Go Bears!

What a week! I am beginning to feel better after my e.coli/kidney infection! I have been off my 11 day antibiotics for a couple days now and have felt fine, just very tired. When I get home from work around 5:15pm everyday I am just exhausted. After talking with other people who have also had a kidney infection, they said that is very normal. I can tell you first hand, that kidney infections are not fun! It's definitely a blessing that I realized something was not right early on, otherwise I would have been one sick person!
This week I did two things that were new to me in Harrisburg. I helped with the flower gild in St. Stephen's and created arrangements for Sunday service and I went to a Hershey Bears game in Hershey, PA.

One of my flower arrangements

Both arrangements

I don't know a lot about flowers, I know the basic kinds and that when you cut flowers, you cut at a angle but other than that, I am clueless. I helped my housemate, Shannon and my mentor Anne with arranging flowers this week. Anne was the head of the flower gild and taught me all about how to arrange. You never want to put flowers on the same plain and the strongest color flowers should be in the center. It is important for eyes to want to look at the whole arrangement, so you do different levels- highest in the back, lowest in the front but it is also important to want to draw the eye out, so its not vertical. My color scheme this week was red and pink with some accents of white. The greens should be the outline and what is used to put the eye horizontally as well. Anne had to coach me through it quite a bit because I am a very symmetrical person, so what I want on one side is what I want on the left, but that is not the case in small flower arrangements. Luckily for me, I made arrangements using the same flowers, so I was able to make it symmetrical to each other, but the flowers are not the same on both sides on each arrangement itself.  I'm pretty pleased with my first go around of flower arrangement. They make different arrangements every week and make them on Friday afternoons. I didn't realize how time intensive they are. My arrangements were small, but the alter arrangements are very large and took almost 3 hours to create. Anne purchases these flowers from a wholesaler every week at a discounted price and then creates the arrangements. I think I will definitely help out in the future at lease for the time being! I won't help out as much in the spring because that's when its mum season and I am allergic to chrysanthemums- so that is not my place to be!

Youth group fun

Silly faces with Layla

First fight of the game

On Saturday, I got in my hockey fix! I had not been to a hockey game in months, which is pretty odd for me! I think the last game I went to was a Minnesota State Mavericks game- in April! I went with the St. Stephens school and Youth Group to a Hershey Bears game. All together there was a group of about 60 people there and it was such a fun experience! The Hershey Bears are a minor league hockey team for the Washington Capitals. Now, I am a Penguins fan, so the Capitals are not my favorite team in the world, but it was definitely fun to see! I wore my penguins scarf I got for Christmas and my Pascal Dupuis jersey and didn't get heckled once. There was even another fan on my side of the arena that was wearing a Dupuis jersey! Pascal Dupuis is my favorite player, who is injured this year because he has a blood clot in his lung from having ACL surgery. The game was in Hershey, PA which is only about a half hour or less away from Harrisburg. The Bears play in the Giant Center, which is where a lot of concerts are held. The game was really fun! I had fun explaining the game to kids from youth group and cheering for a team. There were quite a few fights, so I'm not sure if the team they were playing (Binghamton Senators) are a rival of theirs or not. There were 5 different fights and the first one broke out 15 seconds into the game and many other fights

Bears WIN!

 happened throughout the game. There was some tension to the referee, Terry, because he took away a Bears goal. Most of the game, fans booed him and made fun of him. The Bears ended up winning in overtime! They scored about 2 minutes into the overtime period. I was excited to see the Sell's at the game, I took some fun pictures of Layla and had fun explaining the game to her.  The attendance of the game was 9,700. It was Faith and Family Night, so there were many different churches in attendance. We had 200 level seats, but I don't think there would be bad seat in the venue, I could see everything and the energy of the arena was a lot of fun! I was really impressed with how much the players and staff acknowledge the fans. They always had something going on in the stands, whether they were interviewing a fan, a blimp dropping money, playing intermission games, or just doing simple things like the fans of the game, kiss cam, or having people dance and showing them on the jumbotron. I would definitely love to go to another game, it was a lot of fun and I definitely felt like my Iowan/Minnesotan self!

The many faces of Layla

Work has gone very well this week! It has definitely been busy with the students back, but it is so good to see the students! I am doing two jobs, administrative assistant and then community service intern. I have been busy with scheduling and dealing with budget things like invoices and ordering supplies and items as well as planning for my event on February 2nd called Community Service Fair. I have about 15 different organizations coming in and tabling about what students can do to volunteer at their organization. I have things from Salvation Army to YMCA to a Therapeutic Riding Center that with children who are physically disabled. I am hoping that many students from Dickinson attend this event, I need to do a lot of promotions the next week or so to make sure it is a successful event! I also found out this week that I will officially be going on a spring break trip with students as an administrator! I will either be going to Georgia, South Carolina or Alabama. I am really hoping to go to Georgia because I would be able to see my brother, who I haven't seen in about a year! He lives in Dublin and I would be in Macon, which is about an hour or so away from each other! Let's all hope for Georgia!
Also this week, I have officially signed my lease and contract for living in Mankato next fall. Whether I get in grad school or not, I will be there at least working and hopefully attending grad school as well! I have everything done for grad school, waiting on one reference but that will be done soon! So wish me luck and send good wishes about grad school! I have also completed my graduate assistantship applications, so I am also waiting on that but I need to find out if I make it into the program first. This is the only program I have applied to, so I am definitely hoping for the best! I can definitely see myself working in a college setting. I'm not sure if I can see the exact location, I am interested in many things including residence halls, working with first year students, student activities, advising. I could see myself doing all of the above!
I am not sure what all I have going on this week- I don't think it will be too crazy, but I guess that is always surprise!
Have a wonderful week!
Love, Katie