How Did I...?

Things I have found while cleaning/packing up my dorm room: 3 jars peanut butter, popcorn kernels, merits, old activity rosters from last summer at Cho, random letters from this year, several children's books, hundreds of pictures, tons of post-it-note "to-do lists", coins, more t-shirts than I knew I even owned, 4 bottles of shampoo, and cleaning supplies that I think I only used once... The reoccurring question is: how did I end up with so much stuff?!

Last Weekend in CS of Spring 2013

Well, it's official. The next time I spend a weekend in College Station will be the start of the fall semester!

I'm so glad that this last weekend in College Station has been just what I wanted it to be.

FRIDAY: After class on Friday, I curled up in bed and watched 4 episodes of Bones. I then ran through Laynes and went over to Katie's with Jen, Rhonda, and Myriam. We talked for hours, made a froyo run (where we were accused of being drunk since we were so loud and hyper; we were completely sober, I promise!), and then painted our nails while watching What Happens in Vegas.

SATURDAY: Slept till noon, and then met Katie and Myriam for lunch. Then Myriam and I went and studied for a couple hours at Evans. We then went back over to Katie's to help Katie and Jen get ready for Ring Dance. They looked GORGEOUS!

(Myriam, Jen, Katie, Me)

Then, Myriam and I went to Island Party (The Christian fraternity's concert/party and hung out and listened to the music. We also went "exploring" back in the park behind Wolf Pen Creek, and enjoyed the hour of walking the trails and sharing stories. We then went back to campus and enjoyed ice-cream before heading to our own rooms for the night. 

SUNDAY: I woke up this morning and ran through the shower before heading to church with Myriam and Dani. Then I came back and Rachel was still asleep (she was in charge of running a formal last night for all the graduating seniors), and so I crawled back into bed and watched an episode of Bones before dragging myself to the library to work on a math review. I wasn't motivated, so ended up going and hammocking with Rachel. We spent over an hour remembering funny times and memories that have happened since we moved in together. I loved that time to just relax with her and laugh about silly memories. Then tonight I began packing up my dorm and getting ready to move out! My parents are coming up on Wednesday to take all my stuff home (and put it away for me?!?! Hint hint?!)

It was a wonderful last weekend in College Station!

The plan for this week: 

Monday: math class, get polo stuff finalized for next semester, polo practice, Fazoli's with polo girls

Tuesday: math class, study for math, polo practice, Breakaway

Wednesday: Amazing Race with water polo, study for math, parents move me out of the dorm

Thursday: study for math and FLY TO MINNESOTA FOR NATIONALS!

Friday: NATIONALS

Saturday: NATIONALS

Sunday: NATIONALS

Monday: fly home from Nationals and study for math

Tuesday: math final and move home!!

The end is just around the corner. Can't believe I'm already (almost) half done with college!

Feelin' Like a Grown Up

In the past twenty four hours I feel like I have done a lot of things that most 19-year-olds haven't done! I feel super grown up!

• I have spent over 12 hours planning our nationals trip
• I have 14 round trip plane tickets bought
• I have 3 hotel rooms for 4 nights each in my name
• I have 2 rental cars reserved, even though technically I'm not even old enough to drive them

Planning nationals has been insane! But I'm glad that I have been able to see everything that goes into these travel trips so that I know what to expect next year!

What Did We Get Ourselves Into?

Today has been insane. As soon as I got done with class today, I met Lauren and Maggie ('12-'13 president and treasurer) and Myriam ('13-'14 treasurer) to work on planning nationals.

Our first game is Friday at 2:50, and our last game is potentially Sunday at 3:30, so we were working around that time frame.

There is a little rule with sports clubs: no driving between midnight and 6 AM.

This rule turned out to be the biggest hassle of the entire planning (well, for a while). If our first game is at 2:50 on Friday, we would need to land by atleast 12:45 to give us time to deboard, get our bags, rent cars, and make it to the pool. And if we can't drive before 6, that means we can't get to the airport till 7, which means we couldn't fly out till 8:30 at the earliest. Unfortunately, there are no direct flights to Minneapolis, and therefore there is no way we could make that work. . . Therefore, we are flying out on Thursday.

For the return flight, it was a hassle too. There is a chance that our last game is at 3:30 on Sunday. The earliest that we would be done is 4:30 if we play in that game. Unfortunately, airline tickets jump about $200 after 5:00 on Sunday night. A 7:00 flight is over 700$, our budget is approximately $550/ticket. So, we have to fly back on Monday morning. BUT, this creates a problem too -- if we don't fly back till Monday, then anybody who has finals on Monday has to move them to another day. So, we then had to contact the entire team and ask them to get a hold of their professors and then get back to us.

Needless to say, we were in the sports club offices from 3-6, at which point Myriam and I had a new officer meeting from 6:15-7:45.

We were completely overwhelmed. Obviously.

What did we get ourselves into?

Now, Myriam and I are posted up in Evans studying and working on homework. Katie just surprised us with a delivery of cookies and drinks to provide a bit of a study break. Even in the craziness, I am so blessed to be surrounded by such sweet friends!

NATIONALS!

Well, it's official.

After a 7-1 season we went into the conference tournament with a first place seed. We beat Rice this morning 13-3, and then we played Texas in the championship game. We BTHO Texas 10-8!

So, yes -- WE ARE HEADED TO NATIONALS!!! I hope Minnesota is ready for us!

Here are all of the 2012-2013 officers with whoever is replacing their spot for 2013-2014! From left to right -- VPs, Social Chairs, Presidents, and Treasurers!

And here is this year's president, Lauren, and myself. I am so thankful for her encouraging attitude this year and her genuine leadership. My only hope is that I will lead this team as effectively and positively as she did this year!

And of course, my parents who didn't miss a game all year! I am proud to say their understanding of water polo knowledge has come a long way over the last 6 years!!

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice-Cream

This is why I love my best friends here at school.

I hadn't had the easiest day, and then when I showed up to polo practice I found out that I was completely in charge -- thankfully, one of the grad students was there and was able to help me out. Then I ate dinner with Katie and Myriam, and headed back to work on a research paper. I worked on it from about 9:30-midnight, when I got a text from Katie that the guy she was talking to called it off, and she was really upset about it. We have a group text between Katie, Jen, Myriam and I; therefore, we all got the text. By 12:05 Myriam and I were in her car and picking up Jen (who happened to have a carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream), to go surprise Katie and cheer her up.

Well... we stayed at Katie's until 2:20 before we finally realized what time it was and decided that it was time to go.

I am so thankful for these sweet girls, the second something is wrong we all drop whatever is going on to go be each others support systems. To eat ice cream out of the carton, to talk about everything under the sun, and to attempt to silence our loud laughters as roommates were sleeping in the same apartment. We make each other priorities in our lives, and would literally do anything for each other -- like deciding at midnight to go hang out and eat ice-cream and have girl time.

I register for the fall semester at 5:30 tomorrow (Thursday) morning. So I just set my alarm to go off in 2.5 hours in order to be up and functioning so that I can register ... WHOO!! It's a crazy life, but I love it!

Madame Presidenté

Well, the past couple of weeks have been full of drama as officer elections have been gearing up.

Tonight was elections, and you are reading the words of the new 2013-2014 Water Polo Madame Presidenté! I'm super pumped to be a part of leading this team, and I'm excited to see how the Lord will use us to bring him glory through our team. It will be a big responsibility, but I can't wait!

I'll WHOOP To That!

Texas A&M went 4-0 this weekend! We beat Texas Tech 17-3, Texas 11-6, Rice 11-4, and Texas State 14-6!

There had been so much drama going on the week prior to the tournament revolving around officer elections and a bunch of other things; therefore, I was nervous to see how we would play together. But, we pulled it off, rallied as a team, and played well with one another.

Not only were we successful, but for the most part we had a lot of fun! Yelling "GIG'EM AGGIES, A-WHOOP" after sealing the Texas victory was pure sweetness.

Thanks to this last weekend, our season record is 7-1; therefore, we will be seeded FIRST this weekend! So, we get an easier bracket on Saturday. We are in a bracket with Tech and Rice, then the winner of our bracket goes to play either Texas or State on Sunday for the championship!

Then the winner of this weekend will be going to NATIONALS in Minnesota! So pumped to see how this weekend plays out!

1, 2, 3 Strikes You're Out

Water polo tonight was not my best night.

STRIKE 1: We were playing half court, 6 on 6 when one of our girls went for a backhand that I wasn't expecting and nailed me in the face. It scared me more than anything.

30 seconds later (literally, the next play)

STRIKE 2: Another girl takes a shot, it ricocheted off of the bar and smacked me in the face. The combination of the two knocked the wind out of me. Several girls surrounded me which only made things worse and I began to cry.

3 minutes later.

STRIKE 3: Another teammate takes a shot, I block it and go under momentarily, and come up to only get whacked in the face again.

At that point, I was done. The waterworks were full on now because I was frustrated with myself, I was exhausted, and frankly -- my face just hurt!

So yeah, thankfully practice quickly ended and I was able to pack up and get away from the pool. Tonight was definitely not my best practice!

Hard work pays off!

For a while these past few weeks I have felt in a rut. I had been putting in a lot of work between writing papers and reading novels and working on projects, all to have no feedback whatsoever.

The most time consuming and energy-required projects this semester included two LEP's. Each LEP was roughly 50 pages long analyzing a novel that I had rough. Needless to say, I spent 20+ hours on each of these projects.

I finally got the feedback I was waiting for -- they were graded! On the first one I received 148/150 points! And on the second one I got 208/200 -- yes, BONUS points for going above expectations!

Finally. Although it's midnight and I have quite a bit of math ahead of me before heading to bed tonight, I feel like the hard work has paid off so far this semester, and therefore all of the efforts I'm putting into this math class will pay off too!!

11 Novels -- DONE!

One of my classes this semester, Multicultural Adolescent Literature, we were assigned ELEVEN novels to read within a 3 week time period. Are your eyes popping out of your head like mine were when I was given the assignment?

Well. This girl has FINISHED THEM!

2,091 pages later, and I can't think of the last time I read this much! Although most were great books, it was very time consuming, but I am so pumped to be done! They were all over a different cultural group. 2 had 50 page papers written analyzing them, 1 had a 5 minute speech given about it, and 1 had a 3 page "letter" written about it, recommending it to a future student.

All in all, I'm SO stinkin' excited to be done with these novels (as you can obviously tell by the pictures). If you ever have an uncanny desire to read a novel from another culture -- let me know! I have plenty of recommendations thanks to this one class!

Protective

It's no hidden secret that I'm extremely protective of other people. I think that is where the motherly instincts in me come out very quickly!

I have been known to be called a "mother duck" when it comes to talking about my polo girls. I'm not only protective of them, but I love to brag about how well they do in tournaments -- my friends call me a "momma duck" to those girls.

I'm also very protective of my campers. Therefore, when one of them is getting picked on or having a rough time, I will always go to the ends of the earth to do what needs to be done in order to help them. Some people think it's being over-involved, some people think it's ridiculous that I will put them first in the middle of the school year. Call it whatever you want, but I treasure these girls. Everybody needs somebody who will stick up for them.