Hello, hello, and happy May! April was quite a bumpy ride for me, and I feel a little dazed from the month to even sit down and bring you the next chapter of Candidly Kristen. If you haven’t seen these posts before, be sure to catch up (or at least read what they’re all about here) from January, February, and March! It wasn’t my original intention to just write these posts monthly, but I’ve been looking forward to looking back on each month in this way.
I still have a few exams and assignments to finish this week to wrap up my second, and last full year of college, so I’ll keep things relatively brief. I’ll be home with family for the summer, with some exciting trips planned, and come fall semester I’ll be a graduating senior, woo!
- The March madness continues…
- Some of the March madness carried on into April and the month seemed to fly by but also drag by… ya know what I mean? Each day seemed long and many were really difficult to get through, but looking back, I honestly don’t even know where April went. What was I doing the whole time?!
- April Reads
- One of my favorite additions to my blog this year has been this reading log page! A big goal of mine for 2018 is to get reading again, and reading lots! I’ve read at least 2 books every month, and I hope to keep it up. I’ve broken my own personal records for number of books read in the summer for the past two years, and I’m going for year three. I’ve been keeping a running note on my phone of book recommendations to tackle, so the books I’ve been reading have all been so good! I’m not the type to enjoy every single book I read, but these recommendations haven’t let me down yet, so check out my list if you need some suggestions.
- Blogging
- April may just have one of the first months (at least in a while) that I didn’t write a ton. Typically, I get super inspired and excited to write posts and can’t get them typed out fast enough! But this month, I had a lot of other projects and tasks that didn’t leave me with a ton of creative energy leftover to write. However, I think that’s totally okay! It wasn’t that I didn’t want to write, I did! And I truly enjoyed the posts I did get up, I just didn’t take as much time to write and let that energy out as I usually do. I have been free-writing more and I’m re-discovering my goal to write a book that I talked about in my March post!
- April’s Posts:
- Photography – Kristen Shane’s next endeavor
- Photography has stolen my heart, y’all! I kicked off the month shooting some fun photos with my roommate, and I am absolutely loving getting more into photography! My best friend in Gamma Phi is graduating this week, so I shot some grad photos for her and it was so fun! I’m working on adding a photography page to my website somewhere, so get excited to see my favorite pictures I’ve taken!
- Research symposium
- I’ve been researching on the FSU Textbook Affordability Assessment through an undergraduate research program all year, and we had our final research symposium (basically like a college science fair!) in April as well. I finished up my research hours which was exciting, because I had a little extra time to work on my online classes.
- Sorority events & leadership
- If you follow me regularly you probably know I’m serving on the executive board for my sorority this year! I’m the Panhellenic Affairs Vice President, which also makes me my chapter’s delegate to our campus Panhellenic council. So I kind of have two big positions in one! Our campus Panhellenic is super active and close-knit, and we have bi-weekly meetings open to the community, and each of the 17 Panhellenic chapters rotate hosting. Well, April was my month to host! I planned and prepped the meeting décor and set up, and we probably had around 300 people attend which was crazy! Our chapter room was positively packed and we had people overflowing into our patio area. The meeting was a hit and went so well. I’m so grateful for all the help I had and how supportive everyone was! This was the biggest task of my position for the year, but it was also a major stressor for me. It caused me many sleepless nights and a few anxiety attacks which just wasn’t fun. But it all worked out in the end!
- April also meant our formal and our philanthropy, so it really was a packed month. I also went to my roommate’s formal with her!
- As per usual, some overall April thoughts:
- Simply put, April was not the greatest. It was an extremely busy month for my sorority obligations and officer responsibilities, on top of tons and tons of school work and huge final projects and exams. I was definitely juggling way more than I could handle and I’ll admit I didn’t handle it all well, but I did the best I could. Everything ended up honestly pretty good from the looks of it, but it all took a big toll on me personally. I won’t get too deep into it, even for this candid post, but I’ve got some personal things to work out and deal with, and that’s my biggest priority for May.
- Hopes for May
- I’ve just gotten back home to Tampa for the summer, but I’ve still got some online assignments and tests to finish up this week. I’m happy to be home, but April has left me so exhausted! I’m proud of what I did accomplish, but it was my hardest semester yet. May is going to be a full month of LSAT studying (I’m taking it in June ahhh), and hopefully just taking the rest of life a little slower. I’m hoping to soak up some FL sunshine with my May Reads, and spend lots of quality time with my two furriest friends. I’ve got some blog posts ideas listed that I didn’t get around to in April, so I’m hoping to get some of those written out as well 🙂
May 2, 2018
Loved this post! And I would really enjoy if you wrote a post about all things ‘Sororities’ 🙂
May 2, 2018
That’s a great idea!! I’ll add that to my list of posts to write 🙂