I was driving back from CVS on Thursday and as I was gathering up all of my bags, I saw 3 or 4 of them on my gear stick. I’m very proud of the fact that I stayed calm–no shrieking to speak of. I am, however, quite terrified of being near my car knowing they are there.

I called an Orkin guy today to see what to do to get rid of them. He said regular old bug spray would be fine. My car is going to be emitting a not so lovely fragrance for a while. I’m also going to vaccuum out my car. Hopefully when I’m done, I will have no more bug problems!

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!

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 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!

He moved around too much for me to get a really good picture!

 Thank you Jess!!!!

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!

Unfortunately, I couldn’t just leave it there; I had to do something about it. So I took off my flip flop and held it threateningly over the spider. I was even scared to attempt to kill it, because what if I missed and it disappeared before I could take another shot? I can’t have a black widow running around in my car. But I finally gathered up the nerve to launch my attack, and I smashed it. So there is a black widow smushed carcass in the trunk of my car. Hopefully, it was the only one…

That, paired with the dead locust in my back windshield kind of has me fed up with bugs. All bugs—beware! I will show no mercy!