September in Albany: cool weather, hot birthday!

Good afternoon my lovelies, I'm sorry. I told ya'll in advance that I'm horrible at updating these things.

Autumn in Albany has been interesting, VERY warm and now all of a suddent very cold, and this has caused me the familiar "I'm getting sick" tickle in the throat, lets hope I'm being paranoid. As soon as I get a chance (this weekend I'm hoping) I want to take some pictures of campus, of albany in the fall, and give you guys some really good images of my beautiful campus and this very sweet/quaint city I live in.

My birthday was awesome, and a special thanks to all those who thought of me and called/facebooked/texted, etc. It always makes my day to just hear from you no matter the birthday or not. And what I'm realizing as the years go by is that I am so very very LUCKY to be so LOVED in my life. I have amazing friends all over the country who took time out to recognize me on my birthday and that means a lot.
On Saturday my new coworker Justin and my boss Karla took me out to an italian restaurant for dinner (and paid!) and then organized a group of people who came out to the bar with me for my birthday! I danced and danced and danced and it was great to just get out and let off some stress. Sunday, they took me out to brunch at this really great gourmet cafe that does cheap breakfast, and it was DELICIOUS! Can't wait to take Jason there. Then I slept and watched tv all afternoon. Intermixed in this was a gazillion phonecalls and texts and catching up with a lot of loved ones. It was a really nice birthday.

Updates on Work, etc.

I'm getting into the swing of things. Those of you who may have talked to me a couple weeks ago may have seen the symptoms of early burnout. I was doing what I characteristically do, volunteer for EVERYTHING. It didn't take long for the long hours to wear on me, so these last couple weeks I've taken a step back and its been easier to breathe and have some me time in the mix of all that.
I love my job, it has its challenges, but I'm never want for something to do, that is FOR SURE!
A feature I LOVE LOVE LOVE at my new job is outlook email/calendar. It's the most amazing thing ever. I have an online calendar that I can give permission to people to share, add appointments in, request appointments, etc. I also can sit an plan every second of the day down just how I like to! It's connected to my email so I'm always on it, and I don't know what I ever did without it now. I marvel at something that's been around forever, which is silly I know, but it's still SO GREAT. Makes life so much easier.
I have 9 RAs and that's still challenging in giving them the 1-1 attention that they need. I miss having all my quality time with my smaller staffs. They are all so unique and bring so much to the group though, I love my staff meetings they are always cracking me up!
I'm doing programs all the time, and I love that. I'm more of the paperwork person than the actual planning and implementing, but I'm liking that aspect of my job.
JUDICIALS! I do at the minimum, 3 judicials a week. I have a lot of issues in my buildings, and that is a constant struggle, but I manage! I'm becoming a pro at judicials that's for sure.
The other issue is NOISE. My noisy freshmen make it very difficult to have my own personal life. I can't watch tv without someone yellin, laughin, or stomping around somewhere, and that is frustrating, but I trust my RAs and the duty staff to be on it as much as they can.

Professional Development Goals this year:
NCBI train the trainer, be a multicultural dialog facilitator basically.
NASPA Mental Health Conference in January
Teaching RA Class
Professional Staff Recruitment Committee
PUBLISHING- Steven, we gotta talk!


Personal Updates:

Still reading the twilight series, I'm in the fourth book right now and it's hard to put it down, I definitely suggest it, it's gotten into my mushy side a little bit.
Vampires is a theme this fall for some reason, cuz I like the twilight book and I'm also watching the tv series "True Blood." Dangerous, funny, random... love it!
October is the month for visits! Jason is visiting in October, so is my Mom! I'm very excited about both of these. Fall is an excellent time to come to NY, it's gorgeous!
I'm painting again, which has been nice, I'll show you guys my stuff as soon as its done.
Family- I'm loving having my aunt near by, I babysat the boys a couple weekends ago, and that was a lot of fun. It was also nice to just get away!
Family part 2- BRETT IS IN COLLEGE! My baby brother is a freshman at Western Michigan University and is liking it so far, i'm so proud of him, he's working hard!

Other than that, it's same ol' same ol'! Hope this gives you a rundown of what's going on in my life, I will post pics from my birthday and fall follage soon!

Miss you all!

~Danielle~