Hello, friends!

Just a couple of weeks ago, I entered my second year of college. Once again, I packed my bags, patted my dog goodbye, and returned to St. Augustine to attend classes at Flagler. This year, things are different. I know where I am and who I’m with. I have an idea of how things work and what I’m doing. I have goals and ambitions. Overall, my confidence level is much higher than it was last year. Now that I’ve had a week to settle in and get my syllabi, and a full week of classes, I thought I’d give you an update on how things in my life are currently going. 

For starters, I’m living with my roommate from last year, aka my best friend, in the school’s new dorm building. While it took a minute to get acclimated to the different design of the space, we have both grown to love it. And we have a third roommate who is a close friend of ours from the Honors College, and who has made a multitude of paintings for our wall. Recently, my original roommate and I bought a fish (featured above). His name is Icarus, named primarily after the Bastille song, and we love him. 

As far as classes go, I’m signed up for seven. It sounds like a lot, I know, but two of them are one credit so they’re not quite as big of a commitment. Still, I’m taking 17 credits total. But the good news is that they’re almost all entirely for my major or minor! I have American Lit, Brit Lit, YA Writing, Poetry, and Statistics (ew, math) for my 3 credit classes. I’m exceptionally fond of the YA and poetry classes, which are both for my Creative Writing minor. The two one credit classes are Honors and tutoring for credit. Overall, I think it’ll be a lot of work this semester but it’ll all be worth it. 

So since I have a tendency to nap when I have no other commitments than homework, I have forced myself into some new commitments this semester. I’m planning to work with the school’s online newspaper, a task I’m familiar with from high school. I also intend on joining the group ASTEP (Artists Striving to End Poverty), primarily because my friends are big parts of it and because I love to represent the literary arts. And possibly one of the most fun activities I’m doing is joining the LGBTQ+ club at my school. Each one I think touches on a different part of who I am and allows me to involve myself in different ways. 

One other exciting activity I’m doing is heading the Honors Decorating Conmittee. Our honors program is very new; my first year (last year) was the inaugural year of Honors as a full program, rather than just random honors-elevated classes. As the Honors College gets more momentum, more things are happening for us! One development is that we’re getting our own building on campus. The building is currently occupied by the school’s counseling center, which is relocating to a new building soon. This leaves the Honors program to decorate the old building. Our director appointed a group of volunteers to a committee to look into buying furniture and designing/decorating the space, and somehow I was elected leader of it. It’s a really exciting opportunity that I think is going to be a lot of fun. My dreams for HGTV are finally coming true. 

Now how about writing? I’ve already blogged about many of my summer projects. I wrote the second draft of a short story and beta-ed it. I created a zine. I worked on my novel. So what now? Well, that’s a good question. Currently, the novel is on a backburner. It’s still my main project but I don’t have the time to give proper attention to it right now. Maybe I can still visit it on occasion so I don’t lose the trust of my characters but for now, Gemini lies dormant until I get an extended break. I’m hoping to write a third draft of my short story this semester and maybe even work on getting it published. I have a lot of work I need to put into it to make that happen. 

One new project I’m super excited about is part of my YA class. For my YA class, we have to study the structures of YA novels and work on our own. To do this, our professor wants us to “mine our memories” and pull things that we’re familiar with into our story. I’ll update more on the YA project when I actually start working on it, but I have a few ideas I’m kicking around. 

Overall, the start of college has been a whirlwind as usual, but one that I’m used to. I’m overjoyed to be back on the campus I love and reunited with all of my friends. I’m sure I’ll have a mental breakdown from homework soon, but until then I am having a good time. 

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!