First Snow Day in College

So, today March 26, 2009 was my first snow day of college!!

It was exciting but lame at the same time, because it was not announced until noon today, and all my classes end before noon. I also lost about 5 hours of pay from work, because I work for CSU, so if CSU is closed, then I am out of work. :( it was nice not to have to worry about anything though. 

We are expected to get another 2-3 feet tonight, but i am uncertain as it has stopped snowing as of 5 minutes ago. Who knows, but i liked all of the snow, the first big exciting lots of snow storm this season!!! The one over Thanksgiving break doesn't count because it wasn't lots of snow, just lots of ice. 

Here are four photos I took from my bedroom window. There was a reported 7 to 8 inches. 

Bushes outside the window.... the big white blob, is a bush covered in snow

Bush outside the window.... 

Parking Lot

Parking Lot

Whitney Hendrickson 4-13-1990 to 3-17-2009

Marina, Whitney, and Wesley Hendrickson

So, as you all may or may not know Whitney Hendrickson was a 2008 IB Graduate from Palmer High School. She passed away Tuesday March 17, 2009 through a horrific and tragic accident because of a careless driver. A car crashed into a truck which then hit the gas pump, where Whitney was filling up her van. She was then pinned in between her van and the pump and a spark from the accident lit the gas on fire and she burned to death. Her passenger tried to push the van out of the way and others tried to get her out, but the flames were just too hot. She screamed for help and ended up dying in the flames. 

Whitney was one of the most amazing girls i have met and she will be dearly missed! We lost contact after graduation, but still, after four years of being together, she had a great impact on me and I cannot believe she is gone. 

She was only 18 years old and had so much left in her life to do. 

I am still in shock about the whole idea of her gone, so this post really isn't much more then a ramble, and I am sorry, but felt I needed to post something. 

Alternative Break Weekend--Trip 2 of 3

Well Saturday the 14th of March, I left with my group to head to Colorado Springs and work with the Veterans. We stayed at Christmas Unlimited because it was free and a safe place to stay. When we arrived we ended up walking downtown, which was a good 3 miles from where we were staying, so that was a nice walk. We then went back to Christmas Unlimited and had dinner and watched Stop-Loss. We headed to bed around midnight, where around 2 or 3am it got so cold none of us could really sleep but we didn't say anything until morning because we didn't realize no one else wasn't sleeping--so we turned the heater on the next night. 

Sunday we went to the Crawford house which is a place for veterans to stay when they are homeless. There are 15 people on the waiting list to get into the place, which is hard to think about. Here are these veterans serving our country and now they are homeless for many different reasons. We arrived there to find no one there, so that was disappointing, but we had lunch there without any veterans, and then headed back to CU and decided to put the care packages that we were going to send overseas together. That was fun. We made cookies again, just like last trip, and they came out sooooo much better, which was very exciting! lol!

Then we went and met with a person that works with homeless veterans and he talked about the rights of the homeless and all of that, so that was exciting. He talked a lot which was nice, and told lots of stories. 

We then went to Audrey's House to have dinner and meet with her brother-in-law who is heading to Iraq for the first time in May. He told us some interesting things about the Army and why he chose to join and I believe after college I will be joining the Airforce. I have always had it on my mind and after talking to her brother-in-law about the Army and then her father about the Airforce, I believe I really do want to stick to what I had always thought I was going to do. So, that is now my added plan. 

On Monday we then went and did some work at the Crawford house by painting and cleaning so that was a fun experience. Elliott and I were painting buddies and well, the owner Vikkie didn't really like out painting? haha, so i covered up so fast and saved our butts by saying "ooh, yeah we just need to do the second coat, so we have to wait for it to dry" which was bologna!! We thought it looked fine! lol ooh well!

We then went to the Airforce Academy and met with a guy who was in Vietnam and talked to him for like an hour. It was very short and he could have said so much more, but ran out of time. We then all departed and some went back to fort collins and i headed home. 

This experience really wasn't that fun. I am hoping the next and final trip is much better! We are headed to South Dakota to work on an Indian reservation, so that should hopefully be exciting! 

Well, i hope all is well and everyone is doing okay!! 

 

Respite Cares-Story time!

As, I stated in my last blog, I am volunteering at Respite Cares weekly and it has been one of the most empowering and moving experiences ever! This has really helped me decide what I want to do with a good portion of my life. I have fully and almost completely decided that Occupational Therapy with a concentration only on children is what I want to do with my life. This place is more amazing then I ever thought it would be, and the kids are so amazing. This is more then a service site. I originally signed up to do service with them because I had to do 30 hours of community service somewhere here in Fort Collins, and these people were at the CSU volunteer fair, so I picked them, because nothing else really sounded fun. 

This service site is a place where parents can drop of their kid(s) who have a disability for as little as 15 minutes or up to 2 weeks (continuously sleeping over). They can also just come during the day while their parents are at work and everything (just like a regular daycare in that sense). They are charged between 60 cents an hour to five dollars an hour depending on their financial standing. The ratio is 2:1 (two kids to each adult) which is FANTASTIC!!! and with volunteers they try to get it down to a 1:1 ratio! It is a great place, and I love volunteering there. 

STORY TIME!

So, I have been working at Respite Cares for a few weeks now, and when every Friday when I go, there are the same three kids there. Nick, Nathaneal, and Skylar. They all three are around the age of two (plus or minus a few months), and they are all almost non-verbal. As the weeks have gone by, Nick is starting to try and say things to me, he has Downs Syndrome. Then there is Nathaneal, and that kid is so freaking energetic it is crazy, but he is amazing! He does talk, but it is so hard for me to understand what he is saying, or for any of us to understand what he is saying for that matter, but he doesn't seem to mind, he just keeps talking and as long as you continue to pay attention and play with him, it is alright. The last two times I have gone and it was my time to leave, Nathaneal cried! It was so hard to leave! ah! He was so cute, and it makes leaving even harder, and that just shows that this is what I was meant to do, and they do like having me to play there! 

So, now there is Skylar! She is the sweetest thing ever, well, when she wants to be of course! She is totally non-verbal and when I first started volunteering there, she would refuse to do anything but sit in someone's lap, which made me nervous, because when she was sitting in mine and every time I moved, she screamed her head off! It freaked me out so much, but it is alright now. The second time I went there, she wasn't as clingy, and she was sort of doing the walking thing, but it was too hard for her, so she just scooted on her knees or jumped up and down as she went down the hall on her knees. Everytime we moved to a different location, i would stand her up and hold each hand (just as you would when a little one was learning to walk on their own) and she would take like 5 steps and either demand to be held or would scoot her way to the desired location. She has ankle/short leg braces on both her ankles.

Well, week three comes along (last week) and I get to Respite and Nathaneal is playing with another volunteering for the time being and so I begin to read with Skylar as Nick plays with his truck and sort of listens to this story. Well, a little while later, a few of us decided that we should take the kids to the gym to get some energy out with the jumping toys and slide and that stuff, and just as I always do with Skylar, I put her on the ground and stood her up and had her walk the way to the gym and she did the walk without a fuss! It was fabulous! So, right there I could see a lot of progress in one weeks time! It was amazing! The most amazing, and touching thing that happened that day was when Skylar wanted to get on the slide. i grabbed both hands and we began to walk to the slide, at which point she wanted me to let go of one of her hands, and so I did, and she began to walk the rest of the distance with just one hand assisted! It was amazing! As we were walking, two of the staff members asked me when she started doing this, and I told them, that it was the first time today that she was doing it, and they were so excited and stated that the last few days they couldn't even get her to walk the length of the gym, which is only about 15-20 feet or so, and here I was, walking with her with just one hand being used to keep her balanced, i wasn't even really helping her. It was so amazing to be apart of that! These last few weeks have been amazing and I am so glad that I got to be part of Skylar's progression into walking! This was a moment that I will never forget, nor will I ever want to forget! Examples like these are what have made me really stick to Occupational Therapy with a concentration in children especially infants. It is so special to watch the kids that you have been working with on different things, progressing, and being able to grow to an ability that others would never have thought could come about! These kids need as much chance in life, as we have been given and I really want to be apart of that as they continue to grow and be apart of our society!

I also volunteered on Valentine's Day with Respite Cares. They allowed some of the families that are apart of Respite the chance to bring their kids and any siblings for the night for free. They had thirty kids, and with the staff and volunteers there was a one to one ratio, and being on Valentine's Day, i thought that was amazing! I was with a little toddler, who was about a year and a half old, and she was not disabled. Her brother named Jackson has Cerebral Palsy, and he is five years old. I worked with Jackson the first day I was at Respite for about 10 minutes and then his family came to get him. His sister Reese is so cute, and at first she refused to leave her mum and dad, and actually made herself sick by throwing up, so we had to deal with that for a while which really wasn't fun. I am one of the people that cry when others are crying, so it was really hard to see her crying, because all she wanted was her mum, and there was no way we could do that... but just like most kids do, she got over it, and was happy again so we played and made some crafts and then made a strawberry mouse and it was a great night for Jackson, Reese, and everyone else involved. 

This is going to be a great service agency and starting this fall, if i want I can apply for an actual job, which could be interesting, but I am still unsure if that is what I want to do. All I know, is that these kids are amazing and they are and always will be the highlight of my week! I love them to death!! 

Spring Semester Thus Far

Wow, the semester thus far has gone by tooo fast! I cannot believe that it is already the 16th of February! I am planning my spring break trip with my group and it is just too crazy to think that we are leaving for break in just a few weeks! 

This semester started out very rough, and I missed Colorado Springs more then ever, but after a few weeks it got much better. The classes I have now, are really just stupid, and I don't know why I really am in them. I am taking Human Development and Family Studies and that is okay i guess. We don't have tests we just have three essays that are no more then 500 words in length. I am also in Chemistry and Chemistry Lab and those are even lamer. I took the easy chemistry because i didn't want to be stressed out through some program that the higher chemistry has, so it is some what boring, but hopefully as the year goes on it will get better and we will actually begin to learn some things. I am also in Speech class, and that is an interesting speech. I had my first speech at the beginning of the month, and enjoyed that, surprisingly! We have three more speeches coming up, and our next one I will be talking about Tinkerbell, so that will be interesting... haha, but at least it will be easy and it is something I know about and will be interested in talking about. So, those are my four actual classes, and then I have two other classes for my Key Service thing, and those are Monday and Tuesday nights which SUCK! I also have an online class for Occupational Therapy and that has been interesting. There is lots of reading, but it is very interesting and at first i was very unsure if OT was for me, but after my service project (described later on) and doing this class, I have decided that it is what I want to do for a good chunk of my life focusing just on kids! I also have choir at 6 every Thursday, and am supposed to be doing it Tuesday also, but have my Key Service class, which does not allow me to skip, so I must go without choir on Tuesday's but it is alright. So, overall I have like no homework, and am quite disappointed in that, but am learning to deal with it. LOL. 

So, overall school has been going well, and things are going alright. I am putting in my official application for England this month or early March, so that is pretty nerve-racking! I am scared that I am going to pick the wrong school, and not like the experience at all. I am also really wanting to go to New Zealand, so i am scared I might regret going to England vs. New Zealand, but I am going to stick with England because I have family over there, and i will be back to the US, just in time to start the summer classes I will need to take, in order to make up for going to another country for that semester. So, now I must find a job over the summer to get some money coming in for the trip. 

Also, just like any other school and just like high school, there of COURSE is drama! OOh my goodness! I never thought I would be apart of so much drama as I have been for the last three weeks. Apparently something happened and Nathan and I are no longer speaking and the whole second floor of Braiden Hall are acting like two year olds, and it is a mess. I don't know what happened all I know is that, we are no longer speaking and no one really knows why. There have also of course been the heartbreakers and the crazy people in relationships. Like two of my ex friends are now dating, and they didn't even know each other a week before they got into this relationships, so i am waiting to see how long this really lasts, but i guess I support them, although I am not really sure if you can support someone that you are not talking to? Who knows, all I know is that this place is full of drama and I am so ready to get my own apartment! That is what happens when people live in tight quarters for so long! lol, ooh the joys of college, although I would have to admit I wouldn't have made it through the first semester without the people on the 2nd floor, no matter how much they act like two year olds now! 

I have also began to volunteer at Respite Cares for my service site and that is the most amazing thing ever! Respite Cares is a place where families who have kids with disabilities can drop them off, for as little as 15 minutes, and as much as 2 weeks straight (continuous overnights). They are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, which I find very wonderful and they charge the parents anywhere between 60 cents and hour to five dollars and hour, which is fabulous for these parents! The price depends on financial stuff, when I didn't get too much information on, because my only duty is to play with the kids. I play and play and play the whole time I am there. I am not allowed to discipline, feed, or change/ take a kid to the bathroom, because it is a liability issue, which makes since if you sit and think about it. I have gone there for about 4 weeks now and it has been the best experience of my life! 

So, thus far this semester things have had their downs, but have also had some ups and that is amazing! I am hoping the rest of the semester goes great! 

I hope you all are doing well and things are going fantastic for you all! I hope to hear from you soon! 

I love you all!

--Jennifer

Winter Break

I have not posted much on hear for a long while, so i have decided to post something.

My finals went well and my grades turned out okay. I am going to retake my biology class over the summer at PPCC because i feel i could have done much better then I actually did. Other then that, my GPA is still okay, and I hope to maintain it throughout the next semester. 

I signed up for next semester classes and I am going to enjoy them all, especially the choir, but I did realize recently i will be away from my dorm from 8am to about 7pm Monday through Thursday, so i think i am going to be extremely stressed, and don't know if i am going to be able to keep it like that as my school work i believe will suffer, but i still need to think about that. 

I have also been looking into going overseas for a semester next year, and am in the process of trying to figure out what i am going to do with that and where I am going to go. I have decided on England, but now i need to figure out which college is best for me academically. I am very excited and ready to experience some time in another country. 

I arrived back to the Springs on the 18th of December and leave the 17th of January and have enjoyed the time here. 

I have enjoyed being with my mum and enjoying the time away from school, although i do miss some of the people i have met at CSU. I have only talked to Nathan since arriving back to the springs, and he also lives in the springs, so it doesn't really count, but i don't mind not talking to anyone because we see each other daily and live together, so this is a time away. I volunteered at Seven Falls on the 27th of December and that was an experience as there were too many people and it was freezing cold, but after we got people organized and it calmed down, it went smoothly and we all enjoyed ourselves. We probably won't be doing it next year, but we will see when we get the letter asking for our help again what we decide. 

I went out with some of my cousins that are in Colorado Springs on New Years, we went out to Applebee's and then headed down to Manitou and that was a fun experience! It was great being with my aunt and my cousins and their kids! We don't get together often anymore, so it is nice when we can get together. 

I had surgery on my eye on the 7th of January, so that has been an experience. My eye was absolutely horrible for about a week, and has become better and isn't so bad anymore, although there is still lots of blood and stuff in it which isn't a pleasant sight, but it will go away soon, and I can actually see now which is exciting. 

I got braces on again today (Jan. 13th) and they are only on the top, and I should only have them on for about 4 to 5 months so that is exciting although, they do not really bother me. I will be getting an implant for one of my teeth later this summer. 

I am ready for class to start although I have signed up for too much, and have already realized i will be stressed out. I am already stressing and I have not even started classes yet. It is just so much that i have to do, and not enough time in the day to actually get the homework and studying done! I will also have to work in some time, (probably at like midnight!) to work with nathan on music.... as he wants me to learn to read music, as i am in choir, although i am better at listening to the notes and that stuff, but he really wants me to, so we are going to have some study sessions. 

Well, I am going to go for now, but I will be back soon. I am going to write a blog about my first week of school and all of the craziness so be prepared for that!

Nathan has agreed to take part in another photo session once the first snow fall hits for the 2009 year in Fort Collins. It will be roughly the same thing that happened when I took the photo shot for the fall. I cannot wait to do that, because I love taking photos, and Nathan isn't afraid to do anything and he is really corporative! I have had a few offers on some of the photos i took from the fall, so that has been really exciting, even though I find it quite interesting that they actually want photos with a kid in it that the do not even even know, but whatever.... I have answered a few of them, and am working with a few of them with a copyright offer so we will see where that goes!

Nathan

Nathan

Nathan and Eddie

Nathan

me on some elephant in manitou

Aunt Susan and I

Jaiden, Mason and Mike

Shawn in the helicopter 

Jennifer, Linda, Joyce, and Loyal at Seven Falls

Life lessons

Wow, so last night i really realized that i let someone whom i trusted and thought was a good person manipulate me. They pulled me and pushed me around for a while, and i thought it was all for the better. I didn't see anything really wrong with it at the time, because i didn't feel pushed or pulled into any certain direction. I felt accepted, i felt wanted, i felt like a person that i hadn't ever felt like before. It was wonderful, it was great and i was happy, until last night..... when things really clicked. I really realized at that moment what i had just put myself through, and how i allowed myself to be treated. I severed a great relationship with another friend, whom i had known longer because of this person. I let myself be torn apart and made into someone i never thought i would be. I had a great friendship with someone who cared about me, who cared about what i said. He accepted me as me, and he was always there when i needed him even if he was in another town. I smashed all of this, for someone who i thought was like that, but ended up not being that person at all... they bashed this friend that i ended a friendship with, they told me multiple times that i wasn't hurting them at all, when in fact, i was hurting them more and more everyday. Last night i cried and cried and cried because i could not believe i let someone do that to me, i let someone come into my life and change who my friends were. I cannot believe it has taken me this long to realize this, but i am extremely happy that i did finally come to my senses, and that this old friend was there for me to go to and accept my apology! I vow to anyone and everyone, that i WILL NOT allow ANYONE to come between a friendship i already have, the friendships i have are here for a reason, and if they are suppose to be broken, then it will happen for reasons that are not because i have gained a new friend.... or so i thought.

Nick and I have reconciled our differences as of tonight. I wrote him a 3 page apology stating everything has happened between Zachary and I and how i changed and how i have realized what a horrible person i am for ever letting him come between us. Nick has been there for me through thick and thin, he has helped me with everything imaginable and i cannot believe one friendship ended that. I am extremely upset about that but i am so glad that he has forgiven me, although it will take time for everything to increase again and it will never be like it was before, but it sure will be close and that is all i ask for!

I want everyone to know that i will never allow that to happen again, and i have learned so many lessons, more then i ever thought possible with one mistake!