Emory University

This past week, I have been at Emory University in Atlanta. I have really enjoyed my week here, especially because the weather has been amazing! I even got a sunburn one day from just walking around to and from meetings...oops.

Emory has eight Panhellenic sororities, and they are all housed in these row houses, they call lodges.


Asbury Circle, in the middle of campus


A building within a building in Emory's Student Center


The Quad


Emory's Medical School. So pretty, I should have applied down here!

Spring Break Part III-Georgia Aquarium

After seeing the World of Coca-Cola, Luke and I headed next door to the Georgia Aquarium.

Georgia Aquarium


Whale shark and manta ray!


Icky Octopus.


Penguins!


Giant Japanese Crab. Scary!


Albino Alligator


Luke and I at the aquarium.

Spring Break Part III-World of Coke

During the final weekend of my spring break, I flew down to Atlanta, Georgia and met up with Luke for a weekend of sight-seeing prior to my visit at Emory University.

On Friday, I arrived mid-afternoon, so we grabbed some food and explored downtown. The downtown area of Atlanta was really nice, and it was neat to see Underground Atlanta, a now shopping mall/dining district that was previously an underground railroad. Unfortunately, my camera was dead!

On Saturday, we did the big touristy things in Atlanta--World of Coke and the Georgia Aquarium.

World of Coca-Cola

Here's a picture from the outside of the World of Coke.


A few years ago, Coco-Cola had a competition for artists to create Coco-Cola bottles representing different cultures around the world. Here are a few of the bottles!


Lots of different Coco-Cola advertisements and products in the Museum.


Santa Claus loves Coco-Cola.


Near the very end of the tour, tourists have the opportunity to sample different Coke products from all over the world. Here's a picture of Luke and I in the traditional Coke sampling room.

Spring Break Part II

My Spring break consisted of two days in Chicago, five days at home, and two days in Atlanta. Chicago was awesome! Atlanta was awesome! The home part in between was really, really terrible.

When I got home on Sunday evening, my family had all come together to celebrate my birthday (over two weeks early). Patrick was home for Spring Break too though, and it was fun to have everyone home at the same time.

My birthday cake below.

Me: I'm not turning five.
Mom: I thought you were smart enough to figure it out. Look again.
Me: Ooooh. 2 pink candles and 3 blue candles... 23


No surprise, I was able to blow out all five candles at once!


Here starts the crappy part of my Spring Break. Feel free to fast forward.

On Monday morning, I woke up feeling miserable. Sore throat, cough, tired, just miserable.

Whiskers, our 17 year old cat, also woke up feeling miserable. He had been getting progressively sicker over the last few months, and on Monday morning, we knew he was not doing well. He was not eating. He was not drinking. He was not really doing much of anything. Later that day, we had him put to sleep.

It was a difficult time for our family, but it was nice that both Patrick and I were home to say goodbye.

Here are a couple of pictures of Whiskers.

Whiskers at Christmas!


Whiskers and Brownie, our two cats. They are from the same litter, believe it or not!


I spent the rest of the week in bed and ended up getting better in time for my trip to Atlanta on Friday.

I told you my week was depressing.

Spring Break Part I

After a very cold week at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, I headed to Chicago for a weekend with Amanda, my college roommate. Little did I know, the dying of the river was happening that weekend, along with other St. Patrick's Day festivities.

On Saturday morning, Amanda and I met up with some of her friends to walk down to the green river. We were a little late and didn't actually get to see them dye it, but we did get to see the end result, a very green river!


Amanda and I at the river!


Me, Amanda, and a few of her medical school friends!

My Birthday Month

Although my birthday is not until the end of this month, there has been a lot of birthday talk in the last few days. This past weekend, I was at home for the first time since January. On Friday afternoon I was goofing around, looking at furniture online or watching Modern Family on Hulu or something when I got a text message from my friend Doug.

Doug: Is today your birthday?
Me: No haha. It is March 28
Doug: I'm kind of impressed I even got the right month!
Me: Oh Doug
Doug: My computer doesn't work so I can't really see fbook...and I swear I woke up with a premonition that today was for sure your bday.

Later that evening my parents asked me when I would prefer to celebrate my birthday. I will be home for March 13-17 for part of my Spring Break and then again April 1-3 for a weekend prior to my visit at Knox College. Although the second weekend is closer to my actual birthday, my brother Patrick will be home for Spring Break for the same time as my Spring Break.

My response: How about both times?

I'm not kidding. I really like my birthday.

And for anyone who wants to celebrate my birthday on the actual day, I will be in Norman, Oklahoma with the Beta Theta KKG chapter at Oklahoma University. See you there?

These are a Few of my Favorite Things

I'm sitting here eating strawberries and thinking about what a good day I'm having.

As usual, I started my day by sneaking into Carnegie Mellon's gym. After showering and getting ready, I had two officer meetings, followed by a two and a half hour break. I used my break to go to Starbucks to do some reporting. While I was at Starbucks I remembered a gift card I had in my wallet (hello, free coffee.), then proceeded to hammer out an entire report start to finish. Whew! As much as I love love love coffee, I try not to drink it too often. I'm very sensitive to caffeine, and when I drink it, I have more energy than a three year old child...hence the super-reporting.

After my "break," I headed back towards campus for a meeting with the campus Greek Adviser, who gave me the largest consultant packet I have ever seen. It is a thick folder complete with anything I could ever dream of asking. I hate to admit it, but I will probably just skim the thing....its like 50 pages! Still though, I'm impressed.

Now I'm hanging out, eating strawberries, and feeling good. The chapter bought me a million different snacks, including everything I asked for plus more. In a document that outlines how to plan an LC visit, chapters are instructed to ask us what our favorite snack and breakfast foods are. Every week my list varies a little depending on how hungry I was when I responded to the email. (It's like grocery shopping on an empty stomach.) I don't remember what I requested...but it wasn't all of this and very few things make me happier than good food and lots of it.

For all my chapter women friends out there, just remember:

Happy LCs write nice reports about your chapter.