Book Nook + Cool Experience

Hello y'all today's blog is not going to be a regular book review. This time I met the author and that experience will be told in this post! Get pumped my little page turners!! Today's book is "It Gets Worse" by comedian, youtuber, all around hilarious human Shane Dawson. Yes I met him. 

First of all the book is amazing. It's funny and cute and makes you feel good about yourself, which I think Shane was going for. If you have never heard of Shane you must live around a giant rock because he is a BIG deal. He has been a youtube for over 5 years (not sure exact number) and he has written 2 books, this one being his second. "It Gets Worse" is a series of essays about his life and funny or tragic real life stories he has gone through. Honestly, his life has been rough but also not gonna lie some hilarious, whacky stuff has happened to him! It made a great sequel though.

Overall, the book was amazing It definitely deserved the New York Bestsellers title If i do say so myself. Now before I tell you some of my favorite quotes from the book, I will tell you about my Meet and Great experience with Shane:

I met Shane on July 25 of this year with my friend Rachel. Her and I are big fans of him and so we bought tickets and drove 2 hours to Cincinnati Ohio to see him for about 5 seconds. We pulled up to the bookstore at around 3 o clock and the meet and great didn't start till 7. So we found our spot by the outlet and awaited our king to arrive. Between the hours of 3 and 7 we did things such as, complain, snooze, read, painting our nails, and contemplating on buying everything around us. Anyways, once the wait was over we were in group L. We got in line around 7:45 and the line ZOOMED by. Rachel made me go first because she hates me. So when I got up there heres what happend per by memory:

Shane: Hi!

*me stands like an idiot* me: are you real??

Shane: *laughs*
Me: Hi i love you! *while hugging each other 

Shane: love you too! 

Me: lets take a cool pic! 

Shane: what should we do?

Me: you pick!
Shane: oh no girl Im out!!

Me *laughs and turns and just makes a move and he follows*

Shane: thanks! 

Me: thanks!

And that's my 10 second conversation with youtube sensation Shane Dawson. It was absolutely amazing and even though it was about 10 seconds it was the best 10 mississipis of my life. After that we left and searched for our pictures and held our precious signed books in our hands. We eventually went home and slept but meeting him was a solid time. Would totally do it over :) By the way I forgot I ate a jolly rancher earlier so you can see my blue tongue in the picture, greaaat. 

Also here is a link to the vlog I made while it happened: CLICK HERE

Favorite Quotes: "So yes, it gets worse, but you know what gets better? Your tolerance for bullshit."

"It's funny how fast money can change you, even when it's invisible."

"Because that's what love is: no judgement."

Book Nook

Hey book nerds! I am finally back with an upbeat post about novels and more fun things! Today's book is "My Life Next Door" by Huntley Fitzpatrick. It was one of those cheesy romance books, but those are my favorite kind.

This one was about a girl named Samantha who has a neat freak, crazy, politician for a mother. She also lives next door to the Garrets. A large family with messy yards and craziness happening 24/7. Then one day Jase Garret decides to climb up Sam's trellis in her room and the rest is history. It is a very cute story between the two and literally one for the books. It is also very cliche how it is the boy next door but honestly I wish I had that in my neighborhood.

I recommend if you like cute, cheesy romances like me. It is a really sweet story with a twist at the end ;)

FAVORITE CHARACTER: 1000% Jase because I love him and the way he acts is what I would personally want in someone I dated. He is sweet, caring, appreciative, and perfect. He takes care of Sam and that's what matters most.

Favorite Quotes: "This is my favorite technique too, silence so loud someone has to start talking to fill it."

"Who are these people, and why do they think their own opinions are the only right ones?"

"So what if Tim can't handle it? What if he just messes up?
We all deserve a chance not to, right?"

"The wrong people can lead you to make the wrong decisions."

"Tim, you've got to get over this 'everything's easy for everyone else' stuff. It's not true and it makes you boring."

"It doesn't go away because it's not your problem."

"She said we were rich in all the things that matter. I need to remember she's right."

"....and pretending everything's okay when it's not and just junk."

"The truth was just..... inconvenient."

Anxiety

Anxiety sucks. It is probably one of my least favorite things about myself. I get anxious so easily about the dumbest things and I am not gonna sit and here and say I don't cause that's not true. I want this blog to be all brutal honesty because if you have met me in real life, you know that that is how I am. I am a very brutally honest person whether people like it or not. I have taken medication for anxiety and I know a lot of people do. If you feel like you are someone who might benefit from that reach out to someone and ask for help. I can not stress that enough.

Anyway, for this post I wanted to get personal with you about my experiences and how I handle anxiety. For me I get anxious over small things like, homework, misplaced things, tweaks, being unorganized, and being unprepared and those are just a few examples. With this comes anxiousness and thoughts of failure or uneasiness, My biggest physical effect anxiety has on me is stomach aches. When I am anxious my stomach beings to hurt and I feel like I am gonna throw up. It is not fun and it makes me even more anxious because I really do not want to throw up in that particular situation. Anxiety is not an joke or it'd not something people just say, it is a serious thing that can screw with peoples lives.

Anxiety does have a sidekick which is a super power that toys with your emotions and your motivation. For example, when I become anxious I will lose all motivation to do anything important and my emotions will get the better of me. I will get angry with myself and pissed off. I do not understand why this happens but it is not really something I can control. However, I can lower the anxiety levels. Here's how I deal with anxiety:

I did a lot of these exercises when I was in the hospital because I would get such bad anxiety I would start to have panic attacks. So a lot of the times I would have my sister help me breathe in and out. This is EXTREMELY important because with a panic attack you aren't breathing normally. So she would help me with that. The other big thing I would do would be mindfulness which is to attack the problem head on and realize what is happening and just understand it and breathe. It was either with breathing or a written exercise given by my psychologist. Either way it worked most of the time. Now that I am at school and by myself it is a lot harder to use these exercises so I have come up with some on my own time. These include; reading, painting, comedy tv/movie/special, and basically anything to distract me from the anxious situation. I have found out that the more I just sit there and think about the thing that is making me anxious makes the problem worse. So I have learned to take me away from the situation for awhile and do something fun or that I enjoy and come back to the problem when I am ready.

If you have anxiety don't be embarrassed, it is a common thing and just because yours might be worse than somebody else's does not mean anything! You will be okay and get through it. Also nothing is as big as it seems! Just remember to find the ways that help you handle your anxiety and do them! Even if that thing is due in 2 hours, step away and a bad grade will not effect you in the long run. The most important thing is not grades, it is your health and that should always come first. So just breathe and believe you can do it and you will.

xoxo Haley :)

Why Do You Want To Be Happy?

As you can see by the title of this I am going to try to answer the question of "Why do you want to be happy?" I was first posed this question in my philosophy. Now before I go on you must know I HATE my philosophy class, like its literally the worst. But in this one moment I happened to be paying attention and my professor posed this question to us. I then went back off in thought and pondered this question myself for multiple days now.

It is a tough question to answer and I am almost positive that there is no exact conclusion.

I wanted to actually see what others thought about this so i went to my good friend google and researched it, again this is not a school assignment, I am doing this out of genuine curiosity. Here is what I found:

Aristotle happens to be the biggest brain behind this philosophy. Were learning about him in class, and within my research Aristotle believes that happiness is only achieved with a fulfillment of conditions not only physical but mental. Aristotle says happiness consists in achieving, which I love. It seems like he is basing it off of achieving your goals and succeeding in them. I agree but I also do not. I love that it is believed believing and reaching your goals can make you happy, but I also know that things are not permanent.

For example, say your goal is to graduate college (aka my goal) and 4 years later you have a college degree hanging up on your wall. Your goal is complete you are happy, but are we ever fulfilled? I believe we aren't. As humans we are always trying to reach goals. When we finish one goal we move on to the next. It is just temporary happiness isn't it?

It seems simple when you think about it but it really isn't. Overall, I do not think anyone has the correct answer to this question, but I'm going to give it my best shot:

I want to be happy and to be able to say 'I had a great life.' I feel like if we are okay and at peace at the end of our lives that is happiness. I want to be happy because happiness is something that enlightens the soul and radiates everywhere. I want to be happy because the opposite of that is sad/depressed and that doesn't sound like something anyone wants to be. I want to be happy because why would I want to be anything else?

I am not sure If I ever will find complete happiness and I don't know if you will either. We cannot tell the future and we cannot take guesses. It sucks that the future is unknowing and it isn't something we can change either.

Overall I hope you want to be happy and I hope you find it.

xoxo :)

Confused

I thought for the longest time I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

My junior year of high school I was put into a class that was my last choice for my scehdule, creative writing. I didn't expect much out of the class but a couple of half-assed poems and a short story or two. However, after a few weeks sitting in a stuffy room my mind changed. I started to enjoy it. I started to believe in my writing skills and enjoy putting words on paper that mean something.

I started to think that college was coming up and that I didn't want to be that person at gradaution with 'Undecided' showing under their name, it just felt embrassing and lazy. So I started to think I kinda need to decide what I wanna study in college.

By the end of the semester I knew what I wanted. That creative writing class changed my life. It gave me the thing I've been looking for for what seemed like forever, answers. I finally decided I wanted to be a writer. This was all thanks to my awesome teacher Mrs. Roberts :) I loved how words could inspire people and I wanted to do just that, make someone believe in something.

I felt so accomplished and ready to take on college because i knew the field of study I wanted. I knew what I wanted to strive for and what I wanted to accomplish. This feeling lasted for 2 and a half years. The feeling of knowing and possibilites.

I went to college in the major of English- creative writing. I thought that was perfect because the class that made me take this was in fact a creative writing class.  I thought this would be a perfect fit and I'd be on the path of success. This only lasted a month.

I started to fall out of love with writing and I lost inspiration. I felt like my light started going out and I didnt know how to reignite it. I was so confused and asked "Why do i feel this way, I love writing?!" I started questioning everything I believed for the past two and half years. I felt lost.

My nights and bursts of inspiration came to me less often and I felt pity. I didn't like this feeling. I hadn't written on my blog in forever or really journal as often. I didn't feel like me. Within my classes I felt forced to like English becasue every 5 seconds the teacher would say, "You're an English major so you have to...." blah blah blah. Everytime she brought it up I would cringe at the fact and I couldn't understand why. I love english, its always been my favorite subject even when I was growing up, so i really couldnt wrap my head around my thoughts.

I started to feel like English was no longer just MY thing. I knew it always wasn't just my fortay but somehow I believed it was always soemthing personal within me, like my own little secret garden I could escape to when feeling sad. I started to feel like people were invading that garden and killing all my flowers and plants that resembled my thoughts and opinions. I no longer felt like I had a passion for the subject and I am a passionate person, you guys know that. I did not feel like myself.

I knew something had to change, but I wasn't sure what or how to go about finding out. At first I started talking to friends in my classes that also felt the same way and planned to switch majors. I thought hey maybe I should try that. But again I was still stuck. What was I supposed to switch to? If I thought I wanted to be a writer for so long, how am I supposed to know what I want to switch to before next semester. Dont forget that the first semester is halfway over and Im running out of time.

I panicked. I didn't know who to ask or who to go to because I am the only one who knows what I truly want. I started to ask my dad and he said English teacher and I thought, maybe, but do I really want to deal with kids? I wasn't quite sure.

I think my biggest delimma was the fast I didn't know what else I liked enough to possibly make a carrer out of it. So i pushed it away, the thoughts and feelings that encompassed it. I decided to throw myself into things to get my mind of it, like painting. I started painting a lot more and then reading more books. I wanted my thoughts to float somewhere else for awhile.

Then I got an email from my academic advisor that made the thoughts come back. I had to figure it out before spring semester scheduling. After weeks of thought and serious stress, I finally decided.

Communications is the major I'll be switching to my sophomore year of college. I decided on this for many reasons:
1. It is broad, meaning it has multiple options for after graduating. It gives me more options to choose from within the college.
- Although the thing that sucks is it seems that all we think about when going into college is how is this gonna land me a job once i graduate. Instead of studying what you truly enjoy.
2. It something I was debating about earlier - Funny thing is I thought about doing this as my major going into my freshmen year anyway so in a way it kinda worked itself out.
3. I enjoy talking - This kinda speaks for itself. It is the college of communications and you can learn a lot from that and make a job out of that and speak your mind.

Overall I feel way better now as I am typing this. I feel like I see my true path up ahead on the road of life. I just happened to take a short detour that I dont at all regret. I learned a lot throughout the time I was in english and i appreicate the teachers I had. They taught me things I never expected.

I now feel inspired and better about myself then I did 2 months ago. I'm starting to feel like myself again and I feel blessed.

Do not be afraid to switch things around. It is going to be scary, but life is scary. You can't go you're whole life without taking risks, there would be no fun in that!

So challenge yourself to take a risk whether it be big or small and always remember to be yourself and be brave!

xoxo Haley

Book Nook

You guys it seems lately I have had more time to read books and it makes me oh so very happy! This book was one of those that i couldn't and wouldn't put down. It was one of those soft romance novels that sorta are predictable, but they always have a twist. To me they truly never get old.

The book this time round is, "A Totally Awkward Love Story" by Lucy Ivison and Tom Ellen. I was very curious on why there were 2 authors but I was answered at the end of the novel, in the back of the book. Lucy and Tom happened to have been a couple in high school and now are still really good friends. So they decided to collaborate on a book and recreate their high school romance with the characters of Sam and Hannah. Lucy wrote Hannah's parts in the novel and Tom wrote Sams. I thought that it was so clever because you truly get two different perspectives on the characters, since they were written by two different people. Neat!

This book had me reading soooo fast. The chapters were on the long side, but i felt like they were over in 5 minutes. Every page had something exciting it whether it was good news or bad news for the characters. Sam and Hannah have never met until they bump into each other at a party and it feels like they found their 'lobster.' Let me explain.

Apparently Lobsters mate for life. So when they say "I found my lobster" it basically means i found the person i want to be with forever. Its ironic because i recently just finished the show Friends and phoebe, one of the characters, says that about Ross and Rachael and I'll never forget it. I thought it was so quirky and cute to have that in there as an ongoing theme.

Please pick up this book whenever and where ever you can! It is a quaint little novel filled with awkward romance that you yourself will fall in love with.

Favorite Character: This was a tough one. As i was reading i was trying to decide who i would write for this part of the blog. I decided on Hannah because she reminds me so much of myself. A nerdy girl who cares about grades, books, and if she'll ever find love. It is amazing how much i connected with her throughout the novel.

Favorite Quotes: "Maybe nothing feels that epic when you're actually living it."

"I hate it that now people are constantly expecting me to have become something. And like I'm a failure because I just haven't."

"I think loving someone because they love you is selfish, I went on. It's spineless. It's like only admitting you want someone once you know they want you."

"I miss the times when it was acceptable to like music on the charts." THIS IS SO TRUE. What happened to that??!!

"Maybe friendships actually end when neither of you has anything to say anymore."

"The bigger the obstacles, the more you're meant to be together, I reckon."

"I'm sorry I got mad. Life just feels so hard.
Sometimes it is."

"It's weird to think of my room being empty when I go. Of things getting dusty. Everyone says you shouldn't go home in the first semester because it makes you homesick. When I come back at Christmas and climb into my bed I will be different. I will have changed. It should be exciting, but it makes me scared. Like I want stasis. Everything to freeze. I don't want to forget how I feel now."

"I don't understand why parents do this. I've already let myself down -- do I really need the burden of knowing I've let someone else down too?"

"If I had no future, why should I worry about the present?"

Book Nook

Guys this book has been raved about for MONTHS AND MONTHS and i finally read it! It is "Milk and Honey" by Rupi Kaur. It is such a heart wrenching book or poems. The poems are divided into 4 parts: The loving, the breaking, the hurting, and the healing. Each section is heartbreaking but also healing.

It is awesome because the author wrote these poems based on her own experience, which is so brave and courageous and I love her for that. I don't know if i could post a whole book of poems based on my worst relationship experiences.

My favorite section was probably "The Healing" because it makes the book come full circle and after all the tears the early chapters made you cry, you get to smile and realize everything is gonna be okay.

I recommend this book for anyone going through hard times and wants a friend and someone who understands what they are going through. GO GET IT!

A lot of poems are SOOOOO good i cant put them all in this post. So here is some of my favorites i decided to share with you:

"i do not want to have you
to fill the empty parts of me
i want to be full on my own
i want to be so complete
i could light a whole city
and then
i want to have you
cause the two of us combined
could set it on fire"

"i didn't leave because
i stopped loving you
i left because the longer
i stayed the less
i loved myself"

"i don't know why
i split myself open
for others knowing
sewing myself up
hurts this much
afterward"

xoxo haley