Day 1317: Disney At College

It's been a wild three years since I was sitting at home, desperately trying to figure out how to decorate my first college dorm room. Agreements as to who would bring what had already been made with my soon-to-be roommate, I'd picked a relative color scheme, and I had basic dimensions of the tiny box I would call home for the first nine months of my college career. But even a little tiny box has white walls to fill, a desk to decorate, and Disney to incorporate. 

With another year of college just around the corner and an entire new class of Freshman getting ready to move into their first dorm, I couldn't help but recall the days of frustration, searching across the internet for that perfect idea on how to make my room mine...and that most certainly includes Disney. There seem to be thousands of dorm room ideas out there, but only a select few include elements from the Disney franchises, and for those of us that can't imagine a room without a bit of magic, it's sometimes difficult to determine what to do. 

So here are a few ideas for how to bring Disney into your dorm room: 

Keep It Simple and bring in a little Disney at a time. My freshman dorm room featured a desk that was Disney, but not overly Disney, a motto that I've taken with me throughout various other housing on campus. By bringing in a Disney-themed quote, park map crafts, and some vinylmation, I was able to have reminders of Disney on my desk while also keeping things professional. I went with a black/light blue/red color scheme, bringing in a custom-made shelf for my knick knacks and a canvas idea I got off Pinterest to complete the look. 

Utilize Disney Home Merchandise like this Once Upon A Time/Happily Ever After pillow I found in the Disney store. While Disney merchandise might not be as cheap as that pillow you can get from Walmart for four dollars, if you plan strategically with a couple of items here and there, they can really make a house feel like a home, and they have items for every room, from the kitchen, to the bedroom, and even the bathroom!

Use All Your Space. This is extremely important, especially in a small dorm room. Every space in the room is unique, from that spot on your futon, to above your desk, to the wall near your bed. While there's a time and place for a blank wall (I have one above my current desk), sometimes you can find a spot just waiting to be filled with some Disney. In my freshman dorm, we had our beds lofted (below), and the wall next to mine was perfect for some daily reminders of my friends, family, and Disney through Instagram Photostrips. 

Make It Unique by adding pieces of Disney that are distinctly you. I have a love for vintage Disney items, whether they be from the parks or films, so items like my Jim Shore Teacup or the vintage attraction posters I added last year are a must. But I'm also an avid fan of Once Upon A Time, so in addition to the toy yellow bug on my desk, there are tons of little references to the show throughout my college collection. If there's a specific item you collect, make it a part of your decor, because that's what college decorating is all about in the first place: being yourself. 

Do It Yourself and create items for your dorm. My apartment is now filled with various canvases themed to everything from Once Upon A Time to Hamilton, and it's one of the easiest ways to add both some color and character to a blank wall. If painting a canvas isn't quite your style, try making Disney Park Map Coasters or filling a picture frame with a meaningful quote. Just because it's DIY doesn't mean it has to be impossible. 

Small Can Be Big in a dorm room, no matter how well you think something's going to fit. It's here that some of the smallest merchandise in the Disney Store can make the biggest impact on your room, like the Vinylmation on my desk or the Tsum Tsum collection that now sits on my mantle. These are especially great for those that don't want to even come close to over-the-top Disney, because they're not always immediately recognizable as Disney, but still bring a big of magic to the party.

Keep Moving Forward with decor you can keep adding to. While not entirely focused around Disney, I recently added the quote canvas below to my bedroom wall. The wall reminds me that while there are million things I haven't done, there are a lot of adventures I have had too, and as the days go on, I keep adding to the wall. It helps me to keep moving forward, and allows for continuous change in my room, which is nice, especially after a few months of living in the same small box. Change can be good sometimes. 

While there are plenty of other secrets to my college decorating, many of which you can find here on Everyday Disney, these were just a few of my favorite tips. I hope that, if you're moving into a dorm soon, that some of these ideas helped inspire you, but I want to hear your ideas too! Let me know what some of your favorite college decorating tips are in the comments below! 

Have a magical day!

Day 1274: Adulting

If you're a part of my generation right now, you've probably been struggling with adulting just like the rest of us. If you have no idea what adulting really is, just think of all the chores adults are responsible for that children may not be. I'm talking like making dinner, doing the dishes, watering the plants, getting all the work done, and so on and so forth. The little jobs we actually need to do to survive. 

My laptop, HAL9000, which you've all heard plenty about over the past couple of years, died last week, which led to me waiting for a new laptop, affectionately named Lafayette (yes after the historical figure now prominent in Hamilton). Having a laptop that actually works and stays on for more than 15 minutes at a time is a huge relief, mostly because it means I can finally get work done. HAL dying, however, has created an additional list of blog posts that should have been done a week ago, especially problematic since I'm struggling to catch things up as it is. Plus, I'm leaving on a week and a half long trip to Colorado in just 10 days, so I have to plan for that as well. Long story short, with everything piling up that I have to get done, the realization that adulting is hard is more prominent than ever. 

Luckily, on the other hand, I have Lafayette, and Frank got me that awesome new mug in the picture above to help keep me company while I spend constant days blogging. Even the addition of a new mug like that is enough to help keep me going with these blog posts and videos, especially since there's so many exciting things happening in July! 

I do think I could do without another set of dishes from dinner later tonight though...

Have a magical day! 

Day 1248: The Fifth Room

Since we finally moved into our fifth and final housing assignment on campus, and because I just happened to have the good camera here with me, I figured it was time to take some detail shots of the Disney in our new apartment. It took over three days before everything was in place and finally set up, but we're really happy with how it's all turned out, and with all the natural light we get thanks to living on the third floor, pictures are a lot easier than they were in the last place.

Starting in our living room, the most obvious Disney can be found in our attraction posters, which have traveled with us from our last two homes before ending up on the wall above our couch.

Of course, one of the oldest pieces of artwork in our apartment is our Once Upon a Time quote canvas, which I created a year and a half ago for our wall that we intended for Christmas lights. The lights burned out a while ago, but I managed to find some new ones, so in reality, this wall hasn't changed much...or at least, the setup hasn't. The wall has definitely changed. I mean...it's a different wall. 

There are several smaller Hidden Mickeys around the apartment, but the newest is the pressed penny Mickey my best friends recently gave me. It currently sits on top of our fireplace, which holds an ever growing collection of odds and ends. 

My desk, unlike previous years, sits on the side of our living room. Because our bedroom is rather small and cramped, I decided to move my desk to give us more space, and really I love the amount of light it brings in. If you look closely, many of the little elements have remained the same since my Freshman year, although the picture frames now feature significantly more Colin O'Donoghue. Either way, I took a few extra detail shots of some of the newer elements of the desk. You can click on them to see larger versions of each photo too!

Heading right next door into our open floor plan kitchen, I realized that I hadn't really shared some of the details there. I'm sure I've mentioned the "Kitchen Kabaret Gang" before, but we also have quite the collection of Disney magnets on our fridge, because apparently the attraction posters on the wall weren't enough for us.

In the bedroom, our bookshelf stands pretty much the same way it has in the last two apartments we've lived in. My set of Haunted Mansion Marble Busts keep my fairy tale collection in order. 

 

On the shelf down below that there's a few other random books that I keep on hand, but for the most part it's filled with more Disney merch, from a limited edition Killian Jones Funko Pop Megan got for me, to my CarsLand Oil Can, to my Disneyland Starbucks Mugs. Really, this is the most Disneyland area in my entire apartment...weird. 

And then, back in our entryway, we have the largest canvas in our apartment, which made an appearance late last year...meaning it's also the newest as of right now. That'll change soon, but all in all, the "Let's Go Fly a Kite" canvas is made up of 10 individual canvases and honestly is sort of a pain to hang, so I'm glad it's up and that we won't have to take it down for a year. We also have a mirror right by our door, so I suppose you get a picture of the photographer. 

And that's about it. There's definitely more Disney in our apartment than this, but really you've already seen most of it in past posts, and I really wanted to highlight some of the newer things or smaller details that you normally wouldn't see. After all, when decorating with Disney it's all about being subtle while also letting your inner Disnerd come out. That's sometimes difficult, but once it's done right, an empty apartment really starts to feel like a home...or at least a satisfying place to live while waiting to go back to Disney World. 

Have a magical day! 

Day 1199: Looking Up

Before coming to college, I'm sure I heard time and time again that junior year would be the hardest, and the comments from the upperclassmen that have surrounded me since day one only perpetuated that thought...but I'm pretty sure I didn't believe theme. Now here I am, about to say exactly what they told me: junior year is the most difficult year of college.

On a fundamental level, you usually have some of your toughest classes, and you have more of them during your junior year than you probably do any other year (I took an average of 18-19 credits/semester my first two years, and an average of 22 my junior year). Suddenly you're not only involved in student orgs, but you're helping run them, and thanks to all the college debt you've racked up, you now have two jobs instead of just one. Meanwhile, you're looking to the future, and instead of doing your homework for those 22 credits of class, you sit in your bed pondering if you actually picked the right major or if all your hard work is about to amount to nothing pretty quickly. It's a constant struggle, wondering where all this time to get things done is supposed to come from, even if you know very well that a lot of it was taken up by watching Netflix.

My junior year has been a bit different, and it's definitely been more stressful than anticipated. At the moment, it's mostly about taking things day by day: making sure I get up on time, finishing the dishes before I go to bed, double checking to make sure that the meeting I thought I had doesn't actually exist, and so on and so forth. It's almost as though for months I've simply been floating through the semester like a ghost, and it's an odd feeling that certainly doesn't help keep the blog updated.

But things are looking up. After our housing fiasco at the beginning of 2016, we're excited to have secured the apartment we want not only for the next school year, but for the summer as well, and in addition, after days of extra emails, requests, and confusion, my class schedule for next fall is also finalized, meaning that I have very little to worry about in the upcoming days. Alright, so that's a lie.

The end of the semester is nearing, and with it, I'm growing extra close to my next Disney vacation and having to move...again...from one apartment to another. With that Disney vacation comes new videos that have to be ready to filmed while in Florida, and each of those requires writing and research. Then there's the fact that Everyday Disney is still seriously far behind, and trust me, it's on my mind more than you might think. My attempt to find balance in my life is a slow process, and while it's going somewhat well, my blogging definitely gets the short straw, per usual.

But today I had Mickey Waffles, and that makes up for everything.

Have a magical day!

Day 1166: When Times Are Tough

Life certainly likes to throw curve balls. Really, after how the fall semester went I figured that there was no way anything else could go wrong...and then we were all thrown for another loop that had my friends and I panicking. It affected a lot of us, and all in all, today was one of the most draining days since last December. Thankfully I have great friends now, most of which are going through the same thing I am, questioning what's even going on and attempting to adjust to drastic changes in the matter of days. I'm not going into the situation at hand, but that's not why we're here anyway. 

After an excessively long day that included multiple recitals and dinner out with friends, the night came to a surprisingly late and much-needed end. One of my good friends and I decided that the only way to deal with the situation was to not think about it and watch Tangled instead. Needless to say, it worked, and we actually ended up also watching part of Into the Woods and the first episode of Game of Thrones, but it just goes to show that there's not a bad day that a little Disney can't fix. 

I realize that this is an extremely short blog post, but honestly there isn't much else to say other than to thank the universe for great movies and great friends that are always there for you when you'd be otherwise floundering. 

Maybe we should have watched The Little Mermaid...

Have a magical day!

Day 1086: To The End

Well look who's finally back! (Me, the answer is me).

With less than 10 days left in 2015, you'd better believe that catching up Everyday Disney has become a number one priority on my list of things to get done in the next 18 days before my trip to Walt Disney World. There's honestly a lot to get done in addition to the 59 blog posts that have yet to make an appearance here on Everyday Disney, but I start to get jittery if it's December 31 and my blog doesn't say 365 posts for that year. So here I am, about to do a blogging marathon between now and Christmas. My theme and motto? Give me blog posts, or give me death!

Regardless, let's give you a quick update about my life over the past couple of months. I did something similar back in October (or November, I honestly don't remember), but since there have been multiple things going on, all of which contributed to the fact that I now have almost 60 blog posts to write in a couple of days, I figured we should do a rundown.

HAL Died...Again...

If you've been around for a while, you know very well the struggles I've had with my beloved laptop, HAL9000. In typical HAL style, he decided that the week before finals would be a wonderful time to stop working, and I ended up having to finish my semester at SNC on borrowed computers. It was an interesting experience to say the least, and I do believe I ended up using about 8 or 9 different computers in the span of two weeks.

My Roommates

I've been blessed with two years at college that were, amazingly enough, roommate problem free. It seems, however, that this semester brought the end of that, as for the past month or so (three weeks especially) I've been dealing with some pretty bad roommate issues. I'm not going to go into the details, but it's been a very emotionally exhausting experience, and led to me commuting for the last week of the semester. Goodbye time to work on the blog.

Finals

Speaking of the end of the semester, I can't make a list like this without including finals week, which was more like finals WEEKS. In fact, the last week at SNC wasn't all that bad...it was the week before that that caused real problems. Amidst those roommate problems, I also had a portfolio for my English class due, multiple papers, and then, of course, finals to study for. In other words, in addition to being emotionally exhausted, it didn't take long for the mental and physical exhaustion to kick in too, leaving me sound asleep every night before my head even hit the pillow.

Everything Else

In addition to all of that, I've played in multiple Christmas performances here at SNC, as well as a Christmas Cantata off campus. I'm singing with my church choir for Christmas Eve, went to see Star Wars, am helping out with the High School Band, and am trying my hardest to keep up with everything else. Unfortunately, my totem pole of priorities pushes Everyday Disney down the more busy I get with school, so it usually comes in last, even after the YouTube Videos, which have also stopped at the moment other than a random one here or there. But now that the semester is finished and I have a bit more free time (ha!) I can quickly make my way through the posts that should have been done months ago.

Oddly enough, with the exception of a few days further back, most of the posts still go along with something that happened that specific day. I went back through my Twitter to try and determine what went with each specific day, and I was luckily able to identify what was going on in my life for the past few months with relative success.

So...here we go. One blog post down, 58 left to go.

Have a magical day!

Day 1073: A Computer Here, No Laptop There

There is nothing, and I mean nothing, more frustrating than taking a blogger/YouTube creator and pairing them up with a laptop that decides to stop working randomly. Don't get me wrong, I love my laptop, and amazingly enough, HAL9000 has been through some interesting adventures, but that doesn't make finals week any easier. 

Luckily, I have some wonderful people in my life kind enough to share their computers with me when mine fails and the library is too full of people to get any work done. In total, by the end of finals, I figure I worked on somewhere around 8 different computers (or was it 9?), which were made up of a mix of Windows of various versions and Macs, which I've only begun to understand. Honestly, I had to look up how to turn one on when I was faced with a black screen that was obviously just shut off. I HAD TO LOOK IT UP! 

The point here is this: even when you're faced with a non-working computer and a bunch of finals, there's still time for Disney. How did I manage to work it in? Music, for the most part, took on that role. After all, it's fairly simple to throw on a Disney playlist while I'm studying, and much of the music I'm working with in Music Theory and History at the moment has found a home in the Disney Parks over the years. 

Planning for Disney played a small part too, mostly in the realm of video ideas, which are promptly collected in a notebook to come back to later. The same can be said for blog posts, which have titles listed on a spreadsheet in Google Drive so, even if I don't have time to throw together a blog post at the moment, I can come back and write the appropriate post later (much like I'm doing right now). 

A word of advice though: if you plan on starting a daily blog, being an English major, a YouTuber, or really, a college student in general, get yourself a laptop that works...and then keep all of your files either backed up or online. You never know when they might decide to disappear. 

Have a magical day! 

(Note: This blog post was written on December 23).

Day 1072: Not One of Us

I've lived through a lot of interesting moments, many of which were some serious arguments that, in a few cases, turned into absolute war. But never have I been broken quite the way I was over the last few weeks of the semester, and in this case, it was mostly due to my roommates. Weirdly enough, these are the same people I considered to be some of my best friends, which was apparently not the case here.

Without getting myself all worked up again, I found, while sitting working on my final portfolio for Literary Theory and Writing, that the best way to describe how I felt was through a song...and of course it's from Disney. Basically, I'm Kovu.

This makes it sound a lot worse than it actually is. I haven't been Exiled or anything, but it sort of feels that way, and in any case, the situation certainly isn't good. It's far from over too, and the next few weeks are certainly going to be a determining factor in the ultimate outcome. Hopefully it'll end something like Lion King 2 where everyone is happy, but only time will tell for that. 

Now I kind of just want to watch Lion King 2 though. I haven't seen that movie in ages! 

Have a magical day! 

(Note: This blog post was written on December 23).

Day 1065: Star Wars Finals

Finals Week is rough...but this year, my finals week happens to fall in line with the premiere of The Force Awakens. Of course, our Star Wars friends don't have to deal with finals week, but it seems like they might understand what it's all about anyway...

When you start out finals week with a bad feeling...

Because the entire semester you've been sitting in class like:

Your professors start to tell you that everything will be fine:

But you just look at them with a blank face.

As you leave for your final, you salute your roommates and friends goodbye. 

You head off repeating "it'll work" to yourself. 

And try to convince yourself that you feel like you can take on the whole galaxy. 

Somehow, you manage to make it through the test, and you leave the room with the absolute excitement that you never have to deal with that class again.

Although when your friends and family ask how you think it went you're just like: 

And then, just as quickly as it began, finals week is over. 

May the force be with you this semester! 

Have a magical day! 

(Note: This blog post was written on December 25).