The Pros and Cons of It

Wow! Two posts in one week. That is fantastic for me. Thus far spring break has consisted of work, a trip to IC to visit cousin and fiance, which was very fun, and sleep. I think my phone has rang twice since last Thursday. Maybe a few on Saturday because that is when Michael left and that is about all. I am patiently awaiting the call from the golf store to tell me that my new sticks are in. I was hoping to have them by now so I could go go the bubble and use them when I get off work tomorrow. I was off at 8:00 tonight. Nothing too interesting to report on. The people I talk to haven't been working the same shifts I have so it has been hard to catch up with them. Most of the things we talk about you wouldn't want to know about anyway so I wont bore you. As I get told enough from Michael, he really doesn't care what happens at work. This is why I find it funny that every night he asks me how work was. Owell, his problem.

As for the trip to IC, it was fun. A good chance to get away from DSM for awhile. My sister and I left Tuesday afternoon after I got off work. I had to be at HyVee at 6:00 AM on Tuesday morning! The last time I was up that early I got right back on a bus headed for CR and slept once we got on 380. Needless to say, IT SUCKED! Tonight Dave, my boss, called about an hour after I got there and told asked me what they had left for me to do today. When I told him that the morning help had gone home early because there was nothing to do he promptly told me to go to the way back of the freezer and pull out some pies. This would be ok it it weren't the way back of the freezer and there weren't 15 metal bakery racks in the way. So I had to pull every rack out while freezing my hands off. After 15 minutes of digging and rearranging, I finally got the pies and went back to the bakery. As I approached, Carrie, the cake decorator, said, "Sure glad you're the one who looks cold and not me!" So I took my popcicle fingers and stuck them on her face. She wasn't so smug after that. And once I started pulling pies I realized that I hadn't gotten all the different types, I wasn't going back into the freezer though so I will just get them tomorrow.

I did do something for me at work however. I called Mikey about 3:00 and asked him when he was coming home. As he was talking to me he was filling up the van to come home. Which puts him in DSM about 1:00 - 2:00 tomorrow afternoon. I believe. As lame as this sounds, it is really hard to go a week without someone that you are used to either seeing, or talking to everyday. Sometimes when we are both busy or we have just seen each other we don't call, but most nights we at least exchange a "good night" before retiring to bed. So, I was very excited to hear that he will be home a day earlier than expected. I really want to hang out with him tomorrow night because I don't have to work til 8:00 but as my mom did point out his mother would probably like to see him first. As my dad said, "yeah, but who do you think he would rather see...?" Case and point. Although Michael did say that if we hung out tomorrow night we would be with his family. Which isn't bad. I have played cards with his dad and little brother and him plenty of times, it is fun.

But anywho, on to the subject that has been plaguing me since this summer. Where is GRANDE going to attend college next year. It is between Wartburg and the U of Minnesota. I think that since I really have nothing else better to do, I will hash out my pro/con list right here. That way all of you, when I finally decide, will know what I did what I did. It will save you lots of questions and it will save me from having to answer them.

WARTBURG:
+ Closer to home
+ Smaller, more of a community feel on the campus
+ lower cost of living
+ good study abroad, required for major or minor in Spanish
+ Wartburg West which would send me to CO.
- in a small town, BUT CF is right down the road
+ I get my car
- not as prestigious of a name
+ great education
+ promise of getting out in four years
+ Baranowski's and other assorted family
+ mention of great participation in intramural sports at visit
- older, but I guess more history
+ indoor walkways between buildings


MINNESOTA:
+ prestigious name, Carlson is very difficult to get in to
- NO CAR!!!
+ Close friends right down the road
- large, not as much of a community feel
+ great education
- no promise of getting out in four years
+ in a large metropolitan area with lots of internship opps.
- farther from home; NO CAR!
- no mention of intramural sports at visit
+ newer, more up to date business building and PEC
- sub-zero temps ALL THE TIME!
- campus that takes a 2 hours walking tour of
- cost of living

When it comes down to it I think I know where I want to go. I have about a month to decide where I am going to actually go. When I look at some of my friends I am envious because they already know where they want to go. They know what they want to do with their lives and I am stuck in this rut that has been stressing me out for months now. My head right now if full of "what ifs." What if I make the wrong decision? What if I still don't get a job after I graduate? What if I go and find out I really don't want to do business after all? What if....

It is late and I have to work early tomorrow. Please feel free to leave any comments about my list. I can use all the help I can get. However, I only need the constructive comments, please don't trash one school or another as I think highly of both and really just need to straighten out some things in my head. It would be good to hear some other thoughts though so don't be shy...

Spring Break..for lack of a better title

Well, well, we have officially arrived at spring break of my senior year. Now, most of you would assume that I would be off traveling some foreign land(whether that be a foreign country or just foreign to me) but I'm not! I would be stuck in Iowa with nothing to do. All of my closest friends, and my boyfriend, have left for the week and I am currently looking forward to the 40 hours I will be spending at work this week. Granted, it will be a very nice looking paycheck, but not my idea of a "senior trip."

My boyfriend, however, is on what I would call a fairly decent senior trip. Him and four of his friends hopped in a van yesterday afternoon and took off for Florida. Now, to those of you who don't know these boys that would seem like a fairly good idea, but to me, I just laugh. First of all, they really didn't have a good plan until we all started harping on them about their lack of one. They were going to stay with Steven's uncle until Julie, Steven's mom, told them she didn't want them impoing on him for the entire week. Thus, they had no where to stay for 3 nights. Of course the boys made no other plan and when asked where they would find lodging in ORLANDO, FLORIDA during SPRING BREAK SEASON not TWO WEEKS before they were leaving, they said they would sleep in the van. HA! They finally found lodging with Sean's grandparents who live about an hour away from Orlando. Everything was then good and well. When asked what these boys were going to do in Florida for 5 days, the immediate response from all of them was, "GIRLS!" Again, HA! Three of the five boys are currently attached and all of them know they would be dead if they returned home boasting of girls. To make a long story short, they really don't have a very good plan, but I know that they will have fun if they can manage to not kill each other by the end of the week.

My best frind Ashley, however, went a different direction. She left for Mexico on Thursday morning and will be returning sometime next Saturday. She didn't go with friends, but rather her family and I know she will have a good time. Her plan was to sleep on the beach all day and then dress up and look "cute" at night when they went out to eat. One thing I know she is doing is swimming with dolphins today. This is a seemingly harmless activity unless you were my friends and I. Of course as she was telling us this one day at lunch, the boys thought that she was swimming naked with the dolphins. So for the last week and a half, we have been talking about how Ashley was going to swim naked with the dolphins. We told Nicole, one of our adult advisors to SADD, that she was doing this and Nicole told us her story about swimming with the Dolphins. She said that she had been swimming with the dolphins with another coulple and the dolphins kept swimming near the other womans tummy. The instructors asked the woman if she was pregnant and she said no. A few weeks later she called them back and told them that she indeed was pregnant. The dolphins have such ultrasonic hearing that they could sense the baby inside the woman. Thus, I of course had to call LJ, Ashley's mom, and warn her of this happening. Ashley was less than pleased but I am sure she is laughing about it right now. (In case you were wondering, there is NO reason for Ashley to be pregnant).

On another note, last weekend concluded my career in show choir. We participated at MoShow at Washington High School. We ended up placing 7th in the day show which didn't allow us to advance to the finals that night. Over all, the season wasn't bad. For those of you who have seen the show, you know that it really isn't your typical "show choir in a can" show this year. For starters, we took "Danny Boy," and Irish funeral song, and made it a rock song. I love the song, judges didn't. They thought we had distroyed the song and that it was a disgrace! Because of this, judges could not get past their personal tastes to judge us on our performance, what they were supposed to be doing. Therefore, we would get black-balled, and placed so low that there was no way we could win. Even though the judges with integrity knew that our show was fantastic and we deserved to win. We didn't do horribly because of this but it did keep us out of finals twice and it dropped us from grand champion twice as well. As the choir and I kept plugging away at the show and throughout the season, we did learn a lot about people, integrity, and ourselves. By the end we were performing for us and no one else. We contemplated changing the order of the show and decided that if judges didn't like us it was their fault. We were going to get on stage and perform our hearts out because that is what we love to do. And we did. We were happy with everything that we did and each show got noticibly better. With the competition season over, we now are looking forward to the end of the year show. For any of you interested, it is May 14th.

And the final thing I have to write about, PROM! Yes, I have the dress, and a few accesories, but no shoes. If any of you out there have anything dainty and shiny, please let me know. The dress is "sky blue," a reverse halter, meaning it comes to a point at the hollow of my neck and has straps that go down my back, has an a-semetrical line, and is sort of fluffy but not overdone. And for all of you who don't understand, I'll try to get a picture on this thing once I have the internet at my house. O yeah, I am currently at the library because the mother board on our computer is dead which isn't allowing us to use the internet. FANTASTIC!...not. Anyway, and I am sure that most of you will see it in two weeks when everyone is in town for the big birthday bash! But anywho, I have the dress, I have the boy, and I almost have a plan.

Dan, a friend of mine, asked Ashley so we are all planning on going together. He is a year younger but is in show choir with us and Ashley and him have been getting pretty comfortable with eachother on the long busrides to and from competitions. It has been fun and of course everyone, including Ashley, had an inkling of a feeling that he was going to ask her. He finally did once he realized that I was purposely leaving to give him a chance. It took him awhile to figure it out that I didn't spend all day last Saturday with the Midget Bake for nothing. He's a little dense and I guess needed a bigger hint. But nevertheless,spring is in the air and Prom is just around the corner. I am excited now. More to come when I have a plan and shoes!

Well, I leave you with that. That is pretty much the only thing going on in my life. Golf season just started and today I went out and bought myself a new set of clubs that are longer than the old and will last me a LONG time. They were reasonably priced, I believe, and they aren't bad clubs. And of course they aren't PING's or Calaway's or anything like that! I look forward to seeing all of you in two weeks. Happy blogging! And no college decision yet. That is way stressing my right now tho!

Word of the Day:

Embarazada: pregnant (no joke, on my last vocab quiz)

Arduously: demanding great effort or labor

The words could be getting interesting as we are reading Frankenstein in english right now. This book will be the death of me!