Bye Bye 2008!

2008 was probably one of the most important years for me. For one, I graduated and survived 4 years of what I call hell and what others call high school. It's almost like 2004-2008 can be grouped into one long ass year because that's sure as hell what it felt like most of the time. But with my liberation from hell came my introduction to heaven. This fall I made one of my dreams come true and moved to New York City and became apart of the Fordham University @ Lincoln Center family and I couldn't be happier. I know that through the grace of God that so much more is in store for me in 2009 and in the years to become. I'm so excited for the future and I can't wait to take it on so '09 better be ready! haha...But ne way...I thought I would just go ahead and follow my girl Solo-Star...aka Solange Knowles and put out my list for things in '08...so here goes

Fave Movies of 08 (in no order)

Dark Knight

Wanted

Fave Albums (in no order)

Sol-Angel & The Hadley St. Dreams

I Am...Sasha Fierce

Hard Candy

Spring Awakening Soundtrack

FAVE SONGS

Disturbia by Rihanna

Single Ladies by Beyonce

4 Minutes by Madonna

Turn Me Off by Keri Hilson

A Milli by Lil Wayne

Teenage Love Affair by Alicia Keys

Circus by Britney Spears

God Given Name by Solange

Fuck the Industry by Solange

Count to Ten by Tina Dico

BB Good by The Jonas Brothers

Love in This Club pt. II by Usher

Live Your Life by T.I.

Paper Planes by M.I.A.

Sincerely Jane by Janelle Monae

Genie 2.0 by Christina Aguilera

A few of my fave things this year

Graduating High School

Beginning College

Moving to NYC

Seeing Beyonce Twice within a month

Spring Awakening

Storming Times Square on Nov. 4th - Barack Obama!

A few things that can stay in ‘08 (in my book…but hey, I don’t have a
publisher:)

Bush

Auto Tune

Senseless acts of violence (Mumbai, Santa Killer, Gaza, Crazy ass man
in Austria… too many to name)

The Recession

Dirty Ass People

High Gas Prices

Excuses

This Entire List haha!

Alright Well That's It...See Yall in '09! BE READY!!!

Remove Yourself

Sometimes we can get into situations that we may be able to control, and sometimes we can't control them. But what we can control is how we handle the situation and how we go about removing ourselves from it.

I know that there are times when we feel like a certain situation that we are in is good for us, even though we know it isn't. This makes removing ourselves from the problem that much harder. For example, there are people out there who get in with a certain crowd that provides a great social atmosphere, but this particular crowd isn't conducive to that person's overall well being. That's when we have to take the bold step to remove ourself from the situation.

I recently was forced to put up with something that was out of my control. I don't wanna get into details, but throughout it all, I remained calm and made the best of it. However, I did everything within my power to make sure that I could remove myself from the situation as soon as possible. Needless to say, everything worked out for the best and I couldn't be happier.

So even if its hard and even if you feel like your abandoning someone or something by doing so, if you know that the situation that you are in isn't good for you, you have got to remove yourself from it because 9 times out of 10, the grass will be greener on the other side.

Be The Best You That You Can Be

So I'm one of those people who is an absolute perfectionist when it comes to things regarding my own person. I believe that with everything I do, whether it concerns my grades, my physical appearance, or my music, that I have to do it in an impeccable manner, and I believe that we all should be like that. On a day to day basis I see people who are going through life never feeling good enough...for anything. And I think that in most cases, their problem is that they never feel good enough for themselves. I'm not sure exactly where this comes from, but I am sure as to how it can be fixed. SEE TITLE. That's right, we all should strive to be the best person that we can possibly be, and this goes for EVERYTHING that we do.

First, I think that at some point we all have to realize that we are not living our lives to satisfy other people. Being the best YOU possible is all about satisfying yourself. Once you are satisfied with who you are, everything else will surely fall into place.

Take me for example. Over the past few years I've grown to be a fitness and health fanatic in the pursuit of obtaining the best possible physical appearance. This sounds superficial until you understand my motivations. In no way am I trying to get a hot bod to impress other people or attract girls, I want to a hot bod to impress myself. Just knowing that I'm working to have the best physical appearance possible for me, is all the satisfaction that I need. Like I said, I'm a perfectionist and my physical pursuits are all about how I feel about myself, not about how other people feel about me. This is one of the reasons that I'm inspired by models so much. They work so hard to maintain their amazing bodies and it's not an easy thing to do. Yes, they do what they do for their job, but it's so much more than that. When someone like a model is that dedicated to their appearance in a healthy way, their motivation comes not just from knowing that they will look good in front of the whole world, but it really comes from them knowing that they will look good in front of themselves when they are at home alone, and they look in the mirror.

This is key. What it comes down to is how we feel about ourselves and how we see ourselves when we look in the mirror. If when you look in the mirror, you love the person that you are or the person that you are becoming, GREAT! You know exactly what I'm taking about. But if when you look in the mirror and you don't like the person staring back at you, or you notice something about yourself that could be better...CHANGE IT! And don't stop until the good is great and the better is best.

This, I believe is one of the ways that we find true happiness. We have to find it within ourselves. This is why I say Be the Best you That You Can Be. If you know that you're being your absolute best, you're guaranteed to love who you are.

So Why Am I Doing This???

Well that's a good question to ask, and to be quite honest, I'm not even sure what the answer to that question is. Before I started this blog, I asked myself that question, "What Do I Feel that I Have to Say?" And the answer to that question was, "I feel that I have a lot of experiences and knowledge about life in general that I can share with people." I guess I've always felt as if my life experiences could help people with their situations, whatever they may be. I also find that whenever I give people advice, sometimes they listen and sometimes they don't. But it has been a recurring trend that when someone doesn't take my advice, they end up wishing that they had, and when they do take it, they are always coming back for more.

I'm only 18, so obviously I'm not saying that I've had all the life experience that there is to have. And I'm definitely not saying that I know everything. I will however say that I've had a good deal of life experiences, both good and bad, and I've always seemed to come out on the fortunate end. In no way am I trying to tell anyone how they should live their lives, but I do think that many people could learn something from the things that I've learned. Who knows? Maybe I'll even change your life! :)

So...Here Goes!