Late Night Music Find: Dancing in the Dark

I've had Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springsteen stuck in my head for the longest time. I was looking at the wikipedia article for it and saw Laura Marling did a cover of it with Eddie Berman. If you haven't heard of Laura Marling, I hope this is a good starting point for you. She's very good, and I highly recommend her.

Edit:
If you liked their version, you can get the song for free simply by liking Eddie Berman on Facebook. :) (Nothing beats free music from the musicians themselves!)

Bubbles Burst: Adult Life Begins?

A wonderful sweet card from my dear friend, Liz!

So where were we.... oh right, I finished college like a month ago (what the WHAT?!?). I graduated, and after a couple of small things I'm in the process of doing, I will be a happy person with a Bachelors of Science in Bioengineering and a Bachelors of Arts in German Literature and Language. It's all quite really strange to be honest, but nothing that isn't too out of the ordinary for most of my peers now.

I mean... here's a picture of the back of my head. But I mean, the pineapple on my cap is worthy of an A+ and should be featured on Psych's fan page. 

What was strange was the month gap I had between my internship with the State of New Hampshire Public Health Lab and graduation. During that time I was in a bubble. I managed to accomplish some small house projects, completely redid my closet, watched a ton of soccer, and sleep a ton. While it was great doing that for the first two weeks, it got repetitive and I felt like I was missing something. At first, it felt like I was just out of place at home, seeing as how I've spent the majority of the last four years in New York, surrounded by friends that I've had since freshman year. But there was definitely more to that.
It's so easy to say "Oh, right now, I want to take a break and see where I can go." It's another thing to actually take that time to do some soul searching and just freak out because you don't know what to do or why you decided a break was a good idea in the first place. Needless to say, I figured out a temporary plan for the immediate future, and hopefully it'll set the groundwork for whatever I choose to do soon.

Clearly the antics of a college graduate. Also, why does my camera insist it is 2006?

However, nothing is set in stone and whatever does in the future, I am certain happens for the best. So on that note, congratulations to all the graduates of 2014- high school, college, whatever else there is. Whatever you've just accomplished- it only is the beginning. :)

xoxo
Sheilly

Clean(er) Eating

I am in love with food, and just want to taste anything and everything I can. I'm constantly watching the Food Network, and am in love with reading food blogs. After going off the meal plan on campus two years ago, I decided I wanted to cook as much as I could- while still maintaining school and other life obligations. And I've succeeded for the most part on those counts, by perfecting certain dishes and working on newer and more exciting palettes.

However, there's a discrepancy in what I eat, and how I lead my life. As someone who isn't the most active person, I tend to eat tons of junk food. If I can put cheese in a meal, I probably will. Pasta dishes are a weekly- even daily- occurrence. And we won't discuss cookies. (I'm practically the cookie monster.) It's definitely difficult to eat healthier, especially when a lot of the things I enjoy eating are more appealing to my really unhealthy eating habits.

(This is an all too common occurrence...)

I've never been a big fan of going on diets. While I say I can live off of salad, I really truly can't, and find myself reaching for a bag of potato chips maybe an hour after a salad. This being said, I think I've slowly started to transition to healthier/cleaner eating habits. Incorporating salads as a side to a meal, cutting back on baking cookies, and simply having more fruit has helped a ton.

However, I feel that since I'm training for a small run, and will soon be incorporating more running into my daily life, eating like I have been will not be suitable. (I mean, how many runners do you know will douse their cheesecake in whipped cream?) So while this change will be difficult, it'll be for the good in the long run.

Ideally, I would definitely follow a clean eating model, where you eat a ton of fresh and non-processed food, that lifestyle is too intense for me. I need my chocolate cookies, and Ben and Jerry's ice cream for those nights where I put off writing a history paper. I want to be able to eat healthier, without sacrificing too much of what I already eat. I've decided to work with portioning, and resizing meals. So if I'm going to make a pasta dish, I will make sure that I have double the size of salad I eat than the amount of pasta I eat. I won't eat chips and dip while marathoning How I Met Your Mother. (The struggle will be very real.) Small changes in my life will help me get into a healthier state. So naturally I typed them up, and signed my name (and made my roommate do it too).

(Framed in neon pink tape, and posted on Instagram for more serious guidance?) 

Let's see how long this lasts right? (It'll last I'm sure.)
Sheilly

And I Will Run 5 Kilometers, and I Can't Walk 5 Meters More after that.

I'm running a 5k guys!
And by that I mean, I'm training to run a 5k called the Ladies Night Out Run hopefully on June 21st!

More information on the run here!

I was supposed to start training this week, but I ended up getting a nasty bout of allergies or a cold midway through the week. At the moment, I know I can do about 2.87 miles in about a half hour on a treadmill. However, it's not an easy task for me, and my legs became boneless for the rest of the day. (You know that feeling when your legs just don't work, and just feel like jelly? That's the feeling of being boneless.)

Accurate representation of me after coming back from the gym.

(Source)

I got two of my friends involved in my this 5k program. My roommate (begrudgingly) will be training with me, although not to run the race. My other friend will actually be like my trainer and give me tips, and keep motivated throughout this program. I'm very excited to see where it goes, although I am also a bit nervous.

For anyone curious: I'm doing a mix of the couch to 5k training program and just regular gym goings. Once the weather in NY decides to clear up, and is a little warmer, I'm planning on running outside to increase my distance, but not speed.

Should be fun, and excruciating. YAY?
Sheilly

Hello Readers!

I'm back!

After last semester, I've really decided to come back to the blogging realm for good. Last semester was difficult with classes, and now I'm looking forward to continuing blogging, although a little differently.

Blogging and keeping an updated journal has been a bit difficult for me. As I've mentioned in the past, I hate hate HATE talking about the routine things I do, and often find myself annoyed at the fact that I don't have any thing interesting to share.

So far that, I am sorry. :)

However, right now 2014 has started, and I've got a couple of things on my plate.

• As of this Spring, I am double majoring (!!!!!) in German and Bioengineering. For my senior project for German, I'm bridging the gap between science and the German language. (More specifically the terminology used in Genetics and the terms used in the German language.) To keep myself on top of this project, and make sure I'm doing it in a timely place, I've decided to blog about my findings. I've found in the past, explaining why a certain topic is important in a research paper, I've found blogging and jotting down my ideas in a blog format to be very helpful. 
• It's my final semester here on campus at Stony Brook University. As happy as I am to graduate and go on with my studies elsewhere, I am sad to leave my friends. I've got some fun excursions and things planned with my friends that I'll be sharing here as a way to hold on to the memories for both myself and my friends. :)
• I'm also in the process of redo-ing my whole entire wardrobe. It's been a challenging experience, but a very happy one. I'm hoping to bring my style to this blog, and maybe help add to this blog. :)
• Last but not least, I'm writing a memoir for fun. While someday I hope to get published, at the moment it's very rudimentary. The memoir is full of silly life stories and is a huge side project. I have no timeframe for this project, but it's a silly side project that I'm happy to share with you. While I won't be posting entire parts of it here, I am hoping to add some excerpts here and there. 

Anyway, I'm glad to be back, and I'm ready to take this blog to a whole new level. Let's hope I keep up with it this time! (Really, let's hope!) 

And in case you didn't read all of that, or don't want to, here's a short summary in gif form: 

(How great was Benedict Cumberbatch's photobomb?)

XO, 

Sheilly