I'm sitting in my favorite College Station coffee shop trying to catch up on life. I am not being overly dramatic about the catching up on life. I have lived a full and happy summer, and as soon as it was over, I was thrown back into life at A&M.

I spent this summer at Baylor University working in their Department of New Student Programs. I visited there in November to "interview" with the staff there, and felt as though it was where I needed to be. I am so grateful that I spent my summer there, and could not imagine a better place to work!

I worked with Orientation, Line Camp and the BaylorBound leaders and their training. I really enjoyed the work that I did, as well as the people I worked with. The staff in the office were AMAZING not to mention a hysterical group of people to work with. My students were a great group of people- so genuine and also pretty funny. I learned a lot about myself personally and professionally this summer. It was the break and experience that I needed heading into my last year in grad school.

I arrived back in BCS on August 1st and we started training on August 3rd. It's been full steam ahead ever since. I did manage to slip sleeping almost an entire Saturday in there. After a week of hall director training, my RAs came back and they had a week of training. My staff this year is amazing! They work together really well and I can tell that they are in this job for the right reasons. I can't tell you how happy that makes me!

We just opened the halls this past Sunday and 70% of my building moved in that day.
It was a very busy day. It went smoothly over all, minus a few issues. Our building is continuing to have issues with hot water working consistently. Also, I continually did rounds on the floors climbing stairs, grabbing boxes, and taking them out to recycling. It was a long day!

Saturday, I drove up to Baylor for The Big Even for Welcome Week. It was such a blast! There was a great 80s cover band playing and almost everyone dressed up in accurate outfits. It was really nice to be able to see the last stage of summer programming, and to see my students and coworkers again. I only wish that I had been able to talk to them more and see them for a longer period of time!

Currently my parents are in town visiting. It's been a really nice laid back visit. I believe that they are planning to make a few road trips this week to various places in Texas. Plus, my dad hung up my curtains and fixed my license plate. He's pretty handy!

Classes start at A&M next Monday. I'm taking Higher Ed. Law and Assessment. Additionally I have a Practicum (or internship) class that I am registered for, but completed the hours this summer. I am doing a third practicum in our Student Conflict Resolution Services/Alcohol and Drug Education program office. I'll be adjudicating a few cases, and developing a training session for student leaders teaching them to recognize signs of drug abuse in their student organizations. My hope is that it can be used for the RAs in the fall. I'm also co-teaching an RA class this semester with a full-time staff member. I'm not sure what that is going to look like yet, but I should be learning more about it soon.

I will also be a Spiritual Mom for the Aggie Sisters for Christ SisterShine program. The women in SisterShine volunteer as mentors to high school aged women in Bryan/College Station. They each are in smaller groups with a Spiritual Mother (aka me) who meets with them, and mentors them. I'm really very excited about this opportunity. The thing I missed most last year was being able to be freely intentional about faith with my students and this should provide me with an outlet to do that. I cannot wait to find out what students I'm going to be working with and see what this experience will be like!

I am very hopeful that this year will be great. There seem to be a lot of great things up ahead and if all else fails, I'll be finished with school (hopefully for good) in 263 days. Wow!