Let's See if I Actually Complete Any of These

I've always loved beginnings - New Year, new month, new book, new sheet of loose-leaf (for notes I've already written and re-written at least three times), new semester.  I think it's the feeling that any mistakes I've made are, in a way, erased; I can start with a blank page so to speak.

Beginnings give me the chance to make goals - to change, to make myself who I'd ultimately like to be.  Even if "eat healthy" ultimately turns into eating Cap'n Crunch for dinner.  Even if my goals come to very little, I think they still accomplish something; whether or not there's a noticeable change, goals make a difference in who we are.

So this semester, I have goals for each piece of my life: School, Internship, Work, Blog, Personal Life; and I'm going to share them here both for accountability, and for a record that I can make myself look at come November 3 when I never want to open another textbook.

School
- Make Dean's List, which at my school means a 3.67 GPA.  I've only made it once in my college career, and I want to again, because as weird as it sounds, it was a really awesome feeling to know I did that well.

Internship
- Create a portfolio I'm proud of, and will be excited to show to potential employers.  The newspaper I'm working for is offering me the opportunity to write for them, rather than to bring the staff-writers coffee and mail.  I want to make sure I take full advantage of that, because I know finding an internship like that is difficult.
- Leave a mark.  Make my supervisor remember me in a good way, one that makes him want to hire me full-time when I graduate.

Work
- Earn employee of the week at least once
- Top three server sales at least two weeks a month

Personal
- Create and follow at least some semblance of a budget.  Knock it off with the Starbucks every time I go to work or class, and try to remember that I'm working, at best, half as much as I did over the summer.  That means half the income.
- Work out at least twice a week - whether it be running, going to the gym, or attending the group fitness classes my school offers for free to students (I'm not going to even bother telling myself to eat healthy.  I think after nearly 22 years, it's clear that that particular ship has sailed).
- Read at least 4 books for pleasure.  I know that class readings, articles, text-books, and essays are going to keep me busy for the most part.  But I'd like to get in the habit of reading every night before bed, even if it's only a few pages.  Right now, my reading list includes:
          ~ Edelweiss Pirates by Mark A. Cooper
          ~ I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
          ~ Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver (I'm reading this right now...even if it is soaked in wonton
             soup from the great lunch-box massacre of 10 hours ago) 
          ~ Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
          ~ Insurgent by Veronica Roth
Got any good suggestions to add to that list?

Blog
- Start posting regularly again.  None of this three times a week crap with only a couple hours left in the day (ahem, 10:13PM right now).  Regular might mean three times a week, as long as they are consistently the same three days.
- Consistently read the blogs I enjoy following.  And don't follow blogs just for the hell of it - every time I do that, I get overwhelmed when I go to my Bloglovin' feed and find 127 unread blog posts.  All that accomplishes is that I don't read any blogs.


For right now - that's it.  What about you; do you make goals?  What are they? 

The Horror-Movie Reality of Senior Year

A week from today, I will be finishing up my last first week of college.  I start my senior year on Tuesday, and if you don't know how terrified I am of that...well...there you go.  While fraternities and sororities are planning "epic" back to school parties, and my Facebook feed is inundated with plans for Syllabus Week, I'm internally rocking back and forth in the fetal position.

As much as I know I should be excited (and I am...somewhere deep down, a very little bit), should be experiencing Senioritis, and should be more than ready to get out of a classroom for the first time in my nearly 22 years of life...I'm not.  At all.

For as long as I can remember preparing for college - studying for the SATs, trying to decide what to major in and where to spend these four years - I can also remember being warned.  I've had my parents, my teachers, the news, and politics all tell me that the "real world" is scarier than that horror movie you watched when you weren't supposed to as a kid.  That there are just no jobs available, no matter what your major is; that a college degree is going the way of the high-school diploma, and even a masters degree might not guarantee I'll be able to pay off my thousands of dollars worth of student debt a year from now (and I do mean thousands).

This article from the New York Times talks about how most entry-level jobs are now requiring graduate school, and that's from 2 years ago.  For a job that may very well pay less than I make now as a waitress, I have to spend 6 years in post-graduate education and thousands of dollars that I can't truly imagine ever being able to pay back - at least not before my 80th birthday.  For someone who doesn't plan on going to graduate school, who intends to be in the work-force a year from now, everything the media and "grown-ups" have to say about the world I'm walking out into is vomit-inducing, and I feel like I'm going into it blind-folded.

For the first time in my life, I don't know what the next step is.  I've always had grade levels, report cards, and summer vacations to mark where I am and where to go next.  Come May, I won't have that anymore - I'll have a diploma, and a thousand paths in front of me, most of which I may not be able to take.  For the first time, I won't have a clear plan of where to go next - and for someone who has grown up in a culture that always had the steps in front of me planned, from jamboree to college, that is probably the most terrifying thing I've ever experienced. 

My Quarter-Life Crisis

       Do you know that moment?  When you sit right up in bed, staring into the darkness, and realize that summer is almost over.  And you've done nothing, aside from feed the giraffes once at the zoo.  While everyone on Facebook made several trips to the beach, road-tripped across America, and visited countries like Italy and Africa, your summer photo album has remained nearly empty.    

    

      Instead you've spent the last three months waiting tables, and now you have three weeks until school starts again and your last summer ends.  The last summer before the hardest classes you've ever taken, and an internship for which you're too excited for words to explain, and work work work work work.   

   

     And then what?  Hope for a job that may never come, a career that you've spent four years and the kind of money you can't visualize to achieve - and now it's just not there.  "I'm sorry, we've filled our only opening.  Perhaps another time....", and discarded resumes, and loan bills pouring in because all that money is coming back to haunt you just like you always knew it would.  

       Do you know that moment?  That fear?  Because with the last few weeks of summer draining away, with binders and pencils piling up in the corner of my room, and Facebook friends making "last trips" to the beach, I do know that moment.  It's in my nightmares, forcing me awake and over to my laptop - typing out yet another e-mail to the same professors who likely don't require the introduction at the beginning of each message anymore, because it's just that senior again.  The one who's freaking out about classes and her internship and graduating and finding a job.  

        My 2AMs lately have been filled with me gasping for air, realizing not for the first time that it was just a dream.  Just a nightmare that was stalking me in my sleep, chasing me through parking lots and the now-empty walking trails of my memory.  Those monsters and faceless murderers are just the Real World, and they'll catch up eventually - just like they always do in my dreams.  They're catching up now, grabbing the cuff of the back of my shirt as I run like hell, run faster than I've ever run before.  

<3

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A few weeks ago, as I made my way from one class to the next and some sort of freak hail storm attacked the quad, the local preacher stood on top of a box, one hand on the Bible and the other in the air while his friends shoved pamphlets into each of our hands.
He preached to a group of ever-loyal, ever-changing biology students who fought him on every word that spilled out of his mouth.  For every Bible quote he had, they had one from a text book, a research paper, a well-known scientist.
The debate of Creation vs Evolution, brought to life in the moments between classes.

Since I've started college, I've probably seen this man 50, 60 times - always on his soap box, always with his Bible, always warning of the horrors Hell will bring for those unwilling to repent.
Still, I don't know his name, or even what church he belongs to - there are at least 10 in the three blocks leading from campus to the heart of town.

I don't know what brings him to the campus, year after year, to fight with the science students who tell him he's wrong; but I can guess.

Statistically, we're as undecided now as we'll ever be - in religion, in faith, in politics, even in what we want to be doing in five years.  If ever there were a perfect group of people to preach to, it would be students.

But as I dodged past the men with pamphlets, a book over my head to protect me from the hail and practically running to my next class, I wasn't sure it was that great of an idea after all.

Is one man with a Bible going to change our minds?  As undecided as most of us are, we're also incredibly stubborn.  We think that we know it all, and is anything other than experience going to change our minds, if our minds need changing at all?

Can one man and a pamphlet make any sort of difference, or will it take so much more than that?

<3
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Fridays are for Open Letters

For most of my life, I've loved letters.

I guess, having grown up with the Internet, I romanticized them - as I tend to do with things of the past.

I've had pen-pals, I write letters to myself, letters to my cousin in high-school, and for most of my freshman year - I wrote letters to all my friends back home (until I realized they weren't interested in responding in a non-electronic format).  

So naturally, when I came across Alexa's Friday Letters (an idea she jumped on at The Sweet Season) I was intrigued.  

Dear classes,

you know I love you, and always have.  You mix things up, and let me learn new things, a personal favorite hobby of mine.  I have to admit, you have me feeling lazy this week; you're coming on pretty strong with all the text books and readings and papers and quizzes already.  But you're so so interesting - who knew just how similar twins really are?? I sure didn't.

So I'm ready for you classes.  I'm ready for you, and I can't wait to see what else you have in store for the next couple of months.

Source

Dear Nemo,

As a little girl, I loved you as a talking cartoon fish with a missing fin.  As a snow storm, I'm not so happy to see you. Please go easy on my little Pennsylvania town...

Dear Girl Scout Cookies, 

Absence does make the heart grow fonder, and in the year since I've seen you last I'll admit - I missed your lemon icing topping.  And for only $4, what else could a poor college girl ask for?
I'll be back for more next week, Girl Scout Cookies.

Dear Orchid,
Please don't die on me. I know I'm not quite sure how to do this - but just give me time.  I promise I'll learn how best to care for your beautiful pink flowers soon.

source

Dear Outdated Cell-Phone,
I'm sorry it has to end this way.  I know I loved you at one time, but lately it seems like we've been growing apart...  You turn yourself off to me when I need to most, without even letting me know.  Maybe you're just going through a rough time, and I'm trying to love you through your mood swings, but I'll be honest: at the end of the month, I'm trading you in for a newer model.
I'm sorry if this seems sudden, but just know this: it's not me - it's you.


Dear Readers,
Who have you been wanting to write a letter to this week?  Join in the fun, and leave me a link so I can read yours!

<3

Changes

Every semester, I write the same post saying that I'm moving back to school, starting another semester.

Always talking about needing change, and always avoiding the one inevitable change: real life.

I'm only a junior now, but in a year I'll be staring down the barrel of a gun: my last semester of college. The last few credits before I walk down an aisle holding my diploma.

And I'll be the first to admit that I'm terrified of that.

Of five, ten, twenty years in the future.  Of what I'll do with my life when I don't have text books and professors and homework and exams to occupy it my thoughts and my worries.  

Terrified of whether I'll love, or even like my job - because I've had my share of awful employers (or at least, one awful employer that makes up for the good ones).  And definitely I'm aware that I'll be making next to nothing, because in all honesty what do print journalists make anyway?  But if I love it, that can make up for the cardboard box I'll be living in.  

Terrified of whether this single thing that I don't mind right now, might last long enough to start to bother me.  

Terrified of never making it out of this town.

Terrified of a million little things that 10 years from now I'll have forgotten.

But I think those fears have quieted over the past year.

I've found myself freelancing...and finding that I really to enjoy it.

I've started to look forward to the diploma, rather than shove it to the back of my mind where all the things I don't think about reside (okay, not completely, but it's a start).  

I think I'm ready for this - more ready than I can say I was a year ago...five, ten, twenty years ago (can a one-year-old be ready?).  

I'm ready for the post-college world, ready to tackle it and worry about some new things.

<3

Almost Over

It's been a week spent at the library, speaking in whispers with friends and wandering from floor to floor looking for an empty table.

With long hours, and longer text books, the color of the page becoming indistinguishable from the hi-lighter used on it.

It's been a week of music, and cookies, and hot chocolate, and pages full of notes.

In a couple of days, the week will be over, and I'll be home.  

Another semester ended, and a new page of my life ready to be written.

For now, I have a new playlist for you - this one full of instrumental songs, no words to distract you from the ones on the page.

<3

A Playlist to Get You Through the Week

With finals starting tomorrow, I can use all the calming I can get.

And mostly, it comes in the form of:

- Starbucks gingerbread loafs and hot chocolate

- Vlogbrothers videos

- Teddy bears that are of legal drinking age

- Friends: text messages, library dates, movie nights....

- Music

Of course, I can't give you a too-old stuffed animal or a phone call from my friends, but I can give you a playlist of the music that's getting me through this week.

<3

Nostalgia

I have a tendency to become nostalgic for things I haven't yet finished, always in the final hours of my time there.  

In high-school, I spent the entirety of my senior year nostalgic for the hallways and the locker and the lunch room that I had become so accustomed to.  For the friends I spent so much time with, and the notebooks we passed back and forth - a diary we shared with one another, where we wrote so many stories of our lives amidst so many random thoughts.  

On day trips to Wildwood, I spend the car ride home reminiscing about a trip that isn't quite over yet.  Remembering all the things we laughed about, and how cold the water was when we first stepped in.  

While walking around campus the other day, on my way to Starbucks and class, I became nostalgic for something else that I haven't left yet.

I became nostalgic for a tree in my school's quad that blooms every spring: first into an abundance of pink flowers and then, as spring turns to summer, to beautiful green leaves as the flowers fall to the ground around its trunk.

Despite being early December, it was 60 degrees in Pennsylvania, and I think the weather tricked my brain into thinking it was spring.  And that my tree should be blooming.

I'm entering finals week for my 5th semester at college, and reality has been catching up with me for the past few months that my time here is almost finished.

And as I walked to class that day, anticipating the day when my tree will, once again, bloom, I remembered the first time I photographed that tree.  And I tried to imagine the last time that I will, a little over a year from now.

And I became nostalgic for all the buildings I've had class in over the last couple of years.  For the elevators that never work, and for the beautiful stories behind some of our buildings.

And I knew that, if I come back in 12 years for my reunion, these buildings will still be here.  Because they have history.

Not just for me, but for the first women to study education here.  Or for the runaway slaves who used the basements beneath our classrooms to hide in.  Or for the person for whom our new library is named.

Or at least, the ghosts of these buildings will remain.  Even as they take down old buildings to replace them with newer architecture, or replace the sculpture in the center of the quad with a new one, the memories of these buildings will remain.

Just as the memory of my tree will.

<3

In Apparent Response to My Earlier Post...

The other day, I wrote to you about my fear of the world that I'm going to find myself a part of soon.

And now, as I count the minutes before I leave for my night out, I'm watching Vlogbrothers Videos on Youtube (seriously...you should watch them), and this one from 2011 came on.

It was an open letter to 2011 graduates.

I listened to it as though it were a letter to me.

<3

Hope for the Future

Most people spend the eve of their 21st birthday at a bar, counting down the minutes until midnight so that the bartender can serve them their first legal drink.  They count shots the way that in previous years, family members had counted punches.  Counting until they reach the number of years they've been alive, and then beyond that until they can't swallow one more buttery nipple.    

I didn't do any of that.

Instead, I had a nervous breakdown while my mom and cousin watched, unsure of how best to handle the situation.  

I sat in my adolescent bed, crying in between choked out explanations of why 21 was so terrifying.  Explanations that probably made no sense to them, but which I defended at every turn anyway.

At three minutes after midnight, while others would have been choking down their third or fourth shot, I was standing in my parents' shower silently crying because I needed to be alone.  I thought that if I could get away from my family for just a little while, I could rationalize with myself, do the math in my head of how I would be okay.  Of how my degree wouldn't be useless after all.  

Instead, I wrote a novel in my head.  Or at least the introduction to one.

Because writing is what I've always done.  And what would I do with my life if not that?

For months I'd been quietly biting my nails while reading articles about the ever-increasing unemployment rate, or taking notes from my professors on how the newspaper industry is dying more each day.  

I'd learned in one class that reporters make roughly $35,000 a year.  Is that even minimum wage, I'd thought to myself, unable to actually calculate whether or not it was.  I simply resigned myself to working two or three jobs, at least one of which would have nothing to do with my degree in communications and journalism.  

By the time November rolled around though, I'd started to realize that I may not even be able to find one job in my chosen career track.  Every day I picked up the Inquirer, it felt thinner, less substantial.  With fewer articles every day, what would be left for me to write?

   I wrote this as though it were years ago.  As though I'm 27 now, living comfortably in a city apartment, with a job I love.  

   I'm still only 21 though.  This was only a week ago, and with only three semesters of college left, I'm still terrified about the future.  

   I'm calmer now, but maybe that's what a hot shower does.  That, and rationalizing with yourself that maybe you will have to wait tables for a few more years, or maybe forever.  Maybe it will always have to supplement what you love.

   Or maybe it's just hope.  I know in my heart that this isn't a movie, and unemployment won't drop to some magical number by 2014.  I know that it's going to be hard and I still want to cry.  

   But I'm going to keep hoping.  

Does anybody who's still reading this have a story about finding the job they love?  Or do you work in a job you don't quite enjoy, but do what you love on the side?

<3

PS...I know I disappeared for a while there.  It's only been a few months, but it feels like much longer.  A lot has happened since August, and I want to share it with you all.  

I hope you're all still here to listen.

Moving On

It's the end of summer, and I'm feeling the familiar itch.

The need to travel...to move, and be somewhere that isn't here anymore.  Tomorrow, I move into my dorm for my Junior year of college.

I spent the majority of my summer being terrified, because being a junior means being halfway through college...halfway to the real world where I have no idea how to even begin to find a career, even with four years of college under my belt.

But it's August.  Tomorrow I move in.  And I'm so ready; so ready to move on to somewhere new, even if it's not really new and I won't be there for too much longer.

All my life I've needed to move around, or at least for as long as I can remember.  I always pictured myself living in a city like New York, where everything is always different and I'd never recognize the people I see on the street.  Where I can simply turn a corner and feel like I'm somewhere entirely new, change my outfit and be a new person.  

I've always liked beginnings because it marks the start of something new.

Tomorrow, I begin my third year of college.  And I can't wait.

<3

The Graduate

Just a few hours ago, I watched my younger little brother graduate from high-school, a day which has probably seemed a long time coming for him, but that feels so sudden to me.

Day 52

Watching him walk down the aisle to receive his diploma, I almost cried, and now all I can seem to think about is the picture I have on my wall of a 13-year-old boy posing (for hours, I might add) so that I could get a good portrait ("Try to look sadder.  Like your puppy ran away!") for my high-school photography class.  

Our entire lives, we've been so close, to the point of almost never fighting.  When we did, we had no idea how to - at least not the way that most siblings did.  It was as though we'd been dropped into warfare with no knowledge of how to battle; as soon as we hit a nerve, we dropped our weapons.  Where most siblings fought over who controlled the remote, we usually ended up talking rather than even watching the TV; even when we did, we agreed on a show.    

I can't believe how quickly it all went, and in a few months he'll be starting college.

Congratulations, little brother!  You did it!

<3

What's Black and White and Read all Over?

Day 24

Get it? A newspaper?

Funny, right?

Anyone.... okay...

Well...it was pretty hilarious in first grade anyway...

I move out of my dorm tomorrow, and right now about half of my possessions are stacked up in the corner next to my desk.

It feels so weird to be packing up at the end of my Sophomore year.
I'm halfway to the real world, and I don't know how to feel about that...

The news certainly makes it pretty terrifying.

What are you all up to this beautiful spring day?

<3


PS. When did I become a blog that posts primarily photography?  I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it...

Finals Week Calls for Caffeine

Day 21

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Concentrate...

Day 16

I'm sorry for all the Photobooth pics lately...

The truth is, my time this week (and next) has been and will continue to be spent in one of three activities:

1) class/studying

2) eating

3) sleeping

And so photography is getting a little difficult.  

But I promise, as soon as this semester's over, picture quality is going way up!

<3

The Age-Old Question

Day 15

I think that I'm beginning to feel the finals-time crazies, having spent the greater part of my day in the school library unable to find an empty table on the quiet floors...

For my Research class, my term paper is a Lit. Review focusing on the question of whether or not men and women can be "just friends".

So what do you think, readers?  Can they?

<3

A Little bit of Luck

Day 8

A little bit of luck (from the bamboo plant in my room and the ladybug beads that make their home in it) will help me get through the next couple weeks of final papers and exams....

<3

It's the Most "Wonderful" Time of the Year

Day 2

It's that time of year again.

You know the one I'm talking about.  

Not Spring...not bathing suit season, or time to start planting the garden. Not time to plan vacation or day trips to the beach.

No.  It's finals time.  Or rather, the "calm" (if you can call it that) before the storm.  The piling on of papers and case studies so that you don't really have time to prepare for finals.

That way, when all the essays are turned in and the presentations completed, you only have a few days to prepare for five separate finals on everything you've learned over the past four months.

How about you?  Are any of you in college writing papers or preparing for finals?

Studying

Today was my first test of the semester. 

It was in my Interpersonal Communication course, and other than it, so far this semester I've only had essays and research reports due.  In my opinion, the first tests are always the worst.  You haven't taken a test in a while, and this is your first testing experience (probably) with this professor.  

In preparation, I made a study guide - full, eight written pages of lists and definitions and practice essays.

And then I made note cards.

It's more the rewriting than the actual use of the notecards and study guides that helps me, personally.

How about you?  If you're still in school, how do you study?  If not, what used to be the best way for you?

<3