The Social Media Experiment

Hi friends.

I've decided to do a social media fast/experiment of at least one week (maybe longer, we'll see!). I'll be deleting all social media apps from my phone, which include Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

I've done certain social media fasts before, but I got the idea to keep an updated journal of the experience from my friend, Kayla's, post here. I've deleted my apps before, usually so I can have fewer distractions when studying for a big test; but I'm sectioning off a week specifically for a couple of reasons.

I have a deep appreciation for social media. I think it's great. I love being connected to people I might not have a chance to connect with very often in real life. I love having an easy way to see at least a piece of my friends' lives. So often I am inspired by what I see on social media.

But I'd like to see how much more time I have in my day and how much more productive I can be with that time. You don't realize how much of your day is spent playing on your phone until you count how many times you pick it up, only to realize you can't do anything but use it to call and text people (wow, a phone used as a phone ???).

I also believe fasting from social media will give me more opportunity to hear the Lord speak. Sometimes I think we beg for God to speak to us, yet we fill our lives with voices from everyone but Him. Of course God still reveals Himself in the noisiness of busy lives... but how much more could we receive in giving Him the quiet?

I'll still be logging on to Facebook via desktop, mainly because that doesn't really suck up my time as much as the apps do. I'll also have Facebook Messenger in case anyone needs to reach me that way. This post will be updated daily, just to keep all of my updates together and organized. Thanks for following along!

This Provincial Life

"Adventure is out there!" - Up

I like Beauty and the Beast, but honestly it's not my favorite Disney movie.

But lately I've been feeling a lot like Belle, in that I too want adventure in the great wide somewhere. (So much so that I bought this shirt!)

That's something I've been craving a lot lately (perhaps partially out of discontentment); but also just craving something new and out of the ordinary. I'd love to travel more. I'd love to meet new people and hear new stories. I'd love to learn more.

So I think something I'll be challenging myself to do this semester is to create my own adventure.

It can be something as small as visiting a coffee shop I've never been to or doing my quiet time downtown at the levy.

I'm pretty boring, so even watching a movie I've never seen before is an adventure for me.

If I'm feeling really adventurous, New Orleans is but an hour away.

Last weekend, Allie, Kire', Kendall, and I took a day trip to NOLA; and it was such a fun day full of things I'd never done before in a city I barely know.

Puzzle Pieces

I always forget how much I love spring time at LSU.

Maybe that's because I've only had one spring to love so far.

It is the first day of school for the spring semester. I'm sitting outside in the courtyard of the business college, eating a ham and cheese sandwich and drinking a juice box while fighting the wind on its insistence that I eat my own hair for lunch, and I am content.

I struggled a lot last semester with contentment, and I've decided I will not struggle with that this semester.

I've been fretting a lot about what I want to do when I graduate, and even what I want to do this summer. Or rather what I feel like the Lord wants me to do. If it's not on my mind, I'm trying my hardest to keep it from being on my mind; which actually means it's inherently on my mind!!!! And even without knowing what I will be doing in the future, I've wanted to hurry up and be there because logically if I'm doing what I'm doing, then I'll be past the whole process of worrying about what I'll be doing.

Yeah, that all made sense.

But in taking a quiet moment with the Lord this morning, He just asked that I wouldn't fret so much about something that is so far in the future that I forget to take advantage of today.

Hi, 2017

Hi, 2017.

I'm excited to meet you, as so many are.

I'm aware that we are already a whole 48 hours in to the new year, so that makes me a little late on posting my New Year's thoughts; but I hope my non-conformity/writing slack won't discredit me.

I'd like to say I don't fall prey to the idea that everything up until January 1, 2017 doesn't matter anymore and the whole "new year, new me" quips; but I do. I do fall prey. I don't think I can help it! There's a full 365 days ahead of me that I can do whatever I want with, and I never truly appreciated that until now. We tend to remember events in our lives by the year, and it's exciting to think that 2017 remains unblemished. There's something so thrilling about "new-ness." Something officially clean of whatever has happened in the past, and the fact that we can claim this year as our own.

But as beautiful as you are my new friend, 2016 was kind to me; and you have big shoes to fill.

A year ago, I was entering 2016 with anticipation and anxiety; for I would be spending exactly half of the year in a place of complete unfamiliarity. But what an adventurous half it turned out to be.

2016 gave me people. It gave me people from Australia and New Zealand and South Korea and all over the U.S. I love those people. I wish I could take every person's hands into my own and communicate how much their friendship is treasured... but I can't because that's literally so many people, and also that's weird.

I'll always look back on this year with a smile, but I won't say it didn't come without heartbreak.

The winter break has given me a lot of time to think, and my conclusion is that somewhere along the way, I lost myself.