If you guys haven’t picked up on it by now, your girl is GRADUATING!
Less posts, less commenting, etc. in this past month – it’s all because I’m gearing up for adult life and trying to make the most of my college life while I can. It will be interesting to see the direction in which Yow Yow! takes after I graduate because this blog was first created when I was just a second quarter freshman here at Seattle University. Together, we’ve grown a lot since then, but as always (and to be extremely cliche,) all things must come to an end.
Yow Yow, however, won’t.
My dear friend Megan Newell recently helped me design a graduation announcement for my big day and she did a phenomenal job at creating one that was truly me. I am very lucky to have such wonderful and talented friends in my life.
To promote this year’s Quadstock, we invited one of our acts, Campfire OK, to do a series of spontaneous performances on our campus in a classroom, in one of our busiest buildings, our library, and our cafe. It is always such a joy to work with this band. Not only are they extremely talented, but they like to have as much fun as we do.
Thanks for everything Campfire OK. We love you so much!
This video was edited and shot by my dear friend Veronica Lim.
Despite being gone from Yow Yow! for an entire week, the blog has still been receiving its typical number for visitors! Thanks for sticking around y’all!
With graduation just around the corner, life has picked up a bit. I’ve been tying up some loose ends and spending time with some dear friends and family. I know that, however, Yow Yow is always going to be here. I may not have had the chance to post daily for awhile now, but the pressure of keeping up with every day news just got to be a little bit too tough for me. Will that change when I am a working girl? We shall see.
So it’s been a crazy whirlwind of a past two weeks.
I planned a music festival! Well, actually, I’ve been planning it for a whole year with my co-chairs, but I finally got to see it come to life and it was by far, the coolest thing I have ever done.
I returned to a community and said my parting goodbyes along with the rest of the seniors in my class.
I ate and didn’t eat a lot simultaneously.
I didn’t sleep very much.
School was kind of on the back burner.
I became a “downtown” kind of a girl.
“Call Me Maybe” became a little bit more permanent
But most importantly, in the last two weeks (probably in the last month since I said this not too long ago,) I have laughed and smiled more than I ever have in my years here at Seattle University. It is such a joy being a senior, but my time here would not be worth anything if not for those around me and in my life.
You guys, my last week of college is next week. I’m not even going to try to wrap my head around that right now at 10 PM.
We like to eat at small burger drive-ins.
We spend our mornings and afternoons chalking our Quad for our biggest event of the year.
I don’t like to typically talk about things unless they are for sure happening, but this is for sure NOT happening anymore – therefore – I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t post this.
A few weeks back, the leadership department at Seattle University was searching for commencement speakers for this year’s graduation ceremony and I figured I had a few things I could say. I turned in my application and my speech and became a finalist. I had my audition last week, but I had this sinking feeling that the role just wasn’t going to go to me. We’ve all had that feeling, right? The girl before me made everyone in the room laugh a lot harder than I did. Oh well.
Below is my speech though and even though I was not selected, it is still a piece that I am proud of.
Thank you to Seattle University for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the students. It is an honor to be standing in front of you all today – students, family, friends, faculty and staff, and the Seattle University community.
Four years ago, we sat in a set up similar to this one. We made jokes in our seats, reminisced with our friends, and dreaded the ceremony that we thought would drag on forever as every one of our peer’s names were called. Secretly, you loved every minute of it. Today, you might be in your seats doing the exact same thing and feeling the same way as you did four years ago or you might just be Facebooking and tweeting from your phone.
As Free As My Hair: My college experience and personal formation as told through my hair.
Hello! My name is Ben and I have known the beautiful Katie since freshman year. So when I received a message from her asking if I wanted to write a blog my instant reaction was HELL YEAH. Since I am senior this year at SU with Katie and I have an abnormal love for reminiscing, I kept coming back to the idea of reflecting on my college experience and the many transitions I have gone through. Now you may be thinking that relating this to my hair is super dumb or really vain but I think hair can liberating and has allowed me to externalize emotions or internal feelings about my life at the point. Through this post, I hope you get to know something about who I am and how, at some level, I have let my hair reflect where I am at in my life.
The starting point: High school
When I got to high school, I had grown my hair out and it is what we now call “the swoop.” I had the original Justin Beiber haircut and will probably have neck problems later in my life for flipping my hair so much. People knew me by my hair and people liked it. Above all though, I liked it. But I think at the core of who I was at that point was trying to “fit in”. Even though I had so much fun in high school, I definitely was trying to just fit in. Not make any waves. Just get by. The swoop was safe (and warm since I have really thick hair). I had the swoop for most of high school and any haircut I got was either a variation of the swoop or ended up returning to what the swoop originally was.
Picture 1. The “swoop.” And yes. I am wearing a Panic! At the Disco shirt.
Congratulations, you are almost done! I know it’s a couple months away, but you do have every reason to celebrate. You will be able to do senior streak and you will have the time of your life. You’ll have so much fun that you will spend half of the day passed out, you may or may not puke in the library and you’ll spend the next couple of days trying to figure out how to get the blue paint out of the bathtub, the bed sheets, and the shoes. You will also realize that Crayola is not all that washable. But here’s the kicker- you’ll actually make it to your final, and your professor will be kind enough to pass you.
I know the future may seem like a blurred-dark-abandoned-hell-of-a-rabbit hole and every time someone asks you, “What are your plans after you graduate?” you want to cry, scream and even punch the person in the nose. But here’s one thing I want you to know – come graduation day you will forget all about the stress and live in the moment. You’ll spend the day smiling until your face hurts; you’ll stand on your chair and fist pump; you’ll see a big giant poster of your face- of course it’s the one picture of yourself that you absolutely hate – and your crazy family will be behind it waving and laughing; except grandma, she’s tired.
Welp! I’m pretty late on getting this news out, but I guess that just goes to show how little time I have for this blog right about now. Regardless, I am BEYOND thrilled to announce this year’s Quadstock lineup:
Mayer Hawthorne and the County
Schoolboy Q
Bearbot
Pickwick
Campfire OK
Br’er Sun
It has been a long time coming getting this lineup together – 10 months to be exact (but who’s counting?!) and being able to release it to our students is a huge weight off our shoulders. So far the response has been pretty great! My biggest concern with this lineup coming out was having to deal with the criticism, but I’ve secured a solution – kill ‘em with kindness!
So I’m pretty excited and I promise to give you all updates along the way especially with the final product. I especially want to make a post at some point with all of our publicity because it’s incredible and designed by my dear friend Alyssa Johnson.
Remember when I wrote a post a couple weeks back about the wonderful people I go to school with? I mean you’ve sort of seen an example of that in Yow Yow’s guest posts, but now I would like to introduce you to someone lovely in a new format. Not too long ago, Seattle University had the opportunity to host TEDx and one of my peers, Renee Vandermause, gave a talk.
Renee is someone that I don’t interact with very often, but I pretty much think the world of her. Along with being a Civil and Environment Engineering student, she has dedicated a great deal of her time to service through Professionals Without Borders and leading and participating in immersions. She is someone that I find inspiring on campus and I wanted to be able to share this video of her spreading this important message.
I recently read an article from USA Today in which they calculated how much prom is costing for high school students in 2012. According to the survey they conducted, the average price is $1,078. I’m sorry, but that is just downright ridiculous. Prom, though memorable and a milestone on its own has this magical aura about it, but it doesn’t need to cost that much.
Teenage girls – (because I know that the guys aren’t as focused on trying to spend this much) here is what I am telling you. Prom is not the prerequisite to your wedding. I mean if anything, that’s what you should be saving up for. But prom? No.
Since you haven’t had your prom yet, let me shed some light on the truth behind it.
You’re probably going to wear your prom dress once and that’s it. If you were planning on buying your dress from those Prom magazines, there is no other occasion that will be appropriate for you to be wearing that dress. I was able to get two wears out of my prom dress by wearing it at a wedding.
You will lose your corsage before you even get to the dance or get tired of having a branch attached to your wrist blossoming out of you.
You’re going to look at your pictures once after they get printed and never again. Oh, is that your high school sweetheart? That’s so cute…and where are they in your life now?
You’re going to eat half of your food. I’m not sure why high school students feel the need to drop moneys on the best restaurant ever, but at 18 you just don’t know how to fully appreciate food. I would be so much more excited about eating at the Metropolitan Grill today than I would be when I was 18.
Every time there is a campus tour going on, I happen to be involved in some activity that is not traditional at all for a normal college student. The first time, I played water wars with Veronica on the patio. Last weekend, we were filming a parody of Dollar Shave. This time…I posed in an outfit as Space Girl. The tour then watched me prance around doing various dance moves in the space helmet.
So here’s my justification in all of this. Yes, it’s a little strange, but if you want to understand in one tour what student life in the wild looks like, then this is it. By me behaving this way, you as the prospective student, can come to the realization that your future campus will let you just be who you are. It also says, “Hey, we breed students who do not care about their appearance/behavior in public.” Oh…just me?
After not posting consistently for several days on Yow Yow, it always feels like unknown territory coming back to this. I forget how to write lengthy news posts or original posts and resort to ones that can be easily re-posted just so I can ease back into routine again. For the last several days, I have spent time getting re-acquainted with myself again. It has set me back in terms of work-related activities. I put some things on hold. I even had to back out of a commitment, which doesn’t mean that I have commitment problems – it just means that I made a shift in my own priorities and realized the importance of taking care of myself right now and figuring out where I want to be in the next chapter of my life. After all, my mother always said that you cannot take care of anyone else unless you take care of yourself first and that was precisely the situation that I had found myself in.
With each and every day, I believe that I wake up feeling more and more like an adult. If you would have told 9-year-old me that in the future my idea of a good time catching up with friends involved grabbing coffee (I hated coffee and tea) and sitting down for a meal, I would have laughed in your face. How boring, let’s go play with my easy bake oven and not question why it is that a light bulb is heating up my delicious sweet treats. Simply put, as children we are naive to the world. We love our innocence, but would we ever want it back fully? After writing that line, I automatically pictured Zach Braff circa Garden State in my head about him feeling numb and not wanting to feel that way anymore.
If I could label the cliche term of “roller coaster ride” for any period of my life, it would probably be college, but I wouldn’t take it back. In the past few days, I have sat down with a couple of my friends who graduated two years ago and just listening to them talk about life after college and how they are now pursuing different paths than when they first graduated is every indication to me that the learning doesn’t end here. Nothing is set in stone even after I get my degree because things and life change so quickly.
Now, in the spring quarter of our college years, many of my peers have been asking each other “What are you doing after college?” After answering this question tonight, my friend then said, “Really? I thought you would have had it figured out by now.” It wasn’t offensive; I maybe felt self-conscious for a second, but then I realized I do have it figured it out. I am going to enjoy my last quarter here as best as I can. In the past few days, I have been inspired by the people around me. I have strengthened my relationships. I’ve consumed my favorite foods and I can’t remember the last time I danced and laughed this hard before this weekend. All these things aren’t going to lead me to my dream job right away, but they have helped in making me feel whole again and realize what’s important NOW.
Jacket // Levi’s – Urban Outfitters [borrowed from Steph]
Belt // H&M
Bag // Urban Outfitters
Shoes // Cole Haan [Mom's]
Our school recently installed a new art piece next to our library and even though it looks like a tower of plastic ice cubes, I can tell the message is so much stronger than that. In the evenings, the ice cubes light up in an array of colors. What purpose that serves, I wouldn’t be able to tell you, but it is visually pleasing. A student in my department had the opportunity to name the piece and she came up with “Justice” or “Just-ice” WHOAAA two names. It is obvious why that was the clear winner.
In exactly two months, I will graduate with my entire class and out of this bunch, I have met the most amazing people that I will ever come across in my life. We are a class of makers. I’m not exaggerating; I am surrounded by individuals who literally believe that they can do anything (and they can!) because they actively pursue it. They have spent the previous four years making a name and a life for themselves. They are driven by passion. They are the most talented people I know. They dedicate their spare time to service both within the Seattle University community and outside of it. Together, we walk among some incredible human beings every single day.
As I put some hours into my work book tonight, a fleeting thought seeped and settled in. Though I have been lucky enough to have met and interacted with some of the best people I know within this close community, there are still so many people in my class that I will never have a chance to meet. I can’t tell you how many times a day I walk across campus, see someone that I know of (but have never met or know only as an acquaintance) and wondered how this person wasn’t actually in my life. You would think that through degrees of separation, this might be possible, but it isn’t. Graduation is bittersweet. When I attended last year, I was thrilled for all of my friends as they prepared to venture off into the next chapter of their life, but at the same time, I had reached a realization that the acquaintances are people that I may never see again. That chance of knowing them kind of goes out the window after that. And I’m not saying that I need to be bffls with this person or that I need to increase my friend count on Facebook, but I mean this person could have potentially been a friend. A significant other. A study partner! Maybe not a study partner… but I started to wonder just how many times we choose to be reserved when it comes to meeting someone new. Why are we uncomfortable with making new friends outside of our circle as adults when we have the opportunity to learn from someone new? Is it because we were taught since we were young to just avoid strangers at all costs? How can that be though when we learned that the easiest way to make a friend was to greet someone with a “hi” or “hello?”
I suppose everyone has their own reasons. My reason is time. I am usually so focused on what I am doing next that I rarely have time to enjoy relaxing and doing nothing unless someone reminds me of it. If I could slow my roll a little bit while walking along the lower mall, I’m sure I could fix this problem of mine and use it to catch up with the acquaintance that I practically fast walk next to. Maybe, at times, we are afraid of rejection. As a sophomore, I once tried start a conversation with a freshman in my residence hall while we were riding in the elevator. Most awkward ride ever. Needless to say, we never spoke again even having a class together last quarter.
As a society, we are focused on making times for ourselves and our family and friends, but what about the people we wish to know? Where exactly do they fit into our lives and do we realize how much we are missing by keeping them out?
