I talk about my friends a lot

Are you ever going about your day to day life when you suddenly realize something about yourself. Maybe your friend points something out about you that you hadn't noticed before, and all of a sudden you're hyper aware of it. For instance, there was a time where I made a lot of How I Met Your Mother references, until my professor pointed it out in passing and from that point on I mentally tallied how many I made.

Like this one, right now, we're living it.

I realized recently that another one of the subjects I talk about a lot is my friends. "Aww, that's nice!", you think to yourself innocently. And I mean, it isn't a MEAN thing, but it's not necessarily the way to win people over either. The longer I think about it, the more I think of the kid from Magic School Bus who was always telling her classmates about how things were at her old school, despite the fact that she was on a literal Magic School Bus, and no one cared about her old school.

This isn't to say my friends aren't cool! All of my friends are cooler than me, it's basically a scientific fact that, if you're my friend, you are cooler than me on a multitude of levels. Probably the only skillset I have that trumps my friends skills is my ability to get over 40 "likes" on a cover photo of the solo jazz cup pattern, and that's not even a skill I can attribute to my own abilities so much as the millennial's inherent love of anything even slightly nostalgic. I have a friend who like, makes her own yarn by hand and then knits them into original sock patterns. Why WOULDN'T I mention that all the time? Probably because I talk about all my friends constantly, and after a while these anonymous people don't even seem real anymore.

SO AT THE END OF THE DAY, I just wanna say, talk about yourself and your life adventures more! Don't be like me, some girl whose conversations are usually about how much cooler her friends are. Because really, that's annoying and eventually my friends will catch on to the fact that I'm borrowing cool parts from the people I know instead of actually being cool. If you find yourself on a Magic School Bus, don't talk about your friends from the past. Mildly panic about the fact that you're on a Magic School Bus and question your overall sanity, because as far as I know, there is no such thing as a magic bus.

"More like a Magic School BUST!"

Fifteen Drafts

It's been over two months since I've last written a blog entry, and over those two months I've mused aloud about how I should write a new post. This is usually met with indifference, or, if you're my friends, support, because you're all too nice to tell me to stop writing. 

My biggest trouble though, is trying to figure out just what I should write. I think I started this blog wanting to tell stories about the past, but without being able to TELL the story it's a lot harder to write the tone I want it to convey. Right now, there are fifteen drafts in my queue. These are their titles:

1. School is Weird
2. Why can't my life just be a musical
3. I talk about my friends a lot
4. I live for this
5. (Untitled Post)
6. 2015 SGA President Speech
1. Maybe this doesn't count, sometimes I'll write things in my blog to trick myself into thinking it's not really work.
7. Graduation
8. Taking the Bus
9. Steak & Shake
10. Baking
11. NSAC
12. Epcot
13. Bicycles
14. Caffeine
15. Goodwill guy

Some of these drafts are from like, March, when I first started this blog, but they weren't deemed good enough so they just kind of sit in the draft queue, taunting me. Others were half-thoughts that weren't really enough to even tweet, so I'm not sure what my plan was on writing a full post about it. 

ANYWAY, maybe I'll write something about the show The Walking Dead next. I just powered through all the episodes to date and have literally no opinion on the show, so it will probably be a really bad post. 

Stay classy. 

Picture unrelated, but pretty cool.

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