I wanna see it painted, painted, painted black.

Since I am a senior this year, I have decided that I am making a Michigan State University Student Bucket List. I know I'm a little late in the game and there's probably plenty of things that I've missed out on already, but I want to bleed as much green as I can before I go alumni status! 

I did happen to cross one item off my list the other day: participate in painting the Rock! September 24 is Phi Sigma Rho's Founder's Day, and I wanted to do something special with our colony, considering we are so new, so I came up with the idea to recognize it on campus by painting the Rock! Many of the sisters had never done it before either, so it was a fantastic new experience for all of us! 

Now the rules for painting the rock are simple: get their early, guard it, paint it after the sun sets. Since we were guarding it on a weekend, we had to get there extra early on Sunday afternoon to stake our claim. And luckily we did because no more than half an hour after I got there did another group show up in hopes to paint the Rock as well! They were pretty disappointed, but at the same time they were happy to learn that they'll need to get there earlier for the next time they try! 

It was pretty cold while we were waiting to paint, so a couple of girls brought blankets and hot chocolate to keep us warm. :) When the sun finally set, we sprayed the whole rock with a base coat, let it dry, and then wrote the following:

It works because our colors are Wine Red and Silver :)

It was so exciting to see our finished product! All of the girls who spent the night guarding it (I mean, we had scheduled shifts until 6am!) ended up initialing the bottom position, and we put an alpha and beta in the center to signify our two classes. I am so happy with how it turned out, and I'm really happy to say that I finally painted the Rock on Michigan State University's campus :D

Here's more pictures!

I couldn't be happier, right here.

The sisters of Phi Sigma Rho at Michigan State University have successfully completed our first RUSH week! :D :D Well, it was over a span of two weeks actually, but that's besides the point. We had been waiting for these events since the end of last spring semester, and it's already come and gone. My friend, Mariah, is our Rush Chair and she had been working on all of the rush stuff ALL summer long. This including, planning what events we were going to do, where and when we were going to do them, coordinating how we would advertise our sorority to new girls, buying all of the materials needed for the events, planning our bid acceptance event, AND the new class induction ceremony. Boy, did she have her hands full, and she did SUCH A FANTASTIC JOB. Seriously, I'm so proud of her and how well everything went!

From the beginning, we had about 75 girls on the email list, which cut down to about 30 that attended at least one rush event, and now we have 17 that accepted their bids and have been inducted as our Beta class. :) I cannot believe that we're close to doubled in size, with so many new faces!

Rush week was so much fun though. Here's what we did:
1. First Night: General Information with Q&A session to learn about who we are, what we do, and why you should join. Then we got into groups (mixing the potential new members in with the Alpha class!) and played an awesome engineering game called Bigger & Better. Each group is given a bag full of random items from glow sticks to toilet paper to plastic bags and the goal is to make the "biggest" or "best" something. All of the girls were so creative and it was a great to get to know them for the first time in that kind of setting.

Working together in groups since that's what we do in all of our engineering classes!

The winners: Most Creative, Biggest, and Best awards!

2. Night 2: Craft Night! This was definitely a lot of the girls' favorite night. Mariah found a whole bunch of penguin and star related crafts on Pinterest (because those are two of our symbols) and the girls just had a blast making them. It was awesome because there was enough time for each girl to make multiple crafts so they could meet new people at each station. And once again, we could all show off our girly and creative engineering side :)

So many penguins and stars!!!!

Penguin Family :)

4. Third Night: Game night! Mariah brought about 12 board and card games from home, many of which I had never heard of but were definitely fun to play and learn. We split up into groups and played each game for about twenty minutes before rotating to another group and another game. The winner of each game would record points, and whoever had the most points at the end of the night won MSU Dairy Store Ice Cream Coupons. This was one of my favorite nights because I LOVE board games, especially the classics like Scrabble and Monopoly! 

4. The fourth and final night was an ice cream social! Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures from this night.. This is mostly because I was volunteered to scoop all of the ice cream since I have had two summers of previous experience :P. It was delicious though because we had MSU Dairy Store ice cream (I mean, who doesn't these days?!) and the girls were able to ask all of their final questions. We also played "Speed Sistering" so that the potential new members could tell us last minute anything about themselves that would help them get a bid.

In the end, I liked all of the girls who I talked to that week, and I'm so excited to welcome 17 new wonderful ladies into our family. :D

Something there that wasn't there before.

I love discovering something new. Whether it's a new type of technology that makes life easier, a new type of food that I find that I love, or just learning something new about myself, I just LOVE expanding my knowledge of things in general.

What I discovered new the other day was a place on campus that I had never been before. And after being here for over three years, I feel like I should know this place like the back of my hand. Completely randomly, I had decided to leave the Plant and Soil Sciences building out of a different exit than I normally would have taken, and I stumbled upon a beautiful garden, that I had never seen, let alone heard of, before. It was about noon, so the flowers were in full bloom, the sun was highest in the sky and the wind was blowing a soft, cool breeze through the trees and flowers. I couldn't help but stop what I was doing and just stare at the beauty of the scenery. And of course, being me, I couldn't help but take pictures as well :)

It's actually much larger than it looks in the pictures. I would definitely consider taking a break from class and wandering around the area some days. It's peaceful enough to curl up and read a book :) 

Have YOU discovered something recently that you never realized before?!

A very merry (un)birthday!

Today would be my unbirthday (referring to Alice In Wonderland, of course) but this past Tuesday it wasn't! I just celebrated my 21st birthday, and oh boy, do I feel old. :p 

It's always been nice to have my birthday around a national holiday because it means about the half the time it's on the extended weekend of Labor Day, so I can relax and not stress about having to go to class. This year, unfortunately, was not the case. Luckily it was my Tuesday classes which, for most engineers, means one or two labs and maybe a lecture. I had both a lab and a lecture, but it was basically still "syllabus" week, so I didn't stress too much.

I think I had more fun the night BEFORE my birthday, than on the actual day, though :p. Since I was in fact turning 21, my 21-year-old friends wanted to take me out to get a drink at midnight, and we decided to have a get-together for a few hours before so I could still celebrate with my non-21-year-old friends. And it was a ton of fun! I got all dressed up and my roommate baked me a cake and everyone sang happy birthday. :) I was really excited because the majority of my MSU friends were there, and my friend volunteered to take pictures all night on his very nice camera. He said he ended up taking over 500 photos! Normally I'm the photographer at all of the events I go to, so I was so happy to finally be IN the photos rather than just taking them. I narrowed it down, and here are a few of my favorites from the night:

Cake my roommate made :))

My roommate Amanda! 

Steven!

Eric, the photographer! :D

Geo and I laughing at something :p

Rachel, BRO :)

Mark and Rachel, MSU Quidditch represent :)

Jeffrey & Geoffrey :)

Jack <3

Haha, silly roommates!

Jeff!

Riah :)

Teagan!

Marianne! :)

6 West (Junior year)

5 East (Sophomore year)

Okay, I know, I know, it's a TON of pictures. But I told you I had fun, right? :)

It's a beautiful day for football!

OH MAN, HAD I BEEN WAITING FOR THIS DAY FOR SO LONG! :D

It was finally the opening day of college football season, and specifically MSU's first game! :D Jack and I had been reading Bleacher Reports for the past month (or more like he informed me of all of the important articles to read :p) and we were both so psyched for that first game!!

Not only was this my first ACTUAL football game (Note: 'actual' as in the first time I got to see pre game and NOT work parking for Special Events), it was also the first time I stood in the FRONT ROW OF THE STUDENT SECTION! My friend texted me earlier in the week and we made the spontaneous decision to wait out for front row seats instead of tailgating or whatnot. I ended up getting there at 11 am and this is what it looked like by 3pm:

Crazy, huh? We decided to take shifts because waiting 9 hours for a 3 hour football game is rough, but definitely well worth it. I made some pretty cool friends too! One of the other guys who was waiting in for the front row had been there since 8:00 am and he's been doing this for EVERY football and basketball game since his freshman year! That's what I love seeing: MSU sport fan dedication. :) And because we were there so early, we got interviewed by Boise State sports telecasters, and then by WXYZ Detroit! My mom said she saw our group on TV a ton that night, too! This is the group I was with the whole time, and definitely an AMAZING group to spend the day/night with:

The student gates filled up pretty fast after that though. Good thing we got there super early! 

The gates opened two hours before kick off, so we had to make a mad dash to get to the front row before every other line. But, thankfully, we all made it! I didn't even look at the new scoreboards until I secured a seat, but oh my goodness. These babies are BEAUTIFUL. Seriously, who couldn't love being at a football game when you can see every replay crystal clear?!

Jack and I in the front row. I'm super sunburned because I had been waiting outside all day since 11am. And it was soooo hot!

I didn't get any pictures DURING the game because I was far to engrossed in watching our Spartans BEAT BOISE STATE! It was a pretty close game for a while, but that last quarter was ours :) Can't wait until the next game at Central!

GO GREEN!