Hope You Survived Without Me!

Sorry about the hiatus, folks. Finals kicked in and as the saying goes, "All work and no play makes Dia a sleep-deprived, socially inept, cranky girl."

Which reminds me of my horrible time management skills.

But in my quest for survival (and for your entertainment), I remembered how an ex-boyfriend had an obsession with that book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Steven Covey.

Then at work, a coworker mentioned something about a workshop given annually based around this book (free planners included!).

This morning, a trending topic on my LinkedIn covered "7 Things Highly Productive People Do".

So I guess this was a sign that I should take a gander at what all the commotion with these 7 things were about.

I'm obsessed. I mean, it's so simple, it's almost stupid not to do it.

It's so easy to make up excuses as to why you can't get something done. God knows that if I had started writing papers and studying when I said I was going to start, I could have done everything in a whole day.

But the minute I turn my laptop on, hmm...
I wonder if anyone posted anything on Facebook.
Hey, this link is pretty funny.
I'm going to email it to my friend.
So many emails from LinkedIn, must check connection invites.
This status update is cool! Let me log into Twitter and retweet it...

I think you get the point. But my excuse isn't all the distracting sites, it's my attention span.

No more of those excuses. Not playing the ADD victim, the Facebook victim, the Twitter victim, the texting/calling/emailing victim anymore.

I mean, we all have budgets and diets to keep us sane and healthy. Can't we budget our time spent with all this noise?

It's not to say we don't need them, but let's put a numerical value to how much time this consumes even if we were on a "time budget" for these sites.

Let's say we spend 2 total hours a day on the computer and 1 total hour on (personal) phone calls and texts:

• That's 21 hours a week
• 1,092 hours a year
• Considering I'm 21, if the United Nations is correct in estimating I'll live to be 80.8 years old, that gives me roughly 60 years, which accumulates to 65,520 hours from today until I die
• Which means I will have spent 2,730 days or 7.48 years either on the computer or on the phone
• And that's on a budget.

Riddle me that.

http://beerbatteredramen.blogspot.com/

Financial Fitness

When I was 13 years old, my mom handed me a credit card.

I just knew that it had magical magnetic powers that let me have whatever my little soul desired. I didn't know how I can have whatever my little soul desired, but no one cared to tell me and I didn't care to ask.

On one occasion, I took all of my friends to McDonald's, courtesy of a swipe and a signature. Or so I thought.

Until one day, when I was 17, my parents noted every nickle and dime I put on that card, made me get a job at Hollister, and my magical days were over. It was like finding out Santa didn't exist all over again.

Even though the reality was there, the realization never came. My spending was still out of control; instead of paying bills, I was buying a ukelele that's still rotting underneath my bed somewhere.

Although, I must add that I am proud to be debt-free, apparently this isn't hip amongst women my age. Whether due it's brand loyalty or careless nights out, studies show that women age 18-27 think that having debt is actually cool.

So a few months ago, I got an email from my sorority offering a financial boot camp. For free.

I never say no to anything free!

I guess what my parents say is right: they can tell me to do something a million times, but I'll listen to the same thing if someone else tells me once. What took my parents years to get across to me took LearnVest one week to drill in my mind.

From its readable market analyses to its money tune-up and budgeting tools, LearnVest is the financial rehab for women (like me) that can't say no to their card.

What makes it so successful isn't the fact that it's telling you not to spend, it's telling you that you can spend and not be up to your head in debt. Just today, I signed up to OpenSky and got a $15 credit as a LearnVest subscriber!

With perks like these and a peace of mind, how could you say no?

http://beerbatteredramen.blogspot.com/

Trichotillo-what?!

When dealing with stress, I find that I have coping mechanisms similar to the ones people use when dealing with death. Except I'm perpetually stuck in the "denial" stage.

So instead of dealing with things that stress me out, I kinda just close my eyes, tap my ruby shoes three times, and hope that I wake up in Kansas again. Which never works and essentially leads to other ridiculous habits, like cracking my jaw or incessantly playing with my hair.

I hadn't thought much about it, even when I noticed that my hair slightly starting thinning in one particular spot. I figured it was just the stress, so I put in a deep conditioner and soon enough it was back to normal.

Then today, I find this article on my newsfeed.

I don't believe it ever got to this extreme, but with midterm season here, it's definitely a must-read.

Stress management is probably as important as time management, especially for those (like me) that have no sense of the latter. 18 credits, an internship, work, living with my parents, a relationship, and friends to make time for is incredibly difficult.

...

I'll let you know how this story ends, hopefully there's a lesson to be learned here soon.

http://beerbatteredramen.blogspot.com/

Monday Night Media Mix

Below is a post from my social media class blog, Monday Night Media Mix, about Beer-Battered Ramen Noodles.
The truth is, I was inspired to create this blog to experiment with a new medium and to make an attempt at maintaining a theme.

Enjoy!

Beer Battered Ramen Noodles

My astrological sign is a Taurus. We're reputed to be stubborn and lazy.

Therefore, change sucks.

But I'm in the middle of a break-up (with my Tumblr account) and I need a coping mechanism. So I've moved to Blogger.

The focus of my new blog is to zero in on twenty-somethings, from random issues to ridiculous stories.

So far, the interface on Blogger is simpler than Tumblr, which motivates me to use it more. It also pushes me to create my own content than to just continuously reblog posts to update my blog.

I've been asked about the name of my blog, beer-battered ramen noodles. It's a play on the college stereotypes about drinking and ramen noodle dinners.

Either way, check it out for yourself, http://beerbatteredramen.blogspot.com and let me know what you think!

http://beerbatteredramen.blogspot.com/

Cyber Bitch

Computers are marvelous. Computers revolutionized technology for generations to come.

But did anyone else watch DISconnected on MTV?

I truly, honestly wish this was the story of my life. But instead, here I am, blogging about it, on my computer.

The premise of the documentary is of how three college students survive without their computers. Not just the internet. The entire computer.

No online homework, no YouTube, just pen, paper, and human interaction.

It emphasizes a point where our communication technology has progressed while our personal communication has regressed. Makes you sick to think about, huh?

Think about how to someone else, we're just a name on an email, a picture on a page. Or to the millions of people that get bullied every day, a nightmare behind a screen.

The age of technology brings an age of cowards. I wish I could say that it stops with high school since college individuals are mature, educated, blah blah blah.

In reality, this couldn't be further from the truth.

Take for instance the fallen site Juicy Campus, the self-proclaimed "enabler of online anonymous free speech on college campuses". In other words, it fed off of gossip, rumors, and rants on over 500 campuses throughout the country.

At one point, it became such a staple in college culture that if you ever wanted joined an organization on campus, you'd better hope your name wasn't on that site.

Out of curiosity once, I read a post about a girl looking to join my sorority. In nicer terms, it claimed she was quite promiscuous and mean-spirited, and included her phone number in case you wanted to reach her for her "services".

What didn't shock me was that someone would do this, what shocked me is that when she came out for our organization, she had to justify this - pardon my french - bullshit.

It virtually became a scarlet letter for anyone listed on this site.

The real terrorists of this country aren't the ones with nukes, they're the ones with words and a shield to anonymity to hide behind.

http://beerbatteredramen.blogspot.com/

Catwalk or fatwalk?

I am totally for this whole self-esteem movement.

In fact, I'm so for this movement, I spent two years doing philanthropies and service for the Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD) Foundation in my sorority days.

But does anyone else find it a tad ironic that while one side of the media is embracing curves, the other end is ostracizing the overweight? And while they're ostracizing the overweight, they're condemning the over-skinny?

What exactly constitutes normalcy then?

I feel like belonging to a generation that has become hyper-aware of bullying and its tolls, the media has essentially bullied the masses. It doesn't matter if you're skinny or fat, you're wrong.

We all hear the horror stories about women who are unfortunately genetically subjected to their weight, like on the hit MTV show 'How I Used To Be Fat' or 'Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition'. But let me tell you, there's a whole other side of the story that society masks that still haunts me.

In my lifetime, I've been crowned Queen of the Itty-Bitty Titty Committee and affectionately nicknamed Twig and Sick Stickly.

One day, when I ran crying to the principle's office after a group of kids stole my cell-phone and would anonymously instant message me with ridiculous nicknames, the secretary told me to take it as a compliment and sent me on my merry way.

To this day, I'm ashamed of telling this story, not because of what was done to me, but because I've been conditioned to believe that this isn't even a legitimate concern.

So I ask again, where is the line that defines the normalcy standard between too big and too thin?

http://beerbatteredramen.blogspot.com/

scroddle-la-doo is now scroddle-la-don't.

I was watching 127 Hours last night (the Aron Ralston story) and immediately ran to Google to investigate how the story ended.

Just so happens that after 13 men moved the boulder to free his severed arm, it was cremated and, eventually, the ashes were scattered at the site where the accident occurred.

So after many torturous years of aimlessly venting on Tumblr, I've migrated to Blogger and I'm scattering the ashes of my blog, Scroddle-La-Doo, on my new venture, beer-battered ramen noodles.

-Insert moment of silence.-

I want to say that this is going to be an inspiring, glorious, monumental movement.

I also want to say that it's going to be a confusing and frustrating journey.

I can promise you that it will be intriguing, honest, and there will be blood.

Well, maybe not the last part. Unless it's that time of the month. (I promised to keep it honest, didn't I?)

http://beerbatteredramen.blogspot.com/