I Get It, Not All Y'all Are Directioners

Hi y'all!

Before I talk about anything else, I want to take a few seconds to say: thank you. Last week's anxiety riddled post was a nerve-wracking experience, not only from a writing standpoint, but also from a public viewing standpoint. I was scared to share something so personal with so many of you. My experiences with panic attacks and anxiety aren't a secret by any means, but I don't talk about them all that openly. A select few people know and we chat occasionally about the subject. But after last week's post, I had so many reach out to me in support of my piece and of me as a person. For anyone who messaged me or talked to me in person about the post: you're all incredible human beings. Thank you for brightening my weekend and for reminding me how very loved I am, something I seem to forget from time to time. I appreciate each and every one of you more than words can explain.

I promise y'all this week will be more upbeat! Yesterday was fantastic, starting at 7 am with a boloco marketing event (I handed out free breakfast burritos and it was bomb, I love making people's mornings in a cute way) and ended with me sitting in my newly cleaned room (I FINALLY DID IT YAY PROGRESS) writing down bits of inspiration to hang on my walls.

I also accomplished a lot throughout the course of the day yesterday (at least by my usually unproductive standards), most importantly of which included me submitting my application for the Communications and Marketing Chair on the Student Leadership Council of Husky Ambassadors! Fingers crossed all goes well with that, I'd love to finally take on more marketing roles in my life, in addition to the few I've worked in so far.

Today's been simultaneously awesome and miserable. I woke up at 4:30 am like I've been doing (I'm crazy, we all  know by now, moving on) and got myself pumped up for my stadium workout, knowing it would be bitterly cold but bracing myself and thinking I'd be fine. Spoiler: I was not, indeed, fine. HOLY HELL it was cold out this morning. Even though I ended the workout feeling a bit frozen (read: a literal chunk of ice) I still PR'ed today and was feeling a bit superhuman. I cannot stress enough how fantastic these stadium mornings have been for my overall mental and physical well-being. 2 months ago I could do 15 sections in 45 minutes and now I'm running 22 in 32 minutes, and if that's not some encouraging sh*t, I don't know what is.

I've been running back and forth across Boston today from one thing to another and my schedule's been a bit hectic, but I made sure I made the time to attend the 2014 State of the University address given by none other than Northeastern's President Aoun! I find that whenever I'm feeling a bit down, I use Husky Ambassadors as a source of rejuvenation. Giving tours to families reminds me of all the amazingness that is Northeastern, whether it be through phenomenal co-op experiences or just the initiatives our university is taking to make the world a better place. Attending the #StateofNU address basically reminded me of why I'm here and what we're doing as a university to improve lives and empower students. It was inspiring and uplifting, and not only that but I got to witness the first ever Global Officers chosen to work under President Aoun! (I'm incredibly jealous and cannot WAIT for the day when I'm standing in their shoes.)

As for the rest of the day, I have classes on classes on classes, not to mention the fact that I double booked myself for two different meetings tonight (both have pizza being served so with double the pizza, I'm really not all that upset). I also registered for next semester's classes (first semester as a business major whaddup) and my schedule is beautiful. Nothing on Tuesday and Friday? Yes please.

One last thing I wanted to talk about before wrapping this up is something I've talked about earlier on this month, something which is probably the most important thing to happen this week, something that has been rocking my world (have you guessed yet?): ONE DIRECTION'S NEW ALBUM.

I get it, not all y'all are Directioners. It's cool. I would say I understand, but I really don't, so... But even if you hate them with a fiery burning passion, give their latest a listen. The guys have really matured and changed their sound over the years and this album, which has a bit of an 80s rock vibe to it, really reflects that change. You've probably guessed that my Top 5 Songs are gonna all come from the album, so here goes:

1. Fool's Gold
2. Night Changes
3. Ready to Run
4. 18
5. Stockholm Syndrome

...but it goes without saying that all the songs are mind-blowing. I listened to the album while running the stadium this morning and personally I think it's what pushed me to PR. 

This is the last full week of classes for us NU kids, so for anyone reading from NU, enjoy it! Finals are nearly here (stress stress stress) but y'all are gonna rock it. 

Until next time, love y'all, bye!

I'm Writing This At 12:25 AM

This post is going to be a little bit different.

Maybe it's because I'm writing this at 12:25 AM with a bowl of ice cream in hand and no ability whatsoever to fall asleep, or maybe it's because I've been subjected to a multitude of various emotions recently, but this post is going to be a lot more personal than others. I think I really need to write down some things that are going on with me, not for you guys, but rather for myself. Because I find I'm struggling to come up for air in a life that seems to keep dragging me under in big and little ways.

For those of you that know me well, you know I suffer from a lot of anxiety and the occasional panic attack. This current semester in particular has been extremely stressful for me financially and the anxiety has gotten bad. Recently I've been having panic attacks 2-3 times a week, sometimes with a notable cause to them, others while I'm simply sitting in bed watching Netflix. Like tonight. It can be very difficult to look at yourself as a grown woman who is mature and independent when these attacks leave you crying so hard you can't catch your breath and you mind is throbbing with all the thoughts crashing around inside of it. I feel so childish. I should be able to stop it, I should be able to just "get over it", as people say. But I can't and this leaves me all the more frustrated.

The panic attacks are worse than you might think. I'm terrified I might be sitting in class one day and completely lose it. Can you imagine a small-ish girl at the front of your lecture hall breaking out into tears and shaking all over, unable to breathe? It would be horrible. I'd forever be the girl who had a mental break during lecture. But unfortunately, there is no good way to prevent a panic attack. I'm working on coping strategies over time, but the thing about panic attacks is that they can be unpredictable and once it starts you kinda just have to ride it out.

I talk about November Project a lot these days, and truth be told, there's a larger reason behind that. Yes, it's an amazing community and a lot of fun, but to me it's also part of the cure. When I was younger and still did ballet, the simple act of movement and concentrating on difficult sequences and perfecting my coordination, balance, endurance, and strength helped me keep my anxiety under control. November Project is a lot like that. It gives me something to look forward to, something to concentrate on wholeheartedly, and something to improve in physically. I'm getting fit on the outside and healing on the inside as well.

But it's not an easy road to being anxiety free. November Project helps, but once I get back from running a stadium it's off to classes, then meetings, then work, then more classes, and by the time my day is wrapping up, I have homework to do, dinner to cook, emails to respond to... I never get a moment of peace. Even watching Netflix doesn't allow me to relax anymore, not truly. I know that if I'm watching Netflix, there's definitely still something else I could be getting done and it causes me a lot of anxiety when I realize this.

I've needed to clean my half of the room for weeks, but have had an enormous amount of trouble bringing myself to do it. I'm very much a perfectionist and if I can't get it done perfectly in one fell swoop then I hardly ever even bother attempting. So I've left my room and laundry to sit and accumulate and I know I need to do something about it but every time I try I get more and more anxious and depressed. I know it sounds stupid. But it's something I've become extremely stressed about and this is my blog and if you really don't want to hear about my issues I suggest you stop reading right now. Spoiler: they're gonna come up.

Today in particular was one excellent example of the ups and downs I face and why they set me off. I didn't sleep well last night (by the time you read this, two nights ago) and so from the get-go I was running behind and wildly under-caffeinated. I had my 8 am, and afterwards had plans to either sit and read (currently reading I Am Malala and LOVING it) or I was going to attempt to tackle my room. I ended up sitting in front of my dresser for over an hour, doing not much at all except letting horribly anxious thoughts race through my mind, until I decided to try on my dress for Saturday night. (I'll explain about Saturday night later.) I then ran through everything that was wrong with the dress, the fact that my hair is never going to look the way I want it too, and the fact that I won't have clear skin by that night, all in my mind. It was only 11:30 when I left for my second class of the day but already I had hit an anxious thought threshold. During class, I received an email noting that I had been selected to interview for an RA position here at Northeastern. Which, right off the bat, made me ecstatic. But then I found out I had to interview tomorrow (or today, by the time I publish this). Immediate anxiety. Luckily, I called in a favor and my friend came over to help me prep. I'm finally feeling confident about what to say for certain questions, although looking at a list of "Most Popular RA Interview Questions" which is 4 pages long certainly gets my head into tizzy still. But now, the main issue at hand is how to dress for the interview, as I currently own no business casual clothing. Flinging things around in my closet and making my room even more of a mess was not how I pictured tonight going... On top of all of THAT I've eaten almost exclusively ice cream today and in general feel like a 2 on a 1 to 10 scale.

Everything about the last paragraph helped led up to the panic attack I had just before writing this. I was sitting in bed, watching House of Cards, when the weight of everything I have to do tomorrow suddenly became too much and crushed me all at once. I'm not ashamed to admit I cried for half an hour straight.

Saturday night is also weighing heavily in my mind and the stress of that surely contributed to my attack. I'm not very good at asking guys out, nor have I done it often so the fact that I was able to ask him out at all was a miracle. I planned for a night out at a fancy restaurant and then he's taking me to the symphony, and the invite I hand wrote called for black tie attire, which means I have to look like an 11, which is difficult since I feel like a 4. The stressful part is that he agreed to the date, but as friends. Which I'd be fine with if feelings weren't getting in the way. But like feelings tend to do...they're in the way. So now I'm dealing with trying to suppress these feelings and carry on as friends, which basically is a task equivalent to climbing Mt. Everest at this point.

To add to the stress, guess who overcharged her bank account and is now out $70 in overdraft fees? This girl.

I legitimately don't know how to cope with these things. The term "roll with the punches" makes sense and all, but I don't know how to actually go through with it. Things crop up in my life and I shut down. Literally. My body tenses, I scream and cry, and everything just goes a little fuzzy and out of focus. It's one of the worst things about anxiety: you can't just keep on going through a rough patch, you have to deal with things as they come up, and your body's natural way of dealing with them is to freak out.

I realize this became very personal, very fast. When I set out out to create this blog, I didn't know what direction it would go in. Every week's gonna be a little different, but for the most part you won't see a lot of these posts coming through. This was a once-off, need-to-get-some-things-off-my-chest kind of post. I like keeping y'all from hearing the nasty details of my own personal life, but sometimes it's too much for just me.

To end on a good note: here's my Top 5 Songs of the Week!

1. Sugar // Karmin
2. Yellow Flicker Beat // Lorde
3. Heartbeat // Childish Gambino
4. Tears to Diamonds // Watsky
5. Beggin For Thread // Banks

I thank you for allowing me to share this with you. If any of you have a problem with anxiety or depression, please come talk to me. I know it's not easy, but we're gonna be fine. If I can ask out the boy I'm falling for and get friend-zoned, and still get out of bed in the morning and run Harvard Stadium and look cute in class and tackle whatever tasks the day throws at me, then we can take on anything together.

I love you all immensely,

I Decided To Take A Week Off Of Twitter (!!!)

Hi y'all!

As you all know, I'm a little bit crazy when it comes to social media. It kiiiiinda runs my life and I'm never able to spend very long away from it. Even a little over an hour without a phone and my Twitter and Insta and I start breaking out and getting anxious (not gonna lie). I used to say I was unashamed of this, but truth is I'm quite ashamed.

Social media has taken over all parts of our lives and it's hard to get away from at this point. Everything runs through a computer: our to-do lists, our calendars, our public lives, our private lives even... Our hopes and dreams and life goals are on show for everyone to see and the more I think about this, the more disturbing the idea is to me.

I am at a stage in my life where I have several critical life choices to make. What I want to do with my career. Who I want to allow into my life, as a friend or as a romantic relationship. What kind of quality of life I want to have. What I want to take up in my free time. There's so much riding on this period of my life, and it's incredibly terrifying for an 18 year old girl. Everyone I know is in this same situation as well: we're young and forced to make choices that will affect the rest of our lives. Social media only adds to the stress, as now it's a social norm to let everyone know your daily happenings and when you're midst all the stress of college and the choices you're making, living in the public eye can possibly cause you to make the wrong choices.

For example, if I tweet something about possibly accepting a co-op offer, and several people weigh in, their opinions would most definitely hold influence over my ultimate decision. I may just end up making the wrong decision for what I want. That's the danger of social media.

Two weeks ago, I decided to take an entire week of off Twitter. I had been spending every other minute checking and rechecking my feed and I needed to take some time off to collect myself and refresh. So from Sunday night until Friday night, I did not once open Twitter. I deleted the app from my phone. I blocked the site from my laptop. And for the first 24 hours, I thought I was going to die.

I had gotten to the point where everything revolved around social media. It was like my life was not validated until I posted a pic on Insta or wrote a tweet about it. Happiness was getting over 40 likes on an Insta pic and I realized that it was too much pressure and quite stupid frankly.

So to begin the week, everything was difficult. I kept trying to distract myself but there were times where I simply laid on my bed watching my phone's screen waiting for a text of some sort or ANY notification for that matter. But then, about 4 days in, I started to get less anxious about not tweeting. I started to have fun simply for the sake of having fun, not because I wanted a cute pic to post on Facebook out of it. And it was fanTASTIC.

Don't get me wrong, when the week was up, I was ecstatic to get my Twitter back and be up and running again. But having a refresh was lovely. I now spend much less time on Twitter and it's caused me an incredible amount of satisfaction. I no longer feel the need to read through my entire feed because I might miss something. Life's the littlest bit simpler now and it's beautiful. Here's hoping I don't get too bad again, but it's good to know that if I do I can take a detox week.

Today's post is a bit different than my others, and I will be sure to post another later in the week on another topic, but I felt this needed to be talked about. I'll never call social media "stupid", but I do think the way our culture has become obsessed with it, and admittedly how addicted I am to it, is stupid. We let something that really shouldn't mean all that much mean everything to us and as a person who does this, it needs to stop.

Thanks for listening to my spiel.

Until next time, love y'all, bye!

Peppermint Mocha And Ski Season??

Hi there!

I feel like it has become a recurring thing for me to apologize at the beginning of my posts, and I'm not about to break that trend apparently. My apologies for the week off last week! I had exams to study for, papers to write, and a few things to take care of in my personal life that barred me from writing. This week though I am back and better than ever!

The most important thing on my mind currently is NOVEMBER PROJECT. It's all me and my friends have been talking about for weeks now, and the big day is tomorrow! Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the tribe meets to take on crazy workouts and hug out our frustrations. This week at Harvard Stadium, we will be taking Yearbook Photos! It's our biggest recruitment day of the year, and we're hoping to get 3014 people in our 16 cities across the US and now the world. Be one of those people and #justshowup. I promise it'll be the best part of your day.

Okay, now that I've put a recruitment blast out... Projects! A while back I mentioned a couple of projects I was working on that I was excited about but couldn't talk about yet. I'm ecstatic that I can finally talk about them!

First off, I will be guest blogging for Northeastern's Career Development blog in the near future (I think I've mentioned that one briefly before). Look out for a post from me about how one student organization helped me to develop my leadership capabilities and how I can translate these skills to the workplace and future careers.

Secondly, I was contacted a while back about a writing opportunity through the Northeastern Admissions office. This opportunity entailed me writing a letter detailing all the amazing opportunities Northeastern has to offer and how I've taken advantage of these opportunities and created a home for myself here at Northeastern. This letter, now complete after a couple of stages of editing, will be sent to each and every student accepted into Northeastern University. For all you out there thinking of applying, or perhaps you already have applied, be on the look out for a letter from yours truly in your acceptance packages! The only thing I'm left wondering is, can I put this on my resume somehow?

Next, I've now verbally committed to running a half-marathon at this time next year. I know, I know... Something's wrong with me and I must be out of my mind. But for some reason, I have a huge drive to do this. I've never shied from a challenge, and what with joining November Project and motivating myself to get back in shape, I found myself wanting to do as so many of my friends have been doing and take on a half marathon. I've gotten so into the fitness movement that I even ordered myself a new pair of sneakers (they're GORGEOUS) and I was excited about it? I'm a lover of footwear of all shapes and sizes but sneakers aren't usually my thing. So for me to be this excited over a simple pair of sneakers, well... You know I'm serious about this.

Finally, I'm moving forward with my YouTube channel with a special thanks to my friend Nick for his brilliant brainstorming and constant support! 'The Quirky College Kitchen' has no set start date as of yet, but I've started writing up video ideas and heads up, a collab with Nick is highly likely for the near future. Think of the channel as a cooking show slash video diary slash talk show slash college inside scoop.

In other news? Halloweekend was amazing! I kicked some asses as Kim Possible this year, which needless to say has been one of my better Halloween costumes throughout the years (pretty sure I didn't even dress up at all last year...) Saturday, Nick and I roasted pumpkin seeds, made pumpkin soup, laughed until we cried over this picture:

Not only that, but it snowed on Sunday! Literally no better way to kick off my favorite month than with my favorite kind of weather. We're moving into winter and it has me over the moon (did someone say peppermint mocha and ski season??!?!!!)

In honor of my favorite season, I was *going* to present my Top 5 Songs for the week with Christmas themed music, but then I remembered that since I've been AWOL for almost 2 weeks, I haven't talked about Tay's 1989 yet! So here's my top 5 fave songs off the album (although let's be real, they're all perfect).

1. Style
2. How You Get The Girl
3. Clean
4. All You Had To Do Was Stay
5. I Know Places

In other musical news: Beyonce is dropping a new platinum album/anthology thing? New Bey music right before my birthday?? And also One Direction??? This birth month is shaping up to be a good one. 

Usually I save the end of my posts to be a shameless self-promotion, but this week I'm gonna promote my girl Jill. My cousin's been writing since probably before she could talk and she's brilliant at it. She and I have both struggled with our share of mental health problems and to this day still have our issues. We've each found our outlets over time, and hers has always been writing. Now she's launched her own blog and y'all should go check it out! I've provided the link here.

I'll wrap up by giving you guys some photos of my last few weeks - including HA Field Day, LinkedIn shenanigans (thank you Xander), and Illuminus Boston.

Until next time, love y'all, bye!

I Ate a Doughnut in Under a Minute

Hi y'all!

Remember me? I know it's been a full week (apologies). Last week I promised a round-up of sorts, of all the things I've been lovin' over the past month. It's a long list, so let's get right into it!

As I've mentioned previously, YouTube has recently and quickly become my latest obsession. I love that we live in the era of social media where we can blog to our viewers directly and let them see into our lives through the power of video. We can communicate like never before so incredibly directly that it feels like we are a part of that someone's life, even if you've never met that person. YouTube has opened up a whole new era of self-branding and I, for one, love it.

One of my favorite YouTubers right now is JAROD ZSZ, or Jarod Majeika, who is actually a friend of mine from high school! He's Vine famous, with over 165K followers on Vine, and then as of late he has branched out into YouTube videos and has been doing pretty well, all things considered. It's one thing to see all these incredibly famous YouTubers out in the world who also are working red carpet events and traveling the globe all the time, but it's another to see someone from your own hometown reaching out to his or her followers and connecting. I've been absolutely loving his videos, they're hysterical, you should check them out! I've included the link here.

Other things I've taken away from YouTube? Anyone who watched Tyler Oakley knows that once a month he recommends something new on NatureBox. What IS NatureBox, you ask? NatureBox is a snack subscription service that sends you a box of snacks once a month. Each box comes with a variety of snacks that you get to choose and they're all incredibly healthy. You have tons of options, whether you're looking for vegan snacks to gluten-free to low in sodium and high in vitamin C. I'm LOVING the dark cocoa nom noms (yes, they are called nom noms). I'm absolutely addicted. It's a pretty cool service, I recommend checking it out if you're into healthy snacking and also the beauty of shopping through the internet. Here's the link if you're interested.

There's another line of products I've been meaning to talk about for awhile now, and haven't ever brought up. As you can probably tell, I tend to gravitate towards a life of healthy options (at least, I've been trying to!) I've taken up yoga, I've become vegetarian, and I'm now considering going vegan. But something almost no one ever brings up is skincare and hygienic products. We worry so much about what is going into our bodies and how we treat our bodies, that we don't often look at what we are cleaning our bodies with. If you look at a bottle of shampoo nowadays, I bet you $20 you couldn't read the entire list of ingredients out loud (don't try at home; you might hurt yourself). It's kind of sickening to think of the number of chemicals we put onto our skin. But there ARE alternatives: natural products such as homemade soaps and shampoos, which can often be purchased from farmer's markets and online boutiques. My aunt has launched a business into this line of product and as a avid fan of her soaps, I can highly recommend. Shepherd's Harvest is managed from her home and all the products are made right in her kitchen (I've even helped in the past!) My faves? The Onyx Detox and Pumpkin Spice soaps, and the Glossy Lip Balm are amazing (the onyx detox clears up acne like no other). Wanna purchase? Link's here.

Other cool things: ONE DIRECTION'S NEW SONG/ALBUM. (Excuse the fangirling.) They're dropping their new album a couple of days before my birthday and I am SO excited. The new song is fabulous. I'm not even a little ashamed.

Speaking of music... Top 5 songs for the week!

1. Thinking Out Loud // Ed Sheeran
2. I'm Not The Only One // Sam Smith
3. Animals // Maroon 5
4. Flaws // Bastille
5. Out of the Woods // Taylor Swift

More cool things: ya girl is doing a room makeover! Around this time of the semester I get into this slump of being bored with my life (even though my life is far from boring). Room makeovers breathe some new life into my stressed out and overworked mind. Plus, it's just fun to redecorate/rearrange your room. Who knows? I might even do a blog post on it! 

There are a few other things that I really wish I could talk about right now, but I'm going to wait on because they're still in the works and once they're finalized I'll definitely spill the beans. One of them mayyy involve me *actually* launching my YouTube channel... More to come. I promise. 

I also wish I had some photos for you this week, but sadly the ones I'm looking for aren't online yet. Once my friends upload the photos to Facebook I'll post 'em here. I have TONS of photos from HA Field Day, which was this past Sunday and was an incredible day. I ate a doughnut in under a minute and was the top of a human pyramid, need I say more? 

I'm just now realizing that I talked about a ton of random things in this blog post and there was no cohesive structure and it's basically just me rambling... Oh well. Some weeks I'm organized and put together, other weeks I'm all over the place and busy beyond belief (aka this week). I literally almost walked out of my apartment wearing two different shoes this morning. It's just been that kind of week.

I really don't have too much else to talk about right now, but by the end of this week hopefully I can talk a bit more about the projects I have under wraps. 

Until then, love y'all, bye!

Amputating My Arms

Hey y'all!

Today's post is gonna be an update/storytelling/fun-filled rambling sort of post because of everything amazing and wonderful happening just this week in my life (EVERYTHING IS HAPPENING SO FAST).

Where do I even start?

How about Top 5 Songs of the Week, because with everything going on I've needed some motivation music to pump me up:

1. Million Voices // Otto Knows
2. Run the World (Girls) // Beyonce
3. BO$$ // Fifth Harmony
4. I Lived / One Republic
5. Shut Up and Dance // Walk the Moon

I've been nonstop moving this week for a number of reasons (I'll explain shortly, I promise) and these songs have been on repeat in addition to my playlist 'Motivation Mix' on Spotify. Feeling down? Power through with kickass music; it is the MOST beneficial thing you could possibly do.

Okay, so, what have I been up to, you ask? 

I'll start with Sunday, when my best friend Anna came to visit me here in Boston! As I assume a lot of you know, Sunday was the Season 5 premiere of The Walking Dead (!!!!!!!) and she came to stay with me pretty much just so we could watch it together. I know. We're nerds. And also lame. Whatever.

Of course, we did other things as well! We went to the Museum of Fine Arts on Monday, which was MIND-BLOWING as I've never been there before. I probably stared at the Van Gogh's and Monet's for a solid 40 minutes and would've stayed longer except Anna had to catch a train. 

As you saw from my last post, I'm not a fan of being alone and even though I have more personal coping strategies now, I still like having my friends around as much as possible. I hadn't seen Anna since the end of August and seeing her this weekend was exactly the recharge I needed to power through another month of college. Thanks for being my everything, I don't have a clue what I would do without you.

Another Monday happening was my first ever November Project workout! Now, I'm not one to workout. I pretty much hate it. I'll take ice cream and Netflix in bed over a simple run literally all the time. But I'm starting to get to a weird age where eating anything I want isn't making me put on weight, but if I continue building certain habits now it'll result in unhealthy habits for the rest of my life. So I figured I should start exercising so that I can form that habit and have that going for me for the rest of my life (hopefully). 

For those of you unfamiliar with November Project, watch this:

Now that I've actually experienced one of these workouts I can honestly say, it's everything they promise and more. Monday morning I got myself up at 5 in the morning and drank maybe 3 cups of coffee because y'all know I canNOT wake up early. I broke out my workout gear, which has pretty much never seen the light of day, and jogged over to Marino Rec Center to meet up with my friend Xander who talked me into going. The workout starts at 6:30 and consisted of a bunch of different exercises. The main workout this specific Monday was 7 straight minutes of burpees. I'm still, 3 days later, incredibly sore and looking into amputation options for my arms. 

No matter how much I despised working out, this was definitely the best thing I've done for myself in awhile and it was so incredibly satisfying. The community is super positive (imagine being greeted at 6:30am with bear hugs) and I can't wait to do it all over again next week. I'm going to attempt to make it to all the workouts each week, but with 8 ams, we'll see. (Wednesdays are Harvard Stadium, which I can't WAIT to take on.)

Other things? I've never interviewed for anything before and on Wednesday I held a mock interview with my co-op adviser and slayed! Nerves ain't got nothin' on me.

I also met with my career development adviser and have officially decided on a major of Business Administration with Concentrations in Marketing and Entrepreneurship (geez that's a mouthful). I'm so incredibly excited you guys, you don't even know. I'm filing the necessary forms this week and hopefully by next week at this time I will officially be a business student! 

Also, by visiting career services, I have been given an opportunity to guest blog on the Northeastern Career Development blog site! My adviser got me talking, and inevitably I brought up social media. When she heard I was a student blogger myself in addition to be the resident social media gal, she was more than happy to put me in touch with the woman in charge of running that blog. I'll let you know when that becomes a more concrete thing!

And as always,  I'm keeping myself incredibly scheduled at all hours of the day, so I'm either in class, cleaning or cooking, working, or now working out. I would put sleeping in there as well but ain't nobody got time for that.

I think that my next post is going to be a compilation of a bunch of cool things I've either seen or used or heard about so look out for that later this week. Other than that, thanks for keeping up with me lovelies! As always, follow me on social media (shameless self-promotion say whaaaaatttt): my handle is @jessieetrager on everything :)

Until next time, love y'all, bye!

Don't Watch Netflix All Night

Hey y'all!

I thought long and hard about what I wanted to talk about in this blog post, and it took me awhile to admit to myself that I wanted to write about loneliness. Now, I'm not talking about describing loneliness because we all know what it feels like in some way, shape, or form. I'm talking about how to survive loneliness. Because inevitably, you're going to have a night when things get rough and you feel all alone and it's tough to get through those nights. It's a process, and I'm still learning, but I've come a long way and I'd like to share with y'all how to get through those times. I had to figure it out for myself, but by sharing this, maybe you don't have to go through it alone.

Admittedly, this all sounds pretty dramatic. But last night for me was one of those nights where I had nothing to do, nowhere to be, and that made my skin crawl. I know most people LIVE for the nights where they get time off and can just veg in bed with some Netflix and ice cream. But me? I work so much that I hardly have time to hang out with friends, and Friday nights are the one night I have off to really just chill with my friends and have fun. I truly hate being alone and in the past, it has caused me to become depressed and I went to a really bad place in my life.

Sometimes, even if you KNOW people are there for you, you can still feel terribly alone, and that's okay. Being alone is okay. Not having someone right beside you at every moment is okay. People ARE there for you, even if you think they aren't.

It took me years to realize it's okay to feel alone. Last night was one of the first nights I spent by myself and didn't cry (real talk time). Over time though, I've picked up quite a few tricks on how to spend a night alone without feeling lonely.

Step 1: Take a shower. The thought of spending Friday night in when you're getting hundreds of snapchats from friends at massive parties and concerts can be a little daunting. I've found taking a hot shower (for a good 30 minutes) can calm you down and relax you for a night of restorative activities.

Step 2: Make food! And I don't mean put a frozen something in the microwave or make some popcorn to eat with your fudge sundae. I mean cook something new and kinda fancy. Spend an hour or more. Practice a cooking skill you've never used before. Last night, I made myself lemon basil chickpeas and then baked cinnamon apples with peanut butter and they were fabulous. It's really easy to fall into a groove of eating the same old thing over and over again because that's what you know and are comfortable with. But eating the same thing over and over again can decrease your mood (unless it's mac and cheese because I could probably eat that every day till I die). Trying something new is a challenge and forces you to concentrate on the task at hand, rather than the fact that you're at home alone. Plus, the end result is some new fantastic food that you can eat while watching YouTube or Netflix!

Step 3: Don't watch Netflix all night. That's literally the worst thing you could do. I've done it before, and by the time I want to go to sleep I've wallowed myself into a pit of misery (not even joking). Watch a movie (I recommend Disney) but then allow yourself time to unplug. Use your laptop for music if you need the noise in your home. But do something else that's productive.

Step 4: Speaking of productive.....do something active! I never have time during the week to exercise (except that now I may be starting to attend November Project, stay tuned for that...) so Friday nights spent alone in my apartment are a great time for me to work out. I'm personally a fan of yoga because it's strengthening in addition to being spiritually healing. But then, as a dancer, I like to work through my muscles by doing simple ballet stretches and strengthening exercises. And then, as a bit of fun, I usually dance around my apartment to something super upbeat (Taylor Swift's Shake It Off comes to mind) because there's only so much "calming and relaxation" I can tolerate until I need to really get moving and pick up the tempo a bit.

Step 5: Clean. This sounds totally horrible, I know, I know. But it's one of the most therapeutic things I can think of. It's also incredibly productive, because we all know your apartment's not getting cleaned any other day of the week. Again, I like to have music blasting and sing along at the top of my lungs while cleaning (sorry apartments 518 and 514...).

Step 5: Sleep. If you're in college, I KNOW you don't get to sleep before midnight any night of the week. If you do, I may or may not hate you. (Jk, but really...? Teach me your ways.) This is your one night to get a full night's sleep and actually feel rested when you wake up in the morning! Get in bed early, write in a journal, get those last stressful thoughts out of the way, and then fall asleep knowing you're not alone and you had a relaxing night to yourself.

You might be wondering why I decided to write this kind of blog post. Honestly, this blog post was very much for me. I originally wanted this blog to be a way to keep a journal because I was never able to write things down on paper and I had hoped that by putting it on social media, a platform I love, it would motivate me to write. These past few weeks have been stressful, and yesterday was a small victory for me. Writing all this down *may* serve to help someone reading out there who goes through this as well, but in all actuality, I'm writing it down to prove I made progress. To be able to look back on it and say "You used to feel so alone, but now you're okay with it. You're strong enough to get through the negative feelings."

For those of you who read this far, thanks for putting up with my emotional blog post! As a little side note to end this post, ya girl overcame another challenge this week and asked someone out! I was my usual awkward self, but hey; he said yes so maybe I'm not all that odd? At any rate, wish me luck. It'd be incredibly awesome if I didn't dump a glass of water on myself this time, or trip over my chair. Yes. Actual things that have happened.

Hope your three day weekend continues to be fantastic, and remember, you're never alone.

Until next time, love y'all, bye!

Four Coffees and a Bag of Doritos

Hi there!

I apologize, my life's been so incredibly busy lately that not only do I barely have time to blog but I barely have time to sleep or eat. It's been hectic, but completely 100% worth it, and you're about to see why! Most of it's been due to classwork and my jobs (this whole balancing 30-40 hours of work a week and also keeping up on classwork is meh) but some of it's been due to Husky Ambassadors! I haven't actually talked about my involvement in Husky Ambassadors a lot, but today you're about to get a huge dose of Husky Pride *insert confetti emoji here*

Side note: it makes me incredibly mad I can't actually use emojis in my blog posts. *insert red angry face emoji here*

So yesterday was Husky Ambassador's 2014 Fall Training and if I were asked to sum it up in a single word, I simply wouldn't be able to. Yesterday marked the official one year anniversary of my actual involvement in Husky Ambassadors, the student organization that organizes all campus tours for our university. One year ago yesterday, I was a terrified freshman who didn't like talking to people but was utterly excited to turn the page and become someone who could talk to anyone. One year ago yesterday marked the first day of the best year of my life. (Sorry, I'm totally getting really emotional and sappy...)

Throughout last year, I made a name for myself in the Admissions office, not because I wanted to become someone of importance there, but because it was simply fun for me. I was able to open up in the Visitor Center, make my closest friends there, and have a safe space at the end of the day where everyone was incredibly accepting and wonderful. I came into college as a shy and timid girl and through this incredible program, I feel I have emerged as a much more confident and independent young woman (who doesn't feel like vomiting before publicly speaking). It truly is amazing what a little dose of positivity in the workplace can do for a person.

After doing so much last year, I was recommended to apply to the Husky Development Committee this fall, a committee of 15 students that work as leaders of the Husky Packs in HA and guide their own assigned groups of tour guides and minglers throughout the year. I jumped at the opportunity and when I was accepted, I may or may not have actually screamed. The other people in HDC are equally fabulous (shout-out to y'all, I adore you so so so much) and every Thursday for the past few weeks we've been having meetings to prepare for Fall Training.

So yesterday, then, was a culmination of weeks and weeks of our efforts to construct what we hoped would be a flawless training session. And while it may not have been ***Flawless, it was pretty amazing. If any of you follow my Twitter, you can get a pretty good idea of how the day went, but here are some highlights:

Not to mention the fantastic photos that came out of yesterday:

And I certainly couldn't forget a shout-out to my own Husky Pack, the Wollaston's pack (aka My Smallaston's)! We're gonna kick some serious ass on HA Field Day.

Yesterday was very surreal at times, as I was incredibly excited to be there and also hyped up on a lot of coffee, but was also remembering what it felt like being in the newbies' shoes a year ago and how I looked up to the HA leaders then and now I was that someone they might look up to and just, wow. Nostalgia. Also a lot of pride. I never would have seen myself where I am today at this time last year. So I guess I owe everyone a very sincere thank you. You've all given me so much and have supported me every step of the way so far.

So now that I've fangirled a considerable amount and have gotten extremely sappy AND you know why I haven't been sleeping or eating (my day yesterday started with 4 coffees and ended with a party-sized bag of Doritos, yay), I can let you know what my Top Five songs are for the week!

1. Arcadia // The Kite String Tangle
2. Fast Car // Tracy Chapman
3. Fun // Troye Sivan
4. Money On My Mind // Sam Smith
5. Candles // Daughter

I find the subdued music helps me to focus when I have a lot to get done. It's definitely re-energizing and relaxing, and calms me down when things get a little *too* hectic. Like yesterday night after training ended.

If you cared enough to read about my sappy Husky Ambassador experiences, thank youuuuuu :)

Until next time guys, love y'all bye!

It Involves a Home Video of Me and a Snuggie

Hi y'all!

My week got off to a roaring start. Monday started with very little sleep and consisted of 3 exams and a 30 minute speaking presentation, and finally ended with (thankfully) not a night of work but instead I treated myself to a night of pampering and relaxation. AKA the guys and I watched the Patriots game and I made loads of coffee, hot chocolate, and fried potatoes. I also gave myself a facial and took about an hour long shower. It was much deserved.

It was a really stressful day and the weekend wasn't much better as I was working full time and studying where I could and running around everywhere. I couldn't help but notice my anxiety levels were at an all time high this weekend, so obviously not a good time. But I'm back!

A couple of things that got me through the weekend:

My mom is a constant support in my life right now. She can calm me down with any hyper-stressful situation I'm dealing with and is constantly giving me lil' bits of wisdom to help me out with everything. One of her "pro-tips" is to make a gratitude list, which is exactly what it sounds like. I've been writing down 8 or 9 things every night that I've been grateful for throughout the day. It sounds silly, but it's been very calming and is a gentle reminder that even on the worst days, there is always something to be happy about, whether it's vanilla scented candles or a cute guy making you coffee on Sunday morning. (Also, shout-out to my friend Pedro who makes incredible Nutella pancakes!)

Netflix, of course, also helped me stay sane this weekend. My weakness is Law and Order: SVU, which is the most comforting show to me. I don't know why, because the show focuses on rape and other sex crimes and is very dark and edgy... But for whatever reason, the show always has the ability to calm me down after something stressful. If you've never seen it, I highly recommend.

Lastly, I also owe coffee a shout-out for getting me through the weekend. Thank you coffee for never letting me down. You are forever and always bae.

As I mentioned in my last post, I was going to talk about joining the YouTube community and what I found along the way. However, what I found was too terrifying to show the world (let's just say it involves a home video of me and a Snuggie and I'm speaking in French very badly) and so we'll talk about YouTube some other time.

Today I wanted to share with you some music odds and ends!

Music is one of those constants in my life that is always there to pick me up when I'm feeling down. If we're being honest, music got me through high school, and is currently getting me through college. This weekend alone was stressful, but I also have things going on in my life that have shot my anxiety through the roof and have caused me to experience a panic attack or two. For those of you who have gone through these in your life, they suck majorly. But I'm always able to pull myself out of it with some feel-good music.

As I've said before, Spotify is life. For $5 a month, you get unlimited, ad-free music listening on your laptop or on the go. My favorite feature that I've found so far is Spotify's ability to recommend amazing new music based on what you've been listening to. I chose a few of my all-time favorite "cheer up" songs and Spotify helped me to compile an entire playlist that I have been LOVING. I also have some rainy day playlists, jazz playlists, and then pop hits radio (it's a weakness, I know, I know).

Songs you should check out?

• Anything by Betty Who. She's a queen.
•  Lea Michele's debut album, Louder
• I'm Only Joking by KONGOS
• Tongues by Joywave/KOPPS
• Bleachers. Anything by Bleachers.
• The entirety of Camp by Childish Gambino. But listen to the songs in order.
• Maroon 5's newest album. Need I say more?
• On Our Way by The Royal Concept
• Siberia by LIGHTS
• Not On Drugs by Tove Lo
• The Kite String Tangle, they're amazing.
• Troye Sivan's new EP, TRXYE. 
• London Grammar, another fantastic band.
• Also, Banks. She is a GODDESS. Also, her song Goddess is *swoons*
• And as a classic: Stars by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

I'm one of those people who likes to listen to music 24/7 (if possible) and I'm always looking for new music in the world. I'm thinking from here on out I'll give you guys a "Top Five" list each week of the songs I've been listening to on nonstop repeat,

Until then, love y'all, bye!

Did Someone Say Beyonce...?

Hi y'all!

To begin with, in the past few days a few exciting things have been happening:

Y'all have given me such a positive response to the launch of this blog, so THANK YOU! It means so much to me that you guys checked it out and let me know you liked it. No matter how much planning I put in to something, whether it be an academic endeavor or a personal project, I inevitably get stressed and nervous about it. I was totally freaking out on Wednesday about this project, which I literally (not even joking, you guys...) spent about 2 months of my life on what with planning and coding and writing and pulling out my hair and throwing crumpled paper in a trashcan and screaming into a pillow. I'm a *bit* of a perfectionist, and I knew I needed to get this blog just right before launching and it took me forever to be happy with it. But you guys are fanTASTIC and made all the hard work worth it!

Also, can we talk about how I was retweeted by EmpowerNU, the campaign for Northeastern University which aims to raise $1 billion by 2017!! The name is spot on, I'm feelin' pretty empowered by this:

I've provided the link to the Empower site, which provides all the details about the campaign (for those of you who don't know what it is). Go educate yourselves! Northeastern's doin' some pretty cool things out in the world today and this is just one of them. It means so so SO much to me that they took notice and are a fan of my blog (even with just one post on the site). So shout out to them, thank you thank you thank you *insert confetti emoji here*

Other cool things? I had people in Canada, Spain, the UK, and Germany reading my blog, so that was pretty awesome. Not sure how you found me but I'd love for you to stick with me! (Pros? I'm cute and have a love of guacamole! Cons? None???)

Y'all are incredible. That is all.

(I actually *do* have content for today that ISN'T just fangirling and thank you's, believe it or not.)

Today I'm taking some time to highlight something I mentioned last week, but more in depth. (Remember CoffeeBars?) 

One of my goals in college has been to improve myself in as many ways as I can. In high school, I never worked out and I didn't much care about what I put into my body. I've never been overweight, but for most of high school I constantly felt tired and run-down and basically, feeling that way doesn't fit into my lifestyle at ALL. I'm an on-the-go, constantly busy woman (did someone say Beyonce...?) who needs aaaaall the energy to go to classes, give campus tours, work 4-5 hours a day, socialize with friends, study my ass off, and still stay sane (and that's all in a NORMAL day....crazy, right?)

In fact, one of the main reasons I became a vegetarian was to boost my energy and feel better in general. Meat has the tendency to make me feel run-down and bloated, which I only discovered after coming to college! At home, I ate meat every night and when I was bloated all the time, I couldn't pinpoint the exact reason why. Here in Boston, I was eating meat much less often and the few times I did, I felt awful the day after. Problem. Solved.

I cut out meat and the rest is history! But now, I'm taking everything to the next level. Just "being vegetarian" doesn't make you inherently healthy; in fact, you need to very closely monitor what you eat in order to get the right amount of protein, since meat is typically the largest source of protein in one's diet. Things that also provide protein? Greek yogurt, nuts, eggs, quinoa, tofu, rice and beans, edamame, peanut butter, orrrr you could always make a morning smoothie with protein powder.

BUT WAIT.

What does all this have to do with CoffeeBars??

So like I said before, I'm making an effort to be healthier in many ways, not *just* by cutting meat out of my diet. As a college student, I'm living on a college budget, and can't afford a lot of things (read: anything), so what money I make while working in between classes goes to tuition and food. I've made as much room in my budget for food as possible, and have been trying to buy organic and natural foods whenever possible. I make a lot of veggie pasta dishes and am constantly having overnight oats or greek yogurt and fruit for breakfast. A lot of the ideas I have for food come from my beautiful friends Roxanne and Abby who are currently in the middle of #100daysofhealthy (I've linked their instas, go check out the food pics, they're perf). 

However, what with four 8 ams a week and my horrible sleep habits, there isn't always a lot of time for breakfast BEFORE class. I inevitably eat around 9:30, but getting through an 8 am with no energy is no fun. As you learned last week, I'm a coffee addict. Real talk though: who has time to make a cup of coffee when you wake up at 7:45 and need to run to class?? I certainly don't. I'm no wizard. (Probably why my owl never came.)

What better way to get my caffeine fix than to eat my coffee? How does one "eat coffee", you ask? In the form of CoffeeBars! These bars are phenomenal. Not only does each bar (which is about the size of a brownie) have a single shot of espresso in it (that's 102 mg of caffeine!) but they are also incredibly healthy and make a perfectly balanced breakfast! 

The bars contain cashews, almond butter, vegan/gluten-free chocolate chips, cinnamon, gluten-free oats, chia seeds, and dates in addition to the espresso (it literally just sounds healthy) and all ingredients are sourced organically (the coffee is fair-trade!) and manufacturing takes place here in the US. Not to mention, I've tasted a CoffeeBar by now and OMG I was BLOWN away by how good they are. 

The idea of having an energy bar that I can grab on the go and eat on the run which provides me with much needed caffeine but is still healthy and doesn't put any preservatives or unnatural products into my body is *heart eyes emoji*. 

The guys who created these *heart eyes emoji* bars launched a Kickstarter this past week and within 15 hours they had their goal of $10,000 to put towards packaging for the bars, BUT if you look at the 'Updates' page (*click here*) you'll see that they are hoping to get quite a bit more funding for some more amazing ventures! Among these ventures are sourcing their coffee ethically, developing more flavors, and then finally developing new products to launch off the New Grounds company platform they've launched. 

So go help them out! Take my word for it, the CoffeeBar is the next big thing. Donate $25 and they'll send you your first box of CoffeeBars in January once the packaging stage of production is complete. 

I'll try not to inundate y'all with this type of shameless promotion constantly, but this one I couldn't pass up. I am sooooo behind these that I'm about ready to declare CoffeeBars a separate food group. 

The one type of shameless promotion I'll probably always inundate you with though is social media! Go follow me on Twitter and Insta with the handle @jessieetrager.

That's it for today folks! Once again, thank you all so incredibly much for your support, and look for a new post concerning my attempts to join the YouTube community and what I stumbled into along the way coming your way soon \m/

Until then, love y'all, bye!

I May or May Not Drink Twenty Cups of Coffee a Day

Hi y'all! 

This is something I've wanted to do for the longest time and never really knew how to approach, but here we are finally (!!!)

I'm excited to announce the official launch of my newest life venture, entitled 'The Jessie Trager Project', which will chronicle my life, happenings at Northeastern and in Boston, things I'm crushing on, and various other stuff that just kinda happens in my brain and spills over onto my blog. I've been working on this for some time now, putting together designs on paper and formatting them in html, as well as planning out a month's worth of blog posts just in case I need something quick on the fly. And here we are!

For those of you who know me, my life has the tendency to be a bit crazy. I'm currently going through an ENTIRE life upheaval which has brought on SO much stress and illness (yes, I did indeed catch a horrible cold AND pink eye thanks to everything going on). 

*a bit of history*

Since high school, I've been set on taking a Pre-Med undergrad track and then going on to medical school to become a surgeon. Over time, I grew out of this set life plan, but seeing as I've never been a fan of change, it took me forever to admit to myself that I truly did not want to follow this path anymore. I've finally spent some time soul searching and have decided it's time for a change. As of right now, I'm still technically a Biology major, but I am planning on switching to Business Administration with concentrations in Marketing and Entrepreneurship. (Disclaimer: this could TOTALLY change in a week. I'm also considering Communications or possibly International Business.)

So here we are! I'm 18, a little bit lost but always willing to wander to find my way, and as always, impatient to see what life has in store.

For those of you who don't know me, here are the top ten things you should know about me.

1. When I say "I'm an avid lover of all things social media", I mean it. I spend so much time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, YouTube... You name it and I've used it. My next venture after this blog is to start my YouTube channel and start vlogging! 
2. I haven't eaten meat in 3 months now! This past summer I made the choice to stop eating meat, mainly for health reasons but also because my lovely friend Jess introduced me to the documentary 'Earthlings' which really opened my eyes to mistreatment of animals across the world. (I've provided the hookup, go watch it, it's mind-blowing.)
3. I attend Northeastern University and am very involved in university affairs. I currently am a part of Husky Ambassadors which is the student organization that works with admissions to coordinate campus tours and staff the Visitor Center. I volunteer there, I work there, I hang out there, sometimes I feel that I live there. Ironically enough I live in the residence hall attached to the visitor center... Coincidence? Nope. This past summer I also worked with Northeastern's New Student Orientation Office as an orientation leader (which I'll go into more in another bullet point).
4. Spotify is life. If you don't know what Spotify is or have never used it, I feel bad for you.
5. My latest obsession has been YouTube (as I mentioned earlier, I'm totes interested in starting my own channel)! I'm currently crushing on Connor Franta, and some of my all time faves are Tyler Oakley, Troye Sivan, Zoella, and as always, the Green Brothers.
6. Through a bunch of these YouTubers, I've learned about some pretty cool things out in the world that I'm totally addicted to right now. Current faves? Warby Parker and NatureBox. Other really cool things out in the world right now? CoffeeBars! As someone who may or may not drink 20 cups of coffee a day (where my Starbucks people at?!) this new product is super duper exciting to me. A few guys at my university came up with a way to eat your coffee that is healthy and absolutely delicious (I have sampled, and can confirm). They're on KickStarter, go check 'em out (I provided the hookup)! I will definitely write a post sometime in the near future about all the cool products and things I'm loving and what they're all about, so look out for that. Plus, I'll always provide the hookups!
7. As I mentioned earlier, this past summer I had the incredible opportunity to stay in Boston and work as an orientation leader for my university. It was such a life-changing experience, I don't even know how to describe it. I made some incredible friends (shout out to my coworkers, they're all lovely human beings) and got to personally welcome about 150 freshmen from Northeastern's 117th entering class to our wonderful campus! I would definitely consider this a defining experience in my life. I count myself very lucky to have been afforded this opportunity, and will probably be including it on my resume even when I'm a gazillion years old.
8. I watch ENTIRELY too much TV, mainly through Netflix, and the list of shows I watch is HUGE. Current faves? The Walking Dead, Parks and Rec, Bob's Burgers, Game of Thrones, and Grey's Anatomy. All-time faves? Doctor Who, Torchwood, Supernatural, Sherlock, LOST, House, Orange Is The New Black, Law and Order: SVU, Breaking Bad, Gossip Girl, and Skins. I have yet to start in on House of Cards, but that's up next... 
9. I have three younger brothers, Will (16), Ben (14), and Sam (9). They're annoying as heck but I love 'em <3 
10. I tend to have strong stances on some issues in the world today. A list of things I feel strongly about: feminism and women's rights, gay rights, animal rights, and the amount of money spent on the US's Dept of Defense (also police brutality).

I'll try to update twice a week, so look out for new blog posts coming to you soon!

Wanna stay connected in the meantime? Look out for me on social media! I posted all the links above (where I talk about how addicted I am; it's a real problem). 

Until next time, love y'all, bye!