NSO - Move in Day

Today we moved in a little over 300 kids, I believe there are 320 in South, and we moved in all of but 10 of them! That's awesome!

It was awesome, cuz I really impressed my teammates and a lot of the parents. They were surprised with the amount of weight I could lift! :)

After that I was a tissue person, and handed out tissues to crying moms after the welcome mass when they had to leave. It was kind of sad, but funny at the same time. One of the parents took a pic of me cuz tehy thought it was so funny.

Tonight was the "NYC Street Fair." I guess it was more interactive than Casino night, however it wasnt that awesome. Day 2 tomorrow!

Last day of NSO Training

Today is finally the last day of training! We got out of training close to 2? Today was a lot more fun than the other days, there were no speakers, just directions as of what we are doing tomorrow. Looks like it won't be too bad, but I wont have much time to myself. The night social events should be fun though! :)

The family should be coming soon, w/ cellie!

MTVu Woodie Awards

GUESS WHAT?!?!?

THE FDS GOT INVITED TO PRESENT AN AWARD AT THE MTVu WOODIE AWARDS!!!!

how exciting is that? apparently they want to do some sort of a feature highlighting debate teams in the NY region!!!

NSO Training - Day 1

Today was the first day of training, which was BORING! I was placed in Group 7 aka Team Gold, "Yellow's old, now we're GOLD!" The mood of the team was a bit down, so we werent as energetic as other teams :-\ and I had to tone it down. My orientation captains are Meghan and Erik, who I think I've met before. The other orientation leaders in my group include Susan, Katie, Melissa (from RHA last year), another junior, and 3 more sophomores.

Today's training just consisted of a lot of listening to lectures. Although I did learn a lot about the new buildings. Apparently they're spending $85 Million on the new dorm building, Campbell Hall... that's right $85 MILLION!!! That explains why the tuition went up so much...

The other orientation leaders from LC came up today, so that was kind of cool. The Orientation Coordinator, Tom? was pretty attractive, he had this Michael Baer type presence/attractiveness. There were some similarities in their looks... And of course I saw Sam, which lead to some awkwardness...

After the LC OL's left, we had our dinner, which was a dinner mystery... At first I thought it sounded interesting and was going to be dumb, I just wanted to get out of there. But after seeing it, I liked it, I just wished they had started earlier (I didn't get back til 8:30 ish). The storyline of the mystery was that this girl's father, who was worth a lot of money, was pushed off his yacht, and someone had sent her a letter saying that she should run away if she didnt' want to see the same fate. So she had gone to the reading of the Father's will to find the killer, but only ended up being poisoned and killed herself. So they had some interaction with the audience by calling them up as suspects, or just to do things, which was funny.

When the night was finally over, we left, and boy were we glad to finally leave. Everyone was super exhausted.

Move-In Day

Today I moved in. We were aiming to leave at 3PM, but didn't start packing until then, and finally left around 4 PM. We got to school close to 4:30 so that was good. Apparently the place to pick up keys was open til 6, who knew? They didn't have my ID card, so I guess I'll have to get it from FMH.

When I moved in I saw a few people, I saw Peter, Jake and Meg. Thankfully when I saw Jake it wasn't awkward, he actually said Hi to me first and gave me a big hug. :) I was trying to raise the beds and we were kind of lost so I enlisted some help from Mr. Shaugnesy lol.

The 'rents had tix to the first round of the US Open, in which Andy Roddick was playing so I was trying to rush them outta my dorm. Eventually I got them out a little after 6PM. I didn't want to eat dinner alone, and had not seen Katie since last semester, so I went to Katie's for dinner, where she made chicken for me and Chris. I had suggested going to Pugley's but good thing she decided not to since apparently it was closed. I left soon after dinner since Chris was dying, and stopped by Andrew's where Bridget suprisingly opened the door. After that I went to visit Rose, but unfortunately she wasn't home :-\ Then I went to see Greg but he wasnt home either, so I went back to O'Hare.

Then I went to see Andrei and we ended up talking til like 1AM (Keep in mind I have training at 9:30 tomorrow).

PR/Marketing/Managing

When I woke up this morning I decided that I want to try to set up my own PR/Marketing/Managing company, on the side of going to school of course, for up and coming bands and celebrities. This would entail the usual PR stuff, in addition to promoting, and booking events. So if you know anyone that's interested let me know! I have a lot of experience, and I think I'd be pretty successful at it, at least thats what my track record leaves me to believe. If you want to find out more please inquire! :)

How phenomenal were the closing ceremonies last night? London has a lot of living up to do, and based on their performance last night, they need to do a lot of work!

GOOD LUCK SPOTTS!!!

GOOD LUCK SPOTTS!!!!

WE'RE ALL GOING TO MISS YOU!!!

I messaged Michael Phelps on facebook earlier this afternoon, hopefully he'll write back!

Vacation - Day 8: Back Home!

Today we're going home. We had a 4 hr 20 min flight from Calgary to JFK. Our flight was a bit delayed, and not to add we almost missed or flight because Daddy wanted to get food - lol.


8:30 PM: We just got home from the airport.

Vacation - Day 7: Banff to Calgary

Today we drove from Banff to Calgary. The ride wasn't as long as I had anticipated.

On the way to Calgary we passed the Olympic Stadium that was used in the Winter Olympics in 1992. Unfortunately since it is a winter field, there wasn't much to see or do there in the summer. We finally made it to our hotel around 6ish? Then decided that since we wouldnt be able to do much tomorrow, since we had to be at the hotel somewaht early, we would try to do all the sightseeing tonight.

First we went downtown to see Calgary Tower, which was really cool. We got to stand on glass which was over 500 feet above the ground. Being scared of heights, standing on a piece of glass that high was quite intimidating. But you know me, I always like to push myself. My mom couldnt even tell i was scared, then again my sister and mom were too afraid to walk onto the glass, but eventually they sorta got over the fear.

Next we went to "Chinatown" It was so ghetto it was like 2x1 blocks of wannabe Chinatown. I was very unimpressed.

After that we went to dinner at "Tony Roma," which is known for their ribs. The food was pretty good :)

Vacation - Day 6: Jasper to Banff

Today we went on the tran and WHITE WATER RAFTING!!!

The Summit of the Mountain

The tram is this trolly that takes you up to the Alpine Mountains, and from there you can climb to the summit of the mountain. At first the hike looked easy, but some parts were really steep, making it a bit challenging. But even so, I always ended up ahead of the family. At one point they gave up, and I was left to climb up the mountain alone, which I don't mind as this is usually the case. They always try to deter me from hiking more... It was gorgeous being up that high. After that we rode the tram back down, and headed to Bear Paw Cafe to get lunch. After lunch we went to the meeting place to go for white water rafting.

White water rafting was pretty awesome! This was my first time, and I was super excited. They gave us all the cool gear - wetsuits, booties, jackets, life jackets, and helmets. We went rafting down the Sunkwanka (sp?) River, which is a Class 3 rapid. It was AMAZING!!!

After we got back, one of the guides, Tyler, recommended this sandwich place, so we went there. It turned out that some of the other people that went on teh trip were related to the people that owned the deli. I must say that the sandwich was pretty awesome! :)

After the sandwich break, we were back on the road yet again towards Banff. On the way there, we hit up the major site that we had missed, the Weeping Wall. And oh yeah, we saw a black bear and grizzly bear, they were super close too!

Vacation - Day 5: Hinton to Jasper

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESSICA!!!

Today we drove from Hinton to Jasper. We had just missed the Rodeo :-\

When we got to Jasper, we checked in and walked around the quaint town. The first thing we did was around the town, and looked for one of the rafting places. The first place we went to was completely booked for tomorrow, and Tuesday was next day they had available times. After that we decided to walk towards Pizza Hut/KFC to get dinner. However as we were walking it started to heavily raining so we quickly walked towards Pizza Hut/KFC. At the restaurant, they only had the basic pizza, normal crust and your basic toppings. I was super upset, I wanted a stuffed crust chicken pizza. So we decided to get KFC instead of pizza. We got a bucket, and wanted them extra crispy, but they didn't have that either! Nor did they have the normal sides, it was quite upsetting. OMG and their cole slaw looked gross, it was green blob of who knows what! It looked soo gross!!! It took forever to get the food.

Before we went back to the hotel the 'rents wanted to find the rafting place so we can book it. All of a sudden it cleared up, and was nice and sunny outside, so we went walking around more. We went to the tourist/visitor center to find out some information. We finally found the other place "Raven" and they had an opening for tomorrow, YAY! Afterwards we walked around more, did some shopping, and J finally got her lemon poppy seed muffins - lol.

Approximately 1 1/2 hrs after we got thefood we went back to the hotel to eat dinner. I wasn't feeling to well, so J and I stayed in the rest of the night. Mommy and Daddy went out again to check out the town. They got us some "airborne" ice cream from "Scoops and Loops" (see video below).

8 GOLDS!!!

CONGRATS MICHAEL PHELPS ON GETTING GOLD #8!!!

8 Golds and 7 World Records!
You deserve it, and are an inspiration! :)

Vacation - Day 4: Banff to Jasper

Today we're heading to jasper. On the way there we went to a bunch of the sites along the way, including crow feet glacier, bow glaciers and fall, peyto canyon, mystaya canyon and Columbia glacier.

We took an "ice explorer" to the actual glacier and got to go on it which was pretty cool. I also got to taste some glacier water which was quite cold but tasty if you ask me! :)

Right now we're on the road again on the way to jasper which I'd supposedly only another hour away, so we shall see... We left columbia glacier around 6PM.

We didn't get into Jasper until late. We were going to stay there however apparently the Rodeo had been there the past few days, and today was the lsat day of the rodeo, so all the hotels in Jasper were booked. We were forced to go to Hinton (a few towns over, maybe like 45 mins away) to find a hotel. We stayed at a Best Western. We literally got there, got some food, went to sleep, got breakfast and left for Jasper.

Vacation - Day 3: Banff

Today we hit up Lake Louise, Moraine Lake, Spiral Tracks, the Natural Bridge, Emerald and more.

On the way walking back from the waterfall, we saw this Pika that was just standing there, and making noise.