TJM: Total Jo Jo Move

Aside from my biological family, there are two specific groups of friends who I consider my family.  My camp family and my Gamma Phi family.  Of course, I can't leave out my best friend Andrew from grade school or Rachel and Claire, my 2 best friends from high school, but camp and college are two essential places in my life that have given me friends I never would've become close to anywhere else.  Camp people have an unspoken bond that is indescribable. We get paid to act like children while taking care of children, and nothing brings people together like 10 weeks of living together in a bubble so far removed from the real world.  I've learned more about life in 10 years of going to camp than I ever could have absorbed from school or home.  From living away from home to experiencing the politics and hierarchy behind a business to diving for a fake dead body in the lake and cleaning up children's poop weekly, I found people who I couldn't imagine living without...

This is part of a chapter of my autobiography for English 460, Advanced Writing.  As of now, it's in the style of a memoir.  I want it to have a vibe of giving advice and teaching other people (especially young adults in high school and college) from my own experience.  However, it's ultimately something I'm writing just for me.  Whenever I finish my autobiography, maybe some of you will read it.  Maybe some of you won't.  Either way, I'll keep writing, living, and writing some more. Chapter 2: You Can't Pick Your Family… or Can You? We've all heard the phrase, "You can't pick your family, but you can pick your friends." I know I’m “stuck” with the family I have, but I wouldn’t change it.  Almost everybody on my dad's side of the family lives in St. Louis.  We don't see each other very often, but when we do, I love catching up with all of Uncle Chris's kids and seeing what they're up to.  One recently got married, and...

Yesterday was a great day. I wish all stories started like this. That would be pretty boring though, wouldn’t it?   There’s a struggle within my head that can’t decide what would be better out of these two options. A perfect world where everybody does what they are supposed to do and is nice to each other, so they’re all happy and never argue or hurt people; downside: life is fair and people are content, but people are also bored A crazy world with lots of arguments, wrong decisions, and questionable people (sounds sort of like the world we live in) and a good amount of people are happy; downside: things get messy and people get hurt and things are not at all fair. I honestly don’t know which scenario I’d rather be living in, but the life I have is the only one I’ve got, so I might as well take the good with the bad and soak it all in as much as possible. Something good in my life currently is University 101.  It's my favorite class.  That doesn't ev...

This is the first blog post I've ever written, so I hope it makes sense.  I doubt it stands out much more than other things people write on the Internet, but I hope whoever cares enough about me to read this gets a better picture of who I am and more importantly who and what is a part of my life. ~-~-~-~-~-~-~ ~-~-~-~-~-~-~ ~-~-~-~-~-~-~ ~-~-~-~-~-~-~ ~-~-~-~-~ I don't like to think about the fact that I've already kicked off the third year of my college career.  My parents keep saying "You're halfway done" or "Two down, two to go!"  Sometimes my junior year seems even more monumental than it actually is because my brother and sister are also transitioning into their junior years at the same time.  As exciting as all that is, I also want it to slow down.  Like Gabriella said in High School Musical 3 (yes I just used a Disney Channel reference) "I want it all to slow down, to a stop."  To me, the easiest way to slow things down is to firs...