Catching Up on the Last 5 Weeks! (Part 1)

I can't believe how long it's been since I've written a proper life update post! Things went so quickly at the end of the semester, just as I'd anticipated that they would. I always say the end of the year sneaks right up on us because we're busy right until the last second. This year was no different! It felt like I had events every single day, on top of finishing up my graduate work and trying to not pass out from exhaustion. Anyway, I have a LOT to catch up on, so I'm going to break this life update into two parts. (I'll post part #2 tomorrow!)

The day after the Boston Marathon, Springfest activities got underway! I always love the large scale, campus-wide events because I really get to see the students in action. It really is amazing how much they can accomplish as a group! Each event was a success (even with the rained out carnival) and we all had such a blast the entire week. I'm going to really miss PC next year when all of the Homecoming and Springfest photos pop up on social media!

Grilled cheese truck, hosted by the Cheese Connoisseurs Club!

A happy Springfest gift from former PC advisor Matt!

Rachel & Kevin loving the cookie bouquet!

Mid-week during Springfest I picked up my cap & gown for commencement which made things REALLY real! It was a great motivator, though, to keep pushing through all of the school work and reach the finish line of grad school. I had it hanging up on my closet door right next to my mirror so I could see it each day to keep me focused!

My regalia in all its glory.

The weekend after Springfest was the Dean Dash 5K! My family had run it last year so we thought we'd continue the tradition. Louie even joined us, only 5 days after running Boston! #champ This year's race was much larger and much better organized as well. It was a gorgeous day for a race and it's always good to have friends and family visiting my neck of the woods!

Giving Louie the sign we made him for the Marathon! It got a little destroyed by the rain...

The following week I had, what I liked to call, an #SAroadtrip! We all know that I basically lived in my car this year, but that week I truly, truly did. I commuted between Dean, Nichols, Bridgewater, Clark, and even an institution that I interviewed at in Western Massachusetts for a total of 5 different colleges, within 3 days! I traveled a total of 399 miles in a little under 72 hours... Yikes. Here were my tour stops:

Wednesday: Left Dean in the morning to commute to BSU for work, and then went out to Nichols to visit Brett for the night.

Watching Brett play a bit of pick-up basketball at Nichols while working on some homework.

Thursday: Had my last day of my internship at Clark :( where Joanne and Tim took me out to The Fix for a delicious lunch that consisted of burgers with espresso. bacon. What. (Guess who's the idiot who forgot to take a picture? Trust me, it was BOMB.) Then I commuted back to BSU for the Impact Awards that evening which were so much fun! (So proud of all of my PCers who took home awards!) I spent the evening back in my apartment at Dean.

The give away at this year's awards were selfie sticks, so of course it was selfies galore for the rest of the year!

Friday: Woke up and commuted out to Western Mass for my interview, made a stop at Nichols to say hi to Brett on the way back, then was on duty Friday evening at Dean. (And of course, I treated myself to Chipotle for champing out the last few days.)

Saying I was tired by the end of the trip would be an understatement, but I'm glad I have such a reliable car to get me everywhere! #DoryismyBFF

That Saturday Brett and I went out to dinner at the new Smash Burger (YUM) and just relaxed at home while I finished up an assignment for school. Sunday evening was the end-of-year ResLife banquet at Dean, and it was so sad to say goodbye to my wonderful CAs. It was so wonderful to have them on my staff this year and I'm going to miss them so much!

Monday marked the last day of classes for the BSU undergrads, so of course we had to go out with a bang which included Duck Day* and the rescheduled Springfest Carnival! The weather was absolutely perfect and made for a wonderful last day to hang out with the PC gang. We had so many people at the carnival which was awesome! It was such a great note on which to end my time as a PC advisor. Don't worry, I'm not crying... there's just dust in my eye...

Set-up selfie!

Pie a Panhel! With one of my favorite Greek women, Shannon!

Look at those lines! It got much more crowded as the event progressed.

Tuesday evening PC hosted their annual Production Crew dinner, which is for students who have gone above and beyond to contribute back to the organization. Even alumni are invited back, so long as they were inducted into Production Crew while they were students! It was great to catch up with some of the students I worked with last year, as well as to have the opportunity to really say goodbye to the wonderful organization that really impacted my time as a grad at BSU. (And the food was amazing!)

With some of my PC pals!

Candyland battle!

I'm going to wrap up this first part of my life update with my Portfolio Defense that happened on Wednesday of that week. I had been working on my portfolio all semester long and it was so great to just have it be done with. However, I was the last person to defend, meaning I had to sit through six 25-minute presentations before I could present my own, which of course gave my nerves plenty of time to build. I'm pretty sure I blacked out during the entire presentation and I probably sounded like an idiot, but I PASSED which meant I was graduating for real! Such an amazing feeling to be done with that portion of my grad school experience. Our Internship course instructor took us out for drinks and appetizers to celebrate after we were done!

My outfit for the defense!

Pre-defense selfie with Brit!

Post-defense Mai Tai *heart eyes Emoji*

I still have a ton to catch you up on, so make sure you check back tomorrow for part two!

*Duck Day is an awesome program that PC puts on. Staff members hide rubber ducks all around campus, and each duck corresponds with a prize. When students find ducks, they turn them in for those prizes, ranging from a back of candy all the way up to an iPad! Students will climb trees, go through bushes, and look literally EVERYWHERE to find the ducks. It's one of the most entertaining things to witness!

I CAN SEE THE FINISH LINE, Y'ALL

...I really wasn't kidding when I told you this end-of-year nonsense was going to be insane. It's been almost a month since I've stopped in to just give you guys an update of all that's been going on. I feel like I'm just starting to catch a little bit of a break, buuuuuut today is also the start of Springfest at BSU (though our event today was postponed due to weather) so it'll be another week of craziness on tap for me.

What have I been up to lately? More like, what haven't I been up to lately. Much like my previous life update, I'm going to try and put everything into list form to help organize my thoughts a bit.

A quick selfie before opening the doors of Spree Day!

1. Every major event ever! Last week was Spree Day at Clark and Greek Week at BSU. This week is Springfest at BSU. Next week is Impact Awards at BSU. The week after that is the Last Hurrah (yet another full day of programming) at BSU. Basically, April is the month of major events in Student Affairs land meaning long hours and late nights, but these events are awesome and are basically my favorite thing to plan and see. (I always say it's a good thing that I love what I do because I spend a LOT of time doing it!) I swear when the semester is over I'm going to have zero idea what to do with myself.

2. DROWNING IN HOMEWORK. Actually it's not all that bad, but my capstone project has been taking up the bulk of my attention as of late. For my capstone, I'm creating an online portfolio of all of my experiences over the past two years as a grad student. I need to make sure it looks supah professional, because on May 6th I will be presenting it to a committee of three faculty members and then defending it well enough so I can graduate. NO PRESSURE. So needless to say, I will be pouring over that until I officially pass it in and can't make any more edits to it on April 29th. Yikes city. Maybe when it's done I'll share it with you all! :)

3. Getting back into the swing of running. I set a goal for myself to workout at least 2-3 times a week during the months of April and May now that the weather is nicer, and so far it's going well! The sun is up earlier and stays out later which makes finding time to run SO much easier, and I'm on my way to getting back to my old running self that I left behind in the fall. I have a half marathon target for mid-June and a goal for my third marathon in early October, so hopefully that works out!

4. OBSESSING OVER TRAVELER'S NOTEBOOKS. You guys know that I'm planner obsessed. I don't know what it was, but a few weeks ago I decided I just needed to do more research on traveler's notebooks. So I watched a few set-up videos on YouTube. And then I watched some more. And then I watched a couple DIY videos. And then I thought "I could totally make one of those". And then I totally made one. I'm in love. Every time I use it it gets more and more character and I'm hooked. I'll for sure be writing a blog post and making a video walking you through my set-up when things settle down a bit (and I'll likely do a DIY video and post as well), but until then here's a picture of my notebook in all its glory!

*heart eyes Emoji*

5. Job searching on the ~daily~. It's an every day routine at this point for me. Click onto the job boards, save the descriptions I like, write up a cover letter and send it on its merry way. Then obsessively check my Gmail for any updates and get sad when business hours are over. Brittany and I have been calling the last few weeks "Rejection Season" as we've been receiving more "no"s than "yes"s at this point. Kinda scary, but part of the process. In the meantime, I was invited to come back to work with BSU's Orientation program during the end of May and through June, so at least that's something tiding me over while I continue the search! (Plus I had such a wonderful time last year that I am pretty pumped to be joining the team again this year!)

6. Cheering on runners in the Boston Marathon! Cassie and I ventured down to the starting line for the marathon today. It's not far from Dean at all and I had never been to the starting line before, and since my friend Louie was running this year I thought it would be the best year to check it out! We made a sign for Louie (which quickly got destroyed by the rain) and got a really awesome spot at the starting line, right on the barricade. Unfortunately we didn't see Louie go by (there was 7,500 runners in each wave, so no surprise there) but we had a blast cheering everyone on despite the cold, rainy weather!

The sign before the rain destroyed it.

We're in the home stretch, people. Only 2 internship days, 5 class days, 5 assignments, 21 days of the semester, and 23 total days 'til graduation! I am so close to the finish line it is unreal, and I can NOT wait until I can finally check this accomplishment off my list. Again, apologies for the lack of updates between now and graduation, but I'll do my best to keep up with everything. I still have a few vacation posts to share with you all, so stay tuned! :)

Hope you're all having a wonderful April, and I'll write very soon! <3

Personal Life Black Hole

Hey everyone! It's been a while since I've actually told you what's been going on in my personal life, but that's because my personal life and school/work life have essentially been the same thing over the past month or so. Basically, my personal life has become a black hole where all of the fun has turned into work. (#yikes) Not that I don't love my jobs (because I absolutely do!), it's just that personal time has just been non-existent the past month or so and it's be stressful. Yes, April/May is probably the most hectic time in college land, and being both a student and a staff member, it's been especially so for me this year (and probably will be again next year). I figured it was about time I gave y'all a life update, though, so I'm going to sift through my calendar and tell ya what I've been up to.

Nick, Louie, Mom, Dad, and I at the Dean Dash 5K - literally in my backyard!

1. Running more regularly. Post-marathon, I let grad school and work kind of take over my life and the stress and exhaustion they caused and the time they consumed it became excuses to not exercise. Somehow in the month of April I found the time to clock in 22.17 miles - which would be low for me at any other time in my life, but it incredible for me right now. This puts me at just under 40 miles to reach my 100-miles-for-the-year-by-the-end-of-May goal! Once the semester ends I will absolutely have more time to train as I am going to be signing up for the New Hampshire Marathon soon, as well as (hopefully) another half for the summer. Can't wait to get back at it!

The amazing crew that made Springfest possible!

2. Springfest! This was one loooooong week of events at BSU, sponsored by the lovely club that I advise! They put on a carnival, movie night (The Lego Movie is amazing, btw), a comedy show, and several novelties - all of which were a huge success! Even though I didn't get home until about 11:30pm every night during that week, seeing this event come to life and go off without a hitch made me so proud of my students. All of that lost sleep was worth it - they're truly amazing!

3. Taking up occasional yoga. Runner's World has a few different yoga videos specifically for runners and I've been trying a few of them out lately. It's really helped with all my sore muscles (go figure) and has really made some of the stress melt away - even if just for a moment. It's good to have a coach type person to put me through a stretching regimen, because I'm not disciplined enough to stretch myself!

My amazing CA's tearing up as they give me a gift at the ResLife banquet :') <3

4. Banquet & Awards Season. With the end of the year comes banquets and award ceremonies for every office that you may be involved in. In the past week, I've attended a banquet for the club I advise, an award ceremony for student leaders at BSU, the Dean ResLife banquet, and another banquet for highly involved member of the club I advise as well as alumni who were involved in the club! It's always great to recognize the amazing students that we work with every day, but it's also extremely bittersweet to say goodbye to everyone - especially if they're graduating or leaving for whatever other reason - so things can get pretty emotional (if you can't tell from the photo above)!

Presenting to Student Leaders at Lasell!

5. Presentations on presentations on presentations. Over the past few weeks, I've been speaking publicly for various reasons. I presented two awards at one of the many ceremonies I've attended over the past couple days, I went back to Lasell to give a presentation to some awesome student leaders, and I gave an in-class presentation for one of my courses. Public speaking, for whatever reason, makes me really nervous. I don't know what it is, because the idea of it isn't really all that terrifying to me, but once I get up there I can just feel my face getting red and my hands shaking. I don't know if it's the adrenaline or what, but it's really annoying and I wish I would just get over it! That's why taking opportunities like this makes it a bit easier like this every time. Maybe one day I'll be able to present without the nerves attached to it (I used to be able to!) but for now I just gotta push through each and every presentation and it will get easier over time.

6. Finishing up course work (of course [ha]). The past few weeks all of my assignments have been due. It's been pretty absurd. But I'm now at the point where I am one paragraph to edit and two classes away from being DONE with the semester. I can't. Freaking. Wait.

We close at Dean on Saturday which frees me up to celebrate by 24th birthday! (What?!) 

This weekend is SOOOOO needed and I can't wait for the next few days to be over with so I can enjoy the weekend with a bunch of awesome people! :)

What have you been up to?