Well I have fallen off the face of my blogging world because it has been one crazy semester! The Lord brought me out of a spiritual drought at the right time. Had I started any other semester the way this one has started I might would have been committed to the looney ben. During RA training we had to move an entire wing of beds from Cottingham (the women's dorm) to Tudor Hall (the men's dorm) in order to make bunk beds and sleep three freshmen to a room. We are definitely experiencing some growing pains at LC. We have the largest freshmen class in the history of the college and no where to sleep these guys. For now they are sleeping three to a room and most of them aren't too happy about it. I'm so thankful for my RA staff who make the big bed move like champs!
About the time that phone calls stopped coming in from upset moms about the Tudor Hall situation...the dam broke in CDA. The very first day of classes I was having lunch with a friend and came back on campus to find fire trucks at CDA and the building was flooded by the fire sprinkler system. Really?!?! First day of class and this is how it starts? I quickly sent out an SOS and my RAs came running to move 45 girls out of the building. For two days we moved girls, their stuff and all the beds from CDA to the empty wing on Cottingham. Needless to say the phone starting ringing off the hook again with upset parents wanting to know what the plan was. Every time the phone rang I just had to chuckle because I have yet to find an instruction manual in my office that says, "if a dorm floods do this, this and then this." We are just taking it one day at a time and trying to keep girls happy.
To say it's been a crazy semester is an understatement but here's to hoping for an uneventful Monday starting off week two.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
A New Semester
Well, I have officially kicked off the start of year five at Louisiana College as the Director of Residence Life. I have the gray as proof that position isn't always easy, but it's a fun job and there is never a dull moment.
I've been missing in action on my blog for the last two weeks because I have been in training all day, every day with my 2010-2011 staff. The first week of training was with my head advisor staff...I love them to death! We had a lot of fun and got a lot accomplished in a weeks time. Here they are...
Hayden, Myra, Lizzie, Sara, Cory, Brian and KB
The second week has been spent in training with the rest of the RAs. By far the best staff I have ever worked with...I love them! I'm looking forward to an amazing year serving along side them. Here are just a few pics from our week of training...as you can see we played as much as we worked.
the head advisors making their giant clock that chimed "ode to joy"
one of the groups completing the "magic carpet" initiative at Dry Creek
this group was completing the "mohawk walk" initiative with a twist
playing the newly wed game...here are the cheaters..
I mean the winners, "the Terrells"
this is Lee Jones at our "white trash holiday party"
It's been a great week! Move In Day is tomorrow and we are busting at the seams with freshmen! I'm looking forward to a great year with a great staff!
I've been missing in action on my blog for the last two weeks because I have been in training all day, every day with my 2010-2011 staff. The first week of training was with my head advisor staff...I love them to death! We had a lot of fun and got a lot accomplished in a weeks time. Here they are...
Hayden, Myra, Lizzie, Sara, Cory, Brian and KB
The second week has been spent in training with the rest of the RAs. By far the best staff I have ever worked with...I love them! I'm looking forward to an amazing year serving along side them. Here are just a few pics from our week of training...as you can see we played as much as we worked.
the head advisors making their giant clock that chimed "ode to joy"
one of the groups completing the "magic carpet" initiative at Dry Creek
this group was completing the "mohawk walk" initiative with a twist
playing the newly wed game...here are the cheaters..
I mean the winners, "the Terrells"
this is Lee Jones at our "white trash holiday party"
It's been a great week! Move In Day is tomorrow and we are busting at the seams with freshmen! I'm looking forward to a great year with a great staff!
Sunday, August 1, 2010
why did the chicken cross the road?....
Funny you should ask why the chicken crossed the road. That's a joke we've all heard and yet in Uganda I discovered that the punchline is probably not "to get to the other side"...but rather "so I wouldn't cut his head off!" I realize that needs a bit of an explanation so here goes.
We hadn't been in Uganda long when I noticed just how many chickens were roaming around. In fact the first morning when I came out of my hotel room there was a chicken just walking in the parking lot. On our way from Gulu to Nebbi we stopped and purchased 7 chickens. Three of which were to be for our team meals and then we bought Geoffrey's family 2 and Stanley's family 2. We learned that eating chicken was usually a holiday treat and while we were there we were served chicken almost every day. You would have thought that we had given Geoffrey and Stanley a million dollars by buying them chickens to take home.
Back to the chickens....which I affectionately named Shadrack, Mishack and Abednigo. Probably shouldn't name animals that will soon be your dinner. We purchased the chickens and then tied them to the top of the van with our luggage. Those poor guys had to ride 4 hours strapped to the top of the van but all 7 were still there when we arrived in Nebbi. As the guys were loosening the ropes from our luggage (which was also holding the chickens) one of the little boogers got loose. Without any hesitation I reached for him and swiped him up by his legs. Not sure what got into me but I knew I couldn't let dinner get away. My team was quite impressed with my handy work.
If you haven't picked up on the fact that I loved every minute of being in Africa and had a desire to soak it all in...nows your chance to get a full glimpse into my experiences. While driving to Nebbi I told Geoffrey that I would like to get to kill one of the chickens that we were going to eat. I was mostly being serious and partly kidding. I have always wanted to learn how to ring a chickens neck and I knew if I was ever seriously going to move to Africa then I had to be woman enough to kill a chicken.
One morning...just happened to be the morning I wore a white shirt...Geoffrey and Stanley came to pick us up to head to some schools for ministry. Geoffrey told me that he needed to run to the bank but that Stanley was going to take me to his house so that I could kill the chicken that Joy was going to prepare for lunch that day. Oh joy! So remember how I thought I was going to ring the chicken's neck? Yeah, not so much. When we arrived at Geoffrey's, Stanley began to show me the process of how I was going to put Mishack to rest. You'll see the process in the next series of pictures but I had to stand on the wings with one foot, the feet with another foot and pull the neck up so I could chop off his head. Yep, I said chop. What happened to just breaking it's neck? Not the way they do things in Uganda. Not only did I have to cut his head off...they gave me a knife that was about as sharp as a butter knife so I had to saw the little guy in two.
Worry not...I didn't get any chicken blood on my white shirt. I was a champ at killing the chicken even though I was a little freaked out by the fact it's head was still clucking in my hand and it's body was flopping around under my feet and the two were not attached. All I know is Stanley told me not to step off the chicken until he stopped moving...so I didn't. Here are the pics of big big momma providing for the team.
I promise that is the only grusome story I will share about my time in Africa but I was too proud of my chicken killing adventure not to share. I promised my sister a new Uganda story by the end of the weekend and this was the easiest to tell.
We hadn't been in Uganda long when I noticed just how many chickens were roaming around. In fact the first morning when I came out of my hotel room there was a chicken just walking in the parking lot. On our way from Gulu to Nebbi we stopped and purchased 7 chickens. Three of which were to be for our team meals and then we bought Geoffrey's family 2 and Stanley's family 2. We learned that eating chicken was usually a holiday treat and while we were there we were served chicken almost every day. You would have thought that we had given Geoffrey and Stanley a million dollars by buying them chickens to take home.
Back to the chickens....which I affectionately named Shadrack, Mishack and Abednigo. Probably shouldn't name animals that will soon be your dinner. We purchased the chickens and then tied them to the top of the van with our luggage. Those poor guys had to ride 4 hours strapped to the top of the van but all 7 were still there when we arrived in Nebbi. As the guys were loosening the ropes from our luggage (which was also holding the chickens) one of the little boogers got loose. Without any hesitation I reached for him and swiped him up by his legs. Not sure what got into me but I knew I couldn't let dinner get away. My team was quite impressed with my handy work.
If you haven't picked up on the fact that I loved every minute of being in Africa and had a desire to soak it all in...nows your chance to get a full glimpse into my experiences. While driving to Nebbi I told Geoffrey that I would like to get to kill one of the chickens that we were going to eat. I was mostly being serious and partly kidding. I have always wanted to learn how to ring a chickens neck and I knew if I was ever seriously going to move to Africa then I had to be woman enough to kill a chicken.
One morning...just happened to be the morning I wore a white shirt...Geoffrey and Stanley came to pick us up to head to some schools for ministry. Geoffrey told me that he needed to run to the bank but that Stanley was going to take me to his house so that I could kill the chicken that Joy was going to prepare for lunch that day. Oh joy! So remember how I thought I was going to ring the chicken's neck? Yeah, not so much. When we arrived at Geoffrey's, Stanley began to show me the process of how I was going to put Mishack to rest. You'll see the process in the next series of pictures but I had to stand on the wings with one foot, the feet with another foot and pull the neck up so I could chop off his head. Yep, I said chop. What happened to just breaking it's neck? Not the way they do things in Uganda. Not only did I have to cut his head off...they gave me a knife that was about as sharp as a butter knife so I had to saw the little guy in two.
Worry not...I didn't get any chicken blood on my white shirt. I was a champ at killing the chicken even though I was a little freaked out by the fact it's head was still clucking in my hand and it's body was flopping around under my feet and the two were not attached. All I know is Stanley told me not to step off the chicken until he stopped moving...so I didn't. Here are the pics of big big momma providing for the team.
I promise that is the only grusome story I will share about my time in Africa but I was too proud of my chicken killing adventure not to share. I promised my sister a new Uganda story by the end of the weekend and this was the easiest to tell.
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