Recent Entries by Missy  

Last week, I had a nice break from studying for mid-terms and went to the Ambassadors spring semester social event. This year, we had a big grill out with all of the Ambassadors and our advisor, Molly.

I became an UMR Ambassador during fall semester of my freshmen year, and so far it has been a great leadership building and fun activity for me to be a part of. As an Ambassador, I help out with visit days doing tours, student panel, and anything that the admissions office needs. Ambassadors also help out with special group tours and events that are put on by UMR. There are about 20 of us right now, but next year we will be adding 5 new Ambassadors.

Each semester, we try to get together at least once as a group outside of visit days, in the fall we had a big Thanksgiving dinner at Molly's house and played an overly competitive game of Catch Phrase. This spring, we decided to have a grill out and bon-fire at my friend Tanner's house with hot dogs, salads, and plenty of desserts. It was really fun because everyone brought something to share; because I can't really cook I just brought some cupcakes from the grocery store. ~Missy

Yesterday, I was able to cross one big thing off of my bucket list: to witness a flash mob. Thirty of UMR's nursing, BSHS, and BSHP students surprised every one at the Shops at University Square (the 2nd floor of UMR's building) when they broke out in dance at 2:00 to a Whitney Houston tribute song. The music blasted over the mall speakers and everyone began clapping and dancing. The best part was that some professors even participated! The local new station also came out to watch the students dance and they were on the Rochester news later that night. It was really fun to watch, and really well choreographed by two students from the UMR Dance Team, Hannah and Liz. Also, a huge amount of UMR faculty came to watch and video tape the event, even our Chancellor came down to watch. The entire dance lasted about 5 minutes, but it was a nice break from a busy Monday afternoon!

UMR Ambassadors along with UMR's National Student Nurses' Association (NSNA) group went to the Channel One Food Bank and Food Shelf in Rochester during the Fall Semester 2010. We worked on the food bank side of Channel One where we were able to label cans of beans and box them to be shipped to smaller food shelves around the SE Minnesota area. We also prepared pencils and school supplies to be sent to various food shelves. The food bank side of Channel One boxes cans and boxes of food in bulk and distributes them to more rural food shelves throughout southeast Minnesota, while the food shelf side of Channel One allows individuals and families to come to their "store" and pick out various food items for free. It was a fun event because we worked together to prep the food to be sent out, while we talked and listened to music. ~Charis

Front Row L to R: Cari and Evan
2nd Row L to R: Missy and Eden
Standing L to R: Nick, Zach, Charis, and Caitlin

There is one thing on my mind today, it is a little thing called spring break. I can just smell the salt water and feel the Hawaiian sun. I am going to Honolulu, Hawaii with my best friend Missy. We are so excited to sit on the beach, read magazines, and do absolutely nothing! We started tanning in order to get ready for the trip and we started trying to eat a healthier diet. Although, I enjoyed a Culver's hamburger and milk shake last night...so I don't know if I will be "swimsuit ready" in time. We are staying in a condo on the beach, so hopefully the beach is where we will be most of our vacation. I can't wait to see the night life in Hawaii and to explore the island. Have a great spring break everyone!!! Chloe

Chloe & Missy & Chloe's Mom

Even though my first semester went really well in the BSHS program, I was really excited for the holiday break to start. I hadn't seen my family for a few weeks, and my brothers and sisters who are away at college would also be coming home for the holidays, so I was excited to see everyone. My Christmas was pretty busy, because I go to relatives houses to celebrate, so I did a lot of traveling. Also, two of my sisters recently had babies, so we were a pretty big group! First semester was really busy for me, so I was expecting to want to relax for a few weeks and just hang out.

After Christmas was over , I could'nt wait to come back to UMR! By the first week in January, I was really itching to get back to my studies and back to all my friends at UMR. I was especially excited for my upcoming biology class, because we get to do a cadaver lab at Mayo in the spring semester and I've been looking forward to that as long as I've been a student. I even came back to Rochester a couple days earlier then I had originally planned too so I could see everyone and prepare for my first week of classes! ~Missy

This week has been a crazy but fun transition for me into college life! I moved in on Wednesday morning into Bridgestreet and have since been finishing up my unpacking and organizing all of my things. So far everything has gone really smoothly and I really like all of my roommates. Wednesday night week took a short trip to the Hy-Vee, went grocery shopping and decided to get some food for our first meal as college students! Of course we did something simple: spaghetti, but it was fantastic. I'm really glad that I could fins three girls that had similar personalities to mine and who are really sweet.
The Welcome week activities have been awesome as well! The first activity was meeting with other students for pizza and mixer games. We played this really fun circle game to get to know each other better and find out what we have in common, there were was more things that people had in common than I thought there would be! After that we ate pizza (another great thing about welcome week), and did a scavenger hunt through downtown Rochester to get to know that town a little bit better for prizes, and my team won!! We had a lot of fun running around and working together (even through it was raining). After the scavenger hunt, my roommates and I went back to our apartment and decided to just explore our building and meet some other students living there. Thursday morning we had the opportunity to meet some of our professors. It was really interesting because they taught us some pretty interesting distinctions between liberal arts and the liberal education we will receive at UMR and how it will prepare us for life after college. After that came the really fun stuff! We walked to soldier field and played kick ball, freshmen vs. sophomores. Although we had a lot more people than they did, we only beat them by one point. Oh well. After that was my favorite part, the ice cream and dance competition for laser tag tickets. My roommate Amy and I helped someone do their dance by providing the beat for cotton eyed Joe. We felt very accomplished for winning laser tag tickets, and we also got to take some of the left over ice cream home. So far this week has been just an awesome week of meeting new people and getting settled into my new life here in Rochester. I'm excited for next week to start classes and my new on campus job, although I'm anxious, I can't wait!

Today was a really exciting day for me and my roommate Amy because we were meeting with three other students who are going to UMR next year too. At registration, Amy and I met Zach, Nick, and Luke during lunch and we all happen to live in nearby Minneapolis & St. Paul suburbs. One of the guys suggested that a Saints game and tailgating would be a great way to get to know each other. Of course we all thought it would be really fun, so we made the plans and started getting ready! Amy and I got some cookies and chips and made the 20 minute trip to the Saints field, and of course it was raining!! We pulled in and it quit raining right before we were about to eat, and just our luck right as we starting grilling, we were handed tickets to the game free of charge!

Me, Zach, Amy & Nick meeting Madonna at the Saints Game!

The seats actually ended up being better than the ones we planned on getting, so we decided we had more money to go bowling later with! After about four innings of the game, we left to go bowling. It was a really interesting game, mostly because I won the first game and I am a terrible bowler, I chalked it up to being a great Wii bowler. My luck ran out though, and the remaining 4 games were dominated by the guys. After one late night trip to Cub foods, and five rounds of bowling, we called it a night. It ended up being a really fun night and made me even more excited for next year. It was especially great because it was so great to hang out with people with a lot of the same interests and goals as me. My countdown is about 8 weeks till school and I can't wait!