Hello and Happy Holidays! Little Life Catch Up…

Outfit details: Sequin blazer ($169) / Sequin pants ($74) / Satin Crop Top ($25)

Hello besties! I realize I sound like a broken record, but apologies for the lack of posting. Honestly, maybe that is just my blogging brand at this point. My desire to write and ideas really do ebb and flow, but I always feel a bit guilty when too much time has passed… A professor at USC, who is considered an expert in branding, told me that one shouldn’t feel pressured to stick to a posting schedule and should write when they feel inspired and have something to say, soooo yeah I’m just gonna stick to that philosophy from now on! It helps the conscious and I think it’ll make for more meaningful content, ya feel? And lucky for you beautiful people, I am officially feeling particular chatty and have loads to catch ya up on.

First and foremost, I am officially done with my first semester of grad school! I feel like I’ve barely been in LA the last couple months, what with Thanksgiving and Christmas being freakishly close together this year…. I left for Thanksgiving break the week before the holiday, spent the weekend in Chicago, and then flew to Minnesota to spend the rest of the week with my boyfriend Alex and his family! It was SO much fun. This was my second time in MN; I spent a week over the summer for the 4th. So obviously this trip was a completely different vibe weather and activity wise. Alex and I had been dating for around 6 months then and are now approaching our 1 year (crazy right) so getting to spend the holiday together and extended time with his family was just very special. We’ve been long distance since the end of August and this time together was so so needed! We ate really well, drank a million White Russians and all the Bailey’s, binge watched Mindhunter on Netflix, played with his cat, went out to the bars with his high school friends, went bowling, hung out at his dad’s hangar (his dad flies planes!), and Saturday we went to U of M for the Gopher game (I think they were playing Wisconsin and it was a huge game.) It was my first time on a Big 10 campus for a college game day and it was SO fun. And cold haha. I had like 4 layers of clothes on and hand warmers all over my body.

I was back in LA for 4 days after that and then flew home to Chicago for winter break! Well, I still had two final research papers looming. One was for my Intro to Digital Social Media class; we had to write a 25 page group paper and give a presentation on the last day of class. We conducted a sentiment analysis using Sprout Social and researched three different brands in the streaming service space: Netflix, Hulu, and Disney Plus. Our paper went into the history and background of these streaming services, analyzed future trajectories, included a survey and interview segment about streaming habits… My part was all about the Sprout Social analysis, so I looked at user behavior on Twitter and the web, basically seeing what people have to say about these three brands and what their experience is like. The tool we got a license for shows all this data about the messages too, like how many impressions there are over a certain period, how much engagement, whether the sentiment is positive/negative etc… I won’t bore any of you who aren’t interested, but I will post the paper as I have been doing with my other work this semester!

My other final was for my Analytics and Methodology class, which is essentially a standard communications research class. I had to do a 15 page paper on the results of a qualitative study I conducted. I once again chose to focus on reality television (the fact of which is making me seriously consider researching possible careers in this space…) and did interviews that sought to uncover people’s primary reasons for watching reality television and whether there were any universal personality traits in the interviewees that could explain why they loved it so much. Fun!

The last few days have been relatively chill and low key; I’ve been hanging with my mom and sister when Alex is at work and hanging with him at night. Just trying to get in as much time as possible together while I’m still here on break! Becauseeeeeee on Friday my family and I are headed to South Africa!!! I’m so excited!!!!!!! This trip has been planned for almost two years, and its always felt like this far off dream… And now it’s finally here! We are going with close family friends and it’s just gonna be the trip of a lifetime. We are doing safaris for the first 5 days and staying at Londolozi, then heading to Cape Town for the following week. I don’t even totally know what to expect, it’s unlike any trip I’ve ever been on and I’ve never been to this part of the world before. I just know it’s going to be absolutely incredible and such an adventure. Can’t wait to take you guys along with me!! Stay tuned on IG and Youtube for a travel vlog.