Keeping Up With Kayleigh

My 10th Birthday! Growing up, birthdays were always a very big deal in the Jarkowsky household. My mom always made sure to make our day incredibly special in any way possible. No matter how old we got, we would always walk down the stairs to the house decorated with balloons and streamers, the table decorated with a card and presents and our favorite breakfast treat. Later in the day, she would make our requested dinner, and the entire family would gather around our dining room table. Spending time with my family was always my favorite part of birthdays. Once I moved to college, I dreaded my birthday. I dreaded the feeling of waking up and not getting to walk downstairs and see how my mom decorated. I dreaded not getting hugged by my parents. I dreaded not feeling special. Most importantly, I dreaded not being able to spend my birthday with my family. I also felt stupid that I was a college student who still felt like birthdays were a big deal. But in my family, no matter how old you g...

The Roommates of the MELK House (Molly, Ella, Lenore and Kayleigh) We are officially halfway through the first week of senior year! It is crazy saying that, because the last time I blogged was the end of my freshman year, and I thought I had nothing but time. I did not expect four years to fly by so fast, yet here we are. I moved back at the beginning of last week, and it finally started to hit me that this is my last year at ONU with the people that have become my family. I had a really hard time finding my place here as a freshman in my first semester because it was really hard going eight hours away from home with no one I knew on campus. I thought I would never have the friendships here that I had back home, and now, looking back, I see that I have even better friendships than back home. I have a family here.  This year I am living off campus with my three other roommates, Lenore, Ella and Molly. I met Lenore and Ella very early in my first year since we are all in the same maj...

The worst time of the year has officially come. That time that I'm talking about is having to come back to school after spring break. It's a miserable feeling! However, I am extremely thankful for the opportunity to be able to go home and have a week off from school. While many people were in Florida or on cruises, I on the other hand just had a relaxing week at home.  Let's rewind to before break started. I do not have a car on campus so my older sister made the 8-hour drive here on Thursday night to spend the night with me and go with me to my classes on Friday. It was so nice to spend time with her and show her around campus. I had classes until 3:50 p.m. on Friday so I made sure I was all packed and ready to go right after my last class. We started our journey back and made it home at 1:00 a.m. On Saturday I was up bright and early getting ready for a fun day with my high school friends! Most of our spring breaks aligned so we made sure to take advantage of that! I drov...

Social media algorithms have always confused me. I don't understand how one post will pop up on my feed yet my friend is following that same account but doesn't see that particular post. Chapter 5 tries to discuss a little bit about how the Instagram algorithm works. However, sometimes I really do feel that it is just random! On Instagram, the algorithm is different throughout each feature. That means that the regular feed, stories, explore and reels all have different algorithms that are tailored specifically to them. In the newest Instagram update, your feed is a mix of recent posts from accounts you follow and recommended posts from other users that you are not following. Instagram creates this feed algorithm by monitoring your activity and what type of posts you typically interact with. All of these factors go into what shows up on your feed while you are scrolling through. Instagram's feature of stories has a different algorithm compared to the regular feed. This algor...

Last week we discussed how to create a Facebook business page so I decided that this week I would walk you through how to create an Instagram business page as well! Although they are similar, personal Instagram accounts are different than business accounts. When you turn an account into a business profile it automatically gives the account extra features so that each business can optimize their pages. These features include adding locations, business hours, contact information and more. It is important to utilize all that is given to you when setting up these accounts so that you can engage with your community of followers.  Step #1: Choose a username that is not too confusing and represents your company well. If you have a longer business name consider shortening it for a username and be sure that this username is the same as all your other social media platforms.  Step #2: Choose a profile picture that represents your business and its values. This could be a company logo, ...

When I first came to ONU, I had never felt so lonely in my life. I knew that coming to a school 8 hours away from home wouldn't be easy, but I did not expect it to be this hard. I am a homebody at heart but I also am an independent person so I thought that I would adjust easily to college life but it was quite the opposite. Bid Day! Since I grew up in a large family it was quite the culture shock moving away from them and living in a quiet dorm when I am used to always being surrounded by family and noise. I had never met my roommate prior to moving in and she is on the volleyball team so was hardly ever home. Because of that we didn't get to know each other until several weeks into school. I am in a small major, so outside of that I didn't know many people. My fam! I felt as though I was missing something. A part of me was left at home and I felt like I would never be truly happy here. There were a few people on campus that knew I was struggling with this feeling of loneli...

You know that old saying, "When it rains, it pours"? Well that is what my week has felt like. One thing going wrong after the other. All while trying to keep up with homework and a social life here on campus. I can't say that I am not thankful to be at ONU but I know I would much rather be at home right now.    My week started out pretty good. My 9am class on Monday was cancelled so I got to sleep in a little bit which was very nice. However, I woke up feeling sick but knew I shouldn't skip any classes on the second week back. So I powered through.  On Tuesday I was feeling okay enough to get up and go about my day. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I do not have class until 12pm, so I like to get up early and try to get some work done and go to lunch with friends before classes. Due to a medication I am on, I tend to get emotional at the most random times and cannot control it. As I was trying to get work done I was listening to songs and I don't know what came over me b...