Poem

I came across this poem and just really liked it. I think since moving to Erie, I really have tried to live with no regrets, try everything, meet new people and test my comfort zone.

If I Had My Life To Live Over

Nadine Stair

I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.
I'd relax, I would limber up.
I would be sillier than I have been this trip.
I would take fewer things seriously.
I would take more chances.

I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers.
I would eat more ice cream and less beans.
I would perhaps have more actual troubles,
but I'd have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I'm one of those people who live
sensibly and sanely hour after hour,
day after day.

Oh, I've had my moments,
And if I had it to do over again,
I'd have more of them.
In fact, I'd try to have nothing else.
Just moments, one after another,
instead of living so many years ahead of each day.

I've been one of those people who never goes anywhere
without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat
and a parachute.
If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.

If I had my life to live over,
I would start barefoot earlier in the spring
and stay that way later in the fall.
I would go to more dances.
I would ride more merry-go-rounds.
I would pick more daisies.

daisy growing on my patio

Residence Life Retreat 2010

The Penn State Residence Life Retreat was at Penn State Beaver this year, right outside Pittsburgh.

Every Assistant Coordinator, Coordinator, Associate Director and Assistant Director of Residence Life at Penn State’s 20 campuses attends.

It was awesome. I got to reunite with my ‘class’ of new coordinators and meet others that I hadn’t had the opportunity to before. Our department went, except Bekah who was out of town. Meredith and I were roommates. It reminded me so much of student leadership conferences. Good times.

Here is my team, minus Bekah.

Kelly (my supervisor) and Jess in the back. Meeghan, Meredith and me in the front.

Let’s just say everyone knows when Behrend walks in the room.  We were the only staff dressed alike – per Meredith’s request. We definitely have the reputation of being the ridiculous group. I fit in so well :)

Me at a Steelers Party

This is what I have to wear to blend in at a Steelers Party.

No complaints here :)

This is Meredith by the way – the first one at the hospital after my accident.

And yes, we are wearing leggings and jerseys. It was Halloween, and I was on duty, so this is as costumey as we could get, haha.

The past week

What a crazy week.

This week was the last week of our United Way fundraising. The winning building receives a voucher for custom tshirts for the building, and an extra $300 in programming money. That’s a big deal when $300 is a semester hall council budget.

The beginning of the week – not so bad. From Thursday on was a hard hill to climb.

Thursday was a stressful day. Lots going on. Senat held Pie your RA/Hall Council Member/Coordinator as well as the end of Penny Wars.

The program itself was fun! And we raised over $100! We took a lot of pies….

Oh and whip cream pie was $1, but for 50 cents more you could add toppings. We had chocolate syrup and sprinkles. My pies started at $2. All of my pies had all three ingredients. Yipee for United Way! Not so good for my hair, haha.

So after this program, Meredith calls me to vent. Earlier in the day I had taken her to drop her car off at the mechanic, thus leaving her with no car. Well, she promised a resident she would go to the hospital with her, so the resident didn’t have to go alone. This is actually policy here – anytime a resident goes to the hospital, a coordinator goes too. So this was not an unusual promise.

She called because she forgot that she didn’t have a car. I was still trying to brush sprinkles out of my hair, but agreed to take her to the hospital to see her resident. Meredith seemed to need a friend.

Well, we had to call Bekah, the coordinator on duty, because that is also our protocol. So the three of us went to the hospital til close to 2 a.m.

We bonded. We were delirious, but still realized that Bekah was the only one that needed to actually be there. We all stayed anyway.

Started Friday with 3 hours of sleep. Didn’t get anything accomplished because my brain stopped working. I did room inspections with Housing (like Towson’s health and safety inspections, but we do them while residents are still here) then took Meredith back to get her car.

Then the night of duty hell began. I responded to calls until 5 am. Slept til noonish on Saturday. Went to follow up with each incident, then went to church with Bek and Mere.

Then, game night! SO MUCH FUN. Bekah and I proclaimed ourselves “eternal game-night partners”. We might have lost the game, but we ROCKED.

Sunday was laundry and cleaning, mixed with accompanying another resident to the hospital.

Sunday night Bek and Eric had a Steelers Party. Details posted tomorrow!

Feeling nostalgic

 

 

View Full Album

 

In other news, I tore my meniscus. It’s in my knee. Going for an MRI and x-ray later this week. Hoping it’s nothing worse.

This weekend

What a wonderful weekend :)

Saturday started uneventfully. I slept in (much needed), cleaned the kitchen, then went to get new glasses! You have no idea how incredibly exciting this was for me. I have not gotten my glasses prescription updated since…high school. I can’t remember when in high school, but they are old nonetheless. When I went for the exam, the optometrist asked how I was even able to walk and see where I was going. I had no idea it was that bad.

So I just wanted new lenses. However my prescription had  changed so much, and gotten so bad, that the new lenses would not have fit in my current frames. They would have been too thick. Yea, if it weren’t for the latest technology in lenses, I would have coke bottle glasses.

Picking out a new set of frames was very difficult. I’m not very decisive. I finally had 5 frames in my hand and just asked the guy helping me to decide for me. Here’s what he/we decided on.

There are rhinestones on the sides – I love them :)

So after my eye glass extravaganza, I went to church. I went to church for the first time since moving here, and really for the first time since last Spring semester when Sean and I would go for Holy Days. Sean was my church buddy at Towson. I have already informed him that I found new church buddies here – so this is old news thankfully.

Meredith and I were talking about religion one day and we realized we were both Catholic. Meredith was very excited with this. She loves going to church but seemed to lose motivation easily. Well, now that I’m here I have taken on the role of initiator (for most things we do) and rounded up the gang for our first church service together. Meredith, Bekah and I went to St. James Roman Catholic Church for the Saturday evening mass. It was the quickest mass of my life! It had to be 40 minutes or less. Crazy.

We will be returning next week.

After Church, Meredith invited me over for a movie night. I’ll spare you the details of the movie, cough cough Predator 2. Yea. Meredith was very intent on watching all of the Predator and Alien movies, so I happened to catch her in the middle of the movie marathon. Not quite my movie genre, but everyone knows I like hanging out and talking, so that’s just what we did.

Then I met a new friend. Officer Mook is an officer for campus. Her and Meredith are friends, so she stopped by on her campus rounds. Long story short, the three of us wound up at a new bar a few hours later for a fun girls night out. Totally impromptu and it was awesome!

Sunday! Football Sunday! First thing this morning, Meredith and I went to get my new glasses (yay!) then headed over to the Fox and Hound to get our table ready. We were expecting 8 people for the games today! I really love our Fox Sundays. Today we had Nicole, Mook, Bekah, Eric, Jess, Meredith and me. Luci decided not to come. What a nailbiter, Ravens!

After the game we went to Jess’s place for dinner. MMMM homemade pizza. It was great, Jess!

I had a Hall Council event tonight in Senat to round out my weekend. Pretty successful I think.

I went into this weekend with just plans for football Sunday, and it turned out to be a fun-filled, friend-filled, beautiful Erie weekend.

iPhone pictures

 

I finally downloaded my iPhone pics to my computer, so yes this is a very random post. Let’s start with my scar.

Day after accident

A week after the accident

A month after the accident

 

Three of my RAs having a whipped cream fight.

A daisy growing on my patio

And the pup

 

The end.

Can you tell I’m busy?

 

Seriously, I barely have time to sleep. Having two RA staffs, two staff meetings, two hall council meetings and two sets of programs to attend is starting to run me down a bit. I’m doing my best to keep my head above water, but sometimes I feel like I’m drowning.

Jen visited the weekend! We didn’t take a single picture. Bummer.

We spent the weekend outlet shopping, watching football, getting pedicures, running errands and catching up on the longest time we’ve ever spent apart. It was so nice to not feel like a coordinator this weekend. I did have a few texts from Hall Council and RAs, but nothing major.

I have a floor meeting to run in Perry tonight. Not too excited. I would really like to just go to bed.

My judicial numbers have finally started to plateau, if not, cough cough, decline. It’s nice to be able to respond to emails before lunchtime.

And a picture from my recent trip home.

Piliast

I just invented that word.

Proof I Live In A Small Town.

Get it?

So sometimes things happen and I just shake my head and say "this is Erie." But now, I have a new word - Piliast.

The top story on the news tonight was a student with perfect attendance.

Stay tuned for my next installment of Piliast.

My First Pet

 

I bought a pepper plant a little bit ago for my kitchen.

 

 

And found this little guy inside.

 

A Raven in Steelers Country

I'm trying really hard to dislike the Steelers. But I am also trying really hard to make friends. It's rough being a Ravens fan in Steelers country, but so far so good. Today Jess, Meredith, Bekah, Eric and I went to Fox and Hound to watch the games. Erie actually wasn't airing the Steelers game.

Erie is about an hour and a half from Cleveland in one direction and an hour from Buffalo in the other direction. Therefore, Browns or Bills games usually hit the airwaves. Looks like we will be going to the Fox every Sunday.

So I'm so prepared for having my guard up about the Ravens, I was actually really mean to an innocent guy today. After halftime, a guy in a Browns jersey taps me on my shoulder and asks how Ray Rice is doing. He asked if he got a touch down yet. We had not scored at this point.

I looked at him and said "You really walked all the way up here to ask me that?" thinking he wanted to start a fight (well not a fight, but you know what i mean).

He looked at me wide eyed and said, "No, no, I'm just asking. Rice is on my fantasy team and I can't see the Ravens game from my seat." And he walked away.

I felt so bad.

There's one guy I won't be friends with.

But I had a blast! Even as the only Ravens jersey in the place :)

It’s been a while

 

********************LONG POST WARNING************************

Oh man, I know it’s been forever. I’m so mad at myself. The point of the blog was to chronicle my everyday life to remember my first year in Erie.

Let’s see, I suppose the biggest happening since my last post was the death of Daisy. I know it’s probably not news to anyone reading this, but I was in a car accident on September 3rd.

I don’t remember how we got in the accident.

If you are interested, here is what I do remember.

I only remember being in the left lane. Then impact. I remember spinning. Breaking glass. Metal scraping metal. Then stopping facing a different direction than I had started in.

Niki was in the passenger seat. The car hit her.

I looked over at Niki and she was in pain. She kept saying, “Jenna, you’re bleeding.” I didn’t know what she was talking about.

I was able to move a little, so I grabbed Niki’s phone and called 911. I was put on hold.

At that moment an angel appeared. Knocking on my window was Ann. Our angel. I couldn’t figure out if I should roll down my window or open the door. I rolled down the window.

Ann said, “Hi hunny. My name is Ann. I am a certified CPR instructor. I saw the accident. I am going to stay with you until the ambulance gets here. Is that ok?”

I just stared at her. I asked her what happened. She said she didn’t know. She told me I was bleeding. I saw blood on my stomach. Ann asked me my name and my friends name. She had such a soothing voice. Niki was still moaning in pain. The door was pinned against her right side.

Ann asked if there was anyone she could call. I told her I just moved here. I didn’t know anyone. I really don’t know why I said that. I know my coworkers and I would trust them with my life. I love them like family, especially after everything they did for me.

I told Ann to call Meredith. I knew Meredith was on duty so she would be around her phone. Ann called. Meredith didn’t answer. Ann left a message.

Then a police officer arrived. He talked to me, but I don’t remember about what. Then I heard the ambulances. A paramedic team was then at my door. A paramedic got in the back seat and wrapped a neck brace around me. Another paramedic team covered Niki in a yellow blanket and started cutting the door off of the car. Then my paramedic team told me they would be laying me on a backboard. Mr. Paramedic told me he was going to lift me by my belt loops. I remember thinking that was funny.

So before I know it, I’m laying on a stretcher in the middle of Peach Street staring at the night sky. I only had one flip flop on. I don’t drive with a flip flop on my right foot. I remember that I was nervous they wouldn’t put me in the ambulance with both flips – but they did.

I was loaded into the ambulance and strapped down. They asked me what hospital I wanted to go to. I laughed and said, “A good one.” There were IVs going in, poking and prodding and lots of questions. It was so hot in there. I thought I was going to puke. They gave me an oxygen mask. It was hard to speak. They gave me a hard time for being a Ravens fan. I hoped it wouldn’t impact their care of me. It didn’t. They were amazing.

So one of two things happened. Ambulances are soundproof or we didn’t ride with the sirens on. Not sure which is true.

After what felt like hours we got to the hospital. Apparently, Meredith had beaten the ambulance by a good 10 minutes. She was in the waiting room shaking. The message Ann left her just said her friend Jenna was in a car accident and was going to Hammot. Poor Meredith. She had so many scenerios going through her head.

So I’m being wheeled into the hospital and my paramedics are telling the nurses that I’m a Ravens fan. Mr. Paramedic gave me a tour of the ceiling of the hospital. It was funny.

So I get in a room and my vitals are taken, questions are asked, I’m put on a bed. The Nurse was very nice. She asked me where I hurt. She asked if she could put me in a gown. As she was putting the gown on me, glass was falling out of my clothes. It was everywhere. It was sticking to me.

The nurse leaves me to wait for the doctor. The curtain to my room is pushed aside and a nurse says, “A coworker?” I said, “A coworker what?” She said, “ A coworker is here to see you?” I said, “MEREDITH! PLEASE LET HER COME IN!” So this is where I learned that Meredith is squeamish and doesn’t like to be touched. (Love you, Mer :))

She looked at me and looked like she was going to cry or puke. I couldn’t tell which. This is a good time to say that I had a gash above my eyebrow. Headwounds bleed a lot. The blood was all over my face, down my gown and pooled on the stomach of the gown. I didn’t know that. Not until Meredith pointed it out. She said it looked like a movie.

Poor Meredith. She was such a trooper. I’m a hugger. Meredith is not. So brownies were made in lieu of a hug :) She apologized for calling Jess, the other coordinator on campus that weekend as well as our director. Our Assistant Coordinator, Bekah was in NY for the weekend. It was then that we realized we were all at the hospital and no one was on duty on campus. We laughed and did nothing about it. Sorry, Kelly!

Jess arrived and was followed by a med student who was sent to clean me up. We all had such a good time with him. It really stung to have cuts and glass cleaned off of my skin. I asked Meredith if I could hold her hand. Remember how Meredith isn’t a  hugger? Well, she made an exception for my hand, haha. She takes my hand and starts squeezing like she is in pain. I actually had to say, Meredith, he’s not doing anything to me yet. I’m not even squeezing your hand. We had another good laugh at that. 

The doctors wouldn’t let me or Niki see each other. So we talked on speakerphone to each other the whole time instead. It was fun. It was crazy.

After the cleaning I had to get more IVs and head to get CT scans of my head and belly. It took forever.

Then I met McDreamy. The doctor finally arrived to give me stitches. He was great. Except at that point Jess and Meredith were with Niki, so I was on my own for the sutures. What an experience.

Somehow, Niki was released before me and wheeled herself into my room for a while :) That’s when the waiting game started. That’s when that tired-drunk state started. That’s when we were given scrubs to wear home. That’s when the photo shoot started. We were really trying to make the best out of the situation. I think we succeeded.

Meredith had left to deal with a duty call so Jess drove us home around 3:00 a.m. McDreamy told Jess we couldn’t be left alone because we had head injuries. We told him that was not possible. He said that we needed to be looked in on every 4 hours. I looked at Jess, and she said, “No problem.”

We drove home and I remembered I didn’t have my ID or keys. They were still in the car. Campus police met me at my door and let us in. Jess asked if we needed anything else, and we said no. I told her I would leave my door unlocked if she wanted to stop by in the morning.

Niki and I decided to sleep in my bed together instead of her sleeping on a futon. I think that was a good decision. We needed a good night’s sleep.

We went to sleep around 4:00. At 7:30 my bedroom door slowly opens and I hear, “Jenna, Niki, it’s Jess. Just want to make sure you’re ok.” I think Niki and I grunted in response. “Ok, I’ll call you this afternoon. sleep well.” How amazing is Jess?? I mean really – we live as far apart as you can get on this campus, and she was here 4 hours later on the dot. What a great person.

I woke up earlier than Niki and made all of my insurance phone calls. Jess came by to get our prescriptions. She came back with lunch, groceries, playdough, bubbles, spot cleaner to get the blood out of my clothes, neosporin and hello kitty band aids – and our filled prescriptions. I mean really, again, how great is Jess??

Meredith stopped by to hang out. That was fun.

The next few days were filled with relaxing, a few errands, cleaning out my car – where I cried, and saying goodbye to Niki.

What a weekend. Niki and I couldn’t believe we survived. We couldn’t believe we escaped without injuries. Someone was looking out for us.

I wouldn’t have been in that accident if I took a different job. I was meant to be here and meant to live through that accident. If everything happens for a reason, what’s this reason?