Having spent a week and a half in classes, I could not let the past 3-day weekend go to waste!  My colleagues and I have been taking classes in the CLS building and while for some of the classes our professors are in our classroom, others are conducted via distance-ed learning with our partner campus at Charleston with the Medical University of South Carolina.   Sitting in the classroom, we listen and watch our professors teach us from Charleston, and we hope that neither one of the audio or visual go out.  Well, my fellow pharmacy colleague, Anthony, and I decided that we had had enough of Charleston via the AV system.  It was time for a CHUCKTOWN ROADTRIP!

One of our undergraduate pre-pharmacy friends, Kim, actually is in the Charleston campus right now.  She decided that she wanted to be in the lowcountry, so Anthony and I decided that the labor day weekend was the perfect time to go visit her!

Here's Charleston in pictures for y'all!

This is the College of Pharmacy building at MUSC.  Kim gave us a quick tour and showed us where the other half of our classes take place!

A quick lunch trip at Necter's in James Island was much enjoyed!  Anthony kind of ruined the picture, but we had a great time.  For great food, go visit this place.

Dinner at Downtown Charleston was fun.  I had a bucket of 3/4 pounds of peel 'n eat shrimp.  I could not believe that I finished it all!

Of course, Shawn was with us on the trip.  We had the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge in the background, but my camera's not good enough to capture it in the dark!

A trip to Charleston would not be complete without  a trip down to the beach.  Here's the pier at Folly Beach!

We might be counting pills for the rest of our lives but we sure do love to have fun too!  Pharmacy colleagues for life! 

Here's the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge by day!  It looks gorgeous.  The weekend weather held up as we enjoyed a day through Downtown Charleston.

Here's the picture of the Labor Day Weekend Crew!  We had to squat because we had to take the picture by timer.  Hehe!

The great thing about being in Carolina is that you make such great friends, and hey, they don't have to go away!  Anthony and Kim were my pre-pharm buds during my undergrad years and well now they're my pharmacy colleagues for life!  Hehehe!  Also, as I've blogged in the past, Columbia is such a great location for being in close proximity to anything and everything the state of South Carolina has to offer.  Charleston is only about an hour and a half to two hours tops!  With the rich history, shopping, and beaches of Charleston, there's so much to do for even just a quick day trip!  And, of course there is Lake Murray just about 20 minutes from campus, the mountains a bit up north about 2 hours away, and the beaches of the coast about 3 hours away to the east.  Not that football during the fall season won't keep you already busy, but weekend trips are definitely great options here in Columbia!

Well, until next time again folks!  Catch y'all later on the flipside, Gamecocks!

Posted by Kriska at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So, I've pretty much spent my entire afternoon packing four loads of dirty laundry, books and notebooks that I probably won't even really open, and just the regular necessities.  It's time to go back home and spend some great quality time with the family. 

IT'S THANKSGIVING BREAK!

With my sister and her husband having moved down permanently to live closer to home, we're really going all out for Thanksgiving this year.  My sister has got it all planned out and the dishes have been dished out and I've got good ol' mac-and-cheese as my designated dish to make for the big dinner on Thursday!  Fortunately, my boyfriend's mom has an awesome mac-and-cheese under her belt from her mother-in-law, and well, she was very nice about sharing it down to me.  I just got to hope that I can get as close to the way she makes it because there's really no recipe.  It's more like a hand-me-down-watch-me-do-it type of recipe, but it's a little too late to go to the beach now and watch her make one.  Fingers crossed that my entire family will be impressed!  Hehe!  I don't want to have to resort to Easy Mac!

Well, anyways, I just really mainly wanted to say hello to everyone and just make sure I get my "Happy Thanksgiving" greeting in just in case I don't get a chance to get to a computer once I get home.  I'll most likely be spending good quality time with my grandma tomorrow since everyone else will still be at work or at school.  I think my brother doesn't have school on Wednesday though, so I can hang out with him then.  And well we all know what happens on Thursday (FOOD, FOOD, and MORE FOOD!)  As also we know what goes down on Friday (SHOP, SHOP, and MORE SHOP!)

I should be back in town by Friday night, however, so I can be well prepared to go cheer on the Gamecocks against our rivals...I dare not even say their name on this blog!  Hehe!

Well, like I said...HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!  Eat as much turkey as y'alls tummies can handle and catch y'all later on the flipside, GAMECOCKS!

Posted by Kriska at 07:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fall break, ALAS!  After battling through three classes this morning, fall break finally began!

See, as my professor in Abnormal Psychology said those last sweet words of "Have a great fall break!"  I immediately trotted out of Gambrell Hall off to Preston to get packing and going to get fall break on.  Midway to my house from Cola is where my roommate lives, so her parents offered to give me a ride up to a point where my dad could meet us.  This cut about an hour and a half of a drive for my dad.  But, well, I'm getting ahead of myself as there's more to getting ready to go back home than just "simply packing."

Roommie and I are what you would call "typical girls" when it comes to leaving and packing.  No matter how many bags we've stuffed and overflowed, there's always something that we seem to have left behind.  So, she had her side of the room covered, as I did mine.  Checking our lofts, our desks, the fridge, the pantry, the bathroom, and so on and so forth, about two hours of checking and packing...we finally got more than a trunk-load pile of stuff and put together our "list-of-things-for-mom-and-dad-to-buy-while-we-are-at-home."  Looking at the pile we had going, it seemed that we had packed up the entire room for a four-day weekend, but then we took one look around the room and realized we only bearly made a dent.  It's amazing how much she and I have, especially since we still were thinking of bringing back more stuff provided our parents buy everything on our lists...hehehe!  So, anyways, her parents came, and the four of us together took about 2 trips to the car to load everything up.  Her parents were shocked at the stuff we had seeing as we were going to be back on campus by Sunday!

But, anyways...here I am home.  Glad to be able to spend some time with my lil bro and the parents.  I'm enjoying my very homey and comfy couch.  I'm catching my Food Network Channel shows.  Oh, and I'm definitely enjoying my Asian, Jasmine home-cooked rice! 

Oh, the sweet touches of being home sweet home!

I hope y'all are having a good week and are making it over the Wednesday-Week-Hump!  I'm definitely going to be enjoying my next couple of days here at home...

Catch y'all later on the flipside, Gamecocks!

Posted by Kriska at 07:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)