"How do i loathe thee? let me count the ways"

Like #1: This is more of a love for me. Joining a sorority is the best thing that I have done since I have been in college, it is the main reason that I am going to come back. I have met so many new people and it has just been amazingly fun!

Like #2: This may make me a loser, but the library is definitely on my like list. It is a beautiful building, and i can go there to get away. When I sit in my room and try to get things done, they rarely get done ahead of time, but if I go to the library i can sit there for 3-4 hours and get alot of stuff done. I always feel so productive when I go to the library!

Like #3: I like the size of campus. I like that I can get from one side of campus to the other in about 5 minutes, and if Im walking from my dorm, then I can get anywhere in about 10 minutes. I also like that all the buildings are close together, I would get lost in a campus like IU or Purdue because the buildings are way far apart.

Like #4: I have loved living in the dorm, there is so much space in our rooms. It has really begun to feel like home to me. The people on my floor are all fairly nice, and I love my RA. I wish that you could live in the dorms beyond your freshman year-but only if there was a stove and freezer!

DisLike #1: The dorm is also on my "worst of the year" list because i dont not like my roomates. For the most part I get along with one of them. My actual roomate I dont speak too, and the other two are stuck up each others butts. :) So, in that sense I am extremely glad to be moving out!

DisLike #2: I hate that commuters are aloud to park in the dorm parking lots. I also hate that any visitors can park there as well. There never any open parking spots, and it is so annoying when I have to either drive around the parking lot for 10 minutes, or park all the way in the other dorms' parking lots.

DisLike #3: I couldn't get a picture to save to my computer, but I don't like how far away from home I am. I know alot of people who live in Newburgh, or just an hour away, and it sucks when they can just go home for a day, or go home every weekend. I wish that I could do that, and it sucks that I can't!

DisLike #4: Although sometimes the Loft can have good food, it normally is gross. They have cheeseburgers and Mexican every other night and that is it for the grill, they never have anything different. The sides are always gross, and they use tons of nasty vegetables that no one eats. Half the time that I eat there I feel sick for the rest of the day. The salad bar is pretty much the only thing at the Loft that is consistently good.

Thanks for reading! I'm sure some of us have a lot of things in common!!

Full Paper

I am quite proud of myself because I finished my English paper that is not due until Friday. Normally I just wait until the night before it is due to write the whole thing, but this time I decided to get a little bit of a head start and it really paid off. I feel so relieved that I have it done and that I don't have to worry about it, also because I wrote it early it was more than long enough, I actually wrote a page more that what was assigned, rather than a page less. I really hope that I get a good grade on it because I worked really hard, and it was over the book Twilight, which I love, so I personally think it turned out quite nicely! :) I don't really have much more than that, I just was proud of myself and wanted to share!

Meet Me in St. Louis

I went to see the musical that the theatre program here at USI put on. It was Meet Me in St. Louis, and I absolutely loved it! There are more shows this weekend, and its only $6 for USI students, I highly suggest to anyone, who hasnt seen it and has some free time this weekend, to go see it! It was so fun, i was laughing and smiling the whole time. It is also neat to watch how they do everything in the small theatre that we have, especially how they work moving the furniture into the production. I just wanted to share that I thought it was very good, and if you havent seen it, GO SEE IT! :)

Greek Week

This week is Greek Week, for those who don't know-its pretty much just a week where all the fraternities and sororities compete in different activities throughout the week and then on Sunday there are a bunch of relay type things we do, then at the end of the week somone is a winner and winning Greek Week is kind of a big thing! :) Monday night thre was a 3v3 basketball tourney, Tuesday there was a bowling and euchre tourney, Wednesday there was a dance competition, Thursday(tonight) there is a volleyball tourney-which im playing in, woo hoo- hopefully it doesnt get rained out though! then there is nothing friday and saturday, but sunday is when we have the relay type things, its called "Greek Olympics" and that also might get rained out, but we're hoping for no rain tonight and no rain on sunday! This is my first Greek Week-obviously, seeing as how im a freshman-but im super excited because it is sooooooo much fun!! This week has gone by really really fast though- i cant believe its already Thursday- its crazyyyyy, but i also LOVE it cause that means we are getting that much closer to the end of the school year! woo hoo!!! :)

4 Hours

Basically me and my roomate just spent over 4 hours in the library working on our english paper that is due tomorrow. ugh. i hate college. haha j/k j/k Even though my night just went down the drain im really glad that i went to the library, cause i really needed to write my paper and i get distracted really esaily when im sitting in my room, so the library time was very helpful. I promise im not a loser who just chills in the library, it was for a good purpose! haha

....on another note(yet kind of still related)..i hate when professors think it is a good idea to assign papers that are ridiculusly long. Usually i can get my point across very nicely without meeting the length requirement, then when i go back and try to add stuff, it gets repetitive and then becomes a worse paper than it would have been if i had just left it too short. So that is what im doing with my english paper due tomorrow, i feel that i have written a really good paper, and i put in it everything that my prof. wants, its just a page short. I dont want to ruin my paper by adding in random stuff just to make it longer, because i would then probably get a worse grade because the content would suck. sooo, im calling it good with what i have! :)

Reflection on Freshman Year

As a senior in highschool, i was so ready to get out, because the end was in sight. The last semester of my highschool career was focused on what school i was going to, and how far away graduation seemed. I still did well in school, but its wasnt a priority anymore. All i wanted to do was graduate and get out of there.

Once summer hit, i was pretty much working the whole time, my parents were of course getting on my nerves. It seemed like everything they did bothered me, i just couldnt wait until i moved out and could do whatever i wanted, whenever i wanted. Finally, that wonderful day at the end of august came, and it was time for me to make the 2 1/2 huor drive down to evansville to move in. At the time, Evansville seemed like a such a far away place from Ellettsville. I was so excited- i was on cloud nine; i had always wanted to move out of my town and go to school somewhere different, i just never dreamed that it was actually going to happen. So when i moved down here at first i had just a huge rush of being so far away from home, and finally getting away and beginning to live my dream.

Once school started everything was still going really well, my schedule wasnt too bad, none of my classes were too hard. I thought college was awesome! I then decided that i wanted to join a sorority-i had always been thinking about it-but like moving to a different town i didnt actually think i would do it, but i did, and i couldnt be more happy about it. I love being in a sorority and i love all my sisters, it would be hard to imagine myself being as happy here as i am if i werent in a sorority. All the girls make me feel so connected to this campus and to this town. It's definitely been one of those life changing decisions i've made.

backtracking a little- choosing a college to go to, for some, is the hardest decision of ur life. I know thats how it was for me. Every campus i visited i could invision myself living there and could see myself walking around all those campuses. Not a single college i went to stood out as an OH MY GOSH, I HAVE TO GO THERE..which made it hard to finally choose. The way i ended up at USI wasnt because it was number one on my list, it was prolly more like number 3. USI is the only public school that i applied to, the rest were private-meaning they were suuuper expensive. My parents and i worked with financial aid at all the private schools to see if they could give me enough money to go there, the only school that looked promising that they could give me enough money was DePauw, they had one HUGE scholarship that they gave out that would have covered my tuition, so i applied...and i didn't get enough money from them. When i found that out i was crushed- i had my heart set on going to DePauw, i didnt want to go anywhere else. So, when i found out that the one and only school that i might be able to go to, i now cant afford, i started freaking out because i had nowhere else to go. All the other schools i had applied to were just as expensive. I seriously thought that i would not be able to go to college for a year, becasue i hadnt applied to any other public schools. That part of my senior year was the worst, i was so afraid that my life was going down hill before id even graduated. Luckily though, I had done a visit at UofE, and that same day my parents brought me over to look at USI, because it was close and we had time to kill. This whole time i had forgotten all about USI and forgotten all about applying here. Once me and my parents remembered that; i was instantly relieved. Even though it wasn't my dream school, i was still going to be able to go to school! I was soo excited; but also a little nervous. I knew nothing about Evansville, i didnt even know how to get here;it seemed like this far away foreign land to me.

Before i even came to school in the fall i was already thinking about applying to IU and transferring back home after one semester. I knew i was going to hate it, and i didnt want to leave my friends and be so far away. During the summer, i never once gave any kind of hope for liking this place at all. i had my mind set on somewhere else and it didnt work, so i was going to just wait until i could apply to iu and come back home, and that was that. I had already decided that i was going to hate it here....but man was i wrong. I absolutely love USI, i love all the new friends that i have made and the campus...i couldnt imagine myself going anywhere but here, this fits me and it fits my life. I feel at home here, although after college i dont want to stay in this town. The size of this campus is perfect for me. I always knew that i wanted something small, and thats what i love about it here.

My classes here arent really something extra special to talk about, they were college classes-woo hoo. we all have to take them so they are nothing to get excited about. Im just happy that im still here, i passed my classes and im not failing college. :)

There are of course some things that i regret doing since ive been in college, mostly personal and not academic, but dont we all have regrest? isnt that part of living life? you can't go through life playing it safe, sometimes you've got to color outside of the lines. keep people guessing.

All in all, my freshman year has been great! I've grown up as a person and learned that i dont need my parents for everything i do, its scary to move out and live on your own, but its something that everyone has to do and i wouldnt trade this experience for anything.

Boredddddd

I'm superrrr bored, sitting in my neighbors room. There isn't really a whole lot to do tonight. I am however watching the disney channel, which is awesome. I love the disney channel, i watch it alot cause im a loser. haha :) I don't really have a whole lot else to say. byeee.

Big Splash Adventure Water Park :)

French Lick just got a new indoor water park and me and 4 of my friends went to it yesterday and it was super fun! :) The hotel is super awesome and all decked out in pirate themed stuff, we didnt get to stay in it though cause it was too expensive. But the water park had 4 different slides that were pretty fun, one of them was a big funnel and it was pretty cool, except people got stuck because the hotel didnt have the water in the slide worked out perfectly. But it was still a really cool slide. We got to relax in the lazy river which was nice, and there was a seperate hot tub that was for adults only, but the water was EXTEMELY hot, so we didnt sit in it very long. It was a really good day because me and my friends all got to hang out together and it was the perfect ending to my spring break :)

Spring Break :)

ahhhhh, im so excited for spring break! this is the first year that i haven't gone anywhere, and it kinda sucks, but im also glad that i get to go home for a whole week and just lay around. I'm hopefully going to be able to help my brother get ready for his summer job, so hopefully i can come back to school with a little bit of money...only to be spent on a dang book for my theatre class. ugh. maybe my mom will buy it for me, doubtful :( haha annnnddd, my sister just had a baby, and i get to go home a month ago when she was born, but i didnt get to see her last weekend when i was there, but my mom is babysitting her tonight so i get to see her as soon as i get home! im sooo excited, she is the cutest little thing everrr!! :) she was soo teeny-tiny when she was born im excited to see how much she has grown :) welp, thats it for now! thanks for reading!

Weatherizing Homes :)

As most of you know, our gas emmission from cars and homes and factories is out of control. The new lower standards are starting to become more and more possible, especially in the way of homes.

Some experts say that weatherizing homes is actually the easiest and fastest way to get energy emissions down to a reasonable level. With homes there are easy ways to fix just a few problems and lower the home owners bills, and lower the amount that they actually use the a/c and heater.

Obama has put in one of the stimulus packages to lower utility bills in around 2 million homes and he has seta side $6 billion to weatherize low-income homes. I'm not sure if that is still in the stimulus package that was signed or whatever, I couldnt find that.

Weatherizing homes and making them more efficient is creating jobs for communities because many people want this to be happening to they get a lot of outside support and companies can bring on new people to help will the additional work of getting these homes taken care of.

A few reasons why weatherizing homes is going to be fairly not complicated is because there are many instruments that can measure wind flow in a house and use heat-sensitive guns to show where there are cracks in a wall or where the insulation is not sealed. Using those instruments and fixing the problems will cause people to let less cold/warm air out of their house and they can lower the heater/ac and actually keep the air inside their house and that will lower the amount going out into the air and it will lower their bills because they dont need to use as much.

In just one visit to these homes companies can lower the energy useage by 10-20% when is pretty amazing, imagine if that could happen to every house, imagine how much less crap homes would send into the air, and how much lower peoples' energy bills would be.

USI Mallette Theatre

Ok, so today I had to go to the play "Master Harold and the Boys" for my theater class. I liked the play itself, the actors were all very good and the performance was good. However, I decided that i dont like the type of theater space that is down there. I didnt like how close i was to the actors and how they could be practically right up in your face. I am a type of person that laughs at a lot of things, and i couldnt laugh today because i was right there and it would have been obvious! There were some parts where i ahd to literally bite my lip so i wouldnt laugh, so i like bigger spaces where im not so close to the actors and where i can fully enjoy the show. Other than that, i really liked the play, and i would suggest that everyone should go to a show cause the actors were good!

new niece :)

ok,sooo my sister-in-law just had a baby on thursday the 5 :) She had a c-section. I got to go home this weekend to see my new niece, her name is Ava! she is freaking adorableeeeee, she is a tiny tiny little thing. she was only 5lbs. 14 oz. when she was born! I looove her soo much! :) I was soo glad i got to go home and see her this weekend!

Obama Paper

President Obama,
I have read many of your policies and the things you plan on changing, but one sticks out to me in particular. It is the legalization of marijuana. I know you are currently opposed to legalizing it, but you do want to de-criminalize it which I think that would be better than doing nothing.
I know that many people say that pot should only be legal for medical reasons, but I ask myself, “why?” I feel that it is nice for people who need it for medical reasons but it still isn’t bad for people who just smoke for fun. In reality marijuana is “better” for people than alcohol is. A lot of times, alcohol just causes people to do stupid things that could hurt them or someone around them. Although pot and alcohol are both equally dangerous when consumed and then being behind the wheel of a car, but statistics have shown that alcohol related car crashes and deaths occur more often than marijuana related car crashes.
I’m not saying that marijuana is not a bad thing at all; marijuana has some very bad effects as well. I have to factor in the people who are very opposed to this idea and I have to incorporate the bad things as well, as to not be completely one-sided. Marijuana does alter peoples’ thought process which could cause them to do something harmful. Marijuana doesn’t just make you feel good for a while; it can also hurt the relationships with the people around you that you love. Marijuana can become an addiction to where people would do anything to get their hands on it, even if that meant hurting their family.
Now, the second half of the opposing sides’ argument could be avoided if marijuana was legalized. The fact that some people would do almost anything to get some pot would not be as big of a problem if it were legal and you could get it easier. That I feel is a very compelling argument.
As a kid growing up I always heard people talking about alcohol and the fact that when you are underage it is more fun to drink because u have the chance of getting caught, so that makes it sneaky and makes it more thrilling. When you turn 21, its obviously still fun, but less people do it as much because it has lost most of the excitingness to it because people don’t have to hide it when they are 21. I think that if marijuana were to get legalized, at first there would be a big frenzy of people that would be smoking all the time, but after a while it would get old and less people would do it, because half the thrill of doing it now is because it is illegal. Some of that thrill would disappear. You also have to consider the fact that some people still wouldn’t smoke even if it was legal.
Some people in America are so opposed to marijuana that it wouldn’t matter if it was legal or not, they would still never try it. So, we won’t have to worry so much about a ton of people going crazy and smoking pot if it were legal. For the most part it’s just going to be people who already do it a lot. I know personally some people who only smoke occasionally, not all the time, and they have said that if marijuana was legal they probably wouldn’t start smoking a whole lot more.
In conclusion, I hope that some of the points I have made will persuade you to think that marijuana is not all the bad and it should be legalized. I realize that there are many people who are opposed to it, but it really comes down to whose side of the argument is more convincing and reasonable.

Presidential Candidate

So, this morning at 11 i went to carter hall and listened to Dr. Bennett, one of the presidential candidates speak. I think that she made some very good points and she had some great ideas for the future of USI. There was a question and answer time at the end and many people had some great questions, and i felt that with it being on the spot answering, Dr. Bennett did a good job in answering the questions the best that she could. I personally got up and asked her a question about the greek community and how she plans to get us more involved on campus and to get more student involvement with organizations and I liked the answer she gave. She said that she had put into the budget to have more on campus jobs so that students can still work while in school but this way more students can stay on campus to be able to work. I think that Dr. Bennett had some great points and im interested to see who our new president is gonna be!

Topics for Class

I'm excited to get this semester finally kicked on in class tomorrow. Our first meeting we discussed ideas that we wanted to talk about this semester and I was pretty excited about all of them so I cant wait to get to class tomorrow and start discussing! We are a small class so i think we will be able to talk more deeply about stuff.