12 Random Facts About Me

In an attempt to make my blog more personal, check out the list below of random facts about me!

1. I’m the youngest child of four, resulting in me being infinitely spoiled by my grandparents as a child and having to learn from my parents at a young age that I, in fact, cannot get everything that I want.
2. Speaking of being the youngest, I always joke about getting the hand-me-down genetics.  To an extent though, I truly do believe it.  I’m only 5 foot half an inch, and I stopped growing in 8th grade.  My two brothers (the oldest two siblings) are both over 6 foot and my older sister is inches taller than me.  So, hand-me-down genetics, right?
3. Being the youngest influenced my parents to bless me with eight names.  Just kidding!  I only have four names but that still confuses everyone- one first name, two middle names, and my last name.  To make matters more confusing, I go by my second middle name.  How?  Two words- my grandma.  She was a saint and helped my parents with me when I was first born (remember, I’m the youngest so my parents were dealing with toddlers and a pre-teen) and she was really in love with the name “Emily,” so when push came to shove, my parents just threw that in after my other middle name because I was the last kid.  I have a hunch that as soon as I was born, my grandma immediately started calling me Emily and that’s how I became stuck with it.  It’s actually a pretty cool story.  Also to note, I have the same name as the royal toddler (Charlotte Elizabeth).  The only difference is the Emily vs. Diana as the second middle name, but I still think it’s pretty cool.
4. I started karate when I was 11.  Chugoku Kenpo Karate, a Japanese style, that literally means “Chinese secret science of the law of the fist and empty hand.”  Also, I was one step away from black belt (in my style, that means a three-striped brown belt) and didn’t move forward to my black belt only because of timing (I was in college, it was difficult to cram all of the testing into summers and holiday breaks).  But I’m very close with my sensei and she’s like a second mom to me.  She’s the first person in the first row on the left.
5. I have done other sports, too!  Karate was my first love, but running is a close second.  I did cross-country and track from middle school through college.  In fact, I just ran my first half-marathon in my hometown last weekend!
   

   

   Two hours and nineteen minutes later…

6. And that handsome man in that picture is my fiancé, who I met in college and have been dating for four years, engaged for two, and who I’m getting married to in just 17 short days!  And in reference to my names that I listed earlier, I told Kyle I was going to hyphenate as a joke to just continue the ridiculous length of my name.
7. Speaking of weddings, I have a kickass pair of heels that I splurged on (treat yo’ self!) but I actually HATE shoes.  I mean I love the heels that I got and I really am looking forward to wearing them, but I hate anything being on my feet, unless they’re sandals where my feet can breathe.  (This means I hate socks, too!). As a side note, when I say “splurge” I really only mean like $60, which is WAY better than what I spend on running shoes (~$100) but it still doesn’t sit well with me to spend that much on one thing.
8. I love walking and running and hiking and traveling to new places.  I’ve been to several states in the US, but I’ve also fortunately had opportunities to travel to England and Germany.  Next on my bucket list: Ireland, Italy, and Switzerland, hopefully!
   

   
9. Here’s a weird one for you that I’m sure not many people can relate to: I HATE cheese.  Absolutely hate it.  Hate the smell, hate the taste, hate the texture.  I’m un-American (my fiancé’s words, not mine).  I’m not sure what happened.  I used to love Mac and cheese as a kid, along with cheesy pizza, but something clicked one day and I gagged when I bit into a previously thought delicious slice of Papa John’s pizza.  To the people who love cheese but cannot have it due to their digestive systems, I’m the worst, and I apologize for my un-Americanness.
10. Speaking of weird things, I have an irrational fear of…..water.  Yep, you read that right.  Whenever I go into a pool, or an ocean, I have to stay in a level where my feet can always touch the ground.  I know what you’re thinking- can you swim, can you tread water?  I can do both of those things.  However, for whatever reason, the moment I’m in a body of water that’s deeper than neck level, I freak out because that’s when I have to be on tippy toes and any further I feel like I’ll drown.  You guys probably think I’m so weird by this point.
11. But something that’s pretty cool and un-weird is my love for tattoos.  I love how the same designs (i.e. Harry Potter tattoos) can mean something completely different to another person, and I love how you can express what you’re feeling on your body.  I have two tattoos, and they’re both for my grandma on my dad’s side who passed away of lung/metastasized breast cancer.  She lived in Texas so I only met her a handful of times before she passed away, but she made a huge, positive impact on my life.  The first tattoo I got was a flower that was designed by my sister.  The second tattoo was from my favorite book, “Slaughterhouse-Five,” and it lists the famous quote, “So it goes…”  My sister and I got that one together in almost the same spot on our bodies.  She has also designed another tattoo from Slaughterhouse-Five with the quote “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt” in remembrance of my grandparents on my mom’s side (yes, the grandma who gave me my name).  But that is a story for another time.
12. Lastly before this post gets absurdly long, I clean when I’m upset.  Why?  I have no idea.  I supposed it relieves stress?  Any psychologists have any idea why I do this?

 

I’d love to learn about you!  Share a random fact (or several, if you wish), or even rant to me about my un-Americanness in the comments section.  I look forward to reading them!

Thankful Tuesday: The ability to travel

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

I love to travel.  I’ve loved it ever since I was a kid.  From a very young age, my parents began taking me places such as my grandparents’ house in Pennsylvania (3 1/2 hour trip from my home) and my other grandparents’ house in Texas, all via a car.  I loved beautiful West Virginia (It’s called “Almost Heaven” and “West by God” for a reason), but I always liked the idea of seeing other places around the world.  It’s too big to only stay in one place for your whole life.

It all started with road trippin down to good ole’ North Carolina with my best pal, Kotch.  Her real name is Melissa, but her last name is German and everyone always mispronounces it so I call her by the mispronunciation.  But anyway, we either started this tradition the summer before our freshman year of college or the summer before our sophomore year of college.  Unfortunately I have a terrible memory, but I’m sure she’ll correct me soon enough (aka when she reads this post and most likely makes a comment on it or just to me in a text).  My senior year of high school, Kotch and I became best pals/worst enemies and as that happened, her love for Duke basketball rubbed off on me and now I’m a huge Duke fan because of her.  Through the Duke fandom, we met two wonderful people named Alavia and Haley who became great friends of ours and who both happened to go to the same school/live closely to each other in North Carolina (at least during the school year).  We wanted to visit not only them but Duke itself to actually see it in person.  To convince my parents to let me drive us down (they were just paranoid something was going to happen to us on a 6 hour journey down to NC), we put together a ridiculous PowerPoint (don’t get me wrong, at the time it was awesome but we were weird kids lemme tell ya) and then before we knew it we were headed to the beautiful Raleigh/Durham/Cary area.  For the first few times we went on our road trips, we stayed in cheap hotels (but hey, anything works on a budget as long as we had a safe and comfy place to sleep..plus we’re poor) until Alavia offered us her guest bedroom in her house, so that’s where we tend to stay whenever we go now.

But basically, all of those road trips we take/have taken to North Carolina result in a few things: Watching scary movies (because Melissa is the worst and hates Alavia and I), visiting Duke’s campus (and sometimes meeting Duke players and getting their autographs/getting them to follow us on twitter–I’ll write about this more in detail in another post!), Eating Cook Out, and laughing obnoxiously over the most random things until at least 1 in the morning.  Basically our road trips down to North Carolina either once or twice a year are some of the best times of my life, and I’m appreciative of having such great friends to share those experiences with (including Kotch who somehow keeps me sane while driving for hours upon hours. Shout out to you, pal!)

(From left to right: Alavia, Haley, Kotch and myself at K-ville at Duke right outside of Cameron Indoor Stadium)

Besides North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas, I never got the chance to travel somewhere else until my sophomore year when I traveled to the ever beautiful San Francisco.  The song doesn’t lie- I definitely left my heart there.  I went there on a conference with one of my sorority sisters for a conference for PRSSA, of which we were both members (she was the president and I was the vice-president).  Besides attending conferences all day, we familiarized ourselves with the area our conference was in, along with a path to somehow make it to a trolley stop in order to make it to the bay.  From the moment I saw her aunt’s house where we were staying, however, I knew that I could live and work in San Francisco and be completely okay with it.  Her aunt lived in the suburbs of San Fran that had cute little running paths all throughout it that were perfect to run on during sunset.  The whole experience was phenomenal.  The only thing I wish we could’ve done was see the Golden Gate Bridge up close, but we still saw it from the Fisherman’s Wharf.

I also wanted to go on a cross-country road trip during one of my summers before I graduated college, but I didn’t have the funds for it.  But luckily, because of college, I finally got the opportunity to go to two more places I’ve always been itching to travel to:  London (because it’s my favorite city in the world and because of Harry Potter) and Germany (because I took it as a second language from high school and into college, where I achieved a minor in it).  Last year over Spring Break I went to London with History Club, while the Spring Break prior to that I went to Germany.  Both experiences were amazing in their own ways.  The people I spent those trips with and the memories we made while venturing in foreign lands are some that I’ll never forget.  Because this post is already so long, I’ll cover each trip separately over the next two weeks on Thankful Tuesday, but for a teaser, I’ll upload one picture I took from each place until you get to read my blogs about them.  I’m sure you’ll be able to tell them apart.

Until I post about one of the places above next week, just know that I’m fortunate to have the ability to travel.  I know that many people come across the opportunities but can’t jump on them for a variety of reasons, so I’m very thankful for having parents who want to see me travel since they had the opportunity to do so when they were young as well and helped me to live out my dreams by helping me fund my trips to go to both London and Germany.

Making creative strides

“The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul.”

– Elder Uchtdorf

The Return of the King

Not only does this subtitle happen to be a title of one of my favorite films, but it’s also conveniently my last name.  I’m basically royalty (except not even in the slightest).

Anyway…hello, readers!  My name is Emily!  After a long hiatus from writing, I figured it’s finally time to jump back on the saddle and that explains why I’m currently writing this post to all of you.

Now you’re probably wondering the following questions:

1. Why are you blogging?
2. What are you going to blog about?
3. How often are you planning on blogging?
4. Why do you like writing?
5. How did you come up with your blog name?
6. Can you tell me a little bit more about yourself?

Let’s jump right in so I can happily answer all of those questions for you!

1. Why are you blogging?

Whenever I was a young girl, my sister and oldest brother both showed me completely made up stories they had created on a whim.  They inspired me to get in touch with my own creative side and I soon began creating stories about love, loss, and the hardships people face in every day life.  This passion has never gone away, though it has dulled.  Lately (quite honestly this feeling- or lack there of- has been around since I graduated high school in 2010), I’ve been feeling less inspired and less creative, so much so that one of my best friends bought me books not only on journalistic writing (a reminder to never give up on my dreams) but also on writing prompts to help my brain focus on my passion again.  This blog, though it’s mainly personal and it will most likely have a large variety of topics of things that I want to talk about, will help me get back in touch with my creative side and, in turn, help me grow as a writer.  I’m not doing this in order to gain a large following.  I’m doing this to find myself, to work on my writing, to become a better person, and to do the thing I love the most every single day of my life.  Life is too short to not be doing what you love.

2. What are you going to blog about?

Believe it or not, my tagline for my blog answers this question.  It reads as follows:

A Personal Blog with an Agenda

Lately, I’ve been inspired to create a blog that talks about my life.  Many people probably don’t care about my life, and I can’t blame you since I’m a complete stranger.  But my hope is that through this journey, you’ll be able to either somewhat relate or laugh about at least one of my posts.

The “agenda” portion for my blog comes from me deciding to structure this blog with specific topics each day in order to keep me focused and on top of my writing.  It’s a sort of challenge- week after week, I’ll have the same “prompt,” if you will, but I’ll need to change up my writing to make it more interesting or even keep coming up with topics for each thing.  I’m hoping this will get the creative juices flowing.  The agenda is as follows:

1. Sunday: Sunday News/Special Sunday
   • This is my journalistic bone jumping out.  I’ll cover top news from the previous week that I find intriguing (to be completely honest, it may just be celebrity news or it could be world news, depending on how I’m feeling).  Or it could be news for that upcoming week, or news in my life!  I’m also allowing leeway on this day, which is why it’s also called “Special Sunday.”  Now Special Sunday means that I could either interview someone on a specific topic, or I could write about whatever I want to that doesn’t fall under any of the categories below.  In other words, it could be a “free write” day, if that’s what I choose to do with it.
2. Monday: Monday Lit Circle
   • This day will probably be one of my favorites, naturally.  I absolutely love reading.  I love it almost as much as writing.  But like writing, I haven’t done very much reading as of late.  My hope is that this day encourages me to read more often.  I will either cover a novel in whole that I have read recently, talk about one of my favorite novels in general, or cover a chapter per week of a book I’m currently reading and asking you (Yes, you!) for feedback on the chapter or book.  In other words, I would love for you to join along in the literary circle (basically a book club) or put your two cents in on something I’ve said.  I encourage feedback.
3. Tuesday: Thankful Tuesday
   • There have been many times in my life where I’ve taken something in my life for granted and I’ve only realized when it was too late.  On Tuesdays, I hope to write about something in my life that I’m thankful for.  Being thankful isn’t just for Thanksgiving; it’s a full-time job.  I have a lot to be thankful for and I would love to recognize them more often by sharing those things with you every Tuesday.
4. Wednesday: Writing Prompt Wednesday
   • This goes back to the awesome prompts book one of my best friends gave to me when I was feeling down. I have a thousand different prompts to choose from, so each Wednesday will be a completely different topic.  I’m super excited for this day because this is a day when I’ll get to be completely creative by making new characters and new worlds.
5. Thursday: Throwback Thursday
   • On this day, I’m going to share a memory from my past with you.  It may be a good memory or a bad memory, but hopefully something in what I say to you will click with you and you’ll realize you can relate to my life just as I can relate to so many other people.  Sometimes it’s nice knowing that people around the world go through the same things you do, and suddenly you don’t feel entirely alone.  I would love feedback on these days saying how you relate to my memory or maybe how you can’t but you would like to share a memory from your past.
6. Friday: Friendly Friday
   • Now friendly Fridays could involve many different things.  It could be me writing about a memory I have about one of my friends (nothing personal on their behalf! I wouldn’t put them in that situation where everyone on the internet knows their business without their consent), a situation I happened to be in with one during the previous week (or anytime in my life, really), boasting about something great one of my friends did, or maybe about a time when I was super friendly toward a stranger/saw someone be friendly to a stranger.  It could even be about advice I’ve given a stranger/a friend or about advice that I’ve received.
7. Saturday: Storytelling Saturday
   • Finally, the last day is all about storytelling.  Yes, I’ve told many stories throughout the week already, BUT this day is different.  My hope (and if I fail at this or even slack off in the slightest, I give anyone reading this full permission to yell at me to get me to work harder) is to write a chapter of a continuous story each day until I finish it.  Yes, you read that right.  A chapter of a unique story that I created completely on my own without the help of those 1,000 prompts.  I’m doing this because my ultimate goal when I was younger was to become an author of a story and I’ve never given up on this dream.  I think by doing a chapter each week and posting it on Saturday for all of you to read, not only will I gain valuable and constructive criticism, but I’ll be one step closer to reaching my dream of being a published author.

**As a side note, there may be days where I post more than once with a random topic if I feel like it.

3. How often are you planning on blogging?

Every. Single. Day.

4. Why do you like writing?

I’ve included this question because many people I know absolutely loathe writing and I honestly have no idea how!  I love writing because sometimes I have a hard time saying what I feel.  I think I can write down my feelings a lot easier than saying them.  Sometimes I just can’t find the right words except for when I’m writing.  I also like having the ability when writing short stories to have complete control over the characters and what happens to them.  I guess I like this because I only have so much control over my own life, and it makes me feel better knowing what will happen in my characters’ lives because I don’t know what will happen in mine.

5. How did you come up with your blog name?

The Harry Potter series introduced me into the magical world of reading.  That series was my childhood and I’m forever grateful for reading it because it has made me who I am today.  That being said, the word “pensieve” comes from Harry Potter.

“I use the Pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one’s mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one’s leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form.”

– Albus Dumbledore

This blog is a way to pour all of my thoughts, ideas, and feelings I have on my past, my present and my future, and on any other things that I end up writing about.  And through this pensieve I hope to better understand myself and my writing style.

6. Can you tell me a little bit more about yourself?

Absolutely!  I’m a twenty-two year old recent graduate from a small liberal arts school with a communications degree and a German minor.  I haven’t had the best job in the last seven months since I’ve graduated but I recently accepted a new position at a great company and I’m looking forward to my future there and where that will lead me in the years to come.  That job I accepted isn’t what I want to be doing, but I know it’s just a small stepping stone until I get there.

I’m also an animal lover!  I rescued my beloved pitbull Balboa from the humane society nearly two years ago and he’s the biggest sweetheart I know.  For any of you pitbull haters out there, how can you hate this face?

He loves laying in bed with me.  And here I am cuddling with him on Christmas:

Anyway, I’m also a proud sister of Alpha Xi Delta and I support Greek life.  I’m currently in a relationship with the best guy I’ve ever known for almost two years.  In my spare time you can usually catch me watching Criminal Minds, listening to music, or running.  I love traveling, and the most notable places I’ve been to are San Francisco, London, Oxford, Windsor, and Germany.  Right now my life is pretty great and I really can’t complain.

Sorry for the obnoxious length of this first post, but hey I told you I love writing!

Until tomorrow, readers!

 

P.S.- One last note: Please feel free to comment on any of this. Tell me about your day, what you like writing about, where you’ve traveled to, what your degree is in, what your favorite show is to watch on netflix, your thought on pitbulls, the reason behind your blog name, your favorite book or book series, or your thought on Greek life!  I would love to hear your thoughts.