The nice thing about St. Leo: you get a whole week off for that great Thanksgiving holiday. How does one enjoy so much time off? Well...

First, you try let off steam by going to dinner and a movie with friends. I went to Hot Rod's in Lutz near Tampa, and had bat for the first time. Okay, so a lot of people probably think thats gross or too country, But I'll have you know that bat was actually pretty delicious and more tender than chicken. We then were off to the movie theatres, where I knew I would get sucked into watching Beowulf. I enjoyed learing about it in school my senior year, but I must say the movie confused me and I didn't really enjoy the distracting Grendal fight scene or the Jolie sexy mother representation. But, to each his own.

The disappointing part about school being off for a week is that its a perfect opportunity for teachers to give papers and homework, so I had the pleasure of doing that work in between vegging out and shopping (not spending of course, because every college student knows this close to Christmas someone is bound to help buy something for us anyway).

Finally on Wednesday, my family started to load the trailer. We were going camping, which we have been doing on and off for years. This year, we were going to the State Park Lake Griffin, a beautiful lake only marred by recent building of the land and hoards of mosquitos. Our Thanksgiving was rainy, but that didn't stop us from exploring the grounds. We took our two labradors out and looked around the small park area before deciding that a game of cards would be easier to do in the trailer than exploring in the rain.

The next day after the earth was purged by the rain, we went canoeing on the lake. My sister Carly and I were in one canoe, and we ran into some lilies while we tried to remember the physics of steering. After that, we saw some wildlife: two alligators sunning, a turtle, and a few birds. It was very beautiful and rewarding.

Cassie and I standing next to one of the largest oaks in Florida

Kristy and I on our canoe

Thanksgiving is always the time when my family tries to come back together. I think that is why it is my favorite holiday. Christmas tends to be slightly materialistic anywhere you go, but the Thanksgiving week is just about family and good food. I figure this is a good time for people to really see what matters in our lives, the sustenance of not only the foods we eat but the relationships we share with those we love. We get away from work and school and concentrate on what really matters. Some people experience unpleasant times with their relationships during this time, and that is also a reason to decide what is going on in relationships around us.

Well, the end is near, and I have a lot to do before the Christmas vacation.

Posted by Margaurete Romero at 11:04 AM | Permalink

Where did i leave you off?
O, yes, Halloween trick-or-treaters came over to Marmion-Snyder and we were able to give out candy the day before the 31st. Halloween night I usually celebrate my sister's birthday, so she came up for her 22nd and I enjoyed a dinner at Applebees (you will learn to love thier half-off appetizers) with her and some of her friends.

For the most part, I have been immersed in school activities. Chemistry tests take a while to study for, and there are papers to write and books to read, etc, that they just take up so much of your time. But there are always ways to unwind! On Friday was Jen Duffy's birthday, and a few of us went to Grand Prix and rode go-karts and golfed. It was a lot of fun and a great way to not only celebrate a birthday but to unwind after a hard chemistry test I had had earlier that day. I have to admit, no one was keeping score, though I do believe I came in 4th both times around the track, which I was pretty proud of for my first time, and I didn't get into a really bad pile-up.

All of us at Grand Prix

On Sunday I volunteered for Tri-Beta to go to the Leadership Conference. Every club and group on campus sends so many people to this and they enjoy a speaker and lunch and free gifts. This year, Andrea Mosby talked to us about her key to success, her DECISIONS method. she believes in the determination, energy, courage, intuition, serious, imagination, open, never give up and success. She explained some of her life stories of being a teenage mom and trying to raise a son on her own. She was very insightful and very funny, mentioning to us first hand that she WILL laugh at her own jokes. She was honest with us, and that made for a great presentation.

The next day was community service day. I chose to go to the battered woman's home with Jen Duffy as leader. We were going to do yard work and such for the home, which had neglected the job due to more interest in taking care of the women in the home. We pulled up vines and weeds, raked leaves and tidied up the area. Although we didn't have much direction from the people about what exactly they wanted, we did our best to give them the care their yard deserved.

My community service group

This next week is Thanksgiving, and I am excited! A whole week off with family and friends to enjoy.

Posted by Margaurete Romero at 2:37 PM | Permalink

These passed few weeks have been crazy in their own way. One of the great things about St. Leo is their commitment to community service. I heard a lot about the SERVE trips from my sister and others, and I was interested in joining one. What St. Leo does is for the spring break they go to different places such as Honduras and the Keys and New Jersey to help the communities. They do fund raisers through out the year to help the process along. I decided I wanted to go to New Jersey and so I filled out an application and went to my interview. I got accepted! So now I start the process of getting ready for the service trip.
Also, I highly encourage the people to take advantage of the little give-aways and parties that the different people put on. There is movie night, and also Bingo night. At Bingo, I was the luckiest person there. My friend and I went on a whim and enjoyed the festivities. The gifts were actually really good and tempting, with movies like Knocked-Up and Tranformers, and a recorder and MP3 player, a DVD player and a printer. Prize after prize were given away, and finally, the grand prize was shown: an Xbox 360 and Halo 3. Everyone was very excited, and I was nervous because I had been close to winning a few things, but neither my friends nor I had won yet. I waited and there were a couple of close calls of people winning, but they had misunderstood the rules or had done the wrong number. Finally, the last number they called was "O 61" and it was the last number I needed. Now, I am rarely ever the winner of such things, and I was able to win somthing, so anything can happen.

the xbox

Speaking of doing things new, I, a city girl, went with some friends to the country club "The Dallas Bull". It was actually a lot of fun, and it was the first time I did line dancing. I have to admit, I am not a pro, but it was fun just to try. When we miss steps it is actually more obvious than I am used to, and I would have been embarrassed if it weren't enjoyable.

All of us going to the Dallas Bull

Another thing I would recomend on campus is to go canoeing. Lake Jovita is really nice, especially on the calm day I did it. Even doing it the first time, i was able to paddle pretty well. Now I just have to learn how to steer...
As for classes, the teachers are really nice about helping us out in our concerns for our grades or our progress in the course. Between tutoring sessions and extra credit, they are trying to help us do the best we can in college. For chemistry, we were pleasantly surprised when Professor Williams had us play a game for class. We played Jeopardy and my team was doing well on some of the categories. We really took off when we got the mystery category (music) and answered the question of the artist who sung Island Girl (I answered correctly Elton John), and after that my team took off. We ended up ahead by a few points, and we were able to get the correct answer for the Final of Movie quotes. when he told us the prize was three points added to our test scores, I couldn't be prouder of our team.
I've been keeping busy, one thing that is not hard for a college student to do. The next few weeks are the end of the semester, so they will be stressful, but I will be able to handle it.

Posted by Margaurete Romero at 3:03 PM | Permalink