Being Spontaneous and Doing Life

So let me just start off by saying that I am not a very spontaneous person. I've never really been that type of person, much to my dislike. I think it might have something to do with super overprotective parents, but I'm not sure. This past week has been tough emotionally and mentally and I needed a break. ASAP. My best friend from home, Sam, goes to school in Boston and she and her roommates were having a "FriendsGiving" on Thursday and were begging me to come. But I have class I said and I can't miss, I can't spend too much money, blah blah blah. I decided I wasn't going to go because it wouldn't be smart to just spend forty bucks on a ticket and skip two classes and I went to bed content with my decision. Then I woke up the next day. I was sitting in my Comm Tech class when I had an epiphany. I said to myself, "Amanda. You need a break. You never do anything for yourself. Ever. You always do things with other people in mind and in the end aren't happy. Boston makes you happy. Seeing Sam makes you happy. So why aren't you doing anything to make sure you're happy? Life is too damn short to not be happy because at the end of the day, you're the only one there." So I bought a bus ticket for 2:00, printed it out, ran to my room, threw anything I could find into my duffel and took off. I texted my friends and roommates, called my parents, and I went to Boston.

This weekend was great. I hung out with Sam and her friends, had Tasty Burger for the first time (and it was AMAZING), baked brownies, and left this morning. I only went so far with Sam on the T and then navigated through South Station (by myself), got the best grilled cheese sandwich and chai tea smoothie of my life (courtesy of CheeseBoy Sandwiches and Surf City Squeeze) and here I am! I can honestly say I am proud of myself. I can never say that. I made an impulse decision and got on a bus and went to Boston! I did something that made me happy. I was able to figure out the bus schedules on my own, navigate through South Station by myself, and I actually enjoyed myself! I'm not familiar at all with bus terminals and T routes coming from the Berkshires so I ripped off the bandaid and did something for me. If anyone is like me and puts others before themselves, I highly suggest doing something like this. After all, life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

Sincerely yours,

Amanda

Last Night

I'm a pretty deep sleeper. Well, kind of. It takes me a looooong time to fall alseep and I don't stay asleep for very long but when I am asleep, I can usually sleep through just about anything. Including thunderstorms. However, last night was one of the worst nights of sleep I and one of my roommates have ever had. A little backstory on our door. For some weird reason there is always a breeze coming through our door. A breeze from where, I don't know. Maybe the heating vents outside in the hall? Who knows. Our door also doesn't close all the way so even when it is locked, we can move the door as if we're about to open it and it opens a little bit, making an annoying amount of unnecessary racket. One night a couple of weeks ago it was just me and Taylor (said, roommate) because our other roommate was staying the night at home. We were used to the door frequently making this noise and even though it was creepy, we didn't think much of it.
Before I get to the juicy details, let me just say that I am fascinated by anything paranormal. I spend hours at home watching the Bio and SyFy channel with my dad watching anything from Ghost Hunters to Celebrity Ghost Stories; you name it, I watch it. I also read a lot of books based off of people's experiences with the supernatural and haunted places. (I even have a bucketlist of haunted places I want to visit. I know, I'm weird.) I can't help it, I find it interesting.

The only problem with my little guilty pleasure, is that it comes back to bite me later. I'm a scaredy-cat. I know, I know. The girl that loves to read ghost stories is afraid of the dark. Kind of ironic, don't ya think? I hate the dark but I love hearing scary stories. Just earlier in the week I had been reading about different ghost stories on Stumbleupon and I guess that this particular night, it decided to come back and get what I deserved.
On this particular night, it started banging loudly, as if someone was trying to open the door while it was locked. Taylor and I groggily woke up and both thought it was our roommate trying to get back into the room to get ready for her morning class. Simulatneously, we both looked at the clock. It was 6:30am. Waaaaay too early for Keck (other roommate) to be coming back to get ready for class. Just as we looked at the clock, our door began to violently bang back and forth, as if the unknown force was determined to try and break in. My roommate's immediate thought was that someone was trying to break into our room. My mind rushes immediately to Paranormal Activity and that something was coming to get us. I was honestly so scared, I just threw my covers over my head and wished it to stop.

The following day, my roommate and I told everyone we know about this freakish experience, including our other roommate who had stayed home that night (good choice). We piled paper and taped it between the door and the door frame so the door fit tightly in our doorway and the noise had stopped for a while...until last night.
Last night was awful. Just awful. Taylor and I were alone in our room again and didn't get to bed until about 12:30am. Just as my head hit the pillow, the boys living above us decided to have, from what it sounded like, either a dance party or chose to rearrange furniture. I kept silently swearing at them until I fell asleep (how, I don't know). Shortly after I fell asleep, I was woken up. I'm not sure why, but I was. For the next couple of hours I was tossing and turning, tossing and turning, tossing and turning. Incessantly. Little did I know, my roommate was also wide awake. She couldn't sleep either. Our room began to get overheated real fast and at around 3am, our neighbors began screaming. Legitimate screaming. It was followed by laughter (creepy, right?) and more screaming. They're guys so I just figured they were goofing around. And then...the door started banging. It didn't bang just once. Or twice. Or even three times. From about 4am to about 8am this morning, the door was banging. Sometimes it would last for a few minutes, sometimes a few seconds. But it was on and off for quite a while. Then at about 7am, the maintainers our residence hall began cleaning. Right. Outside. Our. Door. It was obvious by then that we were not getting any sleep, not even for a few minutes. Let's just say that if you see either me or my roommate today, you may wanna stay away.
P.S. It's totally acceptable to take a nap on the library couches in between classes right? Well, it was worth a shot.


Sincerely yours,

Amanda

India.Arie SongVersation

Hi guys! I just had the most spiritual experience when I attended soul singer-songwriter India.Arie's show in Northampton, MA two weeks ago. I was introduced to India's soulful music when I was a sophomore in high school and she has had me hooked ever since. My best friend Sam bought us tickets as an early Christmas present and I was ecstatic. We began planning immediately even though it was close to five months away. Sam was going to take the bus to campus from her school in Boston, we would spend the day in Northampton shopping and spending time together - what we call our "twin soul" time. Everything was planned from the minute her bus would arrive to when it would take her back to the Bean.

Me and my "twin soul"

The day of the show finally arrived and we could not be more excited about what we were about to experience. The venue, the beautiful and historic Calvin Theater, could not have been more empty. It was surprising. I had though that the theatre would be packed with people, but we didn't give it much thought. Maybe we were just early. Reggae royal Grayson Morgan opened for India and really got every pumped up, which is ironic because India's songs are the opposite; they're ballads filled with soul and raw emotion that hit you to your core and open your eyes to the feelings you were most likely subsiding. The lights dimmed and the filler music ceased; the crowd grew silent. Goosebumps began to form all over my body - and the show had barely begun! India walked out from behind the black curtain dressed in all white with a blue and white headdress. When I say she was glowing, I mean glowing. She was radiating light. She began her show by praying, which we all took part in. After our prayer, she told us the meaning behind SongVersation. SongVersation is the blend of speaking and singing. Behind India and her band were three large screens that would display images and quotes that were pivotal to the SongVersation. The show was all about connecting the dots and cleansing the soul; it's about healing. India was interviewed by The Dapper Bloggers saying that SongVersation is "the manifestation of an artist transformed and is standing on the other side...a person who was on the journey to healing and SongVersation for me is a person who has come out the other side."

For me, it was definitely a healing experience. A lot of the things India sang about, were things I am struggling with. "Break the Shell" is one that really hit me hard. I have always been someone who second guesses herself and never acts on impulse for fear of getting hurt or disappointing someone. I am my own worst critic, I really am.

Child it's time to break the shell, Life's gonna hurt but it's meant to be felt. You cannot touch the sky from inside yourself, You cannot fly until you break the shell...It's time to peel back all of the layers you put between who you're meant to be and who you are and go be who you are...Do with these words what you will, It's time for us to be for real, you'll be stuck on the ground until you finally break the shell.

Talk about empowering. I had goosebumps all over for the entirety of the show. I walked away from the SongVersation feeling completely different than how I went in feeling. I felt better. I felt changed by it. I felt like I had been healed in a way. In her opening statement, she told us, "My highest prayer is that God will touch you with this music in whatever way you were meant to be touched. Because who knows? We don't know each other or what each other go through but if we are all here at this moment...I don't believe in coincidence...I believe everybody who was called to this moment was meant to be here." Sam left the show crying and I left it in complete awe - mouth wide open and everything. After the show we joined up with some friends and some older women they knew. We left the theatre close to midnight and went out for food and didn't get back to campus until after two in the morning. It was by far the best day of my life.

I felt that a lot of her songs, the ones I could relate to the most, validated what I was feeling. It validated that it is perfectly okay for me to be feeling the things I am feeling but I have to push through them. I can overcome anything. I wish I could personally thank India.Arie for kind of waking me up and making me go through that three-hour emotional roller coaster. Life's gonna hurt but it's meant to be felt.

Here is my podcast - take a listen! Listen to this episode.

For more information and music from India.Arie, click here to view her website!

Sincerely yours,

Amanda

Hashtag College Probs

Lately, I have been having somewhat of a midlife crisis. It's that time of the semester to start creating schedules and thinking about what courses I want to take next semester and I have been completely stressed by the whole ordeal. You need a final schedule and then a back-up schedule for that schedule, and then a back-up for that schedule and it's a whole lot of planning and unnecessary stress. You would think that the more I'm getting into my major courses, the more excited I would be to start my post-graduation career but it's having the opposite effect on me. Instead of getting pumped and excited, it's actually freaking me out. More than I would like to admit. For me, I want to enter the communications field and work in the music industry. It is my dream to work in the music industry either at a record label or booking tours for a large venue. I'm enrolling as a Public and Corporate Communications concentration and to be completely honest, I am kind of scared! I feel that my writing has a long way to go - as you can tell by my lack of blog posts - and although I use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr regularly, I'm nervous that it isn't enough. I know I have quite a while until graduation and when I have to start job searching but it is totally scary! I'm hoping that the courses I take here and whichever grad school I choose to enroll in, can properly prepare me for the so-called "real world". I am a bit of a perfectionist and definitely a type-A kind of person so this kind of worrying is second nature to me, but I think what I have to do is have some faith in the universe. I've always struggled with having faith in myself and in the universe that everything will be okay in the end, so I'm going to have to try extra hard to constantly remember to breathe. Everything is going to be okay. I'm not even sure anybody is reading this but I have to admit, writing these thoughts down have almost a cathartic effect on me; I feel better. Thanks for listening universe :)


Sincerely yours,

Amanda