How to Be Branded an "Indie-Hipster" at Your Liberal Arts College

    Allow me to preface this by saying I'm not mocking "hipsters" or whatever, I post these things because I'm generally regarded as an "Indie-Hipster-Artist" around here, and many of the following things I do and/or have done. So, without further ado....

1. Be an Art major. Because apparently nobody just loves art, everyone has some ironic back story about how they hate their step dad and art is their form of passive aggressive rebellion. On that note...
2. Hate your step dad. You don't really have to have a step dad, just hate him anyway.
3. Wear glasses. Even if you actually have crap for vision, wearing glasses is seen as incredibly "hipster."
4. Don't sleep. Ever. It's so overrated. Sleep when you're dead.
5. Talk a lot about your "vision." It doesn't matter what your "vision" is for: art, music, poetry, psychology, just talk about it. All. The. Time.
6. Drink completely unreasonable amounts of coffee. I'm talking at least a pot a day.
7. Make/refashion/repurpose your own clothes. Because nothing is cooler/more hipster/more ironic than wearing something you made.
8. Wear TOMS shoes. Also, hate BOBS for the sheer fact that Sketchers are money-grubbing attention ^!*%$s.
9. Ironically hate half the people you spend time with on a daily basis. Tell no one who it is that you actually like.
10. Drink tons of Peace Tea. Obviously when you aren't consuming unreasonable amounts of coffee.
11. Gripe about how there isn't a Starbucks on campus or even withing walking distance.
12. Date a Computer Science major. They're geeky cute and not as pretentious as, say, Math majors.
13. Read poetry. You don't have to understand it, just read it anyway.

    Expect a part two at some point in the near future, probably soon following a post about Choir Retreat 2011. That's pretty much all I've got for now. Nap time, homework, and Bingo to follow. XO<3

One Day At a Time

    Today I practically danced around my house, which is really not unusual in any way, but today it was because I managed to fit into one of my old pairs of size 10 jeans! That might not sound all that amazing, but as many of you know, I have been struggling with my weight all year, and at times getting very frustrated with my lack of progress. When I came home for Spring break I was weighing in at 172 pounds, well over the recommended "healthy weight" for a 5'2" woman, in fact, many physicians consider anything over 169 pounds (at my height) obese. I am happy to say that, at 159 pounds, I am now 13 lbs lighter and well on my way to my goal. I still have almost 40 lbs to lose in order to be firmly back in the "healthy" range of 101 to 136 pounds and to reach my goal of 120.

    I a having to constantly remind myself to set small, short term goals, and to celebrate every step of the way. I hope to be all the way to my weight loss goal by next summer. I know that this will mean sacrificing a lot of the sweets and junk food that I so often enjoy. I believe that God has answered my prayers for help as I find myself frequently without a taste for sugary treats, and drinking a lot of Peace Tea and much less soda. So, in order to keep myself accountable and so that I have clear goals, I'm going to set them here, online.

By Midterm:

145-148 lbs

By Fall Finals:

135-140 lbs

Size 7-9 jeans/dress

    There I have it: set, reasonable goals for myself. I'm also working on a plan to reach them, and I believe that I will with discipline and help from God and the people who love me enough to confiscate that chocolate bar. :)

Falling Apart at the Seams

    Do you ever feel like stress is coming at you from every possible direction, none of it is going away or being fixed, and all you can possibly do is curl up in a ball and hope nothing hits you hard enough to break anything? Me too. Between the stress of preparing for another school year, family issues, emotional woes, and far too many personal frustrations, I feel like I'm falling apart. 

    What makes it even worse is when someone has caused you pain, whether intentional or not, and it feels like they don't even care, like your emotions don't matter. So you just find yourself spitting out "I'm happy for you" after mindless "I'm happy for you" until you don't even remember what your real smile looks like.

    Every now and then I think about what would happen if I just didn't go back to school. What if I were to just quit, get a job, get an apartment, and just never go back? Would it even matter? Would I be missed or would everyone just go on and smooth over the small space that I occupied in their lives?

     I pray every day for grace and serenity and calm, but more and more it seems like all I get is additional crap thrown at me until I just crawl in a hole and hide. At this point I'm just holding on with all I have left (which isn't much) and praying that things calm down once I get back to school. Here's hoping...

One of Those Days

    Have you ever found yourself just totally exhausted with your life? That's kind of where I'm at right now. I've been praying constantly for strength, wisdom, and patience as I move forward. As anyone who has ever moved back home after going to school knows, this summer has been difficult. Not because I don't love my family, but because the adjustments have been hard to make. After 9 months of almost total independence and freedom to make my own choices, it is difficult to come back home where my parents still view me and their kid, the same person they lived with while I was in high school.

    One of the hardest parts of coming back home is just that, I'm not the same person I was in high school, and while many of my friends and family members have grown and changed right along with me, many have not. Figuring how and where they fit into the life I am growing into is incredibly challenging. Especially as I face a very busy Sophomore year and the prospect of living on my own or with friends outside my home next summer. College is a time where my whole life s changing very fast all the time, whether I can keep up or not.

    I've also been struggling a lot with feeling frustrated and hopeless. I was wrongly fired from my job mid-summer, so I have no money and no car, thus no way of getting around on my own. I have, as previously mentioned, struggled with independence versus being controlled and lead by parents. I have missed my friends and haven't seen them nearly as much as I would like. My biggest struggle is feeling totally powerless to control my own life. 

    I'm a free spirit at best. I'm spontaneous and weird and I like being able to just go out at 3am with my friends just because we want to. I like absurd ideas and laughing a lot. I love the fact that I'm usually a really calm person, even in the face of heavy course loads and money problems. What I don't like is the person all this stress and frustration turns me into. I don't like fighting with my family and feeling angry and bitter. I don't like the moody, frustrated, cranky person I am right now.

My dearest friend, if you don't mind...

    Have you ever stopped for a minute to think about how awesome your friends are? I do, all the time. One such occasion was this afternoon while I was riding in the car, the soundtrack to my life (also known as my iPod) blasting away in my ears.
    My friends are some truly incredible people. We can spend months apart, and come back together like we saw each other yesterday. I am blessed with a wide variety of friends from many races, cultures, locations, and lifestyles, and each and every one of them means so much to me.
    This has already been an amazing summer for me. My friends and I have shared drinks, clothes, experiences, laughs, homes, eyeliners, cameras, music, and lives. We are joined at the hip, no matter how far we wander. I have been to so many great shows, fun parties, and spent time just hanging out with the people who love me. I've learned a lot about myself, including who is worth holding on to. Tomorrow I head off on another adventure with Belinda and Anthony, my first Warped Tour (hopefully of many to come)! I'm sure there will be another blog post swiftly following my return.
    In short, my friends are amazing people. They keep me on my feet and haul me along for some of the best adventures I've ever been on. I can't wait to see where life takes us this summer, this school year, next summer, and in the years to come.

Next Summer

This summer thusfar has taught me many things: most of all it has taught me what I want next summer to be.

Next summer I want to do whatever I want to do. I want "work" to be what I do when I'm not playing. I want to pay my rent and maybe buy some food and then buy art supplies. I want to go to Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza and every other show and make a million friends. I want to spend more time in my friends' houses than in my own. I want to sell my art. I want to learn guitar and ukulele and maybe electric violin. I want to lose weight before then. I want to disover over and over not only my own beauty, but also the undeniable beauty of those around me. I want to go to parties and stay out too late. I want to take pictures of everything. I want to go out on a date or two or twenty. I want to go to the drive-in. I want to get a tattoo (though I'll probably chicken out). I want to live my life, not the life anyone else wants me to live. Next summer I want to make as many memories as I can, travel as much as I can, and live and love as big and bold as I can. And do you want to know the best part? I want to do all of it with you...

She's a Word Nerd

     ...And by "she" I mean me. I love words, almost as much as I love art and music. Words like saccharine, audacious, ambiguous, emphatically, triskaidekaphobia, and antidisestablishmentarianism. Even made-up words like skrumphulogophas (That's a Larra and Ashley Original). I love how they sound, how the work, and how they make us feel. Sometimes I'll learn a word so great that I'll have to text my friend Ashley, fellow Word Nerd and verbal enthusiast, and tell her about this great word that I have just learned.

     Many people have asked me how I did so well in school for my whole life without ever having to put forth more effort than I wanted to. The truth is: I read. I taught myself to read at the young age of three. I have loved books ever since I learned to read them. Now you (or your kid) may not love to read, but well, tough it out. Having such an above-average reading level put me years ahead of my peers when it comes to comprehension: the part of reading that means you remember and understand what you have read. This helped me in everything from Chemistry text books to Advanced Lit novels to Choir sheet music to toothpaste tubes and soda bottles. To put it as simply as I know how: knowing how to read means knowing how to understand.

     So, get out there and grab a book! Learn to love words! I promise (Why, yes, that is italicized, bold, and underlined. This is serious stuff.) that there is at least one book in this world for each and every person. Look at Borders, look on Amazon, look at a used book store, look at a flea market. Find out what you love to read about and then keep reading!

Go find a book!

Love, kisses, and vintage pages,

Larra