Note to self, call home more.
Though I really wouldn’t know what to talk about considering I only have classes three days a week. Compared to undergrad where I had a class every day, not much happens to talk about. But that brings me up to the pint of this blog, which is something I’ve been thinking about for a while: How do you make friends in grad school? At Hollins I had my friends from specific classes, friends from World Music, and friends that I hung out with outside of classes; not including the friends I saw whenever I got home for holidays and breaks. But here, making friends is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Not that I find it hard to talk to people, I’ve always been good at that and still find it hard to stop talking when I’m with people, it’s everything else that’s hard. I’m one of the few people that are doing their first semester of grad school ever, but I’m the only one that hasn’t attended ODU or taken similar classes at all. Except for, maybe, three people, everyone around me is older (in their thirties and higher), but they all know each other due to having been in the same classes before or working in the same places. I’m the only one that’s brand spanking new and while I’m friendly with people I don’t really know how to become friends with them. It mostly stems from the fact that we only have class once a week and other than that we all have our own lives. If I’m not in class, I’m working; on novels, stories, my graduate research work, as well as working on Sº4 Magazine. Even then, my program has a collective dinner every Tuesday night at different restaurants around the area and I go to those every Tuesday, engage in as much conversation as I can, and still feel like I’m the odd one out. Maybe it’s because I’m used to going to smaller places in the private schools I’ve attended. Maybe it’s because I’m still not used to Norfolk yet (though I can tell you that with the other drivers around here I’ve managed to get very quick reflexes when driving). I don’t know. If there’s a special formula for this, I’m all ears.
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Let me start off my blog with a question for you guys; have you ever watched TV for a homework assignment?
*Raises hand* Of course, I have. If you’ve been following my blog since the start, you’d know that I was in a J-Term class called “Writing the Television Sitcom” so I watched a LOT of TV. Mostly 2 Broke Girls, which I ended up writing a script for. Now, I thought it would be the only time I would have the privilege of being able to watch TV for homework. Guess again! *Throws confetti while spinning in a quick circle* For my Com 602 class, I got to watch an episode of Storage Wars and write a blog post about how it pertains to capitalism. (And let me tell you, that was a good blog post, even if I do say so myself. I wont know what grade I’ll get on it later). Enough about that, I’m excited to be able to watch Storage Wars for homework. You know why? Mostly because I love that show. I had seen it once before while channel surfing and had found myself enthralled with it. It’s really fascinating, people auctioning off storage units that hadn’t had their bills paid and then making money off of the items that are inside. Or, trying to, anyway. Now, I would be even happier if it was that I was instructed to watch Chicago Fire or Chicago PD as one of my homework assignments. Especially tomorrow and Wednesday as the new seasons start and I’m going to be missing the first half of each one because we’re going to be driving back from campus at that point. Curse you really short stoplight coming off campus!! *shakes fist*. But that brings me to my second point. The MTV show, Catfish. I’m sure many people have heard of it at this point. Catfishing is when you create a profile or account of some website online and pretend to be someone else for your own personal gain or because you feel the person you’re talking to wouldn’t enjoy the real you. I enjoy that show as well. So much, that I’m going to be writing a paper on it. A 20 page paper. Yes, for my Com 603 class we’re talking about social change. As soon as Catfishing became a thing, or else that it got a name for it in the online realm, it would commonly be known as a con artist in the real world, it created a lot of social change. Not only were people even more cautious online, but they’ve now gone to start researching people they talk to online as well as checking the validity of what is said to them. I’m going to be looking through scholarly journals, databases, and other websites I can find about con artists and adapting it to Catfishing and will write a paper and present a presentation on it. The only reason that I’m studying con artists is because Catfishing is still relatively new, so there wouldn’t be any articles directly on the topic. But I’m excited to start the paper and see how it adapts. This semester in all three of my classes, I have nothing but papers. My first class has two short papers, one long paper, and then a final exam (which is an even longer paper), my second class has an 18-25 page paper that I am to write, and my third class has a 20 page paper that I have to write. (There’s some leeway to the paper for my third class, however). I’m going to be writing papers until I die, at this point but the topics are pretty interesting. The ONLY complaint I have is that I have to write in APA style. I dislike APA almost as much as I dislike Chicago/Turabian style. And allll of my papers have to be in this style. Thankfully I can adapt pretty well and I’ll write enough of them so that I get enough practice, but if I had my choice, MLA is the way to go. *Fist pumps*. So, I’m going to be very busy getting research and writing done, especially as these are going to be the longest papers I’ve ever written. But I’m excited to see how they come about. Also, on my first assignment for my first class, I got an ‘A’! So there’s that for motivation! :) 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. 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 People that know my sisters and I well know that we like to draw as much as we like to write. And while I haven't done it a lot in the past couple of months, I just picked it up again. So the first thing I drew is Mack's character Crystal. My process for drawing is I hand draw the piece first, take a picture of it/scan it to my computer, do a line-art in paint, and then color and shade and do the background on pixlr.com. I'm going to do Mere's and Steph's characters next and then mine. I hope you guys liked it. -Peace I never really liked to compete with my peers over anything, in fact I always found it stupid. Some compete over grades, some compete over being the best on a sports team, some compete over how many extracurricular activities they could join and I didn't particularly find the point in being so competitive about it. Now I under stand it a bit.
I'm so frustrated because it seems like everyone around me is able to get a job or some sort of internship or something. I can't get a interview to save me life. I've had phone interviews before, otherwise I've had people try to help me get something and after that, I heard nothing back. We had gotten into contact with Ellen Goldstein-Vein (our commencement speaker who is a Hollins alumn, owner of the Gotham Group production company in LA) about our books as well as some screenwriting we have done and sent off samples and have heard nothing back from that, though we have sent in a few follow up e-mails. And how long do you think you should try to contact a company for employment before you give up? I have been trying to work with Vans (the shoe and skate clothing brand out in California) ever since I heard about their summer internship opportunities. I applied to those and got rejected from each of them. I tried sending them messages explaining how much I know about the company and how my resume doesn't reflect why I'm a great person to work for them. Didn't get a response. I tried contacting their customer service and they gave me the number for HR. I called them twice to talk to someone about employment and got voicemail both times, left a message both times and still haven't gotten a response. I applies to work in the Vans stores (one in Tyson's the other down in Norfolk) and haven't heard anything from those either. I'm sure everyone has felt this way at some point or another, but it's really starting to get to me. So if anyone knows anyone in Screenwriting/Film/TV, Publishing/Editing, technical writing, extreme sports, fitness/running, or if anyone even needs a receptionist, please let me know. As much as I love my free time, I enjoy working as well. How many other people can say that? *Side note: thank you to everyone that has tried to help so far, even if it didn't work out. Just offering to be a connection is helpful. Well, I haven't written a blog post in a while and it's because I'm not sure what to say. I mean, by now everyone knows that we graduated and it was really cool to have my family there to celebrate it with us. A lot of people were surprised with how many we had there, but my immediate family is eight people and then adding in a few more and you already have a lot of people. But that was fun.
A lot of people enjoyed the article with the Roanoke Times we did that came out the day before commencement and we even got recognized at our local mall because of it recently. The woman even said that we're '[insert hometown here]'s local celebrities'. Not wanting to have a big ego I tried hard not to laugh at it because if that were the case, I'm sure we've been 'local celebrities' for years even before we graduated high school. Now all we're doing is starting summer, getting ready for Steph going off to her internship over the summer, Mere going to ODU over the summer and...trying to find a job. That's what's really frustrating to me. I see so many of my peers getting interviews and whatnot and even when I was in college I couldn't get an interview or a internship to save my life. Recently I've done a bunch of phone interviews (mostly because I wasn't home around the time to do a interview where I went in) and have been turned down from basically every job I've applied to. I'm waiting to hear back from some more before I start out again but it's very discouraging and scaring me. Especially considering I don't want to live at home for a long time trying to find something and I don't know if it's me or what that's not getting me hired. Like I said, I can get to the initial interview portion otherwise they just look at my resume and don't talk to me to see what sort of thing I know about the company or how much interest I have in what the company is about before they tell me 'no'. Thankfully I got the phone number to the HR department of a place I'd really like to work...and have no idea what to say when I call them. At this point I'm trying not to compare myself to my peers so much but it's really getting daunting and frustrating and I'm practically screaming at the sky 'can at least one person just give me an interview/hire me?!'. I'm sure everyone's felt that at one point and it's like my Mom, Dad, and brother say, all I have to do is wait for one 'yes' and that's it. But I've never been a person that was very patient. I guess that's just my energetic personality getting the best of We had an interview with the Roanoke Times today and it should be coming out the day we graduate. We're used to them at this point but it's still so much fun to talk to
Exam week started today and I think they're really trying to roll out the comfort food in the dining hall because today for the first time all year we got chicken nuggets. And everyone was excited. You know things are stressful when people get excited over chicken nuggets. Anyway, right, first exam was tonight. Mine was easy, took only an hour to do. PROBLEM WAS that it was a loooooong essay I had to handwrite. I can handwrite stories with no problems but as soon as I have to handwrite an exam, my hand cramps up like crazy. And it cramped badly during this exam, but I think I did well. I used up my whole blue book (because I refuse to get more than one) and because I can write pretty small in them so that means I can write more in one. Take that teachers that say that you can't only write an exam in one blue book! Anyway, I have one more exam to do in the morning at 9 AM and that's it for me. I'm done with everything and so far one of my grades came in and its an A!! Woot woot, great start for me. Happy Mother's Day one and all.
Usually we're not able to spend/celebrate Mother's Day with our Mom because it's too close to exams for us to be able to take the time off and go home. This year it was different because our Dad came home from Afghanistan on Saturday and it was Mother's Day today so we figured why not come home and see both of our parents? And we did. It was perfect. We made a banner for Dad to welcome him back home after six months away, and then on the flipside we made a giant banner for Mom for mother's day as well as a Hallmark card. (We didn't check to see if they made a Hoops and YoYo one...though nothing can beat that laughing cow we got her one year). Unfortunately we had to leave to come back to school so our celebration with Mom was cut short. So I guess we kinda did a double celebration last night. Well, tomorrow and Tuesday are our last day of classes (tomorrow for Steph and Mere) and then all we have left is exams, senior week, and graduation. So...cross your fingers that we make it. 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. |
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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