Ten Things I Wish I Could Say to Ten Different People:
1. If you're trying to impress me, you're going about it all wrong.
2. I know it's your goal and within your reach, so why aren't you going for it?
3. Just letting it go would be much easier than this act you put on.
4. I wish I knew the right words to show you the truth.
5. You might think of me as a sister, but I don't think of you that way.
6. I'm pretty sure I can't trust you the same anymore.
7. I'm only doing this to keep the peace.
8. The times you do call almost make up for all the times you don't.
9. Stop measuring yourself in relationships and be happy being you.
10. I hope you can see how much better off you are now even though things didn't turn out as planned.

Nine Things About Me:
1. I'm way more introverted than I let on.
2. I fall too hard, too fast.
3. I stay up way too late at night.
4. There are things I've closed myself off to so much I can't cry about it when I want to.
5. Graduating doesn't scare me as much as not graduating does.
6. I truly want to live in the UK at some point in my life.
7. I honestly believe I can will myself to never have Depression.
8. Being recognized isn't nearly as important to be as making a positive impact.
9. I wish I was more organized.

Eight Ways To Win My Heart:
1. Love God
2. Make me laugh
3. Do small things to show you care
4. Impress me with your intelligence
5. Dream of foreign adventures with me
6. Be honest, even if it hurts
7. Show kindness to everyone else around you
8. Be patient

Seven Things That Cross My Mind All The Time:
1. I miss Pac Rim
2. I love Coldplay
3. Hmm, Career... Go abroad... Career... Go abroad....
4. I should get ahead on my homework. Oh, look, I'm behind.
5. Is this really what I want to do with my life?
6. I wish I had some kind of view from my cubicle.
7. I wonder what I'd be doing now if I had...... (this part varies)

Six Things I Do Before I Fall Asleep:
1. Check my email
2. Put forth a weak effort at tidying up
3. Brush my teeth
4. Search for the best pillow arrangement
5. Try to read for a while
6. Turn out the light

Five People (or groups of people) Who Mean A Lot:
1. Mom
2. Family
3. Lindsay
4. Pac Rimmers
5. Lambda

Four Things You Love Wearing:
1. Jeans
2. Tank tops
3. No shoes
4. Sunscreen

Three Songs You Listen To Often:
1. Yellow by Coldplay
2. 22 by Lily Allen
3. Why Do You Let Me Stay Here by She & Him

Two Things You Want To Do Before You Die:
1. Live in the UK
2. Change someone's life for good

One Confession:
1. One of my biggest fears is that I'll never let myself take the risks I need to in order to really enjoy life like I want to.

So, today was Lambda's annual Paint War, and as always it was amazing. Here are some pictures to describe exactly what went down:

Before: Lindsay and I went to Goodwill to buy outfits for each other. We had a $10 limit, and these are the clothes we ended up with.

Please note--
- My skirtpants. They are one article of clothing. Who... Why... Wow.
- Lindsay's top. It is handmade. I don't know who needed exactly that shirt so much that they made it themselves, but it was hideous.
- Our eye wear. In theory it would give us an advantage when paint was flying. In reality, Lindsay had no peripheral vision, and I was not only not wearing my own glasses, I was wearing someone else's prescription...

During:
1,200 paint filled water bottles
~150 people

No time to stop and think about who you're aiming at. Just get them before they get you!!

After:
The men of Alpha made an appearance. Never to be out done they followed Paint War with their annual end of the year bash. This year it was "AICOCTF". You know, Alpha-Iota Cook-out and Capture the Flag.



* Special thanks to my friend, Will. I stole most of these pictures from his Facebook, but what can I say, he's a great photographer!

Two Totally Unrelated Updates:


1. I have a date to Lambda banquet now! I just got to know Marcus Ross this semester, and he is a pretty fun guy to be around. He went to LA along with Lindsay this past semester, so now that they're back I've gotten to know him, and I'm excited he's going to come to our somewhat schizophrenic banquet. (Swing dancing, spaghetti, and talks of a prom style picture shoot at a local church...)

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2. Sometime I forget how much secrets can hurt you. Not gossip type secrets. Real ones. The kind you keep only to yourself and try to deal with on your own.

It feels so much better to share with someone. It doesn't make it okay, but at least you're not alone.

I wish it wasn't getting under my skin so much, but I just can't stand bad sports. Every year people work very hard, some more than others, to put together a Spring Sing show that they think is pretty great. There are some that are expected to do really good, some that are expected to be mediocre, and some that no one expects much from at all. Every now and again those clubs that are stuck in the middle decide to really step it up a notch, and for Lambda this was that year for us. Our directors studied old shows to see what the judges look for. They picked a theme that they knew would be popular with any generation in the audience, and picked songs that would be easily recognizable. They wrote some great lyrics to give our show it's own special spunky princess personality. Then they watched countless dance related videos to find new and unique moves for our show.

After all that, we as a club got to work, practicing no less than 3 times a week with several lock-ins sprinkled throughout the semester. Our costumes were planned, pieces ordered and bought in the fall, and measurements taken the first day of Spring classes. We pushed ourselves physically beyond what we usually do because we may not be able to keep up with some of the guys' clubs as far as athleticism goes, but if we conditioned ourselves long enough, we could at least bring the same amount of energy.

We also spent more time than most of the clubs (Kappa aside) focusing on Unity. From day one we wanted to encourage the other clubs as much as possible. Yes, there is a trophy involved, but trophy or not we were set to visit all the clubs as often as possible to wish them the best and motivate them all along the way.

All this we did while planning weddings, working multiple jobs, taking more than an average full time load of classes, volunteering in the community, and still keeping the best GPA on campus. Yeah, I know none of these things have to do with Spring Sing, but all of it combined makes me even more proud of my girls than all the Spring Sing trophies.

Point is: everyone worked hard. And if your club didn't sweep the competition this year, and all you can talk about is how the clubs that did place didn't deserve it, then maybe you can step back and think about what really matters. My club goes years between placing, but we are consistent, and we do not rain on anyone else's parade. Personally, I am impressed with all the clubs this year. All of them. So, I'll take my 4th place trophy and stand proud. Not to rub it in anyone's face, but as a symbol of our hard work paying off.

Spring Sing is over! And not just that, but Lambda did pretty darn good this year. We won Best Costumes AND 4th Place overall! Very exciting since so many clubs really put together some amazing shows this year! Kappa ended up winning Unity, but we had our own celebration time for tying with them so it feels just as good. :) I think the most exciting thing this year was going into awards with no idea how it would end up.


Since my family came into town for the show this weekend, I got to spend time with all of them. It was nice to see them since I won't be home much this year again. Kathleen is coming back up here for a few days during Spring Break, so we can hang out a little more without as much distraction from Spring Sing performances. Not sure what we'll do yet, but I'm sure we can find something fun to do around town. I'm just glad there's only one more week of classes before then.

After a nice long nap today, I got up and finished some homework for tomorrow, so at least I am starting off the week on a good note. I'm still behind on a couple things, but nothing that I can't get caught up on very quickly now that Spring Sing isn't going on.

Next on the agenda is to catch up in all my classes, keep working at getting hired on at Best Buy, decide who to ask to Lambda banquet, and get ready for Kappa banquet! Russ asked me to go with him, and I guess I'll find out by next week if we're going for sure. He has a school project that may keep him from going, but we'll see. :)

I guess first I should focus on fixing my sleep schedule...

So, this weekend I decided to get productive. I knocked out my senior seminar paper, which now needs to be revised for my final draft. I'm pretty proud of it though! Then I built a website for our web programming class along with two CSS for it to alternate between. Once we got the meat of the site put in (the data, map, search bar, etc) it looks pretty sweet! Some other groups presented theirs today, and I'm really excited to show off what we put together. I also got a program done from last week, so that was a good weight to get off my shoulders.

This is the big week for Spring Sing, so everything we've been working towards is in overdrive this week, but it also ends with this week. That's intimidating but also a relief. We had club night tonight, and it was a lot of fun to finally see everyone else's shows and to get to show ours off. Until tonight, very few people had seen our show, so it was kind of life a big unveiling for us. We got some GREAT feedback, so as long as we can keep improving as we go, and keep our energy level high without making mistakes along the way, I think we really have a chance of doing pretty well as far as placing goes this year. I'm really excited to see how the chips fall in the end, because from tonight's performances quite a few of the underdogs are stepping up to the plate this year. I would love to see Iota or Pi take home 1st this year, but I also know that some of the big name clubs in Spring Sing may not have been giving 100% tonight, so it could be anyone's game at this point.


I also found out that the directors voted tonight on Unity, which has been my baby for Lambda this year. I'm a little nervous now to see who wins! Either way, it's been SO much fun, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat just to get to hang out with our girls and visit the other clubs. Kappa means business with Unity, and it was worth every penny, minute, and burnt finger along the way. And definitely either way, I will be cheering loudly (although maybe not loudest since I imagine Seth will cheer VERY loudly if they win) along with everyone else.

For now, I need to spend my one day off from Spring Sing wisely to catch up for these next couple of days. It's doable, and I just have to focus hard!

Good news: I accepted my internship for this summer, so I will be back out in DC early in May. Lindsay also applied for an internship with a church out there, so it would be awesome if she gets that and is up there with me!

One last worry/concern: Housing next year. I'll be here one more year before I graduate, while a lot of my friends are graduating now. So, I have to figure out where I'm living. I could live off campus, but I'll have to find other people that are planning to do that. Or I could live on campus, but that costs more, and again....I have to find roommates still. Oh well, I'll worry about that when I have a LITTLE extra time on my hands. :)

Goodnight!

I'm tired. Tired from many things and of many things. So much is going on right now, and it all adds up quickly leaving me worn out. I guess it doesn't seem like that much on paper, but my 18 hours of classes are catching up with me, and Spring Sing is just keeping me from being able to get caught up! I know some things aren't that important in life, but if you never have a little fun with unnecessary things you'll never have any fun.

This semester I took on the goal of winning the Unity Award for Spring Sing. Kappa has won it for the past 6 years straight, but I figured it was a good way to get all the girls involved in Spring Sing - including those not in our show. It's also a fun way (for me) to get to know all the girls in club as we make fools out of ourselves singing and making baked goods for all the other clubs. Of course, beating another club that has held a title for such a long run isn't easy, because they also feel the need to step up to the plate to defend their title. It's been really fun to go and encourage all the clubs, and I'm excited to see who the directors chose to win this year. I'll give Kappa some credit, they have been very creative this year with their ideas, but maybe we'll still stand out in the clubs' minds for our persistence and delicious Gatorade and snacks.

Classes are interesting, but keeping up with so many of them is definitely a challenge. I almost dropped a class last week, but now I'm deciding to stick it out and put in extra time to study for it. Time. That's one resource I don't have a lot of right now. But, at this point, let's just see what will happen and hope for the best. My senior seminar paper is nonexistent right now, even though I have all my research done. Putting it into a "paper" format is my biggest challenge for that now. Then the tests and programs that pop up all the time keep me busy just trying to remember all of them not to mention getting them completed.

Going into this next week, my goals are to catch up over the weekend on some things I've let slip behind and to keep up throughout next week. If I can do that much during Spring Sing I know I can pull my grades back up after it's all over. I've made it this far... I can make it through the end!

Well....today was test #3 of 4 for the week, and my senior seminar paper is still not done. That's due tomorrow. Today was kind of rough with the lack of sleep I've been getting lately as well as the pressure of so many tests. After talking to one of my professors, I'm feeling better than I was earlier, but I know there is a lot of work ahead of me to get caught up in understanding the material to move forward in that class.

On the other hand, Spring Sing is creeping up on us, and it's amazing to think how close we are to being done. We learned our last song last night then did a complete run through of the entire show. I'm looking forward to our next several practices of just running through it again and again and perfecting the parts we're not doing quite right yet. For me...that's a majority of the show. :) I love our show, and I'm trying to get it right, but it will just take some more practice. As far as Unity goes, I've been working on that overtime lately to make sure we finish strong. Only one more week left for unity, so I want to make sure the directors remember the support and encouragement we offered this year. The girls have been great in bringing supplies - Gatorade, brownie mix, etc. - and now I've got our schedule done and trying to get girls to commit to showing up for different meeting times.

Lambda has been such an encouragement to me this semester. I know sometimes others may see it as just another activity to eat into my time, but honestly without Lambda I wouldn't have gotten so much encouragement, and I think I would have a much harder time this semester. Being back from studying abroad is its own challenge, then add on being unemployed, taking 18 credit hours and trying to participate in Spring Sing, and I am SO glad they are here to catch me when I fall short and vice-versa. Spring Sing has helped me a lot also in my self-esteem. I know I've been losing weight this semester, and it's just a great way to stay active and get some socializing time in between all my homework. Not having a job has severely limited my options as far as going out with friends for fun time, but if all I have to do to see my friends and laugh for an hour or so at our ridiculous behavior and nonsense is meet at the gym or a classroom on campus to have an intense workout...I'm there!