#i really thought i'd be fine in grad school because i had *experience* as a professional

[crowleyanthonys]

Sending emails back in the day when a large percentage of my job was sending emails was a pain, but it became manageable. Networking and setting up meetings became easier after a while.

Now, five years later...it's torture. I've been trying to just draft four emails all day and I just can't. What the fuck happened???

[rhysiana]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @hmslusitania!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

96, somehow (some of them are ficlets preserved for posterity, so there should probably be more, if I remembered to move some more things from here)

2. What’s your total word count on AO3?

342,331

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Most actively at this exact moment, kpop rpf (ATEEZ and SHINee), but all but one thing in this category is a WIP I haven't posted yet. But I also have a Devil Judge AU I *really* want to write, if my writing brain picks back up properly.

4. Top five fics by kudos

This is hilariously skewed to Teen Wolf just by virtue of the size of the fandom, I don't actually think these are the fics I'm most known for, but:

-The (un)Usual? -Can I...? -Derek from the Club -You Give Me Butterflies -Rebalance

*Bonus content, least amount of kudos (because it is one of two fics for the entire fandom):

-This Would Be Enough

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably "In Love with Ghosts," a character study about Lan Xichen and Song Lan have to deal with being left behind in the world of the living

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I write so much fluff, I'm sure this is very subjective, but I think the one that makes *me* the happiest is the 2-part Petopher series Silver & Gold, because the middle-aged second-chance romance of them finally getting everything they've ever wanted was written to cater exactly to me.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, but I do have a hilarious bookmark saying one of my rare M-rated fics should be a G (????)

9. Do you write smut?

Related to the above answer, not really. I collab for smut very happily, but I spent several years in my irl career copy editing for a self-published romance writer who was very prolific but not great at keeping characterization consistent in sex scenes and it kind of burned me out on thinking through such scenarios for my own hobby purposes. That said, I do keep writing things that toe closer and closer to the line, so. Perhaps I am recovering from the trauma.

10. Craziest crossover?

Uh, I'm pretty sure that would be the Kent Parson/Derek Hale thing I wrote here as penance for being a vector of cross-fandom Derek confusion, but I don't think that ever got moved over to AO3. The funniest AU that's almost but not quite a crossover was the Wenzhou AU ("Persistence Pays Off") I wrote that started from the premise of Senpai, Don't You Know?, which is a niche enough reference that I'm probably the only one who understands how hilarious the mismatch is.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes! Several times, it's very fun.

14. All time favourite ship?

You want me to choose??? Nurseydex, for the sheer power they had over my brain for so long, and Petopher, for being such tired Actual Adults

15. What’s a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I really want to finish Bull City Blues, but my brain started avoiding working on it hardcore because it was bringing up all my own bad grad school experiences, so I'm stuck here with most of the end written but not the ability to push through the middle, and I deeply apologize for that. I keep hoping I'll come up with a way around it, just so I can post the end, finally.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue (where I mentally always start) and descriptions of specific imagery (because I see scenes like movies in my head)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Plot. (Longfic who? I don't know her.)

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

It's fine? If I ever wrote a long enough passage in not-English that it wasn't apparent from context, I'd have the translation in footnotes/hovertext, but it hasn't come up yet. Since so many of the fandoms I've written in recently have been non-English, I do sometimes have the dialogue in my head running in two languages simultaneously, but I tend to just write it all in English for ease of reading.

19. First fandom you wrote in?

Like, to be posted on the internet? Check, Please! Ever? I genuinely could not tell you.

20. Fave fics you’ve written?

-Petals & Thorns (Nurseydex pop punk star/florist AU series)

-Silver & Gold (Petopher rock star/lawyer second-chance romance)

-This Would Be Enough (Atom no Ko post-canon, the ace-est thing I've written so far)

-Fragments of a Life Lived in Dreams (Nirvana in Fire dreamsharing AU)

Ngl, I reread all my own fics regularly, but these are probably some of the most reread ones.

Tagging: anyone who wants to play! (but especially @annundriel, @cobrilee, and @gendzl, if you want)

[zipstidbits]

You're starting your astrophysics PhD? That's so cool do you mind talking about it, what you studied up to this point, why you chose the field, stuff like that? You don't have to ofc but I'd love to hear!! (⁠✿⁠^⁠‿⁠^⁠)

hey!!! :)))

thank you so much for the ask!!! i'm always happy to talk about this stuff :)))

why i chose the field:

a little bit ago i got asked why i chose to study astrophysics and i gave a very long answer here. the tldr of it is i really want to understand the world around me and there are so many cool and unknown things going on in space and i want to learn about it all, lmao

what i studied in high school:

at this point, i had a vague idea that i either wanted to major in creative writing or physics when i got to college so i took courses that would prep me for whichever one i chose

i took both AP Physics I and II and i took the most advanced math classes that were offered to me at each grade level. i was also incredibly lucky to have a free spot in my schedule the one year an astrophysics course was offered, so i took that as well!

otherwise, i worked through the standard subjects that were required for me to graduate and i definitely overdid it with how many AP classes i took. they helped a lot in college but i would've been just as fine if i had taken less

what i studied in college:

i got a BS in physics during my undergrad :)

i chose to just major in physics and not astrophysics because i kind of thought i might like particle physics and wanted to give myself wiggle room to change my mind. (spoiler: i didn't end up liking quantum/particle physics because the math required for quantum mechanics is fucked up and the bane of my existence ;-;)

i obviously fulfilled all my degree requirements, lmao, and that included some humanities and social science courses as well as a couple of physics classes in each "core" area of physics (mechanics, electricity and magnetism, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics). i also took whatever math classes were required for the higher-level physics courses i wanted to take.

i ended up with a lot of extra room in my schedule. this was from both the AP credits i earned in high school and the fact that i would only take the first class in each physics sequence (so i took classical mechanics I but not classical mechanics II) and since i went to a school with quarters instead of semesters, this meant i was only really getting half the information in each subject. (again, i would not recommend doing this bc i would've been just as fine doing less/taking more time to do things fully.)

however, this extra room did allow me to take all of the astrophysics elective courses offered by my college and start taking grad classes my senior year. my senior thesis was also an astrophysics-related project.

after i graduated with my BS, i took another year to finish my MS in physics (which i just graduated with like a week ago!!!)

some non-course related stuff that is just as important imo:

aside from studying, i did get some project/research experience in via my senior thesis and working in a photonics lab starting the summer between my BS and MS. i was also a teaching assistant this past academic year.

i think these experiences were just as helpful as my academics in preparing me for a PhD and getting accepted into a program, lmao

thank you again for the ask, friend <33333 if there's anything in here you want me to talk more about or if i maybe missed something, let me know!!!!

[peregrineggsandham]

Current therapy/psychiatric experiences tally:

People who listen, believe me, let me finish my sentences, are not condescending, aren't bizarrely confrontational: -nice lady who compared me to her son and wasn't weird about it when I couldn't talk clearly during her sessions -intake dude I met one (1) time -grad student who seems to actually give a shit, 10/10

Other: -child psych with the flies -college Freud dude I met one (1) time -Dr. Phil <- actual name -new psychiatrist lady who seems to think that because I am a PhD student I am not actually struggling much at all

I almost don't want to bother anymore. I'm so tired of having to explain myself. I'm so tired of my decade+ of finely-tuned coping mechanisms that allow me to productively function in society apparently being proof that I'm fine. Yes I am in graduate school. Why does this preclude me from having something neurologically wrong going on.

In my second session with grad student dude I brought up the temporary aphasia and the sensory issues. I will never, ever bring it up with new psych lady. Wish I'd thought of making up a fake childhood so they stop getting distracted by All Of That. Yes, it's relevant. Sure. Please let's focus on the issues I have currently. Obviously the Weirdness had an effect. It was not the only factor. Please move on. For the love of god I am not explaining the social mechanisms of the Eastern Caribbean Liveaboard Sailing Community to you, please just trust me, I had friends.

It's like... have you ever had a therapist who, when you express discomfort around them, insists that it's because something they said is making you reflect on yourself in a way you don't like and are trying to avoid? And then you do the self-reflection and realize, no, actually, that's a valid possibility to propose but in the particular case, I am uncomfortable because you are not listening to me.

We're meeting again next month, I guess. I don't really care. Grad student dude is lovely but he's not the one able to actually prescribe things, or decide whether I need them. I just want my brain to work, damn it. I just want to be believed when I say it doesn't.

When I asked "Can you define avoidance?" I am not being difficult! I am not trying to deny that I avoid things! I am asking! For! A definition! There are no secret layers to my words!

Why was she so irritated that I described trying to function as thinking through soup? Why did she keep making broad sweeping statements about me making broad sweeping statements (saying "You're using constant hyperbole" when I said "everything" instead of "most things" one (1) time. once. one time). It's like she was looking for a reason to say I was being difficult. I'm so tired. I'm so, so tired.

I'll see her again. Who knows, maybe she'll be better next time, I think I'm not paying for it through the university. I think. She seems convinced I have anxiety, I really don't think I do, but if she tries to put me on anti-anxiety meds I'll just explain (again, again, again) that the only reason I get anything done is by weaponizing deadline pressure to push past the Wall of Fog, and I'm not risking jeopardizing that before my disseration is finished.

I'm sorry I didn't convince her enough that I was debilitatingly distractible. I guess I'll try again in April.

[luthienne]

i wish i had something to believe in and i wish someone would show me. if its not too much to ask id be grateful if you had any words, one is fine too, about the loss of faith? ive seen a lot of grief connected to the experience so if u had any about grief id love to look through it too. regardless, thank you, seeing ur icon on my dash always makes life seem beautiful <3 have a wonderful day

god i've felt these words in my heart so many times. when i was growing up i felt so certain of so many things. of god and god's role in my life, of the redeeming power of love, of who i thought i was, of who the people around me were supposed to be, of how my life was supposed to go, how it was supposed to turn out. i remember having a conversation with one of my colleagues in grad school about faith and the loss of it. he apologized to me when i told him i didn't have that same faith i used to have. i said it is what it is. he pointed out that it was still a loss. it's all connected to grief because it is a loss. how we view the loss though? at that time my loss of faith was connected to a separate hurt that pervaded all other areas of my life. but the truth is that i think my view of faith was simplistic growing up. all my young life i'd been told that my voice was a gift from god. i wrapped my entire identity around my singing. when i lost the desire to sing, it felt like i'd lost myself, like i'd lost everything. if there was a god, i felt abandoned. but i'd also been through some things that made me question who i was. i didn't respond to the events in my life the way i'd believed i would. i wasn't who i thought i was. the people around me weren't who i thought they were. for a period of time, i really lost faith in others as much as i lost faith in myself. since then i've discovered what i do have faith in: i have faith that we're all trying our best, that mostly we all want to do more good than harm; i believe deeply in believing the best in and of each other, of extending the grace to each other to make mistakes and try again and do better. i really do believe in what nikki giovanni said:

but regarding the loss of faith, i always think of that louise glück poem, "october":

and that scene from fleabag:

a few more excerpts that remind me of this kind of grief:

"But faith ebbed away from me gradually, the way illnesses sometimes ebb away, and one day you tell yourself that you are well. The illness no longer finds any foothold in you. That is how it was with my faith. What foothold could it still have found in me?"

— Christa Wolf, Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays (tr. Jan van Heurck)

“I wake with my hand held over the place of grief in my body. / ‘Depend on nothing,’ the voice advises, but even that is useless. / My ears are useless, my familiar and intimate tongue. / My protecting hand is useless, that wants to hold the single leaf to the tree / and say, Not this one, this one will be saved.”

— Jane Hirshfield, After; “One Sand Grain Among the Others in Winter Wind”

— Carl Phillips, from “Hymn”

“Imagine three days of God / gone missing. Now, / imagine my lifetime of it.”

— Airea D. Matthews, “Sexton Texts a Backslider after Breaking Lent,” Simulacra

— Franz Wright, Out of Delusion, from his collection Wheeling Motel

"…and I am on my knees asking / for permission to doubt again."

— Traci Brimhall, from Our Lady of the Ruins; “Revelation”

— Kaveh Akbar, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, ‘Tassiopeia’

[realtalk-princeton]

To Maybach -- Anon 2023 again. Honestly, my other major option is Brown (and Penn, but that's out by now) and I'm concerned that I'd be sacrificing happiness if I choose Pton. "Happy" is a part of the Brown brand, whereas "ahhhhh" seems to be a part of Pton's. I want the name and the opportunities Pton would afford me. I suppose that's not a question, but how would you respond? Do you understand what I mean? Is it so awful to pick Pton 4 name/opportunity (in addition to the other stuff)

Sorry for the delay everyone, I just got caught up in a lot of obligations. Due to multiple popular demands from both pre-frosh and current students, I decided to structure my Brown and Princeton story in the following manner. In the first section, I’ll give my background context prior to starting college and my feelings throughout the years on the subject. In the second section, I’ll specifically address the above question in more detail with my many thoughts on key distinctions between the two schools. I think the combination will serve the purposes of everyone quite nicely. Lastly, if any pre-frosh ever want to talk to me, feel free to reach out and ask for my contact information. Or even better yet lol, I just remembered that PREVIEW started, so I guess it might be easier to just talk in person to me. I actually don’t even have class tomorrow haha. I just think that talking is sometimes easier than writing and also in these responses sometimes I have to speculate. For example, I can pretty safely state that if a pre-frosh is almost certain of being a pre-med, Brown is probably going to be a much less stressful experience, but I have no idea if this applies to you beforehand.

So anyway, even though it was four years ago, I still remember it like it was yesterday. Boy time flies. I was not the most studios or stand-out HS student. I wasn’t the valedictorian or salutatorian of a rather small school far away from major cities. While some Princetonian HS students spent summer doing lab research at universities, I spent mine goofing off with friends and traveling. We used to actually have a bonfire at the end of the school year and burned stacks of our HW up to 4 feet high lol. When it came to applying to college, I did not actually even again acceptance to NYU or BC lol even though my stats were more than up to par. I guess maybe they were concerned that I wouldn’t be a very hard-working student. Luckily, I am very fortunate that despite coming from an extremely educated family (grandfather and mom went to Columbia, Dad went to Berkeley, etc.), my parents never put that much pressure on me. So as you can imagine, I was super excited when I heard that I got into Princeton, Brown, Cornell, and some other schools. For a period of time, I was actually getting ready to go to Brown. My SO at the time had committed to URI and I was psyched by the super expressive culture of Brown. Students prided themselves on being true to themselves and also took full advantage of freedom with responsibility. The location was close enough to NYC and some kids from my HS were already there. I always hated excessive structure and authority growing up and the prospect of 70%’s A’s granted, no +/I’s, and pass/failing anything was totally alluring! On a side note, I always laugh when they say that people don’t abuse pass/fail and use it only like 10-15% of the time. Well, maybe that’s because they’re already handing out A’s like it’s water and all A-’s become A’s haha. But anyway, I was psyched. Who wouldn’t want to live at camp Brown and take it easier than HS, but still be guaranteed a legit degree on your resume? However, after I visited Princeton, connected with a large number of alumni, and actually started putting real thought into my education, my perspectives slowly, but surely started to change. I think what I really underestimated was the power of the Princeton degree and how impressive our alumni network truly is. The people I met and still meet to this day are absolutely brilliant in several respects (e.g. they aren’t just nerds in one subject) and many are focused on maximizing their impact and allocation of influence in this world. The alumni donation rate is nothing short of incredible and the chance to be part of this network was alluring. I remember meeting a guy actually who got waitlisted and was already attending Duke when he got the chance to go to Princeton. He lived every moment to the fullest with his academic pursuits, the social network of brilliant, but diverse persons, and solid career plans. Anyway, it just became more clear to me over time that while Princeton was rigorous, it’s academic qualities could be much more intimate and engaged than Brown and the intellectual horsepower of its students (mostly) created truly incredible and impactful people. Jeez lol I forget sometimes how many alumni we have on the SC, in politics, business, arts, etc. At Brown, all they do is gush over Emma Watson in an almost cult-like way (sarcasm). But anyway, I was getting pushed as you can imagine, but I was still worried as I wasn’t the best HS student and grade deflation had literally only ended the year before. But eventually, the offer was just too good to pass up. Once you become a Princeton student, your life truly does change and people will treat you give you credit solely based on this fact (whether it’s right or wrong is another story). I remember before I even committed, I was hanging out at the Princeton Club in New York and a few days later some of the guys (who literally knew me for like a few days), invited me out and basically paid of lunch at Smith and Wollensky and lauded me on my “accomplishments” lol and how they could always be resources to bolster a Princetonian. Pretty soon after I committed.

As for answering your specific question, I’m already seeing red flags. Whenever you choose a school for the name, that’s setting yourself up for a bad time. Yes, our opportunities are better. Look at the difference in endowments lol. It’s like that for a reason even though they have way more students and more grad schools. It’s also reflected as well in our post-graduation salary averages. Brown is more creative with RISD and it’s curriculum, but that doesn’t always equal more opportunities. Princeton has the most power and resources of any university on a per-student basis and gives us an incredibly powerful brand and network. That said, you should probably explore why you want to go to Princeton other than the name and brand. One of the miserable people I know picked Princeton over another school because it was the “Best” school she got into and that’s just not fun when you didn’t research enough beforehand. By contrast, I know someone who turned down Harvard for a small liberal arts school in the middle of nowhere and she had an amazing time. If you feel like and click with Brown’s social scene, that’s another reason for not going to Princeton. Academically, Princeton is better for people who want rigor and want to truly maximize their learning in a short period of time and be around amazing minds. Our depth is much better than Brown’s and it shows with how strong our students are in critical thinking skills both inside and outside of their majors. However, there is a downside to this. For example, if you want to major in physics at Princeton, you better adapt fast or be damn good at it. You can’t just “love” physics and be relatively bad at it (compared to your peers) to succeed here because we teach you to be the best students possible from professors who literally wrote your book. At Brown, sure you don’t learn as much or go as deep, but you can major in almost anything because you just aren’t held to the same standards. So there’s a tradeoff. If I majored in Brown’s business program, let me just say that I would not NEARLY be perceived by others to be so intelligent (even though I’m not lol). I know the kids in the degree, it’s not like they are dumb, but jeez lol is it a joke a bunch of the time. Relating sociology to business for example on the surface can seem like a good idea that teaches people until you actually see what they’re writing and working on. I would probably have a 4.0 without working as hard too. And I don’t mean this to mean I’m like super smart or anything. It’s just not comparable to Princeton. However, I am super blessed and thankful that I did take Economics here seriously. The kinds of critical thinking skills and the ability to analytically dissect complex multi-faceted problems that I have developed serve me very well and I feel so rewarded. I literally got a position at a hedge fund with no experience at all because the interviewer liked how I wrote a research paper on guns an applied rigorous statistical analysis in many novel ways to answer new questions. This is no different in many ways than using public information using novel techniques to find value where nobody else sees it. But overall, I think that I’m feeling Brown for you unless you are willing to work harder here for greater depth of learning. I just want to say too though that despite me working hard, I still don’t pull-allnighters almost ever and I still have achieved very high grades. You don’t have to be a genius to do well here. Take it from me. I had piss-poor test scores (by Princeton standards) and was not a valedictorian, but if you are strategic and work reasonably hard and are disciplined, the work is more than doable. I don’t want to brag because I think it promotes bad culture, but you ought to know that a student like me can succeed academically and perform at the top of their class without working in the library all the time. So you should really evaluate what kind of learning experience you want and where you will be most likely to be happy and healthy. Some people just want a break after HS and don’t care about going super deep into their learning development. That’s totally fine, but then Brown is probably better (assuming you also like the culture). Some people would really abuse Brown’s system, not really learn, develop unhealthy and bad habits, and be kind of bored. In that case, Princeton is better. It really depends on you, but if all you see here for you is a name, you’re probably shooting yourself in the foot coming here.

Anyway hope that all helps. I can answer specifics if you have them too.

Edit. also I realized how long this all is and noticed that maybe some of you should just call me or I can connect you with people I know who love Brown lol. It’s sometimes harder to write these things and express everything properly compared to like a 30-minute dinner conservasation. Just putting it out there. I’m also exhausted lol from staying up until 4am the past few nights for this huge deal coming up. I did this tonight so that I wouldn’t mess up my sleep schedule any further and avoid taking a nap lol.

[thisnerdsadventures]

a summer to remember

hello friends, i definitely just abandoned this whole blog, now didn't i

well i am happy to report that i am still alive, and am thriving!

Here's a rundown of everything that has been going on:

[inserting a readmore because this is long af]

May

So in May, I was definitely just all over the place because I was 1) trying to finish a paper published in a conference!! it literally drove me insane. anyways, then i had to go and finish a 78 page thesis, which involved a really convoluted timeline because i had to finish it ~ a week before the actual deadline so my PI could read it over, but then i had to finish it a few days before THAT so my PhD supervisors could read it over, which meant that i had like one (1) week to write like. all of it.

Luckily I had most of the first half already written, during whatever shitshow April was (April was a lot of coding for the paper, and then not having time to write my thesis). But THEN i had to organize all the data from my own personal experiments, make figures, and draft the entire results section. AND i had like two final reports to do for my class, so my last weeks of academia looked like....

Of course, the day before my thesis was due, I pulled an all nighter, because, of course. What other way would I ever end my academic career. Submitted it though, and I graduated! [LINK TO MY THESIS]

Also! I got vaccinated and felt like death for a whole day, but then my friend came over and we ate fried chicken and watched this show called Miraculous, which is a kids show from France, but for some reason is actually hilarious and really entertaining. Then I felt better, so I proceeded to work on my thesis.

Also, I guess I should talk a little bit about the class I took this semester, which was an industrial organization economics class. We looked at things like how different markets are organized, why they are that way, what market concentration means, how mergers affect competition, and what kind of effect that may impose on consumers. For the final case study (which, I will say, I wrote like 2000 words in a single day, so . applause for me), I looked at the Nvidia-ARM merger and how that may or may not affect competition in the GPU market, the CPU market, and the mobile chip market. I think my analysis was a little bit more surface level, which was fine for me, since I'm by no means an economics expert or even remotely should have any expectations at all, but I read a lot and learned a lot and that's the goal!

So yes, my brief excursion into the field of economics was overall positive, I feel like I learned a lot and now I can read financial articles about the tech industry and not be completely lost, which, again, was the goal.

But yes, May was a lot of work, and once it wrapped up, I got to spend a lot of time with friends post-vaccination! After the 1 or 2 week mark after my second dose, I started going back to the gym, especially to play basketball with folks, which I had missed a lot. I spent a lot of time at my old dorm just hanging out, and got to have a cute salmon dinner over at my other friend's place. And we made cheesecake too.

June (MA->NY->MA->CA)

I finally went to visit my best friend in New York. I hadn't seen her in > 400 days, so it was really a very anticipated event, except we saw each other across the crosswalk, but then the light took like five minutes to turn green, so it was really anticlimactic. Anyways, we ended up bumming around New York and Long Island for a week, and it was nice to spend some time with her after such a long gap.

We spent a day at a vineyard and I fell asleep so

After getting back to Boston, my mom came back from Taiwan to help me move out of my apartment. It was a lot of finding people to sell things to, sweating because it was very hot that week, and praying everything would work out (it did). I also got to have a few final meals with various friends and my mom and I got to take one last lark down the Infinite, which I was really grateful for because it was the first time visitors got to go inside campus in over a year.

Also got into my school's MBA program! Yes i applied to a deferred program (which is like you get into a program, but you don't have to go for 2-5 years, as a way of getting in right after undergrad/grad school, but then accumulating some work experience first). It was hilarious, I was literally shopping in my campus store for a new sweatshirt and I got a phone call from the admissions office saying I got in. My mom had been pushing me to apply to grad programs, and I didn't tell her about it because I didn't know if I would actually follow through. But I got to surprise her with the news, and she was so happy she did the whole "calling all the relatives" thing again.

After flying home, I told myself I'd read more and exercise more, which I have been doing. I got a membership at Planet Fitness, which has been really good for me (going 3x a week), and I've made my way through at least 5 books this summer so far. My holds list at my local library is literally insane. (For recs, I recently read Normal People, which I absolutely devoured, and In the Dream House, which hit really hard for me.)

This summer was also really about reconnecting with high school friends. All three of us were unemployed, with plans to come in the fall, so we were all free to hang out all the time. We started out at the local library planning out a road trip, and we worked out a few times together, and a few coffee dates too. We took a fun day trip down to LA one day, and we visited Malibu, went to the Getty, hit up some local food places in the city. Driving down the PCH with Taylor Swift blaring and the windows down on a hot June day, just hits so different. There is nothing like it.

My friend's birthday was in June, so we put together a little video for her and bought some jewelry, and had a Zoom call to celebrate. Then I got BBQ with some friends and sat in the parking lot eating ice cream until 11 at night just trading stories from our pasts. It felt like the perfect summer life, just staying out until whenever, grabbing food wherever we wanted, with friends I had had for literally a whole decade.

It was already a really good summer, but then July. July was crazy.

July (CA -> MI -> CA -> NV -> CA -> WA -> OR -> CA)

So one Sunday morning, I woke up to a text

Actually, I'm going to do a separate post on the whole Michigan trip because that sh** was on another level of spontaneous, impulsive, crazy life stuff. But anyways, so July started off with a trip to Michigan to visit my friends, and then I came back for the 4th, had 36 hours of rest before my high school friends and I went on a road trip.

This road trip was a little ambitious. We hit spots all up California, from hiking in Sequoia Nat'l Park to Kings Canyon, driving up to Sacramento and visiting art museums, and then going up to Tahoe but staying in Nevada, going kayaking and hiking and sitting on the beach for hours. It was reallllllly hot, but luckily I don't think it ever broke 90 degrees. The views were beautiful, especially at Kings Canyon. The drive in, you're surrounded by huge rock walls, with a thin river rushing by next to you. The hike itself literally feels like you're in nature, like the trail is somewhat defined but not paved, there are no sounds of traffic, the path isn't heavily trafficked so we were the only ones there for the most part. We even saw a deer and washed our faces in the river. Throughout the whole thing, we climbed into so many waterfalls, trying not to slip on rocks.

I hadn't been to Sacramento in over a decade, but it was a cute day trip. There isn't a ton to do there, but it was a nice reprieve from the constant driving and nature. We visited the Leland Stanford Mansion, the Crocker Art Museum, and Old Town Sacramento. A good chance to get a nice coffee, a sit-down meal, and some air conditioning. At Tahoe, we went kayaking on Pope Beach, with the clearest water I have ever seen, followed up by a hike up to a beautiful view of the Lake.

On our way back, we stopped at a lot of interesting places, like small towns like Lee Vining, where we found an Upside Down House; Manzanar, the site of an old Japanese internment camp during the WWII era (which also hit hard); and Randsburg, a literal living ghost town. Overall, getting to travel with my friends finally was so fun, they were so much fun to be around for five days, and getting to explore so much of California was so fun - even though I'd been here for so long, I never knew these places existed.

So I came back and had around 48 hours to recover before my mom and I took a trip up to the Pacific Northwest!

I've always wanted to visit Seattle, and figured I'd hit Portland on the way too. We originally wanted to go to Hawaii but it got so expensive by the middle of the summer, so we decided to stay a little closer to home (probs the better decision bc I was already so tired by this point).

Seattle! Got to visit Pike Place Market many times, grab some coffee at the original Starbucks, see Mt. Rainier, and grab food with three friends! Also went to Bainbridge Island for a day which was SO cute - got to do an olive oil/balsamic vinegar tasting, which sounds so extra, but is actually really unexpectedly fun. At Starbs, I did a cold brew flight, which resulted in a rough night of tossing and turning for me, but I think it was worth it. Other things included the Pinball Museum, Space Needle, and Chihuly Glass Museum!

So I lowkey really wanted to visit Portland because I wanted to achieve a long-lasting dream of seeing an NWSL game in person. So I went to the Thorns Pride game!!

The Thorns fanbase is actually insane, I cannot express to you, like there's this whole fan section that actually did synchronized cheers and routines and was actually ROARING when they scored the entire game. I swear the audience was actually watching them at points instead of the match. Overall, the stadium was going crazy, like I thought I was at a tied Celtics-Bucks game with how loud it was in there. Also I swear, Ali Krieger made eye contact with me and waved.

In addition to that, Portland also has a huge rose garden, a nice Japanese tea garden, a lot of good donut stores and a huge bookstore, so all very up my alley. We also took a day trip to see Mt. Hood and more waterfalls!!

That's a summary of the SEA - PDX trip. Once I got home, my high school friends and I did not waste any time on reuniting to hang out - we went and played ball, grabbed lunch, and then coffee, and then did the same exact thing like two days later and watched a bunch of TikToks, and then spent a whole day at the beach to send my good friend off to medical school in Arizona. They somehow convinced me to go in the water and I got body checked by a wave.

Saw this sculpture on the beach and teared up a little

So proud of my friends for making it to med school, I am so excited to see them at their white coat ceremonies and beyond, I swear I will cry at every step of the way I'm so happy for them. Now that July is pretty much over, most of my fun summer plans are too, and I finally get a chance to catch my breath from that busy busy month. Spending a lot of time watching the Olympics and trying to muster up the motivation to start a fulltime job in < 1 month!!

Overall, I feel like I've been having a really solid summer given the year that was the covid year. I had a Lot of fun, literally probably two summers worth of fun consolidated into one. I think in the beginning of the year, I really wanted this summer to be good, and I didn't have a lot of set plans for the summer, even by the end of May. But somehow, things came together, like Really together, and I had the best summer of my life in this summer 2021. On top of that, I'm reading more than I have since probably middle school, I feel the most in shape that I ever have, I can DRIVE NOW. Only thing that would've made it better was if I got to go back to Taiwan to visit the fam, but unfortunately I can't go back because of strict travel restrictions there and they had a COVID outbreak too :/ I still got around 3.5 weeks of summer to go, so we'll see how the rest goes :)

[girlwithalessonplan]

I'd love your input on a grad school conundrum: I am a professional book editor and recently started my Master of Education in Literacy Education. I don't have any professional teaching experience (aside from tutoring ESL). When we introduced ourselves on the first day of class, I was the only non-teacher. A classmate scoffed and said (in front of everyone) "how did you even get INTO this program?" and I feel really out of place and judged. Any advice for surviving snooty teachers?

I really wonder if this is a grad school thing.  When I was getting my MA in English (as a working, full-time English teacher), there were people in my program who scoffed me because I wasn’t doing the program full time.  There were also people who thought I couldn’t handle in depth literature studies because that’s just “not done” in high school.  Like, they had no idea what it was like in high school even though they all went there.

That being said, when someone says that, you reply, “I got in the same way you did: I applied and qualified.”  

I don’t know where you plan on going with your Masters, but a background as an ESL tutor and book editor is a completely fine foundation for Literacy Education, and that’s an area that has a many opportunities outside the classroom.

You’ve threatened their bubble.  Have fun popping the shit out of it!