As a political science major, I happen to have an innate interest in politics. Therefore, when the caucus came to Iowa, I was pretty dang excited to go. For those who aren’t familiar, I shall try to explain. Basically, a caucus is when each party, Republican and Democrat, gather their members together and look at their party platform, and sometimes vote for who they want to be the presidential nominee. This year, since the Democratic presidential candidate is President Obama, the Democrats didn’t need to vote for a nominee, but they still met to talk about their party. The Republicans also met and voted for a presidential nominee to run against President Obama.

Iowa hosts the first caucus in all of the nation, so there is a lot of media coverage. Iowans get to give the first glimpse of who the candidate might be, and caucuses continue throughout the country during the year until the party decides on one candidate. This was my first caucus ever, since now I am old enough to vote, and it was so much fun! I am from Black Hawk County, and our caucus location was at the University of Northern Iowa UNI-dome, which is an indoor stadium where all the sporting events take place. It was a huge gathering with somewhere between 5,000 and 7,000 people and two presidential candidates, Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich, came and spoke. The other candidates were in Des Moines, Iowa because that was where the media was, and since there were interviews after the caucus, they didn’t have to drive back to Des Moines like Michele and Newt.

We met in our Ward and Precinct, so it was all the registered Republicans in our neighborhood. The caucus is not mandatory but people still go because it is exciting. Each candidate had a chance to talk, or someone talked in their place. We nominated people in our precinct for positions to go to the State Convention for the Republican Party, then we voted for whichever candidate we wanted.

I am a big supporter of Rick Santorum, a presidential candidate from Pennsylvania, so I voted for him. My mom and sister did, too, and my dad and brother voted for Mitt Romney. Here is a picture of the ballots! These ballots are actually from my friend Isabel’s family. Two of them voted for Rick Santorum, two for Newt Gingrich, and one for Ron Paul.

Lime green sheets for voting!

After the caucus, we went to McDonalds randomly and got some ice cream. I don’t recommend the egg nog shake, it is kind of strange, but strawberry is always a winner! Then we went home and waited for the results to come in. By 10 p.m. there was about 92% of precincts reporting and there was a super close tie between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. Then I went to bed, but the final results came in during the wee hours of the morning and Mitt Romney won by 8 votes! It’s the closest caucus ever!

Now the candidates are off to New Hampshire and South Carolina to continue to campaign for the nomination. It will be an exciting time! I’m so blessed to be able to go back to Iowa and take part in such an exciting tradition. I also got to shake hands with Minnesota’s own Michele Bachmann, who is super tiny in person! And also very pretty. She decided to end her presidential campaign as she didn’t do so well in Iowa (she pretty much got last place, if you don’t count John Huntsman, who hardly got any votes), so it was fun to meet her while she was still in the running.

Take care guys! Happy voting!

Road trips have been one of the most fun parts of college, in my experience. I have really only road tripped to houses of my Minnesotan friends, but it’s always been a blast! Getting away from campus for a weekend and seeing where your new friend grew up and meeting his or her family is always a super fun thing to do, and it always helps with the bonding. Megabus is a great tool if you’re looking to travel around the Midwest for cheap-that’s how I’m getting to Illinois this weekend.

Here are some road trips I have been on:

Minneota, Minnesota, a tiny town in western Minnesota where my friend Emily lives. Emily’s parents came and got us and we went there for the weekend. She lives on a farm, which was so much fun! We rode horses, drove a four-wheeler, played cards and drank cappuccinos from her awesome cappuccino machine. It was such a fun and relaxing weekend and one of my favorite memories from freshman year.

Emma and I on horses at Emily's farm!

Decorah, Iowa, a beautiful town where Luther College is located. Emma and I went here, along with my sister Lauren and our friend Isabel, to see a Relient K concert! We stayed at my parent’s house in Waterloo for the night so Emma got to see where I grew up, which was great fun.

Kansas City, Kansas, where we went on a Saint Paul’s Outreach mission trip in March of my freshman year! We stayed at a retreat center and worked with Habitat for Humanity, and helped at a food pantry at Metro Lutheran Ministries. It was so much fun driving down there with friends and we were such a close-knit family by the time we got back! I highly recommend going on mission trips if you ever get the chance, there’s tons of opportunities for them at St. Thomas through VISION and everyone who goes on one absolutely loves it!

Jumping off the deck of the house we helped with!

Owatonna and Faribault! These are two of my favorite suburbs because two of my favorite people live there: my friends Mara and Jillian! I have been fortunate enough to stay with both of them, usually when I’m going to or from St. Paul and am driving myself. When I was in Owatonna, Mara gave me a tour of the town and we went to her high school and the town square. It was beautiful! When I was in Faribault, Jillian took me to these awesome nature trails and we climbed this hill and got a really pretty view of the town.

Over the next two and a half years, I will hopefully add Wisconsin Rapids and Sioux Falls to the list! I hope you guys all get a chance to take a few road trips in your college career. Take care!

One of the most fun things you do between graduating from high school and entering into college is dorm decor shopping! It can be quite overwhelming and there are hundreds of lists you could go through that make suggestions about what to bring and what to leave behind. Earlier I did a blog about what basics to bring, but this one will be about giving the room a bit of a home-y feel, going above and beyond the basics of washcloths and hangers.

Curtains

There are shades in the dorm rooms but my roommate and I decided to invest in a curtain, just for fun. We bought a shower curtain at Target for something like $10, then just hung it in the window and boom, instant curtain! We thought a curtain was a good idea because sometimes when you open your window, the wind rushes in and the shade blows with it, often knocking things off of the windowsill. A curtain is a great alternative because you can close it if you want some privacy but if you want the window down, it doesn’t wreak havoc on your belongings. We had a striped curtain, almost exactly like the one below, and it made our room seem brighter and more colorful.

This was a cloth curtain, not plastic so the sun could still get through and it was soft.

-Rugs

Rugs are always a great idea for dorm rooms. Sometimes you spill and sometimes you don’t feel like vacuuming, and rugs are a fantastic answer to both of these predicaments. One thing to be aware of is the color of the rug: if it’s too light, you’ll have to wash it more often, but if it’s too dark, hair shows up pretty easily and can defeat the purpose of having the room look nice. My roommate and I had a navy rug at first but later switched to a tan rug with a dark design because the navy rug attracted lint and dust and all that good stuff. I recommend patterned rugs or maybe green, pink or purple but would stay away from white, navy, black and probably yellow, even though I do love yellow.

-Wall Hangings!

This is a very fun thing to explore. You aren’t allowed to put tons of tacks in the walls, as you have a cork board in your room, but if you get a little sticky tac, those non-destructive small hangers and some non-destructive tape, you should be good to go! My roomie had lots of pictures of her family and nephews up on the closet and wall and my mom made some hanging boards with fun little quotes on them. I hung those on those little 3M Command wall hooks and they worked great! Posters are also a good idea and my roommate even hung up a type of cloth quilt. All of these help fill the wall space and make the room more comfortable. Picture frames on the walls are always a great idea, too!

Those are the main things that I think really add to the good old dorm room experience. Feel free to email me or leave a comment if you have any other suggestions! Take care, everyone!

Jterm, or January term, is a time much different than any other time during the academic year. You can take one class for three hours a day, four days a week for three weeks. You can work. You can live at home. You can live on campus. You can hang out with your friends. It’s overall very chill. Last January, I took a finite math course and lived in the dorms. This January, however, I am not taking a class, so my Jterm is full of adventure!

The theme of this Jterm: road trips. So far I’ve only taken one, a road trip back to Iowa with my friend Sarah because we are both from there. Tomorrow, Saturday the 7th, I am taking a Megabus to Illinois for a few days to hang out with some of my friends that I met this summer while doing Detroit Summer Outreach. After that, I’ll be back in St. Paul for a few days, then it will be my birthday so I will be going back to Iowa to hang out with my parents and siblings. Then I’m coming back to St. Paul, then I’m going on the March for Life with the Students for Human Life Club! Lastly, my friend Megan and I are road tripping back to Iowa to see my family for a few more days, then it’s back to St. Thomas for another exciting semester!

Just to give you a visual of all the greatness, here is my schedule for January, courtesy of good old iCal.

Color-coded January Schedule! Blue is for Iowa, Green is for Minnesota and Red is for trips.

The good news is that whenever I am at St. Thomas, I can work! I am the Liturgical Choir Manager and there is much to be done before the spring semester, from filing new music to transporting old music to sharpening pencils and replacing old stickers. It definitely keeps me busy! I have also been so blessed to babysit once a month at St. Mark’s Parish at an event they have called Family First Fridays. It’s when young families of the parish come together and have a meal, then Father gives a talk and the kids go learn songs, then there is Adoration and Confession and I get to help babysit the kids! It is always the highlight of my month! I might even get to babysit some of the kids during Jterm, so I can’t wait for that!

In conclusion, Jterms are quite amazing opportunities. Next January I will be in Rome (God willing!) and the Jterm after that, I will be a senior so I will probably be up here working or doing something grown-up-ish. Who knows!

I hope you are having a blessed January! Take care.