It has been an extremely stressful week so far. I have so many papers due, sleep to catch up on, work, and seeing my friends before the Christmas break. I simply cannot do all work and no play! Although I do not have many traditional finals, I have a lot of papers that I need to write. I have been taking breaks from paper writing to clear my mind through running and spending time with friends.

Last night in particular was the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, which I got to watch with my roommate. We dressed up and all! Victoria’s Secret has some of the most beautiful women modeling for them. If only I had some long legs so I could try out for the show! Miranda Kerr and Alessandra Ambrosio are definitely my favorites.

I have a ten page paper due tomorrow, another ten page paper due next week, and three smaller papers. But as my quote said above, God will not give me what I cannot handle! I am so blessed and thankful to be given this opportunity for education at Newman. I hope that God will help me get through all of the homework and such.

About two and a half weeks until break, so it’s crunch time! I won’t miss the homework, but I will miss my friends dearly.

Keep it classy,
Alyssa

PS: New Vantage is out tomorrow! We have a lot of good stories this week so check it out!

Yesterday was my best friend’s birthday and tomorrow is mine!  That’s probably why this is the best week of the year.  I mean I absolutely love Christmas but the weather is so much better in October!  Tonight we are headed to the Halloween Dance on campus.  I’ve yet to decide on a costume… suggestions?

Everyone survived midterms!  At least as far as I know.  Things are as busy as ever yet somehow winding down in the semester… it’s already November (almost)!  This weekend the Sloppy Joe Improv are putting on a Haunted House on campus!  I think that’s awesome!

Anyway, there’s a lot of work to do but I’m staying positive.  What is life without laughter?

My sister’s wedding is in less than two weeks!

~LIVE LAUGH LOVE~

*prayer request: my brother-in-law in the Army is set to deploy to Iraq November 15h.  We would appreciate any prayers for his safety! Thank you!

And so it begins…another semester down and one more to go. Yay!! I hope all had a wonderful break and Christmas season, I know I did. My break, I’m sure like many others, was much needed and deserved. It was nice to relax and detox from the stress of school, test, projects, and any and all assignments. I spent most of my break split between two place; my work and the slopes. I worked most of the days I was back home and in my free time I spent time with the family and went snowboarding. Unfortunately when I got back I found myself throw into one of my hardest schedules yet! This semester will be very interesting to say the least…

The trip back was slightly, Tiring! I hadn’t driven that long in a long time, Good thing my mother drove down and we got to switch every 2 hours until we got back.
Arriving home was a little strange at first I had to get used to my house and having my own room again, not to mention my little now kinda big little brother asking me all kinds of questions all I was more than happy to answer! But after the first week I was more than happy to be home in my incredible bed! After tripping over things non-stop I had to rededicate this place to muscle memory, fun stuff, right? Then began the phone calls for all of the plans to be seen and hang out with all of my friends from high School. Seems like I got to see someone everyday! I loved it! They all seemed to be doing well but not all of them were to happy where they’d gone to school. I was surprised, I thought everyone loved going off to college, but then I guess leaving is one thing but doing well on your own is another. But besides all the odd sad stories we laughed and talked all the time about the crazy things we’d done as Freshman…I had too much to talk about it seemed! After seeing my best friend and several other friends Christmas was here before I knew it!! (Decorating this place is always a wonderful Job) I loved being able to go out and buy presents for my Family for once with little to no problems with finding things! The prices were incredible!! On their lists good smelling things for mom and as usual electronics for my tech head little Brother. They surprised me with tons of things for my guitar and I was very happy! (I don’t get surprised very often ) Christmas was just incredibly wonderful spending time with family and friends.
A mere 5 days after Christmas my Birthday hit. (I’d nearly forgotten actually) I decided to go out to my favorite Japanese restaurant with my friends earlier that day and then pizza and hanging out at my house that night an incredible Birthday to remember with two cakes and Beetles RockBand until the hours of the morning.
With that it was time to ring in the New Year with the family and awesome that was! And now before I knew it, it’s time to get back to Newman to start the new semester! I’m more than excited, but will miss my family tremendously! So tomorrow morning it will be time to hit the road again!! Wichita here I come! I’m on my way back! Hope you’re as ready as I am!

See ya soon! Have a great day. Onward to 2010, lets continue to change the world.

Pray for Haiti and all its people.

So it started off when I drove home to Tulsa Friday night and saw A Christmas Carol in 3D at IMAX and all I can say is WOW!!! It was AWESOME, a great way to start off the christmas season, I recommend it to everyone! On Saturday I went to my little brothers basketball game and worked. It was my first day at my seasonal winter break job at GUESS Watches in the mall and it was interesting, I didn’t sell any watches that day but had fun people watching and showing off cool watches:P My friends came over after I got off work and we had a blast doing things that best friends do:P I had to drive back early Sunday morning for the christmas concert that I was in.

Now that seems like alot of stuff right there doesn’t it? But thats just half the fun of my weekend! Sunday night AFTER the concert is where alot of the fandanderful events happened. It started with a Tacky Sweater Party in Beata Hall, about 20-25 people came dressed in the tackiest christmas sweaters that they could find. We had a white elephant gift exchange and lots of food/dancing and a tacky sweater contest (I was one of the winners:P). The top 4 finalists had to do the cat walk down the long hallway and were judged by applause from the rest of the group, it was very entertaining. I also learned that my huge blue/green/white zig-zag, crazy designs sweater and leggings outfit would be considered “high fashion” in Europe, just add heels and a belt! I know where to go so I won’t waste that outfit!

After the Tacky Sweater Party the tacky sweater group attended Breakfast and Bingo in the Maybee Dinning Center, a CAB (campus board of activities) hosted event. Who would of thought college kids could get so into bingo? There were a bunch of prizes given away and a lot of winners, ironically almost ALL the winners were part of the tacky sweater group!

As bingo ended my tacky sweater group and I decided the night was still young and we were not ready for it to end; so we went to 3rd floor Beata and played dodgeball! We had probably 200 of those really light colorful balls, you know the ones you jump into at places like Chucky Cheese when you were little? We moved furniture around and had forts and played till 4am!

Today we all woke up really sore but not tired because it is READING DAY and there are no classes!

It has been a quick semester for me and it is hard to believe that finals are just around the corner. This is the week were students spent most of the time studying and writing lengthy papers. In fact, some of us dream about the difficult final exams that stress us out! However, after finals week comes the reward; a well deserved break! I hope everyone gets to go home and spent some time with the family during the holidays and enjoy the break! I will be looking forward for a better climate down on the south border of Texas because the cold here in Wichita is hard to take. So, everyone have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year’s and will see you guys back in January! God Bless you all!

El Porterito (Manny)