My book blogging friend and inspiration, Grace at Words Like Silver, recently had a post in which she talked about "The Future" and about working towards an uncertain future. Once again, her post made me think about my own future and about pursuing interests.

Like everyone else in college, I'm constantly asked about what I want to do with my life and with my majors/minors. For a long time, I knew I wanted to be a teacher; I didn't know what type of teacher, but that's what I thought I wanted to do. Then, I was thrown into an actual situation in which I was teaching students for almost two months, and I realized that it wasn't what I wanted to do. I think I would still like to teach one day, but I no longer want to have a career in teaching.

I had a year or two where I felt lost; I understood how so many of my peers felt. I had no idea what I wanted to do, other than that I didn't want to go into a math/science field. Then, I took AP Human Geography and a summer course on International Development at Brown University. And suddenly I knew that that's what I was interested in and what I wanted to study.

I'm currently planning on double majoring in Political Science and Public Policy, with concentrations in International Relations and International Development, and minoring in International Relations. At times, I feel very pessimistic about what I want to do, and I question whether or not I'll really work at an organization similar to the UN. Obviously I still have a ways to go, so it's okay to not know.

But after reading Grace's post, I wonder if I'm doing enough. I'm lucky enough to have an idea of what I want to do. Like Grace, I'm not positive on what I want to do with what I love. I have a vague idea, but so much can still change. But whereas Grace is going full swing in the direction of her dreams, I wonder if I am.

Most of the time, I feel like I'm that person that ends up focusing too much on school work and not enough on the other stuff. I feel like I let my studies dictate my life. That's not bad per say; you do need good grades, especially since I'm likely going to grad school. I've always been a very studious person, but I was also very involved in extracurriculars in middle/high school. Now, I just feel like I'm swamped all the time. I hardly volunteer anymore, I'm only dancing once a week, and I've just been really bad at doing anything but procrastinating and studying. Even most of my friends say that it seems like I'm always doing my homework, and it feels that way too (although they don't realize that sometimes I'm reading and/or blogging too).

I feel busy, but at the same time, I feel as though I'm not actually doing anything, if that makes sense. I think I should be doing more, especially relating to the field I want to go into. The two organizations I'm volunteering in are both amazing and do great things, but as much as they say they need our help to run, I don't know how much I'm actually contributing. I don't think I'm getting the experience I should be. I should be doing more, being more active, actually trying to help a community/the community. And I don't think I am right now. Part of it is that I don't know how. I don't know how to find these amazing organizations and get involved. I don't know how I could possibly make a difference. I don't know how I'd be able to juggle everything, only that I'd have to and I'd want to. I'm currently in the process of applying to an internship and a fellowship that I hope will help, but it's not even close to guaranteed that I'll get either one. I think I'm going to start volunteering more next semester as well (in the two organizations I'm currently with).

Am I doing enough? I feel as though I should be doing more. I should be working harder in the field I wish to go into. I should pursue my interests. But how? To some extent, I sometimes think that I pursue my love for dance more than my career interests. Heck, I'm even blogging and reading more than I am doing something in my career goal. Maybe that's okay; after all, those other interests are great ways to destress and do what I love. But I also find development and social issues and all of that super interesting as well. I love discussing those because I'm passionate about it. But I don't do it enough. Sometimes it's because I'm scared of how people will react. I'm often really bad at backing up my points. I'm really indecisive in almost everything because I think about almost all possibilities, and I think that sometimes this grey area keeps me from having a solid opinion, and that's hard to deal with (more on this in another post).

So people like Grace inspire me. People who go in the direction of their dreams, who chase after it with all they can. I wish I could be more like that, but I'm not sure how right now. And I know that's okay for now; I'm only a college freshman, and of course, there's still so much that can change, but this uncertainty, this feeling of not doing nearly enough, has been pinging around in my brain a lot lately.

The first month or so of college, I honestly never really wanted to go home. I had my friends, and I loved being around them all the time. We hung out and had fun and nobody was there to nag me. Sure, it was nice to get food from home or to sleep in my own bed or be surrounded by my books again or to have my parents get me new stuff. But I loved being on my own in college. I was having a blast. I made friends pretty quickly, and we became fairly close pretty quickly too. Going home meant hearing my parents and my sister fight about her college applications. It meant definitely not getting any homework done (though I wasn't getting much done with my friends at that point either). It wasn't that I didn't want to see my family; I did. But I didn't feel homesick the way many people do. Even now, I don't really feel homesick. I would see my parents almost every other week in some way or another, and my mom calls me almost every day.

(Note: I intend to have some pictures up later, but for now, I don't have a way to edit them the way I wish to and so this is just a large chunk of text. Also, at the time I drafted this, it was one month in, but now it's two months!)

It's funny how quickly things can change. It's been about a month since I moved in, and everything already feels different. It's not even about being away from home and from my family. It's not even necessarily the work load, although there's plenty of that and I'm still adjusting. More than anything, the past few weeks have been huge growing experiences for me, and I have a completely different outlook on life.

When I started college, I had both high and low expectations--high because I was expecting it to be great and wonderful and so much better than high school but low because it wouldn't have taken much to have been better than high/middle school. My greatest fear and worry was making new friends. I didn't have many friends in high school, and I didn't really have a core circle of friends I could rely on. I often felt lonely and was often alone. I started book blogging and continued to have a presence online because online was where I made friends. I connected with bookish people, people who could understand me. But as close as you can get to someone online (one of my best friends was someone I met online), it's not the same as having a friend in real life, someone you can go to when you need a hug, someone who knows the people you know.

It turns out, I wasn't alone in this worry and I didn't need to worry so much. My outlook going into college was so different from my outlook going into high school and throughout high school. Instead of hiding away in my room and allowing myself to be alone, I made myself go out of my comfort zone and talk to people. I made myself go to different events and to go hang out in areas I knew other people hung out in. Sure, the first week was really tough. I felt exhausted by all the social interaction, and I was struggling to find my place. It seemed as though everyone else around me either already knew people or had already made new friends.

But I need not have worried. Pretty soon, I found myself making new friends and finding my group. For once, I have many friends who understand me and whom I don't have to pretend to be someone else with. I had one best friend in high school, and she was one of the only people who supported me through anything and who loved the real me. Suddenly, I have many of those friends. I was often the one to take the first step, to reach out and invite someone to hang out with me and someone else, to text someone and see if they wanted to grab lunch or dinner together, to ask if someone wanted to go to take the subway with me. Because I was starting new, I didn't try to be someone else. College can be a clean slate. I told myself I wouldn't be someone I wasn't just to make friends because I had been there, done that, and I had been miserable.

I stopped blogging and wasn't really focused on reading and writing anymore. I do plan to get back into it because I love all of those things, but for the first month, I was really focused on my social life and with hanging out with other people. In high school, blogging and books were an escape. They afforded me a community and a group of friends and supporters when I didn't really have many "in real life." But now, I don't feel as though I need to rely on them as much anymore. Now, it's less about reliance and need and more about passion and want. Sure, I was passionate about books before, but I guess I had a different type of connection then.

The difference? I am genuinely so much happier now. Happiness and self-doubt is something I've been struggling with for much of my life, but for once, happiness isn't something that I find myself obsessing over and making an active effort towards every day. I generally feel pretty happy. Sure, there are still ups and downs, but it's not even close to what it was like before. After the first week, I didn't really feel the need to "choose happy" every day because I already felt content and happy. I think this has been the biggest change. I'm still very self-critical and am still struggling with self-doubt, but the happiness part of it is so different. I'm in a much better place now, and beyond that, I'm much more open about talking about my struggles. I never would have thought about how different things would be.

I'm still figuring out a way to balance everything I want to do, and even though I'm still very good at stressing myself out, it's been an overall positive experience. The work load is crazy, but I think it only feels so bad because my time management isn't the greatest, and I kind of put things off until the last minute for the first month. I'm going to try to approach my school work differently this month and see how it goes. I also want to make sure I take more time for myself. Going to college in NYC is one of the greatest experiences, but sometimes, we all need time away from the rush. But I couldn't be happier with where I am right now. Before getting here, I was so nervous about making new friends, and I wasn't sure if I made the right decision regarding which college to attend. Now, I can't imagine being anywhere else.

At the end of this semester, I'll be writing a post about tips for your first semester of college, so if you're interested in that, be on the lookout. I also have some posts exploring other things I've learned/experienced during my first few weeks of college coming up. Hope you'll stick around!

Now Playing: same old love // selena gomez

Hello and welcome! Infinite Golden Floors has been a project in my mind for a very long time, and I'm excited that after a slight delay, I'm finally launching this site.

(PS. I apologize for the suck-y picture above! I don't have Photoshop on my laptop right now, so I was trying to use GIMP. Unfortunately, I have a hard time figuring out GIMP, so there you have it. The name signature at the bottom is likely temporary as well. Once I have PS, my pictures should look better. ;))

About Me

My name is Jessica, and as it says in the side bar, I'm an 18 year old female about to start college. I'll be going to school and living in New York City, and this is my personal/lifestyle blog. Some of you may already know me from my other blog(s). For those of you that don't know about my other blogs, I write reviews (mostly books but sometimes other things) on my own blog, Fly to Fiction, as well as write reviews on Mondays on Feminists Talk Books, and contribute to Lit Up Review, a book blog for teens by teens. But at the time when this blog first became an inkling of an idea, I had been in a huge reading and blogging slump, and I wanted a space where I could post more personal posts. At around the same time, the school year was winding down, and I started thinking a lot more about college life. I decided that I wanted to somehow document that time of my life. At first I thought of vlogging, then I started thinking about journaling, but I sort of knew that those wouldn't likely work out in the long term. I already blog and have an idea of all that it takes. Even though I know it'll be difficult to balance so many blogs and though running and expanding this type of blog seems much more difficult than book blogging, I like that this is really different and is a bit of a different outlet while having similar features to what I'm already used to. And if this really does prove to be too difficult to juggle so much, I think I'd prefer to start posting a few book reviews here and sort of combine the two blogs. But we'll see. ;)

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm a reader, writer, dancer, fangirl, music lover, TV addict and binge watcher, a Potterhead, a wanderlust traveler, a tea enthusiast, a coffee shop finder, and more. I'm hoping to major in political science and public policy and minor in International Relations. I love learning about different peoples and cultures. I'm multiethnic but was born and have grown up in the States.

About the Blog

The name of this blog comes from one of my favorite poems. The particular phrase comes from the line "They who dance find infinite golden floors beneath their feet." This line first stuck out to me as a dancer but has grown to mean a lot more to me. I see it as meaning there are endless possibilities in life. There's often more than you believe there to be. This has become a big part of my life lately, and even though I've begun to use this three word phrase often and for everything I can, as I was brainstorming possible blog names, this one continued to stick out to me. For a personal blog, this seems like the perfect name, at least for me.

In terms of what you'll see on this blog, I'm still trying to figure it out, and these first few months will likely be me just figuring it out. But for now, I'm thinking that my posts will be a heathly variety of life updates/journal-esque posts, posts about my college life, sharing my favorite coffee shops and hopefully some tea shops (there are fewer of those), travel posts whenever I get to travel, posts and pictures of NYC, some posts about books/dance/movies/music, opinion/discussion posts, and whatever else I feel like posting on a whim. As I mentioned, this is personally much more of a means to keep myself accountable in documenting my college years than anything else, so I'll figure stuff out as I go. I'll try to include a "now playing" song at the end of each post; some I'll explain, some I won't, some will be more like mood stuff, others will just be what I'm listening to as I write/schedule/post that particular post, some will be a song I've been obsessed with, and some will just be a song I wish to share. They'll be in the format: Now Playing: song // artist (And if anyone wants, I can create a list of all the songs I use for future reference.)

Instagram/Twitter

Lastly, I have an Instagram account, which I've already been using for a few months, as well as a Twitter account I'm still deciding if I'll use. My Instagram account is infinitegoldenfloors and features pictures that may give you a feel for the look/aesthetic I'm aiming for. As for my Twitter, it's infinitegold. I currently already have/have access to four (five but one I rarely use) accounts, so I don't know if I'll be able to handle another one. I don't want to combine it with my book blog's Twitter, so we shall see.

Thanks!

My first thanks/shoutout goes out to the lovely Kaitlin at Next Page Please! for not only all the love and support but also for creating the amazing header I have. Even though she had lots of school work to do, she put up with my complaints and lack of ideas and came up with something amazing. She did it from the kindness of her heart, knowing it was something I needed to do but didn't necessarily have a lot of time to dedicate to. So thank you, Kaitlin!

And thank you for reading this long post, and thanks for checking out my blog and hopefully giving me a chance. I hope you'll come back and read some of my posts. Thanks for stopping by!

Keep finding your golden floors!

Now Playing: the cave // mumford and sons