Full year

It has now been a full calendar year since I have been home from Australia.
Its funny how I always base my life off of how long I have been away from another place or since I have seen a person. I always like to look back and say "It's been a year since.." because it gives me a real sense of time and how life can seem so slow sometimes but other times.. like when I look that it has been a year since i have came back and it just seems so unrealistic to me because it seems like yesterday. I remember being so happy to come home, saying it was "one of the happiest days of my life" because what is better than running into the arms of people that know you and love you when you have been around people that don't know you that well for 5 months. It was a good feeling, but looking back I wouldn't confirm the statement of "one of the happiest days of my life". I feel my happiest days are spent sometimes with people, sometimes alone but exploring things I never had before. Thats when some of my "happiest days" are.

To come travels: For the WHOLE month of July I get to travel :). Starting off in Chicago --> Seattle --> Bend, Oregon-->San Fransisco --> Traverscity !!! After a long year-round schooling extravaganza I actually get a whole month off, and this is what has got me thru these summer classes. Might possibly make updates throughout my travels.. because social media will not be in my hands ill have to update somehow!

Live happily challenge…. 1 year (May 20^th 2014- May 20^th 2015)

After living in a different country for 5 months, a close friends death, and a long-term relationship break up all in my 20^th year on this earth it’s been rough and challenging year. I guess what I’ve learned is life is always going to be that way. The only thing that you can control is yourself and how you go through life. Thinking ahead to what I want in life all I can think of is happiness, yet for the things I don’t want.. the list is very long.. In this next year I’m going to vow to make some changes in my life. I am doing this for my spiritual self to get in closer relationship with my creator and to really get in touch with my inner self to control my emotions so I can better handle situations in the future within my personal and career goals.

I will be turning 21 next week and I think this is about the right time that I really need to focus and concentrate on being an individual and driven towards what I want in life, which is right now, just happiness. Within the next year I will be graduating from college and going into the “real world”, so this time I take is something that I feel I will cherish the rest of my life. The time I took to really be okay with being alone, single, and really paying it forward to my community, friends, and god. I am incredibly blessed to be where I am at today and I want to be able to give all my appreciation back one day to all who supported me throughout my life. I will be keeping this blog as sort of a public diary as I start on the journey away from things that make me less happy in my life.

Things I am going change:

-Discontinue, disconnect, and deactivate all social media

            As most of my friends know.. I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH SOCIAL MEDIA. I am doing this because I find myself looking for recognition or gratification in whatever I am doing through social media. Things like posting a picture because I think its cool, so lets see if anybody does, or if anybody else appreciates what I’m doing. I realize I have a problem with social media because it’s no longer social to me. It’s just me behind a screen seeing how many likes I can get and getting the recognition I think I deserve. I also realize that most other people do not have this problem and social media works well for them to stay caught up friends, but that is not me. I’m learning to know that my own recognition if enough for me to be stratified.

-Practice mindfulness once a day for at least 3min

            Mindfulness is something that I have learned through my social work program at GVSU and I think it is a good practice to involve myself in. Mindfulness is taking a step back and really understand how your feeling and thinking at that time and space. Really, mindfulness is what you make it, one could close their eyes and think of nothing at all to relax or start in prayer. Its just taking a step back from life to really take notice of yourself.. if that makes since. There are lots of mindfulness exercises online if anyone wants to try! I’m learning that once you take a step back the problems that seem very large at the time may not be in the long run.. it just takes time and a step back to realize it.

-Do not participate or condone in putting people down (Including myself)

            I’ve been noticing this more and more about myself when I’m meeting new people and I’m with a group most of the time “girl talk” will start and the put downs will flow about the other people that surround us. I almost all of the time also join in on these talks to be apart of the conversation, and I have also been the one to start these conversations. I just need to get this habit under control, I mean really Ally.. were not in middle school anymore. I will learn from this that everybody is their own judge and you really never know what else could be happening in anybody else’s life behind closed doors. I want to learn from this that putting people down may give me and who ever else I’m taking with.. something to talk about.. but in reality its helping nobody and it’s a bad habit. Also side note- I will attempt to not put down myself as much too.

-Truly find the peace and happiness where I am at in my life

            Always striving for more and looking ahead to new and different things, but always regretting that I didn’t enjoy the moment I was in at that second. I will never be here again.. laying in my bed with my candles lit and a warm summer night in Allendale. Right now my life is hectic but there is a lot of things I subside my happiness for. I’m taking 3 summer classes and working.. I’m busy but I need to always find time to appreciate the moment. This also goes into my mindfulness exercises. I want to learn from this that you never know when your life will be taken from you, or your loved ones so I need to appreciate everything day by day even if it’s the worst days of my life.

Note to self on where you are starting out: You are broken and still trying to get back to the point where you are happy on a daily basis. People have hurt you in the past, but don’t let that affect your future. You are strong because the friends that surround you make you that way. Explore and never forget how to make yourself happy first. You have worked hard, but you can work a lot harder. God is with you and knows that this is the right thing for you.

Goodness can follow a broken heart like yours.

The one that got away

Andrea,
Some stories; when I went to your candle light vigil, people asked to share stories about you, I never spoke up when I wish I did. Here are a few memories of you

How we met:
It was in 7th Grade history class with Mr. Hubbard (sp). We had a group assignment one day and I got to be in your group. You had long beautiful brown hair and long bangs aways pushed to the side. You use to wear a shirt that said "stud muffin" with a character of a muffin with jewelry all over it. Your name was Andrea but everyone called you "Drea".  In the group we were in I was assigned to do the writing, and part of that task was to write everyones name at the top. Me being the horrible speller I was I asked you what your name was and you said Drea.. I wrote Dra. Who knows how I made it to college.. That was the first thing we laughed over and to this day I still have you in my phone as Dra.

8th grade:
We had math together with Mrs. Bender and we would talk about the boys in our class. We had lower grades in the class so we had two boys, Alex and Tyler, who were our "mentor" and "tutors". We laughed and said we were always going to date them and we would have been good at math forever. These dates never happened, we were always more the creative ones. We were also on the volleyball team together. I always remember that you made your serves over every time even on the first tryout day. After that season you stopped playing volleyball. But, not to worry! We also did more sport together including competitive winter cheerleading and lacrosse. In lacrosse you were the fearless goalie that had to eat a banana before every practice so you didn't get a bad of bruises on your legs. You would be in the goal and half way down the field I could always still here you scream "Common, is that all you got?!? COMMON" haha I love you Drea. If you can imagine a feisty little mexican girl defending our goal.. I wouldn't of had it any other way.

Your voice:
It was a known fact that you could sing, but only your good friends got to hear it. When ever someone would would catch you singing you would say "what, who me? No that wasn't me singing".
We always use to joke that you and I would do a talent show act together where I would be on stage with the mic turned off and your would be back stage singing while I'm lip singing. You wanted to show off your voice but your nerves got the best of you sometimes. You did sing in one talent show and once for one of our cheer competition singing the national anthem. You were brave little mexican girl :)

I didn't know what your life was like at the end, but everyone tells me you were happy. Everyone says you lose contact with people after high school but I never thought we would. You were beautiful Andrea
This is me trying to celebrate and remember the good times with you Andrea, but we all do miss you so dearly and think about you everyday.
I have so many memories with you, so many laughs, and cries. I'm so very blessed to have met an angel like you. Your home now and I know your in heaven looking down on all of us.

Love Ally

Goodness follows?

Hello my name is Ally I'm 20 years old and I honestly thought life was going to be a fairy tale. Take this Blog for proof. I made this over a year ago, named it goodness follows, and yes thats when I was leaving for 5 months on an amazing trip that everyone supported me on including my boyfriend- now ex when my life was a fairy tail. But now someone shot my wing…

I always saw in movies that tragedy happens, but who thinks that could be me? what? Heart break can happen to me?

I as many others that are my bright eyed bushy tailed acquaintances would hope to think so too. A friend said to me a couple weeks ago that as young as we actually are and how old as we feel we need to be naive about things in life. Other wise I feel the world we live in would scare us too much. The things that COULD happen and the things WILL happen to us are very different, but it matters what situations you put yourself in. But I'm always a bit of an over thinker so it feels good to say not to think about something.

Like you get a choice of going to the park and possibly getting mugged, but while at that park you may meet the person of your dreams that holding a leash with your dog of your dreams attached to it. So, tell me are you going to go to that park? Or neither could happen which is more probable, but I just have to wonder "what if". One of my friends, every time he went out to the bar he said "I'm going to meet my wife tonight", the chances of that are slim, but right now he is actually madly in love with a girl he met at that bar. So, what if? Take life as it comes and yes you will get hurt.



I would always get a tummy ache when I was around you more than ever i did alone. Its either A.) because you made me laugh too much or B.) because with you I left myself feel everything and be more in tuned with my body that I actually let myself be okay with feeling everything instead of oppressing it.



Pain gives us empathy which I need a lot of as a Social Worker. Hurt is going to make me understand hurt more then I see it in my patients eyes and love, well right now that doesn't exsist.

Post thoughts

Welp, it's exam week so I thought I needed to examine my life after being home a bit!

When I was in Australia about half way through my 4 and a half months there I wrote down notes on my computer that I would see everyday until I went home the first thing was the number of weeks I had left until I went home I think it was at 8 went I first wrote it down. The second thing I wrote was “Let change happen”, because when I was over there I didn’t think I was changing and I didn’t think anything was really changing, on the inside. I questioned how I was suppose to change, I told my boyfriend that I have really changed.. Even though I don’t think that I did. He told me from the sounds of my voice and how I talked wasn’t different, so I didn’t change. I told him just wait until I get home, you’ll see. Just trying to convince myself that this $20,000 dollar trip was going to change something inside for the rest of my life, for the better. I wrote “Let change happen” because I personally did not think I was changing. Everything seemed pretty normal, except the fact that I was literally the farthest place in the world away from my family, boyfriend, and friends. So yeah I knew that the trip was going to teach me about new cultures and that yes if you move far away from people you loved and grew up with, your going to miss them. Duh. Being home for some five months now I see just how much I was impacted by my experience, not wholesome overwhelmingly a new person, but in the little things. Learned some lessons that I will carry with me the rest of my life. 1. You can live out of 2 suitcases for 5 months and be very happy. Things do not make you happy, people do. Which reassures me that social work IS the major for me because you get to work with people everyday. 2. I LOVE TO TRAVEL, I LOVE NEW EXPIRENCES, I LOVE TRYING NEW THINGS.

Cheers!

Ally

Stuggles and Buggles

My life right now at the 3rd week of school consists of riding the bus, going to class, meetings, work, and friends. I put a lot on my plate by volunteering, working, and finding time for friends. I guess everyone goes through these struggles. I have been VERY blessed by having my college paid for, but I always never want to tell people that because people then will get the since that I don't work hard. Or they will look at me differently because I am not the "norm". This situation of not wanting to be looked at differently because of something that you had no influence over is something that I feel will effect me a lot in social work. I know my physical example is not comparable to a job loss or something because that is something bad while mine is good but the situation is the same. Things like loosing a job can just be pushed on people without their say and their embarrassed to admit it. I am a moderate conservative when it comes to things like social programs and yes, this is quite rare in the field of social work. But I have to say because of the way our education of this field is leaned it also is going to have an impact on my views.

Something that happened today- For a social work class were were assigned to a partner and head to heart-side downtown GR to interview people of that community about some questions we made up our selves. I was partnered up with a 30 year old women that grew up in GR and a 32 year old military man that just got back from iraq last year with two little kids (one just started kindergarten this year). We discussed the questions we were going to ask then we went off in search of community members. We found this cute coffee shop named Gojava in GR we got to talk to the owner and the barista of this shop. They both live and work in GR and had great insights to GR as a community.

People that are just willing to talk to us and give us what they think of the community and then for my partner that was in the military to purchase coffee for us all just makes me so glad that there are nice generous people out there. Sometimes you just need that reminder.

 I am on the GR transportation system everyday and I saw this in australia as well.. there is like this unspoken rule to 1. ignore everyone around you. 2. to get to where your going without smiling 3. get there as quick as possible. I like to call this the black tie affair. When I first used transportation in Australia something seemed so professional and so attractive to me about this group of people. I wanted to be like them I wanted to know the train system so well that I could be on idle as I go through my commute to work I wanted to be completely oblivious to people around me. I wanted to dress, talk, and walk like the people that were heading to their "big kid jobs". Why did I want this? I love the city but I also feel like "the black tie affair" is a big park of the city.
As I am riding the bus everyday I see the ugliness and the unattractive, boring gross side of transportations.  I just want to scream WHY IS EVERYONE SO LIFELESS?!

Love,
Ally

I don't want to give up on myself. But I feel that things in our society today makes it easier and easier. Maybe just "our society today" because I hate when people say that, just like saying "kids these days". With things like Facebook, twitter, and instagram being the main staples of the world of distractions today. I do want to be different and I do want to accomplish things that I aspire for myself. That is why this semester I will be deactivating my Facebook, twitter, and instagram accounts. As much as I adore them they do keep me from things that I want to achieve this semester and over the next two years for a social work program. I mean it seems quite simple, you have something distracting you from what you achieve for, so you eliminate that from your life. It doesn't come without its consequences. All my organisations, groups, and friends from abroad are on facebook and that is the only means of communication which has got me in the past to take the plunge and get back on the social media roller coaster. As always with me social media has been a love hate relationship, I have deactivated my account now 3 times each lasting around a month to 3 months. So I want to make this commitment to myself to stay off of it and to find alternative routes to communicate such as a letter! How exciting is it to get a letter in the mail?! ok.. this may not happen but I'm not ruling out all my options. Of course I still have texting, email, phone calls, and netflix to distract me!

I wish there was an app that limits your time on social media sites, that compleatly blocks you down from it after using 10 mins of it a day. Most of you would all call that self control, but I guess I'm the only one that can't stop from clicking on that little icon to see if anyone missed me. -- no one really ever does.

blah blah blah.

byebye