yay for academic advisors!

so i started a post last night but didn't finish it, and this one has nothing to do with it either but I just wanted to share my joy. I talked to my new academic advisor today about internships and registering for next semester! Although it is scary to think about next semester and about the future whether or not I will go to grad school it was super awesome to chat with him and have him be very supportive of the things I want to do. The thing I was most happy about was that he was cool with me not having a specific direction in psychology and that I am open to pretty much anything. And really why shouldn't I be? I don't know that much about psychology. Just what I have learned in classes and well I'll take all the real experience that I can take in all different forms. Plus why would I want to settle on a specific area when I haven't even experienced any of them?! Oh and it was also really good to hear him say that my plans of taking a year off and either working or interning is a good idea! YES! Dr. B is my new favorite person!he was very helpful and I am just full of appreciation for his advising skills! :-) That is all I have to say. going to look for classes now so that I can have an idea of classes. it definitely isn't going to be a slack semester next semester! :-P

my sock is too small

I am convinced that either I got two different size socks, or that my right foot is just bigger than the left. hmmmm.

Well i had a pretty good end to the night last night. Chatting with Natalie, Joe and Mel made my evening! I had not talked to any of them in awhile and I got the chance to reminisc about days past.:-) And i did finally go to bed and got some sleep, more than 2 1/2 hours that is... :-)

Yesterday was also great aside from lack of sleep, because i went to an internship meeting and I REALLY want one for J term! I will go anywhere! It would be heaps good if I could go to another state or country. I don't know if I have the money but I reckon that if I work over christmas break I'd be almost golden! Although maybe I should save the money for after graduation and for other things. Hmmm decisions decisions! I really just want to travel again! We'll see I might just end up doing one in Iowa or Minnesota and I'm pretty cool with that too. I am excited to get some work experience!

I got to hang out with Justin last night to do homework. I barely got through any of my info for my senior paper but I suppose I'll keep trucking. I feel a bit better about the fact that I've done something (a whole page of notes! :-P ) We had quite a lot of fun when we weren't studying too. Justin has some mad gymnastic skills. heheeh. Also we had a fun conversation about Punks and what it means to be punk. He mentioned an article that Brett gave him ( a soc prof) and i really want to read it now. Punk culture is sooo interesting! I should have done my paper on that! would be so cool! argh! Oh well.

Today Ben Folds is playing a show at First Avenue in Minneapolis and I wish I was going to be there! Sadly I will not be. I think I shall devote my day to Ben Folds and listen to just him. sigh... Well i have nothing else good to say... Oh well exciting news! Julia (a girl i work with) is back at school! She had mono! so sad, but so happy that she is feeling better!

oh why do I do this to myself?!

it is already after 1am and I am still up on a sunday night. I ask myself over and over again as I sit here typing away at an assignment why it is that I do this to myself? I clearly had ample time to get my homework done this weekend but I once again procrastinated. I tend to like to make excuses. Clearly friday night talking to friends online and watching movies were much more important. And clearly watching "Girl, Interrupted" while trying to type this assignment was much needed! :-P And although I spent most of the morning into the afternoon in the library I did not get anything done but writing notes and studying for my psych exams next week. Have I started my senior paper? nope! AUGH! I am a mess! Saturday evening... well those plans were quite set in stone. There was no way i wasn't going to hang out with the girls and go to a birthday party for Britta and Sasha! And of course i needed to drink all of that alcohol and then just spew it up again later! ha! (it was quite the fun night though, no doubt! loved it!) And then even after waking up at a decent hour I decided that a long breakfast and tv and discussion with Krista, Maggie, Marissa and Frenchie (krista's boy) was far more important than again working on my assignment. Frisbee practice was a must and then a long hot shower and some soup afterwards, especially since I was feeling quite bummed about my bike gone missing! And then it was off to my study abroad meeting. SO wonderful. To have Terry from the study abroad office ask Bre, Leah and I all about our trips to Australia was fantastic. Also just chatting with the girls about what we saw and what we experienced in the different cities we were in was great! I so hope that I can chat with them again sometime and share photos and the likes! They are wonderful girls and Terry was awesome! She has got to be the one person that has wanted to know just about EVERYTHING from my trip! :-) Well after the meeting I showed up late for Suzanne's voice recital. Well only late to help out. Her recital was fantastic and it was so nice that we did not have to stay too late to help clean up the food afterwards. Krista and I had planned on a movie this evening so after some chai (mine tasting mostly of just warm milk) we came back home and then I at least tried to do some work only to find a message on AIM telling me of sad news of a friend in Australia. I am quite worried and feel very helpless but wish i could help. Although part of this news came to me on Friday it seemed even worse this evening. So sad to learn that things are not going well for Sarah again. So after returning a phone call to dad I could not think very straight. Started to chat with Maggie and Krista, promised to do homework but ended up on the phone with Amber. This was quite a relief and helped in sorting through my thoughts over sarah because I knew Amber would understand the whole situation. Was so nice to chat with her in general. Finally we started the movie, Krista, Maggie and I. Emma was quite the lovely movie and I enjoyed it immensely but oh goodness... it did take awhile to watch and now I am afraid that I will not get much sleep at because it is now almost half past one and I still need to finish this assignment. Oh goodness. I have so much other work I could have gotten done too! And so of course instead of writing the assignment I felt the need to lament over it by writing on here. Goodness, I'm off. I really do need some sleep tonight... have to work in the morning again! many things to get done tomorrow! :-P

cheers,
em

Playing in the Leaves! :-)

i love fall days! Today after my first class I found Jordan walking by and we stopped to chat and to make a leaf pile. Sadly with only fifteen minutes between classes we did not get far. Also we had no rake and it was just the two of us. So i tell Jordan that since he's done with class he needs to come back and make a pile for me since he was to meet with more people later. As I left Valders this afternoon after trying to get something to print in the lab, I got a call over to the leaf pile and there was Jordan, Nathan, Nate's gf Ingrid, Cassie, and Aaron! The pile was bigger so we all had some fun jumping and playing in it. This is why my afternoon was so good, even after getting a shitty paper back (I am scared about getting a C in learning and behavior) We played for quite awhile and although the pile could probably get even bigger if we had all of us with rakes....OH WOW that pile would be good! Maybe another day. Well i think I swallowed bits of leaf and actually feel a bit sick to my stomach over it. :-P bleh. overall a wonderful afternoon of leaf pile jumping! I *heart* my friends! Good end to the school day. :-)

MirrorMask

Went to see MirrorMask this evening with Davina and it was FANTASTIC! i guess I have to say that I didn't know much about the story before I went to see it, only that I knew Shannon said it would probably be great. Neil Gaiman and Dave McKeen are quite the talented folk. Granted I've read one of their children's books, but i don't know much more about them except again from what Shannon has told me. I recommend this movie though to anyone. It was so fascinating!I was intrigued by the story and the fantastic art the whole time. I couldn't have asked for a better date movie to see with Davina! Overall we had an excellent time. I don't know how many times I can say that it was great! I don't know what else to say, except go see it! I was glad that I did!

Anyway tomorrow must head back to school. :-P Fall break was nice. I had a lot of good social time with Davina and it was nice to see Kareem again and also the family although I did not see much of dad. He was very busy with scouts. sigh... oh well. one more month and I'll be back for some thanksgiving. One thing I did not get done while here was getting a start on my genogram assignment for Abnormal. Oh well. Well looking forward, I guess, to getting back to Luther. Did some shopping with mom today, got a haircut (nothing drastic), had a good dinner and then saw the movie. Was not very productive today, but whatever. Starting the trip back to school with some lunch with Kayla and Tyler and then home to Luther we go. Once I get back it will be back to studying.... got to finish up those assignments that are due on friday! gross!

I think that is all. sorry nothing else interesting.

cheers!
em

ps. one thing I decided this weekend... while at the 90s... malibu and coke... SO yummy (this is why I made mom buy me some coke while at the store today ;-)... now I just gotta go get some Malibu!;-) )

Gay 90s

yesterday I took my first trip to the Gay 90s in downtown Minneapolis. First of all I LOVE Minneapolis and hope I live in the actual city sometime. Second, the night was a blast! My sister and I met up at her house, and drove on over the 90s. It was so awesome to be able to go to a club in the cities and be 21! Oh the freedom! Anyway sunday nights are quite fun at the Gay 90s... they have a great drag show! I automatically was thinking "Priscilla Queen of the Desert". Drag Queens are so awesome and so entertaining! These ladies put on a great show and they are quite the lookers. It kind of makes you a bit jealous being a girl and knowing that a man looks better in a dress and heels than you do! sigh...

But yes, it was quite the show and was very entertaining. AJ and I spent two hours there and sadly I missed finding Kayla, but we continue to live and breathe. All is well. After a night of fun, came home to talk to all the Aussies online which proved to be wonderful

Today i was of course unproductive, and slept as much as possible. Later in the evening Davina and I studied for about three hours at Caffetto. I still have heaps to do over the next couple of days.Studying was good and we saw Kareem, Sarah and Kristin there. Apparently Caffetto was the place to be because there were barely any seats!

ps. life is good and i have nothing else to say. Am hoping that Carson will not be shitty... maybe his move to LA will make him funnier

Art Crawl and other fun

being home is really nice. One thing I have to watch out for is when I am driving to keep my eyes on the road. Driving through the neighborhoods gets me looking at the beautifully color changing trees! So nice. There's a couple great one going back into Davina's neighborhood that I am just in awe of! I could sit and look at them all day although I reckon the people who own the yard where these trees are would probably think me crazy.

I got to spend the whole day with Davina yesterday and then most of it with my sister! Davina and i started the day with coffee and studying of course, but little studying got done on my part. After that my sister invited us along to go on an "Art Crawl" in St. Paul. It was SO cool. We went from building to building where a bunch of artists have studios and had set them up with their art work! So great! I don't know heaps about art, but I do know I like looking at it. It was quite the adventure and I really enjoyed the whole day until i felt like keeling over from lack of food. What was also great was the weather, and of course the company, but to add to that my sister was taking photos again. I feel she hasn't in awhile and I also feel that being at this art show got her a little bit revved up to do so again. I asked her like ten times to make me copies of photos as christmas presents. Overall we saw just a crazy amount of fantastic artitsts and enjoyed the day. Later we caught some dinner at Cossetta's (mmm mmm good). Their pizza is fantastic. THen a very tired Davina and I made our way back to Fridley. I spent the evening taking a nap, chatting to mom and then Kareem came over. To fill my desire for some soda we walked across the street to the gas station and bought junk food and then sat down to watch Young Frankenstein. So funny! :-) To end the night well I got a phone call from an intoxicated Amber and had the most lovely chat with her! Oh Amber I do love you! :-) You are great! :-)

Anyway that is life back in MN. Only a few more days at home and then it's back to school. Tonight the plans are to go to the 90s. Should be fun. Tomorrow and Tuesdays plans for me are to study and catch up on work! I really need to!

cheers

em

i'm getting the BEST christmas gift this year!

Well made it home to good old F-town this evening after a good three hour car ride with Joanie, Kayla and Tyler. It felt good to roll into town and immeadiately see the lights again and also to head out to get coffee with my FAVORITE coffee buddy of them all Davina! One of my favorite things to do at the coffee shops in Minneapolis is to pick up the flyers for different concerts and art shows and what not and also to pick up a City Pages to see what's going on. I was so excited (but then so disappointed ) to find some amazing concerts coming up! as in... Ben Folds! Oct. 25th, Bad Religion w/ Pennywise and AntiFlag Nov. 9th, and let's not forget BTE, Ben Lee, Our Lady Peace, and 311. I was mostly excited for the first three, but of course they are on week nights when I will be down in Decorah! AHHHHH I want to see BR and Ben Folds SOOOO BAD! I love Minneapolis. I don't know if I can ever leave! I know I want to live hear again after school even if it's just for the night life and the concerts that come into town! SIGH... here's hoping i can find a way to these concerts or something! AHHHH Maybe I will just devote those days to those bands by listening to their music ALL day! It's just not the same though and I've only seen Bad Religion once! How good would a punk concert be?! AHHHHH ! :-) And how can one not love Ben Folds?! Sigh... again...

Anyway so after some good fun at the coffee shop Davina and I decided that we are both getting sick. Hopefully I am not really getting sick...but it kind of feels like it. Other stuff about home... so many people's yards are full of cut up branches and trees, no doubt from the big storm that passed through a few weeks ago! We even have some in our yard! so crazy. Davina tried to explain what her neighborhood looked like that day. SO I get home from coffee, get online and start to check my email. I find an email from Kaz (Karen, my dear friend and frisbee captain from Australia--amazingly cool chick!). Not only does she tell me she has my Adelaide Uni Frisbee club shirt in and that she will send it to me if I shoot her my address, but.... here's the best part... KAZ IS COMING HOME WITH WILL FOR CHRISTMAS! (this is the best christmas gift I am referring to) She'll be in the cities for Christmas! !!!!!! Not only will I get to see Will, but I get to see Kaz too! I so hope they come down to Luther to visit, but if not I really hope I get to see them in general! I *heart* these two SOOOOO MUCH! I'm SO SO SO SO SO excited! To top off this excitement... it was great to come home and find messages on my phone from friends and my sister saying they are excited to have me home. THe plan for the weekend.. coffee in the morning with D along with some homework, an art show with my sister around 1ish, hopefully dinner with mom later, and then I really really really want to go see Mirrormask which JUST came out in theaters here in Minneapolis! It's playin in Uptown! yay! Oh and Sunday night... Gay 90s here I come! soooo pumped! My sister is going to go too and D! Will hopefully meet up with Kayla and Tyler too. I'm really looking forward to this weekend. I am in love with life right now and all of these things that just happend. I can't even express enough how excited I am for Christmas now. I Love Kaz and Will! Oh joy!!!

love!
em

IT'S OVER!

oh finally! that biodiversity test is over! I hope I did alright on it. Definitely were things on there that I did not have in my notes! gross! oh well. Here's hoping for an alright grade! :-P My paper for Learning and Behavior is done too! Just printed it! yay! I'm running off a random amount of sleep right now and caffeine! Skipped work this morning (first time I have ever done so!) Two more classes and then I am DONE for the day and it's off to home for some sitting around and well, catching up on homework! Oh it is such a nice day and I am really looking forward to enjoying the day!i feel like my eyes will drop out of my head soon but I can't express enough how good it feels to be done with this work! in honor of the title, I reckon I will go watch an episode of Teen Girl Squad before I go to class! w00t!

cheers!
em

by george I think i've got it!

so this morning over some abnormal psych reading, coffee, cheese and crackers and "The Exhibitionists" I think I figured out more of my life! How awesome! :-) I was reading about perspectives on depression when I came across this little blurb on the side stating: "Insurance influences the type of treatment people receive for depression. Privately insured patients are more likely then Medicaid patients to receive psychotherapy. And among those on medications, the privately insured are more likely to receive second-generation anti depressants than the cheaper tricyclics" (Melf et al., 1999). What does this all mean to me? Well I realized that along with abnormal psychology I have a great passion for wanting to help people who are less fortunate. This statement found in my book kind of bugs me. It makes me sad/mad that people who are on the government's Medicaid are possibly receiving crappy help with their illnesses (I'm guessing it's also not just in the psychological area too). I want to help change that I've decided. How exactly that's going to happen I don't know. I want to see more people who are in poverty or of lower socioeconomic status receive more equal care for things. I want to help people psychologically and socially function more effectively. Does this all make sense? I think it does and I think I need to now find an academic advisor and let them know this and not be afraid to tell them my ideas. I am hoping for some answers as to how to pursue my ideas and passions. Oh this feels pretty good.

on another note... check out photos of my sister running the marathon! how cool is this?! she ran a marathon! : http://www.asiorders.com/go.asp?6858754

also photos of us girls from flamingo ball:

the house mates!(Minus Maggie) Krista, Me, Kayla, Britta, Marissa

This is Me, Kayla and Megan... check out mine and kayla's hot thrift store dresses!

That is all I have for now. Will probably get more photos up here or on a yahoo site soon! Sigh... think it will be a good day today! and I think noodle soup will make it even better... off to make some lunch! Love to all!

cheers

em

a lot of stuff....

first of all this is a bit late but HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRITTA! her birthday was on friday the 30th! she's old now! The best part of that day was when the housemates got together and went out for some very yummy breakfast in town! So good to start off the day with something yummy in my tummy! Oh and lets not forget that this weekend was also Schwarz's birthday. happy birthday to him! Although I am quite fuzzy on the details of the actual day of his birthday. I do hear that his party was quite a good one though. (My apologies for not getting a start on the idea of swimming earlier! my bad)

other than birthdays... (this is a few days old now... but to continue...)

We had a frisbee tourney over the weekend and it was a lot of fun. Exit 69 in Northfield,MN was a blast. The weather was lovely minus the wind that came about.Overall a good time had by all. We went 4-2 over the weekend and had a bit of a tif with one of the teams about time cap. Oh well.The girls were fun to hang out with and nothing says cozy like stuffing 13? girls into one hotel room:-)

------------------------------------------------

alright seriously i put this off all week and so now I will actually finish this post. Last weekend was quite fun up in Northfield. Since last weekend though it was quite a week I guess... academic-wise... kind of bad. Two tests came back to me on friday with not such great grades. I decided to look on the bright side and think about how I have seven weeks I can use to improve those grades! HOPEFULLY. Plus Fall break starts next weekend which gives me a few days at home and away from school and hopefully will help me get caught up on homework. Paper status: the Biodiversity one... not started, apparently my topic isn't good enough. Am pretty confused about that one and pretty bummed that I have to talk to the professor about it. SHOOT! Have another paper due this week and still need an article or two. Am a little scared to write it because my article reviews have been kind of crap already for the same class. The senior paper... didn't work on it at all this week! Not good. Got the book I asked for through the library though. Eek! i just want to write it! Happy thing academic-wise... Laura and I are all caught up on our experiments with our rat!

Enough about academics... life in general ... I LOVE my friends. It's been a good week with them. The frisbee girls are so great! we played in our Luther tournament yesterday with the men because well, no women's teams came! We had a great time though! They are so awesome. Kristin...definitely my new favorite! She wore a gorilla's mask to the games and she tackled Rookie! Oh it was just fantastic and I really hope that someone has a photo of her in the mask! Seriously it is so great to have so many friends. These girls are growing on me and they seem to really like me too! Also yesterday I went to my first wedding. After missing out on three of them because I was first away in Australia and then back at school, I got to finally see a friend get married! Kari and Bryan got married yesterday and it was great. Good weather, good service, nice reception! Plus I got to see friends from home which was also very lovely! I went up to the wedding, and then came back down to school so that I could go to the homecoming dance which was also fabulous! Oh did I also mention that it was Leah's birthday yesterday?! HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEAH! oh and I think it's Elena's today! So many birthdays!

other things that I wanted to write about in this blog from last weekend... my brother got a job at a restaraunt as a cook! I guess he doesn't cook anything fancy yet, but how cool?!? He has a job and that's exciting! :-) Also my sister did something really really cool! She ran a freaking marathon! Finished in 5hours and 10 mins! How awesome is that?! i feel like I should try that some day. Seriously i just think it's so cool that she ran a marathon. My cousin Jesse ran the same marathon (Twin Cities Marathon) and he was trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Not sure how he did but he had to get something like 3 hours i think. That's all quite an accomplishment. Maybe I can train with AJ sometime to run one some day! That would be so cool.

Alright as to keep this from getting too long I will stop here. I'm getting kind of a mental block too anyway. no doubt I will think of something I wanted to inform you probably five people who still read this. I'm quite surprised I haven't been yelled at by Mel to update :-) (ps. Mel so sorry that I'm never online! I am very bummed that we haven't been able to chat in awhile! miss you heaps!)

cheers
em

I LOVE our ULTIMATE team!

so this was the best day ever with the frisbee girls.First it's been raining all weekend so we had one hell of a fun practice! Layouts? Unnecessary bids anyone?! OH YES! we sure did! :) It was such a fun practice playing in the rain and doing heaps of bids and layouts! After we went and found the largest puddle on the field and just started to slide through it. We got very wet and grassy! Here's a photo to give ya'll a little taste of what we looked like. Some of the freshmen girls ran back to their dorm and took a photo so it's only a few of the members of the team but this is why I love these girls!
so yeah... meet Claire, Ellie (Pepe), Melissa, Sanna, Tiffany, and Andrea (Oops):-) What lovely girls. Also tonight we went "Blading". But what it is I can not tell. Just know it was a lot of fun! :-)

saving the world? and soulmates

first of all I need to say how much I *heart* Bad Religion and Flogging Molly and Ben Folds. I have pretty much been constantly listening to all three this past week. Love Love LOVE them! All great music.

Anyway here are some things from the past few days.

Wednesday after a depressing video in Biodiversity telling us how we are overpopulating the world and will kill it by doing so Leah and I chatted about how we could save the world. Leah told me she would do her part by being a repulsive human being so as to not have any children, thus bringing down the population. I mentioned maybe we should get rid of plastic surgeons because then we don't have to worry so much about beautiful people who want to procreate. hmmm good theory huh? The best part of this discussion... on how to save the world... was Leah's quote "Saving the world one dateless friday night at a time". :-) Believe me it was really funny at the time. Kayla also chipped in some insight to this theory when I discussed it with her later. According to her we won't overpopulate the world because of natural disasters. She said it kind of like when the world or God decides that there's too many people on the earth, they do a little population regulation and send out a natural disaster to get rid of some people (ie the Tsunami and the hurricanes) This might not be a good thing to joke about...but really... it's a fairly decent idea. Population control via natural disasters?

Another thing. Kayla and I have determined that we are soulmates. Academic soulmates anyway. We sat around one night doing homework and chatting a bit and we both realized that we have pretty much the exact same attitude and outlook on life when it comes to academics. We're both have B averages, we sometimes feel like idiots around smart people who like to use large words, and we both had a bit of a difficult time trying to get our point or arguments across to people. I don't know if I had ever met anyone on the Luther campus that had these same thoughts. So many people here say they're such "bad students" or are like me when it comes to academics but really they're not. Kayla...she's for real. This probably seems like such a random thing to talk about but it was quite enlightening and just good to hear.

It's parents weekend and well my parents are not coming. It was however they're anniversary yesterday and I did not tell them Happy Anniversary or anything... no card either. I'm a bad daughter. So since my parents aren't coming I get to hang out with everyone else's parents! Ma Pa Schaffmeyer came last night and brought heaps of "hippie food" as they like to call it. It was nice to see them again! YAY! Well it's off to go see Britta's birthday presents and start the day of studying/hanging with people's folks.!

cheers!
em

the grinell tourney

well this is a couple days late but i had to write anyway....

The frisbee tournament at Grinell this past weekend was FANTASTIC! we took a team of... 16? girls and had a BLAST! <---- check out the photo! Most of our team consisted of new players but they, and we still did amazing and we even got compliments from other teams! Overall I had such a blast that it's hard for me to explain in words. Not only did I LOVE playing in a tournament again with the Luther Women's Team 'Glad Bestandig' and that I got to be playing with my friends from last year, but I got to meet heaps of new girls too! I now have like 10 new friends and people I have to say "hi" to while walking around campus. I had a blast with these girls. Everyone wanted to play and was excited to play, we had fun car rides -- dance parties in all, great conversations, good times camping and...although our team NEVER goes to the party... this time the WHOLE TEAM went! Most of the men's team went too so we could interact not only with our other Luther team but with all the teams! So good!

Basically I can not explain in any other way than by saying that this weekend was AMAZING FUN! I'm pretty tired and can't really think of much to say either except that i loved playing frisbee this weekend and it was good!

That is all.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAYLA!

So today is Kayla's 22nd birthday. YAY! :-) If you don't know Kayla she is one of my roomies and my new friend. I did not know Kayla until this year and I feel like I missed out on her awesomeness! Anyway exciting times for Kayla's birthday! We got up heaps early this morning and ate breakfast together (everyone) and had mimossa's. Mmmm champagne and juice! Tonight Marissa is cooking Lasagna for the house and some other friends. It should be great! 1. I *HEART* Lasagna, and 2. someone else cooking a nice hot meal for me?! EXCELLENT! Love to Maris! Anyway ...

Besides birthday fun it's been a weird week. I can't think straight. I am having a complete mental block over my senior paper! Eek! There are very mixed feelings I have about it. I thought I had this great topic but now I'm thinking...meh, it's not so great, maybe I want to change it. And I though I had a topic to change it to but now I'm thinking...shoot, it's not a solid topic!

My Mind is Blank! -- not a good thing when i am supposed to have an outline by tomorrow afternoon and well now I'm meeting with my professor any how because I told him via email that I'm rethinking my topic! Eek! I'm very excited to write this paper but I want it to be GOOD! So good that it rocks my face, and my advisor's face off! Not only that but anybody else's face who might read it! It's scary thinking about leaving school after this year and getting a job but then I also think of the great opportunities I could have and find if i would just look. I sat in Abnormal Psych yesterday thinking about how cool it would be to get an internship with a clinical psychologist. My friend Sarah is doing one starting soon. Our Abnormal professor is also a clinical psychologist and so it makes the class very interesting and that's who Sarah is doing her internship with. I"m thinking maybe I'll do an internship over J Term even though i really want to be here. I have to start dealing with trying new things. Clearly I did fine trying a new thing for five months: Australia! Duh! Oooh and about Australia...so cool to get an email today about having a get together with other people that went to Australia for a semester to talk about experiences and about our programs. Other fun about Aus... was watching "Jeff Corwin Experience" on Animal Planet Tuesday and so cool to watch him in Aus, in Adelaide and then KI. It was quite exciting to sit there and point at the tv and say "i've been there! I rode on that ferry! I saw that site! I LIVED there!" SO GOOD!

alright it's already a quarter past 10 and I haven't done anything I was supposed to yet. As in study and get a check cut for the frisbee tourney this weekend! (that's going to be HEAPS good and I'm sure I'll write ALL about it when I get home!) Love to all!

Hokay, so...Here's the Earth....

alright so Mel was getting all up in my face about needing a new post, so to procrastinate a little bit from doing homework I'm doing so.

First let me tell you all how EXCITED I am that movie production of RENT is coming to theatres November 23!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This afternoon I watched movie previews online for quite awhile and not only did i get excited for Corpse Bride, MirrorMask, Harry Potter, a new Pride and Prejudice and The Chronicles of Narnia, but... I got to see a preview for RENT! I can't explain how much i love this production! The play is so awesome and so inspiring and just gives me an awesome feeling. I was literally bouncing off the walls over the movie this afternoon. Why? well not only is this an awesome production but... get this... the movie cast.... is the original broadway cast (minus the girl who played Mimi --Daphne Rubin-Vega what are you up to?!) Still very pumped though. They are all amazing actors and singers and I can't wait to see it again and be able to watch it over and over and over. I'm hoping it's awesome and that I don't bring too high of expectations. I want to enjoy this movie. I have a feeling I will not be disappointed though. Out of my excitement I called my sister and we're planning on going the day it comes out! I still can not express very well at the moment how much i love RENT. If I figure it out I'll let you all know. But praise and thanks to Jonathan Larson. What a fucking genius!

On to other topics... So to go along with the title of this blog... if you don't know the ebaum's world cartoon about the End of the world..here's a blurb I would like to share:

"Hokay, so here's the Earth. Chillin'. Dame you might say that's a pretty sweet Earth. ROUND! Hanyway... Ruling out the ice caps melting, meteors become crash into us, the ozone leaving and the sun exploding, we are definitely going to blow ourselves up...hokay so..."

So, I don't really think we are going to blow ourselves up, but rather we are just going to destroy the Earth in general with our materialistic life styles. I'm taking a class on Biodiversity this semester here at Luther and for my first journal entry that I had to write responding to what we've been talking about in class i wrote three pages about deforestation. Deforestation. It's a big deal I feel. My deal is that I can't believe how much we still do it. It's going to ruin us if we keep cutting down forests and rainforests! This may just seem like simple logic, or complete common sense but i guess I just don't understand why we still do it. If we keep cutting down for paper, excuse me but what happened to recyling? And if it's to make way for more people because our population is growing, i'm thinking maybe we try to keep the # of children to a minimum, but I really don't want to be the one to tell you to only have one kid and that you can't have the family you've always wanted. Anyway I was also thinking about all the rainforest that gets destroyed and cleared away. This makes me soooo sad. Our professor mentioned in class about how many things we can get from the rainforest. Ailments for diseases and such, but if we keep destroying the rainforest and don't use it resourcefully then we're missing out. Clearly! About being resourceful... When I was in Australia, Ann Marie and I took a horseback ride through a forest that wasn't an actual rainforest, it was kind of low on the scale of what constitutes an actual rainforest but there was still heaps to learn. Our tour guide Glenn was very informative and taught us all about the plants that were in the forest and how resourceful we could be and how useful the plants and things were. Nature and the environment can really be interesting! Glenn lived, I think in a rainforest for years when he was adopted by Aboriginees and they taught him all they knew about the rainforest and its resources. The best thing was at the end of the ride he showed us how this plant when broken up and dipped in water could be used as soap! how awesome is that?! Anyway what I'm getting at again is that resourcefulness is good. I'm thinking we need to be a little bit more of that and a little less of the materialistic. Pretty much it's just a matter of us taking care of the environment and not using so much of it's resources. My question now is... can we do it? Are people willing to make that sacrifice? Clearly i feel like some people do already, other cultures around the world live off the land. Can the rest of us do so?

MISSING: Adelaide!

just a quick one to say ... I Miss You Adelaide! I miss you heaps!

i miss the pubs,
i miss the Cooper's
i miss the people...sha'll i make a list? (I don't think I can... it would take up heaps of space!)
i miss the parks,
i miss the swans and the grace emily
i miss you O'Connell and late night food,
i miss the balconies,
i miss the chats in Shannon's room,
i miss the chats and movies in Mel and Jess'
i miss the one pitcher that turned into six
i miss the frisbee fun and traveling,
i miss it all... i miss all of you....

"and here you know the world could turn or crash and burn and you would never know it! going where the air is clear there's better beer in Adelaide..."

I *heart* my room mates!

so the first week of classes are over. Ok not the first full week of classes, only the first three days of classes! anyway things look like they will be good. I have already slacked a bit on doing some of my readings but that's ok I will survive. Today's plans... well I made a list of homework and things I need to get done but nothing has gotten done yet. Britta and I ate breakfast for about an hour this morning and watched ER, and two eps of Sex in the City. It was all happy and not to sound like a downer I have this terrible feeling that the show Sex in the City is just fucking with me right now and that it will get sad again sooner or later. Have this sneaky feeling Carrie and Aidan will NOT get married (oh shit, I'm obsessed! make it stop!...oh but it's so fun to watch!)

On top of that I *HEART* my room mates! They are all so fun and so crazy. Las night all but two of us went out last night. Krista and I hung around for the night and watched a movie. Good times. Anyway the girls have wanted to get a chance to talk to Shannon on the phone. So they got lucky last night since he was around. He rang and Marissa, Kayla, Britta and Krista all got the chance to say hello to an Aussie. (am still hoping it wasn't very awkward for shannon to talk to four girls he has never met). Anyway it was all pretty funny especially since Kayla was a bit drunk at the time too. The girls are just fantastic and I love living with them! This is going to be a great year!

i'm off now... Britta calls and so does some frisbee socializing i think...

love to all~

em

the last few days (boring, but it's all i got...)

what a great start to the year... besides watching the full third season of sex in the city, i really haven't gotten much done. Uni starts tomorrow. Luckily I don't have class until 11 am! I almost feel like i'm being really slack with having only three actual classes which don't start until about 11 am everyday and no class on thursday. Anyway, the unlucky part about tomorrow is that I'm scheduled to work at 6am tomorrow! gross! Even though the lady that does my scheduling says I don't start until thursday, my schedule says tomorrow morning. Oh well at least i can take a nap after work.:-) Also I have some time to get my shit together for school. Nothing is put together yet! oops! The roomies and I spent the whole night just keeping it real and having some fun by watching a movie and also having dinner together before that. These are a great bunch of girls and we are goign to have so much fun!

Also these past couple of days... there was a toga party last night! So fun! The girls and I got our butts up from the couches in the living room, grabbed our bed sheets and toga-ed it up! It was all great til 11 pm when it got broken up. Kris and I came back to watch some ER and then we all crashed. Well most of us did...

Today was also fantastic because I got to play some ultimate! Heaps of freshman girls and newbies came out to join us which was specatcular! It was such a great feeling. The not so good feeling was how much my body wanted to collapse after. Anyway it was a beautiful afternoon and was so great to spend it playing some disc.

that's it for now! much love

em

back at school...

alright so real quick...

am back to uni! YAY! down at Luther College again and it's awesome. I just moved down today and it's still pretty quiet around the joint. I'm hesitant to actually go on campus amongst the academic buildings! hahaha. No one is around at the house either but it's a pretty awesome place. I don't feel like I should be in a house and stuff ... i don't feel old enough. it's weird but good. Tonight's plans are to unpack a little, and to drink some beers with Justin. Am sooo excited for this! yay! beer, hot chocolate and tea are the only things I own for "food" in the house right now. Anyway... that's it. More later... Love to all!!

em