Another Semester Draws to a Close

Finals start today for me.  COMM 210 tonight, ANTH 111 monday, and MATHS 125 on tuesday.  Not too worried about any of them as you can see because I would not be blogging if that were the case.  In fact, I'm bored!  I'm loving that I took 17 credit hours this semester and things have been so easy!  Next semester will be harder classes, but I still only have to go to class two days a week!

I do however, have to move out of my room next week.  My roommate was supposed to transfer and then this tuesday decided she wanted to stay.  Paperwork had already been filled out for my new roommate, who i was so psyched to live with because she is als

o my house mate for next year!  BUT current roomie went to the RD and demanded she get to stay in our room, after she told me she was trying to just get a room somewhere on campus and it didnt matter where it was.  Well, this was false, so i graciously, without arguing, accepted a new room and will move in next friday evening.  Current roomie has been driving me crazy for the last month and I'm just glad I get to live with someone I WANT to live with (the picture is of me, christina, my new roomie, and her boyfriend shea)

Now, I'm getting a big sloppy cold that gets stronger everyday and there is nothing that the benedryl, nyquil, and vitamin C that I have been choking down, can do about it!

but the best boredom pass-time i have discovered has been www.elfyourself.com where you upload pictures and make these little elves with people's faces on them do dances to christmas music!  Charity, I hope Danny showed you the one I made of your kids!

MY NEW HOUSE!

Today Chelsea, Brooke, Christina and I signed the lease for our new house that we will move into this May!  To the left is the view from the street.  Our house is actually right across the street from some good friends of ours from Greenville, lacie list and lyndsay sharp, which have worked at the pool with chels, brooke and i for the last 4 years. The kitchen is being COMPLETELY remodeled and we've seen the floor plan and it looks fantastic!!  We also get to choose paint for the house and our landlord, Stan-the-man, is going to paint it for us before we move in!  Stan-the-man is pretty great.  Our rent is so great, we got very lucky, AND he caps off our utilities so we pay a set price and we will never pay any extra even in the winter for heating...which is wonderful!!  Our porch on the left is probably one of our favorite parts of the house.  We got the house just in time too because he was getting ready to show it to 4 other groups in the next two days until i called to tell him we wanted it.  Its a good thing i took my mom's advice and prayed about and waited on this other house we thought we wanted.  We waited a week and went back to look at it and realized it was a disaster waiting to happen...and we asked around about the landlord and found out that he is very slow at getting repairs done.  We have a cute little picnic area in the backyard with a grill and benches (its kind of like a little shelter that is open on one side).  BASICALLY, the four of us are in love with this house!   

Fall Break Fun

Well this past weekend (Fri-Sun) was my big fall break. Turns out fall break was no different than any other weekend for me because i dont have classes on fridays anyway. But i came home after spending about 20 minutes just trying to get out of the parking lot where i have to park my car during the week (which is about 2 miles off campus...convenient eh?). So after about two hours from the time i got to my car..i was home...well, ok, i was at chris's house. I can't help it, its right on my way home! So i spent a couple hours with him and headed home to do some laundry, of course :)
Friday was an early day (early for a college student, that is). Woke up at 8am for a doctor's appointment, ran some errands, and took my baby sis and her friend out for smoothies at broadway joe's after school. As usual, the family got pizza that night and chris came over to enjoy it with us before the two of us headed off to find ourselves the perfect pumpkin. Chris had never before carved a pumpkin!Carving a pumpkin in the fall is just part of being a human for me, so after 23 years, chris is finally a complete being! haha....well he is also not very artistic so he spent more time cleaning out the inside of his pumpkin than actually cutting out the face of it. But, it turned out that while mine may have looked better alone, with the candle inside, chris's did. Then we had some fun taking pictures on the porch

A First For Me...

Sure, there have been times when i couldn't seem to fall asleep if my life depended on it...but typically, there was no real reason behind the insomnia...

Tonight is one of those nights when i cannot sleep...but tonight, unlike other nights...there is a cause

I absolutely cannot wait to see chris tomorrow. Mom, you can call me crazy because its only been two weeks since i saw him last as you know...but i can't help it...i am so excited. I can't explain the feelings i have for chris because they are so new to me. I've never felt this way before, even years ago when i thought i was so in love with lucas osterbur while i was a junior in high school and he was far away at school in michigan. Chris makes me feel as though being exactly who i am... a clumsy, silly, nerdy girl who occasionally suffers from blonde moments... is more than he could ever dream of having in his life. And chris... a dorky, corny, goofy, gym-obsessed, state auditor... is exactly the type of man that i want in my life.

sorry for the sappy post... its just me being that silly girl that chris fell in love with

Little Update

Well I have been at Ball State for a few weeks now and I'm loving it. My roommate and I are getting along GREAT and I now have a little group of friends that I go out with on Wednesday nights to baskin robbins. My classes aren't too bad, just not terribly interesting...but thats gen ed's for you. At least I'll be almost done with ALL my gen ed's after this semester!

I went to a football game during the first week of classes and it was great. Tons of people everywhere dressed in red and white and the whole student section "chirp chirp" ing...it was soooo much better than any football game ive ever been to...other than the patriots game, obviously. I can't wait for homecoming weekend!

I probably won't be blogging terribly often this semester because i have to do a blog for my english class so by the time im done blogging on that all week, im not really in the mood to post again. But ill try my hardest to update everyone periodically...well everyone who actually reads my blog. haha

hope everything is well back home! It was wonderful seeing everyone at church last sunday!

Changes...

I'm sitting here right now at 8:30am sipping a cup of coffee from my new coffee maker here in my new dorm room at my new school. After being here for almost 24 hours now I have already seen many ways that this year will be different from last.

1. There are boys in my hall
--im not a fan of this change...i liked living with girls last year

2. "gay is ok"
--two guys across the hall are gay and like to spend time in my room b/c they are good friends of my roommate. fine. they sit and talk about how amazing this new church that they are going to is and they just love the worship that goes on....and its odd to me because first of all IWU does not condone homosexuality, but I have never gone to a church that did either. and these boys are very open about it....

3. my room is tiny
--despite having a "skinny room" last year, it was much more spacious than my room this year...

4. I MIGHT ACTUALLY GET ALONG WITH MY ROOMMATE THIS YEAR!
--she is a cute, short little blondie...very bubbly personality...different from me, but something that wont drive me nuts like my loud, obnoxious, inconsiderate roommate last year...and i will leave her description at that...

5. I dont get to take any nursing classes this semester :(
--i have to take all gen eds first semester and apply to nursing for the spring....this means i will have no motivation to study because the subject matter will bore me....hopefully i can still build a solid GPA to start off here at BSU though...

6. there are so many choices when it comes to food!
--at IWU you had three choices....nasty, microbe-infested buffet, pizza place, and the "wildcat"....here there is a food court in my very own residence complex AND about 4 other food courts in other residence complexes that i can eat at

well thats all i can think of from the past 24 hours...but i have a whole two more days before i even start classes! For now though, i just want my sleeping schedule to return to "college life mode" meaning i dont get tired at 10pm and then wake up at 8am and not be able to get back to sleep!

It's Official

I have officially completed my first year of college :)
I took my last final at 6pm today (organic/biochemistry..ugh) BUT...i got a pretty good grade on it :)
and i am finally coming home....mixed feelings about it though...

im going to miss my friends here, but i'm very excited to spend more time with chris and see my friends from home again.

next year...Ball State!

Decisions decisions...

well, i finally visited ball state...the last of three schools i have considered transfering to

and........i really really like it :)

i love the big-ness of the buildings..and the old brick they are made of just makes it a beautiful campus...it really just felt good to be on campus. i was able to go to a men's volleyball game on friday night with ellen (who really expects men's volleyball to be exciting?) but it was! the crowd was really fun and the "game rituals" were exciting too...i just felt like i was a part of something...IWU games are boring...all of them...i cant wait to go to a BSU football game!

after the game, we hung out with the team (ellen's cousin, ben, is the middle hitter). that was really fun. several of them are involved in crew, which is the campus crusade at bsu...ellen says the crew is really good at bsu...i wish i could have gone to a meeting

i got to see the dorm i will probably live in next year..woodworth..nicknamed "the nunnery" because its the only single-sex dorm on campus.. Its made up of mostly nursing students...so it will be a good place for me to meet girls i might want to get an appt. with next year.

i guess the thing that just got me is how much i felt at home there...just felt good! There is much more that played into my decision but ill spare you the boring details (mom you can call me later)

SB 2008

Spring break started out just like winter break...stuck inside...except this time with no power

Friday morning i was sure that jennifer and i would not be going to New York, but we went ahead to the airport and flew out 2 hours later than expected after an hour of de-icing the plane. Once we arrived in La Guardia about 3 hours later than expected, we were bombarded by men in suits trying to give us "shuttle" rides to the city. Then we decided to read a sign.... it read "anyone who offers you a ride should not be giving you one..." After turning in circles for a bit looking for what to do..we found the taxi line and got ourselves a taxi. When we arrived at the hotel (right around the corner from the most amazing view of times square) at 1:30 in the morning, we were told that our room was not ready. At 2am we decided to to scope out the room we had been assigned to see if anyone was actually cleaning it...we came back downstairs after seeing that there was no one working on our room and the desk worker looked at us and uttered an "uuhhh...oh ladies your room is ready.." We decided that a half hour wait at 1:30 in the morning was ridiculous and told him we would need to speak with a manager the next day.

saturday we got up at 9 and hit the rainy city. We shopped around until about 2:30 and went back to the hotel to dry off and speak to the manager of the hotel. After talking our way into a discount on our room we went back out to get coffee...aaaaand the rain was gone! we were very happy :)

Around 6pm it was time to hail our first cab..i took on the responsibility...it went well. Apparently it really does ONLY require the lift of an arm in the air to get one of hundreds of yellow taxis to pull to the side of the road. i have pictures of this cab hailing event, but again...i cant upload pictures....

after taxi ride number two we were at astor place theater to see the Blue Man Group!! It was amazing. Afterwards we went back to walk around times square at night.....gorgeous

sunday morning we waited for HOURS AND HOURS in line at La Guardia while every single one of their computers was down....after about 3 hours of waiting (and missing our connecting flight while we were waiting on flight #1 to take off) we got our boarding passes that were WRITTEN out of a piece of paper with our names and flight number...long story short we got to atlanta, re-booked our flight to dayton and waited and waited and finally got home.

wow i feel like ive told everyone this story so many times and it now sounds so boring..haha..oh well...CAMI...you got your new post! haha

ill be back on thursday for easter break!

Spring Break....I can almost feel it

One more week of classes...two more exams, one lab practical, one more quiz, and two more papers and im free for a week (minus the part where i have to study for the physiology exam i have to take when i get back from break and the organic/biochem project i have due!).

plans: working at bjoes all week because my tiny paycheck from working 4 hours a week just isnt cutting it...then (mom dont read this part...i dont need you entering ventricular tachardia when im not there).....jennifer and i are going to NEW YORK! We will arrive friday night and check into our hotel where we will get some sleep! Saturday we plan on shopping and we have tickets to see the Blue Man Group! Sunday is our EARLY morning flight back to dayton after which i will proceed to pack up all my stuff and go back to school! busy busy busy

I have officially made it through the two hardest physiology tests of the semester! and i was very happy with my grades on them....i have never studied as hard as i did for the cardiology exam in A&P II....13 hours.....yikes!

Please pray for me this next week!
charity and jodi....offer still stands! (jodi, see my reply to charity's post if you have no clue what im talking about!)

Marfin Posts Again...

TIme for a real post:

Despite the difficulty level of my classes, I am having a pretty good semester. Over Christmas break I started dating someone I had been talking to for a couple of months by phone and internet and things are going very well there. We don't often get to see each other, but that has been almost good in a way. We are really getting to know one another just by talking as much as we do (we usually talk every night for awhile and then email a couple times during the day). Over break we went ice skaing and he attempted to play guitar hero...he wasn't very good at either..but it was fun to see him try!

Last weekend, a group of girls from my unit went up to Findlay, Ohio for the weekend and stayed with a couple of girl's families that live up there. It was a great time. I feel like I really got to know some of the girls in my unit better. Friday night we got a great home-cooked meal by sarah's mom and just relaxed all evening in their very nice, very large house. Saturday we had breakfast waiting on us and then we all got dressed up and went to a cute little tea room that Sarah's mom owns called "Swan House." We drank lots of tea and ate scones...it was so fun! The Swan house is in an old victorian style building...beautiful....we all loved it so much we wanted to quit school and buy the place from Mrs. Robb to run ourselves since she is selling it soon. After that we changed clothes at sarah's and drove off to allie's house....but the two girls had a surprise for us...a giant statue of a bull....so of course we all had to get pictures with it....it took about an hour to get 3 girls on top of it, so the rest of us stayed on the ground...and we all were freezing! After that, we were all ready for some coffee, so off we went to "common grounds," a small coffee shop in bluffton where allie works. There, we met her cousin, Luke and we spent the rest of the evening at his apartment playing "rock band" (another one of those musical video games that i am actually good at!). Sunday was church at a place that reminded me of the setting of "To Kill A Mockingbird." The service was very good, though the speaker shocked the congregation once or twice with his vivid verbal imagery when talking about "how" a married couple becomes "one" according to how God intended it to happen. We'll leave it at that.

I wish i could post pictures, but for some reason i cant.....apparently blogger hasnt joined forces with mac yet :(

Happy Birthday Mom

Today is my wonderful mother's birthday:)
Not sure what I would do without such an intelligent and insightful woman as my mother. I so admire her ability to make decisions...something I am horrible at doing...and she always has a piece of advice to give me in any situation that I come to her with (whether I want it or not, mom, I always remember it and use it) If she has one downfall it has to be her encouragement for me to spend money shopping with her whenever I am home:) But I love her anyway. Have a great birthday Mom! I miss you!

Back in the Swing of Things

Well...where to start


Christmas break was good...got pretty bored the last week when I stopped working so I am very glad to be back at school with my college friends even though i do miss my home friends. I also was able to spend more time with christopher and get to know him some more. He came to our new years get-together as a surprise to me because he lives down in gallapolis, ohio...about 3 hours away from greenville. Things are going very well with him and he plans on moving back to the dayton area sometime this spring (which i like!)

classes this semester are killing me already...my MWF schedule is one class right after the other...organic/biochem then chapel then anatomy & phsyiology II then foundations of nursing then spanish. Tuesdays and Thursdays i just have a 3 hour lab until volleyball starts in february, so i have taken up swimming again just so i can get some exercise in on a regular basis.

and just now as i paused to check on my coffee i realized that i didnt set my coffee maker to fill two mugs..only one..but i put in water for two b/c my suitmate alyssa wanted some too and i didnt change the setting...yes...you guessed it...coffee everywhere..hot hot coffee all over the countertop...luckily not much of it made it to the floor...good job marissa

FINALLY!

on wednesday, december 5, marissa danielle finch earned her first "A" (100 percent!) on an Anatomy & Physiology exam

and she is all smiles

Losing My Mind

Maybe I feel this way because I am not a professor, but why would a prof give a very very large test two days before the final? Or even 4 days before? Do they expect us to be prepared for the final after only a weekend of studying? Here is a look at my schedule:

Tuesday: Anatomy & Physiology Lab Final
Wednesday: Anatomy & Physiology exam over Endocrine System
UNV 180 Final
Friday: Microbiology exam over Immunology
____________________________________________

Monday: English Portfolio Due
Anatomy & Physiology Final
Tuesday: Microbiology Final
Wednesday: English research presentation speech


Lucky for me I already wrote the 4 papers that are due in my UNV 180 class this week over my oh so relaxing Thanksgiving break (sarcasm on the "oh so relaxing" in case you did not catch on to it)

I am getting stress/caffeine headaches every single day like clockwork and they last ALL DAY.
Luckily i was the target of someone's "Act of Kindness" paper (we had to write a paper about an annonymous act of kindness we did for someone) and i came back to my dorm to find a "finals care package" that included oreos, munchos, and two double-shot starbucks espresso's!!!

other than that this week sucks

My First All-Nighter

I have just successfully completed my first all-nighter! Ironically it was spent writing a research paper about sleep deprivation in college students...hmmm

oh well, i think i have officially completed this rite of passage and i never have the desire to do it again!

I am never having children, or getting married for that matter!

I have decided that i would make a horrible mother unless i decide to make a conscious effort to forget everything i have learned in microbiology this semester. My kids would not touch anything or anyone..they would live in a bubble (a bubble that i would spray hourly with lysol). I cant tell you how many times i wash my hands per day (its almost to the point of OCD!) i also clean the toilet about every day in my dorm room. I really really dont want leptospirosis or pinworm. I really really dont want to get a UTI after my honeymoon. I really really cant step into a hot tub ever again or sleep in a hotel or eat from a buffet. Thank you Prof. McNeely...for making me a paranoid freak!

I think i will choose to make a conscious effort to forget all the gory details of microbiology after this semester is over...

The "Almost" A

no, i am not talking about the tween bra size...but its a similar situation

all i want this semester is an A on one of my tests (in either microbiology or anatomy&physiology)
my last three tests grades have gone like this: 83% 87% 89%
all i want is an A! just one! one point away..its like freshman year of high school when i was just one size away from being that A....no laughs please

Responsibility stinks

This weekend i was basically punished for being responsible with my money. Here is the scenario..

Myself and two of my friends went to Tennessee this past weekend so one of my friends could see her boyfriend and i could see my cousin darah who both went to the same school. The plan was to get there and back on 3 tanks of gas..3.5 at most, which would cost each of us $30-35...a chunk of money but not too bad

i ended up spending over $70 on gas alone--not including meals
alyssa's boyfriend also gave us $55 to help us out b/c my two friends came with very little money in their bank accounts. I also had to pay for one of the girl's meals because she didnt bring enough for food. Thank goodness i actually had money in my bank account or else we would be stuck in kentucky right now. The two girls i went with insisted that they had enough money to pay for gas...one girl overdrew her account for the 20 something time so her parents refused to put any more money into it. The other girl claimed to have enought to cover every bit of gas we could possibly need-plus some...she didnt have that..not even close. So her poor boyfriend ended up spending almost as much as i did.

Now, there were other factors that played into the gas consumption of the trip.
A) we were set up on a blind double date that was supposed to be paid for..or so we were told by the boys...Nope...they first of all made US drive for almost an HOUR through knoxville where we used over half a tank of gas and then they picked an expensive resaurant where we got very little to eat..my friend and i split a side and both got drinks b/c we were afraid that these boys (noting how rude they were to us from the drive there) were not going to pay. They didnt. AND i had to cover my friend
B) we got lost on the way back to indiana but the driver would not stop and ask for directions anywhere so we drove around aimlessly for 45 min until she was too sick of me complaining that she was wasting the gas the I paid for b/c THEY didnt have enough money. we finally got back on track and then we needed to eat. My friend was set on taco bell and would not consider anything else as an option so she got off every food exit to try and find a taco bell (more gas wasted)...we couldnt find one after an hour and a half so we went to mcdonalds (note that she had told us she would pay for our meals with the little she had left).....we get to this mcdonals and she sees a starbucks across the street. She then very casually mentions that she cant get coffee like she wants really bad if she pays for the three of us to eat off the dollar menu....i end up paying again for myself so she can get her coffee.

the moral of this story is that marissa is practically broke and has no idea when she will get paid back for all the money she spent on this trip which ended up to be a complete bust and not fun. It sure "pays" to be responsible doesnt it?

So, its been awhile!

well i realized that the last time i posted was when i was still in high school. Not that long ago, but it sure does feel like it to me. I am almost done with my first semester of college! It didn't take me long to realize that all the studying i did in high school was nothing compared to what i have to do now. Back in mr. rismiller's anatomy class we had a month to learn all the bones and another month to learn all the bone markings--fast forward to college anatomy--one WEEK to learn all that information...luckily for me it was not as stressful as those who had never taken anatomy...i was able to recall quite a bit!

I guess i decided to start blogging again just so i can have a place to write my thoughts and give the occasional update on those who still want to know what goes on here at school with me! (mostly you mom!)