Young Writers Society

Soooo... about five weeks ago, I graduated college with a double major in English and French, plus a senior thesis under my belt. (If you ever want to learn more about North American Indigenous literature and environmentalism... hit me up. I've got some cool book recommendations that I think are really important to be reading and thinking about right now!)

Tbh had this crazy thing this semester with my friends. We had the best time together as housemates the spring of my sophomore year and the following fall. I studied abroad and came back really excited to see everyone, but then got really really busy and couldn't. Finally, I was less busy this semester, but that just allowed me to realize that we weren't interested in hanging out as a group anymore -- and when we finally did, I realized that some people I hadn't been close with were way cooler than I thought, and some people I thought were good friends were actually pretty bossy and become an echo chamber for each other every time they're together, which was difficult to be around. Weird for me because I thought I would be leaving college with friends for life, but that... is not really happening.

I do still have Boy. We've had our differences and struggles, but luckily, we both decided it was worth working on better communication and figuring things out. I've been grateful to have a supportive best friend given that I'm apparently not talking to that many people from school; it would have been a lot harder going through everything alone!

Sad news, I was hoping to be reading Edna Fisher at this point in my summer, but it has not arrived. Can't tell if it's because my university mail messed up in forwarding things to my home address and somehow sent it back (YIKES!!) or if shipping and forwarding is just taking forever. But I am reading Dryer's English, which is hilarious and informative, and also sort of bought myself Joyce's Dubliners (not sure why I did this to myself after reading Ulysses lol but it's been enjoyable).

BUT, the super big exciting news is that I got a job! I had only 6 weeks to stay in the state my university is in and try to find a job there lol and I succeeded... with the caveat that the job I found is on the other side of the state, where it is desert instead of lush green. XD I am still struggling to process and cope because even though I rag on the midwest all the time, at least it has trees and grass!! lol. I'm sure I'll adjust.

The position is actually SUPER cool, it's basically a research assistant for a monthly newspaper. Sounds like it'll involve spreadsheet and cold calls and such, but I also get to do copyediting work once a month when everyone looks over proofs of the paper, which is exciting because editing is still a career I'm interested in. And, besides the team being incredibly sweet and welcoming to me, they implied that I'd be able to eventually start writing some small stories/briefs and that this could be a really good entry into reporting, which -- not sure if that's my passion yet, but either way, it's HECKING COOL!

I accepted the job a week ago, and since then I have been going non-stop and doing like every adulting thing ever all at once. I had to deal with car sales people and drive really far to look for apartments, had lots of them bail on appointments with me? and had to deal with everything being harder than it looked at first. Plus constantly thinking about the job starting, taxes, what stuff I'll be able to afford, how to manage long distance relationship, what furniture I need to acquire and how to move it, lol how to even live by myself, and then my parents are like, "yes you should also start saving for retirement" @_@ like bruh I haven't even started making money yet! I haven't even dealt with rent, let alone student loans!

Luckily, my family has been really supportive. One thing this experience has shown me is that I have no clue how the heck people are supposed to get a first job or first apartment or even first car without family members backing them? Like none of this would even be possible for me by myself.

But ultimately, I did get a car and have an apartment secured, so I'm taking big big steps. I'm kind of thinking that since a job won't have after-hours work in the way that there's homework in college, I'll feel more freedom to do stuff with my hobbies. Am excited to do some new hiking and just be able to drive myself to places I want to go rather than coordinating with others and figuring how to get back from places after the public transit stops running in the evening. Hopefully, this means that I'll finally be able to get back into writing. My novel is begging for my attention and I actually worked on it a bit the other day, though I low-key forgot how to write prose and the whole thing is just kind of telling what events happen in a kind of flat and precise way. XD

I'm so grateful for YWS, even though I haven't been around the past couple of years. Really inspired me to work on my writing when school didn't encourage that, and probably helped push me to be an English major. Now I get to work for a journal. There are so many different ways that writing is out there in the world, on a professional level and as a hobby, and that's just really exciting to me. It's something I'll be so glad to have when I'm living alone for the very first time. <3

hey and thank YOU if you read this entire thing! I may not know you too well, or it may have been a long time since we've talked, but it's nice to have some people to share my life updates with and celebrate cool writerly things and adulty things. I've been lurking on YWS for a while and always enjoy hearing about everyone's mile markers and writing successes and everything else. <333

Was doing some research on astronomy news for class and discovered this fun little animation!! I'm not sure how long it will stick around, though