FFA

At dinner tonight two of my friends got to talking about a club that they were really involved in during High School. I'm used to high school clubs being Student Council, Future Teachers of America, Spanish Club, and Future Business Leaders of America. (Although my personal favorite was Varsity Club; all varsity letter holders would get together to plan pep rallies, but mainly we'd get food and eat!) But my friends last night were in FFA, or Future Farmers of America!

Varsity club at its finest.

They got to laughing about the matching blue blazers that they had, and how much fun it was. It is apparently a serious club where one of my friends went to a national competition to debate agriculture issues. My other friend says that he judged diary cows. I didn't even know there was different criteria for judging one cow better than the other! Apparently their coloring matters, as well as how wide their hips are, and their veins. Who knew?

What I loved even more about our conversation was that neither one of them are going into farming. Their majors are International Business with Operations Management and a Chinese minor, and then Biology with a pre-med focus and Spanish minor!

But they said that they loved it and did it for all four years!

This would be my "oh my gosh there is a plastic animal named Cowlina right next to me that they use for demonstrations to teach kids how to milk cows" face when I was at the State Fair.

SC during Primary Season

 I am finally in the states when elections are happening and am old enough to have a say in the nation's future!

One of the things that I really like about being in South Carolina is that it's a major stop when election time rolls around. I think that it is fascinating to see where different candidate stand on issues, what they focus on, and what directions they want to bring the country.

Today I had the opportunity to hear Jon Huntsman speak after he finished third last night at the New Hampshire primary with approximately 16% of the votes. That was enough for him to bring his campaigning to South Carolina where today he held a town hall meeting at our business school. (In one of our smallest rooms let me point out. We were packed in there like a tin of sardines!) But how could I not go?

Here are some phrases (that I've paraphrased) that caught my attention:
     The best way to know your country is to see it through the eyes of other nations.
     "I'm an optimist"
     "I am a realist"
     He used pathetic twice to describe the state of something in our country.
     Having companies that are too big to fail is not capitalism; capitalism involves failure.
     I'm tired of politics and am not afraid of not being reelected .
     There is a likelihood of civil war in Afghanistan.
     We have an economic deficit, but we also have a trust deficit that I want to fix.

Here's an article about the event: www.latimes.com

I can't wait to see who else puts some face-time in here at the university!

Spring Weather during Winter?

Today is January 7th. Today it was 70 degrees outside. Those are two sentences that I cannot normally say together! I'm so surprised at the crazy winter weather going on. 366 days ago, it started snowing and we then proceeded to get the next day and a half of school off because of it. But today I was in shorts!

I'm also surprised at how much I'm enjoying not having a real winter (yet? I'm afraid to jinx it and then have a freezing February!). I'm a girl who loves sweaters and cardigans, jackets and boots, mittens and scarves. After living in Germany for five years (and having an Easter where we had so much snow that my mom sent my sister, dad, and me down the road to sled so she could create an Easter egg hunt inside the house so that her footprints in the snow wouldn't give away the egg's hiding places) I'm used to the sun disappearing in October and not reappearing until late April or May! But I definitely think that I can get used to seeing the sun during the winter months and having to shed my jackets and scarves.

Today

One year ago.

I'm Back!

So I'm back! In South Carolina! (and I'm also "back" in terms of actually recording the Southernisms - yes I just made that up. And I plan on using it. Often.)  I have to say it feels pretty good to be back in Columbia, and that's a little weird! I had to be back early for my job, and there has been a lot of staff bonding. I love it because they're all so great, and we always watch movies and work on stuff together. We also always try to do family dinners. Like the one we did tonight! This is where Aakash taught me how to say oil.

It started when we went to our family dinner at an Italian restaurant, and he asked me to pass the oil. Although he didn't say it quite like that! We spent the next twenty minutes with him teaching me how to say oil, boil, and spoiled like I was from the South. I couldn't say it correctly for the longest time! This is what I've learned: oil is pronounced phonetically like Ul, with an emphasis on the U. It is not pronounced like Ole. This little difference took me those twenty minutes and two different people explaining it to me, and I know that I was sounding funny!

So I learned that you don't boil water, you "bul" it. Some children aren't spoiled, they are spul'd.

That's all for today's phonetic lesson!

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Driving Down the Street and What Do I See?

Being back home this Christmas break reminded me of something that happened this summer. The story goes a little something like .....

This summer one evening my mom was in the driver's seat, be-bopping down the road with my sister and me after we'd been kicking the soccer ball around with some friends. We were driving down a little street lined with houses, when all of a sudden we see our friend's car stopped in front of us. Naturally, we stopped as well behind them to see what was the matter. Then our friends started pointing out their car windows, shouting and all trying to talk at once. Mass family chaos at its finest. I hear "Get your camera!" right when we all see it - the peacock strutting across the road!

The peacock, ruling the road.

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