From College to the Real World

So I'm actually only going to be a junior in college this coming fall, but it honestly feels like I'm going to get hit in the face by the so-called "real world" really soon.

Also, I'm just becoming a big fan of the Thought Catalog and all their good blurbs about anything and everything.

So, I'll just leave this here for myself and for anybody else who cares.

20 Things That Will Happen When You Leave College And Meet With The Real World

By Gráinne Houston via Thought Catalog

1. Leaving your college dorm will not be the movie moment you expected.

There will be no sepia toned edges as you stare around your empty room and remember everything that has happened to you over the past three years. In reality you will be too busy packing boxes and cleaning stains off the walls to really grasp the weight of the change that is about to take place

2. The reality that the best three years of your life are now over

…will not hit you until some random Tuesday three weeks after you’ve left and you’re walking past a shop and hear a song that you and your friends danced to one night when you were hammered on tequila in some sleazy club.
This once harmless memory will now have you fighting back tears as you blindly stumble through crowds trying to find a safe place to fall apart.

3. Returning to your parents house,

…no matter how temporary, will now feel like a once favourite sweater which has inexplicably shrunk and been ripped in odd places and now irritates your skin.

4. You will spend nights going through your contacts looking for some old friends to hang out with,

…and no one will be available because whilst you were off getting a degree they were moving on with their lives and the sad truth is that everyone moves on and moves apart.

5. Your family will fail to realise that in your time at college you managed to be a fully functioning human being

…who was capable of living their own life and making their own decisions, no matter how you try to show them this, they will persist in treating you like a 16-year old once again.

6. You will be devastated by the realisation that lying in bed eating cheetos and watching Gilmore Girls is not an acceptable way to spend your day.

7. Despite your ardent determination to not settle for any job that isn’t related to your degree in some way,

…you will inevitably end up waiting tables in a local restaurant after you realise getting a job in your degree field is akin to catching a leprechaun.

8. You will be baffled by the fact that most people only go out once a week, and instead prefer to sit in at night and watch Newsnight.

Where the hell did all the two-for-one shot offers go? And why is no one up for “Just one drink”?

9. You will gain five pounds due to comfort eating because it’s the only way you can deal with all these crazy changes.

You will then lose three pounds after setting yourself a crazy ambitious exercise regime to fill all your free time not spent studying (read: partying).

10. You will quickly lose touch with those people from college that you swore blind one drunken night that you would keep in touch with.

It’s not that you don’t have the time to contact them; it’s just that you don’t know what to say to them now that the common ground you shared is no longer there.

11. When people ask you what you do,

…your safety net will soon become, “Well I’m in between jobs right now because I’ve just finished my degree.”

12. You will also quickly learn that people in the working world don’t really care what you studied or where you went to college,

…what they hear when you talk about tough exams is that you were getting drunk on watered down vodka and living off baked beans for the last three years whilst they have been holding down a full time job and trying to cope with their mortgage payments.

13. Your priorities will change.

You will sacrifice a night out to be able to afford the train fare to that promising job interview. An apartment in the right area will take precedence over an apartment with a table big enough for beer pong.

14. You will make different friends, ones who have real life worries instead of “OMG, Donna kissed Gerry last night and Tina totally lost it!”

And you will find yourself grateful for this.

15. You will invest in business suits and pencil skirts

…and you will feel majorly out of your comfort zone wearing them, until one day you wake up and put on your office clothes, catch yourself in the mirror and think: “Hey, I look good!”

16. Now that you no longer carry the status of student,

…which seemed oh so cool at the time, you will find people treat you with more respect.

17. Eventually, after three months of viewing the kind of apartments that belong in a horror movie, you will find the perfect place for you.

Moving into your own place will give you back the freedom you lost when you left college and you will spend your first night in your new place just wandering around touching thing thinking ‘This is mine now.’

18. Having your own place again

…means days spent in your underwear watching a Mad Men marathon is now achievable, but somehow you will never quite find the time to do this, you will be too busy doing productive things like meeting new friends for coffee or redecorating your bedroom.

19. Your parents stop dropping around food parcels and commenting that you need to find a better job,

…instead you actually overhear them describing you to one of their colleagues with a definite hint of pride in their voice.

20. One day, whilst filling out your tax returns or watering your herb garden

…or some other twenty-something activity, you will hear the same bad pop song that you and your friends danced to whilst hammered on tequila in a sleazy club way back when, and you will smile at the memory, and realise how much you’ve changed for the better

favorite combinations: crop tops & maxis for summer

Okay, so we're all not a fan of this heat. But, that doesn't stop anyone from dressing well right?
So I figured, why not share one of my favorite combinations this summer?!

the good ol' crop top paired with our favorite maxis give us lovely gals the opportunity to show off just enough skin and be comfortable at the same time. I know some of you are probably wondering why in the world you would ever wear a maxi skirt in this heat. To be quite honest, they're just really comfortable and most maxi skirt options are summer friendly (e.g. shear/semi shear maxis, jersey material maxi skirts, and so on.)

Here are a few looks!
p.s. if you think it's a little too risque to show your midriff, there are crop tops that are long enough to be tucked into your maxi skirt (also, high-waisted maxis can be styled so your midriff is hidden)

25 Things to Do Before You Turn 25

I turned 21 about two months ago, and from then on I feel like the aging process have just gone extremely fast for me. I seriously feel like I'm always running out of time.

 

So I guess before I make that bucket list, here are 25 things I can do before I turn 25
via Thoughts Catalog 

1. Make peace with your parents. Whether you finally recognize that they actually have your best interests in mind or you forgive them for being flawed human beings, you can’t happily enter adulthood with that familial brand of resentment.

2. Kiss someone you think is out of your league; kiss models and med students and entrepreneurs with part-time lives in Dubai and don’t worry about if they’re going to call you afterward.

3. Minimize your passivity.

4. Work a service job to gain some understanding of how tipping works, how to keep your cool around assholes, how a few kind words can change someone’s day.

5. Recognize freedom as a 5:30 a.m. trip to the diner with a bunch of strangers you’ve just met.

6. Try not to beat yourself up over having obtained a ‘useless’ Bachelor’s Degree. Debt is hell, and things didn’t pan out quite like you expected, but you did get to go to college, and having a degree isn’t the worst thing in the world to have. We will figure this mess out, I think, probably; the point is you’re not worth less just because there hasn’t been an immediate pay off for going to school. Be patient, work with what you have, and remember that a lot of us are in this together.

7. If you’re employed in any capacity, open a savings account. You never know when you might be unemployed or in desperate need of getting away for a few days. Even $10 a week is $520 more a year than you would’ve had otherwise.

8. Make a habit of going outside, enjoying the light, relearning your friends, forgetting the internet.

9. Go on a 4-day, brunch-fueled bender.

10. Start a relationship with your crush by telling them that you want them. Directly. Like, look them in the face and say it to them. Say, I want you. I want to be with you.

11. Learn to say ‘no’ — to yourself. Don’t keep wearing high heels if you hate them; don’t keep smoking if you’re disgusted by the way you smell the morning after; stop wasting entire days on your couch if you’re going to complain about missing the sun.

12. Take time to revisit the places that made you who you are: the apartment you grew up in, your middle school, your hometown. These places may or may not be here forever; you definitely won’t be.

13. Find a hobby that makes being alone feel lovely and empowering and like something to look
forward to.

14. Think you know yourself until you meet someone better than you.

15. Forget who you are, what your priorities are, and how a person should be.

16. Identify your fears and instead of letting them dictate your every move, find and talk to people who have overcome them. Don’t settle for experiencing .000002% of what the world has to offer because you’re afraid of getting on a plane.

17. Make a habit of cleaning up and letting go. Just because it fit at one point doesn’t mean you need to keep it forever — whether ‘it’ is your favorite pair of pants or your ex.

18. Stop hating yourself.

19. Go out and watch that movie, read that book, listen to that band you already lied about watching, reading, listening to.

20. Take advantage of health insurance while you have it.

21. Make a habit of telling people how you feel, whether it means writing a gushing fan-girl email to someone whose work you love or telling your boss why you deserve a raise.

22. Date someone who says, “I love you” first.

23. Leave the country under the premise of “finding yourself.” This will be unsuccessful. Places do not change people. Instead, do a lot of solo drinking, read a lot of books, have sex in dirty hostels, and come home when you start to miss it.

24. Suck it up and buy a Macbook Pro.

25. Quit that job that’s making you miserable, end the relationship that makes you act like a lunatic, lose the friend whose sole purpose in life is making you feel like you’re perpetually on the verge of vomiting. You’re young, you’re resilient, there are other jobs and relationships and friends if you’re patient and open.

the internship game

As you may or may not know, right when I finished my sophomore year of college, I set out on the hunt for an internship. Not too long ago I interviewed for a non profit organization for their internship program and was finally offered the internship about a week ago. So, I just wanted to talk a little bit about this whole internship game. (okay, maybe i'll talk about it a lot)

Why search for an interview you ask? Well, to be quite honest I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. BUT, after talking to some people and doing a hefty amount of research I knew why I wanted and needed an internship. It's all about learning and experience but in addition to that, it will also help me land the right job after I graduate.

For the past few years, and well into my first two years of college I've only held a meager part-time retail job. My job, by all means, gave me a lot of experience (and continues to do so) but the real question is, "is it the right kind of experience, and is it enough?"

playlist no. 6

Okay, this playlist is going to be a little dubstep heavy. This isn't crazy party dubstep, but more of a laid back set of dubstep tracks and remixes. Although, you might see a few other genres here and there...

So, enjoy!
click HERE to listen to the playlist on 8tracks

wildflowers (exhale efreet) || made in heights

seeing stars (vexare remix) || first state ft. sarah howells

aurora (dubstep) || urban contact

while the city dreams || ficci

clarity || zedd

radioactive (synchronice remix) || imagine dragons

get lucky || daft punk ft. pharrell williams

rez (bassnectar remix) || underworld

earthquake || little boots

crave you (adventure club remix) || flight facilities

cracks (flux pavilion remix) || freestylers

in the dark || dev

i know the truth || pretty lights

sail || awolnation

what you know (feed me cover) || two door cinema

my daily makeup essentials

I'm not really big on using a lot of makeup on myself, but I am a bit of a makeup junkie. I love trying out beauty products every so often that I do end up having a lot of makeup products laying around in my room.
However, with that said, I do have a few established staple products that I've been using daily for quite a while now. I'm also going to include the tools/brushes that I've been using as well.

playlist no. 5

I try to make it a tradition to go on a road trip every summer with my family. So, this summer we decided to drive up to Canada to do some sight seeing and to visit relatives/family friends along the way.

The drive was about 8 hours long, so here are just some songs I was cruisin' to :)

yay for road trip playlists!

click HERE to listen to the playlist on 8tracks

bubblegum bitch || marina and the diamonds

cake boy || hoodie allen

summertime sadness || lana del rey

she is love || parachute

still into you || paramore

my songs know what you did in the dark (light 'em up) || fall out boy

same love || macklemore

we can't stop || miley cyrus

i love it || icona pop

anything could happen || ellie goulding

up in the air || 30 seconds to mars

animal || the cab

natalie || bruno mars

walking on a dream || empire of the sun

pompeii || bastille

let her go || passenger

give me love || ed sheeran

skinny love || birdy (cover)

anna sun || walk the moon

something good can work || two door cinema club