Pictures!

I promised pictures would come as soon as one of my co-RAs passed them on to us. So these pictures are of me and the 5 other RAs I work with the most.
Above: Mike, Mindy, Allison, Kristina, Me, Melanie. This is at Spring Haven where we received our first day of training. I'm sitting between the the girls that are in my tri-hall. So... pretty much I work with them the most.

Here we all are (Melanie, Mindy, Me, Allison, Mike, Kristina) at Camp Williams. It's some Army training camp, or boot camp or something like that. We went through some team-building experiences at Camp Williams. The first step though was working together the night before to make our group shirts. They say DANGER: Extreme Chaos. It's in reference to part of the Community-Progression Model which is something that we learn about to teach our residents. Our associate group is constantly in chaos, hence the warning. It's actually funny if you know about the model, which at this point, everyone else at Camp Williams knew exactly what it meant.

The past few days have been incredibly hectic. Almost all of the residents (in my tri-hall atleast) are checked in. Last time I was on duty (almost 4 hours ago) I was only missing 7 from my building, so that wasn't too bad at all. Hopefully when I go on duty again (in 1 hour) I won't have too many people to check in. Between these two shifts I've spent 3 1/2 hours working on publicity for the opening social for all of Heritage. It's been a very full day. I cut out 300 "Y"s with a diecut machine. It was pretty intense. All I've got left to do now for publicity is put things on the doors (they're already made though, so this shouldn't take too long), and make a poster for my hall. Holler!

Meeting Residents...

Some of my residents checked in today. Today is early early check-in day. Check-ins start Wednesday. Early check-ins start Monday, and early early check-ins were 2 hours ago. I've met 4 of my residents now. I knew all along that they would be close in age to me, but it's funny to watch/help them move in and have it really hit me that we are pretty much the same age. We're just peers. One of my residents that has moved in already is one of my roommates. She told me that she liked me and that she could tell we would get along and be friends. Hopefully this is a consistant comment from my residents.

On another note. I'm about to fall over and fall asleep. The bad thing, it's only 7:00pm. Conference guests FINALLY moved out today. I got my building to myself for a whole like 5 hours. In that time I ran around frantically making sure everything was clean, I left things in the apartments, and I made sure they were all locked and had the blinds closed. I was supposed to be done at 5 because that was when early early check-ins started. I finished at 4:59. Ya. My lobby is bare, and my window is not painted, but I have until Tuesday night to do that. I can only imagine what my Monday will look like... after I have 2 4 hour shifts checking early check-ins in.

CRAZY! My residents are coming in the next week, and classes start soon. Who would've thought this day would come?!?!?!?!

Training: Day 1

Saturday I loaded all my stuff into my suitcases and flew back to school. I spent a day and a half running around with Stephanie & her family, since they are here for education week. We went to walmart and costco, and I had many meals with her family. Steph & Alexa even helped me move everything into my dorm, and then helped me unpack (thanks, Steph). I'm mostly unpacked now, but I still have 1 box that is only halfway unpacked. I also haven't put any of my kitchen stuff into the kitchen. I want to wait til the roommates get here so we can decide what to do about kitchen cupboards and such.

Today was the first day of RA Training. We went down to the new Cannon Center for breakfast and an intro meeting, then headed to the employment office to get officially hired by the school. Then we got into vans and headed to this HUGE house. This was where we had our super cool 1st day of RA training. I already LOVE my hall advisor, the other RAs in my tri-hall, as well as the hall advisor and RAs of our associate tri-halls (that would make up the 6 RAs that I rotate working with). We have quite the group, it is hilarious. With my tri-hall and our associate tri-halls, we only have 1 boys building. It's hilarious, that RA, Michael, makes me laugh.

After I get pictures from my co-worker/friend Kristina, I'll post them so you can see the 7 people that I get to work with a bunch.

After about a 12 hour day of work, I'm super tired. I'm so glad that tomorrow doesn't start until 9:40. Tomorrow we're going on a tour of the resources on campus (counseling center, international offices, center for conflict resolution and such...). And then we have a cool sounding meeting about FERPA, the Honor Code, ad Freshman Academy. Should be done by about 5. AND we have a 2 hour break for lunch. It will make up for the amount of time we spent being trained today. Hopefully it will be a low key day. In the morning, 2 of my new RA friends (Kristina and Allison) and I are having a waffle party for breakfast! I'm super excited.

It's kind of really crazy not having roommates right now. There is a Conference Assistant living next door to me, and I've got some people staying in my building for Education Week, so I'm not alone, but nobody else is in my apartment. It's also kind of lame because after training ended, we all pretty much went to our own buildings instead of doing something together. We were just all too pooped. It takes too much effort to make a phone call or walk a few buildings over. Once school starts and the doors aren't locked until later at night, maybe I'll hang out with Kristina more often, but walking up to her building (the building I lived in last year) and knocking on her door hoping she hears the tapping on the front door, just doesn't sound too appealing.

Well, I think I'm outta here. I'll blog more soon.

And, Paul/Jeanne. I tried to call on Sunday, but your phone was busy, and when I called your cell phones nobody answered. So, I'll try calling Tuesday night so I can talk to the kids.

My new goal in life:

Marry Michael Phelps. Yup... haha! Watching the olympics, haven't we all fallen in love with Michael Phelps? Is he not amazing? So I pretty much love that his daily routine is wake up, eat, swim, watch tv, go to sleep. That sounds like a fabulous routine. In discussing this plan of mine with my good friend Brendan, I realized a potential problem though. I'm afraid of swimming. Remember when I was a young child and almost died in the Springgay's pool? Ya... I don't swim. Maybe marrying an olympic swimmer isn't REALLY the best option for me. But hey, for a few minutes, it was a great lifetime goal. Was it not?