Halloween @ UIS means one thing:

The haunted trail.

Every year our RA staff puts together a walk…a horrifying walk…through the woods here on campus.  Brave souls from each area of housing join in the march to the woods.  This year, only three of us from the East side were daring enough.

This is our story:

until my camera died…

The following night we ventured to the annual Monster Bash in Lincoln Residence Hall–guess what I was?

That’s right, a trophy wife! haha and Jeremy is an old man.

Everyone had a lot of fun…just check out this pic:

Those are my awesome friends Justin, Priyanka and Craig.

Aside from Halloween fun, way too much schoolwork has been interfering with my senior year! I was feeling pretty frustrated about this until I discovered that I need a mere 4 hours to graduate…yeah, that’s right f-o-u-r. period. So hello free time next semester! I’m looking forward to soaking up as much of the undergrad experience as possible in the next few months! Good luck to all you seniors out there–I hope you’re doing the same!

Have a spectacular week everyone!!!!! I’m going to try to keep this up weekly–if I don’t, send me angry comments about it ; )

Picnic on the quad!

First off, the annual Chancellor’s Picnic was awesome!!!  We enjoyed music, food, and an amazingly beautiful day!!!  It’s so great to have everyone back for the fall semester–I was here working and taking classes all summer, and now I feel like the rest of UIS has rejoined me!  w00t!

Because it’s already October, I’ve been taking pictures and videos and storing them since the beginning of the school year (way back in August–I can’t believe it’s been so long) so that I can make up for all of the lost time.  I’ll be posting more photos and all soon!

way
too
soon.

because school is almost out!

so, as I find myself unable to recap the last few weeks since I went missing from the blogger frontier, I hope you’ll believe me (and I’m sure that you will because I know here at UIS we all lead extraordinarily busy lives) when I say that life has been full of good times, excitement, mafia themed dances, planting flowers back home, beautiful weather, work, meetings, and a lot of homework.

And here’s what we have to look forward to:

Sober Saturday- remember my post from last semester with sumo wrestling, karaoke, ddr, free food, and a rootbeer keg? Well it’s happening again this Saturday night in the PAC, and you should be there.

Wheelchair Basketball- By the time you read this, it will be too late because all the awesomeness is going down right now, sorry about that folks

Visual Arts Gallery- The monthly exhibition of art and talent will be on display tomorrow with hors d’oeuvres to top it off

…and about half a billion other events that are on facebook and that I’ve subsequently begun to delete or put “not attending” without even looking at. Ah, well, business is what keeps us entertained, right? And in another month I’m sure we’ll all be sitting at home bored out of our minds anyway…

have a good one. I’ll try to blog again before too long.

Jordan Haley: Career Woman and Workaholic

I got a job! I am a mooch no longer! That’s right I am now assistant to the vast realm of assistants to accountants everywhere. A large part of my life is now spent exploring a labrynth of cubicles, learning the art of removing staples from papers without ruining the papers or cutting my hands, playing mind games with the copy machine, looking at the carpet-like fabric that makes up the cubicle wall in front of me and imaging that it’s a window, office bingo (which I still have not won), and of course the usual inter-cubicle chit-chatting that goes on in offices across America and throughout the world.
It’s been a lot of fun so far. I mean, y’know, fun as far as being busy (like, running laps between cubicles and the copy machine until I’m dizzy), meeting new people (which is always an exciting time), having new experiences (my favorite things-y’know experiences like getting lost in the parking garage just like on that episode of seinfeld, getting lost in the cubicles-yeah, they gave me a map last week so I’m doing better , and making money goes. oh, and of course getting to dress like a professional instead of my usual casual college student look of jeans, flip flops, and a t-shirt. So basically it’s been great.

TORNADOES!!!

okay, so, I’m sitting in my dorm room right now, it is AMAZING outside, I’m kicked back with the windows open, my music playing, and the smell of flowers and a freshly mown lawn wafting through the air, ah…..springtime. Of course, it hasn’t always been this nice. No, no, I remember a time last week when the sky turned black and green, lighting was striking everywhere and all the LRH residents were huddled together on the first floor.

you could see all the procrastinators frantically finishing their essays that were due first thing the following morning.

of course, there are always those few (ahem, Kaile and David) who play video games during exciting events instead of writing papers…

it was Ali’s first tornado experience…she was kinda scared

meanwhile, the tornado watchers were keeping us informed about any sightings, strange coloring in the sky, and thoroughly scaring everyone

Taylor’s making sure the tornado’s on course and all

and thankfully we all made it out safe and sound with time left to finish our papers…instead of getting to use the excuse that there was a tornado, the power went out, and then I had to take a shower, because that may have sounded a little too dramatic.

Kite Flying

So naturally, in the days immediately following the tornado, the weather was beautiful, but quite windy. However, my friends and I made the best of things by flying kites on that gloriously windy day. Oh, man, I hadn’t flown a kite in years so the experience was nothing less than spectacular. Flying kites, I’ve decided, is almost like fishing–upside down and completely inverted. It was really wonderful.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Make the Best Kites! (except that there was a hole in it, so it didn’t fly all that well)

meaker was having a rough time of it

we take our kite flying seriously.

Yes, Meaker managed to get the string tangled up in his button.

and I just thought this was the coolest picture

So maybe it wasn’t that long…

nonetheless, life’s been pretty crazy lately, and it’ll probably just get crazier as the close of the semester approaches. Until then, I hope everyone comes out to the Mr. UIS pageant, it should be entertaining (from what I’ve heard),
and a final word of advise: don’t let yourself get so busy that you can’t take time out to fly kites with friends

Because I’m really beginning to have my doubts about the weather…

ahhhhhhhhh….the feel of an undemanding afternoon….

I hope that your spring break is spectacular and that your midterms, essays, speeches, etc. all went really well…if not, at least we’ve got an entire week to forget about it!

with a bunch of crazies (myself included)

to support the psych. department

it was a lot of fun, even though my high score was less than 65–maybe I should learn to bowl sometime…

Here’s a glimpse at some of the random good times I’ve had this past month…

We had a rice ball party–you use sushi rice so it’s really sticky and then put meat or veggies or whatever you want in the rice, then you make it into a ball

the rice is all over Liz and Kaile’s hands

the finished product!!!

Micah managed to put the whole thing into his mouth at once

look, Mat has antennae!

We went to HRC’s New Residents Mixer!!! yeah, it was a good time…

sitting around

acting

goofy

group shot!

I’ve never seen it done quite like this before…

The 18th Annual Robert Jackson Disorder Extravaganza, we all wore gym shorts and it was seriously about 25 degrees outside–brrrr!

Meaker and Robert playing foosballing it up

Don’t Miss!

we were all pumped for the Mckendree game!

CSF hosted a skate night! Man, that really brought back memories of jr. high skating rinks…

Derber’s like a super star

I had just about given up hope on getting to sled this winter, when suddenly we got seven inches! Yay for sledding!!!

we’re in a tree

weeee…

and then there was the talent show where everyone really rocked!!!

Kaile soloing

and Valentines Day!

we’re all making valentines

giving away flowers for valentines day

so, that’s been the fun part of my month, not to mention just hanging out, watching movies and trying to keep up with classes

I think this might be my biggest post ever

I’ll try to update sooner next time, hah, have a great weekend!

uh….well, actually the first part wasn’t so fun; I had to walk through the metal detector like twelve times before they decided to give me the old pat down.

once the family and I made it to my grandparents’ house we spent our days riding bikes, swimming at the pool, and hanging out at the beach. It was amazing.

my little brother got a viking helmet, he was soooo excited that he ran outside wearing the helmet and his pajamas, hopped on his bike, and rode all around the neighborhood…I guess it’s good to keep the neighbors wondering

after hanging out there for a few days, we took a train up to Jacksonville to see the other side of the family.

we visited St. Augustine! The fortress is absolutely incredible.

my grandma’s a really fun lady

my cousins and I had a good time pushing eachother around on the rope swing and four-wheeling

so, despite a few hitches (like sitting in the airport for three hours because our flight was late, overpacking, and getting stopped by security in every airport we flew into), the trip was wonderful

I hope classes have started on the right foot for all of you–have a great week!

(oh, and don’t give up the resolutions just yet, keep drinking water, working out, or whatever it was you thought you’d try to do)

I didn’t get the chance to tell you all about how finals affected Nate

or how, uh, Liz completely demolished my stress ball

but we made it in the end! Congrats on getting through the first semester and I hope you all have a really amazing 2006!!!