The Lazy ship has set sail

Here is the thing, I have been so busy and it has been so hot that when I do have a moment that I am not working or babysitting, I just want to sleep. So I have slacked off seriously in my digital life. However my life is sorta changing a lot. My boyfriend of almost two years has an opportunity in DC so in a week we will start the long distance train all over again. He is going to do amazing over there and it really is the best thing for him. But it's gonna be a long four months.

I have three automatic ways to deal with stress.
1. Eating I have no money for new clothes or the plethora of food needed so that's gotta be out. Which leads me to...
2. drinking....well as my friends from Ireland will tell you sad mallory+alcohol =crying Mallory= worse situation then before. Plus no money.
3. Shopping. This is my personal fave, but as noted in #1&2 no money :(

Sooooooo what does this lead to? DIY projects!!!!! My house (and by house I mean apartment (and by apartment I mean room)) will be the cutest ever. I have so many ideas already, so this week I will be doing nothing more than some slight pouting and trying to spend as much time as possible with my boy, then it will be the start of many crafts for me. So if you are looking for some good home improvement ideas stick around and I'll give you some good ideas......hopefully.

I am a mountain.

Ha I wish. There are so many things I wish i was good at. One thing even. That at the end of the day I am this. I am not though. I have strengths, everyone does, I have things that I can pick up easily but i am in no way good. Marilyn Monroe has been somewhat of an inspiration for me lately. I have tried so hard to pretend that things don't bug me. That I am completely happy where I am and with who I am. That my goals are close and attainable, That i have no feelings of inadequacy.

It is hard. I have things that bug me. In securities that creep out. I could blame the tormentors of my past. But i have to acknowledge that it is I who give those claims weight. I am the one who lets it get to me. I still have wants. Needs. desires. requirements.

Truth be told, I will settle for less than i actually want unless i really push my self to not do that. It is hard.

I don't want to be this way. But who really does?

Life is what you make it, Sure, but there is only so much that you can do at a time. I can try but i am who i am. I have things that i need and want and it doesn't matter if i constantly repress these desires, I always want them. I have the normal desires; to be loved, to be successful, to thrive, to be wealthy. But there are other things that i want that sometimes i am embarrassed to say.

It is scary and hard to admit that your life is not where you want it. But admitting it, if only to your self is the first step in changing it i suppose.

I am a real person?

My Brother is graduated from High school. 

Yikes. 

I remember when I graduated from High School. It was not that long ago. I wanted to be anything and everything. I had like 5 potential jobs for my life. They were all grand, let me tell ya.

I was going to be a writer, own a book shop, a historian and part time archaeologist, I was going to see the world, probably join the peace corps and definitely win the Nobel Peace prize...or a tony.......

I had great dreams and was so free. I wanted to do everything that I could and wasn't about to let anything get in my way. 

When I look back on these 4 years since high school. I have accomplished a few of my goals, I got to see Europe, (though all that trip did was make the list of places to see grow even longer), and I have continued to write (the book has never been finished, but i do practice on the internet every now and then)...

And my list has definitely changed and matured, I mean I want to find a good job, I get to move out and have my own place, and I moved to California. I have grown up a lot in the past four years. A lot in two years and then a lot more in the next two years. 

I hope that in the next 4 years of my life, I will continue to grow but also not forget the dreams that I had when I was younger.

Being on this side of graduation I want to stress to all the younger people in college or heading there; don't waste time. Do exactly the things that you want to do. Don't worry about what people will think or if you will like it, or if you are nervous. The worst that can happen is that you fail at it. But at least you tried there are times that i look back at school and think what if? I am happy with where my life is, but there are other choices that i could have made in college that i wish i had, because when i look back i realize what i was afraid of really isnt a big deal.

So congrats all you high school grads. You are about to head out on the great adventure towards adulthood. =)

Ode to Google.

I have recently re-established my love for stand up comedy, and have started playing it on my Pandora Channel. (Thank God for Pandora right?) It is great. I get to listen to funny segments from the greatest comedians, Jerry Seinfeld, to the not so great, Frank...that guy who had a comedy central tv show for about a minute. I love it. If i was funnier i would be a standup comedian. It would literally be the best job ever, but because thats who my life works, i was born a girl and well, 99% of female comedians arent funny. 

But something that one person said really struck me. He said we are in the age of google. If you arent getting perfect grades in school you are either retarded or you are lazy. You can type in something from your bed and get hundreds of thousands of pages on it. You can lay in bed and type a few words in and have enough information to write a complete encyclopedia on it. 

Not too long ago you had to go to a library, go through all the cards in the dewey decimal system and then search the library to find one of the seven or eight books you were looking for. talk about terrible! I would have probably failed school because when i research something. I will spend at most an hour locating and gleaning information from these places. Thats it. One (1) hour. If i have to spend more than that, i am many things: angry, disgruntled and i stop caring. I will then proceed to stop caring for the rest of the semester. 

Thank God for google.

The worst part of this whole thing is that we are still stupid!!! We have the world of information at our finger tips, literally less than a minute away and still we cannot seem to educate people enough for real conversations. I am so disappointed in society. 

Well time for me to sign off. Dont want to miss "Only in America" with Larry the Cable Guy.....

;)

The Five Craziest People I Wish I Could Hang Out With.

There are so many crazy celebrities that I wish I could hang out with for just one day. I decided that I could totally be in an entourage. How awesome would just hanging out with celebs all day, being friends with them and getting sweet hook ups and helping them get crazy deals and gigs. So in the spirit of Entourage.....Here are the 5 people whose Entourage I would totally want to be in.

5. Katy Perry

Hanging out with Snoop Doggy Dog and layin on the beach of California would make her awesome to hang out with. She seems really down to earth but also ready to party. This Santa Barbara babe started off at the city college. Which is right by me! She can jet across the USA and act like an alien...which seems an awful lot like......


4.Lady Gaga

She once said that her cast members weren't allowed to have sex while on tour so that they would be able to make love to her onstage. Me and my Best Friend For Life (Conviently called BFFL) saw her in Dublin and have been somewhat intoxicated with her. She is the leader of the monsters and frankly she is an odd goose, or monster...but hanging with her would be wild and fun. I feel like she would be the one person who would just decide that the group was going somewhere to find the Monster Ball.....I would be so down.

3. Demetri Martin

If you have not heard his standup, then you need to stop reading this and go listen. He is the funniest person I have ever heard. He is a great singer and just overall amazing. He does standup on Comedy Central and is all around awesome. Going out for drinks with him would be like going to see a stand up....oh wait. No seriously I feel like you would just be laughing constantly and you wouldnt be able to be sad at all. The best part about him is that being in his entourage would allow you to hang out with him all the time and he isnt super popular so he wouldnt be constantly bombarded. perfection.

2. Will Ferrell

This man; If Will Ferrell was 20 years younger, I would marry him. No wait ten years younger, no wait, lets be honest. If you know Will and want to hook me up. Please do it. I love this man. Every movie he is in, I am so down. I basically peed my pants when I saw he was coming on the office. Talk about two perfect things colliding (is that a saying?). Will would be awesome because all his friends get to be in movies with him. Will Ferrell and John C Reilly have done a ton of movies together. Same with him and Steve Carell, David Koechner, and Vince Vaughn. They are all in each other's movies comedy endeavors and just in general they are awesome. I would love to hang out with them for a day.

1. Andy, Jorma, and Akiva from the Lonely Island

Ever since J in my P, I was in love and obsessed. I have seen all their videos, their shorts, and their songs. On a Boat was classic, (thank you SNL) but the really great thing about them is that they have Hot Rod, Which is hilarious. They have Awesome Town (Which I would love to move to) and there are two guys who are always having a good time and also happen to love sports. These three boys are comedy at its finest. BoomBox, On a Boat, Just had Sex, Jizz in my Pants. That is them. I would love to hang around that comedic genius all day. 

I wish I could budget like this.

I was reading the news, because I like to be well informed and hate doing homework. But I stumbled upon this. (Thats a hyperlink you can click it. I am proud that i figured out how to do this. Hey future employer call me and hire me! Look at how good i am at the internet!) Anyhoo, as I was reading I stumbled across this little story.

On the surface it seems good, then you think about it and it is bad then it gets better then worse. Let me take you through my thought process while reading it. For those of you too lazy to click the button, here is the title and my thoughts will be italicized.
 "US to give Libyan rebels $25 million in aid"
Ohhhhhh thats nice of us. We need to help out and rid the world of dictators and make the world as free as america.........wait $25 million.......thats a lot.

It goes on to read that we will be donating items that are needed for the Libyan people that we already have in stock. While this is great and we should be looking to help our neighbors, there should be other ways that we can do this. The government was just on the verge of a shut down and only agreed on a budget to take us through to the fall, but then we will be facing the same sort of issuses again. To me, it doesnt seem like donating $25 million is the best thing for the government. Does our government not realize that they dont get tax write-offs? that they are still going to be in debt when the new financial year comes and that they wont be recieving any money back? Hiliary Clinton was one of the people who advised Obama to sign on this, and i am going to keep bi-partisianship out of this, because helping out those who need it is a noble cause. But what if we are close to being one who needs help.

France, Italy and The United Kingdom all pledged soldiers to help in the "battlefield stalemate"

This is a scary world that we are living in. America has been a superpower for so long that now we feel like we are invincible. However, we are not the prosperous country that we used to be. Our money has flown away and we are on the verge of bankruptcy and owe more money than we are worth. Can we really afford to help Lybia financially? Is this another example of us spending money that we dont have? or is this America taking the stand for what is right?

It is tough to deny help, we have always been support for the weak, we have always helped those in need and surly with our own wars to fight we cannot spare many men to go over and help in the fighting like our European brothers are doing, but is exhausting an already exhausted account the way to do it?

well, awesome

So I just checked my email. Its been a weekend of craziness and fun, and no homework. As my free monday rolls around i decide to check my email. I have a research paper peer review due. Fan-freakin-tastic. I am sure that all my readers (my mother included) that if i was to tell you how long i had had this assignment (since February) and the amount that i have done (a very very rough outline) you would be disappointed. Hell, I'm dissappointed in me. Now i could just start writing it right now. But Hulu and Blogger are so much more interesting. so Here is my semi public vow to start after my meeting, errands, dinner and hanging out. Then i will get right on to that paper so that i can have SOMETHING to turn in and get some sort of a grade on.

hahaha we will see how well that goes.

motivation

Well, It has been a long time since i have written anything. My life has been crazy! I have been working on this internship, my classes, my two other jobs then, of course, managing a very healthy social life. It is exhausting, but someone has to do it. Today though, I end a mini journey that has been nothing less than an adventure. I have meet a few famous people, learned a lot about script writing and how the whole process works, I have learned how to fake working while spending 99% of my time on facebook, collegehumor, youtube, cracked.com, and obviously stumbling. haha

It was so hard to sit for 8 hours a day and just read a script then write coverage on it. It was hard for me not because I dont like reading, or because I don't enjoy writing (im a half hearted blogger, i obviously enjoy it). I just cant sit and do the same thing for 8 hours with no real break and not even be getting paid for it. Sure i get school credit, but anyone who knows my school ethics will know that credit doesnt really mean much to me as far as motivation goes.

So as i sit and waste the last 3 hours and 30 minutes (thank you God) of this Journey, i hope to reminisce and day dream about what i will be doing with my spare time. In my mind I plan on doing the far fetched: taking a pilates or yoga class, getting into Pottery or Painting, buying a sewing kit and making myself a new wardrobe. probably buy a puppy named fernando and then study german. I could go on and on, the most far fetched would be inheriting a gold/diamond mine (I'm not really picky) and then traveling. But as my mind runs wild and my eyes start to droop i realize what i really want most is to sleep. I probably will spend my first month off sitting in my bed all day i may even get out on a really nice day and head all the way downstairs to plop my butt down on a pool chair and work on that tan. By the time that I am ready to stop lazing and start actually doing something it will be May 13th and then I will graduate and need to start working full time.

I can pretend that that wont happen, and maybe i can pledge to do at least one productive thing each day...but that probably will fail too......ugh motivation....at least I graduate soon.

Social Change

Last night I was in our student union building and I saw a group sitting in a circle reading and writing poems about equality and fairness in laws. The demographics of this group were as follows a man who is openly gay on our campus, a black student, two women who are also openly homosexual, and then an Asian student. The subjects of their poems was about equality and about feeling underrepresented and oppressed. They talked about how it feels to be underrepresented and how much harder they have to work at it. They then went on to criticize our forefathers for not figuring it out earlier.

 This is good. Spread awareness, but as I was listening to them I began to get irritated with them because I wanted to know how they thought that this help.

Awareness on CLU's campus is fairly high, we are a fairly supportive campus, and even if we aren't actively fighting for the rights of homosexuals we are indifferent. So what is the point of a forum of talking about your feelings?

Civil Rights movement, Women's Suffrage, even the revolutions going on in Egypt, all have one thing in common. Action. This is not a blog about my position on any of these issues nor about my political stance, just my thoughts on the actual movement.

What is the point? The types of people who will attend forums or will come to hear people speak on issues are the type of people who agree with what is being taught or spoken about. So in doing a presentation like this, your supporters will show up, but it wont be reaching the audience that they were hoping for. They arent going to be changing any minds, it was sounding like complaining. Dr. Martin Luther King didn't just talk about how it felt to be a black American, he encouraged people to peacefully resist things that made them feel oppressed. Not riding the bus, have a peaceful march, start integrating schools, and a great movement happened.

On May 17, 1954 Brown v the Board of Education passed the law that made segregation in schools unconstitutional in Virginia. A year and a half later, Rosa Parks resists moving on a bus and mothers the Montgomery bus movement. In 1957 they desegregated Little Rock, after that, the movement took off with sit-ins, voter-registration and many nonviolent marches. All of this is ACTION. No one remembers when the black mammys talked about feeling oppressed or discriminated against. Talking about how your feeling only is effective after you have had some sort of action to go with it.

The Women's suffrage movement was the same way, they protested and did things that were radically frowned upon to gain awareness and support, but they did it in a way that they were still respected members of society and they showed how strong and independent they were as women.

All this to say. Any new movement in the world, it takes action with the willingness to talk to actually change anything. You cant talk about your feelings as the minority and then expect that people will be willing to step outside of their comfort zone and make a huge change. You have to pressure them.

Finally, you absolutely cannot blame the sins of our fathers on us today. Do not say that because 600 years ago, when Christopher Columbus "discovered" America and then started the movement to colonizing America, that i should still feel guilty about it. I don't think I should feel guilty that my forefathers committed crimes and stole the land from native Americans, because there is nothing I can do about that. noting I can do to change it. And if my forefathers hadn't taken it, then someone else would have. Don't say that because African American's are not completely equal that that is a failing of our forefathers, that is a failing of us. Our forefathers, in the course of less than 30 years, African Americans went from being the butt of the joke and the subservient race, not allowed to go to school with white kids, to becoming prominent figures in society. That is a major win.

I am not saying that the movement should be finished or has completed a goal, but don't criticize the work of our forefathers, changing the views of a whole nation is a lot harder than you think.

Youtube, the down fall of society.

This is the both the saddest and most awesome thing about the world today. This poor man in the projects rescues his sister in an act of fearless chivalry. He then spreads his caring nature towards other members of the community, warning them about the man who, and i quote, is climbin in yo windows, snatchin yo people up, trying to rape 'em. This video went viral and swept the world simultaneously with hilarity and shame that this is what we have become. Not long after this video came online, the auto-tuned version came out. (Thats what is featured above) Giving youtube watchers more opportunity for laughs, and new catchy songs.

Too bad it didnt stop there.

If anyone had met him pre 2010, they would have laughed at him and then walked away and told stories about times that they had met a crazy person. We literally are teaching the world wide viewers that Americans are shallow, and we will make you rich and famous if you are uneducated and poor.

This is not as big of a deal as

But....what can you do?

Why 80's movies will always be the best...

E. T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day off, The Goonies, Revenge of the Nerds, Flashdance, The Princess Bride, Back to the Future, Top Gun, Fast Times at Ridgemont High; these movies defined a generation. If you have never seen these, you should. Right now. Turn the internet off, and watch them. These are among the greatest movies ever made. There are a plethera of reasons why they are so great, but

 I was born in 1989, which i know, this hardly counts as the 80's, though i still say that i am an 80s kid and it is a claim that I will hold on to forever. I wish I could say i grew up on these movies and they defined my generation (though we do have even stevens, fresh prince and pokemon...so thats cool too I guess). These movies though, they were all about the underdog taking the day and defeating the bully.

These movies full of teen angst and the underdog coming through struck a chord with the public of the 80's that refuses to die. Many of these movies I own, though all I have seen and plan to own one day so that i can inform my children of 'who they're gonna call' or why E. T. wants to phone home. But more than these famous lines there is so much more. hence:

My Top Five Reasons Why the 80's Makes the Best Movies (In Parts, so this is part one)

1. The music
All of these movies have wonderful soundtracks that we still listen to. I bet everyone reading this knows the flashdance dance where Jennifer Beals is dancing really fast and of course the scene with the water falling on her. It is still referneced almost thirty years later. What about Footloose, where Kevin Bacon dance punches out his rage and frustration in a warehouse. Top gun-Highway to the danger zone? Revenge of the nerds --I just saw a family guy episode where they played the final scene out with the music and dancing. And of course no halloween party is complete with out playing Ghostbusters at least ten times an hour. (I know there isnt much halloween music to choose from but still).

The 80's created and perfected these musical dance numbers that will continue to be referenced and parodied for as long as society finds it funny to parody and reference things, which im sure will be a long time from now because well, 80's movies are awesome.

Baby Brynn is here!

This morning at 6 am, my aunt came into my room telling me that my cousin Dailynn was fully dilated and that it was time to get the baby out! I rushed over to her house and fed their adorable toddler and then put her to bed where i caught a much needed nap. (i now am aware why mothers have their children take naps until the child absolutely wont sleep anymore. Naps are lovely)

Two wonderfully solid hours later, and i was awake and happy. I was pondering life in general, which is something that comes easily when a new life enters this world. It is just amazing that we were all once that small, entering into this world so pure, innocent and so entirely dependent on another human being. It makes the rest of the day's issues and problems seem less important. and it makes me see my future as so much more exciting. I cant wait for my turn (dont get me wrong. That time is not anytime soon, but i am looking forward to that time in my life.)

We treasure life so much. It is almost bizare. What is it about that person sitting next to you, the one in your apartment building, the co-worker that we never talk to, what is it about them that we cherish. I believe that we would be hard pressed to find someone who would not fight for another person's life. When we are faced with life or even death, we are so much more loving and inherently good than i sometimes think we are. I know that most times we see humans as being terrible or inherently evil, but i think that everyone has good in them and that there are times when even the worst human can surprise you...

Anyways welcome to this crazy world Brynn, we love you!

Its the end of the world as we know it

This world is changing fast, all of the old methods and theories in many different fields are now an explainer of the past. As a communication major, the information I am learning is almost old and not relevant by the time they can get their work published. We had a speaker come into my advertising campaigns class and she was an online business owner, and it all started by blogging. (No I have no plans to turn this blog into a business, I just enjoy writing) She, two years later got a paid trip to Dubai to blog about a Ford Motor Company car show. How cool is that?! She has not spent a single dollar on advertisements in her full two years of service. All her advertising has been on social medias.

Social media advertising is the future of all marketing. The world is pulling away from the traditional methods of communicating. We are slowly pulling out of printed materials, books are electronically available, newspapers are dying out (which is a terrible monstrosity in itself, but a totally separate issue), and the old way of looking at communication is just that: old.

Universities are loving this. Especially the writers of communication textbooks. My intro to mass communication book was easily $100, it was updated in 2009 (i took the class spring 2010) and it was already outdated. Then because colleges love to take all our money; we werent allowed to sell it back because, surprise surprise, the information was old and outdated. (this is again a totally different topic which i will not digress on at this moment)

All of this to say. the future of the world is electronic. hate it, love it, doesnt matter, you need to just learn how to use it and then jump in it. 

The Sidewalk Chalk Guy

Some people have ridiculous talents that make the rest of the world feel like a bumbling idiot. The sidewalk chalk guy is like that. He takes a pastime for three year olds and turned it into art. I found this guy on stumbleupon.com. Which, if you have never been is an amazing site. It's free, you just sign up, enter your likes and then start stumbling. It takes you to wonderful sites randomly.

Anyways, back to the sidewalk guy. Here are some of my favorites:

As I am sure that you can clearly see. This guy is crazy. I can't even imagine the hard work that he puts into this. I was really impressed with him. How cool would it be to have a skill that you were that good at ya know? So crazy! It would just be awesome to be able to feel confident in one area of your life, like if the entire world turned its back on him, and he was all alone he would still have his art. I know that life would be sad like that, but its the same thing for like pro-sports players, actors, writers, musicians, they all have this amazing recognizable skill that everyone can admire. It would just be really cool. 

If you want to see all his work go to: http://gprime.net/images/sidewalkchalkguy/ he has a ton of different art work on there. 

When I was a Sophomore in college I also attempted to try this art form here is what i ended up with.....

Clearly I still need practice. 

Angry Birds, Words with Friends, and PocketGod

Having an Iphone is both the absolute best thing and the absolute worst thing that has ever happened to me. My addiction to a phone started in high school when I was given my first Lg and a unlimited texting plan. I texted everyone all the time, i even got my mom in on the texting plan, of course she was in my phone as Karen so that my friends and crushes wouldnt know that i was best friends with my mom.

As I grew older my phones grew nicer and after high school, my mom graduated from "Karen" to "Momma Cell" and two Christmases ago I got my Iphone. It was love at first sight and my obsession grew. My first great find was Pocket God. Controlling little cave men and finding new ways to kill them or unlock achievements. It was and still is beautiful.

Next came Angry Birds. If you have an Iphone, and 99 cents to spare; buy it. It is the best game ever. Not only is it hard and frustrating, but they rate your score with stars. So, if you are like me, you spend 15 minutes trying to beat a level, and when you finally do, you see that it gave you 1/3 stars. The first time that this happened to me i was flabbergasted. I had 15000 points and a smile on my face for beating level 1 why were they taking that away from me?! This fueled a burning desire with me to show that stupid App that i could beat all the levels and get all of those glorious 3 stars. To make a short story long, this game is a fantastic thorn in my side that pushes me to beat it.


My new favorite game: Words with friends. It is free, a scrabble type game that you play with other Iphone users, and it is so fun. but I hate losing. I get so stoked for good words. I play all day now. Work at my job is hard because I have to put my phone in a locker and cant play it for the three or four hours. if you are not very good at scrabble, my name is Miss_Mallory. hit me up and we will play. If you are pretty good at scrabble.....I don't have a user name. just kidding, I would love to play anyone and everyone! Please feed into my terrible addictions =)

Or if you know of any other games that i should try out please let me know.

Groupon Calling....

I have recently been self diagnosed with a terrible disease. It is the desire to constantly purchase things. I am sure that it is a problem that many of us have. As I have spent the entirety of my working life watching my hard earned money slowly leak out of my bank account due to late night Taco Bell runs and random books and clothes that litter my room. After much deliberation, I have come up with a reasonable solution.

Besides the usual cut backs, making meals at home and bringing them to work, or cutting out the early morning coffee I have also found a way to keep my bank account, and my terrible habits in check. I have found a solution that works for me. First i subscribe to every single rewards program and coupon program i can find. AKA www.groupon.com is my absolute favorite place. I found cheap prices for spa treatments, for dinner shows, for wine tasting, and even simple things like dinner. Groupon is great because it not only lets you get things at ridiculously low prices it also is a great way to see new things going on in your area.

Another way I am working to save my money is letting my self buy at most, $100 a month in clothes. This is a good amount because i can spend it over that month buying one or two little things. My advice? get a job at your favorite store, even if it is one night a week or just working floorset. (which is about 1 or 2 shifts from around 8 pm to 1 am usually on Friday nights. This is where you take all the clothing off the floor and bring out the new line and set up the floor the way it needs to be done.) You can get in a little extra cash and usually they give discounts that are pretty decent. I work at Aerie by American Eagle, and now i can shop at almost half off. Even if you dont want that second or third job, always sign up for their rewards card. At American Eagle if you spend over $100 in a three month period they will send you a coupon for 15% off. Be smart shoppers and get the rewards you earn.

I am the queen on snacking. I do it all day everyday. My biggest secret is to buy things and just keep it in my car. I always have a case of Diet Coke, (because I am not a fan of Pepsi) a few packages of popcorn, chips, and on good days maybe even some candies. Sometimes for lunch I will eat a bag of popcorn because i can pop it at one job and eat it on the way to class. I would recommend this for anyone who likes to eat food all the time. I can shop about twice a week and cut almost half my spending on food.

Welp thats all I can think of for today =)

The Beginning

I am a small town girl from Snohomish, Washington; who left everything she knew to try to make it big in Southern California. I moved down to the Ventura area dreaming of my new life. It was going to be a glamorous one; filled with shopping, mingling with Katy Perry and laying out at the beach. I was going to live the life that I had always wanted and it was going to be magical.

As soon as I arrived the reality of what life would be like hit me. Sure it was wonderful, the temperature above 65 90% of the time, the palm trees, great shopping and of course the beach full of tanned life guards a mere 30 minutes away. My first summer here was beautiful, I nannied for my Aunt and Uncle, I made $150 a week for laying by the pool, taking my nine year old cousin to the park, and doing crafts with her. It was wonderful, I was tan, I was rich, and I was living the dream. The only thing I didn't have was friends. Knowing I wasn't ready to give up a life of luxury just yet, I enrolled in a local school to finish my degree and make the kind of life I have always dreamed of for myself. 

As I started making friends, it became absurdly apparent that I was on the low end of the socio-economic scale. My parents made just enough for us to fall above the work study line, but not enough to actually pay for my school. I had to work 15 hours a week for minimum wage. Now I know that this doesn't sound unnatural, and at first I didn't mind, but it seemed to me like everyone I was meeting never had to work, they could spend all they wanted and they were going to graduate completely debt free. Talk about getting you down. I was working my butt off and was going to graduate $40,000 in debt. 

A year and a half later I am finishing up my senior year of college and ready to graduate and continue pursuing my goals. I have a wonderful boyfriend who I want to marry, I have great experience with which I hope to get a job, I want my own apartment for a while, and I want to help people out. I am definitely still a working girl, I balance 3 jobs working about 30 hours a week, a full 19 credit school load, along with a boyfriend, and a personal life. I am still learning a lot about myself, and about life and I am definitely not perfect. But I would like to start helping women, and men, learn to push themselves out of an unhappy life and learn to live the life they want. Whether that is status, wealth, happiness, relationships, anything at all. I want to offer my advice and my help because I know what it is like to be working hard for goals that you wish to achieve.