Hi Everyone! I hope you all are well. I am currently sitting with my friends on the couch watching the Bachelor. I have never even heard of the show, but we have nothing else to do so I guess we decided to watch it. I arrived at Hope last night and have been hanging out with friends since I have been here. I loved spending time at home over break, but I am happy to be back. My friends Marga and Matthias came to visit me during break. I loved showing them around Springfield. We ate out dinner with my friends, made buckeyes, toured Springfield, hung out with my friends from high school, and spent time with my family. We also walked around Washington park and explored the woods next to my house. It was fun spending time with them outside of our normal college enviorment.

The weather was perfect when they were here. We played soccer outside in shirts and shorts. The weather was crazy nice over break, it did not feel like winter at all. I hope it continues to stay nice outside. However, Holland is already much colder than Springfield. Oh well, I am very happy to be back and am ready for a new semester!

Our delicious buckeyes

The capital

skillet cookies from Mario’s

Matthias and Marga with my dog Nestle

 

 

Christmas Break! You have to love it, especially with nearly a month off from Hope College. Although I love the busy rhythm of the semester, a month at home is pretty hard to grumble about. Amidst preparations for Christmas and buying presents to fill stockings, I utilized my time at home to do a few job shadow in various medical environments.

Two years ago, we had family friend, Emily, stay with us as she interned at Traverse City’s own Munson Medical Center. 

My sister, Lindsey, Emily, and I in 2010

Emily enjoyed her time so much in TC, she applied for residency here and was accepted!What does that entail, you ask? For the year, Emily is a Family Practice Resident. She rotates around different areas of Munson Medical by day and in the afternoon she works at Munson’s Family Clinic, run by residents looking to use their medical knowledge. This helps her gain clinic experience and builds her base of family care patients from Traverse City. I asked if I could tag along, and boy, was I in for a lot of learning!

Dr. Margaret Moen’s office. I was greeted graciously and treated exceptionally all day by the wonderful secretaries and the awesome nurse practitioner. Dr. Moen is a sleep neurologist that specializes in…well….sleep! Patients come in when they have trouble sleeping, sleep too often (sombulence), or pop in and out of sleep. Mostly. Dr. Moen follows the usage of patients and their CPAP machines, a pressurized breathing system that allows patients to keep their airways open and avoid sleep apnea and snoring.

 

How did I afford these opportunities?? I ASKED.

My dad always says that the answer to an unasked question is always NO. He’s so right! Looking to pursue medicine, I am headed in to the neurology specialty, with the plans of becoming a neurosurgeon. But I’d love to be 100% positive that this is the field I’d like to go in. The answer? Shadow all medical professions and make a list of pros and cons. I called around back in October to see where I could shadow! Dr. Moen was very gracious in letting me hang out in her office all day and it was AWESOME of Emily to let me follow her around. Next week, I’ll be checking out more activity in the hospital!

I hope your break is as fulfilling as mine has been!

 

A

Wow, I cannot believe Christmas is tomorrow. After months of anticipation, the day has almost arrived. I am driving in the car right now with my family. We spent the day with my grandparents in Elmhurst, IL. First we ate out at their daily restaurant, Rainbow, and then we spent time at their house. We watched some T.V. and opened presents together. The day was pretty chill and relaxing. It was nice to spend time with them because I will not see them for another six months, because they leave to live in their San Diego home after Christmas. My grandparents were sad to say bye to us and our dog Nestle. I will definitely miss seeing them in the months to come.

Our masterpiece!

I plan on baking some more after Christmas. I spent some time looking up different new recipes. I love to bake and do not have a ton of time to do it while at school, so now is the perfect time for it. However, I will need to eventually start eating more healthy after Christmas break. During break I have been running quite a bit; I just need to start eating healthier and then I will be good to go.

Courtney and I at the Christmas party!

Me and Blake 🙂

I hope you all are enjoying time with your families. The holidays are such a special time and can make wonderful memories. Have a blessed Christmas!

 

T minus four days until Christmas! The streets are becoming more crowded as people finish up their last minute shopping. Lines at the mall spiral across the store while people wait in line so “patiently”. The hustle and bustle of the Christmas season is reaching its peak right now. People fill the grocery stores to buy food for their annual Christmas parties. Now is the time to fill up on all the Christmas goodies before the New Year’s resolution starts.

Since I was in 6^th grade my two friends Abby and Lindsey have always done a Christmas photo shoot. The photo shoot takes at least four hours and consists of multiple outfit changes. I am not quite sure how the tradition started, but it is definitely my favorite Christmas tradition. We blast the Christmas music and repeat a couple of the same poses every year.

Annual Nestle picture

Jumping in our black dresses

In front of the fireplace
Our classic pyramid picture

I have been home now for four days and love the sleep I am catching up on. I think I have slept close ten hours every night since I have been home. Also, I love spending time with my high school friends. It is fun to hear about all of our different college experiences, and I personally think I am enjoying college the most. We all showed each other pictures from the past semester. It seems weird to tell each other about our new friends. Two of my friends from Hope are coming to visit me during break, and I cannot wait to introduce them to my friends from home. I also am excited to show them around Springfield.

This week I am excited for Christmas parties and meals with our family friends. I hope you all have wonderful weeks and a very Merry Christmas!

Whew! The semester is finally over! It was a hectic and demanding time, but overall it went very well.

The past week and a half were filled with last minute studying, cramming, and of course…taking final exams.

To say that everyone was stressed is a complete understatement. People were literally going crazy. I didn’t think that it was possible, as I didn’t feel completely overwhelmed all the time, but as I looked around me, everyone was becoming hysterical. Their brains were overloaded with new and past knowledge and they didn’t know what to do! 

My clustermates and I had a busy schedule aside from studying. On Saturday night, two of my clustermates were in the production “The Nutcracker.” Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get tickets, so instead we decided to take in a Christmas Madrigal. I LOVE MADRIGRALS. Literally, I go to one every year because I think they are so awesome. Hope’s production didn’t disappoint. My roomie, Shannon, and our clustermate, Jen, accompanied me. We dressed up and enjoyed a fabulous dinner of Mutton, Pork, wild rice, potatoes, veggies, spiced cider, lemonade, and for dessert — FIGGY PUDDING! How cool, hey? 
 Here we are all dressed up and ready to go!

The dancers and choir were awesome! Here’s a glance at the formality of the event: 

 Jen and I also took in the Hope Hockey game agaist Robert Morris University. It was a fun game and nice to get back to the rink (I love hockey!). Hope ended up winning 4-2, although Hope outplayed RMU the entire game. 

As exam week came upon us, we studied super hard and became very concentrated. 

Monday night, Phelps hosted the Up-All-Night breakfast for all Hope students from 9pm-11pm. It was a delicious study break and students even started breaking out into Christmas songs! Everyone was just very relieved to have a quick break. It really motivated me to stick it out to the end of my exams.

Here Alex poses with her breakfast:

We had a cluster Christmas party to exchange secret-santa gifts and we even procrastinated (just a little bit ;)) and watched a ton of Christmas movies.

However, now we’re FREE.. a whole month off to relax and calm down. It was so sad as my roomies and I packed to go home. We’ll be apart for SOOO LONG. I bet I’ll end up visiting them before the month is over. Stay strong to the end of your schooling this year. You can do it! 

Enjoy the time you have, it goes fast!

Until next time…

-A

 

At the beginning of the year, our cluster made a list of potential cluster bonding moments that we hoped we could fit into our busy schedules throughout the semester. One of these ideas was Paint a Pot! Found in many larger cities, these pottery shops allow you to pick out a piece of plain pottery and paint your own design. You can use any color paints they have there and a week after you create your piece, you can pick it up clean, polished and fired in their kiln, yielding a piece that holds memories forever! 

 

Last Friday night, we decided to make a trip (only a block away) to Paint a Pot to make some quick and beautiful heartfelt Christmas presents. The pieces they had there ranged from coffee mugs to platters to wall hangings to floor tiles. My clustermate, Betsy, even made herself a little painted giraffe! 

Here I am working hard on one of my gifts:

 

Finally, this Friday, we picked up our pieces after they had been fired many times and glazed. We weren’t sure how they’d turn out because of the colors we chose to paint with. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell if you’ve added enough layers of paint to get a covered surface or if your colors will be well coordinated after they go through the heating process. However, we arrived to find beautiful designs that looked awesome.

That night we had the Dykstra Cluster decorating competition, where our Resident Director and her family went around to judge each cluster. We were very prepared with Santa, Mrs. Claus, and all the elves.

<img src="http://blogs.hope.edu/students/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2011/12/img6.jpg.'s kids, were so surprised to see Santa and find their names on the "Nice" list. We even had chocolate chip cookies for them! We ended up winning the Best Overall decorated cluster and a pizza party!

Afterwards, I walked around Hope’s campus with Santa. He even started breakdancing in front of Phelps! 

It was an awesome, Christmas-filled day. Did I mention it was the last day of classes for the semester?

I love my cluster! 

-A

 

 

O M G. I love Christmas. Love it. 

I know that it’s getting to be my favorite time of the year when I see the first Macy’s Christmas commercial. AWE! My heart flutters at the thought of the ringing bells, the red Macy’s logo, the cute dramatic clips. I LOVE IT! Anways, all around Hope, the holidays are very apparent. Even though we haven’t gotten any snow yet (bummer, I know), pretty soon, hopefully, it will show up. 

Because we get off of school next Friday officially, we don’t have much actual time in December at school. So, we had to start early! As soon as Thanksgiving break was over, Dykstra began preparing for the Cluster Christmas decorating competition. My cluster has gone quite crazy over it, actually.

Here’s the entrance to our cluster, a Gingerbread House:

 

We also have a fireplace (not a real one of course), a sleigh, two trees, Santa’s workshop, lights all over, a Christmas mobile, stockings are hung, and the Christmas spirit is in the air! We are even having a Christmas party this Sunday to exchange Secret Santa presents! 🙂 

Decorating and amping up for the holidays has been the best study break for me as exams are approaching.  

We also had the Dykstra Christmas party at the Maas Auditorium. It was so cute! Everyone wore their ugliest Christmas sweater (mine was actually the cutest). There was cookie decorating, a Christmas song determination challenge, hot cocoa and spiced cider, raffle drawings, and Santa even came! 🙂

Here are a few of my clustermates and I with Santa!:

 

If you’re in the area on Friday, Dec 9th, Stop by Cluster 3-5. Santa will be here! 🙂

 

I hope your Holiday Planning and Decorating has been as fun as ours! 

-A