New Year's Resolutions

It seems like every single year the majority of the world falls prey to the international conspiracy known as New Year's Resolutions. For most people this means getting in shape, not procrastinating, being kinder, and other broad and highly ambitious achievements that only the most scarily awesome people ever actually go through with. For most of my life I've been like this. Sophomore year of high school I vowed to run every morning before school, and I'm pretty sure that lasted three weeks or less. I'm a highly ambitious person regarding a lot of things, but fitness is not necessarily one of them.

This year I'm taking a more unconventional approach to resolutions. Rather then make one hefty goal that I'll have long forgotten by February, I have made three easy to follow resolutions that will hopefully have some sort of positive impact on my life.

1. This year I will no longer check social media in the presence of other human beings. My iPhone is basically an extension of my right arm, and as soon as I wake up, get out of class, or get bored I will quickly scroll through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in rapid succession. However, I've noticed how when other people check their phones when I'm around it seems like I'm not interesting enough for them (which may or may not be true), so from now on I will only check social networks when I am alone.

2. I will say yes more. I'm not talking Yes Man status, because (a) I'm in college so saying yes to everything could probably lead me to making some pretty poor decisions and (b) that movie was terrible. But over the course of first semester I developed this pretty bad habit of saying I was "sick" or "busy" when invited to go out, but what I really meant was I'm binge-watching something on Netflix and I have no desire to interact with anyone today. This semester I will strive say yes to more opportunities, even if that opportunity is just ordering a pizza and watching a movie. 

3. I will exercise more. Note how I didn't say daily, because I've been down that path and it never ends will. I will exercise more, because at this point just exercising at all would be more then I did for most of last semester. I already have a plan with some of the girls on my floor to exercise a couple of times a week, and as all the magazines that make girls feel bad about their weight say, you're more likely to stick to your fitness resolutions if you have a friend to keep you to your word.

So there they are, my three manageable resolutions for 2014. Hopefully I'm able to stick to them, and if not... well there's always next year.

Love,

Stephanie

Semi-Independant

A struggle of being a new member of the adult world is that my independence is conditional. Obviously I still rely on my parents (financially and otherwise) and I live at my school, but some rules prevent me from fully making adult decisions. The one I'm particularly irritated with as I write this is the freshman meal plan.

At the university I attend it is mandatory for all freshman to be on the meal plan, and my parents didn't want me to have to go grocery shopping and the fact that I don't have a kitchen led them to purchase for me the largest meal plan possible. I was happy with this- I knew I would always have food when I needed it. However, I unknowingly signed my body away to the freshman fifteen.

While there are a few healthy eateries on campus, there are sometimes hidden ingredients that you don't necessarily realize are in theoretically low calorie dishes. On top of it all most of the dining options on campus are not buffet and come pre-portioned, and the portions are huge! Personally, I feel guilty throwing away food and I always eat what's put in front of me, and when I'm not given the option to take less I end up eating too much.

I don't want to waste food or the money my parents spent in advance to get me that food, and I don't have the option not to eat it. I look up healthy options on line and I've been learning a lot about how to eat better but I can't apply any of them to my current lifestyle, which is incredibly frustrating. Every time I ingest food I know it's not good for me, but there isn't another option.

Right now, I'm working with a nutritionist on locating the best places to eat on campus so I can spend the remainder of my freshman year making less terrible food related decisions. She told me that feeling bad about wasting food or money isn't a reason to punish my body, and I understand that, but it's something difficult for me to get over when there are people in this world, even in the city I live in, who don't have any food at all. Who am I to complain that I have too much?

Love,

Stephanie

Life is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

An analogy I was told when I first became a camp counselor at an eight week long sleep-away camp was that camp is a marathon not a sprint, and you need to learn how to keep up your energy through all 26.2 grueling miles. Although I run about as quickly and gracefully as a baby who still needs to hold onto the edge of a table to walk, I think I understood the comparison, and being in college has done nothing but confirmed that this metaphor doesn't only apply to being a camp counselor, but being a college student. And you know, a person in general.

Since I woke up at 9:30 (I know, I'm spoiled) this morning I haven't stopped doing things. Not everything I did today was scheduled or even really necessary but I didn't take a minute to be alone until I sat down about eight minutes ago and started writing. And as much as I love being alone, almost to the point of a fault, I think my time was used much more wisely today, rushing from activity to activity, then it was spent yesterday, where I spent an hour or two (or three...) watching Travel Channel specials on Netflix.

While I usually spend my afternoons in a quintessentially collegiate way- eating, napping, playing Solitaire, and watching How I Met Your Mother- today I experienced another extremely collegiate extreme of the college spectrum. I spent two and a half hours in an art museum, ate frozen yogurt with one of my new sorority sisters, had dinner (twice, with two different groups of friends), and went to the theatre. I had new experiences with people I'm just getting to know and I did have an amazing time. People tell me that what you remember about college is the nights you get out of your dorm and try something new, not the nights where you sit by yourself and study, and although I was skeptical at first I'm starting to believe it's true.

The youth these days have adopted an expression, "Can't stop, won't stop." Although a common usage of said expression is in regards to certain illegal behaviors, I think it can be used to describe how we approach the experiences we choose to participate in. Being in college opens the doors to so many opportunities I never had before and probably will never have again. And I simply can't stop and won't stop seizing them.

Love,

Stephanie

The First Post

Today I turned eighteen years old. I don’t feel different. I went to class. I went to rehearsal. I had dinner. And then I came home.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Currently I’m going to a university, 2,458 miles away from where I grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles. On top of that, after I moved my mom, dad, brother, and sister also picked up and moved 7521 miles away from our home- to Haifa, Israel.

So long story short I’m on my own, except for some of the amazing friends I’ve made at school. Thanks to technology I have the amazing ability to talk to friends and family living literally thousands of miles away and on completely different continents.

So here’s where this blog comes in. The degree I’m pursuing here at school is a bachelor of the fine arts in dramaturgy, which is a pretty complicated thing to explain, but for our sakes I’m basically getting a degree in storytelling. And I was thinking- how can I possibly be a good storyteller if I can’t tell my own?

So now you’re up to the date. I’m speaking to you- whoever it is you are- from my dorm room on the evening of my eighteenth birthday, beginning to tell my story. I don’t really know what form this little project is going to take or where it will take me, but I know it’s something I should do.

For today, that’s about all there is to my story. I’m an eighteen-year-old girl learning how to tell stories thousands of miles away from anything I’ve ever known. But I’ll keep you updated.

Love,

Stephanie