_ Wow, guys. Today is the official last day of my first week back at Vanderbilt, and I can’t believe that only a week has passed. It feels as if I’ve been back for at least a month because I’ve been so busy seeing people, starting new classes, shopping, singing, and just plain living! This post is basically a status-update on my life…

My first day back (Sunday) was absolutely amazing. I got to see my friends Shannon and Emily who live on my floor, as well as go to Chili’s with Emily, my possible future big or grand-big Kelsey, and my favorite Victory guys Corey, Jordan, and Mark. Then I somehow ended up in Jordan and Mark’s dorm room watching the finale of Season 2 of Doctor Who (which was really good btw) and talking with them until around midnight. So. Much. Awesomeness.

Just in case you missed my reference in the last paragraph, I’m thinking about joining a sorority. No, not your typical college sorority that Vandy’s so well known for, but Sigma Phi Lambda (Phi Lamb), a Christian sorority (not Panhellenic) whose rush is basically a week-long meet-and-greet to get to know the sorority and my possible future sisters (the majority of whom I believe I’m already friends with). The info sessions take place next week, followed by rush the week after, and I’m really excited about going to the events and deciding whether or not I want to join. The main reason I’m considering joining is because I would like to have a fellowship with other girls here (beyond my BCM involvement) who are strong in their faith and can support me (as I support them) in their walk with Christ. Plus, I’m just kind of curious to see what it’ll be like. =)

The middle of my week was filled with new classes (I LOVE my professors, especially my CS professors, who are the best of the best here) and catching up with friends in Victory, the BCM, and my classes. It also included a small freak-out session where I realized that I’m taking 19 hours and have yet to spend any serious amount of time on my homework. That’s what Monday is for, right?! Lol

Before I close to go finish some homework before the Harry Potter Yule Ball tonight (!), I wanted to include my song of the week! Yesterday was an amazing day (Friday the 13th, 13 being one of my lucky numbers) because it ended with Beauty and the Beast in 3D!!! The movie looks excellent translated into 3D, and I highly recommend seeing it! I’m even going to see it again next weekend… :)

It’s so good to be back.

Beauty and the Beast- "Beauty and the Beast"

_          Hello from two hours before my deadline. I feel like a bit of a slacker compared to the rest of you. I mean, Rachael had her blog up at three in the morning and here I am at 10:00 at night just now writing mine. Oh well, I feel as though I’m getting myself prepared for when classes start back, hehe.
            Although this week hasn’t been overly eventful, little bits of awesome have scattered themselves here and there. As Rachael mentioned, we met up with friends for dinner and a movie (I totally agree with your last sentence Rachael!) on Tuesday. Because both socializing with friends and eating are enjoyable activities I went out to dinner again, this time on Thursday with Tuesday, Wednesday, and half of Saturday (aka Sara, Rachael, and Sanaa) as well as our other friends Dwain and Nathanial where we once again stayed and talked for perhaps too long (3 hours). At least we weren’t the last ones at the restaurant this time.
            I ended up giving Sara a lift because 1) her dad took the only car she could drive and 2) her mom trusts my driving. I mentioned in conversation that it seemed several parents have always trusted my driving ability over the years for whatever reason and this led to another thing I consider pretty awesome about this week: Sanaa and Dwain creating something hilarious.

I laughed so much when I first saw these that I just had to share.

_

Thursday was also the first substantial snowfall of this winter.
Woohoo! Snow!

 

         I have actually been a tiny bit productive this week. I finally submitted my application to work at WinShape Camps this summer. I’ll hopefully hear from them sometime in January or February about an interview. *fingers crossed* Wish me luck.
        Thanks to Rachael’s suggestion last week, I’ve decided I’ll end my blogs with an awesome pick of the week. It may be something cool that’s happened to me, something awesome I’ve found online, maybe an interesting fact or funny picture occasionally.
This week it’s this:

_  As all of you know, I love the Vlogbrothers (The eight of us are all nerdfighters after all, whether everyone knows it or not) and John Green’s latest book came out on the tenth.  He signed the entire first printing and I picked myself up a copy.

_        I finished reading it on Wednesday and I’ve gotta say, I thoroughly enjoyed the story. I haven’t enjoyed all of John’s books, but I really liked this one. It’s not on my top list of favorites or anything, but I thought it was really good. And it’s just really cool having a tangible thing to remember John’s signing psychosis by.

_
Yes, I realize today is Friday the 13th. And yes, I wish I had thought of some cool way to incorporate it into my blog. But as you can see, I failed in that department.  

Hello from HARLAXTON MANOR!!! I still can hardly believe this is real. I’m living in a Victorian era manor house--basically a castle--and it is perfect. You guys, where do I begin? This has been one of the longest, busiest, and most exciting weeks of my life, and it’s only Thursday!
Okay, so I’ve been keeping a journal (in the notebook Sara gave me) and maybe that will help me recount a summary of my adventures each Thursday. Here we go…
To start at the beginning, I flew. By myself. Over an ocean. For the first time ever. That experience was exciting, obviously, but it seems like it happened ages ago. I did accomplish my Blue Envelope challenge: to have a conversation with the person sitting next to me on the flight from Boston to England. She was a very large woman from London, not my future husband OR a fat guy, as it turns out. I don’t think she was from London originally; she seemed to have a different accent, and I couldn’t understand what she said her name was, but it sounded like “Lucky,” so I called her that in my head the entire time. Anyway, she was the one to strike up the conversation before I’d ever opened my envelope. She asked me if I was on holiday. We had a brief conversation, but mostly we both slept. The plane had so many movies I wanted to watch, including all the Harry Potter movies, but a) I couldn’t figure out where the headphones go, and b) I figured I should sleep as much as I could. 
So, enough of the plane trip. When I arrived at the airport, I went to the immigration officer area, where I immediately spotted two orange luggage tags denoting Harlaxton students. So I made friends! And then Lauren, Kenzie, and I went on an adventure through the Heathrow airport, eventually meeting up with a TON of fellow Harlaxtonians. Sooner or later, we boarded a coach (that’s a bus), slept for two to three hours, then woke up approaching our future home at Harlaxton Manor.
Once we got to the manor, we had a bit of lunch, then got free time to explore. And, well, you saw all the pictures I took. Plus, I found a secret staircase on the first day! I met my roommates, who are both very nice, and we have a room that’s pretty huge. After that was a blur of orientations (complete with wine--I didn’t drink any) and convocations. We sang “God Save the Queen” and we had a fancy dinner. Potatoes are served at every meal, by the way. J. Morgan and I had a moment in the refectory (that’s the cafeteria), when we both exclaimed, “PO-TA-TOES. Boil ‘em, mash ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew!”
Also, I’ve been into the neighboring town of Grantham a few times. It’s a moderate sized city with lots of shops. There’s Pound Land (like our Dollar Tree), and Morrison’s (a grocery), and then there’s the granddaddy of them all: ASDA! It’s British Wal-Mart! And it has this escalator that doesn’t have steps, but an incline, so you can take your shopping cart up it. I bought Turkish Delight, solely because it reminded me of Narnia, but it was not delightful at all. The clerk was pretty spot on when he told me it tasted like “perfume jelly in chocolate.” Ugh.
On another note, I went to church on Sunday, at a Baptist church in Grantham. It was small and full of elderly people, who were all so adorable. A lovely lady named Ginny (I’m not sure it’s spelled with a G, but I’m going to assume, since it’s England) invited me and my friend Jordan to stay after the service for their “bring and share luncheon” (like a pot luck). The food was pretty good. I tried a meat pie--not bad--and I really liked the chicken sauce stuff they had to go over the baked potatoes (yes, MORE potatoes!). Afterward, Ginny and her husband Gerald gave us a lift (not a ride) back to the manor. They had been involved with the Meet a Family Programme here for a number of years, so they knew exactly where to drop us off and everything. Also at that church I had my first sip of wine (for communion, of course). Surprisingly it wasn’t nasty. I didn’t grimace, spit, or offend anyone like I had expected.
In other news, I have visited the basement pub called The Bistro once. Well, I never really went in the pub part, but they have a foosball table down there and I met a bunch of people, including a guy with six middle names. I can’t remember them all, unfortunately. Since then I’ve been to meetings galore: Christian fellowship group, Meet a Family, travel briefings, Harlaxton Players theatre group, etc., etc., etc.
Oh, and there’s also class. That thing we do here: learning. I almost forgot! (Kidding.) Yeah, classes are going well. British Studies is kind of overwhelming; they threw us right into the work and I’ve already given a group presentation. But it’s going to be interesting and the field trips will be a lot of fun. The entire school has British Studies lecture together…in the GREAT HALL! Seriously guys, this place is so amazing!
I’m also taking Environmental Science, which will probably be pretty easy, since the teacher is really laid back, and Writing Workshop, which is structured like my previous writing classes, so it shouldn’t be too bad. Over all, I’ve enjoyed my classes so far.
Totally off topic, last night there was a Ceilidh! That’s an Irish dancing function, but the band taught us Scottish, French, Swedish, and Israeli dances as well. Let me tell you, it was intense. It was kind of like Pride and Prejudice dancing in super fast-forward. Yeah, you want to work up a sweat, go to a Ceilidh (that’s pronounced Kay-lee, by the way). It was so much fun. I love Irish music.
Anyway, that about sums up the week. It’s been amazing so far, and I think it’s going to be a great semester. The principal (who is American, but just seems like a cute old British fellow) thinks it will be as well. He told us that a British person once said of us Americans, “You believe anything is possible, and because you believe it, it is.” Let me tell you, I do believe anything is possible, and I thank God every day for the opportunity to be here, at this moment, in this place, living the adventure of a lifetime.
So for now it’s goodbye from Harlaxton Manor. I’m off on a new adventure to London. It’s time to see what’s possible there…

P.S. Harlaxton songs of the week, for your listening pleasure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJIv0Zhl6c4 
 We sang this one (well the very first part) over and over at Convocation, because the adorable principal liked it so much.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ho3L0F-NS0 
And this is one my friend Kenzie told me about before the Ceilidh we had. I officially love this!

    Hello from 3:28 am! When school doesn't force me to go to bed so I can be coherent in class the next day, I like to stay up at night and sleep during the day. I really like the nighttime-- it's quiet, peaceful, and I kind of like that feeling where it feels like you're the only person in the world. Here's something for Question Tuesday--What sort of interesting jobs require you to work the night shift? Or let you set your own hours? If you had a million dollars, what would you do with it? What superpower would you think would suit each of us b/vloggers? :P
    What have I been up to this week? I've been re-watching the Korean Drama "You're Beautiful." I'll even admit to squealing like a little girl a lot more the second time around. There's only 16 episodes and on YouTube...so if you guys have an hour to spare, I definitely recommend it!
    I also met up with 2 fellow bloggers, Jill and Sara, along with Nathaniel to watch War Horse this afternoon and we were later joined by Kathleen at O'Charley's for dinner. I felt bad because we stayed until around 10:30...they closed at 10.  About the movie--let's just say Albert and Emily met because of their mutual love of Joey (the horse).   

Hello from my computer chair! As it is still winter break for me, not much is really going on. I’ve mostly been spending my time reading the giant book of Jane Austin novels I got for Christmas (love!). So far I’ve finished Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park. Plus, I’d already read Pride and Prejudice, so I’m 3/7 of the way done! Other than that, I’ve mostly just been enjoying my remaining down time before school starts back on the 23rd. So now, to make up for my boring life, it’s time for Question Tuesday!!!! This week’s installment features questions from Shelby and Jill, since no one else felt like suggesting any (you know who you are).

Friendchips: for anyone who doesn’t know, friendchips are chips that are made from your friends!!!* And while some people may declare that they are rather tasty, I have to say that I am quite opposed. Particularly since they so often come from me… Anyway, my biased opinion would therefore be that any friendchips are too many. I’m sure that most people would at least agree, though, that the point of “too much” would come when there was no longer enough of said friend either to be friends with or to make more chips from.

“Even I’m eatable! But that is called “cannibalism,” my dear children, and is in fact frowned upon in most societies.” ~Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

*Disclaimer: No one actually makes chips from their friends (that I know of)! It’s just a joke!

Awesome: while awesome is, by definition, pretty awesome, I would think that too much awesome would detract from the overall awesome and make it significantly less awesome (do you think there’s too much awesome in this sentence?). I am of the opinion that part of what makes awesome is its novelty. Take ROMP, for example. As a yearly get-together, it’s a fun, exciting, awesome event to look forward to. If it happened every day, though, it would soon come to be taken for granted, and we may even get tired of doing the same thing so often, even viewing it as mundane or bothersome. Not to mention that ROMP, like so many other awesome things, takes a lot of work to put together. This can be overlooked and even considered part of the awesome for a rare event, but by increasing the frequency of the awesome, the work it requires becomes proportionally less worthwhile.

In short, while I cannot deny the awesomeness that is concentrated awesome, when it is spread out it loses its potency and, thus, the awesome that makes it awesome in the first place.

So that’s it for this week! Be sure to leave Question Tuesday suggestions for me! Please?

P.S.- I just found Host Club sitting on my stairs!!! Yayyyyy!!!!! Thanks Heather/Alexis/Amber/Sanaa!

Addition: It seems like I failed to address a question posed by Anna Beth! Sorry! It’s not strictly Question Tuesday material, but I enjoyed answering it, and I’m always happy to bequeath a little wisdom to my friends :). So, the question was regarding the definition of a date. In general, I would say that a date is a meeting between two people where there is a mutual acknowledgement of feelings on both sides, and thus a recognition by both that they are, in fact, on a date. The exception to this rule deals with the friends of either party. The mutual feelings and acknowledgement are not required for the friends (in fact, its absence is more preferable), who are then allowed to tease unmercifully for as long as they wish :D. How's that, AB?

Hello from Russellville Kentucky, where I am once again at for another week. I've decided to continue the Chinese lessons for various reasons (laziness). 

Lesson 2 
last week we learned I, you, she, he and it and their possessive forms. So as a test i'm gonna type a sentence in Chinese (don't cheat).

我的妈妈是anna beth.

it should be pretty easy to guess this sentence, even without looking it up.
in the sentence above, I used a word that we did not cover in the previous lesson which is the verb, 是(shi), or is.  The word "是" is used in a similar way as is is used in English. 

You can definitely say "我是。。。" or I am in the same way. In Chinese, there is not any past or future tense, so you don't have to worry about conjugation. In order to differentiate between past or present tense, you will have to use the context of the sentence. For example in English, we say "tomorrow, we have a test". In Chinese, we use the word tomorrow to tell that it is in the future. Enough about that, if I continue the lessons i'll go into more detail when we come about it.

more vocab.
朋友(peng you ) =friend
女儿(nv er) =daughter    This is kinda hard to pronounce in English because you don't we don't have the sound.If people are actually interested in learning Chinese, I might come back and add sound to these. 女 means female 儿 means child.
男人(nan 人) men             If you think that by adding 儿 to this you get son, then you are wrong. but if you add 女 with 人, you do get women. Adding 女or 男to 朋友 makes girlfriend and boyfriend.

There is a song that I kinda like and it's called 男人女人, i'll have it down below if your interested, and you can also here the pronunciation for women. You probably won't understand much of it, but hopefully you will be able to understand men and women and a couple of other phrases.  here's a like for a pretty good English translation if anyone is interested.http://rinheart.blogspot.com/2008/12/song-collection-13-nan-ren-nu-ren-valen.html

儿子(er zi) = son      (We don't really need to learn this, since we don't have many of these in our family tree.


i'll also decided to add a Chinese idiom to the lessons. A majority of Chinese idioms are only made up of four words which sums up a lot of wisdom. it's very concise and  poetic. Most idioms originate from historical events or stories.对牛弹琴 – Dui Niu Tan Qin  对牛弹琴 – Play the lute to a cow. This Chengyu idiom describes the wasted effort of talking to someone, who just can’t or won’t understand the message.  I got this from a website called http://www.chinese-chengyu.com/page/2.homework : type one sentence in the comment below describing your relationship with someone.for example 我的妈妈是Anna beth.

Hello from the coziest place on earth (my bed at Asbury).  If you were anticipating my failure (ahem, Sanaa), consider this blog a punch in the face.  I still have like three hours, by the way.
Classes start tomorrow!  I am so excited to learn new things!  Next week, I can tell you guys all about my classes, but for this week, I don't have too many interesting things to share.
WAIT ONE MINUTE!
I do have interesting things!
1.) I met my new roommate, and she's awesome.  She's totally into all the dorky things that I love (especially British things).
2.) I will find out in a week if I get to go to Haiti for the summer (though my chances are decreasing every day that they don't call me for an interview).
3.) I got my wisdom teeth taken out on Tuesday, and it still hurts (but not too terribly, thank God)!
4.) I really like to use parenthesis (but not in annoying way).

Oh, you guys.  I have really enjoyed all of the blogs from this week (although I have been jealous because most people are getting comments, and my blog from last week didn't get any).  

I didn't go to church today because I was all drugged up.  Bummer.  BUMMERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Since I am not interesting enough, I would like everyone to watch the following two videos in order:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jne9t8sHpUchttp://www.collegehumor.com/video/5806921/actually-ironic 
(BTW Sanaa, the other song I was talking about really is called "Head Over Feet". 
And now all of you whiners can relax.Love,Shelbs Magee

Hello from my waterbed! Ok, maybe that’s not the best introduction line ever created, but I'm currently a little restricted in where I can go. Ever since I broke my fifth metatarsal bone in my left foot while swing dancing (not my best move by far lol), the doctor has ordered me to wear this ankle boot whenever I walk around. Naturally, I hate it because it keeps me from skipping, dancing, prancing, flouncing, or whatever-ing I typically do from place to place, so I (being Kyoya- re: Ouran High School Host Club) found the one exception in the doctor’s order: stay in one place for as long as possible… which means I’m busy either being a couch potato or reading in my bedroom. I really shouldn’t complain though- my unread booklist has diminished significantly this winter break. :)

Another thing I’ve been able to do over the winter break is listen to music. A lot. I’m currently working my way though every single music track I own, and I’ve been amazed at the variety of artists and different styles of music that I own. You see, recently music has found its way back into my life after a year hiatus (more on that another time), and I’m surprised how I managed a year without it! As such, I thought I’d introduce at least one central theme for my blogs: a song of the week! There’s always that one song that won’t get out of my head, and by the end of the week, I’ve either fallen in love with it or I want to destroy the sheet music of whatever artist recorded it. Sometimes the song that I’m listening to is quite embarrassing, but I’m going to be honest with this blog and just post it anyway. What do I have to lose?

This week, the song that has been on replay was by pure accident. I actually heard it in a store as I was doing some after-Christmas-I-have-lots-of-gift-cards shopping, and it reminded me of a similar version on Glee that was performed in a recent episode. However, this is one circumstance that I have to say I prefer the original.

Pink- "Perfect"

_ Yes, a Pink song is my first song of the year. :P

This actually leads me to something that I’ve struggled with over the last semester. As much as I don’t like to admit it, I actually am a bit of a perfectionist. So, when I transferred to Vanderbilt from the University of Kentucky this past semester, I expected to maintain the same high level of performance in my schoolwork… That didn’t exactly happen. Granted, I’m still relatively pleased with the past semester, but after achieving so much for such a long time, I feel as though I’ve let myself down. I’ve always been my biggest rival, pushing myself to learn more, study longer, achieve more. Unfortunately I’ve also found out I can push myself too much, to the point that my expectations exceeded my actual ability to adapt to a more academically challenging environment. AKA I ran out of time to do everything. Which, if I’m being completely honest, kind of sucked. And I’ve felt so much less than perfect, undeserving of all that God has granted me in this transfer to such a wonderful school.

Hello 2012. This is my year (and semester) to pull myself back, reevaluate my time, and take a different approach to my crazy schedule. I always take on a lot: 19 hours of coursework, a 10 hour work week, singing and performing with an a cappella group, President of a student programming board, Pencil Projects tutoring. What will be different this year is that I won’t be afraid to say, “I have too much to do,” and either drop something or ask someone for help. I’m not perfect. I realize that. But I do feel that I’m in the right place in my life to take a look around and just stop and breathe. If only for a moment.

My resolution for this year is to know when to stop. To be able to hang out with my friends when I want to. To not overwhelm myself. To know when to ask for help. But most of all, to trust in God to see me though another wonderful year, growing in my faith and showing more love to others than ever before.

Hello from Amber. “Welcome to my silly life.”

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

__          Hello from a finally clean room.  It only took me a little over half-way into my winter break from college to both actually unpack and stop using my floor as a storage/organizational device.  It’s rather nice to be able to see the carpet without the layer of a large portion of my possessions in between.
           But enough with my intro. We’re almost a week into the New Year and aren’t dead yet. I think we can all take that as a good sign for things to come, lol.
           Hello there, I’m Jill and I’ve already run out of things to say. Only a few hours ago I was thinking of all possibilities I could write about, and now that I’m here staring at my computer screen, they all seemed to have disappeared. Come here little ideas! You’re needed here! Oh, Well. I really just want to say that I’m quite excited for the year to come.  The only real New Year’s resolution I have this year is to do my part in making this blog/vlog project the best it can be. Hopefully this endeavor of ours will lead to some lasting memories.
         After New Years, the events of my week have not been all that riveting. I got to say good-bye to Anna Beth before she ran off to England, then I got sick, watched YouTube, and didn’t do much else. However, I am over my cold now and like I said before, I was successful in conquering the mess that was formerly my room.
         One thing I would like to discuss with you guys is whether or not I should have some ongoing theme to help me have something to write about. Foot Face Friday is great and all, but it’s not really a writing topic. Sara gets to answer questions (Here’s one for you Sara: Can you have too much Awesome?) and Amy might be teaching us Chinese (which I really enjoyed by the way, Amy!). There are probably going to be weeks where there’s just not that much interesting to write about. So should things be left as they are with the possibility that if there’s a slow week, there’ll also just be a boring blog entry from me, or can there be something to fall back on? I’d like to hear your opinions on the matter. As far as ideas go, the only thing I’ve been able to think of is a YouTube pick of the week (and I think we can all agree it’s not necessarily the best idea to fuel my addiction :P).
        I should probably cut this off now to prevent me from just blabbering on for an unnecessary amount of time. Can’t wait to hear from Amber and our first vlogger, Sanaa tomorrow!