It's official: my first year of college is over. I've passed all the exams, handed all my reports in before the final deadline, received the remaining credits. All the Is are dotted and all the Ts are crossed. I've been looking forward to this day for weeks, but now I feel a little lost...


A lot has happened over the course of the year. I remember how nervous I was on the first day: I almost threw up on the bus on my way to college. I did not enjoy that day: I hadn't met my best friend yet, so he couldn't calm me down, and one of my old friends just said: 'Stop whining, you're awesome.'
In the end there was no reason to be nervous and before I knew it I'd made a bunch of new friends.
It was a funny year, in which I almost got stuck in a revolving door, learnt a little Mandarin and went to Vienna.
Even though it wasn't all fun, I can look back on my freshman year with a big smile. I'm not that nervous little girl who didn't want to go to college anymore. I think I grew up - but only a little.

When I take a look around my room I see the traces of freshman year. My backpack looks a little more battered than it did last summer. My wall is now covered in postcards from Vienna. There's a pile of pictures and drawings on my desk from the time I had to tell about my hometown in German. There are cinema tickets for German movies, lists with verbs and even some animal stickers I picked up in a museum for a friend of mine, before I came to my senses and remembered he lives on the other side of the world. There are tons of group selfies with my classmates on my phone, a couple of posts on this blog about all the awesome things I did this year. All those little things tell the story of my freshman year. When I put them all together, the story they tell is a good one :)

In September I'll start my sophomore year, with new subjects, new teachers, a new internship (at my old high school) and the power to boss freshmen around. I'm looking forward to it, but for now I'm just going to sit back, relax and enjoy the summer.

Stay Awesome!

Finally, finally, finally I can say it's summer. After months of looking at gray skies, the sun is now shining and the skies are blue. Even though I'm a winter person, I'm glad it's finally summer. I can wear my shorts again and won't have to hide my superhero shirts under sweaters anymore, but most important: no more socks!


Socks and I have hated each others since my mom first put some teeny tiny socks on my teeny tiny feet when I was a baby. I hate the feeling of socks: they're like prison for your feet.
As soon as temperatures rise above 20 degrees, I stop wearing socks and walk around the house and garden on my bare feet. If my feet wouldn't get so freaking cold in the winter, I would never wear socks again. Why? you might ask. Well, I've got plenty of reasons.

#1 Two go in, on comes out
Haven't we all lost socks to the sock-devouring device we call a wash machine? For some reason I always lose those socks that I actually tolerate. So there I am, left behind with two single socks that I more or less liked, but which I'll never wear again: if I did someone would notice and compare me to Dobby for the rest of my life.


#2 Soggy socks
Sometimes when I'm running, I don't pay any attention to where I'm going. Most of the time that isn't a problem until I find myself in one of the puddles of water left there by last night's rainstorm.
Suddenly there's water splashing up against my legs and, even worse, seeping into my shoes. But what happens there is the absolute worst case scenario when I'm running: my socks get soggy. They get wet and sold and stick to my feet. That's way worse than having cold feet, because now there's something preventing my feet from getting dry and warm. Damn you, socks!

#3 Too big, too small
I have small hands, a small head, everything about me is small - except for my feet, which are regular-sized. Still there's a problem when I have to buy new socks. My feet are a European size 38 and for some reason all socks are sold in two sizes: 35-38 and 38-42. Great. Which one am I supposed to buy? The smaller size is always too small, but when I buy the bigger ones it's the same as wearing a tent as a dress.

"One size fits all" Yeah, right -_-"

#4 Twist and turn
I don't even know what to say about this. How can this happen every single time I wear socks?!


#5 Grass catchers
So my socks disappear, never fit and are the worst when they're soggy, but that's not all. When I go hiking with my parents when we're on vacation, they force me to wear socks that almost reach all the way up to my knee. No, I'm not going to complain about how warm my legs get. My point is that those socks seem to attract every twig, blade of grass and grass seed within a five mile radius. Those things don't just stick to my socks, they sting and itch and are a total pain in the leg for the entire hike!

Long story short: socks are the worst and should be banned. Who's with me? Freedom for our feet!

Stay Awesome!

I admit it: I'm not exactly a cheerful, optimistic girl. There are lots and lots of things that annoy me and believe me, you don't want to be anywhere near me when I'm annoyed.
Right now I sound like a very grumpy teenager, but there are quite a lot of things that make me smile. Those things are often small things in the big picture of life and most people wouldn't give them a second thought, but these little things can make me the happiest girl in the world.

"Good morning"
I'm not a morning person. Neither am I an evening person. Sometimes I wonder if I'm a person at all. There's one thing that can save the day when I wake up in a bad mood though. No, it's not coffee. I'm talking about two little words: 'Good morning'. Those two words change everything.
When my mom wishes me a good morning my grumpiness disappears. When a stranger on the streets wishes me a good morning, I start to smile. But what really makes my day is a short message from one of my friends. A few weeks ago I went to a party. When I woke up and texted a friend, he answered with 'Good morning sleepyhead'. I smiled for days.

Butterflies

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I'm almost immune to most forms of animal cuteness (until you let me hold a kitten or pet a crippled lamb). The only animals that I've always truly loved are butterflies. One of my dreams is to see a Ulysses butterfly in the wild.
We don't have any huge colorful butterflies in the Netherlands. Butterflies here are small but pretty. I've seen only a few this year and they made me smile every time. I'll never forget them time I went out for a walk and the first butterfly of the year circled around me a few times before it flew away. That memory makes me so ridiculously happy that it could help me make an invincible Patronus.

"This reminded me of you"
You know how people tag their friends in the comments on articles you see on Facebook? That doesn't happen to me very often, but when it happens it makes me feel appreciated and happy. Someone took the time out of their day to think of me and show me something they think I'd like too. It doesn't matter if that something is an article, book, video or a package of Skittles. Just the fact that someone took the time to think of me makes me the happiest girl in the world.

Hot chocolate
It doesn't matter where or when, a cup of hot chocolate can turn my frown into a smile. Especially if there's a load of whipped cream on top. Even when it's 30 degrees outside and everyone is eating popsicles, I'm still happily drinking hot chocolate.


Catching the bus just in time
After long, pointless days in college, nothing feels as good as jumping onto that bus just seconds before it leaves. Okay, I know that there'll be another bus going to my hometown within five minutes, but still. Nothing can beat that feeling of pure triumph I get when I catch the bus exactly on time.
No, wait. There might be one thing...

Words that suddenly make sense
There's one thing in this world that makes me so happy, words can't even describe it. Which is kind if funny, because words are what make me happy.
Have you ever had one of those moments in which everything just makes sense? When I have one of those moments, I suddenly understand why something has a certain name. Like lederhosen, those weird German shorts. The word lederhosen means leather pants, which is perfect because those things literally are leather pants! Same goes for the names of some Pokémon. When I discovered that 'Ekans', that purple snake Pokémon's name, is 'snake' spelled backwards I felt so ridiculously good. My mind can get blown by something little and silly like that. It's awesome.

These were just a couple of the little things in life that make me happy. What makes you happy?
Stay Awesome!

I've been to a lot of places: from San Francisco to Sydney and a lot of places inbetween. I've seen ghettoes and ghost towns, I spent a night in a motel that was inhabited by drug dealers and listened to the endless wail of police sirens in Miami, Florida. You'd think that all that big city craziness would have prepared me for staying home alone in a quiet small town. Think again. I may have some experience with the big city, but at heart I'm still a small town girl - and this small town girl does not like being home alone.

I grew up in a town with a population of about 28.000. Not exactly small, but the people here are old-fashioned and everyone somehow knows everyone. It's always quiet here: people like rest and peace.
Staying home alone in a peaceful place like this shouldn't be that difficult at all. So why am I going paranoid every time I have to stay home alone?

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That, exactly that, is the reason why I go crazy when I'm home alone. Honestly, nothing ever happens in this town, but every time I'm home alone, the apocalypse seems to start right outside my front door. Suddenly there are suspicous people roaming my street and gangs of college kids using drugs. All the crazy things that usually happen in the not so pretty parts of big cities seem to be happening on the playground in my street. The silence is bad, but when I hear something, anything I wouldn't usually hear, I run upstairs to grab my dad's wooden sword and pretend I'm a ninja (ie hide in my room, under the bed). If I'd be living in the city, I would never dare to leave my room again...

Over the past couple of weeks I've had a lot of trouble sleeping. That's not new to me: I was born with a sleep disorder. Some gland in my brain doesn't make enough melatonin to make me fall asleep, so every night I take two little melatonin pills to help me sleep. Most of the time that works great, but sometimes... sometimes it doesn't work at all. That's when I find myself panicking, overthinking and going crazy over nothing.
 This is what a sleepless night looks like when you have a sleep disorder.

9.55pm I am so awake. Seriously, I want to go out and do something. How is that even possible after tonight's workout?
10.05pm Maybe I should read a little. That usually helps. Not too long though, I have to study tomorrow and I can't do that when I'm tired.
10.30pm I should go to sleep now.
11.20pm Why am I still awake? I should be sleeping by now. Wait, did I take my pills? I can't remember. I guess I didn't. If I take them now I'll be asleep in an hour. That'd be nice.
11.45pm When I lay on my side, with my right ear on my pillow, I can hear my own heartbeat. It's annoying. Right now I wish I didn't have a heartbeat.
11.50pm I might as well read a chapter or two. I'm still not sleepy at all.
12.15am Hold on a second, did I take my medication tonight? When did I take it? Why isn't it working already if I took it?
12.15am *Random thoughts about Captain America*
12.40am What if I never sleep again?
12.50am What if I only sleep for an hour and I won't be able to study tomorrow because I'm tired and I'll fail my final just because I can't sleep tonight?

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1.15am It's Wednesday tomorrow. Or today. Depends on how you look at it. Technically it's Wednesday already. Anyway, I don't have to go to college on Wednesdays, so way am I panicking? If I don't sleep now, I can try to take a nap in the afternoon.
1.35am Crap, I still have to go to a German movie to make up for that time in Vienna when I didn't go to the cinema. And thanks to Stefanie I can go all by myself. Stupid Stefanie. Makes me miss out on college credits.
1.40am I can still hear my heartbeat. It's still annoying.
1.55am Oh well, who needs sleep anyway?
3.45am What happened to the past two hours, where did they go? Did I sleep? That's impossible, I'm wide awake now! But if I didn't sleep, why can't I remember a single thing from the past two hours?
3.50am I should charge my phone.
4.05am Oh Envy, why did you do that? Why did you send that poor guy that message? It's 4.05am, for God's sake! It's not like you'll be able to sleep if he knows that you can't sleep.
4.15am I could try to study a little already... but my eyes sting. Ouch, the light hurts them even more. I guess no early morning studying for me today.
4.20am *Random thoughts about the Avengers*
4.45am 'Go to a doctor'? No thanks, dude, last time I did that he secretly changed my prescription and I ended up with placebos instead of the medication I needed.
4.50am Oh greats, I can hear birds singing now. More stuff to keep me awake.
4.55am Maybe I should write all this down and make a blog post out of it.
5.00am *Random thoughts about Quicksilver*
5.15am I am so sleepy right now. Maybe I should take one more melatonin pill. Who knows, I might be able to sleep for a while.
5.20am Nooooooooo. Bed sheets, why are you falling to the floor?! Why are you doing this to me?! Don't leave me here all by myself!
5.30am Oh, that's my dad's alarm clock. I guess he's going to have breakfast now. I'm actually quite hungry too. But I've finally found a comfortable sleeping position.
5.40am Okay, this is pointless. I'm going to get out of bed and eat a cracker.

That's how I ended up writing this blog post on an old notepad, while having a very early breakfast with my dad. It was 6.05am by the time I finished writing the draft. Ten minutes later I finally fell asleep...

Stay Awesome!

I've been blogging for quite a long time now: over 2.5 years. The first year and a half I was just writing random life updates no one cared about (not even me). But then something changed. It all started with a post in which I tried to figure out if I was a hipster. I started writing lots of silly posts and hoped my blog would become popular and successful. It didn't.
Sometimes I ask myself what I'm doing wrong. I decided to stalk some famous bloggers and YouTubers to discover their secret and answer the question we're all asking ourselves: How do I get famous on the internet?

There are a few unwritten rules you need to follow if you want to become a successful internet celebrity. Warning: as these rules are unwritten, I may have missed a few. These should at least get you started.

#1: Follow-for-Follow
Okay, let's get you started. First you have to write your very first blog post. Just a short and sweet notice that you're new to the blogging world. But before you actually start blogging, you're going to gain some followers. First you're going to build an audience, then you're going to blog, understood?
The best way to build this audience is to go around begging for follow-for-follows. One tip: especially fashion bloggers will do the follow-for-follow thing with you.
I admit that I've done a few follow-for-follows too, way back when I first started. I stopped doing that pretty soon. I mistake I'm still paying the price for.

#2: Be picky about blog buddies
So you've got yourself an audience. It may happen that you come to like a few of your fellow bloggers a lot. Be careful thoug: only become friends with them if they're useful. It's all about networking in the blogosphere. A collaboration/shoutout can get a YouTuber hundreds of subscribers in a day, so remember: suck up to some big bloggers! Don't keep on hanging out with bloggers that can't help you to become famous!
I think this is where I went wrong too: once you're my blog buddy, you're my friend and I don't care how many followers you have.

#3: Use stupid pictures with annoying captions
This is one thing I learned way back in my DeviantArt days: pictures of feet will always beat quality content. I know that pictures are an important part of a blog post, but sometimes I'm really clueless about what kind of picture I should add. That's why I sometimes don't use any pictures at all. So I write a pretty awesome post (or at least I think it's pretty awesome), and then it gets less views than a post that looks like this:

Lately I find it difficult to open Blogger and write a good blog post. I don't want to write life updates or silly tags - those days are far behind me. I want to show off my skills, make people laugh, brighten their day or make them think. But lately I feel like I'm doing none of those things with my posts. It got me thinking.

The past few months have been one big chaos with an internship that almost killed me, a very unwelcome crush like the ones I used to have when I was in middle school and an allround awesome trip to Vienna. I've met a lot of new people, made new friends and started seeing the world from a new perspective. All those experiences caused me to panic: I know what I want out of life, I just don't know how to get it. I want to be a successful writer or blogger. I want to travel to world and meet my blog buddies. I want to make a living out of being creative. I want to experience life, not just live and see where sitting around will get me.
Does that sound familiar? It does sound familiar to me. You know why? I bet you know why: almost every blogger has the same dream. Almost everyone wants to be a big YouTube celebrity, a DeviantArt artist or Blogger phenomenon. Half of my classmates want to travel the world. At least half of my friends want to be an artist. That's freaking amazing: it shows that we're all dreaming of bigger and better things. We challenge ourselves to get the most out of lives and ourselves. But... isn't that what all those other aspiring authors and artists do to?

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Let's face it: there are over seven billion people in this world. Millions and millions of people are chasing the same dreams I'm chasing. So what makes me so special? Why would I achieve greatness when people who are far more talented than me don't even come close to it?
I like to think that I'm completely unique. That I can do things that no one else can do. But take a short look around the blogosphere. You'll find tons of bloggers who are better writers than me. I'm not as good at drawing as most others and my photography skills are non-existent...
Every skill that makes me stand out has already been practiced to perfection by someone else. That scares me. I lay awake at night, wondering if I'll ever be good enough to become a published author. There are so many others out there with the same skills as me. So I keep asking myself: what makes me so special, what makes me stand out?

I have the same dreams as lots of other people. My talents aren't unique. I'm not some prodigy who'll take the world by storm. Sometimes that makes me sad. Sometimes I almost give up on my dreams.
A few days ago I came close to giving up on blogging when I saw my best friend's boyfriend: he got a job offer at Google as a graphic designer, which is cool, but he's never done anything to deserve it. That made my blood boil. And when my blood starts to boil, I get motivated. I looked back on my posts from the past couple of months and went looking for what makes me unique. And I think I've found it: I am Envy; I have a weird sense of humor: I was continuously giggling while writing about going to a college party. I am good at writing about douche bag vampires: A Vampire's Mistake is one of my most read posts ever and the story will be continued this summer. I rant and write and fangirl my way into adulthood. And most important: I might come close to giving up, but I never ever ever do give up on my dreams!

I'm one person out of the more than seven billion people running around on this little blue ball in the middle of space. I'm unique, like all of them, and my dreams are far from unique, but why should that hold me back? I don't want to be one of those people who want to be a writer. I am the girl who works hard to make her dreams come true. No matter how awesome or skilled those other aspiring authors are, I'm not giving up until I'm at the top.

Stay Awesome!

The reason why you should go, at least once, and pretend your not antisocial :P

When I was in high school, I never got invited to the 'cool' parties. I was known as the shy nerdy girl who didn't like drinking until she puked, so I wasn't fun to have at the average high school party.
Things changed when I started college. Not a lot, I still prefer to stay at home with a good book and have a chat with my blog buddies, but suddenly I got invited to parties. While most other people have had their experiences with parties that only include drinking and dancing, I was still a newbie. You can probably imagine the state of panic I entered when I was invited to a party that was thrown for... well, no reason at all. All of a sudden I was supposed to hang out with a bucnh of people, half of which I didn't know, and pretend to have a lot of fun while drinking stuff I didn't like.
Okay, I admit it, it wasn't that bad. It was actually pretty awesome. If an antisocial nerd like me can survive a college party, then so can you! Not sure how to do that? You'll get there with these seven easy steps, that even allow you to go home with your dignity almost fully intact!

Step 1: Accept the invitation
Before you decide to freak out about the invitation and try to hide in a corner with a book, you need to take a deep breath and tell yourself: I'm gonna go and have fun!
Okay, so at first you won't believe yourself. And when you're on your way to the party you still won't believe yourself. And when you arrive you will probably want to turn around and run all the way back home, built a fort out of pillows, blankets and books and read Harry Potter all night, but you've got to be strong! Be outgoing for one night, you've got the rest of your life to hide in awesome forts with the best books in the world. Accept the invitation, walk through that door and be part of the party!

Step 2: Stay close to someone you know
There's an enormous chance that there are going to be people at the party that you don't know. If you're anything like me, that idea will scare the living daylight out of you. So this is what you're going to do: grab your friend/classmate/arch enemy (seriously, at this moment, anyone who knows your name will do) and don't let go of them until everyone at the party is so drunk that they won't notice your an awkward blogger who'd rather be joining a blog party than an actual party.

Step 3: Watch everyone get drunk
Step 3 is crucial for the entire night. You see, when people get drunk and start dancing, your dancing will look less idiotic. When people get drunk they act like weirdos and won't notice your weird habits. Without beer (or any other type of liquor) this party will be the most awkward thing ever. If there is beer, jsut sit back, relax and watch all the others make fools out of themselves.
One last tip: don't get drunk yourself, that'll only make matters worse.

It doesn't look like fun but it actually is

Step 4: Humor the drunk people
Everyone's behaving like a total idiot? And you're still sober/soberish/not totally wasted? Great, now it's your time to get a little more involved in the action. There's no need to feel awkward anymore: everyone will have forgotten everything by the next morning. Thank god for alcohol!
So once you've reached this point, you can do whatever you want. That includes clumsy flirting, showing off your awful dance moves and even walking around with bunny ears on your head. You're here anyway, you might as well make the drunk people laugh by being a little silly too.
Warning: they might want to take a picture of you and forward it to your entire class. It's more or less worth it though.

Step 5: Tell your life story to a total stranger
We all need to catch a break from the craziness every now and then. When you feel like you've walked around with bunny ears on your head for long enough, give them to someone else and claim the couch as your kingdom. Sure, others are allowed to sit on it to, but watch out: if one of them is sitting right next to you when your only male blog buddy tweets you, you might end up being forced to tell everything about him and your blogging life. Not a big deal though, everyone's drunk, no one will remember this anyway!
One tip: as soon as they start making a list of pros and cons of moving to India, get the hell out of there. Those people might be drunk and forget about it, but you're not and you're going to feel very awkward for the rest of the night if you continue a conversation like this.

Step 6: Think 'screw this!' and be part of the fun
You fled the couch because drunk people you didn't even know until two hours ago are jumping to weird conclusions? Good choice, you're getting the hang of this party thing!
The most important thing now is to pretend you totally know what you're doing (otherwise the guys on the couch will notice that you've fled because of them). You might want to try dancing. Yes, I know, you feel like a moron when you dance, but remember: drunk people forget lots of stuff! Think of it as repeating step 4 but with more fun! Dance with your friends, wear a butterfly tiara and get involved in crazy group pictures!

Step 7: Fall asleep on the couch, wake up after 10 minutes and realize it's time to go home
After some time you'll get tired. Even more tired than that time you just had to finish your book and stayed up until the next morning. Good news: there's still a couch around somewhere and there probably aren't much guys around who want to ask you awkward questions about your blog buddies, so go ahead and take a nap!
Now wake up. I'm serious, you don't want to be the person who fell asleep at a party without even touching a drink. Take a moment to look back on the party and give yourself a pat on the back: you were there, you didn't make a fool out of yourself and you probably had a lot of fun (even though you might not want to admit that to your nerd friends). You've done great, my friend, but now it's time to go home. There are some great books and blogs there, waiting for you to read them!

Stay Awesome!