Thanksgiving is my Favorite Holiday!

Every year my sorority has our big philanthropy event, Burgers for Books. We have a cook out where we grill burgers and sell them for $2 a piece. All the money we make, we donate to an organization called First Book. For every dollar that they receive, they donate a brand new book to a child who would not otherwise have one. We also added a new event last year called Pie a Pi Phi! For $5, anyone can throw a whipped cream pie at one of our faces! Some girls were scared the pie's, but I was actually kind of excited about it! I was one of the lucky girls to get chosen to be pied. We raised about $700 for the organizaiton which means 700 new books for kids!! I was lucky enough to grill the burgers for the second half of the night, and from what I heard they were very delicious.


So the only bad thing about going abroad was missing Thanksgiving. Although my classes ended in late October, my friends and I decided to stay for an extra month to travel. Because of this, Thanksgiving 2008 was celebrated in Queenstown, New Zealand at a restaurant called the Bunker. Thanksgiving is my FAVORITE holiday of the entire year, so I was very excited to go home for it this year. Every year we spend the day with my Dad's family and have the same foods - everything that I love. Although many people think that Thanksgiving is about the Turkey, coming from a vegetarian let me tell you that the sides are so much better.

Back from Thanksgiving meant only 1 week left of classes! 7/8 done with college is not a fun thinkg =(

Taking Tests and Building Houses

After the fun of Halloween, it was time to get down to business! The following weekend was extremely busy. I had to take the the GRE psychology subject test, do Habitat for Humanity and then had a sorority date party!

The GRE test was not so fun, but not as bad as I had expected. It was however the longest multiple choice test I have ever taken - 240 questions! I took it at the University of New Orleans. I sat in a room with about 30 other pople who were all taking different exams, from Psychology to Math to Physics. Unline the standard GRE, the subject tests are only offered about 4 times a year. Most of the PhD programs that I am going to apply to require the GRE subject test, but not all PhD or masters programs require them. I haven't gotten my scores back yet but hopefully they are high enough to not have to take it again!

Right after taking the test, I drove to the Ninth Ward where my sorority sisters were building a house with Habitat for Humanity. I was a little late obviously because I was taking the test, but late is better than never! As a senior class, we decided to do Habitat. All of us felt that since we have lived here for almost 4 years now, that it was more than time for us to do our part in building a house. We were there until about 3 PM and we finished 3/4 of the siding on the entire house! It was a really great experience. Especially when other locals families would walk by and say thank you and tell us how greatful they were for what we were doing. I think my dad would be very proud of all of the construction work I was doing! Who knew I knew how to put up siding!


After the long day of building, I came home and took a quick nap before getting ready to go to my date party! A date party is a social event that we have where each girl gets to bring a date for a night out. It was definety a great time.

Ok, talk to you soon!
Kelly

Halloween!

Hey everyone!
Halloween this year was a blast. At Tulane, Halloween is not just one day, but extends for the length of the weekend that is closest to its date. So this year, since Halloween fell on a Saturday, it started the Thursday before. Often people have a different costume for each night that they go out, so this year I had 2 costumes. I dressed a a pixie stick with my roomates Friday night and as Modern art Saturday night.
Friday night my roomates and I had a Halloween party at our house. We decided that we should all dress alike as a theme. After contemplating tons of ideas, we somehow found our selves roaming the isles at Walmart for inspiration. At this point I am not really sure how it got to this, but we decided to be different colored Pixie sticks - you know the large sticks of colored sugar that we all love? We bought bright colored outfits and decided to spray paint out hair to match our outfits. In the end, we ended up looking like characters from Dr. Seuss Books, but hey everyone liked it.

On Saturday night, I dressed as a piece of modern art. I wore a skin colored outfit and had my roomates splatter paint on me like i was a canvas. When I came up with the idea, i didn't think about the drying process, ha. I stood in my room with a hairdryer to my body for about a half hour before I could leave the house. The night was tons of fun anyway. We went to a couple more Halloween parties in the area, and then most people head downtown to Frenchman street. The costumes you see down there are like nothing you have ever seen before.

Hope you had a great Halloween!
Kelly

Homecoming and Going Home!

Since I last posted a lot has happened! First of all we had Homecoming! This year, Tulane was celebrated its 175th aniversary. Although there were not alums present from that first graduating class, there were some alums here for 25 and 30 year reunions! One of my good friends Rachel is the daughter of two Tulane alums. Both of them came to visit her and to celebrate their 30 year reunion. I was excited to meet them, however they were so busy celebrating with their friends that I didn't get to see them, let alone Rachel!
Both of my parents came in for the weekend. They arrived Friday night and left Monday morning. On Saturday, we actually had an unlucky mishap when my mom tripped over an uneven sidewalk in the park while on her morning run! In an attempt to save her I-Phone as she fell, she ended up cutting her lip and needing stitches. Luckily for us - there is a state of the art hospital only 7 minutes away! We got her there very quickly and she was as good as new in an hour. We didn't let this mishap ruin the weekend in the slightest. At around noon, my parents and I went to the Homecoming Tailgate. My sorority set up a tent where we have food and drinks for the parents. People played music and celebrated Tulane! All of the tents are set up on the platforms outside of the Superdome. It is tons of fun and goes on for about 4-5 hours.
Have you ever heard of the games bags? Or maybe you know it as cornhole? Well I had never heard of it before I came to school in New Orleans. Apparently it is both popular in the South and the Midwest. My Italian family and I prefer to play bocci. Anyway, to play the game you throw bean bags (which are actually filled with corn kernels) onto a slanted board with a hole in the middle. If the bag lands on the board you get 1 point and if it goes into the hole you get 3. My dad had never played before so this was a first for him. He caught on pretty quickly and although we lost the first game, we came back and won the second! I was pretty proud of us.
For the rest of the weekend my family and I did fun New Orleans things, and got to go to a great dinner at a restaurant called Coquette on Magazine St. My roomates and their parents joined us. It was really fun. On Sunday my dad helped me do some handy work around the house and put up some shelves in my room. Isn't that what Dad's are for??



The following weekend was Tulane's first ever fall break! Luckily for me, it coincided with my Uncle's Wedding in Massachusetts. I flew home on Thursday and came back to NOLA on Sunday. On Friday night I went into NYC and spent some time with my brother (who now lives there) and some friends from Tulane who now work there. It was nice to seem them and I had a great time. On Saturday we drove up to MA for the wedding. It was great to see my family and my cousins who I haven't seen in a long time since I spent my summer here. The wedding was at an airforce base and after the wedding we went to a real USO club! Only specific guests and miltary members are allowed on the base so we felt pretty cool. That Sunday I watched as my beloved NY Giants lost their first game of the season =( and then took a 3 hour flight back.

All in all it was a great two weekends! I will post an update after Halloween. I still can't decide what I am going to be but hopefully it all works out!

Talk to you soon!
Kelly

What a Month!

Hi All!
This past month has been chock full! In the third week of September my mommy came to visit! It was her birthday so she came down to stay with me. She has a best friend that lives in Alabama who drove in for the weekend. On the Saturday night she was here we went to Harrah's to see a comedy show. One of my mom's friends who lives in New Orleans, James Cusimano, was actually one of the comics in the show! He was opening for Jodi Borello who was the main act. James did a great job and we were all really proud of him. The main comedian, Jodi was hysterical. The main focus of her stand up was jokes about New Orleans, because she is a local comedian. Although I am from Connecticut, I realized how much I am now a psuedo-local after living here for a little over 3 years. I was laughing at all of her jokes meant for the locals and my mom kept looking over at me and asking me "what is she talking about?". She loved the show anyway! After the show I decided to take my hand at gambling… but I am not brave enough so I just played the Penny slots! I actually won 7 dollars though!! I was very proud of myself and had a lot of fun. If I had played for 5 more minutes I would have gotten a free buffet!



The following weekend I saw ANOTHER comedy show! This time however it was a good friend of mine ding an open mic night at a local comedy club 5 blocks from my house. I was so nervous for him that I couldn’t look at him for half the time. But he did a really great job!! Almost his entire fraternity came to support him and I brought my roommates. It was a great time and he is thinking about doing it again. Maybe next time I will feel less nervous and I can watch the entire thing!

The following night I went to a date party with my friend and it was Jimmy Buffet themed, Margarita Ville! It was tons of fun and they had a great band that played all night. We had a blast. My sorority also had a date party the following weekend. Seniors got to bring two dates so my friends and I brought a huge group of our friends from other sororities and some boys too.

This semester I have a new goal, to stop eating boot pizza at night! For those of you who don’t know, there is a eatery called the Dough Bowl literally 20 feet from the edge of campus. Right where I walk past on my way home if I have been out at. They make delicious, mouth-watering pizza, that all Tulane students love. Even my best friend Brook who visited for a weekend will text me once and a while and tell me that she misses the pizza. The line is always at least 10 people long every night. I have been very weak when it comes to walking past and not buying a slice. My new goal is going to be walk buy and not buy a slice! This weekend will be an easy pass because I am going home for fall break. My uncle is getting married! So my challenge really starts next week… I”ll let you know how it goes.

My honors thesis has been going well too! I have been meeting once a week with my advisor and we have a really good grasp of what we will be researching. We have created the first part of the study and now I have to just work on the main experiment. My advisor and I have planned to submit the final research proposal to the IRB (Institution Review Board) in November and then I will be ready to run my study for the Spring semester. At our last meeting she told me that if the study results are significant we will submit it for publishing. It will so exciting as an undergraduate to have my research published in a Peer Reviewed Psychological Journal! Hopefully it will all go well.

Have a good weekend!
Kelly

Back to New Orleans... Off to Maine!

Hey all!
Its now the third week of school and it is flying by! I feel like just yesterday I was moving in to Sharp and starting my freshman year. These first three weeks have been extremely hectic! My sorority has had a couple fun events, 2 mixers with other fraternities and a sister only. A sister only is exactly what it sounds like, an event just for the sorority sisters where we get to spend time together. It was great to see all the girls after the summer. It is very weird though with all of the Juniors gone abroad. I miss all of those girls, but know they are going to love their time abroad just like I did.


Only 2 weeks into school I flew to Portland, ME to surprise my best friend Brook for her birthday! She goes to Colby College in Waterville, ME. Her birthday was September 4th so I left New Orleans at 6AM to get there at around noon! She was moving into her house and I just walked into the house. SHE WAS SHOCKED! I went to give her a hug and she just stood there shaking. It was a great surprise. Visiting Colby was really fun. It is interesting how best friends can go to two such different schools and love their schools just as much. Colby is less than 2000, in a very cold climate and in MUCH smaller city than New Orleans. It is definetly a differnet college experience than going to Tulane, but she and her friends love it just the same. It just goes to show you that picking your University is a totally personal experience. Just because others love a school, doesn't mean that it is for you. You have to really experience it for youself. I think when you know, you just know. Although I am from Connecticut, it was my first time in Maine and it really was nice. After spending my entire summer in New Orleans, Maine felt very cold to me! haha The girls were all making fun of me when I walking around the house in my sweats.

My classes are all really good. I am taking two film classes (Film Analysis and French Cinema). I have two screenings a week. I feel like I am watching more movies this semester than ever in my life! We have watched The Royal Tenebaums, The Wizard of Oz and North by Northwest in my Film Analysis class and two lesser known French films called Napoleon and The Vampiers in French Cinema. I also am taking a class called Communication, Culture and Body, with a subtitle of Feminism, Science Fiction and New Technologies. It is a really cool class and I am getting exposure to the genre of Science Fiction, which is something I am not particulary familiar with. Very interesting stuff!

Ok I am off to go to bed. I am taking a 3 hour GRE course tomorrow that is offered through the Newcomb Institute. It was only $20! I am excited for it because that means that that is 3 less hours that I have to study math on my own! If you don't know, the Newcomb Institute does programing for women at Tulane. Tulane used to be Tulane University for men and Newcomb College for women. The two are completely combined now and we all attend the Newcomb-Tulane Undergraduate College, but to keep the spirit alive and to recognize the donor Sophie Newcomb, they still put on massive amounts of programming for women. Although I am not as involved as I should be, they do a great job of providing resourses as well as great leadership opportunities for women.

Ok enjoy your weekend!
Kelly

Its really happening... I'm a senior.

Hi All!
Happy first week of school! Classes started yesterday, and so far so good. It is so interesting to me to see campus so crowded with people since living here all summer it was very empty. All of the new freshman moved in on Saturday which was a very successful day. By 1230 it looked like they were all pretty much moved and and people were getting used to the campus.



For my last week of summer I spent it in Sea Island, Georgia with my best friend and her family. She has a summer house there that they just renovated and it was awesome. It was a pretty short flight from New Orleans. Sea Island is in very south Georgia so we actually flew into Jacksonville, FL and drove from there. The island is about 7 miles long and has ocean on one side and marsh on the other. I spent 5 days there and had a blast. The island has a resort that all residents belong to and every Tuesday and Thursday they have bingo. Unfortunately we didn't win bingo, but I had a blast doing it. After that we did line dances (Macarena, Electric Slide, etc...) with all of the 8 year olds then headed home. It was a great week to end my last summer of college.




So there are some new changes on campus this year...

1. The Reily Center (the gym) got 20 new cardio machines! Very exciting for all the frequent gym goers because there are no longer lines waiting for an eliptical or treadmill.

2. New new eateries in the LBC - Panda Express and a new Mix Ins Salad Bar. I haven't tried either yet but have heard very good reviews from others about them!

3. Half of McAlister Drive is underconstruction. After a very large donation from an alumni, Tulane has begun the process of turning the first half of McAlister Drive into a fully green pedestrian walkway. Hopefully they will be done by December like they promise. Having construction on campus is at times annoying, but at least Tulane is always trying to improve it self.

Ok I am off to start my first homework assignment of the semester! Enjoy your last fews days of summer if you have them!

Kelly