Coffee and a Conversation
As Told Over Brunch is a home for intelligent discourse from the twenty-something perspective - so the stuff you gossip about over mimosas on Sunday morning or over takeout on your friend's couch when happy hour ends too early. We love chatting about our lives, whether it be the relationships we’re building (or destroying), lessons we've learned at work, struggles at school, growing pains we've felt, or even the food we’re talking over.
Two years ago, I interned for a company. My favorite adjectives for the internship were “brain-draining” and “soul-sucking.” This had a lot to do with how much time it required on top of my schoolwork, but also how poorly I was trained.
On my first day of work, my boss told me how to access a file and just said, “Do it.”
Read MoreTo chat about our favorite boots for the fall season, I teamed up with Sarah Collie from District Damsel, a Washington, D.C.-based blog that has showcases how to dress like Vanity Fair on a twenty-something's budget.
Over-the-knee boots have been on every fashionista's Instagram this fall, most likely the gorgeous Stuart Weitzman Highlander boot, which boast an $800.00 price tag. Considering that's close to my monthly rent, they were not even an option for my budget, but I found an amazing lookalike pair for a fraction of the price.
Read MoreAs a PhD student in my third year, I am constantly challenged with inane questions that I really don't have time to answer on top of figuring out why numbers do crazy things and what does my adviser mean by that comment on my fourth draft. With the help of some fellow grad school friends, I compiled a Q&A for those not in grad school.
How long is your program? With a grain of salt, a master's degrees takes two years, and a PhD takes an additional three years. With that said, a degree typically culminates in this thing called a dissertation, which does not have a set timeline. It's like asking, "How long do you think my child will live?" five minutes after it has emerged from the womb. The answer: Indefinitely. Except, in the case of the PhD, you want that critter to die ASAP.
Read MoreIt feels like forever ago now, but I once wrote a whole blog post out of all the beginning's of my rejected blog post ideas. I liked it so much the first time I did it, I've decided to do it again. Some of these ideas don't terribly suck but never materialized into much, and some of them are really terrible but are fun to laugh about. In no particular order, here are another 10 writing prompts I decided to can (and the reason why, just in case you couldn't figure it out on your own).
Read MoreSometimes you just start talking and things come up that merit a quick Google search to learn more. Or sometimes events happen in your life that cause you to search for answers...on Google. And almost all of the time--at least for me--they are either bizarre, inappropriate, hilarious, or a combination of the three. Here is a cross section of my (better?) Google searches.
Read MoreI had a college boyfriend. The kind you kiss behind the dorm room door while your roommate pretends not to be annoyed in the common room. The kind you Snapchat more than you talk to and fight with more than you love. The boy that you never knew you weren’t going to marry.
I’m not in college anymore. I don’t have that boyfriend anymore, either. I’m with someone I didn’t meet in bio lab or in the dining hall. He never want to a campus party with me. We talk way more than we text and if he doesn’t answer me for six or seven hours, I know it’s because he is busy. We don’t fight about iPhone drama the way my college boyfriend and I did. There are a lot of reasons for that, including my increased level of maturity, but the number one reason is this: I’m not in college anymore. I have a different life now, one that includes dress pants every day and business cards in my wallet. My new boyfriend has business cards too, not for the same company (thank goodness), but his life is like my life. We match in many ways.
Read MoreWhen I first started my original blog, Tweets and Mascara, I very narrowly focused on social media and selling makeup (hence the name). I didn't tell anyone I knew about the fact that I had a blog. I blogged just for the few strangers that stumbled upon my site from time to time. That type of blogging was easy.
But then I started to write about myself. Transitioning out of college and into a new full-time job in a different city is really challenging, and I thought if I could just voice the struggle of making ends meet, maybe someone would read it and feel less alone. Maybe I could help someone through the transition because they would know that there's really green pastures ahead.
Read MoreI usually keep my work/blog life pretty separate, and don't explicitly talk about what I do (because I'm a stripper...kidding), but today I'm going to lay it all out in the open for you. I work at a really cool start-up, like my brunch-table bio says, but if I were to write a straight blog about it, it wouldn't actually sounds that cool. Because we're all about car insurance. Please stop yawning; we're only in the first paragraph.
So why do I think this start-up is so cool? Because the whole goal of our company is to make that boring subject easier to understand, more transparent and way easier to buy. We're working to change the way an entire industry works. It's exhilarating, and there's a real need for our service.
Read MoreAs I sit here, staring out at the setting sun across the San Fransisco skyline, my inspiration is renewed. There's something about being entrenched in the hustle of a place like San Fransisco. And while I've only been here for about eight hours, and seen little more than the view from my hotel window, the local ABC station and a very fancy French restaurant, I like it here. I wish I could have taken a picture of my meal tonight, as it was perfect in every way that you could hope for, however, I wasn't in a setting which Instagramming your food seemed appropriate.
Maybe it's the fact I've been awake now since 3AM, and according to my internal clock, we're quickly approaching midnight and I'm delusional. Maybe it's the Mumford and Son's I'm currently humming along to, but there's nothing I would quite change about this scenario. The shower had a fancy head, huge fluffy white towels greeted me upon my exit, and I have my choice between two equally soft white beds. But this is feeling like a dream.
Read MoreA few weeks ago I attended an etiquette dinner. When I told my friends, I received either "I've already been to too many etiquette dinners in my life" (this friend hails from the South) and "Is that where they teach you how to use a spoon?" Me to the latter: "Please don't come if that's your attitude."
Anyhow, I will never deny free food and you never know when you'll be dining with an interviewer who's testing how you break your bread (use your hands, not a knife! Did you know that?). Also, I instinctively knew this would make for a snarky blog.
I sat with several friends – ones who had never attended etiquette dinners before (*sigh* northerners) and who had higher expectations than learning how to use a spoon (watchBeauty and the Beast). We were also joined by the Luna Lovegood of the room aka no one knew her and she wore Barbie shoe earrings. Like, actual shoes that belong on a Barbie doll.
Read More