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.

Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well.

I'm a working girl! I'm about to jump into my fourth week as the Communications & Marketing intern at the Greater Des Moines Partnership. Three weeks in, I feel like I have a good idea of what my summer in this position will look like, and I definitely think I'm going to learn a lot this summer!

Ever since accepting the position — and especially since starting the internship — I've been thinking about all of the internship experiences I've had in the last few years. My internship experience actually dates back to senior year of high school, when I landed not one but two internships for the year. I thought it would be fun to take a little stroll down internship memory lane and highlight the positions I've had.

My junior year of high school I applied for a program called School-to-Work. School-to-Work allowed seniors to take a term-length careers course and then enter the real world as an intern with an organization related to their career goals for the rest of the year. I was so excited to see my name posted on the instructor's window announcing that I had been selected with less than fifty other students to participate in the program, out of over 100 applicants.

Childhood and adulthood were not factors of age but states of mind.

This week I celebrated my 21st birthday. Holy cow. Can you believe it? I certainly can't!

Every year I seem to get emotional on my birthday. It's not that I'm sad about growing up, though that may certainly be part of it. I think the emotions are more of a combination of excitement and fear and anxiety and happiness and sadness. That makes total sense, right? You may say that I have no right to feel some of those emotions about turning just 21, but I do! I feel them every single year. There's just something about growing up and leaving another year behind and entering a new year in my life that just gives me butterflies and a pit in my stomach all at the same time. I know, I'm overly-emotional; it's just who I am!

For the most part, though, I'm SO excited to be 21! It's a number that means something. In a way it says "I'm finally an adult," but also, "You're still young and have a lot to learn." And I'm perfectly okay with that combination of sentiments. I do feel myself getting more mature and growing up a little bit, though I've always felt pretty mature—maybe it's my old soul. But I also feel like I have the whole world in front of me. There are so many possibilities ahead! I could take this path or that one or one of these over here or one of those over there. Endless possibilities, each one as amazing and exciting as the next. And it's so comforting to know that no matter which I choose, my life will be full of excitement and experience and learning and love.

It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.

I've never really been one to stand up for myself.

Usually I'm content with just going with the flow, which can be a good thing. It's good to be flexible and to just go with it. But sometimes being so passive can result in letting people walk all over you. I'll admit it: I've let people walk all of over, take advantage of me. I just let people do what they want, and I go along with it simply because it's easier than standing up and making waves. And usually I've been okay with that, but lately I've started speaking up more.

If something's bothering me—whether it's with my friends or my roommates or my classmates or my professors, even—I've started voicing my opinion. I'm not that great at it yet, but I'm learning how to stand up for myself day by day.

Confrontation is still not my favorite thing in the world. In fact, it's probably one of my least favorite things. But I've learned that it's a necessary life skill, so I'm trying to become better at it.

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

On Sunday, the movie "Spotlight" won for Best Picture at the Oscars. "Spotlight" was one of the few movies that was nominated this year that I actually saw, and it was so good. Yes, it's about a very important issue that came to light a few years ago, and that's important to talk about. But what I loved most about the movie is that it was about journalism.

Here at the University of Iowa, I am studying Journalism and Mass Communication. I decided to go into journalism because I have always loved to read and write. One of my favorite high school English teachers told me that good readers study English, and good writers study Journalism. I knew I wanted to write, so I followed the latter path (though I am also minoring in English).

When I decided to pursue journalism, I didn't really realize just how much it really suits me. I didn't realize until after about a year of studying journalism that it's right for me for another very important reason: I love to listen. And I'm good at it.

The world was hers for the reading.

I have loved to read since the day I first learned how. I fell in love with the excitement of meeting new people, traveling to new places, experiencing new things, all through the words on the pages of the books I picked up.

I didn’t read as many books as I would have liked to last year, but I did read a few fantastic ones. Take a look at what I read in 2015.