Brew Your Success Carefully — Hope For Mondays

Fashion/Insight: Approximate time reading this post: 5 minutes

I have probably started this post at least five times and I guess that just goes to show how much change I have had in these past five months. I have been pretty occupied by my second semester in my first year at ASU’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication

I don’t think I have felt so many emotions in such a short time frame than I did especially in these past few weeks. I laughed until I cried out of pure exhaustion, but happiness, and teared up in interviews that broke my heart. If this is what the rest of my life looks like, I’ll take it.

As many of you know, because of my Thursday Instagrams story outings, I took the most difficult required class for a print major this semester, Intermediate Reporting. In this class we wrote 12 articles, one each week with assigned subjects from profile, business, crime, legislative, and more. In this class, we had to publish half of our stories in a major publication, and for every story not published, you lose a letter grade.

Needless to say, this class consumed my life for a good four months. I set aside a lot of good friends and some unnecessary relationships in order to pursue this course to the best of my ability. I started to get distracted but I reeled myself back in. And I don’t regret this because I think this was great practice for what my life is going to become.

So about five months later now, I don’t think I need to explain my lack of blog presence.

Now that my first year at Walter Cronkite has officially come to a close and I am moving onto my senior year, I can say that this is truly the school for me. I almost made this post for last Monday, the week of when I was supposed to have my last final exam. But Tuesday night, the day before my editing final I started throwing up blood and continued to get sick for the rest of the night. This was also the day before my first interview for my freelance writing gig, so it pretty much threw off my whole week.

(I will probably never get the pitchfork thing right on a first try.)

Outfit details: long slit shirt (Forever 21), ripped low jeans (Hollister), layered chokers (gift- Free People), penny necklace (gift- Francesca's), turtle sunglasses (gift- Free People).

I am feeling much better now and I aced my exam as of yesterday- thanks to Cronkite for being so gracious and my professor for coming all the way back to school to watch me take my last exam. But this was a wake up call for the amount of stress and caffeine I consumed this year.

It's highly possible I have an ulcer, which is treatable but this also interrupts my current and future lifestyle. I am scheduled to meet with our family naturopath this Thursday so “Operation Repair Leah” is enroute.

What I really just want to say is how grateful I am for this school and the opportunities and friends it has brought me. But health cannot sit on the backburner while you are brewing for success.

I am going to continue to work tirelessly and with full focus, but keeping in mind diet, caffeine intake, and unnecessary stress I can reduce by the things in my control.

I plan to keep my blog updated throughout the summer with updates of my freelance position, other publishings, as well as lifestyle and fashion things. Also, huge congratulations to all the graduates this year! Check my blog post here from last year when I graduated with my associates and wrote a graduation speech that still very much applies today.