#Discussion: Where I've Been & Where I'm Going

Howdy friends, it's been a while. I did post a couple reviews at the beginning of the month, but before that radio silence for about six weeks. I'm sure some of you saw my string of tweets saying I needed to take a hiatus because of school since it was so hectic this semester and I was doing too much and feeling super stressed, but if you didn't, that's what happened.

I needed a break from all the commitments I had going and thought that my blog should probably be the one to go since 1. I don't get paid for this and 2. I pay to go to school. I'm happy to say that now I am officially done the "school" portion of school and will be spending the next six months interning so I will have relatively more time to blog, but I want to keep a pretty healthy balance. However, we'll get to that.

Think of this as a mini life update so that you guys know what's going on, why I haven't been active, and why I'll probably never be as active as I was before. So let's get to it!

Where I've Been

Mostly holed up either in my apartment or in the library trying to get reading after reading done for school along with marking! I felt as though I had less work this term but it ate up so much more time because I had to do weekly summaries for each of my classes and they had to be in by a specific time. As well, the amount of readings varied from week to week so it made it a little difficult for me to read outside of that. 

Not only that! But the readings literally drained me to the point where I couldn't read anything else without falling asleep or feeling as though my eyeballs were going to fall out of my head. School readings are not as fun as fun readings, but fun readings after school readings? Tough. I did manage to read BUT THEN I CAME BACK by Estelle Laure during my hiatus but only because I was on the blog tour. I had to basically force myself to do it. That's not fun. However, it is a fantastic book so that made it easier.

I'm slowly getting back into the groove of reading and trying to do a little at a time, but now that I don't have "school" work left, I should be able to do so. Although I do have other time sucks this summer so I'm not sure how much I will actually be able to get done. Hopefully a lot but no guarantees. 

I've made some really great friends that I've spent a lot of my time with IRL so social commitments have taken a bit of precedence over blogging as well. We are planning on playing D&D together as a sort of "brunch" get together so that we stay close over the summer when we're all working or writing papers. It is going to be a good time. If you follow my personal instagram, you will have seen the majority of them. 

Dani and I still talk every day but our blog has been suffering because of time. We're going to scale back on there as well, we just haven't made any final decisions yet (again because of time). 

TL;DR: I've been busy.

Where I'm Going

I'm still going to be busy and I'll probably be stretching myself thin again but we shall see how this goes. This summer I'm interning for six months which will finish off my degree. If we're friends, DM me and ask me where! I would love to talk to you about it! It's going to be a great and exciting opportunity that I can't wait to start. I should, in theory, be starting on May 1, 2017 but that depends on some logistics so it could be the week after. 

However, this summer I will also be studying for the GRE so I can apply to schools in the US for my PhD. Yes, I know I said I wasn't going to do it, but one of the professors I really admire convinced me to look into it and I figure "why not apply! then I have options!" But math is tricky and I'm kinda already regretting it. Hopefully I can beef up my resume in two other ways...

The first is by getting academically published! I am currently working on two papers that intersect the things I love most: politics and reading. I will be submitting them to a couple academic journals in hopes of being published to help my PhD application. It's going to be tough but I am hopeful!

The second is by becoming fluent in two languages: French and Spanish. I bit the bullet and purchased them from Rosetta Stone so hopefully by the end of the summer I will be able to converse in one and a half of them.

As I said before, I still have social commitments and I'm "dating" again. Don't ask me about it because it's not going well. Boys are stupid. But I have made some awesome friends and I want to keep them in my life so holing up with a book and Netflix and effectively cutting them off? Not the best way to do so. (Memes are the best way to keep friends)

TL;DR: I'm still going to be busy.

But I hope to keep active here

I still love to read and will continue to read. I have made commitments with publishers and to you guys, so I will honour and uphold them. I just probably won't be posting every single day. I hope to post about 2-3 times a week, but that might even be a stretch depending on how much free time I have. I will definitely be going to events still and hanging out on Twitter. I'm always available in some way, shape, or form if someone needs an ear. But I have to focus on me and my future and sadly that doesn't include as much time spent on blogging as it had in the past.