A Long-Awaited Update

Happy Thanksgiving! I know it's been a while - okay, a long while - but I've been a busy girlie! I'll try my best to recap...everything I've done since mid-June. Okay, just the highlights.

Just after I sent the last update my mom and I went on our yearly trip to Florida. As always it was a great time. Unfortunately I don't recall a lot of details or any anecdotes, but I did save my aunt from a hungry gator. Luckily my brave family looking-on managed to capture this action shot:

The concert season at Alpine Valley went well. This year we were graced by Nickelback, Jimmy Buffett, Ozzfest, Rage Against the Machine, and Dave Matthews. Moving up in the world, I stepped into a new position with even more responsibility there this season. It's kind of hard to believe this was my 6th year there! In any event, I was in charge of a dozen or so employees, a significantly increased inventory, an elevated clientele (read: VIP), and I reported to myself...who reported to the GM. ;) The girls were great, and although I'd never worked with any of them before (Jamie left me this year!) they all made each shift seem more like fun than work. Which is the ultimate goal, right?

All of these shows, however, were squeezed in on the weekends between my regular full-time job at Mercury up in Fond du Lac. My co-workers there are pretty amazing as well. I've been there about 6 months already, and I've learned a ton! I still don't know what's going to happen after my co-op come the end of January, but I definitely wouldn't mind staying. Part of me wants to spread my wings and try something blatantly new - Apple? California? - but the other (read: paranoid) part of me doesn't know if I'd really want to move somewhere where I know no one and know nothing about the area and "see how it goes." I guess when it comes to where I'll work in a few months...I'll see how it goes.

I'm sure I said this in a past update (you know, back when I wrote them more regularly), but I graduated from college in May, and we finally got around to having a party in mid-August. I got to celebrate that in addition to my parents' 30th wedding anniversary, which was cool.

September seemed to be the month of weddings. And
break-ups. And birthdays. All in all, it was just a crazy month. Not that that craziness has ended, however. Apparently I've been so busy I haven't even made any notes in my calendar to jog my memory for writing these little updates. Clearly it wasn't anything too important. Hah! I must have just been busy doing nothing.

As if I'm not busy enough, I've started bartending again. I missed meeting all those people, and I also realized how much it sucked having to plan around paydays. Since it'd probably be next to impossible to waltz in somewhere where the bartenders make money and ask for just Fridays and Saturdays and expect to actually make it on the schedule, I opted for a less conventional route: April and I are bartending for private parties and events around Milwaukee.

So far I've done one night; April couldn't make it. It was hands-down the weirdest bartending experience ever. We were told a nine-hour shift and it turned out to be three, a three-hour break, and another three; we never got restocked, so when we were out of something it was just too bad; and the people I worked with weren't all that easy on the eyes, so I'm honestly surprised at their monetary outcome at the end of the shift. Hopefully the next experience (this Saturday) will go better...

I don't want to make this too long, but hopefully I'll be able to set into a schedule so I can get these out more regularly. Good luck to anyone braving the crowds to shop Black Friday!

<3Rebecca~

P.S. Check out Blingo. Seriously, there's no reason not to. It searches through Google, so you get all the same results, but you can win stuff just for using it. I have it as my homepage and on the search field in my browser. Click this link to get started.

6 creative buisness cards

Maybe I should ask "will my business card be as cool as any of these?" when they ask "do you have any questions for us?" at the end of my job interviews... ; )

clipped from picdit.wordpress.com 6 creative buisness cards just like the page layout of your facebook profile dentist’s teeth are indented into the side no trouble making it to the location of this business break-out lock picking kit spoofing a famous logo there’s another step needed to actually read the business info.

Yes, Thank You

Since I haven't updated in a while (and honestly, I hope to soon!) I thought I would share the potent tidbits from this wonderful article I read. The New York Times has the full piece.

clipped from www.nytimes.com Years ago, after I took an ambitious friend to a prominent person’s party, he asked for an address so he could send a note. I cringed, but should not have been surprised. The word etiquette comes from the French for ticket, and Emily Post’s popularity 85 years ago came at a time when a middle class was emerging in this country, and people needed manners tutorials to advance vocationally and socially. Even back then, Ms. Post acknowledged that letter writing was a chore. Today, those who hate writing thank-you notes will be pleased to know that for dinner parties, even sticklers suggest you have to write them only if there was a written invitation. And it has become more acceptable to phone or send an e-mail message of thanks, too, as long as it’s not from a cab two minutes after leaving. The point is to tell a host that the evening has lingered pleasantly in your mind, that it wasn’t taken for granted. “But I don’t think you can ever write too many thank-you notes,”

"June and July we'll hang outside" - Rocket Summer

I'm excited to finally have a week where I can write about something! Two Saturdays ago I worked Fishfest -- a Christian music festival -- at Alpine Valley. It was my first show managing VIP, which was awesome. I have a sweet walkie-talkie and we have the least ugly of the new uniforms. Life there is good. The show, on the other hand, could have been better. The sponsoring organization pre-purchased a bunch of cases of soda, and our only purpose was distrobution. Tips sucked and the kids were all hyped up on Mountain Dew...lots of Mountain Dew, cuz it was free. After the show Elise, Matt, and I decided to head over to the Troy Center street dance. Just like last year it was a high school reunion. It was good to see people, but it's still a bit odd how no one seems to ever get out of the area.

Monday I had my first day at Mercury. Everyone here has been really nice, which is especially great when you're meeting a bunch of new people. Unfortunately my job of designing web pages on a computer all day was complicated in the beginning of the week by the MIA status of my computer. I did a lot of reading up on different programming stuff I'd never seen before. I learned a lot, but it's always hard to say you "know" something when you've only read about it and never tried it.

I finally got my computer around lunchtime on Wednesday. Ironically I had been given my first web page assignment on Tuesday. For the assignment I designed a web page on someone else's computer. When I came in Wednesday morning I no longer had access to that computer, and I rewrote the same page on someone else's computer. Wouldn't ya know, my computer arrived shortly after I finished it the second time. The upside: it was really easy to write the third time around. I wonder why... ;-)

By Thursday I had my very own web page posted. Talk about feeling accomplished! I'd love to show it (even though it's ridiculously uninteresting), but since it's on the Intranet it's username- and password-protected. I'm assuming Mercury would frown upon sharing my username and password with all of you. Sorry. Task complete, Friday involved more research, did the beginning of the week. I've been experimenting with some of the new code I've read about, and some of it's pretty sweet. Hopefully at some point I'll post something I can link on one of these updates.

This weekend Fond du Lac put on en event called Walleye Weekend. It's a big fair in one of the parks on Lake Winnebago centered around a walleye fishing tournament that takes place that weekend. It was a big deal at Mercury since they were a sponsoring the $1,000,000 hole-in-one contest. We really wanted to see the strongman competition -- which was over by the time we figured out where it was -- and Spongebob -- whose bodyguard was this crazy lady who hated anyone who wasn't 7 years old or younger. Later that evening a bunch of the co-ops got together and some of Danny's friends came up. When they got in we decided to go to KFC. I ordered a 2-pc leg and thigh meal. Just chicken, not difficult. The girl tells us (after 15 minutes) that they're out of extra-tasty-crispy and asks if original recipe is okay. Sure. 5 minutes later she comes back and says they're out of original too and asks if chicken strips are okay. Sooo, you're Kentucky Fried CHICKEN and you're out of chicken? Awesome. Overall, Walleye Weekend was kind of a let-down.

In other news, I've become strangely domestic. I'm a master of Tuna Helper, which I consider to be a step above Hamburger Helper since tuna is less common. Despite being warned against it (thanks for the confidence Kate...), we made BBQ ribs last week. Surprisingly enough we don't eat the same dinners every day, and in general we are pretty good about not over-making and ending up with excessive leftovers. (In our case this is a good thing because we have very few containers for leftovers, and fridge space seems deceptively large despite the relatively small amount we can store.)

Aside from the fridge, the apartment has been great so far. Little by little we are settling in. Just last week we picked up a bookshelf from Danny's aunt that she had sitting in storage. That allowed us to organize one pile of stuff that was on the floor. We're still in need of a few apartment things, but the fact that I still have yet to receive my first paycheck makes us hesitant to shop for anything we don't actually quot;need.quot;

Visitors are always welcome! We have plenty of sleeping space for guests. Just let one of us know if you'll be in the Fond du Lac area. Have a great week; remember, only 4 more days until the weekend. :-)

<3 Rebecca~

"Right now, all your dreams are waking up" - Joseph Arthur

School's out, no more excuses. Luckily this e-mail took less time than the last, but something had to give if I was going to graduate, and one of those somethings was spending time on the update. I did graduate, though, so it was all worthwhile. Hopefully being on a semi-regular schedule this summer will help with the update consistency.

When I wrote last I was in a college van on my way to a computer programming competition and symposium. That went well: Danny was my other team member, and although we were one team member short and had every computer problem possible (short of complete system failure) we still managed to get one of the problems. While that may not sound all that great, solving a problem set us in the top 1/3 of all the teams competing. Needless to say, our professor was quite proud of her underdog team of a freshman (Danny) and a senior with a bunch of incomplete lab assignments (that would be me).

That last week of classes before finals was a great celebration time for most of Ripon College as the year was coming to a close and most students' workloads were dwindling. This was crunch time for me, though, and although I was making progress daily, there was still a mountain of work ahead. Even if I tried to set aside time to relax (they say that's a good thing for preventing a stress overload, right??), I would just spend that time worrying about how much I had yet to complete.

I took a small break one Friday to do another photoshoot for EastBay, though. Don't worry, dad: when I say small, I mean that I brought my laptop and coded in the car on the way there and on the way back. I had no time to waste! The shoot was fun, though, and actually doing something active helped me de-stress a bit. They didn't tell me which month these photos were scheduled to run, but they're all volleyball ensembles. If you get EastBay (or if you plan on signing up for it to try to see them), look in that section.

Side note: I learned that EastBay tailors the catalog you receive to your particular interests. When you request a catalog, you mark your two favorite sports; when they send you the catalog, there will be more or less pages of certain sports accessories depending on which sports you choose. My point: if you're signing up for a catalog, mark volleyball as an interest.

That Monday I had my first and only final exam. For better or for worse, all of my programs were also due that Monday. It was SO nice to have the next few days to just be worry-free: everything was turned in, but other students still had finals. That meant I had a few days to relax. I think I slept most of the day Tuesday... My body probably needed it after all those late nights!

Wednesday our "Senior Week" that I had been planning in one of my organizations began. It kicked off with a noon Brewers game on Wednesday and a lounge party that night. Thursday we had a Pub Crawl through the bustling Ripon downtown. Our short week wrapped up with a cook-out and Comedy Sportz Friday night. While these were fun, it was even nicer that Friday to not have to have any more responsibilities to Ripon College.

Last time I had mentioned that I'll be working an internship at Mercury Marine in Fond du Lac for 8 months. That same Friday, after a handful of visits and much research, I was off to sign my first apartment lease ever. The apartment is only about a 5-minute drive from work, which will be nice with these crazy gas prices lately. It's a newer building, the neighbors seem nice, and it really feels like home, even before there was anything in it. I have a quick video walk-through if anyone would like to see it: just shoot me a reply and ask.

That weekend was a packing- and moving-frenzy. My parents came up Saturday for the Graduation festivities, Uhaul in tow. This (and maybe the fact that we were already able to move some stuff from Ripon to Fond du Lac) made moving the easiest year yet. Why didn't we think of this when I was a freshman??

A few hours before Commencement on Sunday the rain kicked in. Of course this was late enough that everything was already set for an outdoor ceremony and they couldn't transition to the rain-site and still start on time. We waited on the weather for probably 45 minutes. As Commencement progressed, the sky began to clear a bit. Maybe it'd turn out to be a gorgeous, sunny day. None. Not even a quarter of the way into reading the names of the graduates the weather decided we didn't get wet enough the first time around. For anyone interested, my parents ordered a copy of the professional DVD of the week's events. Movie night?

I was blessed to have an awesome little cheering section. My mom and dad were there, and my brother was able to make it down from school. Danny stayed in Ripon after his finals, and his parents made the trek down from Clear Lake too. The biggest surprise of all was when Kate called on Saturday night and said she was on her way too. My great feeling on graduation day was only amplified by being lucky enough to have so many proud supporters in the audience. :)

Since graduation I've been in East Troy attempting to pick up shifts here and there so I can make that little thing called rent payments. The golf course promised me a full 40-hour+ week and delivered 0. Roma's couldn't guarantee me anything, and I had 3 awesome shifts there. I shampooed the carpet at the karate school last week. I did a photo shoot for Buell Motorcycles (owned by Harley Davison) today (look for me online, in stores, and/or in the summer catalog). It's all been up in the air. It'll be nice once my internship starts to get settled in to one living place and one routine.

<3 Rebecca~

P.S. I feel like a lot of you are still missing out on Blingo. I won 2 free movie tickets on there not long ago. It searches through Google, so you get all the same results, but you can win stuff too! Click this link to get started. Oh, and don't worry, you really don't get any junk mail from it. What do you have to lose?

"We sat and smiled. I never thought I'd smile so much." - Blue October

I know what you're thinking: "what is this strange name in my inbox? I'd forgotten she existed!" I know, I've been sparse, but life's been busy with never-ending homework and meetings and class and that thing called sleep. I'm currently traveling to a programming competition and symposium at the University of North Dakota. I've been coding for hours and every time I look out the window I see grassy nothingness. I apologize in advance if I substitute any real words with C++ commands...

Paraphrasing where I've been the last two months, I feel like a majority of the time would have been spent in front of a computer screen doing homework of some sort. Aren't things supposed to get easier your senior year? I didn't go anywhere cool for spring break. Well, I take that back, I stayed in Wisconsin which teetered between "cool" and "cold" that week. I spent half of it in East Troy and the other half in Danny's hometown. We saw a bunch of people, which was nice, but I don't have any stellar stories.

The weekend after Spring Break was my sorority's formal. It was in Green Lake, just about the perfect distance from Ripon: long enough so you feel like you're actually getting out of town, but short enough so you don't get too antsy sitting on a big, yellow school bus. Overall it was a good time. Can't you tell by how happy we look? : )

The very next weekend was Danny's fraternity's formal, also in Green Lake (different establishment, though). It was great for all the same reasons, and the Golf Club where they had it was just remodeled and looking fabulous. Unlucky for us it rained all day, so the ground was composed of mush and puddles, and only a miracle could preserve the hairdo we spent all afternoon creating. Alright, that's a fib: Venessa has a friend who just graduated from beauty school who offered to do our hair for both formals for donations. She was a lifesaver. At least we still looked composed when our handsome dates arrived to pick us up:

That same weekend on Friday I had in interview with Mercury Marine in Fond du Lac. I had heard of the open internship position from an '06 Ripon alum, and heard nothing but good things. What harm could an interview do to find out if I'd like it too? None, apparently, as I learned by Monday when I got a call from their HR department. I'll definitely have to adjust to the early mornings, but the position sounds amazing otherwise, and there's the possibility that a permanent position could be offered at the end of the internship. Stay tuned for more on that this summer.

Easter weekend was short as usual since Ripon gives us from whenever we're done with classes on Friday until whenever our first class is on Monday for an Easter break. Danny and I went to the house up north to meet my parents and - we thought - my brother. Unfortunately there was so much snow in the UP where he goes to school that he decided it was too risky to try to make the trip for the weekend. The four of us still got to relax together a bit, though. Danny and I basically did homework the whole time just like every other weekend.

This past Tuesday our sorority had it's Blind Bash, an event that's usually before formal as a "test run" for potential formal dates. This year the days we could go for $1 admission were all after our formal date. Nevertheless, it was still a great time. Our group was even asked to have three people participate in a go-kart race between the 5th and 6th innings. You know I jumped at the chance to drive a go-kart through a baseball field in the middle of a game. Here's a photo of the action; I'm the yellow kart. Note my competition significantly trailing...

The Official Senioritis Countdown To Graduation is at 24 days. Unfortunately the countdown to date-all-homework-is-due is less than that, which means it's time for me to get back to work. : (

<3 Rebecca~

P.S. As we were (are) driving to North Dakota, one of our gas stops was at a Kwik Trip that happened to have wireless internet. I was searching for something using Blingo and I won 2 free movie tickets. No lie! I was beginning to become skeptical myself, but you really can win things just by using Blingo as your search engine. It searches through Google, so you get all the same results, but you could win stuff too! Why not, right? Anyway, just click this link to set up a free account. I haven't even gotten any junk mail!
Don't mean to sound like an advertisement, but it really does work!

"The rain's gone, here come the swallows. Let's start today tomorrow." - Youth Group

This past week in weather has been nothing short of astounding. Last Wednesday we had so few small patches of snow on the ground anyone would have sworn we were bidding winder adieu. Not so fast, though. Thursday night began the slow descent of some
innocent looking flurries. By Friday these nonchalant flakes had turned into large clumps. As the weather fluctuated we actually experienced snow, rain, sleet, and hail all in the course of one day. "Only in Wisconsin," right?

In other news, I’M DONE WITH MY SENIOR SEMINAR speech. I realize the last word steals the thunder a little bit, but that’s a 45-minute speech out of the way. Best...Feeling...Ever. I still have a paper to write, but that’s just a paper format of the speech I gave. And working from the PowerPoint I used, it shouldn’t be terrible. I’m stickin with “Best...Feeling...Ever.”

Unfortunately I’ve still got a ton of other homework. Lucky me, though: I get to start another class when we get back from Spring Break. Ack. What possibly made me think this was a good idea at registration time?? Furthermore, this class is scheduled smack dab in the middle of my usual nap times. I guess normalizing my sleep schedule would be an option, but I feel like I do my best work at night...er...early in the morning. What’s a girl to do?

Enjoy spring break while it’s here, that’s what. I’m spending half of it at home and the other half with Danny. We even get to work in a visit to see Kaplan and Venessa. At first I was kind of bummed that I wasn’t doing something big and exciting and warm for my last spring break EVER, but now I’m happy that it’s just going to be relaxing and cheap and relatively free of any anticipated stress.

This is about as much time as I have this time. Back to the books.

Stay warm!
<3 Rebecca~

“He's my cherry pie, put a smile on [my] face ten miles wide” - Warrant

Well, I did better than last week: three weeks instead of a month. Class has pretty much been business as usual, with the exception of my senior seminar project (read: 45 minute “talk”) coming due. Pure dread.

February 3rd one of the committees I’m on threw a 100 Days party, marking the exact count of 100 days until graduation day. It was well attended and better budgeted (read: we got a better deal) than last year’s, so we were applauded. It was lovely. Then how about that Super Bowl? Yeah, I really didn’t have a favorite team, but it was fun to watch everyone who did get all worked up. Plus Danny’s fraternity had lots of big screens with burgers and brats and awesome appetizers. When the game got mundane, there was food and Paula to entertain me.

Later that week I had a go-see in Middleton. Jack (GPS navigator) gave me some sweet directions, and when I say “sweet directions” I really mean if the roads were dry and I didn’t have my snow wheels on it woulda been a pretty fun drive with all those hills and curves on the crazy through-a-farm-field back roads. The go-see went alright, but it was different than anything I’d been to before. “Try this on.” “Stand full front.” “Turn to 3/4.” “And face back.” “Great, now go try this on.” Rinse and repeat. We’ll see what happens, but I’m not expecting anything.

Last weekend Paula and I went up to the UP to visit my brother for Winter Carnival. Luckily my parents were up there too because our previous plans for shelter fell through. For this particular travel, we didn’t have a power source for poor Jack. We tried to make due by turning him off when we had to stay on a particular stretch of road for a while. This would have worked in theory, that is if Paula and I could read road signs... In any event, we made pretty good time, even with our sweet detour. The floor of my parent’s hotel room was surprisingly comfortable, and the hockey game and snow sculptures the next day were amazing. MTU won the series against the jelly doughnuts of Denver University. Seriously, Google their logo.

This week blessed me with some lovely bed-rest. Being sick on Valentine’s Day is anything but splendid, especially when your Valentine is sick too. At least we got to spend Valentine’s Day sickly together... I’ll take what I can get.

Happy Friday!
<3 Rebecca~

"You stare like you don't care, but you do, though. I know." - Fort Minor

Alright, so the new year hasn't been good for consistency in writing. I think once I'm on a more consistent schedule (i.e. back in the school rhythm) it will get better. Cross your fingers.

I brought in the New Year on the time clock, which isn't as terrible as it sounds. It definitely beats watching Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, watching the ball drop at 11:00:00 PM CDT, then going to bed like I did when we'd spend New Year's up north. I got to work with April, and we went shopping together beforehand and got cute little matching outfits. Plus instead of spending money on New Year's like everyone in the bar, WE were making money. Always a good scenario for a poor college student.

Task one of 2007: dentist appointment. I've had 21 years of straight-A, perfect record teeth, and January 1st of the brand new 2007 brings be my very first cavity. Stellar. Later in the week brought me my first filling. Apparently it was the tiniest little cavity that's still a cavity, and you couldn't even see it on the x-ray. For those reasons the jury is still out on whether or not I will consider this a blemish to my otherwise flawless dental history.

Task two: work. I've had a number of days at Roma's, which have been nothing but an adventure. Don't get me wrong, I love Roma's, but the characters you can find in the banquet rooms are one of-a-kind. As luck always has it they tend to be back to back, too. The stories all run together, but there were a number of bartending firsts.

Task three: get an oil change. To pass the time waiting at the dealership, I used the opportunity to test drive a few cars. Unfortunately I fell in love with a car, and my lease isn't up until the end of November. No worries, though. This gives me plenty of time to research. Anyone heard anything about the Volkswagen Eos? It's a convertible hard top, stick shift, has a back seat, and my brother even thinks it could carry its own snow tires. Not that I don't love the Miata and the default "aww, sorry: I can't drive because there's more than two of us" excuse, but at this point I'm thinking this is a far more practical car long term...while still being fun.

Task four: back to school. I got off to a blazing start by managing to leave the keys to my dorm room at home in East Troy. Of course I noticed this when I pulled up to my dorm in Ripon. Nonetheless it was great to be back and see everyone. Registration and the first week of classes went well, which was great because the last thing I needed was more stress for bid week. Bid week is the last week of rush before the sororities and fraternities pick up new members, typically referred to as pledges, but not by all organizations. Anyway, the week was full of random practices to make sure everything went flawlessly on Friday night at the Preference Party, but what's the fun in a flawless showing? Regardless we picked up seven awesome girls Friday and another 2 amazing girls on Saturday. Most notably, I'm a grandma! No dad, don't worry: it just means that my little sister got her own little sister. Aren't we a cute little family?

Task five: homework. This week has been homework crazy, and tough stuff for the first week I thought. In any event, it is all done, and it feels great. First semester, although busy, has been really successful and productive thus far. Yay me! Apologies if these aren't as consistent as once weekly, but school comes first. I'm doing my best! For the rest of you who are entering your final semester as well, "I'm pulling for ya: we're all in this together."

Happy Friday!
<3 Rebecca~