Arrivederci 2014

2014 was a year of incredible changes. Some were amazing, some were shitty, but I am thankful for all of it. I'll try to keep this as chronological as possible (no promises).

In 2014...

I had the most successful speech season of my career when I made it to Sectionals in impromptu after not doing impromptu the entire season.

I celebrated a two year anniversary with a boy I loved very much.

I got waitlisted by 3 schools I really wanted to go to (one of them was an Ivy League!) and I got rejected by my first choice (Georgetown).

After careful evaluation, the choice was left to me and I chose to attend the University of Denver.

I had a blast at my senior prom and I looked and felt like a total princess.

I was named an academic scholar at PHS and then I graduated high school. It definitely wasn't easy saying goodbye to PHS.

I took 5 AP tests and I scored a 5 on all of them. This accomplishment granted me sophomore status heading into my first year as a university student.

I traveled to Italy with my incredible family and had the trip of a lifetime. That country is absolutely unbelievable. The food, the drink, the people, the history...gosh, I love it there.

I had to say some very sad goodbyes to some very great people.

I packed up all of my crap, jumped in the car, and headed to my new life out in Denver.

I had my heart broken and I legitimately thought I was going to die. Spoiler alert: I didn't die.

I started doing research in a psychology lab on campus.

I got a job as a sports reporter for the campus newspaper and I was able to interview some incredible athletes and coaches.

I joined CSF and went on an incredible Catholic retreat in beautiful Colorado with amazing people. I've become closer to God.

I got a little too caught up in the college scene and did some really stupid things.

I met a lot of men that taught me exactly what I don't want.

I celebrated my 18th birthday!

I made some incredible new friends...I bonded with a great friend over our broken hearts. I bonded with another over Leonardo DiCaprio and with another over Game of Thrones. We got into some crazy adventures. Lifelong memories were made.

I found the other two-thirds of my Powerpuff Girls. I love my Bubbles and Blossom to the moon and back!

I wrote an article on the rugby team that made the front page of the Clarion! (That's our newspaper...y'all should go read it).

I succeeded in all of my classes and finished my first quarter of college with a pretty decent GPA.

HUNTER HAYES TOUCHED MY HAND!! Yes, that needed to be in all caps.

I had a fabulous and delicious Thanksgiving with my dad.

I had the best winter break ever. It was full of friends, family, rest and relaxation.

I got to see my puppy again after missing her like crazy for 3 months.

I had a fabulous time spending a day downtown with my mommy celebrating Christmas in Chicago.

I had a wonderful Christmas from the very beginning of festivities until the end.

I spent some quality time skiing in the most beautiful place on Earth. I seriously love these Colorado mountains.

My Steelers have made the playoffs! It's time to go get #7!

Oh, and I started this blog!

The worst thing that happened to me in 2014 is pretty obvious. The best thing that happened to me in 2014 is realizing that the worst thing that happened is actually the best thing that happened. I know that probably doesn't make much sense so let me explain a little.

The worst thing that happened was having my heart broken. But ya see, this was actually a huge blessing in disguise so therefore it can't be the worst. In actuality, it was the best thing that could have happened! I am a better and happier me. I am finally doing the things that I want to do. I am finding myself and I am not trying to be anyone else. It's taken almost 4 months (or over 18 years, depending on how you look at it) to get to this point. Believe me when I say I was a complete disaster for what seemed like a very long time. But this is the point of no return, and I couldn't be happier. It is because of this that I know 2015 will be the best year of my life so far. This year will be all about making my life healthier, happier, and more fulfilling. I can't wait!

Obviously so many other great things happened to me this year so I encourage you to read my other blog posts if you want to hear more!

I wish everyone a Happy New Year and I'd like to leave this New Year's resolution with you. I think this is something you could all actually follow:

Be bold, be brave, don't make excuses. If you want something, take it. If something scares you, face it. If you love someone, show it. Be a better you and the rest will follow.

A Belated Merry Christmas

I know I am a little bit late with this...but Merry Christmas! I hope that all of you were as blessed as I was this Christmas. I received some incredible gifts this year. Two of my favorite would have to be tickets to see Dan+Shay in Denver and Beats Solo2 headphones (which are currently playing Dan+Shay). I got adorable new clothes and some fabulous accessories, including a beautiful pair of Tiffany&Co earrings, and so many other fabulous things. I could go on but this blog isn't supposed to be about me bragging about how I'm a little spoiled. Besides, as awesome as all of this stuff is, my favorite part of the holidays is getting to have fun, quality-time with my family.

 I have the pleasure of having two Christmas celebrations with two different families: my dad's side and my mom's side. I guess you could say the festivities kicked off with my dad's family on December 20th when we went up to Milwaukee for a Dickens-themed dinner at the Pabst mansion. I'm not a big fan of Charles Dickens but I am a huge fan of big fancy mansions. The place was beautiful, the food was delicious, and the company was great. It was especially awesome when one of the men in character read a passage from The Christmas Carol in a crazy accent.

The next night, my Aunt Lori, Uncle Ben, and I visited a light display near Palatine. It's four houses (two on each side) that put up a bunch of lights and synchronize them to music. This was my second year seeing it and it is so awesome. It's called Lights on Magnolia for anyone in the NW burbs looking for some Christmas lights.

On the 22nd, a group of us went downtown for more Christmas fun. The plan was to eat lunch at Macy's Walnut Room, but when it took 10 minutes to find the end of the line to get on the waiting list we figured it was better to go somewhere else. No kidding, the line wrapped all the way around the 7th floor and it would have taken at least 5 hours to be seated. After lunch, we headed back to Macy's to see the tree and get some Frango mints before visiting the Christkindlmarket. Unfortunately, it started to rain on our parade. Back at my Grama's house in Des Plaines, I did a craft with my two little cousins...except my one little cousin isn't exactly little anymore since she is 11 and as tall as me, but you get the point. We watched Christmas Vacation too which is my absolute favorite Christmas movie ever. After that, I had a delicious dinner and then a fantasy football nightmare (see "Is This Just Fantasy?").

By Christmas Eve morning, I was touching down in Denver and it was time for the Angiollo (mom's side) fun to kick off. I was so excited to be back. When I got to Uncie and Ash's house in CO Springs, I had to wrap a lot of presents and then the whole family decorated sugar cookies before heading to Mass. After Mass, we had a pizza making extravaganza. It was super fun and insanely delicious. Then we all tried to watch Elf except everyone ended up falling asleep.

Christmas morning was wonderful as usual. I love the way my family does Christmas. We spend all morning opening presents and there is no rush at all. We usually end up staying in our new pajamas until 2pm. Since Uncie was in South Carolina for Thanksgiving, we had Thanksgiving on Christmas too. Dinner was complete with turkey, potatoes, stuffing, corn, cranberries....and sweet potatoes and brussel sprouts but those are yucky and I don't like them. It is also a tradition to play a game after dinner and we take this very seriously. This year we played HeadsUp! which was so funny except it didn't exactly go very well since we were all laughing too hard to function. After our little game, we put on the movie Scrooged with Bill Murray. If you haven't seen it, you should. It's pretty darn ridiculous.

The day after Christmas, the six of us headed up to the mountains. Uncie, Ash, two of their friends, and I hit the slopes at Keystone that afternoon. As soon as I got to the top of the mountain, all I could think to myself was "holy shit I love these mountains" and that is definitely the truth. It wasn't crowded at all and we got two great runs in before taking a short break. When we headed back up for two more it seemed almost empty. It was starting to snow too so visibility wasn't great. I usually stay on the cautious side when I ski just because I am afraid to lose control, but something inside me made me just let go. I flew down that mountain. In sections where I usually go slow, I just zoomed. It was so freeing. When you're flying down a mountain, you literally don't think of anything else. Gosh I love it so much. On the last run of the day I did wipe out pretty bad, but I just got up and flew down the rest of the run. That night we headed over to Breckenridge's Main St. to explore and have some dinner.

The next morning we went to a hill to go sledding. I am a very klutzy person that is prone to injury. On my first trip down the hill, I headed right for a huge bump/ramp. I got some serious air and I landed super hard. I've fractured my tailbone before...it's miserable. Fingers crossed that I didn't break my ass again.

We packed everything up and now I'm chilling in Colorado Springs again. There's only about a week before I have to go back to school. This might have been the best Christmas yet. There was so many fun activities and so much love all around. I hope everyone had a great holiday!

Is This Just Fantasy?

Anyone that knows me knows that I take football very seriously. The only thing (in regards to football) that matters to me more than the Steelers winning is my fantasy team. For the first time ever, my team (lovingly called Troy's Boys) made the championship game. I was projected to win by 16 points! I lost by 4....

My team is pretty stacked with great talent: Andrew Luck, Demaryius Thomas, Tom Brady, Antonio Brown, Marshawn Lynch, CJ Anderson. With a team like this, I should have gone undefeated. There have been some players I have started every single game. After Tom Brady's poor week one showing, I started Andrew Luck in every matchup. He had multiple games scoring in the 30s and 40s. He might have won the award for Troy's Boys MVP...that was until he scored ZERO points in the championship game. Andrew Luck basically crapped his pants on the field. Definitely not lucky at all.

It is common knowledge that the Bears are a really shitty team so I decided to make a bold move that would lead me to victory. Troy and his boys were taking on the Kansas City Chiefs. I had both the Pittsburgh and KC defenses on my roster. I figured the Steelers wouldn't do too great on defense since they have been struggling lately and I couldn't play KC because that would cause to much cognitive dissonance. I picked up the Detroit defense as a free agent when Jay Cutler was still supposed to take the field. I figured he would throw at least 3 interceptions and my win would be solidified through Chicago's ineptitude. Unfortunately for me, Cutler didn't start and Detroit's defense didn't do so great. Detroit only got 5 points. But, my Steelers' D that I love so much got 12. I should have never turned my back on my boys. Let this be a lesson of loyalty to you all.

After Andrew Luck's crap fest, I had pretty much given up on winning...but then BeastMode showed up and restored a little hope. I was still down over 50 points going into the Monday night game. It would be Demaryius Thomas, Emmanuel Sanders, and CJ Anderson vs. Jeremy Hill. I know I put all of my eggs in one basket with Denver's offense but they are seriously good and always high point scores. When Jeremy Hill went off, I gave up again. Then, Peyton decided to show up and I started to rake in the points. Peyton had so many opportunities at the end of that game to help me win. All he needed to do was give Anderson the ball or complete a few more passes to Thomas or Sanders. If anyone has the talent to launch a game winning drive, it's Peyton Manning. But just like Andrew Luck, Peyton Manning took a giant poop on the field.

There were many things I could have done to win that game...I'll never make it as a coach or manager because I make bad choices. Second place it is for me.

What really matters is that the Steelers are about to make a playoff run and if we keep playing like we have been, nothing can stop us. I think we might even be able to get #7.

There and Back Again

I am so so sad that our adventures in Middle Earth have come to an end. The Lord of the Rings films are all complete and now The Hobbit films are done too. Obviously, I'm going to rewatch the movies and maybe even reread the books, but there will be no new Peter Jackson film installments. Last night, I said farewell to Tolkien's amazing universe.

Overall, I thought the final film (The Battle of the Five Armies) was wonderful and it definitely gave me the closure I needed. All things considered, it remained fairly true to the book. The characters were great and there were even some cookies for those that really know the LotR series. I would go see it again right now if I could. I'm going to go through the film more in depth so...

SPOILER ALERT

The movie begins with Smaug burning down Lake-Town. I'm afraid of fire so seeing this in IMAX 3D was pretty darn scary. It was very lifelike. I was a little annoyed that Smaug is killed right at the beginning of the movie because it just felt so fast. Either way, the sequence was super epic. I also think that the attractiveness of Bard is seriously underestimated because he looked absolutely great.

One thing that has continued to annoy me and just kept getting worse was the relationship between Tauriel and Kili. First of all, Tauriel isn't even real. Well I guess none of them are real but Tauriel was created by Peter Jackson not by Tolkien. She wasn't even a part of The Silmarillion. It almost seemed like they were trying to force the Aragorn and Arwen love story on these other characters. At one point Kili gives Tauriel an Elvish stone and says "Keep it. As a promise." and there's the whole thing that Thranduil brings up about how they can never be together because he's a mortal and blah blah blah. Then when Kili dies, Tauriel is crying over his dead body and and Thranduil walks over. Tauriel cries, "Why does it hurt so much?!" and Thranduil says "...because it was real." I love the irony of this line since Tauriel isn't even real. I mean I was sad when Kili died too but this was just way too much.

I thought Thorin was absolutely great. The movie perfectly captured his "dragon sickness" and the complete character transformation. The fact that you go from loving Thorin to hating him, but then you are still heartbroken when he dies just speaks volumes. Richard Armitage was incredible. The scene where Thorin dies is super freaky because Azog falls under the ice and you totally think he is dead but then he floats back under Thorin with his bright blue, White Walker-esque eyes and it is so freaky. Thorin is sitting with Bilbo when he dies and he says, "If more people value home above gold the world would be a merrier place." This quote is almost the same as the line from the book and it was such a beautiful moment. The entire meaning of the novel is basically summarized in this one perfect line. Gold is bad, guys. Don't be greedy.

The character of Alfred was the absolute worst and I wanted him to die the very second I saw him. He is even more awful and more useless in this movie. He doesn't deserve to be acknowledged anymore.

I don't even know what to say about Bilbo besides the fact that I love him so much. Martin Freeman is a total genius and I love him a lot too.

My favorite scenes all involved the little bonuses for LotR fans. When Gandalf is trapped, Galadriel, Saruman, and Elrond come to save him. They battle the 9 Ringwraiths and then Sauron shows up. It's all really creepy and intense, especially when psycho Galadriel comes out and gets all scary. Elrond warns Saruman about Sauron and then Saruman says, "You go. I'll take care of Sauron," which is super exciting because we all know what happens to Saruman.

At the end of the movie, Thranduil is talking to Legolas and says, "You should head north. There's a man you should meet. His father, Arathorn, was a good man but I have a feeling he will be a great man. On the road he is known as Strider. You will have to discover his true name for yourself." I started squealing in my seat because I was just so excited. Aragorn is amazing and that line made me want to go home and marathon through all 3 LotR movies (extended edition, of course).

J.R.R. Tolkien created the greatest fantasy universe of all time (and this is coming from a girl that is obsessed with Game of Thrones) and Peter Jackson brought it to life. The only thing to do next is to travel to New Zealand!

I'm going to end this post in the spirit of Bilbo..."And he lived happily ever after, till the end of his days."

A+ Teachers

Sometimes I don't have very much faith in myself and I didn't really think anyone (besides family) actually reads this blog. After today's trip back to PHS with my girl Amy, I guess I was wrong. Many of my former teachers had some very positive comments about my blog which was a very pleasant surprise. Apparently there is also a link to my blog on the homeroom page of the PHS website! I honestly did not realize that some people out there truly do want to hear what I have to say.

Anyway...

It was such a blessing to return to PHS today. A few days ago, I saw a list of the best public schools in Illinois and PHS was ranked 56th (it would be #1 if you asked me). There was a breakdown of the ranking and the teachers received a grade of A+. You know those teachers deserve an A+ when 6 months after graduation students can't wait to go back to visit because they missed their teachers so much.

The best part about being back at school and visiting all of my favorite teachers was how excited they were to see me. I got so many hugs and everyone was so happy for me. I like to think that I have done them proud.  It was a little weird to be back because everything seemed different. It was pretty surreal. Above all, it is so great to know that I am still loved at PHS. I just hope that the teachers of PHS know how much I still love and treasure them.

Is Home Where My Heart Is?

Being home has been pretty nice so far. It is surely a relief to not be reading about WW1 or writing about mentally ill characters or drawing Lewis Dot Structures. These are definitely things I don't miss. My crazy friends, the cute boys, the hockey games, waking up to mountains, quiet bike rides to class are all things that I miss everyday. I didn't even list all of the things. At the same point, being back in Palatine sure is swell. 

Like everything, there are good things and bad things about being home. It's great that I get to spend time with my mom and puppy, but it sucks that I don't get to spend enough time with them as I would like because I have to work. But, working is great because that means I'll have money! It is awesome to be able to see everyone I have missed, but I wish I had more time to see everyone. Dividing time among people is a huge challenge. It would be a lot easier if there were more of me. I love going back to all my favorite places, but I hate living in fear that I will run into that certain someone that I hope I never see again. Having access to a car is marvelous, but knowing that it isn't actually my car and the realization that I am too broke to afford my own car is devastating. Not being in a dorm room is really cool too because it feels like I have so much space! Yet, at the same time I miss my little tiny room with all of its pictures and "Carolyn" written all over the walls. Seriously, if you want to know me then just take a look at my dorm room. That space is so special to me because I made it my own and I definitely miss my room a lot. Not to mention missing my roommates. They make me nuts sometimes but I miss them nonetheless.

The weirdest thing about being home is not knowing which is really home now. I'll say "home" and be referring to DU and then a sentence later I'll say "home" and be referring to the condo in Palatine. It is super weird having two homes and not knowing which one is home. Are they both home? Is neither home? Is this home while I am here but DU is home while I am there? I don't understand. If home is where the heart is...then where is my heart? I sound ridiculous right now because my heart is clearly in my chest...but seriously, this is troublesome. I guess, for now, part of my heart is here and part of my heart is in 7N. The day where my heart is all in one place will be a miraculous occasion.