Goodbye January!

Since I was absent for almost the entire month of January, I will re-cap anything interesting:

January 18
We had quite a cold snap for a while--down in the low 20s all day. It's been rather cold still (it even snowed today but it didn't stick) and I must say that I'm tired of waking up in the morning and putting on 6 layers, not worrying what I look like. Christine and I bundled up and went for a walk and we weren't the only ones!

I loved this lady's outfit. The green and red were
quite festive!

This is the only pretty part of the huge Christmas tree that was on display in the middle of Taylor Circle in front of Wright Hall (front and center of campus). It looked good during the night, when it was turned on, but the rest of the time, the obviously fake green branches were just to cheesy. It was, however, quite entertaining inside! Danika, one of her friends and I went inside, just because we could. And we did it after vespers one Friday night. This is quite a big fake tree with plenty of room inside to walk around and slip in between the big iron frame.

Karalee, Christine, Danika and I also had a fun time going down to the basement kitchen in the dorm (which is referred to 'Thatcher Cafe') and cooking ourselves a wonderful dinner of noodles, peas and bread. After enjoying our delicious meal, we had fun blasting music and goofing of before doing the dishes.


Can you spot the ballerina?


January 19 MLK Day

For Martin Luther King Day, SAU students are encouraged to volunteer for community service. This year there were 850 students that went to 70 locations, volunteered over 4,000 hours and it is estimated that students saved organizations in the community more than $22,000. I went with some friends from the drama team to Apison Elementary School where we dusted classrooms and cleaned windows.

















When we finished at the school, we still had a lot of time before they were going to served us supper back at the school. After a few phone calls, we decided to head over to the Samaritan Center. There had been a bunch groups circling though there all day. When we got there, I was put on Barbie patrol which included stripping, cleaning, disinfecting, and beautifying a pile of Barbies. We had brushes and detangler to do their hair and body spray to top it all off!






















We ended the day back in the gym, all 850 students and enjoyed free meals from 3 different restaurant catering!

Christine, Hiel and Danika waiting for food...


















The best part was that it snowed! And it stuck for about a day... This is Layla. She's Christine's roommate from Japan!

January 20, Inauguration Day

A very historic day indeed! The excitement on campus could be felt! I am honored to say that I was able to witness history as the first African American became the President of our country! The hype was all over campus! I started at 11:30 in the Student Center, then went to the Cafe, the hallway, and ended up in the Wellness Center to watch President Obama take the vow. What was I doing running around? Why taking pictures, of coarse!

The Student Center ^

The Cafe ^

The Empty Hallway ^

The Wellness Center ^