One Week to Go, Folks!

I have been majorly slacking on the whole blog-writing thing, but it has been a busy last few weeks in Harrisburg! I celebrated the Forth of July, attended concerts, and have been finishing up my time commitments at St. Stephens and my time at Dickinson College. It is absolutely crazy to me that I will be home in Mason City, Iowa a week from tomorrow. I am thrilled, excited, a little nervous, and astounded that the time is getting closer and closer with every second that passes by. I have had a lot of fun the past few weeks, which is great! I have been doing things that I love and I have made the time pass even faster.
Exciting news regarding my art class... I placed in the student show at the Art Association of Harrisburg and was completely and utterly SHOCKED. I placed second in mixed media and am very excited about it! I had so much fun in this art class and I learned so much. I am very grateful that I received a scholarship so I was able to take the class, I definitely hope to continue to do some of the mediums. I thought for sure, I would love charcoal, but I learned I don't. I learned that I really like using ink and pastel. I thought I would hate ink because it is so permanent but I think that is why I like it. I am usually a perfectionist and ink makes me work with what is laid down and I like that idea .

Waiting for fireworks to start

The Forth of July was a lot of fun! My house had a little get together with some of my housemates friends and we hung out in our Bishop's Garden and played Spike Ball (it has the concept of volleyball, where you have to hit the ball the size of a softball on your side three times before it goes to the other side), to get it to the other side, you hit it onto a net and bounce it to the other side.You keep going back and forth with your partner until the ball drops. The net is circular and you can spike it any direction, so you can go around in a circle. I had never played this game before, it is a lot of fun and can get VERY competitive! I am pretty proud to say that my partner and I won, twice. Along with Spike Ball, we had a little cookout and had BBQ foods; hot dogs, hamburgers, different salads, guacamole and chips, and then made mojitos and sangria. We also watched the fireworks, which was great because the fireworks are right on the Susquehanna River, which my house lives directly on. We had prime seats and the show was good. It started very slow but the finale was really good. It was really nice spending time with people my age and we had fun!

Kelly Clarkson

I have been attending my fair share of concerts in Hershey, PA the past few weeks. 2 weeks, 2 concerts. I saw Wiz Khalifa and Fall Out Boy the first weekend. Now, I am not a big rap fan, so the fact that I was listening to rap is a change for me. I listened to Fall Out Boy throughout middle and high school so I was pretty excited for them. Wiz Khalifa is not my favorite, but he did have stage presence and have most of the crowd  in the palm of his hand. He is not really my style, he is doing great in the charts right now, so I respect him for that but other than that, I wasn't much of a fan. The second concert I went to this past weekend was Pentatonix and Kelly Clarkson. This concert was more of my speed, it is not really a concert where drunk and high people out number the amount of sober people. I have been a HUGE fan of Pentatonix since they performed on the show The Sing-Off and I saw them and went to a CD signing of them about 2 years ago, since then, they have gone international and are Grammy Award Winners! They are completely A Capella and were even in the movie Pitch Perfect 2. The amount of sound that comes from 5 peoples voices is still amazing to me. They opened for Kelly Clarkson and there were so many people in the 4,000 people in the concert that came for Pentatonix, me being one of those people. I could have listened to them for hours, but they were only on stage for about 35 minutes. Kelly Clarkson was really good as well. She is Southern and is funny on stage. She talked about how the bugs were hitting her in the face and that she swallowed one. She also asked if she could take her shoes off on stage because she doesn't like heels. She has such a powerful voice and she, too, found her stardom from a TV show, American Idol. While in Pennsylvania, I have been able to go to about three concerts, which is great because I love live performances and listening to great music.

Fall Out Boy 

Things are really winding down, folks. I have finished my church commitments through St. Stephens at church yesterday. It was my last performance in the cathedral choir, which is a little sad. I really grew to like choir, mostly because of the people I have met. I have gotten close to the choir, especially the soprano section. The choir is full of very sweet and sincere people and I am happy that I had the opportunity to sing with them. They are going to have an exciting fall, they will be performing for the new Bishop in September and will be singing the National Anthem at a Senators game across the river.

Concert with my mentor

I am very excited for this weekend!! I will be going to the ocean for the very first time!! We will be heading to Assateaque in Virginia Thursday-Sunday and will be doing some laying out, kayaking, possible scalloping, looking at wild horses and doing some final bonding as a house because we are all going very different directions. Two of my housemates will be moving to Ashville, NC. One is in Chicago, IL. One will be in Boston, MA. Another will be in Florida, and the last one will be staying in Harrisburg. I, of course, am starting graduate school for Counseling and Student Personnel, College Student Affairs and am very excited but nervous to start!
I am excited to be near my friends and family but I am finding it a little hard to leave the people I have met in Harrisburg. I didn't expect to get so close to some of the members of church, I have been writing every one who has influenced me a small letter of appreciation. I hope they learned something from me, as I have learned from them!

Touristy Events Time!

I did a few things this past weekend that I hadn't done yet through my time in Harrisburg. It comes a little surprising to me that I hadn't done them before, but I can now cross them off my "to-do list". I went to the Pennsylvania Capitol, State Museum, and Governors Mansion!
I live roughly 4 blocks away from the capitol, but I, for whatever reason, had never gone there. I am very happy that I finally went! It looks really neat from the outside, but the inside is absolutely gorgeous! There have been four different capitols over the time. The first one was in Philadelphia, which I went to when I was in Philly. The second was in Harrisburg, but burned down due to wood-fire places during the winter.They started creating another capitol in the midst of this one, but the governor did not approve, so they recreated to the current capitol. I have learned so much about it!
First of all, it is a lot like Iowa's capitol in the sense that there is gold-leaf EVERYWHERE! In the 1800's, it cost over 13 million dollars to create this capitol, today it does not even have a numerical value because some of the largest parts of it are considered priceless. They have a marble-like granite in the capitol that is from Greece and the only places to ever have this type is the PA capitol and the Wisconsin capitol, there is no other kind like it anywhere else in the world. The dome roof weighs roughly 15 million pounds and the chandeliers in the House of Representatives weigh 3 tons a piece. The paintings and gold-leaf have only been restored a couple times since the beginning. One of the artists was even a woman in a time where women weren't even allowed to walk in the halls of the capitol, which is pretty cool! The capitol is very extravagant and beautiful! The tour of the capitol was short and sweet, roughly 30 minutes and we were able to go everywhere except the courts because they were in session.

Next stop on Friday afternoon was going to the State Museum, which is right next door to the capitol. This building is so much bigger than I imagined it to be! There are many different exhibits including geology, planetarium, anthropology and archaeology gallery, fine arts gallery, and a village that you walk through and watch the evolution of PA in front of your eyes. William Tell has a large statue right at the entrance of the museum and the mural in the back shows the evolution of PA as well. Walking through the museum could have easily taken hours, but we managed to crunch it into a small amount of time (between an hour and half-2 hours). They have many original documents and sketches that are considered Pennsylvania artifacts, so it is very historic!
On Sunday, I experienced something pretty neat as well- the Governors Mansion! I attended Arts in the Governors Mansion, which was really gorgeous! It was very hot and I managed to sweat my body weight- I'm convinced. But I was able to see my mentor, Tina, paint a sculptor in the gardens in less than 3 hours! There were many different artists from around the area and Central PA that came in to paint and have people watch them. I was even able to walk around in the governors mansion. The current governor has decided not to live in it, but in the past, all of the governors have lived there. I was able to see the formal dining room, the not-so-formal dining room. The studies or offices (there were multiple), the formal sitting room, the foyer, and a couple den like rooms. There were two grand pianos, lots of chandeliers, MANY paintings and murals of past state governors and representatives and lots of exquisite china and woodwork.

At work, I have finished the pesky tree. Just waiting for students' pictures to go in the frames, but it is all up and ready for pictures! I am pretty happy with how it turned out, I learned that I can do silhouettes of trees!
Work has been going slowly but surely. It is such a change from working with students every day to having no students around. I have been working with pre-orientation and finding places for students to volunteer during the day and working on promotional items to give away. We have decided on color-changing stadium cups, drawstring bags, and adhesive phone wallets that would hold a student ID or debit/credit card.

It is starting to come to an end in Pennsylvania. I am looking at just over a month left, the time has gone by fast and slow all in one. I am starting to feel very ready for the next step in life- graduate school. I am ready to be back in classes and learn things that I truly want to learn about. As I have been attending pre-orientation meetings and working with different offices at Dickinson, it has become so apparent to me that Student Affairs is what I am really passionate about. I am excited to see where graduate school leads me! I am also very excited to see my family and friends and be back to the familiarity of the Midwest where I can watch Twins baseball everyday!

Summer, Birthday, Arts Fest Adventure!

The past couple weeks have been a whirlwind of an experience. I'm sorry I failed at my bi-weekly writing, but the craziness has taken full force of me! A lot has happened the past three weeks including Dickinson graduation, my 24th birthday, Arts Fest, and normal craziness of work days, church choir, and other church commitments.
I am officially feeling summer in the Office of Community Service and Religious Life. Students are not coming in every day, I am not getting texts throughout the day asking me questions, my e-mail is much quieter and summer projects are dwindling but we are spreading out the time it takes to do them. I was unable to attend Dickinson's graduation two weeks ago, but I am (ever so slightly) thankful I didn't attend. It was rainy and the usual outside commencement was taken inside a toasty gym, rumor has it, that it was roughly 90 degrees in it- too hot for me! I am sad to see the students go, they are what make and made my job at Dickinson fun. I am pretty lucky that I can say that I will be doing similar work when I attend graduate school in the fall at MSU again. I was able to watch Ian McEwan's and Mark Ruffalo's commencement speeches online. Here is the link in case anyone is interested in watching them as well, I thought they were very good and had a great message. (lovehttps://www.dickinson.edu/news/article/1603/you_have_to_fight_for_what_you_love)
My summer projects are a little fun, I get to paint a tree in the living room of Landis House, which is going to be the "office tree" or the "student worker tree". I have sketched a tree on the wall with chalk and over the next couple days, I will actually start painting it and then putting up picture frames all around it that student worker photos will go in to symbolize that we are all Landis House staff together, we may not be in the same office, but we all work together, as a family. This project was thought of during Christmas and over winter break, but I am just now having time to dedicate to it and I am happy that it is actually coming a reality! The next big project I have is re-organizing and moving things in the CommServ Office. The CommServ office is a student work office, where all materials can be found: paper, markers, pencils, board games, sandwich boards, signs, service trip supplies... everything! This office is now going to be shared with two other organizations, so moving an entire office to a corner is a little tricky. I am in the process of talking to facilities and having them create shelving on a wall, finding bookshelves from the Dickinson storage, and figuring out how to condense so much stuff into few containers, take out of boxes, and rummage through an office where everything is literally everywhere. I am an organized person and (actually) like cleaning for the most part, so this is a good job for me to do. It is crazy to think that I only have about 7 weeks of work left and then I am moving back to the Midwest. I am feeling a tad bit torn about it. I am very ready to be back and start school, but I also feel a smidgen of sadness not seeing students again and missing members of the parish.

Birthday fun!

I am officially 24 now, folks. I was not happy to turn 23, because 22 was my golden birthday, but it looks like 24 is alright. Much better than 23 anyway, ha. It was a great birthday- definitely the best I've had in awhile! During our Friday morning meetings, my director brought donuts, and then the house and I started working on frozen bananas for Arts Fest which was Saturday-Monday. While we were working on dipping bananas in chocolate, the principal from the school came by and said that a box of food was delivered and it was for me. I opened the box and it was a big cookie cake from a bakery in MA. Inside was a little note and I learned my mom had ordered me a birthday cake and had it delivered to me! That was special for me because my mom usually bakes a cake for my birthday every year! The day was also special because the house and I kind of celebrated together. Chicken kabobs, mojitios, chips and guacamole, and watermelon were served and we ate outside, and the Harrisburg Sentors had fireworks that night, so we moved to the river and watched the fireworks. I got so many texts, calls, and birthday wishes that it all made it incredibly special!

Arts Fest with my mentor 

I was outside a lot this week, got a little tan and a little burnt, but Arts Fest was successful! Arts Fest is a annual event that happens on Front street in Harrisburg, aka directly in front of my house, and our house sells things to raise money for the Sycamore House. Throughout the year, we receive donations of books and then we sell them at Arts Fest, we sold chocolate covered frozen bananas, and then bottles of water. In the past, they had not sold water, but that proved to be a hit because we sold 9 cases of water in 2 days. Over the weekend, we raised $1,164.84 and we are going to donate about half to Nepal for earthquake relief efforts, but the rest will go into a fund for the next year's house so they can go on a retreat and have money for food the first week or so they get there. Arts Fest was cool in the sense that so many vendors from all around came to sell their works. I fell in love with a woman who used pastels and they didn't look like pastels at all! She created a life-like rottweiler and she focuses on animals, mainly horses. It was incredible. I am finding that pastels are one of my favorite mediums in my Monday night art class. It is so fascinating to me to see how people create something like that, so talented!
This upcoming weekend will not be nearly as exciting. I am hoping to relax a bit and spend some time outside, it has been getting warm out again, so we will decide as we go!

Hershey Park Adventure!

First of all, Happy Mother's Day! I have been blessed to have an incredible mother, who has supported me through everything, was there for me when I needed to sort out my options, and who has given me unconditional love. Love you to the moon and back, Mom!

This past two weeks at work have been incredibly laid back and a little emotional. Dickinson was on finals week last week and this week is finishing up finals and then Senior Week- there has been no programming, no students in Landis House and no students to have meetings with. The whole year has kind of stopped this past week! It has been weird not having meetings every day. This summer will be filled with projects like organization, helping a tad bit with orientation for next fall, and then organizing things for the person who is taking over my spot. Next year, there will not be an Episcopal Service Corps member, there will be an actual staff member, so that will also be a change! Last weekend we were able to have a great end of the school year with students by going to Hershey Park in Hershey, PA! I absolutely love roller coasters, so I was excited to go to an amusement park. I was a bit skeptical about going there because I had no idea if the rides would be good or not. They were good :) My favorite was Skyrush, but really, what a rush! The following link is a video of what it is like to go on the ride (https://www.youtube.com/embed/hpvVBDz1rXM?rel=0&autoplay=1&enablejsapi=1)  You go down about 75MPH and my bottom was literally off my seat, it was so much fun! If the wait wasn't so long to go on it, I would have ridden it again! The other ride that I really liked was Great Bear ( https://www.youtube.com/embed/WujrDNgFcus?rel=0&autoplay=1&enablejsapi=1), it was much more twisty and upside down than the Skyrush! I was also surprised that there was a Wild Life experience, which had alligators, eagles, wolves, elk, foxes, owls, and a lot of other animals that you could walk right next to and look at! We had 9 people all together come on this adventure and spent the whole day at the park. It was a lot of fun and I am very happy that I could have shared this with some of my students!

Also this week I have been working on pastel drawings for my drawing class. I am thinking about submitting my work into the class showcase, which any one who is taking  a class is eligible to submit up to 3 pieces of work, so I am seriously contemplating that!

Big things are happening regarding this upcoming school year at Minnesota State as well! I have formally accepted a graduate assistantship position and will be working with first year, undeclared students with advising! Part of my graduate assistantship is I get paid $9,000 for the school year and they pay for 9 of my 12 credits of classes and I work 20 hours per week.  I am very excited that I have officially committed to this position. I am officially committed to the program Counseling and Student Personnel, College Student Affairs. I have committed and signed a lease to live in a house with 3 of my friends. This are really happening, people! Just have to get to August to make it all happen! My last day of work at Dickinson College is July 16th and then I go on a retreat with the Sycamore House and then I move back to Iowa on July 21 or 22nd. I am currently trying to find a flight that isn't super early or not very long layover in O'Hare, I will most likely buy one this week though!

I hope you all have a great day and week! The weather in Pennsylvania has been HOT. Already in the 80's, I'm not prepared for all this weather! I am a little crazy and would rather be cold then hot!

Happy Mother's Day!

The Past Month

Hi all! First let me apologize for not writing a blog in roughly a month, I feel I have been lacking motivation to write and/or not a terribly exciting week to write about, but it's today I have lots to talk about!
First off, I just got back into Harrisburg yesterday from spending a week at home with my family and friends. I flew to Minneapolis last Friday and stayed till Sunday. I was in Mankato for a couple days to see friends and then my mom picked me up and I spent the rest of my time in Iowa. Let me tell you, going home came at a perfect time. I was feeling out-of-it, not terribly motivated (I'm usually a highly motivated person), and just homesick in general. So, even though the Midwest weather proved itself correct, meaning its unpredictable and the sun didn't know where to be happy or sad, I had a wonderful time at home in the 40 degree weather and clouds and rain. While at home, I ate my mom's home cooked meals, saw a lot of family and friends, and relaxed. On Tuesday, I didn't even get out of pajamas, which is insane for me and rarely ever happens! This was the last time before I would come home permanently so it was very special to me since I hadn't seen my family since Christmas. I will be leaving the East coast in late July to come to graduate school in Minnesota. There was a slump for me after service trips to now that just moved slow, one of my favorite sayings is "Moving slower than a stampede of turtles through peanut butter" and that is definitely how I was feeling. I feel more refreshed now than I have since March and its nice to be able to leave the East coast for a little bit to enjoy the simple things in life. Looking at stars at night, not hearing traffic all the time, seeing the windmills off of I-35, Iowa sunsets, less traffic. I miss all of those things, I am definitely ready and excited to come back to Iowa and Minnesota, but I will enjoy my last few months in Pennsylvania, I am hoping it will go by fast.

Visiting two of my favorite little girls

Dickinson is closing up it's semester. Next week is the last week of classes for students and the following week is finals and senior week. Graduation includes baccalaureate and graduation outside the building Old West which is original to the campus when it first started. It is also symbolic because when you are a first year, you have a ceremony of walking up the stairs, as if you are walking and committing to Dickinson when you get here. Graduation is opposite, you are walking across the stage and down the stairs, symbolizing that your time has come to an end and you are graduated. One thing that will be really cool is the Mark Ruffalo, the actor of the Hulk in Avengers, he was in Foxcather, 13 Going On 30 and countless more movies, will be doing the commencement speech because he will be working with Dickinson  next year with a huge sustainability project. I hear about 500 people attend graduation, but I suspect with Mark being here and Avengers coming to theaters very soon, I suspect there will be many people from the community who just want to come check him out and see him speak.
This will be my 3rd week (technically 4th, but I missed one week) of my basic drawing class I am taking through the Art Association of Harrisburg. This class has been very fun! It is very small, there are four of us in the class and the teacher. So far, we have worked on grey scale and trying to get used to the different types of pencils we are using and then we worked on drawing cubes and cylinders. We learned if you can draw a cube, you can pretty much draw any chair imaginable. Drawing cylinders lets you draw any type of can, but it is also a stepping stone to drawing a cup and saucer. I have practiced many of those, I could probably sell them for about a million dollars, if I do say so myself. They are pretty nice, but I am also biased :)
On Saturday, I will be going to Hershey Park with my office and some students. I am very excited for this!! I haven't been on a good roller coaster in what feels like 30 years and I'm not even 24 years old yet! So I will be taking full advantage of that and hopefully enjoy time in the sun!
I DID IT! I actually completed one of my New Years Resolutions! I read all of the Harry Potter books and have (almost) watched all the movies. I only have to watch the movie, which is broken into two. I was surprised that I really enjoyed the books, I was so anti-Harry Potter when it came out, but I wish I would have read the books when I was in 5th grade, when they came out, because I was the same exact age as the characters and when they grew, I would have grown with them. Oh well, I am finished with them and actually enjoyed them. My brothers favorite character is Peeves for devious reasons, I would say mine is Dobby because he is special and adds a bit of humor but I also enjoy Sirius Black and Fred and George Weasley.
Also, my favorite day happened. If you know me and my love for Miss Congeniality, you will understand.

I think I will move blogging to bi-weekly occurrence, but it may be weekly every of often, I will just keep you on your toes :)
Happy Monday!
Katie

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! (a little late...) Yes, I am a day late in wishing that but this weekend was filled with lots of great company, Harry Potter, tons of candy, and beautiful flowers!
This was my first Easter away from my family in Iowa and the first Easter I have ever spent at a Episcopal Church. Let me tell you, St. Stephens looked incredible! I asked my mentor, Anne, who works in the flower guild of the church, and they spent hours and hours on the arrangements at the alter and the garden in front of the pews. I can easily see why it took hours, the garden had little butterflies that moved and floated with a little waterfall. The alter was a sun and was huge. The decorating went all the way down to having put Koi fish into the baptismal water. Because I am in the cathedral choir, I had a pretty busy week. We sung at Maundy Thursday and then had practice after that. We sung at Easter Vigil and then sang in 2 of the 3 services on Easter Sunday. I have never seen so many people at our services before until Easter. It was completely full of people and it was great to see. There were children, which our church does not traditionally have a lot of small children but this weekend there was! They had a large Easter egg hunt in the Bishop's Garden on Sunday and all the kids were very excited to get more candy from what the Easter Bunny had already given them.

I was very lucky and I was able to join Tina and her family for Easter. I spent three nights with her and when we weren't singing in the choir, we were most likely watching Harry Potter and stuffing our faces with candy. As many of you know, I decided that I was going to read and watch all the Harry Potter's for the first time. I was very anti-Harry Potter for years, and this year for one of my New Years Resolution was going to be read and watch them all. Which was great, because all three of the kids love the movies and the two oldest have read the books as well! I had over 19 hours of Harry Potter ahead of me, but unfortunately, we ran out of time. We only got through 6 of the 8 movies. I was not able to finish the last book before Easter, so that gives me time to actually read it and enjoy reading it- everything happens for a reason!
All the kids did very well with their lent this year and every year they get what they gave up for lent. I did not get very far in my lent. I lasted about 2 weeks. I gave up bread for lent which proved to be impossible when I went to Georgia with the service trip. Regardless, the kids did great and got rewarded! One of them gave up all meat, and for Sundays lunch/dinner got London Broils from the Easter Bunny. Tina went Vegan so she got cheese and we had cheese omelets in the morning for breakfast. I am so grateful that they opened their house to me for so many nights and included me in all of their family outings.
I am also very excited for tonight (Monday) because I start my art class at the Art Association of Harrisburg. It is a class every Monday until June from 7-9pm. This class is basic drawing and I will be working with all kinds of mediums that I have not worked with before. Ink, charcoal, pencils, pastels, and a few other methods will all be used! I am very excited to meet new people in my class and to be working with my hands again! I have always loved being crafty, especially with scrapbooking but this will be a new skill for me, which is very exciting! I'm sure I will dislike some of them, but I hope to create a new hobby that I can carry over to when I go back to the Midwest.

This week at work will be pretty laid back compared to the few upcoming weeks. I will focusing on programming a party for service trips called Service Trip Extravaganza. I am also still working on the President's Honor Roll and I hope to complete that this week!

Giant Gummy Bunny 

From Georgia to Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania to Minnesota.

First night on campus at MSU

Gorgeous sunset in Mankato

I feel like I have been a world class traveler the past few weeks! From taking a group of Dickinson students to Georgia for a week, to coming back to Pennsylvania for a week and then traveling to Minnesota and back. I feel like I am finally getting my feet on the ground and into a routine again. I went to Minnesota for a graduate assistantship interview for Learning Communities. I had moved into top two for this position and it was required to physically be there for interview, so I flew to Minneapolis on Saturday for my interview on Tuesday and then flew out Tuesday night back to Pennsylvania. Being in Minnesota was very relaxing and felt very normal and like I haven't been away for much time. My friends Monique and Rebecca were kind enough to offer me their futon on campus at MSU and we made dinner together, did some grocery shopping, making a stop at Pet Expo to play with the bunnies, chinchillas, ferrets, guinea pigs, and looks at the iguanas. I was able to connect with my friends that I hadn't seen since last spring and got to talk with my friends that I will be living with next fall. I was a bit nervous when I got there that things had changed, I feel like I have changed a lot this year and I feared that things wouldn't feel right when I got there, but I was very pleasantly surprised. My visit in Mankato was filled with lots of hugs, laughter, and catching up!

Words of Enouragement

My interview was the reason I was there and I think it went really well! It was an intense day filled with many different sections of interviews and meeting with a lot of different people. My interview started at 9:30am with Sip and Chat with current Learning Community Coordinators. This was great because I could talk to them about how their year is going and then relate to them about what I did as being a Learning Community Coordinator for First Year Elementary Education for two years. If I get this position as Graduate Assistantship for Learning Communities I would be working with 7-9 LCC's every week and talking about what they have for planning, deal with any issues relating to students and then do some advising. Meeting with the LCC's for coffee allowed me to ask about the changes that have gone happening this year and what I can expect next year, if I get and accept this position. After coffee, I went and met with Interim Assistant Vice President for Undergraduate Education and a very strong background in the education department. I had met her a few times with the Dean's List ceremonies for College of Education and I was happy to meet with her again. I was very surprised that she remembered who I was and certain characteristics about me. For our interview, we just had a conversation about what I was doing this year and what I have come to realize about Harrisburg and Mankato, Our conversation was my favorite part of the day and I am very happy that I had her to start out. Next, I moved to an interview with the Area Director of McElroy Residence Hall. This interview was much more question based and related to student affairs and student life on campus and how I can work with others. This section lasted about 45 minutes and it was much less conversation driven. I think it went well, they had given me questions that could potentially be asked, so I knew what to expect going in. After meeting with the Hall Directors of McElroy and Preska Residence Halls for lunch in Carkoski. It was very casual and I could get their perspective of what a Learning Community GA would do and how I would work with them on a month to month or daily basis. After this I had two more interviews, one with more LCC's and then with the current GA's for Learning Communities asking the same questions that I had been answering earlier in the day. The day felt very long but I am happy that I went to Minnesota for it. I feel much more clear on what I would be doing throughout the year and what everyone's expectations would be of me.
This week at work has been good, it is much less crazy now that service trips are over and I was only there for two days this week. I am currently doing some research for the President's Honor Roll, which would allow Dickinson to have more prestige, in the sense that the President of the United States is honoring it. So, I am doing research on community service that Dickinson does, how many families it affects, how many students are involved, and giving concrete examples on what part of the community it affects.

Jenny the goat

This weekend, we had a midyear retreat with the house and we went to a barn that is renovated and owned by someone in the church who was kind enough to have us spend the night in the barn. We talked about what is going well this year, what can change, how we are going to make the changes and what we can do to make this year great. There was an incredible fire pit so we had a bonfire  and then came back in and sang karaoke for a while. The farm also had two goats, Mollie and Jenny, and then a beautiful Golden Retriever, Duke. I was very happy to be with the nature and around animals and able to see the stars at night. Those are things that I definitely miss not being in the Midwest.
I will be back in the Midwest in April, which will be nice to see my family in Iowa. I am excited for that. I will be joining the Sell family for Easter and singing in the choir on Easter and on Monty Thursday this week. I will be doing lots of singing, that's for sure!