Mary's World

Hey everybody! SO I just got back from my first session as a counselor at Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times. I can't even begin to explain how amazing the experience was. I was there for 10 days, 3 of which were training and the other 7 with the kids. I was an activity counselor and so I spent 5 of the 7 days fishing with the kids! I was also attached to Unit 1 which is the little kids, 9-11 yrs old, and so I spent my nights hanging out with the little girls and boys. This boy, Josh, was my my absolute favorite! He has muscular dystrophy, but it doesn't show in his attitude at all. He is the most brave, ambitious, caring kid I have ever met. :)

Honestly, the best thing about camp was that no one ever even mentioned that any of the kids were, or had been sick. It was just a summer kids camp as far as I was concerned. I met so many amazing people, and I am so pumped that I am going back up on Monday to do another session. I will be back on the 20th, so I will sadly be missing Tom's 50th Birthday Luau, but I feel like its a good enough reason.

I also met another girl from Redlands at camp. She's the same year as me, so its weird that I'd never even seen her around campus, considering how small our campus and student body are. Her name is Chantall, and we ended up rooming together. Here we are!

So yeah, I will let you all know how great the next session is too! Can't wait!

♥

Hey everybody! So, I'm sorry that I never keep up with this thing. I'm having a "catch up on everything in my life" kind of summer, so I thought that maybe catching you all up is part of me catching up! So here goes!

First off, Spring semester and May term went well. I didn't end up with as many units as I would have liked, but I'm not behind on credits, and am still very much on track to graduate in 2010! Looks like there will be 3 of us graduating that year, so that'll be exciting :)

Spring was a great semester for my sorority. We got 4 new members, and they are the 4 cutest girls ever! I was elected Historian for the semester as well. Looks like that is my calling in everything I'm involved in (I was historian for 2 years in Madrigals in high school). As part of that job, I created a website for us: www.alphasigmapi.org, so check that out. I was reelected for the Fall, and was also chosen as recording secretary, and I'm so excited for the new semester to start!

Over the past year, our Greek system has been going through many drastic changes. With numerous groups having dropping grades and being caught hazing and such (not us of course), the university has had to buckle down on us. Because we are all local charters we don't have a National office to set our policies and such, and so the university has the last say in all of that. They are currently still trying to revamp the academic policy, but they have made significant changes to their policies on the pledge process. Because of this, we have spent the entire summer revamping our process. I feel so lucky to be involved in such an important change for my organization, and I know that, as always, Sigmas will be able to face the change and remain true to our roots.

So alot of my summer has been spent in driving out to Redlands for meetings about that. Other than that I have just been (unsuccessfully) job searching, and doing odd jobs here and there. Doing some yard work for my dad, office work and decorating for one of my mom's friends, Patty Baker, selling a little bit of Mary Kay, just trying to make ends meet. It has been so impossible to find work out here. I have even applied for fast food jobs, and just had no takers. Hilly has been dealing with the same problem, but we'll make it through!

A few weeks ago I got on a jury for a civil eminent domain case. The State of California (CalTrans) had sued the company that they had taken part of a commercial property from for the 91/215/60 Project. The whole thing seemed really petty to me. We had to decide between two appraisals, to figure out how much to compensate the company for the part taken, and how much the damages were to the remaining property. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why the court didn't just appoint a neutral appraiser to make the decision. It would have saved us all some time, thats for sure. But we ended up deciding in between the 2 appraisers, more on the side of the corporation, though we all agreed that they were both just being very greedy. Overall, it was a good experience, I think. Everyone should be on a jury at least once. But I hope that I don't have to do it again for a very long time :).

Next... My mom recently moved back to Illinois. She was unhappy with her job here, and felt that it would be easier for her back home, and also that she will be happier. I also think that it will be good for her to be closer to her parents and siblings. She is trying to build her Mary Kay business so that she can get out of teaching, as well. So wish her luck! I'm going to set up a blog for her soon, so that she can keep me updated easier :)

Next week I will be going off to camp! I am volunteering for 10 days at Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times as an activity counselor. A few of my friends volunteer every year, and they recruited me. I'm really excited, it's going to be a lot of fun. I'll be sure to post pictures and let you all know how that goes.

Finally: I'M GETTING READY TO START MY JUNIOR YEAR! I can't believe that I'm halfway done with college! This is going to be a big year for me, I can feel it. My class load doesn't promise to be too exciting, but also not too difficult, hopefully. But I'm really excited to get back to school. I'm moving in to the Sigma House on August 29th, and classes start on Sept. 2nd. Some people say that living in the House is not the best idea, as it can be very distracting, but I think that it will help me be more accessible to my girls, and be even more involved in Sigma.

So thats about it, I think. I'll try to keep everyone more updated now :)
♥

Here is my LONG overdue update.

It has been an eventful few weeks, let me tell you.

For starters, let me introduce you to the Dozen Doughty Daisies, my "New Member" ('cause we're not allowed to say Pledge) Class for Alpha Sigma Pi!

Well, thats 10 of our 12...
Top: Me, Morgan, Cindy, Jessie (roomie)
Bottom: Mikayla, Kelly, Amanda (roomie), Kristin, Carol, Jessica
Not Pictured: Krystal, Andreanna

So yeah, I'm officially Greek! Yay! We're in the second week of the "New Member Process" aka Pledging, and we go active on Nov. 17th. So far, we're participating in the Memory Walk for Alzheimers this Sunday, volunteering for trick-or-treating with some of the Big Brothers kids the day before Halloween, and trick-or-treating for canned goods in local neighborhoods on Halloween. So we don't have any real affiliation with any cause, we just support whatever we want to, and as many causes as we want to.

But of course, the most important part is that I love my sisters. Most of them were already my friends before I even considered pledging. On that note, let me introduce you to my Big Sis, Elisa!

I basically love her. Also, her big Mallory (my Grand Big) is one of my best friends as well. The rest of the girls are amazing too!

On a less-happy note, I just wanted to say that my thoughts go out to everyone who is being affected by the fires, or who knows someone, or anyone at all. I have a few friends from San Diego who have already been evactuated, or who's families have been evactuated, and as the fire here in San Bernardino comes over the hill, a few people I work with are evactuating as well. I would just like to say that U of R is currently at no risk from the fire, we just have really bad air conditions. So no worries there. With all of this going on, I still have to say that the fire crawling over the hill at night behind campus is one of the most eerily pretty sights I have seen. I still hope it gets contained soon, of course.

Anyways, I have to go get some more stuff done, shower, and get to sleep. I'm still really busy, even more so now, actually, but I can handle it! Love you all, and hope to see you soon!

Apparently Fall started today.

I'm not talking about calendar-wise or officially or anything

Its just windy and chilly

and most of all

if FEELS like fall

so I'm happy

Had 2 tests today

got an 87 on my Spanish quiz

don't know about programming

but I'm sure I did well

Now its time to get ready for work

and then the last informal rush party

then Jessie's friend Brett is arriving from Wyoming

Fall Break starts today

so no classes on Monday or Tuesday

I still have work tho, so I probably won't be going on any adventures

But it'll be a nice relaxing time anyways

So thats about it for now

See you all later :)

♥

So, for those of you that haven't heard, I am moving on Saturday! Yikes!

We found this out on Tuesday when my mom made the snap (and very good) decision to move into a 1 bedroom apartment in the same complex. So I will be back in the good 'ol house in Crown Town! (that's Corona, for those of you who don't speak spanish) The strange thing is going to be living in Jimmy's old room. Its actually kind of cool though, because he recently painted that room the exact color that I had been wanting to paint my room for so long! Score!

Now, overall I think this will be a good development. However, I was worried that the short notice was going to prove a problem. Wow, was I wrong!

My first worry was getting off of work on Saturday. However, it turns out that Larry, our store manager over at SB #112 is kind of amazing. He told me to find someone working an afternoon shift, such as 3-7, to trade me for my 10-3, and I could just skip the 3-7. Without any hesitation. I was floored. And it got even better, because one of my friends needs more hours, and so he allowed her to work my 10-3 and her 1-6, (making it 10-6, of course). So it worked out well for everyone! Yay!

My second worry was, of course, packing! And moving all of my furniture, including my recently acquired HUGE and HEAVY queen-sized bed, all the way back to Corona. However, this was another needless worry. I easily got plenty of boxes from the produce and meat departments at my store (one great thing about working in a grocery store) and just started throwing things in boxes! Last night my dad drove out with the trusty mini van and took away about half of my stuff. Amazing! Then tonight Tom (my Aunt Renee's husband) and my dad loaded all of my furniture into Tom's truck and took it away! So my stuff is basically taken care of. I'm gonna drive a car load of my books and clothes and other things out to Corona tomorrow night after work, leaving about a van-load for Saturday. And its that easy folks!

That only leaves (and I say ONLY, with a lot of hesitation) my mom's stuff to be moved on Saturday. Our big hurdle with her stuff will be that she has quite a few heavy items, and is moving into a 2nd story apartment. Now, we've gotten all of this up and down stairs before at our old apartment in Corona, but I had quite a few guy friends come help us out. It looks like we'll be mostly on our own this time. But we will prevail! My dad, and my cousins Bryan and Ryan (ironic names, right?) will be coming to help, and I think between us it shouldn't be too bad. I'm expecting the best.

Now, as well as all that is going so far, I have been forced into some AMAZING time management skills. I found this all out Tuesday afternoon, right before I went to work. Of course, I had had 5 hours of free time on Tuesday that I spent doing basically nothing, even though I had quite a few assignments I could have been working on. I was expecting to have a lot more time to do them. All of a sudden, I had a huge dilemma. Physics homework, a Spanish assignment, and a Spanish essay, all of which hadn't even been looked at, and all due Friday.

Here's what I did. And I am very proud of this :)

I went to work on Tuesday night til 10pm, brought boxes home, and packed a few. Then I went back to campus to sleep, because I had class at 9:30 on Wednesday. After a full day of classes ending at 2:30, I went to work at 3:30 at SB, got off at 7:30, went and did a whole load of stuff with my dad. Then I came back to the dorm, did my entire physics assignment, and went to sleep. I then went to class on Thursday, until my Physics lab got out around 2, ate some lunch, then went to work from 3-7. Now, during work (Kumon LC today) I completed both my spanish homework, AND my essay. So I was free to pack and move after work. After the men left, I stayed and helped my mom do a little bit of sorting, and then came back. Now all I have to do is type my essay and go to sleep. Hooray for time management! I should really procrastinate less. This is really nice :)

Anyways, so thats the plan. Thats the haps. I am moving on Saturday, and then Sunday is Fall Fest on campus, which is a big concert. Jimmy Eat World is headlining this year, so I'm very excited.

Next week, though, the busy busy fun starts all over again. I have decided to rush a Sorority this year! And rush starts next week. Now, the rush system on our campus has never really been nailed down. I have a rush party every night next week at 9pm, one for each sorority on campus, all of which are mandatory. So every day is class, then work, then rush party. Then more formal rush parties on saturday and sunday, all of which are also mandatory, and after which I will be working both days. Then the Friday after that is Open House, and Saturday is BID DAY! YAY! So its basically a ridiculously long, drawn out process. Despite that, I am SO excited :)

I guess thats about all that is going on in my life right now. And I guess that's kind of a lot. Somehow I've been able to avoid getting sick so far this year, though plenty of things are travelling around campus. My roommate Jessie is sick right now :( so I'm hoping I can keep avoiding it. Anyways, I'm going to go type my spanish essay so I can get to sleep!

Love you all!

♥