the end is near. and happy birthday kate!

"You have four years to be irresponsible here. Relax. Work is for people with jobs. You'll never remember class time, but you'll remember time you wasted hanging out with your friends. So, stay out late. Go out on a Tuesday with your friends when you have a paper due Wednesday. Spend money you don't have. Drink 'til sunrise. The work never ends, but college does..."

today marks my last first day of classes as an undergraduate.

feeling a host of mixed emotions--pride that i have gotten this far, and anxiety about what is to come, but mostly a tremendous sadness that i will soon have to say goodbye to the best four years of my life, and to the people and place that have come to mean so much to me.

me on my very first day of college! the blonde was a poor life choice.

i can remember my very first day of classes like it was yesterday. i owre a bright yellow dress and a gold headband in my hair. i threw up before my first class, which in college terms would generally be the result of alcohol consumption, but in my case was just a touch of nerves. (i swear, i didn't even go out the night before class!)

college has been hard. my freshman year especially. but these past four years, i have found myself, and as cliche as that sounds, i truly mean it. that wide-eyed, hopeful freshman is still in here somewhere, but she has been mostly replaced by a strong, confident woman who has come into her own. i have endured painful heartbreak these past 3.5 years, but i have learned from every single minute. i am insanely grateful for the opportunities that berkeley has afforded me, and i cannot imagine having gone to college anywhere else. this is the place i belong.

my graduation is four months from yesterday. i know these four months will fly by, but i am making a conscious effort to enjoy every last minute. i am going to embody that tom petty quote above. college has been so good to me, and i want to make sure it knows how much i've appreciated it.

today is not only my last first day of classes, it is also my best friend kate's 22nd birthday! or, as we are calling all our birthdays this year, it's the first anniversary of her 21st birthday. we will be celebrating in our usual tuesday style tonight (taco tuesday, then kip's) and i cannot think of a better group of people to be spending the night with.

happy birthday kate!

studyin' studyin' YEAH

(read that title to the tune of the rebecca black classic "friday"--partyin' partyin' YEAH!)

so this week is going to be utterly consumed with finals - studying and writing and more studying - and a helluva lot of procrastination.

weird to think that this is the last time i'll ever do this as an undergrad. almost 7/8ths done with my BA!

so, all the while, i will be day dreaming about the wonderful weekend i just had

(random collection of photos seen above)

and fantasizing about friday night

when my friends and i take on berkeley for one more night of the fall semester!

Happy Monday and happy studying to all of you still taking finals!

*With my besties Kevin and Morgan at Morgan's b-day dinner at BJ's

*My brown eyed girl Riley. We had a photo shoot during my pit stop at home

*Morgan's beer samples at BJ's - homegirl's legal!

*Beet salad nom nom nom

*Christmas tree at the Grove. Who said there wasn't green in LA?

*Seasonal yam tacos

you make me feel like i'm livin' a teenage dream.

Two weeks ago I took my baby sister Paige to the Katy Perry concert at Oracle Arena in Oakland.

I'm not a huge Katy fan, but Paige loves her so I was excited. And even better yet, Ellie Goulding opened for her. Ellie is my fav. They both put on an awesome show. So fun and so.much.energy.Didn't Paige look adorable? We certainly got lots of attention, which I loved. ;) Someone asked if I was supposed to be a referee...#awkward.

I have this entire week off of class and next week is finals week.That, of course, doesn't mean I am spending the next five days studying.Today I plan to catch up on some TV (and all the sleep I missed this weekend). Tomorrow night is my sorority's senior bar crawl! And then I have some very fun plans for the weekend :)

I'll study eventually, tehehe.

Happy Monday!

senior year lessons

(once again, i suck at blogging. should i preface every post with this disclaimer? maybe one day i'll commit to doing this thang regularly. probably not though)

it's october 10

which means the first semester of senior year is about halfway over

normally i'm very much a glass-half-full kinda person

but in the case of the end of college rapidly approaching

i'm having a very hard time being positive.

how will i ever say goodbye to the best four years of my life?

so i'm trying to challenge myself to savor every last moment.

i'm compiling a list of lessons i've learned so far this year

so that next year when i'm a real life grown up

i'll be able to appreciate everything college has taught me outside the classroom

here it goes

Jordan's Senior Year Lessons,

Volume 1

1. there is never any reason not to have fun. this year i've even learned to make studying fun. laughter is truly the best medicine, and from now on i'll live life with fun as my #1 priority.

2. count on the people around you. my best friends are honestly and absolutely the best people i know, and i don't know what i'd do without them.

3. the music should always be loud and the drinks should always be strong. 'nuff said.

4. don't go to happy hour and then try to work out. unsuccessful. live and learn though, right?

5. rainy days are for laying in bed, and sunny days are for laying in the sunshine.

that's all i got for now. i love senior year and i really really love my life.

college, i think we're in this for the long haul.

the night that never happened.

My friend Kate and I went abroad together this summer. Since I wasn't 21 yet, it was my first opportunity to buy alcohol and consume it legally. So we did it. A lot. By the end of the trip, we had a huge frat life collection of bottles.

This pattern of behavior has only gotten worse since we've been back at school. We keep saying that our senior year is the year most people have as freshmen. Sorry we're not sorry.

Anyway, on Saturday nights our sorority doesn't serve dinner, so my friends and I always go out somewhere together. On this past Saturday, Kate and I decided to head to Filippo's on College in Berkeley (so.freakin.good), enticed by the promises of full tummies and bottomless wine.

So Kate and I ordered our wine and drank. and drank. and drank. I guess neither of us realized how much we had consumed, because by the time we got home we were drunk drunk drunk. It was approximately 8 PM. We had all these fun plans for the night. And guess what we did instead? Went to bed. Because we were far too drunk to go anywhere else.

Moral of the story? Bottomless wine shouldn't be bottomless.

Next time I'll stick with one glass, thanks.

senior citizen.

the wall of my dorm room freshman year

My first day of senior year is today! I kind of really can't believe it.

It seems like just yesterday that I was a little baby freshman, throwing up before my first class because I was so nervous. (or maybe it was all the welcome week alcy...)

And now I'm a big bad senior. Everything that happens this year is my last something.

last recruitment,

last first day of school,

last first game day.

I'm so excited for my real life to start,

but I so wish college would stick around a little longer.