Breaking Up with Social Media

Hello everyone again! I have been slacking on giving my time to my blog for the longest time now, but I have finally decided on what I need to write about. I was struggling with my blog and the branding I wanted to have for myself and my blog. For some reason, I could never get my content right. I could never write what I thought was real or what I thought was click "worthy." However, now I've discovered that I will not write for anyone but myself. I will do it because it makes me joyous and productive, like it always has. 

I have always been the type of person to watch and then do. No, not necessarily a follower, but someone that envies others. It is a disgusting lifestyle and I am sick of it. However, in this special case, I am following something that I think will make me happier and an all-around better person. 

This is going to be so extremely hard for me to do. I mean, part of my college major is based on the sole idea of social marketing and branding. This break-up I am putting myself through with my phone and my laptop…it is going to be hard…and I am probably going to screw up, but I am doing this!

For a week, starting tonight at midnight, I will be deleting my social media apps. My focus will be on something that is so much more than likes on Instagram or how many views My Story on Snapchat gets. I am so done with the pettiness of social media and all of the competition it has to have the most likes on your picture. SO DONE!

I am taking this journey and I am ready to learn about everything outside of social media. Maybe I will finish the book I have been trying (not so hard) to read since June. Maybe I will make a new friend along the way since my eyes will not be trained on who's #ootd is the cutest. Maybe I will (fingers crossed) study a little harder. Maybe I will become a better me, a more confident me, and a happier me. 

If you would like to watch the video that encouraged me to do this, click here.

If you would like to read the article that provided the video to me, click here.

Spectrum Ministries Mission Trip 2015

Early morning on June 13, I departed Atlanta with a dozen or so team members to San Diego, where we then drove across the border into Tijuana, Mexico. I'd been planning on this trip since my freshmen year of high school about five years ago (yikes, has it really been that long?!) and I cannot thank God enough for allowing me to go on this trip with some strong Christian role models. Also, to all of my supporters that helped make this trip happen with your financial help, and more importantly your much needed prayers, thank you immensely because it was an experience that helped draw me nearer to Christ but also helped open my eyes to many political and controversial topics it seems our country has completely tried to shift our beliefs from. Every opportunity it seemed that someone could pray for me and my fellow team members was taken upon as a task of an individual, a church, and a community of Christ worshippers whether home in Atlanta or across the nation into the different beautiful city of Tijuana, Mexico.

I will be posting in the next upcoming days individual blog posts of each day we spent serving the Tijuana community and how your prayers and financial offerings helped the community. Thank you to everyone who allowed me to go across the nation and share my love for love itself. It was more than a blessing for me.

Also, my Spanish honestly wasn't too bad (jokes, it was really bad). I kind of mixed up hermosa, meaning beautiful or handsome, and hermana, a sister, like a lot (the whole trip actually.) It wasn't until the end that I realized why I was getting some weird side glances from the children when one of my teammates corrected me. Next trip, I will have better Spanish and I will master my atrocious and unacceptable language inadequacy.

 However, it is crazy how well you can communicate without knowing each other's language. We still had fun laughing and joking around as we fellowshipped and loved on one another. The one major thing I learned, and hope everyone else in the world is able to understand, was that our love, kindness, and happiness truly wasn't shown through words or the things we brought to Tijuana with us, but through our actions and our genuine time spent with each other and their community.

Thank you to everyone who has been thinking and praying for me, our Atlanta team, and the Spectrum Ministries staff, 

Emma xoxo

New Year, New Me?

Ah yes, the "new year, new me," mantra...

As the year of 2014 closed I was able to spend it with my best friends, who have earned the title best friend in more ways than one, at Underground Atlanta celebrating the descend of the past year and the climb into the new year. We spent the night listening to the drunk people running about and watching families protect their little ones from the chaos.

Good bands played on the Main Stage and soon enough when Ludacris came on, the entire place erupted into mass entertainment. There was thirty minutes left in 2014 and the entire place was packed with locals jamming to our favorite rapper born and raised in our city.

We were right in front of the peach as it dropped down and we yelled with the rest of the crowd ringing in the new year as fireworks and confetti were blasted for our entertainment. We stayed until our favorite songs were played by Luda, and we continued "throwing our hands up" and rapping along with him, well, to the best of our ability that is.

Soon after the peach dropped, we all went back to my best friend's apartment and had our own little party that consisted of cotton candy, chips and salsa, and recovering from freezing our behinds off. The next morning we slept in until practically noon and our clothes smelled of dirty downtown struggles (weed, alcohol, and smoke, which were none of our own).

I would recommend going to the Peach Drop at least once! We got there before the crowds came tumbling into Underground so we got to be right in front of the peach as it dropped and we got to watch Ludacris and the other acts perform from a good, but still safe distance. There is a lot of security and a lot of police monitoring the crowds everywhere you look.

We did take Marta, the Atlanta transit system, to Underground and it was probably a lot easier than driving and finding a parking spot in the chaos getting there and leaving would be a totally different story. The train cars were packed, but mostly everyone was respectful to each other during the cramped ride.

Would I go again? Probably not, but if an artist I liked was performing at any of the stages set up, I would.