Christmas EXTRAVAGANZA!

Over the weekend, my friend Ben and I had a Christmas Extravaganza (part one!). I bought a fake Christmas tree from Target and some red ornaments and sparkly snowflakes. I topped it all off with a pine scented candle so I could have the whole Christmas experience.

I know I promised to be a good blogger and take lots of pictures of the decorating, but it turns out that sometimes it's more fun to do things just for yourself and not for a blog post...crazy right? I did take "after" pictures though and I'm more than happy to share them :). I love the way my tree turned out. Ben "helped" by throwing ornaments at the tree and was really entertained by the fact that they actually stayed where they hit. Okay, I'll admit I thought that was pretty entertaining as well.

Here's a picture of me and my tree (we match)!


I also made a pretty little sign out of recycled magazine pages because the wall behind our extremely ghetto TV is really bare (ahem, meg!!).



Please ignore the huge mess that is our tv table. The wires are really not so pretty to look at.

I'm still working on more decorations because I really want my apartment to feel festive, but the tree was a great start! I'll be sure to post more pictures after part two of the Christmas Extravaganza.

In other news, my life has been extremely hectic. Loads of you said that you wanted to know more about my personal life in my posts so I'm going to share :). I got a job at the end of October (thank god!) and I've been working a bunch of hours because we're a little understaffed and it's the holiday season. On top of the work (around 30 hours a week) I am still in school full time (15 credits, in class 16 hours a week) and it's finals week.
A lot of people think that we don't take finals at art school so we aren't allowed to be stressed but the truth is that I would KILL to only have to take tests during finals weeks. Instead of only taking tests (we have those as well) we also have to put together these huge cumulative projects and presentations that are generally due the week before the final and are worth a huge chunk of our grade. So finals week at Columbia is really like finals month because there is so much work that goes into creating a successful presentation or project. It's extremely overwhelming!! And as soon as you finish these massive projects you have to start studying for a final. I am beyond excited for this week to be over because I am running on very little sleep and I don't have time to do anything that keeps me sane (exercise, crafting, journaling, etc.)
Generally I get very depressed and unmotivated during finals month because all of the pressure gets me down, but this time has been different. I really enjoy my job so I don't mind the amount of time I spend there (I also really enjoy the money which allows me to buy groceries and pay my power bill) and my classes this semester are fascinating so I don't particularly mind the projects either. I've been involved in a few group project situations that were horrendous and stressful (group members not participating and trying to pick up the slack) but the last one is due on Monday so I'm almost done with that. I've also been trying to stay positive about everything. When I go to bed at night I tell myself that I'm going to wake up in the morning and have a good day. Usually when I wake up I take a deep breath and tell myself that I can handle anything that happens once I get out of bed. Just those two little affirmations help me SO much. Throughout the day when I start to feel negative or overwhelmed I take a deep breath and put a positive spin on things. For example, when I'm not selling well at work instead of putting myself down I take a breath, accept that I'm still learning, and get ready for the next customer because it's an opportunity to start from scratch. I'd like to do a post on positive thinking so when I have more time I'll dive into this topic a little more thoroughly. Have a wonderful day, I'm off to do more homework :).

xo
Mal