flowercrownfeminist

Greetings and salutations! My name is Lauryn and I'm a 23 year-old graduate student currently studying Children's Literature. It is the best, most challenging, most intriguing, and soul crushing, yet uplifting thing I've done in my life yet.

I'm from Las Vegas, Nevada (love me the desert and some mountains), did undergrad in Queens, New York City, and am now in Boston, MA. I have spent approximately nine years of my life (thus far) officially working towards my goal of becoming a teacher. For eight of those years teacher meant elementary school teacher, but after a year and a half of existential angst and the worst student teaching experience ever, an epiphany occurred and I have since been working towards becoming a high school English teacher. It is the most important goal in my life and at this point I genuinely don't know what is going to happen after I achieve the goal and get my own classroom. Probably lots of crying and then doing the work.

I am a sensitive gal, full of FEELINGS and use journaling (in way too many forms) to explore, expel, and expand on those feelings. I am a plant mom to five different plants now and I am absolutely thrilled. Plants are the coolest. I've been vegan for a little over a year now and it's truly very exciting for me because I was vegetarian for four years and spent all of that time waiting to go vegan. I don't particularly like talking about it unless people ask me questions because it's a deeply personal choice I made and I don't feel the need to proselytize to everyone. I've been told that I'm very good at talking about nothing for a long time, which has stayed with me and will probably haunt me my entire life, as I've yet to decide whether that is a good or bad thing. I speak in hyperbole a lot and am a true millennial in that I adopt internet slang and bring it into my writing and conversations, hopefully not to an annoying degree. I also love learning about new words and am going to be an English teacher, so like, "do I contradict myself? So I contradict myself. I am vast, I contain multitudes" (Walt Whitman).

If you can't tell by my career choice and the Master's degree I'm currently working on, books are my life. I would describe myself as a voracious and inconsistent reader. I'm curious about a lot of stuff and like almost every genre. My favorites are (obviously) children's/Young Adult, narrative nonfiction (memoir, journalism, etc.), poetry, "literary" fiction, and short stories. I suck at listing my favorite books so here is a life map featuring my favorite books during those times.

Elementary School: A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket was absolutely one of the most formative things in my life. The grimness of the world the Baudelaires inhabited, the vocabulary used, the perfectly timed witty and sardonic humor, and the trust that young kids can handle and talk about Dark and Serious things was what won me over and has made me a lifelong fan.

Middle School: The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld was my first introduction to dystopian fiction and YA and it centered around beauty standards and Tally Youngblood was the coolest person around, oh man, to this day I am ride or die for this series. One summer I read the sequel Pretties cover to cover on a loop, like, every time I finished it I just started it again, for maybe three days straight. I still vividly remember some scenes.

High School: Looking for Alaska by John Green became a favorite of mine for very similar reasons as A Series of Unfortunate Events. It was also a thoughtful, introspective reflection on mortality and life and the nature of suffering. It launched my (still lingering) love for John Green and it's still my favorite John Green book.

Undergrad: Wild by Cheryl Strayed was a book that I actually read my senior year of high school, but as the years went by in undergrad I just kept rereading it and reading everything Cheryl Strayed has ever written and I became more and more obsessed with her philosophy of life. I even referenced her in at least five projects for different classes. I am not religious but I would describe the way I feel about Cheryl Strayed as an evangelical zeal. I love her with my entire heart and she has been one of the most important and influential people to me over these past few years.

I am too wordy sometimes, so here is a list of things I enjoy in shorthand form, if anyone doesn't want to read my ramblings.

Items I love:
- Journals/notebooks (I skew A5 and pocket sized)
- Stickers of all types (but not teacher reward stickers, I'm leaving my elementary days behind me)

• Zines (!!!)
• Photos (esp. polaroids!)
• Washi tape! (I'm kind of picky, I like florals, stripes, polka dots, graph, solid colors, but I'm also open to surprises!)
• Shaped/themed post-its (I have an addiction)
• Page flags (grad school, right?)
• Printed pictures of cool stuff/interiors (for my bullet journal)
• Pressed flowers
• Ephemera (maps, book pages, vintage photos, dictionary pages,etc)
• Small envelopes (handmade, patterned, vellum, etc.)
• Kraft anything and everything!

Things I'd love to try/get into:
- Die cuts (flowers/trees/plants/words/etc)
- Shaped paper clips
- Embroidery
- Rubber stamps (especially alpha stamps and plants)

Themes/Ideas/Colors I love:
- Plants (flowers, fruit, veg, succulents, etc)
- Woodland animals
- Halloween
- Typography
- Feminism
- Minimalism
- Yellow
- Earth tones
- Kraft paper
- National Parks

People who inspire my creativity:
- Maria Popova
- Elise Joy Blaha Cripe
- Lynda Barry
- Austin Kleon
- Jordan Clark
- Cheyenne Barton
- Sarah Urist-Green

I feel relatively open to most things, but lets start with the dislikes to get them out of the way.

DISLIKES: Disney, religious, meat/bacon stuff (I don't know why this is still a thing, but it is), chocolate, coffee

LIKES: Basically everything nature related: flowers, trees, plants, mountains, landscapes, etc., woodland animals, colorful things, art, quotes, Halloween, stripes, some kawaii stuff, illustrations, tea (herbal and infusions are my faves), candles.

Whether it's in a notecard, a postcard, or a long letter, these are things I could talk about forever and/or are curious to learn more about!

+What we're currently listening to: I love a good playlist, discovering new music, and sharing what I've been listening to on repeat for the last three months.
+What we're currently learning (in school or not): once the school year starts again I'm probably going to ramble about the latest theorist I learned about or a cool publishing story about your fave children's book. Let me know what you're learning about these days, in school or not!
+Dreams, aspirations, and goals: I live inside my head and daydream and fantasize about futures that I will never live out, let me know what you want to manifest or are content to stay in your head.
+Our parallel universe selves: Science has confirmed multiverse theory, so what is your parallel universe self up to? Guaranteed, my parallel universe self is an art teacher and has a degree in art history.
+Art/art history/museums: At one point I considered applying for a MA in art history but I didn't have the prerequisites for it, tragically. Instead, I do everything I can to learn about amazing women artists, the Dadaist and Surrealist art movements, and museums as an entity and place of community.

I guess I'm getting into a decent amount of postcard swaps, so here's some more specific info. If at all possible, I think I want to use some postcards in my bullet journal! I really love the way they look.

Postcards I'd love to receive (in no particular order):
+Landscapes (especially mountains/forests/paintings)
+Vintage photos (sepia/brown tinted are my personal fave)
+Museums (be it paintings/sculptures there or whatever)
+Botanical! (flowers/leaves/plants/herbs)
+Quotes/typography (I love words!)
+Illustrations from books/magazines (especially children's books)
+Anything with beautiful graphic design (use your discretion, but I'm a design nerd and go wild for a good color scheme and a nice font!)

If I have't said it enough, I am a journaling nerd and I have way too many journals I'm actively using (they all have different purposes), but I love using ephemera in them! Ya girl loves pretty much anything thrown her way, but if you want to make me the happiest of campers, here's what I'm looking to branch out into:

+Paper doilies (still haven't decided if they're my aesthetic, but working on it)
+Vintage photos (postcard size or smaller)
+Tags (I have some plain ones from Staples but patterned and different sizes would be awesome)
+Labels (so useful in so many ways!)
+Stickers (botanical/nature-y, etc)
+Paper!! (of all patterns, sizes, designs!)
+Book pages (definitely paper but necessary to have a separate item because there are so many types of book pages!)
+Illustrations/photos (as you can tell, I skew vintage and botanical, but I like books and things like that too)
+Small envelopes! (freaking adorable and available in so many sizes and patterns and colors!)
+Paint chips!! (there aren't that many places in Boston to find them for some reason, these would be very appreciated!)

Just a note: I use all the same supplies for journaling and mail art, so it's likely if you send me anything and it doesn't end up in my journal, it'll end up in another swap to share the wealth!