Tomorrow on the Texas Tech campus they are having the annual Carol of the Lights. Every year, you can go on campus and enjoy the Christmas festivities. It will start at 7 pm. Get there early and head back into the Quad, where you will see the choir and get to hear them sing Christmas Carols. All the sidewalks will be lit with candles and it will be dark. They give out glow sticks to the kids, and everyone gets to the center where the choir is singing, and then they will turn on all the lights on campus. There are more than 25,000 lights lit at one time, on eleven of the buildings on campus that are around memorial circle. There’s a big Christmas tree at the entrance of campus that is thirty-eight feet tall. So don’t forget to bring your camera and take tons of pictures of the family with the giant tree and all the lights, it could make for a good Christmas card pictures! This is another one of those moments that just let you know Christmas is soon, and I’ve made sure to go every year since I’ve been living in Lubbock. If you live in Lubbock, make sure you go. Bring the kids, it’s a nice evening of family fun that doesn’t cost a dollar and gets everyone in the holiday spirit early. It’s going to be chilly, so don’t forget to grab your scarves and sweaters and get some hot chocolate before heading out there!

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Everyone always wants to know why they stay so sick all of the time here in Lubbock. Well have you actually taken a really good look at our weather paterns. If your a native to Lubbock most always you are used to the weather changes that come with the territory, but if your not a native of Lubbock it is a very good possibility that you are becoming more and more sick. I pulled our weather from last week and looked at our highs for the week and of course we have days of high sixties were we are standing in warm sunshine and the only hint of cold is in the shade. I think I have taken my two year old to the doctor more times than I can count because of the weather. I know that she is a native to Lubbock but because she is just two her immune system isnt used to the troublesome issues of weather change. I still get sick in this weather and so does my husband. Sometimes I wish I lived somwhere that the weather predictions were right on target. Is there such place? Sometimes I wonder how people in Minnesota and places like that handle the weather, are they always sick or do they have a set weather pattern that lets them prepare for the issues to come. Its never the same here and sometimes I wish it would be for the simple fact that maybe I could be a little more prepared for the issues that come with climate changes. I envy anyone that lives in a predictable town that can prepare for the weather changes.

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I had heard on three different occasions that everything was ok, they understood were I was coming from but they hadn’t received anything back that showed they were fake. I had taken a sigh of relief and wasn’t worrying about it until I received the phone call a week later from my bank that they had indeed received a confirmation that the money orders were fake and I was being called into the vice president’s office for confrontation. When I showed up prepared to take control of the situation and handle my responsibilities there sat the local police department. As a person that had never been in trouble I worried about what was going to happen to me. The police officer asked me why I had done something like this when I had never even committed so much as a traffic violation. Trying to explain myself became worse and I continued to cry uncontrollably. They released me because they had no grounds to keep me and three days later the district attorney called me in to talk to me as well. It was at that moment he told me that if convicted and I would be because it was my signature and me at the drive through window that I was looking at a good twenty four years in the state penitentiary. It was at that point I began to pray to god that everything would be ok, that he would just give me a sign that I was not going to jail for good. When I walked out of the DA’s office I ran into the attorney that not only was a DA herself but also helped my husband in a DWI case not long before. She was the answer to my prayers and every day I think god she was walking down the hall. The rest of the proceedings are confidential but not far from a psychiatric evaluation. If I can save anyone’s life with something like this and from someone trying to get money back overseas for the benefit of buying artillery to take out American troops then this is why I send this out. Please be safe this holiday and any other time with predators.

During this time of year or any time of year for that matter more and more people are trying to scam people. There are many people out there that are going through this right now. The one thing that I want to stress to everyone is not to get caught up in something like this. From firsthand experience and not one I talk about often I have been there. I was low on cash and found a job on the internet it sounded great and I was naive at the time. I kept thinking to myself this is awesome I have actually found a stay at home job where I could stay at home and take care of my husband and the house and just be a classic house wife. I gave the company my name and address along with my telephone number. I had corresponded with the gentleman a couple of times after I had heard on the news that people were being targeted with fake checks. I asked the man several times is this a scam and he had continued to tell me no. Pretty soon FedEx arrived and had delivered four United States Postal Service’s money orders. I cashed two money orders at the local bank where I had banked. I took the money orders in they ran them through black light and had passed them handing me the cash and depositing the rest into my bank account. I continued on with everything not worrying about it and I had then seen the devastating news on the TV. Multiple chains of people were targeting people just like me to cash money orders and send them part of the money keeping the rest for them. I began to panic and started calling my bank.

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Black Friday happens every year and I refuse to be apart of the madness. My cousin is going this weekend and wants me to go but I value my life more than that. Black Friday is a time for good deals,limted stock,tug a wars,fist fights, and possible totaled cars. I think anyone that gets into black friday has some really big guts. When you actually look at the sale ads you notice that they arnt as great as you think, and when you find something that looks good guess what there is again limited stocl so if your not there as soon as that store opens then you can forget about it. What about the drivers trying to get to the stores fast enough that they are not paying attention to the other driver? You have people talking on cell phones, or texting during the traffic of black friday, how stupid can they be but yet we put our lives and cars out on line every year for it. If you pay attentiono the radio that day while you are at home getting your things ready for christmas then you notice that they report more and more traffic accidents and advise to stay away from certain streets because of the traffic issues. When people go out to theis big event they dont consider the fact that there could actually be many issues that cause hardship when they are there.  the end you come home with a possible black eye, totaled car, minnimum amounts of gifts and you are mad the rest of the day.

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I don’t go the Jake’s very often, but when I do go I always have a good time. They have the “back room”, which is a huge room with a stage where they have concerts. It’s never very expensive to get in, and it’s a really good room for concerts. When they don’t have concerts, you can go back into the room and they have extra seating and another bar than the main one. When Texas Tech plays on TV, it’s a good place to go because there are a lot of TVs and projections. They have pretty good drink specials, depending on what night you go. Every night they have a happy hour from 7 to 8 pm where you get $1.75 drafts, $2 bottles and $2 well drinks. Some of my favorite nightly specials are Monday nights are 2 dollar margaritas, Tuesdays are two dollars drafts and bottles and cherry vodka sours, and Fridays are ten dollars buckets. They also have poker tournaments on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesday at 7 and 9 pm. They have lots of seating room in the front room, a back room that has several pool tables, and then the “Back Room”, where they have stages and more seating. It’s a good place to have a large group of friends because they have a lot more seating, but it’s also fun to just go with a date and sit at the bar or at a table alone and have some drinks.

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So last night about 9 pm I started geeting some sharp pains. I tried to continue my night and work through them but they just kept getting stronger. I felt like something was wrong, although Im pregnant I cant deliver a baby at this stage soI was thinking the worst. My husband made me put everything away and take a hot bath but it wasnt working so we hopped in the car and flew to the hospital. When we got there fortunately there was only about four people ahead of me. I registered at the desk which took over an hour! They asked what my issue was and asked if I was pregnant. I told them I was in fact pregnant and then they asked did you have issues with the first pregnancy? I advised that I didn’t and they told me to have a seat. I sat and waited for over two hours to see a doctor in excrutiating pain. I had never felt like this before and was scared to death of the outcome. My husband was mad and constantly asking how long, all they would say was not much longer and they went back to talking about what they were doing for the holidays. Really so I could possibly have a really bad thing happening to my child and we are talking about the holiday weekend? They finally call me to the back were I sit for another hour before I ever get to see the doctor. Then the doctor comes in and he is absolutley hateful and talking to my husband and not me. The doctor walks out and orders the nurse to do a sonogram and to check the fetal heartbeat. Ok really so if my baby is in distress then it has been that way now for three hours. Im very upset and my blood pressure is elevated at some very high levels. They hook the machines up to me to listen to the baby and I hear the best sound all night. The rapid heartbeat of my child makes me feel so much better that all i can do is cry. When they start looking into the sonogram we notice that the baby is fine but i hhave a tear in the placenta. I ask what can be done for that and the doctor of the emergency room tells me they can do nothing that I have to speak to my doctor as soon as possible. Lucky for me I have an appointment this morning and we can find out what is really going on. I get ready to leave and the nurse apologizes for the long wait. I was so infuriated by the wait and the bedside manner of the doctor that I blatently told the nurse what I thought of the  facility. I would advise anyone that has to go to the hospital late night to be prepared for long waits and rude doctors.

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This week was the last home game for Texas Tech this football season. The game was at 11 in the morning, which usually isn’t fun to start off but by the time the game is over you’re happy that it was an early one. I didn’t get to tail gate this game because I wasn’t there early enough, so when I got there we went straight into the game. I assumed we weren’t going to do too well, since this season has been tough on us. With that last loss to OSU and the loss to A&M before that, I was trying to be optimistic but wasn’t going to get my hopes up. So, when we started the game off with a field goal I was pretty excited that we were holding our own. And when we kicked their asses and won the game 41 to 13 I was ecstatic. It was the best last home game we could have asked for. Last year when they beat us and ruined our season, they played “Jump Around” by Kriss Kross and went wild, so this year we got to do it back to them and make them suffer. I’m glad that all the senior foot ball players got to leave their stadium for the final time with a win, instead of leaving defeated and upset. It was a great game and I am so glad that I have gotten to go to all the games this season, win or lose. I can’t wait for next year’s foot ball season to start!

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I wish Lubbock had more….landscapes. It would be nice to have big hills, mountains, lakes…anything. And before you even think it, no, these nasty little playa lakes around here don’t count. They are cess pools as far as I’m concerned. It’s just that there is nothing better than going for a good hike. By “good hike” I mean one on which you hike up, feel like dying, then get a nice downhill slope right before you pass out. There are few things that can make you feel better about being human than the panoramic view from the top of a big mountain after a strenuous hike uphill. As hard as the hike may have been, all of the pain seems to fade away behind the beauty of everything that lies beneath that mountain. As your looking out, you think to yourself “That wasn’t so bad”, even if it really was pretty damn bad. Hiking back down the mountain takes about half as long as it took to get up and makes for a nice little cool down. The mountain just seems to slide out from under your feet like it’s just a giant mound of butter. Too bad it’s not a giant mound of butter, it would make for a tasty treat. I guess that eating a butter mountain may harden your arteries a little too much to be able to hike again….Moving on, even if the hike is hard (unlike my arteries), after your done all you can think about is how much fun it was. I can never wait until I can get out hiking again.

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My cousin Riley lives in this new living complex called The Cottages here in Lubbock. It’s pretty close to the Texas Tech campus, just a bit east. It is on the bus route to campus as well, so if you don’t want to walk or ride your bike you can get a ride on the bus to school. Well, they are really nice looking and have a well-put together feel from the outside, and the insides have nice features to them as well. The floors look really good, and they have nice decorative crown molding and little details that really makes it look good. BUT… they have a lot of other issues from what I’m hearing. I’ve heard a few stories of things going wrong in them, and one in particular that scared me. Someone who was living on the second floor had some kind of leak problem, and their ceiling actually fell through and ruined everything in the apartment. In my cousins apartment he is always have trouble with the plumbing in him room, most of the time it isn’t even working and it might as well be like he doesn’t have a restroom. On a side note, he went potluck with his room mates and they are awful. They are always having parties on random nights during the week, they broke his big screen TV and wont pay to repaid it, and they are always eating their food. And, through all this shit, he isn’t supposed to “break his lease” and move out to go somewhere else. He plans on staying there for yeah with some different room mates he has already signed a lease with, but they were making it kind of hard for him to move out. He finally got it all settled now and is getting out of there and into another cottage, thank God. I think this place is just like most of the living places here for college kids, made too fast and not too personal. They’ll do what ever they can to ensure they make money and don’t care about the satisfaction of their customers.

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