Where my Head is at

I apologize in advance. This post is long and not very well thought out aka scatterbrained. I did not sit down and anticipate writing about all this, but this is what came out. If you get to the end, CONGRATS! I am so thankful for ALL my readers and welcome ANY advice you may have! Now, without further adieu....

4 years ago I was a 17 year old girl getting ready to enter the college world. I still wasn't old enough to legally sign papers with my parents, yet I thought I had my whole life figured out. I was gonna complete 2 years of undergrad, go straight into pharmacy school, and graduate in 2013 with a Pharm.D.

Funny how things work out. Turns out that getting A's in college is MUCH harder than in high school, and even though I told myself I was gonna work hard now that my classes actually mattered *haha* my grades still weren't good enough. I am now finishing up a degree that was only supposed to be a stepping stone, and flippantly decided to add a minor to (a) buy some time and (b) I came to the conclusion that jobs I could maybe want have nothing to do with my major

I'm not going to go through the whole story of why pharmacy school didn't work out, or how it took me 3 years to discover this (I'm sure I wrote a post about this at some point, and if you REALLY wanna know all the deets, email me), but all I know is that I have put that on the list of things I do not wanna do anymore.

Here's the problem.....

I have absolutely NO idea what I want to do with my life

***Before you comment and say that I am young and have plenty of time to figure this out, at least read the rest of the post and see what I'm feeling.***

YES I know that I am only 21 years old and in the grand scheme of things that is young, but with my circumstances and surroundings I can't help but feel that I need to figure out some sort of direction. With the exception of 2 other friends who are also graduating in December, everyone else has graduated with their degree. While they might not have jobs right now, at least they know WHAT they wanna do. I DON'T!

I decided not to take a class this month in the hopes of "getting my life together", at least thats what I told everyone. When in fact I am more confused than ever as to where I am going or where I want to end up. It's so discouraging when I come across a career that I could potentially see myself doing, only to have to put that on the "not able to" list because I have already shot myself in the foot with my GPA. Yes I realize that I have no one to blame but myself for that one, but it's still hard when there is very little I can do about it now. And yes I could take classes and raise it, but it would essentially take an extra semester taking hard science classes and making all A's, and by looking at my track record that just doesn't seem plausible.

Another reason I feel that I need to figure this out is the fact that I am graduating in December. Yes this does give me an extra semester essentially in the spring to firmly decide what I want but I have GOT to get the ball rolling on SOMETHING! I mean I need to decide if I need to take the GRE (which will probably happen) and start looking at post grad work or maybe I need to really delve into the job market and see what's out there.

I just feel like at this point in college I should have a general idea of what I would like to do. And I don't. And that's hard to say because to a lot of people I want to give off the notion that yes my life is put together and I'm doing ok. But in reality I feel like my life is in shambles. I have these random thoughts and careers bouncing around in my head and I feel like some are just so out there that I'm terrified of going for them. For some, it would essentially mean requiring a ENTIRE NEW degree and area of study. I DO NOT WANNA START ALL OVER AGAIN! But what if it meant finding what I really want to do?? I just don't know and I don't know how to find internships or jobs to explore these options.

If this post wasn't jumbled up enough as it is, here are some of the career ideas that I have been bouncing around....

• Cosmetic Chemist
• Genetic Counselor
• Sports Broadcaster
• Broadcast Journalist
• Retail Buyer
• Dermatological Physician's Assistant
• Forensic Chemist
• Pharmaceutical Rep
• SOMETHING in the beauty industry (but what??)
• Mariska Hargitay (haha just kidding!) or am I?!? ;)

haha that last one WAS a joke! This post needed some humor

So anyways as you can see my mind is all over the place. And about half of them require starting over so to speak. I would love to explore these options further, but I don't know how.

That is kind of why I wrote this post. I truly wrote it for a number of reasons

(a) because I feel like I have all these thoughts bundled up inside and I needed to put them SOMEWHERE

(b) maybe one day I can look back on this post and realize that hey I was a lot closer to figuring out my life that I thought (hey i can dream right?)

(c) to get input. I have met some amazing people through this blogging world and truly value the relationships I have developed. Which also means I value your opinion. Maybe by writing this out, someone would maybe know someone I could just email and talk to about their career or something. I don't know! Maybe YOU are in one of these industries and have some advice. I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR IT! I am open to anything at this point. Even if you know a website where I could look at jobs or internships or something.

So this is where my head is at right now. Like I said in the beginning, CONGRATS if you made it all the way through!! And again I value any and all advice you have. If you would rather email me (I LOVE email!) my email is

uscnmh {at} gmail {dot} com

Thank you so much for reading and sticking with this!

I love you all

xoxo

Recent Hauling

While I was taking my summer class, my days were consumed with formulas and titrations and frantically fitting all I could on a notecard the night before a test. Now that my class is OVER (and PTL I got a B!) I have more time for things I love...like shopping of course!

Here are some things I have picked up over the last couple weeks...

I actually went to a different Bath and Body Works again during their Semi-Annual sale from the haul I showed in the video and picked up just a couple more things. The sale is over but I went into B&BW yesterday and they still had a couple tables with things clearanced out.

Now that we have a Forever 21 in town its so hard for me to purchase jewelry anywhere else! This was a small purchase but I have already bought 5 other pairs of earrings and a couple rings.

Can you believe all these earrings only cost $4.80! Main reason I bought these is because I needed a pair of earrings to wear to work that wouldn't hurt my ears since I'm on the phone a large part of my day. The smallest balls will probably be too little but I'm excited to try the 2 larger options.

This is the first time I have bought anything beauty-related at Forever 21. I needed a light blue nail polish because I bought the OPI Last Friday Night from the Katy Perry collection, which is a the blue glitter polish. Unlike Last Friday Night from that collection, it is a very sheer glitter, so I bought this light blue polish to use as a base. Hopefully it will be a decent enough polish!

My mom and I recently took a day trip to Charlotte for some shopping and you know I had a list prepared for Sephora!! I didn't get as much as had planned (my mom doesn't quite understand my beauty obsession and I didn't wanna give her sticker shock!) but did get a few fun things!

This is my absolute most favorite lip balm!! If you can't read it, it's the Jack Black intense therapy lip balm in lemon and chamomile. At $7.50 it is a little pricier than drugstore lip balms, but I only use it at night right before I go to bed so 1 tube lasts me almost 6 months. My lips get really dry at night, especially in the winter, and this by far has given me the best results. If you look on Sephora.com they have a special duo thats only $10 for 2 of the full sized tubes (different flavors) so I definitely suggest checking these out!

I have been on the hunt for a "waterproof" eyeliner that actually stays on my water line. I have tried numerous drug store varieties and even the famous Urban Decay 24/7 pencil and nothing has worked. So while I was in Sephora I wanted to pick up a new option but didn't want to spend a ton of money. I quickly found out that most high end brands do not sell and black-brown eyeliner! They would have black, all the crazy colors, and a rich chocolate brown, but no black-brown. (I have the UD 24/7 pencil in Whiskey and the brown color just looks weird on me) So I decided for $9 I would try this Sephora pencil. Hopefully it has put an end to my search!!

The product I was MOST excited about purchasing was my NARS Laguna Bronzer! I bought a kit from Sephora way back during their friends and family sale that had a mini size of the Orgasm/Laguna duo. I always thought that I would fall for the Orgasm blush and would just toss the bronzer aside, but O NO MY FRIEND! This bronzer is amazing!!!

I quickly found out that NARS' Orgasm blush has quite a few drugstore dupes that are almost the exact same or very very similar, but I had been having a really hard time finding something like Laguna. The awesome thing about Laguna is that it has very little to no shimmer in comparison to the other bronzers I own. If you look in the pan it does have a little sparkle, but it barely shows up on the face. It's great for an all-over face application that will give you that great summer glow as long as you use a light hand. It's also great for contouring if you use a little bit more product. It is definitely pricey at $33 (probably the most I've spend on a single makeup product! **not including palettes**) but its a pretty good size and I never need to buy another bronzer!

As excited as I was about the bronzer, my Toms were by far my most favorite purchase of the day!!! I had heard very little about Toms until about a year ago when they quickly become popular on campus. I had seen all the different glitter pairs and fell in love! I'd been debating for a while now whether or not to get a pair (are they my style? would I really wear them?) but I finally bit the bullet and got the black glitter! The black is definitely the most subtle of the glitter options, so I figured I would get the most use out of them and would be able to wear them to work.

I wore them 2 days ago running around town and have to say they were pretty comfortable! The true test will be a long work day when I'm on my feet for 8 hours, so we'll see what I say then! But I so happy I decided to get them, and it's also great that a child in need will also be getting a pair of shoes!

So those are the things I have purchase over the last month or so. I'm trying my best not the spend too much money the rest of summer so I can save for bills (ugh!) and a potential big purchase later on!

Have you bought anything recently you just absolutely love??

Any recommendations on a truly waterproof eyeliner??

Hope yall are having a fabulous week! My June favorites post should be up in the next day or so!

xoxo

Natalie