Going to CNN

Three o’clock came and I sat in my white plush robe with my wet hair up in a towel sitting on my back porch. I was talking to a good friend of mine about what I had to do to prepare for a meeting with a news writer from CNN. He was telling me not to worry, but my heart was pounding and the Georgia heat was not helping matters. I didn’t know what to expect.

My newspaper advisor recently told me he was getting me in touch with a friend of his who works at CNN. Was it an interview or just a meeting to talk journalism? I really didn’t know.

I told my friend I had to get off the phone and go start getting ready.

I am good about planning what to wear and knowing how to present myself, but when I walked back into my bathroom, all I could think about was checking the time on my IPhone.

My car was completely out of gas. I’d made plans to drive to my parents to ride with my dad to the MARTA station. I looked at the clock 3:45! I called my Dad and begged him to come pick me up and drive me downtown.

After putting on my makeup and scrunching and defusing my curly black hair, I scurried to my laundry room to check on my black slacks and red dress shirt. Luckily, they were dry and my super energy efficient dryer didn’t fail me yet again. I dressed quickly, and looked at my clock again.

4:30- exactly when my Dad was supposed to arrive. I grabbed my grey blazer and oversized tote and told my puppies to wish me luck. I walked outside to my apartment corridor. I fumbled with my keys for a minute and then finally got my door locked. As I walked outside to the parking lot, I realized my Dad’s Honda was not sitting outside.

My heart started beating fast again. I immediately reached into my purse, grabbed my phone and called my Dad. “Where are you??” I said frantically. His gruffy voice sounded annoyed, “I’m on my way as quick as I can!”

Needless to say I was furious.

I opened the door to my little red hatchback, pushed the seat back, and started texting all of my friends, telling them how late I just knew I was going to be.

Everyone said to calm down, and rightfully so, because moments later the apartment gate called and my dad pulled up. I quickly hobbled over to his car, as I was not used to wearing heels, and jumped in.

Finally, my mind was at ease.

A feeling of calmness came over me and I took a deep breath in as he pulled out of the complex.

I ended up arriving 30 minutes early to my meeting.

How to Be Single

By Erin Cotter

So recently I broke up with the guy I’ve been seeing and living with for 3 years. Yep, it feels like I’ve gotten an divorce.

All my friends have been amazing in helping me deal with my break-up, offering me a lot of suggestions for how to deal with it.

I showed up one night at my next door neighbor’s door- She didn’t answer her phone, so I walked next door, teary eyed, and knocked. She opened the door, my voice creaked out “Can I come in for a second?”

Of course she let me in:

She gave me some great suggestions for things to do to make it better.

1. cook your way through a cookbook
2. make a plan every night of things you want to do by yourself and then do it.
3. Pick a T.V. show you want to see and watch it- starting from the beginning.
4. Go work out 🙂 get in shape!
5. Figure out all the things you couldn’t do when you were in a relationship and do them (I’m not just talking about sex here. haha I mean like turn the T.V. off and read a book)
6. Go to the movies

I asked my other girl friend and here was her response:

1. get under someone else 😉
2. cuddle with your dog
3. Go work out!!!
4. come to kareokee and make a fool of yourself
5. drink. (a bottle of wine was her suggestion when I called crying the other day)
6. DO NOT go shopping- it will make you spend more than you need to on stuff you don’t need- or in my case, just feel worse because i have no money to buy anything.
7. call a friend
8. make new friends. of the male species.
9. take numbers.

I asked my male friend what how to stop thinking about someone.

His response was:

1. do something new and different at least once a week.
2. drink. it can help 🙂
3. grieve. – it’s ok to cry (in my case two days was a little too much)
4. get angry!
5. WORK OUT!!! take out your aggression on something- start P90X
6. watch a TV series
7. go out to eat with friends

I asked my mom and here was her response:

1. paint my nails and do facials.
2. sleep.
3. call my parents and actually hang out with them
4. go to church more.
5. PRAY
6. Do Not Drink.
7. make new friends.
8. Do homework- meh.
9. write
10. read a book.
11. go grocery shopping and cook for myself.
12. listen to music.
13. dance.

So- lately I’ve been taking a lot of suggestions, for example tonight I’m starting to watch (from the pilot) ONCE UPON A TIME- I’ve seen a couple of episodes and they are amazing, so tonight I’m going to watch them all.

I started reading The Help – a book I’ve been wanting to read for awhile.

I’ve been working on my decorating file, and cleaning- A LOT

Cuddling my dog molly, and playing with her puppies

I’ve cried more than I should have (yes, two days is too much- for anyone.)

I’m starting to sleep more.

I’ve found out that my friends are willing to help me out more than they were before.

I haven’t started to cook for myself yet-I’ve been living on organic chewy bars for the past couple of weeks, and thai food that my friends take me to go eat 🙂

and I’m happy to say I haven’t been with anyone- even though it would probably make me feel better momentarily- that is the last thing I want. But I will admit to flirting- a LOT.

and working out- hmm… I need to get on that. 🙂

So I’m going to make hot cocoa, light my fire and catch up on my Once Upon a Time.

Cheers to a good night 🙂

From NYC to Nashville- a Recap

Last night I was up all night working on my new resume and my LinkedIn profile. I have always loved social media, one craze will sweep me up and I jump on it- the last one being Pinterest, but my NYC conference talked alot about branding yourself through social media.

We talked about Twitter, and if you all have started following me on twitter- you should 😉 @ErinElizaCotter We talked about Facebook, Google Plus, LinkedIn, and blogging.

To me it seemed like a LOT to take in, probably the most daunting is my facebook and knowing that it’s going to take me hours to go through and fix it up- with lists and subscriptions, yikes. don’t even want to think about it.

Honestly I feel pretty overwhelmed about everything that they said at the conference, but its going to push me in the right direction.

note about my relationship: you may have noticed that I broke up with my boyfriend on my about me page which I changed a couple of days ago. That was another thing that NYC inspired me to do. It was not just the NYC conference, I had been thinking about it for awhile, but I basically decided that I need to be my own person and be single for awhile so that I can travel etc. I felt like I had to put something about this up for you guys, but I didn’t want to post too much about it, so it’s kinda just a little side note right now.

So, I thought that I would post some pictures from my NYC trip, so I’m not just dwelling on how overwhelmed I am. lol 🙂

Those are my favorite pictures from my trip to NYC!

The other exciting thing that just happened was that I found out from my newspaper advisor on Saturday, that I will be traveling to Nashville for a conference with the paper! I’m totally stoked for a lack of better words, not only because I’m looking forward to the conference (which honestly is the main reason I’m excited) but also because it will give me something else to think about than just sitting at home by myself feeling lonely about my breakup. So it’s good for two reasons 🙂

So Nashville here I come!!

Teen Girls Wage War Against Child Sex Trade

Short post here but thought this was a really interesting blog post and wanted to pass it along! Check it out if you have time!

Thanks to the authors for posting it.

Teen Girls Wage War Against Child Sex Trade.

 

NYC12 conference

Well I’m back in New York City and having an amazing time!

I got to come to the NYC12 journalism conference with my school paper! It’s been a wonderful experience so far. This has been my first true experience with networking in my field, learning about internships, and realizing what amazing things I can do in journalism. I’ve gotten to attend sessions with people from publications like Entertainment Weekly, The Daily Show and the Times. Today a colleague and I went to a session on creating a sex column and after it was over I got a text from Daniel Remiold who led the session asking me to do an interview for his blog! I’m super excited about it! We will be doing the interview later tonight so look forward to a link to his blog post!

New Family Members

After spending $ 300.00 dollars on vet bills to pay for Molly’s x-rays and ultrasound, I found out that she was doing fine and able to have the puppies without needing help from a vet.

Saturday afternoon we noticed that Molly had gone off by herself. This was unusual, because she is normally right under my feet or in my lap at all times.

We found her laying on the bed with her water getting ready to break (I’ll spare you the details).

After about an hour, she gave birth to her first puppy, and a few minutes later, the second. In about 4 hours there were five puppies, and molly was exhausted.

Can you guess what’s different?

After watching Food Inc., two weeks ago with my mom, I decided to completely change my food habits. I have started eating all organically and have been trying to eat as little meat as possible.

This morning I was making one of my favorite crockpot meals.

It does have chicken, but I spent 30 dollars on the organic, humanly treated chicken that I bought at Whole Foods, so I felt like I had to use it.

I had to use two cans of diced tomatoes. I only had one can of organic diced tomatoes (I only had two dollars and had to make a store run and needed an onion as well, so i could only get one can of the tomatoes). I had to use one of my old non organic diced tomatoes cans.

 

I was pretty upset when I looked on the ingredients list from the one from Kroger.

Can you tell a difference?

If you can’t figure it out, High Fructose Corn Syrup is the third ingredient most used in the Kroger brand.

I didn’t realize that by paying less for simple things like diced tomatoes, I’m paying big with my health…. 😦

 

Love is Asking

One thing I’ve figured out the hard way- meaning I’ve set myself up for disappointment many times unknowingly- Is that Love is Asking.

I went to church today at 11:15 on Sunday morning (ahhh early and on my day off) for the first time in about a year or two. I haven’t avoided church because I am not a Christian, I do believe in God and faith is a big part of my life, but rather because I’ve always been a little put off by the “in your face, every day Sunday” believers. I shy away because I don’t want my actions to be scrutinized by people who may say that something I chose to do is “unholy” or something like that.

God loves me no matter what. Get over it. (that’s what I want to say, and instead of saying it, I just kinda don’t go to places where I feel like I might be judged.)

Unlike Westboro Baptist- my church is nothing like this but this is still the idea I have of "church people"

Anyway- this morning Kam woke me up early, to take out Molly, because he had to be at work- he’s a landscaper and had to work in the 15 degree weather today so he didn’t want to take her.

I called my mom to see if I could come with her to church, and of course she said YES! (emphatically because I haven’t been in so long)

Well this morning was Youth Sunday and every Youth Sunday the seniors do their own mini sermons for the church. (I did mine when I was a senior too! :))

There was a really good topic brought up about relationships. I think that she said that just as you have to really do your own part in relationships, you also have to expect and know that the other person will do theirs. As hard as you work you can’t build a good relationship if you are the one doing all the work. – of course.

So it got me to thinking about Valentines Day and holiday’s in general, and then the whole idea that in a relationship love is sometimes just asking.

I know that in the past I’ve told Kam- I don’t know what I want- I’d be happy with anything. Which in a perfect world I would love to be true- and it should be, I guess, if I want to be a philosopher.

But its not.

All women want something for a holiday. Women want something nice- jewelry, make up, clothes for Christmas, Candy and flowers on Valentines, and party for our birthdays.

Ok maybe yours is a bit different, but it seems to me that that’s what a lot of girls want.

Well my response to Kam our first Christmas of “I don’t know -I don’t care what ever you get me I’ll be happy with” is probably what led to my first gift.

One word.

Subwoofer

Now, I’m not knocking anyone that would LOVE to get car parts for christmas, or has systems in their cars. But REALLY? yes. a subwoofer. that’s what he came up with. It’s probably his dream gift for himself. but for me? no! 🙂

but I set myself up for that. He got me and present that he would have loved to receive. And while it did give me a chuckle, I still got that bottom of the stomach disappointment feeling.

Next Christmas was MUCH better. I told him EXACTLY what I wanted. Right down to the store and name of each item.

One thing I wanted was the book “Skinny Bitch” by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin.

He Found it! 🙂

He spent all day trying to find that book at B&N and proudly presented it to me on Christmas. I was so happy!

1. to get what I wanted
2. to know he’d spend hours looking for something he knew (because I asked) I wanted
3. because I’d give me hours of good reading

Next Christmas made the same mistake as the first, said I didn’t want anything, and guess what I got? WHAT I ASKED FOR. again I was disappointed.

Let me just say that holidays are NOT times to be martyrs. If I want something I need to ask, and not get mad when I don’t get what I don’t ask for.

So this year for valentines day- I set it out for him. I want to have dinner together, watch Breaking Dawn and Lady and the Tramp (because they both just came out and I want to choose TV for one night) and I want two bottles of Champange and Strawberries.

Can't wait to Watch it together!

and THAT’s what I’m going to get.

But not just with holidays, sometimes I just have to ask for what I want.

If I want help with the laundry- I need to ask.

If I don’t, then I have no right to complain if someone doesn’t jump up to help me.

If I need a minute to myself, ASK, because other people aren’t me and they don’t know my expectations.

I can SHOULD everyone to death or I can ASK so they know what I need.

I’ve finally figured out that ASKING is a LOT easier that SHOULDing someone until I’m upset and the relationship isn’t working anymore.

🙂

Sorry if this seems like a super rant. but I’ve just been thinking a lot about this hehe!

Weekend in Savannah

This weekend my mom, grandparents and I went to Savannah for a GAIE (Georgia Association of International Educators) conference. My mother was a sponsor of the conference and we worked a booth for her business while we were there.

I recently had to cut back on my hours at my T.A. job in the physics department at my school, due to the fact that the job pays so little yet takes most of time on my off days from my classes. My mom offered me a job, working two days a week at her company, so I decided to take the opportunity to make about 3x as much and working more hours but fewer days.

After discussing my decision with the professor I work with, my mother invited me to come to this conference with her from this past wednesday to Saturday. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to come to Savannah with her and my grandfather- who is turning 85 tomorrow, and my grandmother.

We stayed at a lovely Hampton Inn & Suites right beside the SCAD museum. The weather was so nice around 68 compared to the cold windy weather in Atlanta.

The hotel was beautiful! Too bad it was too cold to swim 😉

Before the trip my mom took me to New York and Company to buy some new clothes before the conference. I was really comfortable the whole time we were there, because I actually had well fitting work appropriate clothes as well as some nice clothes to wear while we were out.

All of us outside of the Cotton Exchange on Savannah's Riverstreet

Last night we went to The Olde Pink House in Savannah’s historic district to celebrate my grandfathers birthday! It was an absolutely amazing experience as the food was incredible and the atmosphere was equally as nice.

His plate they decorated for his birthday 🙂

We had an amazing night together and were so happy to celebrate the life of such a great man. He was a baptist minister, then became a professor at Mercer University, where he was involved in the civil rights movement. He moved to Atlanta and began working in international admissions at Georgia Institute of Technology. He left Georgia Tech to start his own business- and still serves as the CEO while my mother is now President. He still plays tennis 4 days a week with his friends and attends a local church with my grandmother. They have travelled all over the world together, and plan to visit Puerto Rico together this fall.

Still having fun and drinking bloody mary's!

When the waitress last night asked him what it was like to be 85, he replied

“I don’t really know- but you just move a little slower”

Moving slow but still romantic!

Overall it was a wonderful trip, I really enjoyed being away with just family for the weekend! I hope we get to do it again soon! 🙂

Journalism Confrence

This past weekend I went to Athens, Georgia to participate in workshops and receive an award for feature writing. My school’s newspaper- The Collegian, has won many awards including being nominated for a Pacemaker award.

This weekend myself and a colleague, Chris, won first place for Best Feature Story, from the Georgia College Press Association .

Our award was for a package we did on suicide and college students. I interviewed a girl at school who’s mother had committed suicide. We also discussed what the school does to help students who are struggling to adjust or with depression and other psychological problems.