{"id":3342,"date":"2016-04-03T16:22:05","date_gmt":"2016-04-04T00:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=3342"},"modified":"2016-04-03T16:22:05","modified_gmt":"2016-04-04T00:22:05","slug":"humans-western-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/humans-western-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Humans of Western"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<pre>By: Rachael Jackson\r\nCampus Life Editor<\/pre>\n<p>Belladina Starr, senior theater BFA major, recently celebrated an engagement to boyfriend, Eric Kearns, after eight years together. Here are her thoughts on long-term relationships, marriage, and college life.<\/p>\n<p><em>On balan<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernjournal\/files\/2016\/04\/HOWColor.jpg\" alt=\"HOWColor\" width=\"281\" height=\"368\" class=\"wp-image-3357 alignright\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/files\/2016\/04\/HOWColor.jpg 2848w, https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/files\/2016\/04\/HOWColor-229x300.jpg 229w, https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/files\/2016\/04\/HOWColor-768x1006.jpg 768w, https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/files\/2016\/04\/HOWColor-781x1024.jpg 781w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 281px) 100vw, 281px\" \/>cing the relationship with school:<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe most difficult thing we deal with is finding time to hang out. I take 16-20 credits every term, work, do theater, and I&#8217;m involved with Alpha Chi Omega on campus so I keep myself really busy. Most of my spare time is devoted to homework and then weekends I try to do the college social life. I feel bad, sometimes I get so distracted by school I don&#8217;t give him the attention he deserves, but he is super patient and wonderful and understands. I wouldn&#8217;t say I have missed out on anything being in a relationship. If I wanted to date around and do that whole thing I would, but the fact is I am happy and in love and why would I ever give that up to struggle to find the same thing somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>On being ready for marriage:<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI did not expect to be engaged in college when I was younger. If you had asked me a year ago I would have laughed. But honestly I was so ready for this to happen. Eight years is a long time, and I&#8217;m graduating soon. My life is in a place of transition right now, and I don&#8217;t see myself with anyone else so why not?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The engagement story and plans after graduation:<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was really sweet the way he asked me. He told me he wanted it to reflect who I was, and family and friends mean the most to me. We showed up to my uncle\u2019s house to \u2018grab something\u2019 for our date and walked into 20 to 30 of my closest friends and family. When I turned around Eric was on his knee. We celebrated with everyone and that night we left to go to the beach where he had got a big hotel room. It was absolutely perfect. Next year Eric and I are moving to Salem with friends to save up some money and then we plan on moving up to Portland so I can pursue theater. I don\u2019t know what I&#8217;m looking forward to most, I guess I&#8217;m just excited to see what the future holds!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Belladina Starr, senior theater BFA major, recently celebrated an engagement to boyfriend, Eric Kearns, after eight years together. Here are her thoughts on long-term relationships, marriage, and college life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":825,"featured_media":3357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-life"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}