summer activities, introductions, & life goals... oh my!

I'll give y'all the quick, boring facts real fast:

• My name is Leyna after Billy Joel's song "All for Leyna"
• My major is Criminology Pre-Law.
• My long term career goal is to become a prosecutor.
• I am a senior here at the University of Oklahoma.
• I have two sisters, two cats, and a dog.

Now for the fun stuff! I think pictures are so much more fun than reading about me, so I have included quite a few so you can really understand who I am and what I love!

The major interesting facts to know about me are I love sports & I love to travel! I especially love to travel for sports :-) My life goal is to have been to all 48 states of the continental United States by the time I am 30; I have been to 37 so far! Just this summer I got to mark off a ton of states because my family drove(yes you read that right, we drove) all the way to Maine. 

My family is super close, so my parents, sisters, and I all piled into a mini-van and set out on this marathon road trip. We went from:

Tulsa, OK ⇒ Niagara Falls, NY ⇒ 

Albany, NY ⇒ Montpelier, VT ⇒ 

Waterbury, VT ⇒ Bar Harbor, ME ⇒ 

Boston, MA ⇒ Salem, MA ⇒ 

Mystic, CT ⇒ NYC, NY ⇒ 

National Harbor, MD ⇒ 

Charlottesville, VA ⇒ Nashville, TN

As you can imagine, it was quite the whirlwind of a trip, but it was the most amazing one I have taken this year, and I have the million pictures I took to prove it! The thing I love about living in the United States is that the country is so big, every state is so unique. The twelve days my family and I spent in the car on this trip was the most diverse of days. We started out in Oklahoma where the weather was hot and humid, then we went to the northeast where is was warm and rainy (my absolute favorite weather is rain so I was digging it), and then we went to Maine where I froze to death on a boat ride in the fifty degree temperatures and then off to Virginia where it was hot and humid again!

My two sisters and I in front of Niagara Falls getting ready to board the Maid of the Mist boat tour in May 2017!

My dad, my youngest sister, and I after we hiked to the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park while in Bar Harbor, Maine on my sister's birthday May 2017!

My sisters and I throwing tea into the Boston Harbor at the Boston Tea Party Museum in June 2017!

On the left is my sisters and I at the short term art installation of the fearless girl standing in front of the Wall Street Bull statue in NYC in June 2017!

On the right is my family and I at Thomas Jefferson's estate, Monticello during the tour in June 2017!

I said the other important thing to know about me was my love for sports, and let me tell you I live and breathe athletics. I played soccer for years before an injury put me out of commission, but that never stopped my competitive spirit. In my house growing up, Saturdays were reserved for soccer and OU football. There is not a sport I will not watch! I have been lucky enough to go to the Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, OU/TX game, and the Final Four to see OU play. My face will also appear from time to time on ESPN during basketball season since I am generally in the front few rows during the games :-) Since it is my senior year, I am planning on attending the only two OU sports I have not been to yet which are tennis and wrestling. 

 

My friends and I outside of the Sugar Bowl before OU beat Aurburn in January 2017!

Me at the Orange Bowl in December 2015 where we had great seats on the first row of the upper deck in Miami, FL!

Picture of the TV that my mom took when she saw my friends and I on ESPN during the OU vs Iowa State basketball game in January 2017!

My friends and I got to take a picture with Coach Kruger in December 2016!!

This is me at the Final Four ready to cheer on OU in April 2016!

The hidden gem in all of my love for traveling and sports is my family. My little sisters are my favorite people in the entire world and I am still really close with both of my parents. Most of my favorite memories have something to do with my family, and I would not be who I am today without them. From my parents refusing to fly because "road trips are more fun" to my dad never letting me and my sisters win any board games because "how else will we learn to get better" my parents instilled in me my competitive nature and love for hitting the open road to see the sights.

To end my post, here is a picture of me and my sisters walking in Mystic, CT in June 2017! This is generally how you would find us walking around since two of the sisters now go to college away from the third <3

please read my storybook favorites :-)

First off, I am a huge fan of myths and stories that revolve around them. I am especially fond of horror stories and mysteries, so I picked some of my favorites from the past storybook projects! I read all the time, so I went through and read a very large portion of the past projects & chose the top three that called out to me the most!


#1 The Tales of Chupacabra and other Peculiar Cryptids

When I first saw this webpage, I got really excited because I thought the author was going to go the scary route with the cryptid stories. However after reading the introduction, I knew that was not the case this time. Even though the stories were not what I originally expected, I loved the way the author infused such a unique personality into each of the cryptids. The introduction sets up the perspective of the stories really effectively and follows through with that in each of the four stories. Overall the website is designed really well. My only very nit picky thing is that I wish the theme of the page was more true to the content. From the dark background to the creepy blood red font, I just get horror story vibes from it. 

The Story of El Chupacabra

#2 The Trickster of OU

My first impression of this storybook was that the link was broken and I had gone to an OU website. I absolutely loved that the author kept the webpage looking similar to an official OU site and carried the topic into the design. Another aspect I appreciated was how the author wove in details that students here on campus would understand and had the trickster play tricks the students would appreciate. I think this website had a really cohesive overall story, which is something I think I would like to do in mine. The author did a really good job of adapting popular tricks played by mythological figures to the OU campus and was extremely creative. I liked how the author explained some of the more stretched connections and gave a message at the end to explain their reasoning and the origin story.

The Trickster of OU

#3 Monsters of the Odyssey

This was one of my favorites overall! The idea of going on a modern cruise and explaining the journey of the Odyssey was really neat. I am a little biased since I have studied Latin and translated many parts of this story. I thought setting up the introduction like an itinerary with links to each of the pages embedded in the text was a really smart and effective way to stick to the theme. The design of the website was the only place I found this storybook falling short. The color scheme and feel of the site just did not seem like it would be a website for a "cruise line." Even if the author would have made the background and accents in blues and yellows instead of oranges and creams, it would have changed how I felt about the overall look.

Odysseus vs. the Cyclops

After reading so many storybooks and picking out my top three, I have noticed some things I want to do in mine. I saw that many had three or four separate short stories that fit an overarching theme, but I want mine to be a continuous story broken into sections like the The Trickster of OU and the Monsters of the Odyssey story. Also, some of the section names were pretty long in the storybooks which makes the navigation tab seem crowded, so I am going to try to keep mine short and sweet. Looking through the past storybooks has really gotten my mind flying all over the place and ready to start planning my own!

let's take a trip to my favorite places!!

Are you ready to hit the road or catch a plane? I chose four places to mark as my favorite because I love them all for different reasons! Two are amazing road trip destinations within the United States that have tons of fun stops along the way, and the other two are in Europe, so you'd have to look into purchasing a plane ticket.

Starting off in the USA, we have Flagstaff, Arizona!

My friends and I road tripped to Flagstaff for spring break 2017, and let me tell you it was the best spring break trip! From the gorgeous scenery, to the great weather, to the amazing hiking, Flagstaff would be a hard city to beat! I even hiked a volcano, and how many people can say they've done that? If someone asked me to move there tomorrow, there is no way I say no.

Here I am at the top of Sunset Crater Volcano! This was quite a warm hike since the black volcanic ash just attracts the sun. In the background is the San Francisco Peaks in March 2017.

This picture was taken on the way down the South Kaibab Trail in the Grand Canyon in March 2017. The Grand Canyon is a little north of Flagstaff, but I still count it as being a reason why I love this place!

Our next destination in the USA is Chicago, Illinois!

I am a total city person, so when I first visited Chicago three years ago, I fell in love! My life goal is to be able to sell my car and never have to drive again, and with the public transportation and everything being within walking distance in the city, it is my dream city. Chicago has all the charms of New York City, but without the claustrophobic feeling. Grant Park has an awesome music festival every summer called Lollapalooza (if you haven't heard of it, seriously check it out!), and Lake Michigan with its abundance of water sports is right there. The only downside to Chicago is the wicked cold winters, so I only visit in the summer when it is nice and warm ;-)

I took this picture at Lollapalooza 2014 in Grant Park during a performance by Iggy Azalea!

The Navy Pier is one of my favorite features of the city! You can go pretty far out into Lake Michigan without ever getting into the water, all while enjoying the shopping, food, and music on the pier.
(Navy Pier and Chicago Skyline:Holiday Inn & Suites) 

Now to leave my humble country and explore outside its borders, the first European destination is Dublin, Ireland!

My disclaimer about my love for Dublin is I am part Irish and a red head, so I am partial to my people. With that being said, Dublin is seriously amazing! One of the tallest buildings in the city is the Guinness Storehouse, which is only seven stories! (You read that correctly, I said seven stories) There are no towering skyscrapers to be found here. The old and the new come together in this city to create this wonderful vibe of fun and funkiness that I could not get enough of when I visited. The food, mainly the Irish stew I ate for every meal, was to die for and the people were all so kind. With my terrible sense of direction, I got lost about a million times, but people were always nice enough to lead me in the right direction. The amount of things to do and sites to see is never ending. I luckily got to stay right in the heart of the city at Trinity College, and I have no clue why I actually got on my plane to come home. 

Here is a picture that shows me thoroughly enjoying the Jameson Distillery tour on Bow Street in Dublin that I went on in July 2016!

This picture was taken by me in July 2016 when I got lost on my way to the National Leprechaun Museum, so I stopped and bought a meat pie :-)

The Brazen Head is Ireland's Oldest Pub and home to the best Irish Stew (in my opinion anyways)! I took this picture in July 2016.

The next European destination, and my absolute favorite place is Arezzo, Italy!

I did a study abroad in Arezzo for a month, and it was quite possibly the best month of my life! The location is right in the Tuscan valley making the weather nice, the wine amazing, and the people friendly. We did the typical Italian vacation things in Rome and Florence, but actually being able to live in an Italian city and become part of the population was a unique experience. The views from the top of the city were breathtaking and I would have gained thirty pounds from all the amazing food if everything wasn't uphill both ways :-) I got to stay in a renovated 13th century monastery with a bell tower that had a three hundred and sixty degree view of the entire valley. This was the best place to just sit and take in the beauty that is the Italian countryside. Arezzo is my favorite of my favorites because every reason I have loved the previous three places I have talked about can be found here, plus so much more. The views, hiking, people, food, and vibe are all so special and unique to this amazing gem of a town tucked away in Italy. If I ever get the chance to go back to Europe, this will definitely be a stop I make again!

This picture was taken on my last night in Arezzo in July 2016 on top Fortezza Medicea overlooking the city!

Here is a picture I took of Piazza Grande in Arezzo at sunset in July 2016. Every summer there is a huge joust in the piazza where the four quarters of the city compete to claim victory for their section!

test post

hello!!

this is my little test post to start figuring everything out; hope you enjoy reading on my blog :-)

-leyna