5 Things

I was just tagged by Heather from one of my favorite blogs, From Here to There, for a 5 Things challenge. I was reading her post and was extremely surprised and excited to see my self tagged. Hopefully this will also help you to get to know me better.

5 Things I have a passion for:

-My family and friends

-Alpha Chi Omega

-Domestic Violence Awareness-Science-Traveling

5 Things I'd like to do before I die:

-Travel to every continent-Finish a half marathon-Be able to make a significant contribution to a charity that is important to me

-Have a family of my own

-Be the keynote speaker at a science meeting

5 Reads I love:

-Matched Triology by Allie Condie-The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

-Harry Potter (I have only read the first two, but I am obsessed) by J.K. Rowling

-Wednesday Letters by Jason F. Wright

-Stephanie Plum Series by Janet Evanovich

5 Favorite Movies:

-Step Brothers

-The Intouchables-Mean Girls-Beauty and the Beast

-The Secret Window

5 Places I want to Travel:

-Germany-Japan-Every state-Somewhere in South America

-Australia

5 3 Blog Friends I Tag:

Natalie @ At Home With The Hinkleys

Heather @ Soliloquies and Sass

Callie @ First Comes Love

Happy Thursday!  I will be up in the mountains at a retreat/orientation/conference for my department without any cell phone service and limited WiFi.  Hopefully I can make some new friends!

Weekly Wishes

I had a great weekend, but I am not really in the mood to do a weekend recap today.  So instead, I have decided to participate in a weekly wishes link-up over at the Nectar Collective.  I think this a great way to give myself some short term goals for the week.

-Make new friends.  I know this may sound dumb, but I have lived in Fort Collins for over a month, and I haven't made any new friends, unless you count the janitors at work.  But still, I do not really hang out with anybody on the weekends so I need to make more of a point to make some new friends.  I have a retreat/orientation for my department this weekend so hopefully I can make some friends there.

-Write my book club posts for Life of Pi and The Help.  I have these posts half written, but I have yet to sit down and finish them.

-Enjoy the beauty of nature.  This past weekend, Noah and I camped stayed in a cabin in Poudre Canyon, and all weekend I was amazed by the beauty of nature surrounding me.  I don't know if there will ever be a day when I am not in awe of these mountains.  The mountains are beautiful but so are all the plants and creatures around me.  I just need to be more aware.

At Lake Agnes, I am still in awe of how breathtaking it was.

Do you have any wishes for this week?

Packers, Sombreros, and Lil Wayne

Today is the first Green Bay Packers game of the year!  I am so, so, so excited.  I don't even care that it is preseason, it is a Packer game.  Tonight, you will find me sitting in a bar cheering on my green and gold!

Sadly, I cannot find any pictures of me in my Packer's gear.  I just got a new computer so they must be somewhere on the old one!  The good news, I just got a Green Bay Packers Mexican pullover shawl thing (great description I know).  It looks like the one below except it is green and gold with a huge Packer's logo on it.

It would go great with my sombrero, but I am currently missing my sombrero.  So if you have one that you would like to donate to me, I would love you forever.

To put you in the mood for the game, I bring you Green and Yellow by the one and only, Lil Wayne!



If you already weren't a Packers fan, I hope that Lil Wayne has convinced you to convert! I mean he even went on ESPN to talk about it.



I have no idea how I manged to talk about the Green Bay Packers, sombreros, and Lil Wayne in the same post.  My only explanation is that it is Friday! Linking up with Whitney for #backthatazzup and Sarah for Fan Friday.

Greek is Greek, Lyre Love

I have briefly touched on it before when I talked about my support system, but I was/am in sorority, Alpha Chi Omega to be exact.  Without Alpha Chi Omega, my collegiate life would have been completely and totally different.

I love each and everyone of my sisters, and if needed, I would stop writing this post and fly across the country to help them, and I know that they would do the same for me.  But today, I don't want to focus on my relationship with my sisters or even  Alpha Chi, but instead I want to talk about what it is like to be in sorority and why I encourage every person I meet to at least go through recruitment and to do so with an open mind.

My pledge class graduating.

When somebody asks me what being in a sorority is like, the best way I can explain it is that it is like having over 100 of your biggest fans who will support you no matter what you do.  My best example of this was that I was giving a brief seminar on my undergraduate research.  It wasn't even that interesting to most biology or chemistry majors, but when it was my time for my talk about 40 girls piled into the room, both science and non-science majors alike.  I doubt more than 5 of them knew what the hell I was talking about, but they showed up because they cared about me and wanted to support me!

My sorority family, The Octopus Family

Seriously, who doesn't want a support system of over 100 people?  So for anybody thinking about joining a sorority, I encourage you to go through recruitment with an open mind.  It is hard not to follow along with the stereotypes or what your friends are doing, but if you listen to your heart then you will end up in the right place and have the experience of a lifetime.

Personal space did not exist.

One of my good friends throughout college, lived near me in the dorms freshman year.  We had made a deal that we would not talk about what houses we had picked or what house we had preferenced until after the decision was made.  We ended up going to the same houses on pref night, and we both ended up preffing Alpha Chi as number one, but we the decision desperately.  It was so wonderful on bid day when we found out that we had both been given a bid at Alpha Chi.  If we hadn't been given a bid at the same house, we would probably have remained friends, but the sisterhood definitely strengthend our friendship.

So happy on bid day!

I love Alpha Chi Omega with all of my heart, and I would love to go back and repeat my collegiate years as an Alpha Chi.



I am joining the Greek is Greek link-up today!

Weekend in Denver

So Noah is in town again which means I have somebody to do fun things with!  This weekend we decided to head down to Denver for a few nights.  Neither of us had spent any time in Denver before so we decided to play it by ear and decide things on a whim!

I packed all of this for two days, but of course I only wore three things!

We stopped at the Outlet Mall on our way there on Friday night so we got there pretty late.  We walked down 16th Street and went to Maggiano's for a quick dinner.  I got a Bellini Swirl to drink and loved it!

On Saturday, we checked out the hotel restaurant's buffet.  I was pretty impressed, but I typically am pretty impressed with large amounts of food.  I also got my favorite drink in the world, a bloody mary!  Seriously, I cannot get enough of these.  I could drink them day and night.

Obviously, I needed time to digest after the copious amount of food we ate so I took a little rest and we headed to the Denver Botanical Gardens.  I could literally spend days here.  I also love being a tourist and taking pictures, and I took over 230 pictures of plants, just plants not people.  I hope that's not too weird.

Saturday night was kind of a wash.  We had big plans to go listen to live music outside and watch a Broncos live scrimmage, but the rain ruined our plans.  But we ended up sitting in a hot tub on the terrace in the rain, and it was absolutely wonderful.  Because of the rain, we ate dinner at the hotel (again).  There was supposed to be a prime rib buffet, but when we got up to the buffet it was all gone.  They ended up just letting us eat for free!  Otherwise, it would have been about $30 a person!

Sunday was spent exploring downtown Denver and drinking more bloody marys, but I did not take a single picture.  I guess those flowers really tired out my picture taking.  I ended the weekend reading Life of Pi. I am struggling to get into it but the more I read, the more I like it.  Have you read it before?  Did you like it?

Once again, linking up with Sami for weekend shenanigans!