Election Day

I have been mentally preparing myself for this day for weeks, but I still feel completely unprepared and stressed out. The candidates are crazy, the people are crazier, the country is on lockdown, and finals are starting soon. I have most of my class projects due either this week or next week, and I am struggling to force myself to get them all done. I have school stress, pandemic stress, and now I have election stress. While I don't think anything crazy will happen in Ada, I know some areas are preparing themselves for riots and protests. Regardless of who gets elected, I think there will be riots and protests no matter what. Both sides have crazy radicals on either side. To make matters worse, we are in a terrible pandemic where we are supposed to be social distancing, but cases are spiking, especially in Ohio. I think we will be forced to stay away from each other on holidays this year, which really is upsetting. But first I have to survive my finals. 

If this blog post seems chaotic, then it is an accurate reflection of my current mental state. My mind is fried, I'm jumping from project to project, and there are two major external factors making things harder and harder. I am ready for this semester to finish. More importantly, I am ready for this whole year to finish. It's all just been one big thing after another. I just want a break. Weekends don't feel like weekends because we're all just trying to finish our work. No one is getting any day off. 

I know everything will be OK in the end, but it's getting there that is the issue. I know that if I just push through this week, everything will be alright. I hope everyone's week is going alright. We're almost halfway. 

My Last Semester in PR and Social Media

I started this blog over a year ago as a requirement for one of my social media classes. We were required to post to our blogs three times a week for the whole spring semester. It was a lot of work, but it was fun in the end. I then never touched my blog until this semester when I started social media strategy and campaign. We were required to post one blog and blog comment a week, which was much more manageable. However, after my social media strategy and campaign class is over this semester, I will have completed both my public relations and social media minors. This means I won't be taking any of those courses in the spring. Instead, I will be finishing my creative writing major by taking my remaining English courses. I am excited that I still have another semester, but I am sad that I will no longer be taking any Aggie classes. 

Public relations and social media have allowed me to meet a lot of amazing people. It helped expand my circle of peers and friends. I was able to meet people whose personalities greatly differed from what I was used to in the English department. It helped me to broaden my horizons and think differently when I was faced with problems. It allowed me to take a break from English and better myself more as a person, where English helped to better me as a writer. I will miss all my public relations and social media classmates I have come know and who I have had panic attacks with on numerous occasions. I hope I will be able to see them around campus in the spring. 

Becoming an English Major

I grew up in a small town where most people went on to be farmers, teachers, or nurses, with a few exceptions popping up every now and then. It was common for people to come back to St. Marys or to never leave it at all. Admittedly, I didn't move very far from home when selecting my college, but one thing I did do was pick a very uncommon major. While English isn't a very strange major, my actual major, creative writing, is a lot more specific. This is where most people became perplexed. They would assume that I either want to be an English teacher or an author. It is either that or they believe I want to be homeless and live on welfare for the rest of my life. When I first told my high school guidance counselor that I wanted to major in creative writing, he was very confused. He didn't know that was a major that students could major in. I could tell right away that he didn't know what to think of my decision.

Creative writing was always something that I enjoyed. I always had an overactive imagination and I had always loved writing stories. However, not a lot of people talk about going to school to become a creative writer, especially not in St. Marys. They talk about the usual jobs people get. When I was a senior, I originally wanted to be an emergency room nurse. I had volunteered in a hospital and I had applied for the nursing program at Wright State University where I quickly got accepted. I had everything lined up for me to go to nursing school, but my mom encouraged me to apply to some other schools as well as a backup plan. I thought this was unnecessary but decided to do so anyway. I applied to Ohio Northern University and was going to apply to the nursing program when I saw that they had creative writing listed as a major. This caught my attention and made me reconsider my path. I spent several days researching the creative writing program at Ohio Northern University, looking over the requirements and the courses. I eventually decided to commit to this new major and applied to several different schools. Even though I had been accepted by Wright State and was accepted into their nursing program, I completely changed courses and went with a major that fit me way better than nursing would have. Ever since that day I have never once reconsidered my major. I think I am incredibly lucky to be on the path that I'm on now. 

Adulting: Applying for Jobs

I have recently gotten back into the habit of applying for jobs. Since I am a senior this year, I no longer have the safety net of returning to college. No longer will I be applying for summer internships or summer jobs where I am only expected to work for three months before coming back to school. I am now on my way to finding a job that will hopefully sustain me after I graduate from Ohio Northern. I am excited to start this journey but also terrified. Not to mention I'm extremely stressed. Job hunting means resumes, cover letters, and portfolios. It also means my imposter syndrome is coming back in full swing. Another thing that is making me nervous is the COVID-19 situation. I am not sure how many places are hiring right now since our economy isn't doing so well. I'm afraid that it might take me a while to find a job.

My dream job is to become a narrative designer in the video game industry. However, I'm aware that this is a position I will likely have to work towards after acquiring a few years of experience. With that in mind, I am not entirely sure what I want to go into immediately after I graduate. I am preparing to accept any job that is willing to take me just so I can get some experience and start making some money. I am a creative writing major and a public relations/social media minor, so I am happy that I at least have a lot of options. I have been searching through Indeed for jobs that are in my major and minors and I am excited at all of the options I have available to me. I will have to see if anything sticks. Hopefully I will get lucky and find a job before Christmas. If not, then my hunt continues! Wish me luck!

Capstone Project

This semester I have been working on my creative writing capstone project. For this project, I need to write a novella that's thirty to sixty pages long, a critical intro, and an annotated bibliography. I have currently written about thirty pages of my novella, but I still have a long way to go before I can wrap up my story. The focus for my novella was trauma theory, with the story being set in the post-apocalyptic genre. I am writing my capstone in my Topics in Writing class where we have been focused on post-apocalyptic stories such as "Dawn" by Octavia Butler, "Station Eleven" by Emily Mandel, and "Black Moon" by Kenneth Calhoun. Since this is the genre we are focused on in the class, that is the genre I have to write my capstone in. However, I have also decided to write in the dystopian genre as well. This means my story will be set after the collapse of civilization where a community is experiencing great suffering or an injustice

This is the biggest writing project I have ever worked on. I am extremely excited to write out my novella, but I'm also worried about writing my critical intro and being able to wrap up my story in under sixty pages. While it is easier to write short stories or novellas, I always end up getting wrapped up in worldbuilding and creating something unnecessarily massive. My project is forcing me to reign this in. After I finish all my writing for the semester, I will have several faculty members look my project over before I finish it up and present it in the spring. This will be my final project as a senior at Ohio Northern University. I am excited, but also nervous. I have loved being at Ohio Northern for the past four years. It has been a wild ride, and I am definitely going to miss being at college. 

College Burnout

This year, the world has been struggling to deal with the coronavirus. The United States has been struggling to handle it for over six months, managing to become the country with the most cases. While many places have been closing down, colleges have been desperate to open up. Without students, colleges wouldn't be able to survive, so they are trying to open as normally as possible in order to draw in as many students as they can. Some colleges are strictly online this semester while others stuck with in person classes. 

Ohio Northern University has pushed to have its students on campus, and they want to keep their students on campus for the whole semester if possible. As of right now, they are doing a good job at keeping any cases contained and keeping the virus from spreading on campus. One of the things Ohio Northern University has done to stay ahead of COVID-19 is bring its students in two weeks early. By bringing the students in early, finals will be over by the time we leave for Thanksgiving, meaning students won't return to campus after Thanksgiving break. Another thing they had done is eliminate all breaks, such as fall break. While I am very excited to be having a full fall semester in person, I am starting to suffer from burnout. We have been going nonstop for the past several weeks, and I feel that it is starting to catch up with me. While I was highly motivated in the beginning, I am starting to see myself become less and less motivated to get my work done. I think the faculty is starting to realize this as well because today we received an email telling us that there would be no spring break in the spring semester. 

However, they were going to be giving us one day off each month, though these days were in the middle of the week so that they wouldn't be giving us a three-day weekend. The reason behind this decision seems to be that they are noticing that students are starting to suffer from burnout. Yet, they don't want to risk there being an outbreak of COVID-19. The university fears that if they give students a break, they will leave campus and possibly contract the virus. Then, when they return, they will spread it to one another rapidly. To prevent this, they are keeping students on campus as much as possible. While I think this is a good idea, I am starting to struggle a bit. I think many other students are as well. Are any of you starting to feel burnt out? Do you have any tips on how to recover? Let me know in the comments. 

Adulting: Staying on Track

 It's easy to get distracted and forget about assignments while you're in college. Classes can be overwhelming, you're in a new place, and you have a social life to maintain. However, this does not mean you can ignore or push off your work. You have to remind yourself that you came to college to learn and get a degree. That should always come first, especially since you are paying so much money to go. While you don't have to be perfect, you should strive to do your best on each assignment. Not just because your grades depend on it, but because it's also disrespectful to your professor to not complete your work. It shows a lack of interest, and no professor is going to want to mentor someone who doesn't care. This especially applies to group work. If you have to peer review someone else's work, you should really take the time to look over their stuff and provide feedback. Otherwise you're being disrespectful to your peers, and they will take notice.

Recently, I've had an issue with a peer in one of my classes not turning in workshop comments. As a creative writing major, workshop comments are very important. They help you to improve your writing and see it from a reader's perspective. However, this student wasn't turning in their peer review comments. Our peer review comments are a large portion of our grade, so not only were they hurting themselves, but they were disrespecting their peers, and their professor. They were several weeks behind on comments, until they finally turned them in to everyone several weeks late. The comments had become irrelevant because everyone had already fixed their writing by the time they were received. The class has certainly taken notice. It's not a good idea to start burning bridges so early on in the school year, especially in a class that is needed for their major.

Please take advantage of the opportunity you have in college and do the best job you can, not only for yourself, but for your peers as well. Let me know what you think in the comments below.