Californian in the South

Everyone’s been getting sassy about me not blogging recently, so I apologize.

To all three of you, I’m sorry.

Anyway, I guess I should do a little catch up:

          Tommy came to the South over Christmas break and it was fabulous. This boy is way more redneck than I could ever dream of being, so he fit in just fine. He flew into Nashville, so we decided to make a night of it and walk around for a little while. While we were wandering, we had the wonderful (read: disgusting) opportunity to watch a spicy chicken-eating contest. Tommy loved it. We got to eat dinner with Jane Alice (one of my best friends from school - Hootie hoo) and Kelsey (my senior year roommate/soulmate).

He loved Nashville

            That night, we drove back to Knoxville and crashed at my cousin’s lake house. We woke up bright and early the next morning to go hunting (yes, hunting) in Allardt, Tennessee. AKA a city that my dad (who has lived in Tennessee for 40+ years) had never heard of. Tommy was alarmingly good at killing birds. I was alarmingly good at losing my cell phone in a 500-acre field. Enough said.

"I've killed things"

            Pigeon Forge/Dollywood happened. It was so cold that some of the rides weren’t open for the first half, so we just walked around and people watched, which is basically a sport there. 

We go-karted. He drove. I died a little. This is me trying to smile...

Can't go to Dollywood without taking the obligatory nest picture...

            Then came the road trip to Texas. I REPEAT: precious Tommy had to road trip with my family from Knoxville, TN to San Antonio, TX. Bless. On the way, we stopped in New Orleans for a night and got beignets at Café Du Monde, authentic Cajun food, and walked Bourbon Street. Talk about culture shock. We also toured a plantation. Then, as we left New Orleans the next morning, we saw an airboat tour off the interstate and decided to try it out. The tour guide had one of the strongest Cajun accents I’ve ever heard.

Airboat 

            We made it to Texas and went to Seaworld (I know I know, I watched Blackfish afterward… please don’t kill me). I’m pretty sure the highlight for Tommy was the Texas barbeque we constantly ate and touring the Toyota plant where his Tundra was made (redneck). 

Californians think "friendly" and "driving" are antonyms. 

            On our flight back from Texas, we sat next to Camilla Alves (Matthew McConaughey's wife) on the plane. I fangirled hard and snuck a picture. Tommy had a brief "oh cool" moment and went back to watching The Alamo on my laptop.

99% sure she was talking to Matt. I WAS SO CALM.

            So, back to Malibu. Dad called me a couple weeks ago on a Thursday and told me he had a surprise meeting in Los Angeles on that Saturday. Best surprise ever. He flew in Friday night and I got to spend Saturday hanging out with him. That Friday, Tommy and I were at an Eric Church concert (redneck), which was super fun.

            Second semester has been great. I’m taking Quantitative Methods and Communication Ethics, and both have been really great so far. I find pretty much everything we’re studying really interesting, so that’s a good sign.

            Tommy and I just took a little day trip up to Carpentaria, which is a precious little beach town. We just hung out on the beach then ate the sketchiest sushi you’ve ever seen,  but we didn’t get sick/die so that’s good. Moral of the story: if you have a choice between a pizza place and a sushi place, choose the pizza place.

Beach

I got a fish.

Reginald Fishgerald

That’s about it for what’s been happening. The whole fam is coming to visit in about a week, so I’m sure there’ll be some stories from that. Prepare yourself.

So much love to all of you!!

One Month Down

Hello everyone.

I've officially been here for a month, and I'm absolutely loving it.

I've signed up for an acting class with my friend (and fellow Communications masters student) Bonnie, who is an actual actor. Since this is bound to be one of the most hilarious/embarrassing events of my life, I'll keep you updated. But seriously, how can I be in LA and not take an acting class??
Answer: I can't.

Truly one of the biggest blessings in the past month has been FaceTime. Most of you won't be surprised that I FaceTime with Addison (my niece) at least every other day. Huge shoutout to Amanda (my sister-in-law) for dealing with my incessant requests to FaceTime a 1-year-old, which is even harder than it sounds. Here's a small video of how this usually goes.

I've FaceTimed pretty much everyone I know, including:

• Katie Holthouser, who is about to move to Spain to teach English. Follow her adventures on her blog - she's one of the best and funniest writers I know, so it's bound to be a great read. She hasn't posted anything yet, but she moves in less than a week so stay tuned. 
• Sarah Wright, who's getting her doctorate in Psychology at Southern Miss. She's legit and should have a blog. I'll work on that.
• Claire Mayo, one of my best friends from Knoxville, who is getting her masters in French History (it's more complicated than that, but it's over my head) at NYU. So, yes, we're literally as far away as we could possibly be from each other in the continental United States. *crying*
• Brooke Griffith, another great friend from Knoxville who is an incredibly talented artist and jewelry designer (check out her jewelry here). She spent this past summer interning at URBN, the company that owns Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, and Free People. Yes, she's that legit. And you also have her to thank (or hate) for this blog post, because she told me I needed to update it. 
• My parents... enough said. Kelly is so bad at holding the phone still, it makes me nauseated when I'm FaceTiming her. Richard was so distracted by golf today while we were FaceTiming, he asked me when my birthday was. It's fine. 
• Talking to (brother) Richard usually involves me talking his ear off and him making obnoxious faces at me before he figures out I'm screenshotting him. See below. 

#attractive 

I thought I would give a little overview of the girls in my cohort (which basically means first year Communications students). There are only 5 of us, so we bonded extremely fast, and have an absolute blast together.

Bonnie: As mentioned above, Bonnie is an actor who's originally from North Carolina, but moved to LA a few years ago. She and I have an absurd amount of similarities, from our extensive stomach problems to our favorite ice cream flavors. Her boyfriend is Australian, so naturally we make him talk as much as possible. Bonnie is one of those people you just click with and you feel like you've been friends forever. (Now that I think of it, that's how it is with all these girls...) But anyway, you can tell how sweet she is by the fact that she even considered taking a beginners acting class with me.
Mary Nell: As you might have guessed from the double name, Mary Nell is from the South (North Carolina to be exact). Where to even start... Mary Nell has a deep southern accent and outgoing personality that form the perfect storm. And by "perfect storm" I mean that Mary Nell can get anything from anyone for free in 30 seconds flat. I'm not making this up. To list a few things she's gotten in the past 2 weeks: an entire box of pizza, an extra cup of ice cream, and a bottle opener (while we were in class at Pepperdine, a dry campus). And that's just a few. She spent a month this past summer living in the woods with a bunch of kids, teaching them nature stuff. Aka my worst nightmare. Major props for that.
Martha: Oh, Martha. Martha is the only girl in our cohort originally from California. She's super outgoing and loves to laugh. She's Mexican-American, which ties into her research and interests in graduate school in an extremely cool way. I love that she's using her experiences to shape her research. She has one of the most interesting life stories I've ever heard, and she thinks I'm absolutely crazy (get in line, Martha). Martha's always down to hang out with whoever wants to and is one of those people you find yourself chatting with for hours.
Nicole: Nicole is the introvert/traveler of the group. I'm 97% positive that any location in the world you can think of, Nicole has been there. I'm not exaggerating. Nicole is probably the least talkative  of the group (which technically isn't saying a lot - we're talkers), but she always has really interesting things to say, and is highly intelligent. Nicole is also one of those people who seems to know something about everything, so almost literally anything you bring up, she can have an intelligent conversation about. She's also really funny.


Differences I've noticed between Malibu and the South:
1. Surfer-speak. Guys, it's an actual thing here... Here's the main vocabulary I've noticed, including, but not limited to:

• "That's sick" 
• "Yewww" (which apparently means "epic" according to my new surfer friend)
• "Rad"
• "Cowabunga dude" (Ok I'm lying about this one but it's only a matter of time)

2. How people dress. Most of you who know me from college will be genuinely surprised that I've probably only worn a t-shirt and athletic shorts out in public a couple of times. People here are always dressed well, so I dress well. It's also probably because on the off chance I run into Jake Gyllenhaal, I want to be prepared. Step 2: actually wearing makeup. 

3. People are much more forward here, especially guys. 

4. People here aren't "fake" like they are in the South (personality-wise, not physically. That's a whole other ball game). They're very much themselves all the time, and very accepting of who everybody else is. It's refreshing.

6. Pepperdine does not = Samford. I thought maybe since they are both private Christian universities with the reputation of attracting rich kids, they would be pretty similar. Um no. The students here are far wealthier on average than the students at Samford. Also, much more fashionable... no big t shirts and leggings anywhere, although I have seen one sorority jersey (you know those long sleeved huge shirts with writing on the top of the back). 

7. Guys are much more fashionable here... I met a guy the other day who had made the pants he was wearing that day and - trust me - they were cool. 

I've truly had so much fun in this past month. California is everything I thought it would be and more, and it's so fun to see God's hand in every decision and rejection I encountered in the past few years. 

XOXO

Malibu Harbie

P.S. Shoutout to Christian Calegari, one of my Samford professor's sons who just started a blog. He's 7, he's hilarious, and he can sing a mean Jason Aldean song. Trust me go check it out, it'll brighten your day. 

What.

Oh, hey.

I'm just casually sitting here somewhere between 1,400 (Texas) and 2,300 (Tennessee) miles away from my family/everyone I love. I've now lived here for 10 days.

So anyway, I'm sitting here in my apartment in Malibu looking out at the palm trees blowing in the wind and I can't believe it. I am officially an adult. My parents moved me in, helped me furnish my space, and shipped out.

The people here have been so welcoming and kind. I even attended neighborhood bingo night on Thursday and won the prize for having the worst bingo cards (long story). These women are serious about their bingo, and I was the youngest one there by at least 30 years. AKA, my kind of party.

I met a woman who used to sing with many of the greats, like Frank Sinatra.

I met my fellow graduate students, and 4 out of the 5 are from the South (though two of them have lived in L.A. for a few years). After spending the day with them at orientation, I'm even more excited than before about spending the next two years with them.

The 5 ladies in the graduate program at Pepperdine for orientation

I met the man who owns the local farm across the street, and hit the jackpot with the avocados he's selling.

I met a woman who has owned a local dog grooming business for years, and has recently started cremating animals with water, a process called Aquamation, which is more environmentally friendly. Welcome to California.
(Curious how the heck that works? Click Here.)


Differences between the South and Malibu I've determined thus far:
1. I say "y'all" more than I realized. "Y'all" is definitively not a thing here.
2. Everything - I repeat everything - is organic/healthy here. It's amazing.
3. The weather. It's mid-seventies and sunny with a cool breeze year-round. As my dad recently said, "It's like the outside is air-conditioned."
4. The beach. Malibu is 27 miles long and 1 mile wide, so it's almost literally all beach. The closest public beach sits right at the end of my neighborhood, so you can probably guess where I've spent most of my time.
5. L.A. traffic is INSANE. To all of you asking if it's as bad as Atlanta traffic, yes. Just yes. Worse.
6. Air conditioning doesn't exist in my neighborhood. People just open the windows and it serves the same function, and for some reason bugs don't fly in.
7. Every other car is majorly upscale. I'm talking Bentley convertibles, Lamborghinis, G-wagons, etc. All over the place.
8. Everything. Is. Expensive.


I realize this blog has been extremely random and doesn't have much of a flow to it, but it's a culmination of what has been running through my head over the past 10 days. I'm hoping to blog pretty frequently this year, so stay tuned!

Much love to all of you reading this!!
Malibu Harbie