School: I plan on continuing my education here at Marian University. While I am here at school I plan on putting my classes and studies first. School is my job for the next four years, I want to leave here feeling as though I got my money worth and a more well rounded individual. My intended degree right now is Nursing where I will become a Registered Nurse. If schooling is still an interest of mine and I’m not completely sick of it by senior year, I might stay and work towards becoming a Nurse Practitioner. I think staying in school for the extra years and becoming a Nurse Practitioner would bring more benefits to me in the future but it all depends on what is going on in my life during senior year here and if I want to get out of school and start working.

Work: My dream ever since I was little was to work at Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee. I remember visiting my little cousin at Children’s Hospital and seeing all the nurses who were always there helping her to get better. I would love to be that nurse that makes a difference in a young child’s life every day when at work. Although sometimes things might not go the way the doctors intended, I still think that there would be enough positive things to make me look forward to my job every day. Another interest of mine would be to work at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore. I think living in a large city and being a part of the accredited large medical staff would be amazing. I used to watch shows that were about the hospital and found it interesting to see all the different cases that came into the hospital and how the doctors treated the patient in different ways. If I don’t end up at Johns Hopkins, working at Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee would be just as great for me.

Wedding: I want to get married once I have a successful job that I enjoy. I have two ideas when it comes to my wedding either a beach wedding during the summer or an outside wedding in the fall. I love the idea of having all my guests wearing comfortable clothes and sandals when coming to my wedding if it was at the beach. Decorating would also be fun because you could have tiki torches all around the beach during the reception. I also think it would to arrive on a boat to the shore, like my Mom’s cousin did. If the wedding was in fall I would want to have in an area that is known for having lots of different colors in the trees and leaves on the ground. We could decorate with sunflowers and pumpkins or anything that really has to do with fall. Both weddings would be ideal for Door County, Wisconsin.

Family Life: I would love to have kids in the future. This is after I find a successful job that I enjoy and get married. I wouldn’t want to have more than two kids. I would love to have a girl who I can spoil and take shopping all the time. Having a boy would also be fun for me because I would love going to all the sporting events. When I’m a parent I am going to encourage my kids to join different clubs and sports. I also think that is it important to have a family pet. I grew up with yellow labs ever since I was little and feel like they are the best family dog to have. The dog would probably come before the kids and maybe we would get another dog after the kids are a little older for them to take care of.

House: At some point in my life I would love for my family to live in a house that my husband and I planned and had built. My house doesn’t have to be too big. I would be happy with enough rooms for everyone to comfortably fit in. I do however want more than one bathroom. One bathroom will be needed in the master bath, the kids can have a bathroom, and a different bathroom probably downstairs in the basement. I grew up with only having one bathroom in the house and that definitely is not efficient for a family to work with. My basement in my house would also be finished and have a tv, couch, games, and other fun things. This would serve as a hang out place for the kids, I want my house to be the house that everyone wants to go to. I would also like my house to be suitable for parties and outdoor gatherings for my husband and I to have friends over and have a good time. He can have football parties and I will have candle and wine parties. I love planning events and decorating for different holidays like CHRISTMAS, so there has to be enough space in my home for that to happen!

The list of my dreams and future goals could go on and on forever. This is just a taste of what I want to happen in my future, things may change which is okay too but this is my start.

On my 45 minute drive home I thought about all the things that I wanted to get accomplished during my Thanksgiving break. My list included things like rearrange my room, finish my biology project, work on other homework, decorate for my FAVORITE holiday Christmas, go shopping, and the BEST of all EAT TURKEY! I had it all planned out Tuesday was going to be set aside to do homework, Wednesday was for rearranging my room, Thursday eat some turkey, Friday shopping, and Saturday/Sunday relax.

Tuesday: Tuesday went pretty well, I got most of my biology project done that was due when we came back from break. It didn’t take as long as I planned for it to so I was able to finish other homework as well.

Wednesday: Wednesday was originally set aside for rearranging my room and cleaning it. However, that morning I was sent on a mission to go to town to get a pie for Thanksgiving. When in town I realized that I should probably get an eye exam because I was wearing my last pair of contacts. After getting the delicious pie that I could have fully eaten at that moment, I traveled to the eye doctor. The eye doctor was in and I would be able to get an eye exam. Score. What I thought was going to be a good thing, quickly turned into a nightmare. For the next hour I was treated with the worst service I could ever have imagined. I don’t know if I came on a bad day or what, but no one in that office was happy to see me. After meeting with the eye doctor he proceeds to say “I will see you on Friday then.” Ummm…Friday? Why Friday? He then told me that he needed to make sure that the new contacts were going to be okay for my eyes. I didn’t see the point in having to go back to town on Friday for him to look at the contacts that I have been wearing for years now. Not only did this frustrate me but doesn’t he know that Friday is the day after Thanksgiving otherwise known as BLACK FRIDAY the best shopping day of the year?? I left the eye doctor very cranky that day and was tempted to fix my anger by eating that pie that I just purchased.

Thursday: HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Thursday was the day that I was going to finally eat turkey. We traveled to my Grandma’s house in the late morning in order to make it in time for the packer game. When we arrived I was greeted by family members and the great smells of the Thanksgiving meal in the kitchen. I wish meals like that would be here for us at school! All of my favorites were there, homemade garlic mashed potatoes, cranberry fluff, the famous stuffing recipe, turkey, and pumpkin pie. I left Grandma’s house feeling like I should unbutton my pants, I ate so much!

Friday: Friday, the day I was and wasn’t looking forward too. The Friday I wasn’t looking forward to was going back to the eye doctor where I received horrible service two days prior. Thankfully, we were helped by a lady who was EXTREMELY nice. I didn’t think that there was a nice lady in that place until I met her. She helped us pick out glasses and order contacts in a short amount of time (she was more time effective than the previous ladies). We were then able to finally SHOP and enjoy Black Friday. We shopped around in town for a variety of things that we were looking for that were on sale, then headed to Appleton to hit up the mall. We were surprised when we got to Appleton to see that traffic wasn’t as bad as we thought it was going to be, probably because we first arrived around ten in the morning. When we got to the mall and saw the parking lot we thought that we for sure were going to be parking in the last spot possible far away from the mall. As we were driving up the aisle a car was backing out. No way! We got a spot that was right in front of the mall entrance. Friday was going to be a good day. We were at the mall for the rest of the day shopping for ourselves and our exchange names that we picked the day before at Grandma’s house for Christmas. At the end of the day we were ready to fall to the floor. Everything from my head to my feet hurt. We headed over to Olive Garden for supper before heading home. Olive Garden always seems to cheer us up and it did. The meal was excellent and was a good ending to our shopping day. Once we got home it was straight to bed for the both of us, we were mentally and physically drained. Shopping is hard work.

Saturday/Sunday: Saturday and Sunday were nice relaxing days to end Thanksgiving break with. I was very excited when we started to decorate for my favorite holiday, Christmas! Sunday night brought a close to my Thanksgiving break, it was back to school in the morning for about two and a half weeks until the next break. Thanksgiving break was a nice time to relax and spend time with my family, friends, and boyfriend, all who I am VERY THANKFUL for and appreciate having each one of them in my life.

How many days until Christmas break???

Traveling by Air:

It was a very long trip from getting to Spain from the United States. We started our journey by flying out of Chicago. We flew out in the late afternoon, so we would be flying during the night and would arrive to Spain in the day time where we would immediately start our trip. Once we were on the plane out of Chicago we had to fly to Paris where we got on a connecting flight to Madrid, Spain. Before we could fly out of Chicago we had to go through the air port security and customs. Every liquid item had to be under three fluid ounces and in a clear plastic bag if it was going to be in your carry on. I was very nervous about going through security and didn’t want them to find something wrong and then take my stuff and throw it away, but I made it through security just fine. We boarded the LARGE plane and began our flight. It got very cold on the plane and I remember sleeping was very hard especially with the turbulence. My seat was also by the bathroom, so I had to deal with people walking past me throughout the whole flight. The nice thing about the plane was the TV screens in the back of the seats. With these TVs you could play games, watch pretty current movies, and listen to music. We were also served supper on this trip. Let me tell you, it was the typical plane food I was expecting. It didn’t taste good at all. I was so glad that I had packed a ton of snacks in my carry on, so I was set. Once we got to Paris we had to run around the airport to find our terminal and almost missed our flight to Spain because our Chicago plane landed late. One part that slowed us down at the Paris airport was security and customs. Everything was going fine until I got up to the scanner/metal detector. My backpack was pulled off the scanner by one of the security people and I beeped going through the metal detector. Great, just what we needed when we were already RUNNING to get to our next plane. The lady asked me if she could search me and she found nothing. Then she took the wand up and down my body. When she got to my back it beeped. I knew right away what it was. She then took the wand to the front of my body and it beeped. She started to smile and said something in French to the guys in the back, who then started laughing. I told her it’s my bra and she smiled and laughed and said I could go on. I then had to go to a guy who looked like he could easily beat someone up. He asked if he could search my backpack and I said yes. He started pulling out some things and then pulled out my huge bag of sunflower seeds (out of the shell) and held them in the air for the other guys to see, who then started to laugh. I was then told I could go on, not only did they think I had some weapon on me they now thought I was smuggling drugs! Everything else went smoothly on our next flight to Spain and surprisingly on the way home I didn’t encounter any of the problems that I did getting to Spain. I would suggest if you are going to be traveling on a plane for over ten hours that you bring a good book, a fully charged Ipod, some magazines, and some food because air plane food is horrible. Also, you might not want to wear a bra that has wire in it or bring a huge bag of sun flower seeds.

Food/Dining:

Before traveling to Spain, I expected to eat a lot of fish and seafood seeing as Spain is located so close to the Mediterranean Sea. I’m not a big fish eater and the smell of fish usually makes me nauseous. Knowing this I was very afraid of starving the ten days while I was in Spain and was convinced that I would come back twenty pounds lighter. The only thing that was on our mind when we got to Spain was food, we were starving. After what was served on the airplane it was safe to say that we hadn’t eaten anything for about fifteen hours or more. Our first meal was at a “cafeteria”. A cafeteria in Spain, is a place that offers a variety of small lunch options and different sides called tapas. This cafeteria didn’t do so well when they made their menus because the pictures of the food didn’t look appetizing at all. I ordered something that looked like ham rolled up with cheese and then deep-fried. When I got my meal it was exactly that, deep-fried greasy ham roll ups with fries. I figured this was the only meal that would be like this when I was in Spain. However, that assumption was wrong almost every meal that I had while in Spain had ham somewhere in it and was served with fries. I swear in during the ten days I was in Spain, I had eaten ham in every way possible and starting getting nauseous effects from it. Ham was everywhere in Spain, you couldn’t avoid it. Almost every diner that you walked in you saw smoked pig legs hanging from the ceiling, otherwise known as ham. By the end of the trip, I was wishing for that plate of fish and seafood.

The service in restaurants is very different in Spain than it is here in the United States. When you go to a restaurant here in the United States you are typically seated, have your order taken, and served food shortly after you place your order. When you arrive to a restaurant in Spain you are seated, asked what you want to drink and given a menu. You will then sit there for about ten minutes before the waitress/waiter comes to take your order. It will then take more time depending on what you ordered for your food to finally arrive at your table. Once you are done eating you shouldn’t expect to get your bill right away because it’s going to take another ten to fifteen minutes. The restaurants in Spain are more relaxed and encourage you to take your time and enjoy the atmosphere of the restaurant, that’s why it takes so long. We had to learn to become very patient when we went to eat because we were so used to the “American” lifestyle of having everything fast. Another tip I have for you is to not ask for separate checks, it never worked for us.

Hostel/Hotels:

 The first couple of places that we stayed at were hostels. Hostels are usually pretty cheap and don’t offer many amenities like a hotel would. The hostels would not have air conditioning, making sleeping at night very difficult. The good thing about the hostels was that they typically had a balcony or a porch with doors that we could open at night to let the breeze in. The temperature in Spain cools down at night, even though it’s not a huge dramatic difference it was still enough to somewhat cool down the room. The hostels that we stayed in had two beds in them, a bathroom with a toilet, and shower, a TV, and usually a small closet with a safe. It was very different staying in a hostel because I was so used to staying in hotels when I traveled that had air conditioning, cable TV, a pool, free internet, and other “valuable” features. Our teacher told us that we stayed in the better hostels that were in the country and that some hostels have real poor conditions because they can’t keep up on fixing things because the rent is so cheap. We did stay at two hotels that did have air conditioning, no one wanted to leave those hotels. The thought of going back to a cold air-conditioned hotel room made the day of walking miles and miles a lot faster because we had something to look forward too.

Clothing/Appearance:

The clothing in Spain was very different from what we are used to seeing here in the United States. Most likely because they are all stick skinny. Both men and women would wear skinny jeans. Women would also wear large sunglasses like we do here in the United States and would also accessorize with scarves. Baggy shirts with leggings underneath were very common among the women as well. Most women in Spain would wear heels or flats. I noticed that the type of heels that are out now in the stores is what we saw the women wearing when we were in Spain. Women looked very simple, with little to no makeup and their hair either down or pulled up in a pony tail. Men usually had longer hair or hair that was slicked back and looked professional whether it was day time or night. One thing that shocked me was the number of people wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants on days where the temperature was over 110 degrees! We were dying from the heat and they were walking around dressed like what would be winter here in the United States. The stores had many new styles and clothes that we were not used to seeing here in the United States when we were over in Spain, but now I am seeing them more in the stores. If I could compare the styles of women to a store here in the United States it would be Forever 21 because they dressed pretty funky/retro.

Night Life:

The day for many people living in Spain starts to first become active around 10:00 p.m. The streets around ten every night become flooded with people of all ages. Spain has many dance clubs that are popular with the teens that live in the country. At night our group definitely stuck out like a sore thumb because we weren’t dressed up in fancy dresses, dress shirts, and other clothes that you would wear if you were going out. The night life gets pretty crazy the more people drink causing the police to be patrolling the streets more. The streets would become very dirty during the night hours when everyone was out going to the clubs. Beer bottles, cigarettes, paper, and other liter could be found all over the walkways. By morning however, the clean up crews would have the street looking spotless with no garbage and washed down. The morning after a big night in Spain you could find many people, still wearing their fancy clothes, finally walking home from the club to get some sleep. A lot of times the drunk men would whistle at us and one day they ended up following us, barely being able to stand on their own.  We had another encounter with the people who lived in the city when we got lost and ended up on a street that I will never forget. This was a street that three girls probably shouldn’t have been walking down by themselves, especially not knowing where they were going. On every corner, street lamp, or tree there would be a woman wearing what most of us would never even consider wearing. We quickly got off of this street once we realized what these women were potentially doing and why men were walking up and down the street whistling and hollering at the women.

 I would love to go back to Spain one day, this time without a group and explore the cities and sites on my own. The culture and way of life is so interesting there and I think it would be fun to vacation there again. Also the shopping is a lot of fun with all the different styles!

Lunch that week was going great, the meals were better than I expected. I already knew the Lean Cuisine Barbeque Chicken Pizza would be a good because I had already tried that earlier. The Pizza Stromboli ended up being a good buy as well, surprisingly it didn’t taste like a cardboard box. A couple of days I just had a bowl of fruit for lunch with a sandwich and some chips, trying to eat a variety of foods and ultimately avoiding the dreaded “freshman fifteen”. My prayers of having a roommate switch were answered during this week (see previous post for details) and I would have to move all my food over to my new room when I moved all my stuff. My new roommate had the fridge from her old roommate that was moving out. Her old roommate said that she could use it until she had the chance to get a new one. When I moved my fridge stuff over to the new fridge I knew right away that I was going to have a hard time fitting all my stuff into the fridge. I shouldn’t have been too worried about the fridge section, it was the freezer section that was going to get me.

The new room fridge is probably over five years old and is still one of those fridges that have the one big door with the little freezer on top. I was treated like a princess in the old room because that fridge had a separate door for the fridge section and another for the freezer. The fridge was a pretty decent size and held both of our food with enough room for more food. The freezer in this fridge was large enough that you could probably get a gallon of ice cream in it along with some other frozen meals. If the new room fridge and the old room fridge would be in a fight the new room fridge wouldn’t stand a chance. This fridge was MUCH smaller and you couldn’t practically get your hand into the freezer flap near the top, it was that small. I didn’t have too much stuff left in the freezer of my old fridge so I attempted to squeeze everything into this little space called the freezer in the new room. After taking everything out of the box I somehow got everything into the top. That night I went to bed happy that I didn’t have to store my food in the freezer in the kitchen in Naber Hall.

The next morning I woke up and went to the fridge to pour myself a glass of orange juice. When I opened the fridge I could smell what seemed to be my cardboard box meals. I opened the freezer flap and found that my food was now thawing in the freezer and that our mini freezer didn’t work at all. What a piece of junk. I got out a plastic grocery bag and labeled it with my name, the date, and my room number and went down to the shared freezer to put my food in it. When I opened the door three packs of meat that looked like they had been in there from last year almost fell out and landed on my feet. After moving around different bags of labeled foods I found myself a spot for my labeled bag. The next day I went to the freezer and noticed that someone had cleaned it out. Thankfully my food was still there and I was able to eat lunch. I opened the bag and took out my meal and made sure that I knotted the bag after I was done.

The next day it was very cold outside and as I was walking back from my class I decided that some hot chicken fettuccini alfredo meal would taste REAL good. I had that meal on my mind until I got back to the dorm and opened the freezer. I went to my bag and noticed that the bag was ripped open. I thought it was kind of strange because I didn’t remember it being that way the previous day. When I reached into my bag, I realized that my meal was GONE.  Someone took the meal I wanted so badly for lunch and ate it. Not only was I furious I was upset that I could not only trust my previous roommate that I shared a room with, now I couldn’t even trust the people I lived with on my floor. I was ready to go through everyone’s garbage looking for the meal box that had MY meal in it. The fact that I paid for the meal with my own money and didn’t even get to enjoy it was on my mind too. I really hope whoever took my meal warmed it up and burnt their tongue when they tried it or choked on a noodle or a piece of chicken. I also hope that they were so nervous when they took it that they had it shoved up their shirt so no one would see it and got frostbite on their stomach and then when they were eating the meal thought about ME the person who bought the meal the whole time they were eating.

I really wish I could have caught the cardboard box meal stealer in the act but sadly that was not possible. We still have the same fridge in our room and I currently have no freezer food in that big freezer.

They took my food once, they aren’t getting away with it a second time and our BRAND NEW fridge with a separate doors for the freezer and fridge section should be here on sunday!

Maybe I should have taken some of these approaches to protecting my food in the shared freezer in Naber Hall…

I’m watching you and will catch you.

I had talked to my roommate on facebook prior to that Friday but never met her in person. By the time I was to get there she was supposed to be already moved in so it would be a perfect time to finally meet the girl I would be living with. I got butterflies in my stomach as we pulled up to Marian and had the “move-in” crew move everything and I mean everything, from our vehicles. I was overwhelmed when I walked into the room seeing my stuff thrown all over the place. There was only one thing missing, my roommate. I didn’t have her phone number to call her and ask her where she was so I began to unpack, hoping that she was on her way. We were finishing up putting my posters and pictures of my friends on the wall, we heard footsteps come into the door. My roommate had finally arrived. This was the girl I would room with for my first year of the best years of my life. I was getting more and more excited throughout the day to start this new journey in my life until it came to that night.

I knew before I met my new roommate that we were different in many ways. Everything from our morning routine to what kind of music we liked were different. If you had to label us I would be the “high maintenance girly-girl” and she would be the “tomboy”. Our differences were real clear when you looked into our room as well. My side had pink and black themed stuff, pictures of friends everywhere, and other girly type things. When you would see a bed, desk, dresser, and some army posters on the wall. I was up for the challenge though, these were supposed to be the best years of my life.

That night, the first time we actually had a real conversation other than about the room, she told me that she was planning on “kid-napping” some guy she knew to come sleep over in our room. I was a little shocked by this at first but figured I was going home during the weekend so it would be fine. She didn’t only tell me about this boy but proceeded to tell me a million other little stories about her life. By the time I went to bed, I heard it all from some army ball she went to, to her current guy interest. The next morning I woke up to get ready and she was still in bed. I went to the bathroom to get ready because I didn’t want to wake her up when I blow dried my hair. I went to my first two classes and came back and she was STILL in bed. Our room looked like a cave, it was completely black. So being a nice roommate I sat in the dark on my computer until she woke up. This happened every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

As the week went on I heard more stories about her random guys, things I didn’t really care about but pretended to because I didn’t want to become the rude roommate. As the week went on I began to get worried about living in this room for the next year. Things just weren’t going the way I wanted. It was the beginning of the third week at Marian, that I realized things weren’t going to work out. My roommate and I had nothing in common and no matter how hard I tried nothing was going work. She began doing little things that were slowly getting on my nerves. Some included not doing her dishes. Dishes would sit on her desk from Sunday to Monday before they would get washed. Her garbage also never got emptied and when you sat on the futon you could smell the mac and cheese cup in her garbage. I was also limited to having all my food in the small drawer in the fridge during this time. If something of mine was on “her shelf” it got moved. Another thing that really got to me was how she left her pants lie on the floor. It isn’t that hard to put them away, especially when your closet is less than five feet away. I started not wanting to be in my room anymore and would almost get depressed every time I stepped foot into it. These are supposed to be the best years of my life?

She would also bring random friends into our room. It was real awkward being in the room when she had her friends over so I would usually go across the hall. I did notice one thing though when I was in the room with them, they didn’t talk.  Instead they would sit on the futon using facebook chat to talk back and forth to each other. It was real strange, almost like they were talking about me. I also noticed that I seemed like she would bring people over just to show them what I was like. One time I was across the hall when she brought a guy over. His first statement when he walked in the room was, “Now I see what you mean by that half of the room”. My half of the room? Her side was the odd side of the room! But whatever, she kept bringing random friends over and I eventually got used to it. One weekend she told me she was going to have some guy stay in our room. I was so glad I wasn’t going to be there! When I came back I noticed the drawers in my closet were messed up. Someone was in my closet. I let it go for about a week until things really started getting bad and I finally confronted her. After I pretty much said “Listen here I know it was you just admit it,” she admitted that she went into MY drawers. She pulled the last straw. Now not only was I in a room with someone who I had nothing in common with, I was in a room with someone I couldn’t even trust. This definitely could not be how the best years of my life were to be spent.

Roommate switch week was around this time and one of the girls across the hall wasn’t going to be going to Marian anymore. This was my perfect opportunity! After many days of wondering if I would be able to switch across the hall to a room where my roommate and I would actually have something in common, I was given the okay to move. The minute those words came out of my RA’s mouth I was beginning to move stuff. I moved everything that night, there was NO WAY I was going to sleep another night in that depressing place. I am now living happily across the hall. The door of my old room is never open, I can just imagine what is growing on all those dishes that I am sure are accumulating on her desk. I feel so happy when I open the door of my new room and see sunshine. I am out of the cave with the person who I have nothing in common with and am now getting a new start to the best years of my life!