The first few weeks of school have been hectic. My friend the first week of school was rushed to the emergency room on Wednessday, which had all of us worried. She is ok, though she gave us a scare. I went to all my classes and enjoyed being back, though the second semester starts up so fast. I was back in Chemistry doing equations and such and I was in zoology learning my structures of the cell all over again (I took AP Bio in highschool, so a lot of the things we are doing in the beginning is like a review). I love my honors courses, and if you ever are a student and are offered the honors program, take it. I have Professor Spoto for Academic Writing II and Professor Imperato for Christian Vision. Both classes are mainly led by discusions on what we have read and some of our philosophies on the subject. They require a lot of reading and papers, but they are worth taking.

Getting back into the swing of things means going back to work too. My sister and my father started an action photography business, CR Action Photo, and we mainly take soccer tournaments. Over the weekend I was back out there, in the cold in Fort Lauderdale, taking the DC cup, a small recreational tournament. I was freezing, but i have a lot of fun taking the pictures since soccer is one of my favorite sports. At school, I was back to work in the lab, washing glassware and preparing the laminations for zoology. Our department finally got a laminating machine, so now the zoology assistants are excitedly laminating every picture we have. Yes, we are a bit cheesey, but you have no idea how much this means to lab assistants that now we are more organized.

Overall, there is not too much going on quite yet exept a lot of work and school. But the rest of the time feels more promising, and so we will wait for things to pick up around here.

Posted by Margaurete Romero at 3:24 PM | Permalink

It has been a while since I have written for these blogs. So much happened over the break, especially since it was a very long break. I celebrated the usual warm Christmas in Tampa, which I have become too accustomed to, and played Guitar Hero III on my fairly new XBox (thank you Leo!). My family usually spends the day playing around with what ever it is we got, and we all gather around and watch movies together, or shows (our family has a thing for The Office and Scrubs), then we have the big dinner.

Though Christmas was going really well, I had in the back of my head a reminder: I was leaving. You see, my friend had invited me on a 2 week trip to Montana - Helena, to be specific - and I had actually accepted. This is odd, only in that this movement was so spontaneous and I normally do not go very far without my family. She was picking me up the day after Christmas, and it was odd packing on Christmas day for this long trip. My mom had already frantically tried to make sure that I would stay warm, remembering what it was like to grow up in Ohio, and she worried I was way over my head. But sure enough, Ashley and I made our way to Billings without a problem, though a really long lay-over in Denver, and an almost cancelled flight because of the Denver snow storm.

The drive from Billings to Helena couldn't have been prettier with mountain forests dusted with the white snow, and the big blue Montana sky. When we arrived to her grandparent's house, we quickly decided that the next day we would climb Mt. Helena. We being Floridians, had no idea the ice we would find on the steep slopes of the mountain side. Needless to say, we made it halfway up with the time we had, then as we were climbing down, the ice got the best of our boots and we slid down for some of the mountain. Later on, we climbed to the top, a beautiful view of Helena and the surrounding mountains. We encountered some of thier infamous deer along the side of the mountain too.

Ice skating was another adventure that we did in Montana. It was only $3 to skate, so Ashley and I decided to hone in on our skills on the ice. I have to admit, I couldn't make my Russian heritage too proud in the figure skates, but I did do pretty well considering how long it was since I had strapped on any kind of skate, let alone ice skates.

Another one of the big events was skiing. Many people have skied before, but for someone who rarely sees snow in her life - well, its a big event. Ashley had skied before when she lived in Montana and Michigan, so she was a step ahead of me. I, on the other hand, had difficulty stopping. which is not such a good problem to have, especially on the slopes of The Great Divide, which were really steep. I did fine for a while, and i had some amazing wipe-outs, but then they decided to try and get me to go to the taller slopes. That's when i hit the tree. Well, after you hit a tree ( a small sappling, but nonetheless i hit it hard) skiing is kind of hard to get into again. Ashley stayed with me the whole way, because the only way to get off of your skis is to make it down to the bottom of the hill. I made it down in double the time of many people, but i did have fun. It is just a totally different feeling than what i have ever experienced before in my life.

The lodge at the Great Divide

Its a good thing I made it down too, because after that, it started snowing really hard. we left when the storm was a little better, and made it home to see that it had even snowed in town. Later that night, more snow softly fell, powdering the ground. I was able to make my first snow angel in my life.

Overall, the two weeks were fun! I had a white new year, which is my first ever. The only wierd thing was noticing my Florida friends texting me at 10:30 at night to have a Happy New Year, and watching the ball drop three hours after the fact, but it was a good time.

I am worried about going back to school, but my break was so fulfilling that I think I am ready. I have a lot of classes that are worth taking and I can't wait to get back into the swing of things!

Posted by Margaurete Romero at 3:49 PM | Permalink