April 16 - 22

Monday

Happy Birthday Mom! In honor of your Birthday, TCU had an ice cream truck with free icecream in your honor. Don't worry, I really enjoyed my popsicle for you ;)

Tuesday

There was some kind of arts festival happening in the commons. Cristi and I did some exploring and learned how to make some origami flowers 

 Wednesday

This picture isn't specific to this day, but this week was an awareness week for child abuse. In the main grassy area on the academic side of campus there was a blue pinwheel for each child in Tarrant County who had been the victim of abuse.

                                                                       
                                                                         Thursday

Thursday I went to support my band friends at the concert band concert. A lot of color guard members play in the percussion section in order to fulfill requirements for Tau Beta Sigma, the marching band sorority. The concert was really neat, I admire those who can play instruments!

 Friday

Among many others things that happened on Friday, I participated in the Student Research Symposium where I presented the material from my Honors Thesis. It was really fun to see all my psychology professors, fellow chemistry TA's, and friends from other departments at the event. SRS has a wonderful tradition of having the best food ever, so that's also a plus.

 Saturday

Black Diamond Formal was actually on Friday, but since it lasted past midnight I am counting it as Saturday haha. The dance was held at the Victory Arts Center, a location we have previously had APO Semi-Formal. The food was awesome and I had a great time dancing with all my ADPi sisters for the last time.

Sunday

Sunday was CRAZY. My dad and I conquered the Warrior Dash, a 5k that includes a bunch of crazy obstacles like scaling rope ladders, balancing along planks, jumping over fire, and crawling through mud under barbed wire. We made it! I was really proud of myself because finishing a 5K was one of my goals for this semester.

P.S. I'm currently working on catching up with the weeks I've missed. I have all the pictures set up in drafts, but haven't had a lot of time to write my little blurbs about them, so look out for those new updates and sorry to keep you waiting!

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March 19-25 Spring Break!



Spring break in Galveston with Lauren was quite an adventure! I had lots of fun on my first "real" college spring break experience. Although we didn't stay a full week, I am having a hard time weeding out all the awesome pictures we took this week so I decided to devote this weeks blog post to our trip :)

We started off at the Moody Gardens Aquarium which was pretty nifty. We spent quite a while watchign the seals swim around, they were being fed right as we got there and were willing to do some tricks and show off for some food.



On Tuesday we explored the rainforest pyramid in Moody Gardens. There were parrots, monkeys, sloths, and a ton of other awesome animals to check out as we made our way through the different levels of the rainforrest. My favorite part was being a few feet away from monkeys!

The weather was not cooperating for a lot of the weekend, but that didn't keep us from checking out the waves. There are these really cool stone walkways that extend into the ocean and give you awesome pictures like this one.

This is probably my favorite impulse purchase from Kroger ever. I love pandas so much, and it's been a long time since I've flown a kite, so what could possibly be more awesome than flying a panda kite? The wind was perfect and we mostly didn't have any trouble keeping the kite up in the air.



We found this nifty telephone booth while exploring a shopping area called "The Strand."



We barely made it out before the waves started crashing and the sun went down. Our timing was nearly perfect the whole trip.



Our last dinner was at the original Joe's Crab Shack. It had an awesome view and great food (even though I got kids macaroni and not seafood haha)



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March 12- 18 Springtime at TCU

Sorry for the delay! I seem to have misplaced my camera cord :( Luckily, I'm an idiot and my computer has had an SD card reader the whole time. Oops. This particular week I was super busy with tests and a few fun things and traveling for spring break so I spent some time wandering around looking at all the pretty flowers.

Monday

I LOVE tulips!

Tuesday

We went to the Library Bar to play Bingo! I got a Bingo but so did another person and I didn't want to do anything embbarrassing to compete (think like Minute-to-Win-It kind of games) so I just let them have it... But I still won! Emily was also having good luck and won the last round which came with a bunch of prizes :)

 

Wednesday

One of my favorite places on campus



                                                                          Thursday

We had a mixer with ADPi and although I didn't have a date this time around I still had a good time. We went to a nearby bar where we had the whole rooftop section to ourselves. I met some new guys and had fun catching up with some of my friends. The theme was "guys in ties girls in pearls" which was cute.

Friday

... even more tulips!



Saturday



This year is kind of interesting because it went from winter to spring so early that the winter flowers were still here when the tulips started growing. Some of the flower beds look really crazy and mismatched but this one still looks lovely in my opinion :) As a side note: Saturday was a wonderful day that included brunch with my family at Mimi's, a pedicure with my mom and sister, and an early graduation present of an iPhone! I have the most thoughtful and awesome parents :)

Sunday

Every time I think this one is done growing and flowering, the flowers get bigger and smell more delicious. Unfortunately it also attracts bees so I try to stay away haha. On sunday Lauren and I took off on our great spring break adventure to Galveston. The drive went pretty smoothly except for a little traffic near Houston, which was expected. More on that in the next post!

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Mar 5-11th

Monday: I mailed in my official acceptance to the University of Illinois in Chicago! I know I had mentioned earlier that I had been accepted, but it wasn't official until I mailed them back a form. I waited for a while to see if everything would fall into place, and it looks like for now it will work out, even though I haven't heard from a few other schools yet. I feel like UIC is a good fit for me!

Tuesday: APO has been playing intramural basketball for several weeks now, and to be honest we are really bad (I think I've posted about this before). Well today were the playoffs, and we were actually winning for a while. We even tied and took it to overtime, which is unheard of for us because we are usually getting slaughtered so bad that they end the game early in mercy haha. It was an awesome game to watch and a great way to spend a Tuesday evening.

Wednesday: Spring has sprung at TCU! I absolutely love my campus and all of the pretty flowers and trees that bloom when the weather gets warm. This particular tree is one I have to pass every day to get to class. It smells awesome but attracts a lot of bees so I try to keep my distance.

 Thursday: I had an anatomy test on Friday so unfortunately nothing awesome happened today other than studying :P

Friday was Samantha's birthday, so as is roommate tradition we attacked her room. It doesn't show up well in the picture but we used a bunch hof hot pink yarn to tie bows and wrap everything in the room :) Happy Birthday Samantha!

Saturday: This morning was my last LEAPS. LEAPS is a campus wide day of service and this Spring APO got a big group together and visited the Como community center. This was pretty cool because I had volunteered with them earlier for Martin Luther King day of service. This picture is of our APO group doing our signature hedgehog hand sign.

Sunday: I'm counting this picture as Sunday because it was a party that lasted well after midnight. It was a band party and we ran into a lot of color guard girls. I'm a little biased but I think we all look stunning if I do say so myself!

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February 27th - March 4th

Monday was very busy and pretty boring, so my picture for the day was a result of me realizing I never posted a picture of the final product of a craft I was working on a few weeks ago. All it took was some nails and string :)

Tuesday we saw a gorgeous sunset on our way to dinner

Wednesday Lauren and I stumbled upon a craft project happening in the union, you take little bits of glass and they melt it into a coaster for you. Here's what mine looked like...

On Thursday I was also struggling to think of a picture... so I decided to include a photo of out awesome paper snowflakes! My roommates and I used these to decorate our apartment in hopes of encouraging a snow day or two this winter. Well, I've been wearing shorts all week so I think it's safe to say there will be no snow in Texas this year, but it's still fun to look at.

Friday was the best day ever, I saw Rent for what I think is the sixth time! (woah). Luckily Emily was able to join me along with two of my lovely roommates. Neither Erika nor Lauren had seen the show before. It was a community theater production but it was wonderful! It had been a while since the last time I had seen the show, and they had actually changed a few things around which was really cool. It was the student preview night so tickets were only ten dollars! Not only that, but Emily snagged us some AWESOME seats only a few rows back from the stage. I was beside myself the whole night. Thanks you guys for sharing this night with me :)

After the play on Friday evening I drove home to McKinney to find this lovely piece waiting for me. I had bought the print last semester but wanted it framed, and it turned out great! I spent Saturday enjoying the luxeries of being at home (ice machines, great food, golden retrievers, shopping with mom, video games... all the good stuff in life haha). I returned to TCU Saturday evening.

On Sunday Erika was kind enough to work with me to get me ready for this weeks chemistry lab, where the students had to build different molecules and answer different questions. Lauren decided the model pieces were pretty and created her own nonexistant molecule and determined chemistry can be fun haha.

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February 20th-26th

I don't know what it is about blogger lately but it's been hit or miss on writing new posts! I guess that's what I get for procrastinating

Monday: After a long day I stopped by the APO intramural basketball game. We almost always lose, and this week was no different, but it's still fun to go support them. We always have tond of people in the stands and are really over the top with cheering, we even make our players go through a tunnel afterwards haha. It's really fun to be a part of! 

Tuesday: I am a teaching assistant for general chemistry, and this week their lab was a test of patience and impulsivity. They added one solution to another, drop by drop, until it turned a very faint pink. Add it too quickly or make a mistake and your solution turns into that bright fuscia color. We had lots of frustrated little freshman who became lazy or impatient and ended up with the "bad" color. They are all really competitive and it was fun to watch them so focused and see their faces light up when they knew they did it correctly. This was probably my favorite lab so far.

Wednesday was uneventful so we made some peanut butter cookies with kisses on top.

Thursday I had racked up enough punches on my Yo! punch card to earn my free cup of frozen yogurt. I love this place because you get to add all your toppings yourself.

Friday was APO chapter retreat! We went to this place called Mountasia, which is basically your typical putt-putt, go-kart and arcade place. APO had pre-paid for us, so we basically just ran around like children and had tons of fun! The highlight of my evening was the go-karts -- it's really fun to race when you know every single person on the track. Me and my friend Cristi ended up doing the go-karts SEVEN times. It was great!

Saturday was a busy day. I started the day at the Science Museum volunteering with some crazy awesome middle school students. After lunch I went to a tea party for my friend Danielle's birthday, and then in the evening my parents stopped by for some dinner and graduate school planning.

On Sunday we officially booked a spring break trip. Me and Lauren will be adventuring through Austin and spending a few days in Galveston. I've never been down to the Texas coast so I'm really looking forward to it! We got an awesome deal on the hotel and have planned out an awesome list of things to do. I'll also be spending a few days at home before returning to TCU for the remainder of the semester.

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February 13-19

Ok, so after technical difficulties abound on Sunday, the blog is up! I apologize for the delay!



Monday was baking day! I made Valentine's themed Funfetti cupcakes for one of my classes the following day. We still had regular class but one of my professor's wanted some sweets :)

Tuesday was Valentine's Day! I had a really great day. I'm usually feeling a twinge of lonliness or what have you but I can honestly say I was feeling splendid. Me and a bunch of friends got dressed up, went to Olive Garden, and saw the movie "This Means War" which was hilarious. This is a picture of my meal, which was delicious. I don't know why none of us remembered to get a picture of the whole group together!

Wednesday was Blend Off! Blend Off is Alpha Delta Pi's major philanthropy event where different student organizations come together and compete in to make a fun drink/theme/presentation. All the proceeds from the event goes toward the Ronald McDonald house, which is a place families can stay to be near the hospital if a child is receiving inpatient treatment. I always loved RMH, but having worked and volunteered at Baylor for a few years has allowed me to actually meet several families who have benefitted from these facilities, which makes it extra special! This picture is of the team I coached -- the marching band sorority! I love it when my band life and sorority life meet. These girls put together an awesome table themed "Pop rock and drop it" (instead of pop lock and drop it, the lyrics to a hip hop song). They used pop rocks in their drink and it was really fun! This event was especially powerful for the TCU community as some not-so-nice news was released about illegal activity among members of our student body. 17 arrests were made (including several football players) for selling drugs, and the students were all expelled. The story has received nuch news coverage, and our campus has been swarming with cameramen. Definitely a scarey time for TCU.



On Thursday my roommates and I went to the BYX Date Auction. BYX is a Christian fraternity and they way they raise money for their charity (Fefugee Services) is by auctioning themselves off as dates... very christlike haha. The event was really fun and although I walked away having not purchased a date, I'm glad I went to support my friends. On the way out it was pretty exciting because TCU sometimes puts on random events in the commons, and we stumbled upon a MONKEY! He had a little lollypop and was available for holding. For those of you who ever knew me as a child, I LOVE monkeys! He was precious and I love being in the right place at the right time



Friday: We braved warnings of bad weather to watch the TCU Baseball home opener. It stayed nice for most of the game -- no rain, but it got pretty chilly. We stayed for a while and then headed back to Emily's apartment to watch "Midnight in Paris" which is a great movie!

Saturday: I am at a loss as to why this picture refuses to rotate. So, we're just going to go with it. I went with some new APO members to a dance concert that was held on TCU's campus.It was a benefit for the AIDS Outreach center of Fort Worth. The dancing was beautiful, and I recognized a few of the students. There was a lot of current music being used for the routines and overall a great production, especially when you consider that it was put on entirely by students-- student dancers, choreographers, lighting designers, everything!

Sunday: We had APO meeting, and played some funny games of the "Whose Line is it Anyway" variety. Apparently we have some commedians among us. I also went to church with Lauren -- I think I've set a personal record for how many weeks in a row I've been attending church. I really love Christ Chapel and am trying to get more plugged in there before I have to leave.

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