Welcome to Year Three
My final year of college is a journey of learning to be okay with uncertainty, with the whole world still on standby with the ongoing pandemic and my life up in the air after graduation in June. Though I don't know whether I will end up in graduate school or on a career path, in Seattle or beyond, I am working on appreciating the constants that have stayed with me in my life: the friends and family that refuse to give up on me even across time and distance and the hobbies and passions that bring joy to my day. I am working on making my own happinesses, one moment at a time.
Though in a quest for balance, I started writing down highs and lows and looking-forward-tos all in my journal this year, I still want to share just the happy moments here: - Participated in a virtual scavenger hunt put on by the Honors Community Ambassadors - Got insanely excited over something as simple as a trip for Joann's fabrics and Un Bien sandwiches because it meant getting to leave the house - Worked on embroidery and paint-by-numbers as activities to keep my hands busy during online classes - Took lots of photos with my roommates in all weathers and seasons - Drank many, many glasses of tea, particularly my favorite apple cider chai - Practiced hours of karate over video and with my little sister in the process of preparing for my second degree black belt test in June - Spent so much time lying on the couch and bed and floor with my roommates talking sometimes about life and sometimes about nothing at all |
Year Three Highlights
My Advanced Prose Workshop was the first creative writing class I took at UW that actually required us to write one long story instead of a series of short pieces that were more manageable for numerous students to share and talk about within a single class period. The prompt that inspired this piece was "Everyone has a soulmate. Yours is Death." I turned the story into a retelling of Hades and Persephone that eliminated the kidnapping and Stockholm syndrome and focused on the burgeoning trust between these two lonely souls. This story became one of the final additions to my graduate school applications.
My Honors professor gave us an assignment to document our thoughts and feelings in the week leading up to and following the 2020 election. I was annoyed about this assignment at first, primarily due to the extra strain it inflicted in an already tenuous moment. Looking back though, I am grateful that I was forced to record my reflections in this historical moment. Plus, as a writer, you never know what might made good story fodder later on.
Part of the reason I chose to graduate from UW in just three years is that I wanted the chance to apply to graduate school immediately after to try for both a BA and MFA in the span of five years. My autumn quarter was a frenzy of requesting letters of recommendation, writing and rewriting my personal statement, and assembling my portfolio of creative work, which was arranged and rearranged depending on the program I applied to (and the number of pages they permitted for their apps). Only time will tell whether this endeavor will be successful, and whether I will be continuing next year with my education or striking out for something new.
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I enrolled in a graduate seminar with David Shields winter quarter. He had invited me to join the previous year, but it hadn't worked with my schedule, so I jumped at this second opportunity. The class focused around viewing a series of documentary films that were to become the stylistic inspiration for a creative nonfiction writing project. My essay, "Everything Stays," a braided essay and rumination on childhood, first love, coming of age, and struggles with change, is one of the first creative nonfiction pieces I've been proud of, and one of the most vulnerable stories I've ever written and shared.
Ever since freshman year, I have been assisting with question-and-answer sessions for incoming students to UW Honors. I am a person who loves being the one to know things, and to share that knowledge with others, and so I have always reveled in opportunities like these. In later years I progressed from being merely a panelist at these sessions to a facilitator, managing the participants and student volunteers, directing questions to the proper recipients, and generally being excited and bubbly over the chance to boss people around and quell a few worries of students just like me not so long ago.
As a Departmental Honors student in English as well as an Interdisciplinary Honors student, the capstone of our coursework is a thesis completed the spring of the year of participation in the program. Though not yet complete, I currently plan to write my thesis on myths and myth retellings and the meanings that come with crafting such stories in a modern age.
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