Readers who want to ask me any question and have it answered can comment on this post. I’ll be answering all questions on October 18!

The lovely Krissy has given me the Beautiful and Gorgeous Blogger Award. Similar to the Kreativ Blogger Award, I have to list 7 things people might find interesting and pass the award along to 7 bloggers¹. So, here we go!

7 Things People (May or May Not) Find Interesting

• I have a fear of being submerged in water. I dislike going to swimming pools, beaches, and taking baths as a result. I don’t even like hot tubs all that much!
• I dressed up as Sarah Palin last year for Halloween. My friend went as a pregnant Bristol Palin, using a towel tucked underneath her shirt to show a “baby bump.” Since we went trick-or-treating along Embassy Row in Washington, DC, there were some very interesting reactions to our costumes!
• My three favorite chocolate things are: Toblerone, Kinder, and Tim Tams. Give me any of those three and I’ll be a happy camper. And if you give me all of them, you might just be my favorite person forever.
• I have never had my hair highlighted or colored, and I don’t really see either happening in my future.
• I live in dorm housing on my school’s campus. I don’t mind it all that much except for times when neighbors are currently having very loud sex… like they are now.
• I’m allergic to 99% of all types of sunscreen.
• I have hyper-extended knees and elbows.

7 Blogs I Find Interesting²

• Alice @ Only Anne
• Amanda @ Jingwen
• Clem @ Oh Clementine
• Kaylee @ Reliquesce
• Meg @ Mekana
• Melody @ Bittersky
• Nadine @ Nadinerine

1. Pretend today is the Friday Seven instead of the usual Friday Five. [↩]
2. This list does not include Krissy as she is the one that gave me this award, but I do find her blog very interesting! [↩]

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

Readers who want to ask me any question and have it answered can comment on this post. I’ll be answering all questions on October 18!

It’s midterms this week for me, which means it’s a week of endless studying, writing papers, and not getting any sleep¹. I have something due every single day this week for my classes, and I also have a few work commitments that I need to keep up with. How on earth I am going to survive this week in one piece without failing any of my classes is beyond me… but either way, I have to at least attempt to get through my week of hell successfully.

The one thing that is keeping me going is that my roommate and I have planned a shopping adventure as soon as we are both done with all of our midterms this week. Nothing like retail therapy to motivate you to get through a week of exam hell!

1. It’s also why this entry is so short and rather vague – I really shouldn’t be blogging as I have SO much studying to do! [↩]

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

Ever since summer ended and the school year began, I’ve been insanely busy. I have a full course load, a part-time job, a web editor position, and a new job I start in roughly two weeks. This is just everything I have going on in my academic and work life – not that I have a lot going on in my personal and social life save for one major development, but it’s still a lot to handle!

I’ve decided that now is as good a time as any to start cutting down on my responsibilities in life and to begin prioritizing, both online and offline. I’ve always been fairly good at prioritizing, and now I have to look at everything I am currently involved in and try and put them in some sort of priority-oriented list so I can figure out what can stay and what has to go. I want to try and “trim the fat,” so to speak, because if I don’t I’ll be stretched too thin and that’ll only lead to disaster. I like being busy, but I dislike being overly stressed. I already don’t have the time to write¹ or read books of my own choosing, I really only see my friends during mealtimes², and I am barely finding the right amount of time to focus on the aforementioned major development in my personal life!

I’ve made a few decisions as to what to do offline already, such as only remain active in the organizations/clubs that I truly feel passionate about rather than am merely interested in as well as not commit to anything more than I can handle in the future. In terms of my offline life, I’m looking at cutting down what time I spend on message boards such as VegOpt³ and Snark. I’m also leaning towards quitting the q*bee as it’s just one more commitment that I know I can’t keep up with.

All of these ideas as to what fat to trim are still mainly ideas at the moment. I’m still working on sorting what is important, what is extra, and what is necessary in my life. There have been a lot of changes in a short amount of time, some of them unexpected, and now I have to adjust my life accordingly. It’s not going to be easy, but I know it must be done.

1. I have not touched my work-in-progress novel since I left for school in mid-August. [↩]
2. My friends and I are all super busy; we only really have the time to sit down and talk during meals because otherwise we’re too busy doing work. [↩]
3. I am not stepping down from my position as admin there, nor am I abandoning VegOpt altogether. I just won’t be as active there as I have been in the past. [↩]

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

I took an unplanned (but necessary) hiatus from my blog for the month of September. There were a variety of reasons behind my “disappearance”¹ but the point is, things have hopefully settled down enough for me to be able to focus on blogging regularly again.

But for those who are curious, here are some of the things I’ve been busy with in the last month or so I was away:

• Became the Assistant Web Editor of my school’s literary magazine
  I applied to join staff for my school’s literary magazine for the first time this year². Not only did I apply for staff, but I decided to bite the bullet and apply for an editorial position as well. I wound up landing the position of the Assistant Web Editor and am now in charge of all the web stuff for the magazine! I love my position, and the rest of the staff and editorial board of the magazine are absolutely fantastic and I’m so glad I get to work with such an amazing bunch of people.
• Re-evaluated what type of people I want to be important to me
  They say you can never truly know someone… and while I always believed that, I didn’t realize just how powerful that statement can be until something happens to you and you realize that everything you once believed in someone turned out to be false. That made for an exciting time in my life, let me tell you. But I’ve accepted it and moved on, and hopefully all of that is now in the past.
• Was interviewed for a position at one of my favorite museums
  One of my favorite museums in the DC area is running this internship/volunteer-type program, and on a whim, I sent in an application and landed an interview. I think the interview went really well and I should be training for the position sometime later this month. I’m not sure where I’ll find the time for this job, but I’m really excited as not only will I gain fantastic experience but I just love the museum itself!
• Had tons of extra shifts at work
  Every semester, my office³ holds an on-campus job and internship fair for employers to come recruit students/for students to network with future employers. My office wanted to maximize publicity about the fair, so my coworkers and I were sent to promote the fair and be part of the outreach team to my school’s student body. I had a lot of fun talking up the fair with my peers as I passed out brochures and promoted the event, and my bank account definitely appreciated the extra hours!
• Had a childhood friend visit me for a weekend
  One of my childhood friends recently moved to a city near my school, so she came and visited me one weekend. It was great to see her and to spend time with her. We had so much to catch up on and it was just really nice to get a break from everything in my school life to spend a weekend showing her around the city and talking about everything we could possibly talk about.

1. I’m not sure if disappearance is the right word – yes, I wasn’t blogging, but I was still around on LiveJournal and Twitter. [↩]
2. I had wanted to apply last year, but I had a conflict with when the weekly meeting was. [↩]
3. I work in a career advising office on campus. [↩]

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.

As I prepare to move into my college dorm to begin my sophomore year of college, I’ve been thinking a lot about how different things are now than they were even a year before. Not just the things around me, but also about how I’ve changed as a person, too. I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting in the last couple of days about the things that did and didn’t happen in the past year, and I’ve also turned my attentions to what I want to achieve this upcoming academic year.

A year from now, academically speaking, I’d like to have made Dean’s List for both semesters of my sophomore year¹, have completed a summer language immersion program either for French or Mandarin Chinese, secured an internship for the school year, and have confirmed, or at least refined, any upcoming plans for a semester of studying abroad².

In terms of my social and romantic life, I’d like to have the same group of friends I have now as I love them all, but I’d also like to expand my circle of friends more and meet new people more often. I’m not really the type of girl to have hundreds of okay friends; I like to have several very close friends that I know I can count on in any time of need. I am open the idea to being in a relationship with someone but I’ve never been the type of girl to go looking for a guy – most of the time, the guy finds me, with varying results. Plus, I’m not good at relationships so it’s never made sense for me to go looking for something that will inevitably end in disaster and heartbreak.

I have a good feeling about this upcoming academic year. I have a lot of good things lined up and hey, there might be even better surprises in store for me!

Question of the Week: Where do you see yourself (or where would you like to see yourself) in a year’s time?

1. I made Dean’s List both semesters freshman year. [↩]
2. I’m looking at studying abroad sometime my junior year. [↩]

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.