Happy Things

I decided that Happy Things are going to become a Wednesday tradition on this blog of mine. Wednesdays are just the hardest days to get through; I am always so stressed and burnt out on Wednesday, and I really need some happy things to get me through these tough days. So, here it goes!

1. A few years ago I signed up for this pen pal program called a Brown Paper Package. I got a penpal from Canada named Christine, and I haven't heard from her since August (mostly because I never wrote back to her last letter!) But I finally responded, and I am sending it out today. I am so excited!

2. I got 11 pages of my research paper done today and yesterday!

3. Tomorrow is Ariel's birthday, and we are going to eat yummy (non dinning hall) food and yummy cake!

4. I ran Monday AND Tuesday, and I did a video workout yesterday. I hope this will help me get back into the swing of things.

5. 

One day (hopefully soon), I will be the proud owner of one of these lovely bikes! And I can ride it to the Farmers Market and to the Library and to the Thrift Store and to the Circle in Rutherford.

6. I only have to worry and stress about school for TWENTY TWO more days, and then I am a free birdie!

Realization

*April 15th is still on my camera*

April 16th- Was a little cranky part of today, but I went for a run for the first time in 3 weeks which was lovely. I feel like my smile is always so much brighter when I come back from a run.

So as I wrote in the caption for that picture, I have not run in 3 weeks, and today I was feeling so slugish and crappy. All I really wanted to do was go back to my room and sleep, but I convinced myself that going for a run, sweating out some of the toxins in my body and getting a nice dose of endorphins would help. I am still incredibly tired, but my run was lovely and I feel so good that I went! I am hoping that this along with my half marathon will help me get back into the swing of things. 

* * *

On a somewhat related note, these are just some thoughts I have been having:

So recently I have been feeling a little lonely; just in general. Lonely about not having a boy to call my own and lonely because of some weird friend situations. And at the same time that this has been happening, Alex has been pledging, which means that Amanda has had a lot of free time. Her and I have gotten a lot closer, and I have really grown to like her. She really is a good friend and I feel like I have been able to open up to her more than anyone else here (which is weird, because for so long I fought having a relationship with her). Anyways, on Saturday, Alex "crossed", which means that he is free again, and him and Amanda are back to their usual routine. At first this made me kinda sad and jealous (because they seriously are so happy together). Well, I suppose I am still a little sad and jealous, but I have flipped these feelings around to make them positive. I know for a fact that part of the reason both Amanda and Alex are so happy is because they both take such good care of themselves; eating right and excercising a lot. Since those things make them naturally happy people, add the fact that they are doing those things together and you get a naturally happy couple. And thats something I really admire. I also really admire how rediculously kind Amanda is to Alex; she is seriously the sweetest girlfriend ever. I only hope that I can be that nice to the next boy I date. But its sort of giving my something to strive for; its inspiring. I see the way they take care of themselves and how that is reflected in their positive energy, and I see the way they treat each other ; both of which inspire me to hopefully one day find that sense of sort if being at peace. 

April 5th -14th

April 5th - Ate dinner at Stuff Yer Face with friends (best stromboli ever!), and then Kitty whipped us up a really delicious beverage with strawberry icecream. Amanda had they boys from downstairs come in our room and sing happy birthday to me. 

April 6th - My birthday was pretty disappointing, but I was happy to be home and with my family. My brother made me a lovely card, and my family took me out to eat. I am really lucky to have such a great family. 

April 7th- I didn't do too much, but I absolutely loved being home and in my room!

April 8th- Easter! We went to this really delicious restaurant  and I got to sit next to my grandma! It was really nice. Then my mom drove me back to school, and I began to think about myself, and a lot of things I need to change. 

April 9th - I though about doing a project where I take a picture of different sections of my face and put it together in a collage, but I changed my mind. 

April 10th - Basically studied for chem all day. Just as I was about to go to sleep I remembered that I neglected to take a picture. Thats the view from my bedroom window at 12am.

April 11th - Took my chem exam, it SUCKED. Started working on my Anthro paper but then Alex from downstairs stopped by. Went to see Stan the Man speak (so inspirtational!) and stayed up till 2am with Faline and Diana doing my Anthro paper. I didn't regret it at all. It was so fun!

April 12th- Went food shopping with Amanda and Ariel, hungout with Friends, then went to Cliff, Mike and Lana's house. Watched a scary movie, Tie Dyed my habitat shirt, ate some food and went to bed at like 3am. It was lovely. 

April 13th - Bought my tickets for THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH! Hung out with Faline Ariel and a friend from there town and then went to Relay for Life. It was so fun! Inspirational speaker, raket ball, walking with friends, music, ms. relay, 1 hour of sleep. Went home at 7am on the 14th. 

April 14th- Got home from Relay for Life at 7am and slept until 3PM! So late for me! Didn't do much until that night when me Amanda and Amanda's friend Sam went to go see spring awakening. It was SO GOOD! After Amanda and I got all purrrtty and went out. We had the funniest bus ride ever, hung out, and then I got sick.

Happy Things

Just some things worth smiling about:

1. I am so excited to go to this festive! 3 days, a hotel, good music and good friends!

2. I am dyyyyying to see this beautiful man live, and now I have a chance!

3. these videos are just so hilarious! I haven't gotten a chance to watch this one, but I will as soon as I get back to my dorm room.

4. Its almoost Thursday, which means my classes are almost over, and I have so many exciting plans for this weekend.

5. I am going to get to see Stan the LX bus driver tonight at 8:30 as long as I finish my Anthropology paper before then. And he is just a lovely man!

I am feeling a little bummed today. I think its just a combination of a lot of things, but its kinda lame: I am super stressed about my chemistry exam tomorrow, I am tired, I feel a little lonely, I miss my family, my grandma is getting chemo today, I really want summer. Yeah, its just like a big ball of lameness is sitting in my belly right now. And yeah, I kinda just really want school to be over already. I have so many exams to prepare for and papers to write and I don't want to do any of it. I just want to read and workout and listen to good music and eat fruits and veggies and drink green tea. Speaking of green tea, I am going to make a cup! Anyways, heres something happy:

For some reason I just find that picture so funny! Anyways, happy Tuesday!

Happy Birthday to Me

So my birthday today started off really lame. It consisted of calling people, struggling to put plans together, 3 hours on a train, not wanting to do anything, and going back to Jersey after heading all the way to Brooklyn. However today I realized the importance and beauty of family; they'll be there no matter what, and thats kinda lovely to know. So even though today was lame, it made me really grateful for my silly little family. And thats kinda an important thing to recognize. 

Another thing that happened today; I realized that I need to make some serious changes in my life. I saw two sets of pictures, ones from me when I was in 4th-5th grade, when I was a serious fatty and ones when I was in 7th grade when I had slimmed down a lot. In 7th grade I was so thin! I have gained some serious chub since then, and its not okay. So I need to change my lifestyle. I always write on here about how I need to eat better and run more, but those are nice ideas in thought; I need to put them into practice! And more than just eat better and run; I need to make a lifestyle change. I need to make a promise to myself. A promise that consists of being all around more active and all around more conscious of what I am eating. Like I always say, moderation is a big thing; just because I want to eat better doesn't mean I can never eat ice cream ever again. It just means I can't get ice cream at the rutgers zone and then have strawberry ice cream daquori's and then have spamoni ice cream the next day; and it means I can't have stromboli two nights in a row! So yeah. Heres to my 19th year, heres to a lifestyle change (starting tomorrow, cause you can't do things like that on your birthday), and heres to the bucketlist I posted lastnight and heres to family!

My Last Day Being 18

Today is my last day as an eighteen year old! I decided in honor of this, I'd make a bucketlist of things I'd like to acomplish when I am 19!

1. Run 3x a week, and keep a log of my runs and milage. 

2. Eat healthier, but also recognize that moderation is lovely.

3. Learn Spanish

4. Master at least 5 songs on piano and guitar

5. Finally get a 6 pack!

6. Kiss a boy (a silly thing to put on a bucketlist, but being boyfriendless, ya never know! But I'd like atleast one kiss, if not many, while I am 19!)

7. Meditate every single day

8. Read every single book on my list of books I currently want to read (Fight Club, Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, Catcher in the Rye, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Faline's Article, A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Book Thief , Finish Harry Potter, Sand and Fog, Peter Pan, American Gods, Neverwhere , Coraline, Pride and Prejudice , The Lemon Tree, Never Let Me Go, Slumdog Millionaire, A Clockwork Orange, Everything is Illuminated)

9. Get another tattoo

10. Run a triathalon

11. Volunteer for a soup kitchen or at a hospital

12. Go camping

13. Do something really outrageous 

This is all I can think of for not; I am in a bit of a rush. But I am pretty happy with the list so far. I want to add a few outrageous things to this list too though!

April 1st - 4th

The First of My April Project (Not the best quality photos; all were taken quite last minute)

April 1st - Spent most of the day fussing with my hair, and thinking about how desperately I needed to do homework. I however wound up getting absolutely nothing done.

 April 2nd - Had a kinda crappy day but then found out from Ariel that the Burried Life was coming to our school. We went to the presentation, and it was lovely to say the least! 

April 3rd- Spent almost the whole day worried about timing and studying for my Intro to Comp Apps exam.

April 4th - Skipped my Chem of Life class to hangout with Ariel and Kitty. We wandered around Cook Douglass, enjoying the lovely weather, sitting in large empty fields and playing in sand. It made me feel young and happy.

The Good Life

So I decided to clean the bullshit out of my life (this is a work in progress obviously, being that I litterally decided it 5 minutes ago after watching Hes Just Not That Into You). I deleted my tumblr (why do I need to waste hours online looking at pretty things when I could be creating pretty things or reading pretty things or eating pretty things or doing pretty things, and also, why should I have to maintain two blogs? Its a bit much!) and then I texted Fernando asking if he really wanted to be friends, because I hate thinking that I can depend on him when I really cant. It feels good to make these small but important moves. Tomorrow I am going to call a bunch of schools and ask about my options for transferring being that its already April. I have an appointment on Wednesday to fix my haircut that I am not happy with. See, thats the thing. When there are things in our lives that we are unhappy with, we have the power to change them; we just choose not to! Its so obsurd. And then we sit around and complain, "I hate that I spend so much time on tumblr" or "gosh, this haircut really looks awful" or "I hate that Fernando is such a shitty friend", but what we (or at least I) fail to neglect is that all of these things are things that we (or I) have control of. The weather, I don't have control of. But I have control of how I spend my time and who I chose to hold close to my heart. And so I am deciding to use that control to my advantage.

Also, on another note, I decided to give myself three challenges for the month of April:
1) Take a picture every day
2) No sweets (but this one is tricky! I ate pancakes today, and I felt like I was cheating by putting syrup on my pancakes, so in this scenario, sweets are defined as dessert; candy, cake, pie etc)
3) Run every day this month (this one might be tough because I have not run today and its already 7 pm. Hopefully the rain stops, or maybe I will change this one to just work out every day

So yeah, another thing I want to try and do is disconnect a little bit more. Like less time on the computer, less time texting etc. Maybe I'll delete peoples numbers from my phone and keep them in a phone book like that I can't simply text people when I am bored. I don't know yet. But I have been feeling kinda crappy the past few days, and I am feeling pretty good about all of this, so I am excited. I think my problem is whenever I try to relax, I always feel guilty because there are other things I need to do. I need to allot myself a few hours a week to have guilt free time to do whatever the heck I want. Maybe less tumblr time will make that possible?

And one last thing, I think I am ready to start talking to other boys. I mean, there are still a few things I need to work on (like my hair! ha ha), but as a whole I think it'd be fun to talk to boys and flirt and remember why boys are so lovely. So yeah, we'll see what happens with that.