Ending in Small Town Rhode Island

This morning Rae and I got up early to get a head start on our last day of the road trip. We departed Akron at 7am and drove more than half of the day through Pennsylvania. The drive through Pennsylvania may be long but it is beautiful. I cannot believe I forgot how pretty of a drive it was. It is lush, green, and mountainous. I would love to make that drive in the fall and see all of the different colors the forests would turn.

After getting through PA, the rest should have felt like a breeze...false. We ended up driving through the "garden state" part of New Jersey which was scenic, but once we crossed over into New York it turned a bit stressful. I have been home way too long, I have forgotten just how aggressive and plain rude drivers are up here. The culture up here in the northeast has fallen under and transformed into a complete lack of respect for authority and lack taking responsibility for personal actions. It's a vicious cycle. The speed limit is marked 45 mph, everyone drives 70+, what is a cop supposed to do? Pull everyone over? So then there is no reason to follow the law or even recognize the posted speed limit because you pretty much have to speed to keep up with the flow of traffic and the police can't really punish anyone for mild speeding, only if it is really ridiculous. Now, I am not ranting about this because of the speeding but just the lack of respect for the posted speed limit. Why have a speed limit at all if no one obeys it? When driving through Ohio, when there were additional signs saying "stictly enforced" underneath the speed limit sign, just about everyone drove the speed limit. The funny thing is we did not see a single patrol man but everyone respected the speed limit and drove the appropriote speed. It definitely has to do with culture. Is it something that can ever be changed? Or is it just how it is?

So after all of the stress and frustration driving through New York, we entered into Connecticut. No this time last year when I was driving up for the first time with my mom, CT was where I started panicking and wondering what I had gotten myself into. This year, just the nostalgia of that freshman feeling made me panic all over again. What did I get myself into? People here are so different than what I am used to. Should I have to harden myself to tolerate cold people? My life is completely different up here than at home. We have driven WAY too far to turn around now. To make it worse, traffic on I-95 was bad, not terrible, but it did delay our trip.

After crossing the Rhode Island border, somehow all of that anxiety subsided. We arrived in South County Rhode Island (Wakefield) as planned, right around dinner time. Tonight we are staying with some of Rae's old family friends in Wakefield, Mariam, Ben, and their two young children. I am so thankful for having a house to stay at outside of the city. It is nice to have a peaceful night here out in small town Rhode Island. The GPS took us through South Kingstown and the quaint neighborhoods, we rolled the windows down and enjoyed the warm breeze and scenery. After arriving we chatted and ate dinner all before 9:30pm, I was shocked, it felt like it was so much later. Since we got an early start this morning, we got here early, and now I have showered, blogged, and I am ready for bed before midnight. I need all the rest I can get because of a big day of moving into my apartment tomorrow.

Well this will be my last post on this blog for a while, maybe forever? I thought it was nice to start and end this blog in Rhode Island. You will be hearing from me in my mini-city as soon as I get settled in and I will have a whole new year of exciting adventures up here in my mini city of Providence, RI. Thanks for keeping up with my blog this summer, goodnight.

The end is near, but the beginning is nearer.

I don't know why I always get inspired to blog late at night. I always think they are so brilliant at this time too, and I read it the next morning and wonder why. I am currently sitting on my back deck enjoying the cool breezy summer night. It is perfect right now, I only wish I had someone to join me. I miss my roomie, ya know that automatic friend that's with you all the time? No worries though, I drive down to Dallas this weekend to pick her up and to begin our trek back up north.

My mom's old college classmate and her son randomly passed through Oklahoma and is visiting us for a few days. It's nice to see my mom interact with her old friends and talk about the days when she was in college. Her son is just a few years older than me, so right about the age of people I tend to hang out with. They got in last night and we all stayed up late talking about politics, religions, and everything in between. They live in Canada and we compared in contrasted the two countries. I really forget that Canada is a completely different country. In my mind it must be just a really big state or something. All of you liberals out there reading this should really emigrate to Canada, you would love it. Everything that the liberals are trying to do here in the states, Canada's already been there done that. Today I played tour guide and took them around the restaurant and the rest of town. She was very intrigued by the Native American culture so we went to the Heritage Center and took a tour of the village and museum. It's funny how I remember pretty much everything I was taught about the trail of tears in elementary school. I'm glad our schools took the time to take us on field trips to the historical sites around here. I'm glad that they are here but it is sort of throwing off my last week in town. I had big plans of seeing everyone and tying up all lose ends and packing, but I feel obligated to play tour guide and show them the sites. Rae kept telling me that this weekend would creep up on me but I didn't listen.

I am starting to get more excited about going back to school. It's not that I was dreading it or anything, I was just not dying to leave home just quite yet. I know I'll feel better about it when I get to say a proper good bye to everyone. The longer I stay here the more people think I am going to NSU and not going back to RI. Nothing against NSU, I just don't want to be perceived as someone who went away their first year of college, couldn't handle it, and ended up back at home. I refuse to be that person because that is not the case for me whatsoever. I have been asked countless times, "So are you going to school here now??" because I am still here and August is almost over. Don't get me wrong, I am not criticizing others who have gone to college elsewhere and then decided to come back home. Every individual situation is different, mine is just not that way.

This may have been my last summer at home. I would really love to do something next summer, whether it is staying in Providence and working or an internship in DC. This summer has been the best waste of time ever. I thoroughly enjoyed not having any responsibility and doing whatever with no guilt of any other obligations and hanging out with all of my old friends. That was what this blog was all about: me doing nothing. I can only live like this for so long, it is time to be back in reality. It's time for me to look at life through a windshield instead of a rear-view mirror, and move on from the past and what is here at home and look towards my future again. The good things in my life here at home will stay with me, all of the others will melt away.

I wish I could stay out on the porch all night, but my laptop is about to die on me. Until next time...

Moving On...in a month.

Today I received an email from the Resident Director for The Cove saying that my move in date has been pushed forward to Thursday Sept. 2 instead of Sunday the 4th. I requested that the date be moved earlier because I have already committed to helping with Freshman move-in that Saturday and Sunday. Deep down I was anticipating that the request wouldn't be processed and I would have as long of a summer as possible, but it is just now dawning on me that I just get to see Rae even sooner then planned.

Alright, I admit it openly here on my blog that I really miss Rae. Today I was talking to a few of my guy friends and I was asked if I were to get married tomorrow, who would be my maid of honor? I answered Rae without a doubt. Interesting how I have known her the least amount of time out of all of my friends, but I feel like she is going to be my close friend for a very long time. We are those sickingly close roommate/best friends. We are almost on the same level as those couples that just make you sick because they're such a good match. We motivate each other to be better, harder working people in every aspect. 

I decided to blog this right after I made the gushiest comment on her blog just now. I was slightly embarrassed about it after I posted it, but now I'm wondering shouldn't all friends be this way? Real friendships should be encouraging and supportive and be able to subject yourself to a little vulnerability. Do I have these same friendships here at home anymore? No one really needs me here anymore, they've adjusted to me being gone.  Most everyone else has obligations here because they live here full time. I have none. They have full time jobs, significant others, and even families of their own. This may very well be the last summer I spend at home. I think I needed this last summer to solidify that I will probably never live here for this extended bit of time again. It's been a pretty fantastic summer, I have been able to relax and do whatever I wanted to. It'll be good since my schedule will be CRAZY once school starts. I'm going to be a busy busy girl, I should take full advantage of this month of nothing to do.

So I've ended up going a bit of a different direction with this post. There's a little thoughts out of my head for the moment. Until next time...

Lessons Learned: College Freshman Edition

1. Time management is key to success.
2. The difference between an ordinary student and an extraordinary student is that while they both procrastinate, the extraordinary student will not only get in done in time, they will get an A on it too.
3. The key to happiness is refusing to be unhappy.
4. You get nowhere in life by staying in your room and feeling sorry for yourself.
5. When you are employed as an adult you are no longer reprimanded for not doing your job well, you will just be judged silently...which is worse.
6. There should be a logical reason why a certain class in found in your degree plan, make sure you know what that is. If you learn that, there is no reason to fail.
7. Check your email and respond to them. You will forget about it later.
8. It's harder to keep up with your friends or become better friends when you are guaranteed by law to see them at school everyday.
9. Just because no one is telling you to go to bed doesn't mean you can stay up all night and not face the consequences.
10. Read you syllabus, good professors won't remind you about your midterm.
11. Network, network, network. How else will you get a job in this economy?
12. Learn to ask questions.
13. If you want something, ask for it. The worst thing they'll say in "no"
14. Volunteering is the best way to get experience, network, and a good reputation. (and you get free stuff)
15. The best way to adjust to new surroundings is to get involved.
16. With great power comes great responsibility.
17. A friendly email to a superior can open many doors.
18. Go to class. You paid for it.
19. There's nothing worse than being responsible and buying your textbook for class and finding out that you will never use it.
20. Always have a No. 2 pencil on you, you never know when you need one...and it comes in handy for when you have that surprise midterm you didn't know about because you didn't read the syllabus.
21. Get a real alarm clock. It's embarrassing to oversleep and be late.

I hope those might be of use to you. Stay posted for next year's edition of Lessons Learned. It's officially a tradition. Until next time...

Long Time No Blog

Hello all, I apologize for not blogging lately. I wish I could say I was just way too busy but that would be very false. I actually have had extended amount of free time. Just over a week ago I got the opportunity to go to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to go to a NACA Concert Management Institute. It was great. The Mindiola's returned the favor for staying at my house for a week by meeting me at the airport and taking me to where I needed to be as well as pick me up and drop me off at the airport for my departure. We stayed at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. I met some great people, learned some extensive things about major concerts, got to tour several different concert venues, and go to Summerfest (the largest music festival in "the world") courtesy of Johnson and Wales University. I even got to see the lovely Katelyn Spurr. Katelyn is doing her internship in Chicago at a talent agency for the summer, so she drove up to meet up with to at Summerfest. There weren't any bands at Summerfest that I was just dying to see but it was very fun going from stage to stage and people watching. There are some freaks that attend music festivals, there could be a whole blog just about music festival people. Coincidently the people that I had been hanging out with at the institute, a few of them had gone the year before and were friends with Kate too. Another coincidence was that my suite mate, Jamie, is the new main stage coordinator at Quinnipiac Univerisity in Connecticut who took the place of Meg Doyle, Katelyn's roommate from the institute last summer. Key highlights from Wisconsin would be: scavenger hunt, The Fonz, Pabst Theaters, drunk people on the way, at, and coming back from Summerfest, Noodles & Co, frozen custard, and Alterra Coffee.

On the plane back I did some extensive amount of thinking. Due to a crazy thunderstorm at home, the dinky little Delta Connection plane was in no hurry to get me back to Oklahoma. I have some big plans for UIB next year. I would like to re-brand UIB, make our posters simpler, less graphics, and straight to the point. I would like to advertise and reach out to other students who major in other things besides Hospitality to get involved with UIB. We are in need of some Business and Technology students, they're major plays a big part in UIB, it's more than event planning. We need some advertising and marketing students to effectively reach the student body and we need some tech students to make some more promo videos and maybe an UIB App in the future. I need to get that message out clearly to everyone this coming year. As for Wahoo, I am interested in getting some sponsorships, 1) they mean free stuff or 2) they give us more money to get a bigger name performer to appeal to our painfully mainstream student body.

At the beginning of school last year, I signed up to be a campus representative for TOMS Shoes in hopes of starting some sort of TOMS Campus Club, fail. Elise from TOMS shoes has contacted me letting me know that the Cultural Life Committee has gotten Blake Mycoskie (TOMS Creator) to speak at JWU this coming fall. This would be a great way to spread awareness on our campus about TOMS shoes. It is definitely not as big of a deal in the northeast, TOMS shoes that is. Of course out of the 5 or 6 campus reps at JWU that received the same email, 2 of us emailed back expressing interest and excitement. Great, I needed another responsibility to take on! Hopefully I can get some support and hopefully someone else more capable than me and head this one. I love TOMS and would love to do an internship with them one day, but I'm afraid of spreading myself out too thin. I have an education to get on top of all my extra curriculars too.

So much nothing has happened at home since I've been back from Wisconsin. My life pretty much consists of gym, class, wedding talk with Misty, watching The Bachelorette, Secret Life, Gilmore Girls, Arrested Development, Mad Men, and Pushing Daisies, and some working at the restaurant is sprinkled into the mix too. I am enjoying my time off, but you know me, I get restless and a bit depressed due to lack of activity, I must get it from my mother. Sorry for the long post, I'll try to get back in the habit of blogging more often so I can keep them brief.

That's all for now! Until next time...

Time For A Routine

Today was my first day of summer school! I have class Monday through Thursdays from 1:30-4:30 from now until the end of July. I am going to do my best to not sleep the entire day and then go to class. I plan on waking up and going to the gym at 9am, go home to shower, lunch date with someone, then go to class. I had intentions of doing that this morning but the morning started with rain and it through me off of my game. I went to the gym after class today, that could be a Monday thing possibly so I can do yoga at 6:30pm. I really enjoyed doing yoga today, it had been a really long time. I am definitely out of shape and not quite as limber as last summer. I finally got some new tennis shoes, my last ones were from the 8th grade, it was time for an upgrade. Running on the treadmill is very different than running around Providence. I used to think it was easier to run on it but now I am used to actually running outside. Too bad it is way to hot and humid here to run. 

At JWU we are required to take 2 arts and sciences electives, if you pick 2-3 class in the same department you can claim a concentration in that area. I am getting my psychology concentration here at NSU thins summer. Mondays and Wednesdays I have Life Span Development with Beth Bowin. She was my Intro to Psych professor my senior year and I just love her. Her class lectures are always so interesting, but not necessarily correlated with the exams. At the beginning of each section she gives us the 100 question study guide for the exam. She picks 50 of those questions to be the questions for the exam. I remember doing these back in intro and they are difficult, but the actual exam only takes me 10 minutes to finish. I can already tell I am going to love this class. It should be mandatory for parents to take a developmental class before pro-creating. Today we went through a list of age old parenting myths and disproved them. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have Personalities with some professor I don't know. I really hope he's interesting because I am fascinated by personalities, I hope to actually learn something. 

We'll see how class goes tomorrow. I'm going blueberry picking tomorrow if weather permits. Gotta be up bright and early. That's all for now, until next time!

Touring instead of Tour Guiding

This morning Rae and I took at tour of JWU Charlotte. It was pretty interesting being on the other end of a campus tour for the day. The presentation was a tad long but very informative for someone who is not a current Johnson and Wales student. The Charlotte campus is practically brand new. Its doors opened in 2004. The city of Charlotte actually paid for a significant amount for the school to be built there is a want to make Charlotte a destination for trendy restaurants and hotels. The campus is located just outside of uptown Charlotte right outside of the 2nd largest financial district in the country right after NYC. We stayed at the Double Tree Hotel which is owned by the university and just so happens to be right in between the admissions office and academic building. We took a look at the main residence hall and dining hall then continued into the academic building. They have upperclassmen housing call City View Towers which is similar to The Village and The Cove in Providence as well as nice condos and apartments surrounding the area too. The academic building is gorgeous and filled primarily with natural light unlike our John Hazen White Center and Xavier. Charlotte has a professional dress code and all classes are located in mainly one building. We got to take a look at the culinary and baking and pastry labs which can be seen from outside on the street. I was very impressed with the campus, they also offer a few minors at Charlotte unlike Providence. In order to make this transfer work for the fall of 2011, I am going to have to spend some quality time with academic advisors to fit in all of my advertising class this coming year in order to transfer since they don't have an advertising program there. What would happen is I transfer to Charlotte as a Marketing major and take my remainder general classes and marketing classes there for 2 trimesters leaving my 3rd tri for my internship in which I will transfer back to Providence, do my internship where ever I wish, and graduate in Providence with my advertising degree. Complicated, but worth it. Charlotte is an up and coming place full of job opportunities for recent grads. Next year is my opportunity to take full advantage of student life in Providence before moving into a more young professional setting for my JR/SR year of college.

The remainder of the day was spent driving through the rest of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and ending in Mississippi. Things I have noticed about the deep south: baptist churches every mile, Cracker Barrel at every town exit, and lots of interesting license plates. Tomorrow we are headed to Texas! We are leaving bright and early and hopefully getting to College Station in the afternoon. Goodnight all.

P.S. Check out  Rae's perspective of our road trip @ raerosen.blogspot.com