What I am thankful for...

I am SO EXCITED right now! I am sitting in the airport anxiously awaiting the plane that will take me back to my lovely family and the chilly air back in Colorado. This week was lost in a whirlwind of my excitement. I got to experience all the joys of registering for next semester's classes, and by joys i mean STRESS! There are so many classes to pick from, but because freshman are the last to register, a lot of the classes were full. I did, however, manage to get into all of the classes (mainly required cores) that I needed. Time is sure passing us by! I find it hard to believe Thanksgiving is only a few days away, and that I am almost halfway done with my freshman year! Thursday was a fun evening. I joined my friends at an Intervarsity International Thanksgiving potluck. I got to try some delicious food from around the world while making construction paper hand-turkeys and gabbing about all the things that we are so thankful for. These ranged from the traditional family and friends to rainy days (not many here in SD!) and In-n-Out Burger (mmmmm!).

My night ended at 3:30am when I finally snuggled under my covers and turned the lights out. Why so late? Well my reason involves hot vampires and warewolves with eight-packs. Yes, it was the midnight showing of New Moon that led me to stand in a line full of crazed fans for three hours. I love movies and the energy and excitement of midnight shows, so I had a good time. The Red Bull I chugged earlier that evening sure added to my enthusiasm as well. Friday I went to Intervarsity Girl's Night! Now talk about a good time. We all got dressed up to enjoy the FINEST desserts this side of the country at Extraordinary Desserts. It was so terribly hard to decide between strawberry-raspberry coffee cake and flakey coconut white cake (strawberry won out in the end...). When our stomachs were considerably fuller and our jeans slightly tighter, we headed to a house to watch The Proposal. I would have to say this movie is one of my all-time favorites! We flexed our creativity muscles by painting some pretty picture frames to take home. Saturday I gave back by participating in a Justice Event. We headed to City Heights, a very diverse neighborhood. We hung out with people from all over the globe at a community center and helped move furniture into a woman's room in a senior home. After that, we headed over to God's Extended Hand, a homeless soup kitchen and shelter. We gave the sanctuary eating area a fresh coat of paint. My jeans still have the evidence of my good deeds all over them! It was a really eye-opening experience to see all of the need in downtown San Diego. I go to one of the most beautiful schools in the nation and receive one of the best educations, and I am blessed with so much. Some people out there really do have nothing. It is important that we realize this so that we never take anything for granted. By Saturday night I was wiped out, so my roomie and I put on Transformers 2 and watched that. The smell of popcorn traveled down the hall and brought in a few of our friends to join the movie night. All in all, it was a very productive and rewarding weekend. Now I just can't wait for that plane to bring me back to my mountains! Happy Thanksgiving!

Birthday Blast

WOW last week was sure a busy one! I had a paper due in my Contemporary Social Issues class and a test in Christianity and Its Practice. Thankfully those both were done at the beginning of the week,so my stress level had time to go back down to normal before the weekend. On Thursday, I went to the Intervarsity Large Group meeting, where we had a guest speaker come and speak to us about justice, and how we can do our part to make change happen in the world. I signed up for a service project to participate in on Saturday, and I am really looking forward to that! On Thursday, I got to venture off campus and visit the San Diego Museum of Art with the rest of my art history class. We looked at the Asian art collection and had to pick one of the art pieces to describe in detail. Friday brought the excitement of the basketball season kickoff! AND FREE FOOD! (no college student wants to pass this up. EVER.) My friends from my hall and I enjoyed our free Chipotle burritos before the fans started piling in. We all cheered the Toreros onto victory against Stanford. Final score? 77 to 64. Good game boys! Saturday night, we went down to La Jolla Shores and had a bonfire at the beach to celebrate my 19th birthday! After chowing down on the best burgers and fries at the famous In-n-Out, we roasted smores and huddled around a blazing fire with the waves crashing in the background. It was one of my favorite nights here. My Papa drove down from Orange County on Sunday to take me out to lunch for my birthday. We went down to Seaport Village and walked around before enjoying some really amazing pizza. It was wonderful to see him, and the weather was perfect as we walked along the water. Oh, the joys of living in San Diego! Yesterday (Monday) was my birthday! I woke up to pink and purple streamers and balloons EVERYWHERE! My lovely roommates had decked the place out, and it made my day. I was so happy to get mail too, and find all the goodies that my relatives had sent me as well! And, of course, my phone rang nonstop with all the well wishers calling to say "Happy Birthday!" and then catch up on our busy lives. It reminded me just how fortunate we are to have loving families and friends who still care about us and love us, even though they are thousands of miles away. At night, I ordered some pizzas (mmmmm stuffed crust anyone?) and we had a little girls night, watching The Ugly Truth and stuffing our faces. Then, my friends brought out a cake for me, shining with 20 candles! (19, plus one for good luck!) I was so excited to make a wish and blow them out. My night ended at my community group Bible study, where my friends there too had brought some treats and made special signs to celebrate. It's very nice knowing that no matter where I am, no matter how far from home, I still have a support system of people who really care. They are what made my birthday so special.

Lessons in saying YES

I got to experience a few new things this week that I never would have otherwise if I had not said one teeny three letter word, YES. In college, there is a plethora of new experiences crouching around every corner, waiting for you to cross their paths. This week, I discovered quite the variety of them.

It began on Friday, October 30th. I decided to attend the Costume Dance that Greek Life put on in honor of Halloween. I love Halloween. It is the one night you can be WHOEVER you want, no matter how mythical, humorous, or real you would like. I dressed up in my Gryffindor cape, tied on my maroon and gold tie, grabbed my wand, and then placed my still tender shoulder into its lovely, very fashionable blue sling. I went along with it, hoping people would think my injury was from a Hippogriff or spell gone wrong rather than dodgeball. I headed down to the dance with some of my friends and we had a blast for a couple of hours, meeting new people and marveling at the creativity that some students put into their costumes. It was nice to know that there were safe, alcohol-free options for fun on one of the biggest party weekends of the year.

One thing you will find out in college is that you can NEVER turn down free food. Pizza is offered at almost every club's interest meetings and events. Another lesson to learn is that Sunday is homework cram session day, when you realize that oh yea, tomorrow IS Monday, and NO, you can't stop it from coming. Since Sundays are usually stressful, my fellow RHA (Residence Hall Association) members and I decided to treat our dorm to Sunday Sundaes, a nice hour away from studying that was filled with socializing, laughs, and you guessed it, FREE ICE CREAM! It was a smash success (surprise surprise), and we decided that it is to become an event to happen every other week.

My next new experience of the week came as quite a surprise. My roommates and I headed down to the coffee shop Aromas for some delicious caramel macchiatos and quiet study time on Wednesday night. About a half hour into our homework, our eardrums were met with the cringing sound of microphone feedback that signaled the start of the Black Student Union's Apollo Night. This is basically an open mic night, full of dancing, singing, and guitar playing. There was even some funny rapping going on, and a sudden dance-off between some audience members. Despite the fact that I didn't get my work done, I actually enjoyed watching some of the acts. My eyes were opened to the fact that WOW, my fellow students sure have some talent!!!

Thursday night was much more serious. I participated in InterVarsity's Hunger Banquet. I sat at a table with four other people, and we were each handed a utensil and a challenge- we had to use that utensil and that utensil ALONE to get our dinner from the buffet. One girl was handed a single chop stick, while another was handed a ladle. I had a plastic spoon. We went up to the line and tried to scoop up our dinners of pasta, marinara sauce, salad and breadsticks. It was so difficult! After we ate, the hosts of the banquet informed us of the reasoning behind the madness. Those with the single chop stick represent the 20% of our world that lives on $1.25 a day OR LESS. That made my mouth drop. My eyes were certainly opened up to the serious issue of food shortage in parts of the world. I am blessed with so much: a fantastic education at a top-ranked university, a wonderful and loving family, and more food than I could ever need. It got me thinking about looking into one of the many missions trips that USD has to offer, or maybe going abroad into an underdeveloped country to help out.

This weekend was much more laid back. I explored beautiful La Jolla with my roomie Sarah, and we navigated our way there by using public transportation! The bus system was actually easy to figure out, and only $5 for a day pass. We got to watch the seals down at Child's Beach, and walked along the streets window shopping. It was a nice little getaway. Saturday night was spent with a couple of girls from my hall who I haven't really hung out with. They invited me to go with them and a few others to watch a preseason basketball game. I agreed, and enjoyed the squeak of the players' shoes, the thump of the ball against the court, and the cheers of the fans. It got me so excited for this coming Friday's opening game against Stanford! GO TOREROS!

So now here I am, in the library, working hard on all of the studying that I put off for movie marathons this weekend. I am getting really sleepy, and I am considering achieving the impossible tonight: going to sleep before midnight!!!

Count your blessings,

Avery

Oh hey! Want to hear about why freshman LOVE USD? Click HERE!!!

The Dangers of Dodgeball

Happy Friday! Finally, my midterms are over! I have spent the last two weeks in a tizzy trying to balance studying for four big midterm tests and a ton of reading dumped on me by another class while still trying to remain normal and at least have a glimpse of a social life. I got to breathe a big sigh of relief at 9 o’clock this morning as I turned in my blue book containing what I hoped to be the correct answers to my last midterm, world history. I do not find that class to be very interesting to be honest with you. The rest of my day I spent relaxing, minus the hour and twenty minutes I learned about mosques from the Ottoman Empire in Art History class. Anyways, enough of the academic hodgepodge. This past weekend I got to experience all the fun of Homecoming! On Friday, the thumping of bass as the speakers were tested for that night’s concert by Milkman and Sean Kingston rudely interrupted my nap. My groggy irritability soon melted away as I began to get excited for the night’s festivities! My roommates and I went to the concert early so that we could enjoy free ice cream bars, mess around in the photo booth, and watch the mechanical bull dominates our friends. Around seven PM, DJ Milkman, a mash up artist, began to spin. This guy was good! He mixed a lot of the popular songs and some amazing beats together that made the whole crowd move. I just know he will be the Next Big Thing, and USD was among the first to experience his awesomeness. Next up was Sean Kingston himself. He sang his top hits, ending with “Fire Burning” that left the whole crowd dancing in the street and everyone’s ears ringing from the pumping bass.

All that moving and shaking left my friends and I starving, so we pooled together some money to order some pizza and Cinna-stix, and hunkered down to watch one of the greatest girl-power movies of all time, She’s the Man. All in all, it was an amazing night.

On Saturday, we went down to the Homecoming tailgate. I found it so weird to see some of the USD alumni wandering about, wistfully remembering their own college days as USD’s current students imagined their futures and enjoyed the all-you-can-eat buffets. My roommates and I watched as a few strolled about our dorm, pointing out where they enjoyed their freshman year about twenty years back or so. Then the USD family of past and present united as we cheered on our Toreros in a football game against Drake, which we unfortunately lost. My friends and I all celebrated anyways, hitting up the infamous Yogurtland for some delicious fro yo that is all the rage here.

My exciting adventure of the week involved some mad dodge ball playing skills that landed me an ambulance ride to the emergency room so that I could have my shoulder put back in place after a major dislocation. I heaved that ball at my opponent and tried to throw my arm apparently instead... I got some strange looks from the doctors as I tried to explain how this happened while I was wearing my knee socks and black face paint that was the uniform for my team, Las Mapaches (The Raccoons). Needless to say, my dodge ball career has come to a sudden and saddening stop forever I do believe. But please, don’t let my misfortune stop you from getting excited at all the exciting intramural sports that USD has to offer! You too can start your very own dodge ball or intertube water polo team.

Well my parents are in town this weekend for family weekend, so I am going to enjoy some fabulous dinner down in Seaport Village! Oh, San Diego, how I love all the amazing food places you have to offer me…

Peace & Love til next time, Avery