Grad School...It's Real.

Forward your VCR, a few years later, I have decided to start writing posts again, as I have time.  I originally did this for a grade for my undergraduate English class.  I got an A, which was great! Since that time, I have started a Master's in Epidemiology program and am currently living the #gradschoollife.  Life got real post-grad. Since my boyfriend lives in Canada, I am at a new university and don't know a ton of people yet, and I have alot of time out of class (which I should be using for reading the 5908435 pages assigned each night) I have been baking and cooking quite a bit.  I have certainly grasped the concept of "Cooking for One" and have altered recipes based on what I have (a trick I am stealing from one of best friends who is in Vet School and dealing with similar stresses/financial situations). I love going grocery shopping, but when I have a lot to do, it becomes a chore. Changing the recipe or "forgetting some stuff" has helped me financially and time wise for sure.  I have also become a huge fan of Aldi, same goods, half the price. Who needs name brand garlic? Garlic is garlic, my friends, garlic. is. garlic.

I decided to start this post tonight, as I have had an EXTREMELY rough day and came home to "bake it out." I had a spoonful of nutella when I got home to cope. (judge ye lest ye be judged) It gave me the idea that when I was in France (a book I have verbally written to everyone within a ten foot radius), I had about 20 crepes au chocolat (crepes with Nutella).  I was thinking that nutella is good with LITERALLY everything. I also have a friend at my new university, who was having a bad day on Monday and I thought, wouldn't it be nice to make cookies for myself  my friend since she was having a bad day? I turned to pintrest for a Nutella Cookie Recipe.  I found this one:

http://www.chef-in-training.com/2012/08/nutella-banana-cookies/

but it called for shortening. What single, financially disabled, female, graduate student has a tub of Crisco laying around? Not this one. So I googled and found that  I could replace Crisco with regular stick butter, and so I left my hobbit hole in search of adventure.

I conveniently had bought bananas a week or so ago, as I was trying to be healthy...and conveniently they were ripe, which is what this recipe called for and made me feel validated that I was "eating healthy" and that I hadn't wasted my two dollars on bananas!

I made the recipe just like above (+/- a spoon of nutella here and there) EXCEPT: I used 3/4 of a cup of salted butter rather than the shortening and I didn't have oats.  I used salted butter and I wish I had used about half the amount of butter as A. I could have considered them skinny B. I think they would have turned out a bit better. I did leave the butter out to soften, which I smartly laid on the stove while it was preheating. I added some chocolate chips to the last batch, which definitely did not ruin the taste.  My batch made 36 cookies. I'll have to pull out the ol' weight watchers book to tabulate how much they are to record my losses...and gains.

 I think they turned out great! Very tasty with a tall glass of milk! I do plan on sharing some when I go home home this weekend and will share some with my friend on Wednesday too! I'll freeze what I don't share/don't eat and pull them out for another "Spoonful of Nutella" kinda day!

PS. Yes. My apartment does have a very cute, green retro Stove.  The stove is finicky sometimes, but I love the character it adds to my little one bedroom!

Lots of Spots for Little Tots!

Hi Everyone!

What a busy week!  As always, I have put in quite a few service hours both for St. Jude and Letters from Home!  The first event I had this week was on Thursday.  Thursday, I worked with College Mentors for Kids.  The kids were learning about what it means to volunteer (sounds familiar?).  I talked with them about what Letters from Home did and why they did it.  There were 8 kids and 10 mentors.  The kids put together three packages full of snacks and hygiene products and small gifts!  They are really great packages!  They also colored pictures of turkeys and wrote little messages on the bottom!  They really seemed to enjoy the coloring and really were quite entranced by all of the candy and snacks the troops were getting.  A package of gum and a small tin of Altoids went missing from a box and I’m pretty sure they just couldn’t help it :).  These are Thanksgiving packages.  Normally, the club doesn’t send out Thanksgiving packages, we just jump into Christmas.  Given the opportunity to teach these kids and offer publicity for the organization, we graciously agreed to send a few packages.  The packages will be mailed on Monday or Tuesday.  It’s unfortunate that the packages will be late. :/  I will just mail the Christmas ones out super early to make up for it! :)

For St. Jude this weekend, I organized and participated in Spots for Tots.  By organized, I mean I took my best guess at what should be going on!  Thankfully it wasn’t too hard and it was a success!  As my previous posts said, I was supposed to go to a St. Jude Walk and volunteer in Carmel.  Not many people were signed up to partake in Spots for Tots though, this is the last game, and this is a real money maker!  All the money made from selling parking spots in our parking lot goes to St. Jude!  The best thing is that this only cost 50 cents for a piece of poster board!  We made a ton of money for St. Jude!  I was upset about having to miss the walk, but my responsibilities as philanthropy chair to my house outranked my want to go help in other ways.  In an ideal world, I would have gone to both with plenty of time leftover for other things!  I’ll just write it down for next year and work extra hard then! 

The next event I’ll be organizing is Sleigh Bell Days!  This is not so much philanthropy as it is community service!  We invite children from the Lafayette/West Lafayette area over to Tridelta for a Christmas Party!! This was a lot of fun last year and I cannot wait to put the finishing touches on all of the plans!  This will definitely be a project for me to complete over Thanksgiving break and the beginning of that week! We are planning to do it during dead week! I can’t wait!  

For the Kids,

Shannon

Pancakes, Syrup, and Orange Juice! Oh My!

Hey Everyone!

Wow! This week was so busy!  The first thing was a Letters from Home meeting.  The meeting went well, but the attendance was lower than normal.  We made Thanksgiving and Christmas cards.  This Thursday I was invited by College Mentors for Kids to do a small program.  It will be about 30-45 minutes of presentation and doing putting together packages.  I am going to have all the materials put together and the children will just have to put these things in the box and color a turkey or two!  There will be 15 kids, and five children per box.  I will then mail the packages this weekend, or the beginning of next week.  I hadn’t originally planned on doing any Thanksgiving packages, but given the circumstances, I felt this was a very good way to promote the club and also give the club positive publicity!  I will be going shopping on Wednesday and putting the materials together!  I am hoping I can talk for 30 minutes!

This Saturday is the St. Jude walk in Carmel, IN!  I am very excited to participate! I am unsure what I will be doing, but it will most likely be anything they need help with.  I am going with five other sisters!  We are going to spend some quality sister time and also help St. Jude!  I am really excited to spend time with them and to help St. Jude!  It’s bound to be really fun and rewarding.

Lastly, today was a very important day for me!  Today was FlapJack Attack!  We raised a lot of money and we had a ton of fun!  I earned 6 service hours today!  There was a comedy club that came, games like orange juice flippy cup, and maple syrup chug!  There were also representatives from different organizations like Southern Tide.  They gave out koozies and key chains and really helped support our cause!  There was a consistent flow of people always coming in through the door!  There were so many people; keeping up with pancake making was even difficult for three kitchens!  We made it through though!  The reason today was so special to me, is because today is the day I officially became philanthropy chair!  I received my binder and an official lists of to-do’s!  I am so very excited to begin planning future philanthropy events and to raise money for St. Jude!!  I’m so excited to be there for the kids!

Shannon

Losing Hair because of Kiwi

Hi Everyone!

This past week I completed my first service hours as philanthropy chair!  It was a small presentation given to a group of third graders!  The program was college mentors for kids and was to be about diversity.  The idea was to show the students that the patients are the same as them, just sick.  The students came to Tridelta, ate a snack, made door hangers for the kids at St. Jude, and then came over to listen to me talk about St. Jude and show them a video clip!  It was a lot of fun, but I was very nervous!  I asked if they knew what cancer was and the responses were hilarious! One boy said it was when you had to shave your head, one said when you lost all your hair, and finally one said it’s when you are sick!  I then played the video.  The students were in love with the little boy Caleb in the video.  After the video played, I asked what they wanted to be.  There were lots of professional ball players and teachers.  The video talked about Chemo, but the students called it Kiwi.  It took me a few minutes to figure out what they were talking about.  They children were very excited to learn about St. Jude!  They continued to ask questions and I continued to answer in the best, most simplistic way I knew how!  It’s very hard to answer “Why do people get Cancer,” especially without using the word genetics.

                My next service hours will be this Thursday and this Sunday!  Letters from Home will have a meeting this week from 6:30-7:30 in BRNG 1230!  We will be starting on Christmas Cards and packages!  I plan on doing 25 packages!  Each package will have Christmas gifts—Books and movies, hygiene products, Christmas Candy and Christmas snacks, and several other little gifts.  All these items will be wrapped with several Christmas cards and letters.  Christmas is my favorite time to send out packages because it is the time I feel when most military personnel miss their families the most.  I will be going shopping for cardstock paper, stickers, ribbons, etc. before the meeting this Thursday.

                Also, this Sunday is FlapJack Attack, the planning is well underway and the event will be successful!  I was going to sign-up for several different committees for flapjack to be very busy and be an active member.  Instead, I will be following around the current philanthropy chair and learning how she manages the events, etc.  I think this will be very beneficial to my training and cannot wait to get another prospective on philanthropy events!  I will be able to learn a lot and after this event, I will be on my own with planning the events for the rest of the year! I am very excited but nervous at the same time!

I have attached the video link in case anyone is interested in watching little Caleb or the other patients' ideas for when they grow up!

For the Kids,

Shannon Morton

Drumroll Please...

Hi Everyone,

I’m very excited to inform you that I have become the philanthropy chair for my house!  I am very excited to step into this position as I am truly passionate about both my house and St. Jude.  I am also very nervous as the previous philanthropy chair was an outstanding person and I’m sure that she is the best person for the job!  I really hope that with her training I can do half the job that she did!  It will be a lot of work, but I am truly dedicated to the cause and I know that no matter what, my love for St. Jude will help me through it!  I have pictures of St. Jude patients all over my walls.  These little ones truly inspire me to get through my studies so I can help them when I’m older, but temporarily I will love to help them by being philanthropy chair. 

The first thing I will do is speak to kiddos tomorrow from College Mentors for Kids.  The theme is diversity and I will be speaking to them how the patients at St. Jude are like them and unlike them.  I am really nervous!  I will be speaking to fourth graders, but I will be doing this without any supervision from the previous philanthropy chair!  After this, the next event will be on November 12 from 11-2pm.  This is FlapJack Attack, our national philanthropy!  It’s a pancake breakfast/brunch!  There are games and prizes and of course unlimited breakfast food!  I am sure that it will be a success.  This has been planned and will be the former philanthropy chair’s event, but I will be assisting her in her job to get the feel for the events!  I am not nervous about this at all!  I know that as long as I have the support from her and from my sisters, that everything will be wonderful! I am so excited to accept this position and I cannot wait to begin!

For the Kids,

Shannon

Time Heals All...

Hi Everyone,

This week has been quite busy! I haven’t had much time to volunteer with any of my organizations.  I had two exams and several projects, so most of my time has been pre-occupied with the numerous tasks from school.  I am taking care of some Letters from Home stuff this week.  At the next meeting, we will be making Thanksgiving Day cards and including fall/autumn decorations, items, and candy.  I am really excited for the Christmas packages.

I finally have heard back from the hospital!  I was so excited that they wanted me for an orientation program at the hospital.  I have called and am partaking in the next orientation session because the one I was scheduled for was last Wednesday.  Last Wednesday I had an exam though.  My exam was in physics and it was extremely difficult!  The orientation would have been done before my exam but I did not want to risk my grade as I was already really nervous for my exam.  I am really excited, also because I will most likely be working in the maternity ward.  I spoke with human resources and they are really nice.  I really think it will be a positive working environment and that it will be something I love.

                In the past week, I have faced many, many challenges in many ways.  I have been faced with increasing amounts of stress and have had to learn how to stand up for myself, as well as face the consequences of what that meant.  Over the past week, I feel like I have learned more about myself both bad and good.  I am hoping everything will work out for the best this week, and that many things will resolve themselves.  Mostly, I feel like I am in rough situations and I just need time to heal all of them.  Unfortunately, at the same time, I feel time is moving very slow.  I am keeping optimistic and I hope that I am able to benefit my organizations this week and I am hoping that this is just a minor speed bump on my road to success.

For the Kids,

Shannon

I Pledge...

Hi Everyone,

This week was not very exciting in the realm of service.  I unfortunately had a huge French project and an exam.  School definitely filled my schedule.  I also became a pledge mom this past Thursday to a wonderful Tridelt! J  Also, this week was Fat Talk Free Week.  Fat Talk Free Week (FTFW) is a national campaign sponsored by tridelta to promote positive self-image.  There was a booth around Class of 50 this week.  The booth had a tracing of a body on which were post-it notes.  People were invited to write something they loved about themselves and put it on the body, and then take a piece of candy.  They were also given the option to pledge to be Fat Talk Free.  It was definitely a success!!  I worked this booth for an hour.  There were a lot of really cute posts, some that were very…honest, etc.  (The best one by far was:  “All tridelts are attractive!”J)  This weekend during the football game, tridelta will be doing Spots for Tots.  Tridelta is selling parking spots for cash for St. Jude.  This has been a huge success in the past and I am sure that it will be even better tomorrow with Homecoming!  I am unable to work this weekend, as I am babysitting for a family friend.  While I’m babysitting, I intend to work on my editorial.  I have just started it, but it’s going very slow.  It’s most likely due to the fact that I’m pretty burned out from this week.  This upcoming week, I will be putting together packages for Letters from Home.  That was supposed to be this weekend, but the babysitting came up rather suddenly.  I still have to go to the store to buy supplies to mail, but my treasurer is back at school and in the state so it will be much easier and much more fun.  Someone posted a comment on my blog in regards to doing ice breakers at meetings! That’s one of the best ideas I have heard! I will definitely start doing that.  I have played ice breakers before but never thought about incorporating them into meetings!  I am really excited for the next meeting sometime in mid-November!   I will definitely keep you posted as to the time and date as always!  On another note, I still have not heard back from the hospital.  I have called several times and still haven’t heard anything back.  I really would love to volunteer there, but I am glad I have a couple back-up options because getting all the hours there might be hard, as they have filled a lot of positions and lots of people want to volunteer there.  I will just keep checking back until they tell me no.  I am hoping to put more service hours in next week working with Letters from Home by making packages!  I will start recruiting sisters and members now who want to help put the packages together! 

Have a Wonderful Weekend!

Shannon