Halfway Through My Biggest Year Yet | Bekka Ratzloff

From kindergarten forward, the adults around me buzzed about the year 2019, the year I would graduate. Granted, 6 year old me didn't care about 2019, because that was ages away and I wanted to ride my scooter and make my sisters play house. Being a high school graduate wasn't on the radar.

Until it was, until I was preparing a graduation party, and convincing my mom that I didn't need to go to class anymore because calculus was a waste of time. I knew from middle school that I wanted to be a nurse, but I had no idea what that meant, I just knew it was a solid option. I picked my major because I didn't have to make a decision. No matter what kind of specialty I end up in, I will be helping others in some way. But still in 2019, despite what I thought, I still have no idea what I want to do.

All I know is I love this year, I love the people I find myself surrounded by, I love the contribution I am making to the world at this moment, and I love what I have ahead of me. I've accepted that I will probably always be a fast-paced person, I don't do well with down time, I'm not good at spending time being not "productive". I tend to define productive as out and doing something, be that work or running errands or going to class.

My goal for the summer has been to take more time and do what I feel is not productive. Spend nights laying in bed watching Netflix, or writing, or going out and dancing with the girls, or spending too much money on concert tickets. I've almost forced myself to allot time for "fun" not just for being productive.

When I did that, I made the memories that make this year the best one yet, and I say yet because I plan on making every year after this one better than the last. I've thrown more caution to the wind than I ever have in the past.

I've started living by the motto "things happen for a reason".

I went to "mini" nursing school with Rory, not knowing she would become my roommate.

March 18, 2019

I decided on Regis, not knowing I would be able to finance college without cripping debt.

I impulsively got a tattoo (or 3), not knowing how much I would love them

April 9, 2019

I took a CNA class, not knowing I would get to learn from the two best nurses I know.


I reconnected with one of the greatest people I know, who's just as sappy as I am.

May 18, 2019

I applied for a job, not knowing I would meet my best friend there.

May 18, 2019

And most importantly, I found time to spend with my work best friends, who became my life best friends.

June 21, 2019

In the first 6 months of 2019, I allowed things to happen not knowing the reason. But because hindsight is 20/20, I've never been happier and more grateful for the world I live in, and what an honor it is to live in it. I'm going to spend the next 6 months, making impulsive decisions, and spending time being "unproductive" but this time in a dorm room!

Los Angeles (My Love) | Bekka Ratzloff

Alrighty, here goes part two of the California adventure. We made the 6 hour trek from San Francisco to Los Angeles starting at about 10 am on Saturday morning, staying in LA until 11pm on Tuesday when my mom and I flew home from LAX (where I currently am sitting and writing this).

Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier

After FINALLY getting to LA around 5 on Saturday we found the hotel, only being mildly delayed by the infamous LA traffic jams. Then proceeding to go to Santa Monica Pier (fully embracing the “so cal” vibes), with the goal of finding a beach before sunset, and a funnel cake, don’t worry we achieved both! Surprisingly parking at the pier was significantly easier than any parking situations we had encountered in San Francisco! When the sun finally set we walked up and down the pier, seeing a bunch of artists and musicians just jamming out.

I took too many water pictures

The next morning I slept in until 7:30 (but mom did not consider it “sleeping in”) and then we left the hotel around 10 to hit Venice beach, again lots of artists and musicians just hanging out and selling their stuff, as well as more formal shops because obviously, a big tourist attraction. Venice was the subject of most of my LA pictures, both the actual beach itself and the shops. After getting ice cream in Venice we made another In-n-Out trip (there were only 3 stops over the 6 day trip I promise!). We then proceeded to drive up the Pacific Coast Highway for a little while, getting up into Malibu before turning around and making periodic stops on the way down to take pictures (as you do).

Sign outside Hamilton

Finally making it to the actual best part of the day, going back to the hotel to change clothes and drive to the Hollywood Pantages theatre to see Hamilton!! In case I wasn’t already obsessed with the musical, to begin with, I fell even more in love, as well as learning 2 things.

1. Act I actually ends after “Non-Stop” not after “Yorktown” which I guess makes a lot more sense and I don’t know why I thought that’s where it ended but now I know!

2. I still cry during the entirety of Act II, and that will probably never change. *shrug*

Monday morning, back at it again at 7:30 going to see only the biggest and best thing that I’ve been dreaming about since 6th grade, we had the University of California Los Angeles tour scheduled at 10:15! It was even more amazing than I imagined! The tour began with a presentation, as many college tours do, including much of the information I’ve heard 100 times already but putting a lot of emphasis at the opportunities available for undergrad research, which is apparently a super big and awesome deal! They have 42,000 undergraduate students which is really big but the campus is also huge to match!

On the same note of how awesome UCLA is, we learned that the internet was actually started at the school when they set a message to Stanford, and then the Ronald Reagan hospital which is on campus is only the best hospital west of the Mississippi river, and basically they do everything better than anyone else, there’s no room for mediocre and I love it, it’s just hardcore, 110% ALL the time, ugh, so good!

Art on buildings along Venice beach

Except for this past weekend’s USC game but they weren’t talking about that of course. Outside of psychology and research stuff, I also got really excited at all their dance classes that you can take outside of your major, and they just sounded super interesting and fun! After the actual tour, we bought too many UCLA merchandise things and got lunch and smoothies on campus, then proceeded to get thoroughly lost trying to find the car!

After eventually finding the car and getting gas we drove down to Long Beach for the night and got dinner in an Irish bar thing that we found along the beach, literally the most random thing ever.

More cheesy pictures

Bringing us to Tuesday where I only almost broke my mom. We hit both the University of Southern California and the University of California Irvine in the same day. So first USC, a way less confusing campus than UCLA was, at least parking wise, but equally as big and beautiful. Their tour presentation thingy also talked about undergraduate research and how conveniently close it is to downtown Los Angeles. I also learned that they have a bunch of random classes you can take, like surfing which takes place in Santa Monica, or a film class where there’s a lecture for an hour of class then you spend 2 hours watching a movie not yet in theatres and discussing it. Both UCLA and USC offer similar things of being able to start research as early as freshman year and be close to the city where I hope to settle after school, but as rival schools, don’t tell them I said that!

Lastly, UC Irvine is about an hour south of USC and again a beautiful campus, Irvine felt more stereotypical Cali than any of the other schools, in part because it was 85 degrees and mid-afternoon and all of their trees are superrrrrrrr tall. It’s for sure secondary to UCLA still, but out of all the schools, I didn’t see one that I wouldn’t be extremely happy at and that wouldn’t give me amazing opportunities for when I leave school. They’re all amazing in their own ways and I feel lucky that I don’t have to choose between all 5, I only have to pick between the ones that actually accept me, but still, that’s a senior year problem.

Sunset in Santa Monica

Prior to this week, I had spent a grand total of 27 hours in Los Angeles and no time in San Francisco, but after this week I have fallen in love with both cities, their beliefs and values are so similar yet their vibes are so different. I couldn’t choose one that I love more over the other because just like the schools, the two individually offer so many different things. But as this is my LA post, I have mostly fallen in love with the constant buzz of the city, it doesn’t matter if you’re down near USC or along the coast or in Hollywood, there’s always someone doing something they’re passionate about and that’s crazy inspiring and you’re completely surrounded in creativity and productivity all the time.

Foamy water along PCH

Carl the Crab or better knows as a "crunchy fish spider"

Flowers on Venice Beach

More water pictures

Plethora of succulents on Venice Beach

Cheesy picture on one of the random beaches along PCH

Ceiling of the Hollywood Pantages Theatre

San Francisco (School and Sight Seeing) | Bekka Ratzloff

Full Disclosure, this is probably going to be one my longer posts and is for my own future reference so I can remember details of this trip when applying to college next fall, for my grandmas so I can update them with pictures, and for whoever else wants my running commentary on my adventures in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

We, my mom and I, flew into San Francisco late Wednesday night and didn’t do much, except the obligatory In-n-Out trip and then sleep.

Thursday morning we woke up for the visit to California State University - East Bay (very long title). After making stops at both Starbucks (as you do) and Target we crossed the San Mateo Bridge to the east side of the Bay. At Target, this is a very small detail, but in an attempt to encourage reusable bags, they charge you 25 cents for every plastic bag you use, take note Colorado.

Unfortunately, it was rainy and cloudy all of Thursday, so the supposed amazing view that you have from the campus, was all fog, still impressive though. After getting thoroughly lost we missed the 11 AM tour and had to wait for the 2 PM tour instead.

In that time we found the "No Room For Racism" signs scattered around Hayward and many many pretty trees and flowers. One of my favorite things about San Francisco is just the variety of plants, there are not just giant palm trees everywhere like in southern California, there's everything? We also got salads back at the school before going back (early this time) for the tour.
As far as the actual university, it’s in a beautiful spot, about 90 minutes outside of San Francisco and all the action, which is reasonable. There is a lot of housing around it and they have pretty big residential areas actually on the campus. Most of the classes are small except for the basic lecture ones that everyone has to take. The library is also huge and has a big glass window that looks over the water, that’s not at all distracting when you need to study!!

After the tour, we drove back across the San Mateo Bridge (there was a $5 toll but only on the way back, weird) and all the way up to downtown San Francisco where we went to this lounge/restaurant on the top floor of a hotel. It was unreasonably expensive but the view was amazing, little bit terrifying, but as it was right at dusk, and nothing short of breathtaking.

Fast forward to the next morning, Friday when we’re back up in San Francisco for the University of San Francisco nursing tour, this time an hour early, planning ahead. The tour started at 11 with a little talk about the program, basically freshman year you learn how to communicate, understand basic biology and the ethics of nursing. Then for 3 years, you do between 90-180 hours of clinicals per semester. On top of time spent in the skills lab preparing for the sim lab, where you are “put on stage” to basically not kill a patient in front of your classmates. Both of the labs were shown on the tour and are super cool and expensive.

The campus is very spread out, with lots of stairs to climb to get to the upper buildings, but on top of the hill there is a beautiful view of San Francisco and also of the bay, nonetheless, mom was not a fan of the stairs. Unlike East Bay, it’s only about 20 minutes outside of the heart of San Francisco and significantly closer to the buzz.

After USF we took the necessary visit to the Golden Gate Bridge, getting pictures down on the trail below the bridge and out on a baby pier nearby. Around 4 PM we moved over to the Pier 39 and parked the car. Having the rental car is both a blessing because we can obviously go wherever we want whenever we want, but finding parking can get a bit tedious.

On the Pier we found dinner and went to a few shops, one of which was exclusively socks, it was mesmerizing. Then proceeded to wander around for a while, finding espresso chip ice cream and sitting down to watch a group of sea lions yelling at each other and flop on and off the boat loading area.

Sadly after the sea lions, we left San Francisco, leaving spend the night in Palo Alto. Overall, the whole city just smells and feels very forward (if that makes any sense outside of my brain) and has the perfect blend of relaxed and intense. Everyone has their own agendas and business to attend to, but at the same time have time to stop and smell the many many colorful flowers that surround the beautiful city.

The liberal values surround every aspect of life, from the very many recycling bins, to the plethora of electric car charging stations, the very many gay flags scattered about, to the class at USF exclusively dedicated to promoting individual human rights of the underserved. The whole premise of San Francisco just makes so much logical sense and I adore it.

Reppin' college gear in front of a killer
Christmas tree.

Boat & Island on east side of Pier 39

Flower Bush Thing at the Golden Gate Bridge

Palm Trees in Hayward

Friday Night Sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge

Summer 2017 | Breakfast, Dogs, and Swimming

Hello again,

I realize that it's only the end of July, and technically summer isn't over yet, but it has been eventful enough thus far I thought it was worthy of sharing.

I spent a majority of my summer working for Camp Paha again, I was with camp part time last summer and then a full 40 hours a week this summer, working with children aged 6-10, all whom were very energetic and challenging in their own ways. My coworkers were amazing and for 7 weeks, it was the 4 of us vs. 9 children, and I am happy to announce, we survived!

Paha is a day camp, which runs Monday to Friday meaning the majority of my summer partying happened over the weekends. Many of those precious days off were spent re-watching Grey's Anatomy (I got my best friend obsessed with it as well) and working on summer homework (not as horrible as it sounds)





















Most Friday's of the summer (and the school year) I spend with Mollie and considering her family loves Louise as much as my family does, she comes to sleep over too!

Typically she's not too much of a fan of toys, but she did love the tiger stuffed animal that she discovered at Mollie's house.

She also loves steak night in our house (I'm more of a fan of the corn on the cob because I still don't eat red meat). None the less, she loves carrying around t-bones.

Outside of obsessing over the extreme doggy cuteness that I cohabit with, I also have gotten really good at Sunday morning breakfasts.

The left picture is one of my favorite coffee shops called the French Press (I believe I have mentioned it before) where a group of coworkers and I got breakfast. I got an omelet with spinach and little potato wedges on the side, as well as my very artsy carmello.

The right image is from my mom's birthday where my sisters and I spent the whole morning decorating (destroying) the kitchen with balloons (some with confetti) and paper streamers. When mom finally woke up there was a very large pile of waffles, accompanied by bacon (and turkey bacon) and scrambled eggs.

My latest summer adventure has accidentally become the start of a tradition.

Last year, the weekend after camp ended we went up to Glenwood Springs to swim in the hot springs and hike up to hanging lake. So this year we visited the Mount Princeton hot springs (near Fairplay). They had 3 different pool areas, one with a waterslide, and just like the name, there was very hot water!

The mountains surrounding the pools were very very pretty, and the peaks were hiding within the clouds part of the time.


The rest of the summer will be spent doing color guard and school shopping and the preparing for my very busy Junior year!

Till next time,
Bekka

New Start (Update) | It's Bekka

Hey!

As you all clearly know, I haven't blogged in a very long time and I've been thinking about writing for a while so this is the explanation of why I haven't.

I have two drafts of started blog posts but I've just given up on them because I feel that I can manage and decently write the posts, but my pictures are lacking. I have an iPhone 6, so it's not a bad camera, but it's not great so I feel like the only posts I am happy with are like experience things, rather than makeup or favorites type videos.

The reason I am writing this to you today, is that I am ready for a new start with this blogging adventure, the first time around I was quite pleased with how it worked out with views and reads and everything, except from my content, not to say I hated everything that I wrote but lots of it I wasn't excited about my topics.

So my new "theme" persay, is going to involve more studying/organizational type things as well as makeup and lifestyle type things (EX: I'm planning a post about my first pride parade for soon) So to add some color and character to this post I'm going to update you on my life from the past 9 months since I last blogged.

'Till Next time (which will be soon),
Bekka

My absolute favorite band (soon to be a blog post)

Troye Sivan concert (also to be a blog post)

Pride!

Thanksgiving 2015 | It's Bekka

On the way to Vegas!

Long time no see, I hope you all had a lovely thanksgiving if you celebrate it, and a festive start to the holiday season!! I'm writing to you from 39,000 feet above sea level and am embarking the journey from Las Vegas, Nevada back home to Denver. This last week has been nothing short of an adventure. Between the late nights looking at the beautiful full moon, to the early mornings watching the sunrise, and everything in between. And I have loved every second of it!! 

This picture was taken right outside my
grandma's back yard, in the middle of the desert,
I was surrounded by cacti and beautiful read rocks
a little piece of dry, dusty heaven. 

While in Arizona I met one of the most interesting yet a annoying boys I have come across. His name is Andrew, he lives with his grandparents just down the street from October 3rd (trust me I told him about the Mean Girls reference!!) and he had this very mysterious vibe to him. Well as some of you guys know this mysterious vibe in boys is nothing new to me. Now keep in mind I didn't want to date him, oh hell no!! I first saw him with my grandma when they picked me up at the airport, I found them both at baggage claim and he was looking down at his phone, (and at this point he looked significantly younger than me not 4 years older!!) and the drive back home we talked the whole way.
where I was staying with my grandma. With short black hair and a fuckboy wardrobe, he was quite the character. We spent a lot of time together, playing video games, going on walks and just talking. He's 18, born on

He told me about how after he graduated he moved to Bullhead City, and has lived there ever since. I found him a very different person than I am, as he didn't seem to have a distinct plan for his future, and was not concerned about his lack of a plan. Now don't get me wrong this is not s bad thing, but the people I tend to surround myself with have huge dreams of going to MIT and Stanford right out of high school. We talked about dumb stuff like what our favorite colors and foods are, and I told him about my girlfriend. He seemed very shocked! Similarly to how I hadn't met someone who didn't have a plan for the future, he had never seen a lesbian!! Over the course of the week we spent a lot of time together, talked about sex and depression, the deep stuff. I think today he was harder to leave than my grandma, because we have grown close over the last week, and he drives me crazy, like a brother, but at the same time I love him like a brother. 

Thanksgiving Dinner

Now for most this is not an accomplishment, but to me it seems pretty significant. Up until this week, I have flown before but my mom or grandma has walked to me to the gate, and picked me up there. Now my mom still brought me to the gate in Denver, but my grandma was not as motivated to get through security and navigate the airport with her old lady walker. So me being myself, I had headphones in and walked all the way down to baggage claim to meet her. And the best part? I only got lost twice!! Then flying back this morning, Andrew and his grandfather helped me check my bags and then we said our goodbyes and my, myself and I took the boarding pass and my ID and breezed through security, grabbed a Starbucks and plopped down at the gate with my bags to wait to board. I find it fun that no one questions me when I'm a freshman walking through the airport all by myself. Maybe it's because I looked like I has everything under control, (not gonna lie I was having a mini panic attack on the inside.) But then I began writing to you guys, I know there are only 6-7 people who read each of my blog posts, but writing is therapeutic for me, so thanks you 6 people, it really and truly means a lot to me!!!

In-N-Out burger, the 1st time

In-N-Out burger, the 2nd time around!
*heart eyes emoji*

I think I will do another blog post on all the lovely things I picked up while on my trip but for this post this will be all, I'm going to leave you with a picture I took while on the flight back home. I don't know about you but I love how the clouds look from about, because you don't get the nasty glare from the sun in your pictures!! Till next time xx

On the way back to Denver.

Palm Trees along the Colorado River.

An Arizona sunset.