I really need to post more...

Sorry to those of you who are reading regularly my whole two blogs.

No autumn pictures unfortunately, every time it was a good evening for pictures, I was on duty, when I wasn't on duty, it was dark and cloudy, it was as if someone was saying "no albany pictures for you!!"

As some of you may know I've been sick for the last like, 7 weeks. Come to find out, allergies are the cause. I'm allergic to Albany. It's caused me to have the flu twice and coughing up my lungs for the last 6 weeks. It's fantastic! I finally got some time to go to the doctor and am on the mend, so that should be better!

Despite the constant illness there are some great things about Albany that I thought I'd share with you:

My CoWorkers

AKA here is Justin Smith one of my Co-RDs here on staff and probably my BFF. We goof around a lot, develop our own "cool lingo" and relatively just... I dunno. Chill shawty, chill... We have lots of ISMs and he's made my transition here a lot easier. This is his "Fetch" pose. Yes, he's a Gretchen trying to make "Fetch" work.

The Staff

Some of my Lovlies during a bowling trip we had at training. The two guys are my RAs, the purple haired young lady is one of our office workers called SAs.

Me and our "Senior RA" Who is pretty much the half student-staff/half pro-staff/liason etc role.

Staff Development Activities:

(Apple Picking! Yum Yum!)

This is Allison our Graduate Assistant (dark hair) (also considered professional staff) and Kelsey one of Justin's RAs.

And I've been lucky enough to get some Jason time! (He's moving in VERY SOON!!)

And there is some AWESOME coffee out here.

Here's a lil something from the local coffee house...

It's kind of a heart... he tried!

Other than that, now that I have the job down (They're already starting to make plans on how to professionally develop me for next year. I'm getting "groomed" for the next position up, my boss wants me to take her place when she leaves!) I'm integrating socially now, I've made some friends with ex-reslifers who still hang out with current reslifers. (Nice to not be ALL JOB all the time, but still have friends who know what you do!) Lots of dinners, and laughing, and movies etc.

Also, soon pics to come of my ADORABLE cousins. I'm watching a lot of their BBall games, and trick or treating and all that fun stuff. It's been great to have family near by I LOVE being close to them! Thanksgiving with them is going to be a BLAST!

To all my loved ones far away I know I'm pushing your patience with my lack of phonecalls. Believe me when I say I talk about you all the time. I refer to ya'll as my "Other Life" or my "Previous Life" so that they know I'm refering to one of you.

Miss you all like crazy all the time!

~Danielle~

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~

My month in MI, Albany, The first week!

So I'm here, FINALLY.

So I have a chance to pack a TON of stuff into one blog, I apologize. Feel free to read in doses.

My M&M- the Month in Michigan
I stayed in Ann Arbor for a week, then went up north for a week, back downstate for a week, up north for a week, and then downstate for a few days before I left for Albany. In that time some notable things I got to do that were really special to me:
Mass amounts of genuine quality time with my Mom, my bestfriend from highschool Jessica and her son Michael, and with Megan, my bestfriend from College
Jason and I went Kayaking- which resulted in the death of two cellphones.
I spent the 4th at home for the forest festival, fireworks, fair rides, art fairs etc
Ann Arbor Art Fair, always a blast
I finished reading the Harry Potter Series- again.
Other than that I ate a lot of good food, slept, and slept and slept, and slept some more.
Enjoyed the beautiful temperate weather of MI
And the list goes on, but I was basically useless and ready to start work by the time I left.

The Move
It took a little bit for them to narrow down a day I could move in, but I successfully moved in on July 29th, and started training July 30th. Yeah, take THAT, take THAT. It took 2 days with that trailor to drive to Albany. I actually went the speed limit, it was painful.
Things have been intense with the move, but good, I stayed quick on my feet and flexible and whatnot. The training work days have been long, but not so long that I couldn't get some unpacking done. I actually got a weekend just this last weekend! This was amazing because I got to see my Aunt Lisa and her boys Colin and Christian. I'll probably be mentioning them a lot so keep those names in mind... We saw WALLE in the theater, and I was so tickled I laughed more than the little kids! Hehe!

UAlbany Work
Student staff arrives on Sunday, so right now I've been working with my Quad Staff. Here's the brief Albany structure so you know what I'm talking about.
Housing is broken into 2 apartment complexes, Freedom and Empire Commons
It has four on campus QUADs, a Quad is a series of 8, 3-story buildings in a square, with a 20-something story tower in the middle, a cafeteria underneath. They are located on the four corners of campus. The four quads are Colonial, Dutch, State, and Indian. Downtown campus as a Quad called Alumni. It houses sophomores and transfer students.
There are about 1400 students in each quad, and I don't know how many in the apartments.
Each Quad has 1 Quad Coordinator, 4 Resident Directors, 1-2 GAs, A senior RA, Housing Managers, RAs, and SAs(student desk workers)

Right now, the quad coordinator, the RDs and the GAs are in professional staff training.

Names you will see often:
My lovely Quad Staff that is amazing is:
Karla - my boss and QC
Brian- RD (with a specialty in staff development)
Justin RD (specialty in administrative functions)
Myself RD (specialty as program director)
Nicky RD (specialty is CHARGE, our multicultural programming community)
Allison GA (runs the main quad office)

We're all obsessed with coffee and make a coffee run in the mornings before training, and it's awesome.

Albany
Is a lovely capital city with historical buildings downtown, and it's tucked into the mountains so everything is hilly, green, and gorgeous. A lil drab downtown, but where I'm at, beautiful and green.
Campus is self-contained, but the city is all around us and across the street.
There is a 3-story mall down the road
there is a 2-story super walmart across the street from it. It's awesome.
I have a GPS now so I'll be doing some exploring and will tell you about the mountains as soon as I get there.

Misc.
My apartment is a little strangely laid-out, but it's spacious. The kitchen is SMALL, but it has a lot of storage, and I'm flexible, I'll manage. I'm already thinking about the baking care-packages I'll soon be sending everyone. I put up pictures on the walls last night and that was comforting.
I miss everyone like crazy. I have random UCA moments, and I talk about it in the "we" still. Hard to break that habit. So many isms, so much lingo, it's amazing to think about how cohesive we become, and how the structure of UCA is so engrained.
I'm reading the TWILIGHT book series. It's a little dramatic, lots of vampires, werewolves, and teenage angst. If you have time to read (which I made time for!!! GASP!) I suggest it, it's a 4 books series. Pretty good.
I still do not have consistant access to internet, so as soon as I get that taken care of I will update more often.

As you all know, there isn't much else rather than reslife stuff, because it's not a job, it's a LIFESTYLE.

But that's where I am now. Shout out to my peeps in Arkansas, I miss ya'll like crazy, and PLEASE take care of my MICHELLE!

<3

~Danielle~