One month left at Mizzou

Earlier last week, my fellow senior friends and I hit our "one month left in college" stage. Last weekend, the boys planned a nice weekend for everyone in Kansas City, where we got to spend some time in Westport, on the Plaza and taking our first brewery tour of the Boulevard factory. This past weekend, everyone was in town and we spent three nights in a row going out together.

Despite the fact that we all live next door to each other, it was a big deal that no one had any other commitments. Reflecting on the time, I realized these two weekends were probably some of the most fun ones I've had in college. But what was different? We've been best friends for four years, what made hanging out with each other more fun than usual?

Last month, I wrote a blog post about face-timing – and realized that's where things were different. We accomplished the goal of what I discussed in that post; it didn't matter who else we saw out or wanted to meet up with. With no more than six people, we spent time with each other and went to the bars we wanted to, not where we thought people would be. And since we know we won't have this much time to spend with each other in the future, we started to enjoy the upcoming month and I continued to discover how much I love my best friends at Mizzou. I'm definitely prepared for an emotional and eventful next month of fun 'last times' as a student and in Columbia.

In the lobby of our hotel in Kansas City

Our roommates at Greek Week Fling Finals, watching Kathryn get recognized on stage!

Our last Phi Mu formal

Make a commitment & enjoy time with your friends

A lot of people say that the way we socialize is different these days. Making plans through texting, tweeting our every move or Facebook chatting people you would never acknowledge in a crowd are definitely normal occurrences. This surplus of ways to connect gives us so many outlets for information overload that we set high expectations in our own plans with our friends.

I see this happen with my friends at home, school, groups of Greek people, other interns and even my friends' friends. One person (or group of people) initiates a hangout, dinner or party and others "commit." Every invitee considers their RSVP pending until the event starts. So when the actual event approaches, it's time to figure out what the scene's like, who is there, if it's fun and if the people there deem it worth your time (all decided via text messages, of course). And if it appears to be 'happening' or a group of people you like are there- you go. If not, you skip out.

There are plenty of inherent flaws with this routine.

• Our lack of commitment. The definition of commit has changed. "Attending" on Facebook is a loose term, telling someone in a text message that you'll stop by or make an appearance is polite, and you can only really depend on your best friends to be there with you. We need to learn what it is to make a promise, commitment or trust will never exist.
• Everyone has different definitions of fun. The tweets and statuses being posted reflect only one person's point of view. Only you know who you are compatible with and how you connect to others in social settings. What could be the night of your life could be incredibly boring to one of your best friends. 
• Most importantly, you're letting someone else down. Just because you aren't incredibly close with someone doesn't give you permission to be deceptive. Committing gets someone else excited to host something, they spend their resources trying to please you and the rest of a large group, and when you don't show up, you're hurting them--it's not just on your own terms of making a decision.

We must learn that it doesn't matter who else is there. When someone invites you somewhere, consider the purpose of why you do (or don't) want to attend. Then provide an honest answer- don't lead people on. When you aren't too pleased to be going somewhere, think: what were you expecting to happen? Who did you secretly hope will show up? What made the group boring or fun? That's why knowing your intentions before going in is helpful. If someone bores you that much or feels like such a forced part of your routine, think about what traits that person or group has that makes you want to put in the time, effort and resources to be their friend.

Some of the most exciting times in your life will be those spontaneous situations where it didn't matter who you were with- you had a great time. This is what I plan to remember as I enter my last year of college--prioritizing who to spend time with, where to show up and not trying to make it all or please everyone.  When you attend parties for acquaintances or classmates you might not keep in touch with later in life, go happily and enjoy their presence, but make your RSVP clear to be a reputable person. Figure out who your real friends are and give them the respect they deserve-- because you don't want to take the opportunity to have time with the people you're closest with for granted.

Where has this semester gone?

Where have I been the past month? I haven't really posted any photos since going to Colorado, making me wonder, what do I actually do in my time? Homework? Meetings? Clearly not sleeping.

Comically enough, I went to Kansas City or St. Louis four out of the past five weekends, for very random reasons. Flying out of the St. Louis airport to Colorado, the Phi Mu sisterhood retreat in Kansas City, a MOJO presentation at an advertising agency in Kansas City and a musical in St. Louis. Freshman and sophomore years, I remember the spring semester being dead in Columbia on the weekends but now, it's reversed and I feel like I'm missing out on things!

Taking a moment to pause and actually think about how I've been spending my time how much opportunity there is in college. Opportunity not only to travel, but to go on adventures, see various groups of people and get involved. So take a minute to check out these photos and figure out where your dear friend has been!

This photo was taken at the St. Luke Greek Orthodox Church dinner dance. Mizzou has gone in the past few years from having three active Greek Orthodox college students to having an excellent group meeting every week. Gregg, Yianni and I felt like happy parents realizing what we have created. Our productive meetings, interesting lectures and upcoming retreat have really shown us that Orthodox Christian Fellowship can exist anywhere if we put in the time and the resources!

Before the Phi Mu sisterhood retreat, Shelley (currently living in Kansas City and student teaching during her last semester) invited our pledge family over for a bonding night! We ate a homemade dinner, caught up and shopped at the Plaza in Kansas City. What lovely sisterhood!

As my sorority's sisterhood chair, I planned our retreat at the Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City, Kansas!
We had 25 rooms and got to cheer on the Tigers watching the Mizzou-Kansas game and playing at the water park!

We facilitated sisterhood activities at night, and here's everyone in the chapter that went.

Mizzou Basketball! Our last home game was against Iowa State, but we've continued to be the Big 12 Champions and a No. 2 seeded team in the NCAA Tournament! If we're not at games, we're watching them! MIZ!

MOJO- Team Maven. Every Thursday when we present our progress to our professors (management team), we choose a theme to dress to. Last week was groutfits- gray outfits- a popular theme in the Artemas family as well. MOJO has been a great time commitment but I'm excited to see the work we produce!

MOJO members pose in Kansas City after presenting our State of the YAYA (youth and young adult) report at an advertising agency.

Relay For Life Steering Committee members pose while canning to fundraise downtown. Relay is four days away and has already fundraised $55,000, trying to hit $100,000!

Kate and I saw American Idiot, the Green Day musical, at the Peabody Theater in St. Louis!

Jen, me, Alex and Jordin smile at Phi Mu Founders Day- 160 years!

Homecoming Steering Committee members rise early (4 am!) to surprise next year's committee!

Oh...and spending some time out with friends too. Emily, me and Alex!

I think the most exciting news of this past month was I was admitted into the graduate school program at the Missouri School of Journalism, so I'll officially be receiving a Master of Arts in Journalism-Strategic Communication next May! I'll also be the TA for MOJO instead of on a team, so yay for waived tuition and phenomenal experience planning the Strategic Communication Career Fair! In the olden days, you would have saved your acceptance letter. But it's 2012, so I'll remember important moments by screenshots on my iPhone. I first found out from a text message that acceptance emails were out, and after telling a few friends in a class, word spread quickly. Yay for nice friends and text messages!

iPhone screenshot post grad school acceptance

We'll see where the next month takes me with Relay For Life, spring break and MOJO work!

An eventful week

The more I think about it, 2010 & 2011 have been two of the most eventful years of my life. I've traveled a ton, studied abroad, done service work in Mexico & Joplin, served on committees and worked on teams that I will never forget. I'm always on the go and always happy that way, so I keep doing it. This past week was a great way to kick off the year because we did just that, adding to that list of memories & seeing how much you can do in a short period of time!

Starting a week ago, I hosted some friends for a pre-celebration of my 21st birthday. Since not everyone lived in Chicago, we planned a lot of outings, hit up a lot of restaurants, and stayed at the Hilton Chicago downtown for a cocktail party!

Sherman, Kathryn, me, Shaina & Andrew
(all of our "roommates" for next year except Laura who is in Spain!)

I'll never understand how this happened, but in my two bedroom suite reservation, we got a beautiful suite on the 18th floor with three rooms- a main room with a king bed, living room & bar, a king bedroom & a twins bedroom- with four bathrooms. It was lake view too- and we were able to see all the way from Navy Pier to Soldier Field! We had 29 people come throughout the night and 18 sleep over!

The night view on the Navy Pier side, you can see the Ferris Wheel in the distance!

The sunrise view- Adler Planetarium/Field Museum side!

Even Maria & Eleni made it!

Sisters

The hotel itself is beautiful, and is where GBN had prom. The Torch alumni took a photo by the huge Christmas tree downstairs! 

Alyssa, Michelle, me, Kara & Meredith

 The next day, we roamed Michigan Avenue and stopped at the Grand Lux Cafe!

Mizzou group

If those 24 hours weren't packed enough, we ate and walked Wrigleyville that night, and did the suburbs the next day ending in Whirlyball! Whirlyball is a fun game with bumper cars and scoreboards where you on teams, try to score with a scoop. Eight of us went!

This trip was one of the things I was looking most forward to this year and it went incredibly well! After a crazy week being around a lot of friends, I took a small trip to Ohio for the end of break to visit family & friends! I'm glad to make the most out of this time before one day, it's all spent working! Thanks to everyone who came to things! 

Christmas families

One of my favorite parts about Christmas is spending time with all of the people I call family. I am thankful to have a variety of groups of friends that I consider as my families at Mizzou. Since classes have ended, we've participated in many Secret Santa gift exchanges, family dinners and more, so I have gotten to see all of the friends I call family in the past two days! Here are some holiday card-type photos of the people I call family!

Our dysfunctional but loving Mark Twain 5th floor family

My beautiful Phi Mu pledge family!

The Homecoming Steering Committee family!

The Phi Mu friends family

My soon-to-be MOJO family, team Maven!

And of course, the ACTUAL Artemas family. Sadly enough, this is the last photo we have all together.
At TGI Friday's. In May. 

Friends

One of the greatest things I'm thankful for in life is to have such amazing friends.

It's been a crazy busy first week of school, filled with classes, meetings, more meetings, retreats, etc., but each small action or event has reminded me how lucky I am to be acquainted with such great people.

Only great friends will make you a card to provide best wishes and inspiration before taking the GRE, with signatures and notes from all of my sorority sisters. And even contact and text you luck so much that I received 15 missed alerts upon leaving the 5 hour exam!

How many friends will drive you to Sonic late at night just because you're craving a limemade, watch you freak out when you realize they closed at 11, and then help tip the employee that snuck you the limemade anyway?

How many people are content enough with letting you borrow their cell phone to call multiple people, just because my phone screen broke then died so I couldn't make any outgoing calls/texts for...15 whole hours!

Only your best friends know you so well when they can look at someone new they meet and tell you she resembles one of your best friends from high school, because they have met and remember that person well enough to compare them to strangers.

Only these friends realize how impatient I am that when I send a mass text to seven people asking who wants to go to the pool, I receive seven responses within five minutes. I can't even help but smile knowing that I didn't even have to wait!

Only good friends go to save seats at the movies so you can come from prior commitments and still get into the show.

Here's to an awesome year of continuing these friendships!

Some photos from the first week of school:

The old juniors!

Happy Birthday Lauren!

Día del Amigo- Friend's Day!

Friendship is one of my favorite things in the entire world. There is nothing that makes me happier than spending time with and keeping in touch with the people I love, and knowing that they are happy.

Wikipedia accurately sums up the values of friendship as the following, fitting very well with my definitions:

• Tendency to desire what is best for each other
• Sympathy and empathy
• Honesty
• Mutual understanding and compassion
• Trust
• Positive reciprocity

Today, South America is celebrating Día del Amigo, Friend's Day, ironically enough, on my half birthday! I wasn't too familiar with what the holiday was except from advertisements, until a lunch conversation at work yesterday. My co-workers were shocked to hear that the USA does not have anything really comparable to this, at least societally-noted and celebrated.

Wikipedia describes it as the following:

Día del Amigo (Spanish, Friend's Day) is a celebration of friendship, held annually on July 20 in South American countries including Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

In Argentina, Friend's Day is often a good excuse for a common friendly gathering, though people also employ the day to get in contact with old and seldom-met friends and greet them. …The gatherings tend to happen during the evening.

Friend's Day has in recent years it has turned into a very popular mass phenomenon. In 2005, too many well-wishing friends led to a temporary breakdown of the mobile phone network in the cities of Buenos Aires, Mendoza, Córdoba and Rosario. …Seats in most restaurants, bars and other establishments are already booked out completely a week before the celebration.

The idea for Friend's Day goes back to Argentine teacher, musician, and dentist Enrique Febbraro, who lobbied to turn the anniversary of the first moon landing into an international day of friendship, along with his Rotary Club de Once, Buenos Aires. He argued that on this particular day, the whole world had been friends of the three astronauts. The first official recognition of the day came with decree No. 235/79 by the government of Buenos Aires Province, which authorized the celebration and gave it official nature.

I say this a lot, but I have the best friends in the world. Looking at these pictures does not fully explain how special each and every one of you is to me, and how nice it is to know I always have someone to talk to. Whether I'm skyping someone from Argentina, making plans at home or school, talking on the phone or going on adventures, it's the people and not the conversation or events that make it for me. Having people to trust with your thoughts, share experiences and listen to is a special thing. Excited to observe how Friend's day is celebrated, I reflected on some of my fondest memories with my friends. I might be crying of happiness as I post this, but here we go.

FRIENDSHIP IS...

Going to St. Louis together Labor Day weekend to catch up from the summer

and cheer on Mizzou at the Illinois game

Building houses at Project Mexico for a month

where you meet and forever keep in touch with

some of the greatest people in your lives

Eating with your sorority sisters after chapter

to debrief and comment on everything that just happened

Sleeping in a hotel room in downtown Chicago with 17 girls,

because you want each one of them there

Celebrating New Years' with your best friends

then forever lying to your friend's mom

Traveling through Argentina together

and picking each other up while you fall

the first time you all try to ski
Going downstairs on midnight on your birthday

to see that your best friends trekked over to your house

in the snow to sing Happy Birthday and share some cake

Having all the people you love come to your birthday

dinner on a school night even after the original reservation

was cancelled because of snowstorms

Coming home for Sts. Peter & Paul's 50th Anniversary

and Greek dancing all night with all of your church friends
Road tripping to the Michigan Dunes for

ultimate relaxation and an annual catch-up

Having the opportunity to celebrate Orthodox Christian Easter

not only with your family, but also three of your best friends

who care enough to go to Chicago and attend a midnight church service

Valuing every minute you have together, even if it's

the one day you see each other all summer before taking off

for different countries, summer and future lifestyles

Love you all!

Feliz Día del Amigo &

Happy Friend's Day

to all of my best friends out there!