Obligatory End-Of-Year Blog

I’m not going to start this post by apologizing. This is MY website and I can post on it as little or as frequently as I want. So there. But I will try to post SOMETHING at least once a week next year, although no promises.

This has been one hectic year. I started dating this super amazing guy almost at once, I turned 21, I got a really cool internship that I’m doing again in a few weeks, I got a bunch of jobs (we’ll talk about that in a second), I acted as mentor for a class of incoming freshmen who I absolutely adored, and I finished my second-to-last semester in college. It’s been amazing and stressful all at the same time and once again I thank the Mayan gods that their calendar ending was literally just a calendar ending and not a prediction of the apocalypse. If I’d died in 2012, that would have sucked. Hardcore.

I’m in Colorado until next Thursday, which has been fun. It’s nice seeing the few people I still actually like from this place. I went disc golfing and impromptu-sledding with my boys and had lunch with Rachel and had drinks with some old family friends. I’ll probably never live in Colorado ever again, but I certainly don’t hate it anymore. It’s nice coming here for small bits of time. Nostalgic. And I’m far enough away from all the awful things that happened here that they no longer impact me the same way. Craig could walk into this Starbucks and I would easily ignore him. Sean could walk into this Starbucks and I would laugh at him. Bart I’m still a little sore from losing, especially because the fictional version of him in my thesis is forcing me to remember how it felt, but even him I find hard to really feel sad about. I think this is what it’s like being a grown-up, and I like it. A lot.

Various life updates:

Quinn and I have been dating for 11 months and 8 days, which is a really long time especially when you consider that I have dated anyone since sophomore year of HIGH SCHOOL and that I am very interested in dating him for at LEAST another 11 months and 8 days. He’s pretty much the greatest.

I currently have 5 on-campus jobs (all paid). I’m a writing tutor (and web editor and video director and brochure designer) for the Tutoring and Learning Center, the social media consultant for the Career Development Center, a barista/food prep person at the bistro (one of the food places on campus), a web/copy-editing intern for the Berglund Center for Internet Studies, and a writing intern for Pacific Magazine and the marketing and communications department. I am going to be very busy next semester, but hopefully I’ll also have enough starting cash to not starve in the real world for a couple of months. Also it’s great job experience for my resume.

Going into my final semester in college, I’m taking 16 class credits and 2 internship credits (the 2 internships I mentioned above count for these 2 credits, and I have to do at least 40 hours of work for each to earn the credits). Senior Seminar (where I’ll polish and finalize the first three chapters of that novel I wrote last November), Mass Media Law and Ethics (for my integrated media minor), Screenwriting, Banned Books (because I was one 2-credit literature class away from my major), and Elements of Multimedia Design. Once again, it’s going to be a long semester, when you take these classes plus my five jobs into account.

I have no idea where I’m going to end up after graduation, so ask me again in May. Right now there are three variables in the air:

A. If I get into grad school (likelihood: low)

B. If Quinn gets into grad school (likelihood: medium-high)

b. If Quinn gets into grad school internationally (see: Canada or Scotland)

C. If neither of us get into grad school (likelihood: medium-high)

Depending on these variables, Quinn is either moving to New York City with me, I’m immigrating to either Scotland or Canada, I’m moving with Quinn to California (to the only grad school in America he applied to), or we’re just staying in the Portland area for the time-being. Or we break up (likelihood: VERY low) and I become a starving artist or maybe move to Seattle with Colton. Basically, I have no idea what’s coming in the next few months but I will try and keep you posted.

With some Christmas iTunes money I bought all 4 Mission: Impossible movies for 26 bucks, which is a pretty good deal.

My last year eligible to compete in speech and debate has been really great. Fingers crossed that I get picked to go to my fourth IFA tournament, this year being hosted in Paris! It’ll be pretty cool to see how the city and I have changed in the four years we’ve been apart.

Cooking with Gandalf is probably not coming back.

I think that’s all I got as far as updates and housekeeping goes. Like I said earlier, I will ATTEMPT to post more next semester, but with five classes and five jobs, I am not entirely sure how that’s all going to work out. We’ll see. Happy New Year (almost)!