An ode to my Alma Mater: Once a Bobcat ALWAYS a Bobcat

Well, I graduated. I am going to be honest, I am devastated in a way. I feel like I just went through a terrible break up and there is no getting back together. I am severely lacking a social outlet right now so this is going to be a long winded post. Turn on Ingrid Michaelson Pandora and let it out... go!

I will say that the Graduation in its self was exhilarating and I was overwhelmed with pride, honor, happiness, and also a feeling of liberation. I sat there with some of my closest senior friends, those who know what we have been working towards for so long but were in no rush to get there, those who I met as a mere baby and have grown with over the past four years, and those who I hope in another 4 years will still be growing as adults with me. The speeches droned on and I was getting extremely anxious to get it over with already, but I remember sitting there thinking "I will sit here forever if that means that I do not have to actually admit it's all over". Soon enough I was handing the caller my name card, explaining how to pronounce my middle name, and doing a "Yeah I did it" fist pump across the stage. When I walked outside, I walked out a changed person. The way that Athens, and Ohio University have influenced me are extreme and irreversible. I have passion, determination, and purpose now. I have figured out so much about myself in these 4 lightning fast years and for that I am unbelievable grateful. I only hope that I can go out and do amazing things with the lessons I have learned. I know that I made the absolute most out of these years. I will never forget as we were taking pictures after the ceremony, a good friend told my mom "You should be proud of her, she is way to involved in this school to have grades like those" and he was right. There were days, hundreds actually, when I would leave for class in the morning at 9 am and have back to back class, meetings, throw in a tap cats practice, and back to meetings until 10 at night. Luckily, I surrounded myself ::forthemostpart:: with others like this, so it was just an accepted life style and we never thought twice about it... even though my roommates had no concept for this. I wish I could explain to you the impact that UPC has played in my life, but even for as creative as I am, I could not do the explanation justice. Please just know that if you have come into my life through UPC, Baker Center, or really OU in general I am grateful and you have left an imprint on my life.

I have changed for the better and matured in the past 4 years. I feel that all of my life lessons were taught "tripping on the bricks of Athens". I made mistakes, a lot actually. I fell in love, my heart broke ::afewtimes::, I learned to be a bad ass bartender, I raised an organization from the ground up and loved my tap cats with all that I had, I threw a few parties, I dropped everything and moved to Chicago to pursue my dream, I ran 3 of the most successful events OU has ever seen, or ever will see, along side one of the best girls I know, Miss Aimee Rance Pants ::i would never have survived with out her::, I learned to love onions and peppers and Mexican food, lost a few pairs of shoes and a few credit cards, met the most incredible people on this earth, ran my inbox to roughly 700 emails, took a few shots, slept in some awkward places, tap danced on court street at 2 am, experienced the happiest of times and the saddest of the sad. Cried in public, fell up the escalators, wore a lanyard, and SO many other things. Would I change anything? No. I have learned who I am inside and out and it is because of the trips, slips, and mistakes that showed me who I really am.

Thank you Ohio University. I am going to make you proud, and in 40 years, I will be speaking at commencement. Mark my words here and now. My ambitions set me apart from the rest, and I will do what it takes to make myself happy and hope ::desperately:: that I will find someone that can come along for the ride, because it would be a damn shame to do it alone. As for the immediate future, I am going to an interview on Thursday and hoping for the best, but yet looking forward to a potentially carefree summer in Athens for the last time. ever.

Peace, love, and Athens Happens yo-

Louella

Walking in Circles

Well guys, its been a year since my magical summer in the city and I am writing to you as a frustrated, stressed, overly determined, and eager ALMOST graduate. I feel like everything I have been working for for so long is just not happening. So obviously, I handle this by doing what I do best, reflect through whitty commentary on my blog.

I'm not moving to Chicago right away as I had planned because I have no secure job despite basically throwing myself at about 807, thats right ::eighthundredandseven:: companies. So what does a smart, sassy, gal do? Stay in Athens and wither away slinging beers to the children of youth that will inhabit this beautiful hole in the earth this summer. Ok. Fair. But really, I am just prolonging the inevitable I know this. I find my self yelling, quite literally in fact, I AM NOT READY TO LEAVE. So, i'm not. Everyone says "You will be fine" "No one has a job" "Its a bad economy". To these comments I think, F you. I AM PREPARED. But I digress.

So no job exactly, so its back to the brick working the tank top to pay the bills, I never thought this would be me. College has taught me a lot of things, but some of the most valuable life lessons have been learned in that tank top. At least I know how to NOT act in public. Though, I have tested these limits on several occasions as I am sure several of you reading can attest to. Either way, it will be the first time in my life where I really have no socially constructed path pushing down on me. As of June 12, there is no "path", only a thick forest that has yet to be cleared by me.

I am also a lone ranger, it's this new thing I am trying. People love to judge me, always questioning my relationship choices and telling me how I am. Well folks, I am on my own and perfectly fine, so from now I will be controlling my own happiness. I have wonderful friends and have had one of the most crazy years of my life. I have been at the happiest of happy and the saddest of sad and not to mention the stress I am experiencing this year is chart topping. But I am great, I am perfectly happy with my choices and look forward to what is to come in my life. I have made unreal accomplishments personally and professionally. I look forward to the day when others will see this, until then, I continue to search for my place in this world.

Naturally, this wouldn't be a complete blog entry if I did not leave you with a few lessons, since I no longer have Anthony supplying me with his daily lessons on how to survive chicago, I will give you some I have gathered on my own, just to plain survive. Its a bit sappy for my taste, I know. But I am becoming a big kid, I have to embrace it.

1. Make the hard decisions, the ones that fulfill your personal happiness first.
2. Go after your passions and get rid of any ONE or any THING that is standing in the way.
3. Post-it notes are not an acceptable form of confrontation, sorry.
4. Turn the music up really loud and just dance it out sometime
5. Laugh it off, its not going to matter next week.
6. Oh, and no matter what, even 4 years later... heels STILL are a bad idea on court street.

xoxo,

Louella.

See you soon Red Couch. An Ode to Liven it Up!

Big Sigh. I can not believe it's all over. Unbelievable, but I suppose  I can take this time to enlighten you with a inspiring reflection of my summer in the City. 

I was fortunate to end the summer with one last Liven It Up event. A wedding at the Evanston Women's Club, one last wedding working with the catering staff I have grown to have so much fun with and one last wedding (well for the summer) with my boss that I love so very much. I am really happy I got to do one last event with this specific catering staff because we have had some seriously hilarious/drama filled times this summer. This wedding was really pretty, it was slightly more conventional than we usually do, but the room turned out beautifully and there were no major crises to speak of. It was nice for me because I was basically responsible for the set up of the reception hall, I was able to delegate to the staff where things needed to go, how we were setting the table, where different stations needed to be set and watch everything come together. I also successfully learned to open champagne for the first time, without inuring myself or the ceiling (whoops). There is video documentation of this.... stay tuned! The wedding went smoothly, once again we worked with our bartender friends... haha how I will miss those boys. They are something else. The band at this wedding was also excellent! It was fun to listen to them and see random members of the bridal party come up to sing songs! Things went pretty smoothly and we got things cleaned up and out of there with out much time wasted. How sad... my last wedding as a intern. Tear. 

This summer has honestly been life changing for me. I learned so much about myself, what career path I want to go down and explore, what my goals are for the future, and how excited I am to get started. Wedding planning is a tough business, I was fortunate to work under the best there is and watch everything happen up close. I gained so much experience through shadowing around 15 events in one summer! I learned equally as much about the city and how much I love it. I really feel as though I am meant to live here and can not wait to get back here next summer. I would recommend University of Dreams to anyone, but with the advice that the program is completely what you make it. I watched one too many "Dreamers" suffer through a miserable internship but feel that while I was VERY lucky to have gotten the job I did, you can utilize any opportunity you are given. Not to mention, the speakers and the trips we went on were worth it in itself for those who are passionate about moving to chicago. I met great great new friends, where I was also SUPER lucky because many of them go to OU and I can not wait to get back to school and have our Dreamer Shuffle!! I got to celebrate my birthday in style and have every essential chicago experience that I wanted. ( I COULD HAVE DONE WITH OUT THE KAYAKING....just saying) 

I figured I should end with a Lessons of the Summer paragraph rather than a list. My internship was fabulous we know. I learned everything I have ever questioned in the business. Every single day a new issue came up and I got to watch it unfold. From what happens if the bride and groom break up, What to do if the guests show up an hour early because that is what was printed on the invite, what to do when your rentals are not picked up on time, who is responsible if you smoke out the kitchen and you are not allowed to have a fan. How many servers does it take to do a simple task. Never..EVER mix poly linens with satin. Alternating shades of beige is a nice idea but really unnecessary. Cupcakes, not cake, And use fake layers. Never forget matches, a wine key, camera, tissues, stain stick, LED lights, and a sewing kit... basically the perfect oh shit bag for weddings. I could probably go on forever, but I don't want to give away all of my secrets.

So, I suppose this is me signing out for the time being. I thank you all for reading and hope that this enabled you to live vicariously through me because I had the coolest summer ever. 

I will be back though, Chicago can not get rid of me for long. 

love, louella

Hurry, grab another roll!

Dreamer dinner Cruise. Ridiculous! What a fun night. We all got ready around three o-clock to get us to the boat by 6. I thought it was going to be a lot different than it was. It was a buffet style dinner...and drinks were TOOO expensive. Some 100 dollar ticket... Good thing we were friends with an employee who could help us out all night haha. When the dancing started things got crazy however. We met so many people in our program that we hadn't talked to yet and LOVED them. This always happens in situations such as this. I really wish we would have done this in the beginning. It went by way to fast and was so fun! When we docked it took us about a half hour to decide where we were going, if we were taking a taxi or a limo, and who all was going with us. Finally, about 6 of us piled in to a taxi in which I had to ride on Leslie's lap the whole way.. yikes! Sorry! And we headed to a bar. Unfortunately, we were only there for a bout 3 minutes before we realized that all the dreamers were across town. I had been DYING to go out with the dreamer staff since the beginning so we quickly drank our drinks and headed to the dreamer bar. It was quite a journey....heels for that long, its no wonder the word heel is so close to hell, because I wanted to die, from excruciating pain. They say that drinking numbs the pain... but it does not. Anywho. So we were all dancing and having a great time and although my roommates abandoned me I was able to meet a lot of new people. I really hate that NOW the program has to come to an end. I even met a random guy at the bar who works at the Cats Eye in Athens... now that folks, is a small world! Eventually, I just couldn't take it any more and had to take my shoes off. Luckily I wasn't the only one, gross I know, but you couldn't even begin to understand my pain. Probably the best idea I had all night seeing as how even now today I still have no feeling in my toes... I hope I don't have to amputate them! This also included walking home from the bar with no shoes on at 3 am in Chicago... equally poor decision but hey, I was DYING.  

This morning I woke up in a panic when I realized I had yet to pack anything and that I had to work today...and I couldn't feel my toes. Soon enough my boss called me to let me know that we would not be doing the event tonight and as much as I was looking forward to it, I was slightly relieved since I hadn't packed anything or even showered, clutch. Tonight is probably another night on the town... because really after tonight, it's all over. And that really sucks. I have had the best summer ever, and I can not believe it went this fast. I have had some amazing experiences and stories to last a lifetime. I will save the sappy post for later...  but if you are a fellow dreamer reading thank you for the fun times and I hope you had as great of an experience as I did :) 

Oh, Happy Birthday Ryan!

How about 455 Briar Street?

My days are numbered. Really, well in Chicago at least. But lets not dwell on that just yet because quite frankly it sends me to a dark and unhappy place. 

Last night I had the pleasure of dining in Baumhart for my last time. It is most unfortunate that it never really came full circle and redeem its quality through out the program like I thought it might. But no, we ended on mystery meat and some "orangish sauce" as stated by the cafeteria worker when trying to convince someone to take a piece. Yummy. After dinner we all headed over to the Dreamer finale. We had anxiously been awaiting the debut of this slideshow our dreamer police had been so diligently working on and scouring our facebooks to complete. God only knew what they were going to pick to put on the show but I actually made a debut several times. Way to represent the coolest birthday girl ever in the slideshow. Loved it. After a sentimental evening we ended with a toast (with sparkling apple juice OF COURSE) and people could randomly shout out something to toast too. I considered several, "Cheers to the very lovely front desk personnel outfitted in bullet proof vests", "Cheers to Pippens", "Cheers to the 151 bus for successfully making me late almost every day", andddd just maybe "Cheers to Taco". But thats just me. 

Lindsay and I have been so carefully holding on to our $25 gift cards to Martini Park since the beginning of July for the perfect moment. That moment was last night. Luckily for us, we happened to stumble across this magnificent bar on their 2 year anniversary for which all drinks were $3 off , no cover, and a Live karaoke band. Usually I cringe at the thought of karaoke, but this was the first time actual people with talent have taken the stage. We got to try several martinis with our lovely gift certificates and I decided the mango martini was my favorite. Surprise surprise. We had the best time and deemed this our favorite bar... well not quite. On the way home I HAD to stop at Pippins, the bartender would have been crushed had I left Chi town without a proper good bye, at least this is what I like to think in my head. Naturally, I walked in bearing no ID and sat down right in front of him and asked him if he had missed me. EHH not really, he claimed, a natural response for my salty bar tending friend. Lindsay went to the bathroom and I decided to let him know this was my last night in Chicago, and he began to ask me questions and I explained I had a year left in school but not to fret because I will be moving back soon enough. He laughed, the first happy emotion I have ever seen this man conjure, and gave me a high five and wished me luck. We are in love, I'm telling you!

Today was my last day for the beach so I went to lay out for a bit until I reached bacon status, stopped to get my last Jamba Juice fix and now I am home preparing myself for the Dreamer dinner/dance/lets get crazy cruise. I can not wait. I have a sassy new dress, yeah I know ANOTHER one... lets not talk about my shopping problem. That will be covered in my new blog, "Home, Broke, and Sad... but still Sassy". Clever right?

Stay tuned, the end is near... but let me leave you with some final lessons.

1. Confidence, you will never be carded once you are actually 21, bummer.

2. All drama comes full circle. Always. 

3. Once it goes stale you CAN NOT re freshen it. Throw it out. (a metaphor)

4. Help us save Taco, Alex's domesticated seal... it is NOT sushi.

5. Baumhart hall room 805 will forever have a kiwi stain on the wall... whoops. 

dreamer love.

Two Words: Madonna Rama.

Well friends, this summer of mine is winding to a most unfortunate end. But please do not worry, this post will be chalk full of fabulously entertaining text, because as usual this weekend was a doozie. 

Friday Night is where I left you...so that is where I will begin.

FINALLY a night out on the town with Joshua. This had been much anticipated. We all had a good time getting ready and hydrated at the lovely Baumhart. Special shout out to Ryan and Ashlei for bringing us homemade ice cream. You guys really rock, but obviously you know this. We decided to finally embark on our first night out at a dance club, another thing we had been wanting to do since we got here. We went to CroBar, So freaking sweet. I will be sad in Athens never being about to go out to cool places but I suppose I will save a ton of money

. It was such a fun time... a little  promiscuous (I think I only used that word because Promiscuous Girl by Nelly Furtado is playing on my computer right now haha) but anyway.  It was definitely an experience to say the least, and we ended our night with some fabulous pizza. 

Did I mention the fellow from the Ukraine? 

Saturday: Wedding at the Marmon Grand, Chicago IL... Or was it Nigeria? Im not really sure. We arrived at a really spacious venue and began to pull the linens out of the box... yellow, champagne, purple, green... um what theme are we going for here exactly? Soon 

enough everything was set up and we could see the room really come together. The florist/centerpiece designer, if you will, came in with candles galore and centerpieces made of lemons and limes. To make it look much more cohesive. No one really knew what we were in store for when guests started to arrive in elaborate african dresses (for lack of culturally correct term) and extremely large and bright headdresses. This was for sure the most unique we had done so far this summer. Between the tribal dances and prayers in various languages I was really unsure what to think, but it turned out to be one of our favorite weddings. Not to mention, Janet, the venue owner and I are now besties. She loved me. This wedding took is good oletime to wrap its self up and we got out of there around 1:30.  Probably because all of the guests were too preoccupied with stuffing the lemons and limes from the centerpieces in their purses...Really. 2 am and turned right around to be ready to start the wedding on Sunday. 

Sunday: Another wedding at A New Leaf. This was pretty hands off for us because they brought in Heart Boys Catering, which im not sure if you are aware but yes they have a TV show on the Food Network. So Meagan and I's role was rather small, but we did make one hell of a pine cone arrangement in the basement cellar which we made our home for the night. This wedding was our first Jewish wedding complete with a Chuppah, glass breaking, and of course Mazel tov!! The food was excellent, I LOVED it, but really when haven't I loved something that I have eaten here, it's disgusting really. Once again I was on grooms duty for this wedding, unfortunately they weren't really in to joking around with me like usual. So it was less fun for me but none the less it was a really pretty wedding. This wedding ended around 11, with a nice tip out for me... YES! I would love to tell you that this is where we got into the car to go home, however that is not exactly where the night took us. It just so happened that we all ended up waiting in line to get in to Berlin for Madonna Rama. My first gay bar, and sure to be one hell of an experience. I really wish I was creative enough to phrase the night in a way that would accurately describe it but that is beyond my rhetorical abilities. All I am going to say is this. Bartenders in T shirts and briefs, Drag queens, fabulosity at its finest, Derek, and Madonna straight until (cough) 5 am. Literally, I am sitting here laughing to myself at how speechless I am. But it was SO much fun. Off the clock... of course...

Monday Morning: Still speechless....

Monday Night: I traveled to Evanston to finally visit Joshua in his land. I got to see the Loyola campus, so so beautiful. If I had known that was out there back in the day, I would have never settled for going to school in Ohio. I kick my self everyday because I know I was meant for the city at an early age. But I suppose, I will be a city girl soon enough. Anyway, we met up with his girlfriend and headed to dinner. This was a fun dinner! I love hanging out with both of them, we had a good time discussing our excessive drinking patterns over a few drinks. And then we headed back home. Now, the train ride to the city from Evanston is roughly (very roughly) 40 minutes. We had the pleasure of sitting next to a strapping young fellow from Northwestern who was headed downtown, as he explained to us so very eloquently, to meet up with some Irish girls he met out last night to go to a Jazz club. Those Northwestern boys are high rollers, I am still hoping to find my self one. A jazz club, really? Please help me get out of Athens... the best we can do is go to Broney's on Wednesday for Karaoke. However, Josh and Michele got off the train a good 30 minutes before I did so I had the pleasure of chatting with him the whole way home. Those from Evanston live differently than most, but I think if I ever go boyfriend shopping that will be my first stop. It was lovely.

So now that I have made your eyes bleed with all of this non sense, I will leave you. Only 5 days left. Miserable. But they are stuffed with exciting activities which are sure to produce fascinating blog entries... so until next time..

happy planning... :)

Sorry, You just can't take us anywhere.

Today was one of our last official days in the "office", it was rather.... different. We started out the day with a script of the Vagina Monologues to retype and prepare for a bachelorette party that we have coming up. That was interesting, I did not think that was the direction my morning was going in when I woke up, but hey if your vagina is angry... it's angry. After we finished that we decided we should go on a walk to get lunch and then take it to the conference room to eat...oh and by conference room I might mean sitting pool side on the roof of my boss's building. However, we realized on our walk that we needed some form of binder like object for this bachelorette party. Luckily for us, we were in Boystown and had uh, quite the assortment of shops to look in. I made my first trip to "gay-mart" today. This is an actual fact... the gay version of k-mart. And from there an assortment of other "dirty" stores. I thought it was hilarious and eye opening, however I think it was a bit much for Meagan to handle. Sigh, I laugh just thinking about it.  Next, we went for lunch. We went to a little diner that was perfect. While waiting for our food for what seemed like an eternity... we noticed a mom with a few small children walking by the patio where we were eating... I didn't think much of it until I heard the mom running back down the side walk yelling at her son. Sure enough this woman's little boy had reached over the rail and grabbed a handful of fries off of some mans plate!!! My child will never do such things. But it was pretty hysterical.

After lunch, we  still had not found the binder we had set off on our journey for so we continued walking around the area looking. This ended up at Urban Outfitters... where jackets and dresses were almost purchased, but hey we were on the job haha! FINALLY after making a scene at various shops and embarrassing our boss more than likely, we found a plain binder at Walgreens. Who would have thought. The back to school special at Walgreens, was a pack of ping pong balls. That is my kind of place... haha, for a moment I thought that I was in athens. But soon enough I will be, and I am not really looking forward to it that much. 

Finally, we headed back to the "office" and had our conference by the pool. It was really sad because it was our last time. We have two weddings this weekend and then it's essentially over. I am really sad and I do not want to get sentimental just yet, but I am about to go into depression. I never want to leave this city and dream internship that I love so much. He sent us on our way not allowing us to get sad just yet. Little did we know that we were about to have the WORST bus ride ever. The bus did not come for a half hour, which is the LONGEST I have ever had to wait in my life. Once on the bus, we were crammed into a bus for an hour with a bitching old lady consistently referencing how "those young girls over there" (us) should get up for others to sit down. EARTH TO OLD BITCH LADY we had no where to move too. We could not stand, breath, or even blink on this bus it was so full. God I wanted to hit her! Anywayyy... it was a terrible bus ride...

Tonight marks my first real legal night out on the town. Wish me luck, i can not wait.

Stay tuned for a more detailed post

dreamer love.