Me = Moose

I gave my first speech in my public speaking class today, and it went really well! It was an introduction speech aka we were supposed to talk about ourselves in order to inform our classmates more about ourselves. Some people talked about their family; others explained the influence of their careers. I decided to compare myself to a moose, one of my favorite animals. I love elephants too, but I am a lot more similar to a moose. I will give you the shortened version of my speech. Moose and I are alike for 3 reasons: (1) both native to Minnesota, (2) have similar diet and behaviors, and (3) unique characteristics. The first point is a quiet obvious between me and a moose. The second point is a little more of a challenge to figure out. Moose are vegetarians, and I am a partial vegetarian. I eat meat, but mostly just chicken. I like, and eat, grains and pasta A LOT. As far as behaviors go, both moose and I love being in the water and value our "alone time." Moose are pretty solitary animals. I had fun with the unique characteristics aspect. Moose have large antlers to make them stand out compared to their relatives. I have a unique eye color that changes color depending on what color clothes I'm wearing. I must say, this is true for my sister. Otherwise, it's unique. :) I also described my heritage because that makes everyone unique. One of my favorite parts of my speech was how I ended it: "I hope you enjoyed imagining me has a big furry moose." Now, I did stumble once part way through my speech, but hardly anyone noticed. I did a really good job of recovering and staying strong through-out. After all, not every speech can be perfect. There is always room for improvement.

Weight Loss Challenge

For the past week, I have been doing 3 different weight loss programs. First of all, I started the Special K challenge in hopes of boosting my metabolism to assist with the other to weight loss programs. I gotta say, it's a lot easier said than done. I have never craved chocolate or un-cereal items so much before. For those of you not familiar with the Special K challenge, 2 of your 3 meals a day are either a bowl of Special K cereal or Special K waffles. The 3rd meal you eat like normal. 2 snacks can be Special K snacks: cereal bars, crackers, fruit crisps, or protein snack bars. Otherwise snacks are fruits and veggies. I like fruits and veggies, and I have noticed myself snacking less, which is good. However, I don't like having just a bowl of cereal as my lunch. I want more food haha. Anyways, I am 1 week into the challenge, and I have 1 week left.

The second program I'm participating in is titled Move It! and is through my school. For $10, you get a pedometer to count your steps every day for 10 weeks. There is also a nutritional challenge and a mind/body challenge every week. I have completed both for this week already. We are to try at least one new fruit or veggie this week. I tried a minneola, which is similar to an orange but less sweet. I recommend it for anyone who likes oranges and tangerines. The mind/body challenge is a relaxation technique with breathing. I am going to do it again tomorrow morning before my intro speech in my public speaking class. At the end of the 10 weeks, students (meaning me) get their $10 back and a free tshirt upon completion.

The third, and final, program is a weight loss challenge started by my brother-in-law. This one is going to last for 16 weeks. Each person puts $5 in the pool, as well as a $15-ish gift. Whoever wins the weight loss challenge at the end of the 16 weeks wins the money. There are also weekly winners, and they receive a $15-ish gift. So far I am down 1 pound since last week. I was really hoping to lose more, but I guess I should be happy that I have at least lost something. It's better than gaining pounds, right? We'll hope for more weight loss come next week.

Swarm... Pork... Class...

It has been a pretty exciting week. Last weekend was spent in the cities celebrating the home opener of the Minnesota Swarm aka lacrosse. And it was an awesome game! Over the summer, I won free tickets to the home opener, so I met my sister and some friends to cheer on the team. After lots of mirroring each others scores, we finally came ahead and won the game. :) Also happening last weekend was the 56th Eagles Cancer Telethon. For those unfamiliar with the telethon, its 20 hours spent with people coming together all over the area. There are singers, dancers, and bands performing to raise money for cancer research. There is malts and shakes, amazing pork sandwiches, mini donuts, and nachos. It's a lot of fun, and all proceeds go to an excellent cause.

Last week I survived my 2nd week of class. Nothing too exciting happened in my Plant Bio lecture, unlike my lab. In my lab on Wednesday, we learned how to use a microscope! And it was pretty exciting (sarcasm). Surprisingly, no one else in the class had used a microscope since high school, where as I used one almost every day working at the clinic. So I helped out my lab partner and we got out of class an hour early! It was awesome! In my speech class, we started our intro speeches. I'm scheduled to do mine this week on Thursday. I'm comparing myself to a moose :P It'll be fun. As for this past weekend, it was spent inside while there was snow and freezing rain outside. Gotta love winter.

1 Week Down...

I have officially survived my first week back as a student. You have all heard about my first day back, so let's start with my second day, which was yesterday. I had Environmental Science Seminar I yesterday at 8am. Surprisingly, it wasn't too hard getting up early to be there for class on time. And it should be a fun class. Basically, there will be speakers coming in and talking to us about different environmental issues and projects around the area. We are to pick one of these and create a proposal to pursue with over the summer. In the fall, we will take the Environmental Science Seminar II and share our experience with our fellow classmates. I am hoping to do something with wildlife, so I am leaning towards Silver Lake. But we'll see what the speakers bring. Also yesterday morning, I had my Plant Biology Lab, in which I made a new friend! Woo hoo! I am already following through with my new year resolution. Since I don't like to share names on here and I already have one by the name of "lab partner", we will call her RB. So RB is a psych major, so I prolly won't come into contact with her in the future semesters, but either way I made a friend!

And that brings us to today, my third and last day of class for the week. Schedule-wise, it was the same as Tuesday; I had Plant Bio and Speech. And yes, I actually had Speech today! But first, Plant bio wasn't too exciting. We went over some powerpoint notes to help understand our reading assignment. And that was about it. Then I went to Speech. Turns out, my speech teacher takes a group of students to Cambodia over winter break every year. They got stuck in San Francisco with a long lay over and didn't get back until after our class on Tuesday. So we did 2 days work today. I'm looking forward to the classes. I've never been a big fan of speeches, but they don't bother me. And we get to choose pretty much all of our topics. Our first speech in due next week; it's an introduction speech. I am doing mine on my favorite animal: the moose. So it should be a good one. And, I made more new friends in my speech class! Woo hoo!

And for my 3rd part of exciting news: I should be making more friends on Tuesday. There is an Ecology club that is meeting on Tuesday for the first time this semester. Since Ecology goes right along with my major of Environmental Science, I might as well give it a shot. So as of Tuesday, I will be apart of a club too. Things are definitely looking up. :)

Welcome Back to the Student Life

I am officially a student again, and I have survived my first 11 hours of being one. Surprisingly, my first day back went well. Some of you know that I have been contemplating going back to school for some time now. To rewind slightly, I have been unemployed now for 5 months. There are no jobs out there for me, and the jobs that I want require more school or more experience. Due to part one of that sentence, my only option was to go back to school--unless I want to waste time on the couch more. and honestly, I'm getting pretty tired of spending all my time on the internet searching for jobs or reading the classifieds searching for jobs. So I finally decided to do something about it.

Last Thursday, I had orientation at the community college in town. I was lucky enough to watch an orientation video showing me around the school (in video form) and taking a placement test for classes that I have already taken (math and english). My transcript from the cities hadn't been analyzed yet, so I had to take the pointless placement test. Anyways, I finally got to register after that.

Today was my first day of class as an Environmental Science major. I am taking 3 classes this semester resulting in 7 credits. It'll be a nice way to ease back into the student and college life. The classes that I'm taking are Plant Biology, Public Speaking, and Environment Science Seminar I. Plant Biology was my first class of the day, and it went well this morning. I am pretty excited for the class. It may just be about plants, but we will be doing some fun projects in lecture and lab. Also, our last lab session is spent at the Mayowood Mansion, which I have never been to before. I was supposed to have Public Speaking afterwards, but that didn't work out so well. 7 of us were sitting in the classroom until 20 mins into class, and the teacher never showed up. No one knows if class was canceled, or if the room was changed, or if something else happened. Hopefully the teacher shows up on Thursday for class, cuz I really don't want to have to retake it over summer. But we shall see what happens. I have an 8am class tomorrow and my bio lab. Seeing how I will need a stress reliever, or at least I'm guessing that I'll have some stress, I will be blogging a lot more often. Hope you don't get sick of hearing about the ever-exciting events of my life ;)

Happy New Year and Decade!

Once again a new year has begin. I just re-read my new year post from last year, and apparently I did okay with my resolutions last year. My first one was to work-out at least 3 times a week. I have done ok with that, in the past few months anyways. While working full-time it was more like 1 or 2 days a week, but its still better than not going at all. My second resolution was to declutter my life, which I did do well on. I haven't decluttered for a while, but I have done well overall. I've donated a lot of clothes to Savers and Goodwill. I've also reorganized all of my scrap booking supplies and my desk/office area. So overall, I did a good job with my resolutions.

However, a new year has begun, which brings new resolutions. To slightly rewind a little, I will be starting school again in a week. I have decided to start the Environmental Science program at the community college in town. It's a 2 year program, but I have enough transfer credits to knock out the first semester. By going full-time over the summer, I should be done in a year. So this year, my new year's resolution is to finish school in a year in hopes of getting a fun job with good benefits. I am also going to push myself to join either the band or the theatre department at school in hopes of enlarging my social circle. After all, you can never have too many friends, and I really need to get out of the house more :P So here's to a new year, a new decade, and a new beginning!