MAY 2014 - SEPTEMBER 2015 IN A NUTSHELL
are you ready for this?
so i graduated boston university with a BA in history and a minor in muslim studies in may 2014, cum laude, gpa of 3.6something. hurrah! i then moved back home and languished in the typical post-grad unwinding and joblessness for longer than i care to admit... which is to say very close to a whole year. i'd like to say that i did a lot of significant things during that year but uh... that would be a lie. being out of school and back home wasn't (and isn't) the best environment for me. i always feel lackluster and too dependent on my parents when i'm home, and being stuck here took a toll on my personal happiness and productivity!! a slump year for sure. i DID take the GRE twice in 2014 before deciding i would wait to apply in 2015 so i could have time to do practical things like work and get a driver's license.
but on a more positive note, let's see... i shifted fandoms from homestuck and hetalia to haikyuu!! (there seems to be a trend with h's here >__>) and continued my roleplaying hobby in the indie hq rp comm on tumblr! that was 6 months of really lovely interaction. it was a refreshing change from the closed aph rings i was coming out of which were beginning to brew more and more drama instead of fun.
a year in and the hq comm isn't as shiny as it was before. i've lost my fair share of rp partners to them moving fandoms and general drifting apart, but it still feels like an invaluable experience! i keep in contact with a small group of folks over on twitter too. i use twitter too much. waaay more than tumblr, my procrastination tool of choice in undergrad. it's slowly replacing skype and messengers for me although i miss using msn-type windows and whatnot for 1x1 interactions. i need to add more people on line and talk to them personally...
AH! i've also started writing fanfiction and publishing them on ao3! the first fic i ever published was one easter morrow (jackrabbit) on fanfiction, but i've long forgotten that pw. now i post on ao3 under the username harklights. i participated in saso 2015 (sports anime shipping olympics) too. everyone joined ship teams and collaborated to produce fanworks in different rounds. teams won points by posting prompts and fills! there were, i think, seven or eight bonus rounds and two main rounds. the bonus rounds were all fun to do! main rounds were tough because our abemiha team wasn't the closest. some members rarely participated and never helped out with main round things. but it was a positive experience in my books and i might join more fan writing events like that! ...actually, i contributed to hqrarepairweek with an ennotana fic but i never finished that fic. it got a good reception though so i'm eager to get another chapter up eventually!
i still consider septermber a fresh year even though i'm not at school anymore so!! i'm going to talk as if it's the beginning of something. right now i'm in the middle of graduate school applications Round 2. i want to take the GRE for a third time to get my quantitative reasoning score up to something that's not as dismal as the 140s. it's be awesome to maintain or increase my verbal reasoning and analytical writing scores up a few points too, but as long as they're both above 90th percentile i will be very happy. i'm planning on getting all the apps done by mid-october so i can notify professors for recommendation. that part still makes me anxious because i know they'll remember me even less than last year? but i have to do it! i want to give enough time so i won't be stressed later on.
TBC
so i graduated boston university with a BA in history and a minor in muslim studies in may 2014, cum laude, gpa of 3.6something. hurrah! i then moved back home and languished in the typical post-grad unwinding and joblessness for longer than i care to admit... which is to say very close to a whole year. i'd like to say that i did a lot of significant things during that year but uh... that would be a lie. being out of school and back home wasn't (and isn't) the best environment for me. i always feel lackluster and too dependent on my parents when i'm home, and being stuck here took a toll on my personal happiness and productivity!! a slump year for sure. i DID take the GRE twice in 2014 before deciding i would wait to apply in 2015 so i could have time to do practical things like work and get a driver's license.
but on a more positive note, let's see... i shifted fandoms from homestuck and hetalia to haikyuu!! (there seems to be a trend with h's here >__>) and continued my roleplaying hobby in the indie hq rp comm on tumblr! that was 6 months of really lovely interaction. it was a refreshing change from the closed aph rings i was coming out of which were beginning to brew more and more drama instead of fun.
a year in and the hq comm isn't as shiny as it was before. i've lost my fair share of rp partners to them moving fandoms and general drifting apart, but it still feels like an invaluable experience! i keep in contact with a small group of folks over on twitter too. i use twitter too much. waaay more than tumblr, my procrastination tool of choice in undergrad. it's slowly replacing skype and messengers for me although i miss using msn-type windows and whatnot for 1x1 interactions. i need to add more people on line and talk to them personally...
AH! i've also started writing fanfiction and publishing them on ao3! the first fic i ever published was one easter morrow (jackrabbit) on fanfiction, but i've long forgotten that pw. now i post on ao3 under the username harklights. i participated in saso 2015 (sports anime shipping olympics) too. everyone joined ship teams and collaborated to produce fanworks in different rounds. teams won points by posting prompts and fills! there were, i think, seven or eight bonus rounds and two main rounds. the bonus rounds were all fun to do! main rounds were tough because our abemiha team wasn't the closest. some members rarely participated and never helped out with main round things. but it was a positive experience in my books and i might join more fan writing events like that! ...actually, i contributed to hqrarepairweek with an ennotana fic but i never finished that fic. it got a good reception though so i'm eager to get another chapter up eventually!
i still consider septermber a fresh year even though i'm not at school anymore so!! i'm going to talk as if it's the beginning of something. right now i'm in the middle of graduate school applications Round 2. i want to take the GRE for a third time to get my quantitative reasoning score up to something that's not as dismal as the 140s. it's be awesome to maintain or increase my verbal reasoning and analytical writing scores up a few points too, but as long as they're both above 90th percentile i will be very happy. i'm planning on getting all the apps done by mid-october so i can notify professors for recommendation. that part still makes me anxious because i know they'll remember me even less than last year? but i have to do it! i want to give enough time so i won't be stressed later on.
TBC