Music has a way of transporting the listener to a time, place, emotion and it's a truly beautiful thing. In a few short hours, Taylor Swift is releasing her fifth album, 1989. I can barely contain my excitement-- her albums tend to have a way of letting me know how I should be feeling. Her first single, "Shake It Off," told me I was on the right track with my emotions... and I cannot wait to see what the rest of the album is like.
Here are a few of my favorite songs of the moment:
22- Taylor Swift
This Is How We Do- Katy Perry
Title- Meghan Trainor
Dear Future Husband- Meghan Trainor
Can't Shake You- Gloriana
Rather Be- Clean Bandit
Shower- Becky G
Leave the Night on- Sam Hunt
Jealous- Nick Jonas
Have to Thank Youu- Gavin DeGraw
Can't Stop Drinking About You- Bebe Rexha
Last Goodbye- Kesha
Wasting All These Tears- Cassadee Pope
Whiskey- Jana Kramer
Somewhere Only We Know- Keane
I could go on and on about music. It's an amazing facet of our society. It's so beautiful to know that someone out there is going through some of the same turmoils that you are. There's nothing more therapeutic than blasting some ballad and singing at the top of your lungs. Preferably in the car with the windows down and with your best friend right beside you.
If you haven't listened to Taylor Swift's 1989, do it, do it now... It's life affirming, it's everything I've been hoping for since she realized her first single back in August. Yesterday, I listened to the whole on repeat, walking around campus, driving in the car, and just sitting on the porch with friends jamming.
"This is a story of coming into you own... and alive as a result."
"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel...
Always remember that."
Growing up the golden rule was simple: treat others the way you want to be treated. No matter your age, the golden rule are words to live by.
You can't control what's going to happen to you in this life. You can't control how you're treated. And you can't make people like you. All you can do is decide how you're going to react to those things.
Sometimes you have to cut people out of your life. Whether they be negative or if the friendship(s) becomes one sided. You deserve to be happy, so if it's time, and you'll know, then it's time to move on.
Because people will treat you the way you allow them to treat you. Always remember that. Every person in your life has to earn their spot, because life is too short to be surrounded by fair-weather friends.
I have spent 8 out of the past 12 years of living in Ohio, in south-central Ohio. So naturally fall has come to mean football (usually The Ohio State but definitely BIG Ten and because of my mom, always IU) and the Fairfield County Fair. So this weekend I went home for the fair.
Summer ends, school begins, and suddenly-- its fair week. The excitement is tangible, kind of like the holiday cheer that can be felt right before Thanksgiving to Christmas. Fair Week heralds the season!
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Fair Must-Haves:
Deep Fried Cookie Dough
Birch Beer (think Root Beer) & Steak on a Stick
My food tastes have changed since I first started going to the fair. Originally, I was all about the pizza, funnel cakes, tacos, cheesecake on a stick, caramel apples (that I lost a taste for while I had braces), elephant ears. Now, my go to's are Steak-on-a-Stick, Birch Beer, Cattlemen's Special and deep fried cookie dough. Health goes out the window when the fair is in town, though there is TONS of walking!
There are officially 8 weeks until graduation. Broken down there's 6 until Thanksgiving and then 2 afterwards til December 13, 2014 at 10am (yes! I'm graduating 12/13/14, pretty freakin' sweet!). The next 8 weeks will be full of lasts. So the fact that this was the last fair week before I enter the unknown "adult" world was surreal.
I'm not sure where I'll be in the upcoming years, but I do know that I fully plan on being back for the fair, it signals the changing season in my eyes! It's a great week(end) where I get to see another great facet of Lancaster (my other favorite town activity being, The Artwalk, a facet of The Lancaster Festival). When the fair comes around, I know it's an appropriate time to start watching Hocus Pocus and Halloweentown and to start getting excited for the end of the year and looking towards all the fun events (Thanksgiving, Christmas, NYE) that are coming.
There are few big ticket items left mile marking my road towards graduation:
Halloween
Lip Jam (my sorority's philanthropy event)
Formal
Initiation
Thanksgiving
Finals
Graduation
The finish line is in view, it's laid out in front of me... Meaning I have to make the most of this time, the time where I was be young and do all the things that I might not have time for later.
That's why I'm so glad to live in a world where there are Octobers...
& the Fairfield County Fair
Being a senior makes everything seem that much more final. Doing things for the last time are bittersweet and exciting. This weekend was my university's Homecoming weekend!
This weekend was a bunch of lasts... My last homecoming game and my last Octoberfest (a philanthropy event my sorority hosts) as a collegiate. It was a great time!
It's weird to think in a few months, I'll be a college graduate, and hopefully gainfully employed!, but I'm really going to miss this place and these people that I've started to think of as home.
My mom spent the majority of her adult life prior to my sister and I moving all over the country. So it's strange to me that my life has been spent in two places. I spent the first 10 years of my life in Southern California. It was beautiful and wonderful and I miss the people and the place every day. And now, I have lived in Ohio, for 12 years. And I'm starting to get the itch for change. I'm ready to move on and experience the world.
With graduation being roughly 10 weeks away, I could not think of a better time to experience the world, here's a list of the places I dream of going:
NYC
Chicago
Charlotte
Charleston
Savannah
England (especially London)
Ireland
Scotland
Spain
Portugal
Greece
Italy
Egypt
Brazil
Punta Cunta
Florida
D.C.
Puerto Rico
Costa Rica
Cabo San Lucas
Cancun
Argentina
Alabama
Quebec
Niagara Falls
Martha's Vineyard
The Hamptons
Boston
California
I want to parachute, cliff dive, zipline, see national treasures, meet new and interesting people. I want to experience all I can. The possibilities are endless. Life is often times is too short and I have all the time in the world to be a grown up. Why not experience as much as possible while I'm young, with little responsibilities, because this time where we can be selfless, is short when you think about it.
There's plenty of time to settle down and be responsible. But I crave adventure.
Last week was my final recruitment as an undergraduate and the first Bid Day that I've thoroughly enjoyed, I suppose you save the best for last!
Fall 2014, being my last semester I want to do everything that I am able to do, I want to make the most of my final semester. So last semester I applied to be a Rho Gamma for this year's formal recruitment. Along with going greek, this is one of the highlights of my college career. Disaffiliation was tough, but helping other women through this process and helping them find their homes and made me realize that no matter what I've been through these past few months, I wouldn't change this experience for the world, I've truly found my home with my friends and within my organization.
By deciding to go greek, I met some truly amazing and inspiring people that I am lucky enough to call friends and sisters. This Rho Gamma experience gave me a greater appreciation for my chapter along with the Panhellenic community as a whole.
Know you're not alone, we're gonna make this place your HOME
So the saying goes that deaths always come on 3s...
1) Robin Williams, whom I'm still recovering from
2) Lauren Bacall
And yesterday on the Queen's day (Beyonce's birthday) we lost another Queen...
The hilarious, the honest, the one of a kind,
Joan Rivers.
It wasn't a tragic death. She had been in the hospital for the last few weeks. She was 81, and suffered cardiac arrest.
I'm not saying this isn't a great blow, to her friends and family, my thoughts an prayers are with her daughter, Melissa and her grandson, Cooper.
But Joan Rivers, lived a full life and she made a , which is all any of us could hope for.
Joan was in every form and sense of the word, a bitch. She owned it. She loved it. She made a living out of telling it like it is and never apologizing for that.
Some may say she was crass and vulgar and she 100% was! She broke barriers and boundaries. She gave women a lot of what they have today. So while you may not like her, in which case, she wouldn't care, you still have to respect her. She earned it.
Most people would say I'm easily emotional. I don't think that's a bad thing. I feel like Kate Hudson in Bride Wars, when she says she muddling along, but she's awake. That's the clarity that came with the death of my grandpa. I had never been atuned to my emotions before that. Now, I can literally cry at the drop of a hat.
So yesterday, when the great Robin Williams died. The news was sad and tragic, and devastating to me. There are some people that you may never meet but they matter in your life. Such an amazing man gone from the world too soon.
He created so many great characters and movies. He made people laugh and thus making the world better place when he, himself wasn't happy. He truly was a remarkable person.
Television and movies have always been a favorite pasttime, it takes no time whatsoever for me to become attached to fictional characters, I credit being a 90's kid. I grew up in a time when having an active imagination was key and I think that's why television and movies are so important to me, these actors are able to create these new characters time and time again. The world we live in is so great because no matter what you're going through there is a movie, a show or an album that can get you through it. This is why I think Robin Williams work is so important. When I was growing up, he was the father I never had. He was another crazy uncle to add to the bunch. His presence may not have been personal but it was definitely felt.
As sad as I am. I cannot imagine how devastated his family is.
My thoughts and prayers are with them and for them.
He was instrumental in so many parts of my childhood. While Robin Williams is so entwined with my youth, my first thoughts went to a film, I didn't realize resonated with me so much, Dead Poets Society, the one and only time I've watched was junior year of high school. So naturally being a glutton for punishment, I looked through clips. One of my favorite scenes, "What will your verse be?", must've been Apple's too:
His loss is felt gravely. He was a great man. He did great things. He made my life through his roles happier, much like the rest of the world and for that I am incredibly grateful. He made the world a better place and his loss makes the world seem a little less bright. He made people laugh. But while there will never be another, his memory will live on forever.
So why shouldn't his death affect me? The tears come and go and I think it's important and appropriate to feel the emotions you have. You can't close yourself off from sadness. But you have to harness it and use it to make yourself a better person.
Maybe it'll happen on such a worldwide scale or maybe not. But I hope that when it's my time I will hae affected some margin of people the way Robin did. I hope that he can see the way his life affected the world.
Oh Captain, MyCaptain
God Bless Robin Williams. Rest in Peace.
"No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world."
xoxo
KJB
If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
