Search results matching tag 'Spring Break'

Mi Cumpleaños

JoeW — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:46:00 GMT

I had the privilege of going to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for my Spring Break. I was extremely excited to go because I had yet to have the typical college student MTv generation Spring Break.

My Break, however, was far from typical. I was going to Cabo with 21 of my fellow Phi Psis. That’s right 22 Fraternity men, talk about a motley crew. We were going for the American Leadership Academy, a leadership conference that is for Phi Kappa Psi, by Phi Kappa Psi. Our hotel was paid for and we got three free meals a day. It was fantastic. The speeches ranged from leadership to goal setting to etiquette to self actualization and much more. I really took a lot away from this conference. Seriously.

But of course, the purpose of Spring Break is nopt to become a better person. So please, do not be mislead into thinking we misspent my mexican minutes growing, chaning or learning. In fact, we were of the opinion not learning anything was an indication of a successful Spring Break. Not to mention, I had a Birthday to worry about.

You read me. I turned the big 2 - 0 while we were in Cabo. Meaning, I was taught the only spanish I know- "Mi Cumpleanos! Mi Cupleanos! fiesta! fiesta!" Which means (roughly) - "I am an american on Spring Break, please ignore me"

And, boy, was it a time! Sun, surf, and relaxation. Being an unnecessarily involved student means that I was long over do for some chill time. I didn’t have to plan a single thing for an entire week and it was fantastic, my brothers took care of everything.

Getting to Mexico wasn’t easy. We had three connecting flights to get there and every time someone found out we were going to Mexico they adapted a very solemn look and said, “Be careful boys, please, be careful.” I appreciated that strangers seemed so concerned, but luckily Cabo is roughly 700 miles from the Mexican Border wars and is as American as Miami.

I had two bags- a carry-on and a checked bag. My check bag was actually smaller than my carry-on. When we were going through customs and had to un and re check our bags I realized that because of their size I could just keep both bags with me, so I did- or tried to. I was only thinking of the size of my bag and not it’s contents. Because of the razor, finger nail clippers, numerous liquids, etc.that I unknowingly tried to smuggle onto a plane I am now labeled as a security threat at the Denver Airport. My bad.

Cabo was great. It is a very watered down Mexico, in that USD are accepted everywhere and all the cab drivers speak English. You can get better deals on everything if you only use Spanish, but then you don’t have the thrill of being looked at like they want you out of their country. It was warm and bright and perfect. It was the break I needed.

SB'09 and the beginning of the end

SarahG — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:04:00 GMT

As promised, here are some pictures from Spring Break last week! I wanted you all to see just how amazing my trip was!

Gorgeous view from our hotel

Thetas on the beach

Maybe around half of the BU people... hence the acquired name "Fort Butlerdale" haha

Sisters after dinner!

As great as my break was, don't get too jealous of these pictures... I'm currently back at BU and facing what may prove to be the busiest seven weeks of my academic career... fantastic. On the plus side, they may be the busiest seven weeks of my social calendar as well! With Relay for Life, formals, Spring Sports, Parents' Day, numerous philanthropies, and much more... at least I'll be rounding out the semester in style!

The most magical place on earth (besides BU)

LizM — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:26:00 GMT

Sorry this post is arriving so late! I tried to post it when we were at the condo, but i had to pay for the internet. I know, right?! Who has to pay for WiFi these days?! That ding dang recession.

So anyhow, my family and I went to Disney World for spring break! It was so so so much fun. We went to each of the four parks, Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Epcot. Then the last day we ended up heading back to the Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios to ride the last of our favorite rides.

It was just my mom, dad, little brother and I, and it was nice to just be with the family and relax. We stayed at a really nice timeshare place that had 13 pools and hot tubs. thirteen. thats right. it was glorious even though we only really swam in one of them haha.

I forgot how exciting the whole Disney atmosphere is. We were able to see the "Dreams Come True" parade at the Magic Kingdom, and a High School Musical 3 parade at Hollywood Studios. They were so enjoyable to watch and I LOVE all the dancing and characters! We were able to meet Pinocchio, Pooh, and Tigger, just to name a few. We also went to see a Lion King show at Animal Kingdom which was SO COOL! There were people walking around on stilts and one guy even twirled a baton on fire :)

As for the rides, we rode everything! We rode Space Mountain at least 4 times, same with Rock n' Roller Coaster and the Tower of Terror. So. Much. Fun. Craziness. My little brother and I also rode Splash Mountain, and my whole family climbed on Expedition Everest, the newest coaster at Animal Kingdom. All of them were thrilling, but the best part is the character of each of the rides. My parents pointed out that Disney isn't like the typical theme park that competes to have the tallest or fastest rides. Instead they build a whole story around the ride and build up anticipation for the ride and every ride is unique and not only unlike any other in the park, but any other in the world!

My little brother was pretty amusing on this trip. He has a tendency of saying things out loud without realizing that people around him can see him: He has that mentality of "If I can't see you , you can't see me." One instance that was especially memorable was when we were standing in line for the Dumbo the Elephant ride. He looks over across the dividing chain and up at a tall older man on his cell phone who had two gold teeth. I think to myself "Oh please Will, don't look at the teeth." Will spots the teeth and loudly proclaims, "LOOK SIS!!! That guy has gold teeth!" Luckily the man didn't care but I thought it was hilarious.

So now I have funny tan lines and TONS of bags to unpack! I keep thinking of how horrible it's going to be to have to lug all this junk back to Ohio in a few short weeks. Oh well. Until then I have a lot lot lot of schoolwork to do and pictures to upload :)

And the Summer Job Search Begins...

StephF — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 06:16:00 GMT

Wow....so spring break is basically over. Soon I'll be back at school...and back in the whole swing of things. Which I'm not all that excited for. It's one of those things where you don't look forward to it, but once it happens...you're glad. So probably on Tuesday, I'll be glad that I'm back, but for now, I want to stay here at home where I can sleep till 11 every day, and play with my dogs, and do absolutely nothing!

This week I got to play with my puppy Stella every day....and take her to the vet, which was an interesting experience. She wasn't as nervous as she was for my mom the last time, but she did pass gas an awful lot in the car, which wasn't very pleasant. But, I didn't have to clean anything up, so I think I can handle that! But every day that my friends would come over to see her, when someone new came in, she would get so excited that she would #1 all over the floor, which got rather old pretty quickly. The poor thing just gets so worked up when she sees new people that she forgets what shes doing! But she is huge (almost 30 lbs...and only 4 months old!), and so smart (she can sit, lay down, and sort of fetch), and just adorable. She does the cutest things, like when she cocks her head to the side when she hears something that catches her interest.....I don't want to leave her!!! This week my mom is going to start training her to stay outside with the invisible fence we have in our yard, so she will pretty much be a permanent outside dog from now on. She is just growing up so quickly! I took some pictures of her when we were playing the other day....so here she is now!!

One day this past week I went back to my high school to visit with Taryn, my best friend from high school who also goes to Butler. It was amazing because we just got to walk around the school and not actually do anything! I love just visiting, which is exactly what we did...we walked around and talked. It was so weird just remembering what we were doing this time last year...like worrying about Prom, and scholarships, and where we were going to go to school, and graduation, and graduation parties.....and basically just what it would be like to be done with high school...but now we're in college, and its so weird to not be worrying about those things anymore. (although it is kind of nice..:) ) I mentioned in my last blog that I was going to go prom dress "shopping" with Taryn, but we ran out of time this week...so I guess we will have to go another time...or we will have to deal with maybe just going to Grand March and getting our prom dress fix that way. :) Prom is a big deal here....and I think that I'm going to miss going once the actual big night is here, although I really don't miss all the stress of getting ready for it all.

This week I also got to go to our amazing Chinese restaurant with my grandma and grandpa...which is kinda our tradition. We like to go there whenever I come home, or just whenever! They are adorable....and the sweetest people ever. I love how fired up they get about different things..and how my grandma knows exactly what is in style all the time because she watches so much Good Morning America and Regis and Kelly and all of those shows. I also got to go to my favorite pizza place twice this week, once with my parents, and once with my family and my boyfriend's family. I always get the same thing...but it is soooo good. And we always see everyone we know there, which is what I love about it (besides the wonderful pizza and pasta of course), and that's also why I love Butler and my hometown so much....because you always see people that you know when you're going somewhere! I love just driving down the road when I'm home and seeing people that I know, and waving at them, or sometimes when people just wave at you even if they don't know you! This is just a friendly area! On Tuesday I went with my boyfriend's parents to go to his Jazz concert....he is a music education major at Eastern Illinois. It was the first time that I got to see him play, which was really nice, because now I know that he really is a music major....and he hasn't just been pretending this whole time....haha. This little trip was also a great opportunity for me to do homework, since I hadn't done any so far...haha. But of course, the whole way there and back I just talked to Scott's parents and didn't do any homework....which makes me even more scared to go back to school, especially since I'm somewhat behind now. So the moral of the story is, do your homework. It stinks in the long run when you don't.....lol.

My final goal for spring break was to find a summer job....which was somewhat difficult. I already had one job in mind, working in the gatehouse at a local park/beach/golf course, so I applied for that....but I was hoping to go back to school with ideas for numerous backups....but that didn't really happen. lol. It's already hard to find jobs in my area, but its even worse considering the state of our nation's economy. This is rather discouraging because this is the first time that I'm going to have a legit summer job. I've always been so busy with practice and 4-H all summer long that I would just babysit here and there, and help our at my dance studio or with my moms summer school class. So keep your fingers crossed that I get the job that I applied for, or that I find something else amazing!!! :)

Well I have had a busy week as you can see...and another busy one coming up...yay!!! I'm off to pack up and drive back to Butler.....

Hiding out in an undisclosed location

ChristinaL — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 04:47:00 GMT

So, I hate to admit it, but I have been extremely lame this spring break!

With the exception of some fun NUVO internship activity and putting the final touches on my story which will run next week (YAY!), my spring break life quickly disintegrated into a lot of studying and hanging out with small children.

Last Friday, I babysat for my thesis advisor's 10 year old. He is absolutely hysterical. I love learning the hip 5th grade slang from him (he legitimately says "bff" and "fo sho") and hearing about all the social drama of stealing friends and crushes and bullies and whatnot. It's crazy (and takes you back to the olden days of elementary school). On top of that, many of the professors' kids hang out together, so he was giving me the lowdown on all the offspring of my favorite profs. Hilarious.

We also got to watch Ratatouille, which was cute but made me extremely nostalgic for Paris. You know your post-study-abroad life is sad when Disney movies make you depressed about not being in Europe.

I also spent a lot of time this week learning about babies. My cousin Melissa is 28 and lives on the near Eastside of Indy, and she just had a baby in December. His name is Patrick and to give you my unbiased evaluation, he is probably the cutest kid in the world. I stayed with Melissa for most of this week because campus pretty much shuts down over break, which meant I got to spend lots of quality time with Patrick. He is going through a phase right now where he is only happy when you hold him over your shoulder while standing up. Holding him over your shoulder while sitting is simply unacceptable. So, Patrick and I spent a lot of time walking around the house together to give his mom a break. At three months, he's already 19 lbs... the kid gets heavy! I love him dearly, but I must say that hanging with Melissa and Patrick has given me new insight into how much work babies take. I definitely don't want one of my own for a long long time!

Other than that I have been trying to get as much homework done as possible. I find this to be incredibly difficult when a) immediate deadlines are not looming (I'm a last minute kind of student) and b) Facebook keeps telling me how all my friends are in Florida or Spain or other sweet spring break locations. Ok, not all of them, but enough to make me feel justified in being unproductive.

I have mostly been working on a rather complicated Scarlet Letter/Uncle Tom's Cabin comparative essay which I should have written about a month ago (but my teacher is really nice, and as I mentioned before, lets us set our own due dates.) I also have a lot of Honors Thesis prep work to be doing, since spring of junior year is when you get your project all lined up for approval from the Honors Board. Needless to say, these are both very busy projects, and between those and catching up on emails and some organizational matters for my leadership position, I am quite busy.

On Wednesday, I finally decided I needed to leave Indy and hide out in an undisclosed location where I would be forced to get more work done as I near the end of my catch-up week. So far I'm doing a pretty good job - I haven't left said location since I got here on Wednesday night. I'll give you a hint: it involves home-cooked meals and my dog... but don't tell anyone because I don't have time to do anything fun around here and I wouldn't want to be tempted! Ahhh the life of an over-committed junior. Some day I'll learn not to take on so much in one semester. Maybe.

EDIT: I almost forgot the one "fun" part of my break: The Horizon League men's basketball tournament which we hosted at Butler - you may have seen me on ESPN rockin out on the clarinet in the Basketball Band : ) The game on Saturday vs. Wright State was lots of fun since they are our conference rivals (our fan sections more than our teams). However, the championship was really depressing. We lost by three points in the final seconds after having a (small) lead for most of the game. I think I neglected to mention this part of my spring break because I have already tried to block the loss out of my memory. We're moving on and looking forward! Keep your fingers crossed and thinking happy thoughts this weekend for NCAA tournament Selection Sunday.

Flip flops and tank tops

SarahG — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 02:36:00 GMT

I'm writing this blog from the beautiful beach of Ft. Lauderdale, FL! This week is spring break, so I headed south with a group of my sisters for a few days of stress-free fun. The break from class was definitely needed after last week, which I spent in the library studying for numerous midterms. But now all thoughts of books are far away and have been replaced with laying out on the beach all day, enjoying the 80 degree weather, eating seafood and ice cream, and not having a care in the world!

I wish I could add some pictures for you to see our beautiful beach-front view, but I don't have my camera cord with me right now! So be expecting some of those soon... for unfortunately I'll be heading back to Indy in a few days...

SB '09!!!

AllisonB — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:41:00 GMT

Well, considering I never EVER want to leave, I thought I'd give you all a quick look at what I'm up to this week! Needless to say, this week has been a blast! Going back to the real world soon is going to be tough!! But on that note, I need to get back into the sun!!! :)

(Please visit the site to view this media)

My Fabulous Internship! aka "I am a real writer now."

ChristinaL — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 04:09:00 GMT

SPRING BREAK! wooooo. I am spending it here in good old Indianapolis, and absolutely loving it. Why stay? Well, 1) most of the people and places I love are in Indy 2) Butler is currently hosting the men's basketball tournament for the Horizon League and 3) I have some things to do in town for my FABULOUS internship.

I know I've mentioned my internship a few times, but I've never actually told you all about it, because it's such a cool story that I kind of wanted to tell it in all its glory.

So, as you may know, I am an English major, which in theory means I can do anything I want : ) But, the first stipulation to that freedom is that you have to know what you want! So, last fall I decided that I didn't want to waste another minute when I could be exploring careers and trying to figure out what I want to do with myself. I had been thinking about journalism for a while, and then I got the idea to apply for NUVO.

NUVO is one of my favorite things about Indianapolis. It is a weekly newspaper that covers the arts, culture and social justice in Indianapolis. It is FREE and available every Wednesday at all the cool places in town - Yats, Qdoba, other yummy restaurants, and of course, Butler. It's basically young, hip and tells you all the cool places to be and things to do in Indy (and NUVO's recommendations are definitely college student friendly, aka usually quite cheap). I have been reading it religiously every week since I started picking it up on campus my freshman year, so I decided that I would love to work there.

The problem was, when I went on the NUVO website to get information about becoming an intern, it said they were seeking journalism students. I am not a journalism major, nor did I have any experience in newspapers. But, I do like to write, and I have been the yearbook editor at BU... oh yeah, and I write for lots of people to read on the internet every week. So, I decided to email the editor anyway. I mentioned all of those things and explained how passionate I was about NUVO and Indy.

His email back to me went something along these lines: You uttered the magic word - internet. Go ahead and send me your resume and some clips.

From there, I directed Jim to read some of my blog posts from this fall in Spain. Jim liked them, and hired me.

Apparently, NUVO had just launched a new website and was in the market for a bunch of web-saavy interns to fill it with fun content.

So, my dear go.butler.edu friends, this blog landed me my dream first internship. Thanks for your help!!

The irony is that although I was hired for supposedly doing cool things on the web, I have spent almost all of my time doing old school interviewing and writing. This is totally fine with me - I LOVE all the assignments I have had.

Jim, the managing editor, intern-overseer, photographer-directing, NUVO man-of-many-hats and my fabulous boss, somehow figured out that I might work well with the green beat, writing stories about all the efforts to make Indianapolis a more environmentally friendly place.

So, my job has basically become an excuse to meet all the extremely innovative, passionate and cool people in this city. The first full story I wrote was about celerystreet.com, which is an online shop full of earth-friendly gifts. It can be a little pricey for a college student but they have some really cool stuff, and it makes me so happy to see all the cool products that can come from recycled items (Side note:I am a recycling nut. Don't EVER throw out paper, aluminum cans or plastics 1 and 2 around me. I will probably cry. Ok, not really, but I will give you a short lecture about how you are hurting my (and the earth's) soul and then dig through the trash and take said object out to recycle it.) The couple who owns Celery Street, Evelyn and JD Guinn from Zionsville, are very very nice people and made my first interview so fun.

The story that's been taking up a LOT of my time lately is about the Indy Food Coop, which is an effort to put a grocery store in on the near east side of Indy that will sell organic and local food. Currently there are 40,000 people and NO full-service grocery store in that area, and since many people in those neighborhoods don't have cars, they have to buy junk food from convenience stores or fast food. Bad news bears. So, the Indy Food Coop is trying to put in a store that will basically be like a 7 days per week farmer's market. It will be a great way to bring healthy food to the east side and support local farming.

I have gotten to attend some really interesting events for this story, including a documentary and discussion that was held in this downtown arts center. All these people who are passionate about fresh, local food were in this room, talking with their friends and neighbors about how we can solve this problem in Indianapolis. If any of you out there are Gilmore Girls fans, it totally reminded me of a town hall meeting in Stars Hollow (minus the crazy mayor)!

Last week, I went to a Food Security Summit at the Earth House, which is a very cool new coffeeshop/art gallery/community hangout. The Summit was basically people from a whole bunch of groups interested in these topics who wanted to get together and share their different perspectives, pool resources and ideas and work on some concrete solutions to improving the local food situation in Indy. I loved listening to all their ideas, and I got to introduce myself as a writer, and I even got a press pass once. Those sort of things make me feel very grown up! haha.

So, why do I love this internship so much?

1 ) The more stories I work on, the more I fall in love with Indianapolis. This truly is a city with SO many passionate, creative and interesting young people who are doing ridiculously cool things to change their community. It is so inspiring and exciting, and I love being a part of it. There is nothing like living in a city.

2) It is so great to see people of all ages and backgrounds coming together to talk. We may live in a big city, but it's not too big for neighbors and communities to come together, and I love that.

3) I have learned so much! I have definitely become more concious about my eco-friendliness and eating habits since I've started working on these stories.

4) I take what I learn from writing NUVO articles and bring it back to my English classes! Writing professionally definitely improves my literary writing... and the concepts transfer as well. I came up with a great idea about how Moby can function as an environmentalist parable the other day in my American Novel class. Yeah, my class laughed at me... but only because I had previously told them how nerdy I am about this internship!

In short, this is an amazing job, and it has already opened up so many opportunities and experiences for me. There are so many cool things to do and places to work for in Indianapolis. What a precious resource - take advantage of it!

YAY for Spring Break!!!

StephF — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:09:00 GMT

So everything right now is pretty wonderful...its not February anymore....and I'm on Spring Break! This past week was really long....but I just kept reminding myself that soon I would be able to have a break from all the schoolness that was happening. :) I only had two tests this week, which wasn't bad at all compared to other people, but my level of motivation was zero all week long....so hopefully I did ok on them!

Last weekend was pretty Phi-nomenal! We had our sleepover on Friday, and a party with Snu (Sigma Nu) on Saturday. The sleepover was cool because we all got to hang out without putting a time limit on the fun...since we didn't have class the next day or anything like that. None of the girls who live in the house were allowed in from 10-8....so it was just the babies domain! We had a wonderful time altogether. :) Then for Saturday, the theme was "1st Grade Picture".....which was absolutely hilarious! My absolute favorite outfit of the night was by far my Great-Grandma Monica's (my greek Great-Grandma....just to clarify)...she and another girl put on men's button up shirts, backwards, like we used to when we would paint, and they walked around with finger paint all night. :) It was an amazing idea....and soo funny! But everyone looked great in their jumpers and bows and tight jeans or tight shorts....bahahaha. It made me miss 1st grade for like 5 minutes, but then I realized that I don't miss it at all...except for how easy that would all be for us now! It was so much fun, but I guess that we had too much fun because when my friends Em, Nicole, and I decided to take a picture together...jumping....Em actually tore her ACL. She had torn it before, and no the jump wasn't so intense that it did it all by itself..haha. But she does either have to walk with a brace on or with crutches....at least until she can have surgery and be all back together again! :) Here is the infamous jumping photo....notice that Nicole isn't in the air....it was pretty hard to time the flash and all with all of us jumping, but this is probably the best one....

So for the rest of last week I basically did homework, studied for tests, and tried to stay motivated. It was a really weird week, because I wasn't as busy as I usually am, so I should have been in high studying gear....but I was just so ready to go home that it was close to impossible to be really fired up for Communication Theory and Chemistry. But then the week finally ended, and I got to go visit my boyfriend for a day, and then go home the next day....so now I'm all ready to just chillax here at home for a whole week. My plans are pretty exciting, I'm going to go try on prom dresses with my best friend Taryn, because we are really sad that we didn't get to go prom dress shopping this year, and that we aren't prepping up for the big event at all! (Prom is a really big deal at my high school...) And that's about as far as I have gotten with any plans....other than that I just want to play with my dogs, hang out with my friends, and relax... :)

Retrospective Spring Break: 2007

AshlenC — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:10:00 GMT

I've been a bad blogger lately...but now I'm done all my cluster exams and I am almost on spring break! The only thing holding me back from leaving campus and crashing for a long (and desperately needed) nap is an oral presentation that I have to give this afternoon. I prepared the presentation last weekend, I've gone over it a few times, and I've prepared for any questions that I think I might receive, so I'm pretty confident that I can do well.

I decided to write one more retrospective spring break post....after all, I need to think of happy spring break thoughts while I'm waiting around for the next couple hours. Spring break 2006 was awesome, but spring break 2007 was better. Believe it or not, spring break 2008 was possibly the best spring break known to man. I'm hoping that this spring break will blow 2008 out of the water, but I seriously doubt that will happen.

Spring break 2007 started off the same was as spring break 2006 with a trip to Florida with the golf team (see my last blog post for the details). There were a couple major differences, however. First, I didn't get a sunburn. Second, I got to start for the golf team, and I played pretty well. I was the second placing member of the team, and scored 81, 79.

I returned back to campus after our trip, and on the same day we arrived home the Butler men's basketball team was playing in the NCAA tournament. I went to a viewing party in the large lecture room in Jordan Hall with one of my friends. Because the school was still on spring break, most of the viewers were faculty and staff, and I think a few alumni. There was free food, though, so I wasn't complaining!

After the viewing party, I packed up my car and headed north. About a week before spring break I had started dating Brian, and we were already inseparable. So, I went to spend the rest of spring break at his house. Brian lives close to Chicago, and I had never spent any significant amount of time in Chicago, so he agreed to take me downtown and show me all the sites.

We managed to do a lot in one day. It involved a crazy amount of walking! I saw Navy Pier for the first time (little did I know that was where I would get engaged) and we ate lunch there. I also got to look in the shops on Michigan Avenue, visit Sears Tower, and go to Shedd Aquarium (the otters were my favorite animals).

Brian and me at the top of Sears Tower

The views from the top of Sears Tower are amazing

I also got to visit the famous "bean." If you've never seen the bean, I recommend you check it out if you ever go to Chicago. It's something you just can't miss!

I had a blast in Chicago, and I've really enjoyed all my future trips to the Windy City (they're not kidding about the windy part). There's just so much to do there!

While staying at Brian's house, I also got to meet the family dog: Georgie. I'm really excited, because over spring break this year, Georgie is coming to stay with Brian, and we're going to be taking care of her for a few weeks while Brian's family travels to Florida. I'm a huge dog lover, so having a canine in my life again is going to be great!

As you can see, Georgie and I have been best buds from the very beginning!

I still have time before my presentation, so I think I'm going to do another last minute run through to make sure I'm not stumbing on any of my words. I hope everyone has an awesome spring break!!

Until later,

Ashlen