So Fresh, Sew Green

The fashion show last weekend was a huge success! The show's theme was sustainability and there were four design categories, recycled fabrics, recycled products, organic fabrics, and naturals. This meant we had used clothes remade into beautiful runway pieces, pieces out of trash, organic clothing, and in the grand finale, a dress made from corn husks, leaves, and flowers. I created two looks for it both of them in the recycled products category. The first was a dress out of plastic bags ironed together. The second, a top out of plastic bags and a petal skirt out of phonebook pages. I have a photo of the second look and I will get the other photographs from the photographer as soon as possible!


Also, I have recently been using the website BurdaStyle. It is such a great resource and community for people who like to create things. There are free patterns and project tips. Find the projects I've made under the username rebekah lynn.

San Francisco and the Space Needle

I have been so amazingly busy! Over Memorial Day weekend I went on a giant road trip with about 100 other SPU women down to San Francisco. It was a service trip called Quest. On Friday we drove 18 hours in 19 cars, through the night, to San Francisco. There were several stops to use the restroom, switch drivers, eat some food, dance, etc. We finally arrived Saturday afternoon in SF. We ate lunch and had an hour or so to see what we wanted to see before we headed over to the Rescue Mission in the Tenderloin district. We spent about a day at the Tenderloin with everyone doing a variety of things- office work, cooking, organizing the donation closet, teaching Sunday school, and cleaning. We slept in the Rescue Mission on Saturday night. The most interesting thing that we did was bring meals to various apartment buildings in the district. In the apartments we went door to door offering free food and prayer to people. We also enjoyed In-N-Out while in California. A lot of people were very excited about that. Sunday night we stayed in a church gymnasium and headed back to school early Monday morning! It was quite the trip!
On a different not, this last Thursday night we had Ashton Hall Ball (the dorm where I live this year) in the Space Needle. It was a lot of fun!

Finally, in a week from Tuesday I will have completed my first year of college. So much is happening in such a short amount of time!

Time Well Spent

I had spring break just last week, although it already seems like it was weeks away. That's the thing about school, you go back to it and it feels as if you never left. I don't know if that's ever a good thing. In other circumstances it's good though. For example, when you see an old friend again and it's as if you were never apart.

Anyway, I actually had quite a long spring break because I was finished with exams on a Tuesday, so I had from Wednesday the 18th until Sunday a week and a half later. First I went to Salem, OR and stayed with Nick and his family. I would just say "The Brouwers" but that's a little ambiguous in this case. It was a very relaxing break once I finished a final paper I had to email in on Friday. I went paintballing for the first time there but I don't know if I really got the full experience because I didn't get any huge welts. I did actually get hit a few times of course but there was no lasting pain. It was pretty fun! I would put in a picture but unfortunately, this computer in the library lab won't let me. Maybe I'll add one later.

On Thursday, the 26th, I took the train and bus from Salem to Bellingham to see the TeVeldes! I have been so close to them all school year but I hadn't seen them yet. I got a lot of sleep there so that I could be ready to start a new quarter. I also went into Canada and got my haircut. It's now ten inches shorter and hopefully what I got cut off will make a nice wig for some child. I hadn't originally planned on sending my hair in because I didn't know how many inches I was getting cut off but I had enough! On Sunday I returned again to Seattle, to a week of rain, new classes, and hanging out with friends.

Answers!

Merry Christmas!  It's December now and the holiday season is in full swing- equipped with decorations, Christmas music, cheer, and...o wait, finals.  Well, those will be over soon enough too.  Now to get to the important things; the questions I finally found time to answer.

My classes this quarter have been pretty interesting.  I have Spanish, University Seminar (Usem), and Drawing.  Spanish has been mostly review so far and so I'm looking forward to next quarter.  My Usem is on "cross-cultural encounters: Latin America" and is my honors class.  It just involves a lot of reading and some paper writing.  I enjoy that class and the professor is very good. I'll be in classes with the same group of people from that class through the next few years.  I have learned so much in my drawing class.  It involves a lot of outside work- I just turned in my sketchbook for the quarter.  Next quarter I am planning on taking Spanish, Texts and Concepts, Public Speaking, and Career Exploration.

Hopefully these pictures of my room help give a feel for how it really is.  There is no good way to take a picture of our whole room but at least now you can see my desk, bed (bottom bunk), and our lovely couch!  

I had Thanksgiving with Nick and his family.  It was a lot of fun, there was just a lot of holiday traffic on the way there and back.  I rode with two other girls from my floor so the drive was actually not too bad because we made it fun.  

I'm looking forward to being home for Christmas in just eleven days!! 

Fabulously Fall

It is beautiful here!  There are so many trees that changed colors, the leaves fell off, and well...a picture speaks a thousand words; so check it out.  This is last Sunday, in the front of campus.

Birthday Love

First, thank you all for making my birthday so wonderful!  I love getting mail and as you can see for yourself in the picture I got a lot of beautiful cards and notes in the mail from you.  I put them all up on the inside of my cabinet.  My friends sang to me in the cafeteria too and then on Saturday we went shopping downtown.  It was a little strange to be away from home for my birthday but it was still a very good day.  Other than that life has been pretty normal- school, work, and a little bit of sleep here and there.  

O yes, I voted!   That's about all I can say about that, now I can only await the election results and watch the polls on our free tv.

Workout

What have I been up to?  Let me tell you.  I did the most amazing ab workout video with some girls from my floor.  It was quite intense and now we will all have washboard abs.  Workout videos are very entertaining (and useful).  Other than staying in shape, I've been doing the usual stuff: class, work, friends.  

Lunch was pretty amazing too.  I ate a pumpkin bagel with pumpkin shmear (cream cheese) and a pumpkin muffin.  I worked at Noah's Bagels today so that's where I got my lunch too.  And yes, it was delicious.

Bonding Time!

Tonight we have Fusion which is basically every amazing thing rolled into one event.  Actually not exactly, it's really just where each floor performs something in the main square.  Beforehand we eat together as a floor and after we do floor traditions... which should be ridiculously fun or embarrassing (whatever we make of it).  We are doing a dance for our performance and we have been practicing it the last two nights and still have one more practice till showtime.  If I could describe it in one word I would just say, "fantastic" or "exceptional" or "wonderful."  So good thing I can use more than one word to describe it.