Bella Umbrella

Check this article from ology.com which lists their 10 Things That Rocked About Music In 2011. I’d agree with everything on the list–damn I love Spotify. And I checked out that Amanda Palmer song, she’s really annoying, but ukulele did become rather popular this year. I got one as last years Christmas present, and then all my friends started playing it. The whole world should really learn ukulele, it’s an amazing amazing amazing thing.

Anyhoo, click the linked image above and read the article! Such a good blog it is.

P.S. I’ve got another music related post coming up that I’ve been working on the past few days, bear with me.

So obviously it’s been a while. And even though it’s been almost a year since my last comment (shout out to Hoodie Allen for reading that post) and I only have about two people probably reading this blog (Hi Mama), here I am, about to update all the Google robots searching my site for malware on my college girl life. So much for updating every Sunday, huh?

I’m typing on my uncle’s iPad since there’s no wifi in my Grandma’s house and it’s actually not as fun as it sounds. We’ll see how long this post lasts. Anyway. Here goes.

College is pretty great for the most part. Pretty repetitive routine of classes, pretending to study, naps on naps on naps, parties and the usual sketchy college activities, showering with shoes on, and eating shitty dining hall food. I’ve made quite a few awesome friends since my last post and life is good. I’ve even decided on living with a few of them next year. And even though SC does guarantee housing for sophomore year we’re probably gonna avoid the jacked up prices, crappy suites, and RAs by leasing a house off campus. I adore SC and I’m a totally brainwashed obnoxious Trojan just like the rest of ‘em, but I think we all can agree here that student housing sucks. Pretty much all upperclassmen have to live off campus, most in private/non-university housing. And it’s sad that that’s often cheaper than the alternative. Anyhoo, I won’t bore you with the details of my house hunting just yet. I’ll let you know when I sign the lease.

Besides learning how to search for a place for my friends and I to live (thank god I took Housing and Design in high school), I learned a lot of other things this semester:

-How to live with my friends. Granted the girls on my floor are not my best friends that I’ve had since middle school. But they are the folks I spend much of every waking hour with, somehow we haven’t clawed each others eyes out yet.

-How to be friends with girls. Not to sound like one of “those girls” who think that some guys only want to be friends, but, in all honesty, most of my friends at home are boys. It probably has to do with the fact that I was that funny, fat nerdy girl in middle school that never had a guy look twice at me. So by the time I slimmed down and learned what hair mousse was most of the guys I knew were just friends. Too much information? Oh well. Point is, I live on an all girls floor and most of my friends are girls and gay guys, and some how I haven’t clawed my own eyes out yet.

-How to ride a bike. Haha this may sound crazy but I didn’t learn how to ride a bike until I came to California this summer. I had only ridden my brand new beach cruiser twice before I finally brought it to school. Once I got here I realized bikes are hella fun and make the long trip to the nicer dining hall, and far away classes much easier.

-How to be productive with my time. I learned this particular skill very slowly. I realized the library is my best friend when I’m on a deadline. I also realized no matter what the subject I cannot study on my bed. Also, getting stuff done isn’t hard when you actually apply yourself–I’m still struggling with this one.

-Everything is going to be okay. All I’ve got to do is believe that and follow my instincts. Every little things going to be alright.

Lastly, I learned that you shouldn’t partake in risky behaviors unless you are aware of every consequence and are prepared to take them. We as young adults and college students are not invincible as we lead ourselves to believe. We’re not smarter than the rules and we are not immune to them. That may make me a square, but as someone who took too many risks this semester, and as someone who acted recklessly and, in a word, dumb, I realize now that I am responsible for myself now. And I refuse to disappoint all the people rooting for me and supporting me by being so stupid and self-destructive. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

The end. Happy thanksgiving, y’all.

So I just finished my first week of college! And let me just say, it was wonderful. College at SC is a lot like the movies–some of which were filmed on our campus, not to brag or anything. ;) Anyhey, being a new scholarly student of the school US News ranked 23rd in the nation this year caused me to think: 1. I really want to update my blog more, and maybe even do vlogs. 2. I love college, I kinda wanna write about it. So then I thought, why not write weekly posts here about my college life?

Genius.
Lets hope this works out better than that 365 Project I abandoned a few months ago.

So here goes the first post.
Things I did in my first week of college.

Me after my first week of college.

1. Moved in successfully. Didn’t bring much. Giant bag of gummy bears was a smart purchase. Buying my linens, etc. from the University program was a not so smart purchase, shoulda stuck with Target.
2. Loved my roommate! Seriously, I lucked out because my roomie and I are freakishly similar, I think we’re gonna get along well this year!
3. Learned the uke is pretty popular. Besides my roomie and I playing it I’ve met a few other uke players, two of which were cute boys that serenaded me. (I love college).
4. Started putting in more effort with outfits everyday. I mean, I dress well, but the first few days after moving in I was slacking off. Being a little too comfortable led to an awkward situation one night when I walked into my room post-shower looking like a wet dog and finding the room filled with cute guys. After that night, lets just say my day and night outfits are a little more polished.
5. Got confused by free time. Seriously, college gives you a lot of strange down time between classes during the week, I’m still getting used to it!
6. Made lots of gal pals. As a girl with mostly guy best friends back home, it was weird hanging out with girls so much, and living on a floor with only girls. I’ve yet to make solid/go-to guy friends, so that’s a goal for week 2!
7. Breezed through my classes. Calculus is mostly a review, I’m really glad I took it in high school. My Southeast Asian Film and Literature class should be somewhat easy too since I took Lang’s AP English. I’ve got my fingers crossed that I’m not jinxing it. I probably am.
8. Ate at the dining halls. My meal plan ($2500/semester) gives me unlimited swipes at the two campus dining halls. I resisted at first, but I am totally taking advantage of my financial aid-covered food! Parkside dining hall is AHHHHMAZING.
9. Did some college type stuff, if ya know what I mean. Frats, welcome week concerts, and other bad ass stuff.
10. Started my weekend on Thursday night.
11. Had only one class on Friday which lasted 45 minutes and finished before 11am. Three day weekends are the junk.
12. Went home for said three day weekend. I’m a family gal, what can I say.
13. Loved college. Loved my school. In my mind, there’s no better school for me than the University of Southern California. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

No quality pics since I broke my camera earlier in the summer and have yet to replace it. However, here’s a video of our Trojan Marching Band performing in an episode of Glee. Yeah, they’re that cool. Ignore the Spanish subtitles.

…with a dream and a cardigan. Literally. I actually brought a cardigan with me on the plane. And I’m full of dreams. Haha :)

So this post is like a month late since I’ve been in LA since July 2nd or something. Whatever, get over it. So, leaving North Carolina proved… emotional, in the least. Damn, I never realized how many people I truly love and have (for some reason) decided to leave behind in order to go to USC. It turns out I’m human after all, and I actually have feelings and stuff. After four years of being ready to get out of Durham and run off to fulfill my dream life in California, all of a sudden I got really nostalgic, and it hit me that I have seriously AMAZING friends.

Luckily though I got in tons of hang out time with them throughout the month of June. That didn’t stop me from crying every night the first few days in LA. I still get sad when I think about everyone, and that I won’t see them for who knows how long. And it really scares me that I will inevitably fall out of touch with some people, people I really care about.

Anyhey, Cali’s good as always. I got my MacBook Pro from my uncle, and a new beach cruiser from my aunt. I never learned how to ride a bike as a kid, so that’s a whole new challenge for me. We went riding the other day down at the docks, that was funny. I’m getting better! I’m just such an uncoordinated goofball. The fam acquired plenty of new blackmail photos and videos though. Darn.

Anyhoo, not much else to say except that I’m SUPER excited about moving into my dorm on campus on the 17th! Ahhhh, it’s so soon. Where did the summer go?

P.S. Today’s my mommy’s birthday! Happy birthday Mom! I love you so much! You are the wind beneath my wings. Cooooo coooo!

Man, oh, man. What’s up world? Happy Father’s day. I am exhausted, but since we celebrated dad’s day with an early breakfast I’m free for the rest of the day, therefore, here’s a nice little blog.

I have 12 days left before I fly out to California on my one way ticket. I thought I’d be jittery and excited, but instead I’m sort of depressed. This month has been amazing. And it’s only going to get better in these final days spent here in the south. This week I’m finishing up items on my Bull City Bucket List, and I’m heading to Myrtle Beach for the first time on Friday to spend the weekend partying it up on a resort with my four best friends. I wish my friends weren’t so fantastic, if I were just sitting around my house bored this month I’d have no problem leaving. But I’m finally realizing how much each and every one of my friends means to me, and that our time together is reaching an end, and that my childhood as I once knew it is also over. Not to mention, I finally appreciate Durham in all its small-town glory, and I’m headed towards big city hustle-and-bustle in LA.

Anyhoo, here’s this past week in photos/list mode.

Last Saturday – My best friend’s graduation party. Super fun, ended in tears when everyone shared memories of him and I realized my brother from another mother is going to be 2000 miles away from me.

Sunday – Put myself back together after the mini melt-down on Saturday.

Mon.-Thurs. – Shopping, like everyday. Terrence and I had a bunch of bonding time, and I drove out to Crabtree with the ladies on Wednesday. Spent a lot of time on Franklin street too, just getting a glimpse of what life could have been like had I chosen to attend UNC.

Friday – Epic day of bucket list fun. Went to hang out at Duke one last time, had a failed lemonade stand. Ate a fancy dinner with some friends downtown (live music ftw), followed by a cute nighttime outdoor movie marathon in Durham’s Central Park.

Saturday (yesterday) – Successfully hunted down a secret LiLa show with three of my boys. Turns out it was outside at Devines a local sports bar/restaurant downtown.

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of LiLa shows, they’re just an amazing band. Since the boys had never seen them before, or heard their music, it was kind of cool to watch them experience it and to fall in love with it. I couldn’t be more unhappy that I won’t be able to go with them to the July show. Damn you California for being so far away. It was kind of a perfect two days spent downtown, experiencing the best Durham has to offer. Seriously there was so much going on this weekend! I missed out on a Big Hell performance and a few other local music gigs since there was so much happening simultaneously.

Sunday – Here we are! Agh, I think I’ve got to go do some more packing and random stuff preparing for my departure. I’ve been doing things slowly whenever I’m home to maximize my amount of time with friends. I don’t know what I’m going to do, the next two or three months are going to be extremely difficult adjusting to life without the
best friends I’ve ever had.

Hey guys! Finally done with high school, so hopefully I’ll have some more posts coming up.

Until then, I’ve posted my second review on Sunset in the Rearview, Lydia Simmons’ amazing music blog. Check it out!

Me and the homies after Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.

I went to a few good shows this month. :) Check them out, photo style. More on my Flickr as always.

Check out my concert review/guest post on the amazing Sunset in the Rearview blog!

Hey guys, I felt like writing a quick post about my life as it stands today.

In short, life is amazing. Seriously though, I don’t get how lucky I am, I feel so spoiled right now. My aunt booked a sweet Hilton resort in Myrtle beach for my friends and I later this month, we’re going to spend 3 days hanging out and having fun on my last weekend in the south. My other aunt bought tickets for us to see Real Madrid play LA Galaxy in July with my cousin Val. And I just used a portion of the money I saved up this year from working at Parizade to put a down payment on my Coachella pass for next year. I am extremely extremely EXTREMELY excited for all this, it’s surreal.

Also, Lydia from Sunset in the Rearview approached me to help write some concert reviews for her 100Bands series on the site. I am a HUGE fan of Lydia’s, and her music blog is like the only one I read. I’m pumped to write these. However, the reviews are exclusively for Sunset, so I’ll be linking all of the reviews for Mac Miller, Grace Potter and whatever other shows I go to this month.

In other news, I wrote a Bull City Bucket list! It’s basically just a list of things I want to do before I move to LA. Some things are little activities I’ve never done before, but since I’ve totally grabbed the bull by its horns in the past four years, most of the things on the list are memories I want to recreate. I crossed my first even off the list last night, “a Bulls baseball game with Jenni.” I love Bulls games, especially for the awesome fireworks on Friday nights. The weather was perfect too, not too humid or hot. And we got $2 parking! Yes!

Let’s talk about Coachella! So, next year they have decided to hold two, hopefully identical, weekends in April for the festival. I’m not sure how I feel about this yet, it’s kind of strange. But I purchased my pass for the first weekend. It’s farther away from the end of the semester and I won’t have to deal with annoying wannabe stoners raving about it being 4/20. The line up hasn’t been released yet obviously, but I found this cool prediction post, I really hope Fleet Foxes and Beastie Boys play, that would be a dream.

I finally moved my old concert reviews from my high school’s blog to this site! Yay! Check them out, I back-dated them to the day of each actual show. I have two more that I still have to write (Mac Miller, Grace Potter), so look forward to those.

Okay, gonna go play some ukulele now!
Later!