Favorites | August 2014

I thought it would be fun to start a new segment where I talk about my favorite things for a particular month. This list will be an agglomeration of events, items and general thoughts from all sectors of my life.

Here are my favorite things from this August!

Malibu
For vacation this year, my parents and I went to LA for a week. It was absolutely amazing! We did a mix of touristy things, like the tour of the star's homes and the walking around the Chinese Theater, but we also spent a lot of time just walking around and getting better acquainted with the area.

Mis padres... aren't they precious?

My two favorite things we did were going hiking and the segway tour of Santa Barbara. Riding segways is much harder than it looks! My padre was trying to show off and make his segway jump, but it ended badly for him. He may or may not have face planted. Unfortunately, I have no photographic proof this happened... but trust me... It was hysterical. 

STUD

Vision board
Pretty self explanatory, seeing as a I wrote an entire post about it.

My apartment
My roommate and I have been living together since freshman year, and every year we have moved to a new place. This year, we got a non-student living apartment that's kinda out from campus. It's a great little space! 

Classes
Now before you freak out, I put this on the list simply for the social aspect of it. Thanks to my classes, I get to see lots of friends that I didn't have the chance to hang out with all summer. I love when school friends become real friends. 

College Football
Duuuuuuuh. Obviously. This past weekend was the first football game for my school. It's a huge deal, folks. I am happy to report that totally kicked ass. 

Me and roomie

"Going out"
Granted, I only had the chance to do it once this month, but the one time I did it was so much fun. I'm not a crazy party person in any way, but I love having fun with friends. Special thanks to my friend Hannah for forcing me out of my shell. 

Love you, Kutsch

This blog
It would be ridiculous to not include this little blog in here. So far, I am really enjoying it! Hope the same goes for you.

I noticed once I uploaded the pictures in the post that they are really crappy quality. That would be because I am a college student who uses their camera phone for everything. One day, I shall own a badass camera that all the cool kids have. 

Enjoy your Labor Day! Mine shall be spent at the pool, doing homework. 

Be jealous.

xo.
Kelsey 

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge | The Struggle

My lovely roommate and I were both nominated to take part in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. The whole point of the challenge is to, "raise awareness for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the lethal neurodegenerative disorder also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The original idea was that when the gauntlet was thrown down in the ice bucket challenge, you either need to give $100 to ALS or dump ice water on your head," according to Forbes.com.

Since the challenge has been circulating the web, Forbes.com estimates that almost $16 million has been raised. That's a whole lot of moolah. 

Seems super easy, right? Right. Well, pause. No. 

My roommate and I turned this simple charitable challenge into a downright clusterf*ck. I will give you a timeline as an explanation of our struggles:

5:50 pm - We decide to do the challenge together at my roommate's work because there is an ice machine and big buckets.

6:13 pm - It is decided that I am going to drive because roomie doesn't have a lot of gas.

6:15:45 pm - Roomie makes the comment, "it feels so weird to not need my keys". To which I reply, "haha I know, right?"

Foreshadowing. 

6:27 pm - We arrive at roomie's work. Nerves and all, we begin to walk in when roomie stops dead in her tracks. "I don't have my keys... I left them at the apartment." 

Silence follows. 

6:28 - 6:50 pm - I drive back to the apartment and roomie gets her keys, then we drive back to her work.

6:51 pm - Thanks to the keys, we get in. We select our buckets.

6:54 pm - Now, it's ice time. I open the ice machine door, but there. is. no. ice. I repeat, NO ice in the ice machine. 

K: "Hey, there's no ice in here"

C: "What? Are you serious?"

K: "Yeah, like it's empty. Should there be ice in here?"

Yes, obviously, Kelsey. Dumb question.

C: "Uh yeah. I gotta tell my boss this thing is broken."

6:55 pm - Discussion ensues. After talking and some choice words, it is decided that we are going to go to the 7-11 close by and buy a bag of ice. 

7:02 - 7:08 pm - Ice is bought and buckets are filled.

7:10 pm - We set up our ghetto filming rig. Roomie's phone is nestled into the cup holder of a cart. Hey, it worked!

7:11 - 7:13 pm - Brief outline of script is made and ice is dumped on our heads.

f i n a l l y

7:14 pm - We review the footage and laugh at our my terrifying scream. We agree that the video needs editing. 

7:15 pm - We roll the ghetto filming rig to the doors and I stop to pull the door open. It's locked, but I don't panic because Cayli has her keys, right?

Wrong.

Roomie does not have her keys. Yup. She left them inside. We were now locked out of the space where both of our wallets and keys were. PTL that roomie had her phone and could call her awesome boss who came and unlocked the door for us. 

I forgot to mention that neither of us had eaten dinner during this process. The "hanger" definitely played a part in the clusterf*ckness of the situation. However, we still had a good time. Visit the ALS website for more info on the challenge. 

xo.
Kelsey 

What are you doing after you graduate?

Have you thought about what you are doing after you graduate? What are your post-graduation plans? Do you know what you are doing after college? Don't you need to start looking for a job? What kind of job do you want? What is your career track?

Bitch, please. 

Ask me one. more. time. I double dog dare you.

I am not a hostile or aggressive person in the slightest. In fact, I consider myself to be one of those peaceful, overly sensitive types (call me crazy). But I swear to the good Lord above, if any variation of the aforementioned questions are directed toward me again, I'm gonna lose my sh*t.

That was my attempt at sounding intimidating. 

This is how I have answered these questions:

1. I am exploring a couple of different options.
2. I haven't made any concrete plans yet, but I am hopeful.
3. I am figuring out what I want to specialize in.
4. I have no f'ing clue.

Ok, so I haven't actually said that to anyone...yet.

Now, I do realize that I am a college senior who is on track to graduate. And most people are just trying to be polite and make conversation, but it drives me crazy! I am fully aware of the train I am on, and that the next stop is "jobville" (I made that up). But, I am not ready to get off the train yet! I haven't even packed.

Ok, being serious here. I do not know what I am going to do after I graduate. I am exploring a couple of different options, some easier and safer than others. But, I have faith that everything is going to work out. Truly. I am not stressed about it, so therefore you, bagger at the grocery store, should not be worried about it. 

Trust me, I will let everyone and their mother know when plans have been made. 

xo.

Kelsey

My Last "First Days of School"

Before you say anything, the title is not a typo. Being a college student, I have different classes on Mondays/Wednesdays and Tuesdays/Thursdays.

#nofridayclasses

So, I thought it was appropriate to make my last "first day of school" a twofer.

This semester, I am finishing up PR requirements and electives. I only have one class that satisfies my  HES minor: Health in Native Communities. Random, I know. But I've had the teacher before and got an A in her last class, so needless to say she loves me. I may or may not be a slight teacher's pet. I'm not ashamed, though. It's all about earning that A, people!

The class that is my main focus is PR Research. It's gonna be hard... like really really hard. While there are only two exams, there are two 20 page papers. Even better, each paper requires research to be created, surveyed and then analyzed by your group.

I hate group work. Mainly because I am one of those fiercely independent, "I can do it better by myself" types. I just don't like relying on someone else, who may or may not be the perfectionist I am, to do their part! What if they do a really crappy job?? Well, then I'm SOL.

I'm an only child raised by two first borns. I had no choice but to be a control freak.

My professor said today about 15% of students get A's. Don't worry, the number bumped up to 20% a couple of semesters ago!!

Sarcasm.

I don't have a 4.0 GPA, so it's not a huge deal for me to get a B. But! When professors taunt students with minuscule percentages like that, all I want to do is get an A and make them eat their words. Like, hell yeah lady, I just beat your game of hardass-ness. Suck it!

Unrelated to classes, Monday morning I tried to cut the spandex out of a pair of Nike shorts and ended up cutting the actual short's material. They were so cute, too! They were a nice dark purple color and made me look tan. I kept telling myself, "Don't cut the shorts, don't cut the shorts", which obviously worked.

RIP Nike shorts. 

The last thing I want to talk about is the gym. I went Monday around 5:00 pm and it was the worst decision I have ever made in my entire life. It was full of meatheads and high school football stars who think they are the shizznit, and I can guarantee most of them will be gone come October. Soon "working out" will be replaced by beer and 2 am runs to Hurt's Donuts.

I used quotation marks around working out because no one was freaking working out! All the dudes in the weights section were just trying to out-lift one another and flex for the girls walking to the cardio room. It looked like a men's figure competition, I swear.

It's like, dude, this is the gym. Either workout, or get the f*ck out. From now on, I'll just go early before all the bros wake up.

And that's how my last "first days of school" were. 

 My "first day of school" selfie I texted my mom

Before I go, I just want to say thank you to anyone who actually visited my blog and read my first post. I am merely an infinitesimally small particle in the blogging universe, so thank you to those that stopped by. It makes my heart happy <3

xo.

Kelsey

Vision Board | Senior Year

Before we even start, let me tell you I have written this first post about 20 million different times. I cannot figure out how I want to start it, so if it is on this blog, I somehow constructed a post that I somewhat like. 

Anywho...

Have you ever heard of The Secret? It's a book by Rhonda Byrne that discusses how to achieve all the great things you want in your life. Or, if you have a Netflix,  its the perfect way to procrastinate kill two hours if you find yourself bored. It's pretty interesting, actually. I watched it one Sunday and it really spoke to me. It's all about believing that everything you want in life can actually happen if you focus on it. One way the movie suggests doing so is creating a vision board!

Now I could make a million different vision boards for a million different things I want for my life. In order to narrow it down, I decided to focus on just senior year for the time being. Since it is my last year of college and any type of school for the foreseeable future, I really want to put the effort in to make it the best year ever and totally & completely awesome. Capisce? 

Capisce (cah-peesh): derived from the Italian word "capire" which means "to understand". Or to anyone who isn't a language nerd, "kapeesh".  

Here is my lovely vision board:

Thanks to my mom for making the beautiful calligraphy!  

Friends, let me tell you, this mofo took me d a y s to do. Why? Because I am a perfectionist. It started out hamburger style (vertical), but I couldn't find a way to fit all the pictures on it with the calligraphy. I got so fed up that I set it aside and decided to come back later. The time away did me some good because it got my creative juices flowing and then this bad boy was made!

The overall message I wanted my vision board to say was "say yes" and "be daring" and "get out more" and "enjoy life". I think that was accomplished. 

I hung it up in my bathroom so I see it every morning and make the conscious choice to live in accordance with my board. That way, I can manifest those sentiments in my daily life. 

I hope you enjoyed my first post ever and my vision board. If you feel so inclined, make one for yourself! It's a blasty blast.

xo.
Kelsey