Transitioning into "Real Life"

Well, I've officially survived my first two weeks at my corporate job, and it's been quite the transition. It's been a challenge learning to manage my new schedule and life. I'm glad I had the realization this year just how important it is to hang on to what I love and what makes me unique and not to throw any of these things away no matter where I am in life.

Here's how I've been able to do that lately, even now that I have to be a so-called real adult.

1. Fashion. The great thing about working for a company whose dress code is business casual is that I still have room for self-expression. Below is my outfit from casual Friday: I rocked a Hogwarts tee under my blazer and paired skinny black jeans with my studded combat boots (sorry no full outfit photos!). A blazer dresses anything up...right? I always have my skull or Slytherin jewelry on daily with my button-ups and pencil skirts, along with a (slightly) more subtle smokey eye than my usual gothed out eyeliner. I can enjoy my job so much more when I can express myself in these little ways.

2. Sword fighting. Nothing like a new hobby to spice up life a bit. I scored a Groupon for Medieval Combat lessons, and as it's been my ambition to become a pirate lately (and I'm writing a novel featuring pirates), I figured what better way to get into character than to learn some good old sword fighting. I'm completely addicted. My coworkers like to give me a hard time about this. I think they all thought I was kidding at first...

3. Developing my "personal brand." We've talked a lot about this at work, and while I've wanted to obviously present myself as competent, I think part of my, er, charm is that I'm kinda quirky. Everyone already knows me as the resident Harry Potter nerd (I showed up with the seventh book in my purse on the first day of training and admitted that I was in the process of my annual re-read of the series). When we had to go around and introduce ourselves and say a weird fact, I announced that -- though I used to be super embarrassed about admitting it -- I've been a Harry Potter fan fiction writer for ten years. I got a bit of playful teasing, but once again, I was hardly shunned because of it. I want to present myself as quirky, nerdy, and smart, a brand I feel like will let me be successful while still feeling like me. 

Ramblings of a Recent College Grad

It has now been a little over a week since I graduated college...and the realization finally hit me. It took moving out of my crooked little one bedroom apartment to realize that I'm about to begin a new stage of life. And it feels weird. But I have a month off before I start my full time job, so for now I'm just going to enjoy summer and being seventeen again twenty-two for now.

I wore my signature combat boots instead of heels like a normal person. But then again, I'm the girl who wore converse to prom...

I don't consider myself in any way qualified to give life advice. I mean, I'm twenty-two, I don't have my life figured out yet! In fact, I'm only twenty-two so I don't feel like I should have it figured out. However, I feel like I have learned my fair share of lessons in the past four years (one of which was realizing that I shouldn't have to have my life all planned out by graduation) and I thought it was in line with the goal of my blog to share the ways in which I've learned to embrace my weirdness and be myself.

It took me the better part of my college career (as in, until my graduating semester), to realize just how much more there is to life than school or a career. I've always had so many other passions and obsessions, but I completely set them aside in pursuit of the perfect GPA and résumé. And I wasn't happy. While it's in my nature to be a bit of an overachiever (I'm just an all around nerd), that can only go so far. While it's important to work hard, I finally realized that success in and of itself does not equal happiness, and no amount of it is worth sacrificing doing what I love. 

Along those lines, I learned to start living my life and not just my résumé, and discovered that I want to have a life and not just a career. I'm glad I worked hard, but I'm even happier that I finally realized that there is so much more to life than just having a successful career. After all, you only live once (I hate it when people shorten this to "YOLO"), and you should live doing what you love!

All right. End rant. Just had to share my discovery, because my outlook has completely changed for the better in the past few months. I hope you can take something away from my lessons as well.