Pit and Peak: week of 8.12.13

Soooo much to be happy about this week! Obviously have to do the low point and high point so here it goes:

Pit: The pit of this past week for me was Wednesday. I was EXHAUSTED and at the end of the day, all I wanted was for my mom to pick me up from work, drive me home, do my laundry, and feed me. Of course she cannot do that since my family still lives in Chicago, and I am a real person now so it's time to accept those responsibilities. UGH.

Peak: The peak of my week was definitely LAST NIGHT. My friends and I met up with this boy that I have been talking to that I met my first night out in NYC. I wasn't sure how that would go because I hadn't seen him in over 2 months and I was pretty drunk the first time when we met, so who knows if that was worth pursuing. But it ended up being totally AMAZING and he is SO COOL! I'll write more about it in another post. But ahhhh literally last night was the perfect night :)

An overall GREAT week! Let's hope next week is just as good, or better! (Which it will be since I'm going to start moving into my new apartment!!!)

<3, Charlotte

Okay, it's time to find an apartment!

Tomorrow, I'm supposed to meet with a broker to look at some apartments. Looking for a new place has been more challenging than looking for my summer place for a few reasons:

1. My roommate isn't living in NYC right now. She's off in Chicago at training for her job. So it's basically all on me to find us a place. Ugh.


2. We have started to contact brokers too early. We've been talking to them for 2 weeks now and places are JUST opening up. I know how that's how it happens in NYC but AHHH I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHERE I'M LIVING IN A MONTH!!


3. When I was looking for a summer place, I had the mentality of "I can deal with this for 3 months". Now, I'm freaking out at every place I see because I know that we want to ideally live there for 2 years. Finding a more permanent place is much more stressful than finding a temporary one!

This may be us if we can't get our act together...

Hopefully I will have some success tomorrow so we can get everything settled within the next week! Then all the madness will be over.

Wish me luck!

<3, Charlotte

Weekend getaway

Sorry I've been MIA for basically a week now. YIKES, it definitely HAS been a week. I was away from NYC from Wednesday until Sunday night, and last night I was just TOO DEAD to write any posts. So now I will make up for it!

For the 4th of July, I left New York and headed to Boston. I had never been, so I was reallyyy excited! My friend from high school went to BU and still had her apartment there, and a lot of her friends were around. It. Was. Awesome. Despite the fact that it was basically 100 degrees and crazy sunny, I had an amazing time! Boston likes to party, and I loved the city. :) Next time I go back to visit my friends who are working there, I am definitely going to stay for longer!

View from my friend's deck. Unreal.

After the Fourth, my friend picked me up and drove me and one of my other friends (both from college) to his lake house in Maine. It was honestly the most beautiful place I have ever been to in my life. Never had I been around that much nature! In the Chicago suburbs, people have lake houses and boats on little man-made things (I canNOT call them lakes now that I have seen the real thing), but they absolutely fail in comparison.

We spent all of Friday night, Saturday, and some of Sunday morning just hanging out on the lake and being outside. It was a MUCH NEEDED break from the real world. I only checked my phone about 3 times a day when I was up there (partially because of the bad service, but mostly because we were just outside enjoying nature and each other's company). I have not been off the grid for that long in a while!

My friend's mom made us SO MUCH FOOD. I really haven't talked that much about it, but I'm so poor, it's starting to affect my eating. Soooo not healthy, but a lot of days I will survive off of getting a bag of chips for lunch ($.75 beats a $10 salad). And my typical dinner isn't that substantial either, so I haven't been eating that much quality food. Well, EVERYTHING in Maine was homemade, down to coleslaw. I ate so much one night that I threw up! (And then kept eating after...) I left his house with a full tummy and a nice tan.

Needless to say, the entire Fourth of July weekend was a smashing success! I can't believe that's my last break until Labor Day now...

<3, Charlotte

I worked out tonight! (and I'm still alive)

In case you were wondering, this is a stairmill.

You heard it here first, folks. I officially had my first NYC workout. True, I only ran 1.10 miles and climbed 41 flights of stairs on the stairmill, but it felt awesome.

I am having a slight problem with my gym membership, though. I belong to the YMCA in Chicago. Well, my family does - we have a family membership. It is supposedly supposed to be good nation-wide. And it is, I guess. If you count 10 passes A YEAR to be considered nation-wide access.

I suppose it does make sense, it would honestly be too good to be true if all Y members could access all facilities around the country, but this sucks now because I need to find a cheap gym that I can belong to after I've used all the passes up.

Never would I think that being healthy could be so hard!

<3, Charlotte

Eurotrip Shmurotrip

So a lot of my friends are going on trips around Europe right now, or around Asia, and I am conflicted as to how I feel about not going on one. Of course, this could all just be because one of my friends is updating his photostream AS WE SPEAK, and I am seeing pictures of everyone frolicking around Paris having an amazing time. AND I keep seeing their Vines on my feed. While I am stuck doing my vehicle emissions test and packing up my room in Chicago, they are backpacking to places I can only dream of seeing one day!

I had the opportunity to go, but I chose not to because I wanted to start my career ASAP. Thinking back on that decision, it sounds absolutely psychotic! Why would anyone choose to skip a trip to Europe to begin the rest of their life, something they will be stuck with forever?

Because I've been dreaming about this life since I was 15.

I honestly cannot wait for Saturday! This industry, this company, New York City, I WANT IT! I can go to Europe at any time, but this opportunity that I have been given does not come around often. I am so ready and excited for the rest of my life to begin!

T-3 days...or is it 2?

Ugh, I never know how to do countdowns.

<3, Charlotte

Sweet home Chicago

We made it! DC to Chicago is always a struggle, but this time I slept for a decent amount of the drive. Success!

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="448"] An extreme exaggeration, but this is what my life is right now. YIKES[/caption]

It will be nice to be able to see a few of my friends who are staying in Chicago for their careers, but I also have a lot of cleaning and throwing-away-of-old-clothes to do (my parents are going to sell our house and I need to eliminate a lot of extra crap that I no longer need). I honestly don't know how I have become such a pack-rat, but I am really a simple person and don't need a lot of the clothes that I think I may wear one day. NO. Newsflash: if I haven't seen a piece of clothing  in more than a few weeks, chances are I'll never wear it. This maybe mentality is going to one day lead to me becoming a hoarder - I CANNOT let that happen!!

So that is what these next few days will amount to. Oh, and I need to start working out again. THAT is the first thing I will do tomorrow morning! OY, I'm going to need all the luck I can get.

<3, Charlotte

UPDATE: Move-in Part 1 = Success!

Today, we officially moved all of my things into my summer apartment! I'm so happy that my parents approved of the place I picked out ALL BY MYSELF. Big girl moment over here!

We drove up to NYC  today, moved everything in, then drove back to DC to end the night. So, there you have it, it is my last night in DC. Right now. I'm feeling so many emotions right now it's unreal. Sadness mixed with excitement mixed with nerves - I'm just trying to take it all in and appreciate the opportunity I have been given (sidenote: the job starts in a week!).

Tomorrow, we are DRIVING back to Chicago from DC. KILL ME NOW. My dad claims it to be 10 hours but bullshit, it's 11 or 12. Ugh, it is going to be rough. Over the course of today and tomorrow, I will have been in the back seat of a car for 20 hours. Yikes, should definitely not have verbalized that!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="512"] Oh, the back seat of a car. Why do I have to spend so much time here?[/caption]

Welp, getting up at 5am tomorrow morning for the drive, so I'm turning in early (of course, not without watching a few episodes of Dexter first, streaming online now - I LOVE HAVING INTERNET AGAIN!).

Wish me luck!

<3, Charlotte

Where should my allegiances lie?

You may be thinking that this post will be about friends or family, or something really meaningful to my career. But it is really about so much more than that.

Sports.

The teams we align ourselves with tell so much about who we are. For example, the fans who root for the teams that always win - I personally think that this is taking the easy way out. It is the fans that, for some reason or another, have decided that they want to root for a team like the Chicago Cubs, the lovable losers, who are out of the playoffs by 11 games this far into the season. (I use this example because, having grown up in Chicago, I am a die-hard Cubs fan). Enduring the pain of getting their hopes up every year, only to get crushed yet again. The pain of being a fan.

Moving to New York, I am somewhat conflicted as to what sports teams I want to call "my own". I absolutely LOVE Chicago sports. The Bulls, Bears, and Cubs are teams that I will forever love and be happy to have been a part of. But sports also bring people together. If I am living in NYC, I want to be able to unite with my fellow New Yorkers and go nuts for my city! But is it terrible for me to give up all my Chicago teams just because of relocating?

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="344"] He just needs to be my best friend.[/caption]

As of now, I feel like I will root primarily for New York teams (obviously only picking 1, I can't root for 2 football teams or 2 basketball teams!), but Chicago will be my second favorite. Sooooo, I am going to be a Giants fan during football season (sorry Bears, I will always love you). When basketball season comes around, I am going to cheer for the Knicks (although this is going to be REALLY hard. Joakim Noah is my favorite basketball player right now. Seriously. I am SO TORN about this!). And baseball. Honestly, I have never really been a fan of the sport. It is cool though because one of my best friends is going to be working for the Boston Red Sox soon (an UNREAL job, right?! I am so proud!). I feel like that is the team I should ultimately root for - it is great that they have such a strong fan base like the Cubs have. Red Sox fans are so strong and determined to stand by their team. My New York baseball team will be the Yankees, I think. The Mets seem lame, but I do hate being the fan of a team that is always good. WHERE IS THE HEART, PEOPLE?!

I'm not one of those insane sports fans, but I really enjoy the camaraderie that sports provide (after all, I was a swimmer in college for 1 year), and posting up at a sports bar all day and watching games is something that I love to do. For now, the Giants, Knicks, and Yankees are my temporary choices, but who knows? A lot can change when I am adapting to New York life!

<3, Charlotte