Busy weekend coming up!

Today is Wednesday and for me this is kind of like the calm before the storm. This weekend will be packed with so much fun stuff, I can't wait! I will be busy from tomorrow morning at 9.35 until Sunday morning, and then I have to study all day Sunday. One entire 6-7 page research paper needs to be done that day, and even though I feel like there is a lot to do for school right now, it's just 5 weeks left! That is  c r a z y. I say it every semester, but this one has to be the fastest one ever. I mean, we just started?! Well, this is a good thing because I am actually really looking forward to my visit in Sweden over Christmas now.

Starting tomorrow, we are going to host a Halloween Party at our place and then go DT to see all the dressed up people and have a good time. We have to choose wisely were we choose to go tomorrow night because that place is going to be where we have to stay all night, since all of the bars will fill up at 10 pm.
We have decorated our place with Halloween stuff and we are super excited! I love Halloween. I will take pictures of me and my matching roommate Louise in our pretty costumes and put up after the weekend.

Now to something I just heard about, it's "Open Streets" in Santa Barbara! This Saturday, Cabrillo Blvd will close down all the traffic and put up all kinds of fun activities! This will go on from 10 am to 4 pm and I will definitely be there. Some of the activities are; yoga, pilates, kickboxing, art exhibits, health screenings, music performances, street performers and much more. It's a perfect thing to attend on a Saturday.

www.sbopenstreets.org


And one thing that I thought about that i want to share with you all is; Look for activities, clubs and organizations to get involved with at SBCC! I remember what a teacher told me last semester, he said: "Universities and Employers don't look at your GPA and Degree anymore, since there are so many people with college educations nowadays. What they look at are internships that you have completed while in college." He recommended us all to get an internship while still in school.
And it is a known fact that it really boosts your resume to have any kind of volunteer work, memberships in school clubs and to be a part of the Student Ambassadors etc. That is something to think about that will benefit you.

It is really getting colder here in SB now btw! And the other day when me and Louise had been to Starbucks and studied, we stepped out and it was raining! And we got all excited and happy! How crazy is that. It's just that we miss the fall feelings you get in Sweden, where it's dark and chilly and you can stay inside under a blanket, drinking tea and light some candles.

Sunrise, from one of my early morning walks. Beautiful!

It's Monday alright

I woke up this morning and I felt a bit low. Santa Barbara must have had a little storm visiting last night because my window made banging sounds like it was about to break, and that woke me up several times. Anyways, when I woke up I took my morning walk as usual and I always meet the same people in Shoreline Park, so we always greet each other by saying Good Morning or just exchange smiles. That instantly makes me happier. My yoga class at 8 am contributed to more energy as well and by 10 am I was feeling really good.

I don't know where the low feeling came from this morning but I guess it's just a mix of tiredness, school stress and my over thinking that's haunting my head. The trick to always waking upp happy though, is to go to bed with happy thoughts! It really works, believe me. I must have had some pretty bad thoughts in my head before I fell asleep last night. Not making that mistake tonight!

The weekend was good, and I had a lot of time to think about what I want to do in the future and we cruised around a lot in the car that I rented.
I have to tell you about the coolest breakfast and lunch place in Santa Barbara; We went to The Shop Cafe  located on Milpas St on Friday. You order from a counter and there are tables where you can sit inside or outside. You kind off get the feeling that you are in someone's house, not at a restaurant or cafe. I had the best damn oatmeal (that's the actual name of the oatmeal) and it was delicious. Their prices are super good too! This is a must go for all of you. I loved it. http://www.shopcafesb.com/

Saturday night started at Arch Rock at Anacapa St, to have dinner and celebrate Erika's 25th birthday. I had chicken with mashed potatoes and mushrooms and it was sooo good! It was me Erika, Louise and Kirstine. We had conversations about crazy hilarious dreams and we laughed a lot. The night continued at Cadiz and then Tonic. Good night overall!


Oh, and last Thursday me and my teammates did great on our debate! I would never have thought it would be so much fun debating. I really got in to it and almost got mad at the other team for real, haha. We won the debate though and I am looking forward to seeing a new debate tomorrow in class.

Have a great day everyone! I am spending my afternoon at the big Starbucks on State Street to finish one paper and start another one.

Sweater Weather!

Fall made it to Santa Barbara, for real, yesterday. The fact that I can now walk around in jeans and a sweater without dying of heat is amazing.  I really love fall, it's a great period for new beginnings. 

The one negative thing about fall, is that it's flu season. My throat is a bit sore right now so I am resting from my usual workouts today. 

I just came from a very interesting meeting a few hours ago, that really set my mind in to motion. I wish I could tell you more about it but I can't right now. The picture is me in front of the Moreton Bay Fig Tree which is located by the train station is SB. It is the biggest, coolest tree I have ever seen. Apparently it is number 20 on the list of top attractions in Santa Barbara. 

I am discovering as an intern in social media that it is not about completing the tasks you are handed at work, it is about going above and beyond the task you are given. Honestly, I just realized this like a month ago. Since then, I try to put that little bit of extra effort in to everything I do. Put a thought in to what I do. What do I want to accomplish by doing this? And I also use a lot of my free time researching  new things.

And this time of the semester I'm starting to plan for the upcoming spring semester, what classes I will take. I only have one class plus lab that I need to complete my AA degree so I have 9 units to fill with 3 classes that I think will be good for me. I have already decided to take Public Speaking with Cameron Sublett, who is one of the best professors I have been fortunate to have. Prof Sublett is one of the few who's lectures I have felt truly inspired by every single class. I took his Communication 101 class last semester and I learned so so much about my self and about how to understand others. 

I went down to Chapala street to rent a car at Enterprise yesterday. I needed a car to be able to go to my meeting this morning at 7.30 am, and also because Louise and Erika are driving down to LA tomorrow, so they can use it. I absolutely LOVE driving. I could easily drive for hours with my favorite music on really loud and just think about life. So if you know someone who is selling a car in the SB area, let me know!

I would like to try something for this blog post. I want YOU to comment (anonymous if you'd like) and just type one sentence or just one word about why you read my blog. You could be one of my family members, one of my friends, acquaintances, or someone that just found this blog through SBCC's website or the Blog website, it doesn't matter, I want YOU to leave a mark. That would make my day!

Oh, and we are preparing for Halloween at our apartment right now. We are buying decorations and planning a fun party..

The value of Education

Hey guys,

It's a very energetic, happy and excited Malena sitting at her desk today! Who would have known that you can feel so good about yourself just by learning new things and experience something new.

Before I started at SBCC, I wasn't to excited about the idea of going back to school. I believed in the power of working your way up to higher positions and I still do, although, the value of education according to me, is not just the degree and your GPA on a piece of paper, it is the changes that happen within you.




An education does not mean sitting through classes and manage to get an OK grade, it is all about your attitude towards it. I have grown and learned a lot not just from my classes but from inspiring teachers and classmates too. I have met so many people at this college that have touched me in some way and that I have learned from. Think about it, you are fortunate enough to go to a school where over 20.000 completely different people with totally different lives come every day with the same goal as you, to get an education, and to grow as a human being. Use the opportunity you have to talk to new people and learn from them.

I am really taking advantage of every opportunity I get, and right now I am so excited because things are really starting to happen for me!



This weekend that is coming up, we are welcoming our friend Erika who will arrive from San Francisco on Thursday morning! I really look forward to spending time with her, she is hilarious. My roommate Louise and Erika are going to Universal Studios on Thursday night for a "horror night" where you get chased by zombies and ghosts and all kinds of scary things. I am honestly too scared to go, but I think it could be a lot of fun for the ones who actually like that stuff! There will be horror nights at Universal until November 2nd.

This week in school is a pretty stressful one where I have had one midterm in Philosophy , I have one paper draft due for History, a debate in my English class and I have an important personal meeting tomorrow morning. And even though I feel stressed right now, I know that no feeling is better than the one I will have inside on Thursday afternoon when this week is over!

Have a great week everyone!

New students!

I remember it like it was yesterday, the day I stepped foot on the huge American Airlines plane that was taking me from London to LA. The 11 hour flight that I spent thinking and speculating about what my upcoming 5 months would be like. I remember thinking "Well, Malena, if you don't like it or if things don't work out the way you want them to, you always have the option of just returning home. And it's only going to be 5 months, then you will be back home in Sweden." 

But as you can all tell, everything did work out and I don't just like it in Santa Barbara, I am completely in love with it, and never in my wildest dreams I would have imagined my self 2 years later sitting by my desk located at the Marketing Department at SBCC, being a member of the Phi Theta Kappa, doing great in all of my classes and working towards my degree. 

The things I remember worrying about were stuff like:

*Will I meet friends?

*Where and how will I find a place to stay?

*What will my classes be like?

*Are my english skills good enough?

What I did, was to search on facebook for other people who were going to move to Santa Barbara at the same time. I found a group called "SBCC Spring 2012" and it had over 100 members. That group helped me find a lovely girl named Sanna (who came to be one of my closest friends) who I started e-mailing with. We arrived in LA on the same day and we decided to share a hotel room in Santa Barbara. (That's were the picture is from, our very first breakfast) The second day, we sat down and looked for housing on www.craigslist.com . We found an apartment at Oceano/Cliffdrive almost right away and we ended up meeting the landlord and got the apartment on the same day. (The picture) From my own experiences and from what I hear from everyone else who are living in Santa Barbara, is that the monthly cost per individual is between $550 to $750. With room for exceptions of course.

                                                                

We were in SB early though. We arrived on January 4th and school didn't start until January 27th. So that is one tip, be here in time. And it is good if you start looking for roommates before you arrive, and you can do this by searching on facebook, or put up an ad on craigslist saying that you are looking for roommates. 

Another tip is to contact people who already live in Santa Barbara (through facebook or craigslist) and ask them if they have contact info to different landlords in the area. Most students who study at SBCC live either on the Mesa (which is pretty much were the school is located), downtown, or in Isla Vista which is located about a 20 minute drive from SBCC. 

The school website also has a link that provides a lot of great information about housing in Santa Barbara: https://www.sbcc.edu/housing/

Well, thats a little bit about housing. Feel free to ask me questions about it!

And when it comes to my personal life, it is pretty much the same: workouts, studying, working, eating my favorite food in the world (oatmeal with banana and milk, I could eat it for days) looking forward to Halloween etc. I had my first midterm today which was in yoga class. We went up as a group and had to lead the class through one of the 3 sun salutations. I did some practicing last night at our place.

I feel like I just want to ride off of this amazing wave of gratitude that I am on right now. I am amazed by all the great things in my life that I have worked so hard to accomplish. They are paying off.

Much love

Happy thoughts - Happy life

I sat and talked to my roommate Louise last night, while watching How I Met Your Mother and eating chicken with ranch dressing, about how I never experience the all known "Sunday anxiety". I used to  feel it when I was back in Sweden and wasn't completely satisfied with the situation I was in, but since I moved to SB I can't wait for the school weeks to begin.

This is probably because I love learning, and I love to stay busy doing things that I know are going to benefit me in the long run. My classes gives me a new perspective on things, and my internship teaches me about the career I want to pursue. I have grown so much since I started to educate myself and it's something that I am truly valuing.

I also believe in the power of positive thinking. You are the one who decides how you feel about every aspect of your life. It is really hard to turn a negative situation around and see it in a different light, it is something that needs practice but it is crucial for your happiness. 

This weekend started off with a roomie dinner on Friday night. We made mashed sweet potatoes, cheese layered chicken in the oven, avocado salad, pastry and blackberry jelly. It was sooo good and we ate a lot, so much that one of us looked like she was 6 months pregnant haha. 

I got a lot of school work done too and I worked out at the school gym friday and saturday. On saturday night me and Louise decided to hit the bar scene with our danish friend Kirstine. So we started out in the funk zone, but Seven was too crowded, and we weren't really feeling Reds either so we walked down to Cadiz, which is one of my favorite bars in Santa Barbara and it was crowded as usual. We always meet people we know and have a good time there. 

After that, we went to Eos and then ended our evening at Tonic. We had a lot of fun and since we came home pretty late we allowed ourselves to sleep in on Sunday.

This morning, I jumped out of bed at 6.30 am and took a 1 hour walk. It is kind of cold but so refreshing outside at that hour so I love waking up and get energized by a morning walk before my classes.

My yoga class this morning was held outside at the stadium. It was really awesome practicing yoga and breathing the fresh air. I really loved it. 

My next post will be about housing in SB, and how you as an international student can look up housing from your home country before you come to SB. Please, write me a comment if you have any specific questions about housing in SB!

Fall=Halloween, holidays and jackets.

Today is Oct 9th, and I just literally woke up this morning thinking September never even existed, we just skipped right in to Oct. That's how fast time flies when you go to SBCC. This is the end of week 7 so next week we will be half way through the semester. Insane.

The upcoming weeks are going to be so much fun. Me and my roommate Louise ordered our Halloween costumes last night, and we giggled a lot because we are so excited for Halloween. I'm not going to tell you what we are dressing up as, you will just have to go DT that Thursday and find out!
Oh, and a tip, Halloween night DT is CRAZY. Plan your evening, and make sure that you're DT early, because every single bar is filled up by 10ish. And as you can see, last year, I was a cat.

After Halloween, we have Monday off  November 11th (Veterans Day) and at the end of November there's Thanksgiving weekend and we get Thursday off.

After the Halloween costume was ordered last night, me and my 2 roommates tried to study, but we ended up listening to old really funny songs from our teenage years ("Gunther and the sunshine girls" for all the swedes who actually know what songs I'm talking about), so we started singing and laughing again before we finally managed to get some school work done.


I love having roommates. We get along really well in our apt, and I am so grateful for those two, I can't even describe it. That's one really great thing about college, you're never alone. When you are moving in with people that you don't know, you are pretty much forced in to getting to know them, and I see that as a great thing. Even if you are different from each other, there is always something you can learn from one another. Over the years in SB, I've had several roommates. Starting with Filippa, Sanna and Sebastian, to just Filippa, to Jennie and Camilla, and now Jenny and Louise.


Back to present: Today is blog meeting day! I am meeting with Savanna, Kiki, Rachel, Helena, Ramon and Nicolas today. I met with Lashea, Daniel, Alicia and Travis yesterday. Since I am a marketing intern I was a part of developing these blogs, and I'm really happy with the result. Make sure you check these guys out at:

www.sbcc.edu/blogs

Today is pretty cold, so I really got the fall feeling and I love it! I love that I can wear jackets now. (FYI, I have 21 jackets in my american closet, I am an addict) And I love to hide under a comfy beanie.



Keep commenting and let me know what you want me to blog about! Thanks to all the visitors that found me, warms my heart.

Amazing!

Wow, I can't believe I had about 800 page views on my blog today and it's 2.30 pm! I love it! Thank you so much for the feedback that I've gotten on my posts and what you guys want to read about. Keep commenting, and feel free to write me on Facebook for questions. I am here to help.

Blogging is a lifestyle. Personally I love writing, and I like to think that I am way better at expressing my thoughts and emotions in writing than I am trying to express them in words.
That is why I love to blog. I want to inspire people. Go to school. Set goals in life. Work hard. Do what you love. Create the life of your dreams. You will feel amazing when you start to accomplish things in life that you didn't think was possible.

I want to share a dream with you all.
I always knew that I wanted to live in California one day. Ever since my early teen years, I used to see my self driving a pink convertible in LA. I parked it outside my office and I was dressed in a black penn skirt, a white shirt, black super high heels, big black sunglasses and my blonde hair was blowing in the wind as I stepped out of my car to my office. That's what I always saw when I thought about my future. But you know what? I never thought it would become reality. I always thought it was a too big of a challenge and I could never move to the States, that was impossible. It was just a silly dream.

When I suddenly decided to just go for it, I was so scared. I moved to a new country, all by my self. Looking back at it today, that was the single most important decision I have ever made in my life. This has been a life changing experience, and I have loved every single minute of it. Sure, you will have times when you just want to go back home to your family and cry basically, because you miss them so much. But this dream of living in California and actually creating a life with friendships, work experiences and personal growth is what I always wanted and I made my own dream come true.

Sure, I don't have a pink convertible (yet. And I have changed my dream car since I was 13, so now it's a white porsche cayenne) and I do not have my own office (yet), and I am not sure I want to live in LA or if it will be in Santa Barbara or San Francisco, but these are my goals that I am working towards, and I have complete faith in my self.

I know that it is scary and challenging, but if you are considering moving here, from another country or from another state:
Please, do it.
I promise you, you have my word on it: You Will Not Regret It.



The first picture is one of the first pictures taken of me when I first moved to SB in january 2012. And the second two are of me finally driving my (black not pink) convertible to San Diego which was one of our first road trips.

Much love,

Here is my life.

When I try to describe my life in Santa Barbara to all my friends and my family back home, it's really hard to do. Every time I come home between the semesters, everyone keep saying: "Tell us EVERYTHING!" Well, that's kind of hard to do. But I will try to explain a typical week in my Santa Barbara life.

First of all, I am a complete morning person. So yoga class monday morning between 8-9.20 am is perfect for me. I love starting the week with a good workout so after yoga class, I walk back home (I live on Oceano Avenue which is located right next to SBCC so walking home takes just a few minutes) and I drink my protein shake and a big cup of coffee before I take a 45 minute walk and then head straight to the school gym until about 12ish. After that I go home to take a shower and go to work at the Marketing Department between 1pm-4pm.
That's what my Mondays and Wednesdays are like. They fly by, I'll tell you.

 Tuesdays and Thursdays usually start with a morning walk before my 3 classes in a row. I have History 102, Philosophy 100 and English 110 and 120 between 9.35 and 2.05. So these days go by really fast too.

My afternoons during the week are usually spent studying at home, having dinner at our place and watch some of my favorite series. Right now, I'm hooked on "Sons of Anarchy" and I am completely in love with Jax, just saying.

 The weekends usually include the beach, studying, working out, going DT to one of all the great bars (always end up at Tonic though) having dinner somewhere, shopping maybe, and just enjoying the free time. The great thing about studying at SBCC is that you can pretty much make your own schedule because most of the classes are available at many different times and different days of the week. So I have never had a class on a Friday since I started at CC, which means that my weekends are just as long as my school weeks. I love it.

 My roommates and me

This Monday was slightly different from my regular Mondays though. My roommate got really sick on Sunday night from food poisoning so after an entire Monday in bed, cramping and feeling really sick, she had to go to the Emergency Room at Cottage Hospital (which is about a 10 minute drive from our place). Since we don't have a car and I had never been to the ER in SB before, I called my supervisor Melanie at the Marketing Department and asked her what we should do. This angel named Melanie came and picked us up, drove us to the ER, stayed and made sure that my roommate got in to see a doctor, and when we realized that I wouldn't be home until really late that night, Melanie took me home to grab my computer and some books, then took me back so I could sit at the ER and finish my paper that was due on Tuesday. My supervisor Karen also called to make sure that we were OK.
I am so happy to be surrounded by such amazing people, who help each other out like that.
I got up really early on Tuesday to buy Melanie flowers, a card and chocolate as a Thank you gesture. That was the least I could do! My roommate is fine now, and everything is good. I just wanted to share this experience with you all, and let you know that there are some incredible people in this town and I get to work with them! How lucky am I...

Productivity

I have gotten to know my self really well since I went back to school 2 years ago. When I was in the "Gymnasium" (what high school is called in Sweden), I wasn't really motivated. I had no idea what I wanted to do in life and school was basically just something that I had to get through, I didn't appreciate learning like I do today. After graduating from the Gymnasium called Rudbeckianska in my hometown, I started working in retail.

    

 I started off at a shoe store where I got full time and got to go with the owner of the store on different trips to decide what shoes we were going to purchase for the upcoming seasons etc. She also let me handle all the contact with the foreign companies since she wasn't comfortable speaking english. I learned at this stage in my life that I felt really good when I got the feeling I was needed, that my opinion and my skills counts. Several years later I found myself store manager of a huge clothing company, and when I didn't see that job as a challenge anymore, I went back to school. In an entirely different country. Which is scary to a lot of people.

One of my study sessions at Starbucks.

What I am trying to say is that I love challenges, and I love to be productive! One of my favorite things is to have a list of stuff that I need to do at work at to just check it off as the day goes by. The feeling I get when I leave my desk at the end of the day with all the stuff checked off my list, is a great feeling. I know that I contributed, and that what I do is valuable. 

This weekend was such a good one. I went to the Phi Theta Kappa Induction Ceremony on Friday, and it was really nice. We got coffee, croissants, cheese, grapes and cute little cupcakes. I went there with my friend Linda who was also inducted, but we saw a lot of familiar faces that night. I spotted my fellow blogger Helena from far too! There were a lot of students that were inducted, which is great! 

I spent saturday at the beach, and then dinner at SandBar on State Street before we went to see the movie "Don Jon" at the Paseo Nuevo Theatre. It was an..interesting movie, haha. We laughed a lot! And the gorgeous Scarlet Johansen did a great job in that movie, I love her. Sunday was spent studying and writing papers! 

Now that week 6 has started, I can't believe its only 10 weeks left of the semester.