Day 21 & 22: Orientation & Making Friends

Thursday was an awesome day because of the fact that it was my Graduate School Orientation at UMBC. I was really excited to go and make friends. It started at 2PM, so I wanted to get there around 1:45-ish to make sure that I would make it in time so I can mingle and try to make friends. I really want to make friends at UMBC since everyone that I knew graduated. I know two people one is working full time and the other is in his own Ph.D program... so yeah. I am trying to make new friends especially with the people in the Education Program.

I got there around 1:45PM, I thought it started at 1:30... so I thought I was late, but I checked in and got my name tag, I got papers and a drawstring bag from the GSA. I waited for the campus tour, but no one wanted to talk to me. I also realized that my last name was not write on the name tag. It was "Truing" so I went to the check in and asked whether this was a permanent thing. They apologized and said that they copied it from what I wrote my registration sign up. So it was me. I wrote my own last name wrong. After 25 years of having the same name, I still can not manage to write my last name correctly. Life Lesson: Always proofread everything you type, especially your name.

The orientation was great, I needed up meeting a few people and wanting to be more involved with UMBC's GSA. I met a few people in the Education Program, which was great. I even gave someone I met there a ride home. It wasn't until we got to my car that I thought, "I don't know this person very well. They could murder me." So I brought my cell phone to the front just in case. I think have a stranger danger problem, the problem is that I don't have stranger danger. I believe in people and the good within them. Luckily, the person I took him was a nice guy nothing bad happened and he even friend requested me. I panicked a little over nothing. Am I the only one that does this though? I want to help people in need as much as I can. I have been trying to be as nice as possible and I feel like sometimes that is crazy hard.

Friday was a very fun and chill day. I started to get ready to go home for the weekend. I was able to work at Brickz for Kids that day too. We were teaching Robotics which was super cool. The kids made a claw and programmed the claw to open and close. It was really interesting. I was talking to one of the instructors (who is 17 years old) who told me that I need to get a hobby and stop working so much. I told him in order to get a hobby I needed money. He suggested instrument, cooking and streaming TV. I laughed at the last two since I need to cook to survive as I stream everything. I guess when you are 17, you don't understand the struggles of life and there is the cushion of your parents and of home. Oh yeah, he even asked me if I was going to go clubbing. I SUPER laughed at that one. Hilarious. I wish I was back to being 17, I miss it.

After work, I made plans to eat Bon Chon with a sorority sister from Dallas who was in town for a residency interview. She didn't have a car and was in Downtown Baltimore so I offered to pick her up before we got dinner. Young met us there and we ate a large combo of soy garlic and some spicy with two orders of fries and kimchi. It was delicious. I got a coke since I knew it was going to be a long night of driving. After we went to Shilla's Bakery to get some dessert, but we were all too full to eat it. So we just sat and chatted. It was nice.

Today, MLK day, I went grocery shopping with my cousin Vicky to get a reign on my spending. I am happy to day I only spent $30 on a weeks worth of food. I was really proud of myself. I think she did really help me and the fact that I am not spending that much time at the house this week since I will be going to Georgia over the weekend.

Day 16 & 17: To Do Lists Help A Lot

I started on Wednesday waking up and making a To Do List for the day to keep me busy and see what I need to do with my life. I tried to do it on my wall calendar desk organizer? It has a cork board, monthly calendar, weekly calendar, and a white board. The To Do list was harder to see, so I started to use post its. I think it really helps to sit and think about what I want to accomplish in a day.

Thursday's To Do List was:

• Work out with Young for 30 minutes
• Laundry
• Pack for New York
• Get 3 gift bags
• Update agenda for sorority phone conference
• Update budget sheet

I was able to accomplish everything but the gift bags. I did not feel like leaving the house on Thursday; it was just too cold to leave the house. 

As I was putting my thrift store finds into the laundry, I noticed that one of the dresses I bought had a broken zipper, luckily I only paid about $2 for the dress, so I did not feel terrible to throw it away. One of the pants has a hem on the leg that is coming lost, which I can sew. After finishing the laundry, I started to pack for my weekend trip to NY for my sorority's national conference. 

I am not a fan of NY, it confuses me and I am just... yeah not a fan. Everything is crowded and overpriced in my mind. Plus going to the conference I have to dress in business casual and before Wednesday's thrift trip, I had only about 3 things that were business casual. I just don't like dressing up, it makes me feel comfortable since that is not who I am. It is not my style. 

After packing everything, I started to work on sorority things for my phone meeting at 9PM. I was starting to make sure that I had everything in order. 

When Young came home, we were going to do a work out. She wanted to try out a PopSugar workout. We tried this one: 

Pop Sugar's 30 Minute Bootcamp Work out

This work out killed Young and myself. My legs were shaking after and it was just an intense workout. I suggest if you are on a budget and want to work out from home, PopSugar or Youtube in general is a great way to go. 

After the work out I had to get on the phone meeting, I am going to be honest and say that I am not the best person to be on the phone with since I just side tracked about halfway through the call and start thinking about something else or doing something else. So while on the call, I was updating my budget sheet. I do it on Google Drive Sheets. This is what it looks like: (This was updated today which is why it has NY stuff on it.) 

I am clearly spending above my means right now. I need to really start working... 

But I feel like since I started doing this I can really see where my money is going... and I waste a lot of my money on things, and I spend way too much on groceries. But I think I am going to try and do this throughout the year to keep myself in check. 

After my phone meeting and some facetime with my mom, Young, Hyman, Sarah (Hyman's lady friend) and myself hungout. We ended up watching the Raid, this is definitely one of my favorite action movies. It is just amazing fight scenes and enough gore for me that it isn't too much. Everyone seemed to like it and wanted to watch the 2nd one. 

Friday was the day I was going to NY, so I asked Young to drive me to the train station. My train was leaving the BWI station at 6:33PM. I was going to meet a friend on a train, she was coming form Union Station, so she was able to save me a seat next to her. 

Before leaving for the weekend, I wanted to make sure that food was all eaten before the weekend. I also wanted to make sure not to spend too much money over the weekend. I luckily did not spend any money on food since my sorority paid for the lunch on Saturday and the hotel has free breakfast. To reduce on travel expenses, I packed 2 PB&J sandwiches, 2 clementines, 4 chewy bars, and a bag of Cheez Its. I did not have to eat on Friday night since I had a large meal in the afternoon at home. This really ended up saving me a lot since I only spent about $32.36 in NY and that was just taxi. I did not spend any money on food which is really expensive in NY. 

I am not sure if I was being frugal this weekend or just a cheapskate because on Saturday night I did  not do anything in the city. I ended up getting a free chipotle burrito so I ate that in my room and went to bed at like 9PM. It got me a grandma label by my fellow national board members, but I was the only person super refreshed on the entire weekend. I just love me some sleep. 

Day 15: First Time Thrifting

Wednesday started off really casual and chill. I didn't have to do cook at all which was really nice so I just started off my morning relaxed with an easy breakfast of leftovers. I had the leftover green smoothie that Young made the night before, pesto pasta, chicken, and cabbage.

I am starting to realize that I don't like to eat heavy dinners or sweet breakfasts. So I am trying to have my heaviest meal be either breakfast or lunch, while dinner is rather light. I am definitely trying to have veggies and protein with each meal. A lot of either. 

After finishing my sorority stuff my emailing it to be printed, which ended up taking about an hour. I decided to work out I did three different PopSugar workouts: I did a 10 minute Cardio Barre, 10 minute Tabata, and Pilates Inner Thigh work out. It was like 30 minutes which was great. I showered and started to get ready to meet Young for my first thrifting shopping trip. If you haven't seen her blog yet, it is a fashion blog about shopping smartly. She has an awesome wardrobe and she gets everything affordably. 

So I went to meet Young at the Salvation Army Thrift Store which is about 20 minutes away from our house. Since I am on a major budget due to my lack of income, complete lack of income this week especially, I told myself that I could not spend more than $10 on an individual item and no more than $50. Young told me that her goal was always to spend less than $30 each visit. We spent an hour and a half in the store looking for clothes for each other. I will say that Young has a better fashion sense than I do, she loves prints, patterns, and colors. I love stripes, and black or grey. We have different tastes, but it made shopping with each other very fun and interesting. I getting up leaving the store with 2 pairs of Ann Taylor pants, two dresses, 1 panda tee shirt, 2 sweaters, 1 button down and 1 3/4 sleeve shirt. I was hoping to find a half zip sweater, but maybe next time I will find it. I ended up spending 31.40 in total, which was way under my budget and I went home with a ton of clothing. Luckily on Wednesdays, the thrift store is 50% off, which really reduced a lot of the clothing. I think it was funny that Young was searching for more casual clothing since she has mostly business attire. I was looking for more business attire since all my clothing is casual. 

I think I was especially not willing to pay too much for the clothing since I paid for school that morning and cried a little as I was paying for it. For my first time thrifting, I really liked it. I learned to better inspect the clothing since one of the dress's zipper was broken and a pair of pant's hem was coming apart. The hem can be easily fixed, but I threw the dress away, sadly. I would definitely go away with a better view and mindset about the whole ordeal. I am actually going to a conference this weekend and I will be wearing a lot of the clothing I got to the conference, so I am especially happy that I didn't have to waste a bunch of money to get clothing. 

When Young and I went home, Hyman was home too and wanted to each dinner together. So we each started preparing our dinner. I had vanilla yogurt with berries and Honey nut Chex for dinner. It was delicious. I was trying to have little to no carbs for dinner. We sat and talked during dinner, but then Hyman had to leave to take care of his business. 

Young and I cleaned up and watched Horrible Bosses 2 since we watched the first one the night before. 

Day 7/8: New Year's Eve Party

I came back to the house on the eve of New Year's Eve aka December 30th in the evening. Thank goodness my housemates were home because I had so much stuff it was like I was moving again. I brought a printer, my clean laundry, two pots, wok pan, two crates of clementines, case of Honey crisp apples, six water bottles, instant noodles, over the door hooks, laundry supplies, Ziploc bags, Sperrys, L.L. Bean boots, and Chromecast. I brought all these things back, but totally forgot important things like: trash can, sharpies, dry erase markers, and the most important thing I forgot was my laptop charge. As I am writing this, I am on 22% and going down. I am willing to risk it to update the blog.

I am so thankful for Young who helped me carry all my stuff in and organizing it in the kitchen. Hyman helped me bring the stuff from the living room to the kitchen. They are both great for helping me carry my things into the house and around the house. Hyman, Hyman's lady friend, and Young hung out in the kitchen for about an hour talking about our Christmases and mutual friends. Around 11PM, Hyman's lady friend went home and we continued talking until about 2:30AM. It was nice, I feel like they missed me.

On New Year's Eve, I woke up around 11AM. Young and I made plans to work out, go grocery shopping, and prepare for friends coming over for New Year's Eve. I started cleaning my bathroom when Young came upstairs to see if I wanted to work out. We did Turbo Fire's Fire 30 and a Daily HIIT work out that she had. It was intense, I am started feeling sore by that night. My legs were heavy and sore. After the work out, we got ready to go shopping at Safeway, Bed Bath and Beyond, and the liquor store.

I made a list of the groceries we would need for the tacos for our potluck party and my groceries for the week. The total for the groceries was $150, I really need to start rethinking what I need for food and stop buying like I am feeding a family. I am feeding me. At Bed, Bath, and Beyond we got cookie sheets, liquid measuring cup, and cooking utensil rest. I love those 20% coupons from BB&B, they never expire and you can use as many as you want during your purchase.

Around 5PM, Young was hungry and cooked us some lunch. As she was doing that I was prepping for the tacos by dicing the tomatoes. I was going to shred the lettuce, but as I was opening it I realized I bought cabbage instead of iceberg lettuce. So I had to go back to the store, which I did after making chocolate chip cookie batter. Young was nice enough to come back with me as I picked up bell peppers, cumin, and the much needed lettuce. It was about 7PM when we got back from the 2nd shopping trip. The guests were coming by 8PM, so I needed to get into gear cooking the tacos. Young made guacamole for the first time and she did a great job. The taco bar seemed like a great idea, I think that everyone enjoyed it and we have supplies for another taco night if needed or a burrito night. This was my first time making tacos. They all seemed to like it, I wish I gotten more taco sauce to mix in with the ground turkey.

We had about 4 people came over. They brought pasta dish, pie, and alcohol... lots and lots of alcohol. They seemed to like the tacos and pasta. It was a chill night of talking, listening to music and watching the TV once it was midnight. I didn't turn the TV onto the right channel so we didn't see the ball drop.

I kept making a joke to Young about how when it was 12:01AM everyone had to go, but they actually did leave by that time minus one closer friend. She stayed until about 2-3AM. Young and Lacey (our close friend and sorority sister) forbid me from cleaning the taco bar since they wanted a midnight snack. It took me and Young about an hour of on and off cleaning to get the kitchen back to where it was. It didn't seem like there was a party at all.

I hope that you all are having a great new year. Are you guys making any resolutions or goals? I am going to make goals for this year, but more about that tomorrow.

Day 3: Eating Like a Poor College Student

I woke up and started to clean my bathroom since... well I blew it up. It was disgusting. But I gave it a good scrub and deep cleaning, under the toilet rim and in my shower. It was super satisfying to shower in my bathroom. I felt clean and the place felt super clean.

After cleaning it was breakfast time, so I cooked my ground turkey and made myself a oatmeal pasta bowl. It was great, but looked like a mushed mess.

I came up to my room to blog, put my face on, and get ready for my training. I went to an Elementary school as part of my new position as a Teacher for Brickz for Kids. I am really excited about the job. I just did not feel that confident about myself and the position. The person I trained with did not seem to like our boss and did not have control of the children. I was worried that it would all be like that, and I do not do well with chaos.

I went there from about 2:45 util 5:00PM, I was so hungry when I got home that I sat and watched CSI:NY as a crushed a half bag of carrots, greek yogurt, and cottage cheese.

I came up to my room and hung out solo for a while until my housemates came home around 6-7PM. We all had dinner together. They had their leftovers and I had a bowl of honeynut chex with almond milk. Hyman made a comment about my cereal and offered me some of his food, it made me feel like I was so poor. Haha. But I know it was out of a good place, but it kicked me into a new place that I should be eating better. I am eating like I am a poor person. I don't really eat any veggies with my meals. I am eating them as a snack. That is not how my meals should be going.

I guess for me it is conflicting since I will only be here for a week. I want to make the most of my food so I am trying to make sure that I don't get anything that will spoil or that I can finish in a week.


My idea is to start planning for a week, making sure that I plan all my meal and all the ingredients for the week. This is my first step to becoming an independent adult: planning and buying my groceries for the week.

What are some recipes or weekly planning tips anyone can give me? It would really help me out a lot. I was looking into Rachael Ray's 3 meals in a day recipes. But I am just worried about starving.