I'm free! Okay well for a couple days...

It's so nice to have a break from school even if it's only for a few days. When I come back from Thanksgiving it will be Reading Week (the last week of classes before Finals) and then Finals. So that means lots of studying is in my future! My plan is to work really hard on studying for finals so that I might be able to bring a couple of my grades back up to As (since they dropped to Bs after being so sick). It's always nice when I've done well enough during the semester that I don't have to try very hard for finals but this is definitely not going to be one of those semesters.  Wish me luck!

After finals have past, then I'll be headed to Phoenix to help out my Mom. She'll be having her surgery 12/16. The Drs are excpecting her to be in the hospital for a number of days and then at home recovering for several weeks. Hopefully my Mom will actually listen to the Drs and not try to do too much too soon. Hopefully all goes as well as the Drs say it should.  If all goes well, then she'll be back on her feet by the end of January. 

Friends, Fun, and Food

Last night a handful of my friends treated me to dinner at Sakura, a Japanese restaurant here in town for my birthday that's coming up this week. We reserved a tepanyaki table and enjoyed the show!!

 For those who aren't familiar, you sit around a grill-like thing and the chef cooks your meal right in front of you and while he cooks, he entertains you with jokes, tricks, and FLAMES!  I've only gone for tepanyaki a couple times before but it's always fun and last night was no exception. Our chef was really good and funny. I had the chicken and shrimp and my roommates ordered a few things of sushi and tempura veggies so I got to have a few pieces of that too. I was so full, I still have a whole box of leftovers in the fridge! It was so much fun!! Thanks to everyone who went! :)  

After dinner we went home and cut the cake! One of my roomies got me an ice cream cake from Cold Stone. MMMMMMMMMMMMM it's super tasty! It's raspberry chocolate ice cream with red velvet cake. After taking a few bites of that amazing-ness, a few of us went downtown to Collins for a couple hours. We danced a little bit and got to chill with more friends that we ran into! Finally... at almost 1a we decided it was time to come home and crash. BUT then when I got home I really wanted to look at all the pics from the night so I started playing with those and then I was up half the night. 

Now... I have to stop putting off studying for the two tests I have tomorrow!! Yikes :/

Beta Alpha Psi Banquet

Every year the professional society that I'm part of has a banquet with a great dinner and casino games with raffle prices. Last night's banquet was lots of fun! I've been sick and so even though my voice started to disappear by the end of the night, I'm really glad I made it to the banquet. Several professionals come to the banquet from all over (mostly Phoenix) and the chapter awards certain students for their commitment to the chapter. It's held at this little place in Flagstaff called the Kilted Kat. It's a kind of banquet hall that's really cute and off the beaten path. Everyone dresses up in their suits and puts their dining etiquette to the test. The chapter also presents an award to an outstanding alumnus. This years award winner was actually somone I'll be going to work with. I worked with her when I did my internship of the summer and she's fantastic and definitely deserved the reward. After playing photographer for the night, I played Texas Hold 'Em long enough to triple my chips and get a handful of raffle tickets!! I even won three small gift certs in the raffle!! Yay me!! I can't help it... I'm a broke college student. 

 

  

 

Happy Belated Halloween!

Since I've been so sick I haven't been up to getting pictures online but tonight, or should I say this morning since it's about 3am (Yes.. I should be sleeping), I managed to get them uploaded. My friends and I were very excited to celebrate Halloween this year! One of my friends and old roommates Amy even came up from Phoenix to join us. We all dressed up, had the guys make hamburgers and hot dogs and played board games and had drinks. Later that night a few of us decided to hit the scene downtown for a little while. It was so much fun because we saw lots of familiar faces (that were not-quite-so-familiar because of their halloween costumes) while we were downtown. It seemed that everyone had gone out to celebrate! 

In the picture above, my roommate Marie was a pirate, my old roommate Amy was Indiana Jane, and I was a magician. My other roommate Christine joined us with her boyfriend Nick but they had a date night instead of a Halloween night so they didn't dress up with us. All in all, it was a really great night! 

Dawn of a new day

It's been an interesting week. I'm laid up in bed with a terrible cold, going through way too many tissues, and trying not to talk for fear my voice won't ever come back. But how I feel is nothing in comparison to the events of this week. Of course, the most amazing news is that Obama is the President-elect. The bad news is that the husband of one of my SI students (Michelle Yazzie, like a tutoree) died on Tuesday completely unexpected and I just heard that Vince Romero (who I went to high school with) was shot and killed in St.Johns yesterday and I believe he had just recently gotten married. 

My thoughts and prayers are with the Yazzies and the Romeros. 

I'll have to blog later on all the election news... time for another nap before I pass out.