I told you so you’d see how this whole world was made for you, how it warms when you smile and aches when you hurt. I told you so you could stop being afraid.

I graduated from the University of Iowa with a Journalism & Mass Communication major, English minor, and Fundraising & Philanthropy Communication certificate last month! Commencement was on December 16, 2017, which means I've officially been unemployed for one month today. Yay!

In all honesty, this is such a confusing time in my life. I've never experienced such boredom and relaxation, fear and anxiety, or just overall uncertainty. From one day to the next, I experience such a range of feelings and emotions. One day I'm totally relaxed and enjoying this period of rest and time off, and the next I feel like such a failure for not having found a job yet. Plus a variety of other feelings in between. Through it all, I'm just trying to stay optimistic!

Over the holidays, it was nice to kind of kick back and not worry about not having a job because I was enjoying time at home with my family. But now that I'm back in Iowa City, Ik now I need to stay focused and productive. I spend my Mondays and Wednesdays at my internship for the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature and the other three weekdays browsing jobs online and following up with previous applications I've submitted. I try to give myself a break on the weekends, but I still find my mind wandering and uneasy, my fingers itching for my laptop to look for more jobs to apply. No matter how much I search or how long I look, I still feel like I'm not being productive enough, and nothing will be enough until I actually find a job.

I want adventure in the great wide somewhere. I want it more than I can tell. And for once it might be grand to have someone understand, I want so much more than they've got planned

I absolutely loved Beauty and the Beast growing up. I still do. Belle is my absolute favorite Disney princess, and I hold this story in such a special place in my heart. When I heard that they were remaking Beauty and the Beast as a live-action movie, I was excited but a little weary. But then they cast Emma Watson as Belle, and I was ecstatic. Add in the rest of the amazingly perfect cast, and I was simply thrilled, though disappointed that I had to wait two years for the movie to be released.

Well, two years have passed, and I finally saw the new Beauty and the Beast last night. I've tried to think of the perfect word or phrase to describe just how amazing the movie was, but nothing really seems to suffice. So I'll say simply what I said when I "checked in" at the movie on Facebook after the credits finished rolling: Wow.

This movie was everything I wanted it to be and more.