Spring Break Recap

This year's spring break was officially the best spring break ever! I honestly went into the trip with doubts and was super worried that it would be all work and would not be any fun at all. 27 students from Bradley left last Saturday morning for a trip to Miami to help with Habitat for Humanity. We all crammed into 2 mini-vans, a suburban, and a Honda Accord. I was responsible for driving 6 other people in one of the nicest mini-vans I had ever seen.

The ride was supposed to be about 22 hours. It felt like forever because caravaning with 4 other cars takes a lot of patience. People were constantly taking bathroom breaks and wanting to get food. My van was all about getting to Miami asap. The trip wasn't too bad and eventually we got the hang of it. It would have been way better if we didn't have two bears in our van that snored super loudly all the way there.

Once in Miami, we unloaded our stuff at the church and headed to the beach that Sunday! It was a blast and we found a quiet place to relax and take a nap. We all were passed out in the fact that we didn't even notice when people had taken down a ton of tents behind us. Once we felt like we had a little bit of life in us we walked over to where the party was. Let's just say... people are crazy! One of the girls with us had the worst luck ever...she got stung by a jelly fish and then proceeded to lose her phone. We came back from the beach and all fifty of us girls fought over the 3 dirty shower stalls the church provided us.

Monday, we had orientation early in the morning with the people from the Miami chapter of Habitat. She was very upbeat and super friendly. Once that was over, we headed back to South Beach again! I decided to take it upon myself to make sure the girl from yesterday had fun today. She definitely did. We walked all the way up & down the beach and met a lot of interesting people. Once we came back, it was time to go home. We went out to TGI Friday's and ate there until we were dragged home. I played basketball at the church afterwards and eventually passed out for the night.

Tuesday was our first day building. We were stuck nailing beams into cement walls. This was almost impossible. We had to swing the hammer at awkward angles and hit the nails with enough force that caused a spark off the nail. This was so hard so after lunch we snuck up on the roof to nail in some boards up there. After building, every one was drained. We decided to stay in and play card games. We played a game similar to Apples to Apples and had a blast. This was when we all started to really bond as a group.

Wednesday we went to a different site. We met a really awesome guy from Haiti named Charles. He had so much great information and honestly taught us some life lessons. We learned how to landscape primarily today. We sodded and planted trees all day. We were all covered in dirt from head to toe. After building, we got free pizza from a sponsor. It was deliciousssss and super filling. We then got to the beach around 5. We had just dug a lazy-boy recliner in the sand (like a big trench that looked like a recliner) when it started pouring. We were really hoping that it would blow over but instead we got drenched walking to the car.  We played some games in the parking lot until it stopped raining and then headed back out. We ended up wandering the streets for a little while and actually saw a guy in a bikini in CVS. He was totally NOT MY TYPE! He had bright pink lipstick and eye shadow on and some dollar bills hanging out of the back of his suit. He also had a tramp stamp that said "bet U won't". It was quite the site to see. We walked around the beachfront for a while and one of the girls went in the portapotty. One of the guys was a meanie and started to shake the pot so she ran out screaming (it was a really funny sight) We then ended up salsa dancing in a hotel lobby for a while and then went to eat a French sandwich bar! Delicious!

Thursday we got to build with Charles again. Before we started working, we met some crazy cats wandering the streets. We probably shouldn't have pet them but they were super cute and the kid waiting for school said one was named Sass-a-Frass. We did the same type of thing for most of the day but then moved to a new house where we tore up a driveway. We stacked over 400 bricks and then shortly found out that these bricks needed to be moved to the back yard. We made an assembly line and had great teamwork and eventually accomplished this goal. We were all completely covered in dirt from head to toe and had dirt caked in every nook & cranny on our bodies. We went straight to the beach and jumped right in the water in the hopes that we could wash away all the dirt. We hung out on the beach and made another big lazy-boy couch and played games for most of the night. We went to eat at Manolo's which had really good food as well when one kid thought he lost his wallet but come to find out it was in the van. The reason I mention this is because everyone lost everything this trip. I lost my dear sunglasses in the ocean as well!

Friday was our last day working. We went to the same site as we went Tuesday and cut down shrubs and trees that had overgrown the property. While we were cleaning up this debris we found a ton of old clothes and shoes. It was really random and everyone liked to throw it at each other which was super gross! Habitat for Humanity provided a really delicious Cuban lunch and then we said our last goodbyes to Charles. We then finished the day off by doing insulation in one of the houses. We said our goodbyes to all the staff and headed back to the church to get ready for our last night. All of the girls got super dressed and we went out to a really nice Cuban restaurant called Sergio's. There we had the best Sangria ever and I had an amazing grilled chicken sandwich. From there we went to walk around South Beach one last time. We went in a club and danced around for a while before heading into a bigger club called Mango's. There were sooooo many people packed in there with all different genres of music playing on different dance floors. I had so much fun and was so sad when the night was over. I passed out in the car on the way home from pure exhaustion.

Saturday we woke up ready to pack our stuff up and hit the road. Everything was going well until someone locked our van keys in the car. Luckily Enterprise was able to get in contact with someone that came to let us in to our car. We packed everything up and switch people around and into our van. We literally had one of the funnest car rides home talking about all of our inside jokes. We  stopped to eat at Steak and Shake where an old man fainted and we almost had to give CPR! It was really scary and I thought I was going to have a heart attack as well! Luckily he was ok and all he wanted to do was eat but they took him to the hospital to monitor him for sure. In the middle of the night at one of the gast stations, we saw a lady go crazy on a guy! She just started punching him and attacking him. It was insane! The guy just stood there and took it from her until finally someone else was able to stop her. People are crazy! We drove home through the night and got back into Peoria around 11 am. Luckily we missed most of the snow but my feet were sure not happy to be wearing flip flops in the freezing cold weather. It was super sad saying our goodbyes because we had all grown so close this trip.

It's crazy to believe that my last spring break is officially over. I loved every single second of it and met a lot of great people I never would have known before. It's crazy how much people really do judge books by their covers. I know I do, and I would really like to break this habit because this break was a prime example of what you could be missing out on. This break was so rewarding. I gave my time up to volunteer to build homes for people less fortunate that are out there trying to support a family while living on the street. Sometimes it may seem as though my life sucks, but in all honesty there are so many people way worse off than me. I will never forget this trip and how it changed my life. 


Sorry this is so long, I just don't want to forget anything about this trip.



VJH, DF, Hey Sista.

LaSt SpRiNg BrEaK eVeR?!?!!?! Spray tan gone wrong.

Do you remember when it used to be cool to type like that all the time?!?! Especially on AIM <--bringing old school back right there!

So in preparation for this spring break, I didn't want to remain pasty white anymore. So instead of going tanning (which I no longer do because I had pre-melanoma freckles (I don't like to refer to them as moles because they really were just large freckles on my spine) last summer that I had to have remove), I went with some friends to get a spray tan. 

**On a side note (rant of the day/public service announcement): if you go tanning, please get skin cancer screenings often. I thought that I would be fine because I tan easily and I come from a Hispanic background, but last summer made me realize that no one is safe. I am not telling you to change your lifestyle because I know that people told me how bad tanning is all the time but I kept going anyways. So please just be careful and get checked often! 

Back to the spray tan....so I had never gotten a spray tan before and had no idea what to expect. The girls at the salon were not very helpful either. My friends tried to explain to me what I should do but of course I was assuming the worst. The attendant took me back to the room and shut the door. I began to put the "barrier" creme on all my dry skin like my friends told me to do and slipped the hair net on.  I then hopped in the stall and pressed the button and waited for the worst. 

The machine doesn't count down or anything so I had no idea when it was coming. It started and was freezing. I couldn't breathe and when I opened my eyes to turn around, a brown haze was around me. My eyes were stingy and watery and all of the sudden the cold dark mist was on me again. After about a minute of torture, I was released from my jail cell.

I wiped off the excess brown off my arms and realized it was too late for my legs. I had dark brown stripes down the back of my calves. I tried scrubbing with the small towel provided to no avail.

I walked out of the stall ashamed and embarrassed of how the spray tan got the best of me.

While typing this today and looking at my hands...I realized how oompa loompas must feel. My hands are orange except where the "barrier" creme was. 
My spring break is definitely off to a fun start and I can only imagine what Miami has in store for me! 

Enjoy break everyone!! : )

Shaved Bear?

First off, have you ever seen a shaved bear? My grandma (being the grandma that feels that it is necessary to spam my facebook wall five times a day) sent me a picture of a shaved bear...no idea why but it made me laugh because it looks so dumb and helpless lol and really ugly.

This week has been super busy once again! Thursday is our first exam in 490 and I will be praying to the marketing gods that it isn't as bad as it sounds. I have already mentally checked out and am counting down the minutes until I leave for spring break.

Tomorrow is an exciting day at work for me! The Caterpillar Sustainability Report comes out (woo-hoo!!!). This report is like 80 pages long and takes them almost half a year to produce. I know that it is not a very interesting topic but it is super important to such a large business like Caterpillar.

My aunt and her husband have been in town from California for the past week or so. It's been really nice to see them but it makes me jealous at the same time! I love it out there. The weather is amazing, there is so much stuff to do, they have In & Out.... It's just awesome! One day I really hope that I can live out there.

Welp, that's all for now. Back to cramming for this exam.

Enjoy spring break everyone! Scary to think it's my last!

Semester Flying By...

This past week has been super crazy! I feel like I am never home because I am either at work, in class, or meeting with various groups to accomplish projects. As much as I hate having all of these projects this semester, I've realized how important they are. Lately with all of the interviews I have been doing, I have been able to use my group project scenarios to answer their questions so it works out nice! This semester has flown by so far! Can everyone else believe that it is almost halfway over?!?!

 I am getting so excited because for this spring break I am actually going with Habitat for Humanity to Miami! This was something I never thought I would do. I love the feeling of helping others but had never actually thought about giving my spring break up to do so. Luckily, we are taking rental cars this year so we will have our own form of transportation once we get down there! This means we can enjoy activities other than building houses, painting, landscaping, etc... We already booked a trip to go parasailing and I can not wait! Has anyone else been to Miami? What are some of your favorite things to do there? We are going to South Beach one day but other than that we haven't decided!