More of Iowa: Edit

After yet another week of this craziness I like to call this semester, I haven't had time to update the blog. But I've obviously wanted to so expect a couple of updates besides this one in the next couple of hours or so!

First, I'd like to give a shout out to my mother for directing me toward the correct definition of sanitary landfill. As lovely as it means, this signifies that human sewage are in these landfills, making them even more unsanitary for that matter, but meaning they have nowhere else to store it. LOVE rural areas. Thanks mom!

Here are some pictures from last weekend's Iowa trip so you can visualize what I said in the last post!

The horse on the road!

Helen and I at her Linden friends' apartment!

By one of Iowa State's main buildings on campus, kind of comparable to Jesse Hall at Mizzou. It's a pretty quad-type area!

Another building on the quad of our campus tour, proving where I was. Ha.

We both have the same Macbook Pro, camera and cell phone!! How crazy is that?!

At parties at Iowa State, boys carry backpacks around. I was in shock.

Saturday night was September 11, but we did not put together that people would have an America party. So people came in red, white and blue....and this shirt. Wow.

Leaving the house on Sunday and appreciating how beautiful sorority living rooms are!

I ended by appealing the parking ticket I got from the Ames police this week because in their Greek'land', they alternate which days of the week they park on which side of the street. That would be too complicated for Mizzou.

A weekend in Iowa

As I began college, I made a goal to visit all of my best friends from home at their schools. Not only would I get to see their universities, but meet their friends, see where they live, travel the campus, etc.

So far, I have accomplished Northwestern (Becca), Georgetown (Kara), DePaul (Irina and Elizabeth), University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign (Meredith, Anastasia and all of GBN), and now, Iowa State with Helen!

After looking through plans for the rest of the semester, this was the only weekend I would have time to leave and visit Helen at Iowa State! I drove north about 4-5 hours Friday morning through nowhereville USA...the unestablished areas of mid-Missouri and southern Iowa. I drove on the 63, which is not even a real highway, for about 200 miles and the funny thing about country roads is that they go from 70 mph to 20 mph in an instant. First, it's a divided highway that you're flying at 90 on, and then it's going through Macon, Missouri and driving by a Sonic and if you're lucky, a gas station or so. So I definitely can say this drive enhanced my worldly and rural experiences.

I arrived in Ames to Iowa State University, but campus wasn't roaring this weekend since they were playing their rival (University of Iowa) in football at Iowa City. I still got to see the college town where 65% of residents are students and staff of the university, and it's interesting to compare "college towns." Ames, although just a city in Iowa, seems more suburban than Columbia and although a lot of the accommodations are similar, the way it is laid out just makes it seem more foresty/large brick homes-like. It was interesting!

I stayed with Helen in the ADPi house and took a tour there, met her sisters, and the Linden friends which was fun! We went to an amazing barbecue restaurant for dinner, went out, took a tour of campus and the architecture and design center and just enjoyed some quality time! Pictures to come. Here are some highlights of the drive (you get these when you're in the car alone for 9 hours, and can only drive stick shift and talk on the phone simultaneously so much)

• I felt this way going to U of I, but I love driving through places and seeing counties and town names that you hear about but don't think actually exist. I saw towns with a population of 75 and just giggled. Yes, I'm from Chicago.
• The Missouri-Iowa border has about 20 fireworks stands. How do any of them make business if they are all right next to each other? And only so many people cross from Missouri to Iowa daily? I have no idea. If it wasn't so early in the morning on both of my trips, I probably would have bought fireworks since I never have but always have wanted to. There's always Indiana :)
• Road signs on the 63 basically made my day, and helped. After hearing my Thea Stephanie tell me a story of her trip to Kentucky when she picked up a hitchiker because she felt bad, I almost picked up hitchhikers. It would have been really sketchy and I obviously avoided doing so for safety reasons, but it was really tempting until I saw the highway sign that said "DO NOT PICK UP HITCH HIKERS." It reminded me of cautions that might have gone over my head but in the grand scheme of things, they're people trying to get somewhere too. I know it probably isn't worth the risk of strangers and the overall creepiness, but it could have been a good deed if taken the right way.
• Highway sign #2: Sanitary landfill. I'm sorry, but I personally do not believe that any plot of land that's a landfill will be sanitary. You are dumping your trash in there. Why even advertise it as 'sanitary?' Because it's cleaner than the incinerators in Mexico? Okay Missouri and Iowa. You keep your garbage nice and sanitary in large hills on the side of highways and make yourselves feel better by calling it clean.
• Highway sign #3: *photo of horse carriage* SHARE THE ROAD. So I laughed upon seeing this...until I laughed even more when I actually saw an Amish man and a horse carriage next to me on the highway. I'm in no way mocking the Amish and cultural norms, or the cultural norms of this region, but solely the fact that on a highway with a 70 mph speed limit, there's horses right next to you. It's pretty amusing.
• Helen's roommate has a car so she will probably get to experience the same drive (I hope so!) and come visit Mizzou sometime second semester! Woot!

So in the future, I'm planning to visit Michigan (Stacey), Notre Dame (Kalyn), Arizona (Hannah), Colorado-Boulder (Jessie) and Penn State (Anna). I'm seeing Emily and the Mexico crew in Boston at Hellenic this Thanksgiving break so that's checked off the list :) This might sound unrealistic, but don't worry...I already have projected times and weekends planned so it's going to happen.

Another goal that arose was to visit my best friends at school in their hometowns. This one is almost done too! Another east coast trip, Minnesota, maybe Tennessee sometime and Kansas City over Thanksgiving break and I'll be done! This isn't thought of as accomplishing a list although it might appear so....it's taking trips, traveling the world, meeting exciting people and seeing friends, coming off in list form.

I have a really busy week (surprise) per usual so look forward to spontaneous survival updates!

9-9

To end Labor Day weekend, we celebrated Amy's birthday. Instead of doing a typical dinner downtown, she raised the idea that we all live in Missouri and none of us have ever seen the state capitol. Kind of pathetic? More pathetic since it's only 30 miles away (while that might seem far in Chicago, that's pretty darn close in Missouri). So we went out to a lovely dinner in Jeff City at Ria's where we did not run into anyone we knew (another benefit of eating out of Columbia) and explored Missouri's state capital city.

Amusing parts of the evening:

When dividing up cars, we split up as 'suitemates' (Kate, Kathryn, Laura and I) and 'Jews' (Andrew, Asher, Amy and Shaina). Hahaahh. Funny how that worked out.

Here's our suitemates photo...with the amusing part being an icon of the Virgin Mary in the back left corner above the bathroom.

The Capitol Building!

Twainers in front!

So other than that, it's been an oh-so-exciting week. I do not begin class until 11 a.m. and have not slept in once yet entire semester. I've woken up at 8 or 9 to volunteer for organizations, catch up on current events, work for The Maneater or run other errands I can't find time to do during regular business hours (I never realized what a difficult task this was...why can't regular business hours go until 7 pm?). Thankfully, I'm caught up on school work and heading to Ames, Iowa tomorrow to go visit Helen! Wish me a safe drive!

The little things during the day

My latest realization as I think of stories to share with others is that in general, my life is not very exciting. I just make a big deal about the small things that happen to me on a daily basis and make them stories, which I guess is pretty typical of journalistic behavior. Or just am used to reporting things as stories, so I share them as such.

Anyone who is friends with me could probably tell you that I tell pointless stories. But sometimes, they just need to be shared! Why do people tell things? Sometimes for sympathy, affirmation, just to have someone listen....but today, I'm sharing them out of aggravation. All of this could have been avoided if people valued preparedness, or admitting their mistakes. But they don't...let's take a look at my past two mornings.

Yesterday morning, I took an exam for my online history class (2 assignments and 2 exams to go!) and was told to have a specific journalism advisor send an email to an online course advisor to get something confirmed. Quick task- right? It was a 'walk-in Wednesday' so I wanted to verbally explain this to the advisor rather than email back and forth for a couple of days to have this simple task figured out. Walk-in Wednesdays don't begin until 10 am, so I was told that gosh forbid I interrupt someone a couple of minutes early, I should just wait 45 minutes. At 9:55 am, I saw the advisor I needed to speak with take her purse and leave the office. WHAT? I went into the office and questioned the secretary about it...asking, were you planning on telling me I've been waiting 45 minutes to talk to someone who just left for the day? And she goes, oh, no, sorry. Great waste of morning. All she had to do was say that the woman was leaving her office, and this would not have happened.

This morning, for MSF I was supposed to register people for a research conference. After arriving at 7:40 am, some other MSF members and I realized that the conference we were told was today is actually happening tomorrow. Yay for waking up hours early, and putting on our polos and nametags for no reason. So I head over to Starbucks, needing a strawberry lemonade blend to wake me up. And the barista said, "We're out of strawberry puree, and lemonade." WHAT?! Two days in a row of disappointment, and when I'm running on only a few hours of sleep, my first instinct is to break out into tears. Great. Thank you self-control. If Starbucks' manager would have noticed this the night before, they could have walked a few blocks down to the other Starbucks and picked it up, continuing to happily serve customers and take over America. But no, instead, I, the brand-loyal consumer with a gift card, walked downtown to get my strawberry lemonade.

Giordanos' freezer broke on my birthday leaving them out of ice cream, Jamba Juice eliminated my smoothie from the menu, I'll never forgive Panera for discontinuing my raspberry brownie cake.... I must be really strange if things like this happen to me so often.

But when Fridays runs out of food and I'm working, I tell my tables at the beginning so they don't get disappointed. I also acknowledge the fact that if my manager would have noticed that we were short on something, we easily could have obtained it earlier. So, I think everyone should do this so I don't get angry in the middle of my long days. And have to tell such pointless stories. :)

Ghostown of Columbia: Labor Day Weekend

For those of you who have never seen the town of Columbia, Missouri on Labor Day weekend, it's dead. Everyone goes out of town since especially in Greektown, the women have been here for a month and need a break. That puts everyone in St. Louis, Kansas City, Lake of the Ozarks, Chicago, and very few of them here. I made the decision to chill in Columbia and go up to St. Louis for the day with friends to watch us beat Illinois! That still left some silent time in CoMo on Thursday and Friday, with more relaxing time to come today and tomorrow as people come back in. Here's some photos and stories from the eventful weekend that was not as homework-productive as it should have been, but very fun and a lot of bonding time :)!

At the Reserve to visit Anna and seeing Kyle & Leshard! Twainers stick together!

Saturday morning, Kathryn, Laura, Shaina and I took off for St. Louis around 7:30 am for the first Mizzou football game against U of I! After some not-so-good football and a stressful first half, we beat Illinois 23-13! Go Tigers!

Lesson 1: If you want to tailgate, plan it in advance with everyone you want there- a car, food, location, drinks, games, everything....and then you don't have to wander. I think wandering and meeting people is fun, but I would probably enjoy the tailgating experience more if everyone I wanted to see at the game was in spot beforehand an after, thus a lesson to apply to Kansas City Thanksgiving break!

Marching Mizzou creating the state of Missouri- represent!

How awesome it was to see Brooke Atlas (front left at the 40 yard line) as the drum major of Marching Illini! Great job!

After the victory, the 4 of us along with Andrew & Sherman roamed the streets of St. Louis since the weather was gorgeous. We ate dinner at Friday's with not-so-good service and only a partial black card discount =O, and took photos by this lovely fountain--where we happened to come across a Segway tour and a wedding party that M-I-Z'd us! Amusing afternoon.

Friends :)

St. Louis Arch

Andrew's talent at taking jumping photos! And gold beads are in my face, haha!

The 6 of us at the Arch, no one has killed each other yet!

Lesson 2: Two hours of driving now feels like nothing. After traveling so much this summer and daily commutes in Mexico to San Jose de la Zorra, I don't really have a time perspective of traveling until I think of the total commute. Example- I could've gone home this weekend, but I thought that there was a lot of work I could do in the extra 12 hours I save by not going home. But a 6 hour drive to Chicago and back seems like nothing.

Lesson 3: In the nearby future and for Lent, I am utilizing some variation of giving up texting. I text way more than I should and always expect to have a text message when I look at my phone...always. I think it's incredibly rude to text across the dinner table, others in the room within a small group of people when something is funny, but instead of saying it aloud, mass texts occur. I am not 100% ashamed since I'm not initiating the texts, but I'm participating and being rude without even noticing it anymore. It's like when people don't even realize they swear because they're so accustomed to doing that...I don't want that to happen to me with my phone anymore than it already has. So I am laying off my phone and not going to always be talking to someone else, but focusing on the task at hand. Newest goal, wish me luck! And that doesn't mean you can't text me....it just means I won't necessarily respond within 10 seconds and will wait until after I'm done eating lunch with whoever I am, or done with class, or whatever meeting I'm at.

That's my update and hope all is well!!

The Pursuit of Happiness

As I sit here comfortably- hair down, wearing tights and a tank top- at my desk in the alcove of mine and Kathryn's room (stadium view out the window!), I realized something. I'm happy. Blogging makes me happy. I was legitimately excited to sit in this exact spot and write something, whether for my personal use or for whoever is nice enough to care about me and/or read my posts!

I think the only thing that would make me happier is doing it with an ocean window view on a bay window...but I have years to work up to that. For my journalism news reporting course, I attended a lecture today titled "Pursuing happiness: What works and why" by Professor Kennon Sheldon. And I have all semester to attend speakers, but why did I choose this specific one? Because I didn't think I was happy. Amidst a busy week, I wanted to hear him speak specifically on this topic. How can you pursue happiness in a stressful college life? Stop everything you want to do, half-'ass' (for lack of a better word) your way through courses, do an activity or two, and miss out on everything you could have done in college and shrug it off later with free time? NO!!!

So in order to stay involved, functioning and happy at the same time, I listened carefully to the lecture. In addition to discussing his research studies, book reviews and more, there were a few key points I found most interesting about Sheldon's presentation that explain a lot about life.

• Sustainable Happiness Model: Three broad categories help to determine your subjective well being- genetic constant (50%), demographic circumstances (10%) and intentional activities (40%). Hedonic adaptation is part of the demographic circumstances, your genetic constant helps determine your set point and base line, and intentional activities are important and controllable. The implication here, according to Sheldon, is that you must change what you DO to account for 40% (or more!) of your happiness level. So you can stay in your high range of happiness by controlling your actions and not what you have.
• Hedonic adaptation: You can get used to almost anything, so even if it provides happiness at the beginning, it will tend to fade away as you no longer notice the things you adapt to.
• Self-determination theory: This discusses optimal motivation, and how all humans have three basic psychological needs: autonomy (doing what you choose), competence (doing it well) and relatedness (connecting with others while doing so).

Five Happiness Prescriptions

1. Change what you DO, not what you HAVE. Then VARY how you do it.

2. Pursue intrinsic goals for self-concordant reasons.

3. Try to be your unguarded self in social settings.

4. Balance time across the day.

5. Try to manage your life so you feel autonomous, competent and connected.

Wasn't that interesting?! The most difficult aspect of happiness is maintaining it, but using these strategies and positive hope, I think everyone could give it a try! Think about it...you have the rest of your life to live for others literally, such as spouses and children, so take now to do things intrinsically and not because friends want you to do them. Who wants to fake their true self in social situations? Nobody! So don't do it!

As I look at these, I wonder...which of these am I missing that is currently not contributing to my happiness? Probably some of the time suggestion, I have an over-necessity for the connectedness and autonomy, but small efforts can make a big change. And that applies to everything.

So...this post has the 'revelations' tag because I feel like I have learned a lot about the world/myself while writing it, one thing being, what makes me happy?

• Blogging
• Taking pictures
• Writing
• Connections with people/social interaction
• Planning and being in charge (Type A...)
• Being involved with things I find interesting (I saw an advertisement for a Latin Dancing group today...how awesome would that be?! I wish I had time to go to a meeting!)
• Exercising
• Advertising...for those of you who don't know, as an advertising representative for the Maneater student newspaper, I get incredibly excited when I conquer a new company and convince them to purchase advertising space. It's weird, I know.
• Beautiful places

So what am I going to do about it? Continue with intentional activities and maintain a happiness level! And in the future, I can combine all of these skills to start a party planning business within the next few years! And for now, I can balance my time and just be happy :)

Therefore, I hope you can apply these lessons to your lives too and sustain happiness. In the meantime, I'm going to try writing my blog in proper AP (Associated Press) Style for the duration of it in order to practice for my journalism courses, and hopefully being in nine hours of writing intensive courses will improve my writing skills. Have a great day!

Crazy week

Well that just flew by! First week of classes done, just about 15 more to go before I can start my journalism sequence and not have a crazy semester. I'm already staying up late tonight to finish reading for the rest of the week, and await having free time.

Life lessons I have learned this week:

• Weekends are not just a regular occurrence, they are a reward for how hard you worked in class. So I will only reward myself by paying for dinners or meeting up with friends and being social if I had an accomplishing week of homework and classes, I can't just take a break anymore. My reading levels are up the walls and it's almost ridiculous.
• Even if I'm not talking to my best friends and family daily, I need to know what's going on with them all the time to feel self-sufficient. That sounds partially dependent, but it really isn't...I just love people that much that I want to know what's going on in their lives. Most of the time, when I feel deprived or like I haven't talked with someone in awhile, we usually have a general gist of what's going on, so that's always nice, but keeping in touch as a sophomore is exhilarating between home friends, people I met over the summer, and Mizzou friends I'm not always around.
• Hanging out with people one-on-one or 3-4 people TOPS is the only way to efficiently hold a productive conversation. Large groups don't cut it; if I'm with people I care about, I want to know about each and every one of them....not what the group thinks of something going on and when the end of the table is having an entirely different conversation. You'll probably see what I mean as photos from this week are all of large groups of people.
• There are more Orthodox Christian people in mid-Missouri....WHAT?!?!?! Met a huge group of new people at church today, it was really exciting. We went to lunch together and in my opinion, are a step closer to establishing OCF (Orthodox Christian Fellowship).
• It's hard to go from living with people to not living with them :(.
• Living in a sorority house has its moments of being very stereotypical. It is loud, hyper, dramatic, and fun at the same time.
• Spur of the moment plans are enthralling! Some Phi Mu girls and I were laying out on the social deck doing homework and all I wanted to do was jump in a pool. So why sit there and talk about it when you could actually DO it?! We hopped in the car, drove over to the Mark Twain pool, swam for an hour, went to YogoLuv and drove back...all in an hour and a half! Positively spent time promoting happiness and sisterhood all at the same time :)
• The art of journalism, as stressful as it can be, can just make my day. After lack of sleep, energy and motivation, I was assigned a listening post in my News class. The assignment is to learn about your community by going somewhere and observing, then writing 700 words about it. Examples included the bus station, public transit, other miscellaneous places...so I drove to the Columbia skate park. For those of you Northbrook homies (ha...I just said homies), it's like Meadowhill Park but about 10 times larger and not as landfill-looking. So I sat and watched about 20 guys on skateboards and took note of the environment, then started conversing with them and learning really interesting facts. About themselves, the Columbia Park District, how these boys became friends, and how the age range at this skate park was not 16-22 as the website advertised...more like 17 to 35. It was really cool to hop into a new atmosphere and pick up on so much of their so-called culture though.

Week in review:

Birthday dinner at Hu Hot: if you don't want to be a creepy waiter...don't take birthday cards off the table. He'll never live that one down. Haha.

Phi Mu girls on their way to the country club!

The group at a 21 shots party--another thing I await having for the scrapbook/socialness....and will go out of my way to assure that everyone is having a great time and not awkwardly just hanging around and waiting to leave.

Mizzou Student Foundation "Small change makes a big difference" campaign party! We decorated piggy banks to collect donations for textbook scholarships and more, here's Katie, Jamie, Ali and I with Truman!

That's all for now! Have a great week, until Labor Day Weekend :)