Enjoying Home

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone has had a great first two weeks of 2013!  I only have about 2 weeks left until I head back to Baltimore!  This winter break has been.....eventful, if nothing else.  My oldest sister got married at the end of December, my middle sister is almost 5 months along in her pregnancy, a close family friend passed away, and my middle sister is about to move to Houston at the end of the week.  I have LOVED being home, I always do.  There's something about Texas that just completes me.  Maybe it's the familiarity of home, the wonderful food, or the weather that does it, but whatever it is, I have yet to find another place that compares.

This really has been a memorable break.  It was also the 5th Christmas with my boyfriend, Nick.  After seeing my sister get married and my other sister's new pregnant belly, I began to realize how things have changed and that nothing will ever be the same.  I now have a brother, there will be a little one in a few months, and my boyfriend will be graduating and commissioning with the United States Army.  I'm also half-way through my Junior year of college and need to begin planning my life after graduating.  Do I want to stay in Baltimore or head back to Texas?  What kind of Masters degree do I want to pursue?  There are a lot of questions in my life right now and while they're slightly terrifying, they're also extremely exciting!


I love being home but I'm also super excited to return to school!  I may not love Baltimore, but I do love Notre Dame! Although I am not looking forward to the cold weather, I am hoping for some snow!  The campus is absolutely BEAUTIFUL when blanketed with snow!  This spring semester also brings some very exciting things!  I will be taking the following classes: Basic Statistics, Intro to Philosophy, Intro to Peace & Justice, Marriage & Family, Post-Colonial Africa, and International Organizations & World Politics.  In March, I will also be going to the UN with a group of girls from Notre Dame!  I cannot tell you how excited I am for that! I'm also starting up Amnesty International and helping re-start Hispanic Society.  Anyone who knows me can tell you that I am almost always over-involved in clubs/organizations.  I am currently President of Campus Ministry, Treasurer of Class of 2014, Treasurer of Maryland Student Legislature, and am part of several other groups as well as working for Admissions as a Student Ambassador.  I LOVE being involved and I have a very hard time not being involved.  In late March, I will be going home to Texas for SB and Easter break with my two best friends: Cindy and Sam.  I don't know what I would do without those girls and I certainly wouldn't love Notre Dame as much without them! LASTLY, in May I will be going up to Vermont for my boyfriend's graduation.  It's hard to believe he's graduating from college already! We started dating when I was a junior and he was a senior in high school.  I can't wait for him to graduate and commission. I'm gonna be such a proud girlfriend! It also gets me excited for my graduation, but that's still over a year away!

I just realized I typed 3 paragraphs! WOW. I apologize for typing so much! I have a habit of talking too much! So until next time, I will leave you with a few pictures of my break thus far.  I hope you enjoy and I hope you come back to see what else I'm up to later!

Christmas with my sisters!
(From left: Chrissy, Simon, Sara, Me, and Nicholas)

Nicholas and I at a San Antonio Spurs game! (We won!)

 

Nicholas and I before he left for school :(

See you later!!!!

-Rachel

I made it!

Hey everyone!

So as I write this, I'm running on about 2 hours of sleep for nearly the past 48 hours.  This was finals week and the brilliant person that I am decided that pulling an all-nighter would be a good idea.  Word to the wise: DON'T.  Physically, I felt pretty good today, that is until I was giving a final presentation in class and began to feel like I was going to faint.  Moral of the story: Don't procrastinate and get work done.

I'm incredibly happy that classes and exams are over and I get to go home today!  I know Thanksgiving break was just 3 weeks ago, but nothing feels better than laying in your own bed in your own room and not having to worry about classes or homework.  I've got a lot of stuff going on this Christmas break!  I have decided that this year, I will make all of my Christmas presents!  Also, my oldest sister is getting married at the end of December!  I cannot wait to see her in her beautiful gown and just spend a wonderful joyous day with my family.

While I am extremely happy to go home, I would be lying if I said that I wouldn't miss being back here sometimes.  My sisters are both older so they have moved out and live on their own, so at home it's just my parents and I.  It can be a lot of fun to sort of be the "only child" sometimes, but I do find myself missing my friends.  Here at school, I'm rarely alone and maybe it's just my personality that I love to be around people, but it is really nice.  I love being able to talk to my roommate whenever I want or go to my friend's room down the hall.

So before I go to bed and finally get some sleep, I want to share some awesome pictures of this past semester!  I may complain sometimes but I am so incredibly blessed to live this life!  I hope you enjoy these pictures of my awesome friends and I, and I hope that everyone has a wonderful Holiday season!

My friends and I spent a Sunday afternoon making each other dinner

Fellow Trailblazers and I received $775 to use for some sort of personal academic advancement

 

 

 

 

(Trailblazers is an organization for 1st-generation college students)

Christmas Dinner family photo with President Dr.Conneely and his wife and daughter  (Note that I squeezed myself between Dr.Conneely and his wife)

My friends and I ended Christmas dinner by taking tons of pictures of us jumping off the bench in front of Doyle

Merry Christmas!!!!

-Rachel :)

I See the Light!

Hello Everyone!

Today is the last day of classes!  Everyone here is so excited to be ending this semester and we're all ready to enjoy our summer.  Only 3 exams, 4 papers, and 5 more days till I'm all packed up and moved out for the year!  I could not be more excited for summer. I have big plans! First, on May 17th my roommate and I will be traveling to Lima, Peru for a month.  There we will be helping in an elementary school and a geriatric home.  Plus, not to mention sight-seeing! And did I tell you I hear the food is great??? Anyone who knows me will tell you that I LOVE food.  I love trying new foods and I'm especially excited to try all the food Peru has to offer.  Alpaca meat, anyone?  After Peru, I'll be returning home to, the best state ever, TEXAS.  Have I told you how much I love Texas?  Baltimore is great and I love Notre Dame, but nothing compares to the Lone Star State! Once I'm home I plan to sleep, visit with family, sleep, play with my puppies, sleep, see my friends, sleep, go to the beach, and maybe.....sleep!  Then in July, my mom and I leave for Europe on a trip to celebrate Girl Scout's 100th anniversary.  (Yes, I am still a girl scout)

This year has been wonderful.  Though at times I struggled and cried and just wanted to go home, I persevered and made it through.  College is hard, everyone will tell you that, but the things that really get you through it are your friends, family, awesome professors, and anyone else who supports you.  I cannot stress enough the importance of having great support and encouragement.  My family, friends, and boyfriend are some of my biggest supporters and they are the ones I turn to when I'm stressed and want to give up.  They tell me to be strong, be positive, and believe in myself.  I could not be where I am today if it weren't for them telling me that I can do anything if I put my mind to it.  Some other people that support me are the friends I have made here at school.  Coming from Texas, I was terrified that I wouldn't make friends but turns out, I hit the jackpot and wound up with the best friends anyone could ever have.  My friends and I are loud, obnoxious, completely ridiculous, and just plain silly.  We print out coloring pages and color until 3 am, drive to Wal-Mart at midnight, walk around Target in a taco suit, and order food at 1 am because we're up watching movies and not doing homework.

If there's any advice I can give to you, it's just to relax.  We all tend to stress out and worry about everything, but if you relax and pull yourself together, you can get everything done.  Also, plan ahead, study hard, and just have fun.  Not having fun may mean that you get that 4.0, but how great is that if you made no friends in the meantime?  You CAN have both! You want to look back at college and remember all the fun times you had. I may still have 2 more years but I'm already looking back on these past 2 years and remembering all the fun I had.

Good luck to everyone as yall finish up finals or get ready to graduate.  I hope everyone has a safe summer! Look for Peru pictures next month!

-Rachel

Almost the End!

Hey Everyone!

Sorry I have not blogged lately, I have just been so busy with school.  We are almost in the middle of the 2nd to last week of classes in this semester.  You know what comes after classes, right? FINALS.  In my case, I'm pretty lucky on the exam aspect because I only have 3 exams.  However, this means that I have to write final papers. Those are not so fun.  Luckily, in most of my classes we've been working on them throughout the semester and gathering information so writing them shouldn't be too hard.  The hard part  is actually taking the time to sit down and write.  Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am easily distracted and can't sit doing one thing for too long.  I definitely need to create a writing plan for myself so that I can work on paper #1 for x-amount of time, paper #2 for x-amount of time, and so forth.  If there's one thing I've learned here at college it's to manage your time wisely.  Time does not wait for you to catch up and you can never get time back, therefore if you love sleep and free time like I do, you need to plan ahead.  My best friend this semester has been my planner.  I write everything in it.  Meetings, work, extra-curricular activities, Skype dates, reminders, grocery lists, and anything else I need to remember goes in my planner.  I also color-code!  At the beginning of each month I sit down, choose a color that I like, and write in any upcoming events for the month.  This way, I know when the event is, what time it is at, where it is at, and I can plan ahead to prevent from being overwhelmed.

Speaking of planning, I need make that writing plan for myself! I'll be checking in again before finals week to give an update on everything.  Also, did I tell you I'm going to Peru????? My roommate and I will be doing service-learning in Lima, Peru!  We leave May 17th and come back June 13th.  This is just another great example of all that Notre Dame has to offer!

Talk to you soon!

My First Post!

Hello Everyone!

My name is Rachel and I am currently a Sophomore in the Women's College.  I am 20 years old and from San Antonio, Texas.  I am majoring in International Relations and I love being a student at Notre Dame because of all the wonderful opportunities I have here.

By far one of the best experiences of my life was going to Cuba on March 16.  We spent 10 days in Cuba learning about their history, customs, government, and the role of women.  It was so completely interesting to see what a Socialist country looked like, and even more interesting to live in one, even if for a short period of time.  The island was BEAUTIFUL.  As a Texas Girl I love warm weather and after freezing my butt off in Baltimore this semester, I was ready for some heat!  Cuba was warm yet breezy and every single day was perfect.  Not even a couple of rain showers could bring me down!  We saw such beautiful places including a visit to Trinidad, which was founded in 1514.  Our hotel was on the beach which made it so difficult to leave.  The water was about 150 ft away from our room and you could hear the waves splashing at night.  This water was probably the clearest water I have ever seen.

Cuba also did not have much technology which was a little hard for me.  I am used to checking my email several times a day and sending texts throughout the day as well.  I found it hard to land and not be able to call my parents and let them know I had landed safely.  I was lucky, however, and was able to borrow someone's international phone to call my parents.  There was also an obvious lack of computers, which made me think about how college must be.  We were lucky enough to meet a few college students and even visit a University of Habana residence hall.  When visiting their buildings, I had never been more grateful for Notre Dame.  Like many of the buildings in Habana, the building was full of cracks and poorly lit.  It was also poorly maintained in that there was trash everywhere and stray cats roamed freely.  They also had very strict rules including no visitation and students of the opposite sex where not allowed in each other's buildings.  Students were also not allowed to move any furniture in their room or decorate their room.  In addition, each living area consisted of a communal area to study in, two bathrooms, one kitchen, and three attached bedrooms. In each bedroom there were three sets of bunk beds, making it a total of 18 students to 2 showers, sinks, and toilets.  I will never complain about Doyle again!

There are so many stories I could tell about Cuba.  It was an experience that I will always cherish and is the perfect example of how wonderful Notre Dame is.  I am so grateful to be at a school that not only allows me to learn in unique ways but truly promotes different learning experiences for everyone.  Speaking of learning, I need to study for spanish!

I'll be updating weekly so come back and see what else I'm up to!

Rachel