I am officially a college grad!

On Friday, May 2, I was inducted into the Franklin Honor Society for having at least a 3.75 GPA, and I walked across the stage of the Auditorium Theatre and graduated from Roosevelt University.

Graduation was fun. We had an amazing commencement speaker, which made me very happy because there have been some flops as of late. And I managed to make a new friend in the graduation line. (Okay, so we had met before, but we had never really gotten to talk to each other. Then we were in line together and bonded over disdain for an obnoxious girl sitting in front of us who, very loudly, expressed her desire for the ceremony to be over.) I don't know if it was because it was my graduation, but it didn't seem to drag on for forever. Maybe it was because I had a better view of it all...either way, I enjoyed it. I wore flats, so there was no concern for breaking an ankle, but my gown's sleeve got caught on the stairs going down from the stage, and I had a moment of panic. Also, the entire day, my cap way crooked because I have an odd shaped head that the board didn't sit right with the tassel...anyways, it was a mess, and I was constantly trying to fix it, so the entire time I was walking across the stage, I was like, "Cap, don't fall. Cap, don't fall." And it didn't!! After the ceremony, the fam and I went to Portillo's for hot dogs. And thus, my day was celebrated! :)

I finished my last semester with 6 As out of 6, finally achieving a 4.0 semester at Roosevelt (and the second 4.0 semester of my undergrad career). I cannot think of a better way to end my time at Roosevelt and my undergraduate career.

It's crazy that I have completed four years of college and now have a Bachelor's degree. And I'm going to be starting a Master's program in the fall.

I am currently still awaiting the notification from ULM, so I can officially say whether ULL or ULM will be my home away form home for the next two years, but I was told that I should get the email this week. (FINGERS CROSSED FOR ULM!)

I am moving back to Louisiana on May 31, and I should be back in the state June 2. I'll be spending the summer in the New Orleans area before I head off to school in August (hopefully to Monroe with my BFF).

For now, my days are composed of watching Netflix, packing, and working at Bath & Body Works. Two and a half more weeks of Chicago living.

Until next time,
<3 Amber Marie

I have news!

1. Hi. I'm nearing the end of my undergraduate career, and I am very busy. (I missed the month of March. Oops.)
2. I graduate in 14 days.
3. I am moving back to Louisiana sometime around mid-June.
4. I was accepted to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, which is my second choice.
5. I am still waiting to hear from the University of Louisiana at Monroe, which is my first choice.

I'll be back soon. :)
<3 Amber Marie

Welcome to the town of Procrastination...

Population: ME

I have 4 days of class until I'm on spring break. In those four days of class, I have 1 weekly reading reaction paper (1-2 pages), 1 weekly reading reflection (1-2 paragraphs), 1 critical analysis paper (3-5 pages), 1 quest (longer than a quiz, shorter than a test), and 1 test.

THEN I HAVE 10 DAYS OFF OF SCHOOL!

Then I have 7 weeks of school until I graduate!

Spring break is going to do one of two things to me:
1. I'm going to be super dedicated to school and get everything done and not skip class and be a perfect student until I graduate.
-OR-
2. I'm just not going to care anymore, and literally count every single day until I graduate because I'm ready for it to be over.

Let's hope it's the first one.

I suppose I'm off to get to work on all that homework...

<3 Amber Marie

p.s. 63 days until graduation!

The Tradition Continues!

Oh. My. Goodness. I cannot believe it is happening again.

Heather is another year older.

Were you not just nine years old??

Seriously, this is not cool.

You are making me feel old.

I do not like that feeling.

Such is life, I suppose.

So, Heather. Happy birthday.

Congratulations on being another year older.

I am glad to have been a part of your growing up.

I just cannot believe how old you are.

Anyway, love you, my beautiful friend.

<3 Amber Marie

p.s. Ashley and I was just discussing how old certain little kids that we used to watch in children's church are getting, so it's not just you who is making my 21 years of life seem like so much longer. :)

p.p.s. This one was a lot sappier than past years...I guess that comes with old age... ;)

Well...

...I got my first grad school rejection. I'm not going to Virginia. I thought I'd be more upset. But I'm kind of just like, eh.

So, yeah. That happened.

I don't know what to say.

<3 Amber Marie

A Day in the Life of a Senior in College in Chicago

6 inches of snow.

5 hours of studying.

4 hours of sleep.

3 tests.

2 instances of catastophizing.

1 day from hell.

I'm Proud of Myself

I'm sorry, I can't help it. I am proud that I have managed to keep up with the blog for the past month. Sure, I'm not posting every day, but this post makes half as many as I did the whole year last year, so I think that's progress. :)

Anyway, so the real reason I'm posting today is because it's February! It means that I have 1) survived the first month of 2014, 2) survived two weeks of my last undergraduate semester, and 3) made it one month closer to graduation! (88 days, by the way.)

I think I am getting back into the swing of school, and I am managing okay. It's not perfection, and it could be better, but I feel a lot better than I did three weeks ago.

One thing that I feel the same about now as I did three weeks ago is the weather. Okay, I understand that I live in Chicago. I understand; it gets cold, and it snows. But this whole 'polar vortex' thing needs to go back to Canada. I am sorry to my Canadian friends, but I just can't handle it anymore. I'm tired of 20 degree weather, like today, being a heat wave. This is NOT a heat wave. I want the light jacket weather that we skipped back in September and October. Seriously, it was over 90 degrees on my birthday and by Halloween, we had freezing temperatures. That's not fair! :(

So, basically, I want winter to end now because we were cheated out of fall.

<3 Amber Marie

Work, School, Life: An Update

I am taking a mental break from the reading that is to be accomplished before week 3 of school begins. The last article I read was so dense that I began to think that it was really just saying the same thing over and over again. Then I realized I had just read the same sentence five times.

So, work is frustrating me a bit as of late.  For the upcoming work week, which begins on Sunday, I have one call-in shift. The call-in shift, which is a shift that I have to call and ask if they want me to come in for, is a three hour shift. So, I have one, not-guaranteed three-hour shift in a seven-day work week. That does not pay the bills. I understand that I work in retail, and that payroll hours vary from week-to-week. That's not what I find frustrating. I find it frustrating that I now need to find another job to make up for weeks like this. I tried juggling two jobs and a 15-hour course load at school, and it didn't work for a variety of reasons. I couldn't get the jobs to cooperate with each other in terms of scheduling; that contributed to my stress at school, which caused me to fall behind. And all of that lead me to drop a class and quit one job. I am terrified that finding a second job with my 18-hour course load is another recipe for disaster, which may affect me graduating. But, alas, I need money to be able to live in Chicago through graduation. So, yeah. Guess I'll be job hunting in my limited free time. Wish me luck. (Oh, and my closest friend at work is leaving in favor of an adult job. So, that sucks for me.)

School...oh, school. I have only had two full weeks of school, and the work just keeps piling on. Dense article need read, and countless reading reflections/reactions/analyses need writing; EVERY SINGLE WEEK. I thought taking a bunch of classes on similar topics would help because the overlapping content would reinforce each other, and thus, it would be easier to remember. Instead, I am finding myself reading a dozen different views of the same concept, and it is not making it any easier to understand the complex, abstract idea that is 'the self.' I do have to say that I only have one class that I don't thoroughly enjoy though, and ironically, the one I'm not enjoying is in my chosen field. Oops! I think my favorite class is Intro to Women and Gender Studies. The social ideology of gender and gender roles and the degree to which it is engrained in everyone's daily lives is fascinating.

With all that has been said, you might be wondering what kind of life I could have outside of work and school. That's precisely the point. I have no social life to speak of, at the moment. I find myself not replying to the group text messages from my friends and have entire conversations going on around me that I am not, and cannot, partake in because I have no time and/or I will have a hard time getting back on track to what needs to get done. My DZ alumnae group has had activities that I can't go to because I am either in a night class or doing massive amounts of homework. I am used to seeing friends at least once a week because we had class together. Now, I haven't had quality time with them in two weeks. I am having a hard time adjusting. I have never been a person that thrives on social interaction, and I very much enjoy my time to myself. But I really only enjoy it when it's self-imposed. I don't like it when it's forced on me due to other obligations.

Everyone keeps telling me that it's my last semester, and that they know I can do it, and that I'll be free in May and on and on. And I know all of that is true. One way or another, May 2, 2014 will happen. But what state will I be in by that point? Sometimes it sucks to be a pessimist. But hopefully, I will have figured out the balancing act, and have made it through this semester with only minor psychological damage (lol).

I apologize for the long complaint that is this post. I apologize to everyone who listens to these complaints on a regular basis. I am trying to not complain as much. I know it cannot be a pleasant thing to hear.

I do not like not feeling that I'm in control of the things occurring in my life, and I certainly do not feel that level of control at the moment.

BLAH.

On that note...
<3 Amber Marie

Balancing is key.

It is literally only the end of my second day of classes, and I am feeling the pressure. Being at school for 12 hours on Monday and Wednesday are going to drain me. (I am not in class that entire time, but if I left school during my 4 hour break, I would not attend my night classes, and that would be bad.) After all day in class, I decided that I am going to use my commute time to read for fun. If I didn't have a fun outlet, I would probably be a blubbering mess before midterms. I challenged myself to read 10 books this year (via Goodreads). I am excited because I want to be able to read 10 books this year, but last year I challenged myself to 12, and I only read like 5, and 3 of those were for school. I am also saddened by this because I am used to reading like freaking crazy, and school has eliminated that from my life. After reading EVERYTHING for classes, reading for fun just makes me sleepy. But I am committed to reading 10 books that aren't assigned for school this year. I've finished 2 already, but that mostly due to the fact that I was stuck in Louisiana for 5 extra days. I hope you will hold me accountable and help me achieve beyond my 10 books. I will balance school and fun because I refuse to let myself become unhappy!

<3 Amber Marie

p.s. 108.5 days until graduation

First Day of My Last Semester of Undergrad

It's official. I am now in my last semester as an undergraduate.

My first class of the day, Contemporary Global Issues, was cancelled because the professor is sick. (Bad for the professor, good for me because I got more sleep!)

My second class of the day was Society and the Individual. The professor seems cool. He's a doctoral candidate at Northwestern, and this isn't the first class he's taught, so that's a plus. All-in-all, I don't think it will be that tough of a class. There are just some pesky once-a-week papers that will, no doubt, get tedious.

My third class was Urban Youth in a Culture of Violence. So far, this professor is shaping up to be my favorite of the semester. He is super detailed in his syllabus about what is required for the class and how he wants assignments completed, which is something I've come to value during my undergraduate career. He's one of those professors that go the distance to make sure you do well provided you can follow directions. The content for this course is right up my alley. This is a good chunk of what I want to study in my graduate career, so I'm excited.

My last class hasn't happened yet because it's not until 6:00 pm. It's Child and Adolescent Psychopathology. This is with a professor that I've had before, and I really like her teaching style. My only concern is that I've seen the syllabus, and the course load seems insane, even for a 300-level class. This will be the class that forces me to be the perfect student. I will have to be on my toes at all times to make sure all of the assignments get accomplished. It is, without a doubt, my hardest class this semester.

So that's what my day is like. I just finished lunch, and now I'm off to study some syllabi!

112 days until graduation!

<3 Amber Marie

Sweet Home Chicago

I am finally back in the Windy City. And it's is really, really cold outside. And it makes me want to go back to Louisiana where there isn't a foot and a half of snow on the sidewalks. But at the same time I am happy to be back, and I am looking forward to beginning my final semester of undergrad on Friday.

I have the syllabus for one class, the hardest class of the semester, and I can tell it's going to be busy and challenging. However, I am not going to let that get to me. I want to finish this semester with a 4.0. I was close last semester, but close isn't good enough. There were so many things I could have done in order to get that 4.0 in the fall, and I'm not letting anything slip through my fingers this semester.

114 days until graduation. :)

<3 Amber Marie

Guess who is still in Louisiana!?

That's right, THIS GIRL!

Flight on Thursday, January 2: CANCELLED due to Winter Storm Hercules
Re-scheduled flight on Saturday, January 4: CANCELLED due to Winter Storm Ion
Re-re-scheduled flight on Monday, January 6: CANCELLED due to freezing temperatures in Louisiana
Re-re-re-scheduled flight on Tuesday, January 7: So far, so good...but there's another freeze in Louisiana Monday night into Tuesday, so we're betting it'll be cancelled too.

I MUST GET BACK TO CHICAGO BY FRIDAY! School starts, and I cannot miss the first day of my last semester.

So yeah, I'm just chilling at home where it's barely going to get below freezing, while Chicago is facing wind chills of -40 degrees and colder with like a foot and half to two feet of snow on the ground. (I'm sorry, guys!)

What a way to start the new year. :)

<3 Amber Marie

Thank you, Winter Storm Hercules.

My flight back to Chicago has been cancelled, and it is looking like I'll be in NOLA an extra day. I am waiting for a United representative to pick up the line, which I was told could be longer than 60 minutes because of Hercules. I'm nearly 50 minutes in to the wait time. I'm not convinced it will be picked up anytime soon. I just need to schedule another flight! I have things that need to be done in Chicago. As long as I can get out by Saturday, I will be okay, but any later than that will prove complicated. So yeah, here's to hoping that I can get a new flight.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy my extra time with the fam.

<3 Amber Marie

p.s. Happy New Year. Welcome to 2014!