You're gonna miss me when I'm gone

"When I'm gone, When I'm gone, You're gonna miss me when I'm gone..."

A lot of times you hear people say that you never know what you got until it's gone. But you never really think about this until it happens to you. There are certain things in my life that I've just grown accustomed to having and don't even think twice about them. Two specific times today I realized that something was missing. They were small things that won't change my life drastically, but it just showed me how I take certain things for granted and don't even really notice them when they are there; I only noticed them when they are gone.

This got me to thinking. What other things are in my life that I've just taken for granted?

The first big thing is my family. I could not imagine what things would be like without them. And I don't want to find out. They are such a huge part in my life. They are my support system. They are my everything. My grandparents, my parents, my brothers, my aunts and uncles, and my cousins. All of them have effected my life in one way or another and have shaped me into who I am today. I cannot even begin to have the words enough to thank them.

My next big thing are my roommates. They put up with me and my awkwardness and weirdness. I imagine I'm not the easiest person to live with. With this being our last year together, I'm definitely not going to take any of these last memories together for granted. It's going to be hard to say good bye when graduation comes around, but until then, I've gotta make the most of it.

Something else that I take for granted is my education. This is something that I've never really thought about being there. It's always just been something that I had to do. I'm currently in my 6th year of college and will graduate in May with two Bachelor's degrees. Throughout these years, I've been supporting myself for the majority of it. I've been working to pay the monthly bills while at ESU. With Phase 2 coming up this Spring, I've been advised to not have a job as it will be too much to handle on top of student teaching. Because of this, I realized that I could potentially end up one semester short of graduating because I won't have an income to support myself. Luckily I have figured out a way to pay for my spring semester, but until then, it really made me realize that my education is not just something that is handed to me. I've always taken it for granted, but when it came really close to being taken away from me, and gone, that's when it hit me that I can no longer do this. Being able to attend college is such an honor and a privilege. I need to change my attitude towards it.

There are many other things that I take for granted: my friends, my apartment, technology, my job, food, my health, my lifting, and much much more. I don't want to ever have to know what it's like if one of these is gone. My life really is pretty great and I need to appreciate those things that I have. Both big and small. Hopefully others will begin to have this attitude as well.

Until next time,
The Chronicles of Kirsten Continues

Blonde

I may not be blonde...

But

I can squat
I am a nerd and proud of it
I enjoy sports: shooting hoops and playing catch
I have a great sense of humor
I am a Jayhawk for life
I can bake and make some legit PB&Js
I prefer jeans and a hoodie over getting all dolled up
I am a hopeless romantic
I enjoy cheesy pick-up lines
I can use punctuation and grammar correctly
I am a Hornet

I am me
A beautiful, brunette, me


Until next time,
The Chronicles of Kirsten Continues

Beauty

Last Spring I was at a BUILD Beauty meeting and Rachel challenged us all to write a poem. I never had written a poem before so this was a new experience for me. The topic was about Beauty.

One of my Twitter followers had tweeted about beauty earlier that day and I kept thinking of the lines he had tweeted because there was so much truth in them. So I decided to take these and use them as inspiration in my poem.

I happened to stumble upon it the other day and figured I would share it with you all! Hope you enjoy! <3


Beauty: A term that can mean many things
From your lovely girlfriend to those summer flings

It can be complex, or even really simple
From your sharp red dress, to your cute dimple

Beauty can be composed of various elements
From personality, grace, integrity, and intelligence

It can be interpreted differently by every one
From your best friend, brother, or even your son

So celebrate your beauty every which way
Because you never know when it can change someone's day


Until next time,
The Chronicles of Kirsten Continues

Shout out to Eric Porter for tweet.

Social Media

A week ago Sunday I was working the golf tournament for an Ambassadors event. A group of us were sitting at the table together eating lunch, all on our phones. We weren't really paying attention to each other and were all in our own world through our phones. My friend Greg pointed this out and it started a large conversation about social media and how it affects our lives. So many times in our lives, we miss out on the little things and the opportunity to know the people we are surrounded with because we are so caught up in this alternate reality.

After continued discussion on the topic, it began to get personal as we talked about my habits with social media, especially Twitter. I realized how addicted I’ve been and how much it has been affecting my life. I am on it all the time and constantly tweet the latest thing that has happened in my life. It’s to the point where the President of my University calls me out on my tweets all the time. That day he even made a comment to me about how he liked my new avi picture. We talked more and it was brought up that no one thought I could go 24 hours without getting on any form of social media.

As soon as this was said, I immediately knew this was going to be my next challenge. I’m currently going without caffeinated beverages, so I figured why not try to give up something else that I’m addicted to. I knew 24 hours would be no big deal so I wanted to challenge myself even more. Greg and I talked and we ended up making a bet as to who could go longer, me without social media or him without coffee.

So it was set that at noon, I was going to give up all forms of social media. This included Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Vine, Messenger, and anything else that related to this. I decided to go ahead and just delete the apps off my phone so I wasn’t tempted any more than I already was. We all had a moment where everyone watched me delete the apps and it was quite intense. I definitely felt my heart rate go up and I got all flustered. It was my first step to get over my addiction. This may sound silly, but it was a hard thing to do.

That afternoon, I was out on the golf course for a few hours and found myself wanting to check Twitter or Facebook. Luckily I had things to keep myself busy throughout the day so it wasn’t too bad. That night, however, was the first time that it got really rough. At one point, I subconsciously picked up my phone, swiped my password, and clicked where Twitter should have been. That was when it really hit me how bad everything was. It was just something I did without even thinking about it.

The next day things got better because I had classes to keep me busy, but I definitely made a lot of realizations. One thing that I noticed was when I was waiting on a friend I didn’t really know what to do. Normally, I would be on my phone just reading through Twitter or Facebook, but since I didn’t have that I had to find something else to do. Sitting in the Union, you actually can keep busy. I had a couple friends walk by so I talked to them. Had I been on my phone and not paying attention to those around me, I probably wouldn’t have been able to catch up with those couple of people.

That night, we had an ice cream social with President and Karen Shonrock for Ambassadors. When President saw me, he asked how I was handling without tweeting and if my hands were shaking and going through withdrawals. I joke all the time with President about Twitter and he can’t help but give me a hard time when it comes to my tweeting habits. Because yes, they are pretty bad.

The rest of the week wasn’t too bad. Once I got through that first 48 hours and kept busy, it seemed to not be as bad. One thing that I found really funny was how after just those first days, Twitter and Facebook decided to start sending me emails to come back. I got an email that said “Rachel Marshall has updated her status.” It then had a button where I could click on to see the status update and comment or like it. I found this rather funny because one, I wasn’t tagged in the status or anything, and two, how did it choose my roommate of all people to send me an email about her status update.

Later in the week, Facebook started sending me emails that said I had 2 messages, 1 group invite, 2 photo tags, and my other notifications. It was as if they knew I hadn’t been signed in for a while and wanted me to come back. It definitely was a temptation but I was determined to go the whole time without getting onto social media.

Over this whole week of no social media, I learned quite a few things about myself and about social media and its use in society today. I noticed I was telling the people around me about things that were happening instead of tweeting it to the people of the internet. I was able to actually tell a story to my roommates or friends and they not already know it because I had tweeted the same thing earlier in the day. A lot of times I go to tell them a story and it’s the second time they’ve heard about it and the story loses its value. This is something that I will work on with not always tweeting every single little thing.

Something else that I really thought about with social media is how people are on it and not with the people they are physically with. If you’re going to go to dinner with friends or family, then be with the people you’re with. Talk to them, ask about their day, find out something new. It actually is a lot of fun talking to people in person as opposed to through a phone or computer all the time. Something that I need to start doing more often while out to eat is the phone game, where everyone puts their phones in the middle of the table and keeps off of them the whole time. This will just challenge us all to actually pay attention to the people we are with.

If you were wondering who won the bet, the answer to that would be me! Greg ended up having coffee a few days into it but I decided to still keep off social media for a whole week. Sunday as I was traveling to Austin, I was definitely counting down the hours until noon when I could check all of the piled up Snapchats and Facebook and Twitter notifications. It was fun to catch up on everything that I had missed that week and to fill my roommate’s Twitter with tons of favorites, replies, and retweets. It was quite the adventure and thanks to my awesome Ambassabuddies for putting me up to the challenge. If any of you are up for it, I challenge you to go a week or two without social media and see if it changes your thoughts and habits. Maybe you will make a new friend or learn something new about a friend you already have. Feel free to let me know about any exciting things that happen during this challenge.

Until next time,

The Chronicles of Kirsten Continues