Hello Lakers, welcome back to a brand new year, brand new semester and a new episode of I'm Doing Fine. You probably remember me, I'm Bella, pronouns she/her, senior here at GV studying psych.

And I'm Emily, I'm also a senior here studying psychology and behavioral neuroscience and my pronouns are she/hers and I'm excited to be back.

This is Katie, pronouns she/hers, I'm a junior here also studying psych with a major in Spanish and I am excited to be back here for a brand new semester as well.

I'm Keegan, I am a senior I am also a psych major, seems to be a common theme, and I'm super excited to see what the semester will hold.

Awesome, so while you do not have any new voices on here we do have some new updates on what we did and our last few days of 2022. I personally spent a lot of time procrastinating on graduate applications. And instead spending quality time with friends, family, and pets, and just enjoying the holidays.

I like that you included pets I think that's funny, yeah.

Well they are part of the family so I guess like I didn't need to make the distinction.

I never realized how much I missed my dog even though she's a pain sometimes I miss my dog when I don't see her and then when I see her I'm like Ellie, that's my dog's name, I get so excited. But over break I also visited lots of friends, saw lots of family, but I also applied for different types of scholarships. I just got accepted into my study abroad program for this summer, so I was applying for scholarships to hopefully help ease the burden of the financial cost of that trip and hopefully I will find out soon if I get some of those scholarships but yeah.

That’s fantastic.

I had such a good break, it went by way too soon. I actually got to fully relax, which is something I don't normally do during the school year. I spent the entire break on my couch watching TV with my cat who I missed a lot and I also got to go to Bronner's for Christmas and get some ornaments, that was fun.

I love Bronner’s.

I know.

During my Christmas break I worked but I don't really work throughout the school year so it was nice to like make some money while I was home and then I also spent a lot of time with friends and family just chilling or doing things like going to the movies, stuff like that.

Nice.

In addition to the fun that we had you know it's it's grind time, January, the gyms are full, the resolution lists are piled high and we had a couple that we made for ourselves I'll go first with mine. Mine was to socialize more and to have more confidence. It might not sound like it but I am a painful introvert most of the time and I have to really push myself out of my comfort zone. So I hope I can do that.

I believe in you I think you can.

So my New Year's resolutions are just to be more mindful about my health, both physically and mentally. I definitely don't pay a lot of attention, pay a lot of attention to what I'm doing during the school year just because I'm so busy, but I'm definitely going to try to work out some more, take some more breaks when needed, and eat better.

I think that's a really good one. One of mine that I had also kind of went off mindfulness, I wanted to spend 10 minutes a day just being mindful and 10 minutes feels like a long time in the beginning but like I found that it's been easier going through. And then another one of mine is to go to one new place a month. Yeah I really I've kind of really enjoyed it, it's been small things, like I've gone to a new coffee shop in January so that was exciting, yeah.

I really like those. One of my goals for this month, or not this month this year, it's kind of cliche I feel like everyone's doing it but I have been really into reading lately so I made a goal for this year to read 50 books and so far I've read two which I'm actually impressed with myself. And then this one sounds really cliche I told this to my roommates like the minute I came back and they laughed at me but I said new me, 2023, positivity. So we're gonna try to have a positive mindset for this year and along with the new year new resolutions maybe new you comes the new semester, new classes, change, new routine, maybe you have a new diet whatever else might be new. And it might kind of be a little daunting coming back to your dorm, your apartment, coming away from home where maybe your mom was cooking dinner for you every day doing your laundry you got to sleep in until 2:00 PM I know that's probably what I was doing. And maybe it was very restful but now we had to come back and we had to get back on that school grind and readjust to a new schedule which is already very stressful. Getting to know new professors and new classmates and it's kind of like a restart button and I don't know about you guys but that is really stressful for me. Change always, no matter if it's a new semester, even just going home sometimes it's just very stressful because I get used to the times I eat, the times I workout, when I do my homework, when I sleep like I, I just don't like disruption very much and it takes me a while to readjust to a schedule often. So it's kind of hard doing that and also like readjusting to being independent again after being home for three weeks is like, oh man, I gotta adult again. But yeah.

I'm struggling with my independence in a slightly different way. I mean that too, but in addition yeah I know a lot of folks might be going off to their study abroad trip soon, Katie hopefully yours will be fantastic. One of my really close friends, we ended up just serendipitously having three classes together last semester, and we got incredibly close over a short period of time. Both seniors and now he's leaving me for Australia. It's like many time zones away but I I've been pleasantly surprised we're still texting often and he really makes the effort to like send extra memes and like he lets me know his schedule so I, while I'm getting used to that new part of this semester, again it's help me with my resolution to socialize more and not rely on my one friend.

This new semester is actually my last semester as is Keegan and Bella right? So I'm super excited to graduate but also have a little anxiety, a little stress about it, just because I don't know exactly what's coming next. I am taking a gap year after this so it's going to be definitely full of new adventures um but with the stress also comes excitement, so I'm excited.

That's gonna be so exciting, a gap year, you never know what you’re gonna have, what it will entail. One of the things I've been kind of adjusting to is the new schedule format of this semester. This semester I don't have classes on Mondays or Fridays, which is super nice, little long weekend but like I also have three hour classes to go with that, and the attention span that is needed with that is just, rough. But one of the things that a lot of people don't consider is while it is like the beginning of a new year it is the middle of the school year and I think for a lot of people it can be really hard to like transfer here or transfer to a new school in the middle of the year. I know personally I transferred here coming from a Community College but like it was in August so I think that kind of made my process a little bit different but for those people that are transferring in the middle of the year it can be difficult to find your space to find people to hang out with because a lot of times people already have their groups, but I thought it was kind of just interesting to see the transition on that aspect.

I agree and I feel like there is still like campus life night and other events that occur but it's not the same because most people already have, like Keegan said, their groups, their friends, they have what clubs are in their sports and coming in in the middle of the year or even just switching your major I know yeah we were kind of talking about it you kind of get into new classes it's kind of stressful because you're just kind of immersed in a whole group of new different types of people that you've never seen before and it's like everyone knows each other and you're like I know nobody which kind of is how I feel right now. I just started a new job and I don't work at Starbucks anymore guys, surprise, I work at H&M now and it's kind of not the same as I'm sure some of you feel who just transferred but it is stressful just starting over especially when everyone seems to know everyone already.

For sure, and you brought up a fantastic point about the changing majors as well or just having to change classes and try and drop them within the deadlines, the tuition refund deadlines. I know that towards the end of this past year I changed my graduate program that I was anticipating on joining. I, it was eventually going to be like a dual degree torture situation, but I ended up just deciding on public health and then I'm gonna try and pursue writing on this side, but.

That's awesome.

Thank you, is definitely it takes a lot of getting used to like envisioning your future differently like seeing yourself in a different way, trying to plan for things that haven't happened yet yeah so nerve wracking. But it's also, yeah, I am also glad that I have y'all the peer eds, my friends, and the listeners like the support and just knowing that other people are going through it too.

I think that's a good point even if you are transferring like through the middle of the year or switching your major, switching your program, there's still so many like resources and here's my little plug about the UCC, where you can come in and talk maybe you're having a hard time readjusting to being back here or maybe you just transferred here and don't know where to start or having a little anxiety coming to the UCC or going online and using some of the resources we have, are a great way to get immersed into the culture here at grand valley and just kind of help get your groove into the college here.

Yeah we have group therapy too, so that would be another good idea to like connect with people who have similar interests as you and similar, ya know things they wanna talk about work on. But also I think for me I think the easiest way to make friends at college is honestly the people you sit next to in class. As awkward as it is like ask them a question about something that your professor’s talking about or talked about during class and then ask them if you can get their snap or their e-mail. I figured out that that is the way to make friends.

That or the bus yeah with how often I can get into a nice conversation with someone sitting next to me.

Oh yeah it's crazy I have gotten on the bus lately at like 4:00 PM and it is packed and I'm breathing air from other people and it's like packed and I just like talking to people about how packed it is and I literally just added some stranger from the bus and now we're like talk everyday it's really crazy how like small interactions like that you might meet your best friend like that so just getting out of your comfort zone kind of how like Bella was talking about is kind of how you can get immersed into the culture here at grand valley and meet people even like Emily said talking to the person next to you at class too, yeah.

And also you can always join clubs. This is my plug here. I am the president of the psych club, any psych majors out there or minors, and then also Red Cross is looking for volunteer opportunities but I don't know, clubs you just find a lot of people you wouldn’t normally talk to.

Alright, but I think that now we're on to our final topic of the day, peer picks.

Yeah.

We need like a theme song or yeah a Jingle.

We’ll get working on that.

OK so we're going to talk a little bit more about our resolutions and then we have some new music to talk about. But I know I already talked about this but one of my resolutions is to eat healthier and that includes eating more vegetables and drinking more water.

Have you guys seen all the Stanley cups?

Yes.

I know people are like I drink my 4 Stanley cups today and I'm like good for you you're getting your water intake like it's so funny. But for me my resolution, I talked a little bit about it but, I really wanna learn to ski. We live in Michigan and I instead of not liking the cold I should embrace the cold and whenever there's snow on the ground I wanna learn to ski. So if anyone knows to ski, find me out at grand valley and tell me, teach me to ski please. I'll go on the Bunny hill I'll probably fall on my face a couple times but I just wanna learn so please.

For me I am starting a little bit simpler than that because I have two left feet and I would no longer have feet if I tried to do that, but, when I go on walks, I'm trying to take my earbuds out and be more present and be more receptive to opportunities, yeah.

And like embrace the moment, I like that I like that.

I've noticed that I started doing that too, it was kind of accidental cause my earpods kept dying but I was like you know I'm gonna walk to class I'm not gonna listen to music because I didn't have a choice but I've done it more often because I like listening to like what's like going on around.

I feel like you're like see more like people and you're just kind of like people watch and you're like oh I've never noticed that before.

And as I talked about my resolutions were to go to a new place a month, be more mindful, and then one I didn't talk about earlier because I like to do three a year was to be more vulnerable. So I know I have a tendency to like kind of close myself in and not really talk about when I'm struggling with things but I'm slowly but surely talking about with even just my friends like the things I'm going through like what I'm feeling at the time and not necessarily worrying about like what they might think of me because obviously if they're my friend they're not gonna think differently of me, but slowly starting to work on that.

Great and then now that we've talked about our resolution maybe some new music, some old music that we've been really jamming out to. We have our peer picks for that. I personally have been really liking Jaris Johnson, I have always been a fan if you're into alt and punk you probably know who I'm talking about but the song for this year that I have been listening to a lot is Dark Days. It’s just talking about getting out of your old habits, ones that don't serve you anymore, Dark Days are over, I think it's just a great message.

I love that. Yeah and for me I might have talked about this in previous podcast but I'm still listening to Noah Kahan whose album and song stick season is really good. He just kind of has like this soothing tone that helps me study and I just have him on my study playlist all of his songs and it's just really nice to listen to when I just need to unwind and destress and I'm cleaning, doing homework, it's just a good like all around song, I like it.

My pick is so basic. I am obsessed with this song everyone knows it from TikTok but Flowers by Miley Cyrus, it is so good, it's so catchy I love it it's so catchy I listen to it every day.

Well and there's just this whole story going around it that's just like so interesting.

And no I think that's what makes this song better like you listen to the you're like actually listening to the lyrics and you're like huh.

Yeah I agree. My new music new me is Renee Rapp. My sister, shout out to Kenzie, she's got me on Renee I hadn't listened to her previously but I think In The kitchen I like that one a lot, but I kind of like the sound of voice and like what she talks about in her music kind of new kind of fresh, kind of cool.

Alright, well with that we with that we are going to finish up our podcast get back to our studies and hopefully get readjusted into our new routine. I hope everyone has a fantastic new semester and we will talk to you guys later.

Bye.