What I have learned throughout college

So...there is less than one week left till graduation. I think I am starting to take everything in a little more than the day before. I start thinking about Friday all the time....I will officially be a full time unemployed graduate this FRIDAY! BITTER SWEET.

So all my loans, money borrowed and money made is almost gone. While all of it went towards education, I really don't think I can remember anything that I learned in school. While at different times throughout my 5 years I memorized note cards for tests and such, but none of it sticks out in my head right now. However, I have compiled some things that I honestly have learned throughout my 5 years at this beautiful school:

1) How to use a snorkel- I remember coming into JMU never knowing that people actually wear a snorkel to help them swim. The only time I had ever used a snorkel was when I snorkeled in the ocean for fish. Little did I know, I would have to figure out how to use it while trying to swim fast.... I had never been so frustrated before with swimming until this stupid snorkel came along. Learning to not breath through your nose and only through your mouth was something totally new to me...learning to do a flip turn topped it all off. After eventually getting that stupid thing down, I did enjoy watching the new freshman each year struggle with it...made it worth it I guess.

One of the best memories with the snorkel was with my friend Gailey. Gailey hated the snorkel! I on the other hand learned to enjoy it if the time intervals were appropriate for my speed. After loosing my snorkel more than one time, on a regular basis actually, Gailey was so thoughtful as to give me hers to have. So I took it upon myself to use it through the whole year and let Gailey just swim without one because technically she "did not have one"....It was almost the end of the year when our coach saw that Gailey was not using one. Gailey got yelled at and told our coach that she gave it to me...I mean what can you say to that??? Eventually we both got into trouble... great memory of that snorkel.

2) Microsoft word, ppt, excel- Wow, let me just tell you. The tech level one was the hardest test of my life. It took me 4 contracts, 2 tutors, Dale Kennedy and 3 years to pass that test. I do not know what it was, but that test was terrible (especially because Microsoft 2007 came out in the middle of my failing spree....

3) How to use toilet paper sparingly- When living in a house full of girls and parties, tp goes so fast. However, after 4 years, I think I got it down to a natural. I would have to say that 460 could go the longest with our natural TP skills. This is something that will def be a major factor into real word budgets.

4) The Harrisonburg Sky is the most beautiful sky ever- I do not think I realized this till my junior year. I do not know of a prettier place other than any spot in Harrisonburg to look up at the sky. For some reason, there is always something beautiful about it. The colors just light me up, every single time. If I do not get a job this coming year, I think I may need to go back to school and become a astronomer.

I hope to keep adding on to my list of what I learned throughout this week. I know I will have more to come. Hope you enjoy..... 4 days :)

So, I have failed and not written in a long time!!! But it has been pretty ding dang busy around 460 Mason....

Last weekend, I went home to Annapolis for Easter. It was really great to be home with my family and see my friends I have not seen in so long! Downtown was beautiful! I tried looking for a sundress for my graduation, but no luck. Any ideas of stores in the Harrisonburg Area that would be cute to find a dress?

Anyways, I got really excited to get back to school after that weekend! Its crazy thinking that I only have 4 more weeks of college left after 5 years of this! I have the best roommates ever and I can not wait to spend the 4 best weeks of my life here with them.

Yesterday, Jessica and I decided to make a Club, club MJ to be exact (meghan jesssica..get it?). We had this bright idea to make my room our “bed” room and her room our “club”. So we took all of her stuff and put it in a corner in her room and brought her bed in my room. I took all my stuff and put it in her room.

It gets even better because we now have a giant bed and a sweet party room!! The opening night was last night. We sent invites to our roommates, they had no idea what we were doing. We made a sign and gave fbook invites.

To top off this past weekend and the past few days, this weekend is ALUMNI WEEKEND! I am so excited to see my bestest friends come back and enjoy the atmosphere here again. Its so great to laugh and be with those special people in your life. I am so very thankful for them!

March 31

Oh boy was last night fun....I def fo sho was a dead body this morning/afternoon! To begin the day, I had a nice jog back from StoneGate. Then, surprisingly my whole house was AWAKE by 8AM!!! I wish they would do this on a regular basis. After we all had a morning sit together, Pandabear and I went to J's. I decided to drive to the farthest J's away because Pandabear had never been to all 3 J's (something I think is very important to do at JMU)....

Other than eating a whole ton and being lazy..I did nothing important......however I did look up places to go/stay for vaca of 2010 (shout out to my friend Killa) and as well as places to go this summer and fall! One more thing..... I watched the usual FRIENDS :)..... Guess I was pretty worthwhile!

On the other hand, my good friends/roommates had the wonderful idea that night....to go to Dave's! Davies rooftop is probably one of the things I will miss most about going to school at JMU. It was such a beautiful day and night that I just could not pass up a Dave's rooftop sit. I had the usual tomato mot's and for the first time ever, a pesto pizza with a nice cold COLA. I think for the next 5 weeks, a weekly Dave's Rooftop is a major MUST! Thank you to my good friends

Spring break day 2

Ahhh.... My Tuesday of spring break part 2 was very......WORTHLESS. Actually, I did spend a whole bunch of hours at the library applying to school districts (my top 1 actually).I feel like maybe all seniors need a week to just apply for jobs, especially in this economy. Other than that, I just enjoyed beautiful Harrisonburg! It was a very relaxing day.

However, I was able to cross off one thing on my bucket list-the pub. Oh boy was that fun! It was my 3rd time going and last time going, I basically felt like a local. The first time I went to the pub I left cause it was too smokey and it hurt my tummy. The second time I went to the pub I was the only sober person in the arena. The last and best time I went to the pub was last night and boy did I think I was the best singer/dancer there, haha! I had the greatest people around me and I was in my prime! I wish I could go every Tuesday from now on, however, it is closed.... RIP. Above is a picture of me and two of my soul sisters. xox

Spring break day 1

So today was my first day of spring break 2010 part 2! Yes, I am hanging out in Harrisonburg doing NOTHING this whole week. While it would probably be very boring to most people, I am having a blast! I have nothing to do and am trying to love ever second of it because I probably will never be able to do this again!

This morning when I woke up at the crack of dawn, I wrote a to-do list of really stupid little things that I needed to get done (get ink, send letters, run, sing happy birthday to featherhead, get new profile picture..etc). For the first time ever I got EVERYTHING on my to do list done!!

So the ink.... I sent away for ink on ebay the other day ($18) because the ink in Target was $50. Not knowing that my ink was going to come in full out color coded ink bottles, with needles and measurement bottles to inject the ink, I thought I was buying smart. HELL NO! This was one of the hardest tasks of the day. I had to first drill holes in my previous ink cartridges, inject the ink by color into the holes and then figure out how it all worked!! I ended up doing all of the injections and going to a local ink supply store to get help of installing the ink back into the printer. They told me to put it in how it came and hold down the stop button for 5 seconds....who would have thought?! FOUR HOURS LATER....CHECK PLUS!

For the happy birthday part...I was able to make my roommate featherhead a nice hat to wear this afternoon. I think she enjoyed it. It was her birthday so I wanted to make her feel special, because she is! She was stuck inside doing her resume on her birthday....boooo...but she made it all worth it last night... But as you can see from the picture above, she looks beautiful, especially with the picnik help I got on the side with the spring time flowers, bahahaha.

For my profile pic, I thought to use my new school picture!!! I actually did not have a digital copy of the picture, so I thought to myself....may as well try and take the scanner on, considering I did personally inject the ink! WALLA!! I scanned my first thing ever!! Hehe, hope y'all like it!

So today I got a whole lot of things done and learned a bunch of new real life tools. Maybe every college kid needs 2 spring breaks (one in Mancun and one in Harrisonburg)!!!

Wine Tasting, CHECK-March 28 2010

Today I got to cross off one thing on my bucket list (BTW Jessica Lee is now in on the list as well). Anyways, my house and I went to the Cross Keys Vineyard. Although it was the ugliest day out, it was still so much fun to visit! This vineyard was my first vineyard to ever go to. It was about 20 minutes away from Harrisonburg (down 33). We sat down at a long table and they served us 7 different wines. Beth asked if we were allowed to bring some appetizers while we taste the wines and they said sure! Little did they know how much we were going to bring. We brought hot dogs, cheese cake, cheese, candy, lots of crackers and pretzels! In a way they were probably glad because we were counter acting the alcohol with all the food, ha ha.

We started off with a white chardonnay and moved towards the reds. It was really cool to see what types of wines go with the different foods! My favorite wine was the first one we tasted, a 2008 chardonnay. This delightful wine was barrel-fermented in new and used French oak for nine months. It is pale straw in color with a bouquet of apple, flowers, honey and vanilla. Apparently it is a perfect complement to semi-soft cheeses or seafood and roasted poultry dishes. I guess crab would be perfect for this wine...

After we all bought our bottle of wine (mine is the one in the picture), Meg asked if we could buy the wine glasses we tasted the wines in. They told us that we could have them for free! I don't know if this is something that Cross Keys vineyards does, but it was really nice! I hope that every vineyard I go wine tasting at allows me to take the glass, it would be a fun collectable! I can't wait to come back to this vineyard when it is nicer out!!

HOLLA!!

Hey guys!

I am not even sure if this is actually working cause I am so bad at technology, but I thought I may as well try anyways! So as many of you may already know, I am just about to graduate from JMU this May! I am so excited, scared, nervous and yadayadayada....everyone goes through it!

Oddly enough I hardly have school or school work, I don't do that much physical activity anymore and I get really bored on a hourly basis. So I thought to help my mind, I would start blogging! I feel very relaxed when I take pictures and write, so I thought whats better than this?!

Over the next month, my goal is to take a few pictures a day to document my last few weeks at JMU and write about them! I am going to try and do everything here in one month, kinda like a bucket list! So for any of you alum, if you have any suggestions please give me some ideas. Hope y'all find this interesting, if not, at least it will give me something to do! HOLLA xox

JMU BUCKET LIST

Get a shirt from- Jays, Clines, Daves in one day

Camp up at Redish Knob for a sun set and sun rise

Go to a hometown BBQ

Buy something from the farmers market on a Tuesday or Sat downtown

Do the 5k loop run

Get Chennelos Cheesy Bread pizza ONE MORE TIME!

Go to the quary

Road trip through the mountains to West VA

Go to blue hole

Pick Strawberries

Go wild at El Charros

Go to my 2nd and last Pub night!

Wine tasting

Sit on 460 Masons roof with my roommates

Stay up all night

Sleep past 9AM

Do one last underwater in godwin pool and LOVE THE FEELING OF IT!

Go to a block party

Drink during the day

Senior Pictures by the lovely Allison Keel

Get a job

Sleep over in Stonegates Nancicca's room