20th Birthday/Pre-Finals Week

Time flies! I'm twenty years old and fall semester is almost over!!!

For my birthday, I went to dinner at Casa Guadalajara in Old Town with some friends. My birthday was on the last day of classes for the fall semester. My friends and I definitely wanted a fun night before we our dreaded finals! Here's some photos from the night:

I love my finals week schedule. Somehow I ended up having one final per day which is really nice! Our finals week is from December 16th - 22nd. Our last day of class was the 14th, and we have the 15th as our "study day." I love having a study day because we don't go straight from last day of class to the first day of finals. It also gives us some time to de-stress and take a deep breath before practically moving into the library. This year I think I spent almost every night studying at the library until 4:00 a.m! So thankful for caffeine! Here's a photo from the "Harry Potter Room" at the Copley Library:

Well I should get back to studying!

-Katt

Founders Club at Nazareth House - Part Two

As I've mentioned in my last blog, Founders Club went to bring the Christmas cards we made and sang Christmas Carols at the Nazareth House. Several of us came out and we had tons of fun! We were able to meet more of the senior residents at Nazareth House and also their families who attended their Christmas Party. I'm definitely looking forward to more events next semester!

xoxo,

Katt

Founders Club at Nazareth House

Community service and volunteering is an important part of my life. Every since I was young, I have always been really passionate about helping others. One of the reasons why I decided to attend USD was because of the immense amount of opportunities for service projects and community service activities. There are tons of community service clubs on campus - Invisible Children, STAND, Romero Center, University Ministry, and more!

One that I am the most involved in is USD's Founders Club where I am on the executive board as publicity/recruitment chair. An activity that we do at least every other week is spending a Saturday afternoon at Nazareth House with senior citizens. The last time we went, we played cards and board games with them. Everyone - both USD students and the senior citizens - had a great time and enjoyed themselves! I have been planning a Founders Club Christmas card making/holiday party, and it will be held this Thursday. We will be making Christmas cards for the senior citizens at Nazareth House while enjoying some pizza and yummy treats (pumpkin pie and holiday cookies!) We will be bringing the Christmas cards this Saturday when we go to the Nazareth House, and we will also be singing Christmas carols to them! I will be posting a blog about that with some pictures of course!

Remember, if you have any questions about ANYTHING, please feel free to email me: katrinaannem-12@sandiego.edu

xoxo,

Katt

Brrrrrrrrr! It's Cold in Here!

Exhaustion. It is now 4:00 p.m., and I have been awake since 3:00 am this morning. I have been on a two-hour shuttle ride, two planes, three airports, many security checkpoints, uncomfortable napping spots, and overpriced cab rides. As I am writing this blog, I am solely running on the caffeine from a double shot latte and a cup of coffee....and lots of sugar from candy.

So what have I been doing you may ask? Well I just arrived from the Evergreen State of Washington where I spent the weekend with the executive board members of Residence Hall Association (RHA) along with our advisor. We attended the Pacific Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls (PACURH) conference in Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. It's an annual conference for various college campuses in the Pacific Western region.

On Friday, we left San Diego at 2pm to fly into Sacramento for a layover and then flew into the Seattle airport. Then, we took a shuttle from Seattle to Bellingham which took almost three hours. So when we arrived on Friday night at 10:30 pm, we were so exhausted from traveling. We just wanted to check-in to our hotel, order some food, and get as much sleep as we can for the busy day ahead. On Saturday, we attended sessions where we learned about programming, leadership skills, communication skills, and networking with other residence halls. Later that evening, there were several events going on for the PACURH conference delegates such as a banquet, a dance, and a college feud (family feud college-style game) just to name a few.

It would be absolutely impossible for me to give you every detail of my trip so I'll let these photos give you an idea of what went on during the weekend!

Goodbye 70 degree beautiful sunny San Diego.... Hello freezing 30 degree rainy Washington state!

FINALLY at the hotel room after a long day of travelling

USD Ninjas! (The theme of the conference was Top Secret Agents)

USD & Sonoma State RHA dressed up for roll call

USC at roll call

Pictures we took around campus in between our sessions

PACURH 2009

USD RHA Exec Board (minus Mike) at the banquet

YAY Carly! 4 years in RHA!

The dance at the conference

Shuttle Ride at 3am

More plane rides.....

@ the Seattle airport... The team trying to get every possible nap time in

What the Hay is Broomball?!?

Broomball: (n.) Broomball is like hockey but you don't wear skates, you wear sneakers on ice instead.

An RHA Classic! The Residence Hall Association (RHA) has been putting on Broomball for many semesters now. Being in exec board for RHA, I helped organize the event. RHA provided transportations (USD trams or carpools) to the ice skating rink in La Jolla. It was actually my first time to attend Broomball since I've always had some schedule conflict. Last week, it was held on a Thursday night at 10:00 p.m. Thursdays are my longest days of the week, so I was definitely looking forward to attending broomball to de-stress myself after a long day!

My Thursday schedule:

9:00-10:35 am - World Literature class

10:35-12:00 noon - Go to World Lit professor's office hours and library time to work on lab worksheet due at 2:30 pm

12:15-1:15 pm - AS Senate meeting

1:15-2:15 pm - Lunch and final changes to lab worksheet

2:30-6:30 pm- Anatomy and Physiology lab

6:30- 7:30 pm - Dinner

7:30-9:30 pm - went to PB this day to get Halloween costumes

10:00-12:00 am - BROOMBALL!

Broomball was such a great de-stressor. It was my first time playing it so I was still learning and trying to get the hang of it. As I was playing, I was not prepared for how intense this game gets! Everyone was so into it! We had 4 teams who all played against each other. We had about 60 - 70 people attend this event so it was definitely a success. I am looking forward to the next broomball next semester!

Halloween Spooktacular

I looooove Halloween! It's so fun dressing up and seeing all the funny, unique, crazy costumes that people come up with. I was dressed as a cat for Halloween. It was kind of a last minute plan. My friends and I went to Pacific Beach/PB which had a ton of halloween stores the night before to look around for costumes. On Oct. 30th, the Greek community along with other organizations on campus like Residence Hall Association, Wellness Center, and Multicultural Front organized an all-campus dance at USD's Sports Center. It was such a huge success! Tons of students ranging from freshmen to seniors, both greek and non-greek students, and it was just a great way to see the USD community get together and have fun!

The actual day of Halloween was soooo fun as well. The Student Life Pavilion (SLP) weekend brunch was specially themed for halloween. There were pastries and desserts shaped in bones, ghosts, and pumpkins and dyed black and orange to look really festive for Halloween! Several students also came to brunch in their costumes to show their Halloween spirit! Although I just wanted to have fun all day and celebrate one of my favorite days of the year, I spent the entire afternoon studying on my residence hall study lounge and doing homework! Gotta have some work time set aside for sure. My friends and I actually went trick-or-treating in La Jolla later that evening. We were all actually pretty stoked as we haven't gone trick-or-treating in YEARS! My friend from Connecticut was especially extremely excited for it as she shared that it was ILLEGAL to trick-or-treat in CT when you turn 15 (or 16) years old. We had fun being kids at heart once again, and we all definitely reminisced on our childhood trick-or-treating days.