Current Celebrity Obsession

JOSH HUTCHERSON

Yes, just like every other girl in the world I am currently stalking Josh on twitter and instagram. I cannot wait for the Hunger Games to come out a week from tomorrow!!!

#TeamPeeta

Quick Mid-Semester Update!

Wow! It's been quite a while since I last updated my blog. This semester has been a lot more challenging than I had originally thought so I've gotten way behind on my blogging. Here's a quick update thus far on what I've been up to:


- MOVE Extended Service trip to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah

Me in Zion National Park!

FLORA! We took this sweet, deaf puppy for a sleepover at our townhouse. I'll never forget this adorable pup. I miss her terribly and wish I could have taken her home with me!!

- I've completed seven weeks of the spring semester... my courses are challenging and have a large amount of outside work. Unfortunately because of this I haven't implemented my New Year's Resolution of exercising every day into my routine. Spring Break starts next week though so I'm hoping to start an exercise program at home and attempt to work it into my routine once I'm back at school.


- Weekly Tour Friday at 11:30am! I was luck enough to be given another weekly tour guide spot this semester, so I've been able to earn a little extra cash at school for gas money and Dunkin' Doughnuts runs. Plus, I've been able to share my love of SMC with some awesome prospective students!


- Applying for study abroad spring semester 2013! After much research and a few late nights, I have finally chosen a study abroad program and location for next spring 2013... CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA!

I'm applying to go with SIT to study "Multiculturalism and Human Rights". While abroad, I'll be staying with four different families from many different backgrounds, plus learning Xhosa, one of South Africa's 11 national languages, and doing my own research project! Needless to say, I'm absolutely excited and terrified at the same time! I can't wait to finally go to the continent I've been dreaming about since I was a small child.
Today I met with my adviser to work on my plan for graduation and get his approval for the courses I'll be taking abroad. Once my paperwork comes back from the registrar, I need to write a letter of intent and get a letter of recommendation from one of my professors. Then I will hand over all my paperwork to the study abroad office which will (hopefully) approve me to study abroad! After I get the okay, the next step is to apply to SIT. I thought applying to SMC was a drag... SIT looks like even more work! Especially since it asks a lot of deep, thought provoking questions... yes, I'm terrified. I never thought I'd say this, but applying for study abroad might be even scarier than applying for colleges!!!
I'll try and keep my faithful readers (Alyssa, Taylor) updated as I continue through application process continues. 


Goodbye for now,
Megan

New Year's Resolutions 2012

1. Eat healthier.

Although this past summer and fall semester I've worked hard toward eating healthier, I really could have done better. There have been a lot of instances where I've made excuses such as "There's nothing good for dinner so I might as well have fries" or "I'm so stressed, I really need to eat a candy bar or two or three..." My goal therefore is to not only eat healthier by not eating fries or desert in the school cafeteria, but to also refrain from eating unhealthy food, especially sweets, in my suite as well. I've always had a big problem with self control, but hopefully I'll be able to work on reining myself in more this year.

2. Exercise daily.

Again, I've worked really hard on staying in shape this past summer and fall semester after gaining the freshman 15 last year. From August to December I ran three days a week and also went to the gym, walked around Colchester, Winooski, and Burlington with friends or solo, and did some yoga with Denise Austin. However, I also found myself making lots of excuses not to exercise, hence I stopped exercising on the weekends once October came along and only did my yoga DVD twice. My new goal is to stop making excuses by exercising daily. This goal is inspired by an article I read in a health magazine a few months ago. The article said that those who exercise daily find less opportunities to make excuses not to exercise because they've scheduled time to perform this task. I know it's going to be tricky the first couple of weeks of spring semester to work out a schedule for myself, but hopefully by the end of January I'll find an exercise schedule that works for me!

Another component of the goal is mixing up my exercise. I know another big problem for me is that I get bored very easily. Running is the one form of exercise I absolutely love to do but even running the same route feels repetitive after a month or two. I'm hoping that I can solve this problem by running 3 or 4 days a week but choosing different routes and/or mediums (indoor vs outdoor, treadmill vs running track). For example, if I decide to run Monday, Wednesday, Friday like I did last semester, perhaps I could run on the treadmill for 1-3 miles on Monday, on the indoor track on Wednesday, and outside to North campus and back on Friday. I also want to alternate running workouts with lifting, Zumba, or yoga classes to not only mix things up but also to give me a different workout to look forward to each day. One neat app I'm going to try is the "Nike Training Club" app. This app is like having your own personal trainer in the palm of your hand! I know another one of my many problems is that I never know what exercises to do. Hopefully this app will both educate me on some cool, effective, easy exercises and inspire me to get my butt to the gym everyday!

3. Replace the word "hate" with the word "dislike."

One thing I've observed over the last few weeks is how much I say the word "hate." The word hate is such a negative word, though, and has a very extreme meaning. I've also observed that when I use the word hate, ninety-nine percent of the time I actually mean that I dislike something. For example, after this summer one phrase I said constantly was "I hate working." In this case, I don't intensely or passionately dislike working, there are just things I'd rather do like read a book for fun or watch TV. Therefore, in order to work toward being more positive, I'm going to work on replacing the word hate with the word dislike.

Finals, finals, finals

     Well, as you can probably tell  by my lack of blog posting, it's been a busy semester. Friday ended a semester full of reading, homework, and papers and commenced a weekend of full of studying for my Christianity final, which took place this morning at 9am. Luckily I was able to still have some fun this weekend... Saturday my sister Erin came up to visit and to go to the comedy show with my suite mates and I. All in all, we had a lot of fun and I think my weekend full of studying paid off because I flew through the final this morning, getting out 45  minutes early!
     As for the rest of my finals, I handed in my Philosophy final papers last Wednesday and am planning on submitting my Social Inequalities paper to my professor either tonight or tomorrow.  That means I'm off until my Latin final on Friday!
I'm hoping to spend tomorrow and Wednesday relaxing around the suite, reading my current mystery book, watching Homicide: Life on the Street season 1, and shopping for Christmas presents in Burlington!

Oh, and hopefully hanging out with my best friend, Taylor :)

Taylor and I in a patch of wild flowers

One of the things I've learned in life is the importance of knowing how to make your own fun. You can't simply rely on technological inventions like television, computers, ipods, or cell phones to entertain you; you need to know how to entertain yourself, too. 
One way I've found to entertain myself on beautiful, warm days like the few we've had up here this weekend in Northern VT is to go on adventures! Friday afternoon was one such day that my friends Kayley, Taylor, and I decided to enjoy the evening and go out exploring around campus. Since it was such a beautiful evening, we decided to go across the street from our dorm to the "lookout" and watch the sun set over the Green Mountains of VT.

Kayley and I walking toward the "lookout"

Once we were able to finally cross the street, we decided to go down to the Organic Garden our school maintains. Along the way we found some beautiful, secluded spots to take pictures.

It took a few tries to get the perfect shot...

 After we briefly visited the garden and attempted to juggle some gourds, we made our way back up to the "lookout" to watch the sun set. All in all, it was a really fun time! It was so refreshing to get out of the dorm and just enjoy nature and the company of some friends  on a gorgeous day in VT<3

Goodbye Hair!

After growing my hair out for the past couple of years, I've finally taken the leap and cut it all off! As much as I loved my long hair, it was getting way to hard for me to manage on a daily basis so I decided to take a leap of faith and cut about seven inches off. 

Before...

After!

I absolutely love my new hair! It's so fresh and versatile! I can't wait to see all of the new ways I'll be able to style it :)

A big shout-out to my best friend, Taylor for encouraging me to try something new!

The End of Summer 2011

Greetings world! It's been quite a while since I last blogged and many things have happened in my life. First of all, my (three!) summer jobs ended. After working close to every day of the week this summer, I was more than happy for my work commitments to end and spend my last week or two with my family and friends before I headed back to school. Here's a quick re-cap of my last week home before I headed back to Saint Michael's on August 27th...

My last week home was by far my busiest week of the summer! On August 23rd and 24th I went to Rhode Island with my mom and sisters, Erin and Allison, so Erin could visit Providence College and Roger Williams University. We also were able to squeeze in a quick trip to the Providence Place Mall to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (NOM NOM NOM) after our tour on Tuesday and the Roger Williams Zoo on Wednesday before our drive back home. Due to conflicts between my mom's work schedule and mine, I wasn't able to go on any trips with my family this summer so it was great to finally be able to spend some quality time with my family (minus Dad unfortunately)! It was a great bonding experience and just thinking about it makes me realize how much I miss my family while I'm at school.

Left to right: Allison, Mommy, and Erin in downtown Providence!

Red Velvet Cheesecake - aka heaven on earth!

Me looking out into Mt. Hope Bay at Roger Williams University

On August 25th, the day after returning home from our Rhode Island trip, my whole family (Mom, Dad, Erin, Allison and I) drove down to the Bronx in New York City to see a Yankee-Oakland A's game! The whole car ride down our small red car was pelted with rain drops so we were afraid our five hour drive would be in vain. Fortunately though, the rain stopped and the sun came out just as the hour and a half rain delay ended and the stadium staff started prepping the field for the game. And it turned out to be an excellent game! The Yankees came from behind to beat the A's 22-9 and made history when the team hit three grand slams! Congratulations to Robinson Cano, Russell Martin, and Curtis Granderson! 

Again, it was fantastic to spend quality time with my family, especially doing something we love: watching the New York Yankees win at Yankee Stadium!

The field - there was an hour and a half rain delay

Left to right: Allison, Dad, Erin, and Momma

Allison and "Fur-Ball" - they were handing out stuffed animals at the game

Allison and I

Yankee Stadium!

My last day at home for the summer I spend with my UN girls: Alyssa, Liz, Melissa, and Morgan. It had been a great summer so we wanted to go out big. And what could be bigger than dressing up, packing a picnic, and attending the horse races in Saratoga?! I had never been to the races before or even gambled, so I was really excited to try something new.

From left to right: Alyssa, Melissa, Liz, Morgan and I at Saratoga Raceway!

My lovely friends watching the track

We had a really fun day watching the horses and making $2, $3, and $4 bets. We all ended up winning a little money (or winning back our own money I should say), though Liz won the most... $76.00 on her last race by winning the Trifecta! (For those readers who have never bet on horses before, a Trifecta is a bet in which the person betting forecasts the first three finishers in a race in the correct order.) We knew she won some money but we were utterly astonished when the clerk put Liz's ticket through the machine and it announced her winnings. All five of us screamed and cheered which the clerks thought was pretty hysterical. 

Lizzy, the big winner!

Since Liz is such an awesome friend, she treated the five of us to cheesecake with her winnings! It was very delicious and a sweet end to a terrific summer.

I'm not back at my second home, SMC, and after writing this post and reminiscing about my last week home this summer, I definitely feel more than a little home/summer sick. On a positive note however, now whenever I feel a little homesick I can read this post and think about what an amazing summer I had! Hopefully that will keep me motivated to stay focused in my classes at school because the less time I'm thinking about home, the less sad I'll feel, the faster the days will go and the closer I'll come to my next break home where I'll be reunited with my amazing group of friends and loving family! :)