Its been a while...

Okay, Now after a few week break I am back at it blogging away. I will try to do a few entries this week to catch up since the end of the school year.

The last weekend of school as part of my job with the office of Residence Life I helped to close up the Residence Halls. It is always crazy to see how fast the campus can get so quiet. I have to admit it is kind of fun for a day being on a quiet campus. All the busyness died down and all the stuff had stuff to do just no one was in a rush which was so nice and peaceful. While I was around I helped out at the Mass that is always held on the friday before graduation and then I helped out at graduation that Saturday. One of the secondary reasons I helped out with graduation was that then I got to see how it all works for next year and tell my parents what to expect. Being the oldest I have always experience events like graduations first in our family. On the Sunday after graduation I helped to move all the senior out of the on campus housing and then in the evening the office of Residence Life takes the staff out for dinner to celebrate a year of hard week. In a way it was a little sad this was my second and last year working for Residence Life. In a way it will be nice because I do have my internship at Nonprofit Leadership Alliance planning their annual conference to take place in January 2014 in Chicago!

After the weekend moving others out it came time to move out my self. On monday I had dinner with one of my wonderful friends and headed back to Chicago. I took a different way back since I was going to stop and see my sister at Bradley University and help her pack up some of her larger objects. It was nice to get a change of scenery on the way back (speaking in relative terms that is the scenery of farm towns can only change so much). It was fun to see my sister and she even took me out for lunch/dinner. I am not sure if it was because I was hungry or if it was actually super good but I had a fresh fish sandwich which was super good. In a way I really don't mind the 8 hour drive that much it is nice to have some time to your self to just think and channel surf the radio and find interesting things like the reading of hog prices and some great country music stations :)


Anyway this is at least an update of the first part. A lot has happened since I shall write another entry tomorrow.  

Here is a cool pic/quote I found:

Final week of classes and SNOW

Hi All,

It is may 3rd and we have snow on the ground what is wrong with this picture. The Royals had their game canceled due to snow yesterday. I have to admit I am from Chicago so I thought nothing can beat the crazy weather that Chicago gets but I have to hand it to you Kansas City 80 degree days in January and snow on May 3rd this is pretty crazy. On Monday it was 86 out and I commented to a friend after I got back from a run that it was almost too hot out and now today the high is only like 40. People walking back from classes in flip flops and when it is snowing out was a funny scene I have to admit.

Anyway enough about the weather, I am officially done with classes for the semester time to celebrate right? .......oh wait there are those things called finals coming up next week, kind of important. I am very fortunate to only have two in class finals next week. My two in class finals are for Accounting Information Systems and Philosophy 1000, Reality and Human Existence Which I have to admit has been my hardest class at Rockhurst so far) so that is how I will be spending my weekend. I have one take home final due next week as well then freedom for the summer right?? Oh wait I work for Residence Life as a Desk Manager and as part of our contract we have to stay though the Sunday after graduation to help check out all the seniors. All the moms get to help their recent college grads move out on Mothers Day, what a great way to say "I love you Mom" now come help me move back home" in some cases. It is crazy to see how quiet campus gets so quickly. I have to admit I am kind of sad my time as a Residence Life staff member is coming to an end but how does the saying go "Everything happens for a Reason" or "When one door closes another opens" Once everyone leaves and it is just the Residence Life staff on campus you almost feel like you have the whole campus to your self. Then a week from Monday I am going to make the 8 hour drive back home.

Well that is it for now. I am off to go study with a few others for Philosophy. Hope everyone enjoys their weekend!!!

I saw this just a friendly inspirational reminder:

Time with my sister!

Hi All,

I am so sorry I got so busy last week that I did not get a chance to blog. This has been a fun weekend so far and I thought I would take some time to blog before I get to my homework (aka I am procrastinating a little bit longer). I was so lucky my sister Hannah decided to come and visit me this weekend (she is a senior in high school and deciding on here where should go to college). It was really some great bonding time for us that she decided to come and visit me for the weekend. Last night was SAB’s annual spring concert last night. Jared Nemon and Love & Theft came to play, two country artists for those of you who are not educated on country music. Rockhurst concerts are a lot of fun, normally spring concerts vary on the genre of music that they have for them. The fall concerts are normally the country ones. This year it was reversed. It is a fun way to start and end every school year with a concert! The concert was a little cold with the rain (I am not quite sure why they did not have it inside to be honest but oh well…) So that is the main reason (besides seeing her brother of course that my sister came in).

Then today we went to go volunteer at the Warrior Dash along with others from the honors program. If anyone has not heard of the Warrior Dash you should check it out. It is crazy, not necessarily for everyone but it was fun. Groups can volunteer at the Warrior Dash and they Warrior Dash makes a donation to the organization they are with. It is a certainly a unique volunteer experience.

Yesterday I went to my internship in the morning at Nonprofit Leadership Alliance. I have been there about a month now and I am really enjoying it! It will be nice to still be able to be home this summer while having an awesome internship. I am planning a conference in Chicago that will take place in January of 2014.

 

Well that is the update for now. One more week of classes then finals! Finals week should not be too bad so that is good. I just want it to feel like spring/summer we are so overdue it gets warm then it gets cold again and then warm. Spring temps us so often but has not been here to stay yet. We have also gotten a ton of rain lately.

Oh when I get more time this weekend or sometime this week I will blog about the two honor society inductions I have had this past week and the Nonprofit Senior Lunch I went to on Thursday.

Here is a really good prayer I found:

Lord Give Me Your Strength

Give us your strength, Lord. Because sometimes things get tough, and we are ready to quit.

Give us your love, Lord. Because sometimes people reject us, and we are tempted to hate.

Give us your eyes, Lord. Because sometimes life gets dark, and we lose our way.

Give us your courage, Lord. Because often we are put under pressure, and it’s hard to do what is right.

Give us yourself, Lord. Because our hearts are made for you, and we will not rest until we rest in you.

By Fr. Mark Link, S.J.

Volunteer Management Class...Badges Rock Program

Hi All,

Hope everyone had a great weekend. The weather has been almost perfect here in Kansas City! Believe it or not another week has pasted and we are one week closer to the end of the year! This past weekend has flown bye. I had a fantastic run with a friend of mine this afternoon it was nice to catch up with her. Since we do not really see each other during the week our about weekly runs give us time to catch up. Today we went 6.5 miles. (it was super super windy outside I am not joking either, I come from the windy city so I know what wind is). Anyway, it was like a perfect temp outside to run.

Along the way one thing we discussed was what this type of tree that was budding was that has a "fishy" smell to them. Once I got back and googled "trees that smell bad" I came across it. It is called a Bradford Pear Tree http://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/callery-pear-bradford-pear. There seems to be an abundance of these trees around this area. I am still not quite sure why so many of these trees would be planted around here with the smell they admit.

We had a fantastic Volunteer Management Project with the Girl Scouts that will be my next blog entry. It is a busy start to this week but later this week I will post about it. It was an amazing experience.

Below are a few pictures from the weekend. We did a secession on safety for the Girls. These are girls coming from the inner city troops. We has three groups of 60 girls. For this project we planned the program recruited the volunteers and executed the event.

Here are a few pictures below:

The Girl wanted to pin her SWATCH on me instead of pinning 

The Girls are working on making first aid kit to take home with them. They got a badge for going through this.

We made a poster for this activity which we are presenting at the Rockhurst Festival of Student Achievement this week. 

Hope every one has a good week. This weekend a staff member said, "Every girl has the right to safety". Just take a minute to think about it. 

Running and Spring!

               As you can see in my picture below signs of spring are starting to appear on Rockhurst’s campus (the little green things are tulips coming up). Which is exciting for multiple reasons one of those is that spring is a sign of warmer weather. I do not talk about running much in this blog considering how much I love running (I run about 6 days a week for about 4 or more miles per day). For me running is a great stress relief. I started running when I was in 6^th grade and joined the cross country team in 7^th grade. I love being able to run outside.  Going to Rockhurst puts runners like me in a great location because we have the trolley train and loose park so close to campus. The trolley trial is like .75 miles from campus and Loose Park is like 1.5 miles from campus. Running this time of year outside is so enjoyable you do not have to worry about being too hot or too cold.

                While I am on the topic of running my friend and I have taken it upon ourselves to restart running club. I was surprised when I came to Rockhurst my freshman year how many people liked to run. Running club existed for a while my freshman year but then the people running it just got too busy. We had decent attendance at running club my freshman year. So my friend Amy and I are restarting running club we already have over twenty people who have signed up which is really exciting!! We are going to start doing group runs next week. It was really encouraging that we already have people volunteering to lead the runs. As I am sure I have blogged about before there is a 5k on campus that a lot of students participate in. 

Also if you are ever just needing some encouragement and a friendly reminder of how good we have it watch this video. It is the Cancer floor of a children's hospital singing the song stronger. This past week I was talking with a friend about how fortunate we are in life. After that conversation I could not get this video out of my mind.                             

Quote for the Week  

"It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. 2 Corinthians 3:5" 

Happy Easter!!

Hi All,

Hope everyone is having a good Easter weekend! I was fortunate enough to be able to come home for Easter weekend. It has been fun to be able to be home with  my whole family. This is the first time we have all been home since Christmas break. My sister and I had different spring breaks so we did not get to see each other over spring break.

Easter Sunday has been a quiet day for us, we went to 9:30 mass this morning and it was really nice. Church was packed this morning, the choir sounded great and it was great to see family friends who were there. To make it even better the homily was great! The church was decorated so nicely.

Last night we went to the Easter Vigil. I have to admit it was long (at like 2.75 hours) but it is always so exciting to welcome new members into the church and just welcoming in Easter.

I grew up spending a lot of time at the church volunteering with different projects etc so it is fun going to church. It was also nice to see some of my friends who were back from college for the weekend.

On Thursday night we went to church to the Holy Thursday service. At our church everyone has the opportunity to wash their families feet at the mass not just wash some people's feet like at some churches. Then on Friday afternoon we went to the Junior High stations of the cross. They did a great job! My mom was in charge of coordinating the stations of the cross.

This week looks to be a busy week. This is the last 5 week stretch of classes then finals. The weekends get really busy as honors inductions come up and other things. More details to come in the following  blog entries. This week also my internship enters into full swing.

Hope you have a great week! Enjoy the Easter Sunday!

Exciting events and holy week

Hi All,

Today Palm Sunday marks the start of holy week.  This evening we had a nice student mass to observe the start of this holy week for Catholics all over the globe.

This past week was super crazy. Which started off with Lisa Ballantine, the founder of the organization called  FilterPure came to campus. On Monday night some of us that went to Haiti last year got to go out to dinner with her and that was great to her more about her organizations work and where she sees her organization going in the future. Then after a very delicious dinner at Brio (I must say there mini desserts are really good :) I had this strawberry cheesecake one) Lisa went to give a presentation to the student body at Rockhurst. We had about 60 people come to talk which was a really good turn out for an SAB (Student Activities Board) event! SAB was even nice even to provide snacks at the event. The talk was really well received  She spoke about following your passion and being open to where ever God might take you in life. She told the story of how she re engineered the filter design and has been able to distribute over 60,000 filters to date (pretty amazing if I must say so myself). If you want to learn more about the Rockhurst efforts with FilterPure I invite you to check out www.filterpurefilters.org/ru.htm. If you click on the FilterPure logo on that page you will be taken to their main site where you can learn more about FilterPure as well.

Lisa stayed through Tuesday when we had Karokee for a Cause which is sponsored by Voices for Justice. The event features various organization on campus singing, all for a good cause. This year Filter Pure was the beneficiary of the event. We raised like $900+ at that event. Considering the water filters produced by filter pure cost only $35 per one that is a lot of water filters that will be able to be distributed to the region in Haiti we are working in.

On Friday I got an internship offer for this summer which is super exciting I will post more details about that down the road.

Ohh by the way Rockhurst just got dumped in with snow. We got about 6 inches of snow over night. It is a little crazy to get a snow storm this last in the year. In Chicago it is normal but in Kansas City I do not think it is quite as normal.

Well I have to get up bright and early tomorrow morning as I register for classes for the fall semester tomorrow at 7am! Being in the honors program a perk is that honors students get to register for classes before all the other undergraduate students. :)

Hope you have a blessed holy week.