No Forrest Gump references, please.

I’m a runner. It started in high school. In 9th grade I took a tennis class taught by the cross country coach. He was desperate for girls on the team, at least that’s what I tell myself because otherwise I’m not really sure why he invited me to join.

So the summer after my freshman year of high school, I would run every now and then to prepare for cross country, which would start once I returned to high school in the fall. I was pretty stoked; by the end of the summer I could do a mile pretty quickly without stopping. Imagine my surprise when I showed up to the first day of practice and we had a one mile warm-up. Oops. The first ten minutes of practice had been my entire workout over the summer.

I really liked my coach and one of my best friends was on the team with me (EinsGlick for life), and the idea of quitting never really crossed my mind. I fell in love with running, and cross country is definitely one of my favorite memories of high school.

I don’t know if it was the running or if it would have happened anyway, but I started having trouble with my left knee during my junior and senior years of high school. Yes, my injuries go way back, before falling beds and ugly broken foot boots. During my last season I was our team’s manager because I wasn’t able to run full-time like I wanted to. I practiced with the team as much as I could, I rode a bike on longer runs, and I helped out at meets because my knee wouldn’t let me compete.

My kneecap is rotated and out of alignment. After a series of knee braces, physical therapy, and electrical stimulation (this really great thing where it feels like fire ants are eating your knee) I still couldn’t run even short distances without severe pain. Last week I visited an orthopedic doctor once again just to check up on everything. There’s still nothing they can do, but he gave me some anti-inflammatory lotion to use after my run, which makes my knee tingly. Sure.

I went for a run tonight, which bugs the crap out of my dad. He thinks I’m making it worse; I think there’s nothing to make it better so why not run? Which brings me back to my original thought: I’m a runner. I do it voluntarily and I enjoy it. I think I enjoy it because running is probably 90% mental.

Tonight as I jogged through my neighborhood, I kept telling myself “keep going until you pass that house” or “don’t slow to a walk until this Jonas Brother song is over” and I did it! Not to mention that I run better when I’m not by myself, when I have Jeff running 15 feet in front of me as I pant, “I’m walking – I can’t – I’m gonna walk now,” and he laughs, “nope, you can keep going.”

There’s something incredible about putting one foot in front of the other, over and over, and pushing yourself to the limit. Running is what I do when I’m sad, happy, stressed, tired, energized or bored. It’s my thing. I may not be in the same shape that I was in high school (indian runs? no thanks) but has the same effect on me now that it did back then. Slip on some sneakers, blast some boy bands, and give it a shot.

New state, new color scheme, new introduction.

My blog needed a makeover, so I’m going to do that really dumb thing where I introduce myself like you don’t know me. Maybe you don’t know me. Maybe you’re one of those creepy pedophiles that Oprah (slash Dane Cook) warned me about. You could be a pedophile. Right now.

You can call me Amanda Joy. I like short walks on the beach. I’m addicted to dying my hair really dark brown, organization, and Mountain Dew.

I’m a Communication major at Florida Southern College working towards a degree in Print, Broadcast and Online Journalism (thank you, Transformational Curriculum). I’m obsessed with visual literacy, whether it’s photography or video editing or graphic design. This passion led to me applying for a video production internship with my sorority, Kappa Delta. Long story short, on May 25th I started an incredible internship at Kappa Delta Headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee. I had never been on my own in another state, so before starting I felt a mixture of excitement and nervousness at the prospect of being in a new place.

This blog was originally created to keep track of my adventures in Memphis and its surrounding areas, mostly areas that included shopping malls. I’m an only child, and I’ve been a little overprotected these past 21 years, so I was in the mood to do quite a bit of exploring in the great state of Tennessee. I had a blast, and obviously you can read all about it.

So now I’m back home in my wonderful Sunshine State and I’m a little hooked on this whole blogging thing. WordPress is pretty obnoxious about letting its users change their URLs. They gave me plenty of warning of this, but at the time “walkin in Memphis” was too cool of a URL for me to pass up. So I’ve decided to keep the name, and tell you something deep like “walking in Memphis is really about a state of mind; a sense of opportunity and lightheartedness.” Yeah. I’m gonna go with that.

Blogs have been popping up all over. Get ready for some mad hyperlinks. My beautiful KD twinnie Lauren and her brand new hubby are writing about their adventures as newlyweds; Bryant is blogging about Steve Jobs, the church, aaand… Steve Jobs; and my incredible seester Allee is off saving the world, or at least certain parts Africa.

I kind of feel like now that I’m back, it’s a little silly for me to keep a blog. Especially when I compare myself to those three. I don’t have cute quirky newlywed stories, I’m not super smart when it comes to tech stuff or church stuff, and I wouldn’t last fifteen minutes in Africa.

However! I went to all the trouble of deleting my beautiful Memphis header, so I might as well give this a shot. Maybe something exciting will happen in Seffner for me to blog about. Don’t hold your breath.

Sorry for being a slacker.

So here’s the deal. The fact that I stopped blogging is actually a good thing, because I was having too much fun to find time to write daily posts. And if I wasn’t having fun, Meg and I were watching seasons 1-4 of Grey’s Anatomy for hours on end.

I really want to sum up my final month in Memphis. Obviously I’m only gonna be able to touch on a few key points. Even if I had written every single day, certain details would’ve been left out. But the point is, there are some Memphis memories that simply must be recorded.

So, in no particular order… my final 5 weeks in Memphis:

NLC. Every year, Kappa Delta holds some sort of national conference. The even years are NLC (National Leadership Conference) and the odd years are Conventions. This year NLC was held in Williamsburg, Virginia. Before I got the internship, I was really bummed about not being able to attend NLC. But because my job is amazing, KD paid for me to go! I worked my butt off, but it was still a lot of fun. One night Meg and I literally slept for an hour and a half. Overall it was incredible having over 600 sisters together. Working at headquarters gave me a much better sense of the national scope of KD, but I actually got to SEE it with so many of us in one place. And I’m sure you want to watch a video of our journey to Williamsburg.

Emily. The Devil Wears Prada. Watch it. Meg + Amanda = Emily.

Food. My Memphis experience was probably mostly enjoyable because of the food. I’m not ashamed. Huey’s, Lenny’s, Commissary and McAlister’s became my best friends. I tried fried pickles,  had a lot of BBQ and sweet tea, and came home with a dozen souvenir cups from restaurants. I also probably gained ten pounds, but we won’t get into that.

Turning 21/Beale Street. I won’t go into the intimate details of my 21st birthday extravaganza… I will say that I went into this summer feeling really sad that I would be in a strange city for what’s supposed to be the biggest birthday. However, if you’re gonna be in a brand new city on your birthday, Memphis is a good choice. My first Beale Street experience took place while I was wearing a Disney Birthday Princess pin. It was pink. Plus, now that I’m home I get to have multiple belated birthday celebrations. Win win.

Ding dong ditch. This was a fast event, but it’s just too perfect for me not to mention. During my last week in Memphis, us 5 interns attended a dinner/desert/wine/Hills finale party in Shady Groves, which is a fancy schmancy neighborhood. The house that we went to was on the same street as Leigh Anne Tuohy’s house. Hopefully you’ve heard of her. I still haven’t seen the Blindside (I know, I know) so I really have no room to judge if you don’t know who she is. Anyway, she’s a Kappa Delta, and we kept joking that we should just walk across the street and say hi. When we were leaving the part around oh, 1am, the girls had the brilliant idea to ding dong ditch Leigh Anne Tuohy’s house. What happened next, I will never forget. A slightly tipsy sister of mine bolted out of my car, slinked toward Leigh Anne’s house, pushed the doorbell, and sprinted back to the car screaming at the top of her lungs “get ready to GOOOO!”