I know I know I’ve very much been hidden for the last couple of weeks and for that I apologize. I feel like every time I sat down to blog and explain all the millions of things that have been going on another thing would pop up and need to be taken care of. Please forgive me!!

My mind boggles when I think about the fact that we have just a little over a week and a half left of classes. I feel like just yesterday the Admissions office was asking me to try out this blogging aspect of the website that they were going to start putting more effort into, and that was three years ago. I have 18 more lectures, 9 more days of classes and 22 days until commencement ceremony!!! There are just so many little things that go into making sure that all of your ducks are in a row including getting your cap & gown, picking up graduation tickets and having final transcripts sent off to graduate school.

Like Steph, one of the things that my friends and I decided to do was all go to the Student Association’s Spring Gala last weekend. It was a really good time because it was a chance for everyone who hadn’t really gotten together in a while, because all of our lives have taken us in many different directions. The conversations that were occurring that night just made me realize how far we really had come. Many people were catching up on everyone’s post-graduation plans. Some of us are getting ready to take a summer off and enjoy not being a student before heading back to grad school; others of us are sending out our resumes in hopes of getting interviews for potential jobs and still others are still not sure, hoping something will come to us before they hand us our diploma.

Me? I’m all registered for graduate classes and looking forward to a summer off before diving right into working towards my Masters in Social Work. I’m actually really excited about graduate school. I feel like it’ll be not only an amazing experience to finally be completely surrounding myself in classes and experiences that are going to help me in my career for the rest of my life but I am excited for the next chapter of my life. I’ve spent the last four years working towards this and there is finally an end in sight (I mean two years down the road but we’re getting there). It’s weird to be growing up, but exciting at the same time. Adult? I’m not ready for that label yet!

Here are a couple of pictures from gala:

Sunday night I had a program for the residents of Hadley where we had dinner in the community building. Cooking for a program is a full day job let me tell ya. It took me a while to make three pans of ziti, salad and garlic bread! But luckily everything came out pretty well.

After dinner we went to a program called the Vagina Monologues. I’m sure a lot of you are now asking what the heck is that!? The Vagina Monologues are a compilation of different skits, all written and performed by women, bringing awareness to different issues that face women in the world today. Skits highlighting issues such as rape, domestic violence as well as other emotional and physical issues. It is part of a campaign that has been performed all over the country and makes an appearance on UB’s campus once a year. It’s put on by UB students and alumni and this year was by far the best year ever! This year was special because this was the first year that the Sunday performances were performed in both English as well as American Sign Language. I went to support a bunch of my friends as well as my ASL teacher who was helping interpret the skits. It was SOOO good! Everyone did an amazing job and should be commended for bringing awareness to such important topics.

My dad comes for a visit tomorrow and I’m really excited. I love the little visits my sister and I get to have with him because it can be rough sometimes being away from home for so long. Especially going away for Spring Break instead of going home, our next trip home might not be until after graduation (which is only 5 weeks away, EEEEEKKKK!!!!). Plus, who doesn’t love a free meal (just kidding Daddy!!!)!?!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!! In case there is ever any question of whether or not there is a holiday occurring as soon as I step on campus I’m reminded in full force. I, personally, woke up late and completely forgot to put my touch of green on today but when I stepped into a lecture hall and 75% of the 200 student’s in there had some sort of four leaf clover on I was reminded that today was an Irish celebration.

Work at the office has been busy getting ready for Open House which is next Saturday, March 27th! We have been getting information packets and bags of goodies ready to give out to everyone that comes. I always love Open House because it’s an awesome opportunity to see everything that we have here from academic presentations to residence hall tours and campus tours! I just have to remember to get a good night’s sleep beforehand, it’s always an early morning and a long day!

Spring break was amazing! Being away for a little bit and getting a chance to relax and lay in the sun was just awesome. As I said before my sister and I took a cruise (given to us by our amazing parents) with our aunt from Boston. The first couple of days the weather was amazing. When we got to Grand Cayman my sister and I had an awesome opportunity to go swimming with the dolphins. It was something that she has wanted to do her entire life so we took a chunk of the day to go down to “Dolphin Cove” and it was really cool. They feel like balloons or some other kind of rubber!! On our way back we had really choppy flights because the weather was pretty bad in parts of Florida and up the East coast but on Friday night we landed safe and sound back in Buffalo. It definitely wasn’t the same weather as Cozumel, Mexico but it’s been nice to be home.

On Saturday I worked for a good chunk of the day so it was right back into the swing of the things. Something I got to do Saturday night which was MUCH needed was give my apartment a good scrub down. With four college girls always running around with their crazy busy schedules it tends to get a little messy. So I took out the scrubs and washcloths and wiped down all of the counter-tops, scrubbed down the bathroom and mopped up the floors. It’s nice to walk into a sparkly apartment now! Let’s just see how long that lasts!

Sunday was my last chance to relax before heading back to work and class so I took the day to just kind of hang out, go out to dinner and watch a movie. It was so nice it makes me excited for graduation because I miss being able to just read books for leisure (which I read two of over break), go to a movie in the middle of the week and sleep in a little bit! The countdown to graduation is on…

Best week EVVERRRR!!!! (Minus the horrible tests on Tuesday and Thursday) My sister and I have started swimming every Tuesday and Thursday in our Alumni Arena on campus during the open swim hours so after a great swimming workout last night I decided to stop by Hadley Community Building to grab some vegetables I had left in the fridge there. I also stopped by to check my mail once before break and there waiting for me in my mailbox was a letter from the UB School of Social Work (in a little envelope). Now everyone knows what the little envelope holds…usually a denial letter. But mine held an acceptance letter!!! I am FINALLY into grad school!!!!! It’s such a weight off my shoulders and so awesome to know that I have something to do next year!! So all of you seniors that are waiting on your big (or little ) envelopes, never fear! They’ll come soon!

Tonight is going to be crazy for me. Since I had two huge exams this week and didn’t get to do anything for break I have to run around like a mad-woman tonight picking up last minute items like a new bathing suit, sunscreen and maybe a skirt or two. Then tomorrow morning it will be nothing but airplanes, open sky’s and blue water! I can’t wait to read a book for a week that isn’t a textbook (even though there will be textbooks coming with me) and just take some time to relax before the end of the semester!

Have an awesome week and don’t worry it’s okay to be jealous that my week will be spent aboard a cruise ship!!!

Tonight I went to support MMRP, part of our V-day campaign here on campus to bring awareness to the violence against women that goes on in our world today. I had several friends that were performing in it and thought that it not only was an awesome thing to support but it was also nice to support them as well. It was such a cool performance. It was a series of about 9 different readings each telling a different story and telling violence from a different angle. There were even two men in the program so it was cool to hear their interpretations of the act of violence against women. The readings were not necessarily written by the people reading them, some of them were excerpts from books, poems or biographies. The money that they were raising was going to our on campus Anti-Rape Task Force, which is a program that runs throughout the week later at night and has stations at two of our different libraries. There is a group of people who, in a pair of two, will offer to walk you to your car, apartment or dorm, so that you don’t feel like you have to walk by yourself, especially late at night. It’s an awesome program and I have used it several times myself, especially after those late night cram sessions!

This week is going to be kind of crazy but I just am keeping myself focused that in six short days I will be packing up my bags and heading on a plane to Miami, and in seven days I’ll be laying on a cruise ship with nothing but sun and relaxation ahead of me. But before I can even begin to think about that sun I need to get through two more exams this week. Guess I should get cramming!

I went to Deaf Adult Services on Friday morning as a deaf culture event for my Sign Language class, what a cool organization! They have a library in their facilities with books all about deaf culture and sign language as well as movies and DVD’s. They also offer Sign Language classes open to the public and a program to study to be a certified interpreter, something I’ve always thought would be a cool skill to have. While talking to the Program Director, Jason, and discussing with him ways I can integrate my Sign Language skills into my future work, he offered to introduce me to a woman who works with drug and alcohol addicts in the deaf community. What an awesome way to put my new skills to use and at the same time be working in one of the environments I wanted to get experience in during graduate school. I’m going to start trying to get in contact with her and see what would need to be done in order to potentially get a field placement there next year. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

This morning I ventured downtown on the subway to check out the Buffalo Powder Keg that I talked about in my last post. It was pretty cool, definitely some room for improvements but all-in-all it was an awesome thing that the city put on. The ice maze was SO awesome to see. Apparently it’s officially the largest ice maze ever made in the world! What a cool thing to have in Buffalo! I didn’t get to go tubing down the Skyway because the line was too long. It was a gorgeous day and when my friend Darren and I had finished checking out all of the tents we wandered down to the marina and then over to the waterfront. We ended up walking around for almost 3 hours before we decided that our feet were getting pretty wet, our ears were turning a nice shade of maroon from the cold and we were hungry, so we ventured back to the heart of the events and wandered toward a local little restaurant for some lunch.

Here are some pictures of the ice maze and the tubing from the different websites:

Winter seems to be the theme of the month! Buffalo has picked up their own version of our Winterfest and will be having all sorts of events this weekend. The Buffalo Powder Keg is going on downtown and is even bigger then what we organized on campus!

A couple friends and I are planning on heading downtown on Sunday morning to grab some breakfast at a Breakfast Buffet that the Pearl Street Grill is having. We then plan on walking around and looking at all of the different things going on. Some of the things that are on the list of things to see are the Scavenger Hunt, tubing on the Skyway and the Ice Maze that they’re building! They are planning on this ice maze being put in the the Guinness book of World Records. I can’t wait to see it!

I just think it’s so awesome that we’re all embracing the winter weather instead of complaining about it. There are all sorts of awesome things that you can do with the snow and ice and everyone is finally enjoying the benefits of it! Here is the website to check out the Buffalo Powder Keg if you’re going to be in the Buffalo area: http://www.powderkegfestival.com/

This past weekend was one of the coolest programs that I think has been put on at the university in a while! People always come to the school and ask about some of the fun winter themed things that we do since, well, Buffalo has a reputation for getting a couple of snow flakes here and there. For a while we didn’t really have an answer to that but this year the university implemented a program called Winterfest, UB’s own celebration of the cold, snow and ice!

Winterfest was a weekend-long program that consisted of a ton of different events that everyone at the university could join in. On Friday afternoon/night we had a snowman and igloo making competition. Some of them came out so cool! One group even made a “bull” igloo that had the head of a bull on it and you were able to crawl in. Then Saturday was the main portion of the events. Because the Apartments were kind of the backbone of the whole program all of the Community Assistants got up Saturday morning to help set up. So I spent a good chunk of Saturday morning shoveling and sweeping off Lake LaSalle in order to prepare it for the afternoon’s activities. It was actually really cool to just be walking around on the lake! Some of the events that went on throughout the afternoon were horse drawn sleigh rides, a curling competition, ice skating, a broomball competition and human dog sled racing. It was an awesome time and I hope the university decides to make it a tradition!

My mom also came up this weekend so I didn’t stick around Winterfest too long. It was so awesome to have her up. I forgot how home-sick I can get, even after four years. It’s gotten to the point that every college student gets to when they just need a little bit of home around them. I can’t wait for Spring Break and am so thankful for the trip my parents gave my sister and I but there’s a tiny piece of me that wishes I was going home to hang out with my sisters, my brother and my parents, cuddling up with my kittens and vegging out at home. Oh well…bring on the sun!

Today I got an e-mail that my application for UB’s MSW program was complete and was now being reviewed. So of course that only makes the waiting period harder because then you know any day there could be a letter waiting in your mailbox explaining how the next two years of your life are going to go.

I have spent my time trying to do little readings since this is a down period in my classes and schoolwork. The main thing that I have been doing is preparing for some of my graduate assistant ship interviews. Interviews always make me nervous for some reason. I have always been a people person and am pretty confident of the skills that I have but I always get jitters and second guess answers that I give. To prepare I try and come up with every possible question imaginable that they could ask and at least have some framework of the answer that I would give. That way when that question, or some variation of that question, comes up I at least have thought about examples I could give, situations I could reference to or explanations I could give.

Well and they always say the best thing that you possibly can do is take a deep breath because you never know what might happen!