Why You Should Befriend Your Coworkers

All-Nighters: the equivalent of death, a useless study strategy, or hilarious and fun?

This past week I had to pull an all-nighter, one of the work persuasion. Though these are absolutely awful, not all “all-nighters” are. I’ve had some great movie nights that start at 8pm and end at 8am and some of the best all-nighters I’ve had are with my closest work friends.

I’ve found that work friends are very different from non-work friends, and they become increasingly important as you grow older.

At my first job ever, I had what I would consider acquaintances for a long time. Eventually I became close with a few select girls, but we only hung out outside of work once or twice in the two years I worked there.

Two years later, some of my closest friends are ones that I work with. Shout out to Jon and Jeremy (I know you’re reading this Jon. Sorry the whole post was not dedicated to only you).

My favorite picture of me and the guys – Jon’s on the left, Jeremy’s on the right. Jon wasn’t feeling too well…

The fact is, as we grow older we work more. The more we work, the more we have to be around our coworkers. Eventually, you grow to like a few and even hang out with them outside of the building, with normal clothes on.

And why wouldn’t you want to hang out with your friends from work? You spend hours and hours (often suffering) together. During the occasional school break I work up to 40 hours with these people! Thats almost two full days. Or 4 consecutive movie nights.

Not only do you spend so much time together, you also get to see each others’ work ethic. Because of this, I think, you are often more selective in who you choose to be friends with. When someone slacks off all the time and you have to do their job as well as your own, chances are you’re not going to be the best of friends with them.

The ones you do consider best friends understand the need for some work venting. Whereas other friends may say “suck it up,” your work friends join in when you rant about an annoying coworker or a new rule that doesn’t make any sense. Even though you talk about a lot of things, no one gets annoyed when you talk about work too much.

Another reason you should befriend some coworkers: they make your shift so much better. I look at my schedule every week to see who I’m working with, when, and what days we have off together so we can hang out. Just seeing a friends face when walking in for a shift can make the horrors of food service that much better. Plus, you know it will be a good shift when you’ve got the squad on the clock.

So many great things can come from being close friends with those you work with. Though I work in fast food and currently work only 25-30 hours a week, I find that these people are some of the most important friends I will have in my college experience.

Go befriend your fellow employees!

Shannon Cynthia

Getting Through Those 16+ Hour Days

Every semester, there is one day of the week we all dread. The day of the week when you have to run from class to class all morning and then go to work, or vice versa. Lucky for me, SP2015 has graced me with TWO of these days: Tuesday and Thursday.

For the first three weeks of class, this is what my schedule looks like:

After the first three weeks I won’t have to work from 7-11pm, but those hours will be replaced with meetings and homework, I assure you.

To my close friends and family, I’m sure it comes as no shock that most of my life is this busy. Since high school my life has been scheduled down to the second. Many of my friends ask me for my secrets: how do I deal with this kind of schedule every week?

I ALWAYS answer with a shrug and an “I have no idea,” but today I’ve taken some time to actual think about it and record my findings.

I have never found a “perfect” class schedule. I’ve tried early classes, late classes, afternoon classes; the works. Every time I try something new I find that it doesn’t work as well as the last. So far, morning classes have worked best for me.

I know, I cringe at the term “8am,” but there are some good reasons having earlier classes can benefit you:

1. You’re more productive. When I get up and go to class early, I often find no reason to go back to bed (nor do I have time to). I usually have classes throughout the day and so I have short breaks. They don’t allow me time to sleep but they DO give me a chance to get some work done.

2. You go to bed earlier and, in doing so, get more sleep.

3. Many sources say waking up early helps you to eat healthier. Personally, I still prefer a hamburger to a salad regardless of the time I wake up, but I have noticed that I eat more fruits and vegetables when my alarm goes off at 7am. I think this is because the greasy and fatty foods are often salty and just don’t sound good before 12pm.

4. You can get really yummy food (though not the healthiest) with your best friends before class without the wait! (We woke up at 7am for Ernie’s on Wednesday).

Getting out of bed is hard, but staying awake the rest of the day can be even harder. Here are some quick tips I have found that will help you stay on track throughout the day:

1. Take a break. When I have classes back to back to back, a break at lunch helps me recharge for the second half of my day. It’s just an hour, but my lunch break gives me a chance to go home, eat, and relax with a couple of “Boy Meets World” reruns.

2. Plan ahead of time. If you know exactly what you need to do when, you leave little room for a rush or panic.

3. Focus on one thing at a time. Being focusing on the activity at hand, you distract yourself from worrying about the rest of the day. It’s like anything: take your day on one step at a time.

4. Exercise. I know I don’t always follow this type of advice, but exercise can really help you relieve stress during a long day. Personally, I prefer working out in the afternoon due the habit of doing so everyday in high school. It helps me push away my stress and focus on doing something good for my body.

5. Remind yourself of Rewards. When you have a rough day, it can be easy to forget why your schedule is the way that it is. Sometimes I have to remind myself that there are good things to come out of working hard for a couple of days. I also remind myself of the fun things I have planned the rest of the week. Also, it feels nice to lay down at the end of the day and know you accomplished so much.

These tips and tricks are tailored toward myself and my preferences. These may not work for everyone, but I thought I would share in case a tip can help someone else.

Busy days are not things to be afraid of! We can all tackle them with a little effort and a lot of caffeine.

Good luck on those long days and have a great weekend,

Shannon Cynthia

An Escape from Textbooks and Humanity

There’s honestly nothing better than relieving the stresses of a new semester by celebrating with close friends (and a REALLY good burger).

I don’t know what it is about winter break, but it always comes as a shock when I have to pick up a textbook after sitting around watching Netflix for a month. So going out to celebrate Nina’s 20th was a real treat.

Literally…..I made chocolate-filled cheese cake.

After we stuffed our faces for a couple hours, we played my favorite: Cards Against Humanity.

This is when you find out the truly dark sense of humor your friends have. Some really awful things come up, but we all die laughing anyway. However horrible, I think this is just the kind of humor we all need a little dose of from time to time.

You know people would never say these things outside of a harmless card game, nor would anyone dream of laughing at them outside of this kind of environment either. With Cards Against Humanity, we give ourselves an outlet to let anything fly and enjoy the hilarity of what things would be like without humanity.

It gives us a break. A break from the crazy schedule full time college students have to balance. After a 40 hour work week, 5 new syllabi, and a whole lot of unfinished reading assignments, I was ready to get away. With an escape from humanity and some good eats, I was really able to enjoy this:

On to week #2. Bring it on.

Shannon Cynthia

New Semester, New Schedule, New Stresses: Spring 2015

In all the chaos of returning to MO and starting a new semester, I have most definitely slacked when it comes to writing. I sincerely apologize and promise to try and keep things more up to date from now on.

The semester kicked off on Tuesday for Mizzou and I hit the ground running at 8 a.m. I’ve loaded up my plate this Spring with American Lit, Adaptation of Literature for the Stage, News Writing, Criminology, and Marketing.

Little did I know that this schedule would require me to have 14 books and about a million reading assignments due every week.

Thankfully, I used Mizzou’s Early Bird Textbook Program and I didn’t have search through the rows and rows of textbooks last week. I just swiped my Student ID and the bookstore presented me with this lovely box:

With daily reading assignments from almost all five of my classes, I decided I needed to make myself a calendar. I obtained all of the schedules my professors have provided and combined them into my own, personal assignment calendar.

So far, this has been a life saver. I highly recommend taking the time it takes out of your day to type this up, I know it will save me tons of time in the long run.

Another “back to school” tip, this one I found browsing Pinterest one night, make your class schedule your phone’s lockscreen!

Before this semester, I was always frantically looking for my schedule on my phone or in my planner, trying to find room numbers. When it’s on your lockscreen, all you have to do is press a button!

I also got some great snacks to start out the semester. I decided to try out Naturebox, something I heard about through the many Youtubers I watch religiously.

I started out with the sample box and so far I have not been disappointed. Plus everything they have is really good for you!

Besides being overwhelmed ALREADY, the Spring Semester is looking pretty good so far. I’ve got my best friends, some interesting classes, and a whole lot of work to do.

So good luck to all my fellow students this semester, lord knows we’ll need it!

Shannon Cynthia

Falling from Great Expectations

2015 is here and with a new year, comes expectations of how the year is going to go.

The funny thing about expectations is that they are very often too high. Having these high expectations leaves you at risk for falling quite a long way, onto cold, hard reality. Sadly, I feel this happens a lot when you’re on the road to becoming an adult.

The worst part about it all is that even when our expectations are shattered to pieces, we always scramble to try and glue a few pieces back together. Because even though we fall hard on our ass at the bottom of these expectations, we believe there is something that will satisfy our hopes and dreams.

Essential, it boils down to the fact that people want to be right. So when our high expectations turn out to be wrong, we scour for the tiniest bit of truth in them. In my experience this scouring often ends badly.

This is because when we look for bits of truth in false expectations, we settle. We settle for something we didn’t originally want because it seems to be the closest we can get to our expectations.

We settle for lame parties, rude people, bad boyfriends, “okay” grades, awful jobs, and stupid classes. Why? I think sometimes we just give up. We settle for half of an expectation instead of waiting for a whole.

However, I don’t think just waiting for our expectations to come true is the solution to this problem. Waiting for a prince in shining armor or an A+ to just fall in your lap won’t do you any good. Not in this world; it isn’t the lottery.

When it comes to meeting your expectations or your dreams, there needs to be an equal amount of effort put in on your end.

I believe it takes the right amount of hard work and patience to climb the long, winding trail to high expectations. Just because we are in the transition phase of adulthood, doesn’t mean we can’t start on this trail now. And once on it, there’s really no reason to turn back.

So start trekking my friends. We’re in it for the long-hall.

As Always,

Shannon Cynthia

My Christmas Vacation Bucket List

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope your day is filled with lots of laughter, family and of course, delicious holiday food.

Being in the crazy whirlwind that most call the “Holiday Season,” I almost forgot to blog this week. Luckily, the Shaver’s tend to keep Christmas a low-key event.

Since I’ve been home, I was able to spend time with the handsome devils pictured below and got to catch up with some old friends as well!

So, I know I am supposed to be blogging about growing up, but considering most of us are with family I thought it would be a good idea to revisit our childhood this week.

In the hopes that someone will be inspired to try some of these activities, here is my Christmas Vacation Bucket List/To-Do List:

1. Go Snowboarding or Sledding (As soon as the snow decides to show up)

2. Start and Finish a new series on Netflix…or 6

3. Get caught up on my reading

4. Try a new recipe

5. Visit the High School

6. Have a Snowball Fight

7. Go through my closet and donate anything that doesn’t fit or that I don’t wear

8. Start applying for internships and scholarships

9. Write more Blog Posts!

10. Try a new restaurant

11. Go to 7 Eleven as many times as humanly possible (Columbia, MO does not have one, gotta stock up)

12. Try Hot Yoga!

13. Have an good ol’ fashion sleepover with some girlfriends

14. Start running again

15. Craft a bunch

So far that’s all I have planned, but I have a lot of friends I’m going to catch up with and I can’t wait to start checking everything off!

Lastly, I thought I should share what true love looks like:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Everyone!

Shannon Cynthia

Its about that Time: Growing Up and Moving On

It’s honestly amazing how much someone can change over the course of a year. How much everything thing can change across 600 miles.

In August of 2013 I moved to Columbia, Missouri in hopes of getting the best Journalism education in the country. I enrolled in the University of Missouri. Originally from Canton, Michigan I knew things would be different: new friends, new weather, new coursework, new life.

I guess it never really hit me.

I liked adventure; I liked the idea of going somewhere completely different from the rest of my class. What I didn’t see was that the ONLY life I had ever known, the one I lived in Canton, Michigan for 18 years, would be left behind and become only a memory. Of course I have a few close friends I continue to keep in touch with, and my family is all there, but it’s different.

And it will never be the way it used to be.

You eventually lose touch with friends, excluding those closest to you. You forget about classmates until you see them on Facebook graduating or getting married. We all have to grow up and among all the chaos that comes with becoming an adult, I never realized that I was closing a chapter of my life and starting a new one.

A whole new chapter.

My relationship with my parents and siblings has changed. It’s no longer “What time are you coming home tonight,” but “Are you coming home for Thanksgiving?” This goes for old friends as well. Not “I’m crashing at your place tonight” but “lets catch up over coffee tomorrow.”

There are certainly exceptions to the rule. I am still a sophomore in college and in the transitioning phase; half child, half adult.

But I know where this is going.

The seniors I looked up to in high school? They’re graduating college, finding jobs, getting married, having kids, being a grown up. It felt like yesterday they were graduating high school.

That means I’m next.

Honestly, I can’t say I’m ready for this. I don’t know if I can let go of the part of my life most people call childhood or adolescence. At this moment that’s all I have. That’s all I’ve contributed to the world.

Looking forward, I’m scared to death.

BUT: I can’t say it’s all bad. The experiences I have had out of high school and my parent’s house are ones that I will never forget.

I have a second family now. One that sticks together no matter how tough life gets. College is one of the most horrifying, fantastic, fun, hellish, life changing times of one’s life. The friends you make here are the ones that will stick with you because they are the ones that have seen you at your best and your worst and haven’t run away screaming…..yet.

And because of them, I think I can handle this new life. 

I started this blog because it was required for one of my Journalism classes. Now the class is over, I debated keeping up with it.

But here I am, sitting on my couch at 3:30am typing. Typing because I have had these feelings bottled up for the past couple of weeks and had no idea how to let them escape. Now that I’ve let myself talk about what’s been bothering me for weeks, I know what I want to do.

Growing up is something we all have to go through, but it shouldn’t be done alone. I want to talk to other people, get my thoughts out, and maybe post things people like myself (meaning highly caffeinated college students constantly on the edge of having a mental break down) will find useful.

And I absolutely love writing, so this should be fun.

For now, thanks for listening.

Shannon Cynthia

J2150 Important for Students in this Age

Since deciding to pursue the field of Journalism, I have attended a number of conferences, taken multiple classes, and obtained a few internships. Throughout all of my experience so far I have been told time and time again that, as a journalist in the world today I must be able to do everything. You can no longer get away with being JUST a photojournalist or JUST a sports writer. All journalists are expected to know how to shoot photos, video, write, and upload it all on multiple kinds of social media.

Because of this, I believe that J2150 is possibly one of the most important classes required by the J-school. Not only do we learn the basics of shooting photo, audio, and video, we also learn the basics of mobile journalism, blogging and tweeting, and how to work in a group setting. Our labs created the environment of a newsroom in which we are fellow employees critiquing one others work.

The entrance to the Harvest Hootenanny in Columbia, Mo on Saturday Oct. 5, 2014. This was one of my favorite assignments because I got to experiment with photo.

Though this class seemed minor at first, it has taught some important lessons I will surely take with me into my professional life. I never dreamed of learned how to use a Nikon or making an Audio Slideshow before this class, I never had to. But now, I realize there is a lot more that can be done to tell one story. Now one story can turn into four or six.

Looking back, the biggest thing this class has done for me is that it has opened my horizons. So much more can be done in my professional work and it will all be because of the class I took sophomore year of college. Then again, it is the Missouri School of Journalism, something that should never be underestimated.

Kye Allums Shares Experience at Colleges Around the Country

About 50 MU students joined in as Kye Allums instructed them to dance or sit depending on whether or not they liked the music he played on Nov. 11. He played everything from Beyonce to classical music. Allums then asks the audience what made them sit down. It’s not a choice, he says, but a feeling. This is what Kye used to explain his story.

Kye Allums interacts with his audience during his speech at the University of Missouri on Tuesday Nov. 11, 2014. He called upon random students to help make his point.

Allums is the first Division One athlete to be openly transgender in the NCAA. He played for the women’s basketball team at George Washington University from 2009 until 2011.

Now, Allums travels around the country to talk to colleges about his coming out experience and everything that came after it.

The event Mizzou held for Kye to speak at was one to remember.

“I think it was a really powerful event because Kye was honest and that’s what matters,” said MU’s LGBTQ Resource Center Coordinator Struby Struble.

MU’s LGBTQ Resource Center Coordinator Struby Struble listens Kye Allums answer students questions about his experience in Columbia, Mo on Tuesday Nov. 11, 2014.

Ethical Decisions Prove Difficult for Journalists

This week J2150 Lecture was all about ethics, something I believe is extremely important to the field of journalism. As journalists, it is our job to inform the public and with that comes quite a lot of authority. What kinds of things we should inform the public about and how we should inform them is not always clear.

Though my first intention when writing this post was to talk about the examples we were shown in class, I found sharing my own personal example would be better.

My senior year of high school I was Editor-in-Chief of my high school newspaper, The Perspective. That year, the paper had a circulation of over 5,000. Because it was rather large, we learned a lot through experience. One particular experience touched on ethics and, being the editor, I was the final decision on the matter.

During April of that year, a freshman from our school was assaulted by a senior and suffered a concussion due to the assault. My reporter had already promised anonymity to the freshman before asking myself and our advisor, however whether to reveal the name of the senior or not was up to me.

An article from The Perspective written by Audra Gamble in Canton, MI published on May 17, 2013. The article revealed the name of the senior charged with assault and battery.

In class, my advisor and I lead the class in a discussion about the issue. We discussed the pros and cons of using the name in the story and what it would mean for our paper. It was a great exercise for the class but in the end, my advisor said it was up to me. Classmates varied in opinions and school administration attempted to stop me from putting in the name.

Even with the push-pull of most everyone in the school, I knew my decision from the start. Being the editor I believed that our paper should be considered a real source of news, a real product of journalism. I would not withhold the name of a teen, who was being charged as an adult, because we were considered a simple high school paper.

To not publish the name of this senior meant to publish a story about an anonymous senior assaulting an anonymous freshman, and therefore taking a hit at our credibility.

Though an extremely difficult situation for the paper itself, it was an experience our staff could look back at and learn from for the future. It showed me just how important ethics can be in our line of work.