That's SO Not Fetch

None For Gretchen Weiners

aaannnnddd just like that second semester has started. You move back into your dorm after 6 blissful weeks of Netflix and home cooked meals and now you get to return to rowdy floormates, community bathrooms, and the bae down the hall that always seems to be missing his shirt. Not to mention all of your new classes. But what you're really stressing out about are the mean girls down the hall. They judge your music taste, look at you like you're an alien when you don't feel like turning up on a Tuesday, and of course are so critical over your dorm decor.

But don't freak out. Just remember that they are the problem, not your Justin Bieber poster. If they want to act childish, let them. It just proves that they made it into college by a landslide. If they want to get drunk and throw up in the bathroom, just don't hold their hair for them.

Most importantly, don't let them make you feel small. You got into college. Four for you Glen Coco! You just proved you are smart and talented and can handle a challenge. Not everyone is going to like you, thats a given. But you can't allow them to make you feel inferior. Stick up for yourself, turn the other cheek, or just ignore it.

As long as you are true to yourself, that is all that matters.

Being a good person and moving past the hate? Now THAT is SO fetch!

xoxo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKQ0Xz-i8Bk

Swing Life Away

1985

Car rides. When you're blasting your favorite Pandora playlist and that one song that means the world to you comes on.

Swing sets. Where you had your first connection with someone, at 5 and at 15.

Malt shops. Where you sipped and swung life away on the little dance floor by the jukebox.

It doesn't matter whether it's 1985, or 30 years later. We are trying to find our little piece of heaven on earth. We all just want one thing out of life: happiness.

Our problem is that we're searching for it in the wrong places.

We look for it in starvation because we believe that in Angelina Jolie's body, the answer is hidden. 

We look for it in knives because we believe that our blood carries the direction in which a smile points.

We look for it in a boy because we believe that his eyes can't possibly drown us anymore than the sadness we feel.

But it is ironic that sometimes we drink cough syrup even when we don't have a tickle in our throat. 

And it is scary that we accept this.

And when we run out of obvious places to search for a spark of life, where do we continue our hunt?

Once we find the right place, heaven doesn't seem so far.

So try looking at the top of a mountain or in a tattoo parlor or at the stars. 

Try not to look back at what's happened, borne back ceaselessly into the past. Look forward. Seek for something that will make you get out of bed everyday. It takes time but I swear, once you find it, it'll be like swinging away to your favorite song in the middle of the playground you grew up with.

xoxo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BblV6AQsd2s

Silly Little Thought #3

Reach For The Stars... Or Maybe Just The Top Shelf

I work in retail, so just understand right away that I hate my job. I don't care if I'm making money. I HATE MY JOB. The customers are one thing, but the overwhelming pressures to look like the models in the advertisements flashed all over the store are another. 

I'm 5 feet, not an inch taller. I am under weight for someone my age but overweight for someone my height. I have chubby thighs. a muffin top, bingo wing arms, and everything else. I will NEVER look like a Victoria's Secret Angel, but that DOES NOT mean that I am any less beautiful than them. 

My family pokes fun at my weight all the time. Constantly throwing around the word "fat", I have acquired the nickname "roundie" because apparently my body resembles a ball with arms and legs.

The girls on my floor in my dorm all have at some point looked at me and understood that they are better than I am because their metabolism is much faster than mine. 

I have awful acne everywhere. It just runs in the family. I wake up in the morning, quickly wash my face and slather on makeup before anyone can see me and I don't wash it off until everyone is fast asleep. 

Yes, I am self-concious, but no, I don't hate how I look. I think that my stretch marks from doing squats and my scars from picking pimples makes me unique. I think that the way I am is god damn good enough for me. 

So why isn't it good enough for you?

When did it become about pleasing YOUR eyes when I'M the one who has to look in the mirror everyday? 

Yes I workout a lot and eat healthy, but because I WANT TO. NOT because YOU'RE telling me that by doing this, I too can be beautiful.

I hate to tell you, but I'm already beautiful. And if you feel the need to tear people down because YOU don't like the way THEY look, maybe you should take a long look in your own mirror. 

I may not be able to reach the top shelf in my store, but there's a step ladder hidden behind the dressing room mirror. I may not be perfect looking, but that doesn't mean there isn't a great story underneath my skin.

xoxo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAfyFTzZDMM

Silly Little Thought #2

Cross Paths With Me at 3 a.m.

Do you ever just look at someone and know that there is a grand story behind the way their eyes sparkle and in between the gap in their teeth? You haven't even had a real conversation with them, just a 'hey' on the way to your dorm bathroom or smiling at them when they sit down next to you in class, and yet you feel as though they should be in your life. You feel overwhelmed, maybe even infatuated, of how much you want to know about them. 

Tell me your life story. Tell me why you hate the smell of vanilla. How you love to play in the rain because it's like drowning without the promise of death. What songs you sing in the shower like you're auditioning for Simon Cowell. Why you can't walk past sunflowers without your mood sinking like the Titanic. Tell me it all. Every little bit. Don't leave out a single detail. 

I want to know all about you. Don't get me tipsy on those petty stories about why you love Jack Daniels and your favorite color. Get me drunk on the reasons you use a Blink-182 song as your alarm. Explain to me the scar on your forehead. Paint me a picture of who you are. 

And once you find all these things out, two things could happen. You'll either be lucky and create new stories with them or you'll be unlucky and become a story for them to tell someone else someday. 

I guess it just depends on if you're a good interviewer or not.

xoxo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGPeNN9S0Fg

Catching Your Wave

Finding The Right Direction To Sail In

I think it started when I was seven. My mom bought me one of those "Disney Mania" CD's. I played those tracks for hours, belting out the songs covered by Ashley Tisdale and the Jonas Brothers. My mom heard me and came in one day. 

"Was that you singing?"

"Yeah mommy why?"

"Keep going."

I joined chorus in fourth grade because she gave me courage. I got every solo they could give me without being unfair to the other kids. I stuck with it in fifth and sixth grade. When it came to seventh grade, I got bullied into not joining. All my courage melted down. So I quit, and that is one of my biggest regrets to this day. It made me happy and I let someone take it away from me.

I am eighteen now and I still have that Disney Mania CD. My singing doesn't come out from behind the shower curtain or blast out of the car windows and it is all because they dulled my sparkle.

I used to pretend I'd audition for American Idol. That was my plan. I'd be famous and I wouldn't have to grow up and go to college. Now I'm heading into my second semester of freshmen year and I couldn't be more lost at what I want to do with my life. I joke about marrying rich, maybe I'll be Mrs. Justin Bieber. But I want more than that. 

I want to wake up every morning and be so overly excited to go to work. I want to never shut up about how fantastic life is because I'm doing something that I love. 

American Idol is going to end very soon (or so they keep saying). So what do I want to do now?

I want my cheeks to swell up with joy. I want to find peace within myself and discover a whole new existence.

There are so many things I want to do, see and experience. 

I want each and every one of you to feel the same. Don't settle for something because it pays. The only payment you should really look forward to is the magic that will occur when you discover your passion. Find what brings you a smile each and every day. Plaster it on your face and don't let anyone rip it off of you.

Do the thing that you're afraid to do, the only person standing in the way is you.

The storm will be rough. Don't anchor yourself down. Push through. Sail straight to victory island. There's treasure waiting for you there.

xoxo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8xDOP-MAJA

Silly Little Thought #1

Don't Play Your Heart Like A Broken Record

Have you ever listened to a song so incredible that you were completely blown away? When the song ends and you just sit there entirely taken aback at how the lyrics hit you like a brick wall? You're breathless, unsure of every feeling you've ever had because this one lyrical mixture could just have scientifically created a brand new feeling unknown to man? 

Isn't that what love is supposed to be like?

Every single parent wants their child to grow up and find someone who loves them and will take care of them. It's hard to hear this when you're eighteen and never been on a date, let alone had a boyfriend. But that's okay. It's okay if you're a teenager and you've never had someone call you princess. It's okay if you're forty and divorced and you want to be young and in love again like you once were with your high school sweetheart. Just tell mom that you're saving her a lot of awkward dinners and dad a lot of bullets.

The truth is, we all want to feel about someone the way that music makes us feel. We want to know that bad times are a given and that surpassing them will bring out the best moments of our lives. A sheet of notes and words provides us with security in the same way holding someone's hand does. 

So go ahead and marry the first person you date because they show their true colors that just so happen to pair perfectly with yours. Or date the person you never thought you'd end up with because somehow they bring out parts of you you never knew someone could fall for. 

Just be happy with someone who wants to see you be happy.

Advice from someone who has never had a boy be smitten for her.

xoxo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SAF0Maa3q4

A Silly Little Introduction

Welcome To My Silly Little World

The world is quite large to me down here, as I am only (barely) 5 feet off the ground. But from down here, it is simply amazing at what can happen to you, (like being offered a children's menu while wearing your alma mater's sweatshirt). And although I am short, I am anything but small, for my voice can be heard from miles away, whether it be singing Beyoncé at the top of my lungs or throwing a fit at the airport when they don't believe that I am indeed NOT a minor and I don't need an escort to get through security. 

This blog is an escape from the height requirements at amusement parks and the odd looks you get at Victoria's Secret when you ask to open your own Angel Card account. Come along on my adventure through my college experiences 900 miles away from my home, my obsessions with food, fashion and fandoms, my craziest dreams, and every silly little thing that pops into my head.

A silly little blog written by a silly little girl.

Enjoy! xoxo

~Silly Little Sam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tbm4Au3dZ0