Coffee Catch-Up: Who Says You Can't Go Home

I know I love reading blog posts about real life and all the fun (and not so great) moments so I thought I'd fill you all in on my chaos that has been the last month!

So Much Hustle, So Little Time

I've truly been the girl on the go for as long as I've been at college. 

My freshman year, I walked on to crew and joined a sorority in addition to school work and my attempt at a social life. It went really well...for a semester. The spring semester, I absolutely fell apart. There were a lot of tears, calls home, and asking for extensions on work to accommodate for the breakdowns. To save my sanity, I left crew at the end of the year. 

Spending the next fall semester getting back in the swing of things, I did my first internship during my sophomore spring and was hooked. Did I run out of time to have a consistent social life? Yep. But I devoted my heart to doing something that would provide me with an amazing future. From there, the internships never ended. Proof: I'm currently in my last semester of college and took an internship I simply could not pass up instead of spreading out my classes and enjoying myself.

Running from one thing to another has actually become my life this semester, with classes, my internship, sorority events, and trying to work fun things in to all that when possible. 

But it didn't hit me how bad I had become until I was speed-walking from the metro station to my office in the rain at 7 p.m. that I really thought about it: is the "hustle" helping or hurting?

To be fair, I'm not sure I have the answer to my own question. I've spent so much of my life thinking this was the dream: to be spread thin and juggling things I love with the more monotonous activities (school work, I'm looking at you). 

Doesn't that sound ridiculous? This was my goal, to be overworked and exhausted every night, to the point where I regularly fall asleep having half done my reading for the next day. 

I've long lived the motto of holding myself to a standard of "grace, not perfection" but I never paid attention to the fact that what I was doing was completely unsustainable. 

While this may be my last semester of this particular balancing act, I'm certain there will be more balancing to come in the future. So, my goal for November is simple:

Enjoy the things I get to do more, instead of constantly worrying about the next thing on my list. More time spent doing life and less time spent planning it. 

Don't get me wrong, I'll never lose my type-A personality but I'm aiming to be more focused on the puzzle and less so on what to do after the puzzle is all pieced together.

So y'all ever notice too much hustle and not enough heart in your life? How do you work to get yourself back on track? Let me know in the comments!

5 Things I Learned in College

George Washington Campus
C/O: GW Media Relations

As my chapter of time in college comes to a close (this semester will be my last!) and I get a little overwhelmed with questions about what to pack for college/what to expect during recruitment, there's no better time to give y'all a quick run down of the top 5 things I learned in my three years.

So, here we go:

1. Bring half of what you think you absolutely need. You'll definitely end up buying new things that fit your college lifestyle a little better than your high school clothes would and your closet space is probably going to be very small.

2. Don't expect to be best friends with your roommate. Even if you are already best friends with them, keep hanging out with your other groups of friends so you don't get on each other's nerves!

3. Pick up after yourself as you see things that need to be cleaned but devote one set time a week to do a deeper cleaning (bathroom cleaning, vacuuming, dusting, etc.). Even better if you blast music while you do it :)

4. Go to class. If you are in class as often as possible and participate, your professor is more likely to understand when you have a family emergency and need an extension (yep, that happened to me) or a similar situation. 

4 (and a half). Take classes with less students in them when you can. It'll make you feel a bit more obligated to get out of bed when you know the professor will notice if you're not there :) 

5. Get in a little bit of trouble! This was something my dad always told me growing up (I have always been a rule follower) and it's stuck with me. Some of my favorite memories of my freshman and sophomore year were the ones where my best friends and I were a little wild and I'd hate for anyone to look back at this unique time with regret.

Leave a comment with something you learned (or want to learn) in college!