” of grad school, saying “no” to things to try to regain life balance, getting a new job for the fall, watching Star Trek: Voyager, following Mizzou hoops on Twitter, copy editing for Good Women Project, listening to Pixar music, etc.) eventually, but today I just want to focus on one thing that is currently taking up a lot of time in my life: the search for a summer internship.

For those of you who don’t know, I m currently pursuing a master’s degree in student affairs administration. You can read more on the Student Affairs page if you have no idea what I’m talking about. But this summer, I have to go to some other university and get an internship. Luckily for me, there are a few internship programs in place (NODA & ACUHO-I) that make my search easier. In fact, they make it a little too easy…

See, I made a map of all the places I have applied at, interviewed at so far and have been rejected from so far. You’re only allowed to preference 8 schools for NODA, but you’re unlimited for ACUHO-I. I probably went a little overboard on that one, but it’s kind of my last summer to go somewhere crazy and do something new, so I wanted to cast a wide net of opportunities. So this is what it ended up like…

View Larger Map

Blue: I have/will interview with them
Yellow: I have applied but haven’t heard anything yet
Red: I have been rejected

So yeah. I’ve spent a few hours each week interviewing with various schools for the summer. I have no idea where I’ll be this summer, but as you can see from the map, I may have a wide variety of choices if schools like me. From Hawaii to Boston, Florida to Oregon, Michigan to Austin…  who knows where I’ll be this summer! But I will keep you posted when I find out. The first day of notification is February 13. Until then, I’m going to practice some more interview questions…

I am still alive!

Hooo boy. It’s been a whirlwind two weeks since I last posted. I apologize for the radio silence, but I’ve been trying to get my life in order during the busiest time of the year for me as a proponent of campus ministry and as a future student affairs professional. Here’s a recap of my life (with more detailed posts to come in the following week or two):

My job
Work has been busy but fun. I’ve been transitioning from my summer duties of helping with New Student Conferences and planning Gig ‘Em Week to my school-year duties of advising A&M’s F1:First-Year Photo Project, teaching a First-Year Seminar (FYS) and advising part of the Aggie Orientation Leader Program. Gig ‘Em Week went really well despite the Thursday downpour that left us soaked and mud-stained during the Pizza Taste-Off. My first FYS class also went well. I was very excited to be back in the classroom in front of 20 freshmen. It reminded me a lot of my FIG teaching days, and I’m pumped to get to know my students better as they transition through their first year. F1 is the most intimidating thing in my job description. I’ve never advised a club by myself, so I’m learning on the job while my sophomore executive members are learning on the job how to run a student organization. My students seem stellar though, so I think in the end this, too, will go well.

School
Oh, school. That’s what I’m here for, right? For now, school is okay. I just finished up my first week of class, and the assignments don’t seem impossible; several of them actually sound fairly fun. My main concern is the amount of reading! I know I can handle it, but it’s going to be a lot of work. As much as I hate to admit it, I think my horrendously boring HDFS class from last fall has prepared me for grad school by familiarizing me with APA style. I am also thankful for “Journalism & Democracy,” my capstone from last spring! It was very similarly structured to my classes here in grad school, so I don’t feel like the class format is too foreign. Thanks, Dr. Hinnant!

My church
Getting involved with Smackdown has been a huge encouragement and change in my life. As much as I want to think homegroups here at A&M are the same  as canvas groups at Mizzou, they’re not. They’re structured differently, they meet differently, they’re planned differently. There are some similarities, but there are a lot of differences. This is good and difficult at times. I’m adjusting to the new things, but I’m also excited to bring my experiences at Mizzou to my new family here at A&M. I’ve jumped right into follow-up with nearly 10 girls, which has been discouraging at times, but I’m starting to see some fruit from the perseverance God has given me. If things go the way they seem to be going, Smackdown is gong to be huge this year. It’s exciting but also a little daunting. Discipleship here at A&M is much more intentional and structured than it was at Mizzou. We have a lot of girls to meet up with, and my schedule is already getting full as it is! I cling to the fact that God will provide. He will provide the girls, he will provide the time to meet up with them and he will provide the words they need to hear. It’s a little intimidating seeing the list of things that need to happen this year, but I keep repeating, “I will climb this mountain with my hands wide open.” I’m giving it to you, God, and I know you will make it beautiful!

My house
The Den is, by far, one of the best things about my life here in College Station. It is so incredibly encouraging to live with four other women on fire for God who have caught the vision of our church. It’s been a huge blessing to have roommates who serve one another and pray for each other, who listen to one another and give each other a lot of grace. They’ve made me laugh until I cry, spoken truth over me and celebrate in the small joys I share with them on a day-to-day basis. In short, my living situation is wonderful.

Missing Mizzou
There honestly isn’t too much I legitimately miss about Mizzou, the school, itself. Yes, there are a few things, but I mostly miss the people. I miss my equipping team and my canvas group a lot. It’s been hard to be away from them during what is the busiest time for campus ministries: the start of school. I feel like I should be there following up with them! Fortunately, God gave someone the brilliant idea to create Skype, which has been a blessing for keeping in touch. I’ve gotten to hear about the good and bag things about the start of the year from several of my friends, which I have loved. It’s been beautiful to see how God has grown the younger girls and how he’s using them this fall. I am pumped to see what else God has in store for them!

Life Lessons
God has been teaching me a lot. It really won’t do it justice to elaborate here, but look for future posts about how God has made us so incredible different, how we shouldn’t compare ourselves to one another, how I’m realizing my desperate need for the Lord, how my apathy is often rooted in pride and probably a thousand other things. Needless to say, God is doing work in me!

So there you go. Proof I am alive, learning things, transitioning and adjusting somewhat well. I’m going to try to blog more regularly as a means to keep in touch with my loves far away and as a way for me to continually process my life, as I am realizing more and more that I am a visual learner and processor. I need to write things out. So that’s what I’ll be doing here! In the mean time, God bless!

Dangit, Target.

You know, parts of this summer have been long. For example, the 12 Freshmen and three Transfer New Student Conferences I’ve worked.

I’ve given the same 2-minute parent check-in spiel approximately 1500 times (actually a pretty accurate estimate) this summer.*

I’ve also answered the same questions a bazillion times (imaginative estimate).**

That being said, I don’t mean to complain at all. My job is pretty much the best thing I could have ever asked for. There are just parts of my summer job description that are a little… repetitive (i.e. counting and double T-shirts every day).

So as the summer’s winding down, I’m pretty dang excited to take a few days off and head up to Colorado for a long weekend. In preparation for the trip, I went to Target today with a mission: buy new earbuds.

My 4-year-old iPod’s earbuds have been in sad shape for a while. I bought new ones last spring, only to loose the smaller cushions that actually fit my ears properly before I could change them for the cushions that came on the earbuds. So they were constantly falling out of my ears, but I made do. Until I lost an ear cushion. So then I would listen through one bud. All in all, it was a janky mess. So with a few plane and car rides ahead of my, I decided to finally suck it up and spend the $20 for new earbuds that fit properly.

But of course, you really can’t go into Target and only buy one thing. In the words of my e-migos:

Gwen's not actually an e-migo because we went to Mizzou together, but we've mostly interacted online.

Kate, however, is the paragon of an e-migo.

So yes. I ended up getting much more than earbuds. But you know what? It’s okay because everything I got is either very functional, fills a need I had or is a little treat for me surviving the repetitive parts of the past nine weeks.

my Target spoils

1. a cross-body bag
I adore cross-body bags. I’m not a huge purse-girl, but I do like to have something to stick my keys, wallet and phone in on occasion. I just like to have my hands free, and cross-body bags are perfect for this! I have an adorable teal cross-body bag just big enough for my phone, wallet and keys, but when I have a book (like when I don’t want to play laser tag) (or my Bible and journal for church), my only alternative is a brown Jansport bag. Although it’s the perfect size for stashing books, it’s not very fancy or grown-up looking. It’s pretty much a mini backpack. So when I saw this cross-body bag the minute I walked into Target, I knew I had to have it. It’s the perfect size and look for my new semi-professional life. Love.

2. earbuds
What I came in for, and they fit like a dream!

3. affordable nail polish in the summer’s hottest color.

Catherine is a fellow Mizzou J-School alum and an editorial assistant at Allure Magazine. I trust her beauty knowledge. And although my polish isn't Essie, it's the same color at half the price.

4. a tiny cosmetic bag
I have been pining after a tiny bag for hair accessories when I travel. This one’s the perfect size. Check!

So dangit, Target. You got me this time, but I forgive you. It’s the little things.

And with that, I’m off to Colorado and leaving my laptop behind. I’m pretty excited to be in the mountains, see my sister, hang out with my family, catch up with my friends and spend some time reading for fun!

See you later next week!

*“Howdy! I have a few things for you today. First off, this is a family calendar. It lists important dates such as when classes start, when breaks begin and other important dates like that that you might want to know. Next, I have our conference schedule. If you open up to the inside, we have our Day 1 and Day 2 schedule. Anything with a black dot next to it is mandatory for students. And then here on the back is a check list of some important things you might want to take care of before you leave tomorrow. Next, I have a sign up sheet for our Family Member Listserv. This is a monthly email newsletter, so if you’d like to receive that, you can fill it out and return it to the Help Desk. And then this is a flier for our New Family Welcome Weekend. It’s the weekend of the Baylor football game, so if you’d like to come back and visit your student that weekend, you can read over the flier and register for our social events online or at the Help Desk. If you need tickets to tonight’s Family Dinner or tomorrow’s Howdy Lunch, you can get those in the lines to the right or at the doors of the event. We also have parent name tags by the elevators on the way out. Any questions?”

** The Questions:

• Where is the Rudder Theater? (Go around the corner to your left. Go up the stairs, and it will be on your left.)
  
• Where is the Rudder Auditorium? (On your right.)
• Where is the help desk? (In the middle of the Zone and also in Rudder.)
• Where can I buy lunch tickets? (I just told you you could buy them in the lines to your right or at the doors of the events. Ok, I don’t actually say, “I already told you…” I’m polite and cheerful!)
• Where is 601 Rudder? (Take the elevator to the sixth floor.)
• Where is the financial aid office? (It’s in the Pavilion, right next to the SCC.)
• How do I get to the Student Computing Services? (Go out the doors and take a left. Follow the street as it curves to the left and to the right. This building here is a greenhouse. Turn left there and it should be on your right.)
• How mandatory are these programs exactly? (Well, you will be held responsible for knowing all the information given in the mandatory sessions, so you should go.)

Meanwhile, back in College Station…

It’s been a while since I wrote anything of significance about myself personally. So here’s a little catch up of what’s been going on in my life.

Must love dogs
In the past, I haven’t been the biggest supporter of dogs, mostly because my family dog, Molly, ruined all dogs for me. So it’s taken some time, but over the past year or six months, I’ve begun to warm back up to dogs.

This process was significantly sped up by the arrival of my friend Barclay‘s husky, Cobalt. It’s not that Cobalt isn’t somewhat cute, it’s just that Cobalt is the dog of one of my good friends, so I pretty much have to like him. Luckily the obligation part of liking him is slowly giving way to almost near genuine affection.The change in my feelings towards dogs has also been accelerated due to the fact that A&M’s mascot is a fluffy border collie, and I desperately want to meet her and take a photo with her.

Cobaltimore Bartlesby Bell, aka Cobalt

Reveille, the First Lady of Aggieland

*baby voice*
I have recently been surrounded by babies, which has been pretty heavenly. I love babies, so it’s been great to play with Ezra, Eva, Jackson and the babies in my church nursery. This weekend I get to go home and meet another baby, Elliot! (What’s with all the E-names this year? Must be this year’s trend.)

New and improved
I updated my “About Me” page and got a new header! You like? Now I just need to adjust my Twitter background…

Pass it back, Ags!
I met the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Yell Leaders and took a photo with them. Perks of my job/perks of my boss’s brother being a yell leader.

Thanks and gig 'em!

Awaken your wine
Today my friend and coworker Nick and I went to the Messina Hof Winery in Bryan because he likes wine, I want to learn more about it and he’s leaving Texas to go back to the Midwest in three days. $7 got us a tour of the winery, a sample wine glass and four wine tastings, though our tour guide ended up letting us try six wines since there were only four of us on the tour. The only bad thing about this whole deal was that the tour guide asked Nick and I

• if we were married
• if we were engaged
• if we wanted to get engaged
• if we wanted a room at the bed & breakfast

It was all in jest (I think), so it was more funny than awkward. I’m not entirely sure if the tour guide ever realized there were no romantic feelings between Nick and I, but despite all that, I still feel like $7 for the evening was a sweet deal. And I found out I like Port. Yum!

It all ends… 7.15
Tomorrow night I’m going to see the last Harry Potter movie. Crazy. We had a Harry Potter movie marathon and watched the first seven moves last week. It was a long 28 hours, but it was really fun.

Harry Potter was such a huge part of my junior high and high school identity. I went to several midnight book and movie releases, dressed up as Ginny Weasley more than socially acceptable, listened to Harry Potter podcasts on a weekly basis, studied for vocabulary tests using Harry-Potter-related sentences (It took me way too long to find that link)… I was a Potter-head if there ever was one.

My high school friends and I at the midnight release of the seventh book four years ago

It’s funny to think about what I did for the last several movies that came out. It’s definitely indicative of what stage of life I was in at the time…

• Order of the Phoenix: Midnight release with Caleb and Angela
• Half-Blood Prince: covered the midnight premier for the Columbia Missourian
• Deathly Hallows Part 1: watched it the Saturday after it came out and immediately left town to visit College Station when it was over
• Deathly Hallows Part 2: midnight premier with my new A&M friends

Dearly beloved
It seems that I might be reaching the life season of weddings. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending the wedding of two people in my new A&M homegroup, and this weekend I’m heading back to the DFW for my dear friend Angela’s wedding. I wonder who will be next in this season of life! (Probably Thomas & Shelby in January… but after that, who knows!)

Rocky mountain high
In just a little over a week, I will be en route to the Rocky Mountains to visit my sister and all my friends working out at the YMCA of the Rockies: Estes Park Center for Colorado LT 2011. I am beyond pumped to escape the Texas heat, hang out with my favorite (i.e. only) sister and catch up with my dear, dear Mizzou Mark Twain Canvas Group loves!

So in the end, that was still somewhat of a lame post, but at least it wasn’t about the Ambien Walrus. Maybe I’ll write something of spiritual depth and fortitude soon. Until then, this is what’s been up with me!