I’m finally home! It only took about nine hours on the road, two of which were spent in the basement of a Super 8 hiding from some nasty tornados.  That was an adventure let me tell you! Now there’s only 11 days until I board a plane for the distant lands of East Africa.

It’s so weird, sitting here in my old room, and thinking back on a week ago at this time. I was playing Spanish Scrabble, eating extra crunchy peanut butter with chocolate chip cookies, and watching My Fair Lady. Well, and studying for finals of course! Now I’m back at work, planning for Africa, and figuring out classes for my Sophomore year! Freshman year  really flew by!

I guess that’s all for now! I’ll have another entry before I leave for Kenya and Uganda, and then hopefully I’ll be able to post a few times when I’m there!

And just a shout out, to all the seniors who graduated from NCC this spring, CONGRATS!!!!!

So here I am, studying for the last finals of my freshman year.  I’m looking back on this year and it’s been nuts, all you have to do is read my past blogs to see that!  I don’t think I could have ever imagined just what this year held.  Sure, I thought I had an idea of the relationships I’d establish, and the amazing experiences, but never in a million years could I have ever imagined the reality of it all. I mean, when you come to college, they literally throw you in a room with a person you probably have never met before, your classes are intense and so focused, and you pretty much have to fake it until you make it. The beauty of this is though, it works.  At first you do just act like you know what you are doing and hope that somewhere along the way you’ll figure it out.  Then you get to the point where you realize that you’ve stopped faking it quite some time ago and are now just living it.

And now there are four days and three finals left until summer.  Some of my friends will be graduating, many I won’t see until fall.  It’s a reality check. This year has flown by, and in 9 short months I’ve made friendships that I’ll have for the rest of my life.  I guess all I have to say is this experience of college, this freshman year; it’s been nothing like I could have guessed, it’s been indescribable. 

So to my readers that are entering college in the fall let me leave you with this last bit of advice.  Yes it will be hard, yes you will miss your family, yes you will eventually find those close relationships you left behind, yes you will learn more about yourself than you ever thought possible, and yes you will be expected to fake it ‘till you make it, but yes yes yes it’s all worth it! So get ready, have an amazing summer with your high school friends, and brace yourself for the fist of the four best years of your life!

Hello All

We have now embarked upon week ten! WOOO! It’s crazy, this term has gone so fast! Just because I think it’s kind of funny, I’m going to share with you all how my week nine ended, and my week ten began!

It all started on a Thursday morning, this sleep freshman dragged herself out of bed at 8:30 am.  Now you have to understand first off that this is UNHEARD OF when I don’t have classes, and Thursdays, let me tell you, I have NO classes! Anyway, I proceeded to the library and began to study. What? Did she just say studying before noon?! Yes friends, I studied WAY before noon! Actually, I studied all the way until 8:30 at night when I took a break for my weekly bible study. It was nuts, and I was loosing my mind by that point! After bible study, I went over to the boiler house and got myself a large caramel macchiato and headed over to Carnegie.   

Once at Carnegie, I set up camp.  First order of business: finishing studying for my chemistry exam that was on Friday. I completed that task around 2 am and then moved on to the bigger task, my half of a 10 to 12 page research paper for my Interpersonal Communications course.  It wasn’t due on Friday, it was due on this Wednesday to be exact, but on Friday after classes, my room mate and I were planning on heading out to her cousin’s lake house where no homework was going to be allowed! Needless to say, I left Carnegie around 4:45 Friday morning and rolled into bed at 5!

It sounds a lot worse than it actually was! I promise, and it’s the first time I’d have to pull an almost all-nighter.  I was pretty proud that I had gone almost all year without one! Okay, back to the story, the day passed, I had a presentation in my 9:20 class, and finally at 2:30 in the afternoon my roomie and I headed out to Stouten WI for a wonderful weekend of relaxation!

Okay, so it ended up being kind of chilly, but totally worth getting all my homework done! It was perfect, nothing but laying in the sun, when it was out, watching movies, and reading books! The perfect end to week nine! Now all that’s left is two days of classes and three finals then I’m done with my freshman year! WOOOO!

Until next time!

This weekend was so much fun! I don’t know about you, but I am, and always have been a huge Chronicles of Narnia fan.  As you may know, Prince Caspian came out this past week! My room mate and I went and saw the midnight showing of it on Thursday night! We didn’t get back to the dorms until around 3 am, but it was SO worth it!!! 

I won’t spoil it for you if you were planning on seeing it, but they did change some things, but nothing huge. Also, it is exponentially better than the first one; The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.  I’m serious, I thought that one was going to be hard to top, but Prince Caspian was AMAZING!

I have to admit, I went again on Friday night with some more friends! Luckily, there is a movie theatre real close to campus where movies are only $5.00! It makes seeing movies multiple times much more affordable!

And I’ll admit it, I’d see it again!

Moral of the story, GO SEE THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN!!! It’s worth the money!

Hey friends,

There’s not much going on right now in the life of this freshman! Little siblings weekend was this past weekend.  It was great to see all of my friends younger brothers and sisters getting a little look at the college life!  I am the youngest of my family, so I didn’t have any siblings to invite, but it did seem like everyone that came really had a blast!

Okay, so maybe I fibbed a little when I said there wasn’t much going on with me! This weekend a few friends and I went to the school’s production of The Laramie Project, which was phenomenal! The production is made up of 8 actors who portray 66 characters and details the trial of the death of Matthew Sheperd.  It was an extremely moving production, and all the members of the cast did a magnificent job.

Hmm, let’s see, what else is going on in the life of Me at NCC? This summer I have been granted the opportunity to travel to Uganda and Kenya with a group of four other NCC students to do missions work through the Department of Ministry and Service (I’ll write a more detailed blog about this later). I’M SO PUMPED. This will actually be my second time going to Africa, the first time I was there was this past summer. I went to Mali for two weeks to help out in a bush hospital for women and children, and also work directly with malnourished children in some of the villages surrounding one of Mali’s main towns, Koutalia. Needless to say, I’m so excited for this year to end and to get back to Africa!!! But as for now, I should really get back to studying!

Yep! I think that’s it for now friends! Enjoy the beautiful spring-time weather and leave comments!

So the last of midterms were at the beginning of last week! ::Collective Cheer::  The only downfall to the end of midterms is that there are only four to five weeks until finals, which means each of your classes has time to squeeze in one last major exam before those finals start! This also means that ALL of my time will be confined to the basement of the library and the boiler house to study.   That’s actually alright by me considering that it is currently raining cats and dogs outside! The only thing I’d rather be doing would be playing in the mud…

Alright, confession time! The other night when it was raining super hard, a few friends and I decided to go and find some mud to play around it. We kind of regressed back to the pastimes of our youth which included many memories of dancing in the rain, and playing in the mud! I mean, honestly, I think we all needed it; it was a great release from the stresses of studying for exams. 

Moral of the story, if you’re feeling stressed, or just in a playful mood, go find some rain and mud and play! Make a mud-slip-n-slide, have a mud fight, or just dance in the rain and feel the mud in between your toes!

Hello all!

I think it just might be an understatement that I have been distracted by the BEAUTIFUL weather we have been experiencing!  I kid you not friends, it has been sunny and 75 degrees for DAYS, and I’m loving every minute of it!  The campus is absolutely amazing this time of year as well. All of the trees are in bloom and the grass is so green! Everywhere you turn there a students sprawled out on the lawn doing homework, taking naps, throwing around the Frisbee, and even blowing bubbles!

So what’s my favorite sunny day activity? TIEDYING! Of course!!!  A group of my friends and I took an afternoon and tie dyed a bunch of old shirts. It was pretty much amazing. Here are some photos of the aftermath! Amazing.

Man seriously though, the campus has really come alive this spring! I think I can officially say that spring at North Central is my favorite time of year!  I mean, LOOK at this place! And this is on a rainy day!

 My room mate and I took one afternoon and climbed a tree on campus and just sat there having “roomie bonding time” for about an hour and a half this past week.  It was hilarious, I can’t even count the number of students and professors that saw us and laughed! Ahh! Okay, everyone, right now, go out and enjoy the weather!!! And get ready for an amazing blog next week, I’m headed to Lincoln Zoo in downtown Chicago this weekend!!!

This week’s blog is going to be more like a tutorial on how to have an amazing weekend with you room mate.  Let it be known that these suggestions were directly taken from my very own amazing weekend with my very own roomie.

Here is a list of requirements you will need for this fantastic weekend of your dreams:

-A room mate who lives on a buffalo farm in a small town in Wisconsin

-A purple beast (car) that is slightly bigger than your typical cruiser, yet slightly smaller than a modern    day mini-van

-Two original sized Jamba’s

-Lots of munchies for the car ride

-A movie theater about 45 minutes away from the farm

-All the necessities required for chocolate chip cookie baking

-Season 2 of House. MD.

-A good book…or two!

Got all that? Great! Now, all you have to do, is get in that giant purple beast of a car, and drive down to the Jamba Juice located right down the street from North Central.  Once you’ve fuelled up on Jamba, you should proceed to the gas station, and fill up! A full purple beast is a happy purple beast! Now that both you and your purple beast have been properly filled, you may proceed on to the highway! Be careful, the purple beast is going to want to go over the speed limit, but you can’t let it! Show that beast who is boss, and stick to 65 mph! Three hours later, you should arrive in a small town in Wisconsin, any small town in Wisconsin will do really (my preference is Dodgeville).  Great! Good job! You now have some choices! You can either bake cookies, watch a few episodes of House. MD., go to a movie, enjoy the buffalo, or read your favorite book! Just don’t forget to get back to school by Monday morning for those classes!

And this my friends is one of THE BEST ways to spend a spring weekend! 

Okay, suggestion time! If you are wondering what one of the BEST classes here at North Central is, I have your answer English 125, Utopia and Dystopia with Dr. Navakas and Dr. Fisher!  I took this course fall term this year and it was AMAZING.  Now you might be wondering why it is I am telling you this, it’s because when you take amazing classes, with amazing professors, sometimes you get to do special things….like have REUNIONS!!!

That’s right folks, we had a reunion last night! The Professors took a bunch of the class out to Moshi Moshi, which is this delicious sushi restaurant in downtown Naperville.  It was SO much fun! Since many of us (students) have extremely different majors we don’t get to see each other as often as we would like, so it was great to just be able to catch up and chat for a while.  We shared tons of sushi, green tea ice cream, these strawberry ice cream nuggets, and funny memories from the class.

 Afterwards five of us decided to carry on the party and went to Le Chocolate Bar, also located in downtown Naperville, and proceeded to converse about the beauty that IS dark chocolate! It was hilarious, we were almost like the breakfast club, there was the runner, the musician, the writer, the artist, and the scientist. But that’s the amazing thing about great classes like ours was, topics such as utopia and dystopia can really bring people from every avenue together. 

Moral of the story? When you get into a class, especially one that is discussion based, CONTRIBUTE, let your views be known, because you never know who is going to share those views, or not share them.  Classes have the ability to create long lasting friendships between people, even when they are extremely different! And who knows, if you make the class interesting enough, your professors just might love you enough to take you out to dinner!

So as you may remember, at the beginning of winter term I broke my ankle.  Now prior to breaking my ankle, I had been scheduled to go on a service trip to Tacoma Washington over spring break!  However, due to my ankle, I couldn’t go…bummer.  Now here’s the cool part. One of my friends, her name is Kat, decided that just wasn’t going to work, so she proceeded to make a paper Megan, and take her to Washington! Let me tell you, paper Megan had a BLAST!

She boarded a plane!

She had coffee!

Saw the school Ten Things I Hate About You was filmed at

And  vacuumed!

So I guess this is kind of a “what I did over spring break” type blog. The answer? Well…I actually watched movies and make amazing chocolate cupcakes, but I kind of took a super sweet trip to Washington too!!!

And now classes have begun…so as for me…it’s time to hit the books!