In Three Weeks Time

Oct 21, 2011- Fall Family Weekend

Mom, dad, and Spike!

"I woke up at 7:00 this morning, hopped out of bed and readied myself for a huge spanish exam. I think I did alright. I spent the majority of last night organizing my worksheets and such with color coded tabs... I spent too much time organizing and not enough studying, but my papers are so neat and organized now! I also spent about an hour writing four copies of the same summary of a short story we read in class. I managed to bust that out verbatim this morning. That part of the test, I'm sure, I did alright. The rest... we'll see. [I got an 87% YIPEE!]
Spanish ended at 9:50 and then I was off to college hall for my first meeting with a career counselor. We didn't accomplish much, but she let me ramble and seemed to be interested in what I was saying. I guess she has to be, it's part of her job description. We basically decided that what interests me is the idea of corporate event planning... but I shouldn't pick a major quite yet because there's no need and the actual major I decide really isn't as important in the context of a liberal arts education as many think it is.
I then came home and started to clean house for my parents- I never thought the day would come that I would be cleaning my house for my parents to come visit. I always teased my mom when she'd spiffy up the house for Betty and Gil or Bub and Pap to arrive. Once again, I've become my mother.
Coalie was excited to see me! His bark announced their arrival to the dorm.
Mom dad and I then trekked over to the lower level of the cog and I treated them to subs from SubConnection with my dining dollars! They took so much joy out of spending "my" money, neglecting to connect the dots between the "ZagBucks" and the Kerns bucks they in essence loaded into the card. Oh well though, I'll let them have their fun.

Matching band-aids!

Then we signed up for the 9am-2pm hike tomorrow... should be interesting. It'll just be us girls on that one. Dad didn't wanna embarrass everyone else with his superior outdoor awareness and achievement.
The blood bus was on campus the other day, and today the flu shot devils were in the upper level of Crosby student center. Dad never passes on an opportunity to get shots so he and I now have an immunity to the flu, as well as achey upper arms. He and I sat back to back as the nurses in training administered the flu to us both, and I can say that I think he flinched more than I did. It brought me back to when I was probably 13 and had to get blood drawn and there dad was holding my hand. He seems to always be present when I get shots... Thanks dad. Love you."



Nov 8, 2011____________________________________________________________________

I'm an eskimo and my friend
Chelsea is from SF and
'disgised' as (though she
truly is) a Giants fan

Hey now its November 8 and it's been a few weeks since I began to write about my parents visit that I neglected to post at the time.... that hike I mentioned up there ^ turned out to be such a bust. It was nice bonding time for mama and I, but it was SO cold and wet and rainy. And the "vantage point" that we trekked to for a few hours was nothing whatsoever to look at, even or someone with 20/20 vision. The only saving grace was the Twix mom packed me in my sack lunch. It made it all worth while.

Since parents weekend, it's been pretty great here at GU. "Halloweekend" was quite eventful (especially so, juxtaposed to the family weekend prior). I was a pumpkin the first night, a "gypsie" (pardon my political incorrectness) the second, and an eskimo the last night. We spent Saturday night at Gusties sister's apartment where they had a spooky lasagna night. We welcome any dinner that can be had away from the COG, and it was nice to spend time with Kendra and her friends to celebrate the holiday.

WEATHER UPDATE- It's so cold here. It gets below freezing here at night, and Gusterz (whose bed lies opposite the heater, window and I on the other side of the room) roasts at night and thus we keep the window just cracked. No biggie, just cracked, right? Cracked enough for the crisp 27 degree air to breeze right over me. I've changed my comforter to the thick winter one, so I tuck myself in, pull up all three of my fleece blankets and ride out the night hoping to still have feeling in my nose and ears when I awake. The weirdest thing about the weather here is it's always freezing, but almost always sunny. It throws me off!! It's so beautiful outside, I just want to go play in the leaves and be merry, but I fear the sneaky icy tundra that awaits.

I met with my advisor, Professor Kafentzis, the other day. He and I decided I'm headed toward a double major in Spanish and Public Relations. Sounds good to me, and I feel so relieved to have a goal in mind. At midterm I have a 3.8 GPA and am breezin right on through. I will admit that my classes are pretty easy and I haven't had this little of work since my sophomore year of high school. This is not to down-play my accomplishments though... I am proud I s'pose.

Our intramural volleyball team "Bumpin Cuts" (grandma, grandpa, bubba, papa-- it is a pun: to 'bump' in volleyball is to make a table with your arms and let the ball bounce off for a teammate to set and another to spike as heard in the common mantra "bump, set, spike!" Often times when us youngins play music we refer to it as "bumpin cuts." Our team likes to groove to the beat of our athleticism..? Thus we bump cuts... that's as good of an explanation as it gets) lost yesterday and have in turn lost our chance at claiming those "Intramural Champion" shirts as our own. In an attempt at us winning, I pulled myself out of the game and refused to swap in as a sub. I took one for the team. Volleyball's not my thing- they know it, anyone who saw me attempt a serve in 8th grade knows it, I know it. I spastically cheered on the sideline jumping from side to side as I hoped my teammate would on the court. We were so close and had the best game of the season, but we lost. The team bonded though, and I've made some great friends along the way. We've talked about starting a new team with the group- it's pretty solid.

This weekend, I'm takin the greyhound to Ellensburg and meeting my mom there who will pick me up and bring us to the Katz family's cabin in Teanaway- about 30 minutes away from Ellensburg. Lily and her mom Marian will meet us later in the day after Lily's gone to class and her UW Daily Staff meeting (cool, huh? Check out her article! http://dailyuw.com/news/2011/oct/28/bill-gates-speaks-cse-students-about-opportunity-a/). I'm so excited to see my mom, best friend, and island-mom too. :)

Time to do some homework! I've got a portfolio of all of my spanish journals (15 150-word compositions written in spanish) due on Friday. On Sunday at midnight I'll register for classes and most likely won't get any that I hope to. It should be interesting. Freshman get shafted as we are the last to register, after all of the upperclassmen have already picked away at every class that's desirable.

More later!
Love Nat