University of New England: Alyssa Fastnacht

Hey everyone! Hope finals week went well for everyone. I'm glad to be done, and I think my finals went pretty well, but I already miss my friends back at school and I've only been home for three days.

My first final on Monday, was in Statistics. I studied pretty hard for that one. For you prospective OT students, taking stats in high school gives you an amazing advantage, so if you have the opportunity, definitely go for it.

Tuesday was a pretty miserable day. I had to say goodbye to Nawwal because she was getting on the plane to go back to Oregon. It's really hard to watch someone leave after they've made such an imprint in your life, but we got through it and now I keep in constant touch with her via text messages and webcam.

Wednesday I had my last exam, which was Biology. My professor just took questions from our previous exams and threw them all together for our final, so that's all I had to study, and the final took me all of 20 minutes to finish.

Now, I am waiting for three more of my final grades. I'm really pleased with how my first semester went. I absolutely love this school and I actually feel like I came out of these classes having learned something. A lot of the times in high school, I felt like I could take a class and leave with no new knowledge and that really bothered me, but the classes I have taken so far in college have really impressed me. After my final, one of my roommates and I did a thorough cleaning of my room and then my mom came and picked me up.

Thursday was kind of a chill out day. My parents and I went out for breakfast and then we got my little sister two kittens for her Christmas present. We went to the Salem Animal Rescue League and adopted a white and orange kitten originally named Coconut, but we decided to change it to Oliver, and the other kitten is a calico and we named her Lily. It was so sad to see all of the little kittens in the shelter because most of them had been strays, and I can't imagine just leaving these poor animals out in the middle of nowhere. Originally we were only going to adopt one (Coconut) but we figured that he would probably want a friend and we just couldn't leave another behind so we adopted Lily too.

This is Lily. She's the baby, only about 4 months old, but so precious.

This is Oliver. He's about 6 months old, but we don't know for sure since he was a stray.

Friday was my first day back to work in 4 months, so that was an adjustment, especially because everything has changed at the rehab. There are new employees, the entire computer system is totally changed, so I had to learn the whole thing in a couple of minutes, and they threw me right in with only a little guidance. It felt like my very first day of working at a new place, but I asked questions and got comfortable with the new system after a couple of hours. It was a pretty overwhelming day, but we closed early because of the snow storm and the drive home that normally only takes me 5 or 10 minutes took me close to 30.

Today my dad's side of the family came down for our first part of Christmas, and then my older sister and I went out to do some Christmas shopping. We're waking up early tomorrow morning to finish up and Monday is my birthday, so I have some fun coming up and I can't wait for Christmas day!

I hope you all have a nice and safe holiday season, and for all you college and high school kids, a relaxing break!

Posted by Alyssa Fastnacht at 9:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday night and Sunday morning it snowed for the first time! Everyone was so excited, so when we got back from brunch Sunday morning we all put our winter jackets on and went outside to play in the snow. We had a huge snowball fight, and we tried to sled in empty cardboard boxes. The snow was perfect for snowballs because it stuck together, so we were all chasing each other around the field outside of my dorm.

This is a picture of all of us outside playing in the snow for the first time this winter!

This is Jenny, Erin and me in our makeshift sled Vernon pulled out of the dumpster for us. It didn't work too well to be perfectly honest, but it was fun while it lasted anyways.

This week I have a couple more papers to write and a few more assignments and then I am all done until finals. I have two finals next week, one on Monday and one on Wednesday. Monday's final is statistics, and biology is on Wednesday. Thankfully they're both after 12, so I'll be able to sleep as much as I want and study really hard. I don't think either of them will really be that challenging because I took stats in high school, which prepared me more than I could've hoped for college stats, and my bio exam is made up of questions taken from our past exams. Unfortunately, not everyone is as lucky as I am. I know a couple of people who have a couple more finals than I do, and they're a lot more difficult.

Right now I should really get back to writing my papers and doing the other assignments. I have class at 5:30 tonight, so I'm going to go get started.

Enjoy the snow everyone!

Posted by Alyssa Fastnacht at 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We just got back from Thanksgiving break. I had a really good weekend. Nawwal came home with me to New Hampshire, and had Thanksgiving dinner with my family. I had one class on Tuesday before we got to go home for break and it was my biology lab, but about two hours before class started the electricity went out on campus. It was out until I left for my class, so I was hoping that class would just get cancelled. We waited until 11:32 a.m., and at 11:31 the lights turned back on, so that kind of stunk, but as soon as I got out of class we left for home. I got back to my house around 3:30, and for the first time in a long time, I just sat down and relaxed. After a couple of hours, I took Nawwal out for a drive so I could show her all of the places I go on a regular basis. We drove for a while and then went back to my house to hang out.

The next day my neighbor who I graduated with called and asked us if we wanted to go over for breakfast, so we went over and had waffles and then headed off to visit my high school. I got to see a bunch of my teachers that I missed (it was nice to catch up with them) and then I visited my younger brother and sister at lunch. After we left the school, I headed over to drop my older sister off at Target and then went to my work. I got to visit my old co-workers that I miss a lot, so that was a really good time too. After that, I picked up my older sister and my younger sister and we went back home. Later that afternoon, I went down to Lawrence, Massachusetts to meet with Fr. O'Brien so that I could start a street team for Labels Are For Jars, which is a charity group that raises money for the hungry people of Lawrence.

Thursday was obviously Thanksgiving, and it was such a good day. I got to see my whole family and Nawwal got to meet them all too. We played games like Snorta and Apples to Apples and had some pretty crazy times.

Friday was a pretty relaxed day, we didn't have a whole lot going on which was nice, but I did see Twilight (it was okay for what it was, but I definitely prefer the book and it was the most awkward movie I've ever seen). I saw my friends Val, Tina, and Bonni from high school and we all hung out at my neighbor's house playing Pictionary (we lost- but oh well).

Saturday, we spent shopping at the Rockingham Mall. I got some Christmas shopping done, and some shopping of my own as well.

Sunday, we went to church and hung out at my house, watched the Patriots game, and then headed back up to campus.

It was such a good break and it was amazing to be back in a home, but I'm still glad to be back because I missed my friends here. I hope you all had a good break as well! I really should get back to my sociology homework and writing my article for the newspaper.

Posted by Alyssa Fastnacht at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)