Senioritis

I think every student, no matter how much they love their school, reaches a point when they just feel ready to graduate and start the next chapter of their life. For me, that point was reached toward the beginning of this semester. I am only in two classes, but have still managed to receive huge amounts of homework on top of working a lot of hours in my campus job, and I keep finding myself looking to the light at the end of the tunnel. I've started to apply to jobs and am actually meeting with people from my first-choice company when I'm home for Spring Break in a little over a week!

I have lots of stuff happening after graduation that I keep looking forward to. I am so excited by the thought of starting a job (fingers crossed that I get hired for one of the positions I'm looking into!!) I am also planning a reunion cruise with some of my friends from my semester abroad. We're planning to spend a couple of days in Miami and then cruise to the Bahamas, and I'm so excited because I haven't seen them in far too long! Then in the Fall, my sister was accepted to study abroad in Bath, England and myself and my parents are going to visit her! We are going to plan it out when I'm home in a week, but the plan is to start in Dublin, then go to Bath, then London, Paris, and a day in Lyon where I studied abroad! Then my parents will fly home and I will go back to London to stay with my friend Ciela for a week and see some more of my friends who live in England :)
Something else exciting is I am planning to start my own YouTube channel this summer! I have been watching YouTube since 2006, and have always wanted to start a channel, but never had the confidence to do it I guess. This year, I've starting watching a bunch of new YouTubers, and I've really been inspired to finally make my own videos! It's a little nerve-wracking thinking that I'll be putting myself out there for anyone in the world to see, but I know I will have a lot of fun doing it, and will regret it if I don't. I think my videos will be similar to what I post in this blog: videos about fashion, beauty, travel, and some everyday vlogs!

But even though I have a lot to look forward to after graduation, I am going to try and live in the moment to really enjoy my last two months of university. And I do have some exciting things to look forward to over the next couple of months. First, my friend Lauren who I lived with last Spring and who transferred to the University of Wisconsin this year is coming to visit this weekend! I'm so excited because I was really close with her and haven't seen her in about 10 months! Then next weekend, I head home for Spring Break, and even though it will be freezing in Boston and probably have several feet of snow on the ground, I'm so excited to see my family and dog and have a little break from schoolwork! When I get back to school, hopefully the Spring weather will have started to set in by then! (For anyone who isn't familiar with North Carolina weather, it is probably the most bipolar thing ever in the Winter. In Boston, once it gets cold, it stays cold until about April. But in North Carolina, it can change drastically within just a few hours. Last weekend, we had an ice storm on Friday causing the whole area to lose power and shut down, then on Saturday it was beautiful and I was walking around with a short sleeve shirt.) My school also has an amazing Spring tradition called Festivus! It is basically a huge party where everyone plays in a big mud pit for hours. It is so much fun! Then of course, graduation will be just around the corner :) I'm lucky to have a lot of my family coming: my parents, sister, three aunts, an uncle, and my grandparents.

I tend to be a bit of a dreamer and enjoy daydreaming about the future, but for the next couple of months, I am going to try and focus on enjoying the present, and really have the best Spring semester ever as the end to my college career :)

The second adventure of 2014: a weekend in Atlanta!

I am part of an international business fraternity called Alpha Kappa Psi at my school and have been involved since my second year. I've had so many great experiences in AKPsi over the past couple of years, and one of the events that I have loved the most is something called the Principled Business Leaders Institute. Every Spring, there are a bunch of conferences that happen around the country where students in Alpha Kappa Psi can network with other members and alumni as well as attend a number of speakers about interview skills, building a resume, and lots of other topics.

Since I go to school in the South, a group of us attended the conference being held in Atlanta. I attended the conference last year too, but that year, the conference was held at a hotel outside of the city. So I didn't get to experience much of Atlanta besides some bars we went to at night. This year, I was SO excited when I found out the conference was happening at a hotel right in Downtown Atlanta! 

After classes on Friday, me and another "brother" (even though there are both guys and girls in the fraternity, we are all referred to as brothers) made the five hour drive down to Atlanta! By the time the entire group of us had arrived and got settled, it was about 9 PM and time to start getting ready to go out! We hung out in one of the rooms for a while and then headed out to the Buckhead area of the city. This is a trendy area with tons of bars and restaurants and things like that! We found a cool bar called the Red Door Tavern where there was a live band playing. We had such a fun night dancing up on our table and meeting lots of new people! When it was time to head back to the hotel, another girl and I reserved an "Uber." Uber is a new phone app that is basically a private cab service. It was so cool and I would definitely recommend using Uber to anyone in cities where they have it! But before getting into the car, we stopped at a food truck strategically located between a bunch of the bars where I got something called a Cheez-It burger. It was exactly what it sounded like—a burger with a bunch of Cheez-Its on it, and it was actually amazing tasting haha!

The room I shared with two other girls had a balcony, and this was our cool view from the 8th floor!

a bunch of us from my school at the bar on Friday night

The next day, there was a big lunch held for all of the people at the conference. The food was pretty good—salads, chicken, vegetables, mashed potatoes, and an amazing turtle cheesecake! After lunch, the group of us from my school decided to play hooky from the optional meetings and head out and explore Atlanta a little bit! It's definitely a smaller city than most I've been to and there didn't seem to be all that much to do considering we were in downtown, but it was cool to walk around and people watch a little bit. For dinner, we all headed to a Hard Rock Cafe that was right down the street from our hotel. I hadn't been to a Hard Rock in years, so I had a lot of fun there! And I got a mushroom and swiss burger that was pretty amazing.

After digesting from dinner, it was time to head out to Buckhead again! On this night, more people decided to stay in than the previous night, but 7 of us hopped in a couple of Ubers and went to an Irish pub in Buckhead. I got some cider that was a little overpriced but really really good! After hanging out downstairs for a bit, we realised there was also a rooftop bar! We made our way up there and had fun just hanging out for a while. I had never been to a rooftop bar before, so it was a really cool experience. After a while, some of the group wanted to head back to the hotel, but three of us decided to hit one more bar before going back. I have a good friend, Jessie, who graduated a couple of years ago and lives in Atlanta now, so I had been planning to meet up with her out in Buckhead. I was so so happy to see her, and it was kind of crazy too because I hadn't seen her in over two years! We had so much fun getting caught up, and I got to meet some of her Atlanta friends which was really cool. We also decided to do a shot together, and I was extremely comforted by the fact that she cannot get a shot down in a single go either! (It usually takes me about three attempts to get it all the way down. I know. I'm weak.) After hanging out for a while, it was time to head back to the hotel with the other girls. 

reunited with Jessie in Atlanta :)

The next morning, we all got up bright and early to head back to school. I had such a fun weekend in Atlanta! I am definitely a city person, so going to school in a small town often makes me feel sort of isolated from everything, and ever since getting back from New York and DC in January, I had been itching to be in a city again. Even though it was just for a couple of days, being in Atlanta definitely rejuvenated me and made returning to school and school work a little bit better!

xo Christie