imarielle626

Wow Meg, that seems like a busy schedule!  I'm sure you'll be able to balance once you get into the grove of things.  good luck

Mel, good luck too!  I hope your class treats you well!

imarielle626

Mel, that's so exciting!  What does the dress look like?

imarielle626

Welcome back Barb.  It's nice to see you around again!

and I agree...it does seems like I'm always in school but then again I was not in school for 9 months last year so it evens out

imarielle626

Sounds like everyone is starting the school year off well!

Wow Mel, less than 2 months!  The date is approaching fast!

So this weekend is one of the most exciting weekends at my school!  We are playing my hometown's school in football tonight.  They only play each other once every 7 years and my school hasn't won since 1985 (though we are favored to win tonight)!  The rivalry is huge and so much fun!  I've already seen a bunch of my friends from home who have driven up for this game.  Last night my friends and I were just sitting at Ben and Jerry's ice cream shop (it is located between a major local bar and some other smaller bar) just watching the interaction between the two fan groups.

imarielle626

No hurricane running over here (but we did run over the Hurricanes...as in UofMiami it was a big win for the Gators!).  From what I hear Ike supposed to hit Cuba so Florida probably won't get the 'cane but S.Fla might get some bad weather.  The weather has actually been pretty nice up here in North Central Florida.  

Well, I gotta run off to lunch now but its nice to see everyone back (even if it is just short visits due to dial up frustration )

imarielle626

I didn't know you had a masters i biochem.  As of now I'm majoring in biochem, but im still a few semesters away from taking the classes for the major.  still working on prerequisites.

So i just found out today that yesterday two of the actors from Greek (Cappie and Rebecca Logan) were at my university!  I can't believe I missed that!  The chances of me actually getting to see them would have been slim, but it would have been fun to try!

imarielle626

Meg what's your meez doing?  i looks like she is doing aerobics in the kitchen

imarielle626

those cookies do look good!  Well it seems like everyone is going to be in NYC this weekend.  I wish I could be there too!  But I am going to the beach this weekend (the closet one is about 2 hours away).  I haven't been to the beach since I was in Israel so I'm excited.  I'm also going to a social tonight for my sorority.  The theme is Disco Inferno.  I love dressing up and I'm really looking forward to having some fun in the middle of all my studies.  It's that time of year that all my classes are starting to give first exams and I'm on like study overload lol.  This week has been so long already and it is onlly wednesday!

imarielle626

The longest day of my life (well not really, but it felt like that today) is officially over!  I had 2 of my hardest exams today so have been practically living at the library lol  It's nice to be back and now I have shows to catch up on =)

Just to comment on the whole length of driving thing:  Being from South Florida where it is an 11 hour drive just to cross the state boarder, I've always had a different sense of driving distance than most of my friends who live more in the New England area.  I envied the people who could go for a two hour car ride and up in a different state!  Then I lived in Israel where to drive the entire length takes about 10-12 hours and depending on where you are located driving the width of the country takes about 1.5-4 hours.  I could hop on a bus for a few hours (or less) and go from beach to desert to mountains to forest, etc.  Personally I prefer the small country because I'd much rather take a bus than a plane.  The site out the window are just so much nicer on a bus than a plane!  And I'd take the bus over driving far distances because I hate not knowing where I'm going and not being familiar when driving.  I do however love my GPS that tells me exactly when and where to turn

imarielle626

sometimes it's not that american's don't know a lot (though that can often be the case) it's just sometimes easy to forget.  I remember a couple of my american friends wishing our british friends a happy july 4th without even realizing it then appologizing afterwards.  When you grow up somewhere where certain holidays are just there and you don't really think about the meaning behind it you forget.  After celebrating Israel's Independence Day in Israel and being able to contrast two different countries celebration of independence I can now see how overlooked the 4th of July is as an American holiday.  It's just an excuse to get together with you family have a BBQ and watch fireworks.  People don't really celebrate it as a time of independence, where as in Israel the entire country is spirited and patriotic and is in a time of joy and celebration.  The 4th of July does not make me feel proud to be an American, but celebrating Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) in Israel make me proud to be able to call Israel my home (even if i had only lived there for 7 months at the time).

Today in my Judaism class we were studying rituals.  In America, many rituals of certain holidays are lost to fact that many holidays are more about the party and the celebration than the actual meaning of the holiday and I guess July 4th is a perfect example of that.

imarielle626

the spelling differences When I was doing my training for volunteering on the ambulances in Israel, my class was a mix of americans, brits, and australians.  I don't remember what word it was but there was a big heated debate on the spelling.  Someone ended up looking it up online and it turned out we were all right because of the american vs. british way to spell the word.  Of course the Brits and Australians claimed that their way was more correct because the Americans stole and changed their language

I think it is really interesting to learn about other cultures and religions holidays.  For a couple years back when I was younger we used to invite one of our non-Jewish family friends over for Chanukkah and teach them to play dreidel and about the holiday and feed them latkes (potato pancakes) such and they would invite us over for Christmas and we would get to help decorate the tree and learn about some of their traditions.  It was always fun!

imarielle626

the pronunciation is always funny!  I spent so much time around Brits last year on my program that I kinda got used to it, but every now and again there would be a new word that is pronounced differently that comes up in conversation and we always have those stupid little fights about which is the right way to say the word the big one was TO-MAY-TO vs. TO-MAH-TO There was also the problem with the same words meaning different things in the UK and the US and just using different words to mean the same things.  For example a jumper in the UK is just a sweatshirt whereas a jumper in the US is a kind of dress and lift (UK)=elevator (US), flat (UK)=apartment (US), etc.

imarielle626

Hi all!
Wow I just realized it's been a while since I've been on and even longer since I've posted.  School and sorority have sort or been taking of my life so I haven't had much time for anything else!  It seems my exams come in waves so i'll have 3 exams one week then a few weeks without exams then another week with 2-3 exams, etc.  This past week was a 3 exam week, but it was nice to get it all over with because we have Homecoming this next week and I'm gald I don't have any exams to worry about during homecoming week!

Mel, best wishes to you on your wedding!  It sure has come around fast!

imarielle626

I finally had a little time to catch up this weekend YAY!  I've all caught up on shows now and working my way on catching up around the forum.  Every time I think I'm going to have an easier week, something seems to come up that throws me right back to being busy!  But I like being busy...it's less boring lol  I can honestly say I ALWAYS have something to do

My Halloween was not too exciting.  I spent the whole week before shopping and helping get our sorority house ready for this event we do the day before Halloween where kids from the area come trick or treating to all the houses on the row and we play games with them and stuff.    It was fun, but by the time Halloween actually came around I was all Halloweened out lol.  Instead I went and early voted for the US presidential election (my first time voting YAY) then I went to see High School Musical 3 with a bunch of my friends.  It actually was actually really cute and they did a pretty okay job with the movie, though I sometimes can't stand Zac Efron's acting skills (or lack there of lol)

imarielle626

I hope there is not another "florida fiasco" as you put it!  That is why everyone here is so crazy about voting!  and apparently it is the county i now live in alone that would have changed florida's vote if more people had voted which would have most likely changed the election.  Who knew a small little college town could have so much power? haha  I'll be glad when the election is over too!  I'm tired of getting stalked on campus and asked if I've voted yet!  It's just annoying now!  I just hope the election goes well!

imarielle626

ugh!  this election has me so anxious right now!  i just can't wait for it to be over!  I've even resorted to surfing my school's gossip website to keep me distracted from refreshing the election results page every 5 seconds lol

imarielle626

I agree with you on that!  I am curious to see what Obama will do as president now.  Bush did not leave the country in the best of places so if done right (not that i know the right way lol) Obama can really impact the country for the better.  I just hope his lack of experience isn't going to hurt him!  But he is so much better than the alternative!!!  If McCain would have won, I don't think I would have been able to stick around long enough to see how he affects the US lol.  I'm glad I don't have to pick up and move out of the country so soon

imarielle626

Welcome back!  Glad the wedding went well!  Sounds like you had a good time in NY.  It's such a fun city!  So much to do!

random fact of the day:  I just learned the Greek alphabet so now I can sing the alphabet in 3 languages (it would be 4 but my spanish teacher never taught us the alphabet so i still don't know all the letters lol)

imarielle626

yeah theres a gossip website for my school...actaully more of a forum and many schools are on the forums.  The website is juicycampus.com if you wanted to take a look and see if there is some gossip from your school.  We had one in high school too actually but it got shut down because people were taking advantage of it and threatening people and posting anti-semetic remarks and such.  

Mel, those pictures are beautiful!  I'm glad the little disasters weren't too bad and all fixable!  I mean there is no such thing a s a big event that doesn't have a few mishaps!

In other news (and the reason for my short disapperance) I was initiated into my sorority over the weekend so I am now officially a sister.  It's exciting!  We also weren't allowed to wear our letters until we got initiated so today around campus we were all wearing pretty much the exact same outfit becuase we all just wanted to show off our letters.   it was funny when we all showed up for lunch wearing the same thing

imarielle626

It's cold here too...well Florida cold lol I love it!  It can be as cold as the 20s or 30s in the mornings and as warm as the 60s 70s or even on a warmer day 80s in the afternoons.  I usually have to come back and change mulitple times in a day lol but i love this weather!

For those who celebrate American Thanksgiving, HAPPY THANKSGIVING (i know its a little early, but i have a research paper to get done before i leave for break so i don't know if i'll be back before then).