Anyone that saw my post on Facebook earlier saw this blog post coming.
About what, probably not. You all were more than likely expecting a recap of our birthday weekend, but I'll save that for another day. *ahem ahem*. ;) This week is the fourth week of classes and for the first time in my life I'm not as confident with my classes as I usually am. It is definitely due o the fact that I haven't taken any communications classes before and I feel like I'm way behind whenever topics I'm not familiar with come up. Especially with the books that I've been reading for my classes. It seems like every single one of my classmates are familiar with them and I'm scrambling to make some sort of understanding of the hundreds of pages I have to read throughout the week and then participate in a class discussion where I don't say anything until I find the topic that I'm the most confident in answering. However, I am getting more confident with the way the classes and discussions work and having things explained to me. My graduate research work is going well, so far all I've done is search through a bunch of databases for ESM (Experience Sampling Method) and how it relates to positivity. Otherwise there's not much to go on there. Then there's the portion that I really wanted to talk about. A few days ago I applied for and have gotten a job as a contributor/writer at Sº4 Magazine. It is an action/extreme sports online magazine that primarily focuses on Surfing, Skateboarding, and Snowboarding for girls. (There is a portion of the site that is for guys). As a contributor I can write about whatever I want in the means of those topics and it is something that I'm really excited to be doing. Going into the action/extreme sports industry is my all-time dream and while it may be something that'd difficult to get into to start a career with, this is my first step. I didn't think I'd ever find something as this to get into it as I always thought you had to live on the West Coast and frequent competitions and expos before you could even get noticed enough to start networking. It will be a god way for me to ultimately get to my dream job at Vans, as one of the affiliates of the sites is Vans Girls and one of the compensations I'll get for writing for the mag is merch from the retailer. The experience that I'd be getting from my Research Assistant job as well as from working with Sº4 is going to make it easier for my dreams to become a reality and I can't wait to see what'll continue to unfold as time goes on.
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It's been forever and a day since I updated my blog. The last thing I talked about wasn't really me talking, instead it was a video of my speed drawing of one of Mack's characters. Anyone that knows how much I love to draw should get a kick out of the video.
Other than that, everything you all should know I've probably said on Facebook at some point. However, I will indulge everyone that doesn't already know (and there is no offense intended to anyone that doesn't know. I simply chose not to mention some things that have happened because I didn't see the point to. I apologize to granddaddy as I never said I got into ODU, but I didn't tell anyone so you weren't the only one left out). Yes, I applied, got accepted into, and am now a grad student at Old Dominion University which is my father's alma mater. I am in the Lifespan and Digital Communications program which, when I finish, will give me an MA in communications. The program is only four years old, so it's relatively new, which is also why no one has ever heard of it before. I explain it quickly by saying I'm getting a Masters in Social Media because it' a big component of it. Basically, it is a program that focuses on digital communications (TV, music, movies, video games, phones, internet, skype, oovoo, texting, etc.) and how it changes over the course of a lifespan. When I tell people this I always get the question: and what can you do with that degree? To be honest, anything you want. You can go into whatever field you want, essentially, with this degree. You can go into marketing, communications, publication, what have you. That's one of the things that appealed to me about it, that I can go into whatever faction I want after I get my degree. I'm keeping my option open at the moment but my dream is to get into the extreme/action sports industry. (That's only if my sisters and I don't get discovered in California first. *wink wink* *hint hint*) The other piece of good news that goes along with it, which I'm sure a lot of people know by now, I was offered and accepted a Graduate Research Assistantship for the year. I'm going to be assisting in the research and development/beta testing of a research app that is being guinea pigged on two classes that I'm assisting. Cool, right? Other than that there's nothing to report other than the drivers here are ridiculous and I've had to avoid getting into accidents more often than I would like to count. Though on the plus side it's made my reflexes that much better and my ability to be tense when I drive that much stronger. Talk about a double-edged sword. Other than that I have nothing to report because I don't want to bore you all with my classes. (Go to class, do homework, go to class, do homework, go to class, do homework. That's really all I do, thankfully I can multi-task and priorit Well, this being the lats full week of classes I'm not sure what to talk about. I finished my last day of work today, I had all of my big assignments done two weeks before, and now I'm just waiting. I guess.
We have our final performance as the world music ensemble on the front quad tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to that because it's the biggest one that we have and more people come. OK, let's face it, they want the ice cream, but still, a lot of people show up for it and it's always cool to hear the music being played outside rather than inside. We're going to have a tiny article about us in the Free-Lance Star for graduation. It would have been this really big thing, but we had done the article about our books back in December and it would have been kind of close together if that were the case. Even having a tiny article is cool because it's an opportunity for our story as well as people knowing about our books to get out even further than it had before. Who knows, maybe it'll reach Ellen. *Crosses fingers*. Otherwise at this point I'm guessing the grades I'm going to end up with. World Music, Bass, Computer, and Adv. Creative Writing I'll get As, I know that for sure. My history class will probably be a B+ and my English class will probably be a B+, so I'm good for the grades I'll ultimately get. I just wish I knew them now. Or that I didn't have two finals, that too. Wow, it's been a while since I put up a post. Almost a week. So what have you all missed...well the World Music Ensemble performance on Friday was amazing!!! Everyone was very receptive to it and enjoyed it very well. Especially when we played the song Sugar Bum Bum, there were even people form the audience dancing!!! In the aisles of the church. It was sweet.
Then Monday we went to the Harrison museum with one other girl to perform two songs on the African Marimba, downtown. It was....good. We played well and a lot of people liked it, but we felt really awkward because it was kind of a upscale kind of place. So we played our songs, ate their food (which was really good) and then left. It rained like crazy and made it hard to find a parking space, which was actually pretty funny. But the whole experience was good. Then last night/today I found out that I won the Fiction Award at my university "in recognition of an undergraduate who has done outstanding work in the writing of fiction". *Grins cheesily and waves like a queen*. Yeah, I won. I got a certificate, a ribbon, and a check. So I guess that makes me a professional author now. If so, awesome! Also if so, take that to the people that said my writing sucked! And Vans, you wasted a good opportunity of using my writing talents. Haha. So only 25 days left until graduation and, thankfully, I finished all of my big assignments weeks ago so I just have to wait for the deadline and turn them in. I'm in an annoyed mood today, probably mostly due to stress, but I'm going to rant a bit.
Why have me submit my resume and cover letter and tell me that I'm going to be a test study for a new program that school is going to do to help out seniors when they aren't even going to be looked at? Why even get my hopes up? All you can say instead is 'I hope you're networking' I've been doing that and it hasn't helped me s far because if it had, I wouldn't have made all of that stuff. The part that hurts the most is getting my hopes up that these alumni would look at what I wanted to do, to take my interests and help me turn it into a career and then I get a complete brush off. I'm so irritated and annoyed with school that at this point I wish they would just give me my final grades and I don't have to do anything anymore. All I want is a career that will keep me wanting to go back, not be stuck in a 9-5 where I'm unhappy. I thought the new program was going to help me with that. I've gotten so disappointed so quickly. I wish the year was over. I love the guitar. It's seriously one of my favorite things to do besides going running. And with that, I love my bass lessons every Thursday. I get to learn how to play some of my favorite songs and learn a bit of music theory while I'm at it. (Do I completely understand? No. But I'm getting there). I'm working on the song Hysteria by Muse and that song is FREAKING HARD. Not only is the whole song done in 8th notes, but instead of there being a couple of notes that I'm working with, I'm practically dealing with the whole fretboard. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to learn how to play it (there's a video below, the guitar that starts out the song is the bass and I'm playing that) I just didn't think I'd be working on such a difficult song for one of my last ones. Unless my instructor did that on purpose, in which case it makes sense. Also, there have been a string of robberies around our area. Two colleges had men come onto their campus, steal credit cards and rack up thousands of dollars on them. So now we're on the lookout for them in case they come to our school. But we have other things to worry about, one girl had her laptop stolen and a picture poster has been stolen from one of our academic buildings. If people weren't already freaked out about the thefts of the two guys, they're worrying now. Strange coincidence. But at this point I'm wondering how someone can steal a picture poster and not be seen with it. I mean, this poster is so big it'd be hard to miss someone carrying it around somewhere. The next two weeks are filled with me trying to get to as many meetings that have been scheduled for us seniors and getting my two papers done as early as possible. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter. I went for a meeting with my advisor today and...I'm officially the test case of a potential upcoming program called 'Hollins Hire'. Basically they're going to get your directly into contact with alumni to help you get into the career field you want, rather than have you apply around and hope you get a job. Plus it's hard to reach and alumni in the specific field you want to go into if you don't know where to start.
So, I'm the official test case. I submitted my resume as well as a cover letter to a panel of Hollins alumni (that President Gray will deliver to them in Philadelphia herself) and see where things go from there. I'm nervous for it. On one hand, I could get into the career path I really want through alumni, or go into a different sort of career but still have their support. I don't know what's going to happen until they get back from the meeting this week. So keep your fingers crossed. Oh and I didn't have class today and finally managed to play the song I've been having trouble with, (almost) perfectly. For a Monday, today was very good. :) I've had a really good week. Especially Wednesday where I was, finally, able to play a song that I've had trouble with on the marimba with little to no mistakes. It's one of our harder songs, Rudolph thought we should do it because most of the people that are participating in the World Music ensemble have been working on this stuff for over two years now so we needed to increase the difficulty of our songs. I was frustrated at first because I'm usually able to play the song without having to try too hard and it was really kicking my butt. But now I know what I was doing wrong, so things can only improve from there.
And that's why I'm happy about Thursday as well. My bass lesson went better than ever and I think I can say that I enjoy the bass a lot more than the electric/acoustic guitar though I just love the guitar in general. For the first time I was able to figure out the chords/notes for three of my favorite songs by my ear alone. My instructor said that I'm very good at figuring out how to play by ear, especially with the lower notes, and he was impressed hat I was able to figure out three songs in two weeks' time. Now I'm going to try some more to see how well I do with those. Of course not everything I write down in tabs is perfect, there's always a few notes that are off here and there, but I haven't felt that iI really knew what I was doing until then and it makes me excited to keep practicing as much as possible. Yesterday was Friday and it was Gold and Greenway Day. The whole campus had a day off, to go hiking and to have a cookout and play field games. AND my sisters and I went and saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I'm not going to spoil anything, but it was amazing. The previews were great and now we have it planned to see The Amazing Spider-man 2 and X-men: Days of Future Past. The best thing is that they're opening relatively close to each other so we don't have long to wait. To round things off, today was a literary festival at school with a couple of poets and novelists coming to campus to do some readings. It was pretty cool, they were able to give me some insight to improve my writing just by listening to what they had written. Here's the part that I really wanted to talk about. With graduation coming up and everyone figuring out what they want to do once we leave university, I feel like the one person that doesn't know. I'm currently looking for a job that can start my career but at the same time, I've thought of something else I may was to pursue. Public Relations. It would take in a lot of different aspects of myself that I think I have strong instances of. I like to write and be creative, I'm outgoing and like to talk to people, I like to design things, and I have instances where I can think critically and analytically (as my major in English has taught me to do) and I think it's a career path I could really shine in. All in all, things have been good lately and they can only get better. So being senior you already get a lot of perks, (You should hear what we're doing for senior week), along with the responsibility that's put on you. And with senior beek being a perk, not having to worry about housing agreements, room reports, and overall preparing for net year at this school it also gives you new opportunities.
For example, my sisters and I, and some other seniors are being featured for a song during the front quad concert where we're playing along with our school's choral director as she sings. And all of the seniors (all of them this time) are also playing a song together as a 'one last hurrah' thing. This is the exciting part. During our Monday rehearsal (for the song we're working on with our choral instructor) Professor Rudolph asked if my sisters and I were available to represent Hollins at an African American music festival by playing a song on the marimbas. It works out perfectly because with the four of us we'd each be playing a different part (soprano, alto, tenor, and bass) so all four parts would be heard. Sure, we all usually play soprano and we'd have to quickly learn new parts, but it sounds really fun. Besides, I'm sure everyone would get a kick out of watching quadruplets perform and I think that may have a tiny bit to do with it as well since Rudolph has been pitching that idea since all four of us joined. Otherwise some other good things have happened, a class was cancelled tomorrow, I have a bass lesson tomorrow (yay!), a man that works in physical plant is giving me some more studded belts, the weather is warm, I've been getting good grades, and I'm just finding myself to be happy about a lot of things that are going on. Hopefully things stay like this so I don't get too stressed around exams. I can only hope. So it's Spring Break, finally. Don't get me started on how much we wanted it. Almost everyone I talked to said they wanted this break so badly. Though more often than not they just want the year to be over. And you know it's coming considering how many FB statuses there are about people getting into grad school.
Am I going to grad school? Maybe. There's an completely online MLIS program (Master's of Library Sciences) that I'm thinking of applying to at San Jose State university. I'm already taking a class online and it's actually really easy to keep up with. I just don't want to have to sit in a classroom and be lectured every day which is why having the program online is better for me. Especially beacuse I can work it around my schedule. I just need to have someone get back to me on whether or not it's a legit thing before I do apply so I don't get scammed out of it. And that way I can still have/get a job, which is also what I'm really pushing with during this Spring Break. I've found a few internships, still haven't applied yet, but I've applied to a few work places. Other than that I've been working on a couple of books, two that would be a series with Mere, one that's another series the four of us would work on together, and one that I'm doing myself. The one I'm doing myself I had started in last year's Advanced Creative Writing Class and while I'm currently putting it on hold I'm excited to see how it'll end up. We have the whole week to figure things out with our books as well as with jobs and with what we plan to do after graduation, so hopefully there's an update with that soon. *Quote is credited to Steph |
About Me
Loves anything red. Rock music, playing the guitar, drawing, writing, tattoos, and sports are some of my interests and hobbies. I like to laugh, I like to think I'm funny. I talk a lot...just a warning. Archives
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