Life Advice from Someone who doesn't have their Life Together.

Hey Party People,

I just wanted to say, if you're reading this, I really appreciate that you're reading my words!!!! Wow!!! Even when it's basically titled "THIS IS A WASTE OF EVERYONE'S TIME." 
Anyway, on with the painfully long blog post.

I've become a fan of pretending I'm an adult nowadays, and a part of this new life is being able to share words of wisdom. However, I do not have any words of wisdom whatsoever. Instead, I figured I'd list a bunch of things I think are helpful, in whatever order I happen to think of them in. I am not qualified to do this whatsoever.

1. When you're just chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool, when suddenly you doubt your entire life, DON'T WORRY!! IT'S ALL GOING TO BE OKAY.
• I mean, generally speaking, this is true. 
• I can't say in every situation it'll be okay, but there have been way too many TIMESwhere I was all like, "Wow omg my life is OVER might as well live in my parents basement forever, and they don't even have a basement." Before realizing, wait nevermind it's already over, and now I'm eating cheese fries.
• Pretty much everytime I look back at something, I laugh at how silly it all was compared to how important it felt at the time. The way time works is that it's constantly moving forward (citation: the science), so in a few months whatever's bothering you will be well behind you, and you'll have had so many cool things happen in between. 
• For me it's probably eating really memorable food or getting cool outfits.
2. And if it's not going to be okay, STILL DON'T WORRY! I'll help you!!
• Or, I'll try my very hardest to help you, if you want me to.
• If you don't want me to help out, that's okay! I'm not really able to help people like a good 90% of the time, but I promise I'll give it my best shot. What's really important is that you ask for help!
• I know these sound obvious, but it's important to acknowledge asking for help is alright, and a perfectly respectable thing. I'm not saying to take advantage of it, but when you can't reach something, ask someone else to reach instead of trying to scale the shelf alone and knock everything over. I've been there, like, literally, and I broke a huge thing of pickles. It wasn't the best look.
3. Always have a "Power Dress" (or Power Outfit)
• But actually, a Power Dress. I don't care who you are, having a really awesome dress/outfit that makes you feel like you could PUNCH THE SUN is a necessary ensemble for your closet. 
• You're pretty much a superhero with a secret weapon if you have the right outfit, and people will notice.
4. Hard work generally pays off
• I think I'm kind of a workaholic. I like to have a lot on my plate, because it lets me know I'm doing SOMETHING to enrich my life. 
• The past 3 years of college has taught me that challenging yourself to be better usually results in being better. So go to the library and take books out, or watch tutorial videos, and work in the labs so much people inherently assume you'll be there. After a while it gets easier, and people will think you're pretty impressive with all your know-how in whatever it might be you've been doing.
5. But don't work so hard, that's like, not cool either.
• By this I mean remember to eat and sleep, and devote at least a couple FULL days to just watch Batman movies or the first Scooby Doo live-action movie on VHS on repeat. Like a respectable adult.
6. Practice cooking.
• I already wrote a blog post about how I normally cook, but look up recipes online or in cookbooks! Mainly because my method is more how to trick people into thinking you can cook, not a real method to practice cooking.
• One day, you'll be in a situation where you'll have to cook something (probably). Be prepared to BLOW EVERYONE AWAY with your competence in cooking. It's also a good way to show off via instagram.
7. Drink lots of water.
• I mean according to science you should drink water to stay alive.
• I also just really like ice water when it's in one of those tumbler cups with the straws.

This was a really long post, and most of it contradicts itself or is incredibly generic advice. But I think we overlook obvious answers sometimes. That's just my two cents.

Advice according to google images.

Don't trust clocks.

This morning, my alarm clock went off at the usual time (6:45, but I've set it so it's 15 minutes fast to trick myself into thinking I'm late). I was SUPER tired though, like, more tired than I would normally be in these situations, so I went back to sleep, where I had a really complex dream. I've written entire blog posts about dreams in the past, so I'll save you the details of this one.

Eventually around what my clock said 8:00, I decided it was sufficient time to wake up. And by that, I mean, I loafed around on the internet to slowly adjust into being awake. That's when I realized my alarm clock was actually an entire hour fast, so it was actually 7:00 AM, not 8. At least, that's what LITERALLY EVERY OTHER CLOCK IN MY HOUSE TOLD ME.

The thing is, when you set up a routine for yourself, there are certain truths that your brain has well-established. For example: Don't worry, the clock is only 15 minutes fast, so you have a little bit more time. When, early in the morning, you're suddenly hit with "THE CLOCK IS AN HOUR FAST, CHILL," there's literally no way to process that information. I sat in my apartment alone, really believing that all my clocks were wrong, and maybe I should start getting ready, but what is time anyway??

I proceeded to google daylight savings, because maybe there was a special summer edition this year that nobody told me about. That was not the case:

Mark your calendars, folks. Seriously, mark them.

I slowly began to accept the fact that my alarm clock was wrong, especially when I turned my phone on and it said the same thing as literally every other clock. So, yay! I have roughly an extra hour to get ready through my day. Although I feel like I'm forgetting something...

Oh that's right, I have an 8:30 meeting every Tuesday and it's now 7:45. Love it.

EXCEPT HEY THERE, PLOT TWIST, that meeting was cancelled. So now I'm just here, a half-hour early to work without any pressing work to do. So I decided to blog about it, because that's what productive millennials do these days, right?

Not gonna lie, I look forward to going back to Ringling where my life is over scheduled to a point that I never miss an hour of my day.

UPDATE: 

WHAT IS HAPPENING WHAT TIME IS IT?????

My Birthday is Tomorrow

Yesterday, my dad called me to remind me that SOMEONE'S birthday was coming up really soon!!!!!! It was his. His birthday is June 29th. He's been using this joke for exactly 21 years now.

But more importantly, let's talk about me. I mean that's why I have this blog. Entirely selfish reasons, because I am an entirely selfish person.

"Birthday Happy" #gooddesign

Right now at work I'm working on a deck about Millennials and the different segments within the Millennial lifestyle and values. It's weird to research on so much, considering I AM a Millennial. Also that's a weird word which most operating systems don't recognize when written in plural. Anyway, I recently read "YOUTH MODE: A REPORT ON FREEDOM", from a trend forecasting group, and it was pretty interesting.

Look out guys, this blog is getting intellectual. (not really, not at all actually, I just read sometimes)

The overarching concept behind the report was that targeting to specific age definitions is irrelevant, because the idea of "youth" is a lifestyle as apposed to a timeline when someone was born. The writing is airy and a little pretentious for my tastes, but the idea was cool so I figured I'd share it.

I guess I get it, I don't really FEEL like I'm growing up, or whatever the case may be. Because on part of me is like "YES! I'm a full-fledged adult! I did it!! Wow!" But the other part is like "I don't even have a driver's license, who do I think I am".

There was no purpose to this post, literally. I thought to myself, "Hey my birthday is tomorrow, I should blog about it!!" and it got a lot deeper than I anticipated. My friend told me something on his birthday that I found funny enough to share on facebook, and I'm going to repeat it here. Right now. Here it is:

"I feel like once you reach your mid 20's, your birthday is really just about surviving to the next one instead of actually celebrating anything" 

So, I guess I have that to look forward to.

IN SUMMATION: I want a coconut-scented candle for my birthday. And shoes. I'm a size 7.5. 

When I was in elementary school, I got an award for doing the best in Spanish Class.

I beat a girl who was bilingual and spoke Spanish at home. This was probably the peak in my life.

New blog posts coming soon, maybe.

Laser Tag is a Hollow Victory.

Over winter break last year, I went back home to New Jersey for the first time in a while. It was a lot of fun to see all of my friends, one of our goals being to do as many activities as we could during the month and a half I'd be in town.

We went to this arcade of sorts to drive Go-Karts, where I learned I was not very good at driving Go-Karts (although this wasn't a big surprise since I can't drive...) After playing a few games we decided to use our credits towards a game of Laser Tag, which apparently is really cool and exciting. I don't know, I think I've played laser tag once in my life when I was 10 years old and I just sort of hid in a haze of confusion. When you get in there, they show us a safety video (no running, don't hit people with the gun, etc.).Then we split off into two teams, one team being our group and the other team a birthday party of small children plus one dad, and one person from our group.

Let me tell you, laser tag is some stressful stuff. This one in particular was 2 floors, with fog and these tower things we were supposed to guard. In the frenzy of laser tag, getting shot by random children who are REALLY INTO THE GAME is kind of crazy. But we had hand-eye coordination and developed motor skills to our advantage, as well as the fact that we understood the objective of "shoot the towers" outweighing "shoot the enemy". We ended up winning by like, a lot. It was a good time, but considering the fact that we were all 20-somethings desperately clinging to the nostalgia of our youth, you could argue our victory wasn't a huge win for anyone involved.

It's weird to like, grow up. I mean don't misunderstand me, I definitely think I'm better off where I am now in comparison to the small child I was up against in laser tag who ran into a pole just for funsies. But...yeah. The future is now I guess, and I'm pretty sure I'm over laser tag.

Unless you're playing with Neil Patrick Harris

Play it cool.

This week, I started my new internship. I was really excited, it's a whole new place with new people and all new experiences! What a time to be alive.

The night before the first day, I was really nervous. We were scheduled to have an orientation of sorts, seeing as it's a bigger agency with more interns. The feeling of anticipation and excitement was almost nostalgic, it felt like the first day of classes. And first impressions on the first day are always important, not only to try to impress your supervisors, but also to seem like you're really cool to your peers/fellow interns, and not lame at all.

So here I am with the internal struggle of SOCIAL INTERACTIONS. As you read this, please note that this is basically how I handle my life every day only less dramatically and not really like this at all, only on certain occasions, really. I think there are three ways it could go down, more or less, with two extremes. In most circumstances, I am one of the two extremes with literally no space for middle grounds.

1. The "I AM SO EXCITED I MAY LITERALLY DIE"
• This is the one that I usually encounter. I get so hyped up on the adrenaline of a new _____, that I kind of forget how to function as a calm person.
• In retrospect, even I find myself annoying, but hopefully it's in that endearing, bubbly kind of way that you can slowly forget about as you get to know me better.
2. The (FOR SOME REASON, I'VE FORGOTTEN HOW TO SPEAK.)
• Other times, my nerves get in the way and I kind of just sit around and smile and fidget a lot. There's not really much more to say to these situations because they're just about awkward as I feel talking about them. Minus Points.
3. The "Oh, you know, just living life"
• I was talking to one of my friends and she told me that I just had to play it cool, to which I replied "i DoN'T KNOW IF I cAN??????" But this is the ideal state that you want to come into. Really nonchalant, excited in a way that doesn't seem like you're forcing it. Pretty much if you live your life this way, I think you're REALLY COOL and I aspire to be like you. 
• The danger of this one is playing it TOO cool, at which point you may come off as a bitch. But I mean, just don't be a mean person on top of the layer of nonchalance and you can generally avoid that misconception.

If you're reading this entry and happen to be a fellow intern, then I hope I fit in category 3 this week. And if you're relating more to categories 1 or 2, it's okay, we've all been there. Just you know, play it cool. My method is cracking really awkward or bad jokes and then laughing at them to convince everyone around you that you're funny. 

This was the first picture I found image searching "interns" on google.

My Name is Meghan, and I click on Banner Ads.

SO I study Advertising Design at the lovely Ringling College of Art and Design, and I guess you could say I'm a fan of good advertising. I'm also a fan of strong strategy, and if there's one thing I learned last year it's this: Millennials really hate banner ads. I can't remember the percentage exactly, but I was doing some research last year for media planning and it was something like...99.2% of Women 18-25 highly dislike banner ads. The average click-through rate of ads on Buzzfeed is a little more than 1%, which is nearly 25 times higher than the average click-through rate of normal banner ads. So basically, nobody clicks on them.

Except for me. I click on all of them.

I'm pretty sure I am that 0.00000000000000025% of the population who clicks on ads that are blatantly sponsored ads. And it's not like they're even good ones, it's not something innovative or well designed that really deserves clicking on it. It's usually this:

Like, literally every time

Or some variation. There was a period of months where I'd click on the same ad of the same dress every time, then remember that the page was a maternity clothing website, then get mad and do the same thing like a week later. It really messed up the targeting of the ads I got because it seemed like I was pregnant.

I'm not really sure what makes me click on them. Okay well it's probably the dresses. I really like dresses. All of the dresses. But like, even things NOT about clothes or nail polish (Freakin' Julep can see into my soul, I swear), I'll find myself clicking on them. Like "HMM I WONDER IF I NEED AN ARCHERY SET????" It feels counterintuitive since I  LITERALLY STUDY THIS, but hey... look at this dress.

If you need me I'll be online window shopping.