this is important.

quick shout out to Tumblr for this gem.

and this pain is a gift and there's pain in the truth

yooooooo.

would you like to know what I did yesterday before the apocalyptic storm of the midwest with the tornado warnings...in November?!

I was in my car, eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's Phish Food ice cream with my pal Amy, and life chatting mostly about inner-sorority politics.

basically, elections for our sorority's executive board are coming up in 6 days so...things are getting pretty intense.

there will be blood shed, I can almost assure you. (just kidding, I hope.)

thankfully, I'm a senior so I don't get that awesome opportunity of the drama associated with running for a position.

the rest of the seniors, those who don't run for anything, and I just get to watch. which...is actually sort of entertaining. sort of.

anyway, back to my cool story about ice cream and storms and stuff.

but first: how did we end up eating ice cream on a stormy day in November?

wellllll...let's just say that your lovely blog writer has been struggling to keep her emotions in check in the recent past.

it started off with a usual trip to Wal-Mart. or what I thought was going to be a usual trip to Wal-Mart.

basically, on the drive to Wal-Mart (which is only about 7 minutes or so), I burst into tears. just like any sane twenty one year old would do on what seemed to be a pleasant trip to Wal-Mart.

but I mean, this is me we're talking about. I sort of have this tendency to be as emotionally stable as a soaked kitten. trust me, it makes perfect sense, if you spend an extended amount of time with me.

so anyway, Amy did what any awesome friend would do and encouraged me to talk about why I was crying and listened to me when I did. she also told me positive things to get me to think positively about life and myself, which helped, even though I was in disbelief about a lot of the good things she was telling me. mind you, this was all taking place in the Wal-Mart parking lot and I was sobbing, still in the driver's seat.

usually, the emotional breaks (like this one) are due to my future and how this year hasn't gone at all like I have wanted it to. and usually, when I get unsure about one aspect of my life, it just spirals out of control into many aspects of my life and it's very hard to regain control--because I feel like because of the uncertainty, I feel out of control and helpless. especially the case when emotions are involved, which they usually are.

that was probably more than you cared to know but point is, I calmed down and we went to Wal-Mart and I was just like "ooopsbye, totally was sobbing five minutes ago. DON'T CURR," as I bought some necessities such as shampoo and Kashi bars.

then, Amy asked me if I wanted some ice cream. obviously, I said yes. I was in some serious need of ice cream therapy.

so we browsed and I just really wanted Phish Food. although I said I didn't care what flavor we got, I really wanted an excuse to eat my favorite flavor of Ben & Jerry's. but luckily, Amy bought me Phish Food, like I secretly knew she would.

we also prepared by buying plastic spoons. it was legit.

then, we proceeded to eat the entire pint of ice cream in my car, by this park I used to go to all the time earlier in my college years, in 20 minutes, while the storm was brewing.

eventually, the sky was getting darker and the wind picked up so we were smart and drove back to campus. not even 15 minutes later, the sky got even darker and it started raining/hailing at an impressive rate.

that is how I spent my time during the apocalyptic storm in November and I must say that it has made all the difference.

so here are three things that you should take away from this:

•  it's amazing what a little ice cream therapy and a good friend can do. 
• I strongly encourage ice cream therapy. (just...maybe not in a potentially horrible storm, but hey. it was a senior year yolo moment, in my case. :P)
• it's okay to not be okay. (a bit overdone but it's definitely true.) 

that's all she wrote. if you want to know more about my emotional state, just holler. but as of right now, I am feeling content, which is a wonderful feeling. :)

and I know that I should let go, but I can't.

yo.

i'mma make a bulleted list of things that are going on and get back to my life. mmkay? mmkay!

• I survived my exam for Abnormal Psychology--got a 95%. I was pretty impressed with myself, considering how stressed I have been this year. GO ME.
• I survived my Philosophy presentation today, which is only one of my three presentations, but it's one step closer to being done with this crazy week. It wasn't that bad but I was shaking like a leaf the entire time (because if you know me, I don't like speaking in class, let alone in front of a class in a presentation format.) luckily, my pal Kelsey was supportive, because she's the only one in my philosophy class who legitimately knows about my irrational fear of talking in class. and yup, now it's on the Internet. cool. 
• My Women's Literature presentation is tomorrow and my group hasn't ran through it, but thanks to technology, we have our entire ppt on Google Docs and it's 100% done. I just have to get through it without voming on people and shaking. 
• I get to meet my little sister tomorrow afternoon! (For those who don't know, I'm doing this service learning project for one of my classes and one of the options was Big Brothers Big Sisters through the local school district.) but I'm excited. it's going to be good.
• I talked to my mom today for about a half hour and it definitely made me feel better about life. <3
• PHI SIGMA SIGMA INITIATION IS THIS WEEKEND AND I JUST...AHHH. I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NEW MEMBERS TO BECOME INITIATED SISTERS, SO I JUST HAD TO WRITE THIS IN ALL CAPS. (Phi Sigma Sigma is my sorority, by the way. in case you weren't previously aware. it's been a solid in my college life, since my second semester of my freshman year.)
• I am listening to Kate Nash's album "Made of Bricks" and I must say...it's pretty solid, even though it's 5 years old or so.
• My bestest friend got her driver's license and I am so proud.

so much for doing this on a daily, eh?

it's just...life. it's busy. it's stressful. but you just have to keep pressing on. 

tips for dealing with a stressed out person

yo, readers!

I don't know about any of you but this week is going to be stressful for me. with that being said, I have decided to include ten tips on how to deal with a stressed out person and I am using myself as an example, just because I know my life. it's going to be such fun!

and perhaps, some of these things will apply to dealing with other people who are stressed too. :)

okay. here we go.

1. Don't be ridiculous and think to yourself that dealing with me when I'm stressed is going to be easy, because it won't be--it's most definitely a pain in the ass.
2. If you tell me not to worry, I am going to continue to worry. 
3. Be encouraging. It doesn't matter how you go about it, just as long as you are.
4. Don't diminish my stress because it is my stress and different people handle stress differently and differently people have different stress levels. And hey, if it makes you feel any better, I won't diminish your stress for those same reasons. Ya dig?!
5. Congratulate me when I pass through one of the hurdles of stress with success (like my exam tomorrow, or my Philosophy presentation on Wednesday, what have you...) This applies even when I don't feel like it was successful! Your congratulations will keep me going through the next hurdles I have to deal with.
6. Remind me of something good that is happening AFTER the stress is over and done with so I have something to look forward to. 
7. Keep me accountable. If I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing, tell me to get myself back on track. When I stress, I sometimes procrastinate to "avoid" the stress, but avoiding it doesn't work.
8. Please forgive my grouchiness during my stressful week and don't take it personally. It's not you, it's my stress.
9. Likewise, please forgive me and don't worry too much if you witness a mental breakdown that leaves me crying on your shirt sleeve. Really. I will be okay, just hug me and tell me nice things to keep me on the road to accomplishment.
10. Random acts of kindness during a stressful week are wonderful and appreciated. People need to be reminded of the good in the world--especially in rough times that may include stress.

of course, this isn't an exhaustive list of things to do for people when they feel the pull of the quicksand that is stress... plus, different things work for different people.

just find what works and you will feel better during a stressful week, I can assure you. my advice is to have a playlist with a bunch of songs that will pump you up to be the best you can be. 

mine is titled "go forth and be a bad ass" and let me tell you, that playlist has been life-changing.

that's all I have for tonight, dear readers. 

accomplish many things this week and if you get stressed, remember that there are people who support you through your stressful times, no matter how long those times last.

p.s. I saw Thor 2 in 3-D yesterday and...AHHHHHH. It was awesome. Bye.

a random blog post about Funkle Jesse and crazy study dates

yo.

this blog post...I don't know what to write about.

I could write about how I went to a concert yesterday and how completely awesome it was. I could write about how because of that concert, I am dead tired, even after drinking coffee and pop earlier today. I could write about how my friend Amy and I have spent our Saturday in the library, being productive.

this blog post is not going to make much sense then.

naaaaaaah, bro.

so this concert. it was this random band called Funkle Jesse. it was at this place called Billy's Lounge, located in lovely downtown Grand Rapids. I went with my friend Craig (who I am not currently dating, contrary to popular belief) and he actually knows Mark, their bassist/trombonist/drummer. I was surrounded by drunk people who were all older than me. it was pretty intense.

as far as what songs they do, it's a bunch of cover songs. their first set was all of Adele's ablum "21." their next two sets were all random songs that ranged from current songs (like "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye) to rock n' roll classics (such as "Dream On" by Aerosmith.)

their lead singer is a blonde goddess with some serious pipes. no lie.

plus, they did two songs by No Doubt and her portrayal of Gwen Stefani was impressive.

their cover of  "Dream On" was so impressive, that my only response was to get another pint.

point being, they were a great band and I could probably blog about them forever. but I'm not going to.

I'm mostly still taking in the awesomeness and still trying to wake up from my late night of 4 am last night.

part 2 is going to consist of my library date with Amy. it's been grand, to say the least. we basically came here after eating brunch, there's no one in this library nor in the computer lab that we happen to be in, we broke the rules of eating/drinking in this computer lab, we already went on a coffee run, and we made up a word called "instituation," because I had to write about institutionalization in one of my brief papers that I wrote today.

we've also life chatted, laughed about a lot of random stuff, talked about the classes we're taking next semester, and have both asked each other this question "will you figure out my life for me? please?"

we are both also going next to insane because of our still relatively high stress levels and the fact that we have been in here...for over 5 hours. on a Saturday. we should probably go get lives or something. but college. college sort of sucked out my soul.

(fun fact: I go to Alma College and you will never guess what the Spanish word for soul is...it's ALMA! yeah. it's sort of a big deal. ish.)

so yeah. it's pretty much just what I needed, after being so stressed out about all of these things that are coming up in my life.

we're also seeing Thor 2 tonight (my first time seeing it, her second), so that will probably be awesome and perhaps it will be so awesome, that I will have to blog about it.

good friends make the stress of college so much more livable and I wish there were more people who understood this.

was that a decent way to take this blog post? perhaps.

you should also take away from this blog post that I am slowly going insane in this library. and my insanity in this library will probably continue for the rest of this week.

so stay tuned for my insanity, dear readers! it's going to be a good time, I can almost assure you.

am I a part of the cure or am I part of the disease?

"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." -Andy Warhol

yo. welcome back to my blog.

I like that quote. It's important. However, that is not what I'm here to write about today. I'm going to write about how I self-medicate with pizza and beer!

just kidding (although that is what I'm currently doing). instead, I'm going to blog about how I managed to land my job at the winery/microbrewery over the summer.

but...that whole winery thing sort of fell into my life rather unexpectedly, like many things in life do. so. sit back and take a journey with me.

let's flashback to February of 2013...pre-England. I went to this job/internship fair at the beginning of this month and was later offered an internship at Masonic Pathways. if you don't know, it's a senior living center for masons or relatives of masons, in Alma. This was sort of my dream place to get some experience in my field of psychology, especially since I like old people and especially since I had been there for Alma classes on two occasions, allowing me to meet some pretty fantastic old ladies.

so this was my plan: I would stay in Alma for the summer, do my internship, and get some sort of paying job on the side, since I knew that this internship was going to be unpaid.

however, little things started happening to make me second guess.

for example, the current old woman I was visiting complained about Masonic constantly and how she felt like she was just a number and how the workers didn't relate to them well.

then, I found out that summer housing was going to be one of the crappier dorms and cost me $600 or so, and no meal plan, so I would have to budget and buy my own food--but I was good at that, thanks to England.

then, there was the whole issue with paying for Alma College credits for this internship, which was more money.

then, there was me, who didn't talk to anyone in the Psychology Department about the internship.

flash forward to about May of 2013...and boom! indecision! I was overseas, I got asked to pay MORE for my unpaid internship, and then decided while still across the pond, mind you, that I wasn't going to go through with it.

of course, that brought LOTS of backlash--mostly from my parents, because I wasn't taking my future "seriously" or something like that. oh, and other Alma people too were thinking the same thing. can't forget that. (p.s. this not taking my future seriously thing is a common theme...)

flash forward to post-England...and I was at home, without a job, missing England like crazy. so I was applying for jobs, getting frustrated, and getting interviews that mostly ended with "we need you for an entire year" and me being like "umm...no. college."

so. on a whim, I applied at this winery in downtown Lexington, which is a cute little restorty town on Lake Huron that is about as far as I was willing to travel.

(then again, I did apply to be a camp counselor at a Girl Scout Camp in Southeastern Wisconsin, had a successful interview, and was so close to doing that...but that's beside the point. leaving again, after being home from England for less than a month, was too complicated.)

I walk in, see a guy who looked in his mid-twenties behind the counter, wearing this bright shirt and tie, and the first thing he says to me is "What's happenin'?!" I then told him what was happening, that I was applying for this job, and he introduced himself as Chris.

I wrote some information down, handed him a resume, and right away he noticed my uncle's name, the county sheriff, who he happened to know and who happens to be a regular customer at the winery. (let's just say that helped.)

the point is, he thought I had what it took to work at a winery/microbrew right away and according to my soon-to-be boss Connie, I had passed "the Chris test."

then, bam. the interview with Connie was on Monday, she loved me, I got the job, and my first day was  that Friday. my job on the first day?

serve bacon.

that's right. bacon. 

my job title?

baconette. 

so it wasn't even Day One and I knew that this job was going to change my life. and it did.

like they always say: when one door closes, another door opens. yeah, it's a cliche but it certainly applied to my summer.

of course, there is a little part of me that regrets not taking the internship at my former dream place but mostly, I don't regret it for a second.

soon, I will blog about this job in more detail, but until then...click right heeeeere to see a video of a band that I may or may not have jammed with over the summer.

(they are much better live, but you get the idea.)

stay classy, dear readers!

oh we go where nobody knows, with guns hidden under our petticoats...

chocolate by the 1975 is a catchy song. so catchy, that I had to title the blog with at least one lyric from that song.

if you don't know it, just click right here for the video. boom. enjoy.

after you do that, you should read this!

heyoooo, 

next week is going to own my life because, I have an exam on Monday for Abnormal Psychology and not one but three presentations--one for Philosophy, one for Women's Literature, and one for Abnormal Psychology. plus, next week is initiation week for our newest members of Phi Sigma Sigma. 

basically, insanity.

however, I am still committed to blogging about my life, because I told myself that I would. so get excited. I may be busy but I will make time for this.

anyway: I have no idea what to write about right now. currently, I am supposed to be reading Quicksand by Nella Larsen for my Women's Literature class tomorrow and writing a very brief paper about it when I finish. well...I have 30 pages left currently and my motivation got left behind in the library, after I was there and productive for mostly all of the 4 hours I was there. so...here I am. blogging, drinking Coke at basically 11:30 at night, eating my second cheese stick of the day, and jamming to music.

yup. my life. I wish the real world would just stop hassling to me. (and yes, that song Real World by Matchbox 20 just ended. yup. if you don't know that one, I think you need to go back to the 90's.)

and...Icarus by Bastille is playing currently. Bastille is an amazing band. if you don't know who Bastille is, you need to look at your life, look at your choices, and look Bastille up. do it now.

anyway: the fact that I mentioned not one but two bands (The 1975 and Bastille) that hail from England, maybe I should just blog about England for a few seconds. obviously, I cannot blog about every single aspect in this post--mostly because I have to be productive tonight still and because it's a lot of fangirling and OMG I'M IN ENGLAND. AHHHH.

okay. so I went to England for a month. it was wonderful. it wasn't long enough, but it was wonderful.

I'm still having trouble finding the words to properly express the experience and I don't even know where to start, since the memories keep flooding back and blending together into this giant vat of "ENGLAAAAAND."

so I suppose the beginning will have to suffice. after getting out of the airport, we took a coach from Manchester to York, which took a few hours. during the bus ride, it was nothing but green and hilly countryside. and lots of brick buildings--including houses. and sheep. let's not forget the sheep. 

I still cannot accurately describe how green it was. I'm pretty sure it rained the entire drive too and then, when we got to York, it was a bit sunny.

the jet lag was real at this point, especially when we had to carry our heavy suitcases up hill, to our hostel, and up a few flights of stairs. it was called The Ace Hostel, but our itinerary said The Ace Hotel. woops.

it was not a hotel, guys. 

I mean, I have stayed in hostels before so I wasn't terribly disgusted by the place. there were eight of us to a room in our hostel, but we were only in York for a few days so it wasn't terrible. mainly, we were just there for sleeping and recovering from the jet lag.

and let me tell you, my jet lag was really bad. like...it took me until we left York to eat and sleep like a normal person who was used to England life.

anyway, we got all settled into our rooms and our professor was like "yo, go explore until we have to meet as a class later! don't just go to sleep because your sleep cycle will get thrown off!" 

so. Erin (yes. there were two on the trip. I've known her since my freshman year so she's basically my other half, in case you care), Kelsey, Maggie and I decided to go to a local sandwich shop to eat. it was relatively close to our hostel and it was relatively cheap, since we had yet to venture to an ATM to try out our debit cards.

I had this brie and cranberry panini, which wasn't bad, but I also was super disoriented and not used to this whole England thing just yet.

seriously. we were all eating and zoned out to the point where we were barely conversing. I think we got looking at a map at this point, just so we could do a bit of sight seeing, but it was mostly just a vague plan of wandering around.

after lunch, we followed the map, crossed a pretty river where we took a few pictures (I'm pretty sure it was the Thames, but I could be wrong), and made it to the more modern-looking York. H&M was one of the first things we saw that looked familiar.  

then, we saw Ryan and Jacob from our group so we decided to join them on our search for an ATM and pretty scenery. (spoiler alert: we found both.)

during pretty scenery time in this garden sort of by York Minster, we basically ran around, laughed, took obnoxious pictures, and we were all like "OMG WE ARE IN ENGLAND. AHHHHH" for however long we were there, which was probably about an hour. our concepts of time were a little bit off at this point.

then, we wandered back towards our hostel and ventured into a little cathedral. we were in there for a long time. it was really spiritually awakening and just...still.

since we didn't have a ton of time left before we had to meet back at the hostel, we decided to quickly walk on a very small part of the wall surrounding the city of York and told ourselves that we would walk the wall in its entirety before we left in a few days. 

let's just say the view was amazing. 

at this point, we had to go back to our hostel to discuss our plans for class tomorrow, as well as the rules of the hostel. it was pretty basic.

then, we all basically chilled, got dinner (I believe that was the night that we went to The Slug and Lettuce), and turned in early. of course, I could barely sleep, which wasn't super fun to deal with the next morning.

point is, the first day was a total blurr, especially since Sunday and Monday sort of meshed into one super long day, due to the time difference of 5 hours (or was it 6 hours?) and my lack of sleep on the plane. but it's a blurr that I can't forget.

yeah. that's about all I can muster for this evening.

until next time, dear readers!