3 Year Blogiversary/Me at 18!

Today marks the three year anniversary of the day I sat at my little dorm room desk and decided to start a blog! Crazy. My writing has been somewhat sporadic and I don't have a ton of followers, but I am SO glad I decided to make an effort to document my life. There are so many photos and memories that I would have (and did, until browsing the archives) never taken or completely forgotten about! It is so wonderful to have the posts to look back on now and years down the road to see who I was and read what I wrote (as cringe-worthy as it might be) as I transitioned out of adolescence and into adulthood.

I was thinking the other day about how much I have changed over the years. It's almost like I can look at each year from about 14 years old to now (21) and pinpoint exactly who I was -taste in music, style, beliefs- and each year is almost completely different. I guess that's what growing up is all about. It makes me kind of nostalgic... like thinking of a group of old friends I haven't seen in a long, long time. Do you ever think about who you were at 15? or 19? I know that at both those ages I was pretty sure I had shit figured out and I did not see my tastes or aspirations ever changing. And yet I did not move to NYC and become a Broadway star.

BUT, all that stuff still makes up who I am today... all those different girls with different things they think are important. I've been thinking about maybe doing some throwback posts... looking back on me at 14, 15, 16, etc just for the fun and ridiculousness of it. Kind of like VH1s I love the 70s/80s/90s but just about me because I'm a blogger and thus inherently narcissistic. Hah.

So, in honor of this blog's third birthday, here's a little bit of who I was when this all began... 

Me at 18

When I was 18, I...
- graduated high school

Me and my fellow show choir seniors on the last day of high school!

It was raining! That's why my hair is so weird.

- moved out of my parents' house/AZ and into a little dorm room at Lewis and Clark in Portland, OR

Administration building at my gorgeous first college

 - Dated and then stopped dating and then dated and then stopped dating and then dated Stewart

- Got my first pet fish, a purply-red-aqua Beta named Mikal

- Worked at my first "real" job- Subway!

- Performed for the first and last time in a dance show - LC's Dance Extravanganza

- Spent my fall break riding in a UHaul with a bunch of other college kids to Bend, OR where we stayed in someone's aunt's vacation house.

 

 

- Ate mostly vegan, sometimes just vegetarian.

- Decided I missed AZ and my friends and my boyfriend too much and moved back at the end of the school year, just a couple weeks before my 19th birthday.

My favorite bands/artists were: Modest Mouse, Regina Spektor, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sublime, Tool

My favorite movie was: Wristcutters: A Love Story

I read: All the Harry Potters again, the first two books of His Dark Materials, Siddhartha, Kneller's Happy Campers

My best friend(s) was(were): Stewart, Sharney, Megan

The most important things to me were: Hanging out with my friends, living a vegan lifestyle, dating Stewart because I liked him soooo muuuuchhhh, coming home to arizona so I could continue hanging out with my friends and dating Stewart and cooking vegan food.

18 was a pretty weird year for me. When I look back on it I think I really had no idea who I was and was just trying to figure it out. That's probably pretty common for the first year of college. I have lots of great memories of exploring Portland, flying home to visit my best friends in Prescott, experiencing the whole dorm-meal plan-college in a new place thing, and leaving high school behind. The summer before college was one of the best ever, and luckily I filmed a good deal of it so I have a nice little video reminder of that time. I won't put any of it here, because we were being dumb 18 year olds.. but it's pretty cool to have.

I also still used Myspace when I was 18 and got a lot of these pictures from there. So old school.

Here's to another year of blogging!

30 Day Challenge- 28

Day 28 - Something that you miss.

I'm sad to say that I have the unfortunate but all-too-common problem of not appreciating things enough when they're happening and then missing all the best parts about them when they're gone. Even if the thing made me truly MISERABLE at the time, I seem to forget all the pain once the thing is gone and only remember all the great things it took with it.

In a way this is a good thing because it means my life seems so full of wonderful things when I think about it. But it's also probably a tad unhealthy... I should be concentrating on appreciating all these great things as they're happening, not after they're all gone! It's a goal of mine :)

Anyways, a lot of things about living in Portland really irritated me/ticked me off/made me generally upset and unwell. However, at the same time there were lots of things I LOVED about the place. I often tell stewie that when I graduate from UA I'd like to look into moving back to portland. I think having my own place (as opposed to sharing a dorm room), having a car, and having a real job would make the experience much nicer.

Some of the things I miss:
the gooorrrrgeous campus. UA is definitely pretty too, but in a different way. LC is just... indescribable in a way. I'd love to go back and visit, as I still see it as one of my schools.

the shows! I saw modest mouse for like 30 bucks. Vampire weekend for 25 maybe, Passion Pit for probably about 20, Regina Spektor for 30, and Yo La Tengo for free cause I won tickets from my friend while he was doing his segment on KLC radio. I miss it so much! Going to the crystal ballroom was always a fun treat. some of the best times ever, to be sure.

Voodoo donuts. It's almost cliche to say so, but seriously they are soooo gooood. I do not even like donuts. but I like voodoo. My faves are the raspberry romeo (with powdered sugar, not glazed), the mexican hot chocolate, and of course the voodoo doll. Their raspberry filling is to die for.

Stumptown Coffee. It's located inside the ace hotel lobby, and there's an awesome couch area that you can chill in while you drink your beverage of choice. It's a great place to go do homework on a sunday when you seriously have to get off campus.

I also miss rainy days, brisk walks at night through the campus, raspberry mochas from the dovecoat, films at the fox tower theater, shopping at Pioneer Place, riding the max train through the city just for the hell of it, sitting on the steps on pioneer square, the pretty lights on all the trees during the holidays, kettleman's bagels, saturday markets, river parties, sitting in the starbucks on piosquare while waiting for the pioexpress to come, taking long walks through the city without knowing where I'm going, getting lost in powell's books, and going to the ceramics lab on a saturday afternoon.

Portland is a great place! There were some crappy things about my situation while I was there, but I can't wait to come back! A lovely city with some truly lovely memories.