I hate sneezing.

I fucking hate sneezing. There's nothing, abso-fucking-lutely NOTHING good that comes from sneezing.
It starts with that awful feeling you get right before you consciously realize you're about to blow snot-bombs across the room. The tickle that niggles at that spot between your brain and your sinuses is one of the most annoying feelings in the world, because it precedes the embarrassing "ah-ah-ah" that makes everyone around you duck-and-cover.
Then there's the face you HAVE to make pre-booger-launch. One eye is bugged out like someone squeezed your head stress-ball style, and the other one is either crossed or squinted AND crossed, or maybe just swollen shut from all the previous sneezes. Regardless, once the actual sneeze commences, both eyes shut and then you're left with red, watery itchy dragon eyes when you're done with the mini head-splosion.
Also, tissues?! Probably one of the worst parts of having to sneeze, because you never ever ever never have a tissue in hand for the nasty sneezes. You know, the yellow ones that make you look like you're the Patient Zero of the beginning of the Zombie-Flu/Cold. Yeah, those. You never have tissues for those, but for the girly, dainty ones you have them. Or you have tissues when you don't even HAVE a cold/sneezes, so you look like a twat just having a bunch of loose snot-rags floating around your purse.

Fucking Puffs.

"A nose in need, deserves puffs indeed."

Yeah, well fuck you Puffs. Where are you when I need you?! And the friggin' commercials make it seem like every person you're sitting next to has a box with the lotioned-tissues, when in reality, people are really thinking that you're an ass-monkey who should be locked in a white-roomed quarantine for wanting to spread your Yellow-Boogie-Zombie-Flu Germs.
Well, thanks. I just wanted to come to the library to study. Stop looking at me like I'm the start of the Bubonic Plague, or I swear to G-d I'll aim the next Snot-Shot at your laptop. Yeah, I will. Don't try me.

If, on the very unlikely, very off-chance that you're in the bathroom when you sneeze, you don't get tissues. You get toilet paper or paper towels, and it's NEVER the quilted, soft TP that's supposed to make your skin soft or something like that. No, it's always the harsh stuff that feels like you're wiping your nose on a piece of cardboard or steel wool.

Anyways, in case you couldn't tell from my angry, very annoyed rant, I am sick. And not like a legit, Send-me-flowers-in-the-hospital-while-I-lie-there-beautifully-and-serenely-but-terminally-ill sick. No, like a nasty, sneezy, coughy, red-eyed, my-nose-is-bleeding-because-I've-been-sneezing-so-goddamn-much, UGLY sick.

FUCKITY.

I hate sneezing only slightly less than hiccups on the general Scale of Annoying Shit My Body Does, but much more than the occasional fart.

Here's my Scale of Annoying Shit My Body Does

1. Hiccups; WHY?! Can someone please figure this out so we can get a legit cure out there, because the peanut-butter spoon ain't cutting it. I hate hiccups for the sheer reason that I get legitimately angry when they won't go away. Like, punch-a-wall angry. It's pathetic, so I hate the thing that causes it.
2. Sneezing; See above Pissy-Rant and General Bitch Fest.
3. Coughing; Ow. Seriously, if you cough a lot, sometimes you're stomach just gives up and is like, "Well fuck it, if you're going to bounce me around like this, I'm not going to break down this soup you put in me." And then you throw up. From coughing. I hate coughing. Oh also, this one time I had such a bad cough that not only was I puking, but I was puking blood because my throat was so raw from all the coughing. Hell. There's nothing worse than that, unless you had the hiccups from vomiting and somehow you were allergic to something too so you started sneezing. I think I would end up just spontaneously combusting because I'd want to die.
4. Vomiting; Aside from the fact that you can lose quite a bit of weight if you have the flu for long enough, nothing, nothing, nothing good comes from vomiting. Because after you vomit, and you look at your vomit while it's there in the toilet, you always feel like vomiting again because it's so fucking gross.
5. Menstrual Cycling; I hate my ovaries. You do too. If you're a boy, you probably hate your girlfriend's ovaries at least once a month for a week or so. Ovaries suck.
6. Peeing a little when you laugh; Only a little, and you can hide it. Still sucks a little though because either whatever was funny no longer is, or you think the peeing-episode is fucking hilarious and you laugh more, causing you to pee more. Then it sucks a lot.
7. Farting; Only for the embarrassing parts of this. Otherwise, whatever. It feels good afterward, and you know it.
8. Knuckles Cracking When You Don't Try To Make Them Crack; I just think this is stupid. I don't crack my knuckles, and I actually make it a point NOT to crack any part of my body because of the possible fluid build-up that can occur in your joints if you do it too much. So then why does my body decide, "oh hey, let's scare the shit out of her and make awful, bone-breaking noises without being ordered to" ?
I don't know.

Anyways, that's my list. What's yours?

Lots of Love (Despite the Bitch Fest),
Miss Guided-Tissue-Monster-Queen-of-Snot-Bombs

No, I don't enjoy seeing your butt. Cover it please.

I don't know about you all, but for me, stumbleupon.com is probably the ultimate in time-wasting, pro-procrastination websites. Ever.
If you've never tried it, I highly suggest typing the address into your URL bar (preferably not before you think you're going to get started on some kind of project) and getting lost in the internet.
Here's the premise; you go to the pilot website, and click on all the "interests" that you'd enjoy reading/seeing/hearing about. After that, click "Stumble" and prepare to be amazed. You'll find some of the most hilarious articles on Cracked.com (my personal favorite), and The Oatmeal is good for a fast laugh (but only if your internet connection is super fast--this one has a tendency to take forever to load). Obviously everyone knows about The Onion, but there are a lot of other spoof-papers that can deliver a quick, work-friendly (or not so work-friendly) laugh.
There are also a lot of how-to webpages that Stumble can get for you; if, for example, you're one of the rare few people out there with an abnormal, non-24 hour sleep cycle, there's a site out there to help you "hack your brain," and make it so you can function more normally (and at a better rate sometimes) than those of us plodding through the 24-hour sleep cycle.
Believe it or not, Etsy is also included on Stumble. This surprised me because Etsy is a relatively well known site among the indie-eco-fashion-blah-blah-pretentious-blah conscious (including myself, by the way), and I figured it would be too "big" for Stumble to carry. Guess not though, which is nice because it took me to this cool store where they had nature/owl themed old-looking stuff.
I love owls. I love nature. I love old looking stuff. You can guess how that turned out.

Anyways, my nerdtastic schpiel will stop here with me urging you to go waste your life on Stumbleupon.com. It makes school so much more bearable.

Something I noticed around Bloomington (also known as wouldn't-exist-without-IU, Indiana), is that it's very, very hard to look cute, and be warm at the same time. Either you look like a bloated, burnt marshmallow, or you freeze your ass off in an adorable, entirely useless little peacoat.
Or you just look like a she-tool with a North Face jacket, a v-neck t-shirt that stops at your hips, and a pair of black leggings stuffed into your (F)Uggs.
I'm assuming/hoping no one gets offended with my last description, but please admit that your ass is cold if you do wear that outfit. Acting like it isn't cold as a witches tit while you're not wearing pants makes you look like a big ol' douche.
And no one wants that.

So, here are some Cold-As-Fuck Weather Tips for looking Cute, courtesy of Miss Guided's School of Cover-Your-Ass.

1. Get a coat that actually covers said frozen buttocks. That's the only way to make sure you don't freeze it off without resorting to padded long-johns. Which we all know is a whole lot of bad idea.
Nordstrom.com actually has a feature where you can sort by length, which is helpful. If you're tall, definitely consider a longer coat, but for the rest of us average sized and/or vertically challenged folk, try for a pant-length coat. It'll come to just about the middle or the top of your thigh.

Look how happy that model is! She's warm, probably, and her twiggy little behind is toasty and safe.
Learn from her.

Random Note; Miss Guided believes firmly and strongly that tights, leggings and the sort are NOT PANTS. Do not wear them as such and two things will happen; your butt will not freeze off and people will want to kill you less.

This coat is great in more than one way; it's the right length, an unusual color, and the horizontal seam in the middle cuts your body in just the right place where anyone can carve out a waist.
The color is great for one because the lovely eggplant hue compliments just about anyone, but its also perfect because you won't get lost in the sea of blacks, browns and the occasional white coats. Believe me, as a current (recovering) black-coat/pants/shirts/shoes addict, it's refreshing to see and have a pretty, poppy color on one piece in every part of your wardrobe.

2. PLEASE LEAVE THE LEGGINGS UNDER THE DRESSES AND SKIRTS. Please. I'm begging you. I decided to make it a full number because I think it needs that much attention. I don't want to see the contours of your butt, or your underwear. No one does. The people who do are the ones you probably want to avoid.

3. Find a coat that works for YOUR body. Just because that strange, sallow, anorexic girl that you're sitting next to in your Intro to Calculus class is wearing one of those no-shaped, ruffly, thirty-tiered monstrosities, does not mean that it can look nearly as almost-not-ugly on anyone else. It'll be uglier. And more terrifying.
If you're like almost 95% of the college population, anything with a tie-waist, darting, an A-line or a combination of the three will make you look gorgeous, warm (if it's thick, possibly lined with down or made of heavy wool with a good liner) and not-marshmallowy. Quilting is a good thing, because that usually means there will be down involved. If you must take the marshmallow approach (believe me, I have a coat that has eau de marshmallow seeped into it's quilted, downy, nylon wonderful-ness), make sure that it's a longer coat (again, pant length), and/or has lines on it that streamline or carve an hour-glass figure for you.

4. Love the coat you buy. Make sure that you're totally, 100% entirely, ecstatically in love with your coat, because then you might actually wear it. If you don't love it, you won't wear it. I promise.

5. Avoid leopard prints. Please.

Beyond all that, I wish you all a happy and safe start to the new semester (those of you who have started) and a bitter middle finger to those of you who don't start for another week, and are probably in Cabo right now soaking up cancer.

Lots of love,

Miss Guided.

Back at School, Break was Alright, and H&M needs to clean up their act!

This is my city.

Well, I'm back at school and I gotta say, break was pretty nice. Just enjoying being with my family (we had a rough few months at the end of it, so we all needed to come together and regroup), friends and coworkers (I worked for the whole three weeks for this semester's spending money) was something I desperately needed. I don't know about the rest of you (if there's anyone actually reading), but three weeks was plenty and perfect.
Just enough time to realize how much I love my parents and my brother, and just enough time to realize that I love my independence now too. It's nice being able to get up for classes when I know I need to get up, and not have to worry about anyone besides my roommate in the process.
Good news, I got the class I needed to be in off the waitlist! Now, my schedule is far from perfect (two 9AM classes and the rest are 10:10s, but whatever) but it'll be nice to be finished at a normal time with an hour lunch break almost every day.

Also, being social in college is soooo much easier than it is at home. At home, you have to call, work around everyone's schedules (probably spend money that you don't want to spend), then actually get together and not forget. At school, I just have to walk across or down the hall to see my two best friends, and if we want to go "out," we basically go across the street or down the road a bit. Easy.

Now, lets talk about winter. It's cold. It's icky, and I'm definitely not a big fan. However, with winter comes the lovely phenomenon of New Years Resolution-ing. Everyone has a new years resolution, and we're all probably going to try and complete those resolutions for about a week. It's probably not going to work out, but here are three tips I've picked up about how to keep a resolution in school.

1. Start small.
This applies in almost every facet of life, not just in Resolution-ing, and not just in school. You have to start somewhere, and vowing that you're going to go to the gym and work out for 2 hours every single day is not starting small. First, go to the gym at least two times a week (first 2 or 3 weeks) and get used to picking up and going. Work out for an hour or an hour and a half doing what makes you comfortable (bikes, elliptical, track, weights, etc.) and then after that 3rd or 4th week, move on to working out every other day or 4 times a week. You'll be more likely to keep it up because your brain and body are already used to the procedure; all you have to do is motivate yourself to take the next step, and you'll be able to turn it into a habit after about 30 days of 4 times a week.

2. Don't expect a miracle.
Seriously. Do not expect to drop 15 pounds your first month, or expect to have no transgressions in whatever you're trying to do. Chances are, you will fail a little. And that's good! We learn from our mistakes. If we don't recognize and accept mistakes, how in the world would we ever make progress?! See your mistakes, try and fix the behavior/action that caused them, and move on!

3. Motivate yourself.
Have a reason for wanting what you want. Why do you want to do well in school? Why do you want to stop tanning? Why do you want to pay more attention to your friends? Make sure that you know why you're trying for something you haven't previously had, and you'll keep those reasons in your head and be able to pull them out whenever you're feeling down. Also, writing them down in any kind of journal DEFINITELY helps. I think we can all safely say that I'm a journal-person, and beyond this blog I actually keep a personal journal, a food diary, an expense ledger, and I try to keep an archive of certain outfits I've worn that have "worked." It lets me look back on previous successes (and get an ego boost in the process) and also see why certain things haven't worked so that I won't make those same mistakes. Plus, it's super therapeutic. You can rant and rave to a journal and no one will get their feelings hurt (unless they snoop, in which case they deserve to be a little humbled, and you should get a lock), and you'll be able to let it out so you don't explode on some poor unsuspecting soul on your morning commute.

Now, if waste disgusts you just as much as it annoys me, then you'll absolutely hate this. The New York Times did an article about H&M's waste of perfectly wearable clothing that highlights this issue of America's horrible laziness when it comes to recycling. We have such a horribly populous homeless community in this country, and merchandisers in urban areas are more than aware of this. I expected much better from such a prominent company, and I sincerely hope that they're going to work harder to curb this behavior from their management. It isn't hard to donate clothing (believe me, I worked in second hand retail at Plato's closet, and when people would leave their clothing behind, we'd donate it. It's easy, there are donation posts everywhere, and when I'm in Chicago, I live in the suburbs and they're still everywhere). It certainly disgusts me, and I'm going to email H&M corporate offices and ask them what exactly is being done to stop this solid waste production. If I don't get a satisfactory answer, you can bet that H&M has lost me as a customer. Feel free to join my boycott if you want. Until I see that H&M is doing its best to make sure that their unsold products are being given to those who NEED them, undamaged and in perfect condition, free of charge, I'll be taking down any and all H&M products that were listed on this site.

Here's the article!

Beyond that icky bit of news, I hope the rest of you are enjoying getting settled back in at school, and make sure that you haven't forgotten anything at home. Write a list of what you've got in your room at school when you get back, and you'll be less likely to forget stuff on your way home at the end of the semester!

Well, here's another snippet of Taylor's photography that I love. Hopefully she'll be posting more up soon, but she's heading back to school to so she'll probably be busy. :)

PhotograTay


Love you all!
Miss Guided