Where in the world is Mackenzie Clark?

I can't begin to describe how crazy my life has been this semester. But I can start out by saying that it's so crazy I haven't updated my blog in almost a month. I went grocery shopping today for the first time in ALMOST a month. My life has been a blur of bouncing between offices, buildings, paperwork, Starbucks, and honors. And that's just after class.

A lot has gone on academically-- midterms, quizzes, tests, running to class, being late to class, teachers not showing up. More has happened in my "professional" life (I call it that because I don't know what else to call it to be honest. Being an adult is really weird). And an explosion has rocked who and what I thought I was as a person and who I went to be. Uh, less of an uh-oh explosion and more of a happy explosion. Like Disney fireworks. But, like, instead of being at Disney trying to find the fireworks and pineapple thingies, I'm trying to find Disney. 

I'll talk about all three things at the bottom of this post, after I flood it with pictures that I think summarize the past month!

The Up Til Dawn finale. If you don't know, Up Til Dawn is a college fundraising club-thing that raises money for St. Jude. It's a really really big greek thing here on campus, but this year they wanted to involve more clubs. So HSC started some fundraisers and I ended up crawling unceremoniously out of bed at 4:30AM to attend the butt-end of their 12AM-6AM (get it now? Up Til Dawn? See the picture-- a fallen soldier around 5AM) fiesta to mark the end of their year of service and fundraising. HSC won an award for the most funds raised for an RSO (~$600 I believe) so I went to receive it. I promptly took some food and left. Zzzzz.

But it got me thinking. All these people, from all parts of the University, all majors, came together all year to raise money. The University of Memphis chapter of Up Til Dawn raised $206,811, the most of any college chapter that year. Those students did it. It was emotional. I pledge next year to make our Up Til Dawn contribution even greater!

This was an, uh, interesting night. International Pancake Day. Hailey (shown in picture) and I went to IHOP and waited in line for a very long time (close to an hour maybe?) for free pancakes. It was so, so worth it, though. PANCAKES!

And here is the Great Memphis ice of 2015. There was a huge snowball fight on campus. It was awesome, so I heard. I didn't go out because 1) ice 2) cold 3) ice. But everything looked pretty!

And then I drove home! It was my first time driving under crazy conditions and it was, well, pretty interesting. But I made it home for spring break, and I spent a week making breakfast burritos and combating headaches with Skyrim. True story!

This is a breakfast burrito. Thick cut bacon. Tons of egg. Cheese. Zap it. Fold it. Eat it. The most heavenly burrito in existence and you cannot tell me otherwise!

I was super bummed to be back on campus after spring break. I felt stressed, like my break hadn't been a break but a procrastination of stress, I felt like I was behind (still in question) and that I didn't do enough to catch up, and that everything in general kinda sucked.

Funny enough, that morning a friend of mine, Lindsey, texted me around 7:45 AM and asked me to come sit with her in the UC because she had to get to school early and wanted someone to sit with. I was already already almost ready to go (surprisingly. usually I'm out of bed like 30 minutes before class and groaning like a beached whale.) but I had to wait on my coffee. After two minutes I decided no, I did not want coffee, because I hadn't gone to Kroger in weeks and was out of creamer. So I went to Starbucks and sat with Lindsey.

But I passed these flowers on the way. They're prettier now, super yellow and all bloomed, but it made me feel like, hey, maybe everything doesn't suck. I mean, classes are hard and internship stuff is still getting worked out, coffee creamer hasn't found its way magically into your mini fridge, but the buttercups are blooming. They don't care about any of that. And soon the trees will turn green and the grass and more flowers and the air will have a hum of excitement as college students set their minds on summer vacation...

And it made the first monday after spring break a little easier.

College prices in the US are rising. At UoM, they just demolished the cheapest dorm on campus to replace with a new, expensive dorm. Scholarships are getting cut. Everyone is tense and I'm reminding the freshman to apply for scholarships.

And yet... This happened. This is the food court on my campus, the main hub to find some chewy chewy goodness. It's busy. It's packed. It's insane how many people can fit into this space, tunnel-vision on a burrito, and push push over to the cashier. And yet.... This happened. A foozball table. Right in the middle of the lines. Why? Who planned this? As I took a picture, a manager came over and told me it was because they want more people to hang out.

Wait, what? Honors has a foozball table. Do people come to honors just to use it? No. They come to honors to talk, to study, or to do homework. Say no to foozball tables in the food court. 

The highlight of my week and the cause of my fireworks was seeing Rainn Wilson speak on campus. Now, most of you probably know Mr. Wilson as "Dwight" from the office. Funny enough, he's also really spiritual and activist-y. He had a lot to say about his journey to find meaning in his life and it really touched me. That night, I reconnected with some old friends and we went out to dinner. I bought his book and I'm working through it trying to find my own meaning.

I mean, it's not ever been a big deal for me, spirituality and religion and such. It was always just an eh thing to me. I mean, there are so many arguments and anger and confusion rolling around that so I try my best to avoid it (because goodness knows I don't drink enough coffee to have more confusion in my life) but after reading it I think I may try and find my own meaning with it. I probably won't ever be going to church or lighting incense, but maybe there's more to life than just brains piloting meatbags, you know? Maybe we're souls piloting meatbags!

And, of course, Mr. Wilson was hilarious.

A lot of color in this photo, which is pretty great, considering I took it at about 9:30 on a gloomy day waiting for the train to pass. 

A photo from the HSC bake sale. Now, my shining point for honors, maybe just personally, was getting some commuter students involved. I think there's two of them who hang out in honors a lot. They're good friends, and they bring their laptops and play together. It's interesting because UoM is a big big big commuter school and RSOs have a hard time bringing them in because of the nature of the commuter. Many of them have jobs. So when I hooked two of these guys in, I was ecstatic.

So was the mother of one of them. She's very excited in her son's involvement and keeps making us stuff! The student told me it was a stress relief for her, but I'm astounded. We've had punch, brownies, cheese dip, and now these. Chocolate chip cupcakes with hand-piped UoM tiger prints. Wow. People are so great. I want to send her a thank-you card. 

I met this lovely lady on friday before DnD (because I'm in DnD again now! Yay!) and found out that she wasn't even a student here! She's from Seattle! Wow!

She's visiting her boyfriend over spring break. Her name is Veronica and she's really pretty and really fun to talk to. We exchanged numbers and she said she'll try to come to out HSC Tea and Twister night before she goes!!

I saw Cinderella again....

It's a very pretty movie. Pretty sets, pretty actors, good acting, pretty dresses. Not very thought provoking ("Have Courage and Be Kind" was Cinderella's often repeated line through the movie) but it was really fun to watch, especially when the fairy godmother popped in.  

I saw it with a very good friend of mine and my new movie buddy, Angela! She's a senior and she' graduating soon ( :'-( ) but
she's so fun to be around and she works at honors so we get to see each other fairly often.

So. Now we get to talking about the big stuff. I'm going to number it for easy reading. Okay, the numbers didn't work out so we're going to use bullets.

• Academia
• Classes are getting interesting. I've learned something the, uh, hard way. If you fall behind in Japanese, it's really hard to catch-up. I just sit in the front mumbling along to the sing-a-long trying to pick out the words. I'm doing great on the quizzes though, so there's that!
• Chinese continues to be easy. I'm not sure if it's because of the lackadaisical course we're in or if I'm just gifted.
• I'm 100% certain it's the course. I can't remember the last time we did a quiz.
• International Economics... it's, uh, happening. It's a thing. Uh. Yeah.
• Modern East Asia is a weird course. I like learning about the history of the countries whose languages I'm learning. But one one hand, I don't like history that much, and it's full of white imperialism from the western world. On the other hand, it's kind of interesting? I don't know. It's my earliest class, too, so that may have something to do with it.
• Business Communications is going swimmingly. Easy class. Answer questions. Show up. Don't be late (he locks the door). Study. Or don't. I didn't study too much for the first exam and I did very well on it. It's interesting. 
• But it's weird to write emails to the teacher ever since we learned about writing emails. Is it too much? Too little? Mr. Dorn or Professor? Sincerely? Best Regards? How do I sign this?
• And HSC is going okay. It's a little more stressful than I would like but I'm doing my best to keep up with it and stay on top of things. 

• Being-an-adult-ia
• So, uh, internship, yeah. I got everything submitted for that! Now I just have to book the plane tickets. I have some interesting questions though.
• Can I fly on a plane with a coffee machine in my baggage? If I'm staying at an apartment, how do I get pots there? Should I pack my pots? How many suitcases do I bring? 
• What's my internship placement? WHat'smyinternshipplacement? WHAT'SMYINTERNSHIPPLACEMENT?

• Life-ia
• Life is going okay. I found out I really like coffee-- and went to Starbucks a lot. But I bought coffee (caramel machcachaicaiiatto) and creamer (vanilla caramel) along with a TON of groceries in case I find myself unable to go to Kroger.
• I've found out that my happiness should be my utmost focus. You should always keep others in strong consideration but when it comes down to the wire, when you can't sleep and you roll out of bed just so you won't be counted absence, everything you do has to be fore yourself. 
• I've got some old friends back and I'm getting back into DnD. These are things I dropped this semester but picked back up.
• Don't get caught up in having your life together if you're young. You're like, what, 20? You're not supposed to! Stop that! Your life won't be over if you don't get the perfect grades, the perfect placement, the perfect anything. Don't give up juvenile things because you think they're not "adult" enough. Don't force yourself into a business suit before you need to. You'll regret it!
• But on that note, always have some headshots ready. You never know when you'll need one!
• Don't worry about what people think, for the most part. Someone thinks you shouldn't do something? Why? Is it an educated guess? A shot in the dark? Just because? Naaah, man, if you want your vanilla creme bean macchiattatio espresso shot grande starbucks with caramel and whip cream and cinnamon, you do that. If you want to wear a dress every day, do that (just make sure you're comfy). You do you!
• Try to be yourself and stay positive. Things do get better every time you think they won't. Stay excited. Get motivated. Find meaning in your life!

Where in the world is Mackenzie Clark? I don't quite know yet. And that's okay!