Don’t put bottles of liquid into your suitcase unless they’re inside some kind of bag. This is what greeted me when I opened my suitcase after coming back from San Antonio:

That is my hair conditioner. It coated the inside of the suitcase, my hair dryer, my ipod wire, my camera wire, virtually the most important things in my suitcase. My clothes got off scot-free. Thank goodness my laptop was in my carry on!

In my last blog, I told you about the National Collegiate Honors Council. In this one, I’m going to tell you about San Antonio (as you can tell by the title…). Although we were there for the conference, we got to do some sightseeing, too. Two of the sights we saw were the Riverwalk and the Alamo.

The Riverwalk is one of the main attractions. It’s 13 miles (I think) of manmade river that runs through downtown San Antonio. Along both sides are numerous restaurants, bars, and a few shops for tourists. We went on one of the Riverboat tours, and the guide gives some of the history of the river. There were ducks everywhere along the river, especially near restaurants that give out chips and salsa. I fed the ducks so many times. One of them even ate out of my hand.

 

The Alamo is also in the heart of the city.  There are only two buildings left, one that houses a gift shop, the old mission, and another one, but I don’t remember what it was for. There was a lot of information about the history of the Alamo, including the people who died there (like Davy Crockett). The area was very well kept. There was a well in the back, old cannons, numerous flags that represent the countries of those who fought for the Alamo, and one really big tree with branches that grew to the ground. I wanted to climb it, but I thought the Alamo officials walking around would disapprove.

 Oh, I forgot to mention the Rivercenter mall. Of course we three girls went to the local mall…and dragged poor Dr. Villa along with us. The mall wrapped around the river, which was really pretty cool. Instead of one long strip, it was three floors shaped in a horseshoe. It was pretty exciting, because there were stores we had never seen before. Ivana and Timea especially enjoyed the cowboy store. Dr. Villa and I were hardpressed to get them two leave the mall. We were worried we might have to drag them out.

 

The only problem with San Antonio is that there isn’t any vegetarian food! They had barbecue, Mexican, Italian, Tex-Mex, etc., but there I could barely find anything to eat. At some places, even the salads had meat in them, and I had to ask for no chicken. Dr. Villa said he ate at one restaurant with a vegetarian menu, but that his food wasn’t very tasty, so he didn’t recommend going back.

On Sunday, our flight left at 7:00 in the morning, so we all woke up at 4, left the hotel at 5 and got to the airport where we decided to eat breakfast. Except Timea. Who wanted a cheeseburger. At 6:00 in the morning. She had to make due with a sausage egg sandwich; no one serves cheeseburgers that early in the morning.

Overall, the trip was really fun, and beneficial in terms of a learning experience. I think we were all less than eager to come back….all our homework was here waiting for us…

I was in San Antonio, Texas, from the 21st to the 26, Tuesday thru Sunday of this week, for the National Collegiate Honors Council. The conference invites honors students and administrators from all over the country to attend to learn how to make honors programs better and more innovative. The President and Vice President, Ivana and Timea respectively, also attended, along with Dr. Villa, the honors advisor.

 

I was accepted to the Poetry Master Class, where I was able to share my poetry with two other girls. We made comments on how to improve each other’s poetry. It was really useful to get someone else’s opinion, a peer’s opinion. There were also master classes for drama, film, and music. Near the end of the conference, there was a showcase where many of us, including me, presented our work to other members of the conference.

 

In addition to the classes, there were many (and I stress many) sessions for improving honors programs. Some of the ones we attended included how to make a good newsletter, how to get published in the NCHC journals, using a S.W.O.T. Analysis to improve honors, Students in Honors, Fundraising for Honors, and Small College Honors Issues. Ivana and Timea attended so many of them and took pages and pages of notes. They’re really enthusiastic about improving our honors program, and just need the participation of the students to make it work. I believe our next honors meeting is Monday, November 3. Dr. Villa will be sending out an email as a reminder. It would be great if all of our honors students could attend!

While I was waiting for things to get busy again, I didn’t realize they would get this busy! As for free time, it doesn’t exist. I’m working 43 hours this week! Barnes and Noble has been very generous with my hours, and I just increased my hours in the library. But don’t worry, this won’t be happening often. I just put in my two weeks at Barnes and Noble….

Why? Good question. I love Barnes and Noble; I love working there. However, I just landed an internship with the Palm Beach Poetry Festival that will be taking up a lot of my time. At first, I thought I could do two jobs and the internship (not to mention school), but when Laura, my liaison, emailed me my duties yesterday, I realized that it just won’t be possible. And I refuse to give up the internship. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity that will give me the chance to work with two published poets, Gerald Stern and Anne Marie Macari. My friend Christina, who graduated last year, has done the same thing, and I know, as much work as it is, that it is so worth it. So I sacrificed Barnes and Noble, but I definitely gained a lot more. Plus, maybe since I don’t work there anymore, I can actually hang out and look at books (if I can find some free time). You just can’t browse the way you want to when you work somewhere.

In other news….I’m attending the National Collegiate Honors Council in San Antonio, Texas, October 21-26. I have been accepted to a Poetry Masters Class, where I will get to work on my poetry with a few other students. I’m excited about that, too. The conference will also host many (many!) little workshops about how to improve honors programs. The President and Vice President of the Honors Colloquium, as well as Dr. Villa, will be attending with me. I keep hearing that San Antonio is beautiful, so I can’t wait to see it.

So I will try not to leave such huge gaps between blogs again, but you can see why it happened! Besides, I’ll have plenty to blog about!

My best friend Marsha got married August 9th.

I was a bridesmaid! Marsha and Michael (the new husband) let me stay with them while I was there. I arrived in Louisiana earlier than her Maid of Honor, so I helped her get ready for the wedding and set up the church with her parents. The day of the wedding was crazy! Us girls went to get our hair done an hour and a half before we went to the church….that was not long enough. We got to the church late, which meant the men got to the church late because we had to be there first. Somehow, the ring bearer’s suit and the flower girls’ dresses got locked in a room that no one had a key to. Marsha’s dad cut his hand really deeply on the door while he was trying to force it open (he had to get stitches after the wedding). I was in charge of the two year old ring bearer, which means I held his hand down the aisle and had to coax him out of the bride’s spot where he decided it would be best to stand. He also thought it would be fun to step on the bride’s train and run around behind the preacher….. Then, after the wedding, the newly married couple realized they had left their marriage certificate at home. The groomsman had to go and retrieve it so that the wedding pictures could commence. At the reception, some crazy person put me in charge of cutting the groom’s cake….which was chocolate….and covered in chocolate-covered strawberries…..I told everyone that they would be lucky to get any.  And then I destroyed it. 

It is not smart to put me in charge of cutting a cake….it was not pretty when I was finished.  There weren’t many single men and women to catch the garter and bouquet: only four boys and five girls. Marsha threw the bouquet practically straight to my sister. 

 She didn’t want it. Marsha and Michael went to Vicksburg, MS for two days after their wedding and I got to stay at their place alone. I decided that, since I was running low on money, I would clean her house as a wedding gift. So when they went on their two day honeymoon, I cleaned. I cleaned their bathroom, kitchen, dining room, desk, and living room (I didn’t venture into the bedroom). I wasn’t there when they came home, but they said they were afraid they had gone into the wrong apartment. The cleanliness lasted until they opened their wedding gifts, which, along with the boxes and papers and bags, were strewn all over the living room. I didn’t stay with them for much longer after they returned.

I arrived in Boca Raton last night at 6:00 pm. Trying to get here was a disaster! I actually left Louisiana (where I was for my friend’s wedding) on Saturday, August 16th. When I got to about Jackson, Mississippi, my car stopped accelerating. It refused to move into 4th gear, so I was going down the highway at 40mph trying to get to an exit. I started calling everyone in my family and everyone I know in Louisiana, trying to get ideas about what to do. I didn’t know if I should call a tow or have someone pick me up.

Fortunately, my sister knew someone (our friend Phillip) who knew someone who had a trailer. Phillip drove all the way to Jackson, picked up me and my car, and drove me back to Louisiana. I stayed with me for the next week while we tried to figure out what was wrong with my car and how to fix it. It turns out that running over that piece of metal in Virginia had done more damage than I thought. It dented my catilitic converter so badly that it was stopped up, and that was causing my lack of acceleration.

Again, I was fortunate in that Phillip and one of his friends were able to fix my car, and I didn’t have to have it taken to a garage. The same night, I was taking my sister home, and when I tried to turn off my car, it wouldn’t shut off. I pulled the key out of the ignition, and it still wouldn’t go off. I called Phillip, and he unplugged the battery…. The car was still on. He finally had to unplug a cylinder to get it to shut down. We took it to a Chevy dealer soon after for them to fix it. The car would not do it for them. It worked perfectly fine. We were all so frustrated with my car by this time. I decided to wait a few days to see if it would act up again, but it didn’t.

But by the time it was fixed and running smoothly (well, mostly smoothly–a little louder), Hurricane Faye was hovering over South Florida. Everyone thought it was best if I didn’t leave right away.  So I stayed and hung out with people that I’ve known for years, but haven’t seen in a long time (I’ll blog more about them soon).

So, finally, everything was working and Faye had subsided a bit. I decided I would leave again on Tuesday, August 26th. I left at 9 am and I soon as I got down the street, I got a phone call from Phillip. He said to turn around; there was a pipe hanging from the bottom of my car and he saw it as I pulled out of the driveway. So I came back, he took it somewhere and bolted the pipe up and I left around 12:30 with no further interruptions or disasters. I am so relieved that my car didn’t break down again somewhere that no one could help me. Now, I don’t have to worry about anything for a while except going back to work and moving onto campus (yay!) on the 6th.

I set out on my first road trip alone this morning at 8 am. My best friend is getting married on August 9th, and I’m her bridesmaid, so I set out for Louisiana. My car is packed to the brim with everything I need to go back to Lynn, because I’m going straight to Boca soon after the wedding.

The trip started out great (except for a short 3 times in Jersey, where I got lost). Then, in Pulaski, Virginia, I ran over a huge hunk of metal at 70mph.

Not healthy for my car.

I had no idea what to do. Having never owned a car, I had never been in this situation. My closest family is over 200 miles away (with family in Maryland and Tennessee, I would, naturally, get stuck between the two), and I don’t know who to call or where to go for help. A trucker pulled over ahead of me to help, and a cop showed up behind me, so I wasn’t clueless for long. The cop found out where the metal had come from because the trucker whose truck it had fallen off of pulled over to drag the metal off the road. He was able to get the trucker’s information to give to me to give to my insurance company.  He also called a tow truck for me. I’m going to call them in the morning and find out the damage done to my car. Then, the cop brought me to a hotel. I haven’t been in a police car since I was 8 (I ran away from home), so it was an interesting ride.

Now I’m sitting at a Comfort Inn in the middle of nowhere Virginia with family calling me every few minutes to make sure I’m okay and see if they can do anything to help. I won’t know anything else tomorrow, so wish me luck. I hope my damage is minimal!

 The conference began on Thursday with a convocations session where Eleanor Wilner was the guest speaker. Later that night, we had a banquet as a welcoming dinner where Geoffrey Wolff delivered a monologue he had written. Brittany and I took pictures and made some new friends. We both wore dresses that were not appropriate for the 40 degree weather, but we were, fortunately, inside most of the time.

I read my paper Friday morning in front of a small audience of students. It wasn’t quite the excruciating 10 minutes that I made it out to be. Of course, I forgot to bring a bottle of water up with me, so my mouth was worse than dry, but other than that, the reading was fine. Unfortunately, Brittany and I were in different rooms at the same time, so we did not get to hear each other read. After our sessions, we ate breakfast and then went to hear a session where one of our new friends, David, read a story. It was an interesting satire on fantasy that he calls a mix between Harry Potter and Huckleberry Finn on crack. We mostly attended sessions that were poetry readings rather than research papers. It was definitely entertaining to listen to. They served us lunch (but ran out of vegetarian sandwiches, so I had to buy food) and Bret Anthony Johnston read the introduction of Naming the World. I have to say that he was the most entertaining of the three authors.

That night we attended a poetry reading and Brittany, of course, read two of her amazing poems. It was interesting to listen to students from around the country read their poetry, as well. The man in charge of the poetry reading said it was one of the best attended readings yet (though I have to say that it doesn’t compare to the poetry coffeehouses at Lynn; I just didn’t feel the same sense of closeness in the room).

Afterwards, we went bowling at a place called Fat Cats. Brittany had made us about 7 new friends from the conference, so there was a huge group of us. Four of them were a group of boys who had roadtripped all the way from Oregon and didn’t even have a place to stay for the night. We found out later that they slept in a park. Talk about dedication to literature!

On Saturday, we attended some more sessions. I think two of them were poetry and another one was with a couple of people with whom we had bowled. One girl read a paper about James Joyce’s Ulysses and T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” She kind of gave me the urge to read Ulysses, though, in general, I’m not attracted to Joyce’s writing. Another student in the last sesssion read a paper about a graphic novel called Fun Home. I had never before considered graphic novels as literature, but I would have to agree that this one was. It was a memoir by, I think, someone named Bechdale, though I’m not sure.

After all of the sessions were over, there was a question and answer period for the authors who had attended. People asked about publishing and living off their writing (which all of the authors agreed is not likely to happen; most authors hold jobs other than just their writing careers).

The conference (and Utah) was an experience. Although I was sometimes bored, I definitely don’t regret coming. Meeting all of the people I met and the experience of actually attending the conference was amazing. Now we’re sitting at the hotel waiting for the time when we need to go to the airport to catch our plane. I should probably go and catch up on the homework I’ve missed while I’m waiting…

So I haven’t blogged about this, but I thought it was about time to get down to it since I’m leaving on Wednesday. Dr. Morgan submitted my research paper for American Literature I to the National Undergraduate Literary Conference at Weber University, and it was accepted. This is not something I expected to be doing, but it is an honor nonetheless. The conference lasts from April 2-6, and it is in Salt Lake City, Utah. Brittany B. was also accepted for her poetry, so we both get to go. We will fly out together (at 7:00 in the morning!), stay in a room together, and come back on the next Monday (at 5:30 in the morning!). And Lynn University is paying for everything, which I couldn’t be more grateful for. I would never have had this opportunity if it weren’t for that fact.

As the day approaches, I get more and more excited and more and more nervous.  I’m going to be reading a paper that I wrote to an audience of people that I’ve never met. If that’s not nerveracking, I don’t know what is. And I’m going to meet so many people! I’m not the most social person in the world. In addition to listening to other students from around the nation read their papers, there will be three published authors at the conference who will be guest speakers. They are Geoffrey Wolff, Eleanor Wilner, and Bret Anthony Johnston. I think this is a great opportunity that Lynn has provided me with and I am going to do everything I can to get as much out of it as possible.

I just came back from a cruise to Mexico that Aly’s family generously invited me on. It was amazing! We left on December 29th and came back on the 5th of January. We stopped at Puerta Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas.

Aly and I went horseback riding in Mazatlan with some of her family. We rode on the beach, which I’ve never done before. It was so beautiful!! Also for the first time, I got to ride with the horse at a gallop. Usually I only go at a trot, which is really bumpy. Galloping is so smooth and surprisingly freeing. It was amazing to be going so fast!

One of the fun things about going on a cruise is all the chances you get to dress up! There were two formal nights where we got the chance to wear prom-like dresses (which is great because I didn’t go to my senior prom). One of them was on New Year’s. Aly and I went down to one of the lowest decks on the ship and watched them drop the balloons. I had never done that before either, so I experienced another new thing.

Speaking of new things, the food on the ship was really good! I tried tofu for the first time (I didn’t like it). What I thought was great was that there was a vegetarian menu, which was perfect because I’m a vegetarian. Aly tried some new foods, too. She hates fish; the sight, the smell, the taste: she hates everything about them. However, she tried shrimp. Surprisingly, she loved it! She also tried escargo, which I thought was a big leap for her.  

Aly’s whole family was there. She has six nieces and nephews and we played with them a lot. I went swimming once with all of the nieces. I barely got sunburned at all, which I’m kind of surprised about. Aly baby sat two of the boys during dinner one night. They’re all under 10, so it’s hard for them to sit at dinner for two hours. A lot of the time they had game boys and leapsters to keep them occupied.

Mexico itself was pretty beautiful, too. There were pelicans everywhere, though! I almost got pooped on by some of them. It would have been really bad because they don’t let out just a little; it’s like a shower. But I was surprised to see flocks of them; they would simply cover the boats in the marinas we went by. I took so many pictures of the scenery there, though. The sunsets were especially beautiful when we were out over the water.

I had an amazing time overall. I was so grateful that I got to go. Now I’m in Vegas at Aly’s house for the last week of vacation before school starts back up. She’s going to show me around and take me to the strip. It’s pretty exciting and definitely new. I’ve never been out here before. I told her in advance that I was going to go into tourist mode and take pictures of everything. I know I’m going to embarrass her, but I think she’s going to have to deal.