To Mom and Dad

Mom and Dad,
So recently I've been homesick. Funny, right, I know but true. I think it might be that I'm finally so close, but yet I still have to get in my car and drive 2 hours (average depending on which way I want to go), to get home. Also, being back at Purdue, I'm under a lot more pressure and stress with the load of school work and extra-circulars I've got going. One would think that I would be more stressed out in a foreign country about school, but wrong again because I let myself embrace one of the major 'must-does' while studying abroad, and that is to allow yourself the opportunity to learn as much as you can outside of the classroom about the culture that you are in. Being back at Purdue, it is natural that this stress has come around, but it makes me think of how nice it is to go home as that typically means laying on the couch and watching tv with you guys and snuggling up in my bed with my dogs and attempting to sleep in.

Between being homesick and my recent speech assignment in my speech class, I have come to realize yet again how awesome you two are! My entertainment speech topic was giving a toast to both at you at your upcoming 35th wedding anniversary. The point of an entertainment speech is to be light-hearted and funny, but still get a sentimental point across to leave your audience with that warm-fuzzy feeling inside. A majority of the class gave wedding toasts and there were a few award presentations/ acceptances, but I couldn't think of a better topic than to toast to the two of you.

My speech talked about how unlikely it seemed on the surface the two of you were for each other, pointing out your differences but exemplified you as always keeping Christ in the center of their marriage, and being an awesome model to both my brother and me. The stories came out about dad taking mom to White Castle, football games and other 'classy' fast-food places on your first few dates. How dad blew the straw-wrappers at my mom, (yay for teenage-flirting tactics being pulled off by young professionals!), also came out. But somehow dad won you over mom, and needless to say, I'm glad he did.

35 years is a long time! I mean, you guys were married in the middle of the 70's! My closest connection to that decade is from watching Austin Powers. I know that you two have had your rough times like when dad attempted to put ketchup on your eggs mom. The divorce papers just about came out after that one, just kidding, but thank you for working through those rough spots and for embracing the good times and for just being awesome parents! I rarely heard the word 'no,' as you encouraged me in almost all of my endeavors, so when I did hear 'no,' I knew it was for a good reason. You made my childhood dream come true of becoming involved with horses and as I hope to have a career within that industry, I can not thank you enough for fostering that love and passion from an early age. And dad, I know it seems I'm picking on you a lot in all of this, but thanks for all of the hours in the saddle you've put in with me. Horses are very different than cows you had growing up and not too many men would dive into the world of horses the way you did, and I know it was out of love for me.

So again, here's to you mom and dad- I love you both with all of my heart and honestly can not imagine my life without the two of you :) Muah, and I hope this snowstorm doesn't keep me from coming home this weekend.

Love always,
Maddy

Leadership with Open Eyes

Today was the Motar Board Leadership Conference, or MBLC. First off, I'd like to make a confession, as I have never actually attended it before and this was my first time and I was working it. Anyways, it was great!

I was one of the speaker hosts for Dr. Paul Robinson who is a joint professor in both the Engineering College and the School of Veterinary Medicine here at Purdue. His topic was about setting goals and then how to achieve them. He was a great speaker with an awesome Australian accent, which was sweet and reminded me of my Australian friends I made in Ireland.

But here is where the title of my blog comes into play. Originally, Robinson spoke of an initial goal or 'task' that he was confident he could accomplish - creating a low-tech, low-cost diagnostic technology for HIV/AIDS testing in Africa. Half of the problem is detection. He talked about how he pounded away at it for over a year with not much success, so he sat back and reevaluated and decided to climb Mt. Everest instead, as in 20,930ish meters high, ya, that Mt. Everest, to raise awareness of his original goal.

He had great tips on persevering, taking it one step at a time, relying on your team and learning from your failures. But what I saw in him personally at the end of his talk and being able to have some one-on-one time with him was his overall attitude and charisma. Now, I did not know Paul before he climbed the mountain, but he even confessed to being a different person after climbing the mountain. And that overall joy and exuberance just flooded out of him. And now he has returned to his original task with a different mindset about it.

Now, I didn't climb Mt. Everest, but I really see this past year as my 'Everest.' I have come back a much more relaxed and confident person. Recognizing and relying in my capabilities in order to get a task done and just to live my life in a better way on a day to day basis.

At the afternoon closing session Keith Krach spoke, who is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Purdue University. You have to google this guy! His accomplishments in the business world are ridiculous! He was an amazing speaker, my favorite of the day. There were three keys that I took away from his talk and the first was the fact that he placed values right underneath vision when developing yourself and your leadership characteristics and goals. The second point that I liked in his talk was that he described his father as the best leader that he has ever known because he was someone that everybody liked to be around. Lastly, he talked about his junior high basketball days when trying to figure out why his teammate always had more points than him. After watching game footage, he realized it was what his teammate was doing when he didn't have the ball that put him in great position to be successful. What are you doing when you don't have the ball?

So between these two speakers, I got some great advice about leadership and really just how to live my own personal life. Even though the day started out early for me, I managed to keep my eyes open and now have a slightly different perspective on what leadership is and how I can apply that to my life.

I hope y'all are having a great weekend and that my friends down in Texas are staying safe and warm with all of the snow y'all have down there :)

Cheers,

Britt

Keys- not where they're supposed to be!

Two weeks of classes are almost in the books for me. Sorry for not being more consistent on here, my computer decided to crap out on me and I have now had my hard drive wiped 3 TIMES! Not a happy camper with the whole Purdue/ HP situation. Good news is that I'm starting to shop for a new laptop! I'm getting mixed reviews on what to get though- so any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Classes are great! I really like them this semester- even the one that I thought was going to be annoying, AGR 201 "Communicating Across Cultures." I don't know, I was under the impression that after taking ag classes in a foreign country for a semester would cover all the 'diversity' experience that I would need for my degree. But apparently not. On the bright side, talking about issues such as gender, race, sexual preferences, religion and disabilities with a bunch of Indiana farm kids and a confident African-American professor will offer some amusement at least twice a week.

Other classes are my 3 communications classes. Advanced Public Speaking (which I just gave my first speech, felt really good about it!), Writing for the Mass Media and Communication Theory. I have to actually 'read' the AP Style book and take quizzes over it. Seriously it is like trying to read the dictionary!

Then come my last two classes- an ag econ management class and horse evaluation. It's hard to say that these are my favorites, but anytime I feel like I don't have to study for a quiz and still do a good job on it- I like that class, which is what happened in my horse class yesterday over the parts of the horse. I really like my professor for the management class. I admire him for his witness as he started the very first day of class telling us a little bit about himself, his first words were, "I'm a Christian and if you are looking for a good Christian home/ home church here in Lafayette, I can help you find one." How awesome is that?

So my biggest 'oops' I've had in awhile is locking my keys in the car last night. Some friends and I went out to the Cactus and I was the DD. I didn't want to carry in a purse, so I took my car keys off the rest of my keys and put my money, ID's and phone in my pockets when I went in. After I dropped everyone off, I was reassembling everything and grabbed my lanyard thinking I had just grabbed all my keys and locked the car with the door lock like I always do. I got to the top of the stairs, thought that my key chain was a little thin and realized what I had just done, but didn't want to do anything about it cuz it was late. Spare set you ask? Ya, in the armrest of my car. I know, not a very smart place to put it, but with all of my moves and such, they just never made it to an actual usable location. So looks like I'm calling AAA later today or hitching a ride home with someone tonight or tomorrow, as those were my weekend plans. Ben and Eva are coming up, so it'll be nice to have everyone together. Now let's just hope that I can get there :)

Cheers,
Britt

Purdue!!!!!!!

So a quick update that is much overdue again- sorry. Didn't know if y'all would still be interested in my life now that I'm just a college kid back at school.

I got everything moved back to Purdue safe and sound and before the big snow hit last week. Campus is absolutely beautiful with all of the snow! Sad to say that it is slowly melting away which creates slush and puddles to be avoided while walking to classes.

My apartment: I LOVE IT!!! Lots of room and my roomie is super cool. Good location, reasonable rent- can't ask for much more :)
Wesley: Awesome seeing all the old friends and meeting the newbies- I can't believe how much Wesley has changed and grown :)
Classes: Actually ROCK! I'm taking 3 COM classes- Advanced public speaking, writing for the mass media and communication theory. Then for my Ag classes I have an Agribusiness management class with a way cool prof, multicultural understanding (lame considering I've spent four months in another country) and horse evaluation! So, yes, it's going to be a difficult semester- I'm loving it so far :)

You'll notice the use of a lot of smiley faces- well that's because I'm super happy! There are a lot of awesome things going on around campus and in my life and God has started to make some things more clear for me. But man, am I tired! This whole going to class thing and working out is exhausting stuff! My sister-in-law, Eva, wants me to run a half marathon with her in Louisville in April, so that's my new challenge to shoot for. Plus buying new clothes after you loose weight is way fun!

Mom is here for part of the day. She came over for the Wesley Board meeting last night and stayed the night. I have class until 11:30, then we're going out to lunch and grocery shopping and then saying goodbye. It's nice having her around, I just felt bad because we were both soooo tired last night and I had reading to do for speech class about how to be a good listener! Yay, I feel like I'm back in 3rd grade! But I got a 5 out of 5 on my quiz- so worth it I suppose!

I have a feeling that there will be some good blogging material that comes out of my "Communicating Across Cultures" class. Imagine a bunch of conservative, Indiana, farm kids talking about issues such as race, religion, gender and sexual identity issues. Should be somewhat amusing at least. I already asked a guy to prove the statement "Males are biologically better leaders than females," after he agreed with the statement that the teacher gave out as a possible "trigger phrase." It was all light-hearted, fun- but I'm not afraid to throw what little weight I have in there :)

Alright... time to find my classroom for my last class of the day then I'm hanging with my mommio! :)

Boiler Up!
Britt

Too Heavy

So it is late but the guilt of not posting since I've been home is hanging heavy, so I've decided to heave that weight off of me by finally sitting down to one of the four possible computers in this house and blogging. So much has happened since I've been home, that this could prove to be my longest post yet, but again, it is late and I'm tired, so I'll just hit the highlights for y'all.

My brother's wedding was wonderful! The bed and breakfast, the old county jail, was fun as it was all of Ben's friends and our pastor and family that had this whole place to ourselves. Too many jokes were made about the groom's side of this shindig staying in the "Slammer," but they never really got old. We had just enough snow Friday night to make everything pretty but not too bad to travel in. The rehearsal dinner was yummy, although I was the subject of abuse for both of Ben and Eva's impromptu speeches with the excuse being I haven't been in the country for the last 4 months, so they had a lot of 'catching up' to do. Saturday brought on the big day and an early start with a 10:30am wedding time. Us girls just did our own hair and make-up and everything was going well. You know, the typical bridesmaid routine, hold the flowers lower than you think you should, try to pretend your feet don't hurt in your killer shoes (pain is beauty, pain is beauty, pain is beauty . . .) and try not to cry as I have a direct line of vision to my brother so sincerely promising to love and protect, honor and cherish the love of his life for well, the rest of their lives. I blame the tears on the fact that I hadn't seen him since Easter!!! The rest of the wedding again, fairly typical, pictures took way too long, good food, sweet toasts, cake, yatta yatta and bang... they are off for the honeymoon and oh my gosh, my BROTHER IS MARRIED! But all along it just felt right. We were all excited but not giddy or overwhelmed because we have all had this contentment about my brother and Eva so it all just seemed natural I guess is the best word to describe. So they have now safely returned from a fun-filled week in Orlando and face the reality of work tomorrow and are ridiculously happy, which is actually really cute.

CHRISTMAS! Merry Christmas to y'all by the way. Christmas was nice here, even though slightly different than our traditional way to celebrate the wonderful holiday. First off, Ben was gone, the 11:00pm service at church was slim and didn't last until midnight, Aunt Sylvia had knee surgery and didn't come to Christmas Eve service with us, then Christmas day was actually celebrated with my dad's sister and husband, aunt Sylvia, Grandma and mom and dad. Every other year it has just been the 4 of us. And this year I thought I would tackle Christmas dinner all on my own, well most of it at least. My part of the amazing meal was the turkey, corn casserole, the pie, the veggies and cheese sauce and the potatoes. Mom had much more hair on her head this year as she typically gets fairly stressed about preparing Christmas dinner. Everything turned out great! I was so proud of myself! Sylvia graciously donated a 20.83 pound turkey, so 'Norman' was a doozy after our 10 pounder named 'Hamilton' in Ireland. Don't ask why I name the turkeys, I'm not sure of the reason myself. So on to the good stuff... the presents! Mom crotch ed a beautiful butterfly blanket for me that was by far my favorite gift :) Other nice things came in small packages, aka, jewelry and checks, but that blanket was amazing and I know there was so much love put into every knot of it :)

Preparing Christmas dinner was a lot of work, but so was going through all of my stuff in storage in the barns and moving into my apartment at Purdue. Mom and I had fun painting and 'speckling' my loft and then I had more fun than one should have with dad loading the truck with all of the furniture and my stuff and hauling it up three flights of stairs! I'm really proud of us for getting it done, but my arms are still slightly limp from all of the heavy lifting. But my room looks great and is only going to get better when I finish bringing over the rest of my stuff when I officially move in next Friday. Black and green are my colors and ya, its going to be awesome!

Wedding, Christmas, moving in, those are the biggies that I've been up to, but I've squeezed in some time for some shopping, saw Avatar and Sherlock Holmes, and rode Chip today over at New Castle. It's been a pretty packed 'break' so far and it's no where near to being over. New Year's Eve tomorrow night with Grandma; trip down to Kentucky to spend more time with the newly weds (I think they just want me to bring more of their stuff down honestly since they couldn't fit it all in their car); meeting up with friends; putting 2009 into the scrap-book; and gosh-darn it, I'd like some time just to read and chillax!!!!!

So there folks, the weight has been lifted, I feel no more guilt, Hallelujah!
Happy New Year Y'all!

Britt

So Close . . .

I can't believe it! One more final and a magical night then I'm on a plane going home!!!! I haven't been this excited about something in a really, really long time. And the excitement just keeps building with Ben's wedding on SATURDAY!!!!! My brother is getting married!!! I think the reality of that statement is just escalated by the fact that I haven't seen him since Easter which means March which is way, way too long ago!!!!

Ah---- Can hardly think between the excitement and the exhaustion. I practically pulled an all-nighter last night studying for my Equine Health and Husbandry exam this morning. Like literally, I woke up yesterday at 11:30, studying by 12. Then took a break to run and shower and get a snack at 3:30, back to the books by 4:30. Quick run to my friends to deliver some cold medicine around 8 and then back at it by 9. I literally did not take any substantial breaks until about 6:20am this morning and grabbed a few winks with my alarm set for 7:05 to catch the 7:30 shuttle to the testing center. At the testing center by 8 and studies until about 8:50 and took the exam for the 2 hours! It went well I think, it was just so much information to remember because I had no clue what she would put on the exam and how much detail she expected. EHV 1, 3 and 4, EVA (not to be confused with EAV), Equine Influenza H7N7 and H3N8, Rotovirus, Strangles, Rhodicoccus Equi, mycotoxins, MRLS, West Nile, COPH, EIPH, EIA, evolution of the horse, welfare, husbandry, parasitology, chronobiology, angular limb diformities and I could seriously still give you more topics that could have come up. I eventually crashed for a few hours this afternoon, but I'm soon to bed so I can get up early in the morning to finishing packing, cleaning and brush up for my economics exam that's at 3. Then ICESKATING!!!!! So excited to cap off my great time here with my girls! :)

Little plug for Purdue here as I was walking the Vet Science building today to find one of my professors and noticed that one of the offices had Purdue degrees in the window and sure enough it was Alan Gerrard, who used to be an animal science professor at Purdue. I used to put his mail in his mailbox for him when I worked in the animal science office :) So if there is a spare moment tomorrow, doubtful, then I'll swing by and see if he is in :)

K- going to spend the next hour happily finishing my packing and then going to bed so I'm fully rested for my last full day in IRELAND!!!!! I'll probably jump back on here at least one more time before I leave, just to once again express my excitement, but if not, then I'll talk to y'all again from INDIANA!!!!!!

Cheers,
Britt

Taking a Moment

I can't believe it, December the 5th flew right by me. The 5th marked the one year anniversary of my friend, John Romine's final journey here on Earth. But, I suppose it could be viewed as me continuing on with my life and living like he wants us all to do anyways.

It wasn't until tonight when I was leaving my friend's apartment and talking with Erica and reminiscing about this past year that I realized the date flew right by me as I was preparing for finals and going home soon. A part of me feels bad, but in a way again, I know John wanted everyone that knew him to continue on with their lives and I still think about him time to time as I will never completely forget about him. I still wear my remembrance bracelet to this day as I try to live by his example. Humble and selfless are the two main attributes that pop in my head when I think of John, followed by John Deere and Belted Galloway's, his two main loves in his life besides his family and friends of course.

So just wanted to take a moment and remember, reflect and honor a life well lived, one with much faith, all be it short. Thanks John. We miss you down here, but know you are in a better place.

Cheers to you John from Dublin!
Britt