Hi all!

Just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgot about you. I'm sure you were just as busy as I was with moving all of your stuff in to your residence hall. I finally have everything set up the way I want and all my clothes are away! I still need to hang a few more things up but I can wait for that.

I was extremely busy with Welcome Week at the Newman Center. Today we had Open House all day so this is the first time I've been in my apartment all day! I'm so beat and just want to go to bed.

I was going to upload some pictures for you but my camera battery died :( I'll charge it now and add some tomorrow! Good luck with the rest of your move in process. Don't be too nervous for classes. Relax and be yourself!!

Posted by Courtney Clarahan at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nothing real exciting has been going on lately. I'm just trying to enjoy my final days of summer vacation before it's back to school. I'm doing a lot of lounging around and being a bum. I've come to the realization that I will have hardly anytime to nap next semester(which I love to do) and that makes me real sad. I used to come home from class, take a nice 2 hour nap and then go grab some dinner. Those were the days. As a college student, you will realize how important naps are. But next semester, no naps for Courtney. So I'm going to do all my resting and relaxing now.

I'll be moving in officially next Wednesday and then I'll be there for good. I think thats when the freshman start to move in as well. So it's going to be packed. Brace yourself for the large crowds of people that will be moving in. I love moving in though and getting to organize everything.

Anyway, my boyfriend and I are going to spend the night in the city tomorrow just walking around and seeing the sights. Hopefully I'll have some cool pictures. I'll post again when my life gets back to being interesting!

Start packing!!

Posted by Courtney Clarahan at 9:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It has just dawned on me that summer is almost over! But I am very ready/excited to start my Junior year. And I hope that you are getting just as excited!

So good news...I got an internship! And most importantly it's with the company that I wanted most, GEP Philly. Basically I have to assist the GEP Philly team, which is a destination management company, specifically in the areas of sales, project development, operations and administration. I am superrrr excited! I start on the 3rd of September! I'm going to be working Monday Wednesday and Friday from 8:30-5:30. Cool thing is is that their building is right in the city and faces Love Park. Awesome location!

I'm heading down to Temple tomorrow to finalize a few things in my apartment and meet up with some friends I haven't seen all summer. That should be great. I was supposed to babysit all week but the girls got sick. So I'm making the best of it! On Thursday, my mom, my boyfriend and myself are going down to my aunts shore house for a late birthday celebration. The whole family will be there! We're just going stay for the night and then come home on Friday since I have a meeting to make!

I hope that my list of things to bring has helped you out a bit. I'm trying to think of some more things but in the mean time, get shopping!

"Live Laugh Love"

Posted by Courtney Clarahan at 9:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SOO before I go on and on forever about Mexico stories let me tell you what's going on school wise!

Today I headed down to campus to talk with CSPD about my internship options. I have 2 interviews so far. I had one today but it got canceled! All for the better actually cause when I talked with my advisor, he suggested I search for other options as well. So what he did was figure out what I really want to do in life..(Event and Meetings Management) and typed me up a list of all of the places he thought would be a great place for an internship for me. Awesome right? I hadn't really visited the CSPD office much before but I highly advise it! They will help you out with anything as far as your future goals and career go. And they offer so many internships that I didn't even know about! Definitely check it out! So that was very productive! They even do a lot of the work for you. He told me that he would send all of the companies my internship and in tern give me their contact info so I can set up some interviews. I thought that I was doing a pretty crappy job with this whole internship thing and they sure did put me on the right track.

So after that, since my interview was canceled, I just went to my apartment since I hadn't been there since early July. It was a mess and I was mad. How hard is it to clean up after yourself? It better not be that way during the school year! Me being a clean freak doesn't help because I want to clean up their mess but I know that they should be doing it!

Then I came home and did some school supply shopping..yes already. It's something that really excites me! Call me weird if you want :) And my Office Max coupon expired on the 9th so I had to get in there! I picked up a neato monthly planner...just something small to always have on me in case someone goes.."Oh Court can you work this day?" Which always happens. I think it's a great investment..also definitely get some type of student planner to keep yourself on track. It gets rough keeping up with all of your school work, activities and meetings. I also got some post-its which I LOVE, a desk calendar and a 5 subject notebook. I recommend getting a 3 or 5 subject in stead of carrying them around separately ya know?

A few other tips I have for you as you start shopping for your freshman year of college (EXCITING)!!!

1. No matter if you are living in a suite or communal style, you want to bring a showercaddy to hold all of your stuff. Along with most importantly flip flops!!

2. Tons of pictures! And whatever else you want to decorate your room. Make it as homey as you want. You will be living there for a year! I try to think up cool designs for them.

3. With that said, bring tack. Like that blue or white stuff...You can't really use push pins since some residence halls had concrete walls and tape will not hold! I also found it helpful to buy those sticky hook things with the command strips. They go on and come off easily and are great for holding hats or scarves.

4. A fan. Even in the winter is sometimes gets hot. Nothing real big. I have on called the Blizzard. It's as big as my face and really works the whole room.

5. Powerstrip! Each person gets 2 or 3 outlets and you will most likely need a few more so that is a must!

6. Air Freshener! Even if you don't smell, your roommate might :)

7. Something to hold you Temple ID. This is something you don't want to lose. You always need to have it with you so find a holder that you like and doubles as a wallet.

I'll have more for you soon. This was just a few thoughts I figured I should tell you. And PS..Temple beds are not Twin XL..just Twin!

My boyfriend is knocking at my door I've got to run. Enjoy the week and I will talk to you soon!!!

"The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life"
-Muhammad Ali

Posted by Courtney Clarahan at 6:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay so I'm not sure where to start out with this blog on my 3 week Mexican adventure. I'll give you the jist of what happened over the weeks and I will do my best to pick out the best pictures out of the 500 I took to try and capture my experience.

So I went on this trip not knowing anyone else going. We first all met in Denver. There were 13 of us. We surprisingly all got along great! The first 2 days in Denver were pretty much ice breakers and getting to know one another..and for those like myself; learning some Spanish. We then departed Denver on our way to San Luis Potosi Mexico, which is the city in which we would stay in. When we got there we settled down in our ranch. Nothing luxurious at all. There was no running water. You actually had to go outside, pump it, then come back in and do whatever you needed to do. There were spiders and bugs everywhere! You could tell no one had been there for a while cause the toilets had some fungus growing in them. At this point, I wanted to leave. I decided that I needed to suck it up anyway.

The next day we traveled about 5 minutes down the road to the village where we would be building a church. The people there were so very grateful that we were there. Most had huge smiles, some even crying. The whole village of 90 people came out to welcome us with hugs. The people were amazing but the lifestyles they had were not. I had never been immersed in a community that was so poor before. In this village of La Morita, they value relationships over efficiency and you could definitely tell. Although they had hardly any money, they would go out of their way to make us feel at home; offering their bed if we needed a nap or giving us food.

The majority of our time was spent at the village. I spent numerous hours mixing cement, unloading blocks and anything else that came by truck. We laid the blocks 8 high all around the perimeter and made the molding for where they wanted the columns to be. We would have about 5 hours of work followed by a huge soccer game, mass and then a huge dinner. By the end of our stay I was sore, burnt and sick of rice bean and tortillas. But the memories I left with I am so grateful for. The people there really changed my life. Although our languages were a bit of a barrier, you could just see in their eyes the love they had for us and for one another. That was the biggest thing I took home with me. I really need to value relationships with people more. So we finished about half of the church. This is an on-going mission project so a group will go over next summer to do some more.

The remaining days we traveled to Mexico City. We did a lot of the touristy things there viewing Aztec ruins, climbing pyramids (where I thought I was going to die), taking boat rides, and just wondering the city.

I'm definitely glad to be home but I miss the people of La Morita. I would do it again in a heartbeat! Now, here are some pictures of my adventures!!

Unloading all of the sand.

The church going up!

Some of the amazing kids.

Our going away BBQ

Me in front of the huge pyramid that I climbed.

The Mariachi singers on our boat!

And I'll save some more stories for another time! If you want to see some more pictures just let me know! Have a great weekend!!!

Posted by Courtney Clarahan at 7:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)