Gobble Gobble, the turkeys gone!

I'm back to school after a wonderful Thanksgiving break! It was so nice to go home and see my family and eat amazing food, but I'm glad to to be back at school! Unfortunately final season is upon us, so this is really crunch time this time of year! I have so much work to finish in these next two weeks that I'm not to sure how I'm even going to pull this off! I have all sorts of papers and presentations to do, so I've resorted to creating the master "to-do list" to keep me organized. My favorite thing about coming back to Ripon after Thanksgiving break is seeing all the new decorations that are put up on campus. It was a most pleasant surprise my freshman year to see how much Ripon got in the winter holiday spirit, putting up trees in every building on campus, wreaths, and lights. It was a simple but wonderful pleasure my freshman year and it continues to be even as I'm a senior! Over the Thanksgiving break, my best friend Trish came home to celebrate the holidays with me because she lives in Texas. It was great to bring her home and have her experience my crazy family's Thanksgiving traditions. We had a lot of laughs around that table. I also got to see a lot of my friends from high school which was really fun. On Friday we attempted to go shopping early but didn't end up at the mall until 11am! We went to the Mall of America, and boy was that a shopping adventure! It was packed...reminder to self, never go to MOA on "Black Friday!" It's never a good idea, I didn't even get any shopping done! Over the weekend we checked out some movies too. We saw "Enchanted," which is the cutest movie ever! I suggest everyone go and check it out. We also watched "Stranger Than Fiction," with Will Farrell, a movie I can definitely add to my favorite movie list! Over all, It was a super Thanksgiving! I ate more than I should have and I had a great time with my friends and family. Hopefully everyone has recovered from their tryptophane overdoses and are having a great week! Wish me luck during this two weeks before finals crunch time!!!


Leila

Turkey Day's so close I can taste the Tryptophan!

I am sooooooooo excited for Turkey Day that I can barely contain myself! This is the first time since my sophomore year that I will be going home for Thanksgiving so I am very exctited to go home. I miss my family and I'm craving my mothers home cooked meals. I'm also looking forward to thanksgiving this year because my best friend Trish will be coming home with me! It should be a great couple days off. I think we might be brave and try going shopping on Black Friday as well, but I feel like when we wake up at 4 in the morning we'll turn off our alarm clocks and shop for sales at a more normal time! Even though this is a short week, it is still proving to be a busy one! I spent much of Sunday wide awake writing my 20-25 page senior seminar paper on "Social Movement Criticism: Censorship and Harry Potter." I love Harry Potter but 20 pages later I couldn't wait to stop thinking about it! It felt so good to hand it in to my professor Monday morning, now I just have to wait and see what I got on it! Today I just got done giving a sales pitch in my Organizational and Business Communication class. The assignment consisted of us choosing a product that we would have to sell to a targeted audience. I decided to sell spring break trips. So, I created a sales pitch to a group of girls, that I did in front of the class, selling a trip to Nassau, Bahamas. It was fun and I think that I did a great job. It made me look forward to spring break because I'm hoping to be going somewhere fun this year!

Mhh...what else is going on in my life?

Last weekend was my sorority's formal, so that was really fun. My dates name was Shane and we had a great night with all my sorority sisters and their dates. Dinner was yummy and the music was good, two ingredients to a great formal!

After pulling an all nighter on Sunday, I think that I'm going to work on catching up on my sleep tonight. Two of my favorite things are occuring tonight too...Nip/Tuck (I'm obssesed!) and Domino's Two for Tuesday! I think my friends and I are going to make it a girls night watching hot plastic surgeons and eating pizza, a perfect combination!

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Leila

P.S. Remember (as if you'd forget) 2 days to Turkey Madness!

P.P.S My first picture is of my best friends, Trish and Patti and I at Formal. The second picture is of my friend Nasif and I. And the thrid picture of my is my formal date and I.

Who will be crowned Mr. Ripon???

In less than one day, Ripon will be having its first ever "Man Pageant" organized by yours truly and my applied communication class. At this event we will be fundraising to help support the Huntington's Disease Society of America. I'm super excited and nervous for this event to take place. We have been planning it for 2 months now and the anticipation is killing me! I'm worried that no one will show up or that we will not make our fundraising goal. We have worked very hard to make sure that this is going to be an exciting event and I really hope that people will come and check it out. It should be a lot of laughs! We have the Ripon dance team preforming, and we also have a couple other musical acts. We asked the dance team to incorporate the pageant contestants into the dance so I'm really excited to see how that is going to turn out! Cross your fingers for us!!! Have a great weekend ;-)

Leila

P.S. Come check out the Man Pageant in Great Hall @ 7 P.M. ($3 @ the Door, all Proceeds go to the Huntington's Disease Society of America!)

Whoooooooo! The wind's blowing!

There's something about walking across campus, your face frozen, your hands numb and your clothing blowing in every direction that you just have to love! The winter season on the Ripon College campus has officially begun for me because I wore my first pair of mittens of the school year. I can't quite believe that this will be my last Winter in Ripon, who knows I could be living on beach come this time next year (hey I can dream right?!). I have been bad about posting these last couple days so I have some catching up to do. Let's start with Halloween...It was great! As always, I love getting dressed up and pretending to be someone other than myself for one night. This year I had two costumes, and I was a teacher and a school girl twice in one week. It was so much fun seeing all the costume ideas that people come up with at Ripon. People never fail to surprise me with there creativity. My favorite costume by far was this boy who drew bones all over himself and was the "Operation Man." Such a low cost but creative costume!

And now for school news ;-)...

I am in a class that is putting together what we like to call "Ripon's First Annual Man Pageant." I'm helping organize this event which will benefit the Huntington's Disease Society of America. The show goes on this Friday, November 9th, so I'm super busy getting all those components together so that the show goes on with out any problems (knock on wood!). So basically the moral of this blog post is to come the "Man Pageant" this Friday, November 9th! It will be totally worth it...I promise!

Leila