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!