Traveling with Edwin

Edwin and I had quite an Easter Break! I probably spent 24 hours driving my car between Wednesday and today. I drove in four states - New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Maryland. - and clocked a lot of miles.

I have had my car since the summer after freshman year. And since the summer after freshman year, my bank account has dwindled. Just recently, here's an idea of what my car has cost me:

$280 - Speeding ticket
$130 - Charges from being towed
$175 - New rear sway bar links
$56 - A tank of gas

Not to mention that my car insurance has to be paid in June and inspection is due in May - it never seems to end!

Sure, a car is a major expense, but it definitely provides me with opportunities I would otherwise miss out on. Besides taking road trips, communting to my internship, and going to Wal-Mart every week, pretty soon Edwin will serve as a U-haul as I move out of my townhouse. Even though is has been a major expense, I've definitely enjoyed having a car during my college years.

Easter with Julie

I spent Easter Sunday with Julie! It was a day full of adventure, and Julie is going to guest blog to share about the fun we had:

I was thrilled to find out that Laura was coming to visit me for Easter, seeing as I was stuck in Waynesburg for the weekend with no car. A couple days before Laura arrived I got an e-mail from my Aunt Pam saying that their family was going to be staying in a cabin not to far from Waynesburg, and we were welcome to come for a visit. We gladly accepted the offer and got directions to the remote cabin on the top of "Mystic Mountain." We got a little bit messed up with the directions when we went 7 miles down a road instead of .7 miles. Oops. We eventually made it and spent a wonderful afternoon with my Aunt, Uncle, and 3 cousins. The day included a roasted ham, the Sound of Music, ping pong games, and AN EASTER EGG HUNT! When my Aunt said that they were going to prepare the egg hunt, my face lit up. I don't remember the last time I participated in an Easter egg hunt. I felt like I was 7 again, running around the yard, searching high and low, racing my cousins to get to the spotted egg, and trying to be the first to find your 30 eggs. In the end we were still missing one last egg. It started to rain, and we gave up searching. Somewhere out there on Mystic Mountain, there is a lonely lost egg, probably with chocolate inside.

And if you were wondering - we never did find that pine tree!

Day in Pittsburgh

Julie and I spent the day in Pittsburgh! We met her boyfriend, Brandon, at the Andy Warhol Museum and explored his artwork. He is famous for his use of screen printing, and we saw that demonstrated and made some cards using Warhol's classic repetitive pattern. Brandon, Julie, and I are above with a screen print of Andy Warhol - he had crazy hair in most pictures of him!

After the museum, we went rock climbing - bouldering to be more specific. I did this last Easter with Amy when I was visiting her in Philly. Apparently rock climbing is becoming an Easter tradition! Julie and Brandon had been there a few times before, and it was fun to try the various suggested paths. Above is me climbing a top off - you complete the climb by actually climbing up to and standing on the top of the wall - pretty fun!

We had some adventures with the GPS on the way home, but made it back to Waynesburg - Julie's school. We also skyped with the rest of our family back home and are looking forward to celebrating Easter tomorrow!

Spring Break Road Trip

I saw this sign a few times of my way down to Pittsburgh today. I felt like I had been driving for a million miles already! I left at 8am for my 430 mile journey to visit my sister, Julie, at her school. I hit road construction, rain, and slow traffic, delaying my arrival time to around 5pm - just in time for dinner at her dining hall!

It was a long day on the road all by myself, but I borrowed some books on tape - CDs actually - from the library after a friend suggested it. I lost interest around the last two hours of the story, but it was something different to keep me entertained. I have another one to listen to for the drive back to Rochester.

Julie and I have a fun day planned in Pittsburgh tomorrow, and we are visiting relatives on Easter Sunday. I'm glad to finally be here, and I'm looking forward to a fun weekend!

Easing into Life in Binghamton

I am spending the first part of my spring break in Binghamton. I loaded up my car with stuff from my dorm to bring home - for good. Since I stayed on campus last summer, it's been a while since I have had to bring everything home. The rest will come home after graduation - my parents will bring the van.

Thinking about how my stuff has multiplied during my four years of college, I began to wonder about it all fitting in my room at home. Since I accepted a job in Binghamton, I have decided to live with my parents after graduation. Growing up, I had the smallest room in the house, and my sister, Amy, had the largest. She stayed in Philly after she graduated, so I discussed the idea of moving into her big bedroom - and that's just what I did!

Tonight, my parents and I moved furniture around, creating a nice guest room and my new bedroom! There's still a lot of work to do, but I will organize it all once I bring everything else back from Rochester.

I have known since February that I am moving back to Binghamton. Moving into my new room made it seem that much more real. I was also able to work at Life Choices Center today - where I will begin my regular full hours at the end of May. It was great to get a better sense for what happens at the Center, and we all shared Olive Garden for lunch - delicious! I saw my office and began picturing how I will arrange and decorate it. I also read the latest newsletter, which I was included in. Toward the end of the day I was able to sit in with a client for a pregnancy test and experience the emotions that surround receiving the news from the test. I will be able to do a variety of tasks at the Center, and I am looking forward to this next step!

These past few days allowed me to begin picturing my life back in Binghamton again. I kept wanted to refer to Rochester as home tonight, but caught myself as I am now in this time of transition. It will be an adjustment, but I am excited for the adventure ahead!

Final Formal - For Free!

My housemate's boyfriend, Scoty, and I had a couple of bets going recently. I lost the first one and had to buy him Coldstone ice cream - but I won the second one, and he bought me a ticket to formal!

This was my last formal at Roberts. They have one every semester, and this was the first year that I went to both the winter and the spring formals in the same year - had to make the most of my last year! Usually we are served dinner before dancing all night long, but this year just a variety of desserts were offered. This allowed for more mingling with friends and a more casual setting.

I went with a couple of SIFE friends and had fun with my roommate, Michelle, and others on the dance floor! I helped make Michelle's dreams come true by taking her picture with our college president - P. Martin as he is affectionately called. She was in heaven! (Michelle, I might add, had perfect attendance at all eight of Roberts' formals we have been here for - impressive!)

Ross Corners' friends - I always think back to our Fruit 'n Nut days when I'm at events like formal. Oh the fun we had! Stupid brush, anyone?

Presentations: The Life of a Business Major

Wow! It's been a while since I have blogged! That's because I have been busy with class presentations! Five of them to be exact - this is the life of a business major. Let me give you a glimpse of what I have been up to:

Imbali - My group for International Business - see picture above. We just gave our third presentation and are now working on our second group paper. We have learned about South Africa, India, and exporting to or starting businesses in both. We all have busy schedules, so we tend to meet at 8am during the week.

PandaMonium - We are responsible for two projects for the same class! I work with two guys in my Strategic Management class on a weekly basis. We participate in a business simulation online called Glo-Bus where we make decisions for a camera company and are compared to other teams in our class. We were dead last for weeks on end, but are comfortably in second place coming into our final week of decisions! When we are not doing Glo-Bus, we are taking a close look at Panera Bread and preparing presentations for potential strategies they could implement. We are often given time during class to meet, and sometimes meet on Tuesday evenings or Wednesday afternoons as well depending on our schedules.

Team 3 - We did not come up with a creative name for my Human Resources group. The three of us have done four presentations throughout the semester. We either discuss the content in a chapter or present a case study from the chapter. We're pretty good at finding videos to help our class understand how the topic relates to real businesses. We often meet on Tuesday nights.

Health Care - We never came up with a team name for my Senior Seminar group, but health care is the topic of our upcoming presentation. We are informing the class about the new health care reform and various options they will have after graduating. My group of four often works on the project after class and e-mails information to each other throughout the week.

Powerpoints, research, videos, dressing up - these have all been a big part of my school work recently! When working in groups, it's always challenging to find a time to all meet together. This becomes even more difficult when you have multiple group projects going on. Thankfully, my teams have found pretty consistent times to meet. Just a few more weeks and these group projects for class will be a thing of the past!