A New Beginning

After 5 weeks of awesome summertime, it was time to begin my career. Work began in mid-June, and I absolutely love it! In the first 3-4 months, all of the college new hires are in an orientation program to learn about the company. There has been lots of bonding time in between presentations, projects, and travelling. 

Team Building Activities:

Yes, we walked over set mouse traps. I am now fearless!

We had to all get through the nets, without touching, and without re-using holes.

I was excited and concerned at the same time.

What is one way to bond quickly? Have everyone touch your butt..

The 20 best friends that anyone could have!

We went to a Drillers game, and Hanson sang the National Anthem. 4th grade Katy came rushing back to take fifty a couple of pictures.

Jennifer and Kathryne, two of my new favorite people!

Club 807, representin'!

I have made some amazing new friends this summer, and I am so happy to start my new beginning with them!

And then the friends start getting married...

Before this year, I have only been to 3 weddings in my ENTIRE life. Including the one where I was a flower girl at age 7. 

This summer began that time in every girl's life when her dreams come true her Facebook fills with engagement pictures and her mailbox fills with wedding announcements and scares the crap out of her. I missed the first one, a destination wedding in Florida. Unfortunately I had no denero to go. In mid- June I got to attend the first wedding of 2012 (2 more planned so far, plus 1 that I can't attend). It was my friend Kayla's wedding, who was one of the girls I studied abroad with to China in 2010.

On the night of the rehearsal dinner...

Chinese Lanterns! (yes, like in Tangled)

College friends

Got to see a couple of other girls on the wedding day!

Weddings make me feel way too old. And I wanted to bawl like a baby. I will blame that on the fact that I had just started work and hadn't slept for two weeks. You believe me, right? 

:)

And tonight she blogs.

I am finally blogging! Yes, I suck. So I won't make excuses.

It basically all comes down to the fact that I didn't think my life was interesting enough to stop watching netflix to tell you guys about.

But now that I have graduated and become an "adult," my life is automatically more interesting (slash I don't live in a sorority house filled with my best friends anymore- just my parents who aren't as awesome and distracting) . So now I will continue to blog! I am first going to make some posts of the highlights of life since I died from the blogging world, and then I will continue with the fun awesome things that I prefer (like telling stories of my eccentric childhood and run-ins with the crazies).

To make it up to you guys for blogging hiatus, I leave you with a dose of cuteness:

*It has been so long since I have blogged that I have no idea what this new blogger business is. I am bad with change!

Life is a Whirlwind

In 4 weeks, I will be graduating from the University of Oklahoma.
Today, I was initiated into the Honor Society, Phi Kappa Phi, honoring the top 10% of Seniors.
I found out last week that I am being honored with one of Price College of Business's Outstanding Senior Awards.
I will also be graduating with Academic Distinction.

I am not saying these things to gloat, although I am damn proud of myself.
I say these things because I can't believe this has all happened. I can't believe that my days here are almost done. I am so excited to start my new life, but leaving here will be bittersweet. I know that life will never be like this again. However, I love confidently knowing that life will be so much better. Many of my friends are not this lucky, and while I pray for them to find jobs/grad schools/etc., it also serves as a reminder to not take for granted what I have been given.

I am so excited for all of the things I will be able to accomplish this next year as I begin my career. For years I have been living in an environment with competitive people who try to push other people down. I have learned a lot about myself and how to deal with this kind of environment, for which I will be eternally grateful. The lessons I have learned are invaluable. However, I will be moving home to an environment of people that constantly believe in me and inspire me to do great things. And that is what I want to do. I don't know what these "great things" will be, but I know they will happen because I will be surrounded by encouragement. I know this next year will be a big, BIG change, but I know that these changes will enrich my life for years to come.

I swear that it was just a year ago that I was playing on my elementary school playground. But here I am, preparing my cap and gown. Life is a whirlwind.

Blackbird

I am getting back into playing guitar. I used to play from 8th-10th grade. I started out taking lessons privately, and thought things were great. Then I slowly realized that my teacher was extraordinarily sexist, and Katy doesn't deal with people like that. So I quit the lessons and kept playing on my own with the music from my lessons. One night, one of my brothers came in and took one of my strings to make a tattoo gun. He promised to replace it. However, he never did. Sure, I could have gone and done it myself, but I have pride issues and wanted to make him do it. That was the end of me playing guitar.

This semester, I enrolled in the Guitar class offered, and I am absolutely loving it. I already feel like I have learned more than I ever did in my year and a half of private lessons- which is sad. It is so great playing again though. My muscle memory is slowly coming back, along with the callouses.

We are currently learning "Blackbird" by The Beatles. I love this song!

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

I tried posting this last night, but the internet didn't want me to do anything. So here it is, 9.5 hours late. :)


AWESOME:
-Sunday "Superbowl" Funday
-Leaving late for a group meeting, then getting offered a ride. I was right on time.
-OU Memes Facebook page. Endless laughter.
-Half of my Thursday night class tweeting/emailing/texting each other all night. #boredMISstudents
-Wednesday night pitchers with some of my favorite people.
-Following @country_words on Twitter.
-Hearing "Tribute" by Tenacious D at Oconnell's.
-Betty White, Ferris Bueller, and puppy commercials.
-Starting my 4th and 5th "for fun" books of the year!
-Volunteering at the Food Bank and scoopin' potatoes with some awesome people!

Awkward:
-My entire body has been sore all week, and I wobble everywhere. Seriously.
-Turning into my mom: Standing up for what I believe in to people I don't even know via facebook. Yes, I was that girl.
-Realizing that I took pictures of my friend Michelle and Matt, and then with all three of us. I didn't think it was awkward because we are all friends, but then my roommate pointed out that I was the awkward third wheel.
-Sitting in the back of the bus on the way to the food bank, with nobody sitting by us for about 7 feet. It was set up for a wheelchair, and the bus driver didn't know how to fix it. The engineers couldn't figure it out either.
-Apparently I haven't been that awkward this week. Which just can't be true.

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

AWESOME:

-The weather being in the upper 60s all week

-Groundhogs day says more winter! This is awesome because winter hasn't started yet.

-Ordering girl scout cookies! Samoas and Trefoils, here I come!!!

-Laughing to tears 3 times in the past week with my friends

-Discovering the animal "finger monkey" on Google Images thanks to my friend michelle

-Going to and 80s themed date party

-Pilates, Guitar, and Creative therapies being my most of my class schedule

-Frozen Sangria. Strawberry Margarita. Need I say more?

-Reading for fun!

-Organizing my jewelry and hanging up the rest of my decorations... 

including this new poster:

Awkward:
-Wearing summer clothes in January. I packed up all my summer clothes and took them home. : |
-OU put in the paper that we will now only have 1 day off school for snow because they upgraded the maintenance equipment. Womp womp.
-My friends thinking I am crazy for loving tiny animals (finger monkeys, dwarf goats, lap giraffes, and teacup pigs) and obsessing over them on Google image search.
-Having a class on Thursday nights from 6:30-9:20 that always gets out late.
-Going to a date party with a freshman/18 year old. I had fun though!
-Volunteering for "family mapping" in my Creative therapies class. You pick people in the class to be your family, then place them near/far from each other depending on how close they are. You also pick the emotion on their faces. I even had to pick someone to be me.
-Going to Ted's and being the only one dressed up in 80s attire
-Facebook. Timeline.