The End is Near

Celebration is in order! It is almost finals week and I’m pretty sure I only have two actual finals, during finals weeks so yay! Finished the first semester of college, feels great! Though I never thought I’d make it out alive in my math class. Math has never come easy to me, though science has. I think it has to deal with science is applied and math uses letter and I really don’t know the purpose of me solving for x is. I’m seriously praying that I pass and I can be done with math forever! Pulling myself out of bed every morning at 5:45 proven to be nearly impossible most days. I just had to leave my house by 7:20 to make it on campus in time for class to start. Everyone always warns you to never take an 8 a.m. and now I know why. Between two jobs, trying to get decent grades while maintaining a social life was pretty hard, especially when your school day goes from 7:45-5. Don’t get me wrong, I am used to long days at school, but with math my work load was never ending. I really don’t know how anyone that majors in math can survive. 

Next semester will be nice though, I have a 9:30 Women Gender Studies course two days a week and the other two I don’t have to be on campus until 11. That will be so nice, I’ll be able to sleep in, go to the gym, probably more sleep. It’ll be beyond nice. I’m actually really looking forward to next semester, I will be taking course that interest me and the hardest class I’ll be taking is Chemistry. So if I just put a little time into that and get a good grade I’ll be set. Hopefully I’ll be declaring a major within this up coming semester. I think I just need to look into Public Health and see if there’s a future for me. I have a feeling that I’ll have to forge my own path to a career that fits me. I am definitely looking forward to my future as a rocket! 

"Beauty school dropout, Go back to high school"

I’m going to discuss my experience with Beauty School. I really wish someone would have told me how much work and effort getting my cosmetology license in high school required. Or all of the things I would miss out on, or the feeling of missing a high school experience. I really wish someone would have taken the time to really discuss and explain in detail what was being asked of me. Then again at 16 I probably wouldn’t have listened. 

Two years at my beauty school were hell, and I don’t just say this because I want to be a brat. My entire class was divided, in two ways, physically and well those girls vs. these girls. Everyone eventually paired up and if you didn’t have a bff you basically floated between. I’ll start off discussing the management. I detested the woman in charge and to this day I loath going in to speak with her. I know it’s her job to enforce the rules, but there were day were the rules were unbearable. Every Saturday starting at 8 a.m. we would get yelled at “Up off your feet ladies you need to get moving, don’t want to be sent home!!!” It drove me nuts, that and the fact that she would send you home with or without a good reason. 

Now the location, I can’t explain the clientele we had over in Monroe. Ranged from the homeless, to creepy men that high schoolers weren’t aloud to take. Not only were the clients gross they never tipped, I barely made five dollars a month. Which is sad because I was there weekdays 12:45-4:30 and Saturdays 8-4. Looking back I value the skills that I learned but I really wish I knew what I was in for. Then again without beauty school I wouldn’t have met some of the best friends a girl could ask for. 

Someone Special

At this point I’m really using this blog to write down my personal thoughts, I don’t really have a theme or a focus, I just want to express myself. So tonight I find myself thinking about my grandma or as I call her, Grammy. Growing up I spent most of my summers with my grammy and papa, they were my second parents. Looking back they have provided so many special memories that I cherish. I was their little Tay-Tay, or my Papa’s Girl, and I loved every second I spent with them. As I got older it has been pretty difficult to get out to visit and ever since my Papa passed it’s hard to stay there too long. I really miss him, there isn’t a day that I don’t think of him…

So there was an I Love Lucy special on this evening and I recorded it, hopefully Grammy got to watch it. That’s one of the shows my grammy got me hooked on as a little girl. The Golden Girls, I Love Lucy, Roseanne, and The Nanny, are what we spent our summer nights watching. But I Love Lucy has a special place in our hearts. It may be that we both relate strongly to Lucy, we’re both strong, determined women, and we’re both goofy and couldn't care less what people think. My grammy often describes us to be free spirits, I say we’re eccentric. Grammy suffered from breast cancer when I was in the third grade. When she was finished with chemo my mom took us on a trip to Jamestown, New York (Lucille Ball’s hometown) for the I Love Lucy festival. It was an absolute blast! We stopped by there about two years ago for only a day. Since then my grammy has fallen into a pit of bad luck. She’s such a kind and strong person that she just rolls with the punches. She isn’t very financially stable. So next summer I plan to save some money and take a trip back to Jamestown, just her and I. I’ve got a lot of saving to do, because I want to get a nice hotel and be able to take my grammy out for a nice dinner. She’s so special to me and I just want to repay her for everything that she has done for me.

Holiday Shopping

With the shopping season is full swing I think we all need a few reminders to make shopping as success for all parties involved. I work in the mall at Crazy 8 (a children's clothing store) and having the right customers can either make or break your day. I've had all kinds of people come, from extremely kind to downright rude. When you're on your feet for countless hours with barely any breaks you are just trying to do your job and get home at a reasonable hour. I think people often forget about the employees working and often claim "it's what they are getting paid for". This is not entirely true, they are not getting paid to clean up your messes. It is not hard to walk through a store without knocking down a pile of neatly folded clothes, or finding the nearest trash can to drop your Starbucks cup in.

People should try to just be kind to workers, trust me, if you are nice to them it only makes them want to go out of their way to help you. This goes for most establishments, a little bit of kindness goes a long way. There are countless of rude people and to set you apart a friendly smile along with a please and thank you will surely get what you need in a timely manner. This will not only make the employee happy, it will make your entire experience better and create a better environment around you. I can’t tell you how many times I had a mom come in with a screaming child but, because they were so sweet I tried to help them as quick as possible. So while you are out this holiday season remember to treat everyone around you with kindness, because what you put back into the world you get out.

New Space, New Opportunities

    Recently, my loving brother decided to fly out of the nest and move to live with his girlfriend. So in light of the situation I decided to take this burden of having an unoccupied room from my parents and make the room my office/closet. His room is, well unpleasing, it’s very small, the paint is hideous and the forest green carpet is going to be a struggle to work with.
    After announcing that I will be taking on this redesign project images flooded my head; “what color paint?”, “what furniture do I need?”, “How will I finance all of this?”, are just a few questions I had to ask myself. So where do I turn? Pinterest! I’m not exactly handy so I will need to recruit my step-dad for…almost everything…I’m the type of person who gets these enormous ideas and then they end up only turning out half of what I expected. So I decided to start acquiring items for my room, cyber Monday had some good deals, let me tell you!
    As of now I had a TV, and a nice cream leather futon and together it was only $320…yeah only…Now that my bank account is completely empty, I still have a few items left on my list. Definitely will need paint, a desk, a chair, a few things for the walls, a lamp, a few throw pillows, and to cover the awful carpet a nice area rug. I intend to have the room finished by fall, because I can’t dump all of my money into it. My reasoning for spending so much time, money, and effort is so that I can have a comfortable setting to study and hangout with my friends. Our house is pretty small; and I detest having to fight my parents for the living room, or having all of my friends pile up onto my bed to watch a movie. Fingers crossed that I don’t get in over my head on this one!

The Life of an Undecided College Student

Taking on the task of writing five blog posts sounds pretty easy but then I tried coming up with topics...So I'm just going to take it one post at a time.

    Being undecided is one of the most frustrating things. Not only do you feel completely lost in life, you constantly get asked to make a decision. In passing conversation when you say you attend UT the first question asked is, "Oh what are you studying?" then you solemnly reply that you're undecided. Everyone says take your time, you can change your mind, or that you don't have to rush. Then the pressure to pick something sets in and you do feel rushed and you just want to pick something as soon as possible. I am in a career class right now, it is meant to help you decide on what direction to go in, but right now I am left feeling even more confused. While others are scheduling classes for future careers I am left to take general classes in hopes that they will meet whatever requirements that my major holds.
    After countless career tests with various results I still feel so much pressure to pick something. I don’t want to end up regretting it and having to pick something completely different. My biggest fear is that I end up changing my mind and everything I have been working on doesn’t count towards what I want to do. Hopefully that doesn’t happen, fingers crossed. It’s hard to just wait and not declare something, I constantly feel like my life is in disarray (when it’s really not) all because I don’t have a major. I am the type of person who likes to plan out their future and without a career picked it’s really hard to plan around nothing. I wish that things were easier and I could wave a magical wand and my life would just be perfect! Unfortunately I have to rely on myself to just make the right decisions for my future.

First Semester

Looking back on the past couple of months I have accomplished a lot; I have never worked before college, and now I work two jobs and juggle school all at the same time. I have learned a few lessons along the way, like never to buy an ebook ever again. I decided to save the $100 and buy the book for $75 for online text and now I regret it more than ever. I can barely get through a chapter online for my psychology class, whereas if I had the physical text I would be able to skim and find the important information from the chapter. I need to buckle down when it comes to math classes, I always get too intimidated to ask for help, so next semester I'll have to go to the math study tables. I think I handled the transition from high school to college fairly well! I plan on declaring my major when I can see an advisor, so I'll be set for the spring! Moving forward in my career and developing a plan is definitely taking some extra weight off my shoulders, which is much needed. 

Things needing Improvment

For commuters there is nothing more frustrating than getting to campus a little late and having absolutely no parking available what so ever. Parking is an issue that frustrates students the most;  UT's biggest problem with parking is not having enough available. With the fear of receiving a parking ticket, students can drive aimlessly until they are lucky or sometimes students just decide to head home.
With the new dorms being built and some parking lots being fixed, it has narrowed the available spots for students. Perhaps another parking garage on campus could help resolve some of the frustrations that students have. Creating another parking garage not only provides more parking spaces but when snow begins to fall it will offer a space to avoid scraping windows.
Another solution could be to change the way the parking lots are limited to certain students. Some students get great parking spots because they hold seniority. Some may see this as unfair because most parking is on a first come first serve basis. So eliminating the restrictions could open different spots to different levels of students.
Parking is something that people deal with everyday, but UT's parking can be beyond frustrating to students. There are many options that need to be looked into so that both students and faculty are pleased.  

Life So Far

College can be an entire learning experience in itself, not only do you learn loads of new information, you learn life skills as well. Trying to balance school and work can be frustrating but it is all about time management. You don't always have the option of having the perfect schedule so you have to figure out ways to work around it, so you can maintain decent grades and be able to have a social life or an income. This could mean, depending on the person, late nights or early mornings filled with studying, writing that paper you completely forgot about, and perhaps catching up on your overloaded DVR. A college student has to gain the skill of multitasking, whether this means eating while studying or squeezing in that hour on the treadmill while attempting to read a chapter or two. Studying and work may be important but maintaining a social life will help keep you in good spirits. Forming study groups with a few close friends between classes, or just catching up over lunch, gives a nice break to a stressful day. Making the time to hangout and relax over the weekend is just as important as studying for an exam, sometimes you just need to vent and try not to worry about keeping up with all that is going on. Attempting to find a balance between school, work, and a social life is vital to any college student. 

Twitter Rants

Throughout the day my twitter feed is consistently filled with the constant thoughts of, friends, celebrities, and people that I felt required to follow back once they followed me. The last thing I went on a slight rant was about shoplifters at Crazy 8, the children's clothing store that I work at in the mall. My tweet was "There are so many shoplifters here, like how do you remotely feel comfortable dressing your children in stolen clothing??" Almost daily we get at least three or four shoplifters who come in the back and tear everything apart trying to take an array of typically baby clothing. The point of my tweet was to address the emotional aspect of stealing and not feeling any remorse about it. I know that I could not feel right putting my child into something that I had stolen. I should have expressed my point more, but getting a rant in less than 140 characters is a little difficult and considering I was in the break room when I shouldn't have been I couldn't tweet more!  

 College isn't like the movies, at least it isn't for me, I do not attend crazy parties or see a million hot guys in frats trying to get phone numbers. I basically wake up at 5:30 every morning, get to my classes, do my homework, go home, do more homework and finally go to bed, almost always before 11. Which is what I did throughout high school and beauty school, only thing that is different is that I'm a slave to blackboard! I am undecided and because of this I am in a career class, the endless worksheets on personality, strengths, and skills are taxing, yet I still only have a slight inclination of what I want to be. Though yesterday morning I was filling out my career action plan, and I was researching dietitian programs, sadly UT doesn't have one. So I suppose this is my unexpected experience, to do what I want in my future I'll have to leave all of my friends and family. A few months ago I would have been all for it, but now I don't know what to feel!   

A Best Friend with a Great Quality

If I had to describe Cara to someone the phrase, "bad-ass-bitch" comes to mind.  She is a very real and upfront person. If there is someone that you want the truth about a situation, you go to her. Yet she's not mean or cruel she is just very straightforward and grounded. I am the type of person who gets ahead of their self, so having Cara around to put me back in my place is great! For example, the picture above, the hair show that we competed in last year. We started our planning around October, we wanted to have two models, both with large hairpieces and full costumes. As the months passed we got swept away in high school work and the strenuous hours of beauty school, we hardly had time to work on our hair show. So it was Cara's idea to focus on the mother nature model, but I was still dreaming of entering both models. She knew how stressed I get under pressure, and how I'll freak out when the time is running out. Cara had to literally tell me how crazy I was for thinking that we could do both models in time for the show. Attaching a five pound hairpiece onto one model's head was a big enough dilemma, she couldn't fathom having to think of doing double the work. When the hair show was getting closer, she was absolutely right, I went straight into freakout mode and thank god I had her there to make things run smoothly. I cannot picture a better friend to go through beauty school with; and even though we don't see each other as much she's always there keeping me grounded.

Dear Jane,

    I know that we used to be really close, practically family, so I am writing to get a few things off of my chest. Lately you have been extremely short with me whenever we are in a group setting, you put down anything I say, and you start arguments any chance you get. I am tired of being belittled in front of our entire friend group because you have an issue with me that you can't or won't even try to get past. I have no clue what I have done for you to treat me the way you do. I know that sometimes situations can be blown out of proportion, but I am not the only one who has noticed you treating me the way you do. I don't want to argue, nor make this a big deal, but every time I bring it up you make it so you're the victim, but to clarify I am not saying that you are the bad guy. We need to work out whatever issue you may have with me so we can go back to having a great time together! I hope you don't take this the wrong way, you are and will always be one of my best friends.

Thanks for reading,
Caitie  

Blog Opinion

In my opinion the purpose of this blog is to become comfortable with different platforms in writing. When writing online you have many tools at your dispense, you can access dictionaries, thesauruses, or anything you might need to better your writing. While in a classroom setting you don't always have the sources, or feel comfortable looking the answer. Speaking of comfortability, I don't really know how I feel about others reading my blog, I am not the type to share their writing with others. With an audience reading my thoughts I may approach them differently than I would if I were just writing for personal benefit. Writing is something I think everyone should know, it is an art, without great authors we wouldn't be enjoying our favorite books, shows, or movies. With social media having us broadcast our daily routines/thoughts, we utilize our writing skills almost daily or hourly. Our writing skills on social media is something that represents us, if we have poor grammar and cannot spell simple words, that may change the way people view us intellectually. Developing stronger writing skills will hopefully help me excel in my career. I could post a well-written article about achieving a certain hair color and build a stronger clientele. Writing is in our daily lives, there is no really no way of avoiding it.