La Vida de Jaycie Jane

Guatemala blog: la ultima parte

2011-07-14T00:16:00.005-05:00

Well folks, this is my last and final blog about my Guatemala trip as I am currently sitting in the basement of my parents house in Doniphan, NE. But I thought I would do one last wrap-up post. Also, be patient for my photos-there’s just so many of them-give me a week or two to get them all organized before I put them on facebook.

So, my last week in Guatemala was very nice. However, it was incredibly hard to say goodbye to everyone at the Scheel Center School, especially the kids. On my last day, the teacher that I had been working most closely (Claudia) with had her students all make me cards. They all stood up and said something (only half of which I understood-mostly thanks for your help and support, etc, I think…) and then gave me the cards and a hug. Now if you know me, it usually takes a decent amount to get me emotional, but there were definitely some tears forming from that adorable escapade. That day I got a lot of hugs and we took a lot of fun pictures during the kids recess time. It was hard though, I felt like just as soon as I really started getting to know the children well was when my time there was up. But, asi es la vida (roughly-such is life). I had a lot of awesome experiences with the kids. I’m not sure who taught and helped who more-I have a feeling I might have been on the receiving end of that one.

My last weekend in Antigua was nice as well. Saturday I finished up some souvenir shopping and went out for a bit to celebrate Claudia (the teacher)’s birthday with some of her friends. Then, Sunday was an amazing experience; last minute I decided to join a few friends-volunteers and workers from God’s Child-who were climbing up Volcan Agua, one of the three big Volcanoes that surrounds the Antigua area (Acatenango, Agua, & Fuego). I just looked up information on Agua and its 3766 meters (12,356 ft) high. For this adventure, we got up around 4:30am and met our guide around 6:30 in the pueblo (Santa Maria) near the base of the volcano. We had heard it usually takes around 4 hours to summit this volcano and 3 hours to go down, so we were expecting something decently intense. Well, the pathway wasn’t super difficult, just very long in duration. My legs were starting to get pretty tired after just a couple hours, but if you know me, you know I love a challenge.

One of the most hilarious things is that we kept asking our guide Edgar “how close are we?” or “How much farther” just to get a gage on things, and literally every time he would say “oh about an hour more (una hora mas)”. Well, after about two hours of getting that answer 5 or 6 times we realized we probably should stop believing him exactly. This must be some sort of a strategy to stop people from getting tired/frustrated/discouraged, so we just started joking around with him about it.

The weather was holding up quite well for us for most of the way, just a little fog coming and going. The scenery was still amazing though. However, when we were about 30 minutes from the top it started absolutely pouring on us, and this was a pretty cold rain since we were so high up. We all had ponchos or umbrellas, but still, our legs were getting soaked and muddy. There was some wind and fog too-not ideal weather when reaching the peak of a volcano and hoping for a beautiful view of the surrounding area. Bad luck, but it makes a pretty fun story to tell in retrospect I suppose.

When we did finally get to the top, we see several really tiny buildings and also several big reception towers. We had heard rumors that they sell soup at the top so our guide showed us to the little “casita” where they sell this alleged soup. At this point, we were so cold and wet that we were happy for any sort of shelter. This building was super “or should I say souper” tiny-maybe half the size of your average dorm room-and it had 2 sets of bunk beds, a tv, a stove, some random little cabnets, and a small stash of food, drink, and snacks. The guy who was working there told us that he stays up there for 2 days straight and then gets 4 days off. Can you imagine having that job? Anyways, it turns out this soup was just Ramen noodles which they sold for 10Q (about $1.25). But let me tell you this: Never, ever, ever, ever in my entire college career has Ramen tasted anywhere near as good as it tasted in that little casita on the cold, wet, rainy day on the peak of a volcano in Guatemala.
Anywho, after we warmed up awhile we headed back down and it kept raining some for awhile but it really wasn’t too bad and I warmed up again on the way down. It was a long trip down again, we had to go a little slower being careful because of the mud/slippery rocks. My legs were pretty tired but once we were finally done it was the most rewarding and awesome feeling. Overall we had spent over 10 hours climbing up and down this volcano. My muscles were sore for several days. Pretty amazing though. Even though we had bad luck at the top, there was still a ton of beautiful nature and wonderful views of the area surrounding the volcano on the way up and down. Worth it.

Then Monday it was back on a plane to the U.S. It was a nice feeling to be back on American soil, but it was sad to say goodbye. Who knows when I will have the time or money to plan a trip back there or to another place. But, this experience was absolutely incredible overall! I learned so much about myself and the world in general. Literally everything impacted me in some sort of a way-whether big or small. It’s so hard to describe even a small percentage of my thoughts and feelings. The people of Guatemala, their stories, the lifestyle, meeting so many other volunteers and travelers, seeing how the organization functions…everything. There are so many wonderful things about this country to appreciate-but it also makes me appreciate the wonderful things that we have here in our country and that I have been blessed with in my life. As much as I wish I could say I went to Guatemala for a month and changed the world (though I hope I was able to make a small impact), I think that the world of Guatemala made a much bigger impact on me. ¡Gracias Guatemala! ¡Ojala que nos vemos otra vez prontito!

Thanks for reading everyone! Watch for pictures to be posted on facebook within a week or so!

Guate blog part 2

2011-07-06T10:59:00.003-05:00

Hey everyone!
I have so much to catch you all up on, but I will try to make it relatively condensed again. Let’s hope I succeed more than last time.

Okay, so I got to do something totally different last week at the Scheel Center school. Randomly, (and this is pretty darn random!) a group of medical students, doctors, and pharmacists from KU Med came down to the Antigua area to do a bunch of mission medical work for a week. They send a small group (one doctor, a few med students, and a pharmacist) to our school for the week to give free medical consultations, vitamins, and medicine out to the kids, their families, or anyone else in the area who came in. A few of them knew Spanish to some degree but several knew very very little, so…they were on a shortage of people to help translate, so I actually got to help translate medical Spanish all week! It was a really awesome experience. It was definitely challenging at times, but I learned a lot as the week went on and they were grateful for anyone who could help them to any degree. I still did quite a bit of charades/hand motions, but was able communicate decently for the most part. Also, I had taken a medical Spanish class last summer so that helped some.

So, after a tiring but rewarding week I went on a fun weekend trip with my volunteer pals Kari & Philip to Petén, the northernmost departamento (like a province/county/etc) of Guatemala. We took a 8 hour overnight bus ride there and back, but it was worth it! The main reason we went there was to visit Tikal, a national park of mayan ruins, which was really cool. It was a big area where you could walk from pyramid to pyramid (and other random ruin buildings too, not sure what you call them?) and even climb up some of them. They also had some hiking trails and such. We also spend some time exploring some of the nearby towns which are located on a lake. It was really interesting to see this other area of the country. It had a lot of similarities but also differences. The people seemed quite similar, but it was less populated, a little more jungle-like, much hotter and more humid. Ummm…okay one funny about this trip. So, about 30 minutes into our bus ride there (which was on a charter bus, not super fancy but decent especially for Central America) we picked up a few more passengers, though all the seats were already full. Hmmmm, how do you suppose they solve this problem? Well, quite simple. They just pulled out a bunch of little plastic stools to set in the aisles for these people. Seriously, plastic, and no backrest. Just stools. So, I think to myself, okay these people probably live nearby and are just hopping on the bus for 30 minutes or an hour or so and then get off. But nope, they rode the whole way, all 8 hours on those little plastic stools. Well, compared to this I definitely couldn’t complain about MY seat being a little uncomfortable to sleep in. I hope they got a discounted price at least. Man, ya never know what you’re going to see next in this country. I’ve learned to just never be surprised. We travelers often find ourselves saying things like “Only in Guatemala” or, “Ohhhh, Guatemala.” Oh yes, we also enjoy the expression “When in Guatemala.... (do as the Guatemaltecas do).”

In other news, Happy late 4th of July!!!! I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday back home! Don’t worry, I found other Americans to celebrate with here. One of the long-term volunteers with the organization had people over at his apartment for awhile that evening. There were 20 or so of us, including 3 nebraskans (wahoo!) and we all wore and ate red, white, and blue things, played games, and swapped favorite 4th of July stories, etc.

So this week it’s back to helping out with the kids, library/reading activities, classrooms, the lunch duties, and other random things. I’m really going to miss this school  After a couple weeks I’ve slowly built stronger and stronger connections with the kids and teachers/staff, and right about when it gets to that good point I’m headed home. Bummer. Interesting though how many travelers/volunteers return to Guatemala. You don’t realize it’s that cool of a country until you try it out. Also, interesting how many people end up staying longer than planned. Call it Guatemala fever or something like that I guess. Tempting, but nope, I’ve got things to get back for unfortunately. Part of me is ready to go though. But the other part of me can’t believe how fast it has gone and is just trying to savor every last minute/hour/day here. It’s tough, I know life’s going to get busy so who knows when or if I’ll ever get to return. Hopefully, hopefully, someday I can come back here or check out a few other Latin American countries...

Okay now, for the fun part. But first, thanks for reading, hope you all are doing well, can’t wait to get back and be able to catch up with everyone on my American cell phone! Okay, now here’s the good stuff.... I’ve finally finished composing my list for you all. Drum roll please....

Top 10 (or so) things you didn’t know about Guatemala(ns):

• In comparison, they make me feel tall…… Call it genetics, excessive coffee consumption, whatever you’d like really, but they are definitely a bunch of shorties. So, for all my tall friends out there, I wouldn’t advise a mail-order husband from here.
• There is no such thing as a personal bubble here. Although, sometimes it’s kind of cool how people aren’t afraid to have touch contact with each other, like we can tend to be in the states. Teachers can hug their students without lawsuits, etc, etc.
• Sleeping well at night can be a bit of a challenge here. All kinds of noises go on during the night from dogs barking to kids crying to fireworks at 3am to animals walking on the roof to heavy rain to birds making noises including this rooster who crows every morning. Luckily, after two weeks or so I started to get better at sleeping through it all.
• There is quite a bit of American influence in clothing. They seem to wear a lot of shirts made in the US. I’ve seen Cubs tshirts, university hoodies, American eagle clothes, etc. etc. My favorite was a teenage boy at the school here wearing a shirt that said “I (picture of shovel)=dig Cowboys.” Doubt he knew what that meant. Doubt he really digs cowboys.
• There are two classic Guatemalan greetings: The common polite one is to hug & kiss each other’s left cheek; the other more man-ly one is “slap & tap” which involves a sideways five and then a “pound” (or puña in Spanish) AKA bumping fists.
• PDA is pretty big here, especially among the adolescent and young adult population. You’ll see them holding hands everywhere in public, kissing on benches in ‘el parque central’ etc. Evidently it has a lot to do with it not being very accepted in homes with more conservative value parents, so they just bring it out onto the streets.
• Breastfeeding is not nearly as private as it is in the United States. Okay, actually it’s not private whatsoever here. Woman basically breastfeed at anytime in practically any situation. When baby is hungry, baby is hungry I guess. I’ve even seen several women walking down the street breastfeeding. Call it the ultimate multitasking skill I suppose?
• Hair gel is a HUGE trend here. Pretty much every guy with hair gels it every day. And the habit starts young, like 11 or 12 years old. You see big family size tubs of hair gel being sold everywhere.
• La gente (the people) here are extremely resourceful in general. Prime example….who needs traffic cones, they just use rocks. Another example, if you can’t afford a barb wire fence, just glue broken bottle pieces to your wall or roof with sharp ends sticking upward so that no one will want to try to get into your property.
• Their zippers are afraid of heights. Seriously, I guess their pants are poorly made here or something. Everyone’s constantly having to check their zipper.
• No one refrigerates their eggs. Evidently it’s not necessary? I’ve eaten a lot of them so far and haven’t gotten sick.
• Speaking of huevos, in the US when we see two guys riding around on a motorcycle, we might tend to point, laugh, or make jokes about their manhood. Not here. Perfectly normal and quite common. Many people own little scooters/mopeds/”motocicletas” instead of cars and drive their friends around. Also, Guatemalans appear to have some sort of contest/game of “how many people can we fit on one little motocicleta?” 3, 4, 5?
• Finally, despite all the differences; people are literally the exact same here as they are in the US on so many levels! We really have so many commonalities with other races/countries, it’s amazing. People are people no matter where you are in the world.

Mi Viaje a Guatemala! part 1

2011-06-27T18:11:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone! Things going well here in Guatemala-my trip is at its halfway point already-I can’t believe it! I will try to make this blog informative but not take up fifty pages-though I’m pretty sure I could easily write fifty pages about everything that’s been going on since I left.

Coming down here was my first time flying alone! Turns out traveling alone is actually quite fun because there are always lots of other interesting travelers to talk to and learn their stories. And everyone’s very friendly and in a good mood, we’re all out looking for our own version of some adventure or another ya know.

The organization I’m working for is called the God’s Child Project, or in Spanish Asociación Nuestros Ahijados (try saying that 5 times fast-I can barely do it once. Often times we just refer to it as “el proyecto” instead). It was started 20 years ago by a guy from Bismarck, North Dakota. In the past twenty years it has absolutely exploded into a pretty large organization in this area of Guatemala (in and around the city of Antigua) that provides lots of different services including 2 schools, a homeless shelter, a malnutrition center for babies, dental and medical services, psychological services, and they also build houses for area families. They also provide some funds in several other countries around the world that I believe go to helping keep kids in school. It is a really great organization because they focus a lot on involving the whole family and educating them, so they truly ‘teach people to fish’ instead of just giving them fish. They have something like 80 full time workers-pretty much all Guatemalan people I believe-between all the sites. Then they also have ‘long-term volunteers’, which are mostly young 20-something year olds from places like USA or England who agree to be down here for 2+ years and only receive a small stipend for food/living expenses. Then there are some other volunteers like me who just come down for a couple weeks or months to help out. Some people come alone and others might come in groups, such as the service teams who construct the houses. It has been a lot of fun meeting lots of people in the organization, both Guatemalans and travelers alike here.

Okay, so now about what I’m doing. I am living with a very nice Guatemalan family in Antigua, which is a really nice city-actually fairly small and easy to navigate around. It is quite beautiful with old colorful buildings, a beautiful central park, pretty old churches, etc. It is pretty popular touristy place, so there are fun restaurants and shops, and I often run into other ‘gringos’ like myself who are here for various reasons-maybe just traveling through, maybe doing volunteer work like myself, and/or studying Spanish as there are lots of cute little Spanish schools here. Every day I ride the local bus (they are called chicken buses-not sure why-they are basically colorfully re-painted school buses, probably brought down from the US), which costs 2.25 Quetzales, roughly 30 cents if we’re talking dollars. Other volunteers and workers take the bus too so often times I will find myself on the same bus as them, but even if not the local people are quite friendly. After about a ten minute ride I get off in Jocotenango-a town just outside of Antigua, where I am working at the Scheel Center (yes, actually named after the sporting goods store family-they donated a lot of money to God’s Child I believe), which is a fairly small school-just 140 or so kids in 7 different grades. The kids have many different background stories, but this school is actually an accelerated program so that they get through about 2 years worth of schoolwork in just one year. Many of the kids are re-entering school or started school late. For example, a fifth-grade class has students from anywhere from 9 to 14 years old. The Scheel center also has a dentist and psychologist who work at this center and provide services to the kids and to other members of the community. I’ve been helping out in lots of different ways, it’s different every day really. I’ve been helping out some in classrooms, with the reading/library program, distributing new uniforms to the kids, and lots more random tasks. Getting to know and working with the kids and teachers has been really fun-and at times challenging since Spanish is my second language (I’ve gotten a lot of practice with communicating through hand motions and charades), but it’s been a really awesome experience so far. I thing that slowly but surely my Spanish is moving from “being able to survive sometimes” towards “being able to function at a moderate level”. But it’s a blast really! And there are other volunteers around at the school to help me translate if need be. It is quite a humbling experience really though: For example it is not uncommon to see a 22-year old college graduate (me!) trying to communicate with a ten-year old Guatemalan child, who just stares at her with a confused face simply because she’s not exactly using the right words/phrases to express what she’s trying to communicate. Or you might see the 22-year old staring blankly at the Guatemalan child, teacher, or staff member who is speaking way too rapidly or using words unknown to her. But, then you can just chuckle and give an ‘oh nevermind’ wave with your hand. No worries. But the kids are really fun and I am developing some special relationships with them.

I’ve also gotten to see some of the other areas of the God’s Child Program. I’ve seen the other school and main campus (the Dreamer Center) and I did one shift at the malnutrition center (Casa Jackson) just a few days ago, and I think I’m going to be doing one or two more perhaps.

So then, evenings and weekends I am pretty free, and I’ve been exploring Antigua and surrounding places with other volunteers. The first weekend I visited a beautiful lake (Lago Atitlan) with 3 other volunteers and this past Saturday a few of us went on a guided trail up a nearby volcano one morning.

Lastly, I will answer two questions that I might anticipate you asking: What’s the weather like and what’s the food like? The temperature here is quite nice right now, typically in the 65-75 degree range all day. At night it drops to maybe 55 or 60. The only little issue is that it’s the ‘rainy season’ here right now, which means that most days it will rain for several hours (usually in the afternoon, but sometimes morning or evening). The rain is sometimes strong but usually it is light or medium, so bringing a little umbrella along every day is a handy solution. Its hard to stay completely dry though, as the rain tends to collect on the streets and sidewalks during those several hours. Now onto la comida: The food is good! But you know me, I eat just about anything. Like with any touristy town, you can go out and get different kinds of food if you want. They even have McDonalds and Burger King here. Wait till you see picture of the McDonalds, it’s so incredibly fancy and aesthetically pleasing, you can’t even imagine it. However, I don’t eat out much as my meals are provided with my host family. Breakfast always consists of fruit (cantaloupe, watermelon, and papaya), and then usually either cereal, pancakes, or eggs. We usually also have bread and often times black beans with breakfast. Sometimes we might get fried sweet plantains too. My “housebrother”-he’s from Virginia and does construction with God’s Child-and I both take our lunches with us so that’s usually a couple of sandwiches with an apple or banana maybe. Dinner varies quite a bit but is always delicious, might be soup and some sort of cooked or fried vegetable, might be meat, we’ve had spaghetti, tostadas, sometimes accompanied by black beans and bread is always on the side.

Okay that’s all for now! I hope everyone is doing well in the States, I am having a great time but I miss you all as well! The nice thing is that I have quite a bit of internet access so i'm not completely disconnected from my world back home. I will try to post pictures on facebook but it might not happen till I get back since I have quite a few already. I’ll try to post again once or twice. I’m working coming up with a “top 10 things you didn’t know about Guatemala(ns)” list so maybe that’ll be my next blog! Adios for now!

Thanks for reading!

2010-08-19T22:08:00.002-05:00

Hello all,

This will be my last post for Rockhurst. I am officially "retiring" from my duties. It has been a lot of fun to write all about my life weekly, and I hope that someone out there has found it useful; that it has helped them learn more about Rockhurst in general.

I might bring up this blog again sometime if I have some sort of an adventure that my friends or relatives will all want to hear about. But for now, I must say "adios" as I begin my senior year, which I hope will be very memorable and wonderful. Good luck to all of you out there! Thanks for reading!

~Jaycie Jane

Change is....?

2010-08-01T22:33:00.007-05:00

Good, bad, confusing, healthy, difficult? For me, change is reflective. "Wait, what are you saying?", you ask me. What I mean is that it seems as though I reflect the most on life in general whenever I change locations. I went home to G.I. this weekend just for a day and a half or so, since I had a small break from working with HETRA in Omaha. I really do love coming home; it is always very refreshing. I find that I appreciate it so much the first day or so that I am back. Just spending time hanging around the house, talking to the parents, eating delicious food, sleeping in my wonderful, dark, cool basement room, playing with my brother's laborador puppy, spending the evening with friends.

Yes, home in G.I is absolutely wonderful.

But equally wonderful is home at Rockhurst. With such a small campus and student population, Rockhurst really does feel like my home. I'm not even sure where to consider my primary home. Summer has flown by so fast, and just a few days ago I was really sad to see it be over so soon. But, suddenly, I am absolutely itching to go back to Rockhurst. Suddenly, it can't come soon enough. I miss my friends and the atmosphere in general so much. Though I am pracitcally in denial that I only have one more year left of undergraduate school, I am also SO EXCITED to make the most out of senior year. Just to cherish every moment I can with friends, with tennis, with this stage of my life in general.

Funny how change affects me. Throughout my past 3 college years, I feel as though i have been constantly changing back and forth between my two worlds: Home in G.I. and home at Rockhurst. Since I branched out and went to a univesity where I knew no one else from my hometown (and pretty much no one in general), my two worlds really are completely separate. For many students who go to college nearby, their worlds overlap. I think that this experience of having two separate worlds really has helped me grow as a person. I can't fully explain it, but, I think it has something to do with all this reflecting I end up doing. Each and every time I change locations for new semester or a break from classes it seems as though I reflect, appreciate, and cherish the little things. So I guess, change IS good. At least this type of change is good for me. :)

Neigh neigh, neigh......

2010-07-28T10:48:00.002-05:00

This summer is flying by! Faster than any other summer I think. Though I am excited to get back to Rockhurst for senior year, I am also really enjoying what I am doing right now.

I have had an awesome two weeks so far at my volunteer internship at Heartland Equine Therapeutic Riding Academy (HETRA) in Omaha. In case you don’t remember what I am doing, I was accepted for the Miller Family Service program, in which I provide 5 weeks of 40 hours per week of volunteer work at a non-profit company that I chose and was approved by the scholarship program. Then, I get a small stipend of a scholarship towards my tuition for next year from the Miller family’s fund in place of my free work at this organization. Pretty cool huh? It helps out HETRA because they get my work for free, but my work isn’t totally free from my end because I get a scholarship.

So, you are probably wondering what in the world is HETRA? It is a place where they do Hippotherapy (therapy using horses) with disabled children and adults. It is a really awesome place. They have 2 different barns (one in West Omaha, one in Valley) where they have 16 different therapy horses. The kids just absolutely LOVE the horses and they are so proud of the fact that they get to do something cool and different than most of their peers. It is good for the kids physically because the therapists can work on strengthening muscles, stretching out spastic muscles, and working on balance and coordination. It is also good mentally because the therapist might work on getting the child to talk and to interact better. Also, by counting objects or playing games on the horse they can improve their cognitive skills, or just to improve their overall confidence as a person.

The first two weeks that I have worked at HETRA we have been doing summer horse camps with some of the more functional kids. The take short break between normal therapy sessions this time of year due to the heat, but they will start up again next week. The horse camps have been really awesome to work with the kids and get to know them. We had a lot of really special and awesome kids attend.

I have also been learning a lot about horses. I’m a big animal person, but really didn’t know much about horses at all before this. I’ve had to chuckle to myself sometimes, because at the horse camps I have been both helping the kids with the activities, but also simultaneously learning about things like parts of a saddle, breeds of horses, and different types of grooming tools right along with the kids. I’ve also been learning how to feed the horses at one of the barns too. Right away I just felt like I was in the way because I didn’t know how or what to do, but now I am getting the hang of a lot of things and it’s really fun! I think I might have become a horse girl by the time this is over. Here’s a picture of a few of the horses outside the barn (Trixie, Jesse, and Rainbow).

Back in the good 'ole USA!

2010-07-14T18:10:00.003-05:00

Well I’ve been back in the states for a little over a week now, and I’ve had a whirlwind of activities. Flying in to KC, driving back to Grand Island, unpacking, repacking, visiting my dad’s side of the family in North Dakota, going to the lake for a weekend in South Dakota with my mom’s whole side of the family, then coming to Omaha to start my internship. Yikes……busy, busy, busy. And, not much time or access to the internet to post a new blog. Seeing my family was super awesome! I’m also excited to be in Omaha, but I will talk more about my internship in my next blog. First, a wrap up of my Peru trip:

I’m going to miss a lot of things in Peru: practicing Spanish, joking around and having fun with my awesome host-mother and my random host siblings from all around the world, getting to know the 26 other Rockhurst students better, and much more. It was really sad to leave Cusco, especially my host-family there. A few days before I left, my host-mom taught my how to make Chocotejas, a delicious treat of chocolate filled with manejarblanco (similar to caramel), so I could bring some of the final product home to the US with me. Here's a picture of me in the middle of that baking adventure:

I would definitely want to return to South America again if I had the opportunity. There are so many more countries that I would love to visit: Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Chile Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, pretty much everywhere. Also, several countries in Central America are very appealing to me such as Mexico and/or Costa Rica. Hmmmm, I guess I’d better start planning if I want to accomplish all that! While in Peru, I realized how much easier it is to get around when you can speak their native language. Awesome, because there are so many Spanish-speaking countries in this world!

Before this trip, I never realized how common it was for young people to volunteer for a month or two in a city in Central or South America. I never realized there are organizations that set it all up, and even provide families for the volunteers to live with. I’m thinking how that would be a really awesome experience sometime soon, maybe next summer or during a vacation/break during Physical Therapy school. I think I would love that.

Rockhurst offers service trips during breaks, but unfortunately I cannot sign up for any of the ones that go to Spanish-speaking countries, because they are all during Spring Break and we have required things with the tennis team for Spring Break since it is during our season. This thought makes me sad, but now that I realize how easy it is to set up your own volunteer project, I feel much better. I don’t feel like I have lost this opportunity-it is still out there for me. I also think I will try to go on one of the January service trips with Rockhurst next year-either to New Orleans or the Bahamas is where they usually offer them.

Adios for now, I will post again soon!

Jungle Fever

2010-06-28T22:39:00.006-05:00

What a great weekend I just had. We scheduled an excursion near Puerto Maldonado, a town on the eastern side of Peru in la selva, the Amazon/rain forest region of the country. From there we took a 45 minute boat ride, and hiked for aobut an hour to get to the lodge area where we camped. It was a great break from “city life” in Cusco. It wasn’t really far into the Amazon, so it wasn’t super-intense or anything. I enjoyed it because I like the outdoors, and I don’t really get bothered by insects or other creatures. We spent 2-3 days sleeping in cabins without electricity, hiking, canoeing, and learning about plants and animals in the area from our tour guides. It was a lot of fun! The bus rides to and from Cusco were a little less fun though. The bus itself was pretty nice, but the roads were full of sharp curves, and the bus didn’t slow down much for them. But, I took Dramamine which helped fight off any motion sickness I could potentially have had, as well as helped me to sleep during the two 11 hour overnight bus trips.

The weather was extremely different there than here in Cusco. In Cusco, it is pretty cold at night; I think it gets down to 40 degrees or so. Between 5pm-10am or so, a jacket is a definite necessity, with scarves, hats and gloves being helpful as well. It is warmer here in the afternoons, while the sun is out, since we are so much closer to the sun than what I am used to. But in Puerto Maldonado, it is hot and sticky all the time! The humidity is so strong-and this is coming from a Nebraska girl who should be used to humidity. It gets a little cooler and fresher feeling at night, but it still pretty humid. It was a nice break from the cold here, but I don’t think I would like to live somewhere like that permanently. I don’t exactly enjoy sweating profusely while simply sitting down or taking a nap. But, I suppose you could say it was getting me ready to go back home, because it will be much more humid and hotter than when I left at the end of May. Which brings me to my next point,

Wow, I have only 6 days left here!

Where did the time go? I swear it was just yesterday that I arrived in Lima, and had 5 weeks of adventure ahead of me. I think, however, I am starting to look forward to going home. I would be fine staying here another week or two, but probably not for several more months. I think that 5 weeks is pretty much the perfect amount of time. Enough to do and see lots of different things, but not too much to get homesick, or to feel like you are going to be in a strange country for-ev-er. (taken straight out of the Sandlot). However, I think that if I was going to another South American country for a couple weeks that would be nice too.

It has been an awesome experience so far. Having a family to live with really enhanced the experience. It has also been really fun to go with 27 other Rockhurst students and our awesome profesora, Dr. Duncan. I have gotten to know many of the students much better on this trip; we are having a lot of fun together.

I shouldn’t reminisce too much too soon though, I still have nearly a week here to enjoy! To enjoy the culture, the food, people-watching, shopping, going to my classes, exams every Friday (Well, okay it’s a little tough to enjoy that last one). Look for another update near the end of the week before I fly out. Until then, here are a few recent pictures:

Me with my host mom Maria Elena (it was laundry day so please ignore my outfit):

Some of us (Lizzy, Beth, myself, and Anna) being goofy with an odd manequin in a Cusco store:

Katherine, Abby, and I on the boat ride to our adventure for the weekend:

monkey!

A picture of some of us on a canoe adventure one evening:

I love reflections off the water:

My 5-star luxury hotel.....jungle style. Gotta love the bug net that wraps all around the bed for nighttime.

and the Peru-ness continues...

2010-06-20T15:32:00.008-05:00

Hello again from Cusco, Peru,

I thought I might share a few more pictures now that I have more loaded onto my computer. But first, a quick update. Time is flying by here, I cannot believe that I will be flying back into the US in just 14 days. I would like to think my Spanish is improving...I think I'm understanding more at least. I think the key with speaking is just to not be shy and just try. People most likely understand you even if the things you say aren't are perfect.

Today we got two more "host-siblings" in our house....Mike, from Holland and Jenny, from guess where...my homestate of Nebraska! How crazy (Que loco!) She is a Spanish teacher at Westside High School in Omaha. They are both doing volunteer work here for a month or so. They are nice and it has been fun to have our "family" expanding with more people.

Anyways, not much is new. Just going to classes, we had a ceramics class last Wednesday afternoon. It was fun but my little vase will probably not be anything to write home about. We are going to paint them next week, which, considering my lack of artistic skills, might make it look even worse. Friday we had salsa classes again and I think I am starting to get the hang of some of the steps. Yesterday our group took a day excursion on a bus to several different ruins and little towns around the Cusco area. They today I went to mass at the Cathedral on the Plaza, which was very beautiful. It so neat how Catholicism is the same everywhere, just in a different language. Its a cool feeling to be part of such a big picture.

Okay, now for the photos:

The guys who came to our school to teach us how to play the Zampona instrument:

Some of us girls at some ruins near Cusco:

Me at Macchu Pichu! After, we climbed the trek all the way to the top of the huge mountain in the background:

A pic of myself, Megan, and Kelsey

A cool picture of the Plaza de Armas, the main square in Cusco:

Photos!!

2010-06-17T10:41:00.004-05:00

Alright here's some photos, more to come later:

A typical scene of vendors we see often at touristy places here. They are always trying to talk us into buying their warm llama hats, scarfs, blankets. It often works.

I love this picture! The clouds were wonderful that day. This was some ruins we stopped at on our way from Puno to Cusco.

A llama!!!

Me by a beautiful lake near Puno

More Peru Excitement...

2010-06-15T22:44:00.002-05:00

What an amazing country Peru is....who knew! I feel like I have a lot to catch you up on since our last post.

We spent a few days in a cute little town of 150,000 people called Puno, which is near Lake Titicaca. The elevation is over 12,000 feet there, so a lot of people in our group felt the altitude to some extent at least at the beginning. The first night I carried my suitcase up just one small flight of stairs to my room and I had to stop and sit on my bed because I felt as though I had just ran 5 miles…I’m not kidding. I was getting some pressure headaches here and there, but I adjusted pretty well within a few days to the altitude. It’s funny because they’re big cure for the altitude here is their famous coca tea….maybe it’s the placebo effect or maybe it actually works, but it seemed to help many people in our group.

While we were in Puno we visited Lake Titicaca with our tour guide José for a whole day. We stopped to see the Uro people on their floating reed island which they make themselves out of just dirt and reeds-amazing! Then we went to the Island of Taquille where we ate lunch and went hiking and saw some amazingly beautiful scenery.

After a few days in Puno, we took a bus to Cusco, and stopped at some cool places on the way. We arrived in Cusco about a week ago, where we met and started living with our host families. Mine is working out really well! We are all paired up, so it is my friend Kelsey and I living with our new “mom” Maria Elena. She is extremely nice and has had lots of students in the past so she is a great help to us and very understanding of everything-including our dislike of papaya…lol. I’m starting to pick up more and more Spanish, it really helps that we get so much practice talking with our host-mom. Though, it is a slow process and sometimes I end a conversation feeling like I understood 90% of what when on, and other times only about 50%. But, practice makes perfect! We also have a new host-sister as of last Thursday who will be living in our house with us and volunteering here in Cusco for 2 months. Her name is Megan and she is from Virginia and an extremely nice and sweet girl.

In the mornings Kelsey and I walk to school which takes us about 20 or 25 minutes, not a bad walk though. I’m hoping this speed walking in the altitude will help keep me in shape. We have classes 8:30-10:30 and 11-1pm and then we walk home for lunch. Here, lunch is the biggest meal of the day and so we’ve been trying to make it home so that we can enjoy the absolute delicious meals that our host-mom prepares for us. Then, most afternoons, we meet up about 4 with our group again either at the school or some other location around town for activities, which have ranged from classes on how to play the zampoña instrument, volleyball and soccer games, ceramics classes, salsa lessons, and a tour of some ruins near the city. A few nights we have stuck around the downtown Plaza area and had dinner or shopped with some of our group.

I’m really starting to love Cusco. It is a town of about 400,000 people but it has been pretty easy to navigate around. Even when we take a taxi somewhere, I have pretty good feeling about which direction my house is, and which direction the Plaza is. It is a good sized town for me: Lima was a little too much of a big city feel with insane traffic, though it’s still fairly crazy here. But there are always interesting things and people to look around at and learn about here. Cusco is fairly touristy though, which at times drives me crazy, such as going to the Plaza and getting asked 12 times as I pass beauty shops if I want a massage on the way there, then getting asked by 26 people within 5 minutes as we wait to meet up with our friends at the Plaza if I want to buy a hat, jewelry, postcards, socks, pictures of the city, sunglasses. Sometimes, I wish I could blend in better here, but being a fair-skinned blonde I have little to no chance.

Nevertheless, I am thoroughly enjoying my experience so far. It is flying by! I’ve been here 2 weeks and only have 3 more to go. I am just trying to do and see as many things as I can while I am here, as well as absorb as much new Spanish as possible so that I can become bilingual for my job and for life in general.

This weekend our group visited to Macchu Pichu and the town nearby, Aguas Calientes, for a weekend excursion. Macchu Pichu was breathtaking! It is so unbelievable to me that it was only discovered 100 years ago! We were there from 6am-4pm, first looking around at the ruins and then hiking the nearby mountains. I really love hiking but don’t get a chance to do it often, so it was a great weekend overall. I have SO many amazing pictures to show. I will try to upload them soon, but my internet is pretty slow so I cannot tonight.

More pictures and information to come soon!

Answer: The country I am presently in.

2010-06-01T23:52:00.004-05:00

Question: What is Peru?

Yay! I'm here! We arrived in Lima at about midnight on Monday, May 30th. Since then its been one big whirl of taking in sights, sounds, and the whole experience here visiting Lima, a city along the coast which is also the country's capital. Its been really awesome so far. We've taken guided tours around the city the last few mornings with Ernesto, our super nice tour guide. We've been doing lots of walking around and also lots of eating in the afternoons and evenings.

We take a flight tomorrow to the area of the country that Lake Titicaca is in. We are going to tour that area for a few days and then we will head to Cusco, which is the town we will be living in with families and studying in for four weeks. The adventure has only just begun!

Here's a fun and busy picture of Lima.

Estoy lista para Perú......más o menos

2010-05-27T00:35:00.002-05:00

Okay sorry I couldn't help from titling this with Spanish. I will try to refrain from now on. Not much is new from my last post. Still just organizing things for my trip. But I will have a ton of new thing to share in just a few days....so get ready.

One cool thing though....I visited HETRA in Omaha, the place where I will be interning/working/volunteering (I'm still not sure what to call it) for 5 weeks in July and August. I'm REALLY excited....the place is really cool and it will be so much fun to work with horses, and to get experience with therapy and the students.

Here's kind of a typical equine therapy picture for those visual people out there:

Summer Plans

2010-05-18T21:28:00.006-05:00

Hey everyone,

Well, I've been on the move a lot since my last post. Moving out of my townhouse on campus, hanging out in KC to celebrate my birthday, and to celebrate and shed some tears with Annie (my amazing friend and roommate) as she graduated. Then, using my several years of packing experience to fit all of my things and my boyfriend Joe's things in the back of my Explorer (named Dora) to transport back to Nebraska. Finally, arriving at my house near Grand Island on Sunday night to have a little birthday celebration with my parents and brother.

Here's a picture of my friend Amanda (who came to visit for my birthday), myself, and Annie.

Now, I'm back home with my parents for 2 weeks to get some more hours of job shadowing with Physical Therapists done, and to organize and pack for my exciting summer plans! I'm going to Peru for 5 weeks to study abroad with a program with my awesome Spanish teacher Sra. Duncan and about 27 other students. Then, I'll have a week or so off to catch my breath before I go to Roy Lake, SD for a weekend with my mom's side of the family (always a blast, I can't wait. Aunts, uncles, and cousins everywhere).

Then I will go straight to Omaha where I am participating in the Miller Service Scholarship, which is a program where I do 200 hours of volunteer work with an organization of my choice over 5 weeks, and receive a scholarship in return for my Rockhurst tuition next year from the Miller family. I will be working with an organization called HETRA, which uses horses to do therapy with disabled children and adults. I'm so excited for this opportunity! During that time, I will be working on my online application to PT schools!!!! I will also get to be roommates with Amanda for those 5 weeks. Life is changing so fast...but I'm excited.

I am going to continue my blogging over the summer so stay tuned for some great stories and pictures!

~Jaycie

It really was a world of fun....

2010-05-10T21:05:00.006-05:00

I apologize for skipping last week's blog. I've barely had time to stop and breathe lately with trying to study for final tests and prepare presentations. But since 11:21 AM this morning I can officially say that I am D-O-N-E. Hooray!!

Okay, so, it was pretty ridiculous that I've lived in Kansas City for almost 3 full years now, and hadn't ever been to Worlds of Fun (or even ever rode a roller coaster for that matter). So, I FINALLY changed that this Saturday. My brother Justin and his girlfriend Jennifer were visiting Kansas City for a comedy show, and Justin had wanted to try out Worlds of Fun since he too has been roller-coaster deprived up to this point. They have a special price going on if you came after 4pm in the day. I spread the word to a few of my other friends and we made an evening out of it.

It was pretty fun! Both Justin and I sometimes have trouble stomaching things with a lot of motion, but we did pretty decent. It helps when you get 30 minutes break in between rides because you're standing in line. I rode pretty much all of the main big rides: Spinning Dragons, The Patriot, The Mamba, The Boomerang, and the Prowler. The Prowler was my favorite!! It was a good mix of speed, but not too high of drops so my stomach could still handle it. Here's a picture of it:

2010-04-26T00:45:00.003-05:00

Well, not much is new this week. I've just been plugging away in my classes, trying to stay on top of things (with the key word being trying), and things with tennis have been pretty busy too. This past weekend we had our conference tournament in Springfield, MO. Although it was a loooong two days since it rained and we had limited indoor courts, both our guys and girls teams placed third! Pretty good. My mom sent me some of the pictures that she took last week when she was here and here's a cute one of our whole team:

We like to play the game of "see if you can guess who our coach is" She blends in pretty well as being college-aged.

Well that's about all for now. I'm headed to bed after getting things ready for a Spanish presentation I have tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Ahhhh!

2010-04-17T17:00:00.003-05:00

Ahhhh is exactly how I feel. I'm hitting that time of the year....when everything is so crazy. I like staying busy and usually have a pretty good handle over everything, but it seems like pretty much every year when the last couple weeks of school come, everything goes crazy. I have so much going on this week....I don't even want to list it for you for fear you might have a panic attack yourself on the spot.

Its also that time of year where everyone is antsy with the nice weather and just wants to be outside and doesn't want to do anything productive, especially in a classroom. I was able to escape earlier this week for an hour or so to Loose Park, a very popular hangout in our neighborhood. Its a beautiful and pretty large park off 55th street, only like a 5 minute drive from Rockhurst. Here's a picture with me and my friends Kelly and Greta:

Also, my mom came to visit this weekend! It was super awesome to have her here. She watched our tennis meets and I got to hang out with her too. Its nice for parents to come and see everything here and meet everyone, as it can be hard to explain things or people very well over the phone. I'll try to have a picture of the tennis weekend next time I post.

Hello from Indy

2010-04-10T22:05:00.006-05:00

Hey everyone,

When you picture a typical college student's Saturday night, you probably do not picture them sitting in a hotel, getting ready for bed at 10:30 pm. But for a student-athlete, this can be typical during season. And, it's what I'm doing tonight in Indianapolis. Now, some may think we are crazy, and admittedly, at times we are. But if you love the sport you play, its worth it. Its really not too bad; we only travel about 8 weekends out of the entire school year. That still leaves 30 or more to be at home and do whatever we want!

Although tennis (or any sport for that matter) can be a love-hate relationship depending on the good days and bad days, I'm just trying to soak in the experiences I am receiving from this great opportunity to play a college sport. While I am intensely competitive and desire ever-so-much to be successful, I'm realizing more and more that my success in tennis (or lack of, some days) can't define me. Nevertheless I still try my hardest. But more importantly, I am trying to just E-N-J-O-Y, as hard as that can be to do for an extremely competitive person like myself. Looking back at making a decision to play college tennis or not, I'm extremely happy. Only because I enjoy it and love it, despite not being the most amazing player and having to fight for my spot near the bottom of the line-up.

If a high school junior or senior were to ask me my opinion on if they should play a sport in college, my answer would be: Only if you will truly enjoy it. Don't do it for your parents, don't do it just to get a scholarship, don't do it for any other reason than for yourself. Sure, you will still have days and moments where you are frustrated during practice or tired from writing a paper until 2am the night before or wishing you could do whatever fun thing your non-athlete friends were doing that afternoon while you are at practice. (There's that love-hate relationship.) But, as long as the 'love' moments greatly outweigh the 'hate' moments, you know you made the right decision. Here's a really cool short poem/article written by a baseball player at a DIII College (rockhurst is actually DII but this fits well with our team and myself):

http://www.ascsports.org/sports/2007/8/17/Why%20We%20Compete.aspx?tab=whydivisioniii
(You will have to copy and paste-the hyperlink isn't working)

Seeing how my random reflections and thoughts seem to center around tennis tonight, you can tell that we are hitting the busy part of our season. I haven't been doing a whole lot else lately besides school and tennis. Easter was very nice and relaxing, but the long weekend seemed to go by waaaaay too fast. Lastly, I would like to share my new desktop background with everyone. Its a quote from Norman Vincent Peale that I really like:

Goodnight for now,
~Jaycie Jane

2010-03-30T23:00:00.004-05:00

I've been pretty busy again this week. But there's no harm in staying busy, eh? Tennis, schoolwork, Alpha Phi Omega, and my CLC's have done a fine job of consuming my life lately.

We had our annual Easter Egg Hunt on Monday with APO. We had bought candy to fill over 300 eggs which we hid around campus on our main Quad area. We also had a huge box full of Easter-themed prizes, which the 'hunters' could pick from if they found an egg with a sticker on it. We had one area that was a hunt for children and another area which was a hunt for our fellow college kids. Since my job is PR, I was responsible for advertising for the event. But we had a pretty good turnout...an exciting success! The children and college students had an equally good time.

I also received an Easter package in the mail today from my parents since I am unable to go home this year due to an away tennis match on Saturday and practice on Monday. The package was a nice surprise, and contained these cute little bunnies:

Have a great Easter everyone!

Snow, what? It was 60 degress yesterday!

2010-03-23T10:38:00.004-05:00

Busy, busy, busy. I feel like that word will describe me for the rest of the semester. The end of March and the whole month of April seem to get crazy every year. Everything piles up...projects, papers, tests, 2-3 tennis matches per week plus practices and traveling. Some days it is hard to manage, but it works out okay for the most part. I know that summer is only 6 weeks away.

I've really been trying to keep things in perspective this year. Its easy to get caught up in my own stress and busyness, and forget all my blessings and opportunities. I've heard several times the statistic that only 1% of the world's population will earn a college degree. Its easy to forget what a great opportunity I have right now. Although being an athlete can be stressful, I'm also trying to savor and enjoy my time playing tennis. This is not an opportunity that just anyone can have.

As I scheduled classes yesterday for next semester, I realized that I couldn't believe that I only have a little over a year left in undergrad. Granted, I will have plenty more studying in Physical Therapy school, but life will be much different than in undergrad. I am trying to enjoy my time left with my friends and with the chance to play tennis at such a competitive and high level every day. Where has the time gone?

I had a great weekend though. Last week was kinda stressful because I had quite a bit of homework and I had signed up to take the GRE test (Graduate Record Examination-required for PT school) on Friday morning. The test went well, which was a refreshing start to my weekend. Then, we had two Arkansan visitors in my house for the weekend: My roommate Greta's sister Rachel and an old friend, Katie, who was my roommate here freshman year before she transferred to the U of Arkansas. We all had a lot of fun together! The weather went from 60 degrees on Friday to snowing 5 inches during the night and 30 on Saturday (ironically the first official day of spring), back to 55/60 on Sunday and Monday. However, we took advantage of the last snow and went sledding during the day Saturday! Our makeshift sleds were less than adequate but we still had a ton of fun! Here's a pictures of Allie, me, and Molly and also a picture of our whole sledding group:

March Madness

2010-03-16T11:10:00.003-05:00

Well, not only is March mad due to the big NCAA tournament, but it can get pretty mad with homework piling up. Returning from spring break with a full week of school can be traumatizing to say the least. I had a good break, but was actually much busier than I had expected with tennis. I finished the homework I had absolutely needed to get done by the end of the break, but I had hoped to start making progress on a few big projects I have coming up. Oh well, it'll get done somehow I'm sure. I have also been busy trying to decide what I want to do with the second half of my summer. I am studying abroad in Peru for about 5 weeks at the beginning of my summer, and I just applied for a volunteer scholarship program for the second half of the summer, which was also due yesterday. I am really excited about the project I would be doing but getting accepted seems competitive so wish me luck!

It was a nice spring break week overall though. It was great to be home for a few days, and when I got back to Rockhurst my townhouse was fairly quiet with just one roommate home, which was a nice change for a few days. I am usually a people-person, but I also like my peace and quiet once in a while. I had a chance to get together with a few friends who also stayed here over the break.

The tennis team had fun together also. We had dinner at coach's house, spent a full day doing a low and high ropes course at Tall Oaks Conference Center in Kansas, and of course, got lots of hours of practices in. Our guys team played indoors on both Friday and Saturday and us girls had a match Saturday (which we swept 9-0 hooray!) The guys and girls teams are all pretty pretty close with each other and we always have a lot of fun together, full of inside jokes and laughs. Here's a picture of me on a zip-line at the high ropes course:

So long for now,
~Jaycie Jane

Spring Break!

2010-03-10T20:45:00.003-06:00

Spring Break is here,

Hooray. I was able to go home for the weekend but now I am back at Rockhurst because we are practicing a lot for tennis and we have a match this weekend. Home was very nice, but went by ever too quickly. I felt like I only blinked my eyes before I had to turn around and drive back. But I was able to see most of my friends, my parents, and stop by Lincoln on my way back here to see my brothers and my friend Hannah. I enjoyed my time at my house with my parents....I am now a huge fan of the card game Quiddler...I highly recommend trying it. One thing I was not so happy about was the weather. There is definitely a changing of seasons going on in Kansas City, but I don't think it has quite hit Grand Island, NE yet. It was only about 45 degrees there, but it has been 55 here since I got back. Here's a picture of our frozen lake at home with some traveling geese.

The week is flying by though...I cannot believe it is already Wednesday. I feel like I have so much homework to try to at least make a dent in for next week. Where's that motivation? I think it may have taken a spring break trip somewhere without me.....

My Minor Addiction

2010-03-02T22:06:00.004-06:00

So usually I’m not too into reality TV shows; at least I definitely don’t get hooked on them. But, I have a confession: I was a Bachelor junkie this season. I blame my roomies…they got me hooked. Until now, I don’t think I had watched this show since about 9th grade. However, my entire house was anti-Vienna, who was the girl he ended up picking….yikes! Here they are:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, she looks pretty and nice, but we just did not like her personality. Or to be nice I could say, we just liked each of the other girls much more. A HUGE heap more. It got to the point that during the last several rose ceremonies my whole house erupted in a fit of screams and shrieking Noooooo the moment he chose her to stay for the next week. But, to each his own I guess.

As far as the reality show that I call my life, things are pretty good. Been playing some tennis....can't wait for it to get warm out so the team can play outside-this winter has seemed extra-cold and extra-lengthy. This week I do have two tests, but they should be manageable (I hope). I lucked out again without any midterms like many of my friends have. Most of campus has a pretty crazy and busy week before the break. Speaking of that…Friday is our last day of classes for 9 days! Yay spring break! It will be very nice to have some time off…although I already have an every-growing list of things to get done. But, I will get to go home! I can only stay about 3 and a half days and then I have to come back to KC for tennis but that’s okay. I can relax at my townhouse here. That’s about all that’s going on….just looking forward to the break.

Catch ya later,
~Jaycie

First round of tests done!

2010-02-24T23:38:00.003-06:00

Hola,

Well, quite a bit has happened since I last wrote. I got A's on both my test that I had last wednesday, and an A on my quiz this monday! Hooray, my semester is off to a good start. I also had a test Tuesday in my Christianity class which I felt as thought it went well also.

I had a great weekend for the most part. We had our first tennis meets on Saturday and Sunday, which we played two teams in Des Moines, IA. Coincidentally, my parents were both in Des Moines on Friday for business so they stayed around to watch me play! Since spring is my dad's busy season for work it can be difficult for them to come watch me play. They visited KC once for a meet last year but the meet was canceled due to weather, so this was actually their first time watching me play college tennis! I know that I will not be able to escape home for more than a few days this semester, so it was totally awesome and unexpected to get to spend time with my parents!

Unfortunately, my team got stuck in Des Moines all day Sunday because the roads were too icy and unsafe to drive home. But, it actually turned out to be a very nice day. I walked to the Target across the street with a couple teammates and we sat and had a very nice chat in the Starbucks there. I spent much of the rest of the day doing homework in my super-comfy hotel bed, watching the winter olympics, and being entertained by facebook chats with both of my brothers. Then we left at 7am on Monday and arrived safely in Kansas City.

Unfortunately, I also received some bad news Sunday that my cousin Stephanie has an extremely serious eye infection, and they are basically trying to save her eye right now. The outcome is beginning to look a little better, but I would appreciate any thoughts and prayers from my readers for her.

Oh yes, I didn't mention Friday! I went out to dinner with a big group to celebrate my friend Lindsey's birthday. It was a lot of fun spending time with her and here is a pic with her, our friend Kelly, and myself (left to right).

Adios,
~Jaycie

Happy Late Heart Day

2010-02-16T00:22:00.003-06:00

Hello again,

Not a whole lot new going on, just plugging away at classes and other activities. I have my first round of tests in most of my classes either this week or next (two this Wednesday-yikes) The first test can sometimes be the toughest, especially if you haven't had the teacher yet or don't know what to expect. So, wish me well. Since my last update we won one of our intramural bball games, but lost the other to a pretty good (and tall!) team. But, hooray, we were still good enough to make the playoffs, which start tomorrow. I am hoping to grab a photographer to snap a few pics so I can put one on here for you guys. I'm having lots of fun playing; I've always thoroughly enjoyed playing basketball although I've never really been that great at it.

The only other thing new that happened was this past weekend we had our athletic formal dance. SAAC (Student-Athletic Advisory Committee, which I am a member of) put on the dance and it went well and was lots of fun. Here's a picture of me and my fellow junior teammate Ivana before the dance:

Thats all folks!
God Bless,
Jaycie Jane

Hunting Hawks?

2010-02-07T11:46:00.005-06:00

Hey everyone,

Well, I had a pretty good week. Homework was manageable, tennis and working out felt good, all is well. Our intramural basketball game got rescheduled, so no new news there. The ice cream socials went well for APO, we have a list of about 30 names of interested people, so we should have a pretty good sized pledge class. It did snow an inch or two on Friday (yuck). However, on the plus side, it was still pretty warm and so the snow turned to slush in a lot of places and so I wore my new rainboots for the first time since I got them for Christmas to combat this slush, and it worked well.

This week, Rockhurst kicked off the centennial celebration (It was founded in 1910) with lots of different events like the unveiling of a time-box, a cake decorating contest, awesome centennial shirts for just $5, free cake, a new blue colored drink in the cafeteria, a new 'ice cream cake' flavor of the ever popular twister desert in the pub, special speakers, etc. I have a feeling we might use the centennial as a way to do fun and cool things for the entire year of 2010, and I like that idea!

This weekend was a pretty crazy and fun one though. My roommates and I participated in the Hawk Hunt, which was a huge 24 hour scavenger hunt that Residence Life and the Centennial Committee organized and funded. On Friday at 5pm we got a list of 200 'clues' as well as a bunch of items to collect. We had to solve the clues to figure out what we needed to take a picture of ourselves next to each one. Close to half of the clues were of objects/places/signs/plaques on campus, and the other half were all around the city. So we first took about 3 hours to rack our brains and make great use of the world wide web to see how many of the clues we could solve. Then we left at about 11pm through 1am to take pictures all around campus. We got back, organized some more, and finally got to bed around 3am. Then, we woke up at 9am and left around 10 to go all around the city to as many of the places as we could. Finally we returned around 3pm to tie up some odds and ends, grab a few more campus pictures, and load the rest of our pics to the internet, which was how we turned them in. Only then did we realized how exhausted, food-deprived, and cranky we were. I passed our early last night for over 12 hours of sleep. It is tough to pic which of the 145 picture we took that I want to upload, but here is one:

This is a monument around 8th street downtown that has Lewis, Clark, and Sacajawea on it. We discovered online that it was the answer to one of the clues.

So, was it worth it? We'll find out soon when they tally up all the teams. The winners get $1000 ($250 per person), second place is $100 per person and third is $50 per person. And heck, if we don't get any of that, at least we got a free t-shirt out of the deal. Or, you could say that it was a priceless experience because of all the historical and locational information we learned about Rockhurst and Kansas City in general.

Have a good week,
~Jaycie

2010-01-28T23:53:00.004-06:00

Howdy

(Sorry for the redneck greeting but Hello gets boring after awhile). Well this week I've mainly been trying to get into a routine with my new class schedule and such. Its a little odd as I get to sleep in some M, W and Fr and have a very full afternoon with classes and then tennis, and Tuesday and Thursday my one and only class is at 8am. But today I took a lengthy, glorious nap after my morning class. So, I think I can get used to this.

I've also been busy this week with my position in my service group, Alpha Phi Omega. Since I am the VP of public relations, I have been working on signs and other advertisements for our Ice Cream Social information nights next week. I think it is going to be a fun position this semester and am excited. I will get to work on my creative right brain, which is usually overpowered by my left brain most days. Also, both of my CLC's (Christian Life Community-I lead one and am a participant in the other) will be starting up next week and I am excited to catch up with my members.

Other than that I have been pretty busy with tennis conditioning, lifting, and court time. We just made our team goals yesterday and I am very excited about the coming semester and the girls that we have on the team. We have a lot of very nice and talented girls and I think we can have a fun and hopefully successful season. I can't wait for it to be warm so that we can practice outside and work on our tans (or maybe I should say tan lines; as that's usually the case) We also took our team picture this week. Its posted on the Rockhurst Athletics website but also here it is. (Can you find me?)

Lastly, intramural basketball started this week. I am playing on a team with my roommate Allie and mostly girls from her golf team, but also some other friends. Our game Tuesday was a fun one, except that we lost at the very end by 2 points. I had a blast though because I absolutely love basketball. I was on the team all 4 years in high school, but was never really good enough to get much varsity playing time. So for me to just be playing in a game is wonderful and super enjoyable. It is also good cross training and conditioning for tennis. Our team is pretty good and hopefully we can win our next couple games. I'll keep you posted and maybe try to take a picture next week.

Later Gators,
~Jaycie

2010-01-23T21:20:00.003-06:00

And, we're off with a new semester.

Classes started Wednesday, as they do every semester. I think Rockhurst realized we aren't ready for an entire week of school, so they warm us up with just three days and then a weekend. My classes are going to be pretty good this semester I think. I have two spanish classes (to prepare for my study abroad trip this summer), Abnormal Psychology, Physics 2 (required to get into PT school), and Mystical Traditions in Christianity (fulfills a core requirement). I think my classes will be pretty interesting and fun this semester.

I was so excited to get back here after being home 6 weeks. Being home is always nice, but also I hadn't seen most of my college friends all break. It's nice to be back with my roommates :) Last night us girls went to Cheesecake factory for dinner and dessert. Yummmmmmy. Then today we went to open gym at a gymnastics place that my roomate Annie works at. It was tons of fun! Here's a picture of us.

Aloha!

2010-01-10T21:49:00.019-06:00

Hello again,

If you've been keeping up with me you know my family just got back from our vacation to Hawaii. It would take me pages and pages to explain everything about my wonderful time there. So, instead, I think I will just post my Top 10 list of aspects about this vacation that made it so great. I'll try to include pictures with as many of them as I can:

10. Listening to how beautiful the Hawaiian language flows, such as in songs or listening to natives speaking (it was much less beautiful when we tried to say the road names and other words and completely butchered them).

9. Getting to see the Pearl Harbor Memorial (though kinda sad), and also seeing the inside of a submarine that was used in WWII.

8. The Beach! Soaking up sun, going for a couple runs on the shore, and being in the water.

7. Getting lots of sleep several of the nights by turning in early. Then waking up early and going for coffee with my parents in the nice morning weather.

6. The amazingly warm weather. We left Nebraska at -10 and arrived at close to 80. It was very nice to have a break from cold winter weather. But I also realized that I enjoy changes in seasons and think I might miss that in a constantly 80 degree place like Hawaii. But it was sure nice to have that weather for a week in the middle of winter.

5. Traveling to the top of Haleakala mountain and watching the sun rise with my mom on a fun bus tour. (Except for the fact that we left our hotel at 2:45am).

4. Going to a Hawaiian Luau. Complete with a pig roast and Polynesian dances.

3. Spending quality time with the family; joking around together, making memories, etc.

2. Going on a helicopter tour of the island of Maui. Seeing some really awesome sights from a totally different viewpoint.

1. Snorkeling for my first time ever and seeing coral, lots of different fish, sea turtles, and even a shark. (picture to come later from my brother's underwater camera.)

So now I'm back home for one more week and then I will drive down to Kansas City and get ready for tennis and school to begin. I can't believe how fast break has gone. But now that most of my friends back home have already headed back to their colleges, I'm getting excited to go back also. I can't wait to see my college friends again catch up.

Goodbye '09

2009-12-31T00:29:00.003-06:00

Hello everyone I just wanted to put a quick post in. I hope everyone had a good Christmas. We received a lot of snow so my family pretty much just stayed inside. But it worked out fine because we didn't have any plans to go anywhere. I've been pretty busy these past few days working, playing tennis, and spending some time with friends. My five best friends from home and I had our 2nd annual white elephant gift exchange last night at my house. Here's a picture we snapped yesterday.

Anyways I am busy trying to pack for our family vacation to Hawaii!! I'm super excited. We are leaving in just a few days. I doubt I will post again until afterwords so get excited for some sweet pictures!

Happy Christmas Eve Eve

2009-12-23T22:48:00.004-06:00

Bet you don't hear that greeting often. Just thought I would be a little different. It's going to be a White Christmas in G.I this year. They were predicting a pretty bad blizzard but it doesn't seem quite as bad in our area as they thought it might be. We'll see tomorrow when I drive to work at 8am. I'm waitressing until Perkins closes at 2pm. Then its off to Christmas mass with the family (pretty excited about my outfit, mainly due to my new heels!) and then present time and snacks and goody-eating time! I'm excited about the presents I bought for my family-I think they will like them a lot. Then, on Christmas day, we will have our main meal which is going to be our second annual prime rib meal. My mom searched far and wide among friends, etc. last year to find an extremely delicious prime rib recipe. Yuuuuuummmmmmy. It was successful last year so let's hope for a repeat.

I've had a good break so far, although its going so fast. I can't believe it! The first week I was home I worked some and also helped my mom bake lots of Christmas goodies. She usually makes quite a few different delicious treats and arranges 'trays' (which are actually boxes) to give to friends of the family. I brought a few trays with me this past weekend to Omaha, which I went to for a tennis tournament and also visited friends and my boyfriend Joe. My mom has attained many tried-and-true delicious recipies over the years and so I had lots of compliments on the trays (that or I just know lots of good white liars).

Anyways I want to wish a very Merry Christmas to everyone. Remember Jesus is the reason for the season!
~Jaycie

Finals are Over!!

2009-12-16T00:39:00.004-06:00

Yay, here's to more semester under my belt! It was a pretty good one (grades come out this week, hopefully they will show this also), and now I have a nice chunk of time to not have to think about homework. I'll still be pretty busy, but at least my brain won't have to do quite as much of the work. I left KC Sunday, had to make an unexpected night's stay at my friend Hannah's place in Lincoln due to weather, and arrived in GI on Monday afternoon. Usually KC is only around 5 degrees warmer on average, but this week its been much colder just North of KC. I noticed that when I left at 2pm on Sunday it was 39 in Kansas City, and on Monday at about 2pm it was 9 here. Yikes! No wonder I went south for college.

One fun thing I did before I left was went to the Plaza with my CLC girls. We've been in a group together for 2.5 years now so we are pretty close. Heres a picture of us at Buca de Beppo (a fun italian restaurant)that we went to, and then we enjoyed some Coldstone for desert. Also, here is a picture of Country Club Plaza lit up as it is every year around Christmastime.

Now I'm back at home. My plans for the break are working some at Perkins, playing some tennis, working out, reading, catching up on DVR'd eppisodes of The Office, spending time with friends and family, enjoying the Holidays, and getting ready to go to Hawaii on January 2 with the family.

Happy December!!!!

2009-12-03T13:22:00.001-06:00

I’m back in action on campus after Thanksgiving break. Yes, it turns out that I did manage to survive waitressing at Perkins on Black Friday last week, and made a pretty good stack of cash while doing so. I’m always so thankful that Perkins will take me back whenever I am home, and they usually have quite a few hours for me. Since it’s pretty difficult for me to find time to work here between schoolwork, tennis, and other activities, I just try to work quite a few hours during my summers and Christmas breaks. Speaking of Christmas break, it’s only 8 days away and that’s a great feeling. I only have one more days of classes and then next week is finals week! Its not that I don’t love being at Rockhurst because I do, but after 4 months of classes I am ready for a break from the schoolwork part at least. We have a relatively lengthy break (between 5 and 6 weeks) which is quite a bit longer than most colleges. (I like to tease my friends back home that Rockhurst students are just smarter and don’t need as many days of classes). The break can seem a little too long sometimes (especially for those who aren’t busy) but it’s nice for those who want to use the time to work, travel, or keep busy in other ways.

This week has been a pretty busy one. The campus is lit up with Christmas lights (see picture). My Experimental Methods in Psychology class just finished up our huge group research projects by making and printing a scientific poster (after writing a 10-15 page paper over it). Yesterday in class we presented these posters to our teacher, the other small groups in our class, and a few other teachers who stopped by. It was fun to be able to explain to others what we had spent so many hours on the last several weeks. My last big project is for physics class, where myself and three other students have to write a 10 page paper and give a 15 minute presentation on our topic, which we chose as amputation and prosthetic arms. After that I have several finals and then I’m done. Hooray!

Happy Turkey Day Everyone!

2009-11-26T21:50:00.003-06:00

Yay thanksgiving! It includes many of my favorite things: Food, family, friends, and the absence of classes for an entire week. (Just kidding, I don’t hate school that much). While many of my friends at other schools only receive three days off of classes, my last day of classes was Friday, six days ago, and I won’t be back for another several days. I’ve had a pretty good past week. On Friday, a few of my roommates and friends and I decided to hang around for one more day before heading home. It was really nice to spend time together because typically we all have a lot of things going on and don’t have a lot of time to all be together. We ordered pizza, played old-school Nintendo, Trouble, and Twister, and had a dance party in our living room. Here’s a picture of Allie, me, and Kelsey.

On Saturday I headed to Omaha to take Joe home and to visit my friend Amanda. I had a good time there, and even got offered to go to my first ever Creighton Basketball game with Joe’s family, which was so much fun! I love watching sports, but I don’t seem to do it enough.

Then I returned home to Grand Island on Sunday evening. I worked day shifts at Perkins (a restaurant where I have served for several years during summers and holiday breaks) on Mon, Tues, Wed, and I will work tomorrow also to make a little extra cash. It’s really nice that they always seem to need extra help and will take me back whenever I am home. I’ve also been spending some time catching up with family and friends.

Today was a fun turkey day. My extended relatives live mainly in North Dakota so it is difficult to travel that far for just thanksgiving, so it is usually just our immediate family, but this year we hosted our friends the Hartman’s at our house. We had a great afternoon, joking and laughing a lot. Now I am preparing for Black Friday in my own special way, as it is the busiest day of the year for breakfast at Perkins as well. Wish me luck, that there won’t be any casualties in our restaurant as there was last years in the stores. I hope I survive the day.

Until later,
~Jaycie

2009-11-16T23:18:00.002-06:00

School, school, school. Busy, busy, busy. Papers, papers, papers. Lack of sleep, lack of…okay you get the picture. I’ve been pretty busy with school and writing papers lately, causing somewhat of a lack of sleep. But after Wednesday, I will have my big papers finished. Then I will just have group project work to do for two of my classes over my 9-day Thanksgiving break, and then finals, and then I’ll be done! Wohoo!

But enough of boring you with that schoolwork stuff. I’ve done a few other exciting things lately. I went on a Panera ‘dinner date’ last week with my friend Kelly. Yum, yum. There was also an unexpected K.C. visit from my former CLC leader Kevin who graduated last year. My group went out to lunch with him and caught up with each other. It was a great time! I also rented the movie Up and watched it this past weekend. It’s super cute and comical, i would recommend it! I also went to Joe’s Crab Shake for dinner on Saturday which was pretty fun. I had never been to one before. Also, I realized on Saturday evening that it was my half birthday-I couldn’t believe I almost forgot! For some reason or another, I always have been abnormally excited for my half birthdays, so I enjoyed the last hours to the fullest.

Other than that, it has been unusually warm lately, up until yesterday when the temperature suddenly dropped. I fear that it has dropped for good now and I don’t typically enjoy winter coldness. Oh well, as I was telling my roommate Annie on the way to class this morning: I feel as though I can’t be angry at winter since it waited so long to come. I think I might have to willingly accept it this year. I’ve got to throw in one last fall colors picture before its too late.

2009-11-10T00:30:00.003-06:00

Hidey Ho,

First of all, I just had to show you guys this picture of my cool gord while he is still thriving! We painted them a couple weeks ago after our APO meeting (the service group that I am involved in). I thought he turned out pretty cute considering my artistic skills are usually about at the level of your average 5-year-old.

I’ve been thinking recently about some of the cool opportunities I have been able to have by living in Kansas City, (wow, a big city!) Don’t get me wrong, looking back, I absolutely loved my experiences growing up in Grand Island (population approximately 45,000) and am very proud to be from there. Although I don’t know that I will end up living in a big city like Kansas City, I am very happy that I decided to break out of my shell and go to college here. I’m thinking I might end up in a city that’s more middle-of-the-road in size such as Omaha or Lincoln. Not that Kansas City is ridiculously large or a crazy city or anything. However, I think living here has definitely opened my eyes to some things that I may not have seen, thought, or realized if I had stayed nearby G.I. (yeah, we shorten our town’s name, we’re that cool.)

Anywho, sorry, I sort of when off on a tangent there. The point is that I’ve participated in a couple of cool opportunities this week, which caused me to realize how happy I am with my decision to try something new and come to K.C. for college. Last Thursday Rockhurst hosted World Cultures Day in the Rock Room, which is an annual event on campus in which different students and community members make posters/presentations/samples of food from various countries. The Spanish and French language departments do a great deal in organizing it, so France, Mexico, Spain and many other Hispanic countries are well represented. But there was also quite a few other countries such as China, the Philippians, Middle Eastern countries, and even the American Sign Language culture that were represented. For my Spanish class we were required to put together a small poster and prepare some food, and my group chose Denmark as our country. It was a fun day of sampling food and learning about other cultures.

This weekend I had an overload of CLC-ness, but of course it was a good thing! CLC stands for Christian Life Communities and is a small weekly faith-based sharing group that I am involved in. I attended the annual CLC retreat on Saturday from 4-10 at Rockhurst High School (what a nice school!). Each CLC group is also asked to participate in one service event and one social event per semester. On Sunday, the CLC that I lead went to Ronald McDonald house (visit http://www.rmhckc.org/ if you are curious what they are about) where we helped out with some odd jobs around the house for two hours. This charity is very well organized and helps out a great number of families every year, and it was nice to see such a well-run organization and to help out there.

The last totally awesome experience I had this week was just a few hours ago. A few friends and I were able to go to a pre-screening of the movie The Blind Side (coming to theatres for the rest of you normal people on Nov 20, wink wink) FOR FREE! A friend of ours in the business program here has been promoting this movie for the company she works for, and was giving out free flyers for screening passes. We drove to a theatre in Independence, MO (a KC suburb about 25 minutes away) to see it. One thing that was amusing, but understandable, was how serious they were about making sure that there was no recording devices entering the theatre and that no one even opened their camera phones during the movie. But the movie itself was AMAZING. I cannot believe it’s based on a true story. I would definitely recommend it for everyone to see!

Alright, you’ve probably had enough of my rambling by now so adios!
~Jaycie

2009-11-04T00:40:00.001-06:00

Hello once again,

I’ve been pretty busy lately with schoolwork. However, it's been nice that the busyness of tennis has died down quite a bit lately in our off-season. We have mainly just been lifting or running 4-5 days a week but for only about an hour each day. Last week I was unfortunately a little sick with a sore throat for a couple of days. Living on campus can make it nearly impossible to avoid illnesses, especially in the winter. Also, since Rockhurst is quite small we probably pass a good portion of all of the students every day between classes and in classrooms and the cafeteria. This year I have been a lot better with taking my vitamins (including C!) so I’m hoping that pays off but since I have already had this little sickness bout I’m not so sure if it will work.

I’ve been realizing lately that I feel old and nearly grown-up this year and that I am thinking more than I ever have about my life after these undergraduate years. It started to get a little scary after sophomore year because before then I knew that I could fairly easily still change my major or career path of Physical Therapy, but now it would almost be too late. Most of the time I am fairly positive that I have made the right choices, but once in awhile I second-guess this. It seems that I always think more about it around the time that I am scheduling classes for the next semester. Today, though, I had a pretty reassuring thought: Maybe I don’t just have one single exact path that I’m supposed to do with my life. Maybe God doesn’t have one certain plan for me, but instead, the path is of my choice, and I just need to make sure that I live my life (on whichever path) in His name and enjoy it to the fullest.

Last week I was working quite a bit on preparing my 10-minute presentation for my Spanish class. I went to the learning center (a pretty sweet resource on campus for help in any and all subjects) to practice with a Spanish tutor. It was good to run it through aloud for someone and she gave me some good tips and corrections on my grammar and other things. My topic was Juan Martin del Potro, a young Argentine tennis player who just won the US Open in September. As I researched for this, I enjoyed learning more about him as well as how to say a lot of tennis terms in Spanish. Sometimes I tend to get nervous, but I wasn’t too bad this time. And I know that I do learn a great deal when I have to practice for a presentation by saying things repeatedly in Spanish.

In other classroom news, my physics lab partner and I had to try to build a design around a raw egg so that it could be dropped from the second story and survive. Unfortunately our design (pictured here) did not succeed at this, but neither did any other group’s design in my lab. Ours was good in theory, but it unfortunately flipped onto its side in the air and didn’t land the way we had planned that it would.

2009-10-28T01:54:00.005-05:00

Greetings from Rockhurst Bloggerville,

Great news! (as my four-year old cousin loves to say) I took a road trip to Carbondale, Illinois this weekend with my parents to visit my Uncle Tom, Aunt Tina, and Cousins Lauren (age 4) and Matthew (age 2). My parents came down to KC on Thursday night and we headed out after my classes Friday for the 6 hour road trip. We had a great time hanging out with the relatives and going to the SIU-Carbondale Saluki football game, whom my uncle coaches defense for. They played great and won 27-8 and now are 6-1 for the season. We also had ton of fun with the kids. (Here's a picture of me and Matthew, who is also my Godson). Since my life most weeks almost completely revolves around 18-22 year olds (with a few teachers here and there) it’s always a nice change to see kids (or even pets!). My parents and I got a kick out of hearing “We’re going to beat the Penguins"(the other team’s mascot and “Diego was a bat"(from the Halloween episode of Dora the Explorer) and many other quirky things that the kids said throughout the two days we were there.

In other news, we had another intramural soccer game Monday night and actually won! It was a close game 3-2 but I think both teams had a lot of fun. I feel like we improved from our first game already. Other than that, schoolwork is starting to get pretty busy and I am beginning to get less sleep some nights (for example, tonight, its 2AM and I am still awake doing things) But, that’s often the case as the semesters gets closer to ending. Oh well….as my mother says…. I can sleep when I’m dead.

~Jaycie

2009-10-20T13:59:00.007-05:00

Hello all,

Well, it was another week at the salt mines. But a few exciting things did happen this week. The official list of the classes that are being offered next semester was posted online. One of my roommates, Annie, and I are both very big planners, and we get ridiculously excited when schedules come out. This time, Annie and I had heard the rumors that they were coming out within a day or two, so our excitement was building. We were both home when it happened and I coincidentally checked my email just minutes after they were posted. So I yelled to Annie in the other room and we both jumped onto our computers and started searching and planning. It was probably a pretty ridiculous spectacle. I think I know which classes I am going to take, and I meet with my advisor tomorrow to chat with her about it. I realized that at the end of this semester I will have 97 credits finished, and that is a great feeling.

As far as schoolwork goes, I have been trying to get started on some of my projects. I’m pretty excited about my Spanish presentation, where I will be talking for 10 minutes about an Argentine professional tennis player, Juan Martin del Potro, who just won the US Open in September. Also, my physics group decided on our topic for our presentation, which is nice to at least have that part down.

The only other exciting thing that happened this week was last night, when we had our first girls intramural soccer game. We unfortunately lost but it was still fun. Intramurals is pretty relaxed, so we hadn’t even practiced together or anything. We have two more games left next week so hopefully we can redeem ourselves. Here’s a picture of our team.

Peace,
~Jaycie

2009-10-12T22:18:00.006-05:00

Wow, where did fall break go? I could swear that I was only home about 24 hours instead of 5 whole days. The shorter breaks always seem to go by fast. Mine was extremely wonderful but I wish it had been longer. Instead of a boring paragraph, I decided I’d make a list of my Top Ten moments/aspects of break:

10) Going for one last pontoon ride at home before the weather becomes too cold.
9) Listening to my brothers go on and on ridiculously with their lumberjack jokes/plan of action.
8) Seeing the pretty fall colors on my drive to and fro-and having a companion for the drive which is not the ordinary for me.
7) Playing the game Wits and Wagers with the family on Saturday.
6) Watching/helping my grandpa learn to text…I’m impressed!
5) The Huskers coming back in the forth quarter to beat Mizzou. (I now own the bragging rights on campus against all of my Mizzou friends for an entire year!)
4) Sleeping 9 or 10 hours every night in my full-size bed in my dark, quiet bedroom and not having to set an alarm most mornings.
5) Spending time with Amanda, Hannah, and Mollie, my friends back home. (Here is a picture of Amanda, Mollie, and me)
2) Being able to see all my family: my brothers, parents, and a weekend visit from North Dakota from the grandparents.
1) Going bike riding and running by my house with my music….oh so relaxing.

A couple of the not-so-fun parts of the break were waking up to two inches of SNOW and a sudden temperature drop on Friday (see pic) and doing quite a few hours of homework (but at least I feel good that I got started on some of it).

And now I am back on campus, in the reality of schoolwork again. After nearly a week without classes, starting up again can be painful. I had been thinking that my classes this semester weren’t going to be too time-consuming, but now I’m definitely taking back that thought. Today I realized that I have a big project/paper/presentation for nearly every class (5 in total) and that they are all due sometime in October or November. And big projects can be the worst. It’s tough to find larger chunks of time to get started on them, and even if the time is there, sometimes the motivation is not there. However, I know that I will somehow get them done eventually as I always do, so that’s a nice thought. But my brain just isn’t ready to handle all of this on the Monday after fall break.

Peace and Blessings,
~Jaycie

2009-10-05T21:39:00.003-05:00

Whew….I can see the finish line for fall break. I am one class and one tennis practice away from it, and boy am I ready. Tomorrow around dinner time I will be headed home to G.I! This week of classes wasn’t horribly torturous (although not exactly easy peasy lemon squeasy either), but I’m just ready to have a little break, mainly to go home and change up the scenery a bit. Usually I am ready for break from the schoolwork standpoint, but this time I am more ready to just do something different. Although I do love Rockhurst and how small the campus is (we’re talking a maximum of a 5 minute walk to get anywhere), after almost 5 semesters here it can start to be almost too familiar. I’m someone who actually gets bored of routine and likes to change things up one in awhile.

I’m excited because I am making plans to try and meet up with most of my friends back home…yay! Its been almost 2 months since I have seen them. Also, my grandparents from North Dakota have picked this weekend to come visit Grand Island, so I will get to see them as well. I only see them a couple times a year so what great timing this is! Unfortunately, my other plans for break include getting started on some big projects for three of my classes: A Christianity paper, a 10 minute speech in Spanish, and research for a Psychology experiment and paper. Hopefully I can motivate myself to get some of that done…..yikes….wish me luck.

Yesterday I looked out my window and noticed this awesome tree that is in the process of changing colors. The colors are my favorite part of fall (about the only part I like). I don’t mind fall weather, except for the fact that it reminds me of the cold, snowy weather that is to come, which I don’t want to think about. I’m not a big fan of this whole winter thing that happens every year, I could do without it. But, the fall colors are so wonderful. My favorite scene is to drive along 55th street from Troost towards State Line during the fall because its full of big beautiful colorful trees and the houses are also gorgeous in that area.
Well, that’s all for now! Talk to you again soon.

Later gators,
~Jaycie

2009-09-28T23:53:00.007-05:00

Hello again blog readers,

Wow, I was finally on campus for an entire weekend without any tennis traveling! I didn’t know what to do with myself! Actually that’s not really true; I stayed pretty busy but had a completely awesome weekend. On Friday I attended a ‘toga party’ dance that was put on by one of the fraternities on campus. Each frat is allowed one night per semester to have an official organized event like this. We were bused to a venue where we danced the night away in our ridiculous togas that we attempted to fashion from bed-sheets or pieces of material. Here is a picture of me and my roommates Kelsey, Greta, and Annie in our outfits.
Then on Saturday morning Annie and I and many others volunteered for a few hours at a large food pantry warehouse called Harvesters. This was through the co-ed service fraternity called APO, a group I’m involved with on campus. It’s always much more fun to do service with friends, and we had a pretty good time together while also knowing we were helping contribute to the community.
Saturday night was our homecoming dance which was a fabulous time! Since Rockhurst has a pretty small population of students, we always have a good turn-out (percentage-wise) for homecoming. Students know that they will run into almost all of their friends if they attend, so it’s almost a guaranteed good time. Before the dance, Joe took me out to eat at a delicious Italian restaurant called Brio which is located in Country Club Plaza (a nice place for walking, shopping, browsing, and eating that is only about 5 minutes from campus). Unfortunately, the Plaza Art Fair was going on at the same time-which made driving and parking a very slow and painful nightmare in that area. We certainly learned our lesson to avoid driving there during the art fair. I've included a picture of us before the dance.
On Sunday, a friend of mine invited a bunch of us to celebrate her birthday by going out to dinner at T-Rex Cafe at the Legends, a shopping center just east of the city. This restaurant is seemed to be mainly meant for kids, but can be thoroughly enjoyed by adults as well….and my friend is most definitely a kid at heart (aren’t we all). I know that I certainly got a kick out of how everything on the menu had a cute dino-themed name!
In other news, school is going pretty well but I’m highly looking forward to our 5 day fall break that is coming up in just a week….hooray. Well, I’m off to print of a Physics lab report and hit the sack.

Peace and Blessings,
~Jaycie

So Long Sweet Summer

2009-09-21T19:01:00.004-05:00

Buenos días,

Hello to all again. I realized tomorrow is the first day of Autumn so I thought I would nerd-ily add that into this week’s title-but also, if you haven’t heard that song by Dashboard Confessionals, go check it out! Today did feel like the summer is ending as it has been dreary and raining all day.

But before we jump into talking about today, lets back up to this past week. School is starting to pick up quite a bit; I was cramming for tests in each of my Psychology classes last week. I received one test back today and did well, so let’s hope the other follows suit when I get it back this week.

On Thursday, the girls tennis team left for our Regionals in Indianapolis, which was an eight hour drive each way (yikes!). But the drives went pretty fast because I slept and did homework on the way there, and on the way back we had lots of entertaining conversations. Typically we travel with about 15 people and two or three coaches between both the girls and guys teams, but this weekend was much smaller-just five girls and Coach Carolina. It was nice for a change to have a smaller group (no smelly tennis boys and more room in the van to spread out to name a few).
Here's a picture of our team when we went out to eat at Bucca di Beppo, a family style Italian restaurant, on Friday night. Our very peppy waiter, who was jam packed with oodles of information (he could have given the world wide web a run for it’s money) told us that it was the third largest Bucca in the nation. After dinner we walked around downtown for just a bit. Here is a picture of a really interesting-looking war memorial that was the center of their town square.

Lately as I have been thinking some about how my college days are halfway finished, I'm trying to enjoy every day and be grateful for all the experiences of college life and also of tennis. Besides the opportunity to play a sport I truly enjoy, I’ve realized that tennis has allowed me some pretty cool opportunities to see different places. My family, though wonderful, has been pretty lacking in the vacationing area of life thus far. Through tennis I have visited multiple new states including Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, and Ohio. Also, I saw my first American beach in South Carolina when we traveled to Hilton Head as a team during spring break last March. I really enjoy seeing big cities that I've never been to before, and also enjoy seeing how the landscape outside changes in different areas of the states.

However, speaking of family vacations, I received some totally completely amazingly awesome news a few days ago. My family has booked a vacation to Hawaii at the beginning of January!!!! Most of you cannot completely understand the magnitude of this, but trust me when I say it is an epic event in Schmidt family history, considering that our vacations are typically to North Dakota where my parents are originally from (Don’t get me wrong, I love ND, but still…..) Aloha Hawaii, here I come!

For those of you who are plum sick of me talking about tennis each blog, today is your lucky day! This was our last meet of the short fall season. For the rest of the semester we will just be practicing and conditioning, so I doubt I will have as much to talk about in the area of tennis. Although traveling can be fun, it’s also nice to know that I will not be missing classes anymore this semester and will be here on the weekends. This is just in time, because the homecoming dance is this coming Saturday and I’m extremely excited for it!!

Catch you later,
~Jaycie

2009-09-14T21:56:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone,

I’ve had another pretty good but busy week. Tennis has been occupying a lot of my time, but it will only be this way for one more week. We were in Wichita from Thursday-Saturday for a tournament. It was a pretty good tournament overall for most of the girls team. It consisted of quite the range of schools, from DI to DII to NAIA. Next weekend we go to Indianapolis, but then we are done with our short fall season and will be just practicing for most of the rest of the semester. I have been missing 1-2 days of classes per week but my teachers have all been really good about working with me in making up any quizzes or missed work.
Another exciting thing that has been going on is my CLC groups. CLC stands for Christian Life Community, a small faith sharing group that meets for just one hour a week. I’ve been a part of one since my freshman year which now only has just 4 of us because we’ve lost a few members to moving away or graduating, but we are very comfortable and close to each other. We’ve had a couple meetings and I’m very excited to see how we will grow together this year. Some other exciting news is that I was chosen to be a leader this year! The group I am leading consists of 7 juniors and seniors. We had our first session last week and I’m really excited about this group. I already knew some of my members decently well and others only a little. But I’m very excited to get to lead this awesome group every week.

Other than school, homework, tennis, and CLC I haven’t been up to all that much else. Today though, my boyfriend Joe took me out to eat at La Bodega, a Spanish tapas restaurant. (Here’s a pic of us) We went there once last year to celebrate his birthday after we had heard about it from our Spanish teacher who was from Spain. It was so good that we were in the mood to go there again this year. A tapa is simply just a smaller portion (very common in Spain) and we chose 4 different ones to share between us. The restaurant is only about 10 minutes north of Rockhurst and was oh so delicious! Well, once again, thanks for reading and I will check in again next week!

~Jaycie

What She’s Doing Now

2009-09-07T15:55:00.002-05:00

Hello once again,

Well, the country music side of me just had to throw in a Garth Brooks song this week for my title, sorry to all of you country-haters out there. So....what am I doing now? Well, a lot of things as usual.

Last week, classes started to pick up a little, but it was pretty good. One exciting point of the week was for Spanish; everyone in my class is required to schedule 15 minutes once a week outside of class to speak with a higher-level student in the Learning Center. I had my first session last Wednesday and it was actually a lot of fun. Now that I am finally able to have decent conversations (or at least attempt to do so) I am really seeing all my work paying off. I’m excited because I know that these 15 minutes a week will actually help a great deal. Another class that was fun last week was my Experimental Methods class because we finished designing our survey. Now my group will give out the surveys and in the next couple classes we will analyze our data and write a report. I’m very interested to see what the results will be.

This week we had our first tennis tournament of the fall when we traveled to Washburn University in Topeka on Friday and Saturday. It was a pretty good weekend; the girls team especially had some good results. Our actual season is in the spring but we will have a small fall season over the next few weeks and then we will mainly just be practicing for the rest of this semester.

School and tennis has kept me pretty busy lately but I have found some time to hang out with my roommates and my boyfriend Joe as well. This weekend was pretty quiet because a lot of people went home for Labor Day, but I still had two roommates home as well as the fact that I was pretty busy with tennis. Another fun thing I have really enjoyed so far this year is cooking for myself. I haven’t made anything too fancy or time consuming, but I have made some things such as chicken pasta, a stir fry, taco meat, banana muffins, hamburgers (on an awesome little George Foreman that my brother handed down to me!), and today I made my mom’s famous delicious caramel rolls (Mom, you should be proud, they actually turned out!)

After enjoying the caramel rolls this morning, my roommates and I decided to try out this miniature ping-pong set that I bought for a dollar or two awhile back. (We’ll try anything to distract us from starting homework.) It was fun and we got pretty involved and even taped some lines on the table. This should keep us entertained for awhile at least. Well, that’s about all that I’ve been doing…I’ll check in again next week!

Blessings,
~Jaycie

Be My Escape

2009-08-31T22:39:00.009-05:00

Hello again,

This week’s title, from a Reliant K song, is due to the fact that I was able to escape for the weekend, even though I wasn’t planning to do so. On Wednesday night I received a phone call from Cindy in Campus Ministry asking if I would be able to be a leader this year on the annual Freshman Retreat. Typically sophomores lead and I had done so last year, but they needed a few extra leaders since over 85 freshmen were signed up and this retreat is normally has 60-70. Luckily I had both Saturday and Sunday off from tennis practices this weekend, so I was able to say yes to Cindy. I was a little stressed and somewhat nervous on Thursday, but after going over the agenda for the weekend everything was coming back to me from last year and I was comfortable to lead again.

Frosh Get-a-Way was a great time for my third year! My small group of 7 students were a lot of fun and impressed me a ton on Saturday when we did the low ropes course. All of the freshmen who I talked to there were awesome and I am excited to have them at Rockhurst. I also got to know a few of the sophomore leaders better too. I enjoyed having some time to pray and think about my hopes and goals for this year in the beautiful outdoor chapel that this Retreat Center (Tall Oaks in Kansas) has. All in all, it was a fun but also a tiring weekend. Luckily we got back around 1pm on Sunday so I was able to take a nap to get refreshed.

School has been pretty good so far; I haven’t had a terrifying amount of homework yet. I had my first guitar lesson on Friday and I got to show off my newly bought guitar to my teacher. I had been playing with a pretty old (and only about ¾ size) guitar all of last year so I’m very excited to have a better instrument to work with now. I’m also excited about one of my psychology classes because we are starting to design an experiment this week and I’m interested in what the results will be.

I unfortunately had to take most of last week off from tennis due to a pull in my quad muscle. Luckily, it was a small pull and today I was fully back in action and (knock on wood) the quad felt fine. I had only practiced about twice before I pulled it and it was frustrating because I really wanted to be out there on the courts hitting with everyone else. I realized that it seems to take up more time in my day to be an injured athlete than a healthy one with all the trainer visits, rehab, icing, and still coming to practices and conditioning to jog and stretch (which as about all I could do). I’m very happy to be back yippee!

Until next time,
~Jaycie

Let's Get It Started

2009-08-25T18:39:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone!

I’m stealing this title from the Black Eyed Peas song because this week everything got started. Wednesday I had my first day of classes. It seems like they will be pretty good. I’m taking two Psychology classes, Advanced Spanish 1, Christianity 2 (required for our core curriculum), Physics 1 (required for entrance into Physical Therapy school), and one credit of guitar lessons (to finish off my 3 required music, art, or theatre credits). It should be a pretty good semester; I have some really good teachers. After you are here a few semesters, you know to ask around and find out which teachers are good. I feel as thought I will learn a lot but still enjoy all of my classes for the most part.

But enough about boring schoolwork, I’ve been busy doing lots of other things too. It’s nice to have some more free time at the beginning of the semester before the homework really starts to pile up. On Saturday afternoon I went over to the house of some of my friends to hang out. They had a basketball court in the backyard which we had some fun with, and one of their friends and his brother played some songs from their band. It’s nice to finally be out of the dorms and have space to all hang out.

I am also on the tennis team here at Rockhurst, and that got started this week as well. I enjoy tennis a great deal so it’s a good feeling for me to come back and play on the six wonderful courts that we have right on campus. We always return from summers and breaks with added conditioning which is a good way to get into shape, although our muscles are usually mad at us for the first week or so. We also had a team dinner at my coach’s house on Sunday. It’s always fun to get together outside of practice. We spend so much time together during the season traveling and such that we have a lot of inside jokes. I’m also excited about our three new girls on the team this year; they seem very nice and will be good additions.

Well I’m off to get a bit of homework done before I go to $3 movie night on the plaza, courtesy of our wonderful Student Activities Board.

Adios amigos,
~Jaycie

Back to Good

2009-08-17T21:20:00.003-05:00

Like the Matchbox 20 song goes, I’m Back to Good again. Not that being home this summer wasn’t good as well. It’s always good to return, whether it’s returning home after being at school for awhile or returning to Rockhurst again after a break. I’m excited to start my junior year after a busy but enjoyable summer. I worked quite a bit between my two part time waitressing jobs and a few hours a week of teaching tennis lessons to kids in my hometown. I also took a college class, played in a few tennis tournaments, and of course I found time to spend with my best friends back home.

Move-in day was Saturday and it’s great to be back on campus again. Every August it seems as though I have flashbacks of my freshman experience. Last year I was an Orientation Leader so I got to interact a lot with the new freshmen during the first week. Now that I am an old lady on campus, this year I get to watch the whole process from afar. The new freshmen stick out pretty easily right away to the older students, but not in a bad way. Just in a cute, fun, “oh look at them remember when we were like that” sort of way. But Rockhurst is a very welcoming place filled with a lot of caring, friendly, nice people so it doesn’t take long for them to feel at home and blend in. It seems like just yesterday that I came here as an excited, nervous, eager, and somewhat naïve freshman. But at the same time, it also seems like ages and ages ago when I think about how much I have grown as a person and matured since coming to college.

Yesterday, A couple of my roommates and I participated in the annual Finucane Service project that is done by all freshmen as part of orientation, as well as some older students, faculty, and people from the wider Rockhurst community. So I did get to meet some of the new freshmen this way. Each orientation group goes out to a different community organization to help in many different ways from cleaning, painting, making blankets for children, and so much more. My group stayed close to home and helped a non-profit organization called Tulips on Troost ( http://www.troostavenue.com/ ). The objective is to try to make Troost, the street that runs along the west side of campus, more beautiful one flower at a time. We also talked about how doing one small thing can make a bigger difference that you might imagine.

Right now all of us students are settling in and enjoying sweet reunions with the friends that we haven’t seen in three months. We have a few days to get organized and relax and then classes will begin Wednesday. After two years of living in dorms, I’m graduating to a townhouse this year. I am living in one of the larger townhouses, which has three bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs, and a kitchen, half bathroom, dining room, and large living room downstairs. This means five girls and myself together in one house! Mind you, five of the nicest girls I know so it’s going to be a spectacular year. I’m very excited to have more space finally and to be able to make my own food. Here’s to a great year!

Thanks for reading,

~Jaycie