Beginning of the End

Sounds brutal, I know. That's because the end of the semester always is. I am currently at home, relaxing and detoxing before diving back into the last three weeks of my semester. I have one more week of classes, then two weeks of finals, that's it. Then one more semester and hello winter break and family! I seriously cannot wait. This semester has been particularly rough, which is why I haven't written in forever; plus I feel like no one reads, so updating isn't on the top of my to do list haha. So for a quick recap of how my semester has gone so far, he's a little chronological breakdown: Began the semester excited to do well and enjoy senior years. Stats became much harder than anticipated. Dislocated 3 ribs from stress and sleeping on a bad mattress. Before figuring out what was causing it, I dislocated them twice more causing a severe lack of sleep and discomfort. Caught up on everything I miss after being so messed up. Got a 100% on 2 finals; started to understand stats better, clearly. Got a kidney infection and UTI. Antibiotics failed and infection spread to both kidneys. Was on intense drugs for 2 weeks and couldn't eat much of anything=lost weight in an unhealthy way. Finally got healthy and had to play catch up, again. Serious church drama; I stepped down from my post as peer and prayer minister in order to focus on my relationship with God. Now this brings us back to present time, Thanksgiving break and getting final papers written and preparing for finals; you know the drill. Aside from all the bad stuff throughout the semester, there has also been a lot of good times! Here is a small picture blog.

We went to the Totally 80s concert to see Berlin, The Fixx, The Human League, and B52s. Pure Magic.

Baking party!

Football!

Pumpkin Carving.

Parents Weekend.

Michael's Birthday.

Cinnamon Rolls.

Fake Thanksgiving with my roommates. So it's been pretty good! I am all set for my last semester with Data Analysis 2, Stats for Econ, Women in Society, and Nonprofit Management. Pretty dull, but it gets me done. I am currently applying to grad school at UCI and Berkeley (gross) but hopefully one of those works out so I know what comes next. Well, until I have any more news, so long and farewell.

Fall 2011

Well, it's official. The fall 2011 semester at USC is well underway, which means the start of my senior year! On May 11, 2012, I will be a graduate of the University of Southern California; now that's a weird thought. I've been working my ass off for the past 3 years here, and the previous 4 in high school to get in here, and now it is all coming to an end! It's a bitter sweet thing, really. I absolutely LOVE it here and am not ready to leave, so I am trying to make the most of my time left, but that being said, this is the most stressful semester of my college career because of one thing... grad school applications. They came out today, so of course I've started working on them. As of now, I feel nothing but discouraged on how little I have to offer on paper. Thankfully I have a strong support system here; Michael and Pastor Dan have been here while I'm crying that I won't get in anywhere and that I have no plan for my life... hey, it's a stressful time! But overall I am trying to remain positive. Happy thoughts! And one day at a time. Well aside from that, classes are going pretty well this semester. My stats professor is wonderful, and super funny so class is never boring. My nonprofits professor is retired, but is so passionate about this class that he is still teaching it, so needless to say it's a good time because he loves what he does. For that class we have to pick a nonprofit organization and research it all semester and at the end, we present the organization to the class and vote on which one gets to receive that $10,000 grant that the class got. It's called "Learning by Giving," and is meant to teach us how to determine which nonprofits are efficient, and do what they say they do, and decide which are worthy of donating to. I obviously chose Lutheran Campus Ministry as we are having severe money problems and figured it was worth a shot. My other stats class is excruciatingly boring, but I'm getting through it and I already know all the material so it is definitely easy. Lastly, there is social inequality which is proving to be a very, very interesting class. I knew going in that I liked the professor, but the subject matter and the group we have is pretty great, so I like it a lot. I am definitely keeping busy this semester. Between class, work and LCM I have 42 hours per week, without counting studying and homework time. So you can imagine where that puts me. I'm exhausted and trying to get into a routine. I am never home because I am always at work, in class or doing LCM stuff... or studying. But that's what college is all about. I'm managing, and definitely still finding time for fun; mainly USC football is my life outside of school, as it always is during the fall semester. Well, I have to get to work. Just wanted to send a quick update. Hope all is well in the outside world. Will try to write again soon and get some more pictures of the beginning of the semester up, including my 21st birthday! They are all one facebook, so check them out there.

Summer Pictures

As promised quite some time ago, here are a few pictures that summarize my summer thus far. They include some beach trips with my boyfriend, Michael, our road trip to Oregon to visit our friend, Payton, and pictures of the epic 4th of July Slip n Slide Extravaganza. Needless to say it has been an amazing summer. Just a quick glimpse of what has just passed/what is in the near future before getting to the pictures: this week Michael is in Ohio visiting family and I had the pleasure of taking him and his mom to the airport at 4 AM Tuesday morning. After leaving, while driving his mom's car, I had the pleasure of getting in my first car accident while driving. Party. Good news is I am completely fine and the car made it out with a few dents and his mom couldn't care less. This coming weekend I will be in San Diego with the Faz family for our annual summer "camping" trip, or as I like to call it, "The Weekend of Dreams." I am looking forward to that. Then I have no big plans aside from studying for the GRE which I take on the 18th and then starting school on the 22nd, the day before my 21st birthday! And if you want to know what I want for my birthday, I don't want alcohol because I don't drink, but I'll gladly take money for groceries/my car payment/my car insurance/books for school! It'll be put to good use I promise :) Now here are the pictures. Enjoy.

Mid-Summer Update

Hello again, it has been quite a while! I've been in summer mode and therefore quite far from my computer and wanting to write anything. Freedom is quite nice. Plus my computer kind of died on me so I was computerless for about a week or so. But I am up and running again! Got my new Dell Inspiron which so far I love, but I've only had for three days so I am still feeling it out.

In other news, at the beginning of summer I bought my first car, so that is pretty exciting. I've always had to borrow mom's or grandpa's (thank you both for always letting me!) but now I have my own. His name is Charles and he's magnificent; the car payment and insurance, not so much.

I am taking the GRE on August 18 so I have to start preparing for that. It's supposed to test your "general" knowledge somewhat like the SAT in high school, and is 4.5 hours long so basically sounds like torture. But hey, gotta take it to get into grad school!

Anyways this summer has been pretty fun so far. Spent a lot of time with family, but nieces and nephew are currently down from Texas so I am spending a lot of time at my dad's while they are here. Other than that I am working in LA 3 days a week on campus and spending the rest of my time either with Michael or at home... or with Michael at home. He's quite fantastic, definitely a keeper if you ask me :) . No crazy summer adventures have yet occurred, but this weekend is when they will begin! Fourth of July weekend (be safe everyone!) is always fun. I will be in Tehachapi with Michael and we plan on building a slip n' slide/ramp to slide down and land into a little pool. We might die, but we will have fun doing it. A couple friends and possibly my mom and brother will be there for it so it should be great. Then for the rest of summer I have a camping in a hotel weekend trip planned with grandpa and that side of the family, and a road trip to Oregon to visit Payton from LCM with Michael and whichever other LCMers are available.

Well this is where I leave you. Time to go babysit the kiddos. I will post again with summer pictures, hopefully soon.

Summer.

It's here, it's here! Today I moved back home to Lancaster and will be here at least until August 1st, minus the two days a week I will be escaping to work in LA. Moving was pretty painless thanks mostly to my awesome boyfriend, Michael, who loaded and handled all the heavy boxes on the dolly and onto the truck. He even helped me pack. What a great guy. Anyways, packing wasn't bad and after we loaded everything up I took my mom to El Cholo for lunch for Mother's Day since I didn't make it home for the actually day due to crazy paper writing. The paper I stayed at school to work on turned out to be 22 pages long, so I had a good reason to stay- I clearly had a lot of work to do. Then we drove back home and I unpacked and did lots of laundry, enjoyed dinner that I didn't have to cook for myself, went on run which really disturbed my brother- he didn't understand the concept- and am now finally laying down to relax and officially begin my summer at 11:52 PM. Yay!

Buying Time.

Yes, I am literally buying time. I decided, with many factors contributing, not to graduate this December and to push my graduation date back to May 2012, which it should have been originally. My Nonprofit advisor ended up being TERRIBLE and completely ruined my plans to have the minor completed in time for my plan to graduate in December. Apparently one of the classes I need is a spring only class so I would not be able to finish it as I only have, well would have had, one fall semester to go. She never should have accepted me into the minor! Dumb. Anyways, then I was completely stressed out about what to do with my time between December and September when whichever grad school program I decide on would begin. Also, without the minor, my transcripts just look awful. There were a lot of problems. I was super stressed but then, after a great conversation with my wonderful daddy, I decided that the best option for me would be to add another minor, which I will get to in a second, and add that last semester on since it wouldn't be costing me that much more in student loans. So now in May I will be graduating with (drum-roll please) a Bachelor's of Arts in Sociology with minors in Nonprofits and... Statistics! Shocking, right? Well the professor I'm doing research with this semester, Professor Emeka, is a stats professor, and he is pretty much the greatest ever. He has been suggesting the minor to me for a while and explained all the practical applications it would have. I was always interested, but didn't have the room for it. Now that I do, I figured why not! People in Social Science tend to fear math, but stats is a huge part of it as that is how we prove anything in our research. It's a really good thing to have with my degree. Now I don't have to worry about my transcript because they will look awesome, and all I have to do is decide what I want to do after I graduate. Hooray! God really answered a lot of prayers with that one.

In other news, and this is the news you will really want to hear, there is a new man in the life of

Ciarra! His name is Michael and we met at LCM. He's kind of fantastic. He met the parents and passed with flying colors, now Saturday he is meeting the Faz family... we'll see how that goes! I'm very excited to bring him to the family, he's quite a special one. He took me to the beach Friday and Saturday of last weekend, Saturday he attempted to teach me how to surf which may or may not have been successful, I did my best and need to go again for sure to practice.

Now what else? Easter! Technically it is Easter right now (12:07 AM), so Happy Easter! He is risen, indeed. Plans for today are Sonrise service with LCM on the beach at 6:30 (which means I should get to bed soon!) then my mom and Bradley are coming down to decorate eggs and have lunch and whatnot. Should be a good one, hope the same is true for you :)

Goodbye March.

I cannot believe that it is already going to be April! This is freaking me out, I graduate in December! As of now, I am leaning towards the Masters in Public Policy, just randomly throwing that out there. Thoughts? I'm open to them.

Spring Break was quite fantastic. Disneyland was great, Knott's Berry Farm was tons of fun, then I got to spend some time at home relaxing, and went to Tehachapi to visit a friend which was beyond fantastic. I'm not sure it could have been a better break. But now I am back, the first week after breaks is always so hard. I'm fighting off the beginning of a cold, so hopefully I am successful at that. I had an exam this week which did not go as I hoped it would, but thankfully in that class we have 3 exams and the lowest score gets dropped, so I just have to do well on the next one.

I am currently looking for summer internships. I applied for one at World Vision International, but I am not counting on getting that one. There are a lot available through USC that are paid but only like 10 hours a week for 8 weeks. I am going to apply for one of those and ask my boss if I can continue working there over summer again, which should be fine, so that I can be set for the summer and have one less thing to worry about. I'm fairly certain this will be the summer I finally buy a car, so if you know anyone selling one, let me know!

This weekend I am volunteering with LCM at Saint Marks to do a food distribution. Then on Sunday we are having our service at the beach in the morning which will be fun. Other than that, just getting back into things and catching up on homework and whatnot. I'll start that after having some fun first though. Last night I went bowling with friends and tonight I'm going out to dinner and a movie, then it's time to get serious. Typical mindset of a typical college student :)

Spring Break time!

Today marks the beginning of my Spring Break, and I could not be more excited. Although this is my least favorite of all breaks throughout the school year, I will take what I can get. I realize I have been somewhat MIA lately and I apologize, but I've been very busy because before Spring Break comes midterms, woo! The good news is that I got an A on all four of my midterms this semester, so I am pretty stoked about that. I was also away from technology for a weekend because I went camping with LCM which was SO MUCH FUN. I absolutely love this crazy, amazing group that God has lead me to. We all attempted to study, but none of really got much accomplished because we enjoy each other's company (and the beach) entirely too much. This was the most fun I've had in a while.

But now it is Spring Break! I have some exciting plans, nothing crazy like Cabo or anything, we all know that's not my thing. Instead... I'm going to Disneyland! With my mom, brother and sister and then Knott's the next day. I also have plans to drive to Tehachapi to visit a friend and hang out so it should overall be quite an amazing break. Then I must return to another exam on the Tuesday of the week we start back. Oh well, such is life. I'm just so excited to have a week off.

In other news, I have been researching things related to Master's programs as I am graduating in December. I have narrowed my options down to a Master's in Social Work or Public Policy. I haven't decided yet which one, but it will be one of the two. I'm just praying about it all and trusting that God will open the right doors for me, he always does. I am also applying for a summer internship with World Vision so I am hoping that that goes well. I believe that is all going on here. Hope all is well with you, too!

New Addition.

So this past Friday I got my first (and probably last) tattoo. My best friend Laura drove with me up to Lancaster to go to the parlor I wanted to get it at as they are Christian based and ridiculously friendly. She really wanted to be there for it so we made a road trip out of it. I was extremely nervous but they were so nice to me, mainly through sarcasm which, if anyone knows me they know this is the true way to my heart lol. So I was very comfortable there and it ended up not hurting nearly as much as I thought it would. It hurts more after that during because it's like a horrible sunburn. But I absolutely love love love it. It couldn't be more perfect. Thankfully I haven't encountered much negativity about getting it, even grandpa approved! So that's been nice. Well that is basically it!

Money Money Money... sigh.

I'm feeling a little discouraged, and also strangely empowered right now. I just came from a Peer Minister meeting with LCM and we got some pretty grave news. Basically regardless of whether or not we pass the Quadrennial Review I mentioned previously, the Lutheran church simply does not have money to give us. We pretty much have the option of throwing in the towel and saying that's it LCM is done, or doing everything within our power to find funding. We need some way to get around $6,000 per month. Pastor Dan is incredibly committed to making this work, and we all decided that so are we. So now we need to start going to everyone we can, other churches, foundations, corporations, absolutely anyone and anywhere, to get money to keep going. Our budget goes to the end of the year but in the mean time we need to get going. We are looking at this as a challenge to prove our faith, and we know God will get us through it. This is just a push to reach out. So we are reaching, as far as we can. If anyone has any ideas at all, or would be willing to talk to their church about either contributing or making an announcement to their congregations to ask for donations to LCM@USC, please please please let me know and I can give you information about what we do and anything, I can even come make an announcement, seriously anything. This is not just to Lutherans, we do a lot of ecumenical (interfaith) work, and we are more or less just a Christian fellowship so if you are not Lutheran don't count yourself out. We can use some help right now. If nothing else, at least send us your prayers.

The Ride Begins.

Hey hey hey! So I like to think of semesters as roller coasters (oh yes, I'm going all metaphorical on your ass; although if you want to get technical... it's a simile). They start off all slow and nice and you see the syllabus full of all the stuff you will eventually have to do which leads you up the big hill. Then you get to the top and you better freakin' hold on because once it goes over that peak it just does not stop until the end. Well my friends... I'm at the top, so here we go! I have a midterm tomorrow, a book critique due next Friday, a paper due the following Thursday, another paper due the next Tuesday... and it just keeps going. The worst part about it is that once you get to that point, it all goes by SO FAST because you are always working on something and waiting for the next deadline. Dear time, can you just chill for a while? Like what's the rush? Slow down.

In other news, I've been selling Girl Scout Cookies for my little cousin Marin. In a week and a half I sold 96 boxes for her. I should get like an honorary Girl Scout patch or something. My aunt Maya is coming down on Sunday to drop them off and we are all anxiously anticipating the delivery of these cookies. (I'm also doing my best to get my football friend, Devon Kennard, to come over while they are here to meet my cousin Shane who idolizes these guys. Devon is more than willing to do it, he's a super amazing guy, but he has to drop friends off at the airport and doesn't know what time he'll be back. Cross your fingers.)

Pastor Dan is in Oregon this week for a conference thing... I really have no idea actually. All I know is that he left us Peer and Prayer Ministers in charge of making our lounge look beautiful for our Quadrennial Review on Monday which is pretty much some really important people from the Lutheran Church coming to see what we have been doing for the past four years, how we've grown, etc, and deciding whether or not to continue our funding so that our group can still exist. So it's kind of a big deal. If we don't impress them, LCM@USC dies. AND HE LEFT US IN CHARGE! What was he thinking? So we (pretty much 5 of us) are frantically trying to make something nice of this mess of a lounge we have. Sunday night (leave it to college kids to be last minute) we are making collages out of pictures we've taken of events we've had and stuff then rushing over there to put them up. Problem is that none of us have the picture files; Pastor Dan does and he is in Oregon! It's just pure chaos. God, please help us!

God is so great.

Hurray! Everything with the class worked out! After a night of very restless sleep, I woke up to an email saying that the class does count towards what I need it to count for, so I am good to go! This is going to be a really great experience, and look amazing on applications to grad schools.

In other news, today was semi uneventful. I pretty much sat at work all day minus leaving for lunch with my dad (Togo's not El Cholo today, Maya, although I wish we had time for that! Mmm). I also had my NGOs in global civil society class today which was pretty interesting. We talked about the role of the Catholic Church in international relations. For having such a dry title that class has yet to be boring. Anyways, then I had my short Thursday night church service, "Evening Prayer" with Pastor Dan. Usually I am somewhat in charge of leading this but today he did a quick recap of his sermon that I missed on Sunday because I got wrapped up in football (which God clearly punished me for by having the Jets lose. I learned my lesson and will be taking a break from the Superbowl next weekend for church lol). So it was nice, just me and Pastor Dan and we talked about how awesome our dad's are. I don't think he reads this, but if you do, love you daddy! After that I came home to eat pizza with friends, went to the gym, came back and played War with Laura, then one on one go fish. I started a game of the Oregon Trail (in the game my name is Chad, wife-Starfish, daughter-Madonna who got taken by an eagle and was never seen again, and sons- Firenze and Sharquis). We also had a very stimulating conversation on why we don't get goosebumps on the top of our feet and hands and came to no conclusion other than that goosebumps make no sense at all. Thrilling night, right? That's how we spend our Thursdays. PARTY ANIMALS.

I am heading home to Lancaster this weekend to visit my brother who said he is never going to talk to me again because I am not home. Sad, but very funny. I'm looking forward to seeing him, my mom, hopefully Xander and a few other friends. Then back to LA for church on Sunday. Fun fun fun!

Dear God, Please let this work!

Well hello there. Overall it's been a pretty good week. I spent the weekend at my dad's house which was great, although the Jets lost and will not be in the Superbowl. I picked up my new glasses and it's wonderful to see the world clearly, although somewhat scary but that's an entirely different level of conversation we don't need to have right now.

Lets start with the good news! First, my friends and I are signing the lease to an apartment on Friday! We will be able to move in on August 1st so this is for the fall semester. Seems so soon to be signing right? Well that's how student housing works. We are actually lucky so get this one, most other places have filled up already. Crazy.

Second, my dad is coming for lunch tomorrow! Random but exciting.

Third, and probably most exciting of all, on Monday I received an email from my stats professor from last semester, Professor Emeka who looks like Rick Fox, informing me of a very small class he is putting together, sociology 490x. What it is, is a directed research class. He's is basically putting together a group of a few students, no more than about 5, to help him with the research he is currently working on. It's a class so it requires a few reading assignments and a research paper at the end, but other than that we would meet for an hour once every other week or so to discuss our progress. What progress? The progress we would make on the research he would direct us on. Pretty much this is the opportunity to work one on one with Professor Emeka on his research on race/ethnicity and unemployment across the 298 metropolitan areas recognized by the census. How awesome is that? In order to add this 'class' I had to drop Families in a Changing Society which was bitter sweet because I had been trying to get into that class for 3 semesters and finally did, but sweet because it is being replaced with something so amazing. (I forgot to add that the research project could potentially run into being a paid summer pseudo internship). Obviously I jumped at the opportunity and did not hesitate at all to make these adjustments to my schedule, especially considering that the add/drop date is this Friday, I didn't have much time to mess around. Well I did all of this today. Tonight I was sitting here and all of the sudden realized that this 490 class may not satisfy the requirement I need to be satisfying this semester. To graduate I need to take 3 more what they call "theme" classes in sociology and there is a list of about 20 to pick from. I looked it up and 490 is not on that list but as it is not really a listed class, it's kind of made up as professors have research, I am praying that it will be able to supplement one of the 3 theme classes I have to take. If not, I'm pretty much screwed because I have no time to take extra classes since I am graduating early. Super screwed because they closed the Families class I just dropped and all the other theme classes are already closed. I hope the sociology department will work with me on this because this is a great thing I am very thrilled about doing. Pray pray pray this works out!

Goal Accomplished!

So I found out today that I finally, FINALLY reached a 3.0 GPA! I know that sounds like nothing, but having been bio/pre-med for my freshman year... it really kicked my butt. Ever since I changed my grades have been significantly better, nothing lower than a B+, and my GPA has been crawling back up but even getting all A's, it can only climb so fast. Last semester I was up to a very frustrating 2.99 but now I have a 3.12 and I am pretty stoked. Since it is too late for me to graduate with honors I am going to just join Phi Sigma Theta which is a National Honor Society. Not a frat or sorority so don't worry... anyone who knows me knows I would have nothing to do with that. Phi Sigma Theta has no meetings, no rush process, no hazing, nothing. You literally just send in a form and as long as you keep your GPA above a 3.0 you are in and have access to their scholarship opportunities, and it looks really good on grad school applications and resumes. It's too late to graduate with honors because here it is not just GPA based. You have to have a 3.0 GPA and (at least for sociology major's) your last semester here you replace one elective sociology class with an honors class where you work with a professor and do research and create a big final paper and whatnot that usually goes on to be published. Problems with this for me are one, I won't be spending my last semester here as I am graduating early so the class isn't offered, and two, I would have had to apply by now but my GPA hasn't been high enough until now. Dumb biology had to ruin everything! I would never have had below a 3.5 if it hadn't been for that year. Oh well! What can I do? Nothing. Which is why I'm so happy about my 3.12! I bounced back and still have 2 semesters to get it even higher.

Installation

Today I was installed into my new position in LCM, Prayer Minister. It was really exciting. Pastor Dan had us come to the front of the church and accept our new roles and we had a prayer for the three of us. It was really nice. My mom, dad, Sharon, Cailla and Bradley came to support me which was great. Then I went to dinner with my dad, Sharon, Laura, Simi and Jackie to celebrate. None of them are in my church group, they are just my best friends here and are really happy for me. It was a great experience! Here are a few pictures...

Back to School, Back to School...

to prove to dad I'm not a fool. Good movie. Anyways. Spring semester has officially begun and let me tell you, I have my hand full. None of my classes so far seem too hard, just mainly annoying and full of dumb busy work. 2 of my classes consist of your typical paper, midterm and final. Another one requires 2 hours of volunteer work per week on top of lots of reading and journal entries, etc. The final class that sounded awful (NGO's and Global Civil Society) actually seems like it may be quite interesting. If nothing else, the professor is awesome. He ended class by saying "What is the last thing a fish would notice? Water... and that is the point of this class." Like what? How much more cool can you get? Not much.

Apartment life is the same, roommates could be worse but could definitely be much better. I've been spending most of my time in my friend Jackie and Simi's apartment. Today I plan to spend some time in the Luther Lounge, our room on campus for LCM, just so I don't have to be in that apartment too long.

I don't have much new to report other than classes have started so I'll keep it short! This Sunday is my installation as Assistant Prayer Minister, and Payton and Anjali's as Peer Ministers so that should be exciting. My mom and dad are both coming here for that. I'll write again when I have something to say worth reading :)

Thanks be to God

I just got an email from Pastor Dan, the Pastor of my church group on campus (LCM). He was writing to tell me that I was chosen as the Assistant Student Prayer Minister for the coming semester. I am really excited about this as I have been wanting to become more involved in the group. I was hoping to be chosen as a Peer Minister but Pastor Dan chose two younger students who will be able to hold that title for longer, but also wanted to assign me a leadership role so he chose me for the Assistant Student Prayer Minister. The installation for Payton, Anjali, and myself as the new members of LCM leadership is Sunday, January 16th at Saint Marks Lutheran Church near campus. I am so thankful for this opportunity.