The guy who comes up from behind and starts dancing without warning. The guy who thinks a sexist comment or an insult is a great conversation opener. The guy who thinks that making eye contact with you means he’s your boyfriend. We’ve all experienced our fair share of creeps at the bars. That said, during a passionate conversation with a friend of a friend, I found myself defending the general population of guys at bars. After all, my guy friends—most of whom are nice, respectable and respectful gentlemen—go to bars, and I would bet that yours do too. They’re not all creeps! Once you change your perception and open your eyes, you may surprise yourself at what’s right in front of you. Here is a guide to bar etiquette. Turning down a date does not have to be insulting; in fact, if you do it right you may even impress another eligible date nearby.
Emily Woods Gives Us Her View from the Hill on Life in our Nation’s Capital
If you’ve ever watched House of Cards (and let’s be serious, who hasn’t??) then you’ve probably wondered what life is actually like on Capital Hill. Is it all a carefully crafted political chess game like Frank Underwood implies? The Netflix show certainly had us wondering. To get the insider’s scoop I turned to my college girl friend Emily Woods who has lived Washington D.C. since July 2012. This go-getter moved to the city after graduating from the University of Cincinnati with her Masters in Architecture and an MBA (that’s right, this super sista doubled teamed her grad degrees!). Ever since she’s been rocking out life on the east coast as an architect at one of the country’s leading hospitality design firms. I sat down with her to find out what it’s like to be a Single Girl in the city, if politics really ruled all, and what the perfect day looks like in our nation’s capital. Secret- politics may play a crucial role in the conversation but a great glass of wine doesn’t fall far behind : ) Read on to find out more from this D.C-er! (more…)
How Moving to L.A. Literally & Figuratively Changed My View on Life
Single Girls if you caught our post Favorite Sites for Life Advice then you already know I am a huge fan of the ladies over at Quarterlette. These rockin’ women exemplify what it means to us to be a Single Girl and we couldn’t agree more with their site’s mission to “support, guide & inspire women through their quarter-lives.” I’m excited to announce that today’s post is actually featured on Quarterlette as part of their series The Moving Diaries. The series was inspired by the idea that behind every move there is always a story – an end, a new beginning, a challenge, whatever it may be moves always signal change. This was certainly the case for me when I decided to move to Los Angeles in 2011. The story behind my move was the need for a fresh perspective on life. Yes, the official reason I moved was because of a job offer but the real reason, the reason that had truly compelled me to pack my bags reached far deeper. I’d grown tired of my life in my hometown and needed to do something drastic to shake it up.
Head on over toQuarterlette to catch the full article!
A friend and I were talking about people’s different thresholds of “busy.” She has a full-time office job and teaches fitness classes 3 to 4 days a week. A colleague of mine has a full-time job, teaches an extracurricular class once a week, oh, and has a husband and four kids to care for. I attest my own desire to fill my days to my early training in elementary school. My mom had my sisters and me in after-school activities galore—from ballet to swimming, speed reading (an excuse for me to spend more time at the library) to student council. Once I left school for the real world, I felt the need to continue being “involved”… I became my high school alumni association’s class representative, joined my sorority’s alumni chapter and took on a leadership role, then found other ways to use my marketing knowledge by joining my sister’s company’s team part time and decided to get back into writing by launching The Single Diaries with Jen.
The only sure thing is that we have 24 hours in a day and, when you have an inflexible office job, you have to wake up at a certain time every morning. For someone like me who can stay up all night, it is a challenge to stay committed to a bedtime when I can find other things I want to do but didn’t have time to earlier in the day (write or edit a post, read a book, watch Melrose Place). There were evenings when after work I thought I could do it all: run off to an early barre class, stop by a book club meeting, then finish editing a post scheduled to go up the next day. Other days I had to make sacrifices. Instead of organizing a boozy brunch (one of my favorite pastimes), I committed to a Saturday work session at a local cafe.
Jen recently wrote about taking up a side hustle, which is great in the years after college when making money needs to be your priority to pay for student loans and to get your feet off the ground. In those years, most of us need to work a traditional full-time job to learn the value of a paycheck and to garner experience to build our resume. A side hustle is a way for you to find your passion and develop the skills you need to make your dreams a reality. But what happens when your full-time job and your side hustle leave you with little to no free time?
Tomorrow marks the 21st annual Bring Your Daughter (& Son) to Work Day. The program was founded as a way to introduce young girls to the many career opportunities that they could aspire to take on. By providing exposure to the world the adults lived in, it became a way to get girls to dream big and believe that they could be anything they wanted to be- doctors, lawyers, CEOs you name it!
This yearly American tradition got us to wonder, how many of us end up becoming “what we want to be when we grow up” and how did we ultimately get where we are? Was it by following in the footsteps of our parents? More importantly, if we haven’t yet found our way, how we do get back on track of pursuing our career passion?
Personally, I always wanted to grow up to become a famous actress. I took dance, voice, and acting lessons all in the hopes of growing the talent needed to master this pursuit. What did I ultimately become? A brand manager and marketer. Not exactly the same. While I didn’t follow the career paths of either my mom or dad (nurse and consultant respectively) I did pick up their practicality for a stable and traditional career. What I’ve learnedsince leaving my job last Novemberis that my desire to become the next Oscar wielding first lady really boils down to a need for a creative outlet. This is where The Single Diaries came into play. By following other bloggers I stumbled upon a new career pursuit and passion.
