Little night time surprise

This is gonna be a short post, but I got a really nice surprise at about 10:30 tonight.

My college finally started sending out housing assignments on friday and my roommate and I have been checking our email like crazy trying to figure out where we live. We had just gotten off the phone talking about what would happen if we didnt get what we wanted and kind of trying to decide how to get what we wanted. I went on our schools facebook page and people started posting about housing assignments for one of the last halls that hadnt received them. I wasnt too optimistic that I would have an email but I checked anyway and I finally got the email. Not only did my roommate and I actually get eachother but we also got premium housing with a/c aaaand our own private bathroom.

That was a lovely surprise to end my day. Hope you all are having a good summer.

~Kaylan

CollegeTime: Backback vs. Totebag

(taken from google images. Collage by me)

The question on everyone's mind every school year is backpack or tote bag. This is even more a question for college students, especially us girls. In high school we pretty much could get away with buying a cute tote bag and carrying it around with some folders in it and carrying our books, but that's not the way college is. I don't know from experience but I have been told by people that carrying a tote bag is a lot harder in college just because you have more things you need to take and you have to walk around campus with it all. Its not a matter of it not fitting in the tote bag, but whether or not it is comfortable to carry it around. So I have come up with a list of pros and cons for each one and at the end I will tell you my choice.

Backpack:

(taken from google images)

Pros:

1. Two straps to help equal out the weight and keep your shoulders from hurting as bad
2. Generally more pockets than a tote bag so you can separate your stuff easier if you are organized
3. Cute patterns to give you a choice to match your style
4. Sturdier than a tote bag on most occasions
5. You can put your books and binders in it! 

Cons:

1. Tend to be heavier than tote bags because you put more stuff in them
2. Straps can break leaving you with just one strap just as if you had a tote bag
3. Bulky!

Tote bags:

(taken from google images)

Pros:

1. Cute styles and looks a lot cuter than a backpack
2. Tends to take up a little less space and can still hold most of your things
3. You can have monograms and things added to most
4. You have more of an option to make it your own

Cons:

1. Not as durable as a backpack
2. Straps tend to break easier if you put heavy items in it
3. You end up carrying binders and books to keep straps from breaking
4. Can cause you more shoulder pain than a backpack

In the end I chose to use a backpack for my first semester in college. I always used tote bags in high school and after trying to fit everything I needed to take to school into my tote bag I realized it just wasnt going to happen. There is a lot more room in a backpack and I personally think they are easier to use when you have to take long walks. Let me know in the comments what your choice would be.

~Kaylan

Bright Colored Hair

Hey Everyone,

I hope you all are having an awesome day. Recently I decided to put more color in my hair so I figured I would talk with you guys about my decision to do it as well as show you guys some of the other things I have done involving bright colors.

The summer before my junior year I had decided to experiment with dip dying my hair with splat pink hair color. I dont remember what the color was, but I didnt bleach my hair before I did it, so it was not as bright as it could have been.

As you can see its not super noticeable, but I loved it at the time (I am a bit obsessed with the color pink).

When I was a junior in high school I started cosmetology school. Let me tell you, you cant make it our of that place without doing something to your hair. I dont know what possessed me to do it, but I just knew that I wanted to have some bright obnoxious color in my hair.

Thus how this hair was born. Having dark hair it was quite a big contrast to have fire truck red in my hair. It was so much brighter than this in person, and I really dont know why I ever liked it, but I LOVED it. I wish sometimes that I could have it back, but I will never be that dark or get to have those colors again.

Then after that I decided I wanted blue, and well you will just see how that went.

I did not have this for long, it wasnt as awesome as the red, not going to lie. 

Then I went back to my dark hair and then did some more pink, that I dont have pictures of. Then I cut it all out and cried because my hair was so short. So then after getting with my boyfriend I decided once again I wanted color in my hair, but he was not a big fan of it, though I did finally talk him into it.

It was a very pretty pink and I absolutely loved it, then for him I dyed over it again, mostly because I was dying my hair anyway and I knew that he didnt really like the pink in the first place.

So recently I was looking at all the colors I have left and I decided I wanted more color to my hair. So I texted him and finally got him talked into it. Its only one little spot, but it is enough for me because it makes me happy it is there, and it makes him happy because I can hide it if I would like.

If you are even thinking about adding bright colors to your hair I suggest you do small parts first to make sure you like it. I highly recommend doing it though if it is something you want to do. It is a fun way to show off your personality. 

~Kaylan

Current goals

Hey everyone,

So today I figured I would do something a little bit different on this first day of July. I know that school is getting close and I am kind of starting to freak out, so I want to talk a little bit about goals. How to set them, how to follow through with them, and how to not give up with them. Trust me I am not the best with sticking to goals and projects sometimes. I do get busy and I understand the hecticness that comes with trying to do a bunch of things, but goal setting does actually help a little bit.

I have never been much of a person for to do lists. The idea of having to sit down and write down everything I need to or want to do for the day is just overwhelming, considering that I have work, studying for my stateboard, getting ready to leave for school, my boyfriend, his friends, and my blog/youtube channel. With that many things I dont even want to think about to do lists. I would rather think about goals that I want to get done within a week, month, or year. Doing things daily can be a hassle, especially if you have a planner that you already write your daily plans in. Why make yourself even more crazy repeating those things on another piece of paper?

What are goals?
This may seem like a really dumb question, but I can promise you there are people that dont know what it is. A goal is something that you are trying to achieve in your life. It can be related to anything, it is just something that you want to get done at some point in the next week, month, or year.

What are the types of goals?
Short term- These are goals that can be completed in a few days or even a week. These are common in people that make to do lists. Basically that entire list is an overwhelming list of short term goals that are not broken down into smaller parts to make it easier to finish.

Long term-These are goals that will take longer than a week or two to finish. This would be something like, losing weight, getting a better gpa in college than you did in high school, ect. Basically anything that takes an extended period of time to finish. Also these can be looked at as things you would not put on a to do list unless you are a crazy person.

How to set goals:
1.Come up with something that you want to do. Keep in mind that it can be as bland as possible and doesnt have to have a lot of explanation. That will come later.
2.Write them down. Whether it is in your phone or on paper they need to be written down, you dont want to forget what you goals are.
3.Come up with a plan of action. You need to come up with steps on how you are going to complete the goals. You want to write them down so that if you ever lose track of how to keep going with your goal that you will at least have an idea. This is where you want to be descriptive. You want to keep yourself headed in the write direction, and blandness is not going to help with that.
4.Celebrate. Come up with your own way to celebrate accomplishing your goals.

My goals:
So to give you guys and idea of how I set up my goals I decided that I would write them all down for you guys.

• Eat healthier.
• Drink water not pop
• Try not to eat fast food more than twice a week
• Dont eat so much icecream at work
• Stop biting nails
• Keep nails painted. 
• Remember how long it takes to fix the paint if you bite your nails and mess it up
• Just stop doing it. Its gross
• Pass stateboard
• Study!
• Dont get too nervous, you know this stuff.
• Just relax
• Write a blog post at least twice a week
• Keep a list of ideas for post with you.
• Make time to write the blog post, even if its only an outline on your phone while waiting for dinner.
• Dont give up if the post you are writing sucks. You can make it better later, just get something down. 

There you guys have it, my current goals and also how to set them. My last piece of advice is to not set too many goals at one time. Dont overwhelm yourself. You will eventually get to everything you want, but if you put too much on your plate you will be more likely to give up. I hope you guys all enjoyed the post. If you want to post your own goals feel free to do so in the comments. If you have any requests for blog posts you can leave them in the comments as well.

~Kaylan

DIY: Spray painted mirror

I am bringing you another DIY today. I recently was looking for a mirror that I could use for my dorm room that was pink. I was having trouble finding that color that I wanted, or pink anything for that matter, so I decided that I would just spray paint it.

Materials:

1. Your mirror (DUH)

2. Spray paint color that you would like to use (You will need two or three cans)

3. News paper so that you can cover your mirror so paint does not get on it.

4. Painters tape or masking tape to take down the news paper.

Step 1:

Begin taping off your mirror so that you wont get paint on anything except the white part. This is important so that you dont have to spend time afterwards trying to get paint off of the mirror.

Step 2:

Begin spraying your mirror with the paint. It is actually a lot easier that it might sound. It is going to take a lot of coats if you want it very opaque. Plus if you are like me and bought straight glitter paint it is going to take FOREVER to get done.

Step 3:

Let the paint dry and then peel off the tape as well as the newspaper. I forgot to take pictures after I did that but I did love the way it turned out.

Step 4:
If you did get paint on to your mirror you will want to take some sort of paint thinner or fingernail polish remover or something and use it to get the paint off the mirror.


I hope you guys all enjoyed this DIY if you have any more DIY requests or post requests please leave them in the comments.

~Kaylan

CollegeTime: Getting your Textbooks

Today is the day that I talk about the one thing that no one really wants to talk about, buying text books. There are actually a lot of options to make getting the textbooks cheaper, however after spending time today looking at all those other options I am going to give you my truthful and honest opinion.

GET YOUR BOOKS FROM YOUR BOOK STORE!!!

I know I am probably one of the only people that will tell you that, but seriously do it. It is a lot less of a headache, and not only that but there are many options that you can use to get your books. There are 4 basic options that you can choose from when you get books from your school's book store, or at least at my college there are. The options are rent used, rent new, buy used, buy new. Now I know that is a lot to take in, and you may be wondering what the heck each of them means. I know that I was clueless when the brought all of this stuff up at orientation, but I pretty much get the basics now.

Rent used: This is generally the cheapest way to get your books. You are renting it for a cheap price, it has already been used which makes it cheaper, and then you return it to the bookstore with no worries on keeping it. The problem I find with this is that there will probably be a LOT of writing, highlighting, page flagging, and what not other things to mark information. A lot of that information may not be useful to you and it can become a cluttered mess, however if you are looking for cheap this would work out well as it is the cheapest option.

Rent new: This is the next price up from renting used. You are renting the book for a cheap price and you get to write in it, highlight it, page flag it, and whatever else you want to do. Without having to worry about what other people put in it and what you were going to have to use to be able to distinguish between what you wanted to know and what the 10 people before you wanted to know. If you are looking for cheap new books I like this way. I actually did this with most of my books.

Buy used: This one is the nest price up from renting new. For obvious reasons this costs more because you are planning on buying the book to keep so they are going to charge you more. Again with this type of buying you have to remember that people have written and highlighted in it before you so it may get a tad bit confusing for you. If you are wanting to buy the book this is probably the best way to go about it.

Buy new: This is by far the most expensive way to get books. You are buying them, brand new. That means no one has used them. I would love to have the opportunity to do this with every book, however they are quite expensive this way. If you have the money to do it I say go for it especially if you are OCD or have issues working around what other people do in your book.

There are other ways that you can get books, like amazon and ebay, but the problem with those ways is that you are generally buying them, they may seem cheaper, but after shipping and waiting it is just easier to get them from your bookstore. Trust me, you dont want to be going off to college without your books because they got put on backorder because so many other people needed them. You might not need them the first day, but you more than likely will need them at some point.

I hope this helps. If you have any opinions of your own feel free to leave them in the comments.

~Kaylan

College Packing List

I am working on making my college packing list for myself and figured I might as well post it on here so that maybe you guys can get a little bit of help from it as well.

Bed

• Bed sheets
• Extra blankets
• Comforter
• Mattress cover
• Mattress pad (if your dorm beds arn't as comfy as ours)
• Pillows
• Pillowcases
• Under bed storage

Room

• Alarm clock
• bulletin board
• Dry Erase board
• DVD's
• Pictures
• Push pins
• Rug
• Television
• Video game consoles
• Decorations
• Calendar

Desk

• Desk lamp
• Glue
• Paper Clips
• Pens & Pencils
• Post-its
• Ruler
• Scissors
• Staple Remover
• Stapler
• Staples
• Tape
• Three-hole punch
• Waste Basket

Computer

• Cables
• Computer
• External hard drive
• headphones
• Laptop case
• Laptop Charger
• Mouse
• Surge protector
• USB Flash Drive

Class

• Backpack/tote bag
• Binders
• Calculator
• Folders
• Highlighters
• Index cards
• Notebooks
• Notepaper
• Textbooks

There are more items that I know are going to have to be brought, but these are currently the only ones that I am positive will be on my list. I will compile a list of everything I buy and pack when the time comes, for now I hope this helps everyone get started on their college shopping. If you have anything to add to this list please leave them in the comments.

~Kaylan