Graduation

Graduation was April 27th. I enjoy graduation more and more the longer I am here. It's a pleasure to see the students that I have invested so much in walk across that stage. I am often moved to tears as I think of how far some of them have come. Here are some photos of a few of my favorite grads this year.

Jeff and I - he's a former RA and future co-worker here at GC as he joins the Admissions team this summer!

David and I at his open house. His sister and I were friends and now he and I are friends.

Me & Dustin - a student who came to GC in the midst of an election year back in 2004 where he had some pretty different political views than his peers. He did SO well here! I will miss this young man a great deal.

Final RA fun event for the year.

This year I had an exceptional RA staff! They did a very good job overall and really grew together to become a strong team. For our fun event in April we all went out to dinner at the Boathouse in Winona Lake (about 40 minutes South of Goshen.) We had a great meal, fun conversation about everyone's summer plans, and a great deal of reminiscing about what a good year we experienced together.

Kat, Kaleem, & Grace

Rachel, Heather, & Taylor

Bryce, me, & Ben

We still had another month of school left after this meal, but two of our people left for the month of May to do some off campus studies, so we made this our farewell event. It was a wonderful evening.

Another trip!

One of my old roommates (Dawn) got married last summer in North Carolina. I went out for the wedding and had a wonderful time being with her again. When I left we said then that we'd have to find a way to see each other sometime for a few days. Rather to me going there or her coming to Goshen we decided to meet up somewhere. We found cheap flights from NC to Chicago , so we decided to meet up in Chicago April 7-9.

Dawn and me

We met downtown on Monday afternoon and checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Allerton Hotel on Michigan Avenue. It was a quaint hotel with small, but clean and neat rooms. That afternoon we spent time walking around downtown talking non stop, stopping in the occasional store to do some shopping and ended up at Buca de Beppo's for dinner. Dinner was wonderful - of course! :) And after dinner we went to see the movie "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day." After the movie we walked down to the Cheesecake Factory where we shared a plate of fries and each enjoyed a scrumptious piece of cheesecake. I had the lemon-raspberry...Raspberry Vanilla Cake, Creamy Lemon Cheesecake, Raspberry Lady Fingers and Lemon Mousse...it was amazing!

Me & Dawn taking a photo of ourselves.

Tuesday we slept in and then headed out for brunch at Giordano's for some "world famous stuffed pizza." It wasn't so much an actual brunch since we just got pizza, but it was our breakfast and lunch combined. A great way to start the day - while on vacation at least! :) After breakfast we headed out to do some serious shopping - or at least serious window shopping! One of my goals was to find some cool sunglasses at H&M. I tried on tons and finally found a pair that I really liked on the clearance rack! So, my super-cool new sunglasses were bought for the bargain price of $1.00! We also found a Trader Joe's in downtown Chicago, so I bought some more yummy treats! :)

Me taking a photo of myself in the Big Bean.

Tuesday evening we went back to the Cheesecake Factory. This time we skipped the cheesecake and just had dinner. I got my usual dish of Cajun Jambalaya Pasta. It was as spicy and flavorful as I remembered! After dinner we walked across the street to the Border's Bookstore and looked at books together for a few hours - reminiscent of what we used to do on the weekend when we were roommates back in the day.

Me in Borders with a book about gnomes.

Wednesday we got up a bit earlier and checked out of the hotel. We grabbed breakfast in the Water Tower Place Mall and then walked down to Millennium Park where we wanted to see Cloud Gate or the "Big Bean" as most people call it to take some fun photos. It was a gorgeous day that made for a great walk downtown.

Cloud Gate or the "Big Bean" It was a gorgeous day!

New contacts

The other thing of note from the first week of April is that I got contacts! I tried contacts last year for a few weeks, but wasn't able to find a pair that were comfortable and gave up. At my annual eye exam this year the doctor had a new brand of contacts that she wanted me to try. I have been wearing them for about 2 months now and really like them. I think the best part is that I can wear sunglasses now on sunny days! :)

Traggic news

I know that I usually post my life in order of occurrences. A very sad thing has happened in my life in the past day that I would appreciate prayers for and decided to abandon my regular format in lieu of that.

One of our GC students was killed in a car accident on Thursday evening travelling home from school for the summer. Her name was Deanne Binde - known as Dee to most. She had just completed her junior year. She was bright, full of energy, loving to so many others, and a true joy to know. She was one of the students that I would sincerely call my friend.

It is so hard. She was young, full of promise, exuberance and joy. She will be missed by SO many! I spent much of the evening last night talking with the young women that she lived with while at GC. We cried together and talked about what we loved about her. The loss is real and has created a void in my heart. I know my God and am confident that he will fill that void with peace and joy for Dee at some point...it's just hard to be in this painful place...though I know we have to go through that to get to the other side.

Please keep me and the the rest of the Goshen College community in your thoughts and prayers as we grieve this loss.

Happier times...Dee and me at the Fondue Parlor!

RA Initiation

April 1st (April Fool's Day) is when we decided to announce who the new RAs will be for the 2008-2009 school year. When I arrived at GC back in 2001 we started a new tradition of initiating the new RAs a few days or weeks after they were announced via formal invitation from the Residence Life office. Two years ago we adjusted the tradition by making the announcement via the initiation process. It really heightens the element of surprise and adds to the fun of the morning.

Julie & Jenna smile pretty in their jammies!

The current RAs learn who the new hires are around 4:30 AM. They are then sent out to collect the new hires form their beds dressed in pajamas and shoes of some sort. We corralled them in the laundry room where they were blindfolded and squirted with water if they spoke to anyone. They were then divided into 4 groups and sent to various locations on campus to perform special tasks - playing a ball throwing game, dressing up in crazy clothes for photos, searching in the depths of our storage room in the dark, and participating in races outside in the drizzle. The last stop was to take them up to an empty apartment in the student apartment building where we all shared in an early morning meal of breakfast burritos, fruit salad, and donuts. It was quite an early morning, but LOTS of fun!

Josh and Jon looking perky and alert much too early in the AM!

Birthday weekend...part three

Our birthday weekend came to an end on Sunday. We slept in a bit, had breakfast down at the hotel breakfast bar and then headed back to Goshen. It was a rainy and dreary day. We stopped in Kokomo hoping to do a little shopping, but didn't find any great successes that day. We ate lunch at Fazolis before making our final trek back to Goshen.

Deanna reading in the back of the car on the way home.

It was a great weekend with two of my favorite people. Not a bad way to celebrate being ?? at all!

Birthday weekend...part two

Saturday of our birthday weekend was spent doing one of the things the Rissers and I love to do...SHOPPING! We went to the Castleton Square Mall on the North side of Indy. It was a great mall and we found some fantastic deals on the clearance racks. I bought 3 new shirts for a total of less than $20.00!

When we got done at the mall we drove around the area near the mall looking at all the strip malls nearby. I saw a sign that got me excited...Trader Joe's! For those of you who have never been to a Trader Joe's, you are missing out! It's a very reasonably priced organic food store. It's kind of like an organic Aldis for those of you who know what an Aldis store is. We don't have any stores near us - they are mainly in urban areas - but I have been to them several times while visiting my friends in St. Louis. The Rissers had never been to one before, so it was fun to share this new shopping experience with them. I bought food - which I hadn't planned on doing during my weekend away, but I couldn't pass up some of the great deal on non perishable items. Here's a link to Trader Joe's if you want to find out more about these amazing stores. http://www.traderjoes.com/

Deanna, me, and Denise at dinner.

After shopping we went back to the hotel and rested for a bit. We then walked downtown to Buca di Beppos. This is one of my favorite Italian restaurants. The food is served family style and is simply incredible! We shared an appetizer of bruschetta, three dishes - the manicotti, the lasagna, and the penne campofiore, and a VERY large piece of chocolate cake! It was SO delicious. The food there is truly amazing.

This is the lasagna and manicotti. The red sauce on both of these dishes was light and flavorful - indicative of the fresh herbs and garlic that were in it. The manicotti pasta was made fresh and the mozzarella cheese was also fresh - very moist, light, and extremely flavorful!

This is the penne campofiore. It was a vegetarian penne pasta dish featuring zucchini, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, garlic and Romano cheese in a light vegetable broth. I think this was my favorite thing of the entire meal! It was rich in flavor, yet not as heavy as the other two dishes that had cheese in them. I let the Rissers take home the other leftovers and I took these.

Me with the HUGE piece of cake that we shared!

Me acting like a goofball by a statue at Buca's!

After dinner we walked back to the hotel and spent the rest of the evening reading, playing cards, and talking. Such a wonderful day! :)

Birthday weekend...part one

My dear friends, Deanna and Denise (twins), have a birthday two days after mine on March 29th. We often do something special to celebrate our birthdays. This year we decided to go to Indianapolis for the weekend.

We drove down on Friday afternoon. I looked at magazines and fell asleep to my ipod while Denise drove. We stayed at a nice Holiday Inn Express downtown (that we had gotten for a good price on hotwire.com!) After getting settled in our room we decided to head out for our evening activities.

We had dinner at Yats...a Cajun place in downtown Indy. Denise had heard about it from her friend and we decided to try it out. We each got something different. Unfortunately the dish that I ordered - a shrimp creole dish- wasn't really all that good and I ended up throwing over half of it away. Denise got a mushroom dish of some sort that had good flavor, but kind of a slimy texture that I wouldn't have been able to eat an entire plate of. Deanna hit the jackpot! She ordered a chicken chili dish that was very tasty!

My less than amazing shrimp creole dish.

After dinner we walked down the street to a place called Comedy Sportz. It is a casual little improv club. The "sportz" part of the name comes from the fact that there are two teams of comedians that are competing against each other. It was really funny...CLEAN and funny! I

Some of the comedians doing something that was funny.

Deanna, Denise, and I at our table at Comedy Sportz.

When we got back to the hotel we played cards and listened to music. It was a fun evening and I slept like a rock in the comfy hotel bed. :)

My birthday was really good this year! I celebrated a bunch and felt very loved. Here are some photos from birthday celebrations that I was a part of. (I'll post a separate entry about my birthday weekend getaway with the Rissers.)

This is the RD team. We went out to Panera on my birthday to celebrate. Me, Launa (my supervisor), Chad, and Alex.

The night before my birthday I was taken out to dinner at Chilis by the ladies that live in the house next door to me here on campus. Deb, me, and Rachel. We imitating a pose done earlier in the evening by a little boy at the table next to us. I don't know why my eyes are all squinty!

These are the flowers that my staff gave me for my birthday along with a beautiful little scrapbooked card. Very sweet!

Angie is a little girl from my home group at church that shares my birthday. We celebrated our birthday together at the Becks. She turned 10 and I turned....?? :)

Haircut

before the haircut

A week or so before my birthday I decided it was time for a haircut. I figured a new year of life meant it was time for a new look. The day before my birthday I went to Wal Mart and looked a some hairstyle magazines. I found a cut that I like and thought about buying the magazine...until I saw the pricetag...$8.00! For a magazine! CRAZY! I'm way too cheap to spend that kind of money on a magazine, especially just for 2 photos of a haircut. A friend came over to visit me that evening and I was telling her about the cute hairstyle. She suggested that I take the digital camera back to Wal Mart with me and take a photo of the page of the magazine. I told her that I'd get in trouble, so she agreed to come with me to help shield me from the Wal Mart workers while I took the photos. You should have seen me crouching on the floor of the magazine section taking photos of the hairstyle! It was crazy, but fun! I took the camera along to my appointment on the morning of my birthday and my amazing hairstylist, Karisa, did a good job of cutting to similar to the photo I had for her.

after the haircut

Playing catch up

I was at a friend from college's house today and she told me that she misses reading my blog. I felt bad since I know that I enjoy reading hers about her baby, so I decided to try and catch you all up on the past couple of months...

The weeks of March 10th and 17th were full of interviews. We had two interview processes going on simultaneously. One was for our Jr/Sr small group housing program(SGH) and one was for the RAs for the 08-09 school year. Most days I spent at least 2 hours - sometimes up to 4 asking students one of two sets of questions. The questions are good ones and give us helpful insight into whether the should get the placement/job they want. The hard part is that the answers aren't drastically different, so it's hours upon hours of the same questions and the same answers.

The SGH housing process is a bit easier at the end because the groups are scored and houses are assigned based on the numbers - that means the real work is done at the end of each interview when we score the groups. The RA process gets harder at the end - as we look at the score sheets, but rely on more personal hunches on how we assemble our respective teams. I'm always glad when the entire process is done!

Friday the 14th we had a Connector Night Life event. CNL is a late night gathering that is open to all students and occurs in the building where I live - usually from 10 PM - 1 AM. We had live music in the coffee shop, a Guitar Hero tourney in the big TV lounge, a Texas Hold'em tournament in the 1st floor lounge and ice cream sundaes in the game room. My staff did a great job of running the night and making it all go smoothly!

The gals running the ice cream sundae bar - Grace, Kat, Taylor, & Heather

Live music in the Java Junction.

Me - obviously enjoying myself at CNL!

The 23rd was Easter Sunday. I am in charge of most of the food activities at church and I wanted to do something special for Easter Sunday. This is always a challenge, given that our church doesn't really have a kitchen - we have a fridge & microwave, but it's in the basement and not very useful for a "meal" type event. So I brainstormed and got several folks to lend a hand with a buffet of sorts for Easter breakfast. We had our usual coffee spread and added some milk and assorted juices to make it a beverage table. We added a table with a huge fresh fruit salad, donuts & cookies from Dutchmaid Bakery, and homemade pecan rolls from one of our member's elderly mother. There was a third table with breakfast burritos that we assembled as people came through the line - tortilla, eggs, sausage, cheese and salsa. The meal was a bit success and we had many people who expressed appreciation for all the work that went into it. Thankfully I had a good sized group that had volunteered to help, so it really wasn't all that much work.

I'll post soon with photos from my haircut and birthday weekend!