Life As I Know It

Coming into 2011, I never would have guessed what the year would bring. I think that out of all the years I have been living, this year has brought out the most change. I would have never thought that I would experience a greater change than moving from New Jersey to North Carolina, but I have been truly proven wrong. I am nineteen years old now and a sophomore in college and I guess I slowly realized that this is the time of huge transition into adulthood. I can’t just get by sitting around because everyone else around me would just be moving ahead. I realized that my future is coming at me quickly and I have to do whatever I can to prepare for it.

I think a major part of preparation is taking on responsibilities that I have never had to face un previous years; responsibilities that would take me out of my comfort zone and would really push me to break down personal barriers in order to grow. I decided that my parents have been supporting me throughout my whole life and it was time for me to step in. I got my very first job at an amusement park in Ohio. Living and working in Ohio was one of the strangest experiences of my life, but I took so much away from it. Just by having to answer to bitchy ass bosses and literally getting on my hands and knees sometimes for thirteen hours straight only to be paid seven something an hour really teaches you how to handle yourself. Sometimes there would be weeks where I wouldn’t have a day off so I would not have time to take the bus to the grocery store which was a frickin’ whole day affair cause of that really well planned out bus schedule (not). I went through so much in the summer of 2011 and I appreciate every second of it. I learned that I’m not a quitter. Yeah bitchy boss lady was hard to deal with at first but after a while, she had grown to like me in the end. I was only there to make a few bucks over the summer  to buy extra things but half of the other people there were my age and putting themselves through college. I could not even imagine that kind of responsibility. It really made me appreciate the situation I am in and I think that is what made me want to work so hard while I was there. That’s another thing I noticed about myself. I kind of enjoy working. Staying there and getting my first paycheck and buying groceries for myself; it made me feel the most self sufficient I have ever been in my life. And it felt good. Looking at my paycheck and seeing that I earned this money gave me more joy than any hundred dollar gift given to me at Christmas. Another thing I learned is that taxed frickin’ suck. Sheesh. All in all, I just loved the fact that I didn’t have to ask money from my parents if I wanted to go to the movies or books for school, or even just clothes. It felt good.

Another step that I wanted to take to grow up was to get my license. I am an ass driver and getting my license has been a goal of mine since high school and I knew that the summer of 2011 was the best time to do it. After so many failed attempts, I finally got my license and am now legal to drive alone in North Carolina! Yay! I think this part of my life was really eye awakening and it was really the time when I finally saw what hard work could bring. One of the most amazing times of the summer was probably when I took the car, drove to the grocery store, bought some ingredients, and made dinner for my family. Yeah I know as an eighteen year old this should have been accomplished year ago, but give me a break. It felt good as hell knowing that I drove to the store and bought these ingredients with my hard earned cash! 

A huge step I took this year would by far be pledging for Alpha Kappa Psi business fraternity. This semester was THE most stressful time of my life. I have never in my nineteen years of living had so much expected out of me and so much responsibility and so little mercy. Pledging really brings out your true character. Through pledging I saw what I could handle and what I could not. It was a true challenge and getting through it only made me a stronger person. Pledging definitely did change me as a person. I have never been more out of my comfort zone than I was while pledging. Just having to talk and communicate with so many different people, really having to put yourself out there in big crowds, and having to trust people to hold their own weight so that we could get through this process together was crazy. I have become a more confident person for sure. I definitely feel like I could talk to anyone I want to without hesitation because I had to do it so much in this process. It made me a more outgoing person. I do no mind public speaking anymore. Of coarse I still get nervous but I just kind of take it as a chance to prove to myself that I can do it. I kind of enjoy public speaking now. This idea is crazy to me because all my life I have always been so shy to show other people my personality or to speak in from of crowds but I’m definitely taking huge strides away from that. The hugest thing that  took away form this was the friends I made in this fraternity. I would not have been able to survive emotionally without the people in my pledge class holding my hand throughout the way (literally). It’s just amazing to have those people in your life. 

With all this in mind, I saw that I needed change in myself to become a more independent, driven, outgoing person and I worked on all of that. But I think that the most important initiative I took this year was for my health. I have been a big girl my whole life and have tried for years to change that, but it is such a difficult task to complete. With the influence of great friends, I was able to work on this as well. I calculated it all up and looked back at past food journals to determine that I have lost almost thirty pounds within the year of 2011. I am the fittest I have ever been and I feel awesome. I never thought that I would say this but I had even grown to like exercising. I knew I had to finally do something about my weight so a friend and I joined our school’s weight loss program and although the program didn’t really help, it really kick started everything. I went to the gym every day. I listed everything I ate. I was getting thinner and it felt good. Although I didn’t notice it myself, it’s nice to heard from people that you’ve lost weight. A great feeling was the first time I went to try on pants after not shopping for a while and seeing that they had pants that I really wanted, but only had them a size smaller than I usually get and having them fit me. It was great. I did gain five pounds while at home but that’s another story. haha

So 2011 was an awesome year for me. I definitely did change and learned lessons that I will take away for the rest of my life. But there is still so much I have to learn and hope to improve on this coming year. Hello 2012! I decided to create a list of things I hope to accomplish this year and I wanna be able to look at this next year to see how I did. LEGGO!

1) Not be an ass driver. I want to be able to drive around comfortably in any weather situation and be like one of those Asian drivers in Fast and the Furious. I don’t want to depend on other people for rides anymore. If I need something, I want to be able to go out and get it myself. This leads to number two.

2) Get a frickin steady job. I need a job real bad. It’s only half of the semester and all the money I have earned in the summer has gone out the door. I need a job during the school year so I have a constant in flow. I do not have any major payments I am making right now so I really only need money to get myself by without having to ask money from my parents. I kinda also want to work my way to to somehow having a job in retail. Maybe start working at the job I have lined up for me at school since it’s on campus and work there for the semester. With this experience, I want to then apply for a simple retail job at a clothing store maybe and then work my way up to selling phones or something. Any kind of retail job that would help with my marketing major would be awesome. If I could get an internship sometime during my junior year with this work experience, that would be awesome as well. It’s kinda killing two birds with one stone idea. I wanna make money to support myself, but at the same time, I want to gain experience in my potential field of study to build up my resume cause it sucks right now.

3) These first two things has kinda led up to this one. I want to be more independent. I am turning twenty this July and I feel as though I still can’t stand on my own two feet. I want to be able to semi support myself and be more of an adult. Hopefully driving myself around and getting a steady job will help me to being more grown up. This idea is really important to me. I think me being so reliant of my parents is such a weakness of mine. I wanna be able to do something for them for once. And I’m twenty years old! I don’t wanna be leeching off of my parents forever! I think gaining independence will let me have more say in my life because I can do what I wanna do without relying on anyone else.

4) Get healthy. I have struggled with weight all my life. This year I have proven to myself that I have got what it takes to rid myself of this huge burden that I have been carrying these nineteen years of living. I want to continue this. This is a big stretch, but by this time next year. I want to be at a healthy weight for my height, my goal weight. Losing these pounds would literally take so much weight off my shoulders. Being big just creates a whole world of problems for any girl with just self confidence and seriously everything. I hold off on so many things because of my weight and I don’t want to do that anymore. The only thing I want to be standing between me and my goals are matters that are uncontrollable in my hands, which my weight is definitely not. Losing this weight and being healthy will help me to gain the confidence I need to put myself out there more. Improving my self confidence would seriously open so many doors for me. 

5) Get a new hobby. I have been wanting to get into photography for literally years now but do not have the equipment to start it up. I think getting a job would help me in this cause good cameras are not cheap. But I have always been a creative person but have lately not been having any outlets for my creativity which I definitely need to practice before going into my career in marketing. I used to be so artsy fartsy as a child and would create great things with what I had. I want to be able to do this again. Pictures tell so much about a moment and I want to be able to capture those great moments in an artsy way. I want to be a more artistic person and create something out of nothing. I also want to improve my fashion. I never was a bummy dresser but I feel like I stick to the basics way to much. I want to try new things and get creative with my clothes. I think losing the weight I want will help me in this as well cause I would have more options. I want to gain a cool skill as well. Like a random skill that kinda has it benefits; maybe like cutting hair or doing nails or making movies/music videos or being really good at ping pong. I don’t know. Something recreational.

6) Make a new friend. I want to meet someone new that I completely met on my own and develop a great relationship with that person. I want to be able to do random stuff with this person and totally confide in them. Maybe finally get choself a damn boyfraaaan! Sheesh.

7) Be more social. I think I shy away from people I am intimidated by whether it be by their looks or accomplishments or talents. Whatever. I have made huge strides in this this year but I want to really be my outgoing self in front of whomever I want. 

8) Get closer to my siblings. My siblings are so important to me but i feel like I rarely take the time to reach out tot hem and let them know that. I want them to be more than siblings but close friends. I want them to be the first person I think of to call when something great happens to me or just to tell about my obnoxiously average day.

9) Have a life changing experience. I am going on a mission trip to El Salvador and I know it’s going to change my life. I hope this experience leads to others that will ultimately let me learn more about the world. And hopefully this experience will lead me to find out what the hell I want to do with my life. By this time next year I seriously need to know what I want as my future career.

10) Gain more confidence in myself. I definitely need to work on myself. I think that sometimes I work so hard to be a good person and just shove it in other peoples faces to the point where it’s just obnoxious to me. I have many flaws and I want to be able to accept them and work to change them. This and working on my health will definitely help with gaining confidence. I already spoke about this a little, but I think that main reason I left this for last is because it’s the most important. I not only wanna gain confidence in myself as a person, but I want to gain confidence in my passion for music. It has been my dream for so long to be able to perform in front of an audience but my lack of confidence in my musical capabilities has held me back so much. I want  to be able to get to the point where I can be able to express my passion to other people through music and actually use what I was given. I want to really work this year to improve on my guitar playing and possibly get into the realm of song writing because writing has always been a passion of mine so why not bring those two worlds together. Being able to reach out to peoples emotions through song is such a beautiful thing and would be amazing if I could do that. I think out of all the others, this will be the hardest because I am my own worst critic when it comes to my music. But I love doing it. As john Legend says ” so what if they watch while we do what we do?” I think he was referring to something else but who cares?

11) Find something I am passionate about. I feel like I am a very carefree person when it comes to things that don’t affect me personally such as politics or pop culture or anything like that. Passion is such an awesome thing and passionate people do awesome things. A person with passion is so great to see because you know that that person has their cause to live for or defend. Even if it be something small like being passionate about Star Wars. I think that is so cool cause you have found something that interests you, you studied up on it and know a bunch of information about just for fun, and you are able to liberally speak about it to other people. That is just awesome. I noticed that I don’t really pay attention to these extra parts of life because I’m so focused on the future that I sometimes forget about the present. I want to find my unique thing that interests me and be able to educate someone else about it as a form of “sharing my love”. Passionate people inspire causes for change or improvement or maybe just spark interest and I think that is so cool. You go, passion people of the world!

12) Have fun and be happy! I forget to just let loose sometimes and am always comparing my life to others. Doing this will never make me happy because other peoples lives always look better from looking at it from the outside. This year I want to focus on improving my life and the lives of the people I care about and just being happy. I might be getting older but I’m still at the age where I can make stupid mistakes so I want to take that opportunity and do things kids my age do. Let’s not get crazy now, but you know, I wanna have a good ass time in 2012!

I know this year is going to be a huge year of transition as I spend my last year as a teenager and work my way into my adulthood. I have learned so much and hope to gain even more this coming year. I want to be able to look at this in 2013 and be proud of how much I have accomplished. I can feel that this is going to be a kick ass year for so many reasons and it’s going to be a blast. 2012, be good to me, baby!

P.S. this is semi embarrassing so hopefully no one actually read this. tehe! =D