Life is good!

What could be better than exploring new ideas, feeling an array of motivation for a variety of new things, and reading about what little things make people happy, all after enjoying a delicious dinner with great wine?

Nothing.

Today was good. I'm feeling so optimistic. I slept in, walked around Princeton with my mom, shopped at a cute hippie store and bought myself a Ganesha figure, enjoyed Mexican Hot Chocolate from Small World Coffee ♥, and then made completely delicious 100% homemade lasagna with my parents. At Small World, I stumbled upon something completely uplifting, inspiring, and utterly hilarious: their 100 Reasons to be Happy card catalog. It's not always the big things that make us happy - in fact, it's rarely the big things that make us happy - it's all about the little things. It's all about morning snuggles. Or your cat crawling into your warm lap to sleep. Maybe even the fact that Ben & Jerry's exists. These happy little moments don't get the attention they deserve.

I'm so ready for spring quarter to begin. I'm ready to welcome it and its challenges, both academically and emotionally. I've never felt so prepared. I'm ready to live in the moment and appreciate the little things. Time to lose the stress, the worries. Nothing else shoud matter when you have morning snuggles, a warm cat, and Ben & Jerry.

Ganesha is the elephant headed god of Hindu myth, son of Shiva and Parvati. He is the remover of obstacles and represents abundance. He is the patron of business people and scholars as he brings success and prosperity. One hand is held up in the posture of allaying fear.

Cheers!

Changes.

Well I've slowed down on blogging, I suppose. Though I'll blame a busy past week for that - ending my internship, driving home, a wonderful Valentine's, and a celebratory 21st birthday. It's tough work, I swear. Being able to relax is a beautiful thing, but I'm eager to get things started again. I'll be traveling to California over RIT's official Spring Break for a trip with Honors Saunders College of Business and then diving straight into classes (which I miss, strangely enough). I've got to be honest though, I'm looking forward to have a mere five minute commute, days during which I change activities every couple of hours, and a gym just a brief walk away.

I've got such motivation to build upon my new year's resolutions (which, I should add, I have not yet given up on) and no ability to do anything about it for another 17 days. It's frustrating. But, I've reignited my desire to cook by stumbling upon Love & Olive Oil. Not only does a lot of the food sound amazing, but the website is designed beautifully... so don't be surprised if my blog changes design a bit within the next couple days. I'm feeling a need to switch to some lighter colors (perhaps to entice Spring to come a little quicker... I'm not ready to deal with another three months of Rochester Winter). Spring and summer will bring some great things, including delicious ingredients. I'm dying for some fresh fruits and veggies... and the warmth. I'm looking forward to strolling through the Rochester Public Market on an early Saturday morning before the everything heats up for the day.

I'm in one of those moods where things need to change. It might just be the layout of something on my computer or my style... or my eating habits. Whatever it might be, I need something fresh. Something to spice up life again. Fight off the monotonous winter. Maybe a new project, more work, new food endeavors... It's probably why I spent a half hour this evening rereading my blog from over the summer, Europäische Reisen. I'm missing Europe more than I have in a while. Perhaps I should blame it on the fact that I got myself some Hofbräu Original beer (the one and only time I've had it is in the most famous Biergarten in Munich... brings back some strong memories). I'll also blame it on the fact that one of my closest friends is having an amazing time studying abroad in Spain while a couple of my other friends are dispersed throughout Europe. Hopefully California will help quell my desire to move my feet.

Enjoy the welcome warm weather! ♥

Home Stretch.

One more week. That's it. Then I'm done with my co-op at Martino Flynn. It's been an incredible experience with the Greenhouse Internship... it's kind of like I've been working as an account executive for a mini ad agency for the past 2.5 months. I worked with clients, ran campaigns, worked with a team of creative and PR professionals, and got things done. I went into this not knowing what I wanted to do with my soon-to-be college degree, and I'm coming out of it with solid expectations. I'm looking forward to applying what I've picked up here to my spring classes - Marketing Metrics and Research, Typography, and Web Foundations. It should be an interesting (and totally awesome) combination.

I'm just going to take the advertising theme and run with it. Super Bowl anyone? I didn't care about the game, but I watched intently enough. Was rooting for the Steelers, but ah well... at least they made a game of it. But of course, my real agenda for the night was to review the infamous ads. I was pleased with the evening, overall... there were about 20 too many car commercials (despite that, Chrysler's 2 minute spot was impressive, but Audi's luxury-prison spot was a bit more entertaining). I personally think Doritos won the night, while PepsiMax fell horribly flat (how ironic that PepsiCo owns Doritos).

Seriously... hilarious:







...and awfully cliché and trite.




And the winner for most ridiculous idea ever...




With the exception of the always awful GoDaddy.com commercials, I'd say it was a mostly positive night in the world of Super Bowl advertising.

As stated in a previous post, I have a lot to look forward to... my 21st birthday, going home for a couple weeks, seeing Joshua Radin in concert ♥, going to San Diego over Spring Break with Honors Business, and the start of Spring quarter (yes, only an RIT student who's been on co-op for all of winter could honestly say they're looking forward to Spring quarter right now). Plus the second-to-last regular season home hockey game of the year... against none other than Canisius. The next month will certainly be a good one. For now, however, I'll work through this last week by watching old Bones episodes and rereading the Harry Potter series (yep, RIT and my boyfriend have brought out my inner nerd that remained suppressed all throughout high school).

Cheers!