My Personal Pandora Rewards

I have recently had some new additions to my Pandora bracelet and am so excited! As an almost college graduate, trying to get a job is priority number one for me right now. I have always been very driven in school. I’m always preparing for the next step. In high school, it was getting good grades and being involved so that I could get into a good college. In college, I was always looking for new internships to gain the right experience for a job after school. Now, I am constantly writing cover letters and updating my resume to get that perfect job. Last weekend, I was invited to interview at a public relations firm. Of all of the places I sent my resume, this was my top choice and I was very excited for this opportunity. I was also down right nervous! I have never wanted anything more and thus had never been so nervous for something in my entire life. During the three hour drive to the agency, my stomach was in knots and I kept going over research I had done on the agency and its clients. When I finally arrived at the interview and sat down in the chair, I opened my mouth and all of my nerves disappeared. The interview went great and they said they would call me in a week. When I got back to my parents’ house, my mom handed me a Pandora box and said, “I knew you would do great.” I opened the box and inside was the queen bee charm. I felt like a queen bee at the time. I had done my best and wasn’t nervous for my interview because I had been preparing for it for pretty much my entire life. I feel confident that the agency will call with good news but no matter what, my queen bee charm will remind me to always do the best I can.

My second new addition to my bracelet is my purse charm. I purchased this charm because of my rather large collection of purses as well as a trip to New York City. While in New York with all of the women in my family, we decided to split into groups so that we could do different things that day. There were eight of us women there and it was one of our last days in the city. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. It has always been a dream of mine to go to the Museum of Modern Art and this was my chance. I was going to see Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh, floral paintings by Monet, and abstracts by Picasso. I couldn’t wait! My mom went with me and the others went off to go shopping and sight-seeing. Finally, my mom and I got to the front of the museum, only to find out that the doors were locked! It was closed that day and my dream was shattered. This was just the beginning of the worst day of that vacation. We called the others and decided to meet a few block away and on our way to meet them, of course it started to rain. When we caught up with the others, they too were not having the best day. An ATM had eaten my aunt’s money and charged her card for the amount that she didn’t even receive and my cousin wanted to ride the open-air bus but couldn’t because of the rain. So, to make our day better, we decided to heal ourselves with some quality shopping. We made our way to Chinatown and, for some reason, had an urge to buy purses… lots and lots of purses. As we bought more purses, the rain seemed to slow and finally stop, the sun came out, and everything just seemed better. Our shopping was surely improving our day. After buying purses for ourselves, our friends back home, our family, and more for ourselves, we went back to the hotel and piled them all onto a bed to take a picture of our hilariously huge collection. It covered the entire king-sized bed! We laughed and took pictures swimming in the sea of purses. Making a day better sure does cost a lot!

My third addition to my bracelet is the moon and stars charm. I purchased this charm to represent my nerdy obsession with astronomy as well as my childhood hobby. I grew up on a farm and after my evening chores were finished, I would run into the house to grab a blanket and lay it out on the lawn. I would then wrap myself in the blanket and stare up into the night sky for hours. Sometimes I’d lie on the grass outside so long that I’d see satellites circling the earth or even a shooting star every now and then. My mom almost always would open the front door to the house and ask what I was doing out there so long. I always replied, “nuthin, just looking,” which was pretty true. For my 12th birthday, I received a telescope from my parents and I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited for the sun to go down. When nighttime finally rolled around, I studied the craters on the moon for hours, fascinated. My obsession with the night sky continued throughout high school and lasted into college where I took two courses in astronomy. The charm is to remind me to never take for granted the simple things like staring into the night sky, just to admire its beauty.

My fourth addition is the luggage charm. I love to travel and I hope to continue to travel throughout my life. This charm is to represent many trips over the years: Turks and Caicos, Texas, Florida, New York City, China, and many trips to Mexico. Traveling is a wonderful thing and teaches one about themselves as well as other people. Traveling to China was such an amazing experience and I will always treasure my time there. This charm is also to symbolize the places that I hope to go in the future. One of my dreams is to travel to Italy and to France to visit The Louvre art museum. I’ve studied a lot of art history and to view the artwork in the Lourve would be an indescribable experience.

Finally, my last purchase is not an addition to my bracelet but rather to my best friend’s Pandora bracelet. I actually bought her the bracelet and her first two charms. I recently picked out the soda can charm for her. She is a Mountain Dew freak and she physically cannot function without drinking at least six cans a day! Very unhealthy but, now that she’s addicted to caffeine, it makes cutting back difficult. I gave her the charm just yesterday because she wasn’t having the greatest of weeks and I wanted to lift her spirits with a soda.

-Amanda M.

Eau Claire, WI