I am struggling with thinking of something to write about for this week. I guess, this weekend felt really long with it being three days and jam-packed with activities. Friday morning, James and I walked the 3.2 miles for the “3.2 for 32 Run in Remembrance.” We did not know the victims personally, but we know the family of Nicole White, and James knows a survivor (he was shot, but lived). So we walked for them. Originally the plan was to run, but it being at eight o’clock in the morning kind of changed that. We plan on training all of this coming year to run next year. We both invited our parents to come next year because we think that they would enjoy it. Anyway, after the run, we went to Joe’s Diner for breakfast. For anyone who has not been there already, it is absolutely imperative that you do before you graduate. It is just a little hole-in-the-wall diner downtown, but it has the BEST breakfast food for really cheap. I do not even like breakfast food. Their hash browns are amazing. Anyway, after that I volunteered at the community picnic on the drill field from eleven o’clock to around one thirty. That was fun. A reporter from the Roanoke Times was there and she asked me which organization I was with, and think that I could not say I was in Alpha Delta Pi (for whatever reason, I do not know), I said I was from Panhellenic Council (meaning to say Panhellenic Conference). Whatever, it is not that big of a deal. Anyway, I had planned on going to Campus Crusade for Christ’s Remembrance picnic at two o’clock, but I decided to nap instead, because I had to go to work at four o’clock. So that’s how my night went. Saturday was the Big Event, and I thankfully had a really easy project. Three girls from ADPi and I all went and washed a lady’s windows. We finished in about forty five minutes and went and had lunch at Panera. Then I had to work again at four. Then Sunday I woke up really stuffy with allergies and everything, so we did not go to church. We went to lunch at West End with one of our mutual friends, ran errands, I went to a chapter meeting, then dinner, etc. I am sorry to bore you with my boring life! :D

Right now, I am rereading one of my favorite books ever. It is call An Assembly Such as This by Pamela Aidan. Basically, it is Pride and Prejudice written from Mr. Darcy’s point of view. I don’t know if anyone else is a Jane Austen fanatic (I actually really doubt it), but I really like this book because Austen really only focuses on Elizabeth’s perspective. I think that this book really answers a lot of questions her book leaves out. However, from what reviews I have read, Jane Austen fans either love this book, or hate it. Some may think that it is an insult to mimic her work, but others, like myself, love that fact that this book could just keep on going. The best and worst part of this book is the ending. Aidan very strategically made this perspective of Pride and Prejudice last for three books. So this is the first installment in a set of three. I’m not quite there yet, but I think it ends somewhere near Elizabeth’s visit to Charlotte after she has married Mr. Collins. Even having read this book about five times, I haven’t bought the other two. I really need to and plan to finally do that this summer. I’m really excited about it.

Busy, Busy Week!

So this is what’s happening with my biology lab. Right now, I am a psychology major, which requires four semesters of science and two labs. I am planning on changing my major to Communication with a concentration in public relations. The communication department at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (to use more words!) does not require labs with their science requirement of two semesters. So, over spring break, I decided to not write my lab report because I was just going to withdraw from it (I missed the add/drop drop deadline). However, my advisor was not in all of last week. I picked up the withdrawal form two weeks ago. She told me to think some more about it, so I did. I brought it back to be signed the next week, and she was not there. I had missed three biology labs at this point—four absences results in an incomplete (an F in the course).

She is in her office this week so I went and got the form signed. However, I have two tests this week that I need to study for, so I couldn’t go in to the dean’s office to have it processed. You have to make an appointment anyway, so I did not leave myself enough time to do that (my fault). So this is when I realized that I was going to fail anyway. I will be attending biology lab tomorrow in all my shame, and have a ton of work to do to try and bring my grade up after skipping a lab report that was worth 20% of my final grade (I was just SO smart in my decisions this semester! NOT! ).

Of course it is no one else’s fault but mine that I am now so stressed about a lab. I should have kept going in the mean time between trying to withdraw from the course. I should have definitely wrote that paper—but who would if they knew they were going to withdraw from it? It is a good thing that this lab is only worth one credit, so even a lower grade in the class will not affect my grade point average too terribly. Anyway, no that this is out of the way, I need to study for my second test of the week. I successfully pulled off a hundred on my first (one shiny light in the darkness that is this week!)

Field Games

So Saturday, I played field games with my sorority while participating in a fraternity’s philanthropy. We didn’t have to participate in the games because we received points for our attendance. I volunteered to play gladiator just because I was really, really excited about getting to do something athletic after such a frigid winter. We could finally go outside without getting chilled to the bone!

Anyway, so I signed up to play gladiator. I did not expect it to be such an intense game! Imagine octopus, flag football, and that arcade game where you have to the throw the ball into different buckets with different points all combined. There were seven girls on a team—three on defense, and four on offense. The defenders were responsible for ripping off the other team’s offenders’ flags. The offense, obviously, were responsible for throwing the mini footballs into the buckets. There were five buckets on the field—two blue, two yellow, and one green. The blue buckets were worth one point for every ball we got in it, the yellow buckets were worth three points, and the green bucket was worth five points. The offense of our team would play against the defense of the other team for two minutes, and then vice versa for another two minutes. In those two minutes, we tried to get as many balls into the buckets as we possibly could (I was on offense, unfortunately). I did not realize that I would have to sprint the ENTIRE time. Normally this would not be too terrible for me. I used to play soccer and work out regularly, but I have not done either in a while (mostly due to how cold it has been and I did not want to walk to the gym in it!). So our first game took me totally by surprise. I finished and was so tired, and for the first time in forever, my asthma started to kick in a bit. I ended up having to ask James to bring my inhaler for me! We did lose our first game, but it was a double elimination, so we had to play at least one more time. We won that one, but lost our third game, so we were out. To be honest, I was kind of relieved because I was so tired! The whole time playing, I though I was being really smooth and like sliding next to the buckets to throw my ball in, but apparently I was being thrown. L So to add to my already sore muscles from disuse, I had tons of scrapes and bruises all over me. I am still sore now. L

But it was still fun, and totally worth it!

Greek Conference

I was not in class on Friday, so I am not going to be entertaining and write a story. Julia emailed me all of the things that were in the envelope that you could draw, but it would not be fair if I got to choose my things. It also would not be as fun.

This weekend I travelled to Indianapolis for a conference about ministry in Greek life. It was about a nine-hour drive on very windy roads. Guess who found out that she gets carsick? Anyway, it was a very good experience. I was raised Catholic, but once I kind of started to think about it on my own, I started seeing things in the church that just did not make any sense to me. These are all, of course, my own thoughts, so please do not take offence if you are Catholic.

One major thing that bothered me was that the church, well the whole faith really, is supposed to be all-inclusive—letting everyone in. It seems as if this is the goal of the church—to get as many people into the faith as possible. It did not make any sense, to me, that the Catholic church does not allow anyone but Catholics take communion. If Jesus died on the cross for us, forgave us of all of our past, present, and future sin, so that we are hidden in Him, why are we not allowed to share His body with others?

So with this realization, I felt a renewed urge to strive for a deeper relationship with Christ, and decided to attend the conference not only for my benefit, but also to teach me how to share my faith with others and lead them to our one true savior. I went to this conference unsure of how everything would happen, and not sure if I would like it or not. The first night, the speaker for the weekend, Roger Hershey, lead us in the bible to the book of Ephesians. Ephesians 2:1 states that “And you he made alive, who were once dead in trespasses and sin.” This means that we are spiritually dead when we are not in Christ. Before we have accepted Christ, we are spiritually dead to God. It goes on in verses two and three of how we have walked with society, in the world and were take up by the world instead of walking with God. But in verses four and five, he comforts us, saying “but God, who is rich in mercy , because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)…” This is such a comforting verse to me. I know that when I accepted Christ as my savior, I was completely saved. I knew God loved, and always had, even when I was not striving for him. I was not doing anything to reach out to him, which took away everything he craves. He desperately wants a deep relationship with all of us, and when I realized that, I was so happy and comforted.

Weekend

I give my blogs creative titles, obviously. Anyway, this one is about my weekend (starting Friday, not Saturday). Friday was okay. English was first, and I had my presentation. I forgot my shirt for my presentation because I had another shirt in my bag and thought I had already put it in. Anyway, I found pictures on Facebook of it, and as hard to see as the lion was on the computer, it’s just as hard in person. So, that was a bust. I still have not received my grade, but my expectation is not too terribly high. Anyway, biology was all right. We talked about the meanings of different colored and different types of flowers for the guys since Valentine’s day was coming. I worked at Hokie Grill from 4:00 to closing, and it was not too bad. After that James and I had a couple friends in from out of town, so we all went to a stoplight party. It was pretty fun. It was like the first party I had been to since like October.

So then Saturday I had my sisterhood retreat with the sisters of Alpha Delta Pi in a conference at the holiday it. J Our bigs (Big Diamond Sisters) were revealed to us, and that was really exciting. I left early from the retreat to go with about ten other sisters to the Ronald McDonald House in Roanoke. The Ronald McDonald House is our sorority’s national philanthropy. For those who do not know, the house is for families who have a family member in the hospital for a long period of time. We made dinner for the guests there, dropped off blankets that we made, and brought everyone Valentine’s Day bags. That was fun.

Sunday was Valentine’s Day. J James and I went to church that morning, and it was good. We go to North Star church and the sermons are always good. Then we went to Olive Garden (my absolute favorite resturant) for lunch, and then saw the movie Valentine’s Day. The movie was pretty good. It has a little something for everyone in it. The previews do not really give anything away as far as the plot. It was good though J

Research Studies and such

In my junior and senior years of high school (the Saints are down 6-10 on offence), and I was required to do a research study each year. In my junior year (the Saints just made a touchdown and the extra point was good! The score is now 13-10), I did a study about a woman’s risk of developing post partum depression based upon her personality. Because this was primarily a survey study, I did not receive much response with the time I was allotted. I ended up doing a mega-analysis on the subject. This is when (Colts just returned the kick to the twenty-four yard line) someone takes research others have already done and extensively compare and contrast them. It was kind of interesting. The topic is interesting, but it would have been nice to be able to do my own research. (Colts get a first down) My senior year research project was much more interesting. I studied the social dynamics of a bongo herd at the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk. Every Saturday morning for five months, I observed the behavior of the zoo’s bongo herd. Before I went out to observe, I cleaned their stalls, fed them, and sometimes played with the calves (:D). If you do not know, a bongo is basically a big antelope. It is reddish in color with twelve to fourteen cream colored stripes. Their horns are spiral, but how much they twist depends on the horn thickness. There were three calves born in late September and early October. It was really interesting to see how well the herd adjusted around the (the Colts just got a touchdown, I hope the extra point is bad) calves. Unfortunately, while the zoo was trying to transport one of the calves to another zoo, the oldest calf broke her leg and died. This was also a very descriptive study, and because I had so much information, I focused it on determining if it was safe to reintroduce the calves into the herd after they are born (as this does not happen in the wild—males generally roam alone). Along with making my own observations (Saints from the thirty-four yard line), I emailed other zoos and asked for information on their own reintroductions. It was a very successful study. This was a little disorganized, but I am obviously watching the Super bowl at the same time!

Sorority Recruitment

Sorority recruitment is a long, daunting process. It occurs over the course of two weekends, and those weekends are very, very long. The first two days make up the open house rounds of recruitment. They are called, very creatively, Open House Round 1 and Open House Round 2. During this round, the girls participating in recruitment visit all thirteen chapters in the Oak Lane community located on Virginia Tech’s campus. The focus of this round is to learn about life as a Greek woman. During this round, the girls introduce themselves and learn about what all the chapters do together, while avoiding the topic of fraternities and alcohol—this is not the time to do learn about the party life of the chapter. This facet of Greek life may be the focus of many girls going through recruitment, however, to get the most out of being in a sorority, other things are much more important. These things include the involvement of the women at VT, their sisterhood, their community service work, and their philanthropy. At the end of open house round (the end of the second day), the girls rank the chapters according to how they liked them, and how comfortable they were.

Most important of the rankings of this round are the last three, as during the next round of recruitment the girls will only visit a maximum of ten chapters. This round is called Philanthropy round. As seen in the title, the focus of this round is to learn about the charities each chapter benefits with their big philanthropy events. In this round, it is important to see what you feel most passionate about. If you were part of the chapter, would you feel very strongly about participating in the philanthropy and therefore, helping the charity it benefits. After this round, the girls rank the chapters they visited. Each girl could have visited a maximum of ten chapters, however, it is not unlikely that some girls will not be invited back to ten, and will only rank those she attended.

The next round is called Sisterhood Round. Each girl attends up to six chapters and learns about the chapter’s sisterhood—how close the sisters are, how much they do together, and so on. This is the point when the girls should really evaluate if they feel that they would fit into each sorority. Even if you’ve heard of a sorority’s reputation, the only opinion that matters is her own. It’s her college experience, and other girls should not influence it. It is a very personal decision and should be reflected upon. After this round, the girls will rank the chapters they attended based upon their preference.

The last round of recruitment is called Preference Round. In this round, each girl visits a maximum of three parties. Each sorority will do something different, and it is very hard to generalize about what will occur on this round. However, it will likely have something to do with why the sisters chose the sorority they are in, and how they have grown since then, whether it is academically, personally, spiritually, or all three. They will receive a bid from one of these three chapters.