I'm a Senior Now!

Hey All!
So I can't believe it but my Junior year is over, and I am officially a senior now. It is so crazy to me how quickly it all goes by. I have loved every minute of it and it is now just starting to feel that much more real that in just one year from now I will be graduating and then off to wherever my life takes me ( hopefully to a great graduate school!!).

So since finals ended, which went pretty well I might add, I have just been spending time with my friends and enjoying New Orleans! For the seniors graduating from my sorority we had a crawfish boil at the Levy. The Levy (called the Fly by real locals) is the closest to a beach you are going to get in New Orleans, and Tulane students love it. It is basically a grassy area next to the Mississippi River where students go to hang out and have fun. It is a short walk from campus right on the other side of Audubon park, behind the zoo! The Crawfish boil was tons of fun and it was a great way to honor our seniors.


To celebrate the end of the year a big group of my friends and I also went tubing! Basically we got a bus to take 40 of us about 2 hours north of New Orleans to this river where a company called Wayne's World rents out tubes and dropps you off upstream and you just hang out and let the river take you back down. It is tons of fun and a great way to get a tan! They also have tubes specially made for coolers so people can bring drinks and lunch since you are on the river for almost 4 hours! An all day event that definetly left me pooped but it was so much fun.

We also have had alot of birthday's to celebrate in my house! All 3 of my roomates and I are May babies! Mandy turned 22 on May 4th, Alison turned 21 on May 12th, Joan's Birthday is today the 17th and Mine is in 10 days on the 27th! So before everyone left for the summer, we have had 4 birthday cakes and birthday dinners for our housemates. Everyone got a specialized cake for their tastes. Mine was funfetti vanilla with vanilla frosting because I don't like chocolate! I KNOW, EVERYONE SAYS ITS WEIRD!!! Here is a picture of my roomate Alison on her birthday!
Yesterday was graduation and it was open to the public so a few of my friends that were still in town went to go see our friends graduate. ELLEN DEGENERES WAS THE GUEST SPEAKER! She was AMAZING. SOOO funny! I was laughing the entire time. The other speakers were amazing as well. The seniors that graduated are what we call the "Katrina Class" since they were the freshman that moved in on August 27th 2005, and were evacuated August 27th 2005 for Hurricane Katrina. All the amazing words that every speaker as well as President Cowen had to say about the graduates and what their coming back to New Orleans has meant to the University as well as the city of New Orleans. The whole ceremony made me cry becaus it made realize how lucky I am to be a student at a University in such special city. The fact that their was a jazz band playing throughout the procession, and that they had a local singer come out and sing a song called "I know what It means to miss New Orleans". Never have I ever been to a graduation ceremony that was so personal for the graduates and the people in the audience who love Tulane and New Orleans. It wasn't just about what the students have learned from going to an amazing University and about wishing them good luck in the their future, it was about what they have learned through Tulane, New Orleans, Katrina and all of the public service work they have done in the city. When you graduate from Tulane and you go on to a job, or higher school or just back home you aren't just leaving your college behind, you are leaving behind the most amazing city and people and culture in the entire world behind, and that is something that I think you can't get anywhere else.

Ok, I am off to start packing for home and Brazil! I will do a blog update from Brazil ASAP!

Have a great summer!
Kelly

Time Flys!

Hey All -
Last time I posted I made a promise to myself I would post more often, and this month has just flown by! And now I only have two days of class left for the semester and then into finals I will go!

Well this month has been awesome. Since I posted last we had CRAWFEST at Tulane! Crawfest is our annual crawfish boil on campus. It was a beautiful day (about 80 and sunny) and they had a great line up of local music come and play. There were 2 huge stages and something crazy like 200,000 lbs of crawfish. They started serving the crawfish at 1130 and the lines were over 200 people long at 11 AM. Unfortunately for me, I dont eat crawfish. haha so I didn't have any, but thats fine I had a blast anyway. There were so many students there but also local New Orleanian families as well. New Orleans loves"fests" (Jazz Fest, French Quarter Fest, etc) and Crawfest is starting to become one of the more popular and successful ones in New Orleans which is awesome for Tulane. I got a great tan and had a blast with my friends.


The following weekend was Easter Weekend. I flew home for the weekend to see my family. When I left New Orleans it was about 80 and sunny and when my mom picked me up at LaGuardia Airport in NY it was 45 and rainy. How I wished I was back in New Orleans immediately. But it was really nice to see my brother and my family. I spent Saturday with my mom's family and then sunday with my dad's. We left right from my grandparents house to the airport so I could get back in Sunday night. Even though we had school off that Monday, I had work and some schoolwork I wanted to get done so I came back a little earlier.

The couple weeks after Easter have been crazy. Classes have been finishing up so I have had exams, papers and final projects due. But it hasn't been ALL work! I got to go to Florida for a weekend for a fraternity formal with a friend of mine and then last night my sorority had their formal. Also, my sorority has just had our senior week to celebrate all of the graduating seniors. It just makes it even more real to me that in about two weeks I will officially be a senior in college and it literally seems unreal.



On some VERY EXCITING NEWS... I am going to BRAZIL this summer! I just applied for one of Tulane's Summer Abroad programs. I am studying intercultural communication as well as brazilian culture for a month with two Tulane professors. I am so excited!! I had such a good time during my semester Abroad in Australia, that I wanted to go abroad AGAIN! This will definetly be a different experience since I am only going to be there for a month but I have always wanted to go to Brazil and I get to take classes for my major while there which is a huge plus!

Ok I am off to study for one of my finals that is coming up! Don't be surprised if I don't post again until after finals are over, there is alot of studying to be done!

Kelly

Welcome To New Orleans!

Hey All,
SO much has been going on this past month! One really exciting thing that happened for me was that my best friend came to visit! She likes in Massachusetts but goes to school at Colby in Maine. It was a great experience for her to get to come down to New Orleans in March for some nice sunny weather when it was in the 20s at home in Maine!

So I have SO much planned for her weekend and unfortunately we didn't even get to fit it all in because there is just so much to do and such little time. But we did get to do alot of fun stuff!

She arrived on a Thursday and that night I took her out to one of my favorite Sushi resturantes in the city. It is called Rockin Sake. It is in the warehouse district and they have great bright light decorations all around and play loud awesome music so it really is ROCKIN! and their Sushi is AMAZING!!! It is such a fun atmosphere and great place to go for dinner.

On Friday, we went to Magazine Street and did a little shopping at some of my favorite boutiques. She loved them and although she came attempting not to spend any money, she found a dress she just had to buy, ha. On Friday night we went and saw Tulane Baseball play USC. It was a great game, but unfortunately they lost that day. But the next day they played again and they won big time! ROLL WAVE!

On Saturday, I had volunteering scheduled for my sorority that Morning at the Louisiana Children's Museum so she got to explore campus a little bit while I was at the Children's Museum. It was Dr. Suess Themed Day so we painted the kids faces, helped them make Cat in the Hat hats and and read them story time. It was a great day and the kids had a blast! When I got back, I picked up Brook and I took her downtown. We wandered all over the city, did a little more shopping, had her try Pralines and hung out by the River. We also watched a couple of street shows and looked at some of the local artists paintings. She loved the city and I was so glad to show it to her.

That night I took her to my favorite New Orleans resturante NOLA. NOLA is one of Emeril's resturants and has PHENOMENAL food, great service and a great atmosphere. She loved it too. We both got the redfish which is a really popular fish here in New Orleans. After dinner I took her down to Burbon Street so she could get a feel for that and see the nightlight that downtown new orleans has to offer!

Unfortunately, she had to leave early on Sunday morning to get back to Maine so she didnt miss any more classes on Monday but we had a great weekend and she is planning on coming back again next year!!
We are in the home stretch for this semester and only have 4 weeks of class left. I can't believe in only 4 weeks I will be a senior! It seems like I JUST got here! I can't believe it!

Happy Spring Time!
Kelly

Mardi Gras 2009

Hello everyone!
So the past month has been still very very busy! For starters, I began my psychology internship in the research lab here at Tulane. It has been really fun and I am learning a lot. It is so nice to be able to see what you learn be put into practice. I am going to try and start my honors thesis soon and will potentially get to do my own research.

Valentines Day was a couple of weeks ago! For Valentines Day this year, my sorority sisters and I decorated cards and cookies for the elderly people at the Lambeth House. An assited living home near campus. We do it every year and they really seem to appreciate it! I also got to go out to dinner with my boyfriend to this resturante in uptown called Upperline. I had never been before and it was really delicious! There are so many good resturantes in New Orleans it is hard to go wrong!

As well as school being busy we just finished up with Mardi Gras! It was so great! I got to go to about 5 parades and even saw Val Kilmer! He was the King of Muses, which is the name of one of the parades. For me, being a Tulane student makes me think I am a pseudo-local so I never do any of the touristy things. This is my 3rd Mardi Gras and I have not once been down to Burbon street during any of the parades! They all run uptown anyway, so there is really no need to go downtown. It gets insanely crowded too. Mardi Gras was very successful this year and they had about 80,000 visitors in for the weekend!
Those are almost back up to Pre-Katrina numbers so the board of tourism was very happy. It is always great to see people coming back to the city. Alot of people have no idea how great New Orleans is and how it is basically the same as it was Pre-Katrina. I had never been before the storm so I don't have much to compare it to, but nothing looks run down to me!

For Mardi Gras, many students like to dress up in funny outfits to celebrate the occasion! This year I made myself a sweatshirt that said Mardi Gras 09 on it! I got many compliments however it wasn't really warm enough so on the last day I had to wear my fleece over it. =( My fleece is purple however so it is still in the right color scheme!

Ok thats all I have for now! I will post again soon! HAPPY MARDI GRAS!

Kelly

Class, Recruitment and Fun!

Hey all!
The first couple of weeks back at school have been busy but great! I finally got all my classes worked out and I am enjoying all of them. I am taking 4 classes for both of my majors and then I am also working as a research assistant in the Psychology Lab. I haven't started yet, but it should be really great. I get to work with one of my former professors on her social psychology research. It will give me great experience that should make me more prepared for graduate school which I plan to apply to this coming fall!

These first two weeks have been ultra busy because of sorority recruitment. I am a member of Pi Beta Phi and last weekend was the first weekend of formal recruitment. I was at our sorority house ALL day Friday, Saturday and Sunday preparing for it. As stressful as it is while we are going through it, in the end they are actually 2 of the best weekends of the semester because we get to spend so much time together. Next weekend is the final 3 days. Friday and Saturday are the third and fourth days of recruitment and Sunday is called Bid Day! It is when the freshman get their official bids from each sorority. Everyone brings their new members to a restaurant for a brunch and to allow them to spend time getting to know the older chapter members. It is so much fun! It makes all the late nights and time spent organizing worth it!

Last Thursday was one of my best friends 21st birthday so we went to one of our favorite sushi restaurants called "Sake Cafe". There were 22 of us at the dinner! As you can see most of the girls are dressed in white because after dinner we went to a big party called Original Sin. My friends and I were in white to be dressed as angels. It was great to be with all of my friends after being abroad last semester. The party was at this location downtown called the board of trade. It was a beautiful building and the party was a lot of fun! Tons of dancing! Below is a picture of my friends and I dressed up at the party!




I am off to go do some reading for class! Talk to you soon!

Kelly

Back at School!

Hi All!
I just arrived back to New Orleans yesterday. I drove my car down with my mom all the way from Connecticut and it took us 3 days! We stopped overnight in Tennessee, Alabama and then finally made it down to New Orleans. We stayed with one of my mom's friends in Alabama which was nice.

Its great to be back! It seems so weird that I have been gone for 8 months! Not much has changed. The bubble is gone I hear but I haven't seen it yet. I have been spending all of my time driving back and forth from Target, Bed Bath and Beyond and Wal-Mart getting everything I need for my new house! This is my first year living off campus and 3 of my friends and I are moving into a beautiful house on Calhoun St, which is one over from McAlister (which is the main road that runs through campus), so it is really close. I can actually walked about 100 feet and enter the gate directly behind Monroe (freshman dorm).

Since I was gone all last semester, I thought it would be too costly to store alot of stuff so I ended up giving alot of it away, which meant that when I got here I had to go buy all new stuff! But it really hasn't been that bad and with all those superstores so close it is easy to find everything you need.

I can't wait until all the students get down to school. New Orleans is awesome all the time, but it just gets that much better when all the students are here. PLUS I am going to get to see a bunch of my friends who I haven't seen in a very long time! Everyone will start arriving in the next few days so I am super excited about that.

Tonight I am going to go to a japanese Resturante about a mile from Campus called Hana. It is one of my favorites in the area and I have been missing this noodle salad that they make SO badly while I have been gone and I can't wait to eat it. Food is one of the things I have missed most about New Orleans so I can't wait to start going back to all of my favorite places over the next few weeks!

Ok time for dinner! When my room is all set up I will take some pictures of it and my house to show you!

Talk to you soon! Its great to be back!
Kelly

Home Sweet Home

Hi Everyone!
I just arrived home from Australia last night and it is good to be home. My last three weeks have been full of adventure and it is nice to be able to just relax. However, I will fill you in on everything I have been up to!

After finals ended in Sydney, my friends and I flew to New Zealand for a 10 day long trip around the South Island. We took a trip called the Kiwi Experience which is a bus that brings you each day to a new city. We started in Christchurch and headed up the east coast all the way around in a huge loop until we got back to Christchurch. New Zealand is an amazingly beautiful country. Almost the entirety of it excluding the coast is huge snow capped mountains, and the mountains are COVERED in sheep! They are everywhere!

The first city we went to after Christchurch was Kaikoura. Kaikoura is a cute little town that is known for its whales, dolphins and seals. When we got there 2 of my friends and I went seal swimming. We had to wear full body wet suits that had hoods so that when we were swimming the seals would think we were one of them and not get scared and swim away. I was glad we had the full body suit on thought because it was FREEZING in the water. It was such an awesome experience because the seals were swimming no more that 4 feet away from me and I got to go right up to them and watch them play on the rocks. Very cool.

Another one of the really awesome places we went to was a place called Fraz Josef. It is on the west coast of the south island and it is famous for its Glaciers! We had planned to do a full day hike up the Glacier but sadly like it does 280 days out of the year in Franz Josef, it RAINED! When it rains they aren't able to bring people up the glacier because the gushing water makes it dangerous and hard to climb. To make up for it though, I went sky diving over the glacier which was one of the most awesome and exciting things I have ever done. I was very nervous going into it, but honestly once I got in the plane i was just so excited that i stopped being scared and i loved every minute of it!

When we got to Queenstown, we took a day trip out to a place called Milford Sound. It was a huge waterway surrounded by huge mountains and waterfalls. Very gorgeous. My friend Brook and I took a plane ride back to Queenstown over the mountains which was super fun and amazingly beautiful.

After New Zealand we flew to Fiji and spend 6 nights there on 3 different Islands. We flew into the mainland and spent one night there. Then the next day we took about a 3 hour boat ride out to the first island. We spent 2 nights there and it was GORGEOUS! The island looked exactly like the islands from the television show Lost. There were probably max 40 people on the island and you could just relax and read and sunbathe and snorkle and do whatever you wanted all day. It was a great change from the moving around of our New Zealand Trip. One day we walked to the summit of the island and looked out over the other islands around us. Our guide pointed out an Island not too far away that was where they filmed the movie Cast Away with Tom Hanks! The second night we were there we were part of their traditonal ceremony called a Kava Ceremony and the Fijian people performed songs and dances for us. It was really cool. After the first Island of Kuata, we took another boat another hour to another Island called Kourovo. This one was really pretty also but definetly less remote. They had a pool which was nice, but I did miss the quietness of Kuata.

After all of that I flew back to Sydney for a few days and then got on my plane flight home. I am excited to spend Christmas with my family and head back down to New Orleans and spring semester.

I am so glad I studied abroad, and I would urge EVERYONE to take advantage of this opportunity. It was one of the best times of my life and I will never forget all the amazing things i go to do and see and the people I spent it with. And of course I suggest Sydney! It is SUCH a cool city and Australia is so unique and interesting.

I'll try to post soon!
Kelly