I'm back from spring break!!!!!!!!!!

Hey!
I just got back from spring break '010, which I spent in Washington, D.C. on a service trip! It was so much fun!
We worked with four organizations:
1. Food & Friends : a meals-on-wheels type thing that caters specifically to the terminally ill and to their specific nutritional needs. For a long time they served only patients with HIV/AIDS.  We helped there throughout the week by delivering meals, packing groceries, or packing meals. It was a super fun place to volunteer at because everyone there was really kind and you could tell that everyone involved believed in the mission of, and the importance of food and friends.
2. Sasha Bruce Foundation : this was a small house downtown that houses eight kids from ages 16-18 that can no longer live at home for whatever reason. Each border has his own apartment, with a kitchen. They're each responsible for cleaning and cooking for themselves, and they must go to school and have a job. While there we helped them landscape/beautify the outside by cleaning/mulching/gardening. It was dirty.
http://www.sashabruce.org/
3. PreventionWorks! : this is a "harm-reduction" non-profit that focuses on reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS among injection-drug users (IDU's).  We made safe-sex kits, "wound care" kits (which were for safer heroin use), and helped with a clothing drive. PreventionWorks! serves DC, and parts of VA and MD with its syringe-exchange mobile unit.
4. CityCamp! I'm not really sure what this program was about, it incorporated service with learning and fun! We pretty much just spent an afternoon playing with kids, on their last day of camp. It was fun. We played streetball.
Here are some photogs!

Eating lunch in S.C!

Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church! A great place in which to play sardines!!

A Masonic Temple a block away from our d.c. home. GIANT sphynx statues. Very mysterious.

Dogwood?

Me and Mat.

Ingrid (front) fits right in with our fellow elementary-aged volunteers!

At Food & Friends, they really love their volunteers!

Hard at work at the Sasha Bruce house.

Button flower.

Etch-a-sketch.

Piano.

This is a "Vote for Senator Branch!" photograph.

Two of my friends building a house of cards!!!!!!!

The Washington Monument on a beautful spring day.

At the national mall, the garbage trucks were running. And they were loud.

Sarah and I ate at this DELICIOUS cafe called Zorba's. It was authentic Greek, and this was the first time I'd ever been to a Greek restaurant. It was delicious (see yummy looking falafel above.)

At the national mall, Sarah came up to visit me for a while which was AWESOME. I had so much fun with her!!!

At the Smithsonian, we tried SO HARD to get this picture. It didn't quite work out, but it was still fun. And we're still cute.

This is my new friend Erin. Her last name ends in "-nagle" and is pronounced like "Nagel." Isn't that weird?? She's really nice, though. Despite her weird last name.

OH HEY THERE.....

Helllo world!
I have fallen VAIR far from the blogging I did in fall semester/autumn term.
Sorry!
But here's just a tiny quick post about my spring semester so far:
My classes are good so far: biological oceanography, French, heritage, honors, and "Hindu Traditions."
FRP is also good, my group is presenting at the third (?) annual EC Research Symposium this month with the data that we've been analyzing all year.
IT is cold. I just bought a new coat:
EDDIE BAUER FRIDAY HARBOR JACKET!
(in magenta!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
It is a necessity because of how cold has been. (RECORD colds, okay!? I swear I'm not lying. All the manatees are dying because of it. Do you think manatees lie?!? Do you!?!?!)
Yesterday was pretty exciting thought because for my bio oc. lab we went out on the beach-cat (boat) to collect data and we saw a group of residential dolphins riding the wake of a huge (huge, massive, industrial) boat. That was cooooooool.
In my Hindu Traditions class I have done BOTH my semester presentation-projects already! They were Thursday and today, so now they are ALL DONE. Very exciting : ) I think they both went well.
OHHHHHHHHHHHH HEY GUESS WHAT? My sister is engaged. Well actually, sisters, technically. Stacy AND Sarah are now both officially engaged. Bryan proposed to Sarah on Saturday and there was a little surprise party!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
The semester's been good so far. I've been trying not to eat caf food ALL the time, and I like having a balance. I usually eat lunch on my own and sometimes dinner. But usually just lunch. It's really nice. I love it.
But of course I miss my mom's food. OF COURSE.
OOOH Also I am excited because for spring break, instead of going home, guess where I am going!?
Guess!!!!
I am going to Washington D.C!!!! I am doing a service-learning trip with about twelve other people and a leacder, named Katie who is really nice. Hopefully Sarah and Co. will get to visit me there, and then when I get BACK Stacy and Craig will come visit!!!
(I really can't wait.)
Oh whewwwwwwwwwww gotta go sleep, I have a strict seven o'clock alarm : )
Bon nuit, mes!

Ahhhahahah hectic spring semester : )

Hi!
It's the end of my first week of my second semester of my freshman year. It's been very hectic.
But! I am very excited for this semester! I dropped calculus, and am taking a class called Hindu traditions, instead. It is a three hundred level class so it will be probably just as difficult as calculus but in a way that I will actually be able to handle. I feel like for the first time since I came to school, I know a little bit about what I want to do for the summer and that is VERY EXCITING. I like knowing what I want to do : )
I just looked up some places to volunteer at for this summer:
1. Cleveland clinic (an ehhhhhhhhh.....I think volunteering there would be majorly depressing?)
2. Battered women's shelter of Medina County
3. Medina Parks Distric
4. Medina Children's Center.
5. Medina Hospital
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM....!
Okay that's all for now.
!!!

Happy New Year!!!

Hello world!
I just got a bunch of beatles' music and I really liked this song from the "Let It Be" album!
It's called "Two of Us."
And here is a really cute line from it:

"You and I have memories

Longer than the road that stretches out ahead"

I just like that. I hope you do too.
Listen to the Beatles! They have good stuff!

Le French Purrito

This is our very own attempted le french purrito. The two above are Toulouse in a bag, and then we tried to put Toulouse in a sleeve, but it didn't work so well. BUT STILL IT WAS VAIR FUNNY.

It's finally started snowing!!!!!!!!!!!!

HELLLLLLLLO from the land of the Rock Hall of Fame, Buckeyes, and the Amish!!!!
I've been home since last Thursday and it has been wonderful so far!

This morning I did all my last-minute shopping with my friend Brian (see around, somewhere....)and we went to the mall and ate Chic Fil-A.  Chic Fil-A is Brian's fave fast-ish food, and we got sandwhiches and waffle-fries!!!!!! It was yummy! And...all the shopping was done with little collateral damage.  We got up supah' early, because it was the last Saturday before Christmas, and guess what!? We beat the crowds! It was pretty much awesome as we drove away from the mall, shopping finished, and there was a huge line of cars headed to the mall, backing up traffic. After shopping we just went to Brian's house and watched the movie version of "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer. I think that's one of his favorite books, and it is quite good, but also very sad. It was a very sad movie, but it had a yummmmmmmy soundtrack mmmmm.
I got home Thursday afternoon, Sarah that night. It was SO COLD when I got off the plane, but it was wonderful and refreshing!! And FINALLY, the next Sunday, it has snowed! Just a tiny bit, nothing compared, apparently, to what's going on east of here, but a tiny bit! It has made me quite happy!!
It has been quite fun just hanging out with my family, although Stacy isn't home and Shann & Josiah are in NC. And seeing Lauren and Rachel for the first time in many months was pretty much awesome. They came over for dinner on Thursday before Rachel left for PA and it was really fun to catch up with them.
EUGH two nights ago, I think, for the game of the night my dad suggested Risk. WORST GAME EVER. I lost....so badly. And it takes forever. I hate that game! My dad and Sarah battled it out to the end, however, with my dad reigning victorious as world dominator. (Surprise, surprise.) Also on the games front (I do love a good game...) I taught Brian this game called "James Bond" which is a super-speedy card game that Chris taught to me, and it is sooooooo fuuuuun.
WHOA....we have been playing Beatles' Rockband SO MUCH since I've been home, it's basically awesome.
That's all.
Bye!

This if from Christmas tree shopping!!!!!!!!!

The countdown begins....T minus 16 hours until boarding time!

THAT'S RIGHT: I have officially completed an entire semester of college. And the next time I write to you I shall be in the O-H-I-O! Woooooo! HOMESKIS AT LAST! It has been FOUR months of shower shoes, caf food, skype, and  having independence and zero privacy, haha. HEY it's also been AWESOME. Like that time I went pipefish collecting with FRP, just generally making some awesome friends, going kayaking and the like. It's been awesome. I really feel like I've such a great transition into college, I feel incredibly lucky for that. 
WOOO!
This past weekend, the weekend before finals, the Gamma fire alarm kept going off! It went off twice between five and seven on Sunday morning/saturday night.  I want to know how many more times I will wake up to that WRETCHED fire alarm noise? I think not once more during the remaining fifteen hours of my semester here....Tuesday afternoon our fire alarm went off again in our house, and the hallway sprinklers went off, flooding the  hallways, and causing a general brouhaha. It was QUITE the fiasco, let me tell you. So everyone in our house had to be evacuated, six of us stayed at another dorm ALL the way across campus away from EVERYTHING. The others stayed at the Holiday Inn in St. Pete. It was quite streesfull, but our awesome people here got the dorm fixed up by five o'clock the next day and VOILA I am sitting in my bed, blogging to you! 
ALSO This weekend, before the fire alarms, we had a WHGC study group and we were SO ALL STUDIED OUT, so we decided to go to IHOP and get some yummy pancakes. Chris, Laura and I went to IHOP and then went and roamed around WAlmart. It was super fun but the best part was it was FREEZING and windy and RAINY that night and when we got back to campus, Laura and I had went puddle jumping. The puddle jumping turned into a puddle war and we got absolutely SOAKED THROUGH. It was super fun. Later that weekend my friend Paul and I hung out and watched some of the Office on my laptop. Overall it was a generally wonderful last weekend of the semester!
Here's a picture of the IHOP/WALMART/PUDDLE JUMPING Lollapallooza:

Wish me safe travels, and see you all soonskis!

--Sydney.