A Rant A Day...

I've gotten accustomed to having to wait 10 minutes for hot water in my house. Granted, the water does eventually get really hot, just not right away, and I'm an impatient person. I was never big on washing my hands at home because of this - cold water is not a good friend of mine. At school, however, there was always hot water on command - it was great (it's the little things in life). Because of this, I began to really enjoy washing my hands because of the nice warm water and the clean feeling afterwards. However, with this, I became mildly more germaphobic. Once my hands are nice and clean I become reluctant to touch door knobs or other things I would classify as dirty, especially in public. I was never a big fan of public toilets or bathrooms in general so having to touch dirty door knobs after making my hands nice and clean is basically a nightmare. What I've noticed, however, is that this problem can be avoided entirely, depending on how manual or automatic the bathroom is. It's really great when everything is automatic, but only works if everything is. Example: automatic sink, automatic soap, automatic hand dryer - doing great so far, automatic door or no door - perfect! Door handle - ruins everything. As soon as I have to touch the door, the entire hand washing process just seems like a waste of water, soap and energy. Now lets go to the flip side: manual sink and soap - turn on with dirty hands, take soap with dirty hands, clean hands, now what? Take nice, clean paper towel, turn off dirty sink handle and open dirty door and make it out fresh as ever. And now that I've taken you through a nice, little rant about public restrooms and dirty door knobs, don't forget to wash your hands.

Saying Goodbye to Suits

The Game of Life, SORRY! (Disney Edition), Monopoly, and Clue were classic in my house when I was growing up. Life was probably the least exciting for me because I always tried to take the same life path - college, marriage, children, some miscellaneous (life) events in between, then retirement. There would always be those few time I didn't get kids or wanted to be bold and would skip college to go straight into a career, but for the most part I played the game in the fashion I thought my actual life would turn out.
Lately my life hasn't been going that way. In high school I assumed I would go to a Big 10 school or other top school, stay there for 4 years, study business, graduate with a good job and work in New York City post-grad. However, I've been feeling unsatisfied with my current direction. Sure I'm doing well and my resume looks great and I love how many opportunities there are within the school, but I don't actually enjoy my classes. I don't get excited about choosing classes, I find them difficult to focus on and study for, and I overall haven't found anything that really interests me.
Last night I came to the brilliant conclusion that being a magazine editor would be my dream job. I think it would combine all the things I like and be something I could enjoy doing every day. Obviously you don't become a magazine editor straight out of college but it got me thinking that maybe business really isn't the path I want to go down.
We're raised to follow our dreams, the American dream, and make a life for ourselves doing what we love, yet I went into business because it seemed like the logical thing to do, not because it was something I was especially interested in or passionate about. Now that I'm reconsidering and trying to find what really interests me, it's exciting, but also scary - it feels like there's a lot more risk in studying communications or going into a field that's more unknown and undefined, which leaves me hesitant to jump into a new field at a new school in a new place. For now, the excitement building is overpowering the fear though and if that continues you'll be hearing a lot more from me in the future. If not, you can be assured I'll be wearing a suit doing something business-y somewhere.

Seven Things for the Seventh Month

1. Duolingo - Max showed me this app because he was using it to learn French and work on his Spanish. It teaches you a new language little by little with daily lessons that include writing, reading and speaking. It's cute and fun and makes my brain work a little bit harder every day.

2. Photoshop - One of my favorite blogs to follow is The College Prepster. Carly posted about how to use Photoshop to make collages for her blog so instead of working on some other important stuff I took some time out of my day to learn how to make collages. They're actually fairly easy and I'm a huge fan because I'm a very visual person. I'm currently working on one to help me decide what colorful throw pillows to get to go with the white bedding I just got for my new bedroom.

3. Frozen Yogurt - I have to say this is one of the fads I was quickly over, opting for true ice cream, but I've recently been in the mood for something light and refreshing and fro-yo is it. Today I got a mango vanilla twist with Oreo pieces and gummy worms. Strange but tasty.

4. New Lilly Agendas - I've always been a very organized person but dates and times slip so easily from my mind that having an agenda is essential for me. The Lilly Pulitzer large agenda is my favorite so far because it's a great size and I love how colorful and cheery it is. I can't wait for August so I can break in the new one!

5. Short hair - For the first time since I was about 8 years old, I got a real hair cut - I'm talking a solid 8-10 inches. So far I'm loving how easy it is and not having to pull it out from under bags, jackets and scarves all the time. Tip: if you decide to get yours cut, bring pictures for your stylist, it will really help give them an idea of what you're looking for.

6. Crisp, clean everything - As I mentioned before my family is moving to a much smaller apartment from our nice sized house. That means lots of cleaning and getting rid of clothing among other things to prepare to downsize. Also since we're showing the house frequently my shelves and desk have to be spotless. The cleanliness is definitely growing on me, which is why I picked a bright white comforter set. I'm hoping the crisp linens will motivate me to keep the rest of my life as neat.

7. Movies - I can't remember the last time there were so many films I wanted to see in theaters in one month. So far I've only seen Pitch Perfect 2 and Inside Out - both of which were great (as if anyone ever expected anything less). I'm hoping to catch Max, Magic Mike XXL (guilty pleasure), and Minions before I head back to school in August.