Meet Bella :)

I got a puppy!

Best Summer EVER!

We haven’t even been out of school for a month and I am already having the best summer ever… let me tell you why 🙂

Been able to hang out with my Midpark friends a lot now that we’re all on a break from school… my one friend is living up at BG all summer so she only had a week to hang out at home — we crammed as much hanging out in as possible: bike rides, roller blading and beach trips as well as exciting nights out — and another friend has a two week break before she starts clinicals for the summer.

My boyfriend came up to visit this past weekend and, well, the Cleveland weather wasn’t so nice… however, we were able to go to the Great Lakes Science Center and enjoy a day running around there like we were still in elementary school. Nerds? OK. We also saw “Tornado Alley” in IMAX… ugh. Coming from a scaredy-cat… not a good choice! It really wasn’t supposed to be scary… tornadoes just freak me out.

However, the best part of the summer so far would definitely have to be my summer job. As you know, it is with the Cleveland Indians, and by reading my previous posts you know I love the team very much. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve worked for them for a couple of years now, but no experience comes close to this one!

I get to be down at almost every home game and I am out there cheering with the fans. I could not ask for a better summer job. The people I work with are awesome, not to mention that there are six Mount Union students on our team. There are also a bunch of other Mount Union students working down at the ballpark whether it is through volunteering or internships; that makes it a lot of fun to run into my friends during the game. That’s not even including all of the Purple Raiders that make the trip up to Cleveland to go to the games … they come from all over! I guess that’s what happens when your city has a winning team. Haaaa #bandwagon

Progressive Field is a little community in itself, though. All of the employees in all of the different departments automatically become friends just because of the atmosphere. Like I said, it’s awesome!

If you’re wondering where I was Friday night when Travis Hafner hit that homerun to win the game against Seattle… I was up in the outfield with some teammates cheering with the crowd and having the best time ever. After that, we ran down to the field to celebrate with the rest of our team and we stayed on the field during the fireworks. What a great time!

I will definitely be keeping you all posted on my life down at the ballpark — it will keep getting more and more exciting! (Did you see the score of last night’s game?! 19-1?!?!)

This week holds plenty of excitement because I am going to Vegas with my mom on Thursday! Next post will be all about my trip so make sure to check back next week!

Summer goals

Isn’t funny how people are always making excuses to change their lives? (Guilty)
But seriously, “New Year’s Resolutions,” “Summer goals,” etc… Can’t we ever just be happy with how we are? Nope. It is just human nature to wanna better ourselves.

With that being said, here is my list of summer goals:

1) Become a better blogger – I always fall out of my blogging moods and forget to blog for weeks on end, and when I do, my blogs aren’t always the most interesting. Well readers, you now have my word. I can promise you from here on out my blogs will be in tip-top shape.

2) Weight loss – yea, yea… lay it on me. We all hate how people always wanna lose weight, well sorry lol but so do I. Last summer I lost a whopping 30 lbs (35 on a good day). Damn, I felt amazing. Sadly, I gained a little back, but losing weight (the healthy way) is so addicting. In order to be happy, one must feel confident with themselves, ya know?

3) Have more patience – I don’t know what has gotten into me over the years, but I have absolutely no patience anymore. It sucks and I feel horrible because sometimes I can’t even stand being on the phone with a loved one because of it. Yeah, definitely something to work on lol… how does one do that? Take a deep breath? Count to ten? We’ll see.

4) Spend more time outside – It may be hard to believe, but NE OH has many beautiful places to spend time. Hinckley Lake, Whipps Ledges, Edgewater Marina… the list goes on and on.

New beginnings

I think it’s about that time that I get back into the swing of blogging. I’ve been sticking to my Mount Union blog lately because those posts had to be school-related. Ya know, had to stay focused (check ’em out. blog.mountunion.edu)

On a bright note, school is over! Well, for the summer at least. I have two finals — that are just “come, show up, write something down, done” kind of things — left standing between me and my summer break. #winning

I promised myself back in October or something that, come summer, I would morph my blog from the basic happenings in my everyday life to my social Cleveland life. I really enjoy reading the CLE-living blogs out there and, well, frankly I want to be one of them. So tune in all summer for the fun stuff.

Now, for a little recap of the past few weeks/days/whenever:

1- Climbed trees with my housemates

2 – Realized we don’t really want to move out for the summer (realized I need to go tanning)

3 – Fell in love with Jack Hannahan

4 – Decided I’m not letting my boyfriend graduate (should that have went before Hannahan? lol)

5 – Went on a “Brook Park Bar Crawl”

6 – Did some Katy Perry karaoke

7 – Celebrated my year anniversary with Seanski

And so, so much more.

It has been a great year here at Mount… such a shame when things have to come to an end. This summer will be a great one though!

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-samantha xo

Keepin’ ya posted

Spring fever

Spring is in the air… That could only mean one thing: BASEBALL!

As if you didn’t already know, last week stArted yet another fun, exciting season of Cleveland indians baseball… I couldn’t be more excited 🙂

Unfortunately the tribe lost the first two games to the sox but didn’t give up that easily… In the third game of their first home stand they brought the bats and surprised fans with a 7-1 win over chi town.

I was able to enjoy the beginning of the season by watching the games with Sean. We even got in the summer spirit and made hot dogs for dinner the night of the home opener.

The rest of the weekend was absolutely perfect. To recite my tweet from Friday night: boyfriend, baseball beer and bowling, perfect Friday night. We just replaced the bowling with pool but thatched a better turnout (I am NOT a good bowler…pool on the other hand…)

We were rather lame Saturday night but didn’t favorite Saturday night thing: snl. Elton John sure surprised us.. Who knew he was that funny? The digital short was great too– Andy Samberg never fails. Speaking of mr. SAmberg, the lonely island is putting out a new album next month!!!

This great weekend made me realize how lucky I am to be dating my best friend in the world.

This week is looking pretty promising as well.. Wednesday will be my first game of the season to work… And yes, it is against the red sox (my second favorite team if you didn’t know) i am very excited.

Hope you all have a fabulous week!

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Finding your passion

Sorry readers, I have been focusing more on my other blog [blogs.mountunion.edu] far too much and not giving this one enough lovin! I promise I’ll make it up to you.

In the past few weeks I have celebrated my 21st birthday and St. Patrick’s Day (hence the green beer in my picture!). I have started training for my summer job and I have started getting extremely excited for the upcoming baseball season. Overall, life has been pretty damn good… not to mention, the Indians home opener is a little over a week away! (Did I mention I’m excited for baseball season?)

So, fast-forwarding through all the other happenings in my life, today told one story that really stood out:

Well, first, let’s rewind a little bit. Growing up I always knew I was going to go into Communication… I was never really fond of science and math never quite cut it for me, but interacting with people, writing, public speaking, and coming up with creative ideas were all my strong points (or at least things I had always enjoyed).

We all know that the Comm field is pretty broad and one could go in any direction. I went through wanting to be a journalist to a news anchor to a radio DJ… Fortunately, Mount Union helped me get a taste of what each job would be like.

In the back of my head, however, there was always a strong passion for public relations. As I learned more about the field, I started falling more and more in love with it.

After writing for our paper and working for our TV and radio stations here on campus, I finally decided that PR was what I wanted to pursue.

Now, back to today’s moment.

We had a field trip down to Fahlgren Mortine, a PR agency in Cleveland. Listening to the professionals talk about their job and how much they love it got me so excited. Pfft, as if I didn’t love PR enough as it was! These people had such a strong passion towards public relations and it showed through everything they spoke of. This trip inspired me so much. I would love to visit more agencies to see what their businesses are all about.

I love when I have experiences like this because it really helps motivate me to follow my dreams. You know what I always say, DREAM BIG!

The moral of the story is—

Go after your dreams, no matter how big. Don’t let one small setback keep you from chasing what you want. Determination is key. And as my girl Katy P says, “Maybe a reason why all the doors are closed is so you can open one that leads you to the perfect road.”

If you have read my blogs before, you know I am a big preacher on finding our own happiness as well as chasing our dreams. I find that these two go hand in hand.

The people I’ve met today as well as people I have worked with and met in the past have all shown me this strong passion towards what they do. What is most important in life is being happy with what you choose to do. Put your happiness on the top of your list of goals — everything else will fall into place. If you don’t love what you do and it doesn’t make you happy, remember, you only live once. Wouldn’t you rather smile everyday instead of being miserable?

Waiting on the world to change?

I actually just heard this song on the way home from class today… sorry to disappoint you, but this post has nothing to do with John Mayer.

The word “change” has been haunting me lately and it has been kind of weird. I have this weird urge and it’s telling me I need change. A change or scenery, a little bit of fun, SOMETHING. Not that anything is bad now, don’t get me wrong; I love everything in my life. Just sometimes school gets a little too routine and, well, I guess I can blame this crap weather too, right? Once the snow (and ice and rain and sleet and more snow) has been around for about 2 months, I think we all get a little restless.

Well, back to my point, I’ve been wanting change lately real bad. However, the past two days has just really made me think.

Rewind about 13ish years. Mom and dad got a divorce, her and I moved on and now we’re better off and living a great life (yeah go mom!). However, my dad is stuck in the time pre-divorce. Once in a while he’ll call us to reminisce or tell us how he wishes he could go back in time. Don’t get me wrong, it is incredibly sad, but it just shows how sometimes change is good for some and not for others.

For instance, he told my mom last night he wish he could go back in time and never sign the divorce papers (that’s totally understandable) and today he called me and told me he was sitting outside of our old house in Cleveland. I can’t help but feel bad, sure, those days were great. Being a kid, playing outside, living with both parents. But sometimes change is for the better. You can’t live in the past, you can’t dwell on things that are out of your control (or they were in your control but you let them get out of hand). Life has a set path, it’s going to take you where you’re supposed to be going. If you’re wanting change, sometimes you just have life happen. Don’t spend  your time wishing on something else because who knows what it’ll be.

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Social media and me.

If you know me, you know I have a strong love for social media. If you don’t, well, now you know.

Sure, I was into Myspace back in the day, then had my love (obsession?) for Facebook. Nowadays I have moved on to Twitter and the blogosphere. I am not saying I am over Facebook…I am just not as obsessed with it any more. It takes the term “social” way too far. I still like it, I still get distracted by it, it is just not my top favorite anymore.

Anyways…

In my Communications Theories class, we are learning about the Symbolic Interaction Theory (SIT). To sum it up, it basically talks about how what is around us forms who we are. The people we surround ourselves with mold our personality, our surroundings mold who we are, etc…

We were assigned to an article about the theory and it was about how people use social media to, I guess make themselves. People can use these networking sites to make their personalities be anything they want. Ya know, you can write your best interests, write up a short bio about yourself expressing only the positives or your favorite traits, you can put up only flattering pictures, make smart, bold comments, etc… You ultimately can illustrate a whole new you via social media.

Well I thoroughly enjoyed this article for many reasons.

1. I love social media. I love studies about social media. I love finding out more positives about social media.

2. I agree completely with the fact that it helps us form a new personality.

3. I find some sort of weird escape from it.

Weird escape, you ask?

On Twitter, I don’t have to be the everyday, student Sam. I can be the me I want to be or I want people to see me as. I have this daily-weekly routine here at school; it is almost claustrophobic.

Through my blog and through Twitter I can be whoever I want to be. I have made so many contacts and even some friends through this portal and I love it. It really makes me even that more ready to leave school and start anew. I feel like I really made a whole new name for myself and I just started getting into that part. One can totally create a whole new identity through these sites.

I believe we can be whoever and whatever we want to be; there is no one who can tell us otherwise. I just happened to find a little escape that is helping me change the way I want to change. I don’t have to please anyone, I can talk to whoever, express my interests, state my opinions and learn from social media. It is almost like creating your own reality.

So there, that is a small portion of just one explanation as to why I love social media so much.

Pursuit of Happiness

A friend of mine posted this on her Facebook today and I thought it was cute so I just had to share! 15 steps to the pursuit of happiness!

 

1. The only person that can ever truly make you happy is yourself. Stop depending on everyone else.

2. People lie, stuff happens. Don’t take it too personally.

 

3. Want people to think you’re amazing? Start believing you are, and then they will too.

4. Smiling is the ultimate anti-depressant. Smile and laugh out loud, it doesn’t look stupid, I promise.

5. The world is never just black and white, right or wrong, one way or another. Try and see things from as many points of view as possible.

 

6. “Let everything happen to you

Beauty and terror

Just keep going

No feeling is final”

— Rainer Maria Rilke

7. Have empathy.

8. Gossip, problems of the past, events you cannot control, negative thoughts and negative people; time spent on these is time poorly wasted.

9. When you’re jealous or find yourself filled with hate for someone/something, stop. The only person its hurting is you.

10. Although the newest, most expensive material things may make you feel as if you’re a better person, they won’t hold you at night or listen to you when you need it. Make sure your priorities make sense.

11. Step outside your comfort zone- it’s when you’ll really feel alive.

12. Don’t be afraid to be yourself, the people who really matter, don’t mind

13. Let your emotions out sometimes, humans have them for a reason.

14. Celebrate the things you have. Think only positively of the things you don’t (but would like to have) and they too will come.

15. Love unconditionally ♥.