TIP Plague is real... and so is pink eye....

Everyone is dropping like flies here at UGA. Between bronchitis and the sudden pink eye outbreak, I am absolutely terrified to touch anything here. I hope that everyone starts to feel better before TIP prom on Thursday.
So let's recap the last few days....

Friday: I drove the Pharmacology students to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Headquarters in Atlanta. I had never driven that far since being here, but it all worked out.
The CDC was very interesting. I learned a decent amount about prevention of diseases and learned that only one disease has ever been eradicated from everywhere: smallpox. The next disease that the CDC is working on eradicating is polio. It has been eliminated from the US, but is still very prevalent in India. After our mini-tour of the CDC, we headed to Emory, a gorgeous university nicknamed the Harvard of the south, to eat lunch. There were not enough sandwiches for myself, Carter, and Zach, so we headed to Chipotle to grab burritos and burrito bowls. It was a damn good decision.
When it was time to leave, we drove back through a monsoon. It was terrifying because a) I didn't know where I was going and b) I couldn't see where I was going either. We made it back safely, though (no thanks to Carter and Zach who ditched me and I had to figure it out on my own.....).

Love my kids!

Best Staff Ever!

The Hunger Games Dance was that night. The kids LOVED it. I did my hair in a big bow and sprayed it pink in the front and blue in the back. Jake shaved his beard into a cool shape and dressed up as Seneca Crane. The kids thought that was the coolest thing ever. JD and I used gel in his hair to slick it down, which made for the perfect addition. (It took days for it all to wash out, though, and he had to use Dawn dish soap AND olive oil to get it all out... WHOOPS!)


Saturday: It rained for a good chunk of the morning, which I slept through until I heard a pounding on my door. I checked my phone. 11:07AM, two missed calls, twenty group-me's, and two text messages. What the heck was going on? I got to the door and saw Vincent standing there. He was asked to wake me up and bring me to the conference room for an emergency staff meeting. Whoopsies... I suck at waking up when my phone is on silent....
When I got downstairs, we were discussing options for the afternoon. The DAWGfest UF tournament was rained out so we needed a plan b. I was half asleep for most of the meeting, but I was awake enough to agree that trivia was our best bet. The kids would compete as RC groups, but the scores would be calculated by DAWGfest team to make-up for frisbee.
After lunch, we took the kids to the MLC 101 for trivia. There were fifty-six questions, which didn't seem like a lot at first, but as time went on it felt like there were entirely too many questions. The kids enjoyed it at first, but began to loathe it after a while. My girls had fun, even though they were not the best at trivia. Oh well, it took up time and the RCs had fun, especially making fun of the kids' answers to the questions. After trivia, we headed back to Myers to prep for the Gwinett Braves Game. YAY for not being rained out!
The kids seemed to enjoy the game. I enjoyed being there, but did not actually watch too much of the game since the RCs were told to supervise (which was fine with me). I had my first footlong hotdog, with cheese of course, and also had Dippin Dots for the first time, all for free. Yay for Braves bucks!
We left the game around 9:30PM and were back to Myers by 10:45PM. Lights out was at 11PM and then night duty began.
Night duty really wasn't bad at all, until about 1:45AM when we were informed that a student had vomited in her room. William, a TA, and I went to investigate. In my 3+ years of residence life, that was the first time I had ever had to deal with vomit. Guess there's a first time for everything, right?
We quarantined the student for the night so her roommate could sleep without potentially getting sick.
After the incident, I headed to bed around 2:30AM.

DAWGfest!

After our ground pound

Sunday: I was exhausted, but woke up at 9AM to drive kids to the Methodist Church downtown. It wasn't that bad, but all I wanted to do was sleep. After dropping the kids off at church, I helped choreograph my kids dance for TIPsync. They decided to do 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' theme song since I was born in Philly. (I told them I wasn't born in West Philly, but they still wanted to do it.) The dance was simple, but also hilarious. They had a blast creating it and were super excited to show it off that night at TIPsync.
After practicing, I picked up the kids from church and then we headed to lunch. When we got back, we all got ready for DAWGfest in the mud (YUCK!) and had our inspirational meeting on the balcony. I painted everyone's face with whatever design they wanted and then we headed outside to HULK SMASH.

Kris, Carter, James, and I repping HULK SMASH

Our team was not very athletic nor very full of spirit at the beginning. We found out we were in last place for sportsmanship and spirit so we decided to kick it up a notch. I had a pep talk with my girls to get them to lead cheers and to make everyone feel like winners. They took my talk to heart and cheered for all the teams and got the rest of our team involved. I was so proud of them for being positive role models and using their "fourth-year privilege" for good.

When everything was said and done at 4:30PM, we headed inside. I jumped in the shower and then headed to dinner with TIPsync committee so we could set up for the event before everyone arrived.
Vincent and William were MCing the event and Jake, Allison, Jalisa, and Zach (all TAs) were judging the competition. Carter ran the music, as usual, Kris tallied the votes after each act, and I photographed everything. We made a pretty good team.
The event ran super smooth and the staff even had an act. We let the kids pick the song (Wannabe, Tik Tok, or Threw It on the Ground) out of a hat. We told them we would make up a dance in five minutes and then perform. Luckily, the kids picked Tik Tok so there wasn't much planning involved. This time instead of me being Kesha, Carter was also Kesha. We called ourselves Kesha, Kesho, and the rest of Kesha. It was great. Someone filmed it so hopefully I will have the video to post soon.
After the event, the kids just wanted to get back to Myers for free time. We ate up some of their time by telling jokes. The kids were furious. We only took about about fifteen minutes total, but it really upset them. Oh well....

How's My Driving? 867-5309

Batmobile

Monday: I was on med pager, which was silent all day until dinner. One student had what she thought to be a concussion and needed to go to the clinic. I drove her and Gianna there. It sucked because we were both running real life Mario Kart for an evening activity and were worried we were not going to be back in time. When I got back to Myers, another student had to go to the clinic for pink eye. YUCK. I ran around and got everything together for the activity and called Jake to see if he and William could run it for us. They were happy to assist, thankfully.
When I got back, I was able to catch the kart making and the first race. We pelted the first racers with water balloons and had a blast. Halfway through the race, Gianna called and needed to be picked up from the clinic and taken to Walmart to get prescriptions. I'm sad I missed the rest of the program and that Gianna missed all of it....
Since William and Jake were so sweet to help, I bought them both Reese's and milkshakes from Chik-fil-a (since one of the students missed dinner we had to stop there). They were ecstatic for their free food. Gianna and I were super thankful for their help and could not (and still cannot) thank them enough for all that they do for Res Staff.
Tuesday: I went to Chik-fil-a with Sarah and experienced my first breakfast sandwich with chicken and biscuits. I do not know how I lived without them for so long. We went to the busiest Chik-fil-a in the world (which is not an exaggeration, but rather a fact) because they test out everything new first. It wasn't actually busy when we went through the drive-thru though.
After breakfast, we stopped at Office Max to get the termbook stuff situated. We saw the mockup and it looks great. I can't wait to see the finished product on Friday!

Prom-posal from Kris!

When I got back to Myers, I headed to ECV for lunch and then to Snelling to meet the Pharmacology class to drive for their field trip to Walmart. (They were doing a scavenger hunt for medications and food for patients.)
After the trip to Walmart, I took a power nap and then actively supervised the lobby from 4-5PM. We headed to dinner with Kaneisha's RC group and finally decided that we were going to do a 'spa night' for RC group night since our driver was sick and couldn't drive us to a restaurant (everyone has this damn plague....).
RC Group Night was fun. We ordered food, relaxed, watched the Fantastic 4, and painted our nails for Prom. It was a great bonding experience. After group night, I noticed a prom-posal on my door from Kris. It was so cute. Too bad she won't be at prom. (She's leaving TIP early since she is moving to Savannah for a new job.)
Jake and I actively supervised until 9:55PM when I ran into a student freaking out on the floor. I pulled him aside and asked if everything was alright, but he didn't really want to talk to me. He is dealing with a lot, but I told him that I am resource if he wants to talk. I think that made him feel a lot better about the battle he is facing.
Now I am on night duty, counting down until 2AM. All I want to do is go to sleep and then see my kids mock trial tomorrow (even though it is my day off....) and then go to trivia and hopefully get margaritas. I am in desperate need of a break and alcohol. The rest of the week is going to be rough since Saturday is the last day with students and Sunday I leave for PA. Holy shit... It's actually almost over.......
Until next time,
A
PS: Here's most of my kids performance at TIPsync.