Corinne's Blog

I have A ton on my plate right now with the end of the School year slowly drawing near. It’s amazing how much I can push myself to do when I have the motivation to do them. The crazy thing is that I haven’t had the motivation to do any schoolwork until I think it’s totally and last minute solution.

For school Due this week I have 2 papers and I have to do a presentation in front of class. Just today I finished most of my work for orchestra when I did the Final Spring Concert. Tomorrow I will be attempting to join the orchestra on a piece that they’ve been working on in sectionals. I am unable to attend sectionals during the week because I have the scheduling conflict with working that I can never get out of. Vavaldi’s Concerto for four violins looks easy but I’m hoping that my luck tomorrow will change when I try to play ‘easy’.

Outside of school I am working on a yearbook for the members of my sorority and it seems to be costing me an arm and a leg in Printing costs. I wish that my pay in some of my jobs could be toward free printing. I was hoping to get the yearbook done last week but I did not recieve personal pages and bios from all the ladies yet.

On top of working on something for the Delta Tau I have been trying to be the best social chair in IGC i possible can be. Sadly my passion and hardwork has been seen by some of my fellow members as a push of micromanagement and has been taken negitively. Just this past week was a huge week for the Hamline Greek community as social chair I was supposed to be ‘put in charge’ of the annual Greek Week that Hamline goes through. Not only was I sick the week before all the events were supposed to happen, I was left in the dark about what the times that the events would start would be. I was really nervous because I hate to deligate unless I completely must. I’m happy that I have people around such as Matt Hill who can pick up the pieces. The week before I got sick I think i’d been pushing myself too thin trying to get everything in my life straightened out i wore myself down so thin that my body began to suffer. Greek Week’s Events had been decided the week before I had gotten sick and 2 weeks before the events were actually supposed to happen. I wasn’t exactly nervous about what the events would be I was just wimply nervous about how they would be run and scheduled and whether or not all that components would get to the sites on the right days at the right times.

This is How the Week was supposed to go.

-Monday: May 4th Game Night and Pancake Dinner
-Tuesday: May 5th Philathropy Event and Bonfire
-Wednesday: May 6th Movie on the Lawn Night
-Thursday: May 7th Bowling Night and Voting for Greek awards
-Friday: May 8th Pig Prep Night
-Saturday: May 9th Greek Annual Luau Celebration.

Every event went well except some of the locations were changed at the last minute due to potential rain and failures at the Hamline Scheduling office. I felt so responsible for the events that I made sure that I was there to all of them. The only event I had a hard time going to was the canning door to door event that we had as a philanthropy event on Tuesday. I was working, I did bring cans from my dorm though when I finally got to the event.

I made Eggs on Monday the first day that I felt a bit like myself. Sadly my voice didn’t recover from the stress of my sore throat and terrible fever until Wednesday.

I felt disappointed in the Theta Chi when they had a great attendance at the Canning but failed to show up at the DT bonfire after that canning event was finished. It seemed as if they were taking ‘revenge’ for the lack of Delta Tau at the philanthropy event.

The attendance to the events in general was poor but I don’t think it took away from the overall atmosphere of the events it was just really disappointing.
I think the attendance was bad because of the scheduling of Greek Week itself and my lack of ability in promoting the events to both the houses as Social Chair. Hopefully next semester I can get the same position in order to try to do a better job encouraging members of the Greek community to attend. It’s embarrassing to have a lack of Greek on a week that is so open to the Hamline Campus community. I think it’s terrible for Greek Life’s Public relations and reputation as a good socail environment.

Regardless of the negitives of the Week I had a lot more positives and I met alot of wonderful people.

On top of Schoolwork, DT Yearbook and Inter-Greek Council I have my responsiblities in church and my responsibilities as a partner in the relationship I am currently in with Craig McCreath.

In Aldrich Avenue Presbyterian Church I participate as a member of the Praise and worship team…this requires me to be present at Sunday morning rehearsals every Sunday. Being sick a week ago was terrible for me because I was unable to sing to the best of my abilities I felt weak and I wasn’t completely 100% in listening to Matt Johnson’s Sermon. I feel that this responsibility on my plate is one that I take willingly and that I hope to continue with in the future as long as I am able and welcome. I think that the support of my friends and family in the Aldrich community really helps me get through my stressful weeks I really appreciated the chats I was able to have with people who I know really appreciate me and my talents and willingness to learn and ambition to do better. Though many of the people in this community think I am unique for being ’so young’ and in such a mature position I feel that I have a calling and that they have grown to understand that I praise my best when i am singing and leading others in Praise. At Church I was supposed to be joining the New Members group to finally find a place that I could call my Home Church after having left New Creation, I think I need to get to that …but that’s another thing I am adding to my plate.

When it comes to my relationship I found myself testing the waters quite a bit recently because I wanted to be able to define where I sat in Craig’s life. I lack understanding of how much of Craig’s time he spends working on schoolwork and how much time it takes him to design and code a website. I feel terrible that I am not able to judge this time because of the distance between us and I realize that I do not recognize and appreciate the many hours a day Craig sets aside at ANYTIME of the day to talk to me[or to hear me ramble on about my day's problems]. Craig doesn’t get enough thanks for stopping everything he is doing to answer my phone call or respond to my text message…I know that at times I get frustrated when he ‘multitasks’ and does his work while he is talking to me even though I often interupt Craig as he is working. I hope  Craig can tell how much I am obsessed with him…maybe the more proper word for that obsession would be…Love.  I can’t make a decision about my own life without thinking of how it might act to help or hinder us. I’m truely not a full and complete person without Craig. I wish Craig knew how much I love him and think about everyday. I want to close the literal gap in our relationship so I can spend more time proving to him how much I care about him. I hope he sees that I am not trying to test his love for me, but rather I am trying to make myself feel more secure in our relationship. When I ask a question that may be testy I am not looking for a reason to call Craig unfaithful or to mock him for being shy or moody at times. I do not want to show him that he is a bad boyfriend because he is the best one a girl could have and the perfect one I have wished for. Rather I am trying to prove to myself that I am worth keeping around even with all the terrible things I find that I do to Craig to the point where I’ve brought him to tears. I love Craig and I hope that when he thinks of our relationship and the fights that we’ve had recently he thinks about how those fights have contributed to our healthy relationship…and if he has to put a finger on it I hope he just labels it Sexual Tension caused by the distance between us these past few months. I constantly find myself closing my eyes and pretending that Craig was in the room or hugging a pillow trying to imitate the feeling of having that one perfect person to cuddle with and chat with late late at night when everyone around is sleeping. I long for the personality and the smiles and I miss the tickling and the simple act of holding a hand as I walk down the sidewalk (or pavement). I can’t wait till I am able to get back to Scotland or till I can get MY MAN in Scotland to come to me. I miss my best friend above all the physical things… Craig is the only person besides my mother who knows me better than I know me. I just wish that I could get the opportunity to become that same person for Craig someday. It’s like he knows me so well but I don’t think I live up to his standards and title of Awesomeness. In order to prove my own self worth I found myself turning to self help quizzes and trying to read books on ‘understanding men’s emotions’. As a last resort I turned to asking Craig directly and it came to discussions that caused arguements…I’m sorry about those and I’m happy that we both know what a stupid arguement is and what is not. I wish school would end tonight and that I had more money so I could fly back to Scotland and go back to that little place up in Elie and make up for lost time.

I think I take for granted how blessed I really have to be where I currently am. It’s Crazy how I’m constantly ranting on about my lack of ‘friends’ but when I think back to blogs like this where I reflect on what’s going wrong and right in my life It’s amazing that I can list a dozen people who are my true hopefully life friends. Those who I really appreciate and who I will love Forever regardless of what we may be going through.

Easter was really wonderful this year. Not only did Good Friday bring me a great prayer and the introduction to an old new friend that I haven’t considered but Easter went smoothly and the church was pretty full for it. Everyone and their mothers showed up on Easter Sunday and I was more than thrilled when even Jimmy and Sheena showed up with Collin and Caylie. We sang two traditional songs and some contemporary music…I didn’t feel uncomfortable wearing a skirt and I got some compliments from the woman of the congregation on how I looked…that made my confidence in myself go from the 3 that it’s been recently to a 9.5. After church [which went smoothly] I was ushered back home where I played Trivia Pursuit with Tiffany, her boyfriend Seth, My mom, Cynthia, and Tyler. We played guys against girls and the guys only won because when the time came for Tiffany and Seth to leave they were in the lead. I got to finish my Easter night with a fun half an hour chat with Craig. He told me that he would call me again around 3 or 4 in the morning so I spent the night after I got back home working out by dancing in my room to whatever song that was playing on my iPod. When Craig called I wished him a safe trip…hopefully nothing bad happens to him this week. I realize that his being on this trip is a good thing, it will help us both have time away from each other to think about things to talk about. With our relationship being simply Long distance at this point I feel that the conversations we are having are being formed on the basis that we both just want to hear each others voices because we miss each other…therefore the subject matter is kind of boring and becoming more and more routine.
In University I’m getting to the final push of the semester. I have a test tomorrow in intercultural communication and I’m in group projects in Schools and Societies and Christian Ethics. I think I’ve been becoming lazy about my work in those classes and I’ve failed to get any of my work done with my groups. I hoping to be productive this afternoon when I work with Melissa on my Schools and Societies project.
When it comes to greek life everything is going well. I’m in the process of planning the Greek Summit with other members of Inter-greek council and because Craig is out of town and will be away and not able to come and be my date for DT formal I have asked Matt Hill to accompany me. Everything on the social front seems to be working out.

Sadly at work one of my favorite chefs was fired for stealing for stealing a woman’s purse at work. I’m getting to better know the other people who work in Sorin but sadly outside of work I’m not allowed to associate myself with them because of Student Hamline Worker relations policies. The people I work with are really cool though.

I have class but that’s a quick run down.

Craig…I miss you have fun in Egypt!

I am going to focus on the Oikonomous (or the House hold rules) Oikonomous: official in charge of managing the estates and finances of an ecclesiastical foundation; steward of a monastery…And how they determine Christian Ecomonic decisions.

Corinne Salone
Abstract Proposal
Christian Ethic Final Paper
A.Van Wyk

I would like to propose my studying how worth is given to how people work in America in accordance to how much they are paid. How is one mans position in the economy is different from any others mans when they both work the same hours. I would like to answer how people place value in what issues they support with their money base off their Christian ethical beliefs. What are some Economic situations that people find themselves getting into on an average day? And why Christians are seen as less materialistic because of what the Bible says about being materialistic. I want to show how the United States economy though it is a predominantly Christian society isn’t following the Bibles beliefs in materialism. I will be studying the reading of Matthew, Isaiah and John and looking at the stories of Jesus and what he said to Zacheus. And others about stopping their materialism and following his teachings. I plan on looking at Ephesians 1:3-10; 3:8-10. In l: l0 and 3:9 into order to translate them using various words to see what is suggested as what is God’s plan/economy really is. I also would like to read Colossians 1:24-26; I Peter 4:7-11. To determine whether Paul was a steward, a minister or an economist? Are you an economist? A steward? A minister? Are they different? I would Like to look into the and study the oikonomos (household rules) to see how they affect Christian’s ideas on how they should be spending their money now. In order to determine Why Christians focus on certain decisions and not others. Why the church sides to buy and support some causes and not others.

So far so good on the University front.

When I’m in Church everyone week to week asks me how I’m doing in school. Week to week the message doesn’t change much unless I take a hard test or I have a fun project that I spent a whole night trying to procrastinate to finish.

Recently I’ve been busy with planning events for Inter-greek council and when I wasn’t doing that I was at work or in class. I really have no social life outside of talking to Craig on the internet and I’m trying to establish a better relationship to the people who attend my church who are around my age group.

I’ve been taking a lot of tests in the past few weeks and I just happened to get the scores back to all of my tests this past week:

>In Christian Ethics I got a pretty decent score of a B+ on an essay and a short answer true of false test. So far Christian Ethics has been my favorite class because it challenges me to deeper thinking and it is a subject that I do not mind talking about because I have knowledge in the religious aspects because I am a Christian myself and I have grown up in a Christian family so I’ve been in a Christian environment my whole life. It’s great how I survived the first part of the class without a Ethics book by Frankena just because I found the book online. I only declared myself a Christian though when I began to understand what the messages meant and wanted to learn more and follow the teaching of the religion. So far in the class we have been learning about Ethics and what it means and what some different values and beliefs are that people follow. We have now started working on the Christian aspects and it’s really interesting to hear and meet people who have grown up in similar environments and who are at different levels of their faith than myself. It’s interesting to meet people who have never had any religious experiences because they seem to be an empty cup that isn’t filled in my eye. I want them to know the joy and the peace that comes in Christianity but I don’t want to be one of those people who is constantly shoveling religion down their throats when they are taking a religion class because I think that I am right and that my way is “the only way”. I’m hoping that the class keeps improving and going the way I want it to, it’s great on discussions and debates.

>In my Intercultural Communication 2nd class in which I have no book I didn’t do the best on the first test. This is partly because I’d been talking to Craig the night before the test and because i’d slept in and missed the first fifteen minutes of test taking time. At the end of the test after I’d tryed to buzz through the multiple chioce questions with help from my study guide I was only able to complete 3 out of the 5 available essay questions because I ran out of time and the teacher would not give me anymore for coming in late. Both questions were worth seven points each so that was fourteen points off my total score off of home plate.

>Scuba Diving was an interesting situation. I have Scuba right after I have Orchestra on Wednesday nights. The classes actually overlap by fifteen minutes. So every Scuba Diving class I would come fifteen minutes late and miss fifteen minutes of the information being taught. When it came to diving, that was no problem because it took a long time to suit up and get ready to dive and I’d get there with just enough time to do that if I dressed quickly. On one of the days that I’d come in late we’d recieved our official scuba diving books. My instructor didn’t remember to hand me a book when I got there so when it came time for us to turn in our assignments I was wondering why I had nothing in which to get my assignments from. I ended up begging a flaky girl in my class Anna Y. to use her book but she acted like a bitch and wouldn’t let me barrow it. I was really sick that week so I wasn’t in the mood to fight Anna about it either. I went to the Hamline book store and bought a fifty one dollar book that wasn’t the right kind of water safety book anyway. The teacher had been handing the water safety books out himself because Hamline’s bookstore had refused to buy the book and supply them in the first place. The water safety book I’d gotten I wasn’t able to return because I’d taken the book out of it’s clear plastic wrapping. It was just my luck that the night that I’d arranged to finally get a book from the instructor had been the night of the final Scuba diving TEST. I had to complete the test after not having ever had a book to study off of as I watched my book sit on the instructors front desk. Crazy as it may sound I had been a really good listener and note taker in the class and I passed the Scuba test with only 12 out of 60 questions wrong. I even got a few freebies when i could use my notes to prove that they questions were wrong that were being asked on the test. So that class was a relief and now I have some quizzes to do with my new book.

>Hamline Orchestra has been fun as usual, Yali You loves my orchestra class because we are the best orchestra she’s had in her whole entire career at Hamline. Rumor is that a couple of semesters ago she’d had to cancel orchestra completely because of it’s being SO BAD. Yali has given us really hard music to work on this semester…Beethoven, Mozart, Bartok, and A lot more. We had 3 weeks(that is 6 practices) to master a fifteen minute orchestral song…it was crazy…BUT A BLAST! I really like orchestra and I hope I don’t miss this final concert like I did last semester.

>Crossing Borders I is orientation for study abroad. I signed up for the class because it sounded fun and I wanted to learn about other cultures I had no clue that that was why. So I signed up for study abroad for this summer but I have a fear that I will have trouble paying to go. I haven’t dropped the class and the things I am learning about traveling have helped me in intercultural communications.

>Schools and Societies was my first class in my Hamline undergraduate education courses. Recently I got an A- on an exam we were given on the first few chapters of the book we were supposed to buy for the class. I hadn’t had the money to buy that book either so I found myself copying the chapters on the copy machine from classmates…page by page. I was sick when I took the exam and I was coughing so bad and had such a fever that my Professor had to give me cough drops to suck on and I took an extra hour to take the test because I was so dilierious. For the class I have been placed in Seward Montessori 1st-5th grade school to complete 30 hours of class student volunteer work. It’s been fun so far but I’ve found that it’s hard to catch the three buses it takes to get to Seward early Wednesday and Friday mornings.

So, that’s an update on my current school status at Hamline…I’m thinking of finally declaring a Major and Minors :

Maybe Global Studies and Music Double major with a double minor in religion and education.

If you see me running everywhere have no fear and stop by and say hi…I need the encouragement outside of work and classes and DT…I’ll talk about work and DT later.

Whoever reads this…stranger or friend feel free to call me and we’ll chat:

651-523-4076.

Till later all.

Because I didn’t spend a lot of money last semester and because I got a lot of Loans last semester the school over charged me more than I spent and I got a refund check of almost 600$. That’s enough for me to deposit and get out of Debt tomorrow…meaning that I can start paying people I love back PRETTY SOON! I’m so happy that God has created this miracle in my life…!

When I get my next paycheck it will be toward a positive account…and I will be able to raise money soon too. Hurray!

My account will be unfrozen then I will proceed to pay:

-Craig(and his dad),  -My  mom, – Hamline University, and anyone else I owe. I’m not superstitious but I know that this is a good thing is a line of good things i know that are coming my way. I’ve been working my butt off too hard not to get them.