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To Stay In or Go Out?

~ samanthatran ~ Leave a comment

After going out for so many Saturdays in a row, it feels weird to come home from a Saturday afternoon of working and shopping to a night in lounging in comfy clothes for once. There’s probably a special german word for this feeling, I just don’t know how to google it.

go out?

I was asked to attend an event recently and I was given flashbacks to how I always reacted when I found out there was an event for me to attend. I mean, I want to go, but at the same time I don’t know if I really do, you know? The chart I just discovered (above, from @introvertdoodles) will help me figure out whether I should go to things now! I’m always saying “yes!” to things excitedly and then it takes up my entire calendar and now I am going to try and focus spending my energy more carefully.

An article titled “Both Introverts and Extraverts Get Exhausted from Too Much Socializing” caught my eye, and the author, Scott Kaufman mentions a research that concluded how “in general, when under stress, tired, or living in crowded circumstances, people often choose to be alone if they can.”

Every time I take a personality test or compared the sides, my results are definitely more extroverted than introverted because my energy comes from going out and about but I think I may have come to the point of getting burned out because of overloading this. It felt like so much was happening all at once like sensory overload combined with an inconsistent sleeping and eating schedule, I had almost no time for myself. I can’t wait to see what this year brings after being able to reflect on 2017 and trying to make changes.

Girlboss 2018

Baking Sunflower Cupcakes!

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Last week, I spent a few hours with friends in my kitchen baking and decorating cupcakes. I had expressed how much I missed making pretty cupcakes for school bake sales when I was in high school and we all wanted to bake again! Now that I’m in college, there are way less opportunities to host bake sales on campus…

Here is a video of how we made them and more:

These are also how our pictures turned out:

Sarah’s

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Kathy’s

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Nina’s

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Mine

Sunflower Cupcake

Red Robin, YUM & MORE

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To do list:

  • Attend today’s classes
  • Go out with Trang and Nina
  • Shop around for cute things
  • Ask Red Robin if they sell their special seasoning

Looks like I totally missed something on my to do list once again! There was a Groupon deal for a Red Robin near us today and we decided to go for it and I was given the perfect opportunity to ask about their seasoning but nope, I forgot.

I actually vlogged about it today and will probably be compiling it with tomorrow’s vlog because we made plans to hang out again; tomorrow’s goal is to get some thrifted finds.

Stores we hit up: Sephora, Nordstrom Rack, Barnes & Noble (or as Nina would call it, Barney’s and Noble’s)

Stay tuned to catch the vlog on my YouTube channel! 🙂

 

A Fresh Start & Domain Name

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Do you see the pink bmy-laptopackdrop in the feature photo? I spent $38 on it and I have no ragrets. (That was a reference to the movie We’re the Millers btw, it’s a hilarious movie that you should check out ft. Jennifer Anniston!)

Anyways, hey guys! It’s been a while since I last posted but now that my college winter break is approaching soon, I’ll have more time on my hands. I’m setting a goal of either vlogging or blogging (almost) daily.

I’ve OFFICIALLY bought my own domain name under my own name. I started thinking about how there are now more than a handful of Samantha Tran’s now who may or may not be considering a website and I had to get my hands on it for my future. (Sorry girls!)

Ban.do VS Lilly Pulitzer Agendas (+ Pictures)

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This year I finally decided to buy a medium-sized Ban.do planner! Since I haven’t seen anyone else do a comparison between the Lilly Pulitzer and Ban.do ones, I thought this would be helpful to share prices, sizes, what’s inside, and which one is for you.

edited planners.jpg

 

PRICE

I ordered the medium-sized Ban.do agenda (left) for $28 and if you order now, you can combine a 10% off code and free shipping together. The medium-sized Lilly Pulitzer agenda (right) I used was $22 last year, this year it is priced at $24.

The medium Ban.do agenda is larger than the medium Lilly Pulitzer agenda.
They are the same thickness.

In terms of size, their thickness is about the same (see pic). Ban.do comes in a small non-spiral agenda and medium and large spiral agendas. Lilly Pulitzer agendas come in small, medium, large, and jumbo. Ban.do’s small non-spiral is equivalent to Lilly Pulitzer’s medium-size agenda.

INSIDES for each section of comparison pictures, I’m going to put the Ban.do (BD) picture before the Lilly Pulitzer (LP) one

  • opening the planner | right off the bat, you can see how LP tends to have a resort/vacation-related theme whereas BD is a bit more minimalistic and playful with the “secret code”
  •  after the folder | BD has a place for you to put your name on your planner whereas LP doesn’t have a designated spot. The BD has 2 sheets of stickers and LP only has 1 in the one I have to show you but they now have 2 sheets this year. BD has a little letter and LP has a “wecome to PALM BEACH” part and a cute map of palm beach.

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  • yearly/overview calendar | BD & LP both have two-year overview calendars and a “dates to remember” type of setup, the difference between the two is that LP has a year-long monthly spread twice in the planner, in the front where there are 12 pages back of back and then each month before the weekly spreads (this may have been removed from the 2016-17 edition though) and the BD only has one of each month. 
  • special | LP has a section dedicated to travel planning and an address book, BD has neither one of these but their notes section(s) make up for it.
  • notes | If you use your planner to jot down notes and other random things a lot, the BD has about 5X the amount of pages dedicated to notes. BD has 2 pages of notes after every monthly overview (there are 17 months = 34 sheets/17 pages) and a section in the back with 18 more pages/9 sheets. LP has a section for notes in the front consisting of 10 pages/5 sheets.
  • monthly calendar | BD has literally color-blocked a few pages that correspond with their holidays list. They are both easy spreads to glance at.
  • weekly spread | BD is more bare-bones while LP has a patterned border and drawing that flows onto the page partially.
  • artwork | BD gets all-girl artists for each monthly spread while LP keeps their classic look each year, according to what I’ve heard so far. If you like things to stay the same, LP is for you, if you like “artsy” changes, BD is for you.

WHICH ONE IS BEST FOR YOU?

If you’re ready for something fancier than a free school-supplied agenda but don’t have enough time to commit to decorating, the Lilly Pulitzer agenda is for you. Each page comes with a nice designed border and sometimes there are little cartoon picture drawings.

If you like planners like the Erin Condren life planner where you can design and decorate your agenda as something more than just for assignments, then the ban.do agenda is definitely for you! It doesn’t have lines so you can keep the minimalist look or create your own.

If you love the Kate Spade look but don’t want to spend as much, click this part of the sentence to see a post I wrote about the Sugar Paper Planner(s) available at target.

Let me know if this post helped you decide and any other thoughts you’d like to share!

 

Huge Book Outlet & Thriftbooks Haul!

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IMG_5221Hey guys! This month I made my first book haul purchase 🙂 I usually just buy 1-2 books at a time from Amazon/Barnes & Noble/Target/etc. but BOOK OUTLET(.com) is my new go-to spot! If it weren’t for booktube, I would have never known this amazing site existed.

I went a little crazy and got eight books in total from both Book Outlet and Thriftbooks! Here is a YouTube Video where I do an unboxing and the second part is descriptions of the synopsises/books.

Just Another Winter Day Where I’m Not in London…

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If you  haven’t noticed all the signs yet, I’m obsessed with all things British! It all started during my freshman year of high school when I was a fangirl of One Direction. It’s so embarrassing when I think about how obsessed I was over them, especially Zayn Malik, the one with the hot bad boy vibe. Those days consisted of photoshopping my head into pictures, listening to all their music, and freaking out about them with other Directioners. I have no ragrets! (And no, I didn’t make a typo, if you didn’t get that reference, please go and watch We’re The Millers [Rated R] somewhere, it’s a hilarious movie!)

It’s almost time for Vietnamese New Year! I love 2014 so far, it’s been a great 11 days. For the next 20 days, I’ll be attending some dance practices to prepare for an event at my temple and it’s taking up all my weekend time! So instead of doing homework like I should be, I’m making a website/blog.