11/21-11/27: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Obviously, I love to indulge on delicious foods all day long, but I'm also so happy to be around friends and family for a week. This Thanksgiving break my friend from school, Liam, stayed at my house with my family. Since he's from Minnesota it isn't always easy to go home over short breaks. Luckily (or maybe unluckily since my town is boring with not much to do) we were able to host him for the holiday.
This Thanksgiving I am thankful for a lot of things.
1. My brother got a job for after he graduates from college in May.
2. My family is all healthy.
3. I was able to see my cousins dogs.
4. My other cousin's kid has begun to walk. He's growing up so fast!
5. My mom made me TONS of delicious food while I was home.
6. I was able to savor a great breakfast from my favorite restaurant, The Dairy Center.
7. Everyone had safe and happy trips to and from home on the holidays.

As part of Random Acts of Kindness at SMC, my friends and I wrote what we're thankful for. I'm thankful for my mom's taco salad and my philosophy tutor, Mike Ruble.

One of my guilty pleasures? My Little Cupcake. Pictured here is me stuffing my face with their apple cider donut flavor!

I love seeing my friends from high school when I go home for break. Here's my friend Sarah and I!

Here's Liam and I still smiling after a week spent together playing card games with my family, watching movies, eating turkey, and doing a 1000 piece puzzle!

For your weekly dog picture, here is me with my roommate's dog, Jack! Jackypoo is a great dog and I'm so jealous she got to spend her break with him in Carmel, NY.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and time off of work! To stay tuned on my life or to have your questions answered, feel free to message me and follow me on social media!
Email: njackson@mail.smcvt.edu
Snapchat: natalierj
Instagram: @natjackski
Twitter: @natjackski

11/7-11/13: Poverty

This week's theme is poverty. I had two nights of service trip orientation to prepare all the students going on extended service trips. I was accepted to go on a service trip to Kentucky over spring break! The first night of orientation was about poverty. A professor at the school who came from Iran talked to us about his childhood and how he came from nothing and worked his way up to where he is now, here. The next night we discussed the differences in cultures with a professor in the anthropology department. After attending both nights, I have realized how grateful and thankful I am for the way I was raised and the resources I had growing up.

Here are some snapchats from the rest of my week!

My roommate Kristen and I took a stroll down Church Street in Burlington and went on a nice dinner date to American Flatbread!

My team, Volleyciraptors, for the Volleyball for Veterans fundraiser! We had so much fun even though we lost all three of our games!

As a Vermonter, it is a necessity to bring Vermont Maple Syrup to brunch every weekend! Nothing is better than Vermont's gold.

On Saturday I was a lunch host for the first time at our second Sample St. Mike's fall open house! I love talking to families about St. Mike's because I can go on and on talking about this school! :)

Volleyball season is over. I'm proud of the team and happy for my amazing roommate on being named one of the captains for next year! Even though they had some tough losses, it was a great season to watch!

The weather has been so nice lately that my friends and I were able to do our homework outside! I'm loving the 62 degree weather in November. Here's my gorgeous friend, Kara!

Unfortunately, I didn't see a dog this week, but here is an older picture of my childhood dog! My family had Shelby for 11 years before we had to put her down my senior year of high school. She was the best dog ever! We aren't certain what kind of dog she was, but we think she was a mix of a golden retriever and a black lab.

For more stories and to see what I'm up to on a daily basis, feel free to contact me or follow me on social media!

Email: njackson@mail.smcvt.edu
Snapchat: natalierj
Instagram: @natjackski
Twitter: @natjackski

10/31-11/6: FOIA and Sunshine Act

This week I worked really hard on a project for my Media Law and Ethics in a Digital Age class. In the class we had been learning about the Freedom of Information Act and the Sunshine Act. There were four components to our research project. We were assigned a local town and we had to go to the town clerk's office to request information on a home sale. We had to look up information on a sex offender in the town. We had to go to an open meeting that falls under the Sunshine Act in our assigned town, and we had to go to the courthouse and sit in on an arraignment. After finishing all of these tasks, we had to right a reflection paper and discuss each component too. This week, I focused on half of the project. I went to a natural resource committee meeting and sat in on a court arraignment.
This week I also had a week of Spanish exams. As a Spanish minor, I am currently taking Third Semester Spanish. I have this class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. This week we had a written exam on Monday, an in class essay question on Wednesday, and an oral exam on Friday.
After a long week of homework, studying, and exams, I was very relieved when the weekend came! Both my roommate and I had a friend from home coming to visit and another one of my roommates had her golden retriever for a night!

Here are a couple of snapshots from my week!

It felt so good to see my best friend, Taylor! 2.5 months was too long apart!

My roommate, Kristen, and I LOVE cheesecake and are thankful Alliot supplies it so often!

And of course, I can't close out my blog without a picture of me with a dog (I realize I forgot last weekend, but I was a Dalmatian for Halloween so I think that's good enough). This is my roommate Jade's dog, Paisley.

Feel free to email me with any questions you have, or follow me on social media to catch instant updates on my hectic life!

Email: njackson@mail.smcvt.edu
Snapchat: natalierj
Instagram: @natjackski
Twitter: @natjackski

10/24-10/30: Halloween

The week leading up to Halloween was filled with excitement in my suite! My roommates and I all got Halloween care packages from our families and we decorated the suite with Halloween lights, signs, and even pumpkins! One of my roommates, Jade, lives in the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont (about an hour and a half away) and her parents brought us each a pumpkin with our name engraved into it!

To start off the week, I took a picture for the school's HerCampus club that was promoting self-love last week in Alliot. Why am I beautiful? I'm beautiful because I love taco salad!!

My friends, Aaron and Sam, took the easy route and decided to dress up as Drake and Josh for Halloween. They went around saying, "Hug me brotha!"

My friend Jake (also the president for the Class of 2019) and I went as a firefighter and a dalmation. I tried my hardest too look more like a dalmation than a cow while still being on a college budget.

Here's the cute pumpkin Jade's parents made me! They told us that if you scrape the name into the pumpkin when it is little, then the name will grow as the pumpkin does!

That's all for my Halloween week, but I hope everyone had a great and safe time celebrating (without any clowns)! My other favorite costumes I saw on campus throughout the weekend were the cast of Stranger Things, a group of bananas, and Judge Judy!

Feel free to email me with any questions you have, or follow me on social media to catch instant updates!
Email: njackson@mail.smcvt.edu
Snapchat: natalierj
Instagram: @natjackski
Twitter: @natjackski