Three Lies They'll Tell You About College...

  I'm approximately 1,683.6 miles away from home. Little me coming from my home in  Midwestern America all the way to Los Angeles. Some people thought I wouldn't make it a week, let alone a whole semester this far away from home. Well I've made it almost an entire school year without a mental breakdown or running back home, so I'd say I did alright. Just because I made it an entire school year doesn't mean that I actually like college, because I don't. College is allegedly the best time in your life where you make friends and have the best experiences ever that you tell your children and grandchildren. I can't say that I was exactly expecting this kind of college experience, but I will say that people lie to you about college. When they tell you about college, you think, girls in particular, that you'll gain three key things: friends, boys and a riveting social life. Some do, others don't. I am in the those that don't category. 

  Growing up, I never had friends that nobody else knew. I had always wanted friends that were my own friends. Slightly selfish, but that's something I never had. I thought college was the place to make these friends. I'd go off to school far, far away from the people I went to high school with and get the chance to make my own friends. Sounds like a lovely plan if you're not painfully shy. I am painfully shy. On top of being shy, I decided to attend a school that puts too much emphasis on friends. It feels like jr. high where everyone is trying to get more friends than each other. It's a hard place to be when you're shy and unsure of yourself. You need friends to do everything, even to find a place to live. It's overwhelming and sometimes you think you've failed if you haven't made like fifty friends to go to the beach with and take hundreds of Instagram pictures with and for you. It's okay though, because you don't need to have a lot of "friends". To paraphrase a great man, no one really needs that many friends.  I've been able to make two or three good friends and I'm more than alright with that.

  Boys. Well, they actually suck. Really they do. In my whole eighteen years on earth, I've managed to never have a boyfriend. Not exactly by choice. Sometimes it worries me, but then again maybe I should start to worry if all of the sudden I'm forty living in a house overrun by cats and I still have never had a boyfriend. Honestly that is a fear of mine. In the back of my mind, I held out hope for meeting some great boy my first year of college, but not too much hope because I kinda want to marry a Scotsman. Not kinda, I really want a Scottish husband and there aren't Scottish people here. Moving on from that, girls hope to meet boys in college. Yes we are dumb because everyone knows school should be for education only, but boys can be soooo distracting. Some girls succeed at meeting boys in college, however I fail in that department. Maybe I just don't wear enough cropped yoga pants and tribal print crop tops. The problem with boys in college is their personality in general. So many of them are immature and full of themselves. They should probably start thinking about growing up and becoming productive members of society instead of walking around like they're God's gift to planet earth and basically pushing me down the stairs as they run down with their longboards in hand. I have yet to meet a guy that will appreciate my yoga pants lacking wardrobe. Until then, I can admire unobtainable, semi-famous men age thirty and up. 

  I haven't got much to say in the category of having a riveting social life, because I don't have one. I don't have much school spirit or much of a desire to go to school events because being social is overrated and I pride myself on being fairly boring.  It's a lot of work I'll tell you that. Sitting alone in peace without people screaming, singing and dancing is much more pleasurable. I don't go party with people because that's something I have no desire to do, so I can't speak for college parties that people expect to experience. All I can say about that is don't go and don't waste the money you've invested in education on that. A real party is eating grapefruit and veggies chips while you spend far too much time watching Dr. Phil, Sherlock and Parks and Recreation. 

  I speak only from my personal experience, so college isn't like this for everyone. I haven't expericned this "quote unquote"best time of your life yet, but it's only been a year and I guess I still have a longways to go. It could get better, or it could get worse. I guess you just never know. All I can tell you is to not expect friends, boys or some super exciting social life because I think you'll be let down. Never aim your expectations too high, but also don't aim them too low because you'll also end up in a negative state of life and sell yourself short. Trust me, I've been there. 

If You're Going to San Francisco Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair...

  I've fallen in love with San Francisco. I only spent one afternoon in the city, but I think I'm in love. Queue the Beck song. It was enchanting. The steep streets, Chinatown, and for an architecture fanatic like myself, the buildings. It was a little cooler than the inferno that is Los Angeles, and it was much more charming and less smoggy. Unlike Mr. Adrian Monk, I didn't feel poisoned by the very air I was breathing in the beautiful Bay Area. There's so much to see,but since I only spent the afternoon, I only got a little taste. Which is why I'll make my future charming Scottish husband take me there for our honeymoon. Ahhh San Francisco. It's partly still stuck in my favorite time period ever, the 1960s. It was a central location for social change, a city of literary greatness, and home to the Summer of Love. I didn't make it to Haight-Ashbury this time around, but someday I will and see where the counter-culture revolution started. San Francisco takes you back to the days of the beat poets and the hippies.

   Located next to Jack Kerouac Alley, is City Lights Booksellers and Publishers. An amazing bookstore today, but in the past the hangout for people like Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Bob Dylan and the Beat Generation. As a lover of Dylan and Ginsberg, and someone who made the attempt to read Kerouac, it was amazing to see. Just a few days before coming to San Francisco, my dear friend Morgan was talking to me about someday wanting to see City Lights and recreating the famous Robbie Robinson, Mike McLure, Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg picture at the store. While trying to find a place to park that wouldn't cost us our soul, we stumbled across City Lights, the iconic location in the Beat Generation.

  Someday, when I'm not a poor college student, I hope to go back to the city and experience more. To see Haight-Ashbury, Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, eat the fancy food and visit the vintage clothing shops. San Francisco, you've captured my heart. 

Second to the right: My man Mr. Bob Dylan

City Lights

City Lights

City Lights

The poetry room at City Lights

More from the poetry room 

The lovely view

Italian bakeries yay

Jack Kerouac Alley

Woman Crush

   My first love of fashion came at a young age. A documentary on Hate & Ashbury, bellbottoms from The Gap, and a tie dye shirt my dad bought for me in San Francisco along with a pair of Birkenstocks. I was probably about nine or ten when I went into my "hippie phase" and I guess it sparked my never ending love for the 60s. We all get our inspiration for our own personal style from somewhere, something or someone and on the way we make a stop in fashion purgatory. Mine happened to be Aeropostale. Today, is #WomanCrushTuesday on my blog. Like the Instagram tag, but today is a Tuesday and not a Wednesday and hashtags usually annoy me. #WomanCrushTuesday is dedicated to someones who inspired my own personal. A few very fashionable women and one man who fall into the categories of the past, the present and the gothic. 

The Past…

Princess Grace of Monaco had the most lovely gowns. When I get dressed
up, I want to look like Grace Kelly. We share a name so I only see it fitting.
Whenever I'd go to pick out prom dresses or homecoming dresses, my mom
would always say to me, "Is it something Grace Kelly would wear?" as the judge
for whether or not it was appropriate. From Grace, I learned to dress lady-like and
with grace.

Not only did Jane Birkin have the most famous bag in history named after her, she also
had the best bangs ever. Someday, I would love to have Jane Birkin bangs, but I haven't
been brave enough to do it yet. 

Audrey Hepburn in my opinion, was and is the most elegant woman ever and I think that
says it all. I've loved Audrey ever since I was a little girl. When I was young, I had these brown
Wayfarer-type sunglasses that I got at Old Navy. I would wear them around and call them my
"Audrey glasses" because they looked like the glasses Holly Golightly wore in Breakfast at
Tiffany's. 

No Kurt Cobain was't a woman, but he still inspired my own style because who doesn't
a good flannel shirt and leftover teenage angst. Plus I call my haircut the
"Kurt Cobain". 

In her book It, Alexa Chung wrote, "What can I say? Edie Bloody Sedgwick. How much

make-up can one person pile on their face? How many drugs can one girl do? A lot is the 

answer". While Edie Sedgwick would a poor role model for me as a young woman to have, 

she still has inspired my personal style. Especially my favorite thing to wear ever- horizontal

stripes. Edie mastered cropped hair and horizontal striped shirts, and without striped shirts, I'd

be very sad. 

The Present...

Alexa freaking Chung. What more can I say? I love absolutely every single outfit
this woman wears. Alexa cannot disappoint. She's head-to-toe fashion perfection. I
have a long, red plaid, funnel-necked coat that I call my "Alexa coat" when I wear it.
I'd probably kill someone to have her closet and signature winged eyeliner. Eh well I
wouldn't kill someone because murder seems messy and its wrong...

If I had make-up abilities, I'd do my make-up like Zooey Deschanel everyday. But I have no
cosmetic abilities and I'm just too lazy. Her outfits are adorable, quirky and tasteful and I covet her
closet. I maybe even lust after her wardrobe. Out of all those annoying commercials for cotton, you
know the ones that made "The touch, the feel of cotton. The fabric of our lives." get stuck in your
head, I enjoyed Zooey Deschanel's the most because her cotton-filled wardrobe is perfection.

Taissa Farmiga, as the Character Violet Harmon on the T.V. show Murder House had the
most perfect T.V. wardrobe ever. It was dark, bad-ass, pissy and lovely. I wanted it all. I went on the
search for the perfect "Violet Harmon" dress: black with a muted and depressing floral print. When
two of my friends forced me to buy this 90s dress from Pacsun, it became my perfect Violet Harmon
dress. Now I can lie on my floor and listen to Nirvana and The Smiths feeling at one with Violet
Harmon.

The Gothic... 

I'd always wanted to be Morticia Addams for Halloween as a kid, but my mom wasn't such a
big fan of that costume idea. She said it was creepy, but I like creepy. Carolyn Jones as
Morticia Addams was my favorite Morticia Addams because she was in the 1960s series of
The Addams Family, and I j'adore the 60s. Morticia was gothic, yet always glamorous. I want
Morticia Addams style make-up. 

Another member of the Addams family, Morticia and Gomez Addams' always charming
daughter Wednesday. I loved Christina Ricci's portrayal of Wednesday so much, that I'd
probably name my own daughter Wednesday. Not only did I like all of Wednesday
Addams' dresses in the 1991 version of The Addams Family , I quite liked her attitude
and morbid sense of humour. I think Wednesday and I relate. When wearing black, always
remember to dress like you are going to a funeral.