Another case of the good swooping in to balance out the bad...

The bad:

I have a three page paper on the short story "Desiree's Baby," by Kate Chopin, due tomorrow at eleven o'clock.  Normally, I would have had it done three or for days before it's due, but it just didn't quite work that way this time.  So on Sunday I set about trying to get most of it done once I got home from work.  Thaaat didn't work out so well.  It just wasn't coming to me.  

That's ok...I had all day Monday off from both school and work (yay for presidents!).  I would have to work really hard, but I could get it pretty much done in one day.  

So, at around two o'clock or so, I sat down to begin trying to set a thesis statement in stone to provide a basis for my essay.  I tried, and erased, tried, and erased, tried, and erased, rinse and repeat.  Nothing was working out.  

I finally gave up at five A.M.

No, that's not a typo.  

5...
A...
M...

That equates to ONE HOUR OF SLEEP!

The better:

I had an appointment already set up in the writing center at school with my English teacher/friend from last semester to go over my 'final' draft that I didn't have.  Since I didn't have that, the appointment then became a 'help Corry focus and find a thesis to start from' session.  

It worked, I now have a rough thesis, and a much clearer focus...I have a full night of work ahead of me, but I can do it now.  

THE BEST:   

On my way home from school, I stopped at the post office to pick up my mail.  In it was an envelope from school.  Hoping that the school decided to send out financial aid checks REALLY EARLY (they didn't), I opened it before I even got out of the post office lobby...though the envelope didn't contain the financial aid check, what WAS inside was just as good...better, in fact....

I mentioned a few weeks ago in this blog that I got accepted to the honors program...well, when I signed up, I also applied for the honors program half-time tuition waiver, and...(have you guessed what I'm about to say?)...


I GOT IT!!!  I GOT MY FIRST SCHOLARSHIP!!!

I'll try not to squish anyone while I'm perched upon my seat on top of the world.  :)

Corry "Super Freak" Engelbrecht

...that's how a package I recieved today was addressed.

...a package that was signed for by my neighbor (a business).

Thanks Joe. You're a pal.

(You just wait, mister....I have yet to send you YOU'RE belated Christmas gift!)

Yet Again, a Nation Mourns

Up until this past thursday, Valentine's Day, at approximately 3:03 pm, some of my fellow IVCC students and I were scheduled to go tomorrow on a campus visit at Northen Illinois University in Dekalb, IL.  At that time, I was arriving at my job, preparing to co-facilitate a children's counceling group at the domestic violence shelter at which I'm employed.  It's a difficult but rewarding job in which I do my best to do what I can to help end the cycle of violence in these children's lives.  

Little did I know, at that very moment, only an hour and twenty minutes north of me Hell's fury was being released on a lecture hall full of innocent and unsuspecting college students.  A kicked in door, a blaze of bullets, and it was over.  Students barely had time to register that the scene that had just played out before thier eyes was real.  The shocking horror of seeing five of thier fellow students senselessly murdered burned into thier memories, destined to haunt them well into old age.

Another campus shooting had occurred, not even a year after the Virginia Tech Massacre. Across the state and the nation these bright, young souls are being mourned. People, young and old, are scratching thier heads and asking themselves how this could have possibly happened again. They are thinking of loved ones, of friends, of themselves...wondering if they will be next. They contemplate ways in which this can be prevented. Stiffer gun control? Metal detectors? Better mental health care? The proposals are endless, the solutions are few.

So what can we do?

We can hold our loves ones a little bit tighter. We can smile at a stranger a little more often. We can make just a little bit more of an effort to reach out, open our hearts and our minds, and embrace those that are troubled. Perhaps that is the key to preventing future massacres.

My heart goes out to all those affected by the NIU school shootings.

Do something good today!!!

Hey guys! I signed up to do a bowl-a-thon with Target for charity, and I just found out yesterday that I have to raise $100 by WEDNESDAY!!!!! It's for Junior Achievement.

If anyone wants to donate, I have a page set up for it here: http://firstgiving.com/corryengelbrecht

If you can donate even a dollar, AWESOME!!!!

If not, that's ok, too!!! :)
 
Thanks in advance!!!!  

And the verdict is???

Broken strut mounts.  $475.  

OH JOY!!!!!

*insert angry face here*

REACH!

So uh....yeah...yesterday was a great day in many many ways, scarred by just ONE BIG BAD THING. My %#@*ING CAR!!! It's in the shop. Again. I had to miss school because of it. Unfortunately, the mechancic can't get to it until at least 3pm today (I called at 9am). I am praying it's not too terribly expensive or difficult to fix. I'm still paying off the repairs from last September!

I find it interesting how my life right now is so full of things that are out of this world amazing, and at the same time I'm weighed down by so many significantly negative things. It's like God, or fate, or destiny, or whatever it is that is that is in control of my life, just KNOWS that the bad things that are going on are so great that I wouldn't be able to survive them without the good things to balance it out.

*sigh* Enough of me complaining. THIS will get you laughing! My buddy Sky shared this with me the other night. The talented folks at Prangstgrup created this incredibly entertaining prank called Lecture Musical! I couldn't stop laughing when I watched it! Something like this needs to happen during my Biology lecture! :P

Without further ado:



The version on Prangstgrup's website is higher quality, but I didn't see a way to embed it. ;)

Hope you enjoyed it!

EDIT: Seems the video I had on here stopped working, so, trying it again! :D

I'm up, I'm down, I'm up, I'm down....

...this will probably be a short post, but I felt bad that I hadn't posted in a while.

As per usual in the past couple of months, things have been very up and down for me since my last post. I went from near emotional break down on Thursday to a weekend full of friends and fun. :) ....and plans for what I am pretty sure would qualify as a 'date'. WOOT! I'm pretty excited about that.

I was pretty bummed that I couldn't vote on Super Tuesday...I thought I was registered at my current address, but I started to get a nagging doubt about it, so I called the County Clerks office the Friday beforehand and asked....nope, I registered a couple of months before I moved, at my old address. Hmph! And you can't register for, I think it's 28 days before the primaries, and two days after. So, yeah, I need to get my butt in and register now, so I can vote in November.

Speaking of politics...you MUST WATCH THIS VIDEO! It is the most moving, inspiring, and uplifting political ad I've ever seen. YES WE CAN!




(I hope that code works....for some reason, I don't get a full edit box on the computers at school)

My favorite quote from that video: "We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope." --Barack Obama