MeetUp Mishap II: Birdwatching Club

For those of you who do not know me very well I have a confession: I love birds. They're so pretty, unique, and strong. I saw a documentary on PBS about ducks (the "Duckumentary") that was so fascinating, I learned so much and since then I have been a big duck fan as well as an appreciator of other birds and their beauty. So I went into this meeting ready to take it seriously, and had intentions of starting bird watching as a hobby. Well once again I have been convinced to not pursue this hobby (yet).

So the meeting took place at a very cool museum, which had it been open I probably would have just left the meeting and gone to look at the exhibits. Alas, it was closed so I had to sit tight and listen to a PhD dissertation for two hours -_- Once I found where the meeting was to be held, several thoughts ran through my head such as "What am I getting myself into?", "Is it to late to turn back now?", "Apparently I missed the age limit memo", and "Where are the cookies I was promised?" I was greeted at the door by a nice woman, we'll call her Janice, who asked if I was a student at Duke and I said "No, I just moved here from New York and am trying to find my way," she was very surprised to hear that and just looked at me so I continued with "I like birds." Then she smiled and said "Well you've come to the right place." She gave me a brochure and I found a seat...the seats were set up more closely and intimately than I liked. I was hoping for a big lecture hall where I could sit in the back and not be so noticed, but unfortunately I stuck out like a sore thumb.

There were about four rows set up, and the first row was mere feet from the podium where the speaker was presenting. Oh, I must mention, everyone there was either a senior citizen or a middle-aged outdoors fanatic. There was one guy who looked kind of cute and young from behind so I gave him the look up and once I got to his feet I cringed because he was a total shoobie: wool socks and teva sandals, yeah no. So once again, was not making any friends my age here. Before the speech started there was time for people to announce where they've seen cool birds and such and one man shared with us that he's been bird watching for 85 years. Which is amazing, hes seen so many species, but yeah that was my crowd...

Once the speech started I tried so hard to pay attention and seem interested. The girl was a PhD student using satellite technology to track migration of birds, so that seemed kind of cool. But after the first 10 minutes I was lost, and started day dreaming. It was also so warm and cozy and her voice was very soothing....I fell asleep. In a meeting where I was supposed to be learning a new hobby, and making new friends, and I fell asleep. Go me.  Once I woke myself up after maybe two minutes of shut eye the presentation was still going on. I didn't want to be rude and leave, the place was so small it would've been so noticeable-this is this girls life's work, I just couldn't do it. So I sat there and continued to day dream about cookies and ice cream. Once the presentation was finally over, there was question and answer session. The shoobie asked four questions and I was so done with him, it was hard to not roll my eyes. When the applause finally came I was so happy, I waited for the lights to come on, and people to get up and start putting jackets on before I made my great escape.

I was finally free. Maybe someday I will be into birdwatching and meetings like that but not for another forty or so years. The good that came out of this was at least I found a museum to go to if I'm feeling bored (aka everyday, I'm bored everyday, I need a hobby).

Also, I did not make it to the bollywood dance class like I planned, so perhaps that will be a post for the future. For now, au revoir and I will find something to go to next week!

MeetUp Mishap III: Bollywood Dance Club **NOT A MISHAP

Omg guys, maybe third time's the charm.

Have you ever seen Bend It Like Beckham, Slumdog Millionaire, or The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel? There are dance scenes in all those movies that is called Bollywood Dancing. Its like Zumba and hip hop but with Indian, and Bhangra persuasion. So it's a fun time. I have always been a fan of watching those dances and have always wanted to try it. It looks so fun and guess what, it is! (Another secret reason I've wanted to try it is because I get 5-stars on the Just Dance Panjabi MC song on the game and wanted to know if I was as good in real life...lol)

A couple weeks ago I saw that there was a Bollywood MeetUp in my area so I joined the group. However, I was very hesitant after the Zumba incident to go to another dance class. I RSVP'd for one a couple weeks ago but it was on a Sunday morning and I uhhh was not in any shape to attend, thank you vodka, whiskey, and tequila. So I finally went to one this past Tuesday.

When I pulled up the dance studio was black and it was in an area that I was not familiar with, so in my head I was thinking "great here we go again." I even texted my friend and told her to send help if she doesn't hear from me after an hour and a half, and sent her my pin-lol safety first. So I sat in my car for about seven minutes, and they dragged. Finally about ten minutes before the class was to start people started showing up and I think the instructor parked next to me. I waited for her to go in, and apparently the dance studio is closed during the day, which explains the darkness. So I got out of my car and went in...

This time I was greeted very nicely and warmly by the instructor. She came right up to me, shook my hand, and gave me the low-down. She also had a British accent which I thought was fantastic. I paid for the class then went to the floor. Again I was the only white girl for a little bit, but this time I didn't feel judged and out of place. I also adore Indian women, I can't explain it. They're always so happy and cracking jokes, they just love life and it radiates off of them. I hope after I go to a couple more classes I find an Indian mother to take me in and feed me once a week. Is that weird? So more women keep coming in, and it was a packed dance floor! It was so fun.

I literally had the time of my life. I didn't know a single song, but they were all fast tempo, and super fun to move to. I felt like an Indian hip-hop princess, aka Jasmine from Aladdin, but when Jafar captures her and she becomes "sexy Jasmine". That's how I felt and I loved it.


The music was awesome, the crowd was great, the dancing was actual routines that made sense, were easy to follow and went with the music, and I cant wait to go again. This was most definitely not a mishap. Sorry to disappoint.

Next up: MeetUp for girls in their 20s and 30s at a dog park...oh boy!

MeetUp Mishaps: Zumba

Hello fans,

The first MeetUp Mishap I will share with y'all is the very reason I am blogging this adventure. Everything that could have gone wrong did, and its funny looking back on it now.

So a little background first: I love to dance. Whether it's dancing in the mirror, dancing with my friends at da club, or in a class, I love it all. In college my friends and I went to Zumba for fun, and holy moly was that a workout. We were sweating and sore by the second song, it was great! The instructor was fun, the music was fun, and it was a great workout. I mean who doesnt love a good twerk workout, amiright?

My next Zumba experience was when I worked for the Y and got to take free classes, again this was a great dance class. The instructor was full of energy, he was very attractive, and man could he shake it. For those of you who have never been to a Zumba class, its a mixture of Latin, African, and Indian dance techniques. So you could be doing a salsa one dance, and a jai-ho the next. So when I saw there was a Zumba MeetUp I thought "How perfect! I already know how to Zumba, this will be fun, and girls my age will be there!" I grabbed my bestie and made her come with me while making promises of fun, new friends, and good music. Boy was I wrong.

So lets start from the beginning of the Mishap. On the app an address for where the MeetUp happens is available, so we plugged that into our GPS and saw it was pretty close to my friends house. Off we go, listening to music and singing in the car, when we got close to where the studio was we slowed down and were looking for a business sign for the dance studio, we looked and looked, and looked. And drove right past it. We were in a residential neighborhood, so we were kind of confused. After pulling into a drive way we realized it must be in someones house or something. So we went back to the address that the app gave us and saw a very small sign was printed off a computer saying "dance studio in back." Great. I was still optimistic at this point so I was like lets just go park and go in. We parked the car, looked around and saw more small signs. It was literally a house. We came to do Zumba at a strangers house. We went up to a door and it was locked, and then tried another door and it was open, we go in and it was a basement....

...And there were 3 women already dancing. They looked at us, and kept on dancing. The instructor did not even acknowledge us or say hi. We went in awkwardly and shyly, went to a corner to put our bags and water and just stood there for about 3 minutes before other people started coming in. So far we were the only people under the age of 45 there. More people come in and line up on the studio floor in front of the mirror so we do the same thing. By the time everyone arrived we were the only white girls in their 20s, and we stood out like sore thumbs. A lady came up to us and asked us who we were and if we registered and we said "No, we're here for the free Zumba we found on MeetUp" and she was confused for a second and went over to the instructor and was talking to her for a few minutes meanwhile were thinking we wont even get to Zumba at this point. She comes back and says we're good, we just have to give her our email and sign up for a Zumba package at the end of the class (I'm still getting email alerts as to when the next classes are, and theres no way to unsubscribe AHHH). Then the class finally starts...

The dancing is all a blurr at this point, but it was not good I can tell you that much. At point I remember looking at my friend and giving her the "what the hell is this?" look. Now my friend had a harder time with this class than I did, shes actually a better dancer than I am. It looked like she had no clue as to what she was doing and she looked so uncoordinated, like an old lady who only dances when shes drunk at weddings. It was funny for me but she was miserable. I am 95% sure our instructor was not a real certified Zumba instructor, because the dancing was not Zumba dances, there was no Salsa, no bollywood dancing, no two-step, no ball changes, I couldn't even tell you what we did. It was like nothing I've ever experienced or seen in all my Zumba classes. It was like she just downloaded some music and made up random dance routines in her basement. Since they weren't actual dance steps it was super hard to follow her, and the dances weren't very repetative so you couldn't learn it to follow along. It was basically a free-for-all, and the characters who were at the class definitely took advantage of that. There was one song called "Dessert" where the only man in the class obviously loved, he was singing along and made up his own dancing. It was quite the experience.

Once the hour of non-Zumba Zumba was over, we literally grabbed our stuff and ran out of the dance studio as fast as we could. There was a straggler in the parking lot as we were cannoning out of there who asked us if we were coming back, and since we are nice, polite young ladies, we said "Yeahhhh". The second we were in the car though we started laughing from shock and making profane exclamations like "WHAT___WAS THAT?" We drove to a bar after that to recover from the strange dancing experience. My friend told me she's never going to another dance class with me. Which means I will going to the bollywood dance class alone this week....

So friends, this is my first Mishap Chronicle. I hope enjoyed my experience more than I did. I also hope you never have a Zumba experience like we did. So adieu until next time!

Friendless: a MeetUp Mishaps Chronicle (Intro)

Hello beautiful world I'm back!

After a long hiatus from blogging I am coming back to the game and do I have a fun post for y'all!
In October I relocated from the middle of nowhere, upstate New York to the warm and very populated city of Raleigh, NC. I moved to join my best friend and to try my luck on my ever unfortunate job search. After spending several months substitute teaching, working in a restaurant, and nannying I packed up my little car and drove 700 miles to a brand new shiny city.

It's now the New Year and I hoped to have had a) a job, b) lots of friends, c) a very cool apartment, and d) a soccer team to play on, by now.  However, so far my goals are only halfway reached: I have a very cool apartment, and play soccer every week. Which leaves me unemployed and friendless. So what better way to solve my friendless problem than to utilize the wonders of the app store on my smartphone. Thus I downloaded the app "MeetUp" to try and make some friends, do some fun stuff, and learn more about this new fun city! So I present to you the MeetUp Mishaps Chronicles because lets be real, this will not go smoothly *crying from laughing emoji*

So my dear readers here is what you can expect from this:

I will go to one or two MeetUps a week,

I will be open to suggestions of what kinds of MeetUps to go on and,

I'll keep it fun and entertaining for y'all (see I'm a Southern Belle now)

Ballys Nightmare

Hey everyone so for those of you who know me pretty well you knew I was spending way too much money the past year on a personal trainer through the gym Ballys Total Fitness. Although I have a few new workouts up my sleeve and more confidence that I am strong, I would consider the past year a complete waste of my money and my time.

I remember getting the day I got swindled and harassed into my membership like it was yesterday. I was walking in the mall to pass time between class and a late night soccer game when a guy in front of the gym approached me. Normally I would just nod and keep walking but I felt BAD for them, because NOBODY ever say "Yeah Ill come hear what you have to say," and like I said, I had some time to kill so I figured I would hear what they had to say to humor them and then just leave. Well the guy was very nice, gave me a free 2-week pass, and he showed me around the gym. I was not at all impressed at what I saw and was anxious to leave. So at the last leg of the tour he sat me a table and tried to get me to sign up for a membership. I vehemently said No for the first 20 minutes, I even tried to get up to leave and he blocked my exit. So I sat back down after half an hour of not being allowed to leave and was brought a membership packet to read which promised meal planning, personal training assessment every 3 months, and a personalized fitness plan. All of those were something I was interested in so I finally gave in. So the nice tour guide left and in came this DISGUSTING excuse of a man. He had a thick Boston accent, he was eating a sandwich and had mayo on his mustache, and he was fat. Like a gross fat.--side note: turns out he was the manager, yikes-- He was loud and scary and I was trying to negotiate memberships to get a cheap one and he was so creepy I just started nodding so I could leave ASAP. SO I ended up signing up for a year membership. Left and played my soccer game went to bed.

And immediately the next day I had buyers remorse. I was a first semester grad student with a below-minimum wage job, a gym membership was the last thing I needed. SO there was a clause in the contract and you can cancel within 3 day of signing, IF you do everything the contract says which is:
Send a certified cancellation letter, containing your contract, and your key card to a P.O. Box in Washington DC. Needless to say I didnt expect it to work. Especially after I had googled Ballys and saw some scary things about their business practices. So for about a month I didnt go to the gym at all, but one day I was at the mall with my friend and I stopped by at the desk just to see if I was indeed still a member. I told a white lie and said I lost my key card, not that I sent it in when I tried to cancel my membership. They started to look me up and were giving me a hard time already and my friend was giving it back to them, thank god she was there or I probably would have done something else stupid. So after some lip they gave me a new key card (which I found out 7 months later wasn't even registered to my account, I was literally punching in to nothing. great) and then I had to make an appointment with the personal trainer to be "evaluated" which, was part of the initial agreement I signed so I did, happily, because I wanted someone to motivate me to workout.

The year with my personal trainer came and went and I learned some good new workout ideas such as how to do deadlifts (which I have to admit are my favorite exercise now). My contract was winding down and I brought it up to my trainer that my membership would end before my contract with him would end and his solution was "just let it end and you can pay month to month until ours is up." Um, ok. Our contract was up only a month after my membership was so I started sending off my certified letters (again) that stated "my year-long gym membership is up and I do not wish to renew it. as well as the contract with my trainer." The instructions in my contract and online said to send it to some random PO box in DC and that I would be notified when my membership was canceled....guess what didn't happen? From reading comments on message boards and yelp about the way this company runs I put together that this was going to be harder than sending off two letters, this company wants to leak every penny out of you as possible. 

The month that my contract with my trainer was over came and I was getting very anxious because I hadn't heard back from corporate. Then the month ended and I got charged again for a monthly fee and the training fees so this time I called 1-866-402-2559 (member support) and emailed the support team and got this answer "your Ballys is a franchised gym, contact them to cancel your account" aka some local idiot is running this joint and DC can't do anything for me until the idiot gives them the go ahead. Now I had to track down the idiot in charge of upstate NY gyms, it ended up being Syracuse. I called the Syracuse gym and when I told the boy, yes he sounded like he was 12, on the phone what was going on he told me that he would put me on the list for Bob the Accountant to call me back writhing 3 days. 3 days came and Bob never called me back, so I called them and found out Bob only works after 7pm and I'm on the top of his list still. Aka never happening. 

Upset and with nowhere else to go I called my trainer and he told me HE NO LONGER WORKED AT MY GYM!!!! I burst into tears and he finally told me to call my gym and talk to "Justin" and he will handle it. It was 3 months after my gym membership was up and 2 after my training one. I called up "Justin" and I told him that my contract I was over, I did what it said: I sent my certified letters to DC, gave a copy to my trainer, even addressed one to my trainer about the training and that I've been trying to get this thing cancelled for 2 months with no luck. (I also stopped going to that gym when my contract was up to prove my point). Justin was the first helpful person in this whole mess. He looked up my account and said "oh yeah you're not active anymore", he removed me from the system and promised

I would be reimbursed for the $$$. I practically could've kissed him through the phone I was so happy! Then he said he would call me back in 2 days and check if I got my money back. Cool, sounds good. Then the next best thing happened: I got a cancellation confirmation email from headquarters the next day and I was on cloud 9. I thought my Ballys nightmare was finally over and I would be one who actually got out...

Justin didn't call me back,

which was ok at the time because it was all worth it just to be done with that mess. I also was never reimbursed. Maybe that should've been my red flag? Well it is now May, this all happened in Dec-Feb. Last night before I went to bed I checked my bank account to see if my paychecks went through and I saw 3 pending payments to Ballys for amounts that I have never paid them before. I was so sick I couldn't fall asleep and I woke up way too early for a Saturday because I'm stressed out about it. I'm calling my bank this morning when they open and going to the gym this afternoon looking for an explanation.

I feel helpless and taken advantage of, I was basically bullied into a membership and I don't even go there anymore and I'm still paying for it. Moral of the story: DONT GO TO BALLYS

OMG PANCAKES

I like to consider myself pretty creative and I also believe that necessity is the mother of invention. Today I woke up and had a hankering for pancakes. Not just run of the mill, use the pancake mix pancakes. I needed thick, fluffy, melt in your mouth pancakes. 

So I have lately been interested, like every other 20-something girl it seems, in making basic recipes more healthy. One of the ways to do this are make some substitutions, my favorite example is plain greek yogurt instead of sour cream. Yesterday was also leg day and so today I'm nursing my pain with protein so my first ingredient of amazing pancakes was greek yogurt. I also decided to add a scoop of vanilla protein powder for an extra kick. 

I next couldn't decide between what I wanted in the pancakes. I don't like plain pancakes, that's wrong. The competing flavor were between berries and chocolate, my two true loves. Instead of picking sides I just threw them all together and came up with a combination of blueberries, chocolate chips, and white chocolate chips. I went heavy on the berries and light on the chocolate and it was amazing. 

These pancakes were the most amazing thing I have experienced in all of 2015. The consistency was just what I wanted, even a little gooey which was fine with me. I'm not even good at cooking pancakes, some of them came out a little burnt but that didn't even matter the flavor was just incredible. 

Here's my recipe:

1 cup of pancake batter(box or your own      recipe)

1 cup of greek yogurt-can be any flavor I used black cherry 

1 scoop of vanilla protein powder

1 egg

2/3 cup of water

As many blueberries as you want

Handful of white chocolate chips

Smaller handful of chocolate chips

Cook and enjoy! 

January Blues

Unemployment during the month of January is possibly the worst month of the whole year to be unemployed. It has not been warmer than 25 degrees since the New Year. Our thermostat never goes above 64, and our fireplace only heats one room in the whole house. AKA IM FREEZING ALL DAY EVERY DAY
...I go through wool socks like they are underwear now, and fleece leggings and long johns are my new best friends. This is not a joke people, this is a war on cold. All I want to do is go for a run outside, but I don't think frost bite and hypothermia are worth it...

So on top of the bitter cold dragging me down, I am also having no luck with this job search thing. I'm starting to wonder if this is even the field I want to go in. Everyone keeps trying to give me job search advice and bestow their wisdom on me, but it's getting really annoying actually. So when people ask me how the job searching is going, I try to find a new topic to talk about ASAP.

Part of the problem is the jobs themselves often look for a few to several years of experience, so I dont even qualify for most of them. Secondly, its a competitive field and I'm low on the totem pole, I can't even tell if my resumes are being looked at. The third problem is, people keep telling me that its my time to do anything I want. Well what I want is to be on a boat and follow Orca Whales in their migration and swim with them and love them (basically real life Free Willy) but I have 0 experience in boating, whale research, marine biology sooo why would they hire me at all? Also-those jobs are rare and there is like no chance of me ever finding my way on a whale research boat, unless I start up my own crew. But I'm poor. And have student loans I have to pay off....

I also want to own a house on a beach and be in walking distance of the ocean...im too poor for that also. Or I want to explore space, but I'm not an astronaut.

So I've spent about 2 or 3 weeks on the couch watching Netflix where I finished rewatching the Office, saw all the animal documentaries. I have read 4 books, 2 were great, and 2 were kind of bad but I couldnt put them down. I've slept enough to catch up on all the sleep I missed during my Master's program.  So basically now I am just really bored. This would all be easier if I had more friends who were home, I cant count my friends who are left on one hand, but they all have professions and have started their lives...P. Sawyer from OTH said it first: "people always leave" and its depressing being the one who is left behind. I just need a one-way ticket out of here, unfortunately the ticket needs to have benefits, a rate of pay I can live off of, and hopefully a fun place where I can actually start living. There isn't even a bar around here for me to go to and have a little fun, last night was a Friday...what was I doing? I finished a book and watched a movie with my parents. Who both fell asleep within the first twenty minutes...kewl. Anyways, I'm so bored, I might actually clean the house.

So yeah cold, bored, and lonely...Happy January, the most depressing month of the year. It can only get better from here right?