Arbor love.

Spring Arbor University

Have you ever heard of SAU? Odds are, you haven't.

I have, however. Spring Arbor is actually where I go to school! 

I blog about college a lot, so I thought I'd give you some insight into this beautiful place.

Just by looking at that picture, I'm sure you can tell that our campus is gorgeous!

That clock is the most significant landmark on campus: the Clock Tower. It even has it's own Facebook. 

Fun facts about SAU for you:

• There are only about 2,000 students at SAU. Five dorms. Three girl dorms, two guys.
• That being said, we have a 3:2 ratio of girls to guy {plus side for you guys out there}.
• We have this statue called the Jesus Reactor on campus. It used to be a fountain... until people put jello mix and bubbles in it.
• The Cougar Den is the main hangout on campus. There isn't really anywhere else to hangout, but it has pool, foosball, air hockey, ping pong, and food. So really, win-win.
• Being in a relationship at SAU isn't exactly uncommon. SAU is big on "community" which basically means spending lots of times with other people. It's not shocking to anyone come Freshman Dating Season {October-December} when you see about 485 new relationship statuses come up on Facebook. 
• There are three things people say about relationships at SAU: "Ring by Spring" being the most common. That basically tells you how many people get engaged during their time at SAU {basically all of them}. Next up, "Don't drink the water." Rumor says that if you drink the water, you will get married soon. So far, I have seen this to be false. I have a relationship and I have yet to drink the water here. My friends that have remain to be single. Lastly, "Guys go to SAU to get their degree, girls go to get their MRS." So there you have it. SAU loves love.

Spring Arbor really is a great school. I love being here. 

It's a super small campus: maybe a ten minute walk from the fieldhouse {the back-most part of campus} to the church {across the street from the front of campus}. It's a nice thing. 

If you want to see some fun things from SAU students: check out these pages...

• Spring Arbor Compliments: anonymous compliments from one student to another.
• Overheard at SAU: random things people overhear from SAU students.
• SAU Confessions: some of the weirdest things you'll ever see, confessions from SAU students.
• SAU We Find Them For You: our "dating page, run by yours truly along with two friends. Complete sarcasm intended with this page. 
• SAU Probs: they retweet all of SAU's students' tweets with the hashtag #SAUProbs. 
• SAU Crushes: occasionally posts anonymous crushes made by students, but mostly just things about love here at SAU.

Can you tell we're big on relationships yet?

But that, in a nutshell, is my college.

20 wishes in 2014.

my 20 wishes for 2014.

{this is part of a link-up}

What are 20 Things you want to accomplish in 2014?

1. Get my tattoo for my birthday!
2. Go to at least five of my planned seven concerts {yes, I love concerts!}
3. Get & use a blogging calendar!
4. Go on the road trip I'm planning with a couple of my best friends!
5. Get my belly button pierced!
6. Get at least all A's & B's for a semester!
7. Have a summer job!
8. Keep up my College Diaries posts every Friday!
9. Get my blog to 5,000 views in a month!
10. Complete at least five of my bucket list goals!
11. Throw a party for someone of some sort!
12. Treat three friends to a movie!
13. Set up a blogging schedule!
14. Make dinner for someone!
15. Buy one random "Because I Love You" present for someone!
16. Have a "typical" girls night- face masks, nail painting, boy talk!
17. Finish two books!
18. Become more active with the blogs I'm following!
19. Pass every class!
20. Make two new {close} friends!

What do you want to accomplish?

Studentrate!

Have you ever heard of Studentrate?
If not, you will now.

One day, I got a follow on Pinterest from a page called Studentrate and I checked it out. They had some sweet deals for students but what caught my attention was their Pinterest. They had boards for everything I liked. It was awesome. I immediately followed then and soon after, became a pinner on their College Trends board!

Maybe a month or so ago, I saw a Pinterest post about becoming a Studentrate blogger! I was super excited and obviously, I emailed Lindsay {the girl in case of that}.

I was so excited when she told me she'd love for me to be a part of their blogger community! If you're interested, it's super cool! It's basically a partnership: you promote Studentrate, they promote your blog! It's a great opportunity & I'm so excited to be a part of this!

Check our their website with lots of great deals, their Facebook, their Twitter, their Instagram, & of course, their Pinterest!

Tips to survive college.

So I realized in quite a few posts, I've talked about last semester and how badly I did.
I just wanted to share with you guys a few reasons why this happened, so that maybe, possibly, you can avoid it.

First of all, go. to. class. Trust me, I thought every morning that I deserved a day off of classes. That way the biggest reasons for the three failing grades, as well as why I had a C and not higher than that. I skipped so many times and it really, seriously screwed up my entire semester, along with my GPA. I've seen one a few websites say "If you attend every class, it's almost impossible to fail." So take that into account when you think "Hm... Another two hours of sleep or class?"

Second, if there's small assignments, don't think that you can get away with not doing them because the assignment is only x amount of points. After 12 assignments that are only worth 5 points, that's 60 points you miss out on. Do the short assignments. Because really, they're short. They're easy and quick. It's an almost painless twenty minutes of your time. Trust me on this, I thought I'd be smart in one class and not do the things that were only two points because "they didn't really matter." If someone tells you this, please for the love of God, slap them and tell them to do their work.

Third, if you're having trouble in a class, don't wait until the end of the semester to talk to your professor. It doesn't end well. At that point, there isn't much the professor can do for you, so it's in your best interest to talk to them when you start having problems. If you don't understand something, most professors have office hours. Talk to the TA. Do something about it though. It's not fun when you contact a teacher at the end of the semester and they say "Well, as of now, I can't do anything to help you but say: study hard for the final." Is it possible to change your grade much with just your final? Maybe. Likely? No.

Lastly, college is a big transition. High school, no matter what anyone tells you, will not prepare you for college. It's a big change, but it's manageable. I just kept looking at it like, "well, it's a big change, so it's understandable if I don't do so good right now." That's not the right way to go about it though. Saying, "Yeah, this is a big adjustment, but if I try and do good now, it'll be a bigger accomplishment and if I fail, then that's okay."

College is difficult. But it's not impossible.

You got this.

The college diaries {the fifth}

So this week has just been a lot of the same things as last week (class is long, it's quite boring, I still have the same class with basically the same work) so I figured I'd do a recap of my social life this past week!

I love J-term because it gives me so more time for the thing I love most: friends.

Basically, last Friday, I went to class, then afterwards, the boyfriend came up and got me to go home for the weekend! I got to spend a lot of time with friends this weekend and it was a ton of fun!

I had to come back to school for classes again for Monday though {lame!} but it was okay I guess. Steven then had lunch with the girls & I on Monday at my college. Afterwards, he took us to the mall and we all hung out & just had a great time!

But the majority of my days during J-term have looked like this:

• Wake up
• Meet up with Liz
• Liz & I go meet up with Caitlin & Alisha
• We all walk to class together
• Class from 8:30-11:30
• Lunch with Liz, Caitlin & Alisha
• Hang out in Caitlin's room {Facebook, music, talking, homework, etc.}
• Dinner with the girls

Then after all of that, it's normally just whatever. Sometimes, we still hang out after dinner. Sometimes, we leave each other and go do homework alone or whatever. 

& sometimes, Nika and Hannah join us for part (or parts) of that.

It's probably my favorite time of J-term. I love being able to see my girls so much along with hanging out with Steven!

Three years later...

Three years ago today, I was spending the day at church and then with a friend of mine. I didn't have a phone at my mom's house, so I relied on my iPod.

I got home from church & checked my iPod. I had a message from the guy I liked asking me out. I literally would never have guessed that {even though we broke up a few times in between} that this would be the guy I would love still, three years later.

This is the most recent picture of the two of us.
We are quite cute.

Today {coincidentally} is also our one month anniversary for dating this time.

I love him so much. I'm so happy I said yes three years ago.

In honor of these: let's take a look at some suuuuper cute old pictures of us.

Blog design!

As much I really love my blog, I need a new design for it!

Does anyone happen to know of someone that does free blog designs?
My blog is really small right now and I don't have much any money!

I really want at least a header, background, social media buttons, blog buttons {2 in particular}, and some page buttons.

Please & thank you!

Top ten Twitter accounts that don't spam {much}

I really love Twitter and I love tweeting, but the one thing I can't stand is seeing spam tweets. They are the most annoying thing in the world. Like, the second someone I follow starts retweeting a bunch of those spam things or starts doing it themselves, unless I love the page, I unfollow it that minute.

So I figured I'd get together a list of my top ten favorite Twitter accounts that don't spam {or rarely spam}.

1. @AgainstSuicide run by Carrie Shade. Her Twitter account is great-- she's a very supportive page and her tweets are great, not just for anyone that is depresses or struggling with depression; I mean for everyone. 
2. @CollegeStudent: this page is seriously the most accurate representation of a college student's thoughts. They post some things that may be "spammy" but they're normally for websites that can actually benefit college kids {like Sumpto, etc.}. 
3. @TacoBell: I mean, really, who doesn't want to follow Taco Bell? They're quite entertaining.
4. @CauseWereClassy: I love, love, love their tweets & they're so sweet!
5. @SassyGirlsProbs: any girl that is sassy in the slightest {ok, every girl} needs to follow them. They posts great tweets & all of their retweets are from really great pages too! They very rarely will retweet links that look like spam but are actually to Cosmo's website, so it's not "bad."
6. @SincerelyTumblr: they post the funniest tweets! I love this page!
7. @Collegefession: first of all, make sure you have the REAL one! There's like five that all look like the right name but if you look at the URL, you'll see that their lowercase L's are actually I's. Anyways, they post confessions from college kids {mostly relating to sex, many others about drinking-- be careful with this one}.
8. @Southern_Voices: they post a lot of really great lyrics to country songs, from just about every area of country music!
9. @SteveStfler: parody account of Steve Stiffler from American Pie but they're totally unrelated. They post hilarious tweets and they're fantastic.
10. @JudgeGirlProbs: she's hilarious & I love her tweets! :)

The college diaries {the fourth}

Well the first week of J-term {if you have no idea what I'm talking about, see this post} is officially done.

Aside from the super early class, it's nice. I can go to class for a few hours and then I'm done for the entire day and I'll get three credits from three weeks.

I really believe more schools should do something like j-term.

On another note, in the past week, I've spent one night in my room, so I broke my week-long plan {see this post}, but at least I've tried to be out and social rather than in my room all the time.

I've been making a lot of new memories this week along with some things that I will never forget, and I'm loving it.

I think that's all for my college diaries this week!

Things You May Not Know About Me {as of lately}

I realized that I haven't given many updates about my life lately & new things about myself.

So here's fifteen things {new or old} you may not know about me.

Look, it's me!

1. I'm a little bit addicted to social media. Twitter is by favorite the most addicting. {@brooketriciaa} I use Facebook to keep up on my friends mostly. I also love Pinterest, Tumblr, and Blogger {obvi.}.
2. I am a college freshman at a Christian college in Michigan and I'm majoring in youth ministry.

This is my collage from the first week of school!
Pictures from a concert, McDonald's & piling eight people into our car.

3. Last semester, I had four classes. I failed three and got a C in the fourth. My GPA is a 0.5 right now...
4. A few friends and I are going to be applying to start our own chapter of Her Campus soon!
5. I'm in the process of partnering my blog with the Her Campus blogger network as well as Studentrate {fingers crossed, guys}.
6. When I was a sophomore in high school, I started dating a guy named Steven {he's been mentioned on her quite a bit} and we've broken up a few times, but we are together again and {knock on wood} have been doing so, so, so much better and haven't gotten in any actual arguments this time.

Aren't we adorable? :)

7. My friends are my world, ask anyone & they'll tell you. I will bend over backwards for my close friends because they've all done so much for me.

Between those pictures, those are my best friends!
Abby, Liz, me, Caitlin, Alisha, Ashleigh, Cassie
Antonio, Dom, & Dusty

8. I go to a lot of concerts and it is literally my favorite thing. Seriously. I've seen my favorite band {Skillet} five times so far and in February, I'll be seeing them two more times {including second row tickets for one- wooo!} and couldn't be more excited!
9. If there is Mountain Dew around, I will drink it. All of it.
10. I love, love, love The Sims. I've played it since the original Sims. {I cannot wait until Sims 4 comes out next year!}
11. I am very iffy about my opinions on my college right now. It's not at all a bad school, but I don't know if it's the best option for me.
12. At any moment, you can ask me if I'm listening to Spotify and 90% of the time I'm in my room, it's a yes.
13. I'm undecided about what I want to do this summer. There's an internship I really, really want to take, but it's really far away, along with a job away from home and one at home. Decisions, decisions...
14. I've recently started crocheting {apparently that's the 'thing' to do at my college} and I really like it. I just wish I was better at it!
15. I love movies. At my moms house, we have over 300 movies. Netflix has been a good friend of mine. Megashare is now by BFF though. {I'm not condoning illegal movie websites, just saying it's a good resource ;)}.

So there you go! 15 things you may or may not know about me!

The college diaries {the third}.

At my college, we do something called interim classes {also referred to as J-term most of the time!} and that's what we've just started today.

Basically, instead of taking however many classes to get to credit limit, we take one class that happens every day for three hours a day for three weeks and then receive credit for that class after just three weeks. It's a great idea, really.

Today was our first class and I have our base-level computer class as my J-term class. Luckily for me, one of my best friends is in it!

I'm not thrilled about having a three hour class every day {did I mention it begins at 8:30am and we don't really get a "break" with my class?} but at least it's a computer class that I can understand rather than a science or history class, right? :)

This week is also just fun because last night & tonight my friend Liz & I have stayed in our friend Hannah's room! Sleepovers are still fun no matter how old you are. I'm also working on completing one item from my college years bucket list: spend 7 days in any room but my own. Tonight is night #2. The next two nights I'll be staying with a different friend, then one night with a third friend, then back here for the last two nights!

I surprisingly am enjoying this J-term idea. Hopefully this semester, now that I have decided to start using Wunderlist, I will actually do my work and pass my class, unlike first semester. I'm still working through a lot of the issues I was having last semester but let's hope this goes better!

The College Diaries {the first and second}

Somehow, I accidentally deleted my first two college diaries posts, but this is the basis of these posts:

Once a week, hopefully every Friday, I'll make a post about my week at college or something relating to college life. I hope it helps all of you out there that aren't in college yet or that I can relate to others that are in college! :)