Refelections on Blogging
After first receiving the assignment of having to blog throughout the semester for our Essay Writing class I was a little less than excited. I have never blogged before, much less really known what blogging was all about. The only blogs I was familiar with were the ones people choose to post on their MySpace and the celebrity gossip blogs such as Perez Hilton. I did not know that there was a whole other blogging world out there.
I guess I could consider myself a little naive to the constant progressing technological advances that are taking place on a daily basis. I am still used to the basics and it is hard for me to get used to everything constantly changing within the internet world. The internet is a big part of our culture and of my generation. These days, everything can be found on the internet. Whether it’s a picture of something specific to a whole background of a person you are trying to learn more about. Everything in that is printed out in print now just seems so useless and unimportant because it is so easy and convenient to find things on the internet. And it is a fact that everyone loves to do things the easy way, which is perfectly understandable.
To me, blogging can serve many purposes. Blogging can serve as an online diary for the world to see, a way to practice your writing, or a way just to express your current thoughts knowing that anyone can come across your writing over the World Wide Web. I am still hesitant to put my full feelings out on the internet for all to see, but after blogging throughout the semester I have become more familiar with the idea.
I will admit, I enjoyed the blogging assignment much more in comparison to prior assignments for classes where I have been assigned to write an essay on a specific topic, it gives your mind the opportunity to wander and your imagination to take charge. I did not feel as if the blogging assignment was tedious or a chore, except at times when I would put off blogging until the last minute. And honestly, I do regret putting it off until the last minute because I feel that if I would have started earlier I could have written to my full potential and made my blogs more meaningful and interesting. But overall, I am glad that I had to the opportunity to create my own blog and post them on the internet. I now feel as if I am a little more up to date with technology and I hope that I will become more tech savvy. I do not know if I will continue to further my blogging once this class is over, but it is good to know that I now have the opportunity to continue it and know that if I do find some extra spare time and have a lot on my mind I could definitely see myself writing it down into a blog for all of the world to read!
Work for what you want…
As I further my college career I am becoming more confused as to what I want to do when I graduate. I find myself constantly changing my mind on selecting a major, finding the write path to follow to pursue a job, and which job field will be most successful. I have always been so intrigued by the fashion industry and sometimes I feel as if UNC Wilmington was not the right choice for me because there are no majors focusing on fashion or even merchandising and marketing.
Every semester the question of transferring crosses my mind. There are so many schools I could attend to further my knowledge into the fashion world. There are schools here in North Carolina (Meredith) that I have considered and schools all the way out to California (Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising). I know that eventually I am going to have to further my education in the fashion world or I will always regret it as I grow older.
Change is just something that is so hard to overcome. Moving to a new town, making new friends, and learning and being familiar with your surroundings takes a lot and is not something people like to do over and over again, but sometimes change is necessary.
I feel as that everyone should pursue their dreams and accomplish their goals, no matter how hard they might be. I think that if you don’t pursue your dreams you will live a life of regret and regret is something that no one should have to deal with in their life.
In the future I hope to pursue my dreams of working in the fashion industry and becoming a very successful woman.
Procrastination…
Procrastinate
Pro-cras-ti-nate
- to defer action; delay: to procrastinate until an opportunity is lost.
- to put off until another day or time; defer; delay.
Procrastination. Procrastination is probably my biggest flaws. It is not that I am lazy and enjoy putting the majority of my tasks and obligations off until the last minute, but it is in more of the sense that I develop a certain degree of anxiety and the way I avoid this anxiety is to put these obligations off for as long as possible. I guess, in a sense I enjoy working under pressure. The majority of assignments that I am assigned usually are not started until a day or two before they are due. It is also very frustrating because once I begin the task that has been assigned I can continue to finish the assignment until it is complete without a problem. It is just starting it that gets me. I then become frustrated because I know that if I would have started it earlier it could have been even better than the material I am turning in at the last minute. You think that I would have learned from this now and begin everything sooner versus putting it off until the last minute, but I still just cannot seem to get it.
It is not that I don’t think that they are important, because as I am getting older school is very important to me; it is just that I am and never have been the best student. School stresses me out almost more than anything else in my life. This may seem hard to believe but it is true. When it comes to my school work I will try to find anything else to do to distract me from starting my school work, whether it is cleaning my room and the whole apartment (including scrubbing everything from top to bottom), running errands around town, to even helping my friends with their school work- just as long as it isn’t mine.
I know I probably sound crazy for constantly putting off my school work, but I just can’t seem to help it!! I hope one day I will finally stop this bad habit, but until then I will still be up until the early hours of the morning trying to finish and perfect assignments until the last minutes before they are due.
Back when…
Growing up little girls read of fairy tales in which all of the princesses are swooped off their feet and rescued by their princes and knights in shining amour. Like most young girls, I loved to hear the stories of these princesses hoping that one day my prince would come sweep me off my feet.
When you are young no one ever warns you of all the tough challenges one might most likely face in their lifetime. You grow up believing there is a Santa Clause, Tooth Fairy, and Easter Bunny. You hear of love and fairytales, but never of heart break. You never hear about the sudden loss of a loved one- being a friend or family member.
I am not trying to say that there are only negative things facing you as you become an adult, I am just pointing out the fact that there are a lot more obstacles one must face than ever imagined when you are a child. I know that this is a part of growing up, there are just many days that I wish I could be 7 or 8 again.
Everything seemed so much easier when I was younger; there was not a care in the world. And, I would give anything to go back to the day where not being able to find the missing pieces to my Pretty Pretty Princess game would be my biggest concern of the day. I could never even begin to imagine there were worse things going on in the world, such as people dying, people struggling with the economy as badly as we are today, all of the obligations I must meet with school and expectations that are held for me by the people close to me.
When I was younger, the littlest things were so intriguing and could keep me amazed for hours. Just think back on the days when you could be so amused in the game of hide and seek or duck duck goose. Instead of having summer school college courses immediately followed by 8 hour days of work, these used to be replaced with all day excursions at the local pool playing games of shark and minnows with your friends.
On the days when everything feels like it is quickly crashing down and my world is starting to fall apart I just start to think about how the “good ‘ole days” used to be and what I would do to have one more day of swim lessons with my friends at the pool.
Does anyone else miss the old days?
My hero.
When I think about the different relationships I have encountered in my lifetime, I find myself extremely lucky to have the close kind of relationship I have found with my mother. My mother is my best friend. I am very thankful for this and try to never take it for granted. I know that I can talk to my mother about anything. She is always there for me and always has been; even if she doesn’t always approve of my choices in life. When I fall down she is always there to pick up the pieces. I know that I can always call her when I am upset and she will listen, or drop everything and drive five hours from the Outer Banks to Wilmington to make me feel better.
I know that I am lucky because many people are not this close with their mother. I feel like I am a spitting image of my mother. She has the best heart out of anyone I have ever met, and every day I want to become more like my mother.
My mother is also the hardest working woman I know. Every day she amazes me by the things she does. Whether it is building and designing a new ocean front beach house or selling real estate and working on deals from 8 in the morning to 12 at night, she never gives up or slacks off. I do not know many women who own their own real estate and property management businesses. She has such a passion for her job and for truly helping people choose the right house to purchase. It is not about the money for her.
Although she works hard, her family and friends always come first. She will drop everything at the moment of someone close to her needing something, and does not think twice about it. She also is always willing to help someone out who is less fortunate or just needs help doing something. She will chaperone on piano camp field trips, hold fundraisers for children who have disabilities and always giving people less fortunate her clothing and things that she does not find useful anymore.
I have the utmost respect for my mom and I am so lucky to have a mother as great as she is. She is always so proud of me for even doing the smallest things. She is always encouraging me to better myself and to work as hard as I possibly can. If I can ever be half the woman she is when I grow up I will be so happy. She is the most caring and hardest working woman I know.
My mother is my role model and my best friend.
Election ’08
With the Presidential Election only a few days away, I am starting to become stressed out about who I am going to vote for. I feel like it is such a confusing situation for me since I am not a die-hard republican or a die-hard democrat. I may sound ignorant and a little uneducated but I feel like I do not know enough about each party to make my decision.
I know what which party my parent’s are voting for, and that does have a lot of influence over my decision, but I still want to know more. I know that having the privilege to vote is a big deal and you should be 100% positive for who you are voting for. I feel like there is a lot of pressure for my generation to vote in this election being that it will be our futures that we are voting for and it being such a close selection.
Whenever I try to talk to someone about my decision I feel as if the person I speak to can be very persuasive and biased on their decision and which side they are on, which is understandable.
I guess that I have a lot of studying to do this week since it is the last week of vote, because I really do feel like my age groups decision is important and everyone should take voting seriously.
Everything happens for a reason.
As I was thinking about what to write my next blog about, one of my best friends from high school called me upset about breaking up with her boyfriend she has had of two years. She has been trying to overcome this rough patch in her life for months now and still can not seem to do it.
After trying to give her advice- because I too have been in the same exact situation, it had made me realize a lot of things. Life is not always easy and it never will be. In life you are constantly facing hard situations that you must overcome in order to make you stronger.
I too had broken up with my boyfriend who I had been in love with for years. I thought it was the end of the world. At this time it was by far one of the worst things that had happened to me in my life so far. I look back on that now and realize ultimately if this has been one of the hardest things I have had to face than I am lucky. That was until I lost one of my best friends this past year.
I have realized many people have been through so much more than this and have become stronger because of these situations.
Since then, I still do not think I have it as bad as other people, but I have had a few more rough patches in my life that have made me a stronger person today.
This past April I lost my very best guy friend to still an “unknown accident” that occurred at a college campus’s Greek Week. It was so unexpected and sudden. I have never had to deal with the death of a close friend and to this day it is still hard to accept that it has now happened to me.
When receiving the phone call that afternoon, saying that Hall had been hurt and was in the hospital due to bleeding in the brain. I never imagined that it would lead to his death. I figured that he had gotten drunk and fell down and was now in the hospital for a few days. Everyone did. It was a few days later that we received another phone call hearing that on he day he was supposed to be released from the hospital, Hall had had a seizure and was now on life support. This hit me like a ton of bricks. I never imagined that I could possibly lose my best friend, who was like a brother to me at the age of 20.
In a frantic rush I called my friend who also goes to school in Wilmington. We decided that we needed to go to Virginia to visit him in the hospital and pray that the support of his family and friends would bring him back to life.
On the four hour trip up to the hospital we received a call from Hall’s sister saying that they were going to end the life support at 10:00 that night because there was nothing else that they could do to save him. This had been the hardest thing I have ever had to hear in my life.
We got to the hospital around 9:50, right as they were about to “pull the plug.” As my knees were shaking uncontrollably I fell to the ground and sat there with all of my friends as we cried in shock of what just happened.
To this day I still try not to think about what happened, and just constantly think of all the good memories we all had shared in the past. And that a situation like this has made me and my friends so thankful for each other and so much closer since we have all gone off to college. I have realized that things like this do happen for a reason and that you must have good times along with the bad to remind you what you are thankful for. It is still an incredibly hard thing to deal with everyday and I just have to accept that it has happened and it has made me become a stronger person and to be thankful for everyone who has come into and made an impact on my life.
My thoughts and first impressions on blogging.
I think that the reason I am writing this blog a day late is because the whole idea of blogging is new to me and it is a form of communication that I am having trouble trying to grasp therefore I have been trying to procrastinate which is probably not the best idea. I know that a lot of people on websites such as MySpace and things like that write blogs about their lives and share their personal lives with people all over the world through the internet. I unlike them, feel more uncomfortable sharing my personal life over the web. I would prefer to confide in my friends and seek advice from the people who know me the best.
However, I do realize that in this day and age times are changing and people are doing more and more over the internet. So, it is probably a good thing that I have to start a blog and share things with not only my teacher and class mates, but whoever else on the internet chooses to read my blog. I am sure with blogging, just like Facebook and MySpace it will probably become something I get used to and hopefully will keep up with it even after this semester.
When trying to think of what to come up with for writing about my blog I at first had wanted it to be more impersonal and write about something that I enjoy and would love to write about but it not really relating to my own life, except for the fact what I mainly want to write about is something that is a big part in my life… I decided I would write about fashion. I have always wanted to have a career in the fashion industry. Whether it is designing clothes, working in a boutique with high end and contemporary designers, working for a magazine (hence the decision to become and English major)- preferably something like In Style or Vogue (setting my goals high!), or working behind the scenes for a specific brand, the different possibilities are endless.
I hope that others will find this interesting and I am that at least once I will venture off talking about something pertaining to my actual life and once I am more comfortable with the idea of writing blogs, I will probably get more personal with my blogging.
