Go, Go, Go

(please, disregard the split ends. really.)

Yesterday was go, go, go,

from the second I dragged myself out of bed at 5:45am.

No, really, I rolled to the side of my bed,

stuck a foot out, and then slowly just let

gravity take its course - it pulled me down little by little,

and I tried to resist, I did, but I'm no real competitor before the sun's up-

and so I sadly admitted defeat.

After I finished up some computer science coding,

I got dressed in not-enough-clothing

(I'm sorry I forget that 6am = cold),

and treated myself to hot cocoa and chocolate cinnamon bread from the 'bucks.

And then I spent the rest of the morning being a (pretend) grown up

at a social media conference that the magazine I work at hosted.

I heard some valuable words of advice and insight

from leaders of the industry, including those from

Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Twitter.

Side note: those in the social media industry

are so young and so well dressed.

It was a walking, breathing J.Crew/Madewell/Anthropologie/Urban Outfitters catalog.

I may or may not have spent the first two hours taking

sneaky pics of heels and purses and turbans and jewel-tone skirts,

and texting them to all my friends w/:

WHY DON'T I HAVE THIS. WHY.

They stopped replying after the eighteenth picture w/ the same message.

That's enough blabbering for the day.

Cheers!

(Go, go, go time ended in the afternoon

when I took the most luxurious three-hour nap,

and then proceeded to watch all of the TV episodes

I had missed this week. The Life. #THELIFE.)

15

One Year // Positive Thinking (Or Not)

A year ago today, folks, I started this blog.
I started it without the intention of doing anything
other than ramble a little bit on it every now & then, so that I
can look back a few years from now and see what exactly
was going on in this nonsensical mind of mine.

But this little space on the Internet has given me so much more than that.
It's given me a creative outlet through which 
I can nurture my writing and photography skills,
both of which I find I am truly passionate about.
It's given me a very welcoming and encouraging community,
full of people who I both admire and respect.

So, thank you for that.

It's also allowed for me to focus on living the lifestyle
 that I've worked so very hard to maintain, which is that:

source

Positive thinking leads to a positive life.

It sounds so cheesy, so "plastered-on-a-picture-of-a-sunset-and-then-Pinned,"

but it's also the honest-to-God truth.

For the past six months or so,

I have very consciously made myself be happy.

I've made myself look at things with different perspectives, 

actively try and change seemingly bad events and people for the better,

always ask myself "and why should I be entitled to this?",

and say thank you for each and every little joy.

It's worked. Better than I ever expected.

I haven't found myself so consistently content and truly happy in yeeears.

source

But I think I've also forced myself to be on this rigorous routine of sorts,

and whenever the going gets tough, it's become second nature

to change my thinking, to smile, to justify it with "everything happens for a reason,"

so much so that it gets a little exhausting sometimes.

And while I do 95% recommend and truly believe in the wonders

of always being thankful and always thinking positively,

I've also come to realize... maybe it's also good to let life suck sometimes,

and to just, I don't know... be frustrated, whine, complain, throw a tantrum,

be thoroughly done with everything for a moment and just go take a nap or a shower,

and deal with it later.

source

Remember how I was going on and on about how last week rocked and was amazing?

Well, this week sucked. (And I kind of saw it coming too... nothing amazing lasts forever, right?)

It didn't suck in any big, life-changing way.

It was just one of those weeks where I was exhausted, I had too much work to do, the weather was nasty, everyone was stressed and busy and there was never enough time to do everything that I needed and/or wanted to do.

source

On Sunday, in the car on our way back from SF,

my roommate and I had respective panic/anxiety attacks.

I had accidentally missed a mandatory class, I had hours and hours of homework left to do,

I was missing the SAG Awards (sadly, this was actually really one of the reasons...), and Cassandra was frustrated with traffic and classes and whatnot, and both of us were starving. 
Not any world-changing issues by any means, but it was a rather suck-y environment - 
so much so that we didn't even bother

to point out the beauty of dusk whilst driving out of the city like we usually would.

And so we drove on in silence 
(don't worry, we weren't mad or upset with each other in the least; we were both anxious over our own problems and sat in silence to ponder over them... I'm actually really happy that I can have a friend where we can both just brood over different problems at the same time and not have it affect the other person).

We didn't bother trying to calm ourselves down.

Or to make it seem any better.

We just drove.

And then we went to McDonald's.

As I bit into my first Big Mac in MONTHS,

I already felt the crankiness flying away

 (ok, so maybe most of it was hunger... that's never a joke). 

We laughed a little, but mostly concentrated on stuffing fries into our mouths.

I don't think I've ever appreciated food more.

I often forget about how much I really love Mickey D's.

And then Carrie Underwood's "So Small" came on.

And then Fun.'s "All Alright" came on.

Seriously, universe? iPod Shuffle? You trying to tell us something?

And we laughed really, really hard.

We calmed ourselves down.

I went home and e-mailed my TA 

(who replied immediately with "no worries! completely understand... just come in on Tuesday!"), 

started watching lecture videos, and cleaned my room.

And it's all good again.

OK maybe not all good. 

I still have six out of seven coding assignments left to do.

Plus, five more chapters to read for discussion.

But for now, it's manageable & fine & all I need is a good night's sleep.

Lesson learned: sometimes, just let life suck.

It'll tell you when it's ready to start having you strive for the good stuff again.

Through the mysterious magic of song choices...
and the deliciousness of fast, unhealthy food.

source

PS. Sometime in the next week, I'd love to host a thank you giveaway for keeping up with me throughout this blogging journey. Anything in particular you guys would love to have?

9

Likes of the Week

source unknown.

Coming in slightly late today -

but I hope everyone had a most wonderful weekend

and had a great start to the week.

This past week, I liked...

xx

caroline

PS. Tomorrow (the 29th) is my one-year blogiversary. Exciting!

9

'Cause I'm On Top Of The World

I'm sure if this isn't your first time reading my blog (by the way, hello! love you!),

you know my roommate Cassandra pretty well by now. 

I think her face may show up here even more than mine does.

Here's another fun fact about her: she's a varsity softball player,

which means I don't get to see her nearly as often as I'd like -

she has hours on hours of practice and weightlifting every single day,

and that's not even including the long weekends she's away traveling for games.

So on Monday, when even superstar softball players had the day off,

of course the only thing I'd let her do is drive to San Francisco with me for a day trip,

for a best-roommates-ever date.

(hello, big sister!)

 

outfit post!

unedited!

I didn't photographically document our entire day,

because we decided to make a video out of it instead,

so if you're not tired of us yet,

or if you might want to humor us and watch us

saunter into cute boutiques,

have a tied-for-the-best-(restaurant)-meal-of-my-life

meal at E Totto Qua (SERIOUSLY. THE FOOD. OMG. and the service - just wow.),

visit the most charming old (and apparently famous) bookstore,

and gorge ourselves at Ghrirardelli Square,

press play:

21

Likes of the Week

from City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco

This has been the most extraordinary week –

nothing major happened exactly

(except that we had an extra day off - that's always nice!),

but it was filled to the brim with little joys –

so much so, that my roommate and I

may or may not have purchased a lottery ticket

and a good luck card to commemorate it last night.

This past week, I liked...

Have a great week, y'all!

21

A Little Crazy Never Hurt Anyone, Right?

In college, the word "crazy" usually implies some wild story or other
pertaining to the most recent frat party.
But recently, it's come to my attention that my friends refer to me as a "free spirit,"
and that my kind of crazy is universally accepted as an entirely different kind of story.

My kind of crazy involves a spontaneous trip to Target one hour before it closes,
picking up necessities such as: new shoes, a new lip color, sugar cookie dough, Jarrito's Mexican soda,
and a pint of Mediterranean Mint gelato.

My kind of crazy is being the last ones at Target, and being essentially herded like sheep,
to the checkout line, and therefore forgetting to pick up spoons by which we could use to enjoy our goods.

My kind of crazy is driving to the top of our Stanford Observatory and putting the top of the convertible down and basking in the utter gloriousness of the night sky for about five minutes, before scaring ourselves silly with thoughts of wild animals and axe murderers, and deciding to move our mini party to the Main Quad instead.

My kind of crazy is sitting down (laying down?) in front of the Quad, sharing our fabulous gelato (we finished all of it...), sipping on some mandarin soda, and taking our hands out of our toasty gloves for a few seconds at a time so that we can obtain satisfying chunks of sugar cookie dough.

(Who cares that we would for sure get stomach aches in about an hour?)

 

My kind of crazy is spending hours talking about how blessed we are to be here, about what our school mean to us, about the future and dreams and goals.

My kind of crazy is having a mini-dance party by ourselves using the genius iPhone as our speakers...
we were prancing and dancing to all of our favorite songs, and then that turned into
a karaoke sing-off/makeshift concert for our millions of fans (aka the random lone biker who was
actually awake at 2am and who probably thought we were insane or on drugs or both...).

Thanks for the fabulous evening, roommate.
I'd take our kind of crazy over frat parties any day!

15

The Only Reason I Wake Up On Weekends

The answer: brunch.

The other answer {if and only if first answer doesn't happen for some reason, God forbid}: 

just to wake up past noon and chuckle at the idea that I woke up past noon.

College life - it's excellent, I tell ya!

Fortunately, this past weekend

(seriously, I'm so behind on posts sometimes...

it's because I'm up to my neck in computer science coding,

which makes me sound really smart,

but then I'll tell you that I started it two days before it's due,

when you're supposed to start about - you know - seven days before,

and then you realize maybe I'm not so smart anymore.)

was one of those brunch days.

This lovely lady and I walked into Downtown Palo Alto

and then back home. 8 miles. Exercise - check.

(afterthought:

actually yes, this is how we function. we exercise to eat... and it's not even 

really exercise. we go get food and call it exercise.)

Chai from La Boulange!

...except we didn't go to La Boulange for brunch, even though I've heard rave reviews.

We just went and picked up some sweet (for her) and spicy (for me) chai.

It's very yummy - I highly recommend,

although I think Coupa Cafe will always have my heart when it comes to chai.

We instead visited University Cafe in Palo Alto, one of very favorites.

Sorry the lighting of this is kind of weird.

I think I'll just tell you that the lighting gods wanted you to focus on that

delicate, pillow-y egg which glazed over with sunshine-colored yolk

at the gentle prod of a fork,

and that gorgeous hollandaise sauce that I basically licked off the plate.

Eggs Benedict, there's nothing like it.

This is Lauren's omelete,

which I for once didn't steal a bite from,

mainly because I was having joy spasms from my own food.

But she said it was delicious!

And I trust her over anyone when it comes to good eats.

Have a good (brunch-filled) weekend, 

you pretty and nice friends, you!

9

All Good Things Begin With The Letter "T"

...okay, maybe not all things.

But two defining (this term is used loosely... or not) moments in my life happened within the past week,

and now I'm strongly convinced that the universe has deemed "T" the magical letter for me.

The first "T" moment in which I had a close-to-a-spiritual-epiphany-moment/thing:

Tim Tams.

Or more specifically, Tim Tam Slams.

It's simple, really.

All you do is...

Grab some Tim Tam's.

Bite off each end.

Put one end in a smokin' hot beverage

and use it as a straw basically.

SLAM.

And then you shove it all in your mouth.

And then you will probably cry a little as the cookie becomes crumbly and a little mushy and the caramel melts and dissolves on your tongue and the chocolate gets melty all over your finger and the combination of flavors seriously renders you speechless because you realize the astounding fact that your life has just been changed.

Then, repeat.

Because you can't just Tim Tam Slam once.

(Or twice. Or three times. Who me? What?)

It's impossible. I dare you.

You are very welcome for those ten extra pounds you will surely gain from this newfound knowledge. Just tell people you're extra-cuddle-worthy now.

---

The second "T" moment - in which I figured out who I want to grow up to be:

photo credit: my lovely roommate, Cassandra.

Meeting Tory Burch!

She's not just my favorite designer - she is also a role model for the girl-who-doesn't-really-know-what-she's-doing-right-now-but-would-really-love-to-be-a-facilitator-of-positive-change/an-aspiring-young-professional-who-wants-to-make-it-big-someday like me.

So when I heard she was coming to Stanford for a talk on power and entrepreneurship,

I freaked out a little and then calmed down enough to plan my outfit.

Lauren and I showed up an hour in advance,

and trust me, as we were waiting outside by the picnic tables

for an opportune time (aka not the very first people there) to go in,

I had a mini spaz attack every time I saw a thin, blond-haired woman walk by.

It wasn't healthy. So Lauren finally let me book it to the auditorium forty minutes before the talk started, and we were able to snag prime seats in the second row (first row was reserved or we'd have been there stat) smack dab in the middle. As in, our faces were separated by ten feet of thin air, you guys.

Honestly, Tory is such a special person (yes, we're indeed BFFs already, so I know all about this).

But in all seriousness, she is driven and motivated and lovely and so gracious.

She was also impeccably dressed - THOSE. SHOES.

The end-all-be-all:

Cassandra, Tory Burch, Moi, Karen, Lauren.

Yes, it happened.

We stayed after, and nervously waited amongst a group of Louboutin-clad pretty young things to meet her.

By "meet her," I kind of mean we all cornered her and she was nice enough to take a picture with us,

and then she started a conversation with us.

She asked about our majors.

Who is this woman and why is she so amazing?

And then as we were walking away, the intelligent comment about social entrepreneurship I had so painstakingly crafted in my mind kind of blew itself up into smithereens, and I very awkwardly said to her:

"You should try Coupa. It's really good.

Yeah, the chai. It's great."

Dear Lord, please help me.

But get this:

I found out through Facebook later,

she did go to Coupa.

Tory Burch took my advice.

I'm done.

I very sincerely apologize for this rambling, all-over-the-place insanity of a post.

These things just made me really happy & I couldn't not share.

Much love.

24

Likes of the Week

the Dish.

This week, I liked...

♥ Sunday morning hikes w/ Lauren to the Dish. It was just slightly brutal, because my gluteus maximus is currently maximus sore at the moment.

♥ Camping out in the dining hall for five hours for the Golden Globe awards. Boys were in there hogging the TV for football, so we stayed in a corner and watched the red carpet on a tiny little laptop screen because nothing says passive-aggressive than loudly giggling over J.Lawr's cone boobs & Lucy Liu's... curtain. Eventually, they let us have it (see! it worked!)... so we watched it & then Once Upon a Time afterwards. Five hours of TV, yes oh yes!

♥ The Golden Globe Awards! I must say - this is the best awards show I've seen in recent history! Amy and Tina were PERFECTION. My only gripe about the show is that they weren't present for nearly enough time. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, I swear if you ever break up, I might give up on life. My reaction to Jennifer Lawrence's win... It was in the middle of dinner & a room full of strangers was watching with us. I was basically shaking, telling everyone to feel my heartbeat, because it was not normal (seriously, they can tell you: it. was. not. normal.), and then when they announced her name, I dropped to the floor. My friends literally left the room so they wouldn't be associated with me.

♥ Target runs.

♥ Finally decorating my room. Second week of winter quarter - see how on top of things I am? Pictures to come!

♥ My new Snuggie & chocolate from my best friend's mom - am I lucky, or am I lucky?

♥ A Saturday morning walk down Palm Drive to grab a chai from La Boulange, brunch from University Cafe, and to pay a little visit to Anthropologie and West Elm. Good stuff, y'all!

xo.

15

Outfit Post (Kind Of): Stripes and Giggles // La Madeleine

I can't believe I've only been back for one week.

It seems like it's been a month, a year, forever.

Here's what (or who, I guess) I dedicated my life to on my very last day of break in Houston:

First, let's talk about food because... hello, how long have you known me now?

If you're new around these parts - I just love food a lot. The end.

Let's talk about the tradition that my best friend Brina and I have:

we meet at Barnes & Noble,

so that we can stand there and soak up all the knowledge in the books around us.

No, we don't actually read them there. We literally stand there and talk and sometimes get Starbucks.

Let's talk about how we then traverse over to La Madeleine, 

a key defining place in our friendship,

where we eat this wonderfully flaky and creamy chicken friand,

with the intoxicating side of mushroom sauce.

Let's also talk about the fact that Brina had just come from a dentist appointment,

her mouth was numb & she had a lisp & she could only have the tomato basil soup,

and I was really sad that she couldn't take part in the fantastical princess of food up there.

We can also talk about how I always want to try ten million things at La Madeleine,

like the quiches and the eggs Benedict or ooh, the Croque Monsieur,

but because I usually only get one day in this magical land,

I always go with the chicken friand. I play favorites, I don't care.

Let's talk about how sometimes we stray from tradition too,

like how I ordered an extra chocolate-almond croissant,

because I was feeling especially starving,

and I took one bite of this heavenly crispy-on-the-outside, 

dark-chocolate and pillowy goodness on the inside beauty,

and decided that she can be a part of our tradition too from now on.

Then, we can talk about how Brina and I never ever take pictures together,

mostly because she doesn't love the camera like I do,

but I forced her (by way of not giving her dinner) to this time,

and even though we don't have shoes on,

I'm going to pretend this is kind of an outfit post...

Proof that she avoids the camera like the plague.

Proof that she's not serious about this camera-loving lifestyle like I am.

Proof that we actually love each other.

On me (I don't know what Brina's wearing... see: vain & really love myself the most.):

Blazer: Gap //

Shirt: Old Navy //

Necklace: Charlotte Russe //

Jeans: Uniqlo //

17