A dear family friend is going to college this year. Today is his graduation/college celebration. I wrote him this letter as my two cents:
College. Best four years of my life. College is the most amazing experience – especially if you’re lucky enough to have parents pay for it. Think about it. You get to take classes you want, when you want, how you want and then do whatever the hell you want with the rest of the time you have. Some people spend that time stoned out of their mind. Some people spend that time sitting in the library bored out of their mind. Your choice. If I can, I want to challenge you to really take advantage of these four years. They will never happen again. Even if you do grad school your parents won’t take care of all the finances and working sucks. Even for people who get paid a lot and are high ranking, works sucks. Not all the time, but more than you think. Here are things I think you should try: 1. A Sport – intramural or NCAA 2. A girlfriend – they are time consuming but they are also super important in terms of social development 3. Tequila – be prepared. The story of 3 tequila… FLOOR is true, especially in my case when cups were Styrofoam and not shot glasses. 4. Midnight adventures with your friends. Some of my best memories are roaming Ralphs and Vons drunk off my ass 1 in the morning. And getting amazing Mexican food at all hours of the night. And talking philosophy and theories on life with my friends when the hour is dark and the night wraps you in mystery. There is something very alive and magical about the hours between 1am and 5am. Enjoy them, live them. 5. Making friends with your professors. Make friends and learn about them. Learn what makes them tick. Why they do what they do. 6. Go to office hours. You need the professor to give you a break the last week of class; well you’re not getting one unless the professor knows who you are. 7. Which brings me to this point, go to class. Seriously. Sit in the first couple rows, engage the professor and do your homework. If you want good grades it takes more than showing up for tests and acing them, especially in your undergraduate classes. 8. Take lots of different classes and broaden your mind. 9. Go to a poetry slam. 10. Go to the shows and festivals the school offers. 11. Be active in your school. Really take advantage of this time to explore yourself. 12. Have a purpose. Life should be lived with a purpose. I really struggled with this one in college. I got lost in college land and my degree became my purpose. Yes, you can get your degree. Just do well in your classes. But life isn’t about your degree. It’s about what you do with it. So think about what you want out of your life and make it happen. 13. Wear a condom. Lifestyles ultra thin are the best – they almost feel as good as the real thing. STDs are a serious problem right now. Nursing homes are running rampant with them. Funny? Ha! In all seriousness, AIDs and other crazy shit is coming back and hitting young people every day. Even if a girl swears she’s clean, unless you see the paperwork proving her words don’t gamble your life. And yes, you can get genital herpes from oral sex. And gonorrhea now too! 14. If you’re going to join a frat, don’t become a frat boy. You can be in a frat without becoming an obnoxious asshole. Trust me. It’s possible. 15. Journal. Meditate. Eat healthy. Take care of your body and mind. Sit under a tree on campus and read a book. Smile at people. (I don’t think you’ll have a problem with the smiling part, you have the loveliest smile and use it often.) If you drink, compensate with lots of water. Keep those brain cells hydrated! This will be the hardest and best time of your life. Living away from your parents is a challenge. I didn’t do it for college but I have friends who did. They all swear that the first year hurts but then it gets way better. Make friends. Real friends. Be open to other ideas and try them out. Be a republican for a day, a democrat for another and an anarchist for the weekend. Try to see how other people feel and think. You will never have so much free time to do that kind of thing ever again. Once you start working you will come home exhausted and sucked of any energy. And once you have kids, well good luck ever taking a shit by yourself until they go off to college. If you’re looking for places to pick up chicks, take a psychology undergrad course. Those classes are packed with hot chicks. Trust me. If you need a few ideas to help this process along I’ve heard “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists” by Neil Strauss is supposed to be pretty awesome. The biggest lesson college taught me was I didn’t know half the things I thought I did before college. And none of this knowledge was academic. Oh and if you need someone to talk to, you can always call me. I’ve been there and done that and I’m not your parents so I have a new, fresher perspective on college life. Good luck and enjoy. Love, Esther
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Today is one of those days.
No, I'm not pmsing. Yes, I am attempting to eat only healthy things to avoid weight gain. Although, I am totally guilty of eating way too much Endangered Species Extreme Dark Chocolate 88% (link in case you're wondering what that is and/or thinking of gift ideas for me) and Endangered Species Dark Chocolate with Deep Forest Mint (link). These are my FAVORITE chocolates ever. They are rich and deep and yummy and earth friendly and are sweetened with beet juice. And are yummy. Did I mention yummy? Okay, while I'm talking about my favorite things I want to share my FAVORITE ice-cream: Coconut Bliss (link). No, none of these companies are sponsoring me, I just have to share. This ice-cream rocks because it's organic, all natural, no artificial anything and has NO SUGAR. It's sweetened with agave nectar so it doesn't affect your insulin levels. It's guilt free and a weekly Shabbat treat. I initially created this website to test out how it would work, how people would respond to it. I wanted to find out whether it was worth doing. And I have found it to be very rewarding. I want to start blogging more about my everyday life and things I like and my perspective on mommy stuff. I even want to play with some of the cool features this site offers, like audio and video embedding. This is high tech stuff people!!! I am wishing all of you a wonderful Wednesday and look forward to your stories. I grew up in a clean house. When I say clean, I mean clean. Spotless floors. Dishes washed, dried and put away immediately. Laundry washed, folded and put away before I even had a chance to wake up. My mother is militant about organization. Of course I am the exact opposite of her. I can't keep any space clean and organized for longer than I step into the room and put something down. I have absolutely zero sense of order.
My mother used to prophecy that I would move out into my own house and I would learn how to clean. At the time I thought it was a curse, now I see it as a blessing. If only I knew how to keep a clean house like my mother! When I became pregnant my husband and I agreed to hire cleaning people every other week. I couldn't get up from the couch for the first four months of my pregnancy, there was no way I was going to be able to clean anything. Every other week the cleaning people would come over, move the same piles of paper around the dining room table, pick up my messy piles and make my home look beautiful. Within 24 hours the house looked like nothing every happened. Same messes, same house. Now I have a Destructo Sadie running around my palace of leisure. Between the two of us we can destroy the order in every room within hours. It's a frustrating pattern. Cleaning people attack my house every Friday and Sadie spends the weekend undoing their labor. Logan and I definitely help her but she is unmatched in ferocity and focus. I struggle with accepting this reality. Sadie makes messes, I run around cleaning them up, Sadie runs around after me remaking the messes. This is completely serious. For instance, I will fold a bunch of towels and put them into the drawer. As I begin to clean the floor Sadie will go into the drawer of towels and throw them all over the house. Then she will take something and spill it on the floor. She follows me around the house undoing anything I do. It's enough to make me lose my temper. I, who hates to clean, is forced to continually clean throughout the day and have nothing to show for it by the time Logan comes home from work. My husband does not demand a clean house when he barely makes it through the front door after 13 hours of work and a night full of work ahead of him. Other than a warm meal he voices little concern for the state of our home. However, I know he prefers the house to be clean and orderly even though he never says anything. Every evening I run around trying to make our home look approachable and inviting for my tired husband. For now I'm accepting (or forcing myself to accept) that my house will not be perfect. Even if my mother likes to tell me again and again how amazing she is for keeping a perfect house. I've never loved my body.
I remember my first swimming class. I was in a skin tight speedo around the age of 10 standing by the bleachers waiting for my name to be called. When the teacher called me I self-consciously walked to my group with my head down. All I could see were my thighs. It felt like I had the biggest thighs in the world. Each step made my thighs rub together and jiggle in their grossness. Girls used to laugh at me behind my back. Boys were embarrassed that I had crushes on them. "eww... the fat girl likes me..." My mother used to tell me I was so angry as a kid because I was angry out of being so fat. I've had issues with bulimia and binging and have really found food to be a demon constantly lurking in the background. One bad meal can set me down a dark path of negativity. For some reason people like to comment on my weight. It's as if my weight were a free-for-all and how many pounds I've lost/gained was everyone's business. In the past six months I've lost around 15 pounds. I weigh what I used to weigh in college and the "good" months of high school. I've done it through lots of exercise and eating healthier. It doesn't mean I don't eat chocolate or cake or sugar or yummy things, I just try to cut them back when I can. A few days ago a friend remarked that I looked so skinny and I must have lost at least 30 pounds, if not 50. First of all, that's a huge number. I'm 5"4, 50 pounds on my frame would really make a huge difference. And, and, and... who tells someone they look like they lost 50 pounds. I never! If I lost 50 pounds I'd be scary skinny. It wouldn't be healthy or good for me. And it is an insulting comment either way. So why am I making my weight a free-for-all topic right now? Okay, secret confession time. I've never had a 6 pack. Or even seen my abdominal muscles. I think I have them but it's more a faith based relationship. Ever since I was a kid I had a flabby stomach. But NOW I have an excuse. That roll of fat on the bottom of my belly, that's from carrying my daughter within me (or at least it became worse because of her). I know there are celebrity moms and even extraordinary women who have children and have flat bellies in no time, I'm not one of those moms. I wish I could say that having a child has eliminated all body issues for me and I'm 100% comfortable in my own skin. I can't say that. But I can say that the stretch marks, the softer skin, the C-section scar that is long and cut crookedly across my abdomen, all of these things have helped me love my body more. My thighs are no longer two evil beings trying to destroy my life. My stomach is no longer a curse, it is a blessing that has carried my daughter. Our little family went to Palm Springs this weekend - my husband had to be there for work and Sadie and I tagged along. I can proudly say I ran after Sadie in the pool area wearing only a bathing suit and no wrap around my thighs. My usual baggy swim trunks were nowhere to be seen. I didn't worry that people were staring at my thighs and laughing at me. I walked around proudly and stood with my hands on my hips with my legs firmly set on the ground proud to be me, thighs and all. |
Meet the Blogger!
I'm a mom. A writer. A lover of good fantasy. A proponent of nursing when possible. A birth advocate. I am absolutely horrible at keeping my house clean or the dishes washed or the laundry done. I strongly believe in women having a positive birth. When we start to respect women's rights to birth the way they want, we can start to treat women as equal people in this world. Archives
February 2016
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