Hi friends,
I just wanted to follow up on a really old post of mine, back when I was deciding between two schools and really struggled with which one to go to. My choice was between Western Washington University and Washington State University. Both schools had great pros and cons, and both probably would have worked out. But more doors seemed to be open for me at WSU, and though it seemed like more of a risk and was definitely outside of my comfort zone, I took the leap of faith and moved to the small town of Pullman, WA and started school here at WSU.
Having now spent almost two semesters here I am happy to report I couldn't have made a better decision. There are a million little things I could write about that have been a blessing since moving here, but I'll just highlight a few things that have really been crucial to my experience here. Showing you all that making a choice, as hard and daunting as it is, will more often than not yield such huge blessings in the end.
First off there is such a sense of community here and in the greater area surrounding Pullman. Everyone is proud to be a coug, and even though it is a relatively large campus, it feels small once you are here and experience it. There is a a huge christian presence on campus, which I was pleasantly suppressed to find, and lots of opportunities to be in community with them on campus. The school does a really good job of having things to do on campus. I was worried being in the middle of nowhere would be boring, but when you can find time between your studies to do something fun there is always bound to be something to do. The greek life is alive and well here if you are into that sort of thing, but if your not the options are out there, you just have to be a little more proactive about finding them. Also, you get in really good shape walking around this campus, you either are going up a hill or down one and there is not really an in-between. Cougar calves are a thing! There is also a lot of great food places in the greater Pullman area, it's super tempting to eat out a lot… if only we weren't all broke college students :)
I've made life long friendships here, and couldn't be happier in my major program. Of course there is room for this school to improve in some areas, I'm not suggesting this place is perfect by any stretch. And I know not everyone has this experience here. But if you were wondering how that choice panned out, it has changed my life for the better!
GO COUGS!
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Self Conscious Stupidity
As a girl, for some stupid reason I am pre-programmed to have embedded body image issues. Every girl seems to. Something in our brains tells us our skin is too pale, or our butts are too big, or that our stomach is too flabby, that our nose is the wrong shape, that our ankles are too fat, that stretch marks are ugly and shameful, or that our thighs are too big. I personally struggle with that last one. It is an aspect of myself I tend to try to hide, that I think everyone notices, and not in a good way... My thighs take up more mental thought than any body part should in a normal humans brain. They are the first aspect I worry about when I put an outfit on in the morning. It's hard for me to find any pants I like to see my thighs in. I can't seem to not be self conscious of them. Even though I know they are normal sized, and frankly look fine in jeans to anyone else with a pulse on this planet! And the crazy part is I know I'm crazy! Deep down I know the other people at the gym, the other people at church and in class don't care. I am aware how stupid it is to hate my thighs even after my sweet boyfriend says he likes them as he grazes his hand over them when we sit next to each other. I want to embrace my thighs the way he does, but can't seem to. Shouldn't his assurance be the ultimate affirmation that there's no reason to be self conscious about them!?
Why can I know a thought I'm having be stupid, yet proceed to think that hurtful self image sort of thought on a daily basis. Why can I not see myself the way my boyfriend can? Why do I allow the crazy to overtake the logic?
I KNOW I'm not the only girl who struggles with this. I would venture to say every girl has their own "thigh" issue. It just may not be their thighs per say.
It's annoying being a girl sometimes... I hate that I hate parts of my body...
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
I dropped my pen...
Today in history class I dropped my pen, entering into a battle I am not unfamiliar with as this sort of thing is a regular and usually uneventful occurrence. So here is a detailed description and over dramatization of my thought process and act of getting my pen back in the middle of class.
I sit here staring at the pen, I can still hear the echo of the pen crashing to the ground, as if it took up the room and now everyone's attention is now diverted to me and my disobedient writing utensil. I survey the peers around me and none seem to even notice this momentary cataclysmic event that just took place… phew… The pen sits there, looming nothing short of 12 inches away from my foot in front of me. Just laying there beneath the obviously hung over frat guy seated in the seat in front of me. My initial reaction is to extend my left foot out to violently retract the pen back to my vicinity so I can scoop it back up into my hand. Forcefully drag it along the ground as if to punish it and make it regret its costly misstep. But as hard as I try my leg can't stretch that far… I curse all those nights I spent complaining about growing pains as a kid, I obviously didn't have enough of those nights! There is this stupid desk protruding my abdomen and stoping the mass portion of my body from leaning far enough forward to even get my foot in the pen's region. With each failing attempt it's as if the space dividing the pen and I grows, the air between us becomes thicker. Time passes and at this point I've stopped observing whatever the teacher is lecturing on… The slides on the board whiz by and all my mental energy is held captive by this piece of ink incapsulating plastic that fell prey to gravity's unforgiving ways. I take a moment to regroup my frantic left lower limb and take a minute to examine my right hand, questioning its usually dependable grasp on objects I so trustingly place in it. Mentally blaming it for all this trouble I am now dealing with…
I am forced to remove the notebook and empty coffee cup from atop my desk, and awkwardly juggle those items while I lift the desk portion of the chair out of my way, leaving it to balance upright in the tight space between me and this blonde kid next to me. I then proceed to bend my torso down and lean forward enough to get my hands on the pen. Initial contact is made with the rouge possession. This is one small step for hand, but one large step for hand kind. (I couldn't help myself there, it was an achievement to say the least) With the pen barely balancing between my middle finger and index finer I resurface victorious. Mission complete.
Yes, I was that bored in class today that I wrote this after I got my pen back :)
I sit here staring at the pen, I can still hear the echo of the pen crashing to the ground, as if it took up the room and now everyone's attention is now diverted to me and my disobedient writing utensil. I survey the peers around me and none seem to even notice this momentary cataclysmic event that just took place… phew… The pen sits there, looming nothing short of 12 inches away from my foot in front of me. Just laying there beneath the obviously hung over frat guy seated in the seat in front of me. My initial reaction is to extend my left foot out to violently retract the pen back to my vicinity so I can scoop it back up into my hand. Forcefully drag it along the ground as if to punish it and make it regret its costly misstep. But as hard as I try my leg can't stretch that far… I curse all those nights I spent complaining about growing pains as a kid, I obviously didn't have enough of those nights! There is this stupid desk protruding my abdomen and stoping the mass portion of my body from leaning far enough forward to even get my foot in the pen's region. With each failing attempt it's as if the space dividing the pen and I grows, the air between us becomes thicker. Time passes and at this point I've stopped observing whatever the teacher is lecturing on… The slides on the board whiz by and all my mental energy is held captive by this piece of ink incapsulating plastic that fell prey to gravity's unforgiving ways. I take a moment to regroup my frantic left lower limb and take a minute to examine my right hand, questioning its usually dependable grasp on objects I so trustingly place in it. Mentally blaming it for all this trouble I am now dealing with…
I am forced to remove the notebook and empty coffee cup from atop my desk, and awkwardly juggle those items while I lift the desk portion of the chair out of my way, leaving it to balance upright in the tight space between me and this blonde kid next to me. I then proceed to bend my torso down and lean forward enough to get my hands on the pen. Initial contact is made with the rouge possession. This is one small step for hand, but one large step for hand kind. (I couldn't help myself there, it was an achievement to say the least) With the pen barely balancing between my middle finger and index finer I resurface victorious. Mission complete.
Yes, I was that bored in class today that I wrote this after I got my pen back :)
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Cadaver Lab Adventures
So I touched a dead body yesterday… I touched it's skin, pealed that back and touched its muscle, pealed that back and touched the bone and the attachment sites of the muscles. I touched the tendons, and the once critical-to-life arteries.
It was terrifying, gross, humbling, nauseating, and sadly required… As a kinesiology student in Anatomy we have to participate in cadaver labs as part of the class. This was our first lab out of four over the course of the semester that we will do. We looked at all the posterior muscle of the body.
It was the most stereotypical cadaver lab you can think of… We walk into the sketchy basement of the medical building, walk into a room full of body bags on tables, crowd around the designated one in the middle, unzip it, and have the instructor dig right into the lab, casually unwrapping the muscles and having us examine them. My instructor was way to excited to do this lab… Nobody should be that excited to open up a cadaver… The smell was probably the hardest part of it all, I get sick just writing about it, so I'm jut going to leave it at that.
Thankfully it was only an hour of my day. I was able to book it out of there and go take a thorough shower! I do not enjoy those labs… I never will. But it is something I just have to get over and do in order to get through this class. School is more and more becoming full of things I have to do just to get through than things I want to do. Cadaver lab just puts a face to that fact, literally…. :/
It was terrifying, gross, humbling, nauseating, and sadly required… As a kinesiology student in Anatomy we have to participate in cadaver labs as part of the class. This was our first lab out of four over the course of the semester that we will do. We looked at all the posterior muscle of the body.
It was the most stereotypical cadaver lab you can think of… We walk into the sketchy basement of the medical building, walk into a room full of body bags on tables, crowd around the designated one in the middle, unzip it, and have the instructor dig right into the lab, casually unwrapping the muscles and having us examine them. My instructor was way to excited to do this lab… Nobody should be that excited to open up a cadaver… The smell was probably the hardest part of it all, I get sick just writing about it, so I'm jut going to leave it at that.
Thankfully it was only an hour of my day. I was able to book it out of there and go take a thorough shower! I do not enjoy those labs… I never will. But it is something I just have to get over and do in order to get through this class. School is more and more becoming full of things I have to do just to get through than things I want to do. Cadaver lab just puts a face to that fact, literally…. :/
Monday, February 24, 2014
A piece of Love
First off, let me address my rather abrupt, and unannounced absence from the blog. Life got going at a pace of over 100 MPH it feels like. School pace really started to pick up, my social life is expanding at a rapid pace pulling my attention in every direction possible. All good things to be busy with, but took a lot out of me. And if I'm being completely honest I got uninspired… Noting I started writing about I felt was goo enough to post. I have about ten posts started just sitting in my draft box that are less than inspiring in my opinion. I got into this funk where I believed what I wrote on here was kind of a waste of energy on my part…. I can't really explain why…
But today I decided to snap out of it. I write these blogs for nobodies approval, not because anybody told me to, but because I want to get what is in my head out somewhere, somewhere where I can remember it and look back at it. Plus some of my good friends like to read my random thoughts… So here I am again to write about anything and everything on my mind… Today's post is about one condition of love.
I think to love someone is to put yourself in the most vulnerable state any human being can be in. The definition of vulnerable is "susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm". To love someone is to unconditionally care about them and invest yourself in their life. That doesn't sound so bad - doable from any physical standpoint- except the only way to do that to a person is to get your heart, your soul, and your emotions involved. You have to be willing to get so close to them knowing that you could get hurt, that something could go cataclysmicly wrong and your heart could be shattered into a million pieces, and then still proceed to get that close… You have to be willing to be vulnerable. That is the ultimate form of vulnerability between any two people. To love someone, to have that unconditional trust between two people in this unexplainable non-physical form. This does not just apply to a couple who is dating or married. This goes for true friendships, sibling bonds, and parents and their children. We are creatures created to love. We crave love… We crave vulnerability. To me, that is the scariest piece of love, the craving we have for it. In no other scenario in life do we crave to be "susceptible to emotional attack or harm."
Does that piece of love stop me from loving my friends and family? Absolutely not… It is the greatest connection we have to one another, and when you do love someone, the satisfaction of the craving is so much greater than trying to avoid the slight chance of hurt the vulnerability may bring you.
But today I decided to snap out of it. I write these blogs for nobodies approval, not because anybody told me to, but because I want to get what is in my head out somewhere, somewhere where I can remember it and look back at it. Plus some of my good friends like to read my random thoughts… So here I am again to write about anything and everything on my mind… Today's post is about one condition of love.
I think to love someone is to put yourself in the most vulnerable state any human being can be in. The definition of vulnerable is "susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm". To love someone is to unconditionally care about them and invest yourself in their life. That doesn't sound so bad - doable from any physical standpoint- except the only way to do that to a person is to get your heart, your soul, and your emotions involved. You have to be willing to get so close to them knowing that you could get hurt, that something could go cataclysmicly wrong and your heart could be shattered into a million pieces, and then still proceed to get that close… You have to be willing to be vulnerable. That is the ultimate form of vulnerability between any two people. To love someone, to have that unconditional trust between two people in this unexplainable non-physical form. This does not just apply to a couple who is dating or married. This goes for true friendships, sibling bonds, and parents and their children. We are creatures created to love. We crave love… We crave vulnerability. To me, that is the scariest piece of love, the craving we have for it. In no other scenario in life do we crave to be "susceptible to emotional attack or harm."
Does that piece of love stop me from loving my friends and family? Absolutely not… It is the greatest connection we have to one another, and when you do love someone, the satisfaction of the craving is so much greater than trying to avoid the slight chance of hurt the vulnerability may bring you.
Monday, December 9, 2013
Facial Hair
I know this is strictly my opinion on the dead skin cells growing out of other humans face, but I'm going to give it anyway because being a girl, this is something I have created an opinion on. Collectively us girls have had extensive conversation about the opposite genders facial hair at some point, it is a natural topic of conversation for some strange reason. An aspect we find easy to critique probably because we don't have any (hopefully)…
I think scruff on a guy is fine! It shows he cares about grooming himself but also that he is a man and can actually grow a beard. It is also very dependent on the guy. For most guys, scruff or what some call stubble makes them look older and more defined. But for some it turns into the is awkward patchy mess that adds only sadness and confusion to his facial features. I think the real winners are the ones that can pull off a clean shave and then rock the stubble one week later, able to interchangeably do those looks. Then there is the long outlandish bead the length of my forearm. That curls and hangs there on the guys chin and cheeks overtaking any other physical feature the decent guy might have. As you can tell I'm not such a fan. Nobody displays the unattractiveness that long beards can bring to a man like the Seattle Mariners' Dustin Ackley… He was a very attractive his first season, then took on this beast of a beard that makes him look sad, dirty, and frankly careless. Go look it up, I'm not exaggerating! (showing my bias maybe… but not exaggerating) And nobody displays the attractiveness of the "stubble look" like my amazing boyfriend… Just saying :) (there I go showing my bias again)
But to be totally honest I don't want to critique any guy on his facial hair. It is his face, he can do with it what he wants. It has no determination on his personality, his success in life or anything like that. Girls should not be placing so much worth on the guy's facial hair if they don't want guys placing so much worth in the size of their chest! Cause we all know that is the male equivalent of what us females do.
Now that No Shave November is over I felt I could share my opinion because I have seen enough guys on campus attempting beards for the special fall occasion!
I think scruff on a guy is fine! It shows he cares about grooming himself but also that he is a man and can actually grow a beard. It is also very dependent on the guy. For most guys, scruff or what some call stubble makes them look older and more defined. But for some it turns into the is awkward patchy mess that adds only sadness and confusion to his facial features. I think the real winners are the ones that can pull off a clean shave and then rock the stubble one week later, able to interchangeably do those looks. Then there is the long outlandish bead the length of my forearm. That curls and hangs there on the guys chin and cheeks overtaking any other physical feature the decent guy might have. As you can tell I'm not such a fan. Nobody displays the unattractiveness that long beards can bring to a man like the Seattle Mariners' Dustin Ackley… He was a very attractive his first season, then took on this beast of a beard that makes him look sad, dirty, and frankly careless. Go look it up, I'm not exaggerating! (showing my bias maybe… but not exaggerating) And nobody displays the attractiveness of the "stubble look" like my amazing boyfriend… Just saying :) (there I go showing my bias again)
But to be totally honest I don't want to critique any guy on his facial hair. It is his face, he can do with it what he wants. It has no determination on his personality, his success in life or anything like that. Girls should not be placing so much worth on the guy's facial hair if they don't want guys placing so much worth in the size of their chest! Cause we all know that is the male equivalent of what us females do.
Now that No Shave November is over I felt I could share my opinion because I have seen enough guys on campus attempting beards for the special fall occasion!
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Christmas Tree Hunting
For the first time in my life today I went to a real christmas tree farm and picked out a real tree to put in my aunt and uncle's house! Some of you may gasp at the thought of me going nineteen years without such an experience, but my whole life my parents have done the "fake tree" thing for various reasons. So when the opportunity arose for me to go with my aunt and uncle to a real christmas tree farm I took it!
I have to say, it was almost exactly like picking a pumpkin at the pumpkin patch! We walked up and down the muddy rows of trees inspecting each one, the same way you wander the rows of orange pumpkins in the fall. We marked about three trees we really liked and then decided on one that pleased everyone except my four year old cousin… cause she changed her mind on which tree she liked every two minutes… as to be expected. My uncle got down on his hands and knees and sawed the truck right apart. I followed behind them as they dragged the tree to the barn to pay for it. It was all very "stereotypical" of what I had seen on TV of tree hunting! They even sang christmas carols as they carried the tree! It was very exciting to say I was a part of it! We got the tree shaken of all the dead needles and promptly stuffed in in the back of their truck. With our cold muddy boots on and the tree snug in the back, we piled into the truck and headed off to get cheese burgers (from Five Guys… best burger place ever) and go home!
It was a great way to kick off the christmas season!
I have to say, it was almost exactly like picking a pumpkin at the pumpkin patch! We walked up and down the muddy rows of trees inspecting each one, the same way you wander the rows of orange pumpkins in the fall. We marked about three trees we really liked and then decided on one that pleased everyone except my four year old cousin… cause she changed her mind on which tree she liked every two minutes… as to be expected. My uncle got down on his hands and knees and sawed the truck right apart. I followed behind them as they dragged the tree to the barn to pay for it. It was all very "stereotypical" of what I had seen on TV of tree hunting! They even sang christmas carols as they carried the tree! It was very exciting to say I was a part of it! We got the tree shaken of all the dead needles and promptly stuffed in in the back of their truck. With our cold muddy boots on and the tree snug in the back, we piled into the truck and headed off to get cheese burgers (from Five Guys… best burger place ever) and go home!
It was a great way to kick off the christmas season!
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