Sayonara!!!

May 7, 2009

I am writing this from the comfort of my sunny bedroom in Ohio, my original state of residence. I am harboring mixed feelings at this time, relief for completing finals, excitement for summer, and sadness at leaving my friends. It is weird to think that I will not be returning to Cornerstone for four months! I will miss it terribly! I will be working at Cedar Point this summer as a hotel maid, so I am sure that will preoccupy most of my time. I also plan to travel the country visiting friends too (mainly Grand Rapids and Chicago).

I have learned so much in my first year of Cornerstone. Some of these things are as follows:

College coursework truly is more difficult, but manageable all the same.

Food is always more delicious at 2 in the morning, even McDonalds!

Slurpees are a Godsend.

School newspapers take a lot of work.

There are other people out there that appreciate Asian dramas.

Making stupid music videos for YouTube can be a great stress reliever.

Bedtime is obsolete.

Laughter truly is the best medicine.

Quality horror movies are difficult to come by.

You can always have a dance party, even in your tiny dorm room!

Sushi is delicious.

Snow is my worst enemy.

My friends here aren’t just friends, they are my family.

So I bid you all farewell! Thank you to those who have faithfully stayed with this blog this year, and those who are reading it for the first time! I appreciate your support and hope that my words and pictures have allowed you a good picture of what Cornerstone is like.

*Peace

Lauren

Finally, a new post!!!

Apr 27, 2009

Hello there fellow readers. I would like to apologize for neglecting my blogging responsibilities for so long! It's been a crazy couple of months, but I've been hanging in there! I am now in my final full week here at Cornerstone, and there is so much to reflect upon! For this post though, I would like to give you all an update on what I've been doing these past couple of months. I'll start with spring break, which took place in March.

 As many of you may remember, I went and visited my roommate, Hillary, during my Christmas break. Hillary and I come from two very different environments. She is from a Chicago suburb and I am from a small town in Ohio. Spring break marked Hillary's turn to visit me though, so we packed our bags and headed to Sugarcreek for the week. The following pictures show what happened during our stay there.

The area that I live in contains a large population of Amish. We found this store next to a restaurant we were eating at one night. Hillary found the title of this store hilarious. I believe they were selling portable heaters designed by an Amish man, thus the name Amish World.

Hillary fit right in with the rest of my family. This is her posing with my youngest brother, Joel.

For some reason, we decided to make a bunch of cakes over break. This is one of our confectionary creations, straight from the back of the Hershey's cocoa box.

Hillary found the "size" of my family amusing, considering that everyone is overly tall, including myself. She decided to try on my brother Paul's shoe. Paul is 16 years old, is 6'8", and wears a size 17 shoe. The size comparison was hilarious.

We made a number of different stops around my area. One place we visited was the Canton Art Museum. The museum was offering a display of kimonos designed by Master Kubota, a world-renown kimono designer. The display was only featured in two cities, San Diego and Canton, so we found it to be an extremely significant coincidence, considering we are both admirers of Japanese culture.

We couldn't take actual pictures of the kimonos, but you can check them out yourself at this website! http://www.kimonoexhibit.com/exhibit.htm

The museum was decorated with cherry blossoms crafted out of paper and lanterns to coordinate with the featured display.

The museum also featured large hand-crafted gate entrances like this one.

We also decided to stop by the Harry London Chocolate Factory in Canton. This factory was the dream of a local Ohio candy maker. The gift shop there is amazing!

While making a grocery run for my mom, Hillary and I stumbled upon this sweet orange juice machine! You could fill up your own bottle of the stuff for a low price, which we found extremely awesome!

Of course we did plenty of lounging while we were at home, as most college students do when they are on break!

On one of our last days of break, Hillary and I went out with my dad on farm calls. He is a veterinarian, and works on both large and small animals. Hillary found the experience both educational and interesting. We had to wear special boots though, like these to protect our feet from more....unpleasant substances. :)

I truly enjoyed giving my roommate a peek at the place that I come from. I am proud of my little town, and wouldn't trade the experience of growing up there for anything else in the world!

More blogs to come this week!

*Peace

Lauren

BATTLE ROYALE!!!

Mar 5, 2009

Fact: dorm life at CU is absolutely CRAZY!! I love where I live in Cook Hall (2nd Floor, West Side)! The girls that I live with are so amazing and fun! We're always running in and out of each other's rooms, pulling pranks on each other. Last night, we had a full-on water fight in the hall, complete with water balloons and a few bottles of VERY cold water! It was a blast!

A few weeks ago, we had a "war" with our sister section C2E (Cook Hall, 2nd Floor East Side). This basically consisted of us using our random stuffed animals to battle each other. We called it BATTLE ROYALE!! It began around midnight on a Tuesday night and continued throughout the course of the day on Wednesday. Every time you walked by, someone had added a new character to the mix. It was so hilarious! We had so much fun coming up with new ways to "attack" each other. The battle concluded with C2E taking all of our warriors as prisoners of war. We retaliated by taking all of our soldiers back, saying that the rapture had happened and that C2E had been left behind.

So if you're looking for some good times and a lot of laughs, Cornerstone is definitely the place for you. I have had so much fun this year with my girls! Don't worry though, for those of you who like things more quiet, the halls enforce quiet hours at 11:00 Sunday through Thursday and midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. Here are some pictures from our "battle." Those of you with weak constitutions may want to exceed caution while viewing these photos.

The beginning of the battle. Hillary and I have a lot of random stuff in our room. Featured from left to right, our spitoon, Craig (the purple ball), chicken doorstop, Pooty the penguin, and Johnny Mug (the ugliest stuffed monkey EVER!) Mr. Potatohead is on the frontlines taking one for the team as he fights C2E's Bohemian monkey.

Ganging up on C2E.

Oh no! Mr. Potatohead is down!

C2W owns.

*Peace

Lauren

Valentines Day: Not as Painful as I Thought

Feb 14, 2009

I'll admit it I HATE Valentine's day. It's been 19 years and I have yet to get a hit from Cupid's arrow. This year's "Love Day" started out no differently. I went to work in the cafeteria dish room as usual. However, when I returned home from my shift, I received an interesting text from my mom, it said "Faber office is trying to get a hold of you; they said that you have a delivery."

This quite baffled me. Faber office is open on the weekends, but it typically only handles matters of extreme importance, so the fact that some random delivery was waiting for me there, I assumed it must have been a big deal. After checking my email, I also saw that they had tried to contact me through that a few times as well. Whatever it was, it must have been urgent.

So I donned my winter coat and a pair of slip-on’s and trudged through the snow over to Faber. Upon my arrival, I saw a beautifully arranged bouquet on the front counter. Turns out, it was mine! My dad had taken the time to send me some flowers for V-day! I was so ecstatic and moved. I'll admit, a few happy tears leaked from my eyes that day.

This little act of love touched me so much. It made me feel loved and special, and the fact that it came from my dad was pretty sweet too. I finished the night having a scary movie fest with my friends. It was pretty epic. Here is a picture of the flowers.

*Peace

Lauren

A New Look at God's Creation

Feb 12, 2009

Today, my intro to biology class went to the sand dunes at Hoffmaster State Park. I have to admit, I wasn't really looking forward to the trip. Trekking around on icy sand in the middle of winter didn't really sound like it would be my cup of tea. I absolutely LOVED it though! The weather was chilly, but all the walking that we did kept us warm enough. We trekked to the top of one of the dunes by way of stairs, so the trip to the top wasn't too dangerous. The view was quite amazing! Then we hiked out to Lake Michigan, which is completely frozen over at this time of year. I had never been to a beach during winter before, so this was a completely new experience for me! It was so awesome to get to walk on the ice and see God's majestic creation in this new way. Despite my vain attempts though, I did end up slipping on the ice and embaressing myself! Such is my life...

The thing is, I am truly not much of a science person. However, having such an interactive biology class makes everything so much better! My professor, Gator, has such a heart for God and His creation. I could see his passion on our trip as he pointed out different types of trees and wildlife, and it made things so much more stimulating. I am thankful for being a part of a class that takes science and adds Christian perspective. Just one of the many reasons Cornerstone is such an awesome place to be!

Trekking out to the lake.

Snowy dunes!

My hiking buddy and good friend, Leah!

Lake Michigan, frozen over.

Testing out the ice. Professor Gator is out in front.

Leah and I found a cave. We had quite a good time in there!

Me hanging out in the cave.

Lake Michigan under ice. Pretty cool huh?

Me being a dork.

*Peace

Lauren