Announcements!

First of all, I just want to thank everyone who responded in some way to my last blog post. The views on this blog have more than doubled from just that one piece - to say I was overwhelmed is a bit of an understatement! I have so enjoyed reading all of the discussions that it inspired. I got such great positive feedback and encouraging words from a wide range of people - anyone from Facebook friends to people from all over the world who just happened to stumble across it. I'm glad that I was able to put the experiences of so many into words and help people realize that they are not alone.

So, I'm sorry to those of you who asked for one, but this won't be another post addressing something important - though don't worry, one will surely come. This is, like the title says, some exciting announcements!

After the last post went live, a former classmate and Relay for Life committee member sent me a message. He's now a teacher at a local New Orleans high school and wants to use the post in his sessions with students! So next month, my blog will be used in an educational setting, and the following class period, I'll be coming to talk to the students and discuss race and stereotypes in our society. How cool is that?

Also, the wonderful Trinity Griffin (who is the same Trinity I mentioned in that last post) has nominated me for a Liebster Award!

I'm stealing the description from her blog:

"The Liebster Award is a sweet way of encouraging bloggers with less than 200 followers (like me!). Once you're nominated, you answer 11 questions given to you, nominate 5 more blogs with less than 200 followers, and then ask them 11 questions."

Here are my eleven questions to answer:

1. What is your favorite thing about fall?
My favorite thing about fall back home is all of the beautiful leaves. I also really miss bonfires. Fall in New Orleans...does not exist.

2. What's on your fall playlist?

I don't have one - I don't make playlists by seasons, usually just by what type of music I feel like listening to. But the last Spotify playlist I made was the soundtrack to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

3. Would you rather take a vacation on the East coast or the West coast?
East coast - I have family there!

4. Who is your role model?
My mom. Even a head injury won't stop her from trying to be the best mother and friend possible. (She also has a blog - check her out here!)

5. If your life was a movie, who would you want to play you?
I was actually just asked this question during rush for Phi Sigma Pi. I'd want Keke Palmer to play me - plus, fun fact, her real name is Lauren. So it was meant to be.

Yeah, someone this gorgeous needs to play me.

6. If you had to choose one item of clothing to represent your personality, what would it be?
Jeans. Comfy and versatile, can be dressed up or dressed down! (I'll let you decide if that's a metaphor for my personality or not.)

7. What is your most treasured possession?
I don't know that I have one - but if I did, it would be a book.

8. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A writer. (Hey, it's working!) Figure skater, pop star, and President of the United States were tossed around, too.

9. Heels or flats?
Flats. Dear god, please don't make me walk in stilettos.

10. What fall color best describes your personality?
Purple.

11. Halloween, Thanksgiving, or Christmas? Favorite?
Ooh...Thanksgiving edges out Christmas. I love Christmas, but I always stress out over finding the right gift for people. I just want it to be perfect! But I love Thanksgiving - I get to be with my whole family, the whole house is warm and smells fantastic, there's seasonal music on the stereo, and everyone makes something delicious to eat. Halloween gets an honorable mention, too.

I'll post my nominations and questions in an update soon! 

And the final announcement, reserved for those who have made it through this whole post...

Drumroll, please...

I finished the second draft of my novel! 

Me yesterday after I typed the last word. 

That's why there's an update today and there wasn't one yesterday - yesterday I was hard at work on the last few pages of that draft, and I am proud to say that it's complete! It took me one year and ended up being much longer than I anticipated (343 pages and over 100,000 words), but I am so incredibly happy to actually have a result of all of my hard work.

It's not completely done yet - I'll be beginning the editing process soon. It needs to be read over for continuity, to make sure all of the characters have strong, individual voices, etc. But that won't take as long as actually writing it did. 

Then, after that...who knows? With any luck, it'll end up on your bookshelf. :)

Back to Hogwarts...I mean, Tulane.

I've returned to blogging!

I had intended to start again two weeks ago, but weekends just kept coming and going and let's face it, I am a lazy girl at heart. Plus even though I had some down time when I first moved in, I have once again become incredibly busy. Welcome Week preparation, the beginning of classes, and Welcome Week itself kind of took over my life. And I had to face another end - the end of being an Orientation Team Leader.

My first two weeks back in the States were mostly spent prepping for Welcome Week with the rest of the OTLs. My specific role was social media/marketing, so I had a lot less to do than the OTLs who actually had an event coming up to plan. All of the disparities in amount of work to do meant that we worked on our own time rather than coming into the office, which meant that I had more free time than I knew what to do with.

I'm going to let you in on a (not-so-secret) secret. I am the worst person ever when it comes to free time. I'm used to running around to multiple places a day, having a ton of things to do, and a strict structure to my day that means I actually get my ish done. Free time means I spend way too much time on YouTube and end up with five days straight of being unproductive.

Which means that this huge list of things for the OTLs to do makes me happy.

Training for the OCs (Orientation Coordinators) began the Thursday before Welcome Week. The OCs are the ones who actually take the freshmen to every WW event, have one-on-one time with them during the week, and put on events for the group that they're in charge of. The first day of OC training was held at the Audubon Zoo, which meant that we all got to get out of the freezing Student Affairs office and spend time outside! (Though, thankfully, not the whole day outside. It was too dang hot for that.)

Introducing ourselves to the OCs

OTLs take great candid photos.

Before we knew it, training was over, it was 8AM Saturday morning, and the Class of 2017 and their parents were taking over campus.

Move-in day is best described as organized chaos, as anyone who has ever moved into college on that designated day knows. Students show up with U-Hauls for a dorm room that's half the size of their room at home, parents are trying to cope with their son or daughter leaving home and are overly emotional, no one knows their way around campus, parking is a nightmare...and the OTLs, OCs, and move-in volunteers all signed up for this mess willingly. I think we're all insane.

I was in charge of the OCs and move-in volunteers for Wall and Paterson along with another OTL, Pam. I was lucky enough to have great people - everyone was really hardworking and on top of whatever they were supposed to do, which helped every time five cars full of stuff all pulled up to the dorms at the same time. It kept threatening to rain - sometimes it would drizzle and torment us with the thought that it was about to storm and soak everything - but miracle of miracles, it actually held off.

After the five hour chaos of move-in, the OTLs had about an hour to go home, shower, and change for the President's Convocation. I got to carry one of the seven gonfalons down the aisle to begin convocation, which was pretty awesome...even though I tripped. (But I'm pretty sure only the people in the front row saw. Or I hope so.)

Gonfalon and the chance to wear a new dress!

Looking very academic and official in my robes.

After convocation there was a reception for all freshmen and their families with President Cowen, other administrators, and of course the fantastic OTLs that helped to plan their June orientation and Welcome Week. It was great seeing some of my freshmen again, even if I was having trouble remembering names. (Hey, I warned them. Names are not my strong point.)

OTLs with President Cowen!

Lovely lady OTLs

Welcome Week is officially over as of yesterday, and it's weird to think that I won't be spending the bulk of my time with the other OTLs anymore. I got sappy in my last post about the end of Exeter, so I'm going to avoid that here, but this was a great group of people to work with and I have loved my job.

In the midst of all of this Orientation stuff going on, my apartment was becoming a home, too. All three of my suite-mates have now moved in and we bought decoration and extra furniture for the apartment. It's now a lot less sterile and white, though there's still a bit of work to do. We've even cooked! (Multiple times, which I'm sure is a shock to my family who never sees me in the kitchen.)

Roommate date to a food truck festival!

The bookshelf that Emily and I bought and assembled ourselves. 

It's an actual real dinner that we made!

I really like my classes so far, though I can tell that they're all going to be a lot of work. Thankfully, I'll only be in class Tuesday through Thursday, which gives me a lot of time to work (I officially started freelance writing for Kicker!) and go to my internship. I foresee hundreds of pages being written this semester...especially since there's that novel I'm working on, too, which recently hit 300 pages! Thank god I like writing.

Some highlights from the past week in pictures, since this blog post is already pretty long:

Allyson with a 1-day-old alligator at Reily Rocks, the first WW event

On-campus concert Sunday - STRFKR

Flash mob at Monday's New Student Welcome!

Actual people at a Tulane home football game

We won, we won!

My strawberry/pineapple snoball from the year's first Fridays at the Quad

Friday's Riverboat Cruise - last Welcome Week event!

Westboro Baptist Church crashed the Southern Decadence celebrations. They were laughed at.

My aim is to make a new post every Sunday from now on. I feel like I'll definitely have enough to talk about for each week. I also changed the title and revamped the side bar a little bit - check it out!

Being abroad does not improve Mondays.

So...

England doesn't make Mondays any better. Mondays are still crap. 

I'm very tempted to just say, "That's it. That's the blog post for today." I guess I'll be a good person and writer and actually describe my day...though compared to my weekend, it was extremely boring. 

We started off the day with a quick briefing about what was going to be happening this week. Lyndon, the program manager, also decided it would be a great idea to remind us that this is our last week. Not a good idea, Lyndon. We're all going to cry - none of us are ready to leave, even those of us continuing on abroad somewhere else! 

Classes started as usual for each pathway after that initial presentation. Our morning lecture was taught by Dr. Ed Paleit, who was lecturing on Shakespeare's classicism. The talk itself was engaging, but I kept getting distracted by the way he spoke - he often stopped for long pauses at odd times or would close his eyes and gesticulate while speaking. Honestly, it kind of looked like this:

Sorry Dr. Ed, not to compare you to Zefron as a person, but this is what you look like.

I did enjoy the lecture, though. It was interesting to discover what Shakespeare would have been taught during his school years and then look at how that education manifested itself in his written work. That also led to a discussion on how much freedom of thought the British grammar school system offered at that time, and if they were educating their students to be free-thinkers and analyzers or molding them to follow the crowd. It was my favorite lecture of the day by far.

After lunch (during which I spent no money on food - YAY), we went back upstairs for our second lecture. Unfortunately, this wasn't quite as engaging as the first - no offense to Prof. McRae, the man of those two hours. It was our first specific session on The Tempest today, which I enjoyed. The first hour of class, however, was used up by our professor speaking in this monotonous and calming voice. A few of the girls sitting behind me fell asleep. I managed to avoid sinking into a stupor, but I did notice my notes getting progressively messier as the lecture went on. You can practically see my level of attention on the page, determined by the messy or neat state of my handwriting. 

After class, we went to an information session about graduate study in the United Kingdom. I'm not completely sold, but I am definitely not taking the possibility of getting my master's degree abroad off the table. I know that I'll want to go back to England, and graduate study abroad is an easy step towards that goal. I'm thinking Spanish-speaking country for my next abroad experience, though...we'll see. 

The highlight of my day would probably be going back to The Firehouse (we seem to be making this a habit) and finally ordering one of their famous pizzas. It was delicious! We had a group of 8 that split the pizza between us, and not only did it taste great, but it was cheap. Once we split the bill, the total came to less than a pound for each of us. Difficult to beat that one.

After the incredibly eventful last few posts, this makes today look even less eventful than it did before. I think I needed it, though - a nice, slower paced day was what I needed after the bustle of the weekend. Just wait. Come tomorrow, everyone's energy will be back again...

Introduction to Exeter

First full day in Exeter - complete.

Today functioned as an introduction to the school and the city, which was a great transition from the social London program to the academic portion at the university. Though we arrived yesterday, most of us were too exhausted to do any exploring. They did, however, welcome us with an excellent barbecue. Something that was really foreign to me was chatting with professors over alcoholic drinks - something that rarely occurs in the States!

Hanging around at the BBQ

The weather was beautiful!

We also received our welcome packets and ID cards yesterday, which made me feel official.

Today started off with an introductory presentation to present an overview of how classes at the summer school will be taught and what they expect from us as students. It was held in the Forum, which is a brand new building on campus that was opened by Her Majesty the Queen just last year. More impressive to the students, however, were the purple and pink lecture chairs that swiveled 360 degrees. 

After that presentation, we split up according to academic track to go on a tour of campus. I really liked being able to see who I'll be learning with before we actually begin classes tomorrow, and it seems like we'll have an awesome group. Campus itself is a pretty good size, over 300 acres, and extremely hilly - I am going to have amazing legs by the time I leave! It's also incredibly beautiful, and I can't believe that people get to live here nine months out of the year. 

View from my dorm, Holland Hall

One of many very old trees on campus

One of Exeter's ponds

There's so much vegetation and green space on campus that the university is actually a registered botanical garden.  Administration has also recently invested millions into the campus, so many of the buildings are either brand new or recently renovated. All in all, I think everyone in our group was impressed. 

After the campus tour, we took a break for lunch at one of the many places to eat on campus. We chose the Terrace Café, which is in the Students' Guild. I got made to order stir fry, which was delicious, and found out that Coke has been literally calling people by name to buy their product in the UK.

They got me.

After lunch, it was time for our tour of the actual city of Exeter. Even though the city is quite big, it still manages to have a small-town feel in some areas. Streets vary from being narrow and pedestrian to resembling more of a typical downtown metropolitan area. Also not far is the quay, where you can go canoeing on the river. 

One end of the road to the quay

The quay, with a peek at the river

A street in Princesshay, the shopping district

There are key points in Exeter for both the religious and the nerdy. There is of course the well-known Exeter Cathedral, which was unfortunately under construction today.

Inscription on the walkway to the cathedral

Exeter Cathedral

For the nerdy, some original Harry Potter locations are in Exeter. J.K. Rowling graduated from the University of Exeter and so drew her inspiration for some places from the city - it's definitely a great place to spark creativity!

Gandy Street, inspiration for Diagon Alley

People also say that The Firehouse, a pub in Exeter that's frequented often by students, was the inspiration for The Leaky Cauldron. I didn't snap a picture, but we'll be headed there before our time here is done!

I explored the city a bit more after the tour with two girls from Denmark (Stine and Anna), a girl from France (Juliette), a guy from China (Harold), and another American from New Jersey (Bryan). We ducked into a bookstore and I was able to pick up The Cuckoo's Calling, J.K. Rowling's new book under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. It's much cheaper to buy hardback books here than it is in the States!

My souvenirs for the day

In a few minutes I'll be going with a group to check out The Imperial pub, which is apparently quite famous. I'm excited to see it! Our visit will be brief, though - classes start tomorrow morning, and with them the academic portion officially begins. Let the international exchange of ideas begin!

A Fresh Start

Alrighty, so...I'm back in the blogging world again!

I've been meaning to restart blogging for ages - I created my first blog back in 2005 at a local writing camp and my friends and I went absolutely overboard. We had personal blogs and Harry Potter blogs and lord have mercy I hope none of those posts have survived cyberspace. (I cringed when I saw my original 'introduction.' Twelve year old me did not know how to present herself online very well.) I had already decided on making this summer a time of healing and transitioning to a new point in my life, so what better time to start a blog? Especially when there's something as exciting as a trip to England in store...

Yep. I still can't quite believe it either.

In just a few minutes I'll be leaving my house, heading to the airport, and hopping on a plane to London to attend the University of Exeter's International Summer School! (Well, technically I'll be hopping on a plane to Detroit first...details.) I'm super excited about this opportunity. I can't wait to experience the country and meet students from all over the world. So that's how I'll be kicking off this blog - documenting what will surely be an amazing time abroad.

I'll wrap up this post before I make myself late for said time abroad - look for another post hopefully tomorrow about my first day!