Is that sun I see?? No Way! Didn't think it was possible!!

Well me oh my, is that sun I see shinning out of the hotel? I think it is!! I can't believe were finally getting some nice weather here in E'burg. I was beginning to think we weren't ever going to see nice weather again! Although it's still chilly, I'll take the sun!

Things have been absolutely crazy around here! I started personal training with an instructor at the Wellness Center and let me tell you I am soar!!! It's a great way to get some exercise and to get someone to push you harder. Wow, I can't believe Spring Break is coming up so soon! It's amazing, one more day of school left and there we are! The town of Emmetsburg is gearing up for it's exciting weekend of St. Patricks Day Celebration! There is lots going on in town and lots of fun things to see and do around town. There's a parade and many fun things to do around town! I'd highly check it out!

The hotel and restaurant management team is in the cafeteria the next few weeks, working side by side with some awesome school cooks and learning a lot about working together and becoming a team. It was a great experience and I'm excited for the next few weeks ahead. Well, this is all for now, I will right more when I come back from spring break! Enjoy the break ILCC!!

More icky weather???

Well, Well, Well, what do you know.. as I sit down to write this I'm looking out my bay window and I see a mixture of sleet and snow coming down. I thought after the beautiful week we had on campus at ILCC we would be in for some spring! But I guess we were "fortunate" enough to get winter back. Things at the college have been moving slowly lately, as most everyone is ready for some spring break action! St. Patricks Day is coming up also in Emmetsburg and you can tell the town is getting very excited for the festivities coming up! It is nice that this semester we get a fun weekend of St. Patricks and then were off for a whole week on spring break. I think everyone has been working really hard around campus to study hard and push in there classes. Everyone seems to be working towards of goal of getting ready for the last bit of school and to get done with this year right!! Other then that, things seem to be pretty quiet around campus.. Ill right more when things pick up.. Keep Rockin' ILCC!!

Please spring, come quickly!!

Hey Everyone! I'm so excited to be back from our trip to Minneapolis. It was a blast and very exciting but I am sure glad to be home and back to sleeping in my own bed. It's always nice to go away but let me tell you, its always even better to come home.
We took off Sunday morning around 10:00 and you could just tell everyone was super excited to get on the road. We traveled to eat at the "Wild Hog Salon & Eatery" It was a nice place we enjoyed a large buffet of breakfast foods and yummy desserts. We also got a nice tour of the place. It was fun trying out a new restaurant. We then all loaded back up and got on the bus to go to Chanhassen Dinner Theater. We got the privilege of getting to see "7 Brides for 7 Brothers" it was a hilarious play. The food was amazing at Chanhassen! I had the top sirloin steak and I highly recommend it. After a great dinner and show we loaded the bus's back up and headed to an amazing hotel, the Northland Inn & Suites. I do have to admit we were all very tired on the trip to the hotel, but we when we all saw that huge hotel all lit up and the dark, we got SUPER excited!! It was awesome to get there, get settled in and hit the sheets after 2 hours a giggling and laughing our heads off, but what can ya do when you put 5 girls in one room?

The second day we were at the hotel was great! We woke up to a wonderful buffet of breakfast foods and off we went to tour the Hilton Hotel, I do have to say this was my favorite part of the trip. The behind the scenes of the hotel was amazing! After we had a great tour of the hotel we walked the skyways to the Upper Mid-West Hospitality Show! It was a good chance to walk around and look at some awesome vendors, along with great samples of goodies! We then returned back to our hotel for an afternoon of being lazy and hanging around the hotel; later that evening we had a seminar on front desk operations and sanitation. We then enjoyed a sweet buffet of lots of food; along with a whole food island dedicated to desserts, now let me tell you that was worth the trip alone!! That evening we had free time to go swimming and hang out with our friends. It was a great way to relax and have some fun!

Our 3rd and final day we got to sleep in a little bit and after we got up and got packed and headed off to the Mall of America. As we arrived we had 4 hours to shop, so we all took off in all sorts of directions.. Lots of walking and lots of fun stores, I think all of the girls enjoyed it but for the boys not so much! ha-ha. We then took off for our destination of Esterville and Emmetsburg. On the long drive back we watched "Home Alone" and all took naps. I personally layed of the floor of the bus and fell asleep immediately. We got back to E'burg and the weather was soo warm, I was amazed! All in all it was a great trip and I'm very glad I went.

Now that I am back to E'burg and back in school all the time its back to the average day of being a hotel/restaurant student.. what can I say, its the life!

My First Post in Iowa Lakes Blog

Hello-- I'm glad you're taking time to read our college blog. Our web page editor "jumped on it" when I barely mentioned that I could write in this blog as one of the faculty/staff from the Emmetsburg, Iowa campus. So, here we go.

This takes me back many moons to when I was writing each week for my high school newspaper. I'm sure our college administration will hope that I don't get as controversial as I did in those days. My high school principal was invited to appear on Good Morning America, because I exposed that he was locking mischievous students in a "slammer" all day. The wire service picked it up from our small town newspaper where the high school page appeared. He, of course, refused to appear on the show, and I, of course, was very disappointed they didn't call me instead. It could have been my ticket to fame and fortune. But, instead. . .

Twenty years of my life have been spent walking these college hallways and usually landing in Room 533. This is where, as of lately, I've spent my days listening to students and student speeches. I find the students and our classroom time to be fascinating, amazing, motivating, often funny, often sad, and always enriching. This is a challenging career and not easy at all if you want to do it well. I want to do it well, so I'm constantly working toward more engaged students, motivated students, and students that are better able to think critically. Besides working with students "on the ground," I also teach public speaking online to students across the state. Yes, it is possible to take public speaking online, and I'll share more of that experience at some point.

The students and I will be traveling down a pathway to informative speeches in the next couple weeks before our break. This week, students will be finding good examples of informative/demonstrative speeches on youtube.com to share with the class. I'll share a few of their favorites with you next week.

Our college leadership changed this past week, in an unexpected turn of events. Change is never easy, but I'm very optimistic about our college future. We have our first ever female president in Val Newhouse, and I believe she is also the first college president to reside in Emmetsburg. She knows our campus faculty and staff well and that should be an asset for all of us and the students. I wish Val the best in this key leadership position.

I was visiting the Iowa Historical Museum in Des Moines this weekend and I found a significant Iowa quotation to use as a closing tonight. It seems important for hope as we look out at our frozen tundra in late February and our national economy.

"The land being fertile, never failed to produce good crops. . . .We always had plenty; our children never cried from hunger, neither were our people in want."

MA-KA-TAI-ME-SHE-KIA-KIAK
Black Hawk Sauk
Autobiography

Cross your fingers, as March should be arriving within a week.

Renee

Fasination

There is so much going on at Iowa Lakes. Mid term is coming up in a few weeks. So I am studying like crazy. There are some study groups that you can join. So it helps allot studying with other students. It also helps to get to know more people. Spring break is also coming up. I am excited for that because my fiance is graduating from Basic Training. So I get to go see him. Then he starts is AIT's 4 days after that. We got to go to Chicago this year with our MA Program. So I got to see a lot of cool sites. So I can't wait to go see Jake. It snowed this weekend so I'm not so happy about that. I have a lot of papers due this next couple of weeks. So I better get to them.
Susie

No More Winter Please!

Ugh!!!! I regretfully type this today as I look outside and see loads of snow in Emmetsburg! How ridiculous is this?? I think its crazy! Yesterday I took off to Mallard to do some things at Alex's house and it was simply raining and I thought nothing of it, well as the afternoon/evening progressed I soon went outside to the shop to get something and I looked around and saw nothing but SNOW! Crazy!! I couldn't believe it. Needless to say the roads weren't the greatest coming back to Emmetsburg last night. I'm very excited as Hotel and Restaurant Management is taking off tomorrow for Minneapolis! Although, I have lots of packing to do to get ready I am very excited. I'm not sure if its what were all going to do that excites me or it's the pure fact that I'm getting away from E'burg for just a little while. I hope that when we return some of this snow has disappeared. Emmetsburg seems to be very hopping tonight as the hotel I worked at is nearly booked for the night; which is good because that means there is many people in and out of town doing a variety of things. Well as I better get back to working the afternoon, I will write when we return from our trip! I'm sure there will be plenty of fun stories and things to share! Take care E'burg! See you in a few days!

Finally Some Sun!

Well what can I say, I'm finally glad to see some sun peaking out in Emmetsburg today. It's been a few cold days.. I miss that nice taste of spring we got, I think it put a spring in every ones step at the college.

The Hotel and Restaurant Mgt class is very excited as we are taking off for Minneapolis on Sunday for a fun trip of seeing hotels, going to the Upper Midwest Hospitality Show and having some fun at the Mall of America! We've all been waiting a long month or so since we've came back to school for this trip, were excited to get out of here for a few days and see some new things! That's all we can seem to talk about!

Student Senate is doing great! We had a weekly meeting this week and got lots of things done. Student Senate will be sponsoring "Root Beer Fest" on March 3rd in the gym at the Wellness Center in Emmetsburg, were very excited to have lots of fun and play some games!

Emmetsburg was sure moving slowly this week with the cold weather and wind. I took a couple of students that play basketball for ILCC yesterday back to Estherville to get on the bus for a game and boy the wind pulled the car all over the road!

Its such a nice morning as I get ready for school, I'm glad to see the sun out! But I better get ready as another full day of school and work is ahead for me!