Finals day 3

This week kind of sucks. It's been constantly raining, I have no motivation to do any studying, and I have lots to do. Add on other personal stuff and it just makes me want to drop everything and go home. I had my mythology exam yesterday and it went alright. I still can't get Theseus and Perseus straight but what's done is done. Tomorrow will be the hardest day. We'll see how I get on with that.

I saw someone posted about the web series Dorm Life and it made me extremely sad. Maybe a week or two before I came to school my freshman year some guy (who I ended up being friends with) posted on our Class of 2014 Facebook wall about it and I spent that whole night watching them all. I was obsessed. It was so funny and it made me so excited to go to college. Watching it now makes me so unbelievably nostalgic. I've been saying how much I'm done with being here when all I want is to be that freshman about to start school here. I want to go back so badly and relive almost everything. There might be one or two things I'd do differently.

Almost four years ago today is when I found out I didn't get into my #1 pick school. Man that day sucked so much. I thought I'd never be happy at any other school (#dramaqueen) and boy was I wrong. I loved it here. I'm really happy I didn't get into that school. Yesterday I thought I couldn't be sadder than I was then and then I thought back to that day four years ago. I was miserable but look how I turned out! Everything was fine and everything will be fine.

It will be ok. I'll be ok. We'll all be ok. In less than a week I'll be on a beach. I just need to keep thinking that. This seems like a good place to end this weird rant post ramble-y thing.

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

p.s. The song Recover by Chvrches is kind of a good explanation of how I'm feeling at the moment.

spring brush cleaning

It's fitting that this post is about washing makeup brushes because it's been raining all day. April showers, eh? As a sort of therapeutic procrastination activity I decided to clean my brushes. I usually do this every 2 weeks or so. I used to have a nice little spot cleaner from Sephora that I used more frequently but that ran out about two weeks ago so now I'm stuck with this method, which isn't so bad because it is a thorougher way of getting all of the leftover makeup off of the brush. It just takes a little bit of time.

I saw Allison from Amarixe use baby shampoo to clean her brushes and I saw we had some laying around so I said, "why not!" It works really well! This was the video she uploaded:



She has a really great YouTube channel. So if you didn't watch the video here are the basic steps!

1. Find your dirty brushes! This is half the battle! Most of my brushes are Real Techniques. The black one is from elf and it is amazing (and $3!). The brush with the wooden handle is from EcoTools. It is really nice for bronzer. 

2. Get your soap/shampoo/brush cleanser. This bottle has lasted me forever.

3. This is probably the most important step. While wetting the brush you should angle it down so no water goes into the brush where the glue is holding the bristles into place. That would ruin the brush. The water should be warm, not scalding hot.  

5. Put a few drops of your cleanser in your hands and swirl your brush around in it. Then rinse the cleanser out with warm water again.

This isn't the most confusing brush cleaning method in the world but it does a great job at giving the brushes a nice deep clean. One of my favorite things in the whole world is having clean makeup brushes. Ah, it's the little things. 

The last thing you should note about any sort of brush cleansing method is the way in which you dry the brush. Like first wetting the brush you should dry your brushes angled downwards. This either means hanging them upside-down if you can or drying them on an angle. I usually dry them on a folded towel. It works well. 

I hope no one washes away in this rain!

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

I don't want to study

Finals day 1: I took my Italian exam today. I think I did alright. I know for a fact I got a few problems wrong but I'm not too worried. On the past 4 quizzes I got over 90% so they'll help balance out my grade if I totally bombed the exam.

I felt pretty crappy all day. I don't really know why. Well, I sort of do. I didn't really eat too much and then I left the library to get food and I ended up eating too much. I guess that's how things go. I have an exam tomorrow morning for my Mythology class but studying for that is the last thing I want to do right now. I procrastinated a bit but I'm going to have to do something now. I might edit my second English paper or finish my Roman study guide. Ha, I'm going to procrastinate even more by studying. That's not so bad, right?

Ok, I'm going to go try and do work. Wish me luck.

Here's a cute little art history poster to get everyone in the mood for my upcoming art history finals. 

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

FINALS

Tomorrow starts finals week. I begin the week with my Italian final. I am pretty positive I will do great on everything except the material we just learned recently. I will probably not do so well on that. Next I have my mythology exam Tuesday, which I will probably get a B on. Finally, my last two exams are both on Thursday. Joy. I have my Roman final at 3:30 (I think) and my Asian art final at 7 (I know). They are going to be very hard.

I've been studying all day/errand running/making food to write a great post so you're all stuck with this one. It's going to be a hectic week but I am still going to post everyday. Some might be at 11:45 at night and some might be more around the middle of the day but a post will be written!

My sister is currently constructing my graduation announcements and they look so cool. I got a little preview not too long ago and I am really excited to see the end results.

That's about it for today. More to come tomorrow. Maybe something kewl.

Until then,

Caroline

I did it!

Today I ran my final! I ran the half marathon! It was tough though. I had a pretty bad blister on my left big toe and it burst while I was running. I took off my shoe when I got home and it was gross. I won't go into more detail. Although this running has messed up my feet maybe for life it was definitely rewarding. I feel better about myself after running. I think most people feel better about themselves after exercising. Because, you know, exercising gives you endorphins, endorphins make you happy, and happy people just don't kill their husbands. As long as I keep running, I won't be killing anyone. 

I took a picture of my watch after we were done running. I ran with my running buddy from class. Thank goodness for her. She and I are actually running twins. Or soul mates. Or sole mates...ha ha see what I did there? We run at the same pace, we don't mind silence (I learned to not mind so much), and we both wanted to get Gatorade after we ran. I am so thankful I randomly asked her and another girl to run with them in the beginning of the semester because that worked out so nicely. 

Ugh, I love this watch. I have to return it on Tuesday.

I'm not going to give up running now. I might take it easier for a bit but I want to keep this going. Before 2015 I want to run another half marathon. Or I guess I want to run my first official half marathon. 

I hope you had a good day. 

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

  

I am sort of Twitter famous

When I say I am sort of Twitter famous I actually mean not really famous at all. I just like to pretend that I am, sort of. I like to watch the Nationals every night and I like to tweet about the games. Sometimes I like to tweet to players (sometimes they respond and it is SO COOL) and sometimes I like to tweet to player's beards. The other day Jayson Werth was being interviewed after he helped us win over the Angels (which, is a super cool thing that we were playing the Angels, I won't go into that now) and he told the reporter something like, "We'll be back again tomorrow night!" So I went over to the Twitter and tweeted something like, "'We'll be back again tomorrow night!' - Jayson Werth, I think he meant himself and @JWerthsBeard". Jayson Werth's beard retweeted it and not too long after I had around 8 favorites and 5 new followers. I was tickled! I never get more than 5 favorites! I was on my way to becoming Twitter famous. 

Oh look, there's my Twitter handle! And what I actually tweeted! If there was some way to just tweet about the Nationals for a living I would totally be after that job. I'm going to look into this. I hope if I keep up the tweeting during games I'll be retweeted more and then more people will see and then MASN will see and be impressed and offer me a job and I'll be happy forever. Wouldn't that be perfect?

Well it's Friday and you know what that means...

Likes:

1. Stay With Me - Sam Smith

2. Devil Goat Day! 

3. The Needle Drop reviews

Dislikes:

1. Blisters

2. End of classes

3. Having no food in the apartment

I guess I should get some food. ALSO tomorrow morning I am running my half-marathon final exam. I'm so nervous but my running buddy said she would run with me so I am feeling a little more confident about this. I'll probably write all about it tomorrow!

Until then,

Caroline 

the end isn't here...but it's near

Tomorrow is my last day of classes before finals start. I can't believe it. I've been going to college for 8 semesters. Tomorrow marks the end of my undergraduate career.

Tomorrow also marks my last Italian class. I think it was a really good idea to take a second language. I wish I signed up for Italian right after I finished Spanish but can't really do anything about it now. I guess I'll save up to take classes at NOVA or someplace. Rosetta Stone? Live in Italy? Bueller? Bueller? It really helps how close to Spanish it is but there are still so many differences. I really love learning languages. Eh, well, I wrote an English paper not too long ago where I had to try and figure out Hebrew and that didn't turn out so well. Man, that is a confusing language. Kudos if you can wrap your head around it. I think I'll stick with the romance languages.

Tomorrow also means I have to start studying for finals. Studying? More like stuDYING, right??? Ha. It's going to be tough, and I'm going to not get a lot of sleep, and I'm going to cry the whole time. I say that like it's bad but I know I'm going to miss it. It is a bleh time but it's also kind of a fun time. Everyone is in the library, there's lots of coffee, people like to ask you how your studying is going!!! You know you secretly love it too.

Ok, well I have to get back to Italian homework. My last homework assignment. Aw.

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

life changing music

A few weeks ago Sam Smith was the musical guest on SNL and man oh man did he knock it out of the park with both songs. This guy has the voice of all the angels. I was reading some of the YouTube comments people were making about his performance of Lay Me Down and someone wrote "Some people were meant to do things." If that's not the truest statement ever made then I do not know what is. His other song Stay With Me has me totally smitten. I can't get enough of it. I think the last time I was so in love with someone's voice was when I heard Florence Welch for the first time. My friend put Cosmic Love on a mix CD for me and it was life changing. That's how I feel about Stay With Me by Sam Smith. It has changed my life for the better. My life is so much better because of this song.

After a bit of thought I've made a list of a few songs that have definitely changed my life like Sam's and Florence's (and a million honorable mentions). Yes, we are on a first name basis. Maybe these songs will affect you the same way they affected me. I actually really like this list because these songs have popped up at really different times in my life. I was in the 8th grade when I heard Your Ex-Lover is Dead for the first time (Thank you, The OC) and I was a sophomore in college when I heard Outro. Here is the list:

Sam Smith - Stay With Me



Stars - Your Ex-Lover is Dead



Florence + the Machine - Cosmic Love



M83 - Outro



Your Song (from Moulin Rouge! because it was the first time I ever heard it)


Honorable mentions include: Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) - Arcade Fire, Little Motel - Modest Mouse, Halo - Beyonce, Falling - Haim, Unbelievers - Vampire Weekend, Smile Like You Mean It - The Killers, Lisztomania - Phoenix, Bedshaped - Keane, the list could go on forever.

I'm going to take some time now and listen to all of these over and over again.

Until next time,

Caroline

makeup wishlist

So remember how I said I was super broke? Well, I still am! I also like to online shop (without buying anything, sheesh) and make myself very sad. It's a problem. I was looking on Nordstrom's website at the makeup and I found two things that I know will be mine one day.

The first is Dior's 'Addict Lip Glow' Color Reviver Balm - wow, this looks so cool. I've never tried any Dior makeup products but I've always heard rave reviews about everything. This balm seems right up my alley. I'm always on the lookout for the perfect "my lips but better" color and I think this might be it. The only downside I can tell so far...it's $32. Definitely not the first thing I will go out and buy when I get paid Friday unfortunately.

Where have you been all my life?

Second is the Clinique 'Chubby Stick' Shadow Tint for Eyes in Lots O' Latte - I am a big fan of any makeup product in this sort of packaging. It makes them easy to use and stays clean. All of those jumbo lip crayons? Love 'em. I've been really wanting a cream eyeshadow in this bronzy brown color and this looks perfect! It's not as unreasonably priced as the Dior balm (I guess that makes sense because it isn't Dior) but it's still pretty up there. One day, Clinique...one day. 

Get on my face.

That's what is currently on my makeup wishlist. Both things can be found at Nordstrom.com and if you really love me you'll get me both. Thanks.

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

 

My last term paper is due tomorrow

Tomorrow marks a big occasion. It is the due date of my very last term paper. Wow!!! I must have written a million of these things now. I've written about Velazquez, jade, Buddhist mandalas, the Italian Futurists, Mies van der Rohe, and so many other topics. This last paper is about urban development in early Imperial Rome. It's real fancy stuff. I think over the years at college I've definitely improved as a writer. Well, as a research paper writer that is. I'm not going to write too much more here because I actually have to get back to working on this Roman paper.

We'll see how late I stay up tonight.

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

Happy Easter!

It's finally Easter! My old roommate had her mom and younger sister come down to visit and she asked my roommates and me if we would put on a mini Easter egg hunt for her sister. It was a success for all parties. Her sister loved running around our courtyard finding the eggs while I loved sneaking candy from all of the eggs. Also, it was just a beautiful day all around. One egg in particular was a fun find. It looked like it had hatched after it was hidden!

If this isn't some sort of Easter miracle then I don't know what is! (haha funny Catholic joke)

My favorite YouTube beauty guru/vlogger extraordinaire Esteé posted day two of her #Vlogster series which was another fun Easter treat. She and her boyfriend (and her dog) helped return a lost dog to its owner! It was heartwarming. Ok, I have to stop watching videos today.

I hope everyone had a nice Easter!

Until tomorrow,

Caroline 

my desk

When I really want to get down to business (to defeat...the huns. You know you sang it too) I usually like to work at my desk in my room. It's a nice change of scenery after pretty much living in the library every night. It does have a few drawbacks. I have lots of stuff on my desk that is extremely distracting. Granted, just being in my apartment is extremely distracting. I do prefer to write papers, study, etc in the library or a silent room than my room. BUT, when I do work in my apartment because I don't want to leave for some reason it is my favorite place to attempt to do work.

I always see other bloggers doing posts like, "what's on my desk?" or what one of my favorite bloggers, Mackenzie Horan of Design Darling, likes to call it "desk du jour". The desks she posts are unbelievablely gorgeous. They are so nicely put together, so nicely decorated, just so nice. Mine will be nowhere near as nice because it is a crappy college dorm desk but I think I've made it my own which is the whole point of those posts! What makes your desk yours! So here is what makes my desk mine.

Note: I took these pictures in horrible lighting and with my phone and I am in the middle of writing a paper so it is a bit hectic looking.

This is my desk and the war zone I have created on it.

Behind my laptop is this little French Bulldog calendar my sister got me for my birthday and an earrings holder with a few pairs hangin'! I actually only really wear two or three of these...

Here is the star of the show, the ribbon board thing! I have totally forgotten what they are really called. Oh well. I am sort of a pack rat and like to put "memorabilia" on here. When I take it home every summer it's always really nice to look back and see what I've gathered throughout the year but it's also really annoying because then I have a lot of stuff off the board lying around. The struggle.

One day I'm going to have a beautiful desk with beautiful lighting and it will be just so dang beautiful. You'll see. 

It's time to get back to paper writing.

Until next time,

Caroline

It's crunch time

Things are getting down to the wire over here. I have one week of classes left then it's finals. I feel like just yesterday was our senior countdown event when there were 100 days left of school. Ugh, time flies I suppose. I have so much stuff to do before the start of next week. Here's everything I have to do:

1. Write a paper on Roman urban development/city planning
2. Do my lab for Italian
3. Edit and revise my first English paper
4. Read some of A Prayer for Owen Meany, I feel bad because I haven't even started it yet. It sounds so good!
5. Do my other Italian homework (I guess I should have put this with the lab, whatever)
6. Go to church on Sunday for Easter
7. Eat lots of chocolate on Sunday for Easter

There's probably more I should add to this list but I can't think of anything else right now. I want to quickly list my likes and dislikes for the week before I head off to the gallery.

Likes:
1. People responding to my emails!!! Praise the lawd, this was definitely the best part of my week
2. Bright lips
3. Sister Wendy Beckett - Oh my goodness. I love this lady so much. She is a nun who had a little mini program on BBC where she would go to museums or churches or wherever art was on display and give her interpretations on a piece. She is amazing and so delightful! Here she is in front of The Birth of Venus, which I kinda am partial to because I love Sandro. Botticelli might be my second favorite artist (first is Vermeer, third is Velazquez. Gotta break up the V names).

Dislikes:

1. Still being sick - why can't this end???

2. A week left of school

3. Being broke

I hope everyone had a good week. I am so excited to sit down tonight with some sort of food item and watch some baseball. 

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

having it all (can you though?)

It's weird how things can seem to go so well for a while and then all of a sudden things do a 180. Literally 45 minutes ago I was happy, doing my homework, watching the Nats beat the Marlins. Life was good. Then, I started to look at h&m's website, which was a horrible idea and I got a few texts that were weird and then I got into a mood that is quite the opposite of "life is good".

To make matters worse, I was on Twitter and I saw a tweet from one of the really popular beauty gurus on YouTube. Well, it was a tweet from her boyfriend. It said something along the lines of, "Going to see a band with so-and-so. She is kind of excited. Emoji emoji." What a freaking perfect relationship you are in. Your boyfriend gets you concert tickets to probably your favorite band ever, surprises you with them, takes you to this concert, and probably loves you very much. Wow, I am so unbelievably bitter right now. This girl, whose boyfriend is very caring and sweet, has it all. She is extremely good at what she does (and very successful), she is so beautiful, she has a great relationship, she actually has the perfect apartment. She has it all! Granted, her father died when she was either in her late teens or early 20s, I'm not sure. She must be reminded of that constantly, which is probably extremely painful. I know if my father died at any age of my life up to now I would be an absolute wreck everyday. So while I'm down in the dumps because I can't afford to buy a new bathing suit at the moment I still have my dad to call up, hear his voice, and see him if I just drove up 95.

I guess while I am so lucky to have my dad around I am not so lucky in the success, looks, and relationship. I'd rather have it that way though. I mean, I'd like to be a little more lucky in my relationship and maybe have some success but beggars can't be choosers.

All of these problems I'm having that make life so not good right now are all first-world problems that are so small and insignificant in the scheme of things. I always get like this and then get to that conclusion. I hate my internal conflicts. Things aren't always going to be like they are now. In 10 years, you never know, I could be in a happy relationship, maybe with kids, maybe with a job I like, and probably forgot about this day and whatever dumb things that made me upset. Or maybe my life didn't end up like that but I can promise you I will have forgotten the dumb things from today.

I feel like this is a good place to end this. I hope you know if you are reading this your life is probably vastly better than you think it is.

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

running update

It's been awhile since I've written anything about my running so let's catch up.

In about a week and a half I will be running my half marathon final exam for my individual exercise class. That. Is. So. Soon. So far training has been going well but I've only been running for about an hour each day. That's all I really have time for. That is super scary because an hour is only about 6.5 miles. I have to run 13.1 miles. I have to double what I've been doing. I don't know if I can! I know I've run 8 miles before in about an hour and a half but can I do 13.1 miles at all? I'm really nervous. I'm also really confused about the other students in my class. My two running friends and I run for about an hour each class but when we get back we are usually the last ones to get our stuff to go. How long are these people running for?! If we are out for an hour and getting back last, either my classmates run extraordinarily fast or they are not taking this seriously. It's sad that I have no idea which it could be.

Ok, enough about everyone else let's get back to me. I have a hard time running outside by myself. I don't know if I wrote about this earlier but it might be physically impossible for me to run 40 minutes straight outside by myself. My ankles and knees start to hurt so bad. But, when I run with my running partners in class I can go for an hour no problem. That seems odd to me. I just have absolutely no motivation by myself? Is that it? Can I speak to a running therapist about this? Do those exist? That is besides the point. I just need to better discipline myself.

A few running essentials. The watch is by Garmin and it is incredible. But, sadly, very expensive and not mine.

I am about to go to the gym with my roommate and run on the treadmill for a long time. Which reminds me I need to charge my ipod. I'm going to try and go for an hour and 10 minutes. That last 10 minutes are going to be interesting.

I'll report back on how things go. Oy vey.

Also, today marks the 7 year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings. My brother was on campus when it happened. I am always grateful he was never in harm's way that day. It was a tragedy what happened and all I can do it think of the families who lost their loved ones and hope they are somehow getting through the day. I could never imagine what their day has been like. We will neVer forgeT.

I hope everyone has had a good day.

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

April 2.0 Spotify playlist

So this is way overdue! I made my April Spotify playlist ages ago and have been listening to it for ages but now I must let you fine people know what is on it! I guess it's good that I haven't posted anything because I just added new songs the other day. Oy vey if I posted this earlier then no one would know what the full playlist looks like and it would just be bad. Really bad. OK, so here it is.

Note: Spotify upgraded or something because it looks way different. Don't be alarmed when you see the new layout.

Let's address the elephant in the room. I was obsessed with Bastille. I still sort of am still obsessed with Bastille. This playlist used to be only Bastille. I wasn't really venturing out too much with other music in the beginning of April. 8 days ago I did hear So Slow by Born Ruffians and it was pretty amazing. So amazing that I thought it was April 2.0 worthy. There's also the new Lana del Rey song on there. I think I like it but I can't really tell. I'll probably let everyone know at some point if it is a yay or nay.

What music has everyone been listening to this April? Any recommendations for May 2.0? Can you believe that in June I have to start putting a 3.0 behind the month?? Crazy. Absolutely crazy.

Until tomorrow,

Caroline

March favorites

So I took a little bit of a hiatus from TLS. I've been busy and I've had little to no motivation to write on here, which I am not happy about. I am going to make it a point to write here every day until the semester ends. It's going to be tough because things are coming down to the wire but it will be good for me.

So here's what's been happening to me in the past two weeks:

I've been running a lot. I am going to write an update post about that soon. I went to a wedding! I went to a Nationals game! I got really mad at the monitors at the gallery and I've been working a lot at the gallery. Those sort of go hand-in-hand. Let's see, what else? I failed my first Italian quiz, which, coincidentally, I got to take home and correct so instead of the grade I would have gotten on the quiz without corrections I will be graded on my corrections. Did I get very lucky? I think so. I got sick, I got a little better, I got sick again. And finally, the weather has been pretty phenomenal. Ok, I think we are all caught up now.

I know this isn't a Tuesday but I decided I was going to start this off with a makeup favorites post of last month. In March I had many days where I didn't really explore too much with makeup. I had many no makeup makeup days, you know, everyone's favorite look. There were some days where I did put more of my face on. They were mostly applied when I was going out at night but I was a big fan. Here are some of the things that made me feel pretty:

1. Rimmel Scandaleyes Kohl eyeliner in Taupe
I've written about this eyeliner before. It is truly amazing. Not too harsh, still a little definition, a beautiful, versatile color. It is amazing. Also, it doesn't smudge! The complete package.

2. NARS blush in Deep Throat
Yes, this is a raunchy name but the product is the best. It has great pigmentation and nice staying power on the cheeks. It is perfect for the warmer months because it has a subtle shimmer in it, which will make your face look radiant! Oh la la! My mirror is a little dirty, just disregard that.

3. my toothpaste!!!
So I've been using the Arm & Hammer Advance White Extreme Whitening toothpaste and I think it has done a good job at whitening my coffee-stained teeth. Ugh, it is a pain loving coffee so much. First world problems, right? I definitely recommend this toothpaste if you want a little help but doesn't want to fully commit to whitening strips or some weird tooth-whitening method.

4. Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in Darling
This color is your perfect radiant orchid color and man, do I love me some radiant orchid. The Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stains are great in general but this color really does it for me. I will love it forever or until I run out of it.

5. Sally Hansen nail polish in Mint Sorbet
Finally, because it is spring I am including this lovely mint green nail polish. I wore it on my nails in March and it made me extra happy to look down at my nails to see this color. Sally Hansen nail polishes are a really nice consistency and have also really nice staying power. Also, added bonus, they are not very expensive! I am looking into getting another nice spring color from this line of nail polishes soon.

Those were my favorite products of March. Some of them will always be favorites!

Until next time (tomorrow),

Caroline