Boy am I thankful for being an RA! Today I had to drag my butt out of bed at 6:00 this morning to get in the car and start the trek back to Buffalo because I had to open the dorms for the residents that were coming back. And that was one of the least pleasant drives I’ve had to and from Buffalo in my three years of school here. It was okay until about Syracuse and then the weather just got gross. It snowed pretty hard, then it would sleet for a while, then it would rain-sleet. It seemed Mother Nature just couldn’t make up her mind. After we got past all of that we sat in a nice little traffic jam due to an accident around Rochester. Thank gosh we gave ourselves a little buffer time in order for me to make work on time! But rumor has it that the weather is only going to get worse so I’m glad we were able to just get the beginnings of the storm and not drive through it after it’s been dumping ice on the road for three hours.

This week is the last week of classes which means a lot of time will be spent in the library getting ready for finals week and wrapping up all of my classes. My tests and papers are nicely spread out so things shouldn’t get TOO stressful for me, but let’s keep our fingers crossed about that one! Speaking of, I should probably go get some reading done before my staff meeting tonight.

Happy Thanksgiving! Okay well my wishes are a day late but sincere none-the-less! I had an awesome day surrounded by family! I can’t explain how nice it has been to be home for really the first time since May. Never again will I go six months without coming home for a couple of days to just relax and enjoy my family.

Now, I’m sure everyone has their Thanksgiving day rituals and our family is no different. We all get up whenever we want, except of course our cook, my Mom. She’s the only one who sacrifices the most and gets up to start the bird in the oven and getting everything else ready to go. As the older kids get up, we shower and get ready for dinner, usually eating around 1:30. After dinner we all gather in the living room, watch a little football (this is just about the time that I fall asleep and take a nap), eat dessert and go back for round 2. It was such a nice day to all be together.

Today we all went as a family and watched my brother’s freshman basketball game and tonight will be spent with some more family board games and movie watching. Unfortunately I didn’t get all of my reading done that I had wanted to before I left so I do have a couple of books with me but they’re easy reads so I have resorted to reading late at night after everyone else goes to bed. I’m going to head into the kitchen now to start putting out plates for dinner tonight but safe travels to everyone who is heading back to school or home this weekend! It’s back to snowy Buffalo on Sunday morning…

I am so so so jealous of everyone that is already home! My countdown is down to 24 hours and counting!!! The rest of my weekend was quite relaxing, just hanging out with some friends and catching up on some sleep. I have been trying to pack as much reading in as I can before I head home. My goal is to not go home with any books, to just enjoy being with my family for the next couple of days ((which probably won’t happen but hey I can hope)).

Today is my last full day and it is a full one. While everyone else is waking up for the first time in their own beds at home I have two classes I have to go to and then work the rest of the day.

So I should probably start getting packed…one of my LEAST favorite things in the world. I hope everyone has safe travels home!!

YES! A bit of home came to Buffalo today!! My little sister is swimming in the state championships for our high school and where are they being held? Downtown Buffalo! So today my Mom, Dad and grandparents all came up from Albany and I met them at the pool to cheer on my sister and some of her friends. It was awesome to see them and the best part about it? I get to see them tomorrow! The finals are tomorrow morning so my other sister and I are going to head down to the pool to watch again and then send them all back to Albany. I am counting down the minutes till we get to head back home. I’ve seen my family a couple of times since school started but I haven’t really been home since July and I am DYING to lay in my living room with my kittens around me listening to my parents talk when my dad gets home from work or to sit in the stands at my brothers basketball game….I can’t wait!

So this weekend is all-about-family-time and then on Sunday I’ll sit down to watch the Pats take on the Miami Dolphins because this is a big game; if the Pats lose our chances of making it to the playoffs get that much further away.

((A quick Happy Birthday shoutout to our fellow blogger Andrew!! It’s his 21st so be sure to leave him a happy champagne birthday!!))

Saturday night was probably one of the funniest nights in my college career. Political satirist Jon Stewart came as the fourth speaker in our Distinguished Speaker Series here on campus. Now I have never been a fan of the Daily Show more so because I’ve just never really sat down and watched it and less because I actually don’t enjoy it so I didn’t really know what to expect. Well, he poked fun at religion, race, politics; one of my personal favorites was when he made a statement about his observations on being in Buffalo saying “I’ve never seen a city more proud to be the inventors of bar food”. I think everyone who went agreed that they left with sore sides from laughing!

On Sunday we had our annual Thanksgiving dinner here on Main Street. All of the RA and AA staff along with our Hall Directors and Assistant Hall Directors gathered upstairs in Goodyear X (which is a big lounge on the top floor of one of the residence halls here on South) to get together and have some good food. It was a great chance to get to see everyone from all of the other staffs for something other than a business meeting. And I had to be on duty last night anyways so it was convenient for me!

Today the city of Buffalo was buzzing with football excitement. The Monday Night football game that is broadcast on ESPN is being held in the Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park while the Buffalo Bills take on the Cleveland Browns. I find myself at a crossroad with how I wish this game turns out because although I’ve found myself very much a Bills fan, the Patriot fan in me hopes that they lose so that they stay behind us in the AFC East standings. Either way it should be a good game.

I love technology. You know all those fun gadgets that Bill Gates and people like him keep coming up with. But I have to tell ya, I’m not impressed with the phone industry. Today a friend and I had to go get a new phone because my contract was up for renewal and the phone I had was on it’s last leg. I ended up getting one I could settle with but what happened to just having a normal dial phone!? Enough with these touch screens…

Anyways, last week I registered for classes and I’m pretty happy with the classes I’m going to be taking. I’ll have my internship and then need to take a music class to fulfill the last of my general education requirements. There are also a few psych classes I’m going to take, one of which is a 400 level class that I’m really excited about, Social Cognition.

Our Hall Director has come back since being gone for the first few months on maternity leave. It’s awesome to have her back. Not that our Assistant Hall Director didn’t do a great job in her place but he is a MBA student and we never wanted to bother him with what we thought was unnecessary or pointless question, it’s just nice to have someone that we can go.

Tonight is the third speaker in UB’s Distinguished Speaker Series and a bunch of my friends and I have tickets to go! So tonight I’ll be sitting, laughing to the satirical wittiness of Jon Stewart! I’m pumped!

This past week/weekend has probably been one of the most relaxing times of the semester thus far. My crunch week of work was over two weeks ago and so I’ve kind of taken this time to catch up on some sleep, do some small amounts of reading here and there and take some time to myself before the end of the semester hits.

On Friday afternoon we had our first STARS training of the semester. It was nice to get together as a group since usually we have the rest of the Student Recruitment Unit there with us. Then after training we headed to Dave and Busters which, for anyone who has never heard of it, is basically just a Chuckie Cheese for grown-ups. I’ve never been a fan of it but it was actually a good time! Stephanie and I won a bunch of tickets and ended up getting some pretty cool prizes!

This week should be another relaxing one, although I think I’m going to kick my butt into gear to get a little bit more work done so that it doesn’t all creep up on me at once!

So I’ve said this before because I had one of these moments last semester but I have recently been looking around at my life and been really, really happy with the way that things are working out.

On Monday I got word that a job I had applied for I ended up getting. I will be a Community Assistant (similar to an RA but in the apartments) in one of our apartment complexes on campus, Hadley Village, starting in June. I couldn’t be more excited, it was exactly what I wanted and I was up against some stiff competition. I’m also really excited about the three girls that I could potentially be living with next year. They’re three of my really good friends and I think that we are all going to get along really well! It should make for an awesome senior year!

Then, this morning I had a meeting downtown about an internship for next semester and I thought we were just going to meet and talk about the possibility of me working there, and the next thing I knew I was signing the papers! It should be an awesome opportunity, it’s with a program in the court system that serves as an alternative to incarceration for adolescents convicted of substance related crimes. It sounds like I’m really going to be able to get some really good experience in the court systems and the legal process.

Halloween was also a blast! The Seven Deadly Sins theme that my friends and I had decided upon actually turned out much better than I thought it would and we ended up having an awesome time! Here are some pictures to give you some ideas (remember I was greed). . .