the best friend

This is a thank you note to my best friend, who really deserves a round of applause. So, on behalf of all the best friends out there, here you go.

Thank you for all the times you’ve talked me out of bad decisions. If it wasn’t for you, I would probably be halfway across the country trying to hitchhike my way to a better future. Thank you for giving me advice, even if I may not want to hear it. You are never afraid to call me out and set me straight and I appreciate that. I need to hear that I am wrong sometimes. Thank you for laughing at my jokes even though they suck….no really they’re terrible haha. Thank you. You took the time to understand my humor and fill me in on the Spongebob jokes that I never catch. Thank you for being willing to go on random adventures with me. When I think back on middle school you walked with me hand-in-hand through my horrific edgy phase and embraced it with me without so much as a sideways glance. Even that time that I dyed my hair that horrible purple color, you acted like it was the greatest thing ever. Thank you letting me yell out every word of “Raised By Wolves” by Falling In Reverse in your car more times than I count. I know you hate it, so thanks. Thank you for sharing a deep, unquenchable love for Taco Bell.Thank you for supporting me through every weird phase I go through. You da bomb. Thank you for always being willing to sing with me and talk about starting a band (even though we never do).

Remember that time we accidentally picked up the wrong order at Taco Bell? We acted like we didn’t notice, but then the guy started looking for his meal and we ran out the door….cause that’s logical.

Remember the time we wore the same outfit to band practice for like 3 weeks in a row without even planning it? Yea. We’re so in sync it’s scary.

Or the time I got dumped and we watched 12 straight hours of horror films? You drove to my house at 7 in the morning so that you would beat the snow storm and you got snowed in at my house so that I wouldn’t be alone. I’ll never forget that.

Warning things are about to get sentimental Thank you for being the best friend I could have ever asked for. People who have not had the opportunity to meet you have seriously missed out. I’m grateful that I just so happened to be put next to you in band in 6th grade. For all the times that I have made you feel like you are less important than you are, I am sorry. For any time where you felt like I didn’t care, I am sorry. And for any time that I have not been the best friend you deserve, I am sorry. Even in the times that we drifted apart for a while, I still considered you my best friend. You get me better than anyone ever has.

Here’s to you. You’re goofy and quirky and weird and it’s great. You’re a unique blend of introverted and outgoing. You hate new people, but at the same time you love them. You hate crowds, but you treasure people. You have a fantastic taste in music and literature which I always enjoy mooching off of. I can talk to you about everything from High School Musical to politics and theology. I think your obsession with George Ezra is hilarious. I miss seeing you everyday like we could in high school, but I love that we are just as close even 4 hours apart. I have loved being your best friend, even in our stupid, passive aggressive fights. You have given me the blessing of being your best friend and it’s not something I take lightly. I love you lots and it’s an honor to call you my friend.

I love you buddy and I love you all. Be adventurous. Chérir la vie.

Ellie X.

“the chill one”

“The chill one.”That’s what they call me. Everyone has a reputation and mine is being the girl who “doesn’t give a fuck.” People tell me it’s a good thing because I’m the one who they can count on being okay with whatever the plans are because I don’t care. They say they never have to worry about me judging them because I don’t care. They don’t have to worry about drama with me because I don’t care.

However, I think they are wrong. I do care. I care a lot. I think that I care too much sometimes. I have different priorities than others, so they tend not to notice what matters to me. Once I got to college and I started going out, I noticed something. People do not give a crap about other people. Not everyone is like this, but I’m gonna throw out that probably 96.2% of people do not care about the other humans around them. They care about their hair, makeup, Snapchat, boys, girls, pictures, alcohol…ya know the true “important” things. <- sarcasm. But my question is: What about the best friend puking in the bathroom? What about the girl getting harassed by a guy who won’t leave her alone? What about all the people who’s rides couldn’t stay sober and are now stranded because they can’t find a safe ride home? These are the things I see when I go out. These are the things I care about, not someone’s smeared make-up. I usually choose to be designated driver (DD) because I don’t mind it. I do not have to be intoxicated to enjoy myself. If I have people around me and there is music playing, I’m happy. I choose to be DD because if I’m sober I can help the people who need it. To me, it is more important to be there for people when they need it than to drink to the point where I can’t even take care of myself.

A quick example to give you an idea of what I’m talking about: There was an end of the year house party right off campus that my friends and I went to. This was one of the few times I chose to not be DD and I let my other friend (who was DD) drive my car. A guy that came with us ended up getting stupid drunk and smoking weed for the first time and he got very cross faded. He started getting sick, so I called our ride to come back. Also, just for the record, I didn’t really know this guy. We were acquaintances, but really we just had mutual friends. I told my friends that we needed to leave and only 1 out of the 5 who came would leave with me to take him home. They rest said they weren’t ready to quit partying. On the way back, he threw up on the side of my car because he thought it was spinning. His friend and I ended up staying in his room until 4 a.m. If he laid down he would think he was falling and couldn’t go to sleep. He was genuinely terrified. He felt horrible and kept apologizing for everything. Honestly, I forgive him for all that. He doesn’t even remember it! I would want someone to stay with me if I ever got to that point, so I’m fine with taking care of someone like that. Everyone the next day kept going on how it was awesome how I was so “chill” about leaving the party early and so “chill” about cleaning the puke off my car. However, that isn’t the case at all. It was not fun washing throw-up off my car from a guy I barely know for 2 hours. I did not enjoy holding this guy’s head for 4 hours in his room so that he could know he was not falling. I would not consider any of that a good time, but I would do it again in an instant because I believe people should do that for each other. I would want someone to do the same for me. I was chill with his actions because I was more concerned with what was happening to him. He needed help and no one else was going to do it.

My friends are right. I don’t care about a lot of stuff. I don’t care about what people think about me (to an extent), I don’t care about how many likes I get on social media, or how popular the people I surround myself are. But, they’re wrong about me not caring. I just care about things they don’t think about. I care about people. I care about morality. I care about putting other people before myself and making sure they are okay. I care about honesty and loyal friendships. I think the 3 Musketeers had it going on with the whole “all for one and one for all” thing. Why am I such an abnormality because I believe that people should care for each other?

Woodrow Wilson said,

Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice.

Selfishness attacks society like a cancer in many different forms.The most dangerous part of it is that it takes place like an avalanche. It begins slowly, like a crack in the ice, through one simple action. The exciting grasp of greed felt through one selfish act is addicting and it appears more and more rapidly until before you realize it, you’ve become consumed with the idea of yourself. I’m guilty of it. I try to keep myself humble and in check, but I slip up. I wont realize how neglecting I can be to my friends and family until I’ve already hurt them.

I think that society has become too selfish for its own good. I may be the chill one, but I do care.

I love you all. Be adventurous. Chérir la vie.

Ellie X.

i’m still alive, i promise

hello friends,

I’m writing this to say I’M FINALLY DONE WITH EXAMS! Thank God. I’m sorry I completely dropped off the face of the earth. I took 18 credit hours this semester so I have done nothing but work for finals these past couple weeks. I promise I will be posting regularly again, but for now I’m going to sleep for the next 48 hours. I just wanted to let you know I’m still here! Until next post…

I love you all. Be adventurous. Chérir la vie.

Ellie X.

rainy day in april

It’s a rainy day here on campus and I should be studying for an test I have later, buuut, per the norm, I’m procrastinating. I blame the rain. I don’t know why, but I love the rain. It makes me feel very calm and it’s the perfect writing weather. Everything slows down and it gives you a chance to breathe. Which is highly needed right now. In case you have never experienced April in college, it is hell month. Professors are trying to shove every bit of last minute knowledge into your brain that they can, so they can give another exam before the final. Labs give their final projects. Class signups begin. People realize how little time they have to bring up their grades. Academic scholarships begin looming over peoples heads. It’s the most stressful month in the academic year.

I had never experienced hell month before so I over anticipated how much free time I would have. I bought tickets to concerts on the first two weekends and they’re 4 hours away, I have a sorority formal the next weekend, and then on the last weekend before exams I have Relay for Life on campus (if you don’t know what that is look it up. it’s very cool i promise). I volunteered for two chair positions on the committee and I am co-captain for a team, so they definitely keep me busy. Don’t get me wrong, I have loved every second of working for the American Cancer Society. They are wonderful people and I feel like I’m doing something worthwhile. However, I’m working on stuff every single day and it’s hard to balance everything. Needless to say, when I woke up this morning and I heard the rain I was very thankful.

This past weekend was my first concert of the month and I saw Mumford & Sons in Birmingham. They were absolutely amazing and sound just as wonderful live as they do on the album.

I sat at the very top because I’m a poor college student haha. Mumford opened up with their most popular songs like “I Will Wait” and “The Cave.” After they played the more upbeat songs they went down into the audience and did an acoustic set with one microphone and sang “Awake My Soul.”

I almost cried. It was amazing. The entire arena was silent and everyone just stood mesmerized.

Here’s one last picture from the piano solo:

 I think I’m slightly addicted to concerts haha. I go to the Pentatonix concert this Saturday and I’ll post the pictures from that soon. No matter how stressful hell month gets, the concerts are worth it 🙂

I hope you all are having a wonderful April! To all the college students out there, good luck.

I love you all. Be adventurous. Chérir la vie.

Ellie X.

self-absorbed coffee shop

Every Tuesday and Thursday I have a two hour break in between my morning and afternoon classes. During this time I usually go to the Starbucks in my campus’ library and get a head start on homework (which most of the time just turns into me watching Game of Thrones). It’s amazing what you can learn by people watching. I sit in the back of the shop at a long rectangle table against the wall where the single people doing homework usually sit. We all just congregate and sit alone together and don’t talk because, obviously, we all have important things to do like watch Game of Thrones. All the people who come in in groups sit in the middle of Starbucks where they can interact with each other all they want and not disturb the people at the long table. It’s a great system for people watching, which I love, because I can look out and just watch people interact with each other while not having to interact with anyone myself.

Today I sat down, at my usually quiet table, next to people who didn’t know the system. There were three of them and they were on an ex-boyfriend rant so they were yelling and squealing and using the words like and er my gawd continuously. I’m usually pretty okay with loud people at the quiet table because they didn’t know the system and it’s not their fault. They don’t know! But I hadn’t had time to drink my coffee yet so I wasn’t happy yet and then I started listening to their conversation (not that I had a choice from how loud they were being) and I was appalled. There were two girls and a guy and the girls were telling the guy stories about themselves. The girls had been friends since high school and came to our college together. One of the girls, I don’t know her name so let’s call her Tonya, is a sophomore now and had been dating this guy since she was back in high school. He was a year younger than her and was planning on joining his girlfriend at the same college so that they could be together. Sweet, right? So he graduates high school, gets everything arranged, moves into college. He starts his freshman year and she starts her sophomore year and then TWO DAYS into the school year, she dumps him…I’m sitting here listening to their conversation and I swear my jaw dropped. This girl is sitting here complaining about how her ex makes her uncomfortable because he is mad at her. Well hell if I went to a college just to be with my boyfriend and he dumped he two days into the school year, I’d turn into a furious, raging lunatic. I think he is doing pretty well with only being mad! I could not believe this girl was genuinely complaining about this guy being mad.

Then they moved off the ex-boyfriend topic and started bashing one their friends. Apparently one of their friends who goes to school here too was tired of Tonya complaining all the time and wasn’t really talking to her anymore. Well Tonya was not happy about this and went into full denial, yelling mode saying “LIKEWHATTHEFUCKIDONOT!! IDONOTCOMPLAINABOUTEVERYTHING.” At which point I just thought Yea sure. and I decided I was done listening in to their conversation and directed my attention elsewhere. I looked up and there was a guy rushing towards the counter area where they hand you the coffee. He did not look amused. He smashed his down on the counter and proceeded to accuse of the lady of making his coffee “wrong”. She calmly responded ” I may not have stirred up the coffee enough. Would you like me to make you another?” This barista took responsibility for the bad drink and offered him another one, but he just kept on saying he always gets the same drink and they always make it right and this was ridiculous that it wasn’t correct because he always gets this drink. Insinuating that this barista should have known how to make his drink because he gets it everytime. Well if he was in here often enough to always order this drink he would know that this girl was one of the new employees. Our college has 20,000 students in it and our library (where the starbucks is) is open to anyone who has a card. The line is almost always out the door. How in the world would this new girl be able to differentiate this guys order from the rest of the hundreds of people who come through here everyday? She again offered him a new drink and apologized for the quality of his current one. However, this dude still wasn’t satisfied. He proceeded to go into detail about how it was wrong. How the taste was incorrect and was not sweet like it was supposed to be. She asked if it was too bitter and he pointed at her at yelled “YES TOO BITTER.” For the third time, she calmly said, “Would you like me to make you another drink, sir?” He finally looked satisfied, smiled, and nodded his head as she set off to make him another drink. Go new barista lady. I’m supporting you from afar.

People.

I love you all. Be adventurous. Chérir la vie.

Ellie X.

Spring Break

This past week was spring break and here’s a little bit of what I did!

First, my roommate and I left class on Friday and drove down to Disney World! We met up with her boyfriend (who goes to school near the park) and we spent the day there Saturday with him. It was amazing! We got there at 9 when the gates opened and spent the day riding rides and paying way too much for hotdogs. We got stuck on Splash Mountain and Haunted Mansion for like 15 minutes each. We finished the day with the firework show “Wishes”. Fun Fact: It is my roommate’s life-goal to be the Tinker Bell that flies from the tower of Cinderella’s castle over Tomorrowland at the beginning of the show.

We only went to Magic Kingdom because for those of you who don’t know, Disney World is ridiculously expensive. The $135 it cost to get in the park for one day was enough for me!

Sunday was dedicated to driving the 10 hours back home so nothing exciting really happened that day haha. Well, actually I had one awkward encounter. I was in the middle of nowhere in Georgia working my way towards Alabama and there was nothing on the road that I was driving on. I hadn’t seen a gas station in a couple hours and I was getting a little nervous. I saw this sketchy looking little gas station that looked like it had been there for forever and I know you should never stop at sketchy gas stations, but I was getting nervous about my gas situation, so I stopped. I was the only person at the pumps and no one was around, which was weird. I just thought to myself Pump $10 of gas and get out of here. I put my debit card in the pump and of course the message came up “please pay inside”. Great. The second I walked up to the store and opened the door I was hit in the face with INCREDIBLY loud music and the room was a billion degrees I swear. Haha all I could think was “what the hell is going on?” Guys, you have not lived until you walk into a gas station where the only people working are 20, dancing around the gas station, and blaring “Colt 45” by Afroman over the loudspeakers. If you don’t know the song, here are some lyrics so you can get a feel for it.

Said colt 45 and two zigzags baby thats all we need
We can go to the park, after dark
Smoke that tumbleweed
As the marijuana burn we can take our turn
Singin’ them dirty rap songs
Stop and hit the bong like cheech and chong
And sell tapes from here to Hong Kong
So roll, roll, roll my joint, pick out the seeds and stems
Feeling high as hell flyin’ through Palmdale
Skatin’ on dayton rims
So roll, roll, the ’83 Cadillac coupe Deville
If my tapes and my CDs just don’t sell, I bet my caddy will

I guess they don’t get a lot of people that stop at their gas station because it looks so creepy from the outside, let alone people that actually go inside. So, I don’t think they were expecting anyone to come inside. They were hilarious. I walked in and I guarantee you that at least 2 of the 3 people in there were high. One of them was a guy dancing around the room, another was just dancing in place. The third girl was working the cash register and was missing most of her teeth. I had to yell just for her to hear me ask for gas over the music. They were great, happy, high people! I completely misjudged the gas station. Haha so that’s my story from Sunday.

Monday-Wednesday I spent catching up with high school friends and being with my family. Thursday was one of the greatest days of my life cause I completed one of dreams and went to a Fall Out Boy concert!! AAAAHHH! Holy crap they were amazing. I almost cried several times throughout the concert. They have been one of my favorite bands ever since I was probably 10. And the fact that they can sing the same songs as when I was ten and still sell out shows says something. They’re amazing.

On Friday my best friend from home and I came back down to school and spent the weekend wandering around downtown and going to the movies. We found a lot of really cool spots.

That’s my Spring Break! Proof that not every single college student goes to the beach and goes crazy for Spring Break (even though I think that’s fun too). Haha Happy almost Easter everyone!

I love you all. Be adventurous. Chérir la vie.

Ellie X.

do I really have my life together?

Sorry for not posting last week! My life was INSANE. I went on a trip to visit some of my high school friend and I had 2 exams. College is crazy haha. Which brings me to my topic for this post! One of my friends recently dropped out of college because she felt like she was not as prepared for college as everyone else. She said that she did not know what she wanted her major to be and she did not have her life together like everyone else did and she wouldn’t believe me when I told her no one really has their self together.

Let me just set the record straight here. If any college student EVER tells you that they have their life together…they are lying to your face. Most likely if you ever hear those words come out of a college student’s mouth, they are trying to convince themselves more so than they are trying to convince you. I have a theory that schools use freshman year to weed out the people who shouldn’t really be in college. Like they just assign a crap ton of useless work so that you spend every waking hour devoting your life to a paper for a class that doesn’t even count towards your major at the time (because your major will change). You think college will be all partying and some learning and then they make you work so much you can’t eat, sleep, and any chance you even have a possibility to go out you take a nap instead. Freshman year is basically The Hunger Games school version and those who can’t survive off of coffee and Hot Pockets are left behind 😉

Then there’s the matter of majors. I can count on one hand the amount of people I know who haven’t changed their major at least once. You’re not supposed to know! I started off Undecided because I really had no idea what I wanted to do. Then I declared Strategic Communications because I wanted to do Event Planning. Well then a month after I declared Strategic Communications I really wanted to transfer to Brown to go into Egyptology because I’m super strange and I buy old textbooks about Egypt off of Amazon and I read them. But then I realized that I was insane and I can’t actually get into Brown (who has an acceptance rate of like 6% for those of you who didn’t know) and I didn’t want to devote my life to Egypt; I just liked to learn about it as a hobby. Well now I’m going through this phase where I really want to be a high school English teacher. I would love to teach, but I have a problem with where the education system is going (but that’s a whole different topic that I will save for a different post), but I’m still thinking about majoring in English. So, that’s where I’m at right now. Haha I have no idea what I’m doing with my life, but I also know that it’s okay because I’m a freshman!

So here’s to those who seriously do not have their shit together at all 🙂 It’s okay because that’s life and what needs to happen will happen! I apologize if there are any misspellings in here or if it rambles too bad! I am sitting in the hallway outside my next class trying to get this posted to get this posted before class starts.

If anyone else has any stories about them not having their life together, I would love to hear!

I love you all. Be adventurous. Chérir la vie.

Ellie X.

is this real?

Everyone said that when I got to college I was going to learn and experience new things, but I guess I assumed that I would of at least heard of the new stuff! Something I had never even heard of was Shuffle Dancing!

This is SO COOL!! I thought I knew about dancing because of my cousin. My cousin is one of the most dedicated to dance people I know. She has dance classes every. single. day. Just off the top of my head I know she’s taken acro, tap, jazz, ballet, hip hop, modern, and she’s on dance team at school. So, I grew up going to all the competitions and watching the dance videos online and I thought I had seen at least all the styles of dance…NOPE! Shuffling is flipping cool guys. Not like the Cupid Shuffle, like moonwalk mixed with spinning and jumping and awesomeness. I discovered this at the Life In Color Music Festival in Miami this month and I am bound and determined to learn to do it. People were just dancing around and it was awesome. Here’s some Instagrammers and Youtubers I’ve started following since making this discovery:

• @ecruz_n
• @shufflestyles
• @gabbyjdavid
• Elena Cruz Nichipor

^This girl was at the same music festival as me, which is how I discovered this!

Here’s a tutorial I found if you’re interested!

 

How freaking cool is that?! It may not be everyone’s style, but it’s perfect for when your in room and just need to bust out dancing (unless you’re in my dorm room and don’t even have enough space to breath properly).

I just wanted to share my discovery with you guys! Thanks for reading!

I love you all. Be adventurous. Chérir la vie.

Ellie X.

finding yourself

I was always told “Don’t be afraid to be yourself!” However, I found it really difficult to follow through with that in high school. I grew up in a very small school where everyone knew each other which made the whole popularity game ridiculous (i’m a bottom of the food chain survivor haha). So, this post is going to be strongly influenced by growing up in that environment. Around my sophomore year at Briarwood, my school, my grade and the grades around us starting developing into this mindset that friend groups claimed activities. For some reason “hipster” became this huge trend and everyone wanted to be “artsy” and “musical” and “retro” and whatnot. There was a group of about 10 kids who started taking pictures (and don’t get me wrong they take beautiful pictures) and there was this sense that because they were the photographers, no one else could be. They had claimed the photography hobby. Then you have the partiers. Ya know, the ones who flaunt their shenanigans all over the internet? Those. There was a group for that, so if you weren’t already in their friend group you’re out of luck, sorry. Or the athletic ones. The musical ones (not the band, the people who are in professional theater and take singing and acting lessons). The loners. After a while I felt like I was in the movie Mean Girls trying to find a table to sit at. It became hard to express who I was because if I shared a trait as someone else it felt like I couldn’t show it because that person had already claimed it. Some of you may be laughing and I know, I know it sounds petty, but really it was frustrating as hell! Anyway I got fed up with it by the time I hit senior year and graduated.

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” – Dr. Seuss

I quit trying to scavenge through pieces left behind by other people to fit to me and now that I’m in college I have never felt more free to be myself. I don’t worry about what someone is going to think of me if I choose to do something I’ve never done before. I’ve started asking myself this question before I do anything “Would I have done it in high school?” if I answer no, I do it. Don’t think this is me telling you to go crazy in college…like if someone asks you if you want to do meth obviously do not follow my rule. But asking myself that question has pushed me to do things I never thought I would do. For example, a couple months ago two girls in my class asked me if I wanted to go to a music festival with them in Miami. In high school, I would have said no because I did not know these girls super well, but that proved that I had to go. That ended up being on of the greatest weekends of my life! 

This post kind of rambled, but the point I’m trying to get across is that I spent way too much time caring about what people thought of me in high school. I feel more like myself now and I encourage everyone reading this to be true to yourself. Explore what’s out there and find yourself.

I love you all. Be adventurous. Chérir la vie.

Ellie X.