Well school's started and I'm getting back in the swing of things. It's weird to be on co-op and then return to classes. You get used to not having homework when you get home from work, and you can do what you please. Then you're back in classes and you don't have that luxury.

Classes this year started with no classes though! Our first day back, we had a huge snow storm in the morning and WIT cancelled classes all day. It was great to sleep in, relax, get unpacked more, and I even got to go to a movie. By the middle of the day, the weather was fine.

My classes sound like they'll be interesting. I have Studio V, Studio V Seminar, Lighting, and Presentation Techniques. In Studio, we're designing an eight story conference center with a conference facility as well as hotel rooms. So that's going to keep us all busy! Seminar is where we choose our senior design projects, and then we get the building codes and design the program for what we have to solve. I'll keep you updated when I decide what I'm doing! In Lighting, we're learning everything there is to know about light and how to put it in a space. It's really interesting and I enjoy class so far. Presentation Techniques is a drawing class, designed to build on the drawing and hand rendering skills that we got both freshman and sophomore year. I love hand rendering, so I'm enjoying that class too.

I'm also working at my co-op job part time this semester. They hired me to stay on for about 16-20 hours a week. I know the job, the tasks, and the software since I've been there for over two semesters. It made more sense to keep me on rather than train someone new. I think that they also might be considering hiring me after graduation if the situation works out right. So I'm trying to keep my foot in the door there. I really like everyone there, and they're all like a second family to me.

I'm sure that this is going to be a busy semester. I'm in classes for about 17 hours a week, working 16-20 hours, and that's not including the three clubs and organizations that I'm still in, and doing homework! Stay tuned to hear more about my crazy adventures!

Posted by Melissa Jo Brown at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I went back to Boston a few days before school started so I could go to my EF College Break Kick Off! Campus Managers from all over the country came to learn more about EFCB and to talk about travel! We learned about marketing, talking to people, being sales people, and about how the trips work. It definitely got me excited about my trip to Italy and Greece with them! I can't wait!

I met some great people! I became good friends with three girls, Jessica, Brittany and Alex. We had a lot of fun hanging out. All 60 Campus Managers went out both Friday and Saturday night with the Area Managers who work here in Boston.

They took us to Dick's Last Resort the first night. It's a great restaurant in Quincy Market where the servers are mean to you. They throw straws and napkins at you, yell if you don't order fast enough, and they’re just mean over all. They also make these paper hats that have rude and crude sayings on them. You go there for the atmosphere, and boy was that place busy! Most of us got hats, but I got through the meal without one this time around. I've been there before and gotten a hat. My new friends from across the country had a great time there.

The second night, we went to LimeLight, a karaoke bar near the Boston Commons and the Theater District in Boston. That was great. We rented out the large room with a stage for the first half of the night. We all took turns singing, and dancing on stage. I think that we're lucky the stage didn't break. Jessica and I went up to dance during one of the songs, and there were about 20 of us on it!

It was a great weekend. It really inspired me to travel as much as I can. I want to see as many places as I can and travel the world!

Posted by Melissa Jo Brown at 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey Guys! Wow it's been a while since I wrote. And it's been busy!

Winter break was great! I had Christmas in Maine with my family, and my Mom's side had our annual Christmas party. It was a lot of fun and I was glad to eat some of Nana's homemade macaroni and cheese!

It was nice to have a white Christmas this year. We got our tree up last minute since we all were getting ready for our Florida trip. I got some great gifts from my family. My favorite thing was my new pink luggage, which will prove to be useful with Italy and Greece coming up. And it was perfect for Florida!

Florida was AMAZING!!! The weather was great, for the most part. It was 75-80 degrees most of it. Although, there was one day that it was 32 and another day that it was 35! I didn't think that I'd ever see that day!

Disney holds a special place in my heart. If I could do anything, I'd be a Disney Imagineer and design the parks, resorts, water parks, rides, hotels, restaurants, basically anything I could get my hands on. I actually bought 4 more Imagineering books while I was there, along with the pink pirate Mickey Ears hat that I had to have! (see photo below)

My Mom, Dad, brother Jeremy, Nana, Papa and friend Justin were all there with me. We all spent New Years Eve day in the Magic Kingdom Park. It's so magical to count down to the New Year with thousands of other people with the castle lighting up under fireworks at midnight. It's my favorite place to start the next year. And this was my second year there in a row! Last year I was there with my best friend Katie.

I was really glad that Justin could come with us. He'd never been to Disney World and it was a lot of fun to see it from his perspective. I've decided that going with people who have never been makes it more fun! On our last day in the parks, Justin and I tried to set a new family record by making it to all four parks in one day! We went to Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, MGM Studios and Epcot! And we topped off our trip on Test Track, the fastest Disney ride in the world. It was a great way to end an amazing trip and an amazing vacation!

Posted by Melissa Jo Brown at 5:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This week has been crazy! It's a good crazy though!

Monday night was my last Capstone class. I've been taking it as the last year of Sour in Four. Sour in Four is Wentworth's four year leadership education program. My class this year will be the first to graduate from the program! I've learned so much over the past four years from the classes, books we've read, discussions, and putting it all into action. I'm sad to see it end, but it's not over entirely! Part of our requirement to "graduate" from the program is to design and implement a leadership conference for 50 high school students! We're still busy planning and designing the workshops. The conference will be this spring so stay tuned!

Snow Falling on Wentworth was Wednesday. Basically it's a full day of winter fun. We have free hot chocolate, apple cider, coffee, etc given out in the morning. There's a "Make Your Own Photo Snow Globe" event, and we also had "Decorate Your Own Cupcake" this year! Yum! However, I wasn't there for those events since I was at work. But the tree, menorah and kinara lighting ceremony was later in the day. Students, faculty and staff get together on the Quad and light the tree and candles. Traditionally, each office and department on campus makes an ornament for the tree. Then we all put them on after it's lit. It's a lot of fun. I got back from work just as the ceremony was ending. I made it for the reception afterwards though!

We also had a WEB (Wentworth Events Board) pot luck dinner Wednesday night instead of our regular meeting. It was so much fun! I had a few friends help get taco stuff! There was also pasta, brownies, cookies, pizza, and soda. We had a feast! After dinner we all played different board games and hung out. A group of us played mafia. It's this awesome logic game where there's towns people and mafia. The mafia's goal is to "kill" the towns people, and the towns people have to figure out who is in the mafia before they're all dead! It's so much fun to play with people that you know. We always have tons of fun. I think it's our unofficial game of WEB!

Yesterday my family came to visit me and take me out to lunch and dinner! Mom, Dad, Nana, Papa, and Jeremy were all here! They even brought Lucky, my dog who I miss tons while at school. I showed Nana and Papa around work since the others had seen it already. It was good to see them all. I'm excited to be going home to stay with them and then to Florida with them all over break! All of this excitement has left me pretty tired though! Katie's visiting this weekend! So I'm hoping to get some rest before she gets in on the bus later on tonight!

We've got a lot of fun plans for this weekend like going to the movies and going ice skating! I'm sure that I'll have a lot to tell you all about next blog!

Posted by Melissa Jo Brown at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey Everyone!

I'm sorry that it's been so long since I posted! I've been so busy with AutoCAD training, work, my birthday, the holidays, and Christmas shopping! I can't believe how fast November flew by! I got to do a lot of fun things in November though!

I went on my first measuring trip for work! I had to go to Manchester, New Hampshire to measure a job site. It was a lot of fun to see the building. I've been working on the floor plan for my supervisor for a few weeks now. It's a lot of fun to see the actual space and to stand in it! One of the architects at work, Gus, was there with me. He took the measurements and I recorded them. But he also showed me how to do it. I learned so much from it! And it was fun to be out of the office on the site all day!

My birthday was in the middle of the month before break. I went out with my friends from WEB (Wentworth Events Board) one night to Fire and Ice, this AWESOME restaurant in Boston. They have a 10 foot grill and they cook your food right in front of you. There were 15 of us including me, and I had so much fun. The whole restaurant sang "Happy Birthday" to me, and one of the cooks had me flip a spatula in the air! And I caught it! We had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs and took a lot of fun pictures! I'll post a few of them below!

I went home for Thanksgiving and had dinner with my Mom's side of the family. I love seeing all of my cousins and catching up. The home cooked meal was so good! In fact, Nana (Mom's mom) made my family another big dinner on Saturday night too! So I got two Thanksgivings. My best friend Katie and her boyfriend Seth came over for it. We also had a birthday party for me. I opened my presents and we had cake. I got a few board games from my brother Jeremy and another one from Katie. So the rest of the night we played games and then watched the Ratatouille movie that Katie also got me! It was fun! I'll post a few photos of this too!

I've decided that these next few weeks are going to fly by too. I looked at my calendar the other day and there were only 30 days until my Florida trip! And I have less than 3 weeks of work left! I don't know where all the time goes! I've got some holiday events, company parties, ice skating, friends visiting and other fun things coming up, so I'll be sure to write about those as soon as I can!

In the meantime, enjoy these photos from my birthday celebrations and stay warm!!!

Posted by Melissa Jo Brown at 9:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Woo! The Red Sox won the World Series! It was a great series of games! It's so much fun to be in Boston when they win! The Prudential Tower said "Go Sox" with its lights. The whole city was filled with excitement. People everywhere had Red Sox hats and shirts on. It was amazing.

After the game people went crazy. There were a lot of people outside yelling and cheering. I could hear them from my room. I was really excited about the parade. I decided that if it was in the morning or later afternoon that I was going to do a half-day at work and go see it. Then I found out it was at noon. There wasn't a way that I could go to work half day and still get enough work done, so I decided not to go to the parade. My Mom taped it for me though! Hopefully the Patriots will go to the Super Bowl and win again too! Then I'll make sure to catch that rolling rally!

Halloween was this past week too. My friend Katie came down the weekend before to visit. Katie, Seth and I decided to go to Salem on Saturday. They have "Haunted Happenings" every year. There are a lot of haunted houses, tours, museums and a carnival in Salem for the month of October. We decided to go to a few of the museums. You got a deal of $5 off if you got a combo ticket for 3 of them. It was a lot of fun. The weather cooperated with us too. It was overcast all day but it didn't rain until we were on the commuter rail train platform to go home! Talk about good timing!

Here are some fun photos of Salem!

Posted by Melissa Jo Brown at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey Everyone! Gosh these days keep flying by. I'll be done co-op and back in classes before I know it!

This week at work I've been working on furniture boards for Janice's project. The presentation is going to be next week, so she's trying to get all of the furniture specified along with the fabrics on them. It's a lot to work on since the project is so large! I've cut the furniture pictures out and mounted them to boards. I also cut the fabrics and samples down and made the labels. I took some pictures that I'll post at the bottom of the blog! I love how they came out!

If I had to give this week a title, I think I would call it "The Week of Travel." My family is going to Florida over winter break with my Nana and Papa and Justin, one of my good friends from school. Justin graduated from WIT in 2006. He officially got the time off from work and he and I are going to book his flight and get his Disney tickets this weekend! I'm so excited! We get 4 weeks off from school for winter break. I'm working an extra week, and then going to be in Florida for a week and a half! I won't be home very long, but Maine is quiet at that time of year anyways. It's especially quiet if there's no snow to ski or sled on!

I had to save the best for last. I'm going to Italy and Greece for Spring Break! I've never gone anywhere or done anything special for it. Usually I go home and relax, so this is going to be a lot of fun! One of my other friends from Wentworth is going with me. I can't believe that we're actually going! We signed up last Saturday through the tour company that I'm working for. I figured that it's my last year, and I might regret it if I don't go. College truly is about opportunities, and I'm taking this one!

Posted by Melissa Jo Brown at 8:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This past two weeks have been crazy! It's been a good crazy though. I can't believe that it's already half way through October! Time flies!

Work has been busy with trying to schedule AutoCAD training sessions. I think that we're going to have 8-10 more half days to do for advanced training and clarifying some of our customization stuff. I helped our CAD manager choose times that didn't overlap anyone's vacation or the holidays. It looks like we'll be doing training right up until I'm getting done with co-op. I'm excited that I'm going to know AutoCAD really well!

I also have been working on making a handrail model for Janice, one of the designers. She's working on a project for a new bank headquarters. The building is gorgeous and the interior is going to look fantastic. I can't wait to see it when it's built and completed. The model was a lot of fun to make. I started out making a cardstock and paper one, but that didn't get the profile as clearly as we wanted. So I got to go out and buy supplies to make a foam model! Making the model was a lot of fun. I had to wear eye goggles, a face mask and a t-shirt (instead of my sweater). I looked like I was performing surgery on the model and the whole office got a laugh out of it.

By far the most exciting thing is that I got hired to be the EF College Break Campus Manager for Wentworth. Basically, I work for the tour company to get word around Wentworth about their trips. They have trips to Europe, China, Japan, and even Africa! I get really good deals on it too! If I sell so many trips, then I'll get a free one! I am so excited about traveling! I want to take advantage of it while I'm still in college!

Well I guess that I've talked long enough. Here are some of the model-making pictures that you'll enjoy!

Posted by Melissa Jo Brown at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I can't believe that I'm a senior. Saying it makes me feel so weird. I feel like this place is my home, and my friends here are family. I'm still adjusting to calling myself a senior! I don't even want to think about college ending in less than a year!

This year started off with a lot of fun. I participated in CSLT or Centralized Student Leader Training. About 100 students are chosen to train for specific roles like Resident Assistant, Orientation Leader, Admissions Rep, etc. We go to camp for 3 days and then come back to WIT for 2 weeks of training. Then the new students move in for orientation and the school year starts!

Camp was a lot of fun. We got to go swimming, did a low ropes course, wrote and acted in skits, did team building exercises and got to know each other. It's great to have a strong bond with about 100 of your peers. Everywhere I go on campus I see at least one of them. If you ever do a tour with me at WIT you'll think that I know the whole school by how many people I say hello to! It's kind of funny, but it creates a great community feeling.

After training was over, I started my co-op a little earlier than required. I went back to Financial Concepts in Natick where I also did my junior year spring co-op. It's a small firm of about 20 people and we design banks all over the New England area. This first month or so back has been busy. We're switching our CAD software over to AutoCAD so things have been busy with both training and work! I've also been helping our CAD manager test the layers and been updating the customization on all of the computers.

It's been fun so far. I have more fun stories to share....but I'll leave them for another day. Right now my lunch is almost over and I've got to get back to work!

Posted by Melissa Jo Brown at 4:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)