Have the Best Spring Break- at home!

The College Diaries: Spring Break edition!

Thursday was my last day of class, meaning I'm on spring break! 

No more classes until the 17th. I'm too happy.

In honor of this wonderful occasion, I decided to share a few things I thought would help share a few things to make your homebound spring break a little better!

For those of you not at home, you stink and you can have all the fun you want, so let the rest of us sulk and pretend we're enjoying ourselves at home.

Spend a day just hanging out with people. 

Don't go out, don't watch movies, just talk. Heart-to-hearts have a way of making us smile, no matter what your talks end up being about. It's a great way to spend time with those hometown BFF's too (keeping those friendships are lifesaving).

Buy at least one article of clothing for summer.

Prepping for summer is the best way to pretend winter isn't still among us. Get your mind out of this wondrous weather and into summer! :) Maybe even get rid of some old clothes you don't wear too.

Have a home-spa day.

Whether this means alone or with friends, have fun and just chill at home. Relaxing. Nail painting. Face masks. All that good, girly stuff.

Take a good shower.

If your college is anything like mine, which I assume it is in this way, your showers probably aren't the best so just take a nice, long, warm, undisturbed shower at home.

Have a movie day with your family.

They miss you and I assume you miss them, so spend some time actually in the same room and just laugh with them.

Start your own blog!

Join me and make your own blog! It's a great thing to do and gets your mind off the crazy, stressful times we so enjoy {cough, sarcasm} at college. You can even follow me! :)

Have a backyard camp night with your best friends!

Once again, it's probably not warm enough to go outside, but if it is...

Friends from high school are in just the same position you are, so set up tents or something and have a "night out" with your friends. Take a laptop out even, and have a movie night outside.

If it's not warm enough: do it in a {warm} basement or a something!

Have a great spring break! :)

*also part of my weekly College Diaries post*

The college diaries {the eighth}

My birthday was Friday!!

I turned 18 on Friday!

It feels crazy that I'm already 18. 

This is like "the" age. 

In honor of my birthday, I decided to make a list!

The Top 18 Most Impactful Memories of My Life!

 Just to clarify, these are not in order of importance -- they're in chronological order.

1. Dad & Tracie's Wedding: this changed my life dramatically, for obvious reasons.

2. Sims: when I started playing the Sims, I was much younger and it's been one of my favorite things to do since then.

3. My first concert: my first concert was Kelly Clarkson at DTE Music Theatre and that started my deep love for concerts of any type.

4. My sister was born: I was nine and not expecting it at all. I was a happy child. & let's be honest, she's cute.

5. Getting a cell phone: ever since then, I've been glued to my phone(s) because I love talking to my friends and I rarely saw them outside of school.

6. 7th grade drama: I was a very different person in seventh grade and not one that I ever want to be against. I was horrible. Our friend group had daily fights, we were in the counselor's office daily, the counselor and school police officer knew our names; it was bad.

7. First time at youth group: from the moment I met that youth group, my life wasn't the same. I would give any to have that youth group back and those people all in my life again, rather than spread out in several different places.

8. Papa dying: this was world-shattering for me. I had never dealt with death so close before and it happening my freshman year certainly did not help. It was a rough time in my family and I think our family has drifted apart since then.

9. My first party: I have parties all the time now. My house is known for people always being there and Just Dance competitions and we just love having people over.

10. San Diego: this isn't really impactful, but it was my first vacation anywhere and this trip is the reason I'm planning on moving out west after I graduate (not to Cali though-- Phoeniz, AZ area).

11. Family camp: this was the first time I had done any serious volunteering and we fell in love with the kids at VBS that week. I hate when I've had to miss family camp and it's always the highlight of my summer. I love it so much. I might even being working at this campground this summer!

12. Making my Twitter: this sounds dumb, but it's true. I'm always on some kind of social media and Twitter tends to be the most. I have over 24k tweets. I'm addicted.

13. Steven asking me out: January 23, 2011. I came home from church & he had messaged me asking. Three years later (with a few breakups), I love him more than anything. He's my best friend.

14. 16th birthday party: there was a limo, my best friends, and a scavenger hunt throughout my city. It was amazing and I will never forget this.

15. Forming the bestfriendship: Alisha, Abby, Ashleigh and I have always worked well as friends and they've been the most constant people in my life {besides family and Steven} and I would be nowhere without these girls. They're the best.

16. Move-in day: I never would have guessed college would be like this. My life has been a roller coaster since September 2nd. It's crazy.

17. Failing last semester: finding out I was on academic probation really freaked me out and I've just sort of been in shock since then. College is difficult, but I've been working a lot harder this semester on everything college-related.

18. Joining HCBN: truthfully, this is probably the least impactful on this list, but it has helped my blog tremendously and I love HC. The Blogger Network is a great community to be involved in.

Thanks for sharing in these past couple of years of my 18 years with me!

The college diaries {the seventh}: academic probation.

Well everyone, it's the end of my first full week of second semester!
Today, I thought I'd share some insight into academic probation and whatnot {yes, I am indeed on academic probation- to find out why read this one for sure, this, & maybe this one}.

Academic Probation

First: what is academic probation?

Basically, if you don't know, academic probation is when your school requires you to maintain a certain set GPA or set credit limit and a student fails to meet that requirement. Most schools will have your safety net: academic probation. This is literally your only get-out-of-jail-free card.
Academic probation is pretty much your semester to save yourself. You must raise your GPA up high enough to get off of academic probation {normally a little higher than the required GPA} and pass a certain amount of classes/percentage of your classes.

How does this help you?

By giving you this opportunity, if you're serious about wanting to stay at your university, you get a second chance to prove that. They give you a little push saying "This is your last chance. We want you {and your money} to stay here. Get your act together."

Anything else?

Some schools may add in another detail or two- it varies from school to school. At my college {see this post}, they have us take an extra class called Power Learning to help us figure out what we did wrong, make a plan to change that, give us tips on time management, etc. Is it a blow-off class basically? Yes. Is it helpful nonetheless? Yes. Other people in my class don't seem as willing to work on their problems but as much as I would just love to get kicked out, no.

Do you have anything you want to add to this?

The college diaries {the sixth}

This week for the college diaries, I decided to wait until today to do it so that I could share about my amazing weekend!

True Believers Tour

Friday night, I went to Eastern Michigan University to see David Nail, Eli Young Band, and Darius Rucker!

David Nail definitely rocked even with very few songs. He's a great artist and his lyrics are just fantastic. He's super fun in concert!
Eli Young Band never fails to be amazing! (I've seen them before!!) Crazy Girl played live is just... love. Haha. But really, they put on an amazing show and I loved seeing them again!
However much I don't like Darius Rucker's music, I was pleasantly surprised when he came on. He was wearing a baseball cap which was just really cool and his voice is actually authentic, meaning he sounds almost exactly like he does edited!
I didn't manage to get many pictures but here's the best one I took {apparently I didn't take any of DN or DR}:

Eli Young Band

As you can tell, we had horrible seats but I didn't really care. I got to see a great concert with my boy!

The Roadshow

Saturday night, I went to another concert!!
This time, it was The Roadshow {a Christian music concert with 10 bands-- $10!!!} with my absolute FAVORITE band-- Skillet! I also got to go with Steven to this one too, but Dusty & Dom {two of my best friends} also came.
I've now seen Skillet six times!
But anyways, we didn't make it in time for a few bands but we made most!

Vertical Church Band was pretty good! I wasn't paying much attention during their set because they just weren't my favorite but from what I heard, they were good.

Royal Tailor rocked, as always! I've seen them quite a few times now and though I'm sad they didn't play my favorite song by them, they put on a great show and they're seriously SO FUN. I love them!

Andy Mineo was so awesome too! This was my first time seeing him and I was totally blown away by how good he was! He is a great performer!!

Jamie Grace was also there, but I don't particularly like her anyways so while she played, my friends and I walked around the venue and got some food.

Third Day was next and while I don't really like their music, they have a couple good songs that I can enjoy and they were pretty decent. 

Third Day

Last but not least...

SKILLET!

Skillet

Skillet always puts on the best show and they never let me down on that. They played so many of their songs, though I was quite a bit disappointed when they went off-stage without playing Rise or Comatose, two of their most popular songs. But between John's crazy dancing, Korey's awesome guitar, Seth's amazing bass, the violin, the cello, and my favorite, Jen's drumming, you can't go wrong. I absolutely love every time I see them in concert! 

I only got pictures of Third Day and Skillet and they weren't even super great, but it was too awesome of an experience to be worried about the pictures!

These weekend could not have been better!

I advise you that if either the True Believers tour or the Roadshow tour is near you, GO!!!

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!

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!

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! :)