Bird Flu!

   Most people have fears, fear of dying, fear of heights, fear of spiders.  All things that seem reasonable.  Well I have a fear, and I fear birds.  Yes, the things that fly in the sky harmlessly.  I'm not just afraid of the large birds like the hawks and the vultures; I don't even like the little chickadees that fly around my back yard.  All birds are petrifying, especially the seagulls, those little buggers steal food out of your hand!  Like what gives them the right to come up right behind you and scare the crap out of you and then take your food!  Those selfish little devils.  Those tiny little things scare the living day lights out of me!  I have had this massive fear ever since I was a young girl.
   So when I was about 5 years old I was playing outside at my friend's house.  She was my BEST friend at the time.  We were just having a good ole time on the play ground when I got stung by a bee!  And I mean it was my first time getting stung by a bee so I could've been allergic and didn't even know about it or something terrible like that.  My friend was older than I so she knew how bad that could be.  So she went into get her mom.  In the mean time I'm sitting outside, petrified that this dang bee stung me, and now I hear birds above my head.  It's like they were just waiting for her to leave so they could unleash their devilish attacks on me.  There was four or five of them just circling straight above my head just beyond the height of the swing set.  These things were getting louder and circling in closer towards my head.  These moments were absolutely petrifying!  By this time I didn't even remember that the bee stung me; I was scared I was going to be in the headlines of the local newspaper reading "Girl in Schwenksville Gets Killed By Swarm of Birds."  So when my friend's mom and her came out to the swing set I was just glad because they scared the birds away not because they were going to help me out with my bee sting.  Turns out I wasn't allergic and she just gave me a band-aid; how comforting?
   So there sparked my hatred for the devil-like endothermic vertebrates that fly through the sky.  As I grew up they gave me no reason to want to like them either.  They were always out to commit their sins, seagulls that would steal french fries and fly to close to your head, pigeons in the city that they can suddenly be part of your species, bats that think it is ok to just fly into your basement, and then there was the one pigeon in NYC at Central Park that thought "Oh hey, let's poop in Erika's hair."  That right there sealed the deal that I never ever needed to like birds ever in my life time.  Me and this species of life never have to get along.
   Of course, there's a back story to the story of the bird pooping on my head.  So, this was the first Christmas that Ryan and I would be spending together and my family, never being to NYC at Christmas time decides, "Let's go up and see the tree at Rockefeller Center!"  And I love myself a good ole trip to New York so I was totally game.  My mom LOVES Ryan, and always has from the very beginning of our relationship, so of course he had to come too!  As we are doing our touristy things, such as visiting Central Park, my parents let Ryan and I go off to do our own thing and walk through the park.  As we're walking we see a bunch of horse and buggy rides.  Mind you, Ryan and I were only dating for 3 months at this point, so he wanted to be all whimsical and romantic and take me on one of these carriage rides.  So we walk all the way to the front of the park and the rides were $50 for a half hour and a $10 tip! So it would be $60 for us to go on a half hour ride through Central Park with a cranky old man driving us with some stinky horses pooping, oh how romantic.  So Ryan and I walked back and forth on the same block for a good 10 minutes with me trying to convince him of how stupid an idea it was to spend $60 on a horse and buggy ride for 30 minutes!  I still to this day can not believe how expensive that is!  But anyways, in the middle of this disagreement I feel this wet thing fall onto my head; I literally feel it seeping into my scalp.  When Ryan just bursts into laughter and tells me it's payback for all the complaining I've been doing.  Yes the bird, the stupid little pigeon, pooped in my hair.  Then we had to go to a food vendor along the block to get napkins, and since I couldn't see the poop he ever so kindly cleaned it out of my hair.  This happened mid-day and we still had the whole rest of the day and night to be in the city and I had remnants of bird poop scraped onto my hair!  Needless to say, I hate birds and Ryan got his stupid carriage ride.
   Overall in my years of experience with birds I really haven't appreciated them and I quite honestly don't think I ever will.  I'm 18 and to this day I duck and hide if a bird gets to close to me, or I run behind Ryan.  He thinks this whole fear is hilarious and thoroughly enjoys making fun of me for it.  But I don't care, I don't like birds, and clearly they don't like me either!

We certainly enjoyed that carriage ride!

Leaping Ahead Into College...

   College.  It seems so big and kinda scary.  Just the word itself, thinking of everything that encompasses college.  It's built up with such anticipation.  Everyone tells you that these are some of the best years of your life.  They tell you about their party days and all the fun times they had.  And I'm sure I'll have a great time too but is it as great as they say it is? 
   This is something I've been nervous about.  I don't know how wonderful college actually is, and does it actually live up to the hype?  Do people actually grow up from high school when they go to college? (I sure hope they do.)  Am I even ready to handle this part of my life?  I like to believe that I'm ready, but I could get there and this could be a whole different ball game from what I was anticipating.  So at this point I'm just rolling with the punches.
   Not knowing where college is going to take me is part of the adventure.  I don't know if I'm going to go from being a Bio, Pre-Med major to learning 3 languages and doing who knows what with my life.  I have no clue where the world plans on taking me in these next years but I want the adventure and I want to learn more of who I am.  I can't wait to fly across the world to some place and live there for a semester.  Experiencing their culture and living their daily life wherever I'm at.  I can't wait to research with professors.  I want to find the professor I click with and can be my go to.  I can't wait to find my best friends, my ride or dies, the ones I don't want to experience life without.  I can't wait for all of the opportunities I'm going to encounter.  I can't wait to show a whole new place what I have to offer.  I have a lot of things to look forward to, and I'm really excited to go through those things but I also have things that I'm dreading about college.  As I'm sure many people do.  I don't want to leave my friends.  Although we have a really strong deep rooted friendship, it's still scary that they aren't living 10 minutes from my house and I can't just text them all in the group chat telling them to come to my house tonight for movies and ice cream.  The stuff we have been through I believe will hold us together though.  We're all moving on, some to the same colleges and others to different states.  But we all know we have each other when we come home.  If parents don't want us we always know that we have another house to stay at near by.  I think we all know that even though we're moving on and growing as friends, we're friends and we're not leaving each other.  We're excited for all of these new chapters we're going to be unfolding.  We all have concerns for each other moving ahead but we're ready to help each other through it.  That is the main thing I am concerned about heading forward, leaving my friends.  Well obviously my family as well but that's different.  I see them all the time.  And I am concerned about not being home all the time but I know that they're ready for me to leave and I can talk to them whenever I want and I am most definitely going to be seeing them again.  Friends can be a little different in that respect. 
   Just like my life, and this blog post, I don't really know the point of it all yet.  But I know as I make my way through and I go to college and I go out and I find new things and meet new people I may be able to understand my journey a little bit better.  I'm excited for my future and to find out if I really am going to hold my college days up on such a high pedestal.  I kind of hope that my college experience is just as amazing as it is with the other people that I talk to.  I want the anticipation to build up and have it turn into some of the best years of my life.  I'm sure that my years in college will go much faster than the past four years of high school went; I'm ready to take on the challenge.  My journey is just beginning and I can't wait to see where it takes me.
   Thank you all for listening to my ramble about college and life heading forward!  I hope it wasn't too boring for you all!  I'm ready to move on, and I hope everyone else is ready to follow the journey!

And here we go, onto the next adventure!

  

Happiness is a Quest, Especially When You're Working Together!

   So, as you all know I'm 18.  And all 18 year olds are upset about something.  Most of the time they are upset by meaningless things that don't effect us in the long run.  But I can say that I am on the opposite end of that sometimes.  And a huge reason that is due to me dating Ry.
   Ryan and I have quite an amazing relationship, in my humble opinion.  Our bond is something that is important to me, and I know will change my life if something goes drastically wrong.  So the things that happen within it can really hurt because I care so much about us.  There are many things from both sides of our families that have gone wrong to shape and mold us into the couple that we are today.  
   Our happiness comes from known support from family and friends and a very strong foundation of trust in each other.  Although these things were not handed to us on silver platters they were earned over the past two years.  With many fights, outbursts, tears, and a lot of denial by others along the way, we defied any doubt people placed on us.  And in the end, well should I say to this day, we're really happy with who we are as a couple and that transfers into other avenues of our lives.

Learn to be happy together, but also apart.   

   When becoming happy alone things may come easier; you can just go out and do what makes you happy whenever you want to do it.  But when you come together you have to do what you want along with what your significant other wants to do too.  And sure this should be easy because you are normally into similar things if your dating and have things in common.  But with Ry and I, and I'm sure with plenty others, your hobbies aren't similar.  And that's ok!  From my personal advice I would go out and seek adventure, big or small, with your significant other.  Go on a hike, take a dance class, just go do SOMETHING!  And from there you can find your together hobbies, one could call them.  And when you need your apparent time apart then you can turn to your individual hobbies.  Because it is truly important to have a life outside of your significant other as well, or else you two are basically hermits that live a sheltered life that only includes the two of you.  Branch out and find happiness together and alone.

It's OK to be Sad!   

   On the other hand, I know this is supposed to be about finding happiness but know when to allow them to be sad.  Because maybe they need a day or an hour, however long it may be, to complain to you about anything they need to get off their chest because even though you may be up in the clouds high with happiness, they may have had a really tough day.  And you need to stand back and look at how they're feeling before yourself sometimes, just as they would, hopefully, do for you.    And from that moment, after the complaining, you can move on and be happy.  Sometimes the sadness and anger just needs to come out first!

Explore your common denominator.

   For me planning for the future has always been exciting and quite calming.  To some this creates stress and makes their brains turn to mush, but I'm the exact opposite.  I can not wait to take on the future and make plans to travel, medical school, starting a family, sooner than those would be studying abroad, and planning my wedding.  These moments in my life just make me happy thinking about them.  And when I get to share these thoughts I have in my head with Ryan we both get excited about this; for the two of us it is absolutely thrilling to have this huge unanswered, unchartered territory for us to enter.  And I guess my point about this is, find something that makes you both excited to talk about, that realllllly and truly engages you and your partner.  This can bring true happiness into your lives, knowing there is something so strong that you both care so deeply about.

Communicate Everybody!!!

   At the bottom line of this all, from all of this nonsense I spewed from my brain, I guess you could say, "Communication is key."  As many people do say in relationships, the most important thing is communication, along with trust, I couldn't agree anymore.  (Pretty cliché right?) The message in between all of the spaces is to talk to your partner, because if you don't you don't know what makes them happy or sad.  You do not know anything about them.  And that is not how a relationship works.  I'm happy because I share everything with Ryan and he shares everything with me, that I know of.  But seriously I know things about him nobody else in the entire world knows, I know how to push his limits, I could make him cry for good reasons or for bad, I know his fears and his strengths, I know what makes him truly happy and extremely terrified.  Without knowing these things I wouldn't know how to make him truly happy.  And he couldn't do the same for me either.  But because we talk and tell each other just about every thing that happens in our lives we can do that.  We can help each other become better people, happier people.  Because sharing your life with the one you love most is simply one of the most amazing experiences in the world and that alone should make you possibly the happiest you'll ever be.

Let The Adventure Begin

   Hello everyone!  I'm Erika.  An 18 year old girl, heading off to college to start my newest chapter in life.  And where better to share my adventures but the internet?  Here I can share my big adventures like college itself down to the small ones like my latest run in at Chipotle and hanging out with my friends.   

    I am your typical person who loves Starbucks, has an unhealthy obsession with Youtube and Netflix, loves to hangout with my friends, loves make-up, and wants to go everywhere in the world.  Travel, to me, is the greatest passion.  I want to be immersed in different cultures and live their daily lives.  I want to experience a drastically contrasting life to my own.  I want to go out in the world and help those who are not as fortunate as I am.  That do not have the means to provide for themselves and their families. I hope to go out there and help one person; if I have helped change the life of one person than I have done enough with my life.  And the best part about this mission is I don't know who the person is going to be and they may not even know me yet.  But it could also be my best friend that I grew up with that lives across the street from me.  The mystery in life itself is what drives me to go and seek it.  I don't mind being in the dark, going out and seeking new things and not knowing all the answers. Going and doing is going to provide me with far more knowledge than anything else.
   Well, that got deep, to lighten the mood I want to tell you about Ryan.  Ryan is my best friend in the whole wide world.  Well actually I have two friends named Ryan that hold that title, but the one I want to let you get to know is my boyfriend.  Back story on us, we met in 10th grade English class; he actually thought I was the most obnoxious girl in the class.  But then I wanted to get away from slow dancing with another boy at our Sophomore Social so I danced with Ry instead.  After this we spent the next few months texting, not hanging out because we couldn't drive cars to go hang out with each other and parents, well parents are parents, they didn't really care if we wanted to hang out or not.  So, texting it was!  We went our first magical date on September 21, 2013 and we have been dating ever since!

   
   Ry is a dream big kinda guy.  He, unlike me, is very creative and expressive through writing.  So what am I doing writing for all of you is probably one of your thoughts?  I need to explore my own creative avenues, and I want to share our adventures that we share together and the ones that I personally take on my own.  Anyways, Ryan is the kinda guy that wants to work for Pixar and also write a book and turn it into a T.V. show about our friends and our oh so amazing lives.  He dreams big, and that is something I completely admire about him.  We are going to the same college and he is going to double major in Creative Writing and Business.  While I am on the complete opposite end for my major with Biology with a Pre-Med track.  So naturally the whole writing thing does not normally come very smoothly for me.  Which I envy Ryan for because I really wish I could be good at it.  So that's why I ended up here, talking to you.
   I am just here to share my story with whoever wants to listen and follow me on my journey and hear a little bit of the small advice I know about family, make-up, relationships, college, and anything else life throws at me!