Inspiration at the Right Time

On my first day of summer break, I spent some time reflecting. I began wondering how I have managed to come so far. However, I cut myself off and wondered if I've even come that far at all. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it, but other times I feel like I have found who I want to be. For me, it all comes down to people inspiring me at the right time.

After high school, no one I knew challenged me to search for what I wanted out of life. Though one person, my sister, Leigha, unknowingly challenged me to evaluate what I didn't want out of life. In 2008, her and I had a huge argument that we have never fully recovered from. What I took out of it was that she was under the impression that I couldn't do anything in life without her. As if I wasn't able to function without her by my side. I applied for the Spring 2009 semester at Valencia Community College to pursue some sort of A.S. degree a couple weeks after the incident because I wanted to prove to her that I am my own person.  I had no clue what I was doing, but I spent a lot of time distancing myself from her. I don't regret it. Little did I realize at the time that my inspiration to challenge myself came directly from my biggest antagonist. To her I owe my success.

When I started, I had no idea if I would really ever graduate from Valencia. Thankfully, I met perhaps the smartest lady I've ever met during my first semester at Valencia. Jill Sebacher was my English Comp professor. After a few conversations with her, I was inspired to change my major to an A.A. in general studies to "keep my options open" so that I could go on to pursue a bachelor's degree if I wanted to. At this point in my college career I really didn't have any interest in getting a bachelor's. The idea daunted me, but I changed my major. After all, she is brilliant. I took classes at a slow, part time pace. Semester after semester, I kept registering for classes. Except I refused to take classes during the summer, so I always had a nice, long summer break while I was at Valencia. A Direct Connect representative from UCF spoke during one of my government classes at Valencia. With Sebacher's wisdom of not selling myself short in the back of my mind, I filled out an application. Though I didn't really have any intention of going to UCF... but just in case. To her I owe my success.

In the Fall of 2011, I met this super friendly girl in my meteorology class named Taylor. She was a girl with a plan. I was a girl making it up as I went along. We began eating lunch together after class two days a week and hanging out whenever we had free time. We talked about anything and everything. She challenged me to search for what I want out of life.  And, when we got on the topic of our future academic plans, she inspired me to see an advisor... which I had never none before. The advisor helped me figure out what classes I needed to take in order to graduate with her in May 2012. I took five classes in the spring of 2012 in order to graduate! She inspired me to transfer to UCF. To her I owe my success.

I'm on track to graduate with my bachelor's in finance in May 2015. So, I'm keeping a keen eye open to find inspiration for my next chapter in searching for a job/career. Obviously, I owe my success to others who have supported me through my academic career. They may not have been where my inspiration originated from, but family and friends have inspired me to keep going. I want to pay it forward, so I'm stepping up to hopefully inspire others to challenge themselves. I want to be a mentor to those who are in the shoes I wore in 2008. Don't underestimate yourself and don't sell yourself short. Be a visionary of the future and then take action to be the change you want to see.

Professional Selling

Summer B term is now complete. I'm free for the next 18 days, but somehow I've scheduled so many things that I don't actually have much free time to myself during those 18 days of freedom. I have four classes left to take before I graduate! Shit just got real, folks! Graduating with my bachelor's has been a distant dream for a while now, and it's hard for me to believe that I'm this close to achieving it.

As far as my Summer B class, Professional Selling, is concerned, it was one of favorites. I learned more real world skills in this class than any other class I've taken before. Interview skills, how to read people, how to sell products and how to sell myself to a recruiter. It was one of the most challenging classes I've taken, but it has also been one of the most rewarding.  I'm likely going to get a 'B' overall, and I'm okay with that because I feel like I've learned a lot, I will take away a lot from this class, and I will apply it to making a future for myself. Not only was the class a great benefit to me, but my professor was too.

My Professional Selling professor, Karl Sooder, has a heart of gold. I took advantage of his office hours and just today I spent an hour with him talking about life and my future. Seriously, it made me giddy! I think I'm going to use him as a mentor.  He wanted to know how he can help in my career moving forward. What? A professor cares about my future!!! How awesome is that? We went over my strengths and weaknesses. He has a background in sales and has worked with many high profile corporations in his career like Coca Cola, so he has his foot in the door. He sometimes shares student resumes with these corporations. My goal in the fall is to get my resume in his system, pick his brain about different things, and learn more from his experiences.

One Fun Night

Over the weekend, Leigha, Kelly, our childhood/lifetime friend, Brittany, and I had a girls night at my place. We ate, drank, played drinking games as well as other games, and danced. I had never partied like this with them before. It totally beat my expectations.  I know these ladies know how to have fun, but this was the first night of real, adult, college kind of fun we've had together.  It was great to feel good, let loose, and have fun. I loved every minute of it! It was the break from reality I needed before diving into this week.

The first part of this week is crazy because it's finals week for Summer B! I'm blogging quick in between work and school. At my late night class tonight, I'll learn what I need to know for the final on Wednesday! Geez, I'm kind of nervous thinking about it! I can't wait for Thursday when my real summer break begins! I have so much planned during my 18 days of break that I'll likely need a break from my break. Is it Thursday, yet?

Disney Characters and College

I've only personally encountered two Disney characters going to college, but I'm sure Orlando colleges are full of them. At Valencia, I took Macro-Economics with Cinderella. The girl that sat next to me, Morgan, worked as Cinderella at Disney. I actually forgot about this factoid until I found out the girl I sit next to in my Professional Selling class at UCF works as Mary Poppins at Disney. Where else in the world can you be sitting next to a princess/prince/icon and not even know it?

I Love My New Haircut

After my hair loss incident in March, I was finally ready to get more than a trim yesterday. Before I got it cut, it was a little longer than shoulder length and I didn't have bangs.

I have long been a lover of bangs and I have been a lover of long bangs, so I decided to get nice side sweep bangs to go with the bob. Basically, I banged bob. It's just short enough that it won't go into my typical ponytail. I find myself always just throwing my longer hair up into a ponytail so that I wouldn't have to deal with it. That's exactly why I wanted it short so that I won't have to deal with it. I haven't yet decided the best way to wear it now when I run, but I'll figure it out. I love having short hair!  My neck can breathe! I'm not very good at styling my hair because I don't like to take the time to do it. So, short hair is great for me since it's quicker to blow dry bob. Basically, I like quickies.  Okay, I'll stop...

Dreams, Goals and Plans

A big struggle of mine has been planning and setting goals to reach my dreams. Heck, I tussle with dreaming in general. I'm more of a visionary today than I was five years ago, but I'd still like to improve my ability to think and plan for the future with imagination and wisdom. A wish of mine is that more people in my life would challenge me to challenge myself and encourage me to strive to dream, set goals, and plan to reach those dreams. I'm addicted to routine as much as anybody else, yet somehow my fear of failure has been replaced with a fear of settling where I'm at. I've not yet reached my potential.  I used to think dreaming was scary because the future used to scare me. However, now I'm more afraid that my present will be my future and I want to dream big enough to make sure I'm not in the same place in five years. So, my three year dream is as follows:

2015:  Graduate from U.C.F.

2016: Work at a corporation with a career ladder to climb; where I can be constantly learning and growing my experience in the industry. If I ever become a stale employee, I will look for other opportunities to further my career. Experience is my top priority.

2017:  Be ultimately independent and move out of state for the ultimate adventure of my life.

The only dream I have a concrete plan for is to graduate in 2015. The other two need blue prints. At least I know what I'm working towards. My 2017 dream has gotten some criticism, but I have faith I will figure it out in time with the help of my bowels. Details aren't really my forte, so I have to work especially hard to work them out. 

Feeling Well

I woke up feeling surprisingly well today! No pain! That's right, I moved, danced, stretched my arms above my head and breathed deep without any pain. I felt so well that I even smiled at myself in the mirror. Sadly, when I don't feel well my hygiene suffers because I don't have the energy to properly take care of myself, so I do the bare minimum. I took advantage today by showering, shaving and moisturizing. I even did laundry and dishes. My appetite has been noticeably bigger the past few days. I hope that's a sign of even better days to come.

My only issue is that my bowel movements still aren't very pretty.  Yes, BM's can be beautiful. Trust me on this. I can almost guarantee that I would be jealous of how beautifully formed your BM's are.

This is My 100th Post

I started my new year resolution early when I began blogging at the end of last year. I even encouraged a few friends to blog. There are a couple of reasons I began blogging and other added benefits I realized after I started. First, I really do aspire to write an autobiography one day and I think this blog will be a valuable tool to help me do that in the future. Another reason I started blogging is that I wanted another way to share my life and connect with others. Obviously, I'm apprehensive in connecting because I disable the comment section on my posts. I also have only shared this blog with close friends and family. Perhaps one of these days I'll venture to invite others to follow my blog.  One of the added benefits of this blog is that I have allowed myself to open up more about my health.

For most of my life I've loved to write, so blogging is pretty natural to me. In fact, I have a hard time writing a short post.  A shift in my writing has occurred since I started blogging. Before the blog, I wrote poems and short stories and this blog has encouraged me to write personal life happenings. I've never been a consistent journal keeper. I think this shift is due to the fact that I'm cautious to let others read my creative works... chalk it up to fear of criticism or just saving the creative work for a future New York Times best seller or a Billboard chart topper. If those are my dreams, why the heck am I a finance major?

Cheers for another 100 posts! Thanks for reading and blogging with me!

Small Things and Ramblings

I love when small things make me happy. I love the way the freezer section in Target lights up as it senses me coming down the aisle. It's awesome! It's a smart way to save energy and it makes the customer feel like royalty as the shelves that house the products light up at my mere presence. It's like the power I feel with automatic doors. My existence can make doors open, turn on lights, turn on sinks, and make soap and paper towels spit out! That's mad cool in my book!  My existence can also make toilets flush, but those aren't my favorite invention because they usually try to flush before I'm finished and I hate the feeling of toilet water touching my bum.


Another small thing that brings me joy is new underwear, which I just got! Fruit of the Loom, baby! That is where my happiness is at! I also recently bought new jeans. It's probably been over 5 years since I've gotten new jeans, so I was long overdue. I hate shopping and jean shopping used to always be a chore to find jeans that actually fit well and right without having to wear a belt. It was a chore until I found Express! I'm so confident in the way Express clothes fit me that I order them online. Maybe that's not a big deal, but it seems like a big deal to me because if I have to make a return, then I'll have to hassle with going to the store. The one pair of jeans I bought was $120 and the other pair was $88!!! Thankfully, they were having a jean sale and I got a discount on these prices; plus, free shipping. Yes, it's hard for me to justify spending that much on jeans, but considering how long they last and the fact that the size 8 seems to fit me while I'm on prednisone, in a bad flare or healthy I think it's worth it! This week if I'm having a bad day, it'll make it a little more bearable if I'm wearing my new undies and new jeans.

Check out this challenge. It's called 100 Happy Days. I haven't accepted the challenge, but I've been trying to find the little things that make me happy each day since I've heard about it. It's crazy how cluttered my mind can get with negativity.
http://100happydays.com/#what

Yo-yoing

My health has been yo-yoing for the past week and a half. Bad days followed by good days, which are then followed by more bad days. If only I could manage to keep the yo-yo in my hand to ensure good health. Instead, it keeps slipping out of my grip and rather than putting it to sleep and then winding itself back into my hand, it gets painfully twisted and stuck until I eventually recover. By the time I recover and am ready for another throw, it slips out of my hand...again.

Thankfully, I had a good enough day yesterday to drive to Lake Placid to spend 16 hours with Taylor before heading back to Orlando this morning. The drive was totally worth it! I want to take every opportunity to see her because I never know when the next opportunity will arise... Except I do happen to know when the next opportunity will arise. I get to celebrate her graduation with her and her family at the beginning of August! 

Ambitions, Accomplishments, and Robots

Before my exam today, every student in class had to give a 30 second commercial about themselves. This is sometimes known as an elevator speech. Anyhow, the outline we had to use was, name, education, work history, an accomplishment, and a future goal. Listening to forty fellow classmates' accomplishments and goals not only made me feel under accomplished and made me feel I lack ambition, but it also was extremely boring to listen to these strangers talk about themselves. I understand business is supposed to be serious to a certain extent. However, I wondered why none of these kids tried to lighten up their commercial with humor and reality. This is a marketing class, so aren't they supposed to seem relatable. No one felt real to me. They all seemed like boring robots with impressive resumes. I do not desire to enter a business atmosphere after graduation that has no room for fun and humor. I'm having second thoughts about whether I picked the right major, and that frustrates me since I'm so close to graduation. I get the duties of a job and the mission of a company are serious business, but I don't understand why everyone seems so uptight and afraid to breathe and be themselves. We are not machines!  My 30 second commercial was not like the rest:

Hello class! My name is Lauren Albig. I'm a senior, finance major at the University of Central Florida expecting to graduate in the spring. I'm currently working in the real estate title insurance industry. I was recently inducted into the honor society Phi Kappa Phi, which inducts only the top 10% of all U.C.F. students. I also graduated clown school in 2011. I hope to be a part of the one third of graduates that has a job lined up by the time I graduate, but if that doesn't work out I could always make my parents proud and join the circus.

Obviously, I would not use this exact speech in an interview, but for a class presentation it was great because I got the class to laugh at the end of my commercial. Now, I want to focus on having bigger ambitions so that I'll eventually have greater accomplishments as long as doing so doesn't turn me into a boring robot.

Information Overload

This is the third week of Summer B and by Thursday I'll have been tested on all 14 chapters of the textbook and tested on the entire Lincoln on Leadership book. I'm totally experiencing information overload.

Makes Me Wonder...

One thing about my history with Crohn's is that I've never been to the hospital because of it. I follow others and their journeys with this disease and so often I read about them going to the hospital or ER. It makes me wonder how bad it has to get in order to get to that point. Is that point different for everyone?  Trust me, I'm fortunate I've never gotten to that point. It's difficult to believe sometimes that it could be worse. I fear the first time I have to go to the hospital because of Crohn's. I'm also aware that my relationships with my doctors are confusing. I'm not sure when exactly or even if I'm supposed to notify them of rapid symptom changes. Do they even care? Really, what can they do about it? More drugs? More diagnostic testing to find "active disease"? More needles? More medical bills? My somewhat ignorant philosophy is that I'll eventually get better on my own without all that crap, so I'll wait the bad shit out.  I'm not sure how bad it would have to get in order for me to seek medical attention on my own. It'd have to be worse than last week and that's scary to think about. Here's to hoping I never have to find out.

Is being out of the hospital in serious pain better than being in the hospital with manageable pain? I'm always self conscious about my pain tolerance. As if the level of pain I feel is actually less than what I think I feel. What level of pain gets credibility in the medical world. Am I a wimp? Or is there any validity to the high level of pain I sometimes feel? 

It Didn't Kill Me, But I Don't Feel Any Stronger Either

Warning, this post may contain too much information for some of you. Just know that this week I couldn't move, couldn't breathe and couldn't poop pain free.

The debilitating stomach pain struck me Tuesday night after dinner while I was studying for my Wednesday exam. I found myself crying in the fetal position. This was worse than the typical discomfort, aches and cramps I'm accustomed to dealing with like nothing is wrong. I walked very slowly with a severely hunched back and my stomach hugged tight to Kelly's medicine cabinet in search for Tylenol. I ended up waking her up with my groans of pain and she came out to see what was going on. Thankfully, she helped me get some water. In agonizing distress, it took all of my effort to crawl to the toilet. I don't really know how I got any sleep Tuesday night because I was up every hour in the bathroom pooping my brains out. The quality of my bowel movements declined with each flush, and I nearly broke the waterline each time. Seriously, how does that much shit fit inside me?

I was off of work on Wednesday because I was supposed to be studying for my exam that covered seven chapters in two different books. However, the pain was unbearable, so I spent most of my day napping in the fetal position and reading/studying when I was on the pot. The torment was unrelenting and I couldn't take prescription pain killers because I had to be able to drive to school. A seat belt makes driving with stomach pain worse. I hated that I had to get to school before the bookstore closed to buy scantrons for my exam. There is NO close parking, so I had to painfully walk, what seemed like a great distance, to buy fucking scantrons.  Maybe people couldn't tell I was crying behind my shades. At this point, I had an exam in less than two hours that I was definitely not properly prepared for. All I could think about was the terrible pain I was feeling. I don't think I've ever crammed so hard in my life, nor have I ever pooped so much on campus. I should get my grade back on Monday. Thumbs up for my professor though... He doesn't mind if students use the bathroom during an exam. The next best thing would have been being able to take the exam on the toilet. After class, I had a painful walk back to my car, drove straight home and went to bed...after I pooped, of course.

Thursday was better than Wednesday, but that wouldn't have taken much. I still experienced wicked pain, but thankfully my family at work helped me out and took care of me. Today, was a huge relief when I woke up and could stand straight without protest from my body. I spent the day at my parents because it's nice to be taken care of when I'm recovering from a painful episode like this. I can't see myself running anytime soon, but I'm able to walk from my bed to the bathroom without looking crippled.  My belly is extremely sore... at least the stinging pain has stopped, for now. I'm super grateful for my family. Times like these make my ambitions to make it in the world on my own without them seem dumb and unrealistic.

I wouldn't wish crohn's on any enemy, but I'm over it. I've never wanted it and if I was given the opportunity to kick its ass, I would beat it so hard that no one would even recognize it as a disease anymore. The pain from it hasn't killed me... I don't feel it's made me any stronger either. I hate how I let it mess with my faith. I find myself praying for others and not praying for myself like there's nothing God can do about it.  Fuck Crohn's!!! Some days it feels like I'm already in Hell. If Hell is worse than this, I better work my diseased ass off to get to Heaven.