Living Large

  “How lucky I am to have something that ma kes saying goodbye so hard.” – Winnie the Pooh   Recently I was fortunate enough to spend two months in Poland. Many people wondered how I was able to surpass the COVID-19 restrictions, and the reason is that I have a dual citizenship because both of my parents were born in Poland.   My entire family with the exception of a handful of people are still living in Poland. Despite the significant distance across the globe, I formed very deep connections with many of these family members and have been lucky to have spent almost three years of my life in Poland thus far. Ever since I was five years old, my sister and I have spent the entirety of our summer vacations in Poland with my aunt. However, this past summer marked the first time since 2005 that I was unable to visit this family due to the increase of COVID-19 cases spiking across the globe.    After finding out the entirety of my fall semester of college was moved on...

The bold songs represent the start of each summer month. My spotify: olivia_srednicka https://open.spotify.com/user/14w7tqgl6tw0rfnrtg23tczby?si=1Sguhk7cSY2rKPgEPiIJSw 1)    “Beautiful” by Kygo, Sandro Cavazza  2)   “Be Your Friend” by Vigiland, Alexander Tidebrink 3)   “Are You Happy” by Bipolar Sunshine 4)  “New Orleans” by Parachute 5)    “Better Days” by OneRepublic 6)    “Ur So F**kInG cOoL” by Tones and I 7)    “Old Me” by 5 Seconds of Summer 8)   “Forever Young” by John De Sohn, LIAMOO 9)    “All For Love” by Raaban Tungevaag, Richard Smitt 10)  “Love & War In Your Twenties” by Jordy Searcy 11)    “Fly Me To The Moon” by Frank Sinatra 12)  “Hang On” by NEEDTOBREATHE 13)  “More Than Fish” by Mason Harms 14)   “Brother (ft. Gavin DeGraw)” by NEEDTOBREATHE, Gavin DeGraw 15)   “It Would Be You” by Ben Rector 16)   “Survival (ft. Drew & Ellie Holocomb)” by NEEDTOB...

The last few months, weeks, and days have been a relatively melancholy time for me. I think that this time has been a low point in a lot of people’s lives due to global affairs involving the COVID-19 pandemic and the protests for advancing the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as many other personal elements going on in everybody’s lives.  One of the things that has been bringing me down recently is that I failed this gateway securities exam for which I have been studying really hard for the last few weeks. I exerted a lot of my time and energy into preparing for this exam as well as sacrificed a lot of social interactions with loved ones in order to achieve the outcome I wanted. Failing this exam was a setback in my finance career. I try not to measure my worth in performance and academic achievements, but failing this exam made me feel as if my hard work got me nowhere and that I was incapable of attaining the goals I have laid out for myself. I have felt this theme play out ...

The bold songs represent the start of each spring month. My spotify: olivia_srednicka https://open.spotify.com/user/14w7tqgl6tw0rfnrtg23tczby?si=1Sguhk7cSY2rKPgEPiIJSw 1) "Falling" by Trevor Daniel 2) "Only the Wild Ones" by Dispatch 3) "Blossom" by Milky Chance 4) "Costa Rica" by Bankroll Hayden 5) "Cough Syrup" by Young the Giant 6) "Life is Good (ft. Drake)" by Future, Drake 7) "WHATS POPPIN" by Jack Harlow 8) "Ballin' (with Roddy Ricch)" by Mustard, Roddy Ricch 9) "Scared to Live" by The Weekend 10) "In Your Eyes" by The Weekend 11) "Blinding Lights" by The Weekend 12) "When the Day Comes" by Nico & Vinz 13) "Find a Way (ft. Emmanuel Jal)" by Nico & Vinz, Emmanuel Jal  14) "Another Day" by Nico & Vinz 15) "Show Me What I'm Looking For" by Carolina Liar 16) "Sun in Our Eyes" by MO 17) ...

Love Does and Everybody Always by Bob Goff are two phenomenal non-fiction books I recently finished which were recommended to me by a few friends. Love Does is about how love cannot simply stop at just being a word but requires action. Love should be overflowed to others around us. Everybody Always is Bob Goff’s second book and is about how we should love everybody always. Goff explains how it is so much easier to love our friends and family who we want to be around and are easy to love. The challenge is loving our worst enemies, people who scare us, and those we avoid because it is difficult to understand them. Both books are broken into shorts chapters that describe Goff’s humorous and heartfelt life experiences. In addition, both books are written in language that is easily understood and as a result, the books are difficult to put down once started. I think that I picked up these books in perfect timing because they encouraged me to try to mend...